History may be described as an account of the conflict between the tendency of things to move and efforts to fasten them down so that they will keep still. Where they have been moving in the wrong direction these efforts have been praiseworthy; but in too many instances motion has been resisted simply because it _is_ motion, quiescence being looked upon as the supreme good. In his interesting “History of Fiji”, Dr. Alfred Goldsborough Mayer notes that the difference between the savage and the civilized man is not one of content of knowledge, for the savage often knows far more than we do, but is due to the fact that the savage is bound hand and foot by tradition--he is a slave to his imagination, and to that of his forefathers. The conflict in his case has ended definitely with the triumph of the fastening down process. There is no more motion. He can not fall back, but neither can he move forward. He is locked in one position--that of the particular generation, five, fifty or five hundred years ago, when his fight for progress was lost. With the civilized man the fight still goes on. It is not yet won nor lost and the story of it, as I have said, is history. Read it in this light and it will assume for you new significance. Wars, revolutions, changes of dynasty, racial migrations, linguistic changes, the achievements of art, the triumphs of science, the evolution of social systems, the development of justice, the rise of literature and the drama--everything that marks the story of what has been going on in the world--is but a phase of this age-long struggle between forces and obstacles of whose origins, at bottom, we know little. So far as the obstacles have won, there are still savage elements lurking in us; so far as we have thrust them aside, we are advancing further toward civilization. The one title that we have to call ourselves civilized is the fact that no set of traditions or customs--no institution--has yet become crystallized into the fixity that obtains with the savage races;--not the Church, not government, not science, nor art nor literature. All these are changing, despite efforts to pin them down. Our language, our social customs are altering; our fashions of dress change from year to year. Our old people, for a man often reverts to savagery in his old age, pass away with words of regret on their lips for the good old days of their youth, when things were different. A savage has never to do this, for the days of his youth and his age are precisely the same--custom, speech, habit, observance, tradition, all are locked up into fixity.