Primeval man, in his social organization, is patriarchal, spreading out over vast domains in little bands or families, just large enough to be able successfully to cope with wild beasts. And in that state humanity would forever remain did not some terrible cause force these bands to confederate. War is an evil, originating in hateful passions and ending in dire misery; yet without war, without this evil, man would forever remain primitive. But something more is necessary. War brings men together for a purpose, but it is insufficient to hold them together; for when the cause which compacted them no longer exists, they speedily scatter, each going his own way. Then comes in superstition to the aid of progress. A successful leader is first feared as a man, then reverenced as a supernatural being, and finally himself, or his descendant, in the flesh or in tradition, is worshiped as a god. Then an unearthly fear comes upon mankind, and the ruler, perceiving his power, begins to tyrannize over his fellows. Both superstition and tyranny are evils; yet, without war superstition and tyranny, dire evils, civilization, which many deem the highest good, never by any possibility, as human nature is, could be. But more of the conditions of progress hereafter; what I wish to establish here is, that evil is no less a stimulant of development than good, and that in this principle of progress are manifest the same antagonism of forces apparent throughout physical nature; the same oppugnant energies, attractive and repulsive, positive and negative, everywhere existing. It is impossible for two or more individuals to be brought into contact with each other, whether through causes or for purposes good or evil, without ultimate improvement to both. I say whether through causes or for purposes good or evil, for, to the all-pervading principle of evil, civilization is as much indebted as to the all-pervading principle of good. Indeed, the beneficial influences of this unwelcome element have never been generally recognized. Whatever be this principle of evil, whatever man would be without it, the fact is clearly evident that to it civilization, whatever that may be, owes its existence. "The whole tendency of political economy and philosophical history," says Lecky, "which reveal the physiology of society, is to show that the happiness and welfare of mankind are evolved much more from our selfish than what are termed our virtuous acts." No wonder that devil-worship obtains, in certain parts, when to his demon the savage finds himself indebted for skill not only to overthrow subordinate deities, but to cure diseases, to will an enemy to death, to minister to the welfare of departed friends, as well as to add materially to his earthly store of comforts. The world, such as it is, man finds himself destined for a time to inhabit. Within him and around him the involuntary occupant perceives two agencies at work; agencies apparently oppugnant, yet both tending to one