Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure; and Other Essays

The "Social Heritage" discussed in this book is the whole body of knowledge and habit which is handed down from one human generation to another by teaching and learning. Men have been for so many generations dependent for their existence on this heritage that they have become biologically unfitted to live without it, and its conscious criticism and revision has become the main problem of human organization.

The chapters deal first with the socially inherited expedients used in individual work and thought, and then with the expedients used in group, national and international co-operation, with special reference to the educational problems involved and to the present conflict between democracy and vocationalism. The book ends with a discussion of the efficiency as means of human co-operation of the conceptions of Liberty and Science, and of the institutions of "Constitutional Monarchy" and the Church. The method used throughout is the same kind of psychological analysis as that used in the Author's "Human Nature in Politics" (1908) and "The Great Society" (1914).

Events of the last few years have shaken our political and economic systems to their foundations. The old guarantees of order and progress no longer suffice. The problems of 1920 are not those of 1914. Human Nature itself, as an operative force, has changed.

This is a statement of the general principles underlying modern programmes for a radical transformation of society. Revolution is taken to mean the method by which such a transformation may be secured; and it is therefore opposed to chaos or violence and contrasted with piecemeal reforms. The description of the ideal is given as the interpretation of certain contemporary movements and not as propaganda for any political party. This book, therefore, aims not at an advocacy of revolution but at an explanation of the grounds which lead men to desire it.

In a series of historical character studies, this book reconsiders the position of modern statesmanship since the Stuart Rebellion. Taking the accepted facts of the latest historians, but using evidence to which they rarely give its due weight, the author maintains that many of the "orthodox" opinions are not logical deductions from the data. The book is a charge that since the days of Lord Burghley statesmanship has too often degenerated into politics. It is an attempt to estimate some typical public men in the light of a colder reason, which shows, for example, that Oliver Cromwell was a founder of modern Plutocracy, while Benjamin Disraeli was the defender of Democracy.

This translation of Dr. F. Müller-Lyer's famous book, "Phasen der Kultur," will appeal to all who are interested in labour problems at the present time. It contains a series of studies of the different economic phenomena of to-day, describing the gradual evolution of each from the earliest times, with an indication of the probable trend of future developments. The inter-connection of the different conditions so described is well illustrated, and each chapter ends with a brief summary of its subject matter. The accounts of the various stages of food production, of clothing, of housing and of the use of tools contain in a brief and readable form the results of the investigations of the past century, and Part III, "The History of the Evolution of Labour," will be read with especial interest.