t and Progress of the Whole_.--An individual might
through hereditary qualities have superior mental traits or physical
powers. These also may receive specific development under favorable
educational environment, but the inertia of the group or the race might
render ineffective a salutary use of his powers. A man is sometimes
elected mayor of a town and devotes his energies to municipal
betterment. But he may be surrounded by corrupt politicians and
promoters of enterprises who hedge his way at every turn. Also, in a
similar way, a group or tribe may go forward, and yet the products of
its endeavor be lost to the world. Thus a productiveness of the part
may be exhibited without the progress of the race. The former moves
with concrete limitations, the latter in sweeping, cycling changes; but
the latter cannot exist without the former, because it is from the
parts that the whole is created, and it is the generalization of the
accumulated knowledge or activities of the parts that makes it possible
for the whole to develop.

The evolution of the human race includes the idea of differentiation of
parts and a generalization that makes the whole of progress. So it is
not easy to determine the result of a local activity as progressive
until its relation to other parts is determined, nor until other
activities and the whole of life are determined. Local colorings of
life may be so provincial in their view-point as to be practically
valueless in the estimation of the degree and quality of progress.
Certain towns, especially in rural districts not acquainted with better
things, boast that they have the best school, the best court-house, the
best climate--in fact, everything best. When they finally awaken from
their local dream, they discover their own deficiencies.

The great development of art, literature, philosophy, and politics
among the ancient Greeks was inefficient in raising the great masses of
the people to a higher plane of living, but the fruits of the lives of
these superiors were handed on to other groups to utilize, and they are
not without influence {23} over the whole human group of to-day. So,
too, the religious mystic philosophy and literature of India
represented a high state of mental development, but the products of its
existence left the races of India in darkness because the mystic
philosophy was not adaptable to the practical affairs of life. The
Indian philosophers may have handed on ideas whic