We the People

Letters of the Institute for domestic Tranquility Washington • January 1989 Volume 4 • Number 1

The Progress of Mankind

"The discoveries of ancient and modern navigators, and the domestic history or tradition of the most enlightened nations, represent the human savage naked both in mind and body, and destitute of laws, of arts, of ideas, and almost of language.

From this abject condition, perhaps the primitive and universal state of man, he has gradually arisen to command the animals, to fertilize the earth, to traverse the ocean, and to measure the heavens. His progress in the improvement and exercise of his mental and corporeal faculties has been irregular and various; infinitely slow in the beginning, and increasing by degrees with redoubled velocity: ages of laborious ascent have been followed by a moment of rapid downfall; and the several climates of the globe have felt the vicissitudes of light and darkness. Yet the experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes and diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height the human species may aspire in their advance towards perfection; but it may safely be presumed that no people, unless the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original barbarism. The improvements of society may be viewed under a threefold aspect. 1. The poet or philosopher illustrates his age and country by the efforts of a single mind; but these superior powers of reason or fancy are rare and spontaneous productions; and the genius of Homer, or Cicero, or Newton, would excite less admiration if they could be created by the will of a prince or the lessons of a preceptor. 2. The benefits of law and policy, of trade and manufactures, of arts and sciences, are more solid and permanent: and many individuals may be qualified, by education and discipline, to promote in their respective stations, the interest of the community. But this general order is the effect of skill and labour; and the complex machinery may be decayed by time, or injured by violence. 3. Fortunately for mankind, the more useful, or at least, the more necessary arts, can be performed without superior talents or national subordination, without powers of one, or the union of many. Each village, each family, each individual, must always possess both ability and inclination to perpetuate the use of fire and of metals; the propagation and service of domestic animals, the methods of hunting and fishing; the rudiments of navigation; the imperfect cultivation of corn or other nutritive grain; and the simple practice of the mechanic trades. Private genius and public industry may be extirpated, but these hardy plants survive the tempest, and strike an everlasting root into the most unfavorable soil. The splendid days of Augustus and Trajan were eclipsed by a cloud of ignorance; and the barbarians subverted the laws and palaces of Rome. But the scythe, the invention or emblem of Saturn still continued annually, to mow the harvests of Italy; and the human feast of the Laestrigons have never been renewed on the coast of Compania.

Since the first discovery of the arts, war, commerce, and religious zeal have diffused among the savages of the Old and New World these inestimable gifts: they have been successively propagated; they can never be lost. We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion that every age of the world has increased and still increases the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race."

Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. II pp 442-444.

National Park Associates Organize

Dr. Edward T. Laroe, has assembled the organizing board of directors for the National Park Associates and has scheduled the first meeting of the board for December 19, 1988, in Washington, DC. The founding directors are:

  • William Odum, Charlottesville, VA; Chairman, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia
  • Edward T. Laroe, Washington DC; Director, Cooperative Research Units Center, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service
  • Hal Scott, Orlando, FL; President, Eco-Interface
  • Herbert Schwartz, Silver Spring, MD; Founder, The Coastal Society
  • Jack Padalino, Dingmans Ferry, PA; President Pocono Environmental Education Center
  • James F. Ross, Salem OR; Director Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development
  • Marily DeWall, Washington, DC; National Science Teachers Association
  • Michelle Leslie, McLean, VA; Senior Project Manager, Science Applications International Corporation
  • Victor Goldsmith, New York, NY; Professor, Department of Geology and Geography, Hunter College

National Park Associates is being organized to promote the educational aspects of National Parks and is targeting educators, their students and the general public for membership.

Members and correspondents wishing to know more about the organization should contact:

Dr. Edward T. Laroe
Cooperative Research Units Center
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Washington, DC 20240
(202) 653-8723

Idt Starts A New Year With Mr. Bush

January 21, 1989 is the start of a new Federal administration. Mr. Bush said he wanted to be the "education" President." He also said he was a conservationist. He said, "Read my lips. No taxes." He offered a day care plan, a flexible freeze, and tax free bonds for higher education.

We have to hope the President Bush will be more like a Nixon than a Reagan, not that we wish him the debacle of Watergate, but rather we would prefer to believe that he like Nixon can see and seize the opportunities that make great things happen.

Nixon had his faults, but he was daring and he did what only a Republican President could do, accommodate the Chinese and the Soviets in ways that would have brought down the wrath of the conservatives of both parties.

Bush's bold stroke has to free the country of internal dissention, by asserting that the Federal Government has a leadership role to play in both our national and international life. He has to have the imagination to see that cooperation between and among business and industry on the one side and the Federal Government on the other is the only formula that will enable us to solve our domestic problems and compete abroad.

A bold, daring education and conservation president could well move the country to greatness. The Reagan administration's greatest accomplishments were slogans, "Morning in America," "Take Pride in America," and others that papered over the obvious defects in our society. I would hope that President Bush's administration will be marked with accomplishment, not slogans. Conservation centered on the conservation of energy and natural resources and education centered on making quality education available to Americans, of all ages could be two substantial cornerstones of an economic policy that will regain for the United States its rightful place as the leader of the free world, free in the sense of human rights and free from debt. He could do no more for posterity than to stop the hemorrhaging of America's capital assets.

If all American's had the full exercise of their unalienable rights most of Mr. Bush's work would have already been done for him. If as the education president he sees to it that the citizen sovereigns are able to obtain some or all the unalienable rights he will fashion permanent solutions to our recurring domestic and international problems. We can only wish him well.

...Ted Sudia...

The opinions expressed by our contributors are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the Institute for domestic Tranquility. The Letters is designed to be a forum for the views and opinions of members and correspondents, and a source of news about IdT.

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Institute for domestic Tranquility

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