THE MEASURE OF 'PROGRESS' 159 



fatuous phrase — they builded better than they knew — when, in fact, 

 ' they ' knew exactly what they were about, and possessed a consummate 

 technique to express precisely what they chose? 



There is nothing more certain than that the Gothic cathedrals of 

 Europe were built by architects who knew their business and whose 

 plans were definite and precise. The architects' drawings for some of 

 these cathedrals are extant and even the builders' model for one of 

 them. It was intended that the towers of Xotre Dame, for example, 

 should be crowned with spires like those of the cathedral of Lichfield, 

 for instance. But circumstances of various sorts worked to prevent the 

 completion of the spires on most of the great cathedrals, and they were 

 left as towers, as at Xotre Dame and on the front of York. Our own 

 standard of beauty has been fixed by what we actually have seen, and 

 if Xotre Dame were now to receive lofty spires as a crown to its towers, 

 most of us would find its beauty marred. Are we then to conclude 

 that we, and not the architects of old time, are the possessors of the 

 truest standards? Shall we say that we comprehend the beauty of a 

 Gothic cathedral better than the builder who designed it? 



It would be easy to extend comparisons from the material objects 

 of art to the immaterial institutions of society, to contrast our notions 

 of justice and of government with those of the ancients, for example. 

 We are just as sure that all our social institutions are better than those 

 of old time as we are that the towers of Xotre Dame are more beautiful 

 in their present unfinished state. But should we not pause before 

 unthinkingly accepting either conclusion? 



There is no member of a ladies' culture club in the northwest who 

 is not ready to declare that the very essence of classic purity is to be 

 found in the unpainted Parthenon or in an uncolored Venus, and 

 equally sure that the constitution of the state of South Dakota con- 

 tains the quintessence of political wisdom. History throws a doubt on 

 the first conclusion and su^crests that it may not be amiss to reexamine 

 the last from time to time. ' Progress ' is something more than the 

 difference between the state of affairs on a Tuesday, compared with 

 that of any preceding Monday. The measure of progress is not the 

 discrepancy between the inventories — moral or material — of one epoch 

 and of a later one. There is no space here to attempt to say what a 

 true measure of progress might be, but it should not have been quite 

 useless to suggest that the measure in question is not so simple as we 

 commonly assume; that the differences between races and epochs show 

 retrogressions in many fields as well as progressions in many others. 

 The lesson is simple — so simple that it may even be resented. Yet it 

 is so difficult that there is no day that passes without a proof that it is 

 not yet learned. 



