134 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Mr. E. T. Peters said he had been deeply interested in listen- 

 ing to the paper read by Prof. Ward. He thought that in some 

 of the comments made in the course of the discussion it had been 

 assumed that the term moral progress, as used in the paper, referred 

 to improvement in public morals; but, as the essayist had defined 

 it, it embraced not only this but everything else which advanced 

 the happiness of man. The lack of progress which had been chiefly 

 dwelt upon in the paper just read seemed to him to consist mainly 

 in the tardy advance of political and social science. Between this 

 and the marvelous advances which in modern times had been made 

 in the physical sciences and in their application to the arts of life 

 there was mdeed, a striking contrast. Referring to a remark which 

 Major Powell had made as to the necessity for new adjust- 

 ments in social organization arising from changes in the materia^ 

 conditions under which a society existed, the speaker said, that 

 was a pregnant thought. The changes of condition brought about 

 within the last one hundred years through the introduction of 

 labor-saving devices into the industries of the civilized world had 

 alone amounted to an economic revolution, and a need had thus 

 been created for changes correspondingly great in the social adjust- 

 ments which relate to the production and distribution of wealth. 

 The knowledge essential to the making of such changes as the best 

 interests of society required had, however, not been in existence, 

 and although vast social changes had occurred, they had come 

 about not in pursuance of any wise and comprehensive plan, but 

 through the blindly exerted pressure of changing circumstances, 

 and in a large part they had been productive of great social misery 

 and discontent. To take a single illustration, the introduction of 

 the new industrial methods had given a powerful impetus to the 

 growth of towns and cities, causing them to spread over large areas 

 of suburban land, or to rise up on land where none had stood 

 before. This had operated to the great enrichment of a few land- 

 owners, at the expense of crushing rents and ruinous over-crowding 

 to the poorer portions of the urban population. Society had no 

 interest in this enrichment of a few land-owners, because it had 

 occurred independent of the exercise on their part of any of those 

 economic or social virtues which it is the policy of society to en- 

 courage ; while on the other hand the most imperious considerations 

 of public policy had demanded that the correlative over-crowding 

 of the poor — unwholesome no less from a moral than a physical 



