PROGRESS 9 



how, in antiquity, the idea was never a dominant 

 one, and further that the adumbrations made of it 

 all lacked some element without which it cannot be 

 styled progress in the sense in which that word is 

 used to-day. 



Not indeed till the late Renaissance can we say 

 that the idea of Progress became in any real sense 

 incorporated with the common thought of Western 

 civilization. From then to the present it has suffered 

 many vicissitudes. Starting in the XVI Ith century 

 as little more than a consciousness of the superiority 

 of the present over the past, in the XVI I Ith it changed 

 to a dogma, its adherents claiming that there existed 

 a ' Law of Progress ' leading inevitably to the per- 

 fectioning of humanity. In the XlXth century 

 the dogma was questioned, and thinkers began to 

 put it to the test — the test of comparing theory with 

 historical fact. A new lease of life, however, was 

 given to the idea of a law of progress by the evolution 

 theory ; but finally, of late years, there has been a 

 marked reaction, leading not only to a denial of any 

 such inevitable law, but often to a questioning of 

 the very existence of Progress in any shape or form. 



It is the business of the philosopher and of the 

 biologist to see whether this scepticism be justified, 

 and to find out by a more scientific approach how 

 much of the doctrine of Progress is valid. To the 

 layman it would seem inevitable, once the validity 

 of the evolution theory was granted, to concede the 



