116 THE NEW ERA 



which is much discussed. Is the modern improve- 

 ment due to moral or economic causes ? On this — 

 a large subject for the tail-end of a small work — 

 I wish only to observe that there would be less 

 controversy than there is if we cleared up certain 

 essential ideas to begin with. What is a moral, what 

 an economic, cause ? To put it more pointedly : 

 Were the ideas and sentiments of, say, Eobert Owen 

 and Karl Marx moral or economic causes ? Or both ? 

 Certainly they were effective agencies. It is only by 

 calling such things economic and material that we can 

 say that all progress is due to economic conditions. 



My point is particularly well illustrated when we 

 pass to the feature in which our age not only 

 undeniably, but immeasurably, surpasses all earlier 

 civilization's — in knowledge, science, intellectual 

 development. The kind of superior " wisdom " that 

 a few fantastic people say they find in Asia is mere 

 verbiage, and to most people not pretty verbiage. It 

 is knowledge of realities which counts, and that is 

 what we mean by the word " science." In this 

 province we put aside all hesitation. The progress 

 made by the race, even beyond the level of Greek 

 thought, is extraordinary. I have given the substan- 

 tial explanation of this on an earlier page. We have 

 created a social environment which, however little it 

 may promote fine sentiment or fine character, does 

 beyond question promote intelligence. We have 

 found, in the transformation of life which science 

 has effected, that this kind of knowledge pays — to the 

 individual or the race — and it has therefore been 

 subjected to an intense human selection. 



There are some people who affect to regard this as 

 a relatively unimportant gain to the race. Science, 



