INTRODUCTORY. 339 



savage as to make quietude intolerable; and the change 

 which not only denies him activities appropriate to his 

 powers and feelings, but forces on him monotonous labour, 

 is both negatively and positively repugnant. Sudden transi 

 tion from uncivilized to civilized life is, indeed, fatal; as 

 was shown when, by the Jesuits in Paraguay, the natives 

 were drilled into regular industry. They became infertile, 

 and the numbers of the colony diminished. 



Provident habits have to be acquired. The lowest types 

 of men, revelling in abundance when accident brings it to 

 them, thereafter remain idle until hunger compels activity. 

 Though the higher hunting races display this trait less 

 markedly, yet in them too there lacks that constant fore 

 sight, and subordination of the present to the future, which 

 are required for the agricultural life. 



Once more, there has to be profoundly modified that early 

 type of nature over which custom is so tyrannical. The 

 tribal practices, cruel though they may be, are submitted 

 to by the young savage at his initiation without a murmur; 

 and the sacredness attaching to usages of this kind, attaches 

 to usages in general. Even by the lower civilized races the 

 methods sanctified by tradition are adhered to spite of proof 

 that other methods are much better. The thought of im 

 provement, now so dominant with us, does not exist at first ; 

 and when by some accident better ways are suggested they 

 are obstinately opposed. 



In various ways, then, industrial progress, in common 

 with progress at large, originally insensible in its rate, 

 has become appreciable only in the course of ages, and only 

 in modern times has become rapid. While the forces condu 

 cive to it have been continually increasing, resisting forces, 

 both external and internal, have been continually decreas 

 ing; until at length the speed has become such that the im 

 provements which science and enterprise have achieved 

 during this century, are greater in amount than those 

 achieved during all past centuries put together. 



