UNIVKKSTTT 



INTKODUCTION. 



IT is the merest commonplace, that the age in which 

 we live is an age of unusually rapid historical change ; 

 and, in the most obvious sense, it is evidently true. 

 But, like many other true sayings, it is generally so 

 understood as to be in effect a fallacy. The changes 

 that astonish us with their rapidity are conspicuous 

 because they are superficial; but if we look deep 

 enough, we shall see that those more important 

 changes \vhich are deeply seated and therefore com- 

 paratively inconspicuous, are not proceeding with 

 more activity in the present age than in the previous 

 centuries. 



The changes which are so conspicuous at the 

 present time are chiefly in the industrial arts ; the 

 improvements in those arts, which began with the 

 invention of the steam-engine towards the end of the 

 eighteenth century, have revolutionised industry, 

 trade, and travel, and, in a great degree, the external 

 ways of human life ; to them is due the building of 

 the vast cities of the modern world and -the rapid 



