CHAPTER IV. 

 EETEOSPECT AND FOBECAST. 



fTlHE forty years embraced in the tables of the 

 * several countries, which I have used to explain 

 the action of the law of population, have in those 

 countries been characterised by industrial and com- 

 mercial expansion, which, indeed, has been the char- 

 acteristic of all civilised communities since the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century. That century 

 may be regarded as the beginning of the new era 

 upon which humanity has entered the era in which 

 its solidarity is being achieved, in which progressive 

 civilisation contemplates the elevation and material 

 betterment of the whole species. The ancient civilisa- 

 tions were isolated episodes in the life of humanity, 

 and their import was circumscribed by their own 

 boundaries. One fell here, another rose there, and 

 fell in its turn. Only the civilisations of Greece and 

 of Eome have, since their disappearance, transmitted 

 through the ages forces that live to-day in the 

 literature and art of Modern Europe. 



But the new era, that, in a loose way (for, in truth, 

 several pregnant discoveries and inventions had been 

 preparing man for it), may be said to have been in- 



