178 The Outline of Science 



evolve. We must not think of an Aristotle or a Newton except 

 as fine results which justify all the groaning and travailing; 

 we must think of average men, of primitive peoples to-day, 

 and of our forbears long ago. We must remember how much 

 of man's advance is dependent on the external registration 

 of the social heritage, not on the slowly changing natural in- 

 heritance. 



Looking backwards it is impossible, we think, to fail to 

 recognise progress. There is a ring of truth in the fine descrip- 

 tion /Eschylus gave of primitive men that 



first, beholding they beheld in vain, and, hearing, heard not, 

 but, like shapes in dreams, mixed all things wildly down the 

 tedious time, nor knew to build a house against the sun with 

 wicketed sides, nor any woodwork knew, but lived like silly 

 ants, beneath the ground, in hollow caves unsunned. There 

 came to them no steadfast sign of winter, nor of spring 

 flower-perfumed, nor of summer full of fruit, but blindly 

 and lawlessly they did all things. 



Contrast this picture with the position of man to-day. He 

 has mastered the forces of Nature and is learning to use their 

 resources more and more economically; he has harnessed elec- 

 tricity to his chariot and he has made the ether carry his messages. 

 He tapped supplies of material which seemed for centuries un- 

 available, having learned, for instance, how to capture and utilise 

 the free nitrogen of the air. With his telegraph and "wireless" 

 he has annihilated distance, and he has added to his navigable 

 kingdom the depths of the sea and the heights of the air. He 

 has conquered one disease after another, and the young science of 

 heredity is showing him how to control in his domesticated animals 

 and cultivated plants the nature of the generations yet unborn. 

 With all his faults he has his ethical face set in the right direction. 

 The main line of movement is towards the fuller embodiment of 

 the true, the beautiful, and the good in healthy lives which are 

 increasingly a satisfaction in themselves. 



