IX 
EVOLUTION AND THE PRESENT AGE 
Ir has now for many years been a matter of common 
remark that we are living in a wonderful age, an age 
which has witnessed extraordinary material and intel- 
lectual progress. This is a mere commonplace, but it 
is not until we have given some close attention to the 
facts that we realize the dimensions of the truth which 
it expresses. The chief characteristics of the nine- 
teenth century may be said to have been on the mate- 
rial side the creation of mechanical force, and on the 
intellectual side the unification of nature. Neither of 
these expressions is quite free from objections, but they 
will sufficiently serve the purpose. When we consider 
the creation of mechanical force, it is clear that what 
has been done in this direction since the days of James 
Watt marks an era immeasurably greater than that of 
the rise or fall of any historic empire. It marks an era 
as sharp and bold as that era which witnessed the 
domestication of oxen and horses far back in the dim 
prehistoric past. Man was but a feeble creature when 
his only means of carriage was his two feet, and his 
tools were such as a wooden stick for a crowbar and a 
stone for cracking nuts, and his diet was limited to 
fruit and herbs, or such fish as he could catch in shal- 
low waters and devour without cooking. Countless 
poets have celebrated the day when he first learned 
how to strike a spark from the stone and kindle a fire. 
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