PROGRESS OF MAN. 187 



not fair to conclude that there has been no 

 progress. Nor, although Modern Europe may 

 well challenge the comparison, is it fair to com- 

 pare nations at the highest point of civilisation 

 which they were destined ever to attain, and up 

 to which they had been gradually climbing for 

 thousands of years, with a civilisation which is 

 still growing and flourishing, and is the growth 

 of a very few centuries : we might almost say of 

 a very few lifetimes. 



Genesis and the Homeric Poems were based, 

 the one on older documents, and the other on 

 popular songs, ; and even if we admit (for the 

 sake of the argument alone) that these works 

 are actually the highest attainments of human 

 genius, yet it is probably because our modern 

 civilisation is unfavourable to the highest literary 

 genius, simply because the immense mass of 

 material before us is at present but half assimi- 

 lated, and destroys all originality by preventing 

 the concentration of our powers on one point. 

 It we would compare Milton with Homer we 

 ought not to be content with comparing their 

 works, but ask what comparison the life of a 

 wandering bard would bear to the noble life of 

 Milton ? But when the discoveries of modern 



