which they lead may be lost to sight. One of these 

 propositions is that psychical rather than material 

 causes are those which we should regard as funda- 

 mental in directing the development of the social 

 organism. The human intellect is the really active 

 agent in every branch of endeavor the primum mobile 

 of civilization and all those material manifestations to 

 which our attention is so often directed are to be 

 regarded as secondary to this first agency. If it be 

 true that ' ' in the world is nothing great but man ; in 

 man is nothing great but mind," then should the key- 

 note of our discourse be the recognition of this first and 

 greatest of powers. 



Another well-known fact is that those applications 

 of the forces of nature to the promotion of human wel- 

 fare which have made our age what it is are of such 

 comparatively recent origin that we need go back only 

 a single century to antedate their most important feat- 

 ures, and scarcely more than four centuries to find 

 their beginning. It follows that the subject of our 

 inquiry should be the commencement, not many cen- 

 turies ago, of a certain new form of intellectual 

 activity. 



Having gained this point of view, our next inquiry 

 will be into the nature of that activity and its relation 

 to the stages of progress which preceded and followed 

 its beginning. The superficial observer, who sees the 

 oak but forgets the acorn, might tell us that the special 

 qualities which have brought out such great results are 

 expert scientific knowledge and rare ingenuity, directed 

 to the. application of the powers of steam and elec- 

 tricity. From this point of view the great inventors 



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