112 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 



PIIOGKESS AND CIVILISATION. 



THEEE is no one idea which so universally per- 

 vades the public mind of Europe as that of Progress. 

 The Progress of the Nation, the Progress of the 

 Age, the Progress of Civilisation, the Progress of 

 Society, the Progress of Mankind, are phrases which 

 meet us everywhere. We find them in the columns 

 of every newspaper, in the articles of every Eeview, 

 in the Philosophic pages of Buckle and Macaulay, 

 in Social Science Congresses, in private circles, 

 in Parliamentary Debates, and even in the Pulpit. 

 Nor is there anything the least surprising in the 

 general prevalence of such ideas. We whose lot 

 has been cast in this nineteenth century have had 

 the high privilege of living during a most eventful 

 epoch in the history of civilised man. We are 

 often referred to the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 

 turies as the period when Europe was aroused 



