MAN AND NATURE 



great epochal discoveries that gave their names to the 

 preceding ages. Nor can any invention of the six- 

 teenth or seventeenth century be hailed as really 

 ushering in a new era. The invention for which that 

 honor was reserved was a development of the eighteenth 

 century; and did not come fully to its heritage until 

 the early days of the nineteenth century. The inven- 

 tion was the application of steam to the purposes of 

 mechanics. When this application was made, as wide 

 a gap was crossed as that which separated the Stone 

 Age from the Age of Metal; then the epoch in which 

 the world was living when history begins was brought 

 to a close, and a new era, the Age of Steam, was ushered 

 in. 



Scarcely had the world begun to adjust itself to the 

 new conditions of the Age of Steam, when yet another 

 power was made subservient to man's needs, and the 

 Age of Steam was supplemented, not to say supplanted, 

 by the Age of Electricity. Of course the new progres- 

 sive movements did not necessarily imply elimi- 

 nation of old conditions; they imply merely the 

 subordination of old powers to newer and better ones. 

 Stone implements by no means ceased to have utility 

 at once when metal implements came into vogue. 

 Bronze long held its own against iron, and still has its 

 utility. And iron itself finds but an added sphere of 

 usefulness in the Age of Steam and Electricity. 



All great changes are relatively slow. It is only as 

 we look back upon them and view them in perspective 

 that they seem cataclysmic. Gunpowder did not at 

 once supplant the crossbow, and the cannon was long 



