SECTION 23. GENERALISATION. 351 



definitely multiplied; 1 the telegraph is then developed, enabling 

 us to remain in uninterrupted contact with our fellows all over 

 the terrestrial globe; the telephone follows the telegraph, turn- 

 ing dots and dashes into the living, vibrating voice; and this, 

 lastly, is succeeded by wireless telegraphy saving tens of 

 thousands of lives at sea and rendering spiritual intercourse 

 independent of artificial media. If this be not progress, and 

 on a stupendous scale, it would be vain to attach any mean- 

 ing to the term. 



"Or, consider the related problem of transport. Primitive 

 man has no paths and no vehicles. Gradually roads, canals, 

 bridges, tunnels, of a more and more scientific and extensive 

 character, are constructed; and by degrees conveyances innumer- 

 able fill the world, propelled by animals, by steam, by gas, by 

 electricity, by petrol, at a speed which would have terrified 

 early man, and comfort-yielding beyond the fancies of lords 

 and ladies of yore. Nor is the solid earth alone utilised. The 

 seas teem with magnificent boats, and the air is beginning to 

 be alive with aircraft. Would not a primitive have regarded 

 such an improvement as outwinging his most daring anticipa- 

 tions of what man could achieve? 



"Or, to treat the rest summarily, shall we speak of the 

 startling and superlative advance embodied in modern science, 

 of the varied and brilliant triumphs of the arts, of the horde 

 spirit expanding into the international spirit, of man-sacrificing 

 superstition transformed into man-saving religion, of the rose of 

 morality blossoming out of the briars of barbarism, of the ven- 

 detta and the torture chamber issuing in comparatively impartial 

 and humane laws, of despotism forced to yield inch by inch to 

 democracy, of the haphazard acquisition of incoherent supposi- 

 tions melting into the dawn of an epoch of scientific and 

 systematic education and learning, or of the magic story of 

 architecture from the straw-hut to the marble palace? The 

 more closely we scrutinise the problem, the more manifest it 

 becomes that not only is progress a reality, but that the 

 advance from the use of unchipped flints to that of electrically- 

 driven machinery, from the era of speechlessness to that of 

 collectively-applied scientific methods, has been immeasurably 

 great so great that the imagination staggers and reels when 

 it strives comprehensively and without bias to envisage the 

 metamorphosis and transfiguration which have taken place." 

 (G. Spiller, Outlines of a New World Religion, 1918, pp. 16-17.) 



1 To judge by present achievements, the highest aesthetic education and 

 satisfaction of all individuals will be successfully promoted in the future 

 through art reproductions in the home: the works of the great master 

 painters will be represented in plain monochrome or in the appealing colours 

 of the originals in frames or on walls; those of the illustrious sculptors and 

 artificers will be there in proxy; the sublimest music and song will fill 

 every home; and other adornments, no less magical, will be ubiquitous. 



