G.—ENGINEERING. 133 
combined with immensely greater social difficulties. I would like to quote 
a few sentences from the preface of ‘ The World Unbalanced,’ by Gustave 
le Bon :— 
“In this domain (social life) progressive evolution remains feeble. 
The feelings of ambition, jealousy, ferocity and hatred, which animated 
our first ancestors, remain unchanged. . .. We cannot understand events 
unless we take account of the profound differences which separate mystic 
and emotional impulses from rational considerations. They explain why 
- individuals of superior intelligence have at all times accepted the most 
infantile beliefs... . Even in our day Communistic chimeras have had the 
power to ruin a gigantic empire and threaten other countries.’ 
He points out virtually that civilisation in scientific and constitutional 
directions has quite outstripped moral civilisation, which has made little 
or no real progress ; that at bottom our ancestral savage instincts are the 
real power, certainly in emergencies like the late war, and he says :-— 
“We do not know what influence reason will one day exercise on the 
march of history. If its only influence is to provide these emotional and 
mystical impulses, which still threaten the world, with more and more 
power of destruction, our civilisation is doomed to share the fall of the great 
Asiatic empires, whose power did not save them from destruction and 
whose last traces are now covered with sand.’ 
But he ends on a more cheerful note. He says :— 
‘The Future is indeed within us and is woven by ourselves. Not being 
fixed, like the Past, it can be transformed by our own efforts.’ 
And may I also quote from an address given to Members of Parliament 
by Lieut.-Colonel (now Sir James) Lithgow. He closed his remarks on the 
causes of the present serious depression in our industry, and begged that 
the House might assist in the cure, with the following remarks :— 
“Protected industries are living on the unprotected, but raise their 
costs in doing so... . 
‘The standard of living possible in this country depends on its power 
to export at competitive costs. ... 
“We shipbuilders and marine engineers cannot save ourselves from 
within our industry... . 
‘Unless the whole public conscience is awakened to the broader and 
cumulative handicaps under which we, in common with all! British export- 
ing industries, are working to-day, there can be no hope of restoring the 
shipbuilding industry to its old position of supremacy.’ 
May such intelligence and wisdom be granted to the present generation 
that it may be even more successful in evolving a satisfactory social 
tem than the past generations have undoubtedly been successful in 
olving highly developed means of transport, so that the benefits of the 
uable work done in the past may not be lost to future generations, 
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