SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1016 



relations. By means of gunpowder the 

 peasant became a match for the bravest 

 knight, so that the latter could no longer 

 trample over the former in safety. The 

 castle of the lord no more could serve as a 

 certain stronghold against danger. Gun- 

 powder became a mighty leveling influence 

 and began to prepare the way for equal 

 rights to all men. Through the use of 

 paper and the printing press books were 

 soon widely distributed among a large class 

 of people whereas before they had been the 

 luxury of a few rich nobles. The advances 

 in astronomy turned men's minds upside 

 down, as it were, and set them to feeling 

 that all conceptions of the world and of 

 man were in need of fresh examination and 

 possibly fundamental revision. Add to 

 this the power of the mariner's compass, 

 which enabled men to sail in safety across 

 unknown seas, so that the whole wide world 

 was about to come under their dominion. You 

 can not fail to see that all these things, 

 thrown as they were at once into experi- 

 ence, would undoubtedly produce a pro- 

 found stir and commotion in the human 

 mind. Such was the state of experience 

 and such were the means of development 

 in the middle stage of the higher civiliza- 

 tion. 



A period characterized by so much activ- 

 ity would naturally be one of rapid change. 

 You would therefore expect it not to last 

 long. Such indeed was the case. Only 

 about four hundred years had elapsed 

 when, towards the close of the eighteenth 

 century, James Watt gave to the world 

 the perfected steam engine. A new tool of 

 power was thus in the hands of the men 

 of that and future generations. It in- 

 creased the working speed manyfold and 

 thus brought in a period characterized by 

 greater leisure for the cultivation of those 

 elements of civilization not directly con- 

 nected with obtaining a food supply. Man 



then entered upon the present stage of 

 civilization, the highest to which he has 

 yet attained. 



We have now passed in rapid review the 

 elements of the material basis for the prog- 

 ress of mankind. We have necessarily 

 considered only the greatest outstanding 

 facts. Now I should like to ask each of 

 you to take these facts and to build them 

 into a lookout from which to view for a 

 few minutes the prospect of human prog- 

 ress. Or, if you prefer a different figure, 

 will you consider these as constituting a 

 mirror in time by means of which you can 

 see in the past and the present the image 

 of the future, just as by means of a mirror 

 in space you see an extended image in one 

 position while its object is in another? 



In the first place, let us ask in what 

 way these inventions and discoveries may 

 be looked upon as the cause of progress. A 

 cause may operate in two very different 

 ways. If a ball is fired from a rifle the 

 explosion of the powder impels it into mo- 

 tion and drives it forth. There are other 

 causes in operation; but this is the funda- 

 mental impelling one. On the other hand, 

 if the same ball is held at some height and 

 the support is removed, it will also be set 

 in motion. Undoubtedly the taking away 

 of the support is one of the causes of this 

 motion. It is not, however, the impelling 

 cause; it is one acting by release. 



If, now, we consider the means of prog- 

 ress we have mentioned, we can find no 

 power in them through which they could 

 have been the impelling causes of human 

 progress. They undoubtedly operated by 

 way of releasing the activity of man. We 

 must assume, then, that there was a power 

 of development inherent in human nature 

 and that these inventions and discoveries 

 merely released that power into activity. 

 That appears to be the teaching of the 

 whole of human progress. It is illustrated 



