INTRODUCTION 
The Meaning of Progress. — Progress is a word frequently used 
though not always with critical precision. The nineteenth cen- 
tury was an era of marvelous increase in the production of wealth, 
in the acquirement of knowledge intensively and extensively, in 
methods of social reform and in agencies for the betterment of 
unfortunate man. But is this the essence of social progress ? 
Ask the meditative Brahman or the static celestial! Is movement 
always forward movement ? Is mere increase a sign of pros- 
perity ? Dr. Watkinson ! speaks aptly of the fallacy of bigness. 
The boulder is vastly bigger than the diamond. Enlargement of 
the human body is often a sign of disease. Many feel that 
Carlyle did well to inveigh against the gospel of Mammonism 
and ridicule the theory of the leisure class of his day; that John 
Ruskin’s prophetic voice rang true when he summoned econo- 
mists to a different evaluation of wealth than that of mere inter- 
changeable goods. 
Increase of knowledge is not always advantageous either to the 
individual or to society. Walter Bagehot in praising the virtues 
of stupidity says that nations, just as individuals, may be too 
clever to be practical and not dull enough to be free. ‘‘ Knowledge 
puffeth up,” — sometimes to a man’s eternal damnation. A 
strong prejudice against college education for the young man of 
only average ability prevails among a certain class of men of 
affairs and it is true that there are many whose superior education 
has unfitted them, apparently, to adapt themselves to life condi- 
tions. Nor do all agree that it is a sure sign of progress that our 
enlarged sympathy has built almshouses, asylums and orphanages 
to prolong the lives of the weak and unfortunate and apparently 
thwart nature’s plan of eliminating the unfit in the struggle for 
existence. 
1 The great Wesleyan preacher in his book The Education of the Heart. 
3 
