178 PHYSICAL BASIS OF CIVILIZATION 



press, and speech ; also, the nearly universal abolition 

 of chattel slavery; further, the nationalization of 

 Greece, Italy, Germany, and such a general uplifting, 

 such striving for justice, human rights, human 

 dignity, brotherhood, and higher ideals, that by 

 the side of it the noble achievements of even primi- 

 tive Christianity, before Constantine and the Church 

 transformed it into a tool of despotism, seem less 

 important. 



This, however, warrants no sanguine expectations 

 of great improvements within a few brief genera- 

 tions. It is merely an indication of a tendency 

 to ultimate results, deduced from the facts and 

 principles of science brought out in these essays 

 and supported by an historic reference, but the author 

 is not aware of the existence of any considerable 

 collection of reliable data whereon an estimate of 

 the time within which this change from forcible 

 rule by the false to beneficent guidance by the true 

 could be based. With reference to the present and 

 near future, it is plainly in evidence that at all 

 important centers of population the false type 

 is highly organized and firmly entrenched in the 

 control of military and civil government and of 

 financial and economic resources, and through these 

 of the conditions under which persons not born to 

 wealth, power, or influence are forced to earn their 

 living. 



With the battle-ship, the heavy rifled cannon, the 

 machine gun, etc., the disparity between the few 



