The Mode of Social Progress. 
145 
advanced to a higher plane in one department, mankind must 
pause there to bring the others up to the same, or rather a 
harmonious, level. It is this fact which contains the truth 
expressed in the common remark that each nation and genera¬ 
tion has its special mission. This same fact is illustrated by 
the progress of civilization in the last few centuries. The 
economic conditions existing under the Feudal System were 
well adapted to the social and religious situation. When prog¬ 
ress began, it was not along all lines at once. It took the 
form of religious change. The most palpable and immediate 
result was not primarily a reform of ethics, or of religion itself. 
Speaking broadly, the movement was simply an attempt to 
secure individual independence of thought in theological mat¬ 
ters. It was an emphasis of the importance of the individual. 
Strictly, of course, the individualism at the basis of modern 
industrial society did not begin with the Reformation. It is 
largely an inheritance from Stoicism. Perfection of character 
and superiority to social turmoil was the aim of the Stoic. 
But this, in its truest meaning, was too high for the Stoic to 
attain. He sought it in self-renunciation, by withdrawal from 
social duties, not by absorption in them. His perfection came 
apart from them, and not through their noble discharge. This 
was really a refined intellectual selfishness, the influence of 
which waned only before that of Christianity and its purer 
altruism. But it did not entirely disappear. It received a 
new emphasis from the Reformation. The result was a break¬ 
ing up of class dependence. Through its influence on the doc¬ 
trine of Natural Liberty, this reassertion of the importance of 
the individual revolutionized the political side of society, find¬ 
ing its expiession here in the American and the French 
Revolutions. 
Religious and political freedom thus secured, the next great 
change was industrial. Industrial progress has been the main 
line of advance in the last half century, and it has run beyond 
the limits of harmonious adjustment with the legal and ethical 
conceptions that were developed before it. Hence it is that 
there is a shock, or a series of shocks, in the social body. This 
is but the jarring that arises from its efforts to adjust itself 
