"You make a distinction, of course," said Mr Escot, "between
scientific and moral perfectibility?"

"I conceive," said Mr Foster, "that men are virtuous in proportion as
they are enlightened; and that, as every generation increases in
knowledge, it also increases in virtue."

"I wish it were so," said Mr Escot; "but to me the very reverse
appears to be the fact. The progress of knowledge is not general: it
is confined to a chosen few of every age. How far these are better
than their neighbours, we may examine by and bye. The mass of mankind
is composed of beasts of burden, mere clods, and tools of their
superiors. By enlarging and complicating your machines, you degrade,
not exalt, the human animals you employ to direct them. When the
boatswain of a seventy-four pipes all hands to the main tack, and
flourishes his rope's end over the shoulders of the poor fellows who
are tugging at the ropes, do you perceive so dignified, so gratifying
a picture, as Ulysses exhorting his dear friends, his ERIAERES
'ETAIROI, to ply their oars with energy? You will say, Ulysses was a
fabulous character. But the economy of his vessel is drawn from
nature. Every man on board has a character and a will of his own. He
talks to them, argues with them, convinces them; and they obey him,
because they love him, and know the reason of his orders. Now, as I
have said before, all singleness of character is lost. We divide men
into herds like cattle: an individual man, if you strip him of all
that is extraneous to himself, is the most wretched and contemptible
creature on the face of the earth. The sciences advance. True. A few
years of study puts a modern mathematician in possession of more than
Newton knew, and leaves him at leisure to add new discoveries of his
own. Agreed. But does this make him a Newton? Does it put him in