intellectual and spiritual kindling the world over, for which history has
no sort of parallel. Truth is always the same, and will make its way, but
this subject might be illustrated by a study of the relation of
Christianity and of the brotherhood of men to machinery. The theme would
demand an essay by itself. I leave it with the one remark, that this
great change now being wrought in the world by the multiplicity of
machinery is not more a material than it is an intellectual one, and that
we have no instance in history of a catastrophe widespread enough and
adequate to sweep away its results. That is to say, none of the
catastrophes, not even the corruptions, which brought to ruin the ancient
civilizations, would work anything like the same disaster in an age which
has the use of machinery that this age has.

For instance: Gibbon selects the period between the accession of Trajan
and the death of Marcus Aurelius as the time in which the human race
enjoyed more general happiness than they had ever known before, or had
since known. Yet, says Mr. Froude, in the midst of this prosperity the
heart of the empire was dying out of it; luxury and selfishness were
eating away the principle that held society together, and the ancient
world was on the point of collapsing into a heap of incoherent sand. Now,
it is impossible to conceive that the catastrophe which did happen to
that civilization could have happened if the world had then possessed the
steam-engine, the printing-press, and the electric telegraph. The Roman
power might have gone down, and the face of the world been recast; but
such universal chaos and such a relapse for the individual people would
seem impossible.

If we turn from these general considerations to the evidences that this
is an "era of progress" in the condition of individual men, we are met by
more specific denials. Granted, it is said, all your facilities for