41. THE WIDENING CIRCLE OF PROBLEMS.--The last two centuries have
constituted an age of rapid change and development in all of the major
phases of civilization. There have been rapid shifts in population,
particularly in the younger countries of the world. Important
discoveries have greatly increased our knowledge of natural science;
epoch-making inventions have revolutionized manufacturing, commerce
and transportation. In every civilized land there have been
readjustments of political beliefs, as well as important changes in
intellectual, religious, and social standards. Such an age is
peculiarly an age of problems: it is a period of change and stress, a
time of readjustment, of adaptation to changed conditions, of growth,
and of development.

We in America are confronted by an ever widening circle of problems,
and this chiefly for two reasons. In the first place, we have felt the
impact of those forces which for the last two centuries have been
creating problems the world over. In the second place, the whole
period of our national development has fallen within this age of
change and readjustment This means that we have had to grapple with
the problems common to all modern countries during a period in which
the origin and development of American democracy have been creating
purely domestic problems. These facts at least partially explain the
growing importance of the problems of American democracy during the
past century.

42. EFFECT OF AN ENLARGED SOCIAL CONSCIENCE.--Many of the issues of
contemporary American life have come into prominence because we have
enlarged the concept of democracy within the last century. The term
democracy has come to imply, not merely a form of government, but