But in
no way worth noting did they count in the advance of mankind.
At last, a little over four hundred years ago, the movement towards a
world civilization took up its interrupted march. The beginning of the
modern movement may roughly be taken as synchronizing with the
discovery of printing, and with that series of bold sea ventures which
culminated in the discovery of America; and after these two epochal
feats had begun to produce their full effects in material and
intellectual life, it became inevitable that civilization should
thereafter differ not only in degree but even in kind from all that
had gone before. Immediately after the voyages of Columbus and Vasco
da Gama there began a tremendous religious ferment; the awakening of
intellect went hand in hand with the moral uprising; the great names
of Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler, and Galileo show that the mind of man
was breaking the fetters that had cramped it; and for the first time
experimentation was used as a check upon observation and theorization.
Since then, century by century, the changes have increased in rapidity
and complexity, and have attained their maximum in both respects
during the century just past. Instead of being directed by one or two
dominant peoples, as was the case with all similar movements of the
past, the new movement was shared by many different nations.
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