Forces for good and forces
for evil are everywhere evident, each acting with a hundred- or a
thousand-fold the intensity with which it acted in former ages. Over
the whole earth the swing of the pendulum grows more and more rapid,
the main-spring coils and spreads at a rate constantly quickening, the
whole world movement is of constantly accelerating velocity.
In this movement there are signs of much that bodes ill. The
machinery is so highly geared, the tension and strain are so great,
the effort and the output have alike so increased, that there is cause
to dread the ruin that would come from any great accident, from any
breakdown, and also the ruin that may come from the mere wearing out
of the machine itself. The only previous civilization with which our
modern civilization can be in any way compared is that period of
Graeco-Roman civilization extending, say, from the Athens of
Themistocles to the Rome of Marcus Aurelius. Many of the forces and
tendencies which were then at work are at work now. Knowledge, luxury,
and refinement, wide material conquests, territorial administration on
a vast scale, an increase in the mastery of mechanical appliances and
in applied science--all these mark our civilization as they marked the
wonderful civilization that flourished in the Mediterranean lands
twenty centuries ago; and they preceded the downfall of the older
civilization.
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