been made of the purely
mechanical side of the era of machine production. It has been shown that
the age of machinery has been in a certain sense one of triumph, of the
triumphant conquest of nature, but in another sense one of perplexing
failure. The new forces controlled by mankind have been powerless as yet
to remove want and destitution, hard work and social discontent. In the
midst of accumulated wealth social justice seems as far away as ever.

It remains now to discuss the intellectual development of the modern age
of machinery and the way in which it has moulded the thoughts and the
outlook of mankind.

Few men think for themselves. The thoughts of most of us are little more
than imitations and adaptations of the ideas of stronger minds. The
influence of environment conditions, if it does not control, the mind of
man. So it comes about that every age or generation has its dominant and
uppermost thoughts, its peculiar way of looking at things and its
peculiar basis of opinion on which its collective action and its social
regulations rest. All this is largely unconscious. The average citizen
of three generations ago was probably not aware that he was an extreme
individualist. The average citizen of to-day is not conscious of the
fact that he has ceased to be one. The man of three generations ago had
certain ideas which he held to be axiomatic, such as that his house was
his castle, and that property was property and that what was his was
his. But these were to him things so obvious that he could not conceive
any reasonable person doubting them. So, too, with the man of to-day. He
has come to believe in such things as old age pensions and national
insurance. He submits to bachelor taxes and he pays for the education of
other people's children; he speculates much on the limits of
inheritance, and he even meditates profound alterations in the right of
property in land. His house is no longer his castle. He has taken down
its fences, and "boulevarded" its grounds till it merges into those of
his neighbors. Indeed he probably does not live in a house at all, but
in a mere "apartment" or subdivision of a house which he shares with a
multiplicity of people. Nor does he any longer draw water from his own
well or go to bed by the light of his own candle: for such services as
these his life is so mixed up with "franchises" and "public utilities"
and other things unheard of by his own great-grandfather, that it is
hopelessl