tion of earthly life and
history. With an urgency that the ancient world had never known the
Christian world believed in immortality and visualized the circumstances
of the life to come so concretely that in a medieval catechism the lurid
colour of the setting sun was ascribed to the supposition that "he
looketh down upon hell." [5] Nothing in this life had any importance
save as it prepared the souls of men for life to come. Even Roger Bacon,
his mind flashing like a beacon from below the sky-line of the modern
world, was sure that all man's knowledge of nature was useful only in
preparing his soul to await the coming of Antichrist and the Day of
Judgment. There was no idea of progress, then, in the medieval age.
Human life and history were static and the only change to be anticipated
was the climactic event

"When earth breaks up and heaven expands."

III

The emergence of modern progressive hopes out of this static medievalism
is one of the epic occurrences of history. The causes which furthered
the movement seem now in retrospect to be woven into a fabric so tightly
meshed as to resist unraveling. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to see
at least some of the major factors which furthered this revolutionary
change from a static to a progressive world.

Among the first, scientific invention is surely to be noted. Even Roger
Bacon, prophecying with clairvoyant insight far in advance of the event,
foresaw one of the determining factors of the modern age: "Machines for
navigating can be made so that without rowers great ships can be guided
by one pilot on river or sea more swiftly than if they were full of
oarsmen. Likewise vehicles are possible which without draught-animals
can be propelled with incredible speed, like the scythed chariots, as we
picture them, in which antiquity fought. Likewise a flying machine is
possible in the middle of which a man may sit, using some ingenious
device by which artificial wings will beat the air like those of a flying
bird. Also machines, small in size, can be constructed to lift and move
unlimited weights, than which in an emergency nothing is more useful."
[6] So dreamed the great friar in the thirteenth century. When, then,
we find the minds of men first throwing off their intellectual vassalage
to antiquity and beginning to believe in themselves, their present powers
and their future prospects, it is this new-found mastery over nature's
latent resources which i