low.
Does this seem at first thought incredible, in view of the vastness of
the changes presupposed? What is the teaching of history, but that
great national transformations, while ages in unnoticed preparation,
when once inaugurated, are accomplished with a rapidity and resistless
momentum proportioned to their magnitude, not limited by it?

In 1759, when Quebec fell, the might of England in America seemed
irresistible, and the vassalage of the colonies assured. Nevertheless,
thirty years later, the first President of the American Republic was
inaugurated. In 1849, after Novara, Italian prospects appeared as
hopeless as at any time since the Middle Ages; yet only fifteen years
after, Victor Emmanuel was crowned King of United Italy. In 1864, the
fulfillment of the thousand-year dream of German unity was apparently
as far off as ever. Seven years later it had been realized, and
William had assumed at Versailles the Crown of Barbarossa. In 1832,
the original Anti-slavery Society was formed in Boston by a few
so-called visionaries. Thirty-eight years later, in 1870, the society
disbanded, its programme fully carried out.

These precedents do not, of course, prove that any such industrial and
social transformation as is outlined in _Looking Backward_ is
impending; but they do show that, when the moral and economical
conditions for it are ripe, it may be expected to go forward with
great rapidity. On no other stage are the scenes shifted with a
swiftness so like magic as on the great stage of history when once the
hour strikes. The question is not, then, how extensive the
scene-shifting must be to set the stage for the new fraternal
civilization, but whether there are any special indications that a
social transformation is at hand. The causes that have been bringing
it ever nearer have been at work from immemorial time. To the stream
of tendency setting toward an ultimate realization of a form of
society which, while vastly more efficient for material prosperity,
should also satisfy and not outrage the moral instincts, every sigh of
poverty, every tear of pity, every humane impulse, every generous
enthusiasm, every true religious feeling, every act by which men have
given effect to their mutual sympathy by drawing more closely together
for any purpose, have contributed from the beginnings of
civilization. That this long stream of influence, ever widening and
deepening, is at last about to sweep away the barriers it has so