unes gave
as much rustic jollity as our more elaborate tunes do now.

Then, in a summary passage at the end, Lucretius enumerates all the
chief discoveries which men have made in the age-long process--ships,
agriculture, walled cities, laws, roads, clothes, songs, pictures,
statues, and all the pleasures of life--and adds, 'these things practice
and the experience of the unresting mind have taught mankind gradually
as they have progressed from point to point'.[1]

It is the first definition and use of the word in literature. If we
accept it as a typical presentation of the Greco-Roman view, seen by a
man of exceptional genius and insight at the climax of the period, there
are two or three points which must arrest our attention. Lucretius is
thinking mainly of progress in the arts, and especially of the arts as
they affect man's happiness. There is no mention of increase in
knowledge or in love. As in the famous parallel passage in Sophocles'
_Antigone_, it is man's strength and skill which most impressed the
poet, and his skill especially as exhibited in the arts. Compared with
what we shall see as typical utterances of later times, it is an
external view of the subject. The absence of love as an element of
progress carries with it the absence of the idea of humanity. There is
no conception here, nor anywhere in classical thought before the Stoics,
of a world-wide Being which has contributed to the advance and should
share fully in its fruits. Still less do we find any hint of the
possibilities of an infinite progress. The moral, on the contrary, is
that we should limit our desires, banish disturbing thoughts, and settle
down to a quiet and sensible enjoyment of the good things that
advancing skill has provided for us. It is, of course, true that
thoughts can be found in individual writers, especially in Plato and
Aristotle, which would largely modify this view. Yet it can hardly be
questioned that Lucretius here represents the prevalent tone of
thoughtful men of his day. They had begun to realize the fact of human
progress, but envisaged it, as was natural in a first view, mainly on
the external side, and, above all, had no conception of its infinite
possibilities.

When we turn to typical utterances of the next great age in history the
contrast is striking. Catholic doctrine had absorbed much that was
congenial to it from the Stoics, from Plato and Aristotle, but it added
a thing that was new in the world, a passio