sense and the life of the spirit, is more closely
germane to the present argument, because ultimately this has to be
resolved, if not in every mind yet in the dominant mind of Europe,
before the more practical questions can be generally settled. Harmony
here is at the root of a sound idea of progress.

When the concluding chapters of this volume are reached it will be seen
how fully the recent developments both in science and philosophy
corroborate the line which is here suggested for the reconciliation of
conflicts and the establishment of a stronger and more coherent notion
of what we may rightly pursue as progress. For both in science and still
more in philosophy attention is being more and more closely concentrated
on the meaning of life itself, which science approaches by way of its
physical concomitants, and philosophy from the point of view of
consciousness. And while science has been analysing the characteristics
of a living organism, philosophy finds in our consciousness just that
element of community with others which an organic conception of progress
demands. The only progress of which we can be certain, the philosopher
tells us, is progress in our own consciousness, which becomes constantly
fuller, more knowing, and more social, as time unfolds. This, he tells
us, must endure, though the storms of passion and nature may fall upon
us.

On such a firm basis we would all gladly build our faith. No unity can
be perfect except that which we achieve in our own souls, and no
progress can be relied on except that which we can know within, and can
develop from, our own consciousness and our own powers. But we cannot
rest in this. We are bound to look outside our own consciousness for
some objective correspondence to that progress which our own nature
craves; and history supplies this evidence. It is from history that we
derive the first idea and the accumulating proofs of the reality of
progress. Lucretius's first sketch is really his summary of social
history up to that point. The Catholic thinker had a wider scope. He
was able to see that the whole course of Greco-Roman civilization was,
from his point of view, a preparation for the Church which had the care
of the spiritual life of man while on earth. And in the next stage, that
in which we now live, we see all the interests of life taken back again
into the completeness of human progress, and can trace that complete
being, labouring slowly but unmistakably to a