called a bed. Mr.
Coulton, in his books on the Middle Ages, has used some very plain
language on the same text. And Professor Smart, in his recently
published posthumous work, pointing a gentle finger of rebuke at certain
common Socialist fantasies, remarks:

There never was a golden age of equality of wealth: there
was rather a leaden one of inequality of poverty.... We
should speak more guardedly of the riches of the old world.
A careful examination of any old book would show that the
most splendid processions of pomp and luxury in the Middle
Ages were poor things compared to the parade of a modern
circus on its opening day.[59]

Such prosperity as we enjoy to-day, such a scene as we can observe on
these smiling outskirts of Birmingham, is due to man's Conquest of
Organization and to the consequent development and linking-up, by mutual
intercourse and exchange, of the economic side of the world's life.

So far we have been watching the progress of man in his efforts to 'make
himself at home' in the world. We have seen him becoming more skilful
and more masterful century by century, till in these latter days the
whole world is, as it were, at his service. He has planted his flag at
the two poles: he has cut a pathway for his ships between Asia and
Africa, and between the twin continents of America: he has harnessed
torrents and cataracts to his service: he has conquered the air and the
depths of the sea: he has tamed the animals: he has rooted out
pestilence and laid bare its hidden causes: and he is penetrating
farther and ever farther in the discovery of the causes of physical and
mental disease. He has set his foot on the neck of Nature. But the last
and greatest conquest is yet before him. He has yet to conquer himself.
Victorious against Nature, men are still at war, nay, more than ever at
war, amongst themselves. How is it that the last century and a half,
which have witnessed so unparalleled an advance in the organization of
the common life of man on the material side, should have been an age of
wars and rumours of wars, culminating in the vastest and most
destructive conflict that this globe of ours has ever witnessed? What
explanation could we give of this to a visitor from the moon or to those
creatures of inferior species whom, as Sir E. Ray Lankester has told us,
it is our function, thanks to our natural superiority, to command and
control?

This brings us to the seco