Every age is no doubt apt to exaggerate its own claims to mark an epoch.  But, after a century of achievements in applied science, there seems little risk of error in asserting that the world is now becoming conscious as it never was before of the vast power given by material resources when under the control of a cool intelligence.  And in the competition of nations it is not surprising that there should be an imperious demand for the most alert and well-trained minds to utilise these resources in war and in industry.  It is not surprising; nor would it be a fit subject for regret, did not the concentration of the outlook upon material success tend to the neglect of ’things which are more excellent.’  Writing many years ago J.S.  Mill remarked that “hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.” [1]

[Footnote 1:  Political Economy, Book iv. chap. vi. sec. 2.]

There is a further question which ought to be asked of every new advance in material civilisation, Does it foster, or at least does it leave unimpeded, the development of man’s spiritual inheritance?  Certainly, the control of nature by mind is not necessarily hostile to the ideals which give dignity to the arts and sciences and to man himself.  And yet it does not always favour their presence.  The weak nations of the world in arms and commerce have contributed their full share to the higher life of the race; and the triumphs of a country on the battlefield or in business give no security for the presence among its people of the ideals which illumine or of the righteousness which exalts.  The history of Germany herself might point the moral.  A century ago, when she lay crushed beneath the heel of Napoleon, her poets and philosophers were the prophets of ideals which helped to bind her scattered states into a powerful nation, and which enriched the mind of man.  To-day we are forced to ask whether military and industrial success have changed the national bent:  for poetry seems to have deserted her, and her philosophy betrays the dominance of material interests.

Material success and the struggle for it are apt to monopolise the attention; and perhaps the greatest danger of the new social order is the growing materialisation of the mental outlook.  It would be needless to point to the evidence, amongst all classes in the mercantile nations, of the feverish haste to be rich and to enjoy.  For to point to this has been common with the moralists of all ages.  This age like others—­perhaps more than most—­is strewn with the victims of the struggle.  But it can also boast a product largely its own—­the new race of victors who have emerged triumphant, with wealth beyond the dreams of avarice of the past generation.  Their interests make them cosmopolitan; they are unrestrained by the traditional obligations of ancient lineage; and the world seems to lie before them as something to be bought and sold.  Neither they nor others have quite realised as yet the power which colossal wealth gives in modern conditions.  And it remains to be seen whether the multimillionaire will claim to figure as Nietzsche’s ‘over-man,’ spurning ordinary moral conventions, and will play the role, in future moral discourses, which the ethical dialogues of Plato assign to the ‘tyrant,’