“Pardon me!  I was using the words in a specific sense.  What I mean by progress is the welding together of society for whatever ends.  Progress is a centripetal movement, obliterating man in the mass.  Civilization is centrifugal; it permits, it postulates, the assertion of personality.  The terms are, therefore, not synonymous.  They stand for hostile and divergent movements.  Progress subordinates.  Civilization co-ordinates.  The individual emerges in civilization.  He is submerged in progress.”

“You might call civilization a placid lake,” said the American, “and the other a river or torrent.”

“Exactly!” remarked Mr. Heard.  “The one is static, the other dynamic.  And which of the two, Count, would you say was the more beneficial to humanity?”

“Ah!  For my part I would not bring such consideration to bear on the point.  We may deduce, from the evolution of society, that progress is the newer movement, since the State, which welds together, is of more recent growth than the individualistic family or clan.  This is as far as I care to go.  To debate whether one be better for mankind than the other betrays what I call an anthropomorphic turn of mind; it is therefore a problem which, so far as I am concerned, does not exist.  I content myself with establishing the fact that progress and civilization are incompatible, mutually exclusive.”

“Do you mean to say,” asked the millionaire, “that it is impossible to be progressive and civilized at the same time?”

“That is what I mean to say.  Now if America stands for progress, this old world may be permitted—­with a reasonable dose of that flattery which we accord to the dead—­to represent civilization.  Tell me, Mr. van Koppen, how do you propose to amalgamate or reconcile such ferociously antagonistic strivings?  I fear we will have to wait for the millennium.”

“The millennium!” echoed Mr. Heard.  “That is another of those unhappy words which are always cropping up in my department.”

“Why unhappy?” asked Mr. van Koppen.

“Because they mean nothing.  The millennium will never come.”

“Why not?”

“Because nobody wants it to come.  They want tangible things.  Nobody wants a millennium.”

“Which is very fortunate,” observed the Count.  “For if they did, the Creator would be considerably embarrassed how to arrange matters, seeing that every man’s millennium differs from that of his neighbour.  Mine is not the same as yours.  Now I wonder, Mr. van Koppen—­I wonder what your millennium would be like?”

“I wonder!  I believe I never gave it a thought.  I have had other things to puzzle out.”

And the millionaire straightway proceeded to think, in his usual clear-cut fashion.  “Something with girls in it,” he soon concluded, inwardly.  Then aloud: 

“I guess my millennium would be rather a contradictory sort of business.  I should require tobacco, to begin with.  And the affair would certainly not be complete, Count, without a great deal of your company.  The millennium of other people may be more simple.  That of the Duchess, for example, is at hand.  She is about to join the Roman Catholic Church.”