alse, they assume a form which Sorel describes as myth. The progress of
humanity, as Herbert Spencer and the other Victorians understood it, is
such a myth. Dean Inge calls it a "superstition" and adds: "To become a
popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a
philosophy. The superstition of progress had the singular good fortune
to enslave at least three philosophies--those of Hegel, of Comte, and of
Darwin."[329]

The conception of progress, if a superstition, is one of recent origin.
It was not until the eighteenth century that it gained general
acceptance and became part of what Inge describes as the popular
religion. The conception which it replaced was that of providence. But
the Greeks and Romans knew nothing of providence. They were under the
influence of another idea of a different character, the idea, namely, of
nemesis and fate. And before them there were more primitive peoples who
had no conception of man's destiny at all. In a paper, not yet
published, Ellsworth Faris has sketched the natural history of the idea
of progress and its predecessors and of a new conception, control, that
is perhaps destined to take its place.

The idea of progress which has been so influential in modern
times is not a very old conception. In its distinctive form it
came into existence in the rationalistic period which
accompanied the Renaissance. Progress, in this sense, means a
theory as to the way in which the whole cosmic process is
developing. It is the belief that the world as a whole is
growing better through definite stages, and is moving "to one
far-off divine event."

The stages preceding this idea may be thought of under several
heads. The first may be called "cosmic anarchy," in which we
find "primitive people" now living. It is a world of chaos,
without meaning, and without purpose. There is no direction in
which human life is thought of as developing. Death and
misfortune are for the most part due to witchcraft and the evil
designs of enemies; good luck and bad luck are the forces which
make a rational existence hopeless.

Another stage of thinking is that which was found among the
Greeks, the conception of the cosmic process as proceeding in
cycles. The golden age of the Greeks lay in the past, the
universe was considered to be following a set course, and the
whole round of human e