placed upon a human life; why, then, should there be upon the masses of
individuals?

We shall find, too, as the result of all this, that the civilization
became more or less stationary. True, there must have been a slow
development of religious ideas, a slow development of art, a slow
development of government, and yet when the type was once set there was
but little change from century to century in the relation of human
beings to one another, and their relation to the products of nature.
When we consider the accomplishments of these people we must not forget
the length of time it took to produce them. Reckon back from the
present time 6,000 years, and then consider what has been accomplished
in America in the last century. Think back 2,000 years, and see what
had been accomplished in Rome from the year of the founding of the
imperial city until the Caesars lived {180} in their mighty palaces, a
period of seven and a half centuries. Observe, too, what was
accomplished in Greece from the time of Homer until the time of
Aristotle, a period of about six and a half centuries; then observe the
length of time it took to develop the Egyptian civilization, and we
shall see its slow progress. It is also to be observed that the
Egyptian civilization had reached its culmination when Greece began,
and had begun its slow decline. After considering this we shall
understand that the civilization of Egypt finally became stationary,
conventionalized, non-progressive; that it was only a question of time
when other nations should rule the land of the Pharaohs, and that sands
should drift where once were populous cities, covering the relics of
this ancient civilization far beneath the surface.

The progress in industrial arts and the use of implements was, of
necessity, very slow. Where the laboring man was considered of little
value, treated as a mere physical machine, to be fed and used for
mechanical purposes alone, it mattered little with what tools he
worked. In the building of the pyramids we find no mighty engines for
the movement of the great stones, we find no evidence of mechanical
genius to provide labor-saving machines. The inclined plane and
rollers, the simplest of all contrivances, were about the only
inventions. Also, in the buildings of Babylon, the tools with which
men worked must of necessity have been very poor. It is remarkable to
what extent modern invention depends upon the elevation of the standard
of