quiry, of experimental knowledge,
Creative and Progressive Civilization. The first great outbreak of the
spirit of this civilization was in republican Greece; the martyrdom of
Socrates, the fearless Utopianism of Plato, the ambitious encyclopaedism
of Aristotle, mark the dawn of a new courage and a new wilfulness in
human affairs. The fear of set limitations, of punitive and restrictive
laws imposed by Fate upon human life was visibly fading in human minds.
These names mark the first clear realization that to a large extent, and
possibly to an illimitable extent, man's moral and social life and his
general destiny could be seized upon and controlled by man. But--he
must have knowledge. Said the Ancient Civilization--and it says it still
through a multitude of vigorous voices and harsh repressive acts:
"Let man learn his duty and obey." Says the New Civilization, with
ever-increasing confidence: "Let man know, and trust him."

For long ages, the Old Civilization kept the New subordinate, apologetic
and ineffective, but for the last two centuries, the New has fought its
way to a position of contentious equality. The two go on side by side,
jostling upon a thousand issues. The world changes, the conditions of
life change rapidly, through that development of organized science which
is the natural method of the New Civilization. The old tradition demands
that national loyalties and ancient belligerence should continue. The
new has produced means of communication that break down the pens and
separations of human life upon which nationalist emotion depends. The
old tradition insists upon its ancient blood-letting of war; the new
knowledge carries that war to undreamt of levels of destruction. The
ancient system needed an unrestricted breeding to meet the normal
waste of life through war, pestilence, and a multitude of hitherto
unpreventable diseases. The new knowledge sweeps away the venerable
checks of pestilence and disease, and confronts us with the congestions
and explosive dangers of an over-populated world. The old tradition
demands a special prolific class doomed to labor and subservience; the
new points to mechanism and to scientific organization as a means of
escape from this immemorial subjugation. Upon every main issue in life,
there is this quarrel between the method of submission and the method
of knowledge. More and more do men of science and intelligent people
generally realize the hopelessness of pouring new win