ealized.

If there were time I might try to show that progress in knowledge
and its application to the alleviation of man's estate is more rapid
now than ever before. But this scarcely needs formal proof; it is so
obvious. A few years ago an eminent French _litterateur_, Brunetiere,
declared science bankrupt. This was on the eve of the discoveries
in radio-activity which have opened up great vistas of possible human
readjustments if we could but learn to control and utilize the
inexhaustible sources of power that lie in the atom. It was on the eve
of the discovery of the function of the white blood corpuscles, which
clears the way for indefinite advance in medicine. Only a poor
discouraged man of letters could think for a moment that science was
bankrupt. No one entitled to an opinion on the subject believes
that we have made more than a beginning in penetrating the secrets
of the organic and inorganic worlds.[1]

[Footnote 1: Robinson: _The New History_, p. 262.]

Even in the face of these facts, reverence for the past may
amount to such religious veneration that change may come
literally to be regarded as sacrilegious. In primitive tribes
the reasons for this insistence are clear. Rites and rituals are
used to secure the favor of the gods and any departure from
traditional customs is looked upon as fraught with actual danger.
But the past, as it lives in established forms and practices,
is still by many, and in highly advanced societies, almost
religiously cherished, sustained, and perpetuated. Every
college, religion, and country has its traditional forms of life
and practice, any infringement of which is regarded with the
gravest disapproval.[2] In social life, generally, there are fixed
forms for given occasions, forms of address, greeting, conversation,
and clothes, all that commonly goes under the name of
the "conventions" or "proprieties." In law, as is well known,
there is developed sometimes to an almost absurd degree a
ritual of procedure. In religion, traditional values become
embodied in fixed rituals of music, processional, and prayer.
In education, especially higher education, there has developed
a fairly stable tradition in the granting of degrees, the
elements of a curriculum, the forms of examination, and the
like. To certain types of mind, fixed forms in all these fields
have come to be regarded as of intrinsic importance. Love
of "good form," the classicist point of view at its best, may
develo