s
long known as the stone age, into two very distinct [Page: 107] periods,
the earlier characterised by few and rough implements, roughly used by a
rude people, the second by more varied tools, of better shape, and finer
edge, often of exquisite material and polish. We know that these were
wielded more skilfully, by a people of higher type, better bred and
better nourished; and that these, albeit of less hunting and militant
life, but of pacific agricultural skill, prevailed in every way in the
struggle for existence; thanks thus not only to more advanced arts, but
probably above all to the higher status of woman. This distinction of
Paleolithic and Neolithic ages and men, has long passed into the
terminology of sociological science, and even into current speech: is it
too much then, similarly, to focus the largely analogous progress which
is so observable in what we have been wont to generalise too crudely as
the modern Industrial Age? All are agreed that the discoveries and
inventions of this extraordinary period of history constitute an epoch
of material advance only paralleled, if at all, in magnitude and
significance by those of prehistory with its shadowy Promethean figures.
Our own advance from a lower industrial civilisation towards a higher
thus no less demands definite characterisation, and this may be broadly
expressed as from an earlier or _Paleotechnic_ phase, towards a later or
more advanced _Neotechnic_ one. If definition be needed, this may be
broadly given as from a comparatively crude and wasteful technic age,
characterised by coal, steam, and cheap machine products, and a
corresponding _quantitative_ ideal of "progress of wealth and
population"--towards a finer civilisation, characterised by the wider
command, yet greater economy of natural energies, by the predominance of
electricity, and by the increasing victory of an ideal of qualitative
progress, expressed in terms of skill and art, of hygiene and education,
of social polity, etc.

The Neotechnic phase, though itself as yet far from completely replacing
the paleotechnic order which is still quantitatively predominant in most
of our cities, begins itself to show signs of a higher stage of
progress, as in the co-ordination of the many industries required for
the building of a ship, or in the yet more recent developments which
begin to renew for us the conception of the worthy construction of a
city. As [Page: 108] the former period may be character