ALTHOUGH hailed in some circles of conceit as a glorious symbol of more speed and bigger machines, and in others as a covering for cruel materialism, the concept of progress is one of the most profound and germinal ideas at work in the modern age. It is at the same time an interpretation of the long history of mankind and a philosophy of action in this world of bewildering choices. It gives a clue of meaning to the rise of civilization out of the crudities of primitive barbarism and offers a guide to the immense impending future. Briefly defined, it implies that mankind, by making use of science and invention, can progressively emancipate itself from plagues, famines, and social disasters, and subjugate the materials and forces of the earth to the purposes of the good life-here and now. In essence the idea of progress belongs to our own times, for it was unknown to the ancients and to the thinkers of the Middle Ages. It is associated, therefore, with every phase of the vast intellectual, economic, and rational movement which has transformed the classical and medieval heritage into what is called, for the sake of convenience, Western civilization. (page 3)

Unknown to the ancients, foreign to the theology of the Middle Ages, the idea of progress was slow in taking form and winning its way as a dominant concept of life. In reality it was a kind of gigantic intellectual outcropping-the product c)f the great commercial revolution ushered in by the discovery of America, the circumnavigation of the globe, and the development of natural science. As J. B. Bury points out,' certain conditions were necessary to the flowering of the idea. First of all, there had to be respect for, and interest in, the common business of labor and industry-a respect which the slaveowners of ancient Athens and the landlords of the Middle Ages could not acquire. In the next place, since the idea of progress had to do with this world, it was necessary to shake off the dominance of other-worldliness and to think in secular terms; the recovery of ancient learning in the renaissance and the commercial revolution to which reference has been made favored this shift from heaven to earth. Finally, the idea of progress could not flourish until thinkers had cast overboard their slavish adherence to ancient books; natural science, with its emphasis on experimentation, the observation of common things, and invention, was necessary to clear the way for the emancipation of the mind from the despotism of theology and the classics. By the end of the seventeenth century, when all the American colonies except one, had been fairly started on their course, the ground was prepared for the rise and growth of the idea of progress-the steady improvement of the lot of mankind in this world as a good in itself, as a value in itself, without any reference whatever to a possible life after death. (page 9)