I do not contest the truth of the principle of continuity
on which this view is based. But it fails to make known to us the
whole truth. The building of a ship from the time that her keel is
laid until she is making her way across the ocean is a slow and
gradual process; yet there is a cataclysmic epoch opening up a new
era in her history. It is the moment when, after lying for months
or years a dead, inert, immovable mass, she is suddenly endowed
with the power of motion, and, as if imbued with life, glides into
the stream, eager to begin the career for which she was designed.
I think it is thus in the development of humanity. Long ages may
pass during which a race, to all external observation, appears to
be making no real progress. Additions may be made to learning, and
the records of history may constantly grow, but there is nothing
in its sphere of thought, or in the features of its life, that can
be called essentially new. Yet, Nature may have been all along
slowly working in a way which evades our scrutiny, until the
result of her operations suddenly appears in a new and
revolutionary movement, carrying the race to a higher plane of
civilization.
It is not difficult to point out such epochs in human progress.
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