Principles of western civilisation

x THE MODERN WORLD-CONFLICT 337

at the beginning of the eighteenth century it must have appeared to the reflective mind, that, so far as progress in the arts and sciences, and in general material results were concerned, the interval which, up to that time, had been placed between our civilisation and that of the ancient Roman world had not been, on the whole, very considerable. Yet since that time—that is to say, during a brief period of some two hundred years—our Western world has been transformed. The increase in natural resources, in wealth, in population, and in the distance which has been placed between our modern civilisation and any past condition of the race, has been enormous. During the last half of this period, that is to say, during the nineteenth century alone, while the population of the rest of the world remained nearly stationary, the actual numbers of the European peoples rose from 170,000,000 to 500,000,000. The impetus from which this increase proceeded continues, moreover, to be so immense that we may even accept the assertion that there is ‘‘a reasonable probability that, unless some great internal change should take place in the ideas and conduct of the European races themselves, this population of 500,000,000 will in another century become one of 1,500,000,000 to 2,000,000,000”’;* the remainder of the population of the world being, so far as can be seen, destined to remain comparatively stationary.

These figures are to be taken only as an index to the stupendous changes which have taken place, and which are still in progress, beneath the surface

) Address to the Manchester Statistical Soctety, October 1900, by Sir Robert Giffen, see p. 15. : 2 bid. UZ,