Walter Bagehot

And in addition, and beyond particular inventions, there is a general strength which is capable of being used in conquering a thousand difficulties, and is an abiding source of happiness, because those who possess it always feel that they…

If we omit the higher but disputed topics of morals and religion, we shall find, I think, that the plainer and agreed--on superiorities of the Englishmen are these: first, that they have a greater command over the powers of nature upon the…

The English not only possess better machines for moving nature, but are themselves better machines.

Babbage taught us years ago that one great use of machinery was not to augment the force of man, but to register and regulate the power of man; and this in a thousand ways civilised man can do, and is ready to do, better and more precisely…

Thirdly, | civilised man not only has greater powers over nature, but knows better how to use them, and by better I here mean better for the health and comfort of his present body and mind.

On the whole the plainer sort of civilisation, the simpler moral training, and the more elementary education are plain benefits.

And though there may be doubt as to the edges of the conception yet there certainly is a broad road of 'verifiable progress' which not only discoverers and admirers will like, but which all those who come upon it will use and value.

Unless some kind of abstraction like this is made in the subject the great problem 'What causes progress?' will, I am confident, long remain unsolved.

Unless we are content to solve simple problems first, the whole history of philosophy teaches that we shall never solve hard problems.

Everyone that makes an invention that benefits himself or those around him, is likely to be more comfortable himself and to be more respected by those around him.

To produce new things 'serviceable to man's life and conducive to man's estate,' is, we should say, likely to bring increased happiness to the producer.

Nature is like a schoolmaster, at least in this, she gives her finest prizes to her high and most instructed classes; Still, even in the earliest society, nature helps those who can help themselves, and helps them very much.

All this should have made the progress of mankind--progress at least in this limited sense-exceedingly common; but, in fact, any progress is extremely rare.

As a rule (and as has been insisted on before) a stationary state is by far the most frequent condition of man, as far as history describes that condition; the progressive state is only a rare and an occasional exception.

It is a great advance in civilisation to be able to describe the common facts of life, and perhaps, if we were to examine it, we should find that it was at least an equal advance to wish to describe them.

But very few races have made this step of progress; very few have been capable even of the meanest sort of history; and as for writing such a history as that of Thucydides, most nations could as soon have constructed a planet.

When history begins to record, she finds most of the races incapable of history, arrested, unprogressive, and pretty much where they are now.

Why, then, have not the obvious and natural causes of progress (as we should call them) produced those obvious and natural effects?

Why have the real fortunes of mankind been so different from the fortunes which we should expect?

The progress of MAN requires the co--operation of MEN for its development.

The rudest sort of cooperative society, the lowest tribe and the feeblest government, is so much stronger than isolated man, that isolated man (if he ever existed in any shape which could be called man), might very easily have ceased to…

The co-operation in all such cases depends on a FELT UNION of heart and spirit; and this is only felt when there is a great degree of real likeness in mind and feeling, however that likeness may have been attained.

The necessity of thus forming co-operative groups by fixed customs explains the necessity of isolation in early society.

Greece, Borne, Judaea, were framed each by itself, and the antipathy of each to men of different race and different speech is one of their most marked peculiarities, and quite their strongest common property.

Intercourse with foreigners then broke down in states the fixed rules which were forming their characters, so as to be a cause of weak fibre of mind, of desultory and unsettled action; the living spectacle of an admitted unbelief destroys…