The Carlisle independent., 1910-05-12

them mas broken down the iron barriers of Moslem conservatism, so that their intro duction has become a burning question in Turkey and Persia; while the very unrest the impatience of European or American control, in India. Egypt, or the Philip pines, takes the form of demanding that the government be assimilated more close ly to what it is in England or the United States. The deeds and works of any great statesman, the preachings of any great ethical. social. or political teacher. now find echoes in both hemispheres and in every continent. From a new discovery in science to a new method of combating or applying Socialism, there Is no movement of note which can take place in any part of the globe without powerfully affecting masses of people in Europe. America, and Australia. in Asia and Africa For veal or for woe, the peoples Of mankind are knit together far closer than ever before.
 So much for the geographical side of the expansion of modern civilization. But only a few of the many and intense ac- tivities of modern civilization have found their expression on this side. The move ment has been just as striking in its con quest over natural forces, In its searching inquiry into and about the soul of things.
 Conquest Over Nature.
 The conquest over nature has included an extraordinary increase in every form of knowledge of the world we live in, and also an extraordinary increase in the pow CT of utilizing forces of nature. In both directions the advance has been very great during the past four or five cen turies. and in both directions 1t has gone on with ever increasing rapidity during the last century. After the great age of Rome had passed, the boundaries of knowledge shrank, and in many cases 1t was not until well-nigh our own times that her domain was once again pushed T tl, year 150 A. D. Ptolemy, the geographer. published his map of central Africa and the sources of the Nile, and this map was more accurate than any which we had as late as 1850 A. D. More was known of physical science, and more of the truth about the physical world was guessed at, in the days of Pliny, than was known or guessed until the modern movement be- gan. The case was the same as regards military science. At the close of the Mid de Ages the weapons were what they had always been-sword. shield. bow, spear; and any improvement in them was more than offset by the loss in knowledge of military organization, in the science of war. and in military leadership since the days of Hannibal and Caesar.
 X hundred years ago, when this uni- versity was founded, the methods of transportation did not differ in the es- sentials from what they had been among the highly civilized nations of antiquity. Travellers and merchandise went by land in wheeled vehicles or on beasts of bur den, and by sea in boats propelled by sails or by oars; and news was conveyed as it always had been conveyed. A grad uate of your university today can go to mid-Asia or mid-Africa with far less con- seriousness of performing a feat of note than would have been the case a hundred years ago with student who visited Sicily and Andalusia-
 Moreover. the invention and use of ma chinery run by steam or electricity have worked revolution in industry as great as the revolution in transportation; so that here again the difference between ancient and modern civilization is one not merely of degree but of kind. In many vital respects the huge modern city differs more from all preceding cities than any of these differed one from the other; and the giant factory town is of and by Itself one of the most formidable problems of modern life
 Steam and electricity have given the race dominion over land and water such as it never had before; and now the con- quest of the air is directly impending. As books preserve thought through time, so the telegraph and the telephone transmit it through the space they annihilate, and therefore minds are swayed one by an- other without regard to the limitations of
 
 each community to work in comparative isolation. It is the same with the body as with the brain. The machinery of the fac tory and the farm enormously multiplies bodily skill and vigor. Countless trained intelligences are at work to teach us how to avoid or counteract the effects of waste.
 In the Realm of Intellect.
 The advances In the realm of pure intel Iect have been of equal note, and they have been both intensive and extensive Great virgin fields of learning and wis dom have been discovered by the few, and at the same time knowledge has spread among the many to a degree never dreamed of before Old men among us have seen in their own generation the rise of the first rational science of the evolution of life. The astronomer and the chemist, the psychologist and the his torian, and all their brethren in many diff ferent fields of wide endeavor, work with a training and knowledge and method which are in effect instruments of pre- cision differentiating their labors from the labors of their predecessors as the rife Is differentiated from the bow.
 The play of new forces is as evident in the moral and spiritual world as in the world of the mind and the body.
 One Danger of Civilization.
 One of the prime dangers of civilization has always been its tendency to cause the loss Of the virile fighting virtues, of the fighting edge When men get too com- fortable and lead too luxurious lives there is always danger lest the softness eat like an acid into their manliness of fiber The barbarian because of the very conditions of his life, is forced to keep and develop certain hardy qualities which the man of civilization tends to lose, whether he be clerk, factory hand. merchant, or even certain type of farmer. Now I will not assert that in modern civilized society these tendencies have been wholly over come; but there has been much more successful effort to overcome them than was the case in the early civilizations. This is curiously shown by the military history of the Graeco-Roman period as compared with the history of the last four or five centuries here in Europe and among nations of European descent In the Grecian and Roman military history the change was steadily from a citizen army to an army of mercenaries. In the days of the early greatness of Athens. Thebes, and Sparta, in the days when the Roman republic conquered what world 1t knew, the armies were filled with citizen soldiers. But gradually the citizens re- fused to serve in the armies, or became unable to render good service. The Greek states described by Polybius. with but few exceptions, hired others to do their fight ing for them. The Romans of the days of Augustus had utterly ceased to furnish ,1,-xr v-s 1l