The Press Monday, July 6, 1925. Railways and Civilisation.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18426, 6 July 1925, Page 8

The Press Monday, July 6, 1925. Railways and Civilisation.

It must have seemed to most readers of the cable message, on Saturday morning 1 that the centenary of "Puffing «Bijly" is the centenary of modern industry, and almost of modern civilisation. We can no longer imagine what life was like before the railways, and we are fast approaching: the stfige when we shall not be able to think of progress, happiness or culture except in terms of rapid movement. The difficulty already is to believe that the first train was run only a hundred years since, and not live hundred years ago or a thousand. All the material things by which Ave live and move and have our being have come to us by rail, even to the houses that we live in. A\e owe it to Stephenson both that we have built up the richest civilisation, measured in pelf and power, that the world has yet seen, and that we have done our best during the Inst decade to wreck it. There could have been no industrial revolution, no conquering of Indian famines or Australian droughts, 110 seven-million London or hundred-million United Stales, without steam-engines; but it is just as certain that there could have been no Great War. And it is not quite certain that our steam-engine civilisation will last longer than it took to build up. An enthusiastic New Yorker wrote the other day that only America could " solve the riddle of the mechanical " Sphinx"; but if the Sphinx has a riddle, and the rest of the world does not find the answer as soon as Chicago and New York, the discovery will not be worth announcing. We were told ' only u week ago that we are " speedily j " approaching .the stage when life will " be sustained mentally rather than by "physical power" —when Ave shall be afraid to go out of doors, cook our oAvn meals, divide our coats from our trousers, or take off our hats; and if that is Avhat lies ahead of us on the authority of a -professor emeritus of engineering, " Puffing Billy" should have been'celebrated, with a bomb. In the days of our simplicity before the Great War we believed that human progress Avas /constantly upAvards, that Ave advanced from year to year and century to century, Avorking put the beast so rapidly that there Avould soon bo no ape or tiger left in us to fight Avith. But this is no longer the opinion either of the typical ignoramus or of the typical scholar. Someone took the trouble a feAv weeks ago to prepare sets of questions hearing on the future of civilisation, and to submit them to leading European scholars and men of science. One set of questions ran something like this, and Avas prepared especially for historians: 1. Is it possible to forecast the future hv analogies drawn from tho past 'i - ! 2. Is tho destruction of European civilisation conceivable? i -3. Will tho development of science promote or avert such destruction P It Avas submitted to Dr. Ernest Barker, Principal of King's College, London, and author of numerous books on Greek civilisation, English constitutional history and liistorical philosophy; to Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie, famous Egyptologist; to Professor J. Holland Rose of Cambridge, the greatest English authority on Napoleon; to Mr ,G. M. Trevelvan, a historian by tradition as Avell as by training, and a Avorldauthority on Italy; and to Professor A. E. Zimmern, author of "The Greek " ComnioiiAvealth." Dr. Barker, Sir W. Flinders Petrie, and' Mr Trevelyan ansAvered each question separately; Professor Eose answered the questions of the last tAvo groups, but refused to commit himself on the first, saying that they were " of a speculative nature, "and dogmatising about them is un-

" Aviso and even dangerous," Professor Zimmern disregarded the questionnaire and replied in the form of a general statement. The replies varied in regard to the possibility of forecasting the future by analogy. Professor Zimmern and Mr Trevelyan do not believe in such possibility; Professors Barker and Petrie admit it, but Avith qualifications. The replies also disagree as to the probability of a catastrophe sweeping away our ciA-ilisation. There is one point, however, on Avhidi they all agree, viz., that the greatest danger menacing our civilisation is the abuse of the achievements of science. '•'Mastery over the forces of Nature ''has endowed twentieth-century man " with a poAver Avhieh ho is not fit to " exercise. Unless the development of " morality catches up Avith the develop- " ment of teelmique, European liuman"ity is bound to destroy itself." In other words, Ave must develop a wisdom and restraint for Avhieh the century Ave arc celebrating has not prepared us or

we must perish. If wc continue to survive it will be as blond or black or yellow beasts, but no longer as civilised beings. And since no one beholding mankind can call it wise, the only hope for " Puffing Billy's " civilisation lies in the fact that the doctors differ, and that truth may lie safely between them. The historians are threatening us with bodies without souls; the mechanics and engineers with an existence in which our bodies, though they will still persist, will be so feeble, flabby, shrinking and repulsive that they will give no sinner an excuse for surrendering to them.