Civilisation was the agricultural surplus. It
appeared as trade and tracks and roads, it pushed boats out upon the
rivers and presently invaded the seas, and within its primitive courts,
within temples grown rich and leisurely and amidst the gathering medley
of the seaport towns rose speculation and philosophy and science, and
the beginning of the new order that has at last established itself
as human life. Slowly at first, as we traced it, and then with an
accumulating velocity, the new powers were fabricated. Man as a whole
did not seek them nor desire them; they were thrust into his hand. For
a time men took up and used these new things and the new powers
inadvertently as they came to him, recking nothing of the consequences.
For endless generations change led him very gently. But when he had
been led far enough, change quickened the pace. It was with a series of
shocks that he realised at last that he was living the old life less and
less and a new life more and more.
Already before the release of atomic energy the tensions between the old
way of living and the new were intense. They were far intenser than they
had been even at the collapse of the Roman imperial system. On the one
hand was the ancient life of the family and the small community and
the petty industry, on the other was a new life on a larger scale, with
remoter horizons and a strange sense of purpose.
Pages:
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201