The worshippers of the present and the admirers of America argue, more or less consciously, from a definition of progress which would identify it with the increase of the power and speed of machines, of riches, and of our control over nature, however much that control may involve the frenzied squandering of the resources of the earth, which, while immense, are not inexhaustible. And their arguments are sound in their application to the present age, and also to America, if we grant that their definition of progress is the true one. For though steam- and electricity-driven machinery claims Europe as its birthplace, it has reached maturity and has accomplished and is accomplishing its most extraordinary feats in America, where, so to speak, it found virgin soil to exploit. But the opposite school indignantly denies that men are wasting their time and contributing nothing to the improvement and progress of the world, when they strive to embellish it or to instruct it, to soothe and to restrain its unbridled passions. In their view, the masterpieces of art, the great religions, the discoveries of science, the speculations of philosophy, the reform of laws, customs, and constitutions, are milestones along the road to progress. According to these, our age, intent only on making money, ought to be ashamed when it compares itself with the past. Machines are the barbarians of modern times, which have destroyed the fairest works of ancient civilisations. History will show the discovery of America to have been little less than a calamity.