Each of these springs of faith had its origin in the previous period. The French Revolution itself was the first child of romanticism in the form in which it tinged Rousseau. James Watt obtained his patent for his steam-engine in 1769. The scientific advance was the glory of France and of French influence, throughout the same century. Also even during this earlier period, the streams interacted, coalesced, and antagonised each other. But it was not until the nineteenth century that the threefold movement came to that full development and peculiar balance characteristic of the sixty years following the battle of Waterloo. What is peculiar and new to the century, differentiating it from all its predecessors, is its technology. It was not merely the introduction of some great isolated inventions. It is impossible not to feel that something more than that was involved. For example, writing was a greater invention than the steam-engine. But in tracing the continuous history of the growth of writing we find an immense difference from that of the steam-engine. We must, of course, put aside minor and sporadic anticipations of both; and confine attention to the periods of their effective elaboration. The scale of time is so absolutely disparate. For the steam-engine, we may give about a hundred years; for writing, the time period is of the order of a thousand years. Further, when writing was finally popularised, the world was not then expecting the next step in technology. The process of change was slow, unconscious, and unexpected. In the nineteenth century, the process became quick, conscious, and expected. The earlier half of the century was the period in which this new attitude to change was first established and enjoyed. It was a peculiar period of hope, in the sense in which, sixty or seventy years later, we can now detect a note of disillusionment, or at least of anxiety. The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention. A new method entered into life. In order to understand our epoch, we can neglect all the details of change, such as railways, telegraphs, radios, spinning machines, synthetic dyes. We must concentrate on the method in itself; that is the real novelty, which has broken up the foundations of the old civilisation. The prophecy of Francis Bacon has now been fulfilled; and man, who at times dreamt of himself as a little lower than the angels, has submitted to become the servant and the minister of nature. It still remains to be seen whether the same actor can play both parts.