But we are challenged by the question: What is the good of annihilating the necessity for bodily toil? Will not man degenerate spiritually as he comes to possess luxury at cheaper and cheaper rates? These material advantages gained by useful invention which create a steady and permanent supply of food, clothing, and shelter, are they not mere sumptuary provisions and do they imply progress in civilisation? To this challenge we reply by pointing out the relation of invention to the communication of intelligence and the diffusion of knowledge by newspaper and book. In the first place it is obvious that the three classes of employments devoted chiefly to the supply of the physical wants—namely agriculture, manufactures, and commerce—are undergoing change by aid of mechanic invention in such a manner as to bring the laborer everywhere more and more into relation with his fellow men. In other words commerce increases more and more, and becomes a part of all employments. In exchanging goods each gets something that he needed more than what he parted with. But the best result of the exchange is the acquaintance formed between producer and consumer. Each has learned something of the other’s ideas, modes of looking at the world and habits of action. Each one’s life is enriched by the addition of the knowledge of the life of the other. Man as a spiritual being has for his problem the exploration of the two worlds—the worlds of nature and man. The problem is too great for the individual and he must avail himself of the work of others. Each man may inventory a small portion of nature different from all others. Each one may live a life different from another’s. But the individual gets a very small glimpse of nature by the aid of his own senses. He gets a very small arc of the total of human life in his survey of his own biography. But by intercommunication each one may extend and supplement his own observations of nature and of the experience of life,—he may avail himself of the aid of the sense-perceptions of others and still more of the aid of the thoughts and reflections of others. We see at once that man is man because he possesses and uses this means of re-enforcing his individual observations and reflections by those of the race. Man is an individual endowed with the power of absorbing the results of the race. We have with this a definition of civilisation and a standard of measurement by which we may determine the rate of progress. Advancement means that there are improved means realised by which each individual can give to the rest of mankind the results of his living and doing and thinking and at the same time share in the lives, thoughts, and deeds of others.