And the change brought a transfiguration. It was as if the human soul had entered a new body, or as if the human body had received a new soul. Not least among the significant evidences of the new life were the rise of the study of history and the awakening of a keener and more practical interest in men and things the wide world over. With its valuable accounts of the manifold experiences of different peoples and different times, at last seen to be real parts even of the life present and at hand, the study of history became wonderfully absorbing and inspiring; and not less valuable than this travel in time was the travel in space, the real travel or the imaginary, which accompanied it. Furthermore, such ideas as balance of power and preservation of the worth and integrity of the individual nation, and division of labour and right of free speech and of political and religious liberty, developed into most powerful influences in the life and consciousness of society. And, to return definitely to the single person, he found himself, not in spite of, but because of his [p.228] special place and special standpoint, an active participant in the effective life of his time. Instead of being a mere soldier as before, he found himself a mechanic; certainly the proper inhabitant of a mechanically productive nature. Doubtless the term soldier lends itself more readily to philosophical generalization than the term mechanic. Perhaps, too, distance in time lends enchantment to the view, for the day of the soldier was, while the day of the mechanic is. The day of the soldier has reached the stage of romance and reflection, while the day of the mechanic suffers from what is commonplace and prosaic, from the associations of a particular life, from dust and smoke and factories, from tools and utilities. Yet the mechanic must be the romantic figure of the future. He is the typical individual of these modern times, of these times of the free because practical thinker, and of a nature not lifelessly mechanical but mechanically productive. Forget the grimy hands and the noisy machinery, the overshadowing smoke and the apparent absorption in mere utility, and think only of the man, who in his best moments feels himself individually responsible and capable, who believes in himself as having at once a peculiar and a necessary part in the real life of his time, and who expresses himself through some skilful mastery over the resources of nature, applying to them the principles his own thinking has uncovered, and using her machinery to the ends of his own nature, which, as we have seen, is bounded only by the "unity of experience."