THE PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 20 June 1931, Page 10

THE PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION

A SUPERIOR NATION “There is a feeling abroad to-day, that modern civilisation is on the wane, but, if so, no one can foretell the day of its doom or indicate if such its fate where it would reappear,” said Sir Thomas Olive] 1 , Professor of Medicine, .University of Durham, in his presidential address to ‘the Institute of Hygiene. “It is hardly likely that with international contacts so well established there will be, as in the past, a disappearance and a rebirth of civilisation, but rather the gradual rise of a superior nation above its fellows, and that it will lead tlie way. No matter what period in the world’s history we take, it has appar-

cntlv always been tlie custom for the depreciatory statement to be made that the times are not so good as formerly, while on the other hand, this has been countermet by the remark that things are in each succeeding age better than they have been, amt that the Golden Age is

still afront of us. . . This, age is making history. In the centuries to follow the present period will be spoken of as that of great- inventions, and of the achievements of physics and chemistry. These will form a chapter in the history of the world, not less far-reach-ing in its consequences, but probably more so than that which gave birth to Galileo and Copernicus.”