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his trade. The rule in question-when applied to the task of estimating the worth of inventions claiming to produce revolutionary effects in any industry—is necessarily, in the majority of cases, more or less irrelevant, because such an invention should be regarded not so much as a proposed innovation in an old trade as the creation of a new one.

George Stephenson's ideas on the transport of passengers and goods were almost unanimously condemned by the experts of his day who were engaged in that line of business. On points relating to wheels of waggons and the harness of horses, the opinions of these men were probably worth something; but in relation to steam locomotives, carriages and trucks running upon rails, their judgment was not merely worthless, but a good deal worse; it was indeed actually misleading, because based on a pretence of knowledge of a trade which was to be called into existence to compete with their own. "Great is Diana of the Ephesians" said the artificers of old; and on the strength of their expert knowledge in the making of idols they set themselves up as judges of systems of theology and morality. The argument, although based on self-interest subjectively, was nevertheless intended to carry weight even among persons who wished

to judge the questions in dispute according to their merits, and most of the latter were only too ready to accept the implied dictum that men who work about a temple must be experts in theology! The principles upon which Royal Commissions and Select Committees are sometimes appointed and entrusted with the onerous duty of deciding upon farreaching industrial problems, affecting the progress of trade and manufactures in the present day, involve exactly the same kind of fallacy. Men are selected to pronounce judgment upon the proposals of their rivals in trade, and narrow-minded specialists to give their opinions upon projects which essentially belong to the border lands between two or more branches of industry, and cannot be understood by persons not possessing a knowledge of both.

Yet the world's work goes on apace; and as capital is accumulated and seeks to find new outlets the multiplication of industrial projects must continue in spite of every discouragement. This process will go on at a rate even faster than that which was exhibited at the beginning of the nineteenth century; but in watching the course of advancement, the world must take count of ideas rather than of the names of those who may have

claims to rank as the originators of ideas. While for purposes of convenience, history labels certain great inventive movements, each with the name of one pre-eminent individual who has contributed largely to its success, nothing like a due appraisement of the services rendered by other men is ever attempted. It is not even as if the commanding general should by public acclamation receive all the applause for a successful campaign to the exclusion of his lieutenants. The pioneers in each great department of invention have generally acted as forerunners of the men whose names have become the most famous. They have borne much of the heat and burden of the day, while their successors have reaped the fruits of triumph. Mr. Herbert Spencer's strong protest against the part assigned by some writers in the mental and industrial evolution of the human race to the influence of great men is certainly fully justified, if the attribute of greatnsss is to be ascribed only to those whose names figure in current histories. The parts performed by others, whose fate it may have been to have fallen into comparatively unfavourable environments, may have entitled them even more eminently to the acclamation of greatness.

The world in such a matter asks, reason

ably enough under the circumstances, Shall we omit to honour any of the great men who have played important parts in an industrial movement, assigning as our motive the difficulty of enumerating so many names? For the encouragement of those to whom the ambition for fame acts as a great stimulus to self-devotion in the interests of human progress, it is unavoidable that some men should be singled out and made heroes, while the much more numerous class of those who have also done great work, but who have not been quite so successful, must pass out of the ken of all, excepting the few who possess an expert knowledge of the various subjects which they have taken in hand.

Still the distortion to which history has been subjected through its biographical mode of treatment must always be reckoned with as a factor of possible error by any one attempting to read the riddle of the past, and it may offer a still more dangerous snare to one who tries to deduce the future course of events from the evidences of the past, and the promises which they hold out. People are naturally prone to take it for granted that the world's progress during the first part of the twentieth century depends upon the future work of those inventors and industrial promoters whose names

have become most famous during the latter half of the nineteenth. But this personal treatment of the subject will be found to be in the last degree unsatisfactory, when judged in the light both of past experience and of some of the utterances of those eminent inventors who have tried to forecast the future in their own particular lines of research.

If, therefore, we look at the whole subject from the entirely impersonal point of view, and face the task of forecasting the progress of industry during the twentieth century, in this aspect we shall find that we have entered upon a chapter in the evolution of the human race-dealing, in fact, with a branch of anthropology. We see certain industrial and inventive forces at work, producing certain initial effects, but plainly, as yet, falling immeasurably short of an entire fulfilment of their possibilities; setting to work a multitude of busy brains, planning and arranging, and gradually preparing the minds of the more apathetic portion of humanity for the reception of new ideas and the adoption of improved methods of life and of work. Whither is it all tending? Will the twentieth century bring about as great a change upon the earth-man's habitat-as the nineteenth did? Or have the possibilities of really great and effective industrial re