but that every chance brings with it a twofold possibility. If we seize it and use it rightly, we go up by means of it; if we fail to understand it, or miss it, or abuse it, we fall just so much lower on account of it. If we live in a world of machinery and steam, and cannot learn to command machinery and steam, we shall count for no more than a handful of coal; if we rise to the occasion, and by work and study make steam and machinery our servants, we can be emancipated from drudgery and from the wear of the nerves and the muscles. The true hardship of our time is that this alternative is forced upon us over and over again with pitiless repetition.
In a wider and more philosophical view of the matter, every new application of science and every improvement in art, is a case of advancing organization. It always comes with two faces—one, its effect on what is and what has been; the other, its effect on what may be. Its effect on what is and has been is destructive; hence the doctrine that "the better is the greatest foe of the good." Its effect on what may be is creative; results before impossible are now brought within reach. The cost is the sacrifice of the old and the strain to rise to the command of the new.
The effect on our social life of a misapprehension of the relations between modern arts and wages or any ther feature of the economic organization is trifling as compared with the effects of misapprehension of the moral and educating effects of the same arts. It is asserted that there is a moral loss in the sacrifice of skill, and "all-round" efficiency, and dexterity of manipulation. The moral and educating effect on the race of a constant demand to hold the powers alert and on strain to understand and keep up with the "march of progress," transcends immeasurably any similar moral or educating
