We no longer believe that progress is a necessary and automatic process, and that if men are left free to follow their own devices they will inevitably grow wiser and happier and more prosperous. We admit the reality of modern progress as a vast material achievement, but it means something very different from what our predecessors believed. Human life, like animal life, depends on a balance of forces, and if the balance is upset by the removal of restrictive factors, the process of readjustment is full of danger and difficulty.

Thus the rapid growth of wealth and population which followed on the Industrial Revolution does not continue indefinitely; it creates its own limits by calling into existence new restrictive forces. Machinery makes possible a vast expansion of industry, but it also leads to over-production and unemployment. Science increases man’s control over disease, but it also adds to the destructiveness of war. Colonial and economic expansion gives Europe the hegemony of the world, but it also awakens the hostility and rivalry of the oriental peoples. Capitalism creates new sources of wealth, but it also involves exploitation and social unrest.

Christopher Dawson