V

THE FUTURE

361

the same domestic animals which we haveto-day, wheat, barley, the vine and the olive,the plough, the wheel, the oar, the sail, leather,linen and cloth, bricks and pots, gold and silver,copper, tin, and lead—and iron was added tothe list before 1000 b.c. —banking, statecraft,mathematics, astronomy, and religion. Thereis no record of when we first possessed thesethings.

At some epoch before the dawn of history—perhaps even in one of the comfortable intervalsbefore the last ice age—there must have beenan era of progress and invention comparable tothat in which we live to-day. But through thegreater part of recorded history there wasnothing of the kind.

The modern age opened, I think, with theaccumulation of capital which began in thesixteenth century. I believe—for reasons withwhich I must not encumber the present argu-ment—that this was initially due to the rise ofprices, and the profits to which that led, whichresulted from the treasure of gold and silverwhich Spain brought from the New World intothe Old. From that time until to-day the powerof accumulation by compound interest, whichseems to have been sleeping for many genera-tions, was re-born and renewed its strength.And the power of compound interest over twohundred years is such as to stagger the imagina-tion.

Let me give in illustration of this a sum whichI have worked out. The value of Great Britain ’s