A Troubling Forgetfulness
There is abroad in our age a singular fascination with progress. It sweeps through laboratories, workshops, universities, and even quiet parlors where the latest marvel is praised as though it were a herald of some approaching golden dawn. So called "Great Men" speak of advancement as if it were an unquestionable good, a river that must be followed wherever it may flow. They hurry after it with an almost religious zeal, convinced that all increase in power must lead to some increase in human happiness. The word progress has become a charm that soothes unease and silences hesitating voices.
Yet beneath this glittering pursuit there lies a troubling forgetfulness. For the very ones who promise to open new worlds often fail to reflect upon the world that already exists. Their attention is fixed so fiercely upon what may be accomplished next that they scarcely pause to consider whether the accomplishment should be pursued. They are absorbed by the thrill of possibility and the promise of making tomorrow different than today, and in that excitement they overlook the fact that tomorrow is never an abstraction. It is a home for living souls.
In many corners of modern inquiry one encounters this same restless certainty. If a thing can be done, then surely it must be done. If a boundary can be crossed, then surely it ought not to stand. The race is always toward the next improvement, the next discovery, the next mastery over nature. The imagination grows intoxicated with power, and power begins to seem like virtue. Men persuade themselves that the expansion of human ability is the same as the elevation of human life, though the two may part company in ways both subtle and grave.
History offers repeated warnings, though we seldom heed them. One generation perfects a new engine or device, confident that it will usher in prosperity, only for the next generation to find that it has inherited both the marvel and its mischief. Another century unlocks the secrets of nature and congratulates itself on its cleverness, only to discover that it has also opened doors that prudence might have kept closed. The triumphs of progress have been many, yet each triumph has carried within it a burden no one thought to weigh.
This failure does not arise from malice but from a kind of narrowing of vision. The mind becomes so fixed upon the desired result that it cannot look to either side. It sees the shining reward ahead but not the shadows cast along the way. It sees the potential of the invention but not the human souls who will be shaped by it. The moral imagination, which ought to guide and temper the inventive spirit, grows quiet while the hunger for achievement grows loud.
There is a deep irony in this. The pursuit of progress is often defended as a service to humanity, yet it frequently disregards the needs and limits of that very humanity. A tool devised without consideration of its moral weight may become a master instead of a servant. A discovery made without foresight may bind the world in ways its discoverer never intended. It is not enough to expand the boundaries of what we can do. We must also expand the boundaries of our concern.
True advancement does not consist in rising to ever greater heights of power, but in learning to rise with wisdom. It requires the courage to question our own desires and the patience to examine the full shape of the future we are calling forth. Progress is only a blessing when it honors the dignity of the human person, the reality of our Creator, and the integrity of the world He made for us to inhabit. Otherwise it becomes a bright and perilous fire, beautiful to behold yet capable of consuming the very hands that kindle it.
Our age possesses extraordinary gifts, but it must also reclaim the virtue of reflection. The question that matters most is not what we can make but what we should make. If we learn to ask that question with sincerity, then progress may indeed lead us toward a more noble tomorrow. If we refuse to ask it, then no amount of brilliance will save us from repeating the oldest folly of mankind, the folly of reaching too swiftly for powers which we have no right to bear.
And withal the reef of Science that these little “scientists” built and are yet building is so wonderful, so portentous, so full of mysterious half-shapen promises for the mighty future of man! They do not seem to realise the things they are doing! (Wells, The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth)
