We are still in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. We had better be, for we have many things to put right in it. But it has made our world richer, smaller, and for the first time ours. And I mean that literally: our world, everybody" s world.
From its earliest beginnings, when it was still dependent on water power, the Industrial Revolution was terribly cruel to those whose lives and livelihood it overturned. Revolutions are—it is their nature, because by definition revolutions move too fast for those whom they strike. We still live in the middle of the Industrial Revolution and find it hard to see its implications, but the future will say of it that in the ascent of man it is a step, a stride, as powerful as the Renaissance. The Renaissance established the dignity of man. The Industrial Revolution established the unity of nature.