ABSTRACT
Inventions came comparatively slowly, but included many of the first importance: the clock, glass, printing and paper, scientific method, the university, the factory. The eotechnic phase lasted, with variations from country to country, from the Middle Ages to the middle of the eighteenth century. In the conditions of life which have accompanied this sweeping and accelerating advance towards the mastery of the world, good and bad have been mixed. The point was rather that, in the rush of events at the beginning of a dynamic age, changing more swiftly than in any previous human experience, society had lost control. The most fundamental factor of all in the size and nature and distribution of the national income, as in every other type of social relationship, is of course ethics. Decisions about what needs to be done depend in the last resort on people's ideas of right and wrong; their cultural norms or ethical standards.
