It is an age of material advancement, and in those lines in which the human mind can "seek out many inventions." The whole trend of human thought is under transformation.

In ancient days "a man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon thick trees." The man is famous now who makes some useful mechanical invention, or explores some unknown territory, or bridges the oceans with swift steamers, or belts the earth with new railways, or organizes powerful financial combinations.

If the law of demand and supply is as applicable to mental products as it is to the imports of commerce, then we may readily understand that the realm of the ideal, which was ruled by the Wordsworths, Carlyles and Longfellows, should be supplanted by a realm in which the master minds should be political economists, or explorers, or railway kings, or financial magnates, or empire-builders of some description.

The philosophical and poetical yield to the practical, when "_cui bono ?_" is the lest question which challenges all comers.

This change, if it be an actual one, may bring its losses as well as its gains.