of opinion and aspiration are present in unequal degrees in the two contrasted classes ; in the conservatives the conventional groiinds of finality dominate and bear down the matter-of-fact knowledge of things, while the converse ia true of the iconoclasts. Contrasted with earlier times and other cultural regions the consensus, the general drift, of the modern Western culture as a whole is of an iconoclastic character ; while the class contrast here in question lies only within the range of this Western cultural consensus. As one or the other of the two contrasted proclivities — recour.'^e to conventional precedents and recourse to matter-of-fact insight — gains and overbalances the other, the general cultural movement will drift toward a more conservative (archaic), conventional position or
CIVILIZATION AND THE MACHINE PROCESS 345
toward a more iconoclastic, materialifltic position. During modem times the cultural drift has set in the latter direction. With due but not large exceptions, the effective body of the modem population has been growing more matter-of-fact in their thinking, less