| There is a common misconception that increasing progress and prosperity have been the norm for as long as human beings have been around. History reveals that this is decidedly not the case. Imagine, for example, that the Roman statesman Cicero in the year 50 B.C. was magically invited to visit Thomas Jefferson at Monticello more than 1,800 years later. Cicero would travel to Virginia the same way Jefferson would have had to visit Rome all those years later. He would ride a horse to the nearest port and trust his fate to a windblown ship. When Cicero arrived at Monticello months later, things would look quite familiar. Jefferson's home was heated by fire in the winter and the doors and windows were left wide open in the summer, the same as in ancient Rome. Jefferson would read by candlelight, eat mostly what he grew, use an outhouse and be attended by his slaves, the same as Romans 18 centuries earlier. Cicero would learn that most of Jefferson's six children did not survive early childhood. Nothing new there. This was sadly the case for most of human history. Except for a few notable innovations - like the printing press, gunpowder and the compass - life in 1800 was hardly distinguishable from life two millennia earlier. Since then, however, there has been an explosion in human progress and prosperity. | 
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