The people are beginning to think, to reason and to investigate. Slowly,
painfully, but surely, the gods are being driven from the earth. Only
upon rare occasions are they, even by the most religious, supposed to
interfere in the affairs of men. In most matters we are at last supposed
to be free. Since the invention of steamships and railways, so that the
products of all countries can be easily interchanged, the gods have quit
the business of producing famine.