Hans insists on the legacy of a century of Victorian progress, industrialization starting ever-faster change, which becomes self-feeding, raising the question if it's really progress. The he illustrates similar self-questioning by late 19 century-people, notably author Frederik Vanden Eede, who survived the Great War which wiped his generation's optimism away, cruelly disproving the great optimism in such matters as pacifism. Yet the balance may be positive if one considers scientific, technological and social progress, which new industrializing countries bid for nowadays.
—KGF Vissers