"Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up the nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them."

- Emerson

Human progression is truly uncertain. For some reason, we have come to believe that a man born today would be better off than a man born 200 years ago, if placed in the same circumstances. Sure, their genes would differ, but there is no evidence that the former would prove wiser, braver, or stronger. The differing circumstances is what has defined history, and consequently affected the status of man, not the individual himself. The individual is simply the means for shaping or conforming to the circumstances.