Progress and the accumulation of Knowledge

If progress is real … it is not because we are born any healthier, better, or wiser than infants were in the past, but because we are born to a richer heritage, born on a higher level of that pedestal which the accumulation of knowledge and art raises as the ground and support of our being.

From the Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant.

Here then is a heuristic through which we can measure the impact of a technology and its contribution to Progress.