and they called it progress

[lordgyllene]

I am trying to trace the source and exact wording for a paragraph from a 1930s? novel.
It concerns man's exploitation of the earth's natural resources -oil, coal, gas etc - which had taken all eternity to lay down.
The paragraph ends with the comment "and they called it progress"

[Vicasso]

Found this, novel published 1948

"Just consider what they were up to during the century and a half before the Thing. Fouling the rivers, killing off the wild animals, destroying the forests , washing the topsoil into the sea, burning up an ocean of petroleum, squandering the minerals it had taken the whole of ecological time to deposit. An orgy of criminal imbecility. And they called it Progress."

-Aldous Huxley

'Ape and Essence'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape_and_Essence

[lordgyllene]

Thankyou Vicasso. That is the exact item for which I had been searching in vain .

[Vicasso]

You're most welcome :-)