We must move on to a new principle of spiritual and material progress.

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In Jiashan township, the mayor shows off a large blackboard advertising the material progress made by the district's 24, 000 people.

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Mr Bronk next asks whether faith in progress, and specifically in market-driven material progress, is as well-grounded now as it was in the 18th century.

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We could hope, as we listened, that on this great issue, like others demanding answers now -- bringing our fiscal house in order, restoring equality of opportunity to our economy, ending our country's sick obsession with guns -- that future Inaugural addresses would be able to note the kind of material progress that we have seen with regard to combating racism or ending wars.

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But I am confident that we can actually meet the goal that we set in the first Washington summit, which is in four years to have made extraordinary progress in making sure that loose nuclear material is not vulnerable to smuggling or to potential terrorist plots.

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At the same time, there has been rapid progress in the machines that supply the raw material the sequences of genetic letters and codons in chromosomes.

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This incessant march of energy density (more energy per unit of raw material) has undeniable logic extending along the entire length of the arrow of progress.

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