A major concern in "The Jewel of Seven Stars" is the tension between the Old World and the New in terms of progress. The late nineteenth century was a time of invention and modernization, and the novel constantly questions the power of the past in comparison to these modern technological and scientific innovations. Senf argues that "Stoker was aware of the scientific and cultural developments that were taking place around the turn of the century, that he was fascinated with technological developments…Stoker sometimes saw the future as full of infinite possibilities for improvement, sometimes as totally at the mercy of primitive forces". This is demonstrated in the appropriately titled chapter, "Powers—Old and New", in which Malcolm considers the consequences of Tera's resurrection on existing British beliefs. The direction of his thoughts in this chapter, which was notably deleted from the 1912 edition, seems to indicate that ancient Egyptian society was more progressive than nineteenth-century England, both spiritually and scientifically: