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HE DESTINY OF - 
 
 MAN «* •* «* «* •* •* •* 
 
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 n X fe^* t^* t^^ c^^ ^* t*5* ^5* v^' t^^ u^^ 
 
 SIR JOHN LUBBOCK A^ 
 
 
 Philadelphia jt jt J« & Jt 
 
 HENRY ALTEMUS 
 

 COPYRIGHTED 1896 
 
 by HENRY ALTEMUS 
 
 Henry Altemus, Manufacturer 
 philadelphia 
 
THE DESTINY OF MAN. 
 
" For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are 
 not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be 
 revealed in us." — Romans viii. 18. 
 
THE DESTINY OF MAN. 
 
 THOUGH we have thus a sure and certain 
 hope of progress for the race, still, as far as 
 man is individually concerned, with advancing 
 years we gradually care less and less for many 
 things which gave us the greatest pleasure in youth. 
 On the other hand, if our time has been well used, 
 if we have warmed both hands wisely " before the 
 fire of life,' ' we may gain even more than we lose. 
 If our strength becomes less, we feel also the less 
 necessity for exertion. Hope is gradually replaced 
 by memory : and whether this adds to our happi- 
 ness or not depends on what our life has been. 
 
 There are of course some lives which diminish 
 in value as old age advances, in which one pleas- 
 ure fades after another, and even those which re- 
 main gradually lose their zest; but there are 
 others which gain in richness and peace all, and 
 more, than that of which time robs them. 
 
 The pleasures of youth may excel in keenness 
 and in zest, but they have at the best a tinge of 
 anxiety and unrest ; they cannot have the fulness 
 and depth which may accompany the consolations 
 
 (5) 
 
6 THE DESTINY OF MAN. 
 
 of age, and are amongst the richest rewards of an 
 unselfish life. 
 
 For as with the close of the day, so with that of 
 life ;< there may be clouds, and yet if the horizon 
 is clear, the evening may be beautiful. 
 
 Old age has a rich store of memories. Life is 
 full of 
 
 " Joys too exquisite to last, 
 And yet more exquisite when past" 
 
 Swedenborg imagines that in heaven the angels 
 are advancing continually to the spring-time of 
 their youth, so that those who have lived longest 
 are really the youngest ; and have we not all had 
 friends who seem to fulfil this idea? who are in 
 reality — that is in mind — as fresh as a child : of 
 whom it may be said with more truth than of 
 Cleopatra that 
 
 " Age cannot wither nor custom stale 
 Their infinite variety. " 
 
 " When I consider old age, " says Cicero, "I 
 find four causes why it is thought miserable : one, 
 that it calls us away from the transaction of affairs; 
 the second, that it renders the body more feeble \ 
 the third, that it deprives us of almost all pleas- 
 ures ; the fourth, that it is not very far from 
 death. Of these causes let us see, if you please, 
 how great and how reasonable each of them is. " 
 
THE DESTINY OF MAN. 7 
 
 To be released from the absorbing affairs of life, 
 to feel that one has earned a claim to leisure and 
 repose, is surely in itself no evil. 
 
 To the second complaint against old age, I have 
 already referred in speaking of Health. 
 
 The third is that it has no passions. " O noble 
 privilege of age ! if indeed it takes from us that 
 which is in youth our greatest defect. " But the 
 higher feelings of our nature are not necessarily 
 weakened; or rather, they may become all the 
 brighter, being purified from the grosser elements 
 of our lower nature. 
 
 Then, indeed, it might be said that "Man is 
 the sun of the world ; more than the real sun. 
 The fire of his wonderful heart is the only light 
 and heat worth gauge or measure." 
 
 " Single, " says Manu, " is each man born 'into 
 the world ; single he dies; single he receives the 
 rewards of his good deeds; and single the punish- 
 ment of his sins. When he dies his body lies like 
 a fallen tree upon the earth, but his virtue accom- 
 panies his soul. Wherefore let Man harvest and 
 garner virtue, that so he may have an insep- 
 arable companion in that gloom which all must 
 pass through, and which it is so hard to traverse." 
 
 Is it not extraordinary that many men will de- 
 liberately take a road which they know is, to say 
 the least, not that of happiness ? That they prefer 
 to make others miserable, rather than themselves 
 happy ? 
 
8 THE DESTINY OF MAN. 
 
 Plato, in the Phaedrus, explains this by describ- 
 ing Man as a Composite Being, having three na- 
 tures, and compares him to a pair of winged 
 horses and a charioteer. " Of the two horses one 
 is noble and of noble origin, the other ignoble and 
 of ignoble origin ; and the driving, as might be 
 expected, is no easy matter." The noble steed 
 endeavors to raise the chariot, but the ignoble one 
 struggles to drag it down. 
 
 "Man," says Shelley, "is an instrument over 
 which a series of external and internal impressions 
 are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing 
 wind over an ^Eolian lyre, which move it by their 
 motion to ever-changing melody." 
 
 Cicero mentions the approach of death as the 
 fourth drawback of old age. To many minds 
 the shadow of the end is ever present, like the 
 coffin in the Egyptian feast, and overclouds all 
 the sunshine of life. But ought we so to regard 
 death ? 
 
 Shelley's beautiful lines, 
 
 " Life, like a Dome of many-colored glass, 
 Stains the white radiance of Eternity, 
 Until death tramples it to fragments," 
 
 eontain, as it seems to me at least, a double error. 
 Life need not stain the white radiance of eternity; 
 nor does death necessarily trample it to frag- 
 ments. 
 
 Man has, says Coleridge, 
 
THE DESTINY OF MAN. 9 
 
 " Three treasures, — love and light 
 And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath ; 
 And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, 
 Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death." 
 
 Death is " the end of all, the remedy of many, 
 the wish of divers men, deserving better of no 
 men than of those to whom she came before she 
 was called." 
 
 It is often assumed that the journey to 
 
 " The undiscovered country from whose bourne 
 No traveler returns " 
 
 must be one of pain and suffering. But this is not 
 so. Death is often peaceful and almost painless. 
 
 Bede during his last illness was translating St. 
 John's Gospel into Anglo-Saxon, and the morning 
 of his death his secretary, observing his weakness, 
 said, ' 'There remains now only one chapter, and 
 it seems difficult to you to speak. " "It is easy," 
 said Bede; "take your pen and write as fast as 
 you can. M At the close of the chapter the scribe 
 said, "It is finished," to which he replied, " Thou 
 hast said the truth, consummatum est, " He then 
 divided his little property among the brethren, 
 having done which he asked to be placed opposite 
 to the place where he usually prayed, said "Glory 
 be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
 Ghost," and as he pronounced the last words he 
 expired. 
 
10 THE DESTINY OF MAN. 
 
 Goethe died without any apparent suffering, 
 having just prepared himself to write, and ex- 
 pressed his delight at the return of spring. 
 
 We are told of Mozart's death that "the unfin- 
 ished requiem lay upon the bed, and his last ef- 
 forts were to imitate some peculiar instrumental 
 effects, as he breathed out his life in the arms of 
 his wife and their friend Siissmaier." 
 
 Plato died in the act of writing ) Lucan while 
 reciting part of his book on the war of Pharsajus ; 
 Blake died singing ; Wagner in sleep with his 
 head on his wife's shoulder. Many have passed 
 away in their sleep. Various high medical au- 
 thorities have expressed their surprise that the 
 dying seldom feel either dismay or regret. And 
 even those who perish by violence, as for instance 
 in battle, feel, it is probable, but little suffering. 
 
 But what of the future? There may be said to 
 be now two principal views. There are some who 
 believe indeed in the immortality of the soul, but 
 not of the individual soul : that our life is con- 
 tinued in that of our children would seem indeed 
 to be the natural deduction from the simile of St. 
 Paul, as that of the grain of wheat is carried on 
 in the plant of the following year. 
 
 So long indeed as happiness exists it is selfish to 
 dwell too much on our own share in it. Admit 
 that the soul is immortal, but that in the future 
 state of existence there is a break in the contin- 
 uity of memory, that one does not remember the 
 present life, and from this point of view is not the 
 
THE DESTINY OF MAN. 11 
 
 importance of identity involved in that of contin- 
 uous memory ? But however this may be accord- 
 ing to the general view, the soul, though detached 
 from the body, will retain its conscious identity, 
 and will awake from death, as it does from sleep; 
 so that if we cannot affirm that 
 
 " Millions of spiritual creatures walk the Earth, 
 Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep, " 
 
 at any rate they exist somewhere else in space, and 
 we are indeed looking at them when we gaze at 
 the stars, though to our eyes they are as yet invis- 
 ible. 
 
 In neither case, however, can death be regarded 
 as an evil. To wish that youth and strength were 
 unaffected by time might be a different matter. 
 
 " But if we are not destined to be immortal, 
 yet it is a desirable thing for a man to expire at 
 his fit time. For, as nature prescribes a boundary 
 to all other things, so does she also to life. Now 
 old age is the consummation of life, just as of a 
 play : from the fatigue of which we ought to es- 
 cape, especially when satiety is super-added." 
 
 From this point of view, then, we need 
 
 " Weep not for death, 
 
 'Tis but a fever stilled, 
 A pain suppressed, — a fear at re6t, 
 
 A solemn hope fulfilled. 
 The moonshine on the slumbering deep 
 Is scarcely calmer. Wherefore weep? 
 
12 THE DESTINY OF MAN. 
 
 " Weep not for death ! 
 
 The fount of tears is sealed, 
 Who knows how bright the inward light 
 
 To those closed eyes revealed ? 
 Who knows what holy love may fill 
 The heart that seems so cold and still." 
 
 Many a weary soul will have recurred with com- 
 fort to the thought that 
 
 " A few more years shall roll, 
 A few more seasons come, 
 And we shall be with those that rest 
 Asleep within the tomb. 
 
 " A few more struggles here, 
 A few more partings o'er, 
 A few more toils, a few more tears, 
 And we shall weep no more." 
 
 By no one has this, however, been more grandly 
 expressed than by Shelley. 
 
 " Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep J 
 
 He hath awakened from the dream of life. 
 'Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep 
 
 With phantoms an unprofitable strife, 
 He has outsoared the shadows of our night. 
 
 Envy and calumny, and hate and pain, 
 And that unrest which men miscall delight, 
 
 Can touch him riot and torture not again. 
 
 From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
 He is secure, and now can never mourn 
 
 A heart grown cold, a head grown gray, in vain — " 
 
 Most men, however, decline to believe that 
 
THE DESTINY OF MAN. 13 
 
 " We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made of, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep." 
 
 According to the more general view death frees 
 the soul from the encumbrance of the spirit, and 
 summons us to the seat of judgment. In fact, 
 
 " There is no Death ! What seems so is transition ; 
 This life of mortal breath 
 Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 
 Whose portal we call Death." 
 
 We have bodies, "we are spirits." " I am a 
 soul," said Epictetus, " dragging about a corpse." 
 The body is the mere perishable form of the im- 
 mortal essence. Plato concluded that if the ways 
 of God are to be justified, there must be a future 
 life. 
 
 To the aged in either case death is a release. 
 The Bible dwells most forcibly on the blessing of 
 peace. "My peace I give unto you: not as 
 the world giveth, give I unto you." Heaven 
 is described as a place where the wicked cease 
 from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 
 
 But I suppose every one must have asked him- 
 self in what can the pleasures of heaven consist. 
 
 " For all we know 
 ! Of what the blessed do above 
 Is that they sing, and that they love." 
 
14 THE DESTINY OF MAN. 
 
 It would indeed accord with few men's ideal 
 that there should be any " struggle for existence '* 
 in heaven. We should then be little better off 
 than we are now. This world is very beautiful, if 
 we could only enjoy it in peace. And yet mere 
 passive existence — mere vegetation — would in it- 
 self offer few attractions. It would indeed be 
 almost intolerable. 
 
 Again, the anxiety of change seems inconsistent 
 with perfect happiness ; and yet a wearisome, in- 
 terminable monotony, the same thing over and 
 over again forever and ever without relief or 
 variety, suggests dulness rather than bliss. 
 
 I feel that to me, said Greg, " God has promised 
 not the heaven of the ascetic temper, or the dog- 
 matic theologian, or of the subtle mystic, or of 
 the stern martyr ready alike to inflict and bear; 
 but a heaven of purified and permanent affections 
 — of a book of knowledge with eternal leaves, and 
 unbounded capacities to read it — of those we love 
 ever round us, never misconceiving us, or being 
 harassed by us — of glorious work to do, and ade- 
 quate faculties to do it — a world of solved prob- 
 lems, as well as of realized ideals/ ' 
 
 " For still the doubt came back, — Can God provide 
 For the large heart of man what shall not pall, 
 Nor through eternal ages' endless tide 
 On tired spirits fall ? 
 1 «« These make him say, — If God has so arrayed 
 1 A fading world that quickly passes by, 
 Such rich provision of delight has made 
 For every human eye,' 
 
THE DESTINY OF MAK. 15 
 
 ' What shall the eyes that wait for him survey 
 When his own presence gloriously appears 
 In worlds that were not founded for a day, 
 But for eternal years ? " 
 
 Here science seems to suggest a possible answer : 
 the solution of problems which have puzzled us - 
 here ; the acquisition of new ideas ; the unrolling 
 the history of the past ; the world of animals and 
 plants ; the secrets of space ; the wonders of the 
 stars and of the regions beyond the stars. To be- 
 come acquainted with all the beautiful and inter- 
 esting spots of our own world would indeed be 
 something to look forward to, and our world is but 
 one of many millions. I sometimes wonder as I 
 look away to the stars at night whether it will ever 
 be my privilege as a disembodied spirit to visit and 
 explore them. When we had made the great tour 
 fresh interests would have arisen, and we might 
 well begin again. 
 
 Here there is an infinity of interest without anx- 
 iety. So that at last the only doubt may be 
 
 " Lest an eternity should not suffice 
 
 To take the measure and the breadth and height 
 Of what there is reserved in Paradise 
 Its ever-new delight." 
 
 Cicero surely did not exaggerate when he said, 
 " O glorious day ! when I shall depart to that di- 
 vine company and assemblage of spirits, and quit 
 
16 THE DESTINY OF MAN. 
 
 this troubled and polluted scene. For I shall go 
 not only to those great men of whom I have spoken 
 before, but also to my son Cato, than whom never 
 was better man born, nor more distinguished for 
 pious affection ; whose body was burned by me, 
 whereas, on the contrary, it was fitting that mine 
 should be burned by him. But his soul not de- 
 serting me, but oft looking back, no doubt de- 
 parted to these regions whither it saw that I my- 
 self was destined to come. Which, though a dis- 
 tress to me, I seemed patiently to endure : not that 
 1 bore it with indifference, but I comforted myself 
 with the recollection that the separation and dis- 
 tance between us would not continue long. For 
 these reasons, O Scipio (since you said that you 
 with Laelius were accustomed to wonder at this), 
 old age is tolerable to me, and not only not irksome, 
 but even delightful. And if I am wrong in this, 
 that I believe the souls of men to be immortal, I 
 willingly delude myself : nor do I desire that this 
 mistake, in which I take pleasure, should be wrested 
 from me as long as I live; but if I, when dead, 
 shall have no consciousness, as some narrow-minded 
 philosophers imagine, I do not fear lest dead 
 philosophers should ridicule this my delusion.' ' 
 
 Nor can I omit the striking passage in the 
 Apology ', when pleading before the people of 
 Athens, Socrates says, "Let us reflect in another 
 way, and we shall see that there is great reason to 
 hope that death is a good ; for one of two things 
 —either death is a state of nothingness and utter 
 
THE DESTINY OF MAN, 17 
 
 unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change 
 and migration of the soul from this world to an- 
 other. Now if you suppose that there is no con- 
 sciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who 
 is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death 
 will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were 
 to select the night in which his sleep was undis- 
 turbed even by dreams, and were to compare with 
 this the other days and nights of his life, and then 
 were to tell us how many days and nights he had 
 passed in the course of his life better and more 
 pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I 
 will not say a private man, but even the great king 
 will not find many such days or nights, when com* 
 pared with the others. Now, if death is like this, 
 I say that to die is gain ; for eternity is then only 
 a single night. But if death is the journey to an- 
 other place, and there, as men say, all the dead 
 are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be 
 greater than this? 
 
 "If, indeed, when the pilgrim arrives in the 
 world below, he is delivered from the professors 
 of justice in this world, and finds the true judges, 
 who are said to give judgment there, — Minos, and 
 Rhadamanthus, and ^Eacus, and Triptolemus, and 
 other sons of God who were righteous in their 
 own life, — that pilgrimage will be worth making. 
 What would not a man give if he might converse 
 with Orpheus, and Musaeus, and Hesiod, and 
 Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again 
 and again. I myself, too, shall have a wonderful 
 
18 THE DESTINY OF MAN. 
 
 interest in there meeting and conversing with Pal- 
 amedes, and Ajax the son of Telamon, and other 
 heroes of old, who have suffered death through an 
 unjust judgment ; and there will be no small pleas- 
 ure, as I think, in comparing my own sufferings 
 with theirs. Above all, I shall then be able to 
 continue my search into true and false knowledge ; 
 as in this world, so also in that ; and I shall find 
 out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and 
 is not. What would not a man give, O judges, 
 to be able to examine the leader of the great Tro- 
 jan expedition ; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or num- 
 berless others, men and women too ! What infi- 
 nite delight would there be in conversing with 
 them and asking them questions. In another 
 world they do not put a man to death for asking 
 questions; assuredly not. For besides being hap- 
 pier in that world than in this, they will be im- 
 mortal, if what is said be true. 
 
 "Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about 
 death, and know of a certainty that no evil can 
 happen to a good man, either in life or after death. 
 He and his are not neglected by the gods ; nor 
 has my own approaching end happened by mere 
 chance. But I see clearly that to die and be re- 
 leased was better for me ; and therefore the oracle 
 gave no sign. For which reason, also, I am not 
 angry with my condemners, or with my accusers ; 
 they have done me no harm, although they did 
 not mean to do me any good ; and for this I may 
 gently blame them. The hour of departure has 
 
THE DESTINY OF MAN. 19 
 
 arrived, and we go our ways — I to die and you to 
 live. Which is better God only knows. M 
 
 In the Wisdom of Solomon we are promised 
 that— 
 
 " The souls of the righteous are in the hand of 
 God, and there shall no torment touch them. 
 
 " In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die ; 
 and their departure is taken for misery. 
 
 " And their going from us to be utter destruc- 
 tion ; but they are in peace. 
 
 " For though they be punished in the sight of 
 men, yet is their hope full of immortality. 
 
 " And having been a little chastised, they shall 
 be greatly rewarded : for God proved them, and 
 found them worthy for himself.' ' 
 
 And assuredly, if in the hour of death the con- 
 science is at peace, the mind need not be troubled. 
 The future is full of doubt, indeed, but fuller still 
 of hope. 
 
 If we are entering upon a rest after the struggles 
 of life, 
 
 " Where the wicked cease from troubling, 
 And the weary are at rest, " 
 
 that to many a weary soul will be a welcome 
 bourne, and even then we may say, 
 
 " O Death ! where is thy sting ? 
 O Grave ! where is thy victory ? " 
 
 On the other hand, if we are entering on a new 
 
20 THE DESTINY OF MAN. 
 
 sphere of existence, where we may look forward to 
 meet not only those of whom we have heard so 
 often, those whose works we have read and ad- 
 mired, and to whom we owe so much, but those 
 also whom we have loved and lost ; when we shall 
 leave behind us the bonds of the flesh and the lim- 
 itations of our earthly existence ; when we shall 
 join the Angels, and Archangels, and all the com- 
 pany of Heaven, — then, indeed, we may cherish 
 a sure and certain hope that the interests and pleas- 
 ures of this world are as nothing compared to 
 those of the life that awaits us in our Eternal 
 Home. 
 
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS. 
 
" To what then may we not look forward, when a spirit 
 of scientific inquiry shall have spread through those vast 
 regions in which the progress of civilization, its sure pre- 
 cursor, is actually commenced and in active progress ? And 
 what may we not expect from the exertions of powerful 
 minds called into action under circumstances totally differ- 
 ent from any which have yet existed in the world, and over 
 an extent of territory far surpassing that which has hitherto 
 produced the whole harvest of human intellect." 
 
 Herschel. 
 
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS. 
 
 THERE are two lines, if not more, in which we 
 may look forward with hope to progress in 
 the future. In the first place, increased knowledge 
 of nature, of the properties of matter, and of the 
 phenomena which surround us, may afford to our 
 children advantages far greater even than those 
 which we ourselves enjoy. Secondly, the exten- 
 sion and improvement of education, the increasing 
 influence of Science and Art, of Poetry and Music, 
 of Literature and Religion, — of all the powers 
 which are tending to good, will, we may reason- 
 ably hope, raise man and make him more master 
 of himself, more able to appreciate and enjoy his 
 advantages, and to realize the truth of the Italian 
 proverb, that wherever light is, there is joy. 
 
 One consideration which has greatly tended to 
 retard progress has been the floating idea that there 
 was some sort of ingratitude, and even impiety, in 
 attempting to improve on what Divine Providence 
 had arranged for us. Thus Prometheus was said 
 to have incurred the wrath of Jove for bestowing 
 on mortals the use of fire; and other improvements 
 
 (23) 
 
24 THE HOPE OF PROGRESS. 
 
 only escaped similar punishment when the ingenuity 
 of priests attributed them to the special favor of 
 some particular deity. This feeling has not even 
 yet quite died out. Even I can remember the 
 time when many excellent persons had a scruple or 
 prejudice against the use of chloroform, because 
 they fancied that pain w r as ordained under certain 
 circumstances. 
 
 We are tol-d that in early Saxon days Edwin, 
 King of Northumbria, called his nobles and his 
 priests around him, to discuss whether a certain 
 missionary should be heard or not. The king was 
 doubtful. At last there rose an old chief, and 
 said: — "You know, O King, how, on a winter 
 evening, when you are sitting at supper in your 
 hall, with your company around you, when the 
 night is dark and dreary, when the rain and the 
 snow rage outside, when the hall inside is lighted 
 and warm with a blazing fire, sometimes it hap- 
 pens that a sparrow flies into the bright hall out of 
 the dark night, flies through the hall and then flies 
 out at the other end into the dark night again. 
 We see him for a few moments, but we know not 
 whence he came nor whither he goes in the black- 
 ness of the storm outside. So is the life of man. 
 It appears for a short space in the warmth and 
 brightness of this life, but what came before this 
 life, or what is to follow this life, we know not. 
 If, therefore, these new teachers can enlighten us 
 as to the darkness that went before, and the dark- 
 
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS. 25 
 
 ness that is to come after, let us hear what they 
 have to teach us." 
 
 It is often said, however, that great and unex- 
 pected as recent discoveries have been, there are 
 certain ultimate problems which must ever remain 
 unsolved. For my part, I would prefer to abstain 
 from laying down any such limitations. When 
 Park asked the Arabs what became of the sun at 
 night, and whether the sun was always the same, 
 or new each day, they replied that such a question 
 was foolish, being entirely beyond the reach of 
 human investigation. 
 
 M. Comte, in his Cours de Philosophie Posi- 
 tive, as recently as 1842, laid it down as an axiom 
 regarding the heavenly bodies, " We may hope to 
 determine their forms, distances, magnitude, and 
 movements, but we shall never by any means be 
 able to study their chemical composition or min- 
 eralogical structure. " Yet within a few years this 
 supposed impossibility has been actually accom- 
 plished, showing how unsafe it is to limit the pos- 
 sibilities of science. 
 
 It is, indeed, as true now as in the time of New- 
 ton, that the great ocean of truth lies undiscovered 
 before us. I often wish that some President of the 
 Royal Society, or of the British Association, would 
 take for the theme of his annual address " The 
 things we do not know." Who can say on the 
 verge of what discoveries we are perhaps even now 
 standing ! It is extraordinary how slight a margin 
 
26 THE HOPE OF PROGRESS. 
 
 may stand for years between Man and some im- 
 portant improvement. Take the case of the elec- 
 tric light, for instance. It had been known for 
 years that if a carbon rod be placed in an ex- 
 hausted glass receiver, and a current of electricity 
 be passed through it the carbon glowed with an 
 intense light, but on the other hand it became so 
 hot that the glass burst. The light, therefore, was 
 useless, because the lamp burst as soon as it was 
 lighted. Edison hit on the idea that if you made 
 the carbon filament fine enough, you would get rid 
 of the heat and yet have abundance of light. Edi- 
 son's right to his patent has been contested on this 
 very ground. It has been said that the mere in- 
 troduction of so small a difference as the replace- 
 ment of a thin rod by a fine filament was so slight 
 an item that it could not be patented. The im- 
 provements by Swan, Lane Fox, and others, 
 though so important as a whole, have been made 
 step by step. 
 
 Or take again the discovery of anaesthetics. At 
 the beginning of the century Sir Humphrey dis- 
 covered laughing gas, as it was then called. He 
 found that it produced complete insensibility to 
 pain and yet did not injure health. A tooth was 
 actually taken out under its influence, and of 
 course without suffering. These facts were known 
 to our chemists, they were explained to the stu- 
 dents in our great hospitals, and yet for half a cen- 
 tury the obvious application occurred to no one. 
 Operations continued to be performed as before, 
 
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS. 27 
 
 patients suffered the same horrible tortures, and yet 
 the beneficent element was in our hands, its divine 
 properties were known, but it never occurred to 
 any one to make use of it. 
 
 I may give one more illustration. Printing is 
 generally said to have been discovered in the fif- 
 teenth century ; and so it was for all practical pur- 
 poses. But in fact printing was known long before. 
 The Romans used stamps ; on the monuments of 
 Assyrian kings the name of the reigning monarch 
 may be found duly printed. What then is 
 the difference? One little, but all-important step. 
 The real inventor of printing was the man into 
 whose mind flashed the fruitful idea of having sep- 
 arate stamps for each letter, instead of for separate 
 words. How slight seems the difference, and yet 
 for 3000 years the thought occurred to no one. 
 Who can tell what other discoveries, as simple and 
 yet as far-reaching, lie at this very moment under 
 our very eyes ! 
 
 Archimedes said that if you would give him 
 room to stand on, he would move the earth. One 
 truth leads to another ; each discovery renders 
 possible another, and, what is more, a higher. 
 
 We are but beginning to realize the marvelous 
 range and complexity of Nature. I have elsewhere 
 called attention to this with special reference to the 
 problematical organs of sense possessed by many 
 animals. 
 
 There is every reason to hope that future studies 
 
28 THE HOPE OF PROGRESS. 
 
 will throw much light on these interesting struc* 
 tures. We may, no doubt, expect much from the 
 improvement in our microscopes, the use of new 
 re-agents, and of mechanical appliances ; but the 
 ultimate at&ms of which matter is composed are so 
 infinitesimally minute, that it is difficult to foresee 
 any manner in which we may hope for a final solu- 
 tion of these problems. 
 
 Loschmidt, who has since been confirmed by 
 Stoney and Sir W. Thomson, calculates that each 
 of the ultimate atoms of matter is at most Tirufannnr 
 of an inch in diameter. Under these circum- 
 stances we cannot, it would seem, hope at present 
 for any great increase of our knowledge of atoms by 
 improvements in the microscope. With our pres- 
 ent instruments we can perceive lines ruled on 
 glass which are toW of an inch apart ; but owing 
 to the properties of light itself, it would appear 
 that we cannot hope to be able to perceive objects 
 which are much less than ToioTrxr of an inch in 
 diameter. Our microscopes may, no doubt, be 
 improved, but the limitation lies not in the imper- 
 fection of our optical appliances, but in the na- 
 ture of light itself. 
 
 It has been calculated that a particle of albumen 
 s-uiws of an inch in diameter contains no less than 
 125,000,000 of molecules. In a simpler com- 
 pound the number would be much greater; in 
 water, for instance, no less than 8,000,000,000. 
 Even then, if we could construct microscopes far 
 more powerful than any which we now possess, 
 
THE HOPE OF PKOGKESS. 29 
 
 they could not enable us to obtain by direct vision 
 any idea of the ultimate organization of matter. 
 The smallest sphere of organic matter which 
 could be clearly defined with our most powerful 
 microscopes may be, in reality, very complex; 
 may be built up of many millions of molecules, 
 and it follows that there may be an almost infinite 
 number of structural characters in crganic tissues 
 which we can at present foresee no mode of exam- 
 ining. 
 
 Again, it has been shown that animals hear 
 sounds which are beyond the range of our hearing, 
 and I have proved they can perceive the ultra-vio- 
 let rays, which are invisible to our eyes. 
 
 Now, as every ray of homogeneous light which 
 we can perceive at all, appears to us as a distinct 
 color, it becomes probable that these ultra-violet 
 rays must make themselves apparent to animals as 
 a distinct and separate color (of which we can 
 form no idea), but as different from the rest as red 
 is from yellow, or green from violet. The ques- 
 tion also arises whether white light to these crea- 
 tures would differ from our white light in contain- 
 ing this additional color. 
 
 These considerations cannot but raise the reflec- 
 tion how different the world may — I was going to 
 say must — appear to other animals from what it 
 does to us. Sound is the sensation produced on 
 us when the vibrations of the air strike on the 
 
30 THE HOPE OF PROGRESS. 
 
 drum of our ear. When they are few, the sound 
 is deep ; as they increase in number, it becomes 
 shriller and shriller ; but when they reach 40,000 
 in a second, they cease to be audible. Light is 
 the effect produced on us when waves of light 
 strike on the eye. When 400 millions of millions 
 of vibrations of ether strike the retina in a second, 
 they produce red, and as the number increases the 
 color passes into orange, then yellow, green, blue, 
 and violet. But between 40,000 vibrations in a 
 second and 400 millions of millions we have no 
 organ of sense capable of receiving the impres- 
 sion. Yet between these limits any number of 
 sensations may exist. We have five senses, and 
 sometimes fancy that no others are possible. But 
 it is obvious that we cannot measure the infinite by 
 our own narrow limitations. 
 
 Moreover, looking at the question from the other 
 side, we find in animals complex organs of sense, 
 richly supplied with nerves, but the function cf 
 which we are as yet powerless to explain. There 
 may be fifty other senses as different from ours as 
 sound is from sight ; and even within the bound- 
 aries of our own senses there may be endless 
 sounds which we cannot hear, and colors, as dif- 
 ferent as red from green, of which we have no 
 conception. These and a thousand other questions 
 remain for solution. The familiar world which 
 surrounds us may be a totally different place to 
 other animals. To them it may be full of music 
 -which we cannot hear, of color which we cannot 
 
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS. 31 
 
 see, of sensations which we cannot conceive. To 
 place stuffed birds and beasts in glass cases, to ar- 
 range insects in cabinets, and dried plants in 
 drawers, is merely the drudgery and preliminary 
 of* study ; to watch their habits, to understand 
 their relations to one another, to study their in- 
 stincts and intelligence, to ascertain their adapta- 
 tions and their relations to the forces of Nature, to 
 realize what the world appears to them ; these con- 
 stitute, as it seems to me at least, the true interest 
 of natural history, and may even give us the clue 
 to senses and perceptions of which at present we 
 have no conception. 
 
 From this point of view the possibilities of pro- 
 gress seem to me to be almost unlimited. 
 
 So far again as the actual condition of man is 
 concerned, the fact that there has been some ad- 
 vance cannot, I think, be questioned. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, for instance, culture and 
 refinement scarcely existed beyond the limits of 
 courts, and by no means always there. The life 
 in English, French, and German castles was rough 
 and almost barbarous. Mr. Galton has expressed 
 the opinion, which I am not prepared to question, 
 that the population of Athens, taken as a whole, 
 was as superior to us as we are to Australian sav- 
 ages. But even if that be so, our civilization, 
 such as it is, is more diffused, so that unquestion- 
 ably the general European level is much higher. 
 
 Much, no doubt, is owing to the greater facility 
 
32 THE HOPE OF PEOGEESS. 
 
 of access to the literature of our country, to that 
 literature, in the words of Macaulay, " the bright- 
 est, the purest, the most durable of all the glories 
 of our country; to that Literature, so rich in precious 
 truth and precious fiction ; to that Literature 
 which boasts of the prince of all poets, and of the 
 prince of all philosophers; to that Literature 
 which has exercised an influence wider than that of 
 our commerce, and mightier than that of our arms. ' ' 
 
 Few of us make the most of our minds. The 
 body ceases to grow in a few years; but the mind, 
 if we will let it, may grow as long as life lasts. 
 
 The onward progress of the future will not, we 
 may be sure, be confined to mere material discov- 
 eries. We feel that we are on the road to higher 
 mental powers; that problems which now seem to 
 us beyond the range of human thought will receive 
 their solution, and open the way to still further ad- 
 vance. Progress, moreover, we may hope, will be 
 not merely material, not merely mental, but moral 
 also. 
 
 It is natural that we should feel a pride in the 
 beauty of England, in the size of our cities, the 
 magnitude of our commerce, the wealth of our 
 country, the vastness of our Empire. But the 
 true glory of a nation does not consist in the 
 extent of its dominion, in the fertility of the soil, 
 or the beauty of Nature, but rather in the moral 
 and intellectual pre-eminence of the people. 
 
 And yet how few of us, rich or poor, have made 
 ourselves all we might be. If he does his best, as 
 
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS. 33 
 
 Shakespeare says, " What a piece of work is man ! 
 How noble in reason ! How infinite in faculty ! 
 in form and movement, how express and admir- 
 able ! " Few indeed, as yet, can be said to reach 
 this high ideal. 
 
 The Hindoos have a theory that after death ani- 
 mals live again in a different form ; those that have 
 done well in a higher, those that have done ill in 
 a lower grade. To realize this is, they find, a 
 powerful incentive to a virtuous life. But whether 
 it be true of a future life or not, it is certainly true 
 of our present existence. If we do our best for a 
 day, the next morning we shall rise to a higher 
 life; while if we give way to our passions and 
 temptations, we take with equal certainty a step 
 downward toward a lower nature. 
 
 It is an interesting illustration of the Unity of 
 Man, and an encouragement to those of us who 
 have no claims to genius, that, though of course 
 there have been exceptions, still on the whole, 
 periods of progress have generally been those when 
 a nation has worked and felt together ; the advance 
 has been due not entirely to the efforts of a few 
 great men, but also of a thousand little men ; not 
 to a single genius, but to a national effort. 
 
 Think, indeed, what might be. 
 
 " Ah ! when shall all men's good 
 Be each man's rule, and universal Peace 
 Lie like a shaft of light across the land, 
 And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
 Thro' all the circle of the golden year." 
 
34 THE HOPE OF PROGRESS. 
 
 Our life is surrounded with mystery, our very 
 world is a speck in boundless space ; and not only 
 the period of our own individual life, but that of 
 the whole human race is, as it were, but a moment 
 in the eternity of time. We cannot imagine any 
 origin, nor foresee the conclusion. 
 
 But though we may not as yet perceive any line 
 of research which can give us a clue to the solution, 
 in another sense we may hold that every addition 
 to our knowledge is one small step toward the great 
 revelation. 
 
 Progress may be more slow, or more rapid. It 
 may come to others and not to us. It will not 
 come to us if we do not strive to deserve it. But 
 come it surely will. 
 
 " Yet one thing is there that ye shall not slay, 
 Even thought, that fire nor iron can affright." 
 
 The future of man is full of hope, and who can 
 foresee the limits of his destiny? 
 
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