THE NEW OPTIMISM 497 



may not be able to solve it. But we find ourselves possessed of a certain 

 power to mould our fate and to mould to a high degree the forms of 

 nature about us. The world is plastic to the human will. In the last 

 century, Hegel sounded this true note of human conquest, obscured as 

 was his message by a fanciful metaphysic. Heine had the same thought 

 when he spoke of "liberating the imprisoned energies of the human 

 spirit." More recently, a whole group of writers, like Ibsen, for in- 

 stance, have proclaimed their belief in a glad trust in nature and in 

 human instincts. In America, William James, in his remarkable essay 

 on "The Energies of Men" has shown the almost unlimited powers 

 of accomplishment possessed by the human mind and the human body. 

 In France, Bergson is showing to eager hearers from every part of the 

 world that nature is a vital, not a mechanical, process, and that creation 

 is something which we experience in ourselves in the freedom of action. 

 Politically we see the same spirit exhibited in the twentieth century 

 movements for freedom in Turkey, Portugal, Persia, Mexico, and even 

 in China, where new and more liberal forms of government have been 

 gained or demanded. 



We may, then, say that the present epoch represents the emergence 

 of consciousness as a determining and self-conscious factor into the 

 progress of evolution, able in some measure to direct the evolutionary 

 movement itself to the advantage of mankind and able to an indefinite 

 extent to mould the forces of nature to the same end. 



The directions in which this powerful ^conscious force is operating 

 to further human well being are threefold. 



First, it improves our material environment by the control and man- 

 agement of natural forces. In this direction tremendous advance is 

 now being made in the invention of new machinery, in the discovery 

 and utilization of new forms of energy, in improved methods of agri- 

 culture, in renewing impoverished soils by bacterial agencies, in creating 

 new plants bearing useful fruits, in reclaiming arid lands by great sys- 

 tems of irrigation, in facilitating transportation by digging great canals, 

 in making the air as well as the land and water viable, and in many 

 other familiar ways. 



Second, it is attempting with apparent success to improve the human 

 constitution, both physical and mental, by intelligent use of the forces 

 both of heredity and of environment. For instance, both the cause and 

 the cure of tuberculosis have been discovered and we have hopes of 

 eliminating entirely this cruel disease. Other diseases which in former 

 times devastated whole regions have been practically conquered, while 

 still others are now in process of control. Mortality has been lessened 

 and longevity definitely increased, so that the population of nearly 

 every country has risen, even where the birth rate has remained sta- 

 tionary or declined. Furthermore, consciousness itself has been made 



VOL. LXXXII. — 34. 



