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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



of the future from the past, is systematically 

 rejected. The belief in the millennium has van- 

 ished and the outlook for this world is hopeless 

 or uncertain. The devil is getting. the best of it 

 here, though he may receive his deserts here- 

 after. Faith grows dim as knowledge increases ; 

 or, in other words, reason destroys all ground of 

 hope. Progress is a failure, for the past was bet- 

 ter than the present. In presence of all the great 

 movements which stir the world, the believer's 

 attitude is one of doubt, suspicion, or absolute 

 hostility. Increase of knowledge makes him 

 tremble for his creed. Social changes involve 

 the decay, of the one sacred authority. If he 

 forces himself to believe that, in some sense, a 

 reconciliation between the old and the new is 

 yet possible, he is forced to equivocate, to strain 

 words into no meaning, and to look with doubt 

 upon his allies. He is haunted by vague dread 

 of materialism and atheism, and fancies that 

 science will somehow be able to juggle him out 

 of confidence in the most explicit testimony of 

 his consciousness. Belief in progress is handed 

 over to the unbeliever, not only because the win- 

 ning side naturally believes that things are im- 

 proving, but because he alone can assign some 

 ground for the belief. Measuring the future by 

 the past, he can infer that the evolution of which 

 we see tbe earlier phases will pass through 

 others, as yet but dimly discernible, though 

 dimly encouraging. 



The ultimate result, then, of the believer's 

 skepticism as to human nature is that the belief 

 in progress has been transferred to his rival. 

 Now, the belief in progress in some one of its 

 many shapes is the most characteristic product 

 of modern habits of thought. It is simply the 

 doctrine of evolution applied to political and 

 social theories ; and it must permeate and trans- 

 form all such theories in proportion as they be- 

 come scientific. A similar transformation must 

 be effected in our moral conceptions. Theologi- 

 cal language may, of course, be accommodated 

 to this new doctrine, as there are no doctrines to 

 which it cannot be accommodated. But the in- 

 stinctive repugnance of theologians to such a 

 belief rests upon a sound logical instinct. The 

 theologian naturally denies the validity of the 

 methods and assumptions upon which the belief 

 in progress primarily rests, for he regards a 

 knowledge of the unknowable as an essential 

 condition of foreseeing the future. And the im- 

 agination still acts more powerfully than the 

 logical faculty. The vision of a supernatural 

 world becomes vivid precisely in proportion as 



our interest in this becomes dim. If the two 

 conditions are not logically opposed, yet in prac- 

 tice one waxes as the other wanes. We cannot 

 really walk with our eyes fixed both upon cloud- 

 land and upon solid earth. Dreams and realities 

 may blend for a time, and the dream be trans- 

 formed instead of abruptly dispelled. But we 

 have ultimately to choose, and, as we choose, we 

 must become skeptical as to this world or the 

 other. 



By progress, it ojnly remains to be said, we 

 cannot mean a continuous and indefinite process 

 of improvement. Periods of darkness and par- 

 tial decay may always be destined to intervene 

 between periods of growth and enlightenment. 

 The planet itself will ultimately, we are told, be- 

 come a mere traveling gravestone, and before 

 that time comes men and their dreams must have 

 vanished together. Our hopes must be finite, 

 like most things. We must be content with 

 hopes sufficient to stimulate action. We must 

 believe in a future harvest sufficiently to make it 

 worth while to sow, or, in other words, that 

 honest and unselfish work will leave the world 

 rather better off than we found it. Perhaps this 

 is not a very sublime prospect. Life, says the 

 most candid of theologians, and his arguments 

 certainly support his conclusion, is perhaps but a 

 poor thing. But it is a tolerable world so long 

 as one can believe that one's fellow-creatures 

 have plenty of healthy instincts, and enough of 

 really noble instincts to secure a steady, if check- 

 ered, social growth ; that those instincts do not 

 depend upon our attaining impossible knowl- 

 edge, and that they will survive all the petty 

 systems founded upon irrational guesswork. It 

 is something to feel a certainty, based upon ex- 

 perience of the case, that we have nothing to fear 

 from unlimited freedom of inquiry, and that we 

 may hope, not merely an indefinite increase of 

 man's power over the external world, but a higher 

 and more rational social order and more widely- 

 reaching sympathies. Extended knowledge means 

 a more accurate appreciation of the conditions ot 

 human welfare, and a more intelligent cultivation 

 of the emotions and sympathies upon which it 

 depends. We can work and think without fear- 

 ing that some infidel Samson will suddenly bring 

 down the pillars of the temple. We cannot flat- 

 ter ourselves that our personal stake in the uni- 

 verse is more unlimited in regard to the future time 

 than in regard to the past and the distant; but 

 possibly the reflection is consoling to some peo- 

 ple who think that they will have had about 

 enough of themselves in the threescore years and 



