2C4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



encourage and reward our labor. This, up to a certain point ; but 

 with wealth and luxury comes relaxed energy. AVithout necessity 

 there is no labor; without labor no advancement. Corporeal neces- 

 sity first forces corporeal activity ; then the intellect goes to work to 

 contrive means whereby labor may be lessened and made more pro- 

 ductive. 



The discontent which arises from discomfort lies at the root of 

 every movement ; but, then, comfort is a relative term, and complete 

 satisfaction is never attained. Indeed, as a rule, the more squalid and 

 miserable the race, the more are they disposed to settle down and 

 content themselves in their state of discomfort. What is discomfort 

 to one is luxury to another ; " the mark of rank in Nature is capacity 

 for pain ; " in following the intellectual life, the higher the culture the 

 greater the discontent ; the greater the acquisition, the more eagerly 

 do men press forward toward some higher and greater imaginary 

 good. We all know that blessings in excess become the direst curses ; 

 but few are conscious where the benefit of a blessing terminates and 

 the curse begins, and fewer still of those who are able thus to dis- 

 criminate have the moral strength to act upon that knowledge. As 

 a good in excess is an evil, so evil as it enlarges outdoes itself and 

 tends toward self-annihilation. If we but look about us, we must see 

 that to burn up the world in order to rid it of gross evil a dogma 

 held by some is unnecessary, for accumulative evils ever tend toward 

 reaction. Excessive evils are soonest remedied ; the equilibrium of 

 the evil must be maintained, or the annihilation of the evil ensues. 



Institutions and j^rinciples essentially good at one time are essen- 

 tially evils at another time. The very aids and agencies of civiliza- 

 tion become afterward the greatest drags upon progress. At one 

 time it would seem that blind faith was essential to improvement, at 

 another time skepticism at one time order and morality, at another 

 time lawlessness and rapine ; for so it has ever been, and whether 

 peace and smiling plenty, or fierce upheavals and dismemberments 

 predominate, from every social spasm as well as fecund leisure, civil- 

 ization shoots forward in its endless course. The very evils which 

 are regarded as infamous by a higher culture were the necessary step- 

 ping-stones to that higlier life. As we have seen, no nation ever did 

 or can emerge from barbarism without first placing its neck under the 

 yokes of despotism and superstition ; therefore, despotism and super- 

 stition, now dire evils, were once essential benefits. No religion ever 

 attained its full development except under persecution. Our present 

 evils are constantly working out for humanity unforeseen good. All 

 systems of wrongs and fanaticisms are but preparing us for and urg- 

 ing us on to a higher state. 



If, then, civilization is a predestined, ineluctable, and eternal march 

 away from things evil toward that Avhich is good, it must be that 

 throughout the world the principle of good is ever increasing and that 



