33+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



incorporates all that is best in each, and subordinates them to the high- 

 est ; and thus the whole character becomes broader and more universal 

 in its sj'mpathies, as well as higher. This is the true type of culture 

 — for culture is naught else than a natural evolution assisted by art. 

 True culture does not educate us out of sympathy with childhood and 

 youth, nor above sympathy with the lower classes of society ; it does 

 not simjDly raise us pygmies on a pla.tform above the heads of our fel- 

 low-men, but without increasing our stature. If our culture does so, it 

 is a false culture. The true cultured man stands on the same common 

 level with other men, only his higher parts rise higher. But see the 

 necessity which this law lays upon us of never-ceasing culture ! Beau- 

 tiful, joyous childhood cannot last, must decline. If we do not culti- 

 vate the higher imaginative and esthetic faculties, our nature inevitably 

 deteriorates from that time. Glorious youth and young manhood must 

 decline, and with it our whole nature must deteriorate if we do not cul- 

 tivate reflective and productive thought. Lofty intellectual power 

 must also decline. Alas ! how sad to see in old age the whole character 

 deteriorate for want of moral and religious culture, which alone insures 

 immortal progress ! 



The same law holds equally in the development of the organic king- 

 dom. When the class of fishes declined in power, it did not perish, 

 but became subordinate to the incoming higher dominant class of 

 reptiles, which, in its turn, sought safety in subordination to the still 

 higher incoming class of mammals, and this in its turn to the highest 

 dominant class, man / and thus the whole organic kingdom becomes not 

 only higher, but also broader, more complex, more diverse. 



So, also, in society. When any dominant idea, principle, or social 

 force of any kind, characteristic of any phase of civilization, declines, it 

 does not perish, but becomes incorporated into the next higher phase 

 of civilization as a subordinate force or jDrinciple. Thus each age in- 

 corporates what is best in the previous age, and modern society is 

 the resultant of all the social forces which have acted from the begin- 

 ning — is the heir of all the ages; and the social organism has thus 

 become not only higher, but broader, stronger, and more complex. 

 And here, again, the same necessity is laid upon us, of continuous 

 progress or else of decline. No mere phase of civilization can last, no 

 social force can continue in its pristine power. That nation which 

 refuses to accept the incoming principle is left behind and inevitably 

 decays. 



Observe again : the speediness of the rise, culmination, and decline 

 — the short-livedness — of any phase of civilization is in proportion to the 

 limited character of the principles involved — the partialness of the em- 

 bodiment of all the principles of our humanity. As society becomes 

 more complex, its cycles become longer, until it reaches continuous, 

 steady progress — immortality — only in the complete embodiment of an 

 ideal humanity. Such we believe is the ideal of a Christian civiKzatioru 



