THK DrflCOVP:RY OF THE FUTURE. 891 



have come to l)oli('Vc in certain other thinos — in tiu^ coherency and 

 purpose in the world and in the i^reatness of human (h^stiny. Worlds 

 may freeze and suns may ])erish. hut thcu'c stirs somethiuL;' within us 

 now that can never die auain. 



Do not misunderstand me wIkmi I speak of Ihe greatness of human 

 destiny. 



If I may speak (piite openly to 3'ou, 1 will confess that, considered 

 as a final })roduct, I do not thiidv vei-y nuu-h of myself or (saviny- your 

 presence) my fellow-crc^atui'cs. 1 do not tliiidv 1 could ■p()ssil)ly join 

 in the worshi}) of humanitv with any oTavity or sincerity. Think of 

 it. Think of the })ositive facts. There are surely moods for all of us 

 when one can feel Swift's amazement that such a Ixmiil;' should deal in 

 pride. There are moods whtui one can join in the lauo'hter of Democ- 

 ritus; and th(\v would come oftener were not th(^ spectacle of human 

 littleness so abundantly shot with pain. Hut it is iu)t only with pain 

 that the world is shot — it is shot with promis(\ Small as our vanity 

 and carnality makes us, there has been a day of still suiallei- things. 

 It is the long ascent of the past that gives the lie to oui- d(>spair. A\'e 

 know now that all the blood and passion of our lifc^ was represented 

 in the Carl)oniferous time l)y something — something, perhaps, cold- 

 blooded and with a clannuy skin, that lurked l)etween air and water, 

 and lied before the giant amphi))ia of those days. 



For all the folly, ])lindness, and pain of our lives, we have come 

 some wav from that. And the distance we have tra\-eled gives us 

 some earnest of the way we have vet to go. 



Why should things cease at man? ^Vhy should not this rising curve 

 rise yet more steeply and swiftly t There are many things to suggest 

 that we are now in a phase of rapid and unprecedented development. 

 The conditions under which men live are changing with an ever- 

 increasing rapidity, and, so far as our knowledge goes, no sort of 

 creatures have ever lived undcu; changing conditions without under- 

 going the profoundest changes themsehes. In the })ast c(Miturv there 

 was more change in the conditions of human life than there had been 

 in the previous thousand years. A hundred y(>ars ago iinentors and 

 investigators were rare scattered men, and now invention and in(|uiry is 

 the work of an organizcnl army. This century will scm' changes that 

 will dwarf those of th(» nineteenth century, as those of tlu^ uiiu>teenth 

 dwarf those of the eighteenth. One can see no sign anywhere that 

 this rush of change will be over presently, that tlu^ ])ositivist dream of 

 a social reconstruction and of a new static culture phase will ever })0 

 realized. Human society never has been ipiite static, and it will pres- 

 ently cease to attempt to be static. Everything seems [)()inting to the 

 belief that w*e are entering upon a progress that will go on. with an 

 ever widening and ever more confident stride, forever. The reorgan- 

 ization of society that is going on now beneath the traditional a])pear- 

 ance of things is a kinetic r(M)rganization. We are getting into 



