xliv rHoCEEDlXUS. 



Ketrospectiou raises hope to pursue furtlier investigation among 

 the unexplained mysteries even of the organic world. Who a cen- 

 tury ago would have thought it possible to harness lightning to a 

 car, to prove a similarity of chemical elements in other worlds 

 than ours, to see with ordinaiy vision througli walls of common 

 brick^ to hear a whisper along one thousand miles of wire, or 

 instantly communicate tlirough the air far be3'ond the reach of 

 sight and sound ? 'i lie success the student has achieved in pushing 

 back the fringe of the great unknown, has enabled him the better 

 to realize he is subject to a reign of law, and it has elevated Ids per- 

 ception of the infinite and the sublime. 



At the same time it is equally true that that opposition to move- 

 ment of whatever sort or kind wliich, as already has been stated, 

 seems an essential corolhiry to it, is apt to lead in us, as individuals, 

 to pride in the dominant position we hold on earth, and leads us 

 to forget we are but as flies on tlie wheel, chips on the torrent, or 

 grains of sand in the whorl of the cyclone: even to proclaim " We 

 and C4od," wlien a coupling with the beast of the field would be 

 more in keeping with man's worldly relations. 



There is also a growing belief among naturalists, who have 

 closely observed wild life at home and free of fear, that what in 

 man are called the finer feelings — friendship, affection and sym- 

 pathy, are exhibited in a nuirked degree by creatures of more 

 hnmble circles. 



The student, moreover, has reason to suspect that as in tlu; 

 material world law and order reign, so also among the spiritual 

 influences affecting free will, system prevails. Further than that, 

 as there is to the individual a birth, maturity and death, and to 

 communities a racial or national rise, a period of prosperity and 

 ultimate decay, so does it appear in the non-material region of 

 thought tliat a cycle holds good; that there have been to religions 

 an inception, a zealous pur])ose, an aece})tance, and then decline; 

 also to ideas in other directions there comes the inspiration, the 

 spread of waves of intelligence thi'oughout communities in sym- 

 pathv, and then a subsidence of the particular impulse, like as it 

 is with epidemics of pestilence and accident. 



