THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



feel it in Herbert Spencer and Ernest Haeckel, and 

 now and then in such lambent spirits as Huxley and 

 W. K. Clifford. Matter, and the laws of matter, 

 and the irrefragable chain of cause and effect, press 

 hard upon us. 



We feel this oppression in the whole fabric of our 

 civilization a civilization which, with all its man- 

 ifold privileges and advantages, is probably to a 

 large class of people the most crushing and soul- 

 killing the race has ever seen. It practically abol- 

 ishes time and space, while it fills the land with 

 noise and hurry. It arms us with the forces of earth, 

 air, and water, while it weakens our hold upon the 

 sources of personal power; it lengthens life while it 

 curtails leisure; it multiplies our wants while it 

 lessens our capacity for simple enjoyments; it opens 

 up the heights and depths, while it makes the life 

 of the masses shallow; it vastly increases the ma- 

 chinery of education, while it does so little for real 

 culture. "Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers," 

 because wisdom cannot or will not come by rail- 

 road, or automobile, or aeroplane, or be hurried up 

 by telegraph or telephone. She is more likely to 

 come on foot, or riding on an ass, or to be drawn in a 

 one-horse shay, than to appear in any of our chari- 

 ots of fire and thunder. 



With the rise of the scientific habit of mind has 

 come the decline in great creative literature and 

 art. With the spread of education based upon scien- 

 50 



