EPILOGUE 635 



Epilogue. We are come to the close of our long and 

 arduous journeying. The author begs to be permitted be- 

 fore separation to cordially thank every one who has accom- 

 panied him in sympathetic thought thus far. He has con- 

 ducted this excursion as well as he knew how, through wide 

 tracts in the world of organic activity ; and has interpreted 

 the everchanging abundance of visions which were open to 

 his eyes to the best of his understanding. He knows full 

 well that the future will again and again declare his inter- 

 pretations wrong, and that to other eyes, provided with 

 better spectacles, many things will necessarily appear in 

 different light. And too he is well persuaded that many a 

 subject which to-day we imagine an absolute fact, will only 

 provoke an indulgent smile from our successors. "Man is 

 doomed to blunder as long as he strives. ' ' And the author 

 must therefore be satisfied with the consciousness of the 

 honesty of his effort. 



That which may in some measure console us for the 

 inadequacy of our knowledge is the consciousness that all 

 of us who are endeavoring to solve the enigmas of the world 

 of life are engaged in a glorious service, and that to us who 

 live to-day has been granted the merciful favor of enjoying 

 together a great cultured epoch in which the world in spite 

 of every social and political calamity which so often takes 

 our breath is hastening forward in winged course to new 

 ambitions. 



Let us then for ourselves take heed that all the build- 

 ing stones, whether great or small, on which the living gen- 

 eration of nature searchers of to-day tests out its powers, 

 may come to contribute to the establishment of the marvel- 

 lous structure of future culture and learning from which 

 we hope for oncoming generations all that we dream of but 

 may not see : the freedom of the people from avoidable evil 

 of body and soul, from want and from error, and the triumph 

 of true humanity. 



