300 Evolution and Social Reform : 



their submitting their wills to the absolute domination of a 

 universal democracy coni])osed of the material which I have 

 indicated- represented by such public officers as may have 

 succeeded in procuring an election and compelled to sur- 

 render their volition in all important resi)ects, as to habita- 

 tion, occupation, thought and speech, to the will of these. 

 This is to be the outcome of civilization this the consum- 

 mation so devoutly to be wished ! 



T am no ])rophet, and I shall not attem})t prophecy. I 

 only know this, that this which 1 have depicted will not 

 be; and thank God for so much. I know that it Avill not 

 be, because there has never been a stage in the ]n'ogress of 

 mankind or the universe Avhich has not been absolutely at 

 variance with such a possibility ; there is not a fact in exist- 

 ing conditions which ])oints to a realization of such a state 

 of society in any positive and permanent sense. 



I have pictured the shortcomings of the jjresent with no 

 dainty tovxch. Do I then feel that we have made no progress 

 in the past '/ that there is no h()})e in the future ? 



I look back through the ages until I seem to see naught 

 but a nebidous haze. I see that haze gradually differenti- 

 ating through infinite time until suns and planets are evolved, 

 the mineral takes organic form, the organic develops into 

 vegetable and animal, the pi'otista by \innumbered stages 

 give birth at last to primitive man. I see the growth of 

 man from the birth of intellect to the era of Emerson, of 

 Spencer, of ])ar\vin. of Edison. Have we made no ])rogress ? 

 \Vhat is this i)anorama which I have spread before you? 

 We are where we are. We have (mr place in the line of 

 march. A\'e have not yet drunk life to the lees, but with 

 ever increasing diversity are ever realizing a more entire 

 oneness and mutual resi)onsibility, and in ever increasing 

 numbers are appreciating that bound up with the interest 

 of eac^h one is the interest of the Avhole, and bound up in 

 the interest of the whole is that of each one. No pent \\\> 

 Utica can exhaust our ])owers, no scheme is large enough, 

 elaborate enough, or sufficiently far-reaching to satisfy the 

 coming race. All methods are the methods of the divine, 

 and we reach forward in the confident ho])e, the confi- 

 dent belief, that the race can only attain the highest goal 

 through the jK'rfect develojmient of the individual soul. 

 And 



"all experience is an arcli wheretlirough 

 CJleanis that nntraveled world whose margin fades 

 Forever and forever when 1 move." 



