DISCOURSE OF W . IS. TAYLOR. 325 



mated) is less the parent of manhood, than of age: the special vices 

 of the individual child though long subdued, sometimes surviving 

 and re-appearing in his "second childhood." 



Affirming that culture is constraint, — education and direction an 

 expenditure of force, and extending his generalization from the 

 individual to the race, he controverted the idea so popular with 

 some benevolent enthusiasts, that there is a spontaneous tendency 

 in man to civilization and advancement. The origins of past 

 civilizations — taking a comprehensive glance at far distant human 

 populations — have been sporadic as it were, and their prevalence 

 comparatively transitory. " It appears therefore that civilization 



itself may 1 onsidered as a condition of unstable equilibrium, 



which requires constant effort to lie sustained, and a still greater 

 effort t<> lie advanced. It is not in my view the 'manifest destiny' 

 of humanityto improve by the operation of an inevitable necessary 

 law of progress: but while I believe that it is the design of Provi- 

 dence that man should lie improved, tin- improvement must he the 

 result of individual effort, or of the combined effort of many indi- 

 viduals animated by the same feeling and co-operating for the 

 attainment of the same- end. - - - If we sow judiciously in 

 the present, the world will assuredly reap a beneficent harvest in 

 the future: and he has nut lived in vain, who leave- behind him as 

 his successor, a child better educated — morally, intellectually, and 

 physically, than himself. From this point of view, the responsi- 

 bilities of lite are immense. Every individual by his example and 

 precept, whether intentionally or otherwise, does aid or oppose this 

 important, work, and leaves an impress of character upon the suc- 

 ceeding age, which is to mould its destiny for weal or woe, in 

 all coming time. - The world however is not to he 



advanced livthe mere application of truths already known : but we 

 look forward (particularly in physical science) to the effect of the 

 development of new principle-. We have scarcely as yet read more 

 than the title-page and preface of the great volume of nature, and 

 what Ave do know is as nothing in comparison with that which may 

 he yet unfolded and applied."* 



* Proceed. Assoc. Adv. Education, 4th Session, Washington, Dec. 28, 1854, pp. 17-31. 

 The pregnant thought that human civilization i* .-in artificial and coer 1 ren- 

 dition, would seem \<> have a suggestive i>earin-_ r on the two sreat theories "t 



