DISCOURSE OF W. B. 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 be considered as a condition of unstable equilibrium, 

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

 effort to be advanced. It is not in my view the ' manifest destiny' 

 of humanity to 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 be improved, this improvement must be 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 not lived in vain, who leaves behind him as 

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

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

 bilities of life 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 be 

 advanced by the mere application of truths already known : but we 

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

 development of new principles. We have scarcely as yet read more 

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

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

 be yet unfolded and applied." * 



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

 'The pregnant thought that human civilization is an artificial and coerced con- 

 dition, would seem to have a suggestive bearing on the two great theories of 



