212 (68) 



been accomplished, and before activity has slackened 

 its speed, the nation has reached the culminating point, 

 and then it enters upon the period of decline. The re- 

 straints imposed by economy and active occupation be- 

 ing removed, the beastly traits find in accumulated 

 power only increased means of gratification, and indus- 

 try and prosperity sink together. Power is squandered, 

 little is accumulated, and the nation goes down to its 

 extinction amid scenes of internal strife and vice. Its 

 cycle is soon fulfilled, and other nations, fresh from 

 scenes of labor, assault it, absorb its fragments, and it 

 dies. This has been the world's history, and it remains 

 to be seen whether the virtues of the nations now exist- 

 ing will be sufficient to save them from a like fate. 



Thus the history of the animal man in nations is 

 wonderfully like that of the type or families of the ani- 

 mal and vegetable kingdoms during geologic ages. 

 They rise, they increase and reach a period of mul- 

 tiplication and power. The force allotted to them be- 

 coming exhausted, they diminish and sink and die. 



II. Of the Individual. In discussing physical devel- 

 opment, we are as yet compelled to restrict ourselves to 

 the evidence of its existence and some laws observed in 

 the operation of its causative force. What that force 

 is, or what are its primary laws, we know not. 



So in the progress of moral development we endeavor 

 to prove its existence and the mode of its operation, 

 but why that mode should exist, rather than some other 

 mode, we cannot explain. 



The moral progress of the species depends, of course, 

 on the moral progress of the individuals embraced in it. 

 Religion is the sum of those influences which determine 

 the motives of men's actions into harmony with the Pi- 



