128 On the Campus 



The great fact of human development is the march of 

 mind, the problem of the ages has been the quickening of 

 the human spirit. History culminates in those particu- 

 lar periods when large numbers of men become suddenly 

 conscious of some new aspect of truth, some new view of 

 their own relations to the world, to each other, to the uni- 

 verse entire. The coming of the Christ was such a period. 

 The renaissance was such another period, and we who 

 have lived during the last forty years have been passing, 

 all unconscious it may be, through another period no less 

 wonderful in scope and influence upon the future. I be- 

 lieve that when the historian of the years to come a 

 much-contemplated individual, it is true, to whose judg- 

 ment we perchance too often make appeal when that 

 future historian comes to list the great turning-points in 

 the history of human thought, he will name the greatest 

 of all, of course, His coming from whom our era hails; 

 then the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 ; 

 then the publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species*' in 

 1859. Certainly no other modern event has had such 

 pronounced effect on every phase of human thought. 

 The aspect of nature suggested in Darwin's book has af- 

 fected in profoundest fashion everything else : literature, 

 education, philosophy, history, art, religious faith. Let 

 us consider this just for a moment. Putting aside now 

 the vast volume of literature dealing with the topics 

 particularly involved, think how almost the entire energy 

 of the enlightened world has been turned for many years 

 to topics suggested by the scientific impulse. Even those 

 who affect belles lettres pure and simple are not unin- 

 fluenced by the common sweep, from Browning, and 



