468 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



forward impulse, an effort, a ceaseless striving, a will to produce always 

 a more perfect form, a better function. It is this tropic, restless, 

 aspiring force, this psychic factor of progress, that prompts us evermore 

 to invent a new way, a shorter cut, a better method, and leads to the 

 steady and inevitable raising of moral and political standards. To 

 speak of this factor as a " force " or " energy " is merely to use a cate- 

 gory taken from material science. To say that it is " teleological " and 

 works towards " ideals " is to interpret it in terms of narrow human 

 experience. It matters little what we call it, but if we call it " mind " 

 or " soul," it suggests no longer a " substance," no static quantity, nor 

 yet just the sum total of our conscious life — but rather a sort of bub- 

 bling spring, a profound source, from which upwells the entire organic 

 world, culminating now in the whole mass of human achievement and 

 aspiring to some ever higher conscious or unconscious goal. 



