THE EPOCH OF HOPE 87 



developments was calculated to greatly advance their brain, 

 ingenuity, perseverance, or energy, so did nothing to justify 

 their becoming men. But the apes which became men, having 

 found the advantage of a long pointed stick as a weapon of 

 defence, soon began to realise that to use it to the greatest 

 advantage they must cultivate a permanent upright posture 

 which was undoubtedly the acme of physical development. 



To do this they probably selected a long stick, and holding it 

 higher from day to day managed at last to maintain 

 an upright posture, whereas the Gorilla and Gibbon, although 

 they had very nearly equalled man in the struggle for life, 

 like the horse that has speed but lacks staying power, they 

 were not able to reach the winning post first, and as is ever 

 the case in nature, once the aim of evolution in any direction 

 has attained its final completion, all previous evolutions which 

 have led up as secondary causes to this effect, become stable 

 and permanent in a marked degree. So now that the final 

 result of physical perfection of body is attained, all species of 

 animals become more permanently stable, and the struggle 

 of the Epoch of Hope commences between races of mankind 

 instead of between the species of animals, as the conception 

 of soul and the birth of the human mind convert the " struggle 

 for existence " into the struggle for love, by the dawn of 

 Imagination, and turn the physical contests of the Epoch of 

 Faith into the mental struggle of the Epoch of Hope and a 

 psychical one in the Epoch of Charity yet to come. 



Thus the first germ of improvement is evolved and 

 man commences his first start on the road to conquer the 

 world of Matter. From this we advance to the stone age 

 where man first found the advantage of fastening a stone on 

 his stick. Then he advanced to the idea of hurling his stick, 

 then later the sling is evolved, and then he progresses to a 

 bow and arrow. As the first stages of his mental superiority 

 open up hidden thoughts to his mind in this age of Imagina- 

 tion, thus sowing the germ of invention, he gradually pro- 

 gresses to the state which led him to the idea of house build- 

 ing, and at the same time evolving the rudiments of agriculture 

 and civilisation in a hut fenced in from danger. The power 

 of imagination is the first germ of his Soul; so you see how 

 correct both my Table III. of Trinity and Genesis are in 

 fixing this period, the seventh day of evolution, as the day of 



