THE DUTY OF MAN. 539 



read of us in books, when you think of what we are, 

 and compare us with yourselves, remember that it is 

 to us you owe the foundation of your happiness and 

 grandeur, to us who now in our libraries and labora- 

 tories and star-towers and dissecting-rooms and work- 

 shops are preparing the materials of the human growth. 

 And as for ourselves, if we are sometimes inclined to 

 regret that our lot is cast in these unhappy days, let us 

 remember how much more fortunate we are than those 

 who lived before us a few centuries ago. The working 

 man enjoys more luxuries to day than the King of 

 England in the Anglo-Saxon times ; and at his com- 

 mand are intellectual delights, which but a little while 

 ago the most learned in the land could not obtain. 

 All this we owe to the labours of other men. Let us 

 therefore remember them with gratitude ; let us follow 

 their glorious example by adding something new to 

 the knowledge of mankind ; let us pay to the future 

 the debt which we owe to the past. All men indeed 

 cannot be poets, inventors, or philanthropists ; but all 

 men can join in that gigantic and god-like work the 

 progress of creation. Whoever improves his own 

 nature, improves the universe of which he is a part. 

 He who strives to subdue his evil passions — vile 

 remnants of the old four-footed life — and who culti- 

 vates the social affections : he who endeavours to 

 better his condition, and to make his children wiser and 

 happier than himself; whatever may be his motives, 

 he will not have lived in vain. But if he act thus not 

 from mere prudence, not in the vain hope of being 

 rewarded in another world, but from a pure sense 

 of duty, as a citizen of Nature, as a patriot of the 

 planet on which he dwells, then our philosophy which 

 once appeared to him so cold and cheerless will become 



