UX \JU.J. \JJi.MJJWl^^^. 



164 



ward far beyona me pBriuu 

 derive most obvious benefits from a knowledge of the 

 past, so we may secure some gratification from an 

 indication of the future. It is extending, as it were, 

 tbe limit of our being, and embracing a wider view 

 of creation than that which naturally falls beneath 

 the cognisance of our living existence — a glimpse 

 beyond the threescore and ten that ordinarily rounds 

 the period of our earthly endurance. We are ever 

 in care and anxiety about our own individual future ; 

 can we refrain from looking into the future of our 

 race — a future to which every act of our own is a 

 contribution either for good or for evil — an impulse 

 to progress, or a check to advancement ? 



In trying to arrive at some intelligible conception 

 of the future relations of our race, we must be guided 

 exclusively by what we have learned of the past, and 

 by the belief that the methods of nature are unchange- 

 able and enduring. Than this, reason has no other 

 course, and when logically followed we are bound to 

 accept its deductions. If then palaeontology has 

 determined a progressive ascent from lower to higher 

 life-forms in the past, and physiology admits a prin- 

 ciple of variation at work in the present, we may rest 

 assured the process of ascensive development is still 

 elaborating newer and higher forms for the future. 

 All the forces of nature, physical and vital, are as 



