Life Progressive. 421 
reveal herself, thereby discovering hidden uses and unsus- 
pected beauties, quite as marvellously as though he were 
endowed with some entirely new organ of sense. Through 
the discovery of printing, we are brought into communion 
with the greatest minds, and thus the thoughts of a Shakes- 
peare or a Tennyson, or the discoveries of a Newton or a 
Darwin, become the common property of mankind. Already 
the results of this all-important, though simple, process 
have vastly improved our mental faculties, and day by 
day, as books become cheaper, schools are established and 
education more general, a greater and greater effect will be 
produced. 
Nor are all these new sources of happiness accompanied 
by any new liability to suffering. On the contrary, while 
our pleasures are increased, our pains are lessened. In a 
thousand ways we can avoid or diminish evils which to our 
ancestors were great and unavoidable. No one can estimate 
the misery which, for instance, the simple discovery of 
chloroform has spared the human race. The capacity for 
pain, so far as it can serve as a warning, remains all the 
same, but the necessity for endurance has been greatly 
diminished. _With increased knowledge of the laws of 
health, and attention thereto, disease will become less and 
less frequent, and those tendencies to disease which we have 
inherited from our ancestors will gradually die out, and, if 
fresh seeds are not sown, the race will one day enjoy the 
inestimable advantages of a more vigorous and healthy 
existence. Thus, then, with the increasing influence of 
science we may confidently look forward to a great improve- 
ment in the condition of man. But it may be alleged that 
our present sufferings and sorrows arise chiefly from sin, 
and that any moral improvement must come from religion 
and not from science. This separation of the two mighty 
agents of improvement, the great misfortune of humanity, 
has done more than anything else to retard the progress of 
civilization. But even if we admit for the nonce that science 
