48 LITERARY VALUES 



you. We get the family tree only by cutting out a 

 fragment of this network. 



There is little doubt that certain natural laws 

 pervade alike both mind and matter. The law of 

 evolution is universally operative, and is the key to 

 development in the moral and intellectual world no 

 less than in the physical. We are probably, in all 

 our thoughts and purposes, much more under the 

 dominion of universal natural laws than we suspect. 

 The will reaches but a little way. I have no doubt 

 that the race of man bears a definite relation to the 

 life of the globe, — that is, to its age, its store of 

 vitality ; that it will culminate as the vital power 

 of the earth culminates, and decline as it declines. 

 Like man, the earth has had its youth, — its nebu- 

 lous, fiery, molten youth ; then its turbulent, luxuri- 

 ant, copious, riotous middle period ; then its placid, 

 temperate, ripe later age, when the higher forms 

 emerge upon the scene. The analogy is deep and 

 radical. The vital energy of the globe was once 

 much more rampant and overflowing than it is now ; 

 the time will come when the pulse of the planet will 

 be much feebler than it is now. Youth and age, 

 growth and decay, are universal conditions. The 

 heavens themselves shall wax old as doth a garment. 

 Life and death are universal conditions, and to fancy 

 a place where death is not is to fancy one's self 

 entirely outside of this universe and of all possible 

 universes. 



Men in communities and assemblages are under 

 laws that do not reach or affect the single Individ- 



