THE HUMAN OR PRESENT PERIOD. 543 



been a favorite theme for quasi-scientific romances. But this all 

 hangs on the doctrine of a former molten earth, if not also more remotely 

 upon the doctrine of an origin from a gaseous nebula. Under the 

 alternative conception of a slow-grown earth, conserving its energies 

 and giving forth atmosphere as there is need for it, conjoined with a 

 more generous conception of the energies resident in the sun and the 

 stellar system, no narrow limit need be assigned to the habitability 

 of the earth. A Psychozoic era, as long as the Cenozoic or the Paleo- 

 zoic, or an eon as long as the cosmic and the biotic ones, may quite 

 as well be predicted as anything less. The forecast is at best specu- 

 lative, but an optimistic outlook seems to us more likely to prove 

 true than a pessimistic one. An immeasurably higher evolution than 

 that now reached, with attainments beyond present comprehension, 

 is a reasonable hope. 



The forecast of an eon of intellectual and spiritual development 

 comparable in magnitude to the prolonged physical and biotic evolu- 

 tions lends to the total view of earth-history, past and prospective, 

 eminent moral satisfaction, and the thought that individual contri- 

 butions to the higher welfare of the race may realize the fullest fruits 

 of their permanent worth by continued influence through scarcely 

 limited ages, gives value to life and inspiration to personal endeavor. 



