540 CONCLUSION 



speck that its history cannot be of much significance. But this 

 would be to confuse greatness with mere bigness, to exalt Siberia 

 above Greece in the development of mankind. It is as the mani- 

 festation and theatre of intelligence, of conscious life, that the 

 earth possesses importance and real significance, however tiny 

 it may appear when compared with the inconceivable vastness of 

 the Universe. The obvious lesson of the whole history is that 

 of progress and development, not only of the globe itself, but 

 of the living things upon it, the lower giving way to the higher, 

 the simple to the complex. Last of all appears Man, " the heir 

 of all the ages," himself the crowning work of progress, who alone 

 of living beings has been able in large measure to emancipate 

 himself from the tyranny of natural forces. But if this emancipa- 

 tion is to justify itself and prove no mere mockery, it must result 

 not simply in material improvements, but in advancement and 

 progress along all lines that shall lift the race to a higher plane 

 and make it worthy of its opportunities and of the age-long prepa- 

 ration for its coming. 



1 The solid earth whereon we tread 



: In tracts of fluent heat began 

 And grew to seeming-random forms, 

 The seeming prey of cyclic storms, 

 Till at the last arose the man; 



; Who throve and branch' d from clime to clime, 



The herald of a higher race, 



And of himself in higher place, 



If so he type this work of time. 



****** 

 ' Arise and fly 



The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; 

 Move upward, working out the beast, 

 And let the ape and tiger die." 



