The best use of field and forest will leave
them decade by decade, century by century, more fruitful; and we have
barely begun to use the indestructible power that comes from harnessed
water. The conquests of surgery, of medicine, the conquests in the
entire field of hygiene and sanitation, have been literally
marvellous; the advances in the past century or two have been over
more ground than was covered during the entire previous history of the
human race.
The advances in the realm of pure intellect have been of equal note,
and they have been both intensive and extensive. Great virgin fields
of learning and wisdom have been discovered by the few, and at the
same time knowledge has spread among the many to a degree never
dreamed of before. Old men among us have seen in their own generation
the rise of the first rational science of the evolution of life. The
astronomer and the chemist, the psychologist and the historian, and
all their brethren in many different fields of wide endeavor, work
with a training and knowledge and method which are in effect
instruments of precision, differentiating their labors from the labors
of their predecessors as the rifle is differentiated from the bow.
The play of new forces is as evident in the moral and spiritual world
as in the world of the mind and the body.
Pages:
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139