The fossil strata show us that Nature began with rudimental forms,
and rose to the more complex as fast as the earth was fit for their
dwelling-place,--and that the lower perish, as the higher appear. Very
few of our race can be said to be yet finished men. We still carry
sticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped
organization. We call these millions men; but they are not yet men.
Half-engaged in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music
that can be brought to disengage him. If Love, red Love, with tears
and joy,--if Want with his scourge,--if War with his cannonade,--if
Christianity with its charity,--if Trade with its money,--if Art with
its portfolios,--if Science with her telegraphs through the deeps of
space and time, can set his dull nerves throbbing, and by loud taps on
the tough chrysalis can break its walls and let the new creature emerge
erect and free,--make way, and sing paean! The age of the quadruped is
to go out,--the age of the brain and of the heart is to come in.
The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be
organized. Man's culture can spare nothing, wants all the material. He
is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.
The formidable mischief will only make the more useful slave. And if one
shall read the future of the race hinted in the organic effort of Nature
to mount and meliorate, and the corresponding impulse to the Better in
the human being, we shall dare affirm that there is nothing he will not
overcome and convert, until at last culture shall absorb the chaos and
gehenna.
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