Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/89

Rh cloudless east, where the first glimmerings of the approaching dawn expanded imperceptibly.

'That,' he said, 'is one's thought—one's dream—one's vision; the ideal, the heaven of the race, and its realisation, is possible—possible through developments of ever-increasing beauty, and force, and wonder. Who shall say No? But one thing is certain: the human problem must be settled first. The danger of the ruined web must be permanently averted. Every faculty of man must be bent to the great work. We must have all mankind to choose from. Food and clothing and housing, refuge from sickness and old age, must be an axiom of human existence. The need for individual selfishness must disappear in that of the race. All energy must go out in the training of the spiritual and mental faculties. Only from a superb rank and file can we hope for a superb army from which we can choose our saviours. We have but one single foe—Nature—the deadliest foe of all, the foe which can be conquered only by intelligence, and enslaved only by comprehension, and which can hold no other place but that of either victor or vanquished, master or servant. Nothing that runs counter to the final settlement of this, the one vital problem of humanity, is to be tolerated. If we cannot read her riddle aright, our Sphinx will surely devour us, just as she