Page:King Camp Gillette - The Human Drift (1894).djvu/15



The fourth centenary of America’s discovery has come and gone, and has been celebrated with appropriate ceremony and general popular rejoicing; and the object-lesson has been one to waken the mind of every individual to the wonderful possibilities of man’s progress in the future. It is only when we contrast our present material prosperity and intellectual position with conditions four hundred years ago that we begin to realize the enormous gulf which has been crossed. We can pride ourselves upon the advancement made and our present enviable condition as contrasted with that past; yet we must not lose sight of the fact that a continuation of that same gulf which lies behind us, still stretches out beyond the horizon of our vision in the future. As we turn our wondering thoughts toward that future, we have the consolation of knowing that with each receding year the base of knowledge will broaden, in consequence of which we shall be elevated to a higher plane and our condition improved. When we recall the grandeur and artistic beauty of the White City, its magnificent architecture and beautiful environment, and realize how from a barren waste it sprang into existence under the magic wand of united intelligence, we are impressed with the thought, Was it but a dream, or was it a revelation to humanity, to lighten the pathway to a new and perfect civilization and an environment made beautiful by United Intelligence and Material Equality?

The just solution of the problem of a social condition wherein aggregate of interests shall be considered anterior to individual interests, and yet based on the broad principle that individual interests and ambition shall have no unnecessary obstruction put in its pathway of gratification and free expansion, is still in an embryo state, and recognizable in that state by but few; but the gradual raising of the standard of intelligence is bringing us nearer and nearer to that time when reason and argument will take the place of precedent in directing our welfare, when we shall no longer depend on history thousands of years old to determine what our actions shall be in the present.