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occasion of this book was an invitation received nearly three years ago, to deliver a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute in Boston. The writer's sincerest thanks are due to the Trustee of the Institute for the honor of this appointment, and for the time granted in order to prepare to meet it. In the fulfillment of this duty last autumn, the substance of about one half of this volume was delivered as lectures.

The title of the book, which has not been selected without care, may seem to some persons to be excessive in its optimism. Even if this is so, there is really no help for it. It is the expression of a conviction, which, for the writer, has the force of truth. And when one thinks of the revolution in all matters of faith in which men are now living, it is not unwise to hope for great issues. In an unpublished address the late Professor C. C. Everett, of Harvard University, referred to the last third of the nineteenth cen-