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554 growth of capacity in them for the knowledge of knowable things; and as to the growth of power in them to control the material conditions of their existence, within such limits as are set by physical law. They do not belittle the modern triumphs of the race in commerce, science, art, invention, and organization. But they look upon all this as an evil, delusive, vainglorious show—a devil's work of tinsel and veneer—a bubble-blown fabric, quite empty of the substance of eternal things. They insist that there has been no moral growth in human nature, as a whole, to accompany the evolution of rational faculties and powers; and that, while human conduct has been gathering its potent gains of prudence, ingenuity, skillfulness, and the like—which are qualities relative to means and ends—it has gained, on the whole, in the absolute qualities of rightness and goodness, either nothing at all or less.

This denial of moral progress, as a general fact, is made, however, with some necessary qualifications. There are certain moral fruits so conspicuous in the history of civilization, that no pessimist can dispute them. That the long, slow movements in society, which have been tending, with steady purpose and sure result, to establish order and the reign of equal laws; to extinguish slavery; to break oppression of every form; to mitigate the barbarities of war, and to put restraints upon it; to diminish human suffering; to help the unfortunate, and to lift the debased; to cultivate the cosmopolitan sentiment and the spirit of coöperation among men—that the movements which bear this ripening fruitage are moral movements, it is impossible to deny. However the sullen pessimist may disparage them, as sentimental and superficial, the moral quality in them is unmistakable. He yields, therefore, to the evidence of a moral growth of human character in these amiable directions, but he contends that it is all awry, and more deforming than otherwise in the result. He points to the other sides of the historical exhibition of humanity, and asks us what we can find to please us in the total showing. Is there less hypocrisy among men, he demands to know, than there was twenty centuries ago? Is there less chicanery, less duplicity, less grasping greed and selfish meanness? Is there less rapacity, in fact, after all the rude violence that you have subdued by softer manners is taken out? Is there less ruthlessness in the pursuit of ambitious or avaricious ends? Has any nobler type of character been fashioned by all your schools and institutions than the type of Socrates and Plato? Is your democratic Yankee, with his newspaper, his caucus, his party "platform," and his patent ballot-box, a more admirable patriot than the grim republican of old Rome? Is your modern mechanic, with his cunning tools and his marvelous engines, a more honest workman than the patient cathedral-builders of the middle ages? Is your modern merchant, with his steam carriers, his electric messengers, and his bills of credit, a more scrupulous speculator than the