Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/259

Rh Chancellor Lathrop discovers that all material development on the earth which is derived from art and science, has ultimately the effect of throwing back the soul upon itself. The discipline of its powers during the labour which is requisite to obtain possession of the physical world for itself, strengthens and animates it for new conquests in the spiritual world. And a more perfect knowledge of the law of this, prepares us again for a more perfect dominion over the world without us.

“The history of philosophy testifies to this mutual and friendly relation between the sciences of matter and of mind; and in no period have the spiritual tendencies of the race been more observable than in this, stigmatised though it has been, as the mechanical, the material, the iron age of the world. The science of mind has ceased to be regarded as a subject of barren speculation. Its practical bearings are felt and acknowledged. The treasured results of metaphysical inquiry in past ages, since the injunction, ‘,’ first opened to the pupil and the philosopher a region of mystery and doubt, will pass to coming generations, enriched by the contributions of the present, and distinguished by the sunlight which our own gifted intellects are shedding on the science of mind.

“But to tarry no longer in the vestibule, let us enter the inner temple. The prosecution of physical, metaphysical or mathematical truth derives, after all, its chief value from its bearing on, and connection with, the social principle in man. It is the social part of his constitution in which is centered mainly the value of an individual, either to himself as a sensitive being, or to the universe as one of its component parts.

“In all questions relative to human progress, therefore, the burden of the inquiry must respect the social advancement of man.

“This inquiry presents a two-fold aspect—the