Page:The Relations of the Advanced and the Backward Races of Mankind.djvu/11



the paeans that were chanted when at the opening of a new century the achievements of the century preceding were reviewed, it was chiefly the progress of the physical sciences, the enlargement of knowledge, and the control obtained over the forces of nature that filled our thoughts. But the exploration of the area, with the ascertainment of the character and resources; both actual and potential, of the globe we inhabit, was a scarcely less notable result of the nineteenth century. In one aspect it was even more remarkable, because it represented the all but final closing of one great chapter of history, the completion of one great task which Man had to do. Scientific knowledge will, we may hope, go on increasing steadily and rapidly. But the exploration of this earth is now all but finished. Civilized man knows his home in a sense in which he never knew it before. He knows how high are the mountains and how deep the seas, what are the currents that keep the ocean in salutary unrest, and what the winds which bring rain or heat