UTILITARIAN ECONOMICS $ 2 7
period of his prehistoric existence and in buoying him on into his present more or less civilized state.
During all the earlv portion of this period, however long it may have been, there was nothing to interrupt the steady and persistent action of this psychic force working in complete harmony with cosmic law toward the primary end of organic evolution. But as the cerebral hemispheres grew and the thinking powers increased, and especially after society, art, and industry had become fixed institutions, and after priesthoods had been established, forming a sedentary class, philosophy took root and the thought of man turned to the study and analysis of his condition. Then began; by little and little, that slow trans- formation which has ultimately brought about the pessimism of the East and the asceticism of the West, to which reference has been made. It has never been sufficiently pronounced to resist the powerful tide of optimism, but it has created a manifest ripple on the surface and here and there an eddy in the stream itself.
While orientalism would seem to be more favorable than asceticism to the growth of this anti-optimistic tendency, the indications are that it is in the West that we must look for its greatest development. This is not because Christianity is more favorable to it, but because it is here that a true knowledge of nature is being acquired through the revelations of science and the unavoidable philosophy that is growing out of them. The most enlightened western races are letting in the dry light of investigation and reason upon every domain of nature and are fearlessly formulating the resultant logic, leaving consequences to take care of themselves. Latterly these researches have been more and more directed to the higher social conditions, and they have not only confirmed the widespread belief in malism, but have penetrated to its causes and conditions and somewhat stripped it of the sanctity that has hitherto surrounded it. In the present state of the world there may be danger that these influences will antagonize the normal laws of develop- ment and tend to bring the hitherto rapid growth of population to a standstill.
