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ing the hope of a brighter future for his descendants; no

obstacle appears in view to bar their journey along the upward path; the illimitable capacity of protoplasm for physiological elevation may triumph over the universal cycle of birth, maturity, and decay; and in humanity as it exists we may see the progenitors of an infinitely superior, perhaps of an immortal race, the ultimate expression and end of evolution and generation.^[1]

[Footnote: race and a devotion to the evolution of humanity. The Stoic would not

now be ready to make his own quietus with a bare bodkin should the currents turn awry. He would stand to his post till the last hour, working for the advancement of science. "Les stoiciens n'étaient occupés qu'a travailler au bonheur des hommes, à exercer les devoirs de la société: il semblait qu'ils regardassant cet esprit sacré qu'ils croyaient être en eux-mêmes, comme une espèce de providence favorable qui veillait sur le genre humain"; Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, xxiv, 10. See Plutarch, De Stoic. Repug., 13; Adv. Stoicos, 33; Seneca, De Provid., 1; Epist., cvi; cxvii, etc.; Epictetus, ii, 8, 9; Lactantius, Div. Inst., i, 5, 27, etc.]*

↑ Accepting the identity of the evolutionary process at all grades of its prepotency, we may suppose that future advancement will be the result of deliberate effort; and that the more determinate such effort, the more rapid must be the progress. While the aptitude of our faculties must be increased by their being constantly exercised in study and research, the knowledge attainable by such work may ultimately win for us some controlling influence over our physiological constitution. The wild dreams of mediaeval alchemists now seem to us less unreal since we have had experience of the properties of radium; and the vision of an elixir vitae, which illuded those investigators, appears more realizable in the light of recent research. The arrest of senility may come within the range of the future therapeutist; and a new Demeter may subject the modern Triptolemus to some alchemical fire, to render him proof against mortality. Less remotely, the systematic administration of sexual associations would exert a powerful influence over mental and bodily development; and it would be physiologically correct if famous stallions should stand to cover brood mares in the human as well as in the equine world> The Spartans realized something of this in practice;

[1] Accepting the identity of the evolutionary process at all grades of its prepotency, we may suppose that future advancement will be the result of deliberate effort; and that the more determinate such effort, the more rapid must be the progress. While the aptitude of our faculties must be increased by their being constantly exercised in study and research, the knowledge attainable by such work may ultimately win for us some controlling influence over our physiological constitution. The wild dreams of mediaeval alchemists now seem to us less unreal since we have had experience of the properties of radium; and the vision of an elixir vitae, which illuded those investigators, appears more realizable in the light of recent research. The arrest of senility may come within the range of the future therapeutist; and a new Demeter may subject the modern Triptolemus to some alchemical fire, to render him proof against mortality. Less remotely, the systematic administration of sexual associations would exert a powerful influence over mental and bodily development; and it would be physiologically correct if famous stallions should stand to cover brood mares in the human as well as in the equine world> The Spartans realized something of this in practice;

[1]