If there be any analogy between his life on earth and that of the frailest plant or shell-fish, as now seen in the light of science, he must still be in his earliest and most helpless infancy. In vain speak of Antiquity in his history; for all his present records are as a day, an hour, a moment, in the unimaginable immensity of duration which seems to await the globe and its inhabitants. In the sight of our distant descendants, successive eras of the brief span which we call History will melt into one; and as to present vision stars far asunder seem near together, so Nimrod and Sesostris, Alexander and Cæsar, Tamerlane and Napoleon, will seem to be contemporaries. Nor is it any exaggeration to suppose that in the unborn ages, illumined by a truth now, alas! too dimly perceived, the class of warriors and conquerors, of which these are signal types, will become extinct,--like the gigantic land reptiles and monster crocodileans belonging to a departed period of zoölogical history. * * * * * Admitting the Unity of Mankind, and an Indefinite Future on earth, it becomes easy to anticipate triumphs which else were impossible. Few will question that Man, as an individual, is capable of indefinite improvement, so long as he lives. This capacity is inborn. None so poor as not to possess it. Even the idiot, so abject in condition, is found at last to be within the sphere of education. Circumstances alone are required to call this capacity into action; and in proportion as knowledge, virtue, and religion prevail in a community will that sacred atmosphere be diffused under whose genial influence the most forlorn may grow into forms of unimagined strength and beauty. This capacity for indefinite improvement, which belongs to the individual, must belong also to society; for society does not die, and through the improvement of its individuals has the assurance of its own advance. It is immortal on earth, and will gather constantly new and richer fruits from the teeming generations, as they stretch through unknown time. To Chinese vision the period of the present may seem barren, but it is sure to yield its contribution to the indefinite accumulations which are the token of an indefinite Progress. Tables speak sometimes as words cannot. From statistics of life, as recorded by Science, we learn the capacity for progress in the Human Family; the testimony is authentic, as it is interesting. A little more than two centuries have passed since Descartes predicted that improvement in human health which these figures exhibit. Could this seer of Science revisit the scene of his comprehensive labors and divine aspirations, he might well be astonished to learn how, in the lapse of so short a period in the life of Humanity, his glowing anticipations have been fulfilled. From the following tables[264] we learn that even the conqueror Death has been slowly driven back, and his inevitable triumph postponed.