But I do not offer this speculation, whatever be its worth, as an answer to my original question. It is but an aid to optimism, not a reply to pessimism. Such a reply can only be given by a sociology which has arrived at scientific conclusions on the life-history of different types of society, and has risen above the empirical and merely interrogative point of view which, for want of a better, I have adopted in this address. No such sociology exists at present, or seems likely soon to be created. In its absence the conclusions at which I provisionally arrive are that we cannot regard decadence and arrested development as less normal in human communities than progress; though the point at which the energy of advance is exhausted (if, and when it is reached) varies in different races and civilisations: that the internal causes by which progress is encouraged, hindered, or reversed, lie to a great extent beyond the field of ordinary political discussion, and are not easily expressed in current political terminology: that the influence which a superior civilisation, whether acting by example or imposed by force, may have in advancing an inferior one, though often beneficent, is not likely to be self supporting; its withdrawal will be followed by decadence, unless the character of the civilisation be in harmony both with the acquired temperament and the innate capacities of those who have been induced to accept it: that as regards those nations which still advance in virtue of their own inherent energies, though time has brought perhaps new causes of disquiet, it has brought also new grounds of hope; and that whatever be the perils in front of us, there are, so far, no symptoms either of pause or of regression in the onward movement which for more than a thousand years has been characteristic of Western civilisation. NOTES: [1] The ‘East’ is a term most loosely used. It does not here include China and Japan and _does_ include parts of Africa. The observations which follow have no reference either to the Jews or to the commercial aristocracies of Phœnician origin. [2] Beliefs include knowledge. [3] This remark arises out of a train of thought suggested by two questions which are very pertinent to the subject of the Address. (1) Is a due succession of men above the average in original capacity necessary to maintain social progress? and (2) If so, can we discover any law according to which such men are produced?