"In thus gaining more knowledge, more light regarding the motive powers which govern our existence, the shackles which had overwhelmed the soul would have long since fallen to the ground, and a _truly_ brotherly spirit would have prevailed among all classes and peoples in place of much of the prejudice, the insincerity, the overbearance, the animosity, the cruelty, and the insanity even of the believers in (or inheritors of) one spiritual theory (often misnamed religion) as against those of another. "The world's thought, just previous to that time, had made great strides forward through the recognition of the laws of _evolution_, which culminated in one master mind, through great elaboration and by citing numerous examples, assigning cogent and necessary reasons therefor. The world should have been ripe, therefore, for this _greater movement_ which it was now called upon to face; a movement which went beyond the mere recognition of phenomena and penetrated into _a priori_ causes. Strange to say, it either could not or would not understand; being still bound by fetters which held it in a vise-like embrace of previously conceived ideas as to the impossibility of penetrating into matters of this nature, and which prevented it from even _testing_ the numerous proofs offered by this writer as to the correctness of his assertions. His investigations, if properly understood, would have brought spirituality _home_ to us; they would have made it accessible to us. It would have ceased to be a phantom, and would have become a reality, a friend on whom we could count, in place of a mysterious and incomprehensible stranger.