Mankind is being moulded into a single compact self-contained body on the anvil of Hephæstus. It is still subject to feverish ailments and some chronic diseases. But the general outlines of future development are clearly discernible. There must be pauses and set-backs. The brilliant scientific and artistic development of classical Hellenism was all but lost in the destruction of the Roman civilization. But the Arabs kept the flickering flame alive until Europe awoke from its torpor and lit its torch once more. Since then there has been no turning back. The age of science, discovery, and invention, the age of mechanism and machinery and power, has come and come to stay. Man, liberated from mechanical drudgery by the machine, has time to develop his intellectual and artistic powers. His necessities being supplied by pressing a button, he is liberated to enjoy a more varied existence. If some men and women are still bound to monotonous tasks, it does not necessarily mean unhappiness, for the Pathfinders’ life is one of constant care and much anxiety. Discovery is 90 per cent. failure, and something like a daily routine of regular and monotonous work sometimes appears in the light of a blissful refuge. Besides, the human heart and organism easily falls into a routine in which daily work is hardly felt, being done without conscious effort. This fact is often forgotten by those who envy the life of the organizer and financier, which is one of much risk and anxiety, relieved by an occasional big prize. The ideal state of things would be attained if those of an adventurous disposition could be given the adventurous part of human activity, and if those who are plodders by nature could be left to do the plodding. That is a matter for future development, either consciously fostered by wise leaders of our race, or unconsciously evolved from the depths of wisdom hidden below the threshold of the racial consciousness. But the goal is in sight. The earth is being organized and unified under the ægis of the human race, the protoplasm of this planet, the race which, transcending the mechanism and long-established traditions of its own germ-plasm, enlarged and multiplied its functions until it acquired the use of, fire. Upon that achievement it built an unprecedented form of life, a super-“natural” edifice of infinite power, as yet but dimly realized, but which in its full beauty and perfection will be nothing less than Divine. THE END. Transcriber’s Notes: ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). ――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. ――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.