"This," said he, "only indicates that human development along every line of progress is determined by the constitution of the human mind. Knowing this, we have the key which explains all the mysteries connected with the progress of the race from lower to higher conditions. At every step it has been met by similar difficulties and hence the methods for overcoming these difficulties have been similar, because all have alike possessed the same mental constitution. This progress up to a certain point, has been along unconscious lines, and the average man and woman had no clear understanding of the influences which were impelling them forward. In every age, and in every condition of life, man has been building in the direction of his ideals, but never reaching them. In his primitive state, he felt the need of some means for crossing streams, and having observed that wood floated upon the water, he constructed a raft. From this he formed the plan of a boat, and constructed a canoe. As he improved in the direction of his ideals, these ideals became more exalted, and to-day we have the magnificent electric yacht. So it has been in every department of human effort. The higher the ideals which have been formed in the mind of man, the higher he has climbed in the scale of development. This is the fundamental law of human progress. Every one of these relics of past ages was at first an ideal that had been formed in the human mind before it was realized." "A thought strikes me," I exclaimed. "If all these ideals have been realized, is it not a promise, or a prophecy, that our ideals of to-day, will be realized in the future? And if from the constitution of the human mind we could presage the ideals of the future, we could in a general way predict what the civilization of distant ages will develop." "Certainly," said Norrena. "Your thought is strictly philosophical and applied to our immediate future it gives an infallible rule for presaging events where we are familiar with the forces impelling in a certain direction. If we can ascertain where we are to-day on any given line of progress, we can safely predict what the next step will be on the same line, for all things are possible to the human mind in its ultimate state of development. There is no such thing as actually turning back in the path of progress, much as man may seem to retrograde at times. The lessons taught by these seeming failures are essential elements in his still greater development further on. Nothing that is useful can be permanently lost to the race. What we are inclined to call evil, is fleeting and fades away, while the good, the true and the really valuable is immortal. Hence, human progress towards higher and better conditions, as applied to the race, and long periods of time, must ever be onward and upward toward the Infinite Good."