disinherited, out of a doubtful forty, shiver through their lives on the verge of hunger: to the bulk of the remainder existence presents no certain joys, either in a guaranteed prosperity or in any serviceable and illuminating purpose of being. Civilisation, in the early twentieth century in England, suffers no illusions as to the control of natural forces, or the exploration of natural secrets furnishing a cure either for the diseases from which it suffers in the body, or the more deep-seated maladies of the soul. It is making life noisier: is it making life--to the general--a richer, a better thing: existence more worth the living? Once more, here is no charge against invention, against the persistent labours of select and powerful minds to ascertain what knowledge is obtainable by the method of experiment and observation. They might justly reply that it is not in their province to make life a richer and better thing: existence more worth the living. Their function--in so far as it touches human life at all--is to increase the aggregate control of “mind over matter”; to release man from the mere impotent cowering before the brute forces of Chance and Necessity, which can deal with him as a plaything, or overwhelm him, casually and indifferently, without praise and without blame. They have no function to determine what distribution of this increase in human wealth and control will most make for the happiness and development of the human family, or to adjust whatever affirmations they may be able to advance with some certitude to historical religions, moralities, or customary courses of conduct. “The changing conditions of history,” says a great modern philosopher, “touch only the surface of the show. The altered equilibriums and redistributions only diversify our opportunities, and open chances to us for new ideals. But with each new ideal that comes into life, the chance for a life based on the old ideal will vanish: and he would needs be a presumptuous calculator who should with confidence say that the total sum of significance is positively and absolutely greater at any one epoch than at any other of the world.”