end--improvement; and Night or Day, Love or Crime, leads all souls to the Good, as Emerson sings. The principle of evil acts as a perpetual stimulant, the principle of good as a reward of merit. United in their operation, there is a constant tendency toward a better condition, a higher state; apart, the result would be inaction. For, civilization being a progression and not a fixed condition, without incentives, that is without something to escape from and something to escape to, there could be no transition, and hence no civilization. Had man been placed in the world perfected and sinless, obviously there would be no such thing as progress. The absence of evil implies perfect good, and perfect good perfect happiness. Were man sinless and yet capable of increasing knowledge, the incentive would be wanting, for, if perfectly happy, why should he struggle to become happier? The advent of civilization is in the appearance of a want, and the first act of civilization springs from the attempt to supply the want. The man or nation that wants nothing remains inactive, and hence does not advance; so that it is not in what we have but in what we have not that civilization consists. These wants are forced upon us, implanted within us, inseparable from our being; they increase with an increasing supply, grow hungry from what they feed on; in quick succession, aspirations, emulations, and ambitions spring up and chase each other, keeping the fire of discontent ever glowing, and the whole human race effervescent. The tendency of civilizing force, like the tendency of mechanical force, is toward an equilibrium, toward a never-attainable rest. Obviously there can be no perfect equilibrium, no perfect rest, until all evil disappears, but in that event the end of progress would be attained, and humanity would be perfect and sinless. Man at the outset is not what he may be, he is capable of improvement or rather of growth; but childlike, the savage does not care to improve, and consequently must be scourged into it. Advancement is the ultimate natural or normal state of man; humanity on this earth is destined some day to be relatively, if not absolutely, good and happy. The healthy body has appetites, in the gratification of which lies its chiefest enjoyment; the healthy mind has proclivities, the healthy soul intuitions, in the exercise and activities of which the happiest life is attainable; and in as far as the immaterial and immortal in our nature is superior to the material and mortal, in so far does the education and development of our higher nature contribute in a higher degree to our present benefit and our future well-being. [Sidenote: LABOR A CIVILIZING AGENT.]