“When Life left the trees and found or dug caves to live in, it left behind it, as a record of its first shelter and home and improved condition, the first vague scratchings of Art. You may be sure that could it have found a record we would discover also in those caves some sign of the first glimmer of Love. “The cave was the first home of the germ of civilisation, and the man who built the first hut laid the foundations of all the palaces and cathedrals of earth. “The man who improved the condition of the first square yard of land laid the foundation of all worldly prosperity, and the man who made the first hinge of hide for the first door destroyed a barricade and laid down the first condition for hospitality. “_Whenever man has fallen away from the teaching of this law, he has always fallen._ [Sidenote: Athens, Egypt, Rome] “Athens rose to the heights of the Acropolis, but she failed in the furtherance of those conditions necessary for the development of the world—witness her streets. Rome rose to splendour and fell in ruins simply because of her failure in the development of material conditions to feed and foster Progress—witness her roads—made for armies to march on. Egypt destroyed herself with dreams of mysticism and power useless to the development of life—witness the Pyramids and the Sphinx. [Sidenote: The Work of the Barbarians] “All these so-called civilizations failed because they were inhuman in the path of progress. “They were not developments, but essays in development. Their civilizations had no relation to the broad Human Family, and gave no platform for that family to develop on. Athens, Rome, Egypt carried Arts, Power, Mysticism to the heights, while down on the plains the tillers of the soil, the serfs, and the barbarians carried on Human Nature. “Athens, Rome, and Egypt, like some modern philosophers, took no account of human weaknesses. Examine their laws and codes, their policy, and their view-points, and you will at once see that their platform was so narrow that only a class could stand on it, and that their atmosphere was stifling to Man. Human nature could not develop in it. There was no liberty for growth. Human nature had reached a certain point; it made blind attempts to rise higher. It rose to heights of Egyptian power and mysticism, and fell; to heights of Athenian art and philosophy, and fell; to heights of Roman splendour, and fell. It was like an animal trying to leave a sea, and falling back at each attempt by reason of the crumbling of the shore under its weight. “It had not found the resting-place of solid rock. The hard rock of Liberty and material good and material Reason and material development. [Sidenote: Bacon] “At last it found the rock by the man’s hand that could only find and cling to that rock. That hand was Bacon’s. It was so essentially material and human that it could distinguish rock from friable sand, and so powerful that, having found a hold, it never let go.