As a working hypothesis, at least, we seem to be allowed to assume that much will depend, in the future, upon the extent to which conscious factors are brought to bear upon the world's progress as a whole, upon the form in which the world-idea shapes itself, and the power which is put behind that world idea by the educational forces of the world. The world appears now to stand balanced at a critical moment, its future depending upon whether old ideals and primitive emotions shall prevail, or whether a new spirit which is perhaps after all but a sense of direction growing out of the old order shall become the dominating influences. Whether the consciousness of nations shall be creative and progressive seems to depend now upon the extent to which the whole life of feeling is influenced by ideas which, although they are products, as we say, of the primitive biological processes that underlie history, are also outside these processes, as definite purposes, desires, visions, ideals. At least we seem to depend now upon these superior influences for many things that we regard as good--for the rate at which we shall make progress, and for the certainty of making progress at all. Upon these conscious factors directing and shaping the plastic forces represented in the moods of our time, we shall assume, the course of history will depend. We are no longer to be satisfied with _natural progress_. We have gone too far and too long, let us say, upon a rising tide of biological forces, and we have not yet realized what conscious evolution might mean. We have been too well satisfied with the physical resources and the psychic energies that seemed sufficient for the need of the day. A world in which democracy is going to prevail can no longer live in this way. It will not grow of itself in a state of nature. Its principle, on the other hand, forbids program-making after the manner of autocratic societies. Democracy, as the form in which the youthful and exuberant spirit of the world now makes ready for creating the next stage of civilization, will advance, we may suppose, neither by nature nor by force. It is the main work of our day to find for ourselves a new and better mode of shaping history, by bringing to bear upon all the social motives of the day the best and strongest influences. Our whole situation is from this point of view an educational problem. Probably there was never a greater need than that the democratic forces of the world now have great leadership. It is a practical world, a world of politics and of business, but it is also a world exceedingly sensitive to many influences, good and bad, a world in which, we may think, nothing great and permanent can be accomplished unless moral, religious and aesthetic influences prevail and give to our civilization its new dominant.