est daily
objects and outwardly most trivial occurrences, will put an end to all
craving for merely physical change of place and excitement. Gradually
the human race will become stationary, each family occupying its own
place, and living in patriarchal simplicity, though endowed with power
and wisdom that we should now consider god-like. The sons and daughters
will go forth whither youthful love calls them; but, with the perfecting
of society, those whose spiritual sympathies are closest will never be
spatially remote; lovers will not then, as now, seek one another in the
ends of the earth, and probably miss one another after all. Each member
of the great community will spontaneously enlist himself in the service
of that use which he is best qualified to promote; and, as in the human
body, all the various parts, in fulfilling their function, will serve
one another and the whole.

Perhaps the most legitimately interesting phase of this speculation
relates to the future of these qualities and instincts in human nature
which we now call evil and vicious. Since these qualities are innate,
they can never be eradicated, nor even modified in intensity or
activity. They belong with us, nay, they are all there is of us, and
with their disappearance, we ourselves should disappear. Are we, then,
to be wicked forever? Hardly so; but, on the contrary, what we have
known as wickedness will show itself to be the only possible basis and
energy of goodness. These tremendous appetites and passions of ours were
not given us to be extinguished, but to be applied aright.

They are like fire, which is the chief of destroyers when it escapes
bounds, or is misused; but, in its right place and function, is among
the most indispensable of blessings. But to enlarge upon this thought
would carry us too far from the immediate topic; nor is it desirable to
follow with the feeble flight of our imagination the heaven-embracing
orbit of this theme. A hint is all that can be given, which each must
follow out for himself. We have only attempted to indicate what regions
await the genius of the new Columbus; nor does the conjecture seem too
bold that perhaps they are not so distant from us in time as they appear
to be in quality. They are with us now, if we would but know it.

THE UNKNOWN.

PART I.

BY CAMILLE FLAMMARION.

_Translated from the author's manuscript, by G. A. H. Meyer and
J. H. Wiggin._

Croire tout decouvert est une erreur