e increased--less and less time was
left for meditation and repose--till with the rise of Western Europe and
America, the dominant note of life seems to have simply become one of
feverish and ceaseless activity--of activity merely for the sake of
activity, without any clear idea of its own purpose or object.

Such a prospect does not at first seem very hopeful; but on second
thoughts we see that we are not forced to draw any very pessimistic
conclusion from it. The direction of human evolution need not remain
always the same. The movement, in fact, of civilization from East to
West has now clearly completed itself. The globe has been circled, and
we cannot go any FARTHER to the West without coming round to the East
again. It is a commonplace to say that our psychology, our philosophy
and our religious sense are already taking on an Eastern color; nor is
it difficult to imagine that with the end of the present dispensation a
new era may perfectly naturally arrive in which the St. Vitus' dance of
money-making and ambition will cease to be the chief end of existence.

In the history of nations as in the history of individuals there
are periods when the formative ideals of life (through some hidden
influence) change; and the mode of life and evolution in consequence
changes also. I remember when I was a boy wishing--like many other
boys--to go to sea. I wanted to join the Navy. It was not, I am sure,
that I was so very anxious to defend my country. No, there was a much
simpler and more prosaic motive than that. The ships of those days with
their complex rigging suggested a perfect paradise of CLIMBING, and I
know that it was the thought of THAT which influenced me. To be able
to climb indefinitely among those ropes and spars! How delightful! Of
course I knew perfectly well that I should not always have free access
to the rigging; but then--some day, no doubt, I should be an Admiral,
and who then could prevent me? I remember seeing myself in my mind's
eye, with cocked hat on my head and spy-glass under my arm, roaming at
my own sweet will up aloft, regardless of the remonstrances which
might reach me from below! Such was my childish ideal. But a time
came--needless to say--when I conceived a different idea of the object
of life.

It is said that John Tyndall, whose lectures on Science were so much
sought after in their time, being on one occasion in New York was
accosted after his discourse by a very successful American bu