he mass of our
populations have not at all advanced beyond the savage code of morals,
and have in many cases sunk below it. A deficient morality is the
great blot of modern civilization, and the greatest hindrance to true
progress.

During the last century, and especially in the last thirty years, our
intellectual and material advancement has been too quickly achieved for
us to reap the full benefit of it. Our mastery over the forces of mature
has led to a rapid growth of population, and a vast accumulation of
wealth; but these have brought with them such au amount of poverty and
crime, and have fostered the growth of so much sordid feeling and so
many fierce passions, that it may well be questioned, whether the mental
and moral status of our population has not on the average been lowered,
and whether the evil has not overbalanced the good. Compared with our
wondrous progress in physical science and its practical applications,
our system of government, of administering justice, of national
education, and our whole social and moral organization, remains in a
state of barbarism. [See note next page.] And if we continue to devote
our chief energies to the utilizing of our knowledge the laws of nature
with the view of still further extending our commerce and our wealth,
the evils which necessarily accompany these when too eagerly pursued,
may increase to such gigantic dimensions as to be beyond our power to
alleviate.

We should now clearly recognise the fact, that the wealth and knowledge
and culture of the few do not constitute civilization, and do not of
themselves advance us towards the "perfect social state." Our vast
manufacturing system, our gigantic commerce, our crowded towns and
cities, support and continually renew a mass of human misery and
crime absolutely greater than has ever existed before. They create and
maintain in life-long labour an ever-increasing army, whose lot is the
more hard to bear, by contrast with the pleasures, the comforts, and the
luxury which they see everywhere around them, but which they can never
hope to enjoy; and who, in this respect, are worse off than the savage
in the midst of his tribe.

This is not a result to boast of, or to be satisfied with; and,
until there is a more general recognition of this failure of our
civilization--resulting mainly from our neglect to train and develop
more thoroughly the sympathetic feelings and moral faculties of
our nature, and to allow them a l