| Summary: | Where are we and Whither Tending Lecture first. The question stated: is man retrograding, stationary, or progressing? -- Argument in favor of human progress -- Benefits of steam and electricity -- Splendid achievements of science -- Their bearing on progress -- Advances in art, literature, and morality -- Objections to the doctrine of progress -- Pauperism -- The military system -- War -- Antagonism of capital and labour -- Disease, etc. -- Drawbacks of civilization -- The blind, destructive forces of nature at work -- The dark side of nature -- Uses of pessimism -- Its view imperfect -- Magnificent results of science -- Its beneficent tendency -- Its future prospects and possible benefits -- The pessimist's reply to the boasts of science -- Achievements of the ancients and moderns compared -- Egypt, Babylon, Tyre, Etruria, Baalbec, Rome -- The new world -- Easter Island -- Central America -- Mexico, Peru -- The mound-builders -- Ancient and modern literature -- Mankind not more moral or happier than of old -- Modern civilization doomed to perish -- Review of the pessimist's argument -- Intellectual man existed early -- Ancient and modern civilization contrasted -- Human progress a slow and painful process, but real -- Lecture second. Man's earthly destiny enveloped in shadows, but lighted with gleams of hope -- Slow development through conflict and pain -- The death of the weakest -- The life of the strongest -- Waste of life -- Prevalence of suffering -- The difficulty and sadness of existence -- The mystery of it all, but a progressive plan evident -- Higher and nobler types following each other -- Evil diminishing -- Good increasing -- Development in accordance with unswerving law the great idea of the age -- The great question, how things came to be as they are? -- A divine intelligence guiding all -- The theory of evolution -- Not atheistic -- Noble ends proposed and accomplished in creation -- The means seemingly harsh -- Results infinitely precious -- The evolutionist's credo -- "Some soul of goodness ...
|
|---|