The Future of Mankind Essay -- Philosophy God Philosophical Essays

The Future of Mankind If we compare the present with the past, if we trace events at all epochs to their causes, if we examine the elements of human growth, we find that Nature has raised us to what we are, not by fixed laws, but by provisional expedients, and that the principle which in one age effected the advancement of a nation, in the next age retarded the mental movement, or even destroyed it altogether. War, despotism, slavery, and superstition are now injurious to the progress of Europe, but they were once the agents by which progress was produced. By means of war the animated life was slowly raised upward in the scale, and quadrupeds passed into man. By means of war the human intelligence was brightened, and the affections were made intense; weapons and tools were invented; foreign wives were captured, and the marriages of blood relations were forbidden; prisoners were tamed, and the women set free; prisoners were exchanged, accompanied with presents; thus commerce was established, and thus, by means of war, men were first brought into amicable relations with one another. By war the tribes were dispersed all over the world, and adopted various pursuits according to the conditions by which they were surrounded. By war the tribes were compressed into the nation. It was war which founded the Chinese Empire. It was war which had locked Babylonia, and Egypt, and India. It was war which developed the genius of Greece. It was war which planted the Greek language in Asia, and so rendered possible the spread of Christianity. It was war which united the world in peace from the Cheviot Hills to the Danube and the Euphrates. It was war which saved Europe from the quietude of China. It was war which made Mecca the centre of the East. It was war which united the barons in the Crusades, and which destroyed the feudal system. Even in recent times the action of war has been useful in condensing scattered elements of nationality, and in liberating subject populations. United Italy was formed directly or indirectly by the war of 1859, 1866, and 187O. The last war realised the dreams of German poets, and united the Teutonic nations more closely than the shrewdest statesmen could have conceived to be possible a few years ago. That same war, so calamitous for France, will yet regenerate that great country, and make her more prosperous than she has ever been. Th... ...n will look upon this star as their fatherland; its progress will be their ambition; the gratitude of others their reward. These bodies which now we: wear belong to the lower animals; our minds have already outgrown them; already we look upon them with contempt. A time will come when Science will transform them by means which we cannot conjecture, and which, even if explained to us, we could not now under stand, just as the savage cannot understand electricity, magnetism, steam. Disease will be extirpated; the causes of decay will be removed; immortality will be invented. And then, the earth being small, mankind will migrate into space, and will cross the airless Saharas which separate planet from planet, and sun from sun. The earth will become a Holy Land which will be visited by pilgrims from all the quarters of the universe. Finally, men will master the forces of Nature; they will become themselves architects of systems, manufacturers of worlds. Man then will be perfect; he will then be a creator; he will therefore be what the vulgar worship as a god. But even then, he will in reality be no nearer than he is at present to the First Cause, the Inscrutable Mystery, the GOD.