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The fossil strata show us that Nature began with rudimental forms, and rose to the more complex, as fast as the earth was fit for their dwelling-place; and that the lower perish, as the higher appear.Very few of our race can be said to be yet finished men.We still carry sticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped organization.We call these millions men; but they are not yet men.Half-engaged in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music that can be brought to disengage him.If Love, red Love, with tears and joy; if Want with his scourge; if War with his cannonade; if Christianity with its charity; if Trade with its money; if Art with its portfolios; if Science with her telegraphs through the deeps of space and time; can set his dull nerves throbbing, and by loud taps on the tough chrysalis, can break its walls, and let the new creature emerge erect and free,—make way, and sing paean!The age of the quadruped is to go out,—the age of the brain and of the heart is to come in.The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be organized.Man's culture can spare nothing, wants all the material.He is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.The formidable mischief will only make the more useful slave.And if one shall read the future of the race hinted in the organic effort of Nature to mount and meliorate, and the corresponding impulse to the Better in the human being, we shall dare affirm that there is nothing he will not overcome and convert, until at last culture shall absorb the chaos and gehenna.He will convert the Furies into Muses, and the hells into benefit. 去书内
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