'The estate of man upon this earth of ours may in course of time be
vastly improved. So much seems to be promised by the recent
achievements of Science, whose advance is in geometrical progression,
each discovery giving birth to several more. Increase of health and
extension of life by sanitary, dietetic, and gymnastic improvement;
increase of wealth by invention and of leisure by the substitution of
machinery for labour: more equal distribution of wealth with its
comforts and refinements; diffusion of knowledge; political
improvement; elevation of the domestic affections and social
sentiments; unification of mankind and elimination of war through
ascendency of reason over passion--all these things may be carried to
an indefinite extent, and may produce what in comparison with the
present estate of man would be a terrestrial paradise. Selection and
the merciless struggle for existence may be in some measure superseded
by selection of a more scientific and merciful kind. Death may be
deprived at all events of its pangs. On the other hand, the horizon
does not appear to be clear of cloud.... Let our fancy suppose the
most chimerical of Utopias realised in a commonwealth of man. Mortal
life prolonged to any conceivable extent is but a span. Still over
every festal board in the community of terrestrial bliss will be cast
the shadow of approaching death; and the sweeter life becomes the more
bitter death will be. {256} The more bitter it will be at least to the
ordinary man, and the number of philosophers like John Stuart Mill is
small.'--GOLDWIN SMITH: _Guesses at the Riddle of Existence_ ('Is There
Another Life?').
'In return for all of which they have deprived us, some prophets of
modern science are disposed to show us in the future a City of God
_minus_ God, a Paradise _minus_ the Tree of Life, a Millennium with
education to perfect the intellect, and sanitary improvements to
emancipate the body from a long catalogue of evils. Sorrow no doubt
will not be abolished; immortality will not be bestowed. But we shall
have comfortable and perfectly drained houses to be wretched in. The
news of our misfortunes, the tidings that turn the hair white, and
break the strong man's heart will be conveyed to us from the ends of
the earth by the agency of a telegraphic system without a flaw. The
closing eye may cease to look to the land beyond the River; but in our
last moments we shall be able to make a choice between patent furnaces
for the cremation of our remains, and coffins of the most charming
description for their preservation when desiccated.'--Archbishop
ALEXANDER: _Witness of the Psalms to Christ and Christianity_, p. 48.
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