Nations and individuals fail and die, and make room for higher forms.
The intellectual horizon of the world widens as the centuries pass.
Ideals grow grander and purer; the difference between justice and mercy
becomes less and less; liberty enlarges, and love intensifies as the
years sweep on. The ages of force and fear, of cruelty and wrong, are
behind us and the real Eden is beyond. It is said that a desire for
knowledge lost us the Eden of the past; but whether that is true or not,
it will certainly give us the Eden of the future.