at large which is
necessary to the development of our theme, and which must include the
action of causes that had their origin long before our time. The
movement which culminated in making the nineteenth century ever
memorable in history is the outcome of a long series of causes, acting
through many centuries, which are worthy of especial attention on such
an occasion as this. In setting them forth we should avoid laying
stress on those visible manifestations which, striking the eye of every
beholder, are in no danger of being overlooked, and search rather for
those agencies whose activities underlie the whole visible scene, but
which are liable to be blotted out of sight by the very brilliancy of
the results to which they have given rise. It is easy to draw attention
to the wonderful qualities of the oak; but, from that very fact, it may
be needful to point out that the real wonder lies concealed in the
acorn from which it grew.

Our inquiry into the logical order of the causes which have made our
civilization what it is to-day will be facilitated by bringing to mind
certain elementary considerations--ideas so familiar that setting them
forth may seem like citing a body of truisms--and yet so frequently
overlooked, not only individually, but in their relation to each other,
that the conclusion to which they lead may be lost to sight. One of
these propositions is that psychical rather than material causes are
those which we should regard as fundamental in directing the
development of the social organism. The human intellect is the really
active agent in every branch of endeavor--the primum mobile of
civilization--and all those material manifestations to which our
attention is so often directed are to be regarded as secondary to this
first agency. If it be true that "in the world is nothing great but
man; in man is nothing great but mind," then should the key-note of our
discourse be the recognition of this first and greatest of powers.

Another well-known fact is that those applications of the forces of
nature to the promotion of human welfare which have made our age what
it is are of such comparatively recent origin that we need go back only
a single century to antedate their most important features, and
scarcely more than four centuries to find their beginning. It follows
that the subject of our inquiry should be the commencement, not many
centuries ago, of a certain new form of intellectual activity.

Having gain