wledge, some sympathy, some
hope for all mankind. Without this, a league of nations would be dead
before its birth.

The recent development of psychology, social as well as individual, its
pursuit on scientific lines, and its alliance with biology, suggest one
thought which applies generally to an age of science and may be found to
throw some illumination even on the future. Which of all types of modern
men is the most habitually hopeful, the man of letters, the politician,
the business man, or the man of science? There can be no question of the
answer. The typical man of science is sure of the greatness and solidity
of the work he shares, and confident that the future will extend and
make still more beneficial its results. His forward glance is more
assured because the backward reveals a course of growing strength and
continuous ascent. The physicist foresees unmeasured sources of energy,
still untapped. He warns us of our dangers, but has no doubt that, with
due foresight, we may overcome them, and make the reign of man upon the
planet wider and firmer than before. The doctor knows no disease which
may not in time yield to scientific treatment. The agricultural expert
foresees, and can produce, new types of grain and fruit which will
surpass the best yet known. And the trainer of youth, the man to whom
the new science of psychology stands most in stead, is the most hopeful
of them all. Dealing with human nature in its growth he puts no limits
to its powers of goodness and activity. He deplores the want of wise
methods in the past, and if he errs at all it is in an excess of
optimism, in believing that with new methods we may make a new man.

On this enlargement of the soul, enlightened by science, we build the
future. It is the crowning vision of the modern world, first sketched by
Descartes, filled out and strengthened by the life and thought of three
hundred years. In the interval we have lived much and learnt much, both
of our own nature and of the world in which we live. In our own age a
powerful stimulus has been given by a transformed biology and a new
science which shows the soul itself in growth from an immemorial past,
moulding the future by its own action, surmounting, while assimilating,
the mechanism which surrounds it. But for this building two things are
needed. One, that our souls, as builders, shall act as one with all our
fellows and strive for unity as well as power. The other, that in the
building