duller intelligence.

I should like to have some competent person give us a History of Moral
Progress as a part of the History of Invention. I know there is a
distrust of Invention on the part of many good people who are so
enamored of the ideal of a simple life that they are suspicious of
civilization. The text from Ecclesiastes, "God made man upright; but
they have sought out many inventions," has been used to discourage any
budding Edisons of the spiritual realm. Dear old Alexander Cruden
inserted in his Concordance a delicious definition of invention as here
used: "Inventions: New ways of making one's self more wise and happy
than God made us."

It is astonishing how many people share this fear that, if they exert
their minds too much, they may become better than the Lord intended them
to be. A new way of being good, or of doing good, terrifies them.
Nevertheless moral progress follows the same lines as all other
progress. First there is a conscious need. Necessity is the mother of
invention. Then comes the patient search for the ways and means through
which the want may be satisfied. Ages may elapse before an ideal may be
realized. Numberless attempts must be made, the lessons of the
successive failures must be learned. It is in the ability to draw the
right inference from failure that inventive genius is seen.

"It would be madness and inconsistency," said Lord Bacon, "to suppose
that things which have never yet been performed can be performed without
using some hitherto untried means." The inventor is not discouraged by
past failures, but he is careful not to repeat them slavishly. He may be
compelled to use the same elements, but he is always trying some new
combination. If he must fail once more, he sees to it that it shall be
in a slightly different way. He has learned in twenty ways how the thing
cannot be done. This information is very useful to him, and he does not
begrudge the labor by which it has been obtained. All this is an
excellent preparation for the twenty-first attempt, which may possibly
reveal the way it _can_ be done. When thousands of good heads are
working upon a problem in this fashion, something happens.

For several generations the physical sciences have offered the most
inviting field for inventive genius. Here have been seen the triumphs
of the experimental method. There are, however, evidences that many of
the best intellects are turning to the fascinating field of morals.
Indeed,