possibility of such a question. In every field of action, we habitually
look back upon accomplished changes from some present well-secured
vantage-point, and as we trace the steps by which they have come to pass
it is almost inevitable that we should first see the sequence as an
approach, direct or devious but always sure, to the stage on which we
happen to have taken our stand. It seems clear to us that what we have
attained is better than aught that has gone before--if it were not
distinctly satisfactory on its own merits we should not now be taking it
as the standpoint for a survey. But once it is so taken, our recognition
of its appreciable and satisfying superiority passes over insensibly
into metaphysics. What we now find good we find ourselves perceiving to
have been all the while predestined in the eternal scheme of things! We
pause in retrospect like the wayfarer who has reached the turning of a
mountain road or the man of middle age who for the first time feels that
his professional position is assured. This, we say, justifies the effort
it has cost, _this_ at last is really living! And the next step in
retrospective reconstruction follows easily; this was my true goal from
the first, the dim and inexpressible hope of which would not let me
pause and kept me until now dissatisfied. The end was present in the
beginning, provoking the first groping efforts and affording
progressively the test and measure by which their results were found
ever wanting.

This retrospective logic may explain the presence and perennial charm of
those panoramic pages in our encyclopaedias purporting to show forth the
gradual perfecting of great instrumentalities upon which our modern life
depends. We survey the "evolution" of printing, for example, from the
wooden blocks of the Chinese or of Laurens Coster down to the Hoe press,
the stereotype plate, and the linotype machine. Or we see the forms of
written record from pictured papyrus, cuneiform brick, and manuscript
scroll down to the printed book and the typewritten page; the means of
carriage by land from the ox-cart of the patriarchs to the stage-coach,
the Cannonball Limited, the motor-truck, and the twelve-cylinder
touring-car. And as one contemplates these cheerfully colored exhibits
there is in each case an almost irresistible suggestion of a constant
and compelling need of "universal man" seeking in more and more
marvellously ingenious ways an adequate expression and satisfac