ever and in its very
nature set beyond the possibility of alteration by us or indeed at all.
'What is done not even God can make to be undone.' Were it otherwise it
could not be fact or reality and so not capable of being theorized or
studied. In the words of our programme we have analysed what is involved
in the conception of Progress, shown when it became prominent in the
consciousness of mankind and how far the idea has been realized--that is
has become fact--in the different departments of life. We have taken
Progress as a fact, something accomplished, and have attempted so taking
it to explain or understand it. We have not indeed assumed that it is
confined to the past, but have at times enlarged our consideration so as
to recognize its continuance in the present and to justify the hope of
its persistence in the future. Some of us would perhaps go further and
hold that it has, by these and similar reflections, come to be part of
our assured knowledge that it must so continue and persist. But however
we have widened our purview, what we call Progress has remained to us a
course or movement which still presents the appearance of a fact which
is largely, if not wholly, independent of us--a fact because independent
of us--to which we can occupy no other attitude than that of interested
spectators, interested and concerned, moved or conditioned by it but not
active or co-operative in it. So far as it is in process of realization
in the vast theatre of nature, inorganic or organic, dead or living,
that surrounds us, it pursues its course in virtue of powers not ours
and unamenable to our control. And even when we view it within the
closer environment of human history its current seems to carry us
irresistibly with it. Its existence is indeed of very practical concern
to us, but apparently all we can do is to come to know it, and knowing
it to allow for it as or among the set conditions of our self-originated
or self-governed actions if such actions there be.

The clearer we have become as to the nature of Progress, the more it
would appear that it must be for us, because it is in itself, a fact to
be recognized in theory, taken into account and reckoned with. It is or
it is not, comes to be or does not come to be, and what we have first
and foremost to seek, is light upon its existence and character as it is
or occurs. Light, we hope, has been cast upon it. We have learned that
in its inmost essence and to its utmost boun