The Arena | Page 3

sagacity of paper preambles and declarations, no swiftness of travel nor instantaneousness of communication, no invincibility of ironclads nor refinement of society, no logic in religion, no gospel of political economy,--none of these and a hundred other things will read us the Riddle of the Sphinx. Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis! The elements of true life lie deeper and are simpler. Once more, it seems, we have reached the limits of a dispensation, and are halted by a blank wall. There is no visible way over it, nor around it. We cannot stand still; still less can we turn back. What is to happen? What happens when an irresistible force encounters an impenetrable barrier?
That was the question asked in Columbus' day; and he found an answer to it. Are we to expect the appearance of a new Columbus to answer it again? To unimaginative minds it looks as if there were no career for a new Columbus. In the first place, population is increasing so fast that soon even the steppes of Russia and the western American plains will be overcrowded. Again, land, and the control of industries, are falling into the possession of a comparative handful of persons, to whom the rest of the population must inevitably become subject; or, should the latter rebel, the ensuing period of chaos would be followed, at best, by a return of the old conditions. Religion is a lifeless letter, a school of good-breeding, a philosophical amusement; the old unreasoning faith that moved mountains can never revive. Science advances with ever more and yet more caution, but each new step only confirms the conviction that the really commanding secrets of existence will forever elude discovery. Literature, rendered uncreative by the scientific influence, has fallen to refining upon itself, and photographing a narrow conception of facts. The exhausting heats of Equatorial Africa, and the paralyzing cold of the Poles, forbid the hope of successful colonization of those regions. Social life is an elaborate apeing of behavior which has no root in the real impulses of the human heart; its true underlying spirit is made up of hatred, covetousness, and self-indulgence. There are no illusions left to us, no high, inspiring sentiment. We have reached our limit, and the best thing to be hoped for now is some vast cataclysmal event, which, by destroying us out-of-hand, may save us the slow misery of extinction by disease, despair, and the enmity of every man against every other. What Columbus can help us out of such a predicament?
Such is the refrain of the nineteenth century pessimist. But, as before, the sprouting of new thought and belief is visible to the attentive eye all over the surface of the sordid field of a decaying civilization. The time has come when the spirit of Columbus' symbol shall avouch itself, vindicating the patient purpose of Him who brings the flower from the seed. Great discoveries come when they are needed; never too early nor too late. When nothing else will serve the turn, then, and not till then, the rock opens, and the spring gushes forth. Who that has considered the philosophy of the infinitely great and of the infinitely minute can doubt the inexhaustibleness of nature? And what is nature but the characteristic echo, in sense, of the spirit of man?
Even on the material plane, there are numberless opportunities for the new Columbus. Ever and anon a canard appears in a newspaper, or a romance is published, reporting or describing some imaginary invention which is to revolutionize the economical situation. The problem of air-navigation is among the more familiar of these suggestions, though by no means the most important of them. No doubt we shall fly before long, but that mode of travel will be, after all, nothing more than an improvement upon existing means of intercommunication. After the principle has been generally adopted, and the novelty has worn off, we shall find ourselves not much better, nor much worse off than we were before. Flying will be but another illustration of the truth that competition is only intensified by the perfecting of its instruments. Men will still be poor and rich, happy and unhappy, as formerly. If I can go from New York to London in a day, instead of in a week, so also can those against whom I am competing. The idea that there is any real gain of time is an illusion; the day will still contain its four-and-twenty hours, and I shall, as before, sleep so many, play so many, and work so many. Relatively, my state will be unchanged.
More promising is the idea of the transformation of matter. Science is now nearly ready to affirm that substances of all kinds are specific conditions of etheric vortices. Vibration is the law of existence,