The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-02-15

everything. Tn Germany particularly
 have the discordant notes of the times
 struck a responsive chord, and doubt
 and questionings stalk broadcast.
 In ancient times the philosopher felt
 himself the only one who could be hap
 py, but has not even this changed, and is the philosopher of to-day-if such
 there be-any freer from unrest than
 humanity as a whole? Have not the
 latest intellectual achievements torn
 away the optimism and seclusion in
 which he could once have immersed himself? And in the conflicting pas
 sions of the times is there any rest for him? Speculation is running riot, and each thought, be it new or only re-
 dressed in different garb, has it's cote rie of followers and opponents A spirit of skepticism permeates all, and strive as they may, even those who | preach the old faith cannot stem the
 tide. There seems to be no sure note in
 all this sea of speculation; no one fun
 damental truth on which men generally
 would stand. One by one the unstable | speculations are taken up and discarded 1 for equally uncertain others. And with
 the comings and the goings the doubts | in mans minds increase. If it be a
 struggle against the unreal what is the
 real? Where is it to be found? Sci
 ence and speculation have destroyed so
 much that one wonders if they have re-
 placed the substance with the shadow or the shadow with the substance.
 1 Ancient ideas have in large measure returned, and man is striving for hap piness as never before. He sees that what only q short while ago seemed certain to bring it has failed, and he is looking for other ways and means. Pessimists might say that the results of
 greater civilization and culture had failed and signally failed in achieving human desires. and might see in the
 present an indication that civilization
 was doomed, and that man must retro-
 grade in order to commence the new
 struggle along a new line of progress.
 He might see that his wearness and
 disappointments, forebodings, doubts
 and questionings were the signs of the
 times and were the result of the high
 development and civilization along
 present lines. As always before, man
 has fallen below his ideal and the real
 ization of that failure has proved for
 the time bitter disappointment. So
 the pessilnist might say that new foundation must be found, q new super structure must be raised, and the high est good and greatest welfare of the fu- ture must be found along entirely diff ferent lines than in the past.
 The optimist on the contrary would say that all advance in the past had been made in the face of doubts and attended with questionings. He would see in the present only the temporary depression between two great eras of development To him the future would be rosy with the fullest achievements of those things at present only hinted at.
 I think that all must feel that we are on the verge of a great social and in tellectual revolution. The signs of the times are too portentious to be over looked. The indications preceding some great movement in historical de- velopment are too apparent. The un- rest of the present it seems to me is | the result of the great strides in the inn mediate past Advance upon advance has come so quickly that we have not | had time to become accustomed or to r realize each in turn In other words, | the past fifty years have been so crowd- ed with mental and material wonders that men are simply involved in a sea of uncertainty They are struggling through it. however, and the premoni- tion of the time bids us look for great change in the future.
 Man has been almost overwhelmed by the tremendous social and intellectual achievements of the past, but history, after lapse of centuries, can alone tell what part the present generation has taken in the change that is certainly coming Amid the chaos of the present, nan is striving to lay hold of something to form clear and substantial beliefs. The age in which we live is hat in which the skepticism caused by he achievements of the past and the nope innate within us for the future Ire struggling for the mastery, We lave turned so much aside, we have so many precedents, super titions and traditions under foot we lave pulled down so many human con- options, that in a sense we are stand ng amidst ruins of the old, with the el- , ments of the new before us. We are landing before the veil which We long l 0 rend asunder and peer if possible into l he il1mitable. And in this, condition $ is any wonder that mems minds are ! He'd with premonitions and doubts? f S it any wonder that through it they z re struggling for foundation upon !. mich they can build sure faith. f Just as the best in each age has al- C avs risen from it and formed the nu- | leus of the age to come so I believe s hat from all the doubt sSepticism and f truggling of the present time, the best ' ill be evolved to go forward and form ' he nucleus of clearer conception of \ lan's place and destiny, and a clearer t of problems that even to- t ay, after the lapse of nineteen hun '' red years, are disturbing mems minds " nd thought. u We are justified in believing that the resent is but the transition period in W hich the new system of thought and ct fe is being evolved. Can we feel that II le disappointments and unsatisfacto- " 7 realization of the commencement of " le century may be dispelled before it's ose, and be succeeded by an age of /, gher revelopment higher and better =,