APPENDIX XXVIII
'The estate of man upon this earth of ours may in course of time be vastly improved. So much seems to be promised by the recent achievements of Science, whose advance is in geometrical progression, each discovery giving birth to several more. Increase of health and extension of life by sanitary, dietetic, and gymnastic improvement; increase of wealth by invention and of leisure by the substitution of machinery for labour: more equal distribution of wealth with its comforts and refinements; diffusion of knowledge; political improvement; elevation of the domestic affections and social sentiments; unification of mankind and elimination of war through ascendency of reason over passion—all these things may be carried to an indefinite extent, and may produce what in comparison with the present estate of man would be a terrestrial paradise. Selection and the merciless struggle for existence may be in some measure superseded by selection of a more scientific and merciful kind. Death may be deprived at all events of its pangs. On the other hand, the horizon does not appear to be clear of cloud.... Let our fancy suppose the most chimerical of Utopias realised in a commonwealth of man. Mortal life prolonged to any conceivable extent is but a span. Still over every festal board in the community of terrestrial bliss will be cast the shadow of approaching death; and the sweeter life becomes the more bitter death will be. The more bitter it will be at least to the ordinary man, and the number of philosophers like John Stuart Mill is small.'—GOLDWIN SMITH: Guesses at the Riddle of Existence ('Is There Another Life?').
'In return for all of which they have deprived us, some prophets of modern science are disposed to show us in the future a City of God minus God, a Paradise minus the Tree of Life, a Millennium with education to perfect the intellect, and sanitary improvements to emancipate the body from a long catalogue of evils. Sorrow no doubt will not be abolished; immortality will not be bestowed. But we shall have comfortable and perfectly drained houses to be wretched in. The news of our misfortunes, the tidings that turn the hair white, and break the strong man's heart will be conveyed to us from the ends of the earth by the agency of a telegraphic system without a flaw. The closing eye may cease to look to the land beyond the River; but in our last moments we shall be able to make a choice between patent furnaces for the cremation of our remains, and coffins of the most charming description for their preservation when desiccated.'—Archbishop
AUTHORITIES CONSULTED
Abbott, E. A., Through Nature to Christ.
Armstrong, E. A., Back to Jesus; Man's Knowledge of God; Agnosticism and Theism in the Nineteenth Century.
Arthur, W., God without Religion; Religion without God.
Aveling, F. (edited by), Westminster Lectures.