In our first number, under the heading of “Our Title,” we tried to show that society has, from its earliest stages, been making progress towards a great “culminating civilization,” in which, all the previous efforts of society will be merged and displayed.
We may have left the impression, in the minds of some, that we suppose, when that point is reached, perfection will be so far obtained, that thenceforth, humanity will float smoothly on a glittering, but unruffled sea of perfection, – a tide of progress arrived at its high water mark.
This, however, is not what we wish to convey to the minds of our readers. By the words “culminating civilization,” as used in the article referred to, we wish to be understood relatively – a culminating civilization, only, in reference to the past. In our estimation there can be no culmination to the series of progressive attainments of which intelligence is capable. There can be no culmination to man’s course, or to the efforts of undying divinity that exists within him. Created, as man is, perfectly destitute of any inward sense of the possibility of death, or limit to his being, or powers, man’s soul, long ere now, would have aspired to comprehend the universe of truth had not priestcraft – always terrified at the extent of his nature – held him back by warnings of the wrath of the very God whose awakening he feels and of whose unlimited ambitions his whole being is the counterpart. Let but that spell be broken, and the fact, of the divine and eternal nature of man, be fully accepted in its stead, and under its inspiring influence, the culminating civilization of which we have spoken – come when it may – with all its gloriously combined results of the efforts of all previous ages, will prove but the lowest stage of a great new series, in connection with which mankind will travel as much higher still.
Such are our views of the future of society. With us, man is viewed as an unlimited being, existing in an unlimited universe, surrounded unlimitedly with objects for his scrutiny and comprehension, – a deathless universe to be explored, – a deathless soul within him to explore it! No sense of limit to his capabilities within his soul; no evidence that there can ever be a time when there will be nothing more to learn indicated in the universe without. As it should be, man finds himself fitted in character to the universe in which he exists. Were he limited in his capacities, or the universe in its resources, there would be a lack of fitness in the nature of things. As to intelligence, in the abstract, we cannot conceive of intelligence, but, as deathless ever progressing intelligence, without pain. Supposing intelligence to be created – which we by no means affirm – for God to awaken into existence such intelligence as we possess, while it is in the least degree possible, there can by any decay or limit to its active career, would amount to his creating the strong instincts of life to face the horrifying prospect of their own dissolution; thus, constituting himself, Creator and Destroyer of life and pleasure in the same act! but this never can be true! When the meanest promptings or wants of our physical being find themselves, without exception, elaborately supplied in the grand provisions of nature, the mightiest, the most intensified yearnings of our spirits, cannot, alone, be created for disappointment. The yearnings of endless life and progress, existing within us, must be true indications of the future that await us, or the million-fold evidences that exist of the invariable presence of such desires in the human soul, would be so many evidences that the God of nature has lent himself, to convey a false anticipation to every heart, and to bear witness to a lie in every bosom. Inasmuch as Nature – as heard speaking in the hearts of the good and wise of all ages – cannot lie, the future of our race can only be truly read in the light of the boundless yearnings for knowledge that exists within us, side-by-side with the immensity of wisdom evidently for us to learn. Science and art, then, with us, can but have begun their day! As boundless and unexplorable as the Universe itself, must be the sciences, that will in due order be sought out by the untiring energies of unclouded humanity. Give man only the same amount of progress he even now can make; assume his slowest rate of growth, and give him but ALL ETERNITY for his day of operations, and you have constituted him, comparatively, a God at once! A greater deity in the future, anyway, than our highest imaginations can conceive or language can convey. Assume then, better, and still better, conditions for his progress than now exist – as well we may – and the same eternal period for his development, and where have you prospectively landed him? And with him, where have you predicted the position of the race to which he belongs? In the very heart, if heart there be, to the infinite circle of the Divine Sciences of creative and beautifying power! Where the Great Universe is found yielding up its secrets one-by-one to his determined will; where ceaseless ages in their periods, come but to pour new tides of strength into his being, and open wide, and still wider doors, through which his enlarged vision may gaze astonished upon the majestic infinitudes of undiscovered science still without.
But, let us now come back to our own time – to the simplicities of today; what shall we say of them? This, that distant and immense as are the leadings of the road that will yet be traveled by mankind, we are on that road today, or on paths that lead to it! Immortal, expansive, and divine, as necessarily will be, the sciences that will in due time reveal themselves, the simplest truths mankind have already made their own, are as immortal and divine as any that ever will be reached. All truths form so many strata of a boundless series supporting, overlaying, and interlocking each other and forming one grand and indissoluble whole. To be connected to any one truth, therefore, is to be in a sense connected to a whole, for the whole is then within our reach. We have, consequently, in any truth we have ever learned, one end of a thread running through all the facts of universal life; and by following which, we may explore unlimitedly, the chambers of the palace of immensity. What we gain, therefore, in conceptive, inventive, or creative strength today, however limited in extent it may be, is so much gained of the immensity of wisdom and capacity, which creates worlds and harmonizes universes. Even in all the small accomplishments that lie between the creation of a table, to the intention of a telegraph wire, we grasp faculties of Deity. Small as the draught may be, we drink of the same “stream which makes glad the city of our God.” However close to the shore, as yet, we sail, we are on an unlimited sea on whose boundless waters the revealing light of truth never sets, – as much on the sea as archangels, or celestial beings of any order, who, eternal ages hence, left the shore, and turned their exploring eyes towards the exhaustless, but not incomprehensible mysteries ahead.
So much, then, allow us to assert, for the oneness of the truths we know, with the truths that ever have or ever will be known. As to the fitness of our nature for the deepest researches into the mighty volumes of undiscovered truth, we have the continual witness with us. We seem like a mine of jeweled thoughts when once the vein is struck, and such a mine, in fact, we are, for deity is hid within us waiting to be developed; while, on every hand outside, a living, palpitating universe of inspiration exists, waiting to take hold upon us, and connect our intelligence with the immensity of wisdom without. Then the Divine within our nature, answering to the Divine whisperings without, like blaze answering to blaze, gladdens again! Like a mirror answers to the glances of the sun, and forms one radiant glory with the messengers of light, so, sunlike inspiration, glancing on any polished quality of our souls, wakens a glory there, and in that faculty our being God is revealed. Thus we draw nigh to Him and whether we seek to appropriate to ourselves his wisdom manifested, in artistic, scientific, or so-called sacred truths, He is always there answering to every call of our being for light or truth. Thus through eternal ages must it ever be, a boundless infinitude of truth ever present to answer the utmost requisitions of our infinite souls. Endless unfoldings of art and science, and still higher developments of social and sacred truths must, therefore, needs take place; and endlessly our race must rise, from “culminating civilization” to “culminating civilization,” and that without end.