If the cosmic process in the physical sphere culminated with the appearance of man, and if, since that culmination, its movement has been toward the perfection of the soul, it is fit and proper that this book should end with a study of the goal toward which the human spirit is pressing.  Is it possible for us, with our limitations, to have an adequate conception of the man that is to be “when the times are ripe” and the “crowning race” walks this earth of ours?—­or, if not this earth, at least, dwells in the spiritual city?  The fascination of this subject has been widely recognized.  The answer must be secured from many sources.  Only in imagination can we follow the lines along which the spirit will move in the far-off ages, and yet our conclusions will not be wholly imaginative, for the direction in which those lines are tending is clearly perceived.  Under the circumstances, therefore, imagination may not be an untrustworthy guide.  We are now to deal with prophecies, some of them easy and some of them difficult to read.  But reading prophecies is not prophesying.  I shall not prophesy, but rather endeavor to understand and to interpret a few of the many voices which have spoken, and are speaking, on this subject.

The soul is itself a prediction of what it is to be.  It utters a various language.

The growth of intelligence is prophetic.  Savage tribes suggest the original condition of primitive man.  The pigmies in Africa afford hints of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel.  From such as they, and from lower types still, the race has slowly and painfully risen.  In them a certain rude intelligence appears.  They have cunning rather than reason.  They are half akin to brute and half akin to man.  A kind of selfish intelligence characterizes their thinking.  They lack a sense of proportion and relation.  Before the ant a man looms as large as a mountain before us.  An insect does not see things as they are but as they seem to it.  Growth in intelligence necessitates a truer appreciation of proportions and relations.  The pigmy also sees little but himself, but years and experience leave behind them wisdom.  The civilized races have all risen from barbarism and savagery—­that is, from a state of imperfect thinking as well as of imperfect loving and choosing.  Experience and culture bring larger knowledge and a more equable balance of the faculties.  No man should be measured by his achievement in any one field of endeavor.  He may paint like Titian and be as voluptuous; he may write tragedies like Shakespeare and have no logic; he may be a gatherer of facts like Darwin and have no power of philosophic analysis.  The intellect grows steadily toward perfection of vision and logical strength, and also and quite as significantly, toward harmony in the development of all the powers of thought.

The contrast between the selfish cunning of an African pigmy and the large and noble minds which are steadily multiplying, is a prophecy of the man who will dwell on this earth when the vision is clear and the power of rational judgment is perfected.