Harvard Magazine Author:Harvard University Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: When the leaves of life are shed, Summer flown and Autumn dead, And rough Winter overhead, Look with ever cheerful eyes To the Future's cloudless skies; Think of... more » Heaven, and forswear Evermore thy weak despair. T, De Quincey has, in a laughing mood, discussed the question whether " our mother Earth is in that stage of her life which corresponds to the playful period of twelve or thirteen in a spirited girl," or whether (and he shudders at the thought) she is a " decayed old lady already staggering upon her last legs." He suggests as a reason which favors the former view, that it is not likely that mankind should but just begin to find out effective methods of traversing both land and sea, as their summons came to leave both. Again, he asks, " Does it stand with good sense that Earth is waning and Science drooping precisely when first of all man's eye is arming itself for looking effectively into the mighty depths of space ? " If we have just made discoveries, it is not fair that we be soon deprived of enjoying them. So long, then, as her children continue making improvements and discoveries, old Terra need have no fear of death. Still it seems probable, that as soon as discoveries and progress have finally ceased, then must she prepare for the final cataclysm or holocaust. Change is the great law of nature, and therefore, as soon as civilization has attained its highest possible limit, has reached its culminating point, it must inevitably decline. To retrograde is then the fate /of man if he continues to exist. This state, however, is inconsistent with the government of a wise and just Creator, and therefore it is impossible. For the course of improvement among mankind, however changeable it may appear, conceals, like the planet, its true and constant advance under the guise...« less