indeed, if modern philosophers had stuck more closely to this old
proverb, and its defining verb "make," and tried to show how some person
or persons--let them be who they may--men, angels, or gods--made the
sow's ear into the silk purse, and the savage into the sage--they might
have pleaded that they were still trying to keep their feet upon the firm
ground of actual experience. But while their theory is, that the sow's
ear grew into a silk purse of itself, and yet unconsciously and without
any intention of so bettering itself in life, why, I think that those who
have studied the history which lies behind them, and the poor human
nature which is struggling, and sinning, and sorrowing, and failing
around them, and which seems on the greater part of this planet going
downwards and not upwards, and by no means bettering itself, save in the
increase of opera-houses, liquor-bars, and gambling-tables, and that
which pertaineth thereto; then we, I think, may be excused if we say with
the old Stoics--[Greek text]--I withhold my judgment. I know nothing
about the matter yet; and you, oh my imaginative though learned friends,
know I suspect very little either.

Eldest of things, Divine Equality:

so sang poor Shelley, and with a certain truth. For if, as I believe,
the human race sprang from a single pair, there must have been among
their individual descendants an equality far greater than any which has
been known on earth during historic times. But that equality was at best
the infantile innocence of the primary race, which faded away in the race
as quickly, alas! as it does in the individual child. Divine--therefore
it was one of the first blessings which man lost; one of the last, I
fear, to which he will return; that to which civilisation, even at its
best yet known, has not yet attained, save here and there for short
periods; but towards which it is striving as an ideal goal, and, as I