which must include the action of causes that had their origin long
before our time. The movement which culminated in making the
nineteenth century ever memorable in history is the outcome of a
long series of causes, acting through many centuries, which are
worthy of especial attention on such an occasion as this. In
setting them forth we should avoid laying stress on those visible
manifestations which, striking the eye of every beholder, are in
no danger of being overlooked, and search rather for those
agencies whose activities underlie the whole visible scene, but
which are liable to be blotted out of sight by the very brilliancy
of the results to which they have given rise. It is easy to draw
attention to the wonderful qualities of the oak; but, from that
very fact, it may be needful to point out that the real wonder
lies concealed in the acorn from which it grew.

Our inquiry into the logical order of the causes which have made
our civilization what it is to-day will be facilitated by bringing
to mind certain elementary considerations--ideas so familiar that
setting them forth may seem like citing a body of truisms--and yet
so frequently overlooked, not only individually, but in their
relation to each other, that the conclusion to which they lead may
be lost to sight. One of these propositions is that psychical
rather than material causes are those which we should regard as
fundamental in directing the development of the social organism.
The human intellect is the really active agent in every branch of
endeavor--the primum mobile of civilization--and all those
material manifestations to which our attention is so often
directed are to be regarded as secondary to this first agency. If
it be true that "in the world is nothing great but man; in man is
nothing great but mind," then should the key-note of our discourse