Henry Harrison Brown

The Call of the Twentieth Century Henry Harrison Brown

In the Evolution of Life each century has left some distinctive mark upon the race. The student as easily realizes epochs in human history as he does in the geological life of the earth. These epochs begin in twilight and overlap each other. I can now simply note the gift of the nineteenth century to the twentieth. That century was the culmination of an era begun in previous ones. Its great contribution was first the complete verifying and acceptance of "The Law of the Correlation and Conservation of Force." All energy is one. It can neither be created nor destroyed, be neither Teased nor diminished. This Energy may change its form but is itself eternal. In the latter half of the century was enunciated the now almost universally accepted Principle of Evolution. The century was preeminently a philosophical and scientific one, and all tendencies of these were toward materialism. Herbert Spencer was its highest product in these lines.