this is an age of miracles. We speak from one end of the continent to
the other. We sit in New York and sign our name to a check in
Chicago. We reproduce a horse race or any athletic sport just as it
occurred with every movement to the slightest detail, so that all men
can see it in any part of the world at any time quite as well as if
present at the original performance. We photograph our thoughts and
those of our friends. We reproduce the voices of the departed. We
commune with each other without the intervention of wires. We have
lately pictured the human soul in its various phases. We see plainly
through iron plates many inches in thickness, and look directly into
the human body. Our food and precious stones are made in the
laboratory, and a syndicate of scientists has recently been formed
for the transmutation of the baser metals into gold. When man can
produce food, clothing, and all the precious metals at will; when he
can see what is occurring at a distance without the necessity of
lugging about a cumbersome piece of machinery like his body--when all
these and many other discoveries have been brought to perfection, the
farmer and manufacturer may cease their labors. The necessity for war
will no longer exist, as the righting of wrongs, the acquisition of
territory, and the payment of debt will not demand it. But all these
things and many more, Mr. Henley, will be brought to perfection
before the liberation of man shall have been effected, which will be
when he comes to understand that, with proper training and the
ultimate development of self-control, there is no limit to his power.
As I have told you before, self-control is the secret of all power.
The day is not distant when the dogmas of science will be set aside
for the spirit of philosophic inquiry. Then men will no longer say
that they have reached the goal of human capacity or that they can
not usurp the prerogative of the gods, for it will be known that we
are all gods!"