At
the present moment humanity is not yet constituted as a physical unity,
and its general education is not yet begun. All our attempts at order as
yet have been local crystallizations. Now, indeed, the different
possibilities are beginning to combine (union of posts and telegraphs,
universal exhibitions, voyages round the globes, international
congresses, etc.). Science and common interest are binding together the
great fractions of humanity, which religion and language have kept
apart. A year in which there has been talk of a network of African
railways, running from the coast to the center and bringing the
Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean into communication
with each other--such a year is enough to mark a new epoch. The
fantastic has become the conceivable, the possible tends to become the
real; the earth becomes the garden of man. Man's chief problem is how to
make the cohabitation of the individuals of his species possible; how,
that is to say, to secure for each successive epoch the law, the order,
the equilibrium which befits it. Division of labor allows him to explore
in every direction at once; industry, science, art, law, education,
morals, religion, politics, and economical relations--all are in process
of birth.
Thus everything may be brought back to zero by the mind, but it is a
fruitful zero--a zero which contains the universe and, in particular,
humanity.
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