As I said, anything may happen. But you will
note, beautiful, sunny, lovely as this childhood world is as a phase of
experience, as a stage of development, sweet as may be the memory of
it, yet, if the child is ever to grow to manhood, is ever to be
anything, ever to do anything, it must outgrow this Jack-and-the-
Beanstalk world, this Santa Claus world, this world in which anything
may happen, and must begin to doubt, begin to question, begin to test
things, to prove things, find out what is real and what is unreal, what
is true and what is untrue, must measure itself against the realities
of things, learn to recognize the real forces and the laws according to
which they operate, so as to deal with them, obey them, make them serve
him, enable him to create character and to create a new type of
civilization, new things on the face of the earth.
Now what is true of each individual child has been true of the race.
The world started in childhood; and for thousands of years it believed
very easily, it believed altogether too much for its good, it believed
altogether too readily. Naturally, perhaps, necessary in that stage of
its development; but so long as it remained in that stage there was no
possibility of its becoming master of the earth.
Note, for example, the state of mind of the old Hebrews, I use them
merely as an illustration, because you are familiar with their story as
told in the Old Testament. Similar things are true of every race on the
face of the earth.
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