be outnumbered and overwhelmed. The movement is on, and it will not be stopped. Wise men, ambitious men, far-sighted men will not attempt to block it. They will adapt themselves to it, they will co-operate with it, they will direct and further it as the only way in which they may hope to be of any cheerful significance in the era opening before them. The "ruling class," the statesmen, in all nations will find their mission and their honor progressively dependent upon their capacity for bringing the entire body of humanity into one harmonious and satisfactory life.
Now the supreme power of Whitman consists in this: that his spirit works inwardly, like religion, upon other spirits, quickening and preparing them for this general human fellowship, this world society, which to him, as to many of his great predecessors, appeared to be the legitimate far-off consequence of the principles declared by the American fathers. "Cosmopolitanism" has of late suffered many indignities as a word and as a conception; and those who speak of an international society are readily charged with treasonable and anarchical innovation. In the spiritual sense of the word no aspiration is, as a matter of fact, more thoroughly American and traditional than cosmopolitanism. "God grant!" exclaimed Franklin, "that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot any-
