I do not know this. That he _has_ not created I admit; but that he has
not capabilities, as yet undeveloped, as a creator, I do not KNOW. I
will not venture the assertion that the time will ever come when he
will have discovered wherein lies the mystery of life; that he will
ever find an antidote to disease; that he will search out some
recuperative agency stronger than the law of decay, and that will hold
the human system in the perpetual vigor, and bloom, and beauty of
maturity. I will not assert that science will, at last, be carried to
such perfection, that there shall be no more infirmities of age; that
the pestilence will be stayed from walking in the darkness, and
destruction from wasting at noonday; that men will cease to grow old,
save in years, or that death will be compelled to seek its victims
only through the channel of accidents, against which forecast will
not, and science has no opportunity to guard. What I mean to say is,
that I do not KNOW that just such results are beyond the capabilities
of human progress. Measuring the future by the past, I cannot
demonstrate that such results may not one day be attained."
"The good time of which you speak," said the Doctor, "when there shall
be no more infirmity of age, no growing old, save in years; when there
shall be no wasting by disease, through the perfectability of the
curative science, or the discovery of some recuperative agency,
stronger than the law of decay, will never come.
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