The Americanisation of Europe, then, is a fatal phenomenon. Europe, from the moment when she aspired to great wealth and to the dominion of nature, was called upon to renounce her claim to many of the treasures of her ancient and refined culture. This was the conclusion at which I rested for a moment. And yet at this point, I, as a European, felt a misgiving. If matters stood thus, was not Europe fatally doomed to become even more thoroughly Americanised in the future? At the present time, the appetites and ambitions of all classes in Europe, even the most numerous, have been given free rein. Everybody, from the aristocrat of ancient lineage to the most obscure peasant, wishes to earn, spend, and accumulate as much as he can. There is no power, human or divine, which can pretend to drive back towards its historical fountainhead this immense torrent of greed and ambition. Europe, thus, is fated to become increasingly oblivious of the traditions of its ancient and disinterested culture; to struggle to imitate and compete with America in the production of great riches at greater speed. And, as America with her immense territories and smaller store of traditions is better equipped for the competition, so Europe must necessarily become ever more and more decadent in the future. The continent destined to dominate the civilisation of the future, as Europe dominated it up to the middle of the nineteenth century, will be America. There are not wanting persons in Europe who take a delight in repeating from time to time this prophecy, which to the ears of a European sounds somewhat lugubrious. For a moment, when in America, I, too, somewhat discouraged by the vitality of which the American spirit of progress gives proof, felt myself inclined to give ear to these prophets, whom hitherto in Europe I had always contradicted. Yes, culture in Europe was destined to become ever more decadent before the invasion of progress interpreted in the American sense; quantity, that is to say, the nations with vast territories at their disposal and capable of rapidly producing vast wealth, would rule supreme in the future, while the forces of idealism would lose a great part of their ancient empire over the world.