Modern society, if compared with the societies which preceded it, may seem in many of its aspects—and in fact it is—ugly, poor in artistic beauty, coarse, and brutal. It may even seem atheistic and irreverent, frivolous and superficial in matters of religion, and, in certain respects, morally lax or downright licentious. This kind of disorder, however, which is such a common subject of heart-burning, is only the necessary effect of the outburst of our energy over the world and nature on its path of conquest. A civilisation cannot produce, refine, or perfect arts or traditions of elegance and of social life, or a morality and a religion, if it does not adopt an attitude of reserve, if it does not limit itself to some extent, if it does not sacrifice its other ambitions and aspirations to this object. A civilisation like ours, whose supreme aspiration it is to extend in the shortest possible time and as far as it can its empire over the world; to surpass all the limits which nature seeks to oppose to its restless ambitions and to the multiform energy of man, must needs sacrifice beauty, refinement, elegance, and moral delicacy to rapidity, energy, activity, and daring. The discovery and development of new countries, the marvellous progress of America, the discoveries of science, the perfection of machinery, the ideas of liberty which emerge triumphant from political revolutions and changes in customs, the weakening of the spirit of authority in every department of social life, the abolition of so many limits which once entangled the movements of man, are all phenomena which are mutually and indissolubly connected. * * * * * “Yes,” many will say; “and they are phenomena which all go to make up the grandeur and glory of the modern world. We have power, wealth, knowledge, and liberty, the four blessings of which our forefathers had little, if any, knowledge. What cause have we then to grumble? And amongst all the blessings which modern times shower upon us, perhaps the most precious—more precious than wealth, power, and knowledge—is liberty. If we have no reason to regret the past, it is chiefly because our forefathers lived, imprisoned, and in suffering, within limits which we have overstepped. Is there any greater joy for a man than that of being able in thought, feeling, and action to follow the inner impulse of his own conscience, instead of making it bend to an external will, whether it be that of the law, or that of the public, or that of a tradition? Surely the modern world is the greatest as well as the most fortunate which has ever existed?”