The riddle, then, seems solved, but the reader may object that it is solved only by admitting that we dwell in a perpetual condition of misunderstanding; that the modern world is a sort of Tower of Babel where men speak a tongue which others cannot understand. If this agreeable news were the only thing brought back by the historian of antiquity from his two voyages to America, he might better perhaps have spared himself the trouble! Such might well be the conclusion of this long argument! Nevertheless, it is indisputable that the modern world demands two contradictory things, speed and perfection. We wish to conquer the earth and its treasures with all possible haste. To this end, we have created tremendous machinery and have uncovered new forces in nature. It is a huge task, no doubt, but to accomplish it we must renounce almost all the artistic and moral perfections which used to be at once the torment and joy and pride of our forefathers. It is a painful necessity indeed, against which our age revolts, and from which it seeks in vain every possible channel of escape. Let us strip off the last shred of illusion. Deterioration must ever continue amongst the ideals of perfection which our ancestors worshipped, so long as population multiplies and the demands and aspirations of all classes, as well as all expenses, public and private, continue to increase on the scale and with the momentum with which they are increasing at this moment. Even if this formidable revolution should slacken a trifle, the ideal of Quantity must spread its empire over the earth, morality and beauty must of necessity be subordinated to the prime necessities of constructing machines ever increasing in speed and power, of expanding cultivated land, and of working new mines. Art, like industry, agriculture, like literature, will be compelled to increase their production to the continuous deterioration of their quality, and our secret discontent will grow in proportion as our triumphs increase. Unable ourselves to decide between Quality and Quantity, we shall never know whether the great drama of the world at which we are looking is a marvellous epoch of progress or a melancholy tragedy of decadence.