From this singular situation, there is only one possible way of escape; a method which has no precedent in the world’s history. It is that very method, however, which men will not hear spoken of. It would be absolutely essential to create a movement of public opinion through religious, political, or moral means, which should impose upon the world a reasonable limit to its desires. To the age in which we live, it seems impossible to express an idea seemingly more absurd than this. The material situation of every one of us is to-day bound up with this formidable movement, which drives men ceaselessly to increase the making and spending of wealth. Think what an economic crisis there would be if this movement were to slow down. All the moral systems which governed the world down to the French Revolution forced upon men the belief that they would grow more perfect as they grew simpler. When religion and custom were not sufficient to teach men to set limits to their needs and desires, then these old moral systems had recourse to sumptuary laws. In direct contrast to this, the nineteenth century affirms that man grows more perfect in proportion as he produces and consumes. So confusing are the definitions of legitimate desires and vices, of reasonable expenses and inordinate luxury, that in this century it is almost impossible to differentiate between the one and the other. A vast revolution has been brought into being, the greatest, perhaps, which history can show; but if the new principles which our century has borne to the front should be developed until they insured the ultimate and supreme triumph of Quantity, would it be possible to escape what would amount to the demolition of the whole fabric of the glorious civilisation bequeathed to us by the centuries; religious doctrines and the principles upon which morality is based, as well as all the traditions of the arts? History knows better than do we the dusky roads of the future, and it is idle for us to wish to see the way along them; but in spite of our ignorance of the future, we have duties toward the past and toward ourselves, and is it not one of these duties to call the attention of our generation to the possibility of this catastrophe, even if our generation likes to turn its face away from it? Very often during my travels in America, I used to ask myself whether men of various intellectual interests might not find in this duty something to strengthen their conscience for the part which they must play in the world.