You are at one in a conception of sport which is the noblest and wisest possible, because it regards sport as a balancing force between the diverse elements of social life. You band together and join forces in order to popularise this conception. It is a useful and a wise task; but it will expose you to wearisome struggles, and you must be prepared for many a bitter disappointment. In every epoch, those who have wished to introduce equilibrium into life have had to struggle against this mysterious force which drives men into every excess. But in no epoch and in no civilisation perhaps has this struggle been so difficult and wearisome as it is in contemporary civilisation. It is a phenomenon which few people nowadays take clearly and precisely into account; but which is, nevertheless, the keystone of the greatest difficulties by which our civilisation is beset. Yes, there is no doubt about it, we are living at an extraordinary crisis in history. Man has never been so powerful, so wise, so rich, so sure of himself and of his future. He has dared to lift his eyes and gaze steadily at the sombre mystery of things, before which he had for so many centuries bowed his head in trembling. He has conquered the world and torn from it its most recondite treasures. He has cast aside all the supports which sustained our ancestors in their toilsome march through life—traditions, religions, beliefs, all the principles of unquestioning obedience. He had succeeded to a certain degree in conquering space and time. All the civilisations which preceded the French Revolution seem, if we compare them with ours, small, limited, timid, poor, and inadequate. Yet modern man does not seem to have any very distinct and sure consciousness of his actual greatness. He may be elated by an occasional fit of glowing pride, but as often as not he is discontented. He grumbles; he sincerely deplores the vices and imperfections of his day. A broad and deep current of pessimism flows through the fabulous wealth and the wonders of our times. Why? Because our civilisation is by the very nature of its constitution unable to thrive save on excesses; and it can thrive only on excesses because it has acquired so much power by overturning nearly all the limits within which previous civilisations had confined themselves. How marvellous an epic, but how disquieting in its novelty and its grandeur, is this gradual awakening of human daring and pride, of which the history of the last four centuries is full! For its first appearance dates back to the great geographical discoveries of the fifteenth century, and to that which was the greatest of all those discoveries—America.