Then began the extraordinary drama of which we are the spectators. Rich, wise, and free, armed with fire and science, mistress of a large part of the earth and, in particular, of a continent so vast and rich as America, irked no longer by any limit, not by extent nor by weight nor by matter and its laws which it has conquered, thanks to discoveries and to machines, nor by God, whom it has banished to the infinite, itself usurping His earthly throne, our civilisation expanded in every direction, as it were, carried away by the intoxication of the unlimited. Man rose erect like a giant, to face nature and the past; and like a giant whom none can resist he swept on and conquered the world. Like a giant, indeed, but like a giant who totters at every step. This civilisation of ours has become so powerful because it has overturned all the limits; but just because it has overturned nearly all the limits, it has become increasingly difficult for it to limit itself in the good as well as in the bad; I mean to say, that the bad tends to become worse, and the good to become bad. If the strength of the forces of creation and initiative is in our epoch greater than ever it was in any previous epoch, the same may be said of the weakness of the forces of equilibrium, whose function it is to check the most dangerous exaggerations and excesses. What an interesting comparison might be made between the present and the past from this point of view; and how many instances could be cited in proof of this assertion! I shall instance just one, a simple and homely, but clear, one. Once delivered from all the bonds which limited his efforts of yore, man has succeeded in the last century in creating an abundance of material goods such as the world had never thought possible even when it dreamed of the Terrestrial Paradise, the Golden Age, and the Garden of the Hesperides; all of them myths in which man had been pleased, during centuries of the life of struggle, to objectify his most ardent desires. It is all very well for men of the present day to complain that life is difficult and full of struggles. Those who know the difficulties which beset preceding centuries will feel a strong temptation to laugh at their complaints. The modern world has contrived abundance in everything; in the necessities of life, such as bread, and in things which become very dangerous when they are over-abundant, like alcoholic drinks, tobacco, and all stimulants. Many are the reproaches hurled against our epoch on the score of the increase in alcoholism; many are the remedies devised for this evil. But would not the only and the simplest remedy be that adopted by our ancestors, the limitation of the production of liquors? The masses would no longer be able to poison themselves when the quantity of these liquors was scarcely sufficient—as it used to be—for the requirements of a moderate consumption. The world, on the contrary,