It is not possible to have been born in Italy, to have studied ancient civilisations, and to have examined at first hand the tendencies of modern civilisation in Europe and America, without being convinced that our epoch is allowing itself to be seduced by too material and gross a conception of progress. Progress cannot be merely the accumulation of wealth, accelerated by the inventions and great discoveries of science, nor the hurried transformation of everything, the perpetual change which is the mania of our epoch. There is, there must be, another conception, more lofty than this conception of progress; a conception of progress as the accumulated effort of generations. Is it not true that each generation creates forms of beauty, and discovers new truths and virtues? Can we not say that generations really do show progress, if they succeed in preserving the creations of preceding epochs, and in erecting on them as a basis more complex and elevated creations of their own? Often and often, reflecting on the differences between the ancient world and our epoch, have I said to myself that the history of the world would be able to chronicle a great step forward on the day that we succeeded in uniting in modern sport the æsthetic sense of the Greeks, the modesty and decency for which Christianity is responsible, and the democratic, practical, and active spirit of our epoch. Is that simply the dream of an ignoramus who does not know what is possible and what is not? You may say so. But if your congress can bring our civilisation any nearer to this ideal, it will have done something for real progress, a work which will merit the approbation of all those who wish to see man’s every effort concentrated on the betterment of the spiritual life. I give you then, my good wishes for your success in your efforts in this direction; and I hope that you will not take my good wishes amiss, even though they come from a writer who is not competent to appraise at its true value the full worth of your noble efforts. THE END Transcriber’s Notes Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed. Misspellings of non-English words have been retained. Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.