Many, too, of the ills of the eighteenth century, which sprung from the maxims then prevalent, and which, to all appearance, ought to have expired with them, still exist. We no longer have the same tenderness for man, nor do we show greater aversion to evil. Indifference has not made us more strict. For though human nature is no longer judged with the same blind partiality, we are still full of indulgence towards it, and cowardly in our treatment of it; we exhibit towards it the same complaisance, without feeling the former esteem and love. Materialist and impious doctrines are on the decline, but we are more than ever tormented by an eager thirst for immediate material happiness. Is it true then, as is said, that we are in a state of moral decay? Is our age destined to continue the evil of its precursor, and while losing its virtues add to it its own evils? I confidently answer in the negative. Nothing would tempt me to flatter the age I live in, but I love it. I am struck by its evil; I think a remedy urgently called for, an immediate struggle necessary; I also see in it much good, a good deep and fruitful and sufficient with the help of God to resist and conquer the evil. {43} I said just now that the great mistakes, the serious maladies of any period are those of the good. On the other side, it is in the sound ideas and good dispositions of the same class that the moral force of an epoch and its means of safety are to be found. Now the general and ruling disposition of the good at the present day is the spirit of order, the deep desire for order after so much trouble and contest. This is said to be merely the result of prudence, of a clear idea of interest, not of morality.