_ 177 Ad. Müller_, an essentially mediæval mind, is guilty of this same braggadocio in an opposite direction, when he calls the “present with its political disorders simply an intermediate state,—the transmission of the natural or unconscious wisdom of the fathers, through the inquisitiveness of their children to the rational acknowledgment of that wisdom by their grandsons.” (Theorie des Geldes, 1816, pref.) 178 Thus, for instance, it can not be said that a model university is better than a model public school; and yet the former is higher, because the age to which it is adapted is doubtless intellectually higher. _ 179 Knies_ (Polit. Œk., 256 seq.) remarks, that it would be a great mistake, and it is the mistake of the majority, to consider what has been achieved or striven for in the present, as the absolute _non plus ultra_, and thus to look upon all future generations as called upon to play the parts of apes and ruminators; a remark worthy to be taken to heart. 180 I have, myself, no doubt, that up to the present time, mankind, as a whole, has, from the beginning of historical knowledge, always advanced. In individual cases, their movement has been interrupted by so many pauses, and even by so many occasional retrogressions, that great care must be taken not to infer superior excellence from mere subsequency. _ 181 Buckle_ writes of people whose knowledge is about limited to that which they see going on under their eyes, and who are called practical, only because of their ignorance; and he adds that, although they assume to despise theory, they are in fact slaves of theory, of others’ theories.