But there are strong objections to this method of gauging human progress. The fashionable writers and artists may not represent the mass of their contemporaries, but may be the exponents of a temporary mood in a small uninfluential clique. Features of literature and art may, as we have already pointed out, convey the impression of retrogression simply because they reflect the unrest and confusion which prevail in the majority of minds at periods when new ideas and new views, healthy in themselves, trample out the old ones. Art and literature do not always reflect the ethics of a nation at a given period. The nation may be intellectually strong and morally sound, but political events, economic troubles, may momentarily goad it into abnormal moods and drive it, by sheer necessity, into a course which, under normal circumstances, it would shun. A despot with æsthetic leanings, and his nobility, might be instrumental in causing art and literature to blossom forth most vigorously, while the people at large might be sunk in the deepest depths of demoralization and misery in order to furnish the means for the maintenance of a brilliant court. History and actualities afford ample confirmation of the fact that art and literature may flourish while the people degenerate. When the culture of Greece was at its zenith, a large proportion of the people—the slaves—had fallen so low as actually to afford object lessons to the young citizens, in order to deter them from the horrors of vice and degradation. During the Renaissance in Italy the courts were corrupt, and the Church had sunk to its deepest stage of demoralization. While the “Roi Soleil” was developing literature and art in the hothouse of his royal patronage, the immorality of the nobles and the degradation of the people were unprecedented. Nor are there wanting examples of how a nation may be in a vigorous state of progression without developing any remarkable features in art and literature. Switzerland was for a long time the leading nation in Europe in the matter of government, legislation, administration, civic virtues, and education, but has never distinguished itself æsthetically. During the period in which America was most progressive, its people were too busy with practical affairs to give much attention to the arts. If, therefore, we were to judge the progress of a nation by its arts and literature, we might feel disposed to conclude that these two blossoms of civilization sprout forth in the same ratio as the people degenerate. But this would be absurd, for it would be to give the palm of civilization to the Esquimaux, or to the pigmies in the dark forests of Africa. The idea, therefore, of judging whether a nation, or a race, is rising or degenerating by the state of its arts, must be rejected as utterly misleading.