No nation holds a higher responsibility than the English. Its vast possessions all over the globe, its financial and commercial supremacy, its ethical influence over all the English-speaking countries, mark it out as the standard-bearer of civilization. Nothing great can happen among us without re-echoing in the remotest corners of the earth, and any step onward taken by us will send a thrill throughout humanity. Degenerate Englishmen may still wish to meekly follow other nations, but our mission is to be the practical, energetic, daring pioneers heading the march of progress. By using its great power and influence, the British nation can render invaluable service to humanity in the present crisis. On England must therefore rest our hopes for the practical solution of the grave questions on which progress and retrogression depend. From England alone can proceed that electrifying impulse of which the bewildered nations stand in need, that they may marshal the forces and focus the goal of progress. In our political circles, in the ranks of literature, and throughout all the strata of society there are already unmistakable signs that the period of scepticism, selfishness, and rant will end with the century; that scientific superstition and sickly Collectivist chimeras are doomed; and that the nation is sternly entering upon the mission of leading humanity towards good laws and institutions based on liberty, and thus inaugurating a universal movement which by its glorious results shall demonstrate that the alarming symptoms of degeneration, revealed by the psychologists, are the first symptoms of regeneration. INDEX. About’s (Edmond), _La Question Romaine_, 250 Anarchism, rapid spread of, 194; causes of, 195-7 Andersen, Hans, 58 Andersen’s _Ugly Duckling_, 74 Angelo, Michael, 224 Anstey, F., 141 Anti-semitism in Germany and elsewhere, 185 _ff._ Armies, English, French, and German, no degeneracy is proved by recent events, 134 Art, 56 _ff._; does not necessarily reflect the ethics of a nation, 292 Artists and symbolism, 73 _ff._ Arts, the, and science, future harmony of, 228, 229 Association of Men for the Suppression of Immorality, 246 _ff._ Atheism, effect of, upon morals, 85, 90 _ff._; upon religion, 86 _ff._ Auricular confession, 162-4 Austria, causes of anti-semitism in, 187 _ff._ Avinain, French assassin, 164 Baudelaire, Charles, 231, 237 Beethoven, Ludwig, 106 Bismarck, Prince, 137 Björnsen, Björnstjerne, 170, 177 Borgia, Pope (Alexander VI), 265 Bornmüller, Franz, 116; his estimate of Tolstoi, 116 Brahe, Tycho, 66 Bremer, Frederika, 142 Bronté’s _Jane Eyre_, 146 Cavour, di, Count Camillo Benso, 137 Cervantes, Miguel, 152 Chitral, British expedition to, 134 Church and religion, the, distinction between, 77 _ff._ Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 219