But, despite the quasi-ubiquitousness the modern philosopher enjoys, he would indulge in self-deception were he tempted to believe that he had secured all the data requisite to judge the contemporaries of his race as they act, live, feel, and think during the closing years of this century. For, against the easy access to information, must be placed the mass of intricate problems that arise with every step of progress, the multitude of ideas which strive for realization, the bewilderment which ensues on crumbling systems and religions, new discoveries, new theories, new and complicated associations of ideas, new and hazy aspirations, sympathies, and yearnings—for all of which words cannot be coined fast enough. Every day we witness political, social, economic, and psychological phenomena, the explanation of which would demand not only an enormous amount of knowledge, but reasoning powers and a freedom from bias seldom blended in one human mind. Facts, circumstances, theories, human actions, and human ideas, change and intermingle so constantly and so rapidly as to produce bewilderment capable of misleading any philosopher who attempts to gauge them with the instruments of the past and in conformity with the doctrines of the school to which he belongs. What renders it still more difficult to appraise any epoch, and especially the present one, is the intimate interdependence of all the phenomena to be observed. The idiosyncrasies of a sovereign, or of a minister, influence legislation, legislation influences public institutions, public institutions influence the upper classes, and the upper classes influence the masses. But legislation, institutions, the upper classes, and the people are influenced from a great number of other directions, while they again influence the sovereign and the minister. Thus it would be impossible to attribute with accuracy a given number of effects to special causes: for every cause is the effect of another cause, and every effect produces other effects. For instance, art and literature may strongly influence men in power as well as the masses, while no one will deny that men in power, as well as the political and social condition of the masses, exercise a strong influence on art and literature. And then, on top of it all,—as if worse to confound the confusion of the man with a system, trivial incidents intervene and bring about a new series of causes and effects evidently destined to operate as long as humanity lasts. So interdependent are the actors in the human drama, so complete is the intricate and sensitive mechanism of causes and effects, and so overcharged with energy are the social dynamos, that any fool, any child, any trivial accident, may move one of the countless points arranged by circumstances, and thus hurl the engine of events in new and dangerous directions.