ourselves in curing the maladies of the body, such efforts are of little use if there remains unhealed the deeper malady of the soul. CHAPTER VIII LITERATURE AND PROGRESS I Let us turn, then, from science to literature: to the attempt made by this age, or a certain section of it, to find self-conscious expression for its praise or blame. I spoke at the beginning of the impeachment of the nineteenth-century civilisation by its greater writers: their conviction of a mortal disease. We have few great writers and far less violence in denunciation. The change is becoming manifest as comfort increases and wealth accumulates, which has been manifest in all similar transformations. Literature loses its ardour and its inspiration. It becomes critical rather than invigorating: sceptical, questioning, sometimes with an appearance of frivolity, sometimes torturing itself with angers and despairs. The note to-day is that of a time of disenchantment. Here is reaction after the fashion of high hopes: indignation at the bankruptcy of things which promised much and accomplished so little; a conviction that the zest and sparkle has gone from a society which suddenly feels itself growing old. “The great evil of our age,” is the summary of one clear-sighted critic, “is that we are constantly and terribly aware of evil.” With wealth accumulated to the astonishment of mankind, tribute sucked from all subject races, opulence which makes poorer nations envious, literature reveals no content, no deliberate acceptances, no high inspiration. “Our science, philosophies, and inventions and manufactures and infinite complexities have conspired to make us more discontented, even if we have not actually more cause for misery.”[19] The verdict of the sceptic from the heart of a civilisation advancing in material triumph and more comfortable in the world than ever before, is a verdict of weariness and vanity.