And we should arrive at this conclusion, not necessarily out of any feeling of bitterness or hostility towards him personally, but rather because we should consider it irrational, in the face of such chronic restlessness and irascibility, to ascribe all the blame consistently and repeatedly to his conditions, and not occasionally to the man himself. Now it is a most remarkable thing that in the contemplation of similar repeated changes in the life of a nation or a people, the average observer is not nearly so prone to be guided by the highest standards of rational thinking. On the contrary, as often as changes take place, he is prepared to ascribe the necessity for the change, not to the inferiority of the men who ushered it in, but always to the inferiority of the institutions or systems that were superseded. The unsupported prejudice involved in the idea of “Progress” compels him, as it were, to assume that, since all changes must be for the better, any change that has occurred in our social system or our institutions in the past must of necessity imply a just condemnation of the systems or institutions that formerly existed. Never does the average observer dream of suspecting that the proposed change of a system or of an institution may be the surest [p201] possible proof of the inferiority of the men who are trying to carry it on. Inferiority to what?--Inferiority to the men who originally founded the system or institution. Now the prevalence of this curious bias ought to make everyone profoundly suspicious of all those who clamour for radical alterations in our established systems and institutions. In any case it ought to make every thinking man demur before he acquiesces too readily in the conclusion that it is our institutions and systems that are wrong, and not man himself. For, suppose that the men who declare things are wrong, merely confess their own inferiority by this declaration, how can their recommendation regarding a new order of society be accepted with confidence? How can anyone hope that their schemes can possibly be better than those they have shown themselves incapable of continuing? At all moments, then, when there is much loud talking about the transformation of society and the modification or overthrow of her institutions, the wise reformer, the cautious innovator, will turn his scrutiny upon man himself, and endeavour to find out first what reforms and improvements must take place in him, before any scheme of society whatsoever, no matter how perfect, can hope to be a success.