THE LIBRARY - - PAST AND FUTURE 217 



prepare precious material for its future development and trace with 

 security the line of its onward movement. It is of supreme im- 

 portance that humanity in general, as the individual in particular, 

 know whither its efforts must be directed, that there may be no 

 straying from the straight path. We are sailors on a vast sea bound 

 toward a shore we know not of; when we approach it it vanishes 

 like a mirage from before our eyes. But we have as guides the stars 

 which have already ruled our destinies, while before us flames, on 

 the distant horizon, that light of the Idea toward which our ships 

 and our hearts move eagerly. Let us stand firm at the helm and not 

 despise the counsels of some old pilot who may perhaps seem faint- 

 hearted to young and eager souls. He who is hurried along by the 

 excitement of the course, by the impetuosity of the motion, finds 

 neither time nor place to look back and to meditate, which is neces- 

 sary, that he may look forward with sharper and calmer gaze. 

 Modern life among the younger and more venturesome peoples is a 

 giddy race. They run, they annihilate the space before them, they 

 press onward, ever onward, with irresistible impetus, but we cannot 

 always say that this headlong course leads straight toward the goal. 

 We are not sure, even, that it may not sometimes be running in 

 a circle, a retracing of their steps. In mechanics a free wheel turn- 

 ing upon itself and moving no machinery is so much lost power. 

 Let us beware of free wheels which consume without producing, 

 which give the illusion of movement whilst they still remain station- 

 ary. Modern civilization bears within itself a great danger, the 

 endeavor which loses the end by a misuse of the means, and which, 

 though busy, is ever idle; idle, yet never at rest. It may be, 

 therefore, that a momentary return to the past, with all that it can 

 teach, will be useful to all of us. 



Progress has rightly been compared to a continual ascent. 

 Modern man sees before him ever vaster horizons; the eye of science 

 discovers in the infinitely distant and in the infinitely small ever new 

 worlds, whether of suns or of bacteria. In the same way do concep- 

 tions and ideas ever widen and tend to a more comprehensive general- 

 ization. All the march of civilization, both material and moral, 

 consists in rising from a simple primordial idea to another more 

 complex, and so on to the highest scientific abstractions. Woe to 

 science if it stops short in the course of this evolution; its reputation 

 would be injured beyond repair. In material things the fate of 

 certain words shows us the great advance that has been made; the 

 words are the same but the things they represent are very different. 

 We still give the name of casa (capsa, that is, hut) to our splendid 

 dwellings, which have here among you reached their highest point of 

 development in your skyscrapers; we still give to the great trans- 

 atlantic steamers, floating cities, the name of boats, which was once 



