NOTES ON PHILOSOPHIES OF THE DAY 577 



than to fall alone. Fortunately for mankind, evolution has set limits 

 to the tide of imitation : 



There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 

 Rough-hew them how we will. 



IV. Misoneism. — If we believe Lombroso, misoneism or neophobia, 

 *' the hatred of the new," is one of the most deeply ingrained character- 

 istics of man. Progress occurs only when there is a break in the neo- 

 phobic series. The leaders of mankind are not the many who imitate, 

 but the few who do new things, or think them. And many of these 

 put new wine into old bottles — the makers of new vessels are rarer still. 

 And woe unto those who, with new wine, break old bottles ! The blood 

 of such has been the seed of civilization, of the church, of science. 

 Genius, prophet, saint, hero, sage are slain, and the world moves on a 

 little, forgetting even to raise a monument to its great dead. Death 

 baptizes new life : The fall of the few wise inspires a little the ignorant 

 multitude. A martyr means more than a school or a church. On the 

 dead hero springs up the living faith. The doctrine of " the good old 

 days of yore " comes easily to man, who is naturally uncomfortable in 

 the presence of the new. Yet the monotony galls. To take the kingdom 

 of heaven by violence affords relief. 



Beforms come from the acts of the few who destroy the old, or 

 through the deeds of the many who slay the innovator. Death or 

 ignominy for centuries has awaited him whose message is : " Behold ! 

 I make all things new !" 



But not so forever ! Slowly, but surety, men are learning wiser 

 and better ways of hating and destroying the new, of preserving and 

 ■continuing the old. The cessation of blind leadership of the blind 

 means the orderly development of human society. Eevolution is giv- 

 ing way to evolution. The old turns naturally and peacefully into the 

 new. War will soon be as unhuman as murder. 



An age is near in which we shall no longer imitate the errors of 

 revolutionary epochs. We shall grow into the future by growing out 

 of the past. 



In that happy time we shall wonder that their bards could have 

 sung the Celts into vain and pernicious wars; that her philosophers 

 could have desolated Greece by making constitutions for her cities ; that 

 soldiers could have brought Rome to vice, luxury and decay; that 

 priests could have led Judaea to reject Jesus for Barabbas; that gold 

 could have brought Spain, once monarch of all the world, to nocuous 

 desuetude. We shall know evolution and act in its spirit. 



The philosopher will be content to see the passing of his own phys- 

 ical and mental minority before attempting to lord it over the bodies 

 and souls of his fellows. The statesman will not venture to pro- 

 pound constitutions for states before he has learned to know the laws 



