INTRODUCTION. 



the wastefulness of organic life, of the thousands of germs 

 which perish, of the huge volume of seed scattered use- 

 lessly. A similar fate seems to fall on the larger portion 

 of intellectual and moral effort ; but here a deeper con- 

 viction tells us that it is not the sacrifice but the co- 

 operation of the many which makes the few succeed, 

 that excellence is the prize of united effort, that many 

 must run so that one may reach a higher goal. What 

 other feeling could console those legions of honest workers 

 who spend their lives in trying to deal with the seem- 

 ingly unconquerable host of social evils, the apparently 

 growing vice and misery of large towns, who raise a 

 cry for oppressed nationalities, or preach against the 

 curses of war and militarism ? Or what higher and un- 

 selfish satisfaction could an author derive from spending 

 half a lifetime in producing a work which in the end 

 may fall dead-born from the press, if it were not the 

 conviction that in the cause in which he has failed 

 another after him may succeed, and that his failure 

 may be a portion of the silent and hidden efforts that 

 co-operate towards a useful end ? l But who in after- 

 ages can write the history of this forgotten and hidden 

 work of a nation ? Whose historical sense is delicate 

 enough to feel where the pressure was greatest and the 

 effort longest ere the new life appeared, whose eye pene- 

 trating and discerning enough to follow up the dim streaks 



1 "Sehen wir nun wiihrend un- 

 seres Lebensganges dasjenige von 

 auderen gelestet, wozu wir selbst 

 friiher einen Beruf f iihlteu, ihn aber, 

 mil manchem andern, aufgeben 

 mussten, dann tritt das scheme 

 Gefiihl ein, dass die Menschheit zu- 



sammen erst der wahre Mensch i.-t, 

 und dasa der Einzelne nur froh 

 und gliicklich sein kann, wenn er 

 den Muth hat, sich im Ganzen zu 

 fiihlen." Goethe, 'Wahrheit und 

 Dichtung,' 9th Book; Werke, 27, 

 277. 



