290 National Life and Character 



the present time. It is as marked among their 

 statesmen and publicists as among their men of let- 

 ters, Mr. Balfour being particularly happy in his ca- 

 pacity to express in good English, and with much 

 genuine elevation of thought, a profound disbelief 

 in nineteenth century progress, and an equally pro- 

 found distrust of the future toward which we are all 

 traveling. 



For much of this pessimism and for many of the 

 prophecies which it evokes, there is no excuse what- 

 soever. There may possibly be good foundation for 

 the pessimism as to the future shown by men like 

 Mr. Pearson ; but hitherto the writer^ of the stamp 

 of the late "Cassandra" Greg, who have been pessi- 

 mistic about the present, have merely betrayed their 

 own weakness or their own incapacity to judge con- 

 temporary persons and events. The weakling, the 

 man who can not struggle with his fellow-men and 

 with the conditions that surround him, is very apt 

 to think these men and these conditions bad ; and if 

 he has the gift of writing, he puts these thoughts 

 down at some length on paper. Very strong men, 

 moreover, if of morose and dyspeptic temper, are 

 apt to rail at the present, and to praise the past sim- 

 ply because they do not live in it. To any man 

 who will consider the subject from a scientific point 

 of view, with a desire to get at the truth, it is need- 

 less to insist on the fact that at no period of the 

 world's history has there been so much happiness 

 generally diffused among mankind as now. 



At no period of the world's history has life been 



