S98 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING 



ahead of the old Greeks in either the perception of the beau- 

 tiful, or in the ability of producing it ; there has been no 

 iraprovement in the inventive faculty since the " Iliad" was 

 written, some three thousand years ago ; nor has taste become 

 more exquisite, or the perception of the harmony of numbers 

 more nice, since the age of the " ^neid." Science is cumu- 

 lative in its character • and so its votaries in modern times 

 stand on a higher pedestal than their predecessors. But, 

 though nature produced a Newton some two centuries ago, 

 as she produced a Goliath of Gath at an earlier period, the 

 modern philosophers, as a class, do not exceed in actual sta- 

 ture the worse informed ancients, — the Euclids, Archime- 

 deses, and Aristotles. We would be without excuse if, with 

 the Bacon, Milton, and Shakspeare of these latter ages of the 

 world full before us, we recurred to the obsolete belief that 

 the human race is deteriorating; but then, on the other hand, 

 we have certain evidence, that since genius first began uncon- 

 sciously to register in its works its own bulk and proportions, 

 there has been no increase in the mass, or improvement in 

 the quality, of individual mind. As for the dream that there 

 is to be some extraordinary elevation of the general platform 

 of the race achieved by means of education, it is simply the 

 hallucination of the age, — the world's present alchemical ex- 

 pedient for converting farthings into guineas, sheerly by dint 

 of scouring. Not but that education is good : it exercises, 

 and in the ordinary mind developes, faculty. But it will 

 not anticipate the terminal dynasty. Yet further, — man's 

 average capacity of happiness seems to be as limited and as 

 incapable of increase as his average reach of intellect : it is 

 a mediocre capacity at best ; nor is it greater by a shade now, 

 in these da3'-s of power-looms and portable manures, than in 

 the times of the old patriarchs. So long, too, as the law of 

 increase continues, man must be subject to the law of death, 

 with its stern attendants, suffering and sorrow ; for the two 



