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 

 f riiher einen Beruf f iihlteu, ihn aber, 

 mit manchem andern, aufgeben 

 mussten, dann tritt das schb'ne 

 Gefiihl ein, dass die Menschheit zu- 



sammen erst der wahre Mensch ist, 

 und dass der Einzelne nur froh 

 und gliicklich sein kann, wenn er 

 den Muth hat, sich ira Ganzen zu 

 fiihlen." Goethe, 'Wahrheit und 

 Dichtung,' 9th Book; Werke, 27, 

 277. 



