24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



future.* Finally, the inevitable penalty of overstimulation, ex- 

 haustion, opened the gates of civilization to its great enemy, 

 ennui ; the stale and flat weariness when man delights not, nor 

 woman neither when all things are vanity and vexation, and life 

 seems not worth living except to escape the bore of dying. 



Even purely intellectual progress brings about its revenges. 

 Problems settled in a rough-and-ready way by rude men, absorbed 

 in action, demand renewed attention and show themselves to be 

 still unread riddles when men have time to think. The beneficent 

 demon, doubt, whose name is Legion and who dwells among the 

 tombs of old faiths, enters into mankind and thenceforth refuses 

 to be cast out. Sacred customs, venerable dooms of ancestral 

 wisdom, hallowed by tradition and professing to hold good for all 

 time, are put to the question. Cultured reflection asks for their 

 credentials; judges them by its own standards; finally, gathers 

 those of which it approves into ethical systems, in which the rea- 

 soning is rarely much more than a decent pretext for the adoption 

 of foregone conclusions. 



One of the oldest and most important elements in such systems 

 is the conception of justice. Society is impossible unless those 

 who are associated agree to observe certain rules of conduct 

 toward one another ; its stability depends on the steadiness with 

 which they abide by that agreement ; and, so far as they waver, 

 that mutual trust which is the bond of society is weakened or 

 destroyed. Wolves could not hunt in packs except for the real, 

 though unexpressed, understanding that they should not attack 

 one another during the chase. The most rudimentary polity is a 

 pack of men living under the like tacit, or expressed, understand- 

 ing; and having made the very important advance upon wolf 

 society, that they agree to use the force of the whole body against 

 individuals who violate it and in favor of those who observe it. 

 This observance of a common understanding, with the consequent 

 distribution of punishments and rewards according to accepted 

 rules, received the name of justice, while the contrary was called 

 injustice. Early ethics did not take much note of the animus of 

 the violator of the rules. But civilization could not advance far 



* " Multa bona nostra nobis nocent, timoris enim tormentum memoria reducit, provi- 

 dentia anticipat. Nemo tantum praesentibus miser est." (Seneca, Ep. v, 7.) [Thus many 

 things, really good in themselves, hurt us : for memory recalls and forecast anticipates the 

 torment of fear. No one is wretched from what is present only. MorelVs translation.] 



Among the many wise and weighty aphorisms of the Roman Bacon, few sound the reali- 

 ties of life more deeply than " Multa bona nostra nobis nocent." If there is a soul of good 

 in things evil, it is at least equally true that there is a soul of evil in things good : for 

 things, like men, have " les defauts de leurs qualites." It is one of the last lessons one 

 learns from experience, but not the least important, that a heavy tax is levied upon all forms 

 of success, and that failure is one of the commonest disguises assumed by blessings. 



