CHAP, iv THE APPEAL TO HISTORY 45 



feel themselves called to serve it, perhaps to thwart 

 it; but in any case it must be understood. Such 

 counsels assume that we mean by the Zeitgeist paltry 

 and sectional movements of mind. But if we define 

 the Zeitgeist in a limited and honorific sense, resist- 

 ance to the master principle of an age comes peril- 

 ously near to fighting against God. 



In this sense some younger students of sociology 

 have deliberately suggested that one ought to learn 

 from history in what line things are moving, and 

 then to help the movement with all one's powers. 



But here very grave difficulties suggest themselves. 

 If the unconscious reason of things knows in which 

 direction to move, presumably it also knows where 

 to stop, which is no less important. When the first 

 railway tubular bridges were erected the Britannia 

 Bridge over the Menai Straits, the Victoria Bridge at 

 Montreal they were made much heavier than has 

 been found necessary in the light of fuller knowledge. 

 What should we say of the wiseacre who proposed to 

 carry out the principle 'of lightening railway bridges 

 by constructing them of lace or gossamer ? In ma- 

 terial affairs such proposals are never made. One 

 glance would show their absurdity. But as mankind, 

 especially in an age of prevailing agnosticism, stum- 

 ble hither and thither in search of social guidance, 

 no absurdity is too crude to find supporters ; and 

 many a tendency which was good within limits is 

 urged upon us without any limit as the plain teach- 

 ing of history. We have recently emerged, or are 

 emerging, from a period of emancipating legislation, 

 in which unwise or obsolete laws have been abolished, 

 and individual freedom has grown wider. The ten- 



