igh water in the harbour; so one or more nations may be in advance
of or behind the general tendency of their age, and from either cause
may be moving in the opposite direction. Again, the tendency or movement
in itself is liable to frequent interruptions, and short
counter-movements: even when the tide is coming in upon the shore, every
wave retires after its advance; and he who follows incautiously the
retreating waters, may be caught by some stronger billow, overwhelming
again for an instant the spot which had just been left dry. A child
standing by the sea-shore for a few minutes, and watching this, as it
seems, irregular advance and retreat of the water, could not tell
whether it was ebb or flood; and we, standing for a few years on the
shore of time, can scarcely tell whether the particular movement which
we witness is according to or against the general tendency of the whole
period. Farther yet, as these great tendencies are often interrupted, so
are they continually mixed: that is, not only are their own good and bad
elements successively predominant, but they never have the world wholly
to themselves: the opposite tendency exists, in an under-current it may
be, and not lightly perceptible; but here and there it struggles to the
surface, and mingles its own good and evil with the predominant good and
evil of its antagonist. Wherefore he who would learn wisdom from the
complex experience of history, must question closely all its phenomena,
must notice that which is less obvious as well as that which is most
palpable; must judge not peremptorily or sweepingly, but with reserves
and exceptions; not as lightly overrunning a wide region of the truth,
but thankful if after much pains he has advanced his landmarks only a
little; if he has gained, as it were, but one or two frontier
fortresses, in which he can establish himself for ever.

Now, then, when Mr. Newman describes the movement of the present moment
as being directed towards "something better and deeper than satisfied
the last century," this description, although in some sense true, is yet
in practice delusive; and the delusion which lurks in it is at the root
of the errors of Mr. Newman and of his friends. They regard the
tendencies of the last century as wholly evil; and they appear to extend
this feeling to the whole period of which the last century was the
close, and which began nearly with the sixteenth century. Viewing in
this light the last three hundred