ough he cannot tell whether
A, B, or C will cut his throat, he may assure himself that one man in
every fifty thousand, or thereabout (I forget the exact proportion),
will cut his throat, and with this he consoles himself. No doubt it is a
comforting discovery. Unfortunately, the average of one generation need
not be the average of the next. We may be converted by the Japanese,
for all that we know, and the Japanese methods of taking leave of life
may become fashionable among us. Nay, did not Novalis suggest that the
whole race of men would at last become so disgusted with their
impotence, that they would extinguish themselves by a simultaneous act
of suicide, and make room for a better order of beings? Anyhow, the
fountain out of which the race is flowing perpetually changes; no two
generations are alike. Whether there is a change in the organization
itself we cannot tell; but this is certain,--that, as the planet varies
with the atmosphere which surrounds it, so each new generation varies
from the last, because it inhales as its atmosphere the accumulated
experience and knowledge of the whole past of the world. These things
form the spiritual air which we breathe as we grow; and, in the infinite
multiplicity of elements of which that air is now composed, it is
forever a matter of conjecture what the minds will be like which expand
under its influence.

From the England of Fielding and Richardson to the England of Miss
Austen, from the England of Miss Austen to the England of Railways and
Free Trade, how vast the change! Yet perhaps Sir Charles Grandison
would not seem so strange to us now as one of ourselves will seem to our
great-grandchildren. The world moves faster and faster; and the
difference will probably be considerably greater.

The temper of each new generation is a continual surprise. The Fates
delight to contradict our most confident expectations. Gibbon believed
that the era of conquerors was at an end. Had he lived out the full life
of man, he would have seen Europe at the feet of Napoleon. But a few
years ago we believed the world had grown too civilized for war, and the
Crystal Palace in Hyde Park was to be the inauguration of a new era.
Battles bloody as Napoleon's are now the familiar tale of every day; and
the arts which have made greatest progress are the arts of destruction.
What next? We may strain our eyes into the future which lies beyond this
waning century; but never was conjecture more at f