by a breath of open-air experience. Equally useless are the
attempts to predict the gloom of the future. Such predictions either
mean nothing, or else they are mere loose conjectures, suggested by low
spirits or disappointment. They are of no philosophic or scientific
value; and though in some cases they may give literary expression to
moods already existing, they will never produce conviction in minds that
would else be unconvinced. The gift of prophecy as to general human
history is not a gift that any philosophy can bestow. It could only be
acquired through a superhuman inspiration which is denied to man or
through a superhuman sagacity which is never attained by him.

The hypothetical pessimism that is contained in my arguments is a very
different thing from this, and far humbler. It makes no foolish attempts
to say anything general about the present, or anything absolute about
the future. As to the future, it only takes the absolute things that
have been said by others; and not professing any certainty about their
truth, merely explains their meaning. It deals with a certain change in
human beliefs, now confidently predicted; but it does not say that this
prediction will be fulfilled. It says only that if it be, a change, not
at present counted on, will be effected in human life. It says that
human life will degenerate if the creed of positivism be ever generally
accepted; but it not only does not say that it ever will be accepted by
everybody: rather, it emphatically points out that as yet it has been
accepted fully by nobody. The positive school say that their view of
life is the only sound one. They boast that it is founded on the rock of
fact, not on the sand-bank of sentiment; that it is the final
philosophy, that will last as long as man lasts, and that very soon it
will have seen the extinction of all the others. It is the positivists
who are the prophets, not I. My aim has been not to confirm the
prophecy, but to explain its meaning; and my arguments will be all the
more opportune at the present moment, the more reason we have to think
the prophecy false.

It may be asked why, if we think it false, we should trouble our heads
about it. And the answer to this is to be found in the present age
itself. Whatever may be the future fate of positive thought, whatever
confidence may be felt by any of us that it cannot in the long run gain
a final hold upon the world, its present power and the present results
of i