inherited a nature too eager and too restless to be quiet
and find out things; and even worse--with their idle clamour they
'disturbed the brooding hen,' they would not let those be quiet who
wished to be so, and out of whose calm thought much good might have
come forth.

If we consider how much science has done and how much it is doing for
mankind, and if the over-activity of men is proved to be the cause why
science came so late into the world, and is so small and scanty still,
that will convince most people that our over-activity is a very great
evil. But this is only part, and perhaps not the greatest part of the
harm that over-activity does. As I have said, it is inherited from
times when life was simple, objects were plain, and quick action
generally led to desirable ends. If A kills B before B kills A, then A
survives, and the human race is a race of A's. But the issues of life
are plain no longer. To act rightly in modern society requires a great
deal of previous study, a great deal of assimilated information, a
great deal of sharpened imagination; and these pre-requisites of sound
action require much time, and, I was going to say, much 'lying in the
sun,' a long period of 'mere passiveness.' Even the art of killing one
another, which at first particularly trained men to be quick, now
requires them to be slow. A hasty general is the worst of generals
nowadays; the best is a sort of Von Moltke, who is passive if any man
ever was passive; who is 'silent in seven languages;' who possesses
more and better accumulated information as to the best way of killing
people than any one who ever lived. This man plays a restrained and
considerate game of chess with his enemy. I wish the art of benefiting
men had kept pace with the art of destroying them; for though war has
become slow, philanthropy has remained hasty. The most melancholy of
human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question
whether the benevolence of mankind does most good or harm. Great good,
no doubt, philanthropy does, but then it also does great evil. It
augments so much vice, it multiplies so much suffering, it brings to
life such great populations to suffer and to be vicious, that it is
open to argument whether it be or be not an evil to the world, and this
is entirely because excellent people fancy that they can do much by
rapid action--that they will most benefit the world when they most
relieve their own feelings; that as soon as an