things is about to begin,"
remarked a short time ago that distinguished thinker, M. Arniel of
Geneva. "Equality begets uniformity, and it is by the sacrifice of the
excellent, the remarkable, the extraordinary that we extirpate what
is bad. The whole becomes less coarse; but the whole becomes more
vulgar." We may at least hope that vulgarity will not yet a while
persecute freedom of mind. Descartes, living in the brilliant
seventeenth century, was nowhere so well off as at Amsterdam, because,
as "every one was engaged in trade there," no one paid any heed to
him. It may be that general vulgarity will one day be the condition
of happiness, for the worst American vulgarity would not send Giordano
Bruno to the stake or persecute Galileo. We have no right to be
very fastidious. In the past we were never more than tolerated.
This tolerance, if nothing more, we are assured of in the future.
A narrow-minded, democratic _regime_ is often, as we know, very
troublesome. But for all that men of intelligence find that they
can live in America, as long as they are not too exacting. _Noli me
tangere is_ the most one can ask for from democracy. We shall pass
through several alternatives of anarchy and despotism before we find
repose in this happy medium. But liberty is like truth; scarcely any
one loves it on its own account, and yet, owing to the impossibility
of extremes, one always comes back to it.

We may as well, therefore, allow the destinies of this planet to
work themselves out without undue concern. We should gain nothing by
exclaiming against them, and a display of temper would be very much
out of place. It is by no means certain that the earth is not falling
short of its destiny, as has probably happened to countless worlds;
it is even possible that our age may one day be regarded as
the culminating point since which humanity has been steadily
deteriorating; but the universe does not know the meaning of the
word discouragement; it will commence anew the work which has come
to naught; each fresh check leaves it young, alert, and full of
illusions. Be of good cheer, Nature! Pursue, like the deaf and blind
star-fish which vegetates in the bed of the ocean, thy obscure task of
life; persevere; mend for the millionth time the broken meshes of the
net; repair the boring-machine which sinks to the last limits of the
attainable the well from which living water will spring up. Sight and
sight again the aim which thou hast failed