I
should have but small confidence in the Power that rules the world,
if I did not believe that the vast social development of Europe,
its civilisation, its network of communications, its bustle, its
tenser living, its love of social excitement was not all part of a
great design. I do not believe that humanity is perversely astray,
hurrying to destruction. I believe rather that it is working out
the possibilities that lie within it; and if human beings had been
framed to live quiet pastoral lives, they would be living them
still. The one question for the would-be optimist is whether
humanity is growing nobler, wiser, more unselfish; and of that I
have no doubt whatever. The sense of equality, of the rights of the
weak, compassion, brotherliness, benevolence, are living ideas,
throbbing with life; the growth of the power of democracy, much as
it may tend to inconvenience one personally, is an entirely hopeful
and desirable thing; and if a man is disposed to pessimism, he
ought to ask himself seriously to what extent his pessimism is
conditioned by his own individual prospect of happiness.
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