It is not easy to say how this myth of progress came to take hold of the imagination, in the teeth of science and experience.  Quinet speaks of the ‘fatalistic optimism’ of historians, of which there have certainly been some strange examples.  We can only say that secularism, like other religions, needs an eschatology, and has produced one.  A more energetic generation than ours looked forward to a gradual extension of busy industrialism over the whole planet; the present ideal of the masses seems to be the greatest idleness of the greatest number, or a Fabian farm-yard of tame fowls, or (in America) an ice-water-drinking gynaecocracy.  But the superstition cannot flourish much longer.  The period of expansion is over, and we must adjust our view of earthly providence to a state of decline.  For no nation can flourish when it is the ambition of the large majority to put in fourpence and take out ninepence.  The middle-class will be the first victims; then the privileged aristocracy of labour will exploit the poor.  But trade will take wings and migrate to some other country where labour is good and comparatively cheap.

The dethronement of a fetish may give a sounder faith its chance.  In the time of decay and disintegration which lies before us, more persons will seek consolation where it can be found.  ‘Happiness and unhappiness,’ says Spinoza, ’depend on the nature of the object which we love.  When a thing is not loved, no quarrels will arise concerning it, no sadness will be felt if it perishes, no envy if it is possessed by another; no fear, no hatred, no disturbance of the mind.  All these things arise from the love of the perishable.  But love for a thing eternal and infinite feeds the mind wholly with joy, and is itself untainted with any sadness; wherefore it is greatly to be desired and sought for with our whole strength.’  It is well known that these noble words were not only sincere, but the expression of the working faith of the philosopher; and we may hope that many who are doomed to suffer hardship and spoliation in the evil days that are coming will find the same path to a happiness which cannot be taken from them.  Spinoza’s words, of course, do not point only to religious exercises and meditation.  The spiritual world includes art and science in all their branches, when these are studied with a genuine devotion to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful for their own sakes.  We shall need ‘a remnant’ to save Europe from relapsing into barbarism; for the new forces are almost wholly cut off from the precious traditions which link our civilisation with the great eras of the past.  The possibility of another dark age is not remote; but there must be enough who value our best traditions to preserve them till the next spring-time of civilisation.  We must take long views, and think of our great-grandchildren.