The Portland daily press., 1882-05-22
saturday Review.1
The Ace OF Great Expectation.

The Age of Great Expectation.
1t is perfectly true that our age has thou
sand times the resources of any that preceded
it, Lut the question still remains, "Does it use
them to a thousand times better purpose?" He
must be indeed sturdy optimist who can
bring himself to answer that question in the
affirmative. That it is an age of great opportu-
mites there can be no doubt; that it is not SIM
ply what critics like Carlyle and Mr.. Ruskin
have represented it to be, ''the age OF money
bags and cant, SCOT, hubbub, and ugliness,"
may be granted; nor need it be denied that in
such high matters as science, religion and So
cial organization 'great things are in the air."
But in these respects it can only be called at
best "the age of great expectations and great
expectations are sometimes very slow in get
ting realized, after the precedent of MI. Micaw-
Der. We may perhaps be on the eve OF the
Millennium, but as yet we discern no signs OF
the dawn. There is one very simple way OF
testing the comparative moral value of our pro-
gress OF the sudden and enormous change in
our external and material life between 1882
and 1882, change beyond all example or idea
or expectation of any previous period in the
worlds history, there can be no manner OF
doubt. Bot it may well be questioned if Eng
land was not as much wiser, stronger and bet
ter in 1882 than in 1852, and in 1852 than in
1852, as it is better now than in 1882; and IL
we were to go further back the change in these
respects would be still more noticeable Or
again, compare England with other European
countries; the material progress has been very
much more rapid here than anywhere else,
while in some countries, like Spain, there has
been hardly any at ALL "Has the relative
position of these nations in the scale OF true
civilization altered SO very much? Not at ALL,
If from moral we pass to scientific progress, II
is obvious that to place the marvellous tools OF
modern science beside those used by Copernl-
Gus or Calico would be like putting modern
ironclad by the side of Chinese junk. But
will it be pretended that in scientific genius the
age even of Faraday and Darwin towers above
Leibnitz, and Descartes? "YOu may raise your
mechanical apparatus of science thousand
fold, you do not double your scientific genius
once" Still less could it be plausibly main
tanned that we have advanced in philosophy or
in art, or in the quality of our literature, inn
mense as is the increase in quantity, when the
press turns d out more matter in legible
type every day than in Dr. Johnson's time it
turned out in a year, or in ShakespearesS anne
in century. We have not excelled Mozart or
Beethoven in music, or Reynolds and Gaines
borough in painting, not to speak of the great
painters of an earlier age. 1--WE are as much
superior in material appliances to the men of
Milton's day and Newton's day, as they were
to Afghans or Yulus Are we equally superior
in cultivation of brain, heart or character, to
the contemporaries of Milton and Newton?"
1t may perhaps be argued that, if no serious
claim can be preferred toany moral superiority
at all corresponding to our huge material ad-
vance, we have at least gained much in all that
adds to the grace and charm, "the bloom of So
cial life." But such claim is hardly more
admissible sthan the other. Can it really be
maintained that life hundred or two hundred
years ago, before steam, electricity or photog-
rapby existed, was SO cramped and helpless a
thing, so borne and ill provided? Somehow it
was not In some ways, indeed, this very
same material advance, with all the hurry and
| skurry OF modern life-if such phrase may be
allowed-has served to rub off the bloom. as
| Mr.. W. r. Greg was never tired of reminding