Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1882-06-15
The Age Of Great Expectations.

''S N6S " GNpCStdtiOUos
Saturday Review.
1t is perfectly true that our age has
a thousand times the resources of any
that preceded il, but the question still
remains, "Djes it use them to thou
sand times better purposeP' He must
be indeed a sturdy optimist who can
bring himself to answer that question
in the affirmative. That it is an age
of great opportunity there can be no
doubt; that is not simply what critics
like Carlyle and Mr.. Ruskin have re-
presented it to be, "tbe age of money
bags and cant, SCOT, hubbub and ugli.
ness" may be granted; nor need it be
denied that in such high matters as
science, religion and social organization
great things are in the air." But in
these respects it can only be called at
best "the age of great expectations, s
and great expectations are sometime
very slow in getting realized, after the
precedent of Mr.. Micawber. We may
perhaps be on the eve of the millen-
mum, but as yet we discern no signs
of the dawn. There is one very simple
way of testing the comparative moral
value of our progress. 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. But it may
well be questioned if England was not
as much wiser, stronger and better in
1882 than in 1852, and in 1852
than in 1882, as it is better
now than in 1882; and if we
were to 60 further back the change in
these respects would be still more no.
ticeable. Or again, compare England
with other European countries; the
material progress has been very much
more rapid here than anyw 1ere 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 civiliza.
tion altered SO very much? Not at
allp If from moral we pass to scien.
tlic progress, it is obvious that to
place the marvellous tools of modern
science besides those used by Coperni.
Gus or Galileo would be like putting a
modern ironclad by the side of a Chi
neae junk. But it will be pretended
that in scientific genius the age even of
Faraday and Darwin towers above that
of Newton and Herschel, or of Bacon,
lie On';z ard Descartesp You may
raise your mechanical apparatus of sci
ence thousandfold, you do not double
your scientific genius once. Still less
could it be plausibly maintained that
we have advanced in philosophy or in
the quality of our literature, immense
as is the increase in quantity, when
the press turns out mole matter in
legble type every day than in DR.
.Johnson's time it turned out in a year
or in Shakespeare's time in a century
We have not exCelled Mozart OF Bee.
thoven in music, or Reynolds and
Gainesborough in painting, not tC
speak of the great painters of an ear
lier age. "We are as much superior ir
material appliances to the men OF
Mi toms day and Newton's day as they
were to Afghans or Zulus. Are We
equally superior in cultivation of brain
heart OF character to the cOntempoIa
ries of Milton and NewtOnp"
1t may be argued that if no seriou,
claim can be preferred to any mora
superiority at all corresponding to ou
huge material advance we have a
least gained much in all that adds t.
the grace and charm, "the bloom o
social" But such claim is hardl,
more admissible than the other. Car
it really be maintained that life a hun
dred or two hundred years ago, befor
steam, electricity, or photography ex
listed, was go cramped and helpless
thing, so borne and i'll provided
Somehow it wasnot." In some ways
indeed, this very same material ad
vance, with all the hurry and skurry o
} modern lifc-if such phrase may b
, allowed-has served to rub off tn
bloom, as Mr.. W. r. Gregg was neve
fired Of rpmindinp liz.