Since 1850, massacres had become
so common that society scarcely noticed them unless they summed
up hundreds of thousands, as in Armenia; wars had been almost
continuous, and were beginning again in Cuba, threatening in
South Africa, and possible in Manchuria; yet impartial judges
thought them all not merely unnecessary, but foolish -- induced
by greed of the coarsest class, as though the Pharaohs or the
Romans were still robbing their neighbors. The robbery might be
natural and inevitable, but the murder seemed altogether archaic.
At one moment of perplexity to account for this trait of
Pteraspis, or shark, which seemed to have survived every moral
improvement of society, he took to study of the religious press.
Possibly growth m human nature might show itself there. He found
no need to speak unkindly of it; but, as an agent of motion, he
preferred on the whole the vigor of the shark, with its chances
of betterment; and he very gravely doubted, from his aching
consciousness of religious void, whether any large fraction of
society cared for a future life, or even for the present one,
thirty years hence. Not an act, or an expression, or an image,
showed depth of faith or hope.
The object of education, therefore, was changed. For many years
it had lost itself in studying what the world had ceased to care
for; if it were to begin again, it must try to find out what the
mass of mankind did care for, and why.
Pages:
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524