ways
more common: intellectual agitation, the weakening of the spirit
of tradition, the general relaxation of discipline, the loss of
authority, ethical confusion and disorder. At the same time that
certain moral sentiments refine themselves, certain individualisms
grow fiercer. The government may no longer represent the ideas, the
aspirations, the energetic will of a small oligarchy; it must make
itself more yielding and gracious at the same time that it is becoming
more contradictory and discordant. Family discipline is relaxed;
the new generations shake off early the influence of the past; the
sentiment of honour and the rigour of moral, religious, and political
principles are weakened by a spirit of utility and expediency by
which, more or less openly, confessing it or dissimulating, men always
seek to do, not that which is right and decorous, but that which is
utilitarian. The civic spirit tends to die out; the number of persons
capable of suffering, or even of working, disinterestedly for the
common good, for the future, diminishes; children are not wanted; men
prefer to live in accord with those in power, ignoring their vices,
rather than openly opposing them. Public events do not interest unless
they include a personal advantage.

This is the state of mind that is now diffusing itself throughout
Europe; the same state of mind that, with the documents at hand, I
have found in the age of Caesar and Augustus, and seen progressively
diffusing itself throughout ancient Italy. The likeness is so great
that we re-find in those far-away times, especially in the upper
classes, exactly that restless condition that we define by the word
"nervousness." Horace speaks of this state of mind, which we consider
peculiar to ourselves, and describes it, by felicitous image, as
_strenua inertia_--strenuous inertia,--agitation vain and ineffective,
always wanting something new, but not really knowing what, desiring
most ardently yet speedily tiring of a desire gratified. Now it
is clear that if these vices spread too much, if they are not
complemented by an increase of material resources, of knowledge, of
sufficient population, they can lead a nation rapidly to ruin. We do
not feel very keenly the fear of this danger--the European-American
civilisation is so rich, has at its disposal so much knowledge, so
many men, so many instrumentalities, has cut off for itself such a
measureless part of the globe, that it can afford to look una