nt
glimpse, the improvement that it so eagerly desires, even then it is
still thinking, feeling, seeing like the thing that it seeks to alter,
even then it lies captive beneath the yoke. All its efforts
notwithstanding, it is practically that which it would change. For the
mind of man lacks the power to forecast the future; it has been formed
rather to explain, judge, and co-ordinate that which was, to help,
foster, and make known what already exists, but so far cannot be seen;
and when it ventures into what is not yet, it will rarely produce
anything very salutary or very enduring. And the influence of the
social condition in which we exist lies heavy upon it. How can we
frame a satisfactory idea of justice, and ponder it loyally, with the
needful tranquillity, when injustice surrounds us on every side?
Before we can study justice, or speak of it with advantage, it must
become what it is capable of being: a social force, irreproachable and
actual. At present all we can do is to invoke its unconscious, secret,
and, as it were, almost imperceptible efforts. We contemplate it from
the shores of human injustice; never yet has it been granted us to gaze
on the open sea beneath the illimitable, inviolate sky of a conscience
without reproach. If men had at least done all that it was possible
for them to do in their own domain, they would then have the right to
go further, and question elsewhere; and their thoughts would probably
be clearer, were their consciences more at ease.

29

And further, a heavy reproach lies on us and chills our ardour whenever
we try to grow better, to increase our knowledge, our love, our
forgiveness. Though we purify our consciousness and ennoble our
thoughts, though we strive to render life softer and sweeter for those
who are near us, all our efforts halt at our threshold, and have no
influence on what lies outside our door; and the moment we leave our
home we feel that we have done nothing, that there is nothing for us to
do, and that we are taking part, ourselves notwithstanding, in the
great anonymous injustice. Is it not almost ludicrous that we, who
within our four walls strive to be noble and faithful, pitiful, simple
and loyal; we whose consciousness balances the nicest, most delicate
problems, and rejects even the suspicion of a bitter thought, have no
sooner gone into the street and met faces that are unfamiliar, than, at
that very instant, and without the least possibility