NON-ACTING 96
the rising generation that is climbing up behind us. It is they who will both judge us and carry on our work. In them I feel the future coming to birth, and at times I ask myself, not without some anxiety, What of all our etibrts will they reject, and what will they retain ? What will happen to our work when it has passed into their hands ? For it cannot last except through them, and it will dis- appear unless they accept it, to enlarge it and bring it to completion.
That is why I eagerly watch the movement of ideas among the youth of to-day, and read the advanced papers and reviews, endeavouring to keep in touch with the new spirit that animates our schools, and striving vainly to know whither you are all wending your way — you, who ri'jiresent the intelligence and the will of to-morrow.
Certainly, gentlemen, egotism plays its part in the matter ; I do not hide it. I am somewhat like a workman who, tinishing a house which he hopes will shelter his old age, is anxious concerning the weather he has to expect. Will the rain damage his walls? May not a sudden vrind from the north tear the roof olf? Above all, has he built strongly enough to resist the storm ? Has he spared neither durable material nor irksome labour ? It is not that I think our work eternal or final. The greatest must resign them- selves to the thought that they represent but a moment in the ever-continuing development of the human spirit ; it will be more than sufficient to have been for one hour the mouthpiece of a generation ! And since one cannot keep a literature stationary, but all things continually evolve and recommence, one must expect to see younger men born and grow up, who will, perhaps, in their turn cause you to be forgotten. I do not say that the old warrior in me does not at times desire to resist, when he feels his work attacked. But, in truth, I face the approaching century with more of curiosity than of revolt, and more of ardent sympathy than of personal anxiety ; let me perish, and let all my generation perish with me, if, indeed, we are good for nothing but to fill up the ditch for those who follow us in the march towards the light.
Gentlemen, I constantly hear it said that Positivism is at its last gasp, that Naturalism is dead, that Science haa reached the point of bankruptcy, having failed to supply either the moral peace or the human happiness it promised.
