The serious man
can give but one answer. The England and France and Germany and Italy
and Spain of the end of the century were, when every deduction has been
made on particular points, vastly more habitable, better places to live
in, than the same countries at the beginning of the century. The
brilliant historian of the administration of Jefferson paints a masterly
picture of the life of our own people in 1800. Every aspect of the
social and intellectual life of the time is treated with marvelous
fullness of detail and in the most graphic and impressive way; and there
is an element of hope and buoyancy, of prophecy and promise, pervading
the pages, which is at once inspiring and sobering. Yes, surely one
would rather live in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth
century than at the beginning of the nineteenth. The century has been on
the whole emphatically a period of progress. The same was true of the
century before, and of the century before that.
What has been true concerning progress in general during the last few
centuries has been especially true of progress out of the habit of war
toward the habit of peace.
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