Produced by David Widger
By Charles Dudley Warner
To revisit this earth, some ages after their departure from it, is acommon wish among men. We frequently hear men say that they would give somany months or years of their lives in exchange for a less number on theglobe one or two or three centuries from now. Merely to see the worldfrom some remote sphere, like the distant spectator of a play whichpasses in dumb show, would not suffice. They would like to be of theworld again, and enter into its feelings, passions, hopes; to feel thesweep of its current, and so to comprehend what it has become.
I suppose that we all who are thoroughly interested in this world havethis desire. There are some select souls who sit apart in calm endurance,waiting to be translated out of a world they are almost tired ofpatronizing, to whom the whole thing seems, doubtless, like a cheapperformance. They sit on the fence of criticism, and cannot for the lifeof them see what the vulgar crowd make such a toil and sweat about. Theprizes are the same dreary, old, fading bay wreaths. As for the soldiersmarching past, their uniforms are torn, their hats are shocking, theirshoes are dusty, they do not appear (to a man sitting on the fence) tomarch with any kind of spirit, their flags are old and tattered, thedrums they beat are barbarous; and, besides, it is not probable that theyare going anywhere; they will merely come round again, the same people,like the marching chorus in the "Beggar's Opera." Such critics, ofcourse, would not care to see the vulgar show over again; it is enoughfor them to put on record their protest against it in the weekly"Judgment Days" which they edit, and by-and-by withdraw out of theirprivate boxes, with pity for a world in the creation of which they werenot consulted.
The desire to revisit this earth is, I think, based upon a belief,well-nigh universal, that the world is to make some progress, and that itwill be more interesting in the future than it is now. I believe that thehuman mind, whenever it is developed enough to comprehend its own action,rests, and has always rested, in this expectation. I do not know anyperiod of time in which the civilized mind has not had expectation ofsomething better for the race in the future. This expectation issometimes stronger than it is at others; and, again, there are alwaysthose who say that the Golden Age is behind them. It is always behind orbefore us; the poor present alone has no friends; the present, in theminds of many, is only the car that is carrying us away from an age ofvirtue and of happiness, or that is perhaps bearing us on to a time ofease and comfort and security.
Perhaps it is worth while, in view of certain recent discussions, andespecially of some free criticisms of this country, to consider whetherthere is any intention of progress in this world, and whether thatintention is discoverable in the age in which we live.
If it is an old question, it is not a settled one; the practicaldisbelief in any such progress is widely entertained. Not long ago Mr.James Anthony Froude published an essay on Progress, in which he examinedsome of the evidences upon which we rely to prove that we live in an "eraof progress." It is a melancholy essay, for its tone is that of profoundskepticism as to certain influences and means of progress upon which wein this country most rely. With the illustrative arguments of Mr.Froude's essay I do not purpose specially to meddle; I recall it to theattention of the reader as a representative type of skepticism regardingprogress which is somewhat common among intellectual men, and is notconfined to England. It is not