Modern age

“ Integration of the mores of a group or age. In further development of the same interpretation of the phenomena we find that changes in history are primarily due to changes in life conditions. Then the folkways change. Then new philosophies and ethical rules are invented to try to justify the new ways. The whole vast body of modern mores has thus been developed out of the philosophy and ethics of the Middle Ages. ”

“ The emotions of the present may incline us to look back regretfully upon that past which reminds us of so much that is great and noble, in spite of its many and inevitable drawbacks, and which, by showing us the origin of modern society, by revealing to us the manner of its birth and its onward progress, may give us the key to its present critical condition when a profound and universal transformation seems about to take place. ”

“ Now this great century, the last of the true Middle Ages, which as it drew to its own end gave birth to Modern Society, has a special character of its own, a character that gives it an abiding and enchanting interest. ”

“ We think of the future, not the past, as the more glorious time in comparison with which the present is nothing. Progress, development,—those are modern words. The modern idea is to leave the past and press onward to something new. ”

“ I believe the refinements of modern society, its elegant accomplishments, its intellectual culture, and its conceptions of the beautiful, are glorious evidences of our advancement toward a higher plane of being. ”

“ In tracing analogies through the history of the past, the conditions, premonitory, present, and subsequent to great world-movements have often been referred to.
Nothing is more common or more patent than the oft-repeated saying, “This is the age of science.” 211 Any great movement that undertakes at the present day to deal with the deeper problems of individual and social life, must fit in and conform to the “spirit of the present age.” ”

“ Often before have I warned you against the false impression which is created by the use of our so-called historical epochs which divide the story of man into four parts, the ancient world, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Reformation, and Modern Time. The last of these terms is the most dangerous. The word "modern" implies that we, the people of the twentieth century, are at the top of human achievement. ”

“ What we now are, we have become by our own culture and development, and by the inflowing of those great modern ideas which have affected all the world, and helped to build up its civilization into such stately proportions. ”

“ While the mechanism of life has thus been brought much nearer to perfection by the labor of our age, the principles of life remain such as they have always been.
Pile luxury as high as you will, health is better, and the body of a well-fed and not over-worked ploughman is, nine times out of ten, a better possession than the body of a man of fortune, especially if he be at the same time a man of pleasure. [Pg 54] Marshal and gild the pomp of circumstance, and do it homage with bated breath, character remains the true majesty, honor and intelligence its prime ministers. ”

“ In the preceding Lectures we have delineated the Present Age as a necessary part of the great World-Plan on which the Earthly Life of our Race is arranged, and have endeavoured to disclose its secret significance; we have sought to understand the phenomena of the Present by means of this Idea, to bring them forth as the necessary results of the Past, and to predict their immediate consequences in the Future;—and if we have succeeded in this our undertaking, we have then understood our Age. We have been engaged in these contemplations without thought of ourselves or of our own position. ”

“ But in the thirties they have visions of the future which are deeply disturbing; and in the forties they face the tragedy of a lonely old age. Some men and women there must always be whose lives lack the fulfilment of family life because of ill health or the accidents of personal relations. But most women, if they are willing to pay the same price for a significant family life that they so gladly pay for professional success, will find the way open to live all of life. Why is it that women count it an honor to work and starve for an art, but dishonor to undergo privations for their children? ”

“ Fashions and modes in literature and art, as in society, come and go; new institutions arise, demanding new methods and modifying cherished customs; and men’s thoughts enlarge and widen with improved conditions, as with the inevitable progress of the age. ”

“ These subordinate peculiarities will depend first on the peculiar genius, idea and work of the nation, and next on the transient circumstances, geographical, climactic, historical and secular, to which the nation has been exposed. The past helped form the circumstances of the present age, and they the character of the men now living. ”

“ The men of this epoch inherited a ferment of ideas attendant upon the historical revolt of the sixteenth century, and they bequeathed formed systems of thought touching every aspect of human life. It is the one century which consistently, and throughout the whole range of human activities, provided intellectual genius adequate for the greatness of its occasions. ”

“ Such were some of the lights and some of the enterprises of that great age, when the profoundest questions pertaining to philosophy, religion, law, and government were discussed with the enthusiasm and freshness of a revolutionary age; when men felt the inspiration of a new life, and looked back on the Middle Ages with disgust and hatred, as a period which enslaved the human soul. But what peculiarly marked that period was the commencement of those marvellous discoveries in science which have enriched our times and added to the material blessings of the new civilization. ”

“ The new generation, even that portion of it that represents the educated classes, has broken away from the study of a world which, though resembling the modern world in so many of its ideas and institutions, differed from the present era in the fundamental conception of life, and professed an entirely different idea of perfection. ”

“ Then he sees what it is makes the difference, digs the gulf. ‘Science,’ the mind cries, ‘ordered knowledge.’ And so for the first time the modern recognizes what the accumulations of his forefathers have done for him. ”

“ Religion, industry, state, education, and literature have been consciously transformed by the heroic efforts of such great men of the world, and these conscious and artificial transformations of the several aspects of social life have been the constituents of a new environment and thus the seeds of Renaissance. ”

“ Fifty thousand or more years ago, these groups of intelligent human beings possessed faculties and powers in all essentials “modern,” though still in the dawn of education. These folk saw as we see, felt as we feel, and they otherwise functioned as we function to-day. ”

“ We believe that human society could be and presently will be deliberately reconstructed more boldly, more elaborately, and with more definite intention, upon a scale commensurate with the greatness of modern mechanism and to an extent that will enable it to anticipate and discipline what are now the incalculable forces of change. ”

“ This form of Reason,—this standard of conceptions,—the results, present in the general consciousness of the Time, of the art of Being and Well-Being, is what the third Age encounters at its advent;—this is the universal and natural Common Sense, which it receives without labour or toil of its own, as its hereditary patrimony; which is born with it like its hunger and its thirst, and which it now applies as the undoubted measure of all existence and all worth. ”

“ On contemplating past social states, we are continually reminded that many arrangements, and practices, and convictions, that seem matters of course, are very modern; and we are continually forgetting that many things we now regard as impossible were quite possible a few centuries ago. ”

“ Modern principles, that mark a new departure in human progress and in its evidence, Civilisation, took their rise during this epoch of transition, and their development underlies the history of the period, and gives the key to its meaning. ”

“ We now face other perils the very existence of which it was impossible that they should foresee.
Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the half century are felt in every fiber of our social and political being. ”

“ The ten studies which constitute this volume are devoted to individuals who are held out as being reasonably characteristic of that modern movement of the last and present century which started with the French Revolution. At any rate, they were all modern once. For the spirit of modernity enjoys, like the priest-god of the ancient grove, only a temporary reign, and is speedily killed by its inevitable successor. ”

“ To observe the origin of civilization—the gradual progress of society, and the refinements of manners, policy, morality and religion—to observe the progress of mankind from simplicity to luxury, from luxury to effeminacy, and the gradual steps of the decline of empire, and the dissolution of states and kingdoms, must blend that happy union of instruction and entertainment, which never fails to win our attention to the pursuit of all subjects. ”

“ The discovery and development of new countries, the marvellous progress of America, the discoveries of science, the perfection of machinery, the ideas of liberty which emerge triumphant from political revolutions and changes in customs, the weakening of the spirit of authority in every department of social life, the abolition of so many limits which once entangled the movements of man, are all phenomena which are mutually and indissolubly connected. ”

“ In a word, we must look to the Thirteenth Century for the origin, or at least the definite acceptance, of most of those conventions which make for kindly courtesy among men, and have made possible human society and friendly intercourse in our modern sense of those words. ”

“ Of these dangerous tendencies, the one which has struck me most in the course of my travels in America, and has given me most food for thought, is precisely this, which I have treated in this my latest work and which forms, as it were, the crown to the whole discussion of the dialogue. Modern civilisation has accomplished miracles and marvels without number, since she left behind her the limits, material and ideal, within which the timid generations of old confined themselves,—since she outstepped and upset these limits on her way to conquer the earth, riches, and liberty. ”

“ And so in our own Age, when it has somewhat recovered and composed itself from the manifold errors with which it has been perplexed and harassed, will Inspired Men arise and bring to it that of which it stands in need.
We have finished the task which we proposed to ourselves:—we have delineated, briefly and succinctly as was our purpose, the Characteristics of the Present Age contemplated from those essential principles which belong to all Time. There remains nothing further for us to do but to add a conclusion to the whole. ”

“ There will come a time—I am sure of it—when it will be found that the same practical results, both in mental discipline, and in political philosophy, are to be attained by the accurate study of mediæval and modern as of ancient history ”

“ Modern man and his precursors There is no warrant for assuming mental improvement in the race within any time of which we have knowledge. Can modern civilization show greater poets, artists, architects, philosophers, rhetoricians, statesmen or soldiers than the ancient? ”

“ There is, there must be, another conception, more lofty than this conception of progress; a conception of progress as the accumulated effort of generations. Is it not true that each generation creates forms of beauty, and discovers new truths and virtues? Can we not say that generations really do show progress, if they succeed in preserving the creations of preceding epochs, and in erecting on them as a basis more complex and elevated creations of their own? ”

“ Modern history alone, from its vast scope, from the variety and extent of its duration, offers us the grandest and most complete picture which we could possibly possess of the civilization of a certain portion of the globe. ”

“ Eras, like individuals, differ from one another in the species of virtue which they encourage. In one age, we find the virtues of the warrior, in the next of the saint. The ascetic and the soldier in their turn disappear; an industrial era succeeds, bringing with it the virtues of common sense, of grace, and refinement. ”

“ You perceive that this Age is based upon an already present conception,—an innate Common Sense, which pronounces irrevocably upon its whole system of knowledge and belief; and if we could thoroughly analyze this inborn conception or sense, which is thus to it the root of everything else, we should then, undoubtedly, be able to take in the whole system of the beliefs of the Age at a single glance, perceive the inmost spirit beneath all its outward wrappings, and bring it forth to view. ”

“ All the great stages [16] through which, in the progress of civilization, the human race has successively passed, have been characterized by certain mental peculiarities or convictions, which have left their impress upon the religion, the philosophy, and the morals of the age. ”

“ And thus, gentlemen, will this good genius still go on, instructing and improving, and purifying the human p. 48mind, and aiding in the grand work of developing the divinity within it. I know, indeed, that it is a favourite argument of some people that modern civilization will decline and vanish, ‘like the civilizations of old.’ But I venture to deny it in toto. ”

“ The characteristic changes of modern times,—those that have largely confirmed in the minds of men the idea of progress so wholly lacking in ancient and mediaeval thought,—have risen entirely during the three centuries since the emergence of science. ”