Catholic opinion held _semper, et ubique, et ab omnibus_. The
intellectual faculties (perception and reflection) are mute upon
the subject: they bear no testimony to facts; they show no proof.
Even the instinctive sense of our kind is here dumb. We may
believe what we are taught: we can know nothing. He would,
therefore, cultivate that receptive mood which, marching under
the shadow of mighty events, leads to the highest of goals,--the
development of Humanity. With him suspension of judgment is a
system.

Man has done much during the sixty-eight centuries which
represent his history. This assumes the first Egyptian Empire,
following the pre-historic, to begin with B. C. 5000, and to end
with B. C. 3249. It was the Old, as opposed to the Middle, the
New, and the Low: it contained the Dynasties from I. to X., and
it was the age of the Pyramids, at once simple, solid, and grand.
When the praiser of the Past contends that modern civilization
has improved in nothing upon Homer and Herodotus, he is apt to
forget that every schoolboy is a miracle of learning compared
with the Cave-man and the palaeolithic race. And, as the Past has
been, so shall the Future be.

The Pilgrim's view of life is that of the Soofi, with the usual
dash of Buddhistic pessimism. The profound sorrow of existence,
so often sung by the dreamy Eastern poet, has now passed into the
practical European mind. Even the light Frenchman murmurs,--

Moi, moi, chaque jour courbant plus bas ma tete
Je passe--et refroidi sous ce soleil joyeux,
Je m'en irai bientot, au milieu de la fete,