Though he cannot tell whether
A, B, or C will cut his throat, he may assure himself that one man in
every fifty thousand, or thereabout (I forget the exact proportion),
will cut his throat, and with this he consoles himself. No doubt it is a
comforting discovery. Unfortunately, the average of one generation need
not be the average of the next. We may be converted by the Japanese,
for all that we know, and the Japanese methods of taking leave of life
may become fashionable among us. Nay, did not Novalis suggest that the
whole race of men would at last become so disgusted with their
impotence, that they would extinguish themselves by a simultaneous act
of suicide, and make room for a better order of beings? Anyhow, the
fountain out of which the race is flowing perpetually changes; no two
generations are alike. Whether there is a change in the organization
itself we cannot tell; but this is certain,--that, as the planet varies
with the atmosphere which surrounds it, so each new generation varies
from the last, because it inhales as its atmosphere the accumulated
experience and knowledge of the whole past of the world.
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