We men and women of the twentieth century, whether rightly or wrongly, profoundly believe in the idea of progress. Whether we ever shall be able to make this world perfect, we do not know. In the meantime we feel it to be our most sacred duty to try.
Yea, sometimes this faith in the unavoidable destiny of progress seems to have become the national religion of our entire country.
But the people of the Middle Ages did not and could not share such a view.
The Greek dream of a world filled with beautiful and interesting things had lasted such a lamentably short time! It had been so rudely disturbed by the political cataclysm that had overtaken the unfortunate country that most Greek writers of the later centuries had been confirmed pessimists who, contemplating the ruins of their once happy fatherland, had become abject believers in the doctrine of the ultimate futility of all worldly endeavor.
The Roman authors, on the other hand, who could draw their conclusions from almost a thousand years of consecutive history, had discovered a certain upward trend in the development of the human race and their philosophers, notably the Epicureans, had cheerfully undertaken the task of educating the younger generation for a happier and better future.
Then came Christianity.
The center of interest was moved from this world to the other. Almost immediately people fell back into a deep and dark abyss of hopeless resignation.
Man was evil. He was evil by instinct and by preference. He was conceived in sin, born in sin, he lived in sin and he died repenting of his sins.
But there was a difference between the old despair and the new.