Almost all really new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced. A race preserves its vigor so long as it harbors a real contrast between what has been and what may be; and so long as it is nerved by the vigor to adventure beyond the safeties of the past. Without adventure civilization is in full decay. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious. The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future. The art of progress is to preserve order amid change. | 
