controlled by bribery, while we lie in wait for other men’s death and
plan how to get a place in their wills, when we buy gain, from whatever
source, each one of us, with our very souls in our slavish greed, how, I
say, can we expect, in the midst of such a moral pestilence, that there
is still left even one liberal and impartial critic, whose verdict will
not be biassed by avarice in judging of those great works which live on
through all time?

10
“Alas! I fear that for such men as we are it is better to serve than to
be free. If our appetites were let loose altogether against our
neighbours, they would be like wild beasts uncaged, and bring a deluge
of calamity on the whole civilised world.“

11
I ended by remarking generally that the genius of the present age is
wasted by that indifference which with a few exceptions runs through the
whole of life. If we ever shake off our apathy[7] and apply ourselves to
work, it is always with a view to pleasure or applause, not for that
solid advantage which is worthy to be striven for and held in honour.

[Footnote 7: Comp. Thuc. vi. 26. 2, for this sense of ἀναλαμβάνειν.]

12
We had better then leave this generation to its fate, and turn to what
follows, which is the subject of the passions, to which we promised
early in this treatise to devote a separate work.[8] They play an
important part in literature generally, and especially in relation to
the Sublime.