ON THE PAST AND FUTURE


I have naturally but little imagination, and am not of a very sanguine
turn of mind. I have some desire to enjoy the present good, and some
fondness for the past; but I am not at all given to build castles in the
air, nor to look forward with much confidence or hope to the brilliant
illusions held out by the future. Hence I have perhaps been led to form
a theory, which is very contrary to the common notions and feelings on
the subject, and which I will here try to explain as well as I can.
When Sterne in the _Sentimental Journey_ told the French Minister, that
if the French people had a fault, it was that they were too serious, the
latter replied that if that was his opinion, he must defend it with all
his might, for he would have all the world against him; so I shall have
enough to do to get well through the present argument.

I cannot see, then, any rational or logical ground for that mighty
difference in the value which mankind generally set upon the past and
future, as if the one was everything, and the other nothing--of no
consequence whatever. On the other hand, I conceive that the past is as
real and substantial a part of our being, that it is as much a _bona
fide_, undeniable consideration in the estimate of human life, as the
future can possibly be. To say that the past is of no importance,
unworthy of a moment's regard, because it has gone by, and is no longer
anything, is an argument that cannot be held to any purpose; for if the
past has ceased to be, and is therefore to be accounted nothing in the
scale of good or evil, the future is yet to come, and has never been
anything. Should any one choose to assert that the present only is of
any value in a strict and positive sense, because that alone has a real