The ordinary mass, the men who have never troubled about progress,
might be trusted perhaps to progress. The particular individuals
who talk about progress would certainly fly to the four
winds of heaven when the pistol-shot started the race.
I do not, therefore, say that the word "progress" is unmeaning; I say
it is unmeaning without the previous definition of a moral doctrine,
and that it can only be applied to groups of persons who hold
that doctrine in common. Progress is not an illegitimate word,
but it is logically evident that it is illegitimate for us.
It is a sacred word, a word which could only rightly be used
by rigid believers and in the ages of faith.



III. On Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small


There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject;
the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.
Nothing is more keenly required than a defence of bores.
When Byron divided humanity into the bores and bored, he omitted
to notice that the higher qualities exist entirely in the bores,
the lower qualities in the bored, among whom he counted himself.
The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemn happiness, may,
in some sense, have proved himself poetical. The bored has certainly
proved himself prosaic.

We might, no doubt, find it a nuisance to count all the blades of grass
or all the leaves of the trees; but this would not be because of our
boldness or gaiety, but because of our lack of boldness and gaiety.