in courage and openness of mind and soul.

Again, in estimating the relative merits of different periods of the
world, we must employ the same tests of greatness that we use to
individuals. To compare, for instance, the present and the past.
What astounds us most in the past is the wonderful intolerance and
cruelty: a cruelty constantly turning upon the inventors: an
intolerance provoking ruin to the thing it would foster. The most
admirable precepts are thrown from time to time upon this cauldron
of human affairs, and oftentimes they only seem to make it blaze the
higher. We find men devoting the best part of their intellects to
the invariable annoyance and persecution of their fellows. You
might think that the earth brought forth with more abundant
fruitfulness in the past than now, seeing that men found so much
time for cruelty, but that you read of famines and privations which
these latter days cannot equal. The recorded violent deaths amount
to millions. And this is but a small part of the matter. Consider
the modes of justice; the use of torture, for instance. What must
have been the blinded state of the wise persons (wise for their day)
who used torture? Did they ever think themselves, "What should we
not say if we were subjected to this?" Many times they must really
have desired to get at the truth; and such was their mode of doing
it. Now, at the risk of being thought "a laudator" of time present,
I would say, here is the element of greatness we have made progress
in. We are more open in mind and soul. We have arrived (some of us
at least) at the conclusion that men may honestly differ without
offence. We have learned to pity each other more. There is a
greatness in modern toleration which our ancestors knew not.

Then comes the other element of greatness, courage. Have we made