The prospects which alarm the conservative spirits of to-day are, in truth, but the last consequence of that ancient evolution. Statisticians who are not evolutionists prove, without understanding it, that the indissolubility of marriage becomes more and more intolerable for individuals.[1]There is, as it were, a tide of discord continually rising which renders conjugal stability more and more precarious. This grievous state of things distresses, on the other hand, the moralists, for neither do they see the reason of it. The surprise of the former is not more justified than the lamentation of the latter. It is nothing more than the future, which, with its habitual effrontery, persists in rising out of the past. The faint-hearted cry to us that everything is coming to an end. It is not so; on the contrary, everything is about to be renewed. From the most distant stone age, the history of humanity has only been a long series of regenerations. Far from mourning when the world seems to be entering a period of fresh life, let us rather rejoice and say again with Lucretius—
"Cedit enim rerum novitate extrusa vetustas
Semper et ex aliis aliud reparare necesse est."
- ↑ J. Bertillon, loc. cit., p. 61.
