Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/571



REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE. 565

and probity. But a hard reality has made us feel every day more and more of how little avail is instruction without religion and morality. As a necessary consequence of in- experience, and of the promptings of bad passions, the mind of youth is enthralled by the perverse teachings of the day. It absorbs all the errors which an unbridled press does not hesitate to sow broadcast and which depraves the mind and the will of youth and foments in them that spirit of pride and insubordination which so often trouble the peace of families and cities.

So also was confidence reposed in the progress of science. Indeed the century which has just closed, has witnessed progress that was great, unexpected, stupendous. But is it true that it has given us all the fulness and health- fulness of fruitage that so many expected from it? Doubt- less the discoveries of science have opened new horizons to the mind; it has widened the empire of man over the forces of matter, and human life has been ameliorated in many ways through its instrumentality. Nevertheless, every one feels and many admit that the results have not corresponded to the hopes that were cherished. It cannot be denied, especially when we cast our eyes on the intel- lectual and moral status of the world as well as on the records of criminality, when we hear the dull murmurs which arise from the depths, or when we witness the pre- dominance which might has won over right. Not to speak of the throngs who are a prey to every misery, a super- ficial glance at the condition of the world will suflfice to convince us of the indefinable sorrow which weighs upon souls and the immense void which is in human hearts. Man may subject nature to his sway, but matter cannot give him what it has not, and to the questions which most deeply affect our gravest interests hirnian science gives no reply. The thirst for truth, for good, for the infinite, which devours us, has not been slaked, nor have the joys and riches of earth, nor the increase of the comforts of life ever soothed the anguish which tortures the heart.