ABSTRACT
The shadow of pessimism covers from time to time the life of the individual and similarly the life of societies; and doubts, fears and despair over the future belongs to all eras of history. But, in the years through which Europe is living, that shadow has become wider and darker, and has produced a sombre literature, comprising books already famous, read by all or familiar to all. When, as frequently happens, we conceive it as a tangle of forces which act outside us and according to their own laws, we have, with the nightmare of these forces, the feeling of helplessness, since, if they are outside us, there is no way of getting among them and of dominating or regulating them. There is nothing left to do then but to speculate, seeking in the external world other forces which may oppose, defeat or check them, and to put people's hope in these.
