Due to its lack of tranquility, our civilization is heading toward a new barbarism. At no time have active people, that is to say, restless people, been prized more. Among the necessary corrections in the character of humanity that we must therefore undertake is a considerable strengthening of its contemplative element. Every individual who is tranquil and steady in heart and head has the right to believe that he possesses not only a good temperament, but a generally useful virtue as well, and that he even fulfills a higher duty by preserving this virtue.