Will it end? It has many enemies, most of them unconscious, has modern Europe.
It has men within it who imagine that the correction of some large abuse and the withdrawal of some considerable part of its fabric in the correction of that abuse, is a matter concerning only their one generation. These men visibly put in peril the balance of that civilisation by their very enthusiasm.
It has a lesser number of other enemies within itself; enemies more dangerous, who do believe that some quite new thing wholly alien to the soul of Europe can be imposed upon that soul. These men are always for anarchy; they delight in emphasising all that seems to diminish the responsibility and the freedom of citizens, and it is their pleasure to accelerate every tendency which may destroy, from whatever side, our permanent solution of domestic and of natural things: families, properties, armies.
The common faith which was, as it were, the cement of our civilisation has been hit so hard that some do ask themselves openly the question that was only whispered some little time ago--whether the cement still holds. It is quite certain that if that last symbol and reality disintegrates, if the Catholic Church leaves it, Europe has come to an end.
But these questions are not yet to be met by any reply. And when I ask myself those questions, and I always do when I see the Seine going by the walls that were Cæsar's parleying ground with the chiefs, Dionysius's prison, Julian's office, Dagobert's palace, and which have been subject to everything from Charlemagne to the Bourbons, and which have (within the memory of men whom I myself have known) ended the Monarchy and seen passing by a wholly new society--when I ask myself those questions, I answer less and less with every year.
Time was, in the University, say twenty years ago, one would have said: "It is all over. Everything that can destroy us has triumphed." Time was, say ten years ago, in the heat of a particular struggle which raged all over the West, one could have said with the enthusiasm of the fight, that continuity would win. But to-day, whether because one has accumulated knowledge or because things are really more confused, it is difficult to reply.