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In times of social crises one's mind turns towards matters which are universal in scope. Interest in the individual, the personal, 'the human all too human', seems to recede. The preoccupation with the universal marks a turning away, not only from the individual but also from the present. The future acquires an even greater fascination than usual, and we weave our dreams around salvation, the Kingdom of Heaven, the City of God, the future Good Society, our war aims, the reconstruction of the world after the war, and the establishment of ultimate justice of man to man.
Lucius Cassius, whom Anatole France presents as keenly aware of the ills undermining the Roman Empire in the year 804 after the foundation of Rome, had a poignant thought about this preoccupation with the future. Cassius looked with apprehension at the insolent luxury in which the great of his contemporaries were living, at the base avidity of what we would call today the middle class, and at the cruel depravity of the populace. He had this to say:
'"It is true that we apply ourselves incessantly to the penetration of the impenetrable future. We work at it with all our strength and with all kinds of means. At times we seem to try to achieve our end by meditation, at times by prayer and ecstasy. Some consult the oracles of the gods; others, not afraid to resort to means which are not permitted, consult Chaldean soothsayers or draw Babylonian lots. Impious and vain curiosity all this! For of what use is our knowledge of things to come, since inevitably they will come? Yet the wise, they even more than the vulgar, desire to pierce the future and project themselves into it, as it were. This they do