The last half of my life was spent at one of those painful epochs of human history, during which the world seemed to be getting worse; human history, during which the world seemed to be getting worse; where past victories which had seemed to be definitive have turned out to be only temporary. When I was young Victorian, optimism was taken for granted. It was thought that freedom and prosperity would spread gradually throughout the world though an orderly process, and it was hoped that cruelty, tyranny, and injustice would continually diminish.