The gift of prophecy as to general human history is not a gift that any philosophy can bestow.

It could only be acquired through a superhuman inspiration which is denied to man or through a superhuman sagacity which is never attained by him.
The hypothetical pessimism that is contained in my arguments is a very different thing from this, and far humbler.

It makes no foolish attempts to say anything general about the present, or anything absolute about the future.

As to the future, it only takes the absolute things that have been said by others; and not professing any certainty about their truth, merely explains their meaning.

It deals with a certain change in human beliefs, now confidently predicted; but it does not say that this prediction will be fulfilled.