THE human race has cherished no tradition more persistently than that of a Golden Age, a period of primeval innocence and unclouded happiness. The annals of almost all nations and tribes contain references or recollections of this sort, dim perhaps and vague, but carefully nourished as of precious import. Such traditions have been variously colored by the peculiar temperament, environment, or need of different races, but they generally agree in depicting a state of nature wherein men have supposedly attained a condition of approximate perfection, are good and beautiful, virtuous and happy; and at the same time, free from care, fear, and want.
But, alas, it has been customary to relegate the Golden Age to prehistoric periods, to some remote "once upon a time," and to a "somewhere or other." The ancients referred the Golden Age to the time of the mythical reign of Saturn, while some modern reformers have projected a Golden Age into the future, when certain conditions of human justice shall have been reached. Thus the idea of a Golden Age has generally been presented to mankind either as an indistinct remembrance or as a far distant hope, and just because mankind at large has not thought of this ideal state of affairs as a present reality or possibility, the term has acquired a secondary or derived meaning, which is less exact and precise than the first and makes smaller demands upon human faith.
It is now frequently used to denote a period of exceptional brilliancy in the arts or sciences, as, for example, the Golden Age of sculpture in Greece, or of Roman literature, or the Golden Age of discovery during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, or of invention during the nineteenth century. But even when the term has been used in its original sense, the supposition has been that this age could not last forever, that man could not remain perfect indefinitely. On the contrary, he has been supposed to fall inevitably from grace, and so to dash human hopes to the ground. The Hebrew Scriptures give us what is doubtless the best-known version of this so-called fall of man and of his consequent expulsion from paradise. Mankind is, however, still craving for the Golden Age, is still watching for it, planning for it, and though frequently disappointed, is still expecting to see it realized and become an established fact.
