Prophets are divisible into two main classes, the prophet pessimist and the prophet optimist. The reason why the prophet is without honor in his own country is because pessimism is the key-note of many prophecies, and no person is more exasperating than the friend whose assertive "I told you so" merely pours corrosive sublimate upon the sores of defeat. The prophet optimist scores in two ways. Optimism is always pleasant, particularly to him who, vexed with the woes of Pandora's box, clings to the remaining gift of hope as his only solace. If his views are vindicated, there comes the further reward of being hailed as farsighted.
The prophet pessimist stands to lose all round in the esteem of his fellows. Mankind, bewitched by an old fallacy in a new garb, confident of the Dorado or Utopia round the corner, objects to the embittered individual whose dyspeptic forebodings are as grit in the bearings of the axles of progress. That is the first stage in the unpopularity of the prophet pessimist. The second stage has two alternative sides. If the view of those who differed from the pessimist has been more or less vindicated, he reaps his reward in the scorn his contemporaries lavish on his narrow vision.' If, on the other hand, the pessimist proves to be right, and he be human enough to remark on his own foresight, his unpopularity will be even greater than in the first stage.
Electro-Chemical Industry.
