They had acquired, therefore, a mental outlook which was determinist without being fatalist, and which combined the most absolute submission to Nature with untiring energy in thought and action.

No! because even if we are determinists, we have to take into account the fact that society does for some reason advance.

The ordinary person is to-day quite as strongly convinced of the rights of other men as he is of their duties; and thus the determinist is bound to confess that there is an ameliorating and humanising principle at work, if not in the world at large, at least in the Western races.

If performance is always more or less straining after the ideal, the determinist is justified in expecting a higher standard of performance, and his fatalism may take the direction of removing the obstacles to further improvement.