R. Lankester on Biological Degeneration (AD 1880)

"In accordance with a tacit assumption of universal progress – an unreasoning optimism – we are accustomed to regard ourselves as necessarily progressing, as necessarily having arrived at a higher and more elaborated condition than that which our ancestors reached, and as destined 60 to progress still further. On the other hand, it is well to remember that we are subject to the general laws of evolution, and are as likely to degenerate as to progress" ("Degeneration; A Chapter in Darwinism")

Max Nordau on the 21st Century (AD 1892)

“The end of the twentieth century, therefore, will probably see a generation to whom it will not be injurious to read a dozen square yards of newspapers daily, to be constantly called to the telephone, to be thinking simultaneously of the five continents of the world, to live half their time in a railway carriage or in a flying machine… It will know how to find its ease in the midst of a city inhabited by millions” ("Degeneration")

G. W. F. Hegel on Cultural Bio-Clocks (cAD 1830)

“When the spirit of the nation has fulfilled its function, its agility and interest flag; the nation lives on the borderline between manhood and old age, and enjoys the fruits of its efforts… The natural death of the national spirit may take the form of political stagnation, or of what we call habit. The clock is wound up and runs automatically… Thus both nations and individuals die a natural death" ("Lectures on the Philosophy of World History")

Horace on the Declining Generations (c28 BC)

"Destructive time! What does it not diminish? Our fathers’ age, worse than our grandfathers’, gave birth to us, an inferior breed, who will in due course produce still more degenerate offspring" ("Odes", 3.6)