§ 5.

The admission that social arrangement can be conformed to the moral law only in as far as the people are themselves moral, will probably be thought a sufficient plea for claiming liberty to judge how far the moral law may safely be acted upon. For if congruity between political organization and popular character is necessary; and if, by consequence, a political organization in advance of the age will need modification to make it fit the age; and if this process of modification must be accompanied by great inconvenience, and even suffering; then it would seem Edition: current; Page: [469] to follow that for the avoidance of these evils our endeavour should be to at first adapt such organization to the age. That is to say, men’s ambition to realize an ideal excellence must be checked by prudential considerations.

“Progress, and at the same time resistance,”—that celebrated saying of M. Guizot, with which the foregoing position is in substance identical—no doubt expresses a truth; but not at all the order of truth usually supposed. To look at society from afar off, and to perceive that such and such are the principles of its development, is one thing: to adopt these as rules for our daily government, will turn out on examination to be quite a different thing. Just as we saw that it is very possible for the attainment of greatest happiness to be from one point of view the recognised end of morality, and yet to be of no value for immediate guidance (Chap. III.), so, it is very possible for “progress, and at the same time resistance,” to be a law of social life, without being a law by which individual citizens may regulate their actions.

That the aspiration after things as they should be, needs restraining by an attachment to things as they are, is fully admitted. The two feelings answer to the two sides of our present mixed nature—the side on which we continue adapted to old conditions of existence, and the side on which we are becoming adapted to new ones. Conservatism defends those coercive arrangements which a still-lingering savageness makes requisite. Radicalism endeavours to realize a state more in harmony with the character of the ideal man. The strengths of these sentiments are proportionate to the necessity for the institutions they respond to. And the social organization proper for a given people at a given time, will be one bearing the impress of these sentiments in the ratio of their prevalence amongst that people at that time. Hence the necessity for a vigorous and constant manifestation of both of them. Whilst, on the one hand, love of what is abstractedly just, indignation against every species of aggression, and enthusiasm on behalf of reform, are to be rejoiced over; we must, on the other hand, Edition: current; Page: [470] tolerate, as indispensable, these displays of an antagonistic tendency; be they seen in the detailed opposition to every improvement, or in the puerile sentimentalisms of Young England, or even in some frantic effort to bring back the age of heroworship. Of all these nature has need, so long as they represent sincere beliefs. From time to time the struggle eventuates in change; and by composition of forces there is produced a resultant, embodying the right amount of movement in the right direction. Thus understood, then, the theory of “progress, and at the same time resistance,” is correct.

Mark now, however, that for this resistance to be beneficial, it must come from those who think the institutions they defend really the best, and the innovations proposed absolutely wrong. It must not come from those who secretly approve of change, but think a certain opposition to it expedient. For if the true end of this conflict of opinion is to keep social arrangements in harmony with the average character of the people; and if (rejecting that temporary kind of opinion generated by revolutionary passion) the honest opinion held by each man of any given state of things is not an intellectual accident, but indicates a preponderating fitness or unfitness of that state of things to his moral condition (pp. 240. 427); then it follows that only by a universal manifestation of honest opinions can harmony between social arrangements and the average popular character be preserved. If, concealing their real sympathies, some of the movement party join the stationary party, merely with the view of preventing too rapid an advance, they must inevitably disturb turb the adaptation between the community and its institutions. So long as the natural conservatism ever present in society is left to restrain the progressive tendency, things will go right; but add to this natural conservatism an artificial conservatism—a conservatism not founded on love of the old, but on a theory that conservatism is needful—and the proper ratio between the two forces is destroyed; the resultant is no longer in the right direction; and the effect produced by it is more or less vitiated. Whilst, therefore, there is truth in the belief that “progress, Edition: current; Page: [471] and at the same time resistance,” is the law of social change, there is a fatal error in the inference that resistance should be factitiously created. It is a mistake to suppose this the kind of resistance called for; and, as M. Guizot’s own experience testifies, it is a further mistake to suppose that any one can say how far resistance should be carried.

But, indeed, without entering upon a criticism like this, the man of moral insight sees clearly enough that no such self-contradicting behaviour can answer. Successful methods are always genuine, sincere. The affairs of the universe are not carried on after a system of benign double-dealing. In nature’s doings all things show their true qualities—exert whatsoever of influence is really in them. It is manifest that a globe built up partly of semblances instead of facts, would not be long on this side chaos. And it is certain that a community composed of men whose acts are not in harmony with their innermost beliefs, will be equally unstable. To know in our hearts that some proposed measure is essentially right, and yet to say by our deeds that it is not right, will never prove really beneficial. Society cannot prosper by lies.