omplex frame of society is a meshwork of
duty woven of living fibre, and the condition of its remaining sound is,
that every thread of it, of its own free energy, shall do what it ought.
The penalties of duties neglected are to the full as terrible as those
of sins committed; more terrible, perhaps, because more palpable and
sure. A lord of the land, or an employer of labour, supposes that he has
no duty except to keep what he calls the commandments in his own person,
to go to church, and to do what he will with his own,--and Irish famines
follow, and trade strikes, and chartisms, and Paris revolutions. We look
for a remedy in impossible legislative enactments, and there is but one
remedy which will avail--that the thing which we call public opinion
learn something of the meaning of human obligation, and demand some
approximation to it. As things are, we have no idea of what a human
being ought to be. After the first rudimental conditions we pass at once
into meaningless generalities; and with no knowledge to guide our
judgment, we allow it to be guided by meaner principles; we respect
money, we respect rank, we respect ability--character is as if it had no
existence.

In the midst of this loud talk of progress, therefore, in which so many
of us at present are agreed to believe, which is, indeed, the common
meeting point of all the thousand sects into which we are split, it is
with saddened feelings that we see so little of it in so large a matter.
Progress there is in knowledge; and science has enabled the number of
human beings capable of existing upon this earth to be indefinitely
multiplied. But this is but a small triumph if the ratio of the good and
bad, the wise and the foolish, the full and the hungry, remains
unaffected. And we cheat ourselves with words when we conclude out of
our material splendour an advance of the race.

In two things there is progress--progress in knowledge of the outward
world, and progress in material wealth. This last, for the present,
creates, perhaps, more evils than it relieves; but suppose this
difficulty solved--suppose the wealth distributed, and every peasant
living like a peer--what then? If this is all, one noble soul outweighs
the whole of it. Let us follow knowledge to the outer circle of the
universe--the eye will not be satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with
hearing. Let us build our streets of gold, and they will hide as many
aching hearts as hovels of straw. The well-be