advance: but still the tide comes on.

* * * * *

The settled state of things attendant upon peace, and an unquestioned
dynasty, is good, as it enables men to look more to civil affairs; but it
has, perhaps, a drawback in a certain apathy which is wont to accompany
it. The ordinary arrangements of social life, for a long time
uninterrupted by any large calamity, appear to become hardened into
certainties. A similar course of argument would, on a large scale, apply
not only to this country, but to the world in general. Security is the
chief end of civilization, and as it progresses, the fortunes of
individuals are, upon the whole, made less liable to derangement. This
very security may tend to make men careless of the welfare of others,
and, as Bacon would express it, may be noted as an impediment to
benevolence. I have often thought, whether in former times, when men
looked to those immediately around them as their body guard against
sudden and violent attacks, they ventured to show as much ill-temper to
those they lived with as you sometimes see them do now, when assistance
of all kinds is a purchasable commodity. Considerations of this nature
are particularly applicable when addressed to persons living in a great
capital like London. All things that concern the nation, its joys, its
sorrows, and its successes, are transacted in this metropolis; or, as one
might more properly say, are represented in transactions in this
metropolis. But still this often happens in such a manner as would be
imperceptible even to people of vast experience and observation. The
countless impulses which travel up from various directions to this
absorbing centre sometimes neutralize each other, and leave a comparative
calm; or they create so complex an agitation, that it may be next to
impossible for us to discern and estimate the component forces. Hence
the metropolis may not at times be sufficiently susceptible in the case
either of manufacturing or agricultural distress, or of any colonial
perturbation. This metropolitan insensibility has some great advantages,
but it is well for us to observe the corresponding evil, and, as far as
may be, to guard our own hearts from being rendered apathetic by its
influence.

I do not seek to terrify any one into a care for the labouring classes,
by representing the danger to society of neglecting them. It is
certainly a fearful thing to think of large mass