ed for throwing
new light into the sacred text; or philosophers denounced for bringing
fresh facts to the surface of human knowledge, whether they seem to
agree or not with long-established suppositions.

The kind and degree of infliction for opinion which is possible, and is
practised in the time and place, will indicate to the observer the
degree of imperfection in the popular idea of liberty. This is a kind of
fact easy to ascertain, and worthy of all attention.

CHAPTER V.

PROGRESS.

"'Tis the sublime of man,
Our noontide majesty, to know ourselves
Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole!
This fraternizes man, this constitutes
Our charities and bearings."
COLERIDGE.

"Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that,
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
May bear the gree, and a' that.
For a' that, and a' that,
It's coming yet, for a' that,
That man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that."
BURNS.

However widely men may differ as to the way to social perfection, all
whose minds have turned in that direction agree as to the end. All agree
that if the whole race could live as brethren, society would be in the
most advanced state that can be conceived of. It is also agreed that the
spirit of fraternity is to be attained, if at all, by men discerning
their mutual relation, as "parts and proportions of one wondrous whole."
The disputes which arise are about how these proportions are to be
arranged, and what those qualifications should be by which some shall
have an ascendancy over others.

This cluster of questions is not yet settled with regard to the
inhabitants of any one country. The most advanced nations are now in a
condition of internal conflict upon them. As for the larger idea,--that
nations as well as individuals are "parts and proportions of one
wondrous whole," it has hardly yet passed the lips or pen of any but
religious men and poets. Its time will come when men have made greater
progress, and are more at ease about the domestic arrangements of
nations. As long as there are, in every country of the world, multitudes
who cannot by any exertion of their own redeem themselves from hardship,
and their children from ignorance, there is quite enough for justice and
charity to do at ho