New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-07-15
PROGRESS OF AN IDEA.

SIT" says me L0Rdon ItmeS, I'VE
: live in an age of political apathy and re-
'hsious dscord, it must be admitted that
at no time since the commencement of
the world, has private enterprise derived
{ SO much assistance from the principles of
union and association. In proportion as
it becomes more and more impossible to
hold mankind together in the bonds of
party, or within the professions of dog
NAUTICAL creed, does the tendency to assoc
'ciate for purposes of common interest APP
pear TO increase. Political parties split
'up into cliques and lotteries, religious de-
nominations into sects and secessions, the
rights of Independent thought are making
daily inroads on the oldest and best es-
'tablished combinations it is in mercan-
tile matters Only that men have tho
roughly learned to combine; and, there
fore, these enterprises are carried out
with a rapidity and success which appear
little short of miraculous"
Thus the great idea of Association slow
ly makes its way in the world and gains
the most weighty sufirages as its practical
efficacy is more and more demonstrated.
At present confined to commercial and
other enterprises it works the grandest
miracles, and day by day achieves new
victories and renders easier and surer the
march of humanity toward the entire sub
jugation of outward nature and the reduc-
ton of the globe with all its powers, ele-
ments climates, countries and soils to per-
feet cultivation, health and beauty and
complete subservience to the uses and needs
of man. This is the material, the external
stage of Association it is the growth of
the body as it were, in which the soul will
in due time be manifested. That higher
stage will appear when the principle of
Association comes to be applied in social
life, in the arrangement of agricultural as
well as domestic and other labor, and in
the revision and abrogation of the ideas of
caste and class at present almost univer-
sally prevailing.
If the various experiments of recent
years are to be taken as q basis of judg-
ment, much is yet to be accomplished be-
fore Domestic and Agricultural Associa-
tion will to any considerable extent be es-
tablished. We are aware that these ex-
periments have been effectively tried, but
yet they would seem to prove that Agri-
culture must be furnished with more potent
machinery and other means of increased pro-
ductiveness, that the country at large must
be more advanced inpopulation and indus
trial skill, and the aggregate of wealth in
the community must be largely augmented,
before so great change can be consummat-
ed. Association such as we contemplate, is a
highly advanced and refined state of soci-
ETY.; and can only grow out of a
general social condition where wealth,
science, machinery, education and art
have done very much, not only to
prepare the way, but to assure the vigor-
rous and healthy development of the new
order. For that order, we are convinced,
cannot be produced by word of command,
or without the concurrence of all its nat
uIal and social elements and conditions. 1t
cannot be set arbitrarily a-going, and will
not succeed upon any hot-bed process. In
some cases a degree of success may be at
tanned delightful and noble state of So
cial relations may be realized for limited
number of persons; but nothing like that
success which attends, and has long at
tended the application of the principle In
lower spheres of enterprise, as testified to
by the above extract; nothing like that
success which will herald general adop-
ton of the plan and the transformation OF
society at large into new and better sys-
tenn.
And vet it were folly to doubt that such
transformation will one day take place.
All history attests the progress ofthis prin-
cip.e. Inc course OF society from tae hfss