New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-07-23

the fatal germs of disorder and dissolu-
tion for his own Government and dynas-
ty. For humanity has one great pur-
pose, nemely,'to advance toward the ma
turiiy Of its future, toward the maturity
If liberty, of manhood, and of creative
art ; and gradual as this mighty process is,
nothing is long tolerated which arrests or
perverts it. And where the vital energy
within is denied the expansion of healthy
growth, it makes way for itself amid the
crash and the ruin of volcanic explosion.
In this long career Of social development,
those frank and genial spirits who from
time to time assert higher and more gen
erous theory of life than the masses have
q capacity or a desire for, may reap no
other harvest than misunderstanding and
ridicule, at the hands Of people whose best
standard of truth is conformity to their
own prejudices. But from sound sense
and comprehensive reason they would seem
rather to deserve tribute of respect and
admiration. For apart from that esteem
which of right belongs to every act OF
manly and outright fidelity to conviction,
the attempt to estab ish social institutions
based on the liberal education Of every per-
sons talents and aptitudes; on honor for
every branch of work and degradation for
none on the absence of all castles, and the
allotment Of social position according to
genius and character, not according to ac-
cidents of birth and fortune and on ex-
act Justice in distributing the earnings
of the combined industry, is in itself
something as admirable as it is bold. Adj
nit that the complete realization of such
an idea is not now practicable; admit that
it is Utopian, fetched from some distant
and unattained period to charm US with
short-lived beauty like the dewy radiance
of July dawn. But temporary or not,
there is something in such an experiment
which appeals to the instructive hope and
faith of every man. We all feel the i'm
projections of the society in which we
live; in it tie sentiments of justice and
humanity are hourly violated, and fri
volous, and mean, and greedy existence
takes the place of that free and generous
and productive action, which alone we can
regard a. worthy of human life; and when
one of these Social theorists comes to an
nounce farer possibility, and to expound
the plan for better order of relations. the
| dullest and blindest of his audience wishes
| it were feasible. Raised for moment,
above his usual range of thought, his only
objection is, that cit is too good to be
true"
This indicates the function which this
lifted class of men discharge in the general
economy of the human family. They are
the poets ard artists ofhumanity, whonour
ish and set forth the ideal Of purer, and
erander beauty than we, who bear the
burden and heat of the day, would else
conceive. They are the seers who clear
ly appreheud what are the ideas of the
future, end authoritatively announce
them in the present. Amid the con-
fusion OF petty interests around them,
they remain possessed by the sacred
intuitions Of Justice and harmony, and
keep alive in mems hearts the pro-
nbetic confidence in truth, which is only
too good and too true TO be realized until
bur anity has gained in science, in wealth,
in machinery, in power over the world
without, in control over the elements of
nature, and in the means and appliances
of good. How deep and eternal is this
truth of the Better Future, of Association
ard Fraternity is evinced by the fact that
when masses of men are sunk IN the depths
of poverty and despair, they make a stand
on il as upon a rock. Thus the laborers of
Paris, stripped of all but their own essen
tial humanity, fighting madly al the barri-
cades in June, hopeless and desperate tor
themselves, persisted attesting the sacred
worth of this truth and in the long cata-
logue of worhmen's revOlts and peasants
Instructions there is not one that does not
more or less explicitly bear witness to the
same.
These considerations mayperhaps, lend a
more universal interest to the attempts in
social organization undertaken in this
country under various auspices, some to
fail speedily, Others to exist for longer
longer time, and others to remain and ac-
quire some of the features of enduring sue
cess. For these ventures into the bound