The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-08-17
The Passion for Ohange-Is 1t Working
for Good or HIT

We are apt. when viewing the past. to be
swayed alternately by the two sources Of
opinion thereon which are represented in the
regrets OF an old man for his youth or in the
exultance OF young man, who, fred by what
he is and what he may be, thinks age vensr-
able perhaps, but only in so far as it sets off his
own vigor by the contrast So the antique is
exalted or humbled by to-day as the fit takes
us. The passion for change is, as we all know,
and as Horace said to Mecenas long ago,
living pleasurable pain to the human mind
everywhere. Some ages have been more
favorable for its supremacy than others, and
some peoples or races have thrown them
selves at its feet in those ages with devotion
that seemed as if it would never weary; but it
did weary, and the passion died for the time
or was abandoned to others Assyria, Persia,
Egypt, Greece, Rome had each their passion
time, and we acknowledge the blaze of that
passion, while the pathos of the mound of
| Kouyunjik, the ruins of Persepolis or Ista-
khar, the Pyramids, the Acropolis and the
Coliseum fills us with sacred sorrow for
what, like the might of Babylon, is ''gone on
the present of steam power, the telegraph
and the printing press, and all the long
tolls and gorgeous achievements become
mere Improbable dust, to be shovelled out of
the way and out Of mind. We forget that all
the rise and fall, all the growth and decay,
were not the mere accidents of circumstance,
but the bold, if sometimes blind, mastery Of
fba opcio kha
said If we have somewhat trampled the ir-
regularities Of this passion for change and in
general trained it into the paths of produc-
ton, instead of letting it destroy as quickly as
it shaped, we are far from having reached
criterion by which the selection Of proper
means for proper ends can be infallibly
judged. We have climbed up laboriously to
the position we hold. What rocks of old
error we have tumbled down any freshman
| will tell you with confidence but save where
moral truths are relieved of ancient cobwebs
and science has been able to fill up old pitfalls
and mark out firm footholds, where will the
present strike its heel upon the past and be
certain that it has struck an error or a wrong?
They had republics, empires kingdoms and
theocracies as we have now. They were as
little satisfied with either then as the world is
to-day Since all exact criterion was lost
and fact COMPOUNDED philosophy, optim-
| ism took refuge in a platitude, as
the best it could do, and hungered after
"the greatest good of the greatest number" 1t
was only 'devil take the hindmost" with i'm
proved facilities for getting away from the
Spirit of all Evil and the Father of Lies. But
ever since man left the savage state the
greatest number have had the least good things,
and, progressive as we are, there seems no
reason to believe that we can change all that
in day. Emperors protested the platitude
because they wished to blind their peoples, and
republics have professed it to blind themselves
Socialism, as it is called, goes a step further
and guarantees the greatest good for ALL but
there is SO much that looks very unlike good
in their programme, which is always per-
tected, and they possess i'll general so few Of
the good things themselves that the All-good in
a Phrygian cap is readily taken for just the
reverse They are cutting Threats about the
matter in Spain just now, and probably will be
for the twentieth time cutting them in France
| in little time to come. Where John Adams
prophesied that we would be celebrating the
Fourth of July in fireworks forever we are j.,
menaced with Caesar before hundred years
have passed, not in the impalpable ghostly form
that startled Brutus on the eve of Philippi
but with strong devil-fish arms that may call
forth an effort which Victor Hugo might
imagine, but the nation does not realize,
before the monster can be laid to
rest The passion for political change has
been stated in the masses, and the few are
stricken with it to forge letters for the Repub-
lie. In England they are busy levelling, with
gradual progress-levelling down, say those
who cry for the monarch and the few; level
ling up, say, those who want to make sovereigns
of all Between the Archbishop of Canter-
bury and Mr.. Bradlaugh, between the Duke
of Argyle and Joseph Arch, the question is
the same-to let alone or to uproot, whether
religion or title to the SOIL His Holiness the
Pope represents religious faith in its most
conservative form; Professor Tyndall repre-
sents faith in its most radical shape. The
one invokes the power of Heaven; the other
defes it, and those who sneer most at the
Pope's appeals to Christ shudder at the scien-
lists profanity. The young man who believed
he could have given valuable hints to the Gre
ator, if he had been consulted, lived, no
doubt, to lose that complacent confidence in
himself. If he married lady of high temper
that had appeared an angel in his wooing
hours it was sufficient to accomplish all his
friends could wish. An age fancies itself ON
niscient or omnipotent, yet it stumbles across
hundred failures to one success; but the
struggle is glorious and one success is worth
all that has been spent on it.
A..