more free recognition, however private and undemonstrative, of the
theoretic ideas which give their social creed whatever life and
consistency it may have. Such ideas are these: That the conditions of
the social union are not a mystery, only to be touched by miracle, but
the results of explicable causes, and susceptible of constant
modification: that the thoughts of wise and patriotic men should be
perpetually turned towards the improvement of these conditions in every
direction: that contented acquiescence in the ordering that has come
down to us from the past is selfish and anti-social, because amid the
ceaseless change that is inevitable in a growing organism, the
institutions of the past demand progressive re-adaptations: that such
improvements are most likely to be secured in the greatest abundance by
limiting the sphere of authority, extending that of free individuality,
and steadily striving after the bestowal, so far as the nature of things
will ever permit it, of equality of opportunity: that while there is
dignity in ancestry, a modern society is only safe in proportion as it
summons capacity to its public counsels and enterprises; that such a
society to endure must progress: that progress on its political side
means more than anything else the substitution of Justice as a governing
idea, instead of Privilege, and that the best guarantee for justice in
public dealings is the participation in their own government of the
people most likely to suffer from injustice. This is not an exhaustive
account of the progressive doctrine, and we have here nothing to say as
to its soundness. We only submit that if those who use the watchwords of
Liberalism were to return upon its principles, instead of dwelling
exclusively on practical compromises, the tone of public life would be
immeasurably raised. The cause of social improvement would be less
systematically balked of the victories that are best worth gaining.
Progress would mean something more than mere entrances and exits on the
theatre of office. We should not see in the mass of parliamentary