Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 355, May 1845 — John Shaqi
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 355, May 1845Various
Philosophy
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 355, May 1845
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
We are so accustomed in this country to those things, that they have
ceased to make any impression upon us. The great majority of men, actively
engaged in the business of life, pay no attention to them whatever, but go
on labouring to make money, or keep themselves afloat in the world,
without bestowing even a passing thought of whither that world on which
they are so intent is tending. Philosophers and political economists,
confounded at beholding such results flowing from the adoption and
practical application of their favourite principles, quietly pass by on
the other side; and, without denying the facts, content themselves with
disregarding them altogether, and continuing to prophesy unbounded
national prosperity and moral elevation from the ultimate effect of the
further abolition of restraint on thought and action. The religious
portion of the community--and they form a large and highly respectable
body--consider these alarming symptoms as the judgment of Heaven upon us
for our sins, and the natural and well-deserved consequence of our neglect
of the means of salvation, which have been so mercifully put into our
hands. The merchants and manufacturers, who are rapidly making fortunes
under the new system, maintain that it is founded on pure and tried
reason, and that in no other way can the national resources be fully
developed. The landowners, who are as rapidly losing them, are, in part,
so paralysed by their individual embarrassments, in part so perplexed with
the intricacy of the subject, that they are incapable of making any
efforts, except on particular occasions, in their own defence, but resign
themselves quietly to the stroke of fate, as the Moslem does to the
bowstring of the Sultaun. The working classes are quiet during the brief
periods of prosperity; but nourish in their hearts at all times a profound
jealousy and hatred of the monied interest. The opinion is almost
universally diffused among them, that the gains of their employers are
scandalously great, and wrung out of their heart's blood--that they and
their masters are naturally at war with each other--and that whatever is
gained by the one is lost by the other. Meanwhile Government, obeying the
new, and, as matters stand, irresistible impulse let in upon the monarchy
by the Reform Bill, quietly, slide into the principles and measures
dictated to them by the dominant, most active, and most influential class
in the state; and, shutting their eyes to the consequences in future
times, content themselves with getting through the present with as much
practical support and as little obloquy as possible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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