Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
More important than the past history of these Offices in Downing Street,
is the question of their future history; the question, How they are
to be got mended! Truly an immense problem, inclusive of all others
whatsoever; which demands to be attacked, and incessantly persisted in,
by all good citizens, as the grand problem of Society, and the one thing
needful for the Commonwealth! A problem in which all men, with all their
wisdoms and all their virtues, faithfully and continually co-operating
at it, will never have done _enough_, and will still only be struggling
_towards_ perfection in it. In which some men can do much;--in which
every man can do something. Every man, and thou my present Reader canst
do this: _Be_ thyself a man abler to be governed; more reverencing the
divine faculty of governing, more sacredly detesting the diabolical
semblance of said faculty in self and others; so shalt thou, if not
govern, yet actually according to thy strength assist in real governing.
And know always, and even lay to heart with a quite unusual solemnity,
with a seriousness altogether of a religious nature, that as "Human
Stupidity" is verily the accursed parent of all this mischief, so
Human Intelligence alone, to which and to which only is victory and
blessedness appointed here below, will or can cure it. If we knew
this as devoutly as we ought to do, the evil, and all other evils were
curable;--alas, if we had from of old known this, as all men made in
God's image ought to do, the evil never would have been! Perhaps few
Nations have ever known it less than we, for a good while back, have
done. Hence these sorrows.
What a People are the poor Thibet idolaters, compared with us and
our "religions," which issue in the worship of King Hudson as our
Dalai-Lama! They, across such hulls of abject ignorance, have seen into
the heart of the matter; we, with our torches of knowledge everywhere
brandishing themselves, and such a human enlightenment as never was
before, have quite missed it. Reverence for Human Worth, earnest devout
search for it and encouragement of it, loyal furtherance and obedience
to it: this, I say, is the outcome and essence of all true "religions,"
and was and ever will be. We have not known this. No; loud as our
tongues sometimes go in that direction, we have no true reverence
for Human Intelligence, for Human Worth and Wisdom: none, or too
little,--and I pray for a restoration of such reverence, as for the
change from Stygian darkness to Heavenly light, as for the return
of life to poor sick moribund Society and all its interests. Human
Intelligence means little for most of us but Beaver Contrivance, which
produces spinning-mules, cheap cotton, and large fortunes. Wisdom,
unless it give us railway scrip, is not wise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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