I can very well understand progress towards an end, towards a goal that is fixed and permanent, but a progress towards nothing, or towards a movable goal, a goal that recedes as approached, is to me quite unintelligible, and, when I think of it, it seems as absurd as the supposition of an infinite series. Infinite progression is, in reality, an infinite absurdity. The origin and end of all things must be perfect, fixed, and immovable. Every mechanic knows that he cannot generate motion without a something which is at rest, which can cause or produce motion without moving itself. Without the immovable, there is and can be no movable. In like manner, no motion towards what is not immovable, for if the two bodies remain in the same position relative to each other, neither, in relation to the other, has moved. Progress is morally motion towards an end, and if there is no approximation to the end, there is no progress. As progress is inconceivable without some end, so it is equally inconceivable without a shortening of the distance between the progressing agent and the end. If this distance can be shortened, however little, if not more than a line in a million of ages, it is not infinite, and the progress cannot be eternal. This infinite or eternal progression is, then, only a lying dream. At the bottom of this idea of progress, which our modern reformers prate about, is the foolish notion that man is born an inchoate, an incipient God, and that his destiny is to grow into or become the infinite God; that he is to grow or develop into the Almighty; that, to be God, is his ultimate destiny; and, as God is infinite, he is to be eternally developing and realizing more and more of God, without ever realizing him in his infinity. The bubble does not burst and lose itself in the ocean, but by virtue of its bubbleosity it grows and absorbs more and more of the ocean into itself. I cannot understand this eternal absorbing process, which, though always absorbing or assimilating, leaves always the same quantity, physical or moral, to be absorbed or assimilated. It is impossible to be satisfied with such a destiny. To be always seeking and never finding, to be always desiring, craving, and never filled, is not heaven, it is hell, and the severest hell, in comparison with which the pain of sense, or natural fire and brimstone were a solace. Man is not moved to act by desire. His desire to attain must become hope of attaining, before it can move him, and when you deprive him of that hope, you take from him all courage, all energy, and all motive to act. Desire to possess the beloved, may remain and torment the lover, but it can never suffice to make him continue his pursuit when all hope of success has been extinguished. I do not say love cannot survive hope, but I do say that love’s efforts cannot, and it is seldom that even love itself does.