in social life being fully developed, according to the creed of these movement philosophers.  Now, in my view of the matter, the two most dangerous of all parties in a state, are that which sets up conservatism as its standard, and that which sets up progress:  the one is for preserving things of which it would be better to be rid, while the other crushes all that is necessary and useful in its headlong course.  I now speak of these opposing principles, as they are marshalled in parties, opposition giving pertinacity and violence to each.  No sane man can doubt that, in the progress of events, much is produced that ought to be retained, and much generated that it would be wiser to reject.  He, alone, is the safe and wise legislator, who knows how, and when, to make the proper distinctions.  As for conservatism, Lafayette once characterized it excellently well, in one of his happiest hits in the tribune.  “Gentlemen talk of the just medium (juste milieu)” he said, “as if it embraced a clear political creed.  We all know what the just medium is, as relates to any particular question; it is simply the truth, as it is connected with that question.  But when gentlemen say, that they belong to the juste milieu, as a party, and that they intend to steer a middle course in all the public events of the day, they remind me of a case like this—­A man of exaggerated notions lays down the proposition that four and four make ten; another of more discretion and better arithmetic combats this idea, by maintaining that four and four make only eight; whereupon, your gentleman of the juste milieu, finds himself obliged to say, ’Messieurs, you are equally in the wrong; the truth never lies in extremes, and four and four make nine.’”

What is true of conservatism, as a principle, is still more true as to the movement; for it often happens in morals, as well as in physics, that the remedy is worse than the disease.  The great evil of Europe, in connection with interests of this nature, arises from facts that have little or no influence here.  There, radical changes have been made, the very base of the social edifice having been altered, while much of the ancient architecture remains in the superstructure.  Where this is the case, some errors may be pardoned in the artisans who are for reducing the whole to the simplicity of a single order.  But, among ourselves, the man who can see no end to anything earthly, ever maintaining that the best always lies beyond, if he live long enough to succeed, may live long enough to discover that truth is always on an eminence, and that the downward course is only too easy to those who rush in so headlong a manner at its goal, as to suffer the impetus of the ascent to carry them past the apex.  A social fact cannot be carried out to demonstration like a problem in Euclid, the ramifications being so infinite as to reduce the results to something very like a conclusion from a multitude of interests.