way by which society can be steadily improved and
our worst evils reduced, is not by any attempt
to do away directly with the actually existing
class distinctions and advantages, as if everybody
could have the same sort of work or lead the same sort
of life (which none of my hearers are stupid enough
to suppose), but by turning of Class Interests
into Class Functions or duties. What I mean is,
that each class should be urged by the surrounding
conditions to perform its particular work under
the strong pressure of responsibility to the nation
at large; that our public affairs should be got into
a state in which there should be no impunity for
foolish or faithless conduct. In this way,
the public judgment would sift out incapability and
dishonesty from posts of high charge, and even personal
ambition would necessarily become of a worthier
sort, since the desires of the most selfish men
must be a good deal shaped by the opinions of those
around them: and for one person to put on
a cap and bells, or to go about dishonest or paltry
ways of getting rich that he may spend a vast sum
of money in having more finery than his neighbors,
he must be pretty sure of a crowd who will applaud
him. Now changes can only be good in proportion
as they help to bring about this sort of result:
in proportion as they put knowledge in the place
of ignorance, and fellow-feeling in the place
of selfishness. In the course of substitution
class distinctions must inevitably change their character,
and represent the varying Duties of men, not their
varying Interests. But this end will not
come by impatience. “Day will not break
the sooner because we get up before the twilight.”
Still less will it come by mere undoing, or change
merely as change. And moreover, if we believed
that it would be unconditionally hastened by our getting
the franchise, we should be what I call superstitious
men, believing in magic, or the production of
a result by hocus-pocus. Our getting the franchise
will greatly hasten that good end in proportion only
as every one of us has the knowledge, the foresight,
the conscience, that will make him well-judging
and scrupulous in the use of it. The nature of
things in this world has been determined for us
beforehand, and in such a way that no ship can
be expected to sail well on a difficult voyage, and
reach the right port, unless it is well-manned:
the nature of the winds and the waves, of the
timbers, the sails and the cordage, will not accommodate
itself to drunken, mutinous sailors.
You will not suspect me of wanting to preach any cant to you, or of joining in the pretence that everything is in a fine way and need not be made better. What I am striving to keep in our minds is the care, the precaution, with which we should go about making things better, so that the public order may not be destroyed, so that no fatal shock may be given to this society of ours, this living body in which our lives are bound up. After the Reform Bill of 1832, I was in an election