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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
sent article , which is only considering Reform under its existing " influences . " The other extreme is that of men so violent , that they either
destroy belief in the goodness of their intentions , or are to be regarded as sufferers frenzied by poverty , —the likenesses of the dread avengers of ignorance and starvation in the first
French revolution—the squalid madmen caused by luxurious madmen—an omen , which may God , and the good sense of the English nation , avert ! Nay , Reform has averted it ; for
once begun , with increasing knowledge for its ally , it can never go back ; whatever Whigs or Tories may think . To conclude this list , the great majority of Reformers , we feel assured , are neither violent , nor very speculative , nor
Benthamites , nor anything more or less than men quite willing to go on with the pr esen t form of Government in all its branches , provided the rotten parts be really cut out , and a disposition shown to avail itself of progressive improvement in the same way that trade itself does . We of the
Repository ( with a considerable doubt about the , Lords , and decided objections to that house as at present constituted ) are of this class ourselves ; though we confess our hopes of social advancement to be far
greater than our brethren for the most part entertain , and far more likely , in the course of time , to modify the whota condition of the planet into a difference commensurate with its
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means , —a thing at present almost unthought of , exceptby our friends the Owenites , though nine-tenths of those mighty and
beautiful means are at present lying fallow , locked up in restrictions , or hidden in misbelief . But all parties will allow with us , that there is time enough for this ! and all we demand at
present is , —Unbounded Education for the People , to enable men to do their best , and ( what indeed we have luckily got ) no hindrance to those in the meanwhile , who quietly attempt to do it .
The great body of the Reformers we believe we have thus accurately described ; but it is to be added , that for
reasons already touched upon , they want sympathy with the unrepresented , and they want enthusiasm . It is easy to answer , that Reform itself tends to do
good to the whole community ; that to a certain extent , the present Reformers manifest a desire to exalt the condition of the " masses ; " and that enthusiasm does not of necessity imply either wisdom , or love ,
or activity . We reply , that it is one thing to advocate in words , and another in feeling and example ; and that by enthusiasm , we do not mean the
enthusiasm of words only ( which theirs are not even accustomed to be ) , but the animating force of a generous and self-sacrificing conviction . It is for want of this the
Reformers have no leader . It is for want of this that the idea of the many is confounded in
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148 ^ Result ofthe Elections , avid Defects of the Reformer * .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 1, 1837, page 148, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1835/page/4/
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