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Untitled Article
be in Ms ? But it is in any spirit , but that of a hostile one , that we entertain what difference of opinion we do with , the men in power . We desire their prosperity so much ,
and respect more than one of them so affectionately , that it is out of the very impatience of love We long to see them rise triumphant above the fears and habits inferior to the
best parts of their nature , and prove to us spectators , whose position enables us to discern them , how much better they can carry on the world ' s business , than we could pretend to do , if in theirs . For a critic
does not of necessity assume that he could do better than the person criticised ; and though we take the government of . the world to be a far less terrible difficulty than is
supposed , and are of opinion with Machiavel that the people , out of a general instinct of well-being , err less often in their judgment than the prince , different men are fit for
different things , and we know well that our part lies more in the discernment of a general good , and the beings able to suffer for it , than the canvassing it in detail or helping to carry it into
execution . If suffering gives us any claim , or if the furtherance of that good in any respect , political or otherwise , gives us any claim , that claim , we conceive , should exist , not
n less strength but in greater , in proportion to the consistency with which we prove t to have been an honest one :
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and it is not necessary surely for those who have a kindness for it , to demand that we shall always think as they do , or degrade sympathy into assentation . Co-operation , it is true , is desirable , and dissent should not be " frivolous and
vexatious . " But on the other hand , if you see a friend taking a wrong path , when the fingerpost , according to your eyesight , manifestly points to a different one , you must tell him so by all the laws of help and reciprocity .
In short , we wish the Ministers so well , that in addition to what is good in themselves , we wish them whatsoever is good in their enemies and their emulators , —the fearless energy of the Tories , and the
carrying out of the Reform Bill according to its first intention , or the principles of Lord Durham ; for as to being his enemy ; or wishing to throw an unhandsome and solitary doubt on his truthfulness , greatly indeed are we mistaken on that
point also , and sorry are we that a just ardour of gratitude to his Lordship should have led the correspondent of the Atlas ( for we have learnt who he is ) to appear as if careless , or contemptuous , of our own feelings ; which we have received his assurances that he
did not intend to be . Deeply warranted do we feel ourselves to declare , that we have no such perversity in us as to object to a man because he is an ' Aristides , " or to grudge any man whatsoever , public or pri-
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228 Explanation and Retrospection—
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 1, 1837, page 228, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1836/page/4/
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