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    when the wealth of commoners was a not very imperfect measure of their aptitude for useful legislation ; rightly then had the Lower House its property qualification : but can it be contended that we still live in those times ? or that they last to eternity ?

    The Suffrage and the Ballot ,, the House of Lords and the Church , and all the mechanism of legislation and government , while , by their tangible forms and the clashing of interests in relation to them , they afford a field for the more overt

    manifestations of the spirit of Reform , have , after all , more to do with the clearance of outward and gross impediments to human progress than with the progress itself . Hence real Reformers are deeply interested in whatever belongs to science , art , education , and all the economy of life . They especially desire that the working classes should thoroughly understand their condition , and the means for its improvement . The popular tales of Miss Martineau on subjects which , not long since , no one would have dreamed of treating popularly , were amongst the many phenomena which illustrate our present subject . They were one of the currents of that mighty ocean whose billows are bearing us

    onward . The spirit of Reform has strongly impressed its image on literary criticism , at least so far as to the introduction of a severer logic and the more systematic application of general principles . It has created a new and a progressive power of critical

    appreciation . We have ceased to hear of the hard and barren doctrine of utility . The cultivation of a popular enjoyment and philosophy of Art , is amongst the primary objects of real Reformers . They would instil into the people the reality of that taste , of which the semblance is affected as one of the perquisites of Aristocracy * They want not , in the multitude , a mass of brute agency to do their bidding , but men who not only know their rights , and knowing dare maintain / but who also shall reason , and feel , and

    derive enjoyment from all those finer inlets which are the access of nature and genius to the human soul . Education is undergoing the process of Reform , and gaining a wiser , kindlier , and more efficient adaptation to its proper object of training the human being to the full expansion of his nature , and all the happiness thence arising . And theirs is the mission , abandoned to them by others , and joyfully accepted , of preparing the way of universal instruction , the first interest and first duty of a community .

    Our readers must not accuse us of forgetting in the wideness of these speculations , the stirring topics , and pending conflict of the day . We have shown our interest in them elsewhere ; and they have , in fact , led us , amid all the noise and bustle they produce , to the train of thought which is here hastily and very imperfectly traced . Reformers will not obey with less alacrity the call to be up and doing , for having snatched a few rrfinutes' quiet meditation on the tendencies of society ; and on the utter vanity ,. for their counteraction , of all the golden dreams or desperate efforts of the Soldier or the Sophist .

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    8 The True Spirit of Reform .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1835, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2641/page/8/