Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/175

 Absolute selfishness more or less enlightened—call it individualism, or by whatever name you will—is the way, the truth, and the life. Whenever any great world-synthesis of religious or moral ideas has broken down, this has been the inevitable result of analysis. But the human race can never permanently live on negations. In the heat of conflict, while the old system is dying and the new is unborn, they may appear almost like gospel truths; but, when the ground has once been fairly cleared, their significance is at an end. Men once more begin to recognize in nature a more profound purpose, a more all-pervading intelligence, a more sacred continuity, than before. Comte attempted to piece together the broken links of our faith, but failed. Mr. Bradlaugh merely dances an Indian war-dance in paint and feathers among the débris. It is, in my opinion, a poor and questionable occupation for so able a man. The Deliverer is yet to come, and there are many signs that he cannot now be far off. Meantime wise men will possess their souls in patience, awaiting with confidence the dawn of the better day. "Almighty God! thou wilt cause the day to dawn; but as yet struggles the twelfth hour of the night. Nocturnal birds of prey are on the wing; the dead walk; the living dream."

But all this has little to do with Mr. Bradlaugh's politics, which are of this world, and not of the next. He is peculiarly wanted at this moment at St. Stephen's, where a disease worse than paralysis has seized on the legislative body. If the corpse can be revivified, he is the man to do it; and Northampton has deserved well of the country at large in securing his return, should we even take no higher ground than this, that desperate diseases require desperate remedies.