Page:Essays and phantasies by James Thomson.djvu/66

 But here I bethink me that some one may deny the need or use of any such project; affirming (for what is there that some people will not affirm?) that mankind and the condition of mankind are as near perfection now as they ever will or can be, and that for the extinction of what we call evil and misery the human race and the world in which it dwells must be extinguished. To such a one I will only reply, before entering tranquilly on the exposition of my proposals, that he is far in the rear of our most advanced thinkers, and has but small share in the present glorious aspirations of Humanity; that if he does not take heed to himself he is in danger of becoming a cynic, an odious, yelping, snappish animal that lives in a tub, and pulls to pieces even this house, in order to fling the staves at decent people and trip up passers-by with the hoops; that if he feels no necessity, or has no hope, of becoming much better himself, the majority of us feel such want for ourselves, and have good hope that it shall be satisfied, if not in ourselves, yet in our more or less distant posterity, in which hope we find great and reasonable comfort; and lastly, that it is quite plain that myself and others would never weave projects and build systems for catching and caging the said evil and misery, if these did not actually exist, and were not to be caught and caged, just as there would never have been bird-traps and fishing-nets were there not birds and fish not only in being but liable to capture.

To me it seems clear that there are two radical universal reforms essential to the real triumph of any and every reform ever attempted or proposed, and that these two reforms once accomplished, all others will be found included in them; and I therefore consider them as solely entitled to our study and exertions. For who wishing to fell a tree, would bring it down leaf by leaf and chip by chip, if it could be effectually axed from the ground? and who, wanting to