Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/423

Rh and be repudiated, and it might be thus transformed, but transformation itself implies the living on of the essential thing in modified shape. Nor can we say that that which has been eliminated and has passed away is simply the superstition, while the surviving element is some truth of reason which was disguised under the old expression. Under a less gross and palpable form the superstition itself continues, and for the divine infallibility of the king we have a superstitious belief in the practical infallibility of Congress and the political majority. "The king may do all things by divine right, and we are bound to obey," was the old formula; "the political majority may do all things in its sovereign pleasure, and everybody is bound to obey," is the derived formula of the present time.

The supernatural element in the case is undoubtedly gone, but the blind and unreasoning faith which is the essence of superstition is the survival which is still to be dealt with. What is the ground of the authority of government? In what does its sovereignty consist? Is it supreme and unlimited, or is it subject to restriction? And, if so, what are the principles of limitation? What may government do and what may it not do? What is the fundamental right and wrong of government action to which all legislation is bound to conform on imperative ethical grounds? These are questions that are forced upon the age with a steadily increasing urgency, and the answers to which are of transcendent importance to the future progress of society.

These questions are besides of especial and critical moment in this country, where the whole community is launched upon the turbulent sea of politics, and there is the highest possible need of distinct and trustworthy politico-ethical guidance. That the subject receives little serious attention on the part of our ignorant and self-seeking politicians, occupied with their paltry schemes of partisan rivalry, matters little except to impose graver obligations upon serious-minded people. The degradation of popular government in this country to the basest ends of demagogism, the tendency to rule out all questions of principle as disturbing elements in the great game of partisan success, the surrender of Legislatures to the promotion of sordid class interests, and the universal negelectneglect [sic] of the true objects of government, while its illegitimate objects are everywhere vehemently pursued—all this is sufficiently notorious, and it marks out the definite work of our political reformers in the future. The present state of things is not a finality, and there is no justification for despair of salutary political progress. The passage from superstition to reason is slow and unsteady, but it is inevitable. Government is not to be run forever on fallacies and by political quacks. We are in a time of transition, which is always painful and discouraging, but tendencies are at work, and are slowly acquiring strength, which are certain to make headway against the errors and vices of the prevailing political system. It is of course very easy to be over-sanguine, and to form delusive expectations of good to be attained, and there is especial danger of this in politics, where it is expected by changing a vote or passing a law to get great results in a short time. But political renovation can come by no such superficial means; we must have a revolution of ideas, resulting in sounder views of the nature, authority, and scope of government; and that this will come in its proper time, and give rise to a new departure in politics, is no more to be doubted than we can doubt the continued activity of the human mind, the further growth of scientific thought, or the many improvements and ameliorations that have been already accomplished.

Meantime, the work to be done is simply to diffuse among the more intelligent classes of the community those