Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/260

Rh If any class of men is withheld from government—from its share in organizing the people into social, political, and ecclesiastical forms, from making and executing the laws—then that class loses its manhood and womanhood, dwindles into meanness and insignificance, and also must perish. For example, look at the populace of Rome from the second century before Christ to the fourth after; look at the miserable people of Naples and Spain, too far gone ever to be raised out of the grave where they are buried now; look at the inhabitants of Ireland, whose only salvation consists in flight to a new soil, where they may have a share in political government, as well as in economic labour.

So much for the definition of terms frequently to be used, and the statement of the great principles which lie at the foundation of human progress and welfare. Now, in the history of a nation, there are always two operating forces,—one positive, the other negative. One I will call the progressive force. It is that instinct of progress just named, with the sum total of all the excellences of the people, their hopefulness, human, sympathy, virtue, religion, piety. This is the power to advance. The other I will call the regressive force; that is, the vis inertiæ, the sluggishness of the people, the sum total of all the people's laziness and despair, all the selfishness of a class, all the vice and anti-religion. This is power to retard. I do not speak of the conservative force which would keep, or the destructive force which would wastefully consume, but only of those named. The destructive force in America is now small; the conservative, or preservative exceeding great.

Every nation has somewhat of the progressive force, each likewise something of the regressive. Let me illustrate this regressive force a little further. You sometimes in the country find a thriving, hardy family, industrious, temperate, saving, thrifty, up early and down late. By some unaccountable misfortune, there is born into the family, and grows up there, a lazy boy. He is weak in the knees, drooping in the neck, limber in the loins, and sluggish all over. He rises late in the morning, after he has been called many times, and, in the dog-days, comes down whilst his mother is getting breakfast, and hangs