Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/112

108 to an end, and so a great change take place in the social condition of Europe, and especially of England. That change will bring many of the comfortable into the rich class, and eventually many of the miserable into the comfortable class. But I do not expect such a radical change here, where we have not such enormous abuses to surmount.

I think something will be done in Europe for the organization of labour, I do not know what; I do not know how; I have not the ability to know, and will not pretend to criticize what I know I cannot create, and do not at present understand. I think there will be a great change in the form of society; that able men will endeavour to remove the causes of crime, not merely to make money out of that crime; that intemperance will be diminished; that idleness in rich or poor will be counted a disgrace; that labour will be more respected; education more widely diffused; and that institutions will be founded, which will tend to produce these results. But I do not pretend to devise those institutions, and certainly shall not throw obstacles in the way of such as can or will try. It seems likely that something will be first done in Europe, where the need is greatest. There a change must come. By and by, if it does not come peaceably, the continent will not furnish "special constables" enough to put down human nature. If the white republicans cannot make a revolution peacefully, wait a little, and the red republicans will make it in blood. "Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must," says mankind, first in a whisper, then in a voice of thunder. If powerful men will not write justice with black ink, on white paper, ignorant and violent men will write it on the soil, in letters of blood, and illuminate their rude legislation with burning castles, palaces, and towns. While the social change is taking place never so peacefully, men will think the world is going to ruin. But it is an old world, pretty well put together, and, with all these changes, will probably last some time longer. Human society is like one of those enormous boulders, so nicely poised on another rock, that a man may move it with a single hand. You are afraid to come under its sides, lest it fall. When the wind blows, it rocks with formidable noise, and men say it will soon be down upon us. Now