In looking at this wreck of Governments in all European countries,there is one consideration that suggests itself,sadly elucidative of our modern epoch.These Governments,we may be well assured,have gone to anarchy for this one reason inclusive of every other whatsoever,That they were wise egh;that the spiritual talent embarked in them,the virtue,heroism,intellect,or by whatever other syyms we designate it,was adequate,--probably had long been inadequate,and so in its dim helplessness had suffered,or perhaps invited falsity to introduce itself;had suffered injustices,and solecisms,and contradictions of the Divine Fact,to accumulate in more than tolerable measure;whereupon said Governments were overset,and declared before all creatures to be too false.
This is a reflection sad but important to the modern Governments fallen anarchic,That they had spiritual talent egh.
And if this is so,then surely the question,How these Governments came to sink for want of intellect?is a rather interesting one.Intellect,in some measure,is born into every Century;and the Nineteenth flatters itself that it is rather distinguished that way!What had become of this celebrated Nineteenth Century's intellect?Surely some of it existed,and was "developed"withal;--nay in the "undeveloped,"unconscious,or inarticulate state,it is dead;but alive and at work,if mutely less beneficently,some think even more so!And yet Governments,it would appear,could by means get egh of it;almost e of it came their way:what had become of it?Truly there must be something very questionable,either in the intellect of this celebrated Century,or in the methods Governments have of supplying their wants from the same.One or other of two grand fundamental shortcomings,in regard to intellect or human enlightenment,is very visible in this enlightened Century of ours;for it has become the most anarchic of Centuries;that is to say,has fallen practically into such Egyptian darkness that it can grope its way at all!
Nay I rather think both of these shortcomings,fatal deficits both,are chargeable upon us;and it is the joint harvest of both that we are reaping with such havoc to our affairs.I rather guess,the intellect of the Nineteenth Century,so full of miracle to Heavyside and others,is itself a mechanical or beaver intellect rather than a high or eminently human one.Adim and mean though authentic kind of intellect,this;venerable only in defect of better.This kind will avail but little in the higher enterprises of human intellect,especially in that highest enterprise of guiding men Heavenward,which,after all,is the one real "governing"of them on this God's-Earth:--an enterprise to be achieved by beaver intellect,but by other higher and highest kinds.This is deficit first .And then secondly ,Governments have,really to a fatal and extraordinary extent,neglected in late ages to supply themselves with what intellect was going;having,as was too natural in the dim time,taken up a ion that human intellect,or even beaver intellect,was necessary to them at all,but that a little of the vulpine sort (if attainable),supported by routine,red-tape traditions,and tolerable parliamentary eloquence on occasion,would very well suffice.A most false and impious ion;leading to fatal lethargy on the part of Governments,while Nature and Fact were preparing strange pheena in contradiction to it.
These are two very fatal deficits;--the remedy of either of which would be the remedy of both,could we but find it!For indeed they are vitally connected:one of them is sure to produce the other;and both once in action together,the advent of darkness,certain egh to issue in anarchy by and by,goes on with frightful acceleration.If Governments neglect to invite what le intellect there is,then too surely all intellect,omnipotent to resist bad influences,will tend to become beaverish igle intellect;and quitting high aims,which seem shut up from it,will help itself forward in the way of making money and such like;or will even sink to be sham intellect,helping itself by methods which are only beaverish but vulpine,and so "igle"as to have common honesty.The Government,taking thought to choose intellect for itself,will gradually find that there is less and less of a good quality to choose from:thus,as in all impieties it does,bad grows worse at a frightful double rate of progression;and your impiety is twice cursed.If you are impious egh to tolerate darkness,you will get ever more darkness to tolerate;and at that inevitable stage of the account (inevitable in all such accounts)when actual light or else destruction is the alternative,you will call to the Heavens and the Earth for light,and e will come!
Certainly this evil,for one,has "wrought its own cure;"but has wrought precisely the reverse,and has been hourly eating away what possibilities of cure there were.And so,I fear,in spite of rumors to the contrary,it always is with evils,with solecisms against Nature,and contradictions to the divine fact of things:an evil of them has ever wrought its own cure in my experience;--but has continually grown worse and wider and uglier,till some good (generally a good man )able to endure the abomination longer,rose upon it and cured or else extinguished it.Evil Governments,divested of God's light because they have loved darkness rather,are likelier than other evils to work their own cure out of that bad plight.