But the flexibility which sweetness and light
give, and which is one of the rewards of culture pursued in good faith,
enables a man to see that a tendency may be necessary, and even, as a
preparation for something in the future, salutary, and yet that the
generations or individuals who obey this tendency are sacrificed to it,
that they fall short of the hope of perfection by following it; and that
its mischiefs are to be criticized, lest it should take too firm a hold
and last after it has served its purpose.
Mr. Gladstone well pointed out, in a speech at Paris,--and others have
pointed out the same thing,--how necessary is the present great
movement towards wealth and industrialism, in order to lay broad
foundations of material well-being for the society of the future. The
worst of these justifications is, that they are generally addressed to
the very people engaged, body and soul, in the movement in question; at
all events, that they are always seized with the greatest avidity by
these people, and taken by them as quite justifying their life; and that
thus they tend to harden them in their sins.
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