Order, thus considered, is not an additional end to be
reconciled with Progress, but a part and means of Progress itself.
If a gain in one respect is purchased by a more than equivalent loss
in the same or in any other, there is not Progress. Conduciveness to
Progress, thus understood, includes the whole excellence of a
government.
But, though metaphysically defensible, this definition of the
criterion of good government is not appropriate, because, though it
contains the whole of the truth, it recalls only a part. What is
suggested by the term Progress is the idea of moving onward, whereas
the meaning of it here is quite as much the prevention of falling
back. The very same social causes- the same beliefs, feelings,
institutions, and practices- are as much required to prevent society
from retrograding, as to produce a further advance. Were there no
improvement to be hoped for, life would not be the less an unceasing
struggle against causes of deterioration; as it even now is. Politics,
as conceived by the ancients, consisted wholly in this. The natural
tendency of men and their works was to degenerate, which tendency,
however, by good institutions virtuously administered, it might be
possible for an indefinite length of time to counteract. Though we
no longer hold this opinion; though most men in the present age
profess the contrary creed, believing that the tendency of things,
on the whole, is towards improvement; we ought not to forget that
there is an incessant and ever-flowing current of human affairs
towards the worse, consisting of all the follies, all the vices, all
the negligences, indolences, and supinenesses of mankind; which is
only controlled, and kept from sweeping all before it, by the
exertions which some persons constantly, and others by fits, put forth
in the direction of good and worthy objects.
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