ect of innovation is the
best possible state of things. Of course conservatism always has the
worst of the argument, is always apologizing, pleading a necessity,
pleading that to change would be to deteriorate. It must saddle itself
with the mountainous load of the violence and the vice of society, must
deny the possibility of good, deny ideas, and suspect and stone the
prophets; while innovation is always in the right, triumphant,
attacking, and sure of final success."

But though doomed to defeat, conservatism is not to be denounced or
condemned. It is not without its uses. It often keeps us from following
untried paths that open out alluring but end in thickets or quagmires. A
brake is sometimes as necessary to safety as motive power is to
progress. But the usual tendency of conservatism is to keep the brakes
on all the time, causing either stagnation, retrogression, or a
smash-up. The real revolutionist is the rock-ribbed conservative. It is
the boulder blocking the onward flow of the stream that causes the eddy
and the whirlpool.

Those who think on this subject and who really desire the improvement of
society--unfortunately a very small class--are divided over the question
whether mankind shall progress by the path of individualism or by that
of collectivism. Extremists assure us that these paths go in opposite
directions, or traverse each other at right angles. The truth is they
run parallel; and we have been travelling both, now advancing more on
one and then on the other, towards the ultimate goal of humanity--the
perfection of society through the elevation of the individual, the
perfection of the individual through the improvement of society. Each
helps the other; neither can be independent of the other. It often
happens that organized society cannot await the slow process of
individual perfection. It must accelerate the operation by changing
standards and ideals. There is no telling how long it would have
required to convince each individual slave-owner of the wrong of human
slavery, or each individual mine and factory owner of the wickedness of
child-labor. Society had to take the matter in hand and force individual
development--in one case by law, in the other by the sword. Many
thoughtful persons are raising the question whether society has not more
work of this kind ahead of it. There can be no individual perfection or
progress under certain social conditions. Ceremonious politeness was not
to be expect