ubt whether by
revolution people can be raised to an intelligence, a humanity, or a
nobility of nature greater than they formerly possessed. Nobody can
remain standing on tiptoe. After a little time disorder subsides and
some strong man leads the inevitable reaction. In France people revolted
against a decadent monarchy, and in a dozen years they had a new
emperor. In England they beheaded a king as a protest against tyranny,
and they got a dictator in his place who took little or no account of
parliaments; and finally a second Charles, rather worse than the first,
came to the throne. The everlasting battle between light and darkness
goes on stubbornly all the time, and the gain of the Hosts of Light is
inch by inch. Extraordinary efforts, impetuous charges, which seem
to win for a moment, too often leave the attacking force tired and
exhausted, and the forces of reaction set in and overwhelm them. I am
the friend of revolt if people cannot stand the conditions they live
under, and if they can see no other way. It is better to be men than
slaves. The French Revolution was a tragic episode in history, but
when people suffer intolerably and are insulted in their despair it is
inevitable blood will be shed. One can only say with Whitman:

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?
Could I wish humanity different Could I wish the people made of wood and
stone, or that there be no justice in destiny or time?

There is danger in revolution if the revolutionary spirit is much more
advanced than the intellectual, and moral qualities which alone
can secure the success of a revolt. These intellectual and moral
qualities--the skill to organize, the wisdom to control large
undertakings, are not natural gifts but the results of experience. They
are evolutionary products. The emancipation of labor, I believe, will
not be gained by revolution but by prolonged effort, continued month by
month and year by year, in which first this thing is adventured, then
that: each enterprise brings its own gifts of wisdom and experience,
and there is no reaction, because, instead of the violent use of certain
powers, the whole being is braced: experience, intellect, desire, all
strong and working harmoniously, press forward and support each other,
and no enterprise is undertaken where the intellect to carry it out is
not present together with the desire. It requires great intellectual
and moral qualities to bring about a