physical and the moral world, in
the natural and the human, are ever seen two forces--invariable rule, and
continual advance; law and action; order and progress; these two powers
working harmoniously together, and the result, inevitable sequence,
orderly movement, irresistible growth. In the physical world indeed,
order is most prominent to our eyes; in the moral world it is progress,
but both exist as truly in the one as in the other. In the scale of
nature, as we rise from the inorganic to the organic, the idea of change
becomes even more distinct; just as when we rise through the gradations
of the moral world, the idea of order becomes more difficult to grasp. It
was the last task of the astronomer to show eternal change even in the
grand order of our Solar System. It is the crown of philosophy to see
immutable law even in the complex action of human life. In the latter,
indeed, it is but the first germs which are clear. No rational thinker
hopes to discover more than some few primary actions of law, and some
approximative theory of growth. Much is dark and contradictory. Numerous
theories differing in method and degree are offered; nor do we decide
between them. We insist now only upon this, that the principle of
development in the moral, as in the physical, has been definitely
admitted; and something like a conception of one grand analogy through
the whole sphere of knowledge, has almost become a part of popular
opinion. Most men shrink from any broad statement of the principle,
though all in some special instances adopt it. It surrounds every idea
of our life, and is diffused in every branch of study. The press, the
platform, the lecture-room, and the pulpit ring with it in every variety
of form. Unconscious pedants are proving it. It flashes on the
statistician through his registers; it guides the hand of simple
philanthropy; it is obeyed by the instinct of the statesman. There is
not an act of our public life which does not acknowledge it. No man
denies that there are certain, and even practical laws of political
economy. They are nothing but laws of society. The conferences of
social reformers, the congresses for international statistics and for
social science bear witness of its force. Everywhere we hear of the
development of the constitution, of public law, of public opinion, of
institutions, of forms of society, of theories of history. In a word,
whatever views of history may be inculcated