Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Past and Present by Thomas Carlyle
page 38 of 398 (09%)
stupid hoofs for a century or two; till you discover that they
are gods,--and then take to braying over them, still in a very
long-eared manner!--So speaks the sarcastic man; in his wild
way, very mournful truths.

Day's-wages for day's-work? continues he: The Progress of Human
Society consists even in this same. The better and better
apportioning of wages to work. Give me this, you have given me
all. Pay to every man accurately what he has worked for, what he
has earned and done and deserved,--to this man broad lands and
honours, to that man high gibbets and treadmills: what more have
I to ask? Heaven's Kingdom, which we daily pray for, _has_ come;
God's will is done on Earth even as it is in Heaven! This _is_
the radiance of celestial justice; in the light or in the fire
of which all impediments, vested interests, and iron cannon, are
more and more melting like wax, and disappearing from
the pathways of men. A thing ever struggling forward;
irrepressible, advancing inevitable; perfecting itself, all
days, more and more,--never to be _perfect_ till that general
Doomsday, the ultimate Consummation, and Last of earthly Days.

True, as to 'perfection' and so forth, answer we; true enough!
And yet withal we have to remark, that imperfect Human Society
holds itself together, and finds place under the Sun, in virtue
simply of some _approximation_ to perfection being actually made
and put in practice. We remark farther, that there are
supportable approximations, and then likewise insupportable.
With some, almost with any, supportable approximation men are
apt, perhaps too apt, to rest indolently patient, and say, It
will do. Thus these poor Manchester manual workers mean only, by
DigitalOcean Referral Badge