It is the nature of all science and improvement to be slow, and in a manner imperceptible, in its first advances. Its commencement is as it were by accident. Few advert to it; few have any perception of its existence. It attains its growth in obscurity; and its result, though long in the preparation, is to a considerable degree sudden and unexpected. Thus it is perhaps that we ought to regard the introduction of printing as having given its full security to the emancipation of mankind. But this progressive consequence was long unsuspected; and it was reserved for the penetrating mind of Wolfey to predict almost three centuries ago, speaking in the name of the Romish clergy, "We must destroy the press; or the press will destroy us." At present, It requires no extraordinary sagacity to perceive that the most enormous abuses of political institution are hastening to their end. There is no enemy to this auspicious crisis more to be feared than the well meaning, but intemperate, champion of the general good.
There is a passage in a work of Helvetius written to be published after his death, which happened in 1771, so much in the tone of the dissatisfied and despairing advocates of public liberty at present, as to deserve to be cited in this place. "In the history of every people," says he, "there are moments in which, uncertain of the side they shall choose, and balanced between political good and evil, they feel a desire to be instructed; in which the soil, so to express myself, is in some manner prepared, and may easily be penetrated by the dew of truth. At such a moment, the publication of a valuable book may give birth to the most auspicious reforms: but, when that moment is no more, the nation, become insensible to the best motives, is, by the nature of its government, irrecoverably plunged in ignorance and stupidity. The soil of intellect is then hard and impenetrable;Chapter he rains may fall, may spread their moisture upon the surface, but the prospect of fertility is gone. Such is the condition of France. Her people are become the contempt of Europe. No salutary crisis shall ever restore them to liberty."
It is scarcely necessary to add that the French revolution was at this time preparing by an incessant chain of events; and that the train may particularly be considered as taking its date from the circumstance, the destruction of the parliaments by Louis XV, which inspired Helvétius with so melancholy a presage.
An additional support to the objection we are here attempting to remove may be derived from the idea, not only "that truth is slow in its progress,"Chapter ut "that it is not always progressive, but subject, like other human things, to the vicissitudes of flux and reflux." This opinion has hitherto been of great influence in public affairs, and it has been considered as "the part of a wise statesman to embrace the opportunity, when the people are inclined to any measure in which he wishes to engage them, and not to wait till their fervour has subsided, and the moment of willing co-operation is past."
Undoubtedly there is the appearance of flux and reflux in human affairs.
In subordinate articles, there will be a fashion, rendering one truth more popular, and more an object of attention, at one time, than at another.
But the mass of truth seems too large a consideration to be susceptible of these vicissitudes. It has proceeded, from the revival of letters to the present hour, with an irresistible advance; and the apparent deviousnesses of literature seem to resolve themselves into a grand collective consistency.
Not one step has been made in retrogression. Mathematics, natural philosophy, moral philosophy, philology and politics, have reached, by regular improvements, to their present degree of perfection.
