ing themselves more effective in carrying out the object for which they exist.

What is this desire, this perpetual craving for improvement? What is the theory-the principle of reform?

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When Heaven made man, it gave religious and moral sense to make him good; and then, to make him great, it gave him a vague, indefinite, unsatiable longing for the beautiful the excellent for perfection. And that this might not be wasting and selfconsuming, Heaven gave him a creative power wherewith to satisfy itself.

It is other than the moral sense of right and wrong. Though that, perhaps, has its origin in it. The function of that is to act as a damper in softening and modulating the human frame, when touched by the bold hand of passion, instinct, ambition, or intellect. This is itself an instinct, a desire, a craving of the mind for food like that of the body. Like that, too, its longing is accompanied with a pleasing pain, and the gratification with pleasure. Or, rather, like those more delicate instincts of the sex im

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planted within us, as the one simple principle by which the world was to be peopled, so this longing for perfection, this ideal for which man was ever to be craving, but never to realize, was given him, that the world might be covered with humanity as well as with man.

This was the means by which all that higher destiny which awaited him was to be worked out. And it has been. All that surpassing excellence in religious, moral, and intellectual well-being which he has achieved--every comfort that he enjoys above that of his earliest state, has been obtained by the impulse of this longing. The essential distinction between man and the inferior orders of beings, consists in this, that they are content to think, and to act, to eat, drink, and to sleep, as now, so ever, and so on for ever; whilst man is urged by an ever-renewing, never-to-be-satisfied desire to ameliorate his condition-to add something of the comfortable, of the noble of to-day to that of yesterday. The doctrine of contentment-the proverb of "leave well alone," and such like, acting exclusively, is pe

liarly that of the lower grades of the Creation. In its full extent it is at variance with this first principle of the physical temperament of man in the individual-and if carried out, were fatal to the destiny of man as a race. He had not yet left the caves where he first dwelt, if he had yielded to it.

No doubt all individuals are not affected by it alike. Some natures, from a naturally gross constitution, are as insusceptible to this impulse as they are to many others. Some, again, want the inventive, the creative power to gratify it with. And some races, as well as individuals, are more susceptible to its influences than others. Doubtless, too, its developement is greater in the same people at certain times than at othersthough this is attributable to causes and subject to certain laws. But under whatever limitations or exceptions it may lie, it is, nevertheless, clear that it does exist-that it is an essential principle of humanity.

It is this that has been at work in the political institutions of this country of late years. Whenever we see a man striving to

effect an improvement in his religious, moral, or material well-being, if we analyze his motives, we shall arrive at, as a last conclusion, that he is doing so in obedience to this desire, this love for perfection. Society is but man in the aggregate, with all his instincts and desires. The motive powers of action are traceable to the same source in both, and in seeking to improve its wellbeing, a people is but acting under an impulse that is a first principle common to humanity. To say that reforms have been carried out because they were wanted, or had become absolutely necessary, is but to re-assert what has been above maintained, since that want and that necessity arose from this impulse.

Doubtlessly, there are other, secondary motive powers, as it were, that have operated in this political change, besides that referred to. A disposition to change is a matter of physical habit, a fidgettiness, a nervous affection, with some-though in this sense, perhaps, it is only an undue operation of the principle we speak of. In others, the desire for political

alteration is a vanity for imposing their own theories upon society; in others, a means of thrusting themselves upon the theatre of events; a standard under which political adventurers, like soldiers of fortune, enlist and fight their way to honour and power. And even by parties, by whole bodies of men, it is not unfrequently held in this mean view. But an abstract truth is not affected by this that men see it in a false light; nor is the unity, the identity, the absoluteness of truth, destroyed by thisthat men worship it through a thousand different shrines. Even religion operates on different men in different ways; with some it is a fear-with some a hope-with some a veneration for the Omnipotent Being; with others a mere means of gain, and with not a few a mere vanity—a display. And so, too, with morality-fear of what the world says dread of what the law may do-conviction that on the whole it is the best policy, and many other such mean motives, are the impulses of its action on many minds. But for all that, religion and