Devolution

“ And then I saw, in my vision, that just as there are two fires, so there are two revolutions. And I saw that the whole mad modern world is a race between them. Which will happen first-- the revolution in which bad things shall perish, or that other revolution, in which good things shall perish also? One is the riot that all good men, even the most conservative, really dream of, when the sneer shall be struck from the face of the well-fed ”

“ Where could oppression hide itself? Where could the lusts of the flesh plot their treason against the sovereignty of the spirit, beyond the range of spirit vigilance—this new safeguard of human society, the eternal law of progress, which is now unfolding? ”

“ It is time that the form of government should, if possible, be settled, and the political revolution brought to a close; the prolongation of the struggle, with all the appeals to passion and other sinister motives which it involves, is seriously affecting character and collecting difficulties round the government of the future, while a deeper and more momentous revolution, in the religious and social sphere, threatens the stability of civilization, and demands with increasing urgency the attention of the world. ”

“ Such equilibrium is the harmony which proceeds from the analogy of opposites. Humanity has sought so far to balance itself as if on one leg—now on one and now again on the other. Civilisations have sprung up and have fallen, through the anarchic alienation of despotism, or alternatively through the despotic anarchy of revolt. ”

“ This revolution, like that which overturned feudalism, is simply the next stage of an evolution happening without human will, fatally and necessarily, by virtue of the conditions under which wealth is produced and shared in our times. ”

“ The last thing I want to tell you is this: in a real revolution--not a simple dynastic change or a mere reform of institutions--in a real revolution the best characters do not come to the front. A violent revolution falls into the hands of narrow-minded fanatics and of tyrannical hypocrites at first. ”

“ Why, we should dearly love the late revolution we have seen below—it is no longer called Reform—were it to fling up to free light from fettered darkness a few fine bold original spirits, who might give the whole world a new character, and a more majestic aspect to crouching life. ”

“ The effects produced (many perhaps unavoidably) by a state of revolution—the strange remedies devised to obviate them—the alternate neglect and severity with which the laws are executed—the mixture of want and profusion that distinguish the lower classes of people—and the distress and humiliation of the higher; all offer scenes so new and unaccountable, as not to be imagined by a person who has lived only under a regular government, where the limits of authority are defined, the necessaries of life plentiful, and the people rational and subordinate. ”

“ It is customary to class as revolution all disorders from riots to rebellions. This is particularly the case where the disorder occurs in some country other than our own. The Standard Dictionary defines the essential idea of revolution as "a change in the form of government, or the constitution, or rulers, otherwise than as provided by the laws of succession, election, etc." ”

“ But the fever of the Revolution burned in her veins, the thirst for action consumed her, and, having once taken her share in that stimulating, all-absorbing centre of political action, she bitterly lamented sinking back into the nothingness of provincial life, and never again found repose in the green fields and shady thickets once so dear to her. ”

“ This year incarnates the revolution. The revolution has an enemy, the old world, and to that it is pitiless, just as the surgeon has an enemy, gangrene, and is pitiless to that. The revolution extirpates kingship in the king, aristocracy in the noble, despotism in the soldier, superstition in the priest, barbarity in the judge, in a word whatever is tyranny in whatever is tyrant. The operation is frightful, the revolution performs it with a sure hand. ”

“ Here are the fixed terms: action or reaction, revolution or counter-revolution. For, at our epoch, we no longer believe either in inertia or in immobility. For the people against the people, that is the question. ”

“ In these the Revolution is not only shown as having a character, a profile, but also is revealed as being a living thing, a vivid many-sided creature, betraying its character in a host of unexpected ways, flashing out in a thousand fresh surprises, in a multiplicity of manifestations. ”

“ It is unnecessary to multiply examples; from the earliest history of our race to the present generation, similar impulses have prevailed and have been followed by similar actions. Dissatisfaction with existing conditions has encouraged the spirit of rebellion; oppression has been followed by revolt; the employment of force in the support of injustice has been followed by force in the maintenance of justice. Everywhere appears the spirit of discontent with existing conditions, and constant effort for their improvement. ”

“ But revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government. ”

“ As there are times of sorrow or of peril which try men’s souls and lay bare the inner secrets of their characters, so there are times of revolution which act as fire in burning away all but the basic elements of constitutions. ”

“ This Revolution has been defined, as "An open, violent rebellion and victory of unimprisoned anarchy, against corrupt worn-out authority; breaking prison, raging uncontrollable and enveloping a world in fever frenzy, until the mad forces are made to work toward their object, as sane and regulated ones." ”

“ If the tendency of affairs on the other side of our encircling sea was to pull down, to destroy, to modify, and to redistribute, the tendency at home was to build up and consolidate; so that in almost exact proportion to the wild experiments and frantic strugglings of other nations after something new—new principles of government, new theories of society—there arose in this country a dogged spirit of resistance to all alterations, and a persistence in old paths and old opinions. ”

“ By evolution must be understood the transformation that takes place day by day, which is almost unnoticed, but continuous and inevitable; by revolution, the critical and decisive period, more or less prolonged, of an evolution that has reached its concluding phase; by rebellion, the partially collective violence which breaks out, upon the occasion of some particular circumstance, at a definite place and time ”

“ A revolution in the ordinary sense of the word is always, however, the sign of powerful opposition between two parties, of which one may gain the immediate ascendancy by force; but will surely be exposed, afterwards, to the long-enduring hatred, opposition, and revenge of a strong minority, that will make itself felt with an energy greatly increased by the vindictiveness which naturally follows on war and defeat. ”

“ En effet, sans parler des haines qu’elles éternisent et des motifs de vengeance qu’elles déposent dans les âmes, les révolutions qui ont tout remué, celles surtout auxquelles tout le monde a pris part, laissent, après elles, une inquiétude générale dans les esprits, un besoin de mouvement, une disposition vague aux entreprises hasardeuses, et une ambition dans les idées, qui tend sans cesse à changer et à détruire. ”

“ The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief. ”

“ There is a wide diversity in social situations, from rock-ribbed stability, to entire communities teetering on the brink or plunging over the brink into the maelstrom of revolution. Such diverse situations have existed again and again during the 1750-1970 revolutionary epoch. 4. When a revolutionary situation develops, a revolutionary leader well-established in a community trembling on the brink of a revolutionary overturn may seize the reins of power and establish a regime founded on opposition principles, dedicated to another set of principles and practices. ”

“ For, with the fall of the ancient governments which rested like an incubus upon the people of the central empires, has come political change not merely, but revolution; and revolution which seems as yet to assume no final and ordered form. ”

“ That is why a rebellion accomplished by individuals, without much idea of social reconstruction, comes much nearer being a vital action, it seems to me, than a revolution made by allied conspirators, of an organization with a well defined theory of communal happiness. ”

“ Therefore, those who seem to think they cannot otherwise justify the late revolution, and the change of the succession, than by lessening the guilt of the puritans, do certainly put the greatest affront imaginable upon the present powers, by supposing any relation or resemblance between that rebellion and the late revolution ”

“ I know that some of them have suffered for the cause which they believe to be true. But may I be permitted to point out that apart from any question of principle, history has proved over and over again the utter futility of revolutions brought about by force and violence. ”

“ We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary. The violence of those out [Pg 101] rages will always be proportioned to the ferocity and ignorance of the people; and the ferocity and ignorance of the people will be proportioned to the oppression and degradation under which they have been accustomed to live. ”

“ Once there, revolutions will cease to be chronic, and regeneration, begun in the governmental center, may permeate the spiritual and intellectual, and ultimately reach even the corruption of the social life. ”

“ It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. ”

“ So you should examine citizens with this in view, considering what their political relations were, and inquiring what they gained by a change in conditions. In this way you will judge most fairly about them. 11. So I believe that the men who were dishonored under the democracy after rendering their accounts, or were deprived of property or suffered some other misfortune, (that these) are likely to desire a revolution, in the hope that the change will result to their advantage. ”

“ In the eighteenth century the culmination of this rising tide of protest came in a general and determined revolt against despotism in either Church or State, which, at the close of the century, swept away ancient privileges, abuses, and barriers, and prepared the way for the marked intellectual and human and political progress which characterized the nineteenth century. ”

“ The serious aspect of the proposed change is the effect it will have upon the character of men, who are not enough considered in any of these discussions. The revolution will be a radical one in one respect. ”

“ So it is that the great revolutions, “predestined unto us and we predestined,” take on a double power; not only do they turn the current of human action, but to the later comer they seem to modify that which was irrevocably fixed and past. ”

“ This is undoubtedly,—if we are still to live and grow, and this famous nation is not to stagnate and dwindle away on the one hand, or, on the other, to perish miserably in mere anarchy and confusion,—what we are on the way to. Great changes there must be, for a revolution cannot accomplish itself without great changes ”

“ "Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this fact is recognized,--that the human race has been treated harshly, but that it has progressed." ”

“ These exaggerate the discontent; they persuade the discontented that the government is the sole cause of all the trouble, especially of the prevailing dearth, and assure men that the new system proposed by them will engender an age of felicity. These ideas germinate, propagating themselves by suggestion and contagion, and the moment arrives when the revolution is ripe. ”

“ The seed of revolution is repression. ”

“ It is an acknowledged fact, that every revolution requires a provisional power to regulate its disorganizing movements, and to direct the methodical demolition of every part of the ancient social constitution.— Such ought to be the revolutionary power. ”

“ Revolutions, whether sudden or gradual, are fearful things; we learn to feel attachments to those things which they tear up, as a poor cripple feels attached to the mortified limb, that must be amputated to save his life. ”

“ Nevertheless, how can we afford to shut our eyes to the meaning of this phase of downright revolution through which the world is passing? Suppose it possible for us to make clean abstraction of what such a crisis portends for us as citizens, even so as pure observers and theorists we can surely find here matter for thought in plenty. ”

“ Just so does a revolution, or any great civic precedent, become a deflecting influence, whose operations widen with the course of time. Communities obey their ideals; and an accidental success fixes an ideal, as an accidental failure blights it. ”

“ The world-revolution is therefore not a popular movement but a conspiracy to impose on the people a system directly opposed to their real demands and aspirations, a system which, moreover, has proved disastrous every time an attempt has been made to put it into practice. ”

“ It was the era of uncontroverted despotism, which, with sacrilegious arrogance, claimed the title of divine rank; and mankind advanced slowly in progress, because it was not conscious of its own aim. Oppression was taken for a gloomy fatality. ”

“ Social dissolution is accelerated by provincial revolts against central authority; by survival struggle between the empires which were coordinated and consolidated into the civilization; by revolt in the subordinate and dependent segments of the civilization; by rivalry and conflict between racial, cultural and political sub-groups forced into the civilization, held there by coercion, policed by armed force and taking the first opportunity to win political independence and self determination. ”

“ Several things may happen, however, before she is many years older: a revolution, which will let out the bad blood and bring what best elements are left to the surface; a collapse of our worst institutions through sheer rottenness ”