Reformism

“ He laughs at those who cannot hear the word revolution without a shudder. "Revolution," he says, "means merely transformation, and is accomplished when an entirely new principle is—either with force or without it—put in the place of an existing state of things. Reform, on the other hand, is when the principle of the existing state of things is continued, and only developed to more logical or just consequences. ”

“ Reform must become a farce in the hands of those who either do not understand it or do not care for it. If you mean reform, intrust the work to none but those who understand it and honestly do care, and care more for it than for their own personal ends. ”

“ Every project in the history of reform, no matter how violent and surprising, is good, when it is the dictate of a man's genius and constitution, but very dull and suspicious when adopted from another. ”

“ Reform is born of need, not pity. ”

“ It is quite impossible for me, having been one who brought forward the measure of reform, who feel bound by the declarations then made, to take any part in these large measures of reconstruction, or to consent to the repeal of the Reform Act, without being guilty of what I think would be a breach of faith towards those with whom I was then acting. If the people of England are not of that mind they may reject me. ”

“ But reforms, if they are to be vital and beneficent and not engines of destruction, must be based on principles which have stood the test of practical application and have been the foundations and bulwarks of national greatness and prosperity in the past. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He had no idea of reforming society from the outside as from a separate world; but he proceeded upon the principle that, as real reformation and progress must be the result of reformed internal conditions, so the reformer himself must be a sympathetic part of his world. ”

“ It will afford no security from the new ideas, that the old nations, the laws of centuries, the property and institutions of a hundred cities, are built on other foundations. The demon of reform has a secret door into the heart of every lawmaker, of every inhabitant of every city. ”

“ The former alters the substance of the objects themselves; and gets rid of all their essential good, as well as of all the accidental evil, annexed to them. Change is novelty; and whether it is to operate any one of the effects of reformation at all, or whether it may not contradict the very principle upon which reformation is desired, cannot be certainly known beforehand. Reform is, not a change in the substance, or in the primary modification, of the object, but, a direct application of a remedy to the grievance complained of. ”

“ It knows that reforms—great, far-sweeping reforms—are necessary, and it has the power to make them. God help our civilization if it does not! . . . It must repress the trusts or stand before the world responsible for our system of government being changed into a social republic. ”

“ I wish it therefore to be considered as my humble opinion, that what, in political slang, is termed Radical Reform, is, in reality, proximate revolution:—Universal Suffrage, inextinguishable uproar:—and Annual Parliaments, periodical bloodshed. ”

“ You see how very inferior the business of the political reformer is, after all. The non-political reformer is not restricted by any law, any Constitution, any man, nor by the people, because he is not to deal with institutions; he is to make the institutions better. ”

“ The progress of a great reform is a nation's school. It creates as it advances, the moral principle, the individual independence, the habit of private judgment, the enlightened public opinion, which are necessary for its own success, and thus, by new moulding the national character, and elevating its tone of morals, it confers far other and greater benefits than its originators at first proposed. ”

“ How utterly confusing it is, consequently, to consider reform as equivalent merely to the restoration of the American democracy to a former condition of purity and excellence! Our earlier political and economic condition was not at its best a fit subject for any great amount of complacency. ”

“ The greatest reforms which could now be accomplished would consist in undoing the work of statesmen in the past, and the greatest difficulty in the way of reform is to find out how to undo their work without injury to what is natural and sound. ”

“ Of such a species of reform, there are two varieties. In one, the reform accords with the principles of the religion and merely invites people, who have departed from it, to revert to them and to follow them. ”

“ The information they have received from undoubted authority—particularly from an old fruit-woman who has turned king's evidence, and whose name, for obvious reasons, we forbear to mention, though we have had it some weeks in our possession—has induced them to introduce various reforms—not such reforms as the vile faction clamour for, meaning thereby revolution, but such reforms as are necessary to preserve the glorious constitution of the only free, happy, and prosperous country now left upon the face of the earth. ”

“ The reformation we propose in its utmost scope is radical and universal. It is not the mere perfecting of a reform already in motion, a detail of some established plan, but it is an epochal movement — the emancipation of a class, the redemption of half the world, and a conforming reorganization of all social, political, and industrial interests and institutions. ”

“ I regard then the accomplishment of these things as the road to a greater reform, that reform after which virtue and wisdom shall have conquered pain and vice—when no government will be wanted but that of your neighbour’s opinion. I look to these things with hope and pleasure, because I consider that they will certainly happen, and because men will not then be wicked and miserable. But I do not consider that they will or can immediately happen; their arrival will be gradual, and it all depends upon yourselves how soon or how late these great changes will happen. ”

“ These reforms are our contemporaries; they are ourselves; our own light, and sight, and conscience; they only name the relation which subsists between us and the vicious institutions which they go to rectify. They are the simplest statements of man in these matters; the plain right and wrong. I cannot choose but allow and honor them. The impulse is good, and the theory; the practice is less beautiful. The Reformers affirm the inward life, but they do not trust it, but use outward and vulgar means. They do not rely on precisely that strength which wins me to their cause ”

“ From 1790 till to-day, this reform movement has been gradually growing stronger and wiser, and it is now too strong to be pushed aside any longer, and the men who compose it are too wise to permit you to trifle with it further. ”

“ Some reluct at the long time requisite to change the institutions of a nation, or regenerate its public sentiment. But here, too, a moment's thought shows us, how wise in this respect is the order of Providence. The progress of a great reform is a nation's school. ”

“ Involuntarily, unconsciously, unwillingly, every government found that the Reformation formed part of its scheme and policy. One nation, and one only, had the clear eye and firm hand to make it ostensibly, and of its deliberate choice, the guide and landmark in its dangerous and finally triumphant career. ”

“ I hear some gentlemen say, ’Oh, yes, we are for reform, but this does not reform enough,’ I am somewhat alarmed when I find a man who says he wants to reform but cannot begin at all unless he can reform all over in one minute. ”

“ Between the two lay the conquest of political power by a new class, and in this lies the essential difference between revolution and reform. Measures which seek to adjust the juridical and political superstructure of society, to changed economic conditions, are reforms if they proceed from the class which is the political and economic ruler of society. ”

“ The question is whether or not we shall, before the general zeal for reform dies away, through an abolition of the spoils system and the permanent establishment of a sensible civil service, win the other branch of reform, which is of still greater importance for the future of our political life. ”

“ I propose to deal with reform in a plea of urgency, endeavouring at the same time to trace the evolution of things as they are to-day, quoting history as I go, with one aim only in view, to point a moral and adorn a tale. ”

“ Reform, so called, is becoming confessedly more potent than its antagonist. The admission is reluctantly forced from pallid lips that revolutions—political, social and religious—constitute the programme of the coming age. ”

“ EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION.
A social reform can very well be in accord with the interests of the ruling class. It may for the moment leave their social domination untouched, or, under certain circumstances, can even strengthen it. ”

“ Its services on behalf of negative criticism are very slight; and these, as you rightly remarked, are for the most part, due to the circumstances and conditions of a revolutionary age for which the reformers can hardly be held responsible.
Modern social life, the outcome of the revolution, is regenerating in its nature; it does not occupy itself solely with tearing down the old, but is mainly busy with creating new forms. ”

“ But if we act on the principle of deferring all less important reforms until all the more important ones are accomplished, we shall be in danger of not reforming at all. Any reform that is well-timed and possible is important; for the complication of social relations makes all reforms of weight in their wider significance. ”

“ It is also true that I have not ventured more than to touch upon a possible institutional reformation, which, in so far as it was successful in its purpose, would improve human nature by the most effectual of all means—that is, by improving the methods whereby men and women are bred. But if I have erred in attaching or appearing to attach too much efficacy to legal and institutional reforms, the error or its appearance was scarcely separable from an analytic reconstruction of a sufficient democratic ideal. ”

“ No antique privilege, no comfortable monopoly, but sees surely that its days are counted; the people are familiarized with the reason of reform, and, one by one, take away every argument of the obstructives. ”

“ The country is in such a condition, that if we delay longer some fair measure of reform, sufficient at least to satisfy the more moderate, and much more, if we refuse all reform whatsoever—I say, if we adopt so unwise a policy, the country is in such a condition that we may precipitate a revolution. ”

“ And part of this inability arose from their curious fear of the past. Most movements of reform have looked to the past for great part of their inspiration. To reform means to shape anew, and he pointed out that every revolution involves the idea of a return. ”

“ I must explain, however, in what sense I consider myself bound with regard to the Reform Act. When I brought forward that measure it will be recollected that the cry was that it was too large, that it was too extensive; and those who were Radical Reformers were upon the whole much better pleased with it than those who were moderate Reformers. ”

“ We hear constantly of "reform," and the reformers turn out to be people who do not like things as they are and wish that they could be made nicer. We hear a great many exhortations to make progress from people who do not know in what direction they want to go. ”

“ But the Reformation, gentlemen, beyond the region of opinions, was a historical fact—an objective something which may be studied like any of the facts of nature. The Reformers were men of note and distinction, who played a great part for good or evil on the stage of the world. If we except the Apostles, no body of human beings ever printed so deep a mark into the organisation of society ”

“ In fact, we are living in an era of small reforms of which little good and but little harm can be predicated. Can it not be made the eve of an era of reforms really great and far-reaching? If, as was indicated above, there is a general and profound realization of the threatening evils, is it not possible to evolve an agreement with regard to the irreducible minimum of social reform? ”

“ Just as, in my view, reform must naturally precede the securing of independence, liberty, and equality, in political dogma, so do I believe that the political synthesis, or at any rate a glimpse of this synthesis, must, in the new epoch, precede in renovated Europe the manifestation of the religious synthesis of the epoch. ”

“ It is one of the lessons of the history of progress that when the time for a reform has come you cannot resist it, though, if you make the attempt, what you may do is to widen its character or precipitate its advent. ”

“ Each step in the Reform movement, whether theological, social, or political, is educational in its effects even beyond the circle in which the step is taken. My advice would be: Seek justice; but refuse no point which may be conceded, for each concession gives you additional means and strength to enforce your claim. ”

“ A reform would have been fearful and calamitous. A political revolution with one class was morally impracticable. Consulting a wise humanity, they submitted to a condition in which Providence had placed them. ”

“ In contrast to the ordered pursuit of reform, the spirit of which the Utilitarians hoped to embody in societies and Acts of Parliament, were the rebellious impulses of men filled with a prophetic spirit, walking in obedience to an inward voice, eager to cry aloud their message to a generation wrapped in prosperity and self-contentment. ”