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Yet all wns chaos tind confusion. The knowledge tlicy pos
sessed was purely sensuous. Ignorance was on the throne
and reason had not begun her contest for the crown. In the
transition, as we pass to the next period, the light of progress
in society shone out with an incandescent glow. Conserva
tism, no longer in the ascendancy, witltdrcw to the caves and
desert places'. Radicalism had obtained the field, and with
lavish hand was sowing the seed of a new life. Philosophy,
science, law, and art sprang out of the soil on the shore of
the Egcan sea, with a depth of root and vigor of growth that
furnished scions to every garden of thought in the world of
letters for all time. The influence of these living, growing
forces spread everywhere; and civilization received an impe
tus upward and onward it had not felt before. The people
lived better, worked easier, and advanded to architectural
elegance and comfort in the construction of their homes. The
Greek mind possessed nothing to itself but thought. Thought
in philosophy, represented by Socrates; thought in science
created by Aristotle; thought in law constructed by, Solon;
thought in art, carved out by Phidias; and now these new en
ergies of civilization were hurled in every direction. The
world at last began its advance toward ideal pcrfcct:.on.
Teachers of the new order of truths were at the court of
Rome, the school of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem,
arousing the people to a study of themselves and the laws
that bound them to their environment. Said Mcndimus, the
pedantic courtier, to his master, the emperor: "If I shall go
on studying this Greek writing, I may become an -oracle, or
even one of the gods some day." So potent a factor had
Greek thought and life become with men of learning in that
precocious age. The religion of this period alone escaped
the ravages of the radical spirit. It rested on an elaborate
system of mythology, and was so interwoven with all that
was lovely in nature, and all that was poetic in imagination,
as to exercise a most powerful influence upon the character
ol the people. The idea of God that seemed to flash across
the pagan mind was an ecstatic vision of divine energy, a
a world soul, which, rushing through all created things, as
the wind across the lyre, thrilled them into divincst harmony.
They held the soul to be a portion of Deity Himself. And
as a bubble arises from the boundless and fathomless sea,
floating about here and there, merging into other bubbles,
and then floats on to its inevitable destiny an absorption, an
incorporation into the ocean again. So individual souls were
emanations from the great infinite soul; and and as a sunbeam
touches at the same time the sun and the earth, so they
touched at once the source of eternal reason and corporal be
ing. And when at last the soul should throw oft its earthly
shroud it was to be absorbed into the abysmal depths of in
finite love. Such, then, were some of the most important re
sults of the operation of these two giant forces radicalism
and conservatism upon thought and life, during the infancy
and early growth of the race.
In passing to the Christian period, we may trace with a
keener analysis the varied achievements and disasters wi ought
by their iron hand. Conservatism, peculiarly sensitive to the
influence of antiquity, pursued tin ghost of ancestral habits
and refused to sanction a single law of change. Progress was
interpreted to mean destruction. Every new thought, every
new invention, every new discovery was rcgaided with the
most baleful suspicion and with fearful forebodings. Deter
mined to be the dictator of law, it insisted that the people
should be subject to a king who ruled by divine right, and
developed the miserable system of feudalism, and clung to it
till every mediaeval nation was deluged with blood. By its
endeavor to control religion it made the church a storehouse'
of abuses and cllacl
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siring to contribute ftethiflig to phlloophy, .conservatism
busied itself with the most ridkmkMW and unprofitable ques
tions in metaphysics, science, and theology Occaspnally,
as In the Trench revolution, ltfcjiecked the muddy stream of
error, but far oftcner It dnmmelfflMt crystalline river of truth
and doomed the world for a Imager 'time to the drought of
gloomy superstition. On the othe'rhand, radicalism, ever
active for the improvement nnd progress of the race, stood
out opposed to everything that was tainted with antiquity.
Though impetuous and extravagant in all its actions, ..itttaW
the need of reform and Invention, and plunged. ahead!
cure them. It fought against authority, despised cus
made the end to sanction the means. Ovcr-confidelnrr
suits, It disregarded the warnings of defeat and rushed'head
long Into the rapids, whose flood but hastened it on to the
terrible whirlpool below. Like the swift flying shuttle of a
mighty loom, It passed from one extreme to the other, and
seemed never to be satisfied. It sought the blending of
truth, equality, and justice, and would challenge an army,
face any peril yea, would sacrifice life itself merely to satis
fy its caprice concerning ideal right.
Coming now to our day, wc find that these two powerful
elements, look in what ever direction wc may, continue to
wage the same relentless warfare. jjEike the ceaseless hcav
ing of the ocean, the figlUvUii,'siMi'td and scarcely dis
cernible, and anon vehement ami irrepressible, agitating the
social mass to the very core. Every great reform of the past
has been and every great reform of the present must be car
ried forward to triumphant consummation by either the ag
gression of the oc or the op potHion ol the other;of these
elements. - '"?,
Conaervatkm bght to perpetuate, American slavery.
Radicalism ordered to arms its ferees and swept the gigantic
curse out of the nation. The victory cost one million of men
and four billions of money, but it transformed the four mil
lions of serfs into free men; and, to day,
"Thw acy a'amoa ofwhlto blossoms
Whwrasf rtd the white tout,
There are plows In tho way
Where tho war wagons wont,
And thoro aro songs
Where tlioy lifted up Rachel's lamont."
Conservatism seeks to build upon a firm foundation a
traffic worse than pestilence, fire, sword the traffic in strong
drink legalized and licensed by act of congress and legisla
ture. Radicalism in tears and woe and despair pleads pity
ingly for its prohibition, root and branch. Conservatism
would fasten upon the nation all the cnormou; evils of unre
stricted immigration, anarchism, the destruction of the Sab
bath, and open infidelity to social law. Radicalism would
put up the bars of limitation as a measure of protection to our
free institutions endangered by the horde of corrupt and ig
norant classes who are concentrating in all the large centres,
to control them. Conservatism fights against the Australian
ballot system, and fears it cannot steal another election. Rad
icalism, trembling for the maintenance of a pine civil
government, calls loudly for its adoption by every state in the
union. Conservatism, believes that if, for any reason, husband
and wife shall not desire to continue their relations, a bill of
divorcement may be granted them, that they may go out and
befoul society, and each despoil some other life. Radicalism,
alarmed by the shameful statistics that tell of its rapid in
crease, makes solemn appeal to public conscience for arousal
on this subject. Here, then, arc the two conflicting forces
traced out like a thread of gold and a silver through all thp
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