Tactics for the Times; As Regards the Condition and Treatment of the Dangerous Classes (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Let every man strive to improve the general lot and he will not fail to improve his own, and that to an infinitely greater extent than he could by isolated selfishness, supposing that its whole benefit was not in the long run counterbalanced by similar selfishness on the part of others. A nation combining to encrease the general good, (no one man seeking his own advancement but compatibly with that of others,) would attain to a degree of individual prosperity for its people, which would far surpass the welfare of any other country in the world. This would be indeed a millennium; but it is nevertheless the goal towards which we are bound to strive by self-interest, as well as by love of country and love of God. I make these remarks without the slightest intention to attack any one class. Benevolence and selfishness are but little connected with class, birth, or rank, and they determine the character of the men in each, and every act follows in their train. Discover whether a man's nature is generous or selfish, and a hundred to one but you know the general tendency of his conduct in life. Know only, on the other hand, that a man belongs to a class, and define the rank he holds in it as accurately as you may, and you are as ignorant as ever of his character. Benevolence and tyranny, truth and falsehood, distinguish individuals, but not classes. All attempts to connect classes with grades of virtue or vice, are futile and fallacious. Some men are very prone to dogmatise on the idiosyncrasy of classes from their knowledge of individuals: and build the largest conclusions on the narrowest experience. So prone are we to believe the world we live in, the world at large ! An error still more common is that of warping experience to opinion. We frame an ideal system, and enamoured of ...