comprehensive spirit, have felt the importance of such a
classification; but the attempts which have been made towards it are
as yet limited, so far as I am aware, to a single step. The
classification begins and ends with a partition of the exigencies of
society between the two heads of Order and Progress (in the
phraseology of French thinkers); Permanence and Progression in the
words of Coleridge. This division is plausible and seductive, from the
apparently clean-cut opposition between its two members, and the
remarkable difference between the sentiments to which they appeal. But
I apprehend that (however admissible for purposes of popular
discourse) the distinction between Order, or Permanence, and Progress,
employed to define the qualities necessary in a government, is
unscientific and incorrect.

  For, first, what are Order and Progress? Concerning Progress there
is no difficulty, or none which is apparent at first sight. When
Progress is spoken of as one of the wants of human society, it may
be supposed to mean Improvement. That is a tolerably distinct idea.
But what is Order? Sometimes it means more, sometimes less, but hardly
ever the whole of what human society needs except improvement.

  In its narrowest acceptation Order means Obedience. A government
is said to preserve order if it succeeds in getting itself obeyed. But
there are different degrees of obedience, and it is not every degree
that is commendable. Only an unmitigated despotism demands that the
individual citizen shall obey unconditionally every mandate of persons
in authority. We must at least limit the definition to such mandates
as are general and issued in the deliberate form of laws. Order,
thus understood, expresses, doubtless, an indispensable attribute of
government. Those who are unable to make their ordinances obeyed,
cannot be said to govern. But though a necessary condition, this is
not the object of government. That it should make itself obeyed is
requisite, in order that it may accomplish some other purpose. We
are still to seek what is this other purpose, which government ought
to fulfil, abstractedly from the idea of improvement, and which has to
be fulfilled in every society, whether stationary or progressive.

  In a sense somewhat more enlarged, Order means the preservation of
peace by the cessation of private violence. Order is said to exist
where the people of the country have, as a general rule, ceased to
prosecute their quarrels by private force, and acquired the habit of
referring the decision of their disputes and the redress of their
injuries to the public authorities. But in this larger use of the
term, as well as in the former narrow one, Order expresses rather
one of the conditions of government, than either its purpose or the
criterion of its excellence. For the habit may be well established
of submitting to the government, and referring all disputed matters to
its authority, and yet the manner in which the government deals with
those disputed matters, and with the other things about which it
concerns itself, may differ by the whole interval which divides the
best from the worst possible.

  If we intend to comprise in the idea of Order all that society
requires from its government which is not included in the idea of
Progress, we must define Order as the preservation of all kinds and
amounts of good which already exist, and Progress as consisting in the
increase of them. This distinction does comprehend in one or the other
section everything which a government can be required to promote. But,
thus understood, it affords no basis for a philosophy of government.
We cannot say that, in constituting a polity, certain provisions ought
to be made for Order and certain others for Progress; since the
conditions of Order, in the sense now indicated, and those of
Progress, are not opposite, but the same. The agencies which tend to
preserve the social good which already exists are the very same
which promote the increase of it, and vice versa: the sole
difference being, that a greater degree of those agencies is
required for the latter purpose than for the former.

  What, for example, are the qualities in the citizens individually
which conduce most to keep up the amount of good conduct, of good
management, of success and prosperity, which already exist in society?
Everybody will agree that those qualities are industry, integrity,
justice, and prudence. But are not these, of all qualities, the most
conducive to improvement? and is not any growth of these virtues in
the community in itself the greatest of improvements? If so,
whatever qualities in the government are promotive of industry,
integrity, justice, and prudence, conduce alike to permanence and to
progression; only there is needed more of those qualities to make
the society decidedly progressive than merely to keep it permanent.

  What, again, are the particular attributes in human beings which
seem to have a more especial reference to Progress, and do not so
directly suggest the ideas of Order and Preservation? They are chiefly
the qualities of mental activity, enterprise, and courage. But are not
all these qualities fully as much required for preserving the good
we have, as for adding to it? If there is anything certain in human
affairs, it is that valuable acquisitions are only to be retained by
the continuation of the same energies which gained them. Things left
to take care of themselves inevitably decay. Those whom success
induces to relax their habits of care and thoughtfulness, and their
willingness to encounter disagreeables, seldom long retain their
good fortune at its height. The mental attribute which seems
exclusively dedicated to Progress, and is the culmination of the
tendencies to it, is Originality, or Invention. Yet this is no less
necessary for Permanence; since, in the inevitable changes of human
affairs, new inconveniences and dangers continually grow up, which
must be encountered by new resources and contrivances, in order to
keep things going on even only as well as they did before. Whatever
qualities, therefore, in a government, tend to encourage activity,
energy, courage, originality, are requisites of Permanence as well