invitation is not accepted far more freely than
it is.

In this nation, however, Reform, though a
plant of slow growth, does, on the whole, advance
steadily. That in all things there should be a
tendency to rise, to improve, to progress, seems
to be one of the first and most certain of the laws
of nature. From the time, far back in a past so
remote that thought cannot reach it, when our
globe, separated from the chaotic mass, was
subjected to the first of those preliminary
processes whose action was ultimately to fit it
to be the theatre on which man should play his
part, has not this law of IMPROVEMENT been
operating always? As each of those changes,
of which the man of science speaks with a
confidence which has something of the sublime
about it—as each of those changes added to this
mighty ball some element that brought it one
degree nearer to be a fit dwelling-place for man,
or withdrew from it some quality which forbade
his existence, was not each era an improvement
on the last? As the terrible and lonely mass got
at length to that stage when the lower forms of
vegetable and animal life might exist upon it,
as these gave way and were replaced by higher
and more completely developed forms of both,
was there not still improvement on improvement?
And when at last Man appeared, to
whom dominion over all was given, did the
improvement cease then? How many—how few
rather—are the centuries that have elapsed since
here where we live, on English soil, there dwelt
a race of savages, removed—how much—above
the chimpanzee or the Gorilla? How few
centuries it has taken to improve that poor
organism into the man of this our own day, the
creature of reason, the conqueror of himself,
in whose life the senses play so small a part, and
in whom the moral and the intellectual qualities
are so powerfully developed. Socially, it is
more than ever, now, the tendency of men to rise.
The specimen man of the day—not a creature
of Utopia, but such an one as really exists—
will rise almost infallibly if he do his duty. And
he, risen high above the position in which he
was born, will so educate his son as that he
may be fitted to occupy the grade next above
that to which the father has attained. This is
one way in which men rise, but another and a
more important way (because applying to
thousands more of created beings) is that rise which
elevated men, not by lifting them out of a class
in which they originally found themselves, but
by elevating that class itself generally, refining
its habits, and improving its social position.
There is the rise of the journeyman to be a
foreman and at last a master, and there is
the rise of the journeymen as a class, through
improvements brought into their mode of life,
and a general consequent elevation in its
tone.

Much has been done. Misery enough, and
sin enough, and degradation enough, exist among
us, Heaven knows. Those who live and move
only in the brightest portions of our town, and
whose coachmen would not know the way to
Tottenham-court-road, know nothing of what
goes on among "the masses" who really populate
this small edition of the world which we call
London. The misery of the more densely
populated districts of the town has been often
described in print, and so has the semi-starvation
of that poor half-formed spindle-shanked feeble
race, the agricultural population, properly so
called. Nor have the sufferings of the people
of the manufacturing districts been left
unrecorded. Yet for them all there is hope; there
is hope for them, and hope for their
posterity. How many attempts were made a
hundred years ago, to improve the residences
of the poorer classes? How many experiments
ments were made in building lodging-houses
for them? How many establishments were
opened with the object of supplying the working
man with the best possible nourishment
at the lowest possible price? People
complain that navigators and labouring men
cannot keep from drinking and fighting. And
this is true enough and sad enough, but
let us never forget that a hundred years ago
gentlemen were in the same condition. It
is because changes are brought about slowly
and gradually; because they are not wrought
suddenly and miraculously, but simply, and by
the employment of means; that they do not
strike us as much as they might. We do not
note the means as they arise. Who knows
what share the Chancellor of the Exchequer
may have had in advancing the interest of
national education when he took the tax off
paper? Who knows what an incentive the
penny newspaper may prove to self-education,
or how the man who cannot read it may
long to be like his next-door neighbour, who
can?

And this tendency in all things to rise and
to improve, which of us can say where it will
end? Shall man go on improving, until ages
hence he becomes developed into a superior
being; or is the world, whose highest
inhabitant once was a jellyfish, now populated with
the most glorious beings which shall ever tread
its surface?

THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER,
A New Series of Occasional Papers
By CHARLES DICKENS,
WILL BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK.

The Right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors.