Socialism : Critical and Constructive

TWO great forces are ever in conflict in the breast of Society—habit the force of stagnation, and reason the force of change. The former is commonly misinterpreted and miscalled the conservative force, whereas it is the force which resists life and ultimately ends in decay. The true conservative forces are not static, but are those which carry on life, adapting it to new conditions, producing new organs when new functions have to be performed, substituting new vitalities for spent ones, revolutionary in the sense that they see in the life of Society both the capacity for, and the promise of, fundamental change, but anti-revolutionary in the sense that they strive to bring about these changes by a never-ending organic adaptation. The movement that fulfills is the only true movement of conservation.