The Reform Bill of 1832 tended to concentrate men's attention
upon questions of material welfare. Commercial and industrial prosperity
followed, keeping the nation busy with the earth. In very striking
language Lord Morley describes this fact, in language specially striking
as coming from so eminently progressive a man.[4] "Far the most
penetrating of all the influences that are impairing the moral and
intellectual nerve of our generation, remain still to be mentioned. The
first of them is the immense increase of material prosperity, and the
second is the immense decline in sincerity of spiritual interest. The
evil wrought by the one fills up the measure of the evil wrought by the
other. We have been, in spite of momentary declensions, on a flood-tide
of high profits and a roaring trade, and there is nothing like a roaring
trade for engendering latitudinarians. The effect of many possessions,
especially if they be newly acquired, in slackening moral vigour, is a
proverb. Our new wealth is hardly leavened by any tradition of public
duty such as lingers among the English nobles, nor as yet by any common
custom of devotion to public causes, such as seems to live and grow in
the United States.
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