Moral Polarity by Samuel Taylor Coleridge — Read

It is curious to trace the operation of the moral law of polarity in the / history of politics, religion, &c. When the maximum of one tendency has / been attained, there is no gradual decrease, but a direct transition to its / minimum, till the opposite tendency has attained its maximum; and then you / see another corresponding revulsion. With the Restoration came in all at / once the mechanico-corpuscular philosophy, which, with the increase of / manufactures, trade, and arts, made every thing in philosophy, religion, / and poetry objective; till, at length, attachment to mere external / worldliness and forms got to its maximum, -- when out burst the French / revolution; and with it every thing became immediately subjective, without / any object at all. The Rights of Man, the Sovereignty of the People, were / subject and object both. We are now, I think, on the turning point again. / This Reform seems the _ne plus ultra_ of that tendency of the public mind / which substitutes its own undefined notions or passions for real objects / and historical actualities. There is not one of the ministers -- except the / one or two revolutionists among them -- who has ever given us a hint, / throughout this long struggle, as to _what_ he really does believe will be / the product of the bill; what sort of House of Commons it will make for the / purpose of governing this empire soberly and safely. No; they have / actualized for a moment a wish, a fear, a passion, but not an idea.