Progress means "motion forward." This supposes a starting-point and a
definite end or goal. Without these two requisites there may be motion,
but no progress. Now there is such a thing as "progress" in the life of
individuals and of nations. Indeed, the magic of this word "progress,"
its power to sway the minds of men, goes to show that the conception
rests on some underlying basis of truth. A lie pure and simple has no
such power. It must clothe itself in the garb of truth if it would win
converts and adherents.
The very life that throbs within us impels to progress, for all life is
but a motion and a striving towards a destined end, and implies the
growth and development of all our faculties to the full perfection of
their being. Death alone is a resting and a standing still.
This visible nature around us pulsates with the spirit of life and
progress. The stars wheel onward in the courses marked out for them by
their Creator. The interior of the earth is heaving and palpitating with
a hidden life of its own, which is ever manifested in richer fulness and
strength, in higher and more perfect forms. Nay, the very stone that
seems so motionless, the inert metal in the bowels of the earth, comes
under the influence of this universal law of life and progress. And what
is this but the creative breath of God streaming through the universe,
and ever shaping it into new and diverse forms of life?
But this law of progress under which the physical universe lies, affects
man likewise in a manner worthy of him as the crowning masterpiece of
creation. So essentially is progress a law of our being that while
material things, in the process of their development, cannot overstep
the limits marked out for them, man is called upon to progress even
beyond the limits of his nature. God Himself, in all His greatness and
Holiness, is the exalted ideal towards which all our aspirations should
tend. "Be ye perfect as my Heavenly Father is perfect."
Nay, more: not alone is progress a law of man's being; it is a positive
duty and command which he is obliged to fulfil. And herein lies another
point of difference between the laws of progress, which are stamped into
the nature of man, and those we perceive operating in the visible world
around us. In nature no backward steps are possible. Every object in the
physical universe, in its growth and development, moves within the
fixed, unchanging limits of law which God has marked out for it. As a
consequence, there is no falling back in the world of nature from a
higher to a lower type of existence. The plant ever remains a plant; the
mineral ever remains a mineral. But in the case of man, he cannot stand
still--he can only retrograde, sink beneath his own level, if he does
not continually move forward, in order, by degrees, to reach the supreme
end and aim of his existence. Thus does the Catholic Church not alone
recognize progress as a great law of our being; she insists upon it, as
a divine duty which we are obliged to fulfil.