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"It was just about this time that I saw Kelly engaged with two men, whom he kept at bay with great ease retrograding, however, as he fought, towards his own party. Grimes, who had for some time before this recovered and joined the fight once more, was returning, after having pursued several of the Ribbonmen past the market-house, where he spied Kelly thus engaged.
All was rotten and hollow at heart; and, had there not been universal delusion, it would have been apparent that the machine would break up at the first great shock. There was no spring in the splendid mechanism. It was broken, and society had really been retrograding from the time of Trajan from the moment that it had completed its task of conquest.
As he continued his journey toward the south pole he would undergo a second time this series of progressing and retrograding changes, until at length, as he laid his weary bones to rest in some icy cave in the drear antarctics, Multum ille et terris jactatus et alto, he would be in every respect, save in age and a ripe experience, the same as at the outset of his wanderings.
There exist crab-like souls which are continually retreating towards the darkness, retrograding in life rather than advancing, employing experience to augment their deformity, growing incessantly worse, and becoming more and more impregnated with an ever-augmenting blackness. This man and woman possessed such souls. Thenardier, in particular, was troublesome for a physiognomist.
This would indicate that man is deprived of the bounties of God, that he is retrograding toward the station of the animal, that his keen superintelligence is without function and that he estimates himself as an animal, without distinction between his own and the animal’s kingdom. I was once conversing with a famous philosopher of the materialistic school in Alexandria.
If so, can a world, retrograding from day to day in honesty, be considered to be in a state of progress? We know the opinion on this subject of our philosopher Mr. Carlyle. If he be right, we are all going straight away to darkness and the dogs. But then we do not put very much faith in Mr. Carlyle, nor in Mr. Ruskin and his other followers.
When the fund was instituted, public sentiment in regard to education was lethargic, if not retrograding. The mere fact of the action of the Legislature lent new importance to the cause of learning, inspired its advocates with additional zeal, gave efficiency to previous and subsequent legislation, and, as though there had been a new creation, evoked order out of chaos.
It was an essential characteristic of the political Liberals to pour scorn on that "retrograding transcendentalism" which was "the hardheads' nickname for the Anglo-Catholic Symphony."
There seems to be something paradoxical in the idea that the older the decision the better the law the more ancient the commentator, the profounder the wisdom of his axioms. This might be well, were it true that civilization is 'progressing backwards, the science of government retrograding.
But the Irish peasant is, in fact, now in that position which it is fearful to contemplate. From the nature of his food alone he has been long retrograding in physical capability, and, of course, energy of mind. It is impossible that beings living entirely upon one description of food, no matter what it be, can exist in strength and healthfulness.
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