{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_18202/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_18202","id":"gutenberg_18202","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18202","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Sociology","Self-interest","Sociology"],"text":"Produced by Jared Fuller\n\n\n\n\nTHE GROWTH OF THOUGHT\nAS AFFECTING THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY.\n\nBy William Withington.\n\n1851.\n\n\n\n\nContents.\n\n\nPart I.\nIntroductory.\n\nLife Defined.  Intellectual Culture and Intellectual Life,\nDistinguished.  Human Life, a Problem.  The Evil to be Managed.\nSelf-Love Considered under a Three-fold Aspect.  Three Agencies for\nmeliorating the Human Condition.  The Growth of Thought, Slow; and oft\nmost in unexpected quarter.\n\nPart II.\n\nWelfare as dependent on the Social Institutions.  Limited Aim of the\nReceived Political Economy.  An Enlightened Policy but the Effective\nAim at managing Self-Love, directed towards Present Goods, vulgarly\nunderstood.  The Political Fault of the Papacy.  Its Substantial\nCorrection by the Reformation.  Republicanism carried from Religion\ninto Legislation; still without a clear perception of its Principle.\nIts Progress accordingly Slow.\n\nPart III.\n\nPhilosophy the Second Agency for promoting General Welfare, as the\nEducator of Self-Love; the Corrector of mistaken apprehensions of\nTemporal Good; the Revealer of the ties which bind the Members of the\nHuman Family to One Lot, to suffer or rejoice together.  Progress in\nestimating Life.\n\nPart IV.\n\nMightier Influences yet needed, to contend with the Powers of Evil.\nSupplied by Man's recognizing the whole of his Being; the extent of his\nDuties; the Duration of his Existence.  Religion, supplying the defects\nof the preceding Agencies; Considered in nine particulars.\n\nConclusion.\n\nRecapitulation.  Suggestions to Christian Ministers.\n\n\n\n\nPreface.\n\n\nA contemporary thus reveals the state of mind, through which he has\ncome to the persuasion of great insight into the realities, which stand\nbehind the veil: \"What more natural, more spontaneous, more imperative,\nthan that the conditions of his future being should press themselves on\nhis anxious thought!  Should we not suppose, the 'every third thought\nwould be his grave,' together with the momentous realities that lie\nbeyond it?  If man is indeed, as Shakespeare describes him, 'a being of\nlarge discourse, looking before and after,' we could scarcely resist\nthe belief, that, when once assured of the possibility of information\non his head, he would, as it were, _rush_ to the oracle, to have his\nabsorbing problems solved, and his restless heart relieved of its load\nof uncertain forebodings.\"* [Bush's Statement of Reasons, &c.,\np. 12.]\n\nNot less frequently or intensely, the writer's mind has turned to the\nproblem of applying know truth to the present, reconciling self-love\nwith justice and benevolence, and vindicating to godliness, the promise\nof the life that now is.  If, meanwhile, he has been \"intruding into\nthose things which he hath not seen,\" like affecting an angelic\nreligion,--then it were hardly possible but that he should mistake\nfancy for fact.  But if his inquiries have been into what it is\ngiven to know, then he cannot resist the belief, that some may derive\nprofit from the results of many fearfully anxious years, here\ncompressed within a few pages.  He might have further compressed, just\nsaying: Mainly, political wisdom is the management of self-love;\ncivilization is the cultivation of self-love; the excrescenses of\ncivilization are the false refinements of self-love; while unselfish\nlove is substantial virtue,--the end of the commandments,--the\nfulfilling of the law: Or, he might have enlarged indefinitely; more\nespecially might have been written on practically applying the\nprinciples to the advancement of society.  He may yet produce something\nof the kind.  Of the substance of the following pages he has only to\nsay, that, if false, the falsehood has probably become too much a part\nof his nature to be ever separated.  As to such minor considerations,\nas logical arrangement and the niceties of style, he asks only the\ncriticism due to one, whose hands have been necessitated to guide the\nplough oftener than the pen, through the best years of life.\n\n\n\n\nThe Growth of Thought, As Affecting the Progress of Society.\n\n\n\n\nPart I.\n\nIntroductory.\n\n\nThe meditation on human life--on the contrast between what _is_, and\nwhat _might be_, on supposing a general concurrence to make the best of\nthings-yields emotions both painful and pleasing;--painful for the\ndemonstrations every where presented, of a love of darkness, rather\nthan light; pleasing, that the worst evils are seen to be so\nremediable; and so clear the proofs of a gradual, but sure progress\ntowards the remedy.\n\nThe writer is not very familiar with those authors, who have so much to\nsay on the problem of life--the question, What is life?  He supposes\nthem to follow a train of thought, something like this: The life of a\ncreature is that perfection and flourish of its faculties, of which its\nconstitution is capable, and which some of the race are destined to\nreach.  Thus, the life of the lion is realized, when the animal ranges\nundisputed lord of the sunny desert; finds sufficiency of prey for\nhimself and offspring, which he raises to inherit dominion; lives the\nnumber of years he is capable of enjoying existence, and then closes\nit, without excessive pains, lingering regrets, or fearful\nanticipations.\n\nLife differs from happiness.  It is supposable, that the lion, tamed\nand petted, trained to feed somewhat after man's chosen manner, may be\nas happy as if at liberty in his native range.  But such happiness is\nnot the animal's life; since this implies the kind of happiness proper\nto the creature's constitution, in distinction from that induced by\nforced habits.\n\nTo happiness add knowledge and intellectual culture, and all together\ndo not realize the idea of life.  The tame lion may be taught many\narts, assimilating him to the intelligence of man; but these remove him\nso much further from his appropriate life.  Thus there may be a\ncultivated intelligence, which constitutes no part of the creature's\nlife; and this without considering the same as a moral agent.\n\nMacauley remarks, that the Jesuits seem to have solved the problem, how\nfar intellectual culture may be carried, without producing intellectual\nemancipation.  I suppose it would be only varying the expression of his\nthought to say, Jesuitical education strikingly exemplifies, how much\nintellectual culture may be superinduced upon the mind, without\nawakening intellectual life--without developing a spontaneous aptness\nto appreciate, seek, find, embrace the truth.  The head is filled with\nthe thoughts of others-many ascertained facts and just conclusions.  It\ncan reason aright in the circles of thought, where it has been trained\nto move; but elsewhere, no spontaneous activity--no self-directed power\nof thinking justly on new emergencies and questions not yet settled by\nrule--no spring within, from which living waters flow.\n\nThe difference between intellectual culture and intellectual life\nappears in the fact, that in regard to those mastering ideas, which to\nafter times mark one age as in advance of the preceding, the classical\nscholars, the scientific luminaries, the constitutional expounders of\nthe day, are quite as likely to be behind the general sense of the age,\nas to be in advance.\n\nThe question, What is human life? arises on a contemplation like this:\nThere is no difficulty in determining the life of all the other tenants\nof earth; unless, indeed, those which man has so long and so\nuniversally subjected to his purposes, that the whereabouts, or indeed\nthe existence of the original stock, remains in doubt.  The inferior\nanimals, left to themselves in favorable circumstances, manifest one\ndevelopment, attain to one flourish, live the same life, from\ngeneration to generation.  Man may superinduce upon them what he\ncalls _improvements_, because they better fit them for _his_ purposes.\nBut said improvements are never transmitted from generation to its\nsuccessor; left to itself, the race reverts to proper life, the same it\nhas lived from the beginning.\n\nMan here presents a singular exception to the general rule of earth's\ninhabitants.  The favorite pursuits of one age are abandoned in the\nnext.  This generation looks back on the earnest occupations of a\npreceding, as the adult looks back on the sports and toys of childhood.\nIt is more than supposable, that the planning for the chances of\noffice, the competition for making most gain out of the least\nproductiveness--these earnest pursuits of the men of this age--in the\nnext will be resigned to the children of larger growth; just as are\nnow resigned the trappings of military glory.  Where then is the human\nmind ultimately to fix?  Where is man to find so essentially his good,\nas to fix his earnest pursuit in one direction, in which the race is\nstill to hold on?  Such seems to be the question, What is life?\n\nThe elements of that darkness, which excludes the light of life, may be\nconsidered as these three: First, the excessive preponderance of\nself-love, as the ruling motive of human conduct.  Secondly, the\nshort-sightedness of self-love, in magnifying the present, at the cost\nof the distant future.  And, Thirdly, the grossness of self-love, in\npreferring of present goods the vulgar and the sensible, to the refined\nand more exquisitely satisfactory.  And there are three ways, in which\nwe may attempt the abatement of existing evils; or, there are three\nagencies we may call in for this purpose.\n\nIn the first place, leaving individuals to the operation of the common\nmotives, we may labor at the social institutions, to adjust them to the\nrule, that, each seeking his own, after the common apprehension of\npresent interests, may do so consistently with acting the part of a\ngood citizen--contributing something to the general welfare; or, at\nleast, not greatly detracting therefrom.  Here, the agency employed,\nthe Greeks would have called by a name, from which we have derived the\nword _politics_; which word, from abuse, has well nigh lost its\noriginal sense, _The science of social welfare_.  _Policy_, we might\nsay, for want of an exacter word.\n\nThe second way, in which we may seek the same result, is, to inculcate\njuster apprehensions of present good--to inform and refine self-love;\nto show, that the purest of present enjoyments, are like the loaves and\nfishes distributed by divine hands, multiplying by division and\nparticipation--the best of all being such as none can enjoy fully, till\nthey become the common property of the race.  For want of a more\naccurately defined term, the agent here introduced may be called\nPhilosophy; understanding by the term, the search, what would be the\nconduct and preferences of a truly wise man, dispassionately seeking\nfor himself the best enjoyment of this life, uninformed of another to\nfollow.\n\nOr, thirdly, we may seek to infuse a nobler principle than self-love,\nhowever refined--even the charity, whose essence is, to love one's\nneighbor as one's self; while, at the same time, this life being\nearnestly contemplated as but the introductory part of an immense\nwhole, additional security is provided for the coincidence of interest\nwith duty.  In a word, the third agency to be employed is _Religion_.\n\nThe whole subject thus sketched is one of which the writer is not\naware, that it has been distinctly defined, as a field for thought and\ninvestigation.  He has little to learn from the successes or the\nfailures of predecessors.  Be this his excuse for seeming prosy and\ndull; possibly for mistakes and crudities.  He has the doubly\ndifficulty of attempting to turn thought into trains to which it is\nnot accustomed; and yet of offering no results so profound as to have\nescaped other observers; or so sublime as to be the due prize of\ngenius, venturing where few can soar.  If he offers any thoughts new,\njust, and important, they have rather been overlooked for their\nsimplicity and obviousness.  One may dive too deep for that which\nfloats on the surface.  Here are to be expected none of the splendid\nresults, which dazzle in the popular sciences.  The cultivator of this\nfield can hope only to favor, imperceptibly it may be, the growth of\nthoughts and sentiments, tending slowly to work out a better condition\nof the human family.  And he begs to commend that advice of Lacon,\nwhich himself has found so profitable: \"In the pursuit of knowledge,\nfollow it, wherever it is to be found; like fern, it is the produce of\nall climates; and like coin, its circulation is not restricted to any\nparticular class. * * * * Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than\nof being instructed; and she looks too high to find that, which very\noften lies beneath her.  Therefore condescend to men of low estate, and\nbe for wisdom, that which Alcibiades was for power.\"  (Vol. I., p.\n122.)\n\nThe difficulty with us Americans, in the way of being instructed, has\nbeen, that too proud, as if already possessed of the fullness of\npolitical wisdom, we have withal cherished a self-distrust, forbidding\nus to harmonize our institutions and modes of thinking into conformity\nwith our work and altered situation.  We have seen the British nation,\nchoosing by the accident of birth a baby for its future sovereign, and\ntraining it in a way the least possible calculated to favor relations\nof acquaintance and sympathy with varied wants of the many; and our\nfirst impression, I fear, has been our last: What drivellers!\nObstinately blind to the clearest lights of common sense!  Whereas\nwiser for us would it be, to derive from the spectacle these general\nconclusion: that hard is it for the human mind to proceed in advance\nof ideas received and fashionable; that the so-called independent and\noriginal thinkers--leaders of public sentiment-are such as anticipate\nby a little the general progress of thought, as our hill-tops catch\nfirst by a little the beams of the rising sun, before they fill the\nintervening valleys; that men's superiority in profound thought or\nliberal ideas, in one direction, affords no security for their\nattaining to mediocrity in others; and that one familiar with the\nhistory of thought, may pronounce, with moral certainty, that such and\nsuch ideas were never entertained in such or such society, where due\npreparation did not exist.  As we may confidently say, No mountain-top\ncan tower high enough, to catch the sunbeams at midnight; with equal\nconfidence we may say of many ideas now familiar as school-boy truths:\nno intellect in ancient Greece or Rome soared high enough above the\nmass to grasp them.\n\n\n\n\nPart II.\n\nWelfare as Dependent on Policy.\n\n\nAs generally at all points, so the materialism of the age particularly\nappears, in that the political economists take _wealth_, defining their\nscience in the vulgar acceptation, rather than in the good old English\nsense, _welfare_, _well-being_.  If they occasionally venture a remark\nof a more liberal bearing on the general subject of public welfare;\nsuch is the exception to the general rule.  Money, with its equivalents\nand exchangeables, is their usual theme in treating of wealth; thought\nthe common use of the word economy might suggest a higher science.  For\nhe does not exhaust our idea of a good economist, who manages to have\nat command abundant materials for rendering home happy; while, for lack\nof wisdom to turn such materials to account, that home may be less\nhappy than the next-door neighbor's, where want is hardly staved off.\nWe exact, for fulfilling that character, wisdom in using the material\nmeans--provision for physical, intellectual, and moral training of the\nhousehold--the just apportionment between labor and recreation-the\ntrue contentment, which frets not at present imperfection, while it\nstill presses on to that perfection conceived to be attainable.  Our\nwriters on political economy would do well, to give the word as liberal\na latitude of sense, as it legitimately assumes, when used in its\nprimitive meaning of _household management_.\n\nBut, rather than attempt to raise a scientific term so much above its\nreceived sense, I use another word, and say, Policy must begin with the\nadmission, that self-love is the mightiest mover of human conduct; and\nnot a self-love enlightened, deep, calculating, directed to the sources\nof fullest contentment; but following the groveling estimate, that\nriches, power, office, ease, being the object of envy or admiration,\nare the chief goods of life.\n\nEvery business man admits, that his security for men's conduct must be\nfound in their self-interest.  He admits thus much practically, so for\nas his own business is concerned; the exceptions being so rare, as not\nto justify neglect of the general rule.  Yet, neither business men nor\npoliticians grasp the principle clearly, nor consequently apply it\nconsistently.  And he who would make a new application of it, is met\nwith charges of great uncharitableness.\n\nThis backwardness to generalize a rule, found so necessary practically\nto be followed, may be resolved into that flattering conceit of human\ndignity, which is yielded reluctantly, inch by inch, as plain\ndemonstration wrests it away.  And further, self-love conceals itself,\nbecause generally it operates first to pervert the judgment.  The\nconsciousness of preferring private interest to worthier\nconsiderations, is too painful to be endured.  The man therefore\nstrives, but too successfully, to misrepresent the case to himself.\nHe contrives to make that seem right, which tends to his own advantage.\nBut though indirect, the operation of self-love is none the less sure.\nWhether the individual be any the less blamable, because self-love\nassumes this disguise, is not now to be considered.\n\nThere are individuals, to whom implicit confidence in their unguarded\nhonesty, proves but an added motive to be more tremulously sensitive,\nnot to abuse such confidence.  There are, whom respect for their\ncalling binds wholly to more carefulness, to prove worthy of such\nrespect.  So always if one is thoroughly pervaded with the right\nspirit.  But dealing with bodies of men, as men yet are, these two\nrules should shape political institutions and social relations.\n\nFirst, so far as men can command confidence and respect, for the sake\nof birth, calling, or office, so far they are relieved from the\nnecessity of seeking the same by personal qualifications; and\naccordingly a body of men so protected, will perceptibly fall short\nof the average, in the staple elements of respectability.\n\nRespect for station or calling so ample is here meant, as to satisfy\nthe average desire of approbation.  The extent, to which this is\nsatisfied by the respect paid by the child, to the parent, for the\nrelation's sake, is so moderate, as one of the elements tending to the\nformation of character, that it may be expected to operate generally as\nit universally would, where the right spirit fully reigns.  The remark\nholds good, with moderate abatement, in the relation of teacher and\npupil.\n\nIn the infancy of the Christian church, the relation between pastor and\nflock was closely analogous to that between parents and children.  On\nthe one side were men of a disinterested and paternal spirit, so\nearnestly living the new life hid with Christ in God, that hardly the\npossibility could be conceived of a desire to exalt and magnify self,\nover the ignorance and degradation of their spiritual charge.  On the\nother side were men, children in knowledge, incapable of estimating the\nministry simply after the consciousness of benefits received.  We are\nnot then to condemn the arrangement, which clothed the ministry with an\nofficial dignity, the office being revered independently of the claims\nof the man; nor to wonder, if the arrangement outlived the necessity,\nor passed the bounds of moderation; or if it was not fully calculated,\nthe danger, lest men of the primitive spirit yield places to those of\nan inferior stamp; and how truly eternal vigilance is the cost, at\nwhich all things here must be saved from their tendencies to\ndeterioration.  Accordingly the history of the Papacy for centuries\nhas been, that its ministers are sure of unbounded respect from the\npopulace, independently of their personal claims.  The consequence is,\nthat while a few are thus moved to heroic and almost angelic devotion\nto the spiritual good of their flocks, the many would never command\nrespect for what they are as men.\n\nSimilar remarks may be applied to the infancy of civil society.  The\nprevalence of monarchy and aristocracy has been too universal, to be\ncharged wholly upon force or chance.  And yet in the origin, rational\nconsiderations can hardly be supposed to have been distinctly\nentertained.  Still there may have been a dim consciousness of thoughts\nlike these: It is so necessary that civil rulers be at all events\nrespected, and so uncertain how to secure due respect to men meriting\nit, that we must invest a class of men with a factitious official\ndignity, and take the risk--rather the certainty--of its proving, in\nmost cases, a cover for personal unworthiness, some degrees below the\nordinary standard of humanity.  If there existed a dim consciousness of\nsuch reasoning, it might have been well entertained.\n\nThe second rule of Policy--the master maxim of political wisdom--is,\nthat no class of men must be expected to concur heartily, for\nextirpating the evils, from which its own revenues and importance are\nderived.  Speaking of men acting in a body, there is no room for the\nmany exceptions, necessarily admitted to the rule, that with the\nindividual self-love is the ruling motive.  The individual sometimes\nyields to nobler considerations, than the calculations of self-interest.\nIn the corporation, the _esprit du corps_--the clannish\nspirit--is sure to master it over public spirit.  Devotion to the\nhonor, aggrandizement, wealth and power of the order, company, or\ncorporation, is more sure to control their acts as individuals.  It is\nless liable to self-rebuke for conscious meanness.  It looks somewhat\nmore like the public spirit which ought to be.  It is less liable to\noccasional counteractions from impulses of honor, humanity, or regard\nto reputation.\n\nAccordingly a body of men, so constituted as to find its best flourish\nshort of the perfection of the whole social system, will inevitably,\nsooner or later, prove an obstacle to the onward march of improvement.\n\nA corporation is not necessarily a grievance and a sore on the body\npolitic.  If it can have its full flourish, without let to the progress\nof society, it may be harmless or beneficent.\n\n\"_Sooner or later_;\" be this condition marked, in estimating the\nspiritual policy of Rome.  The body of reverends, which mediates\nbetween God and men, finds its best flourish, in just such degree of\npopular intelligence as suffices for comprehending the specious\narguments, on which rest the claims of Holy Mother Church; and such\namount of conscientiousness as galls the offender, till he has\npurchased absolution.  More intelligence generally prevailing, and\nbetter appreciation of the divine law as a living rule of duty, would\nabate the awe in which the priesthood is held, and diminish the\nrevenues accruing from mediating between offending man and his offended\nMaker.  But Christianity found the world sunk below this moderate\nstandard of intelligence and morals.  The best flourish of the\npriesthood required in the people cultivation of understanding and\nconscience, up to the point of caring for their account in heaven's\nrecord.  So the faulty relation between priesthood and people did not\nat once appear in the results; and, accordingly, the weight of the\nqualification, _sooner or later_.\n\nBut in the early growth of society, considerations like the above have\nbeen little attended to, compared with the obvious advantages of the\ndivision of labor.  As ordinarily each handicraft is best exercised by\nthose earliest and steadiest in their devotion to the trade; so it is\nargued, universally, that the several departments of the public service\nwill be best attended to, by being left to their respective trades,\nguilds, faculties, orders, or corporations, each strictly guarded from\nunhallowed intrusion.  So religion has been left to its official\nfunctionaries, prescribing articles of belief and terms of salvation by\na divine right,--legislation to princes and nobles, equally claiming by\nthe same right to give law in temporals; and so of other general\ninterests.\n\nNow a movement has been slowly going on, through some centuries, for\nworking society into conformity with a rational rule; a rule not\noverlooking the advantages of the division of labor, but taking in too\nsuch qualifying considerations as the healthful stimulus of free\ncompetition, watchfulness over public functionaries, and the necessity\nof harmonizing private and corporate interests, with public duty.\n\nThe movement has been slow; for the actors have dimly apprehended the\npart they were acting, and the principles by themselves vindicated.\nIt has consisted of two principle acts.  The Reformation carried\nrepublicanism into religion: our own Revolution into legislation.\nThe two movements were parts of one whole; and, to get at the\nprinciples at bottom, either will serve for both, as well as for what\nmay remain for finishing the work begun.\n\nThe Reformation having been conducted by theologians, it was natural\nthat disproportionate importance should have been attached to\ntheological niceties.  So far as Luther was right in regarding the\ndoctrine of justification by faith only as the great article at issue,\nit must have been, because the opposite doctrine favored the conceit of\na mysterious mediating power vested in a priesthood--a conceit so\nfavorable to the aggrandizement of the order thus distinguished.  But\nconsidered as a _politic_ movement--as an advance in rightly adjusting\nthe social relations--the Reformation aimed principally at that ill\narrangement, by which the authorized expounders of the law divine found\ntheir account, in involving that law in a glorious uncertainty, and\nentrapping people in a frequent violation thereof.  Considered as a\npolitic institution, Protestantism differs essentially from Popery, in\nthat it makes more of prevention than of remedy; gives the ministry its\nbest flourish, in the best welfare of the whole body; and pays for\nspiritual health, rather than for spiritual sickness.  If all\nProtestants do not consistently so, the fact accords with the dim\nunderstanding, on both sides, of the essential points contested.\n\nThis dim understanding further appears, in that after all the political\ndiscussion which has been, the success of republican institutions is\nstill appealed to, as vindicating the reign of justice and benevolence\nin the public mind; mankind have within so much of the divine, are so\nself-disposed to do right, that they do not need much control, but may\npretty safely be left to their own guidance.  Nor is it left to the\nmere demagogue to talk thus.\n\nDoubtful it may be, whether it should be called dimness of\nunderstanding, or rather perverse ingenuity, that men reason thus, when\nthe facts are: So general is the disposition to abuse power, that\nwherever it is accumulated, it will surely be abused; accordingly it\nmust be distributed as equally as possible.  If government be made the\nbusiness of one part of the community--one tenth, or one hundredth, or\none thousandth--that part will inevitably exalt self, at the cost of\nthe others.  So strong is self-love, turned towards temporal interests,\nso acute to discern what tends to the one desired end, and so sure to\nbend every thing that way, that men's temporal interests are pretty\nsafe in their own hands, and safe no where else.  Now the legitimate\nend of civil government being, to secure the temporal welfare of _all_,\n_all_ must have a share in it, or the excluded portions must find their\nrights neglected.\n\nIt may have favored the common mistake, that the leaders in successful\nrepublican movements have so often shown a heroic self-devotion and\ndisinterestedness--men like Luther, and Washington.  But these are the\nexceptions, the rare gems of humanity.  If they were the fair\nspecimens, their work would never have been needed.  Then we might\nleave to a class the regulation, whether of our spirituals or\ntemporals, with the like advantage, that we leave the making of our\nwatches or our shoes to their respective trades.  But the indistinct\napprehension, why the advantages of the division of labor fail in the\nmatter of government, accords well with the observation, that\nrepublican principles make slow progress in the world, are held in\ngross inconsistencies; and the most zealous assertors thereof in one\ndepartment, are oft found most strenuously opposed in others.\n\nIt is thus that we are so slow to conform to one rule, our arrangements\nfor spiritual instruction; for preserving health; for preventing crime;\nfor cheaply, expeditiously, and satisfactorily settling disputed\nclaims; for furnishing the whole people with instruction in their\nrights, interests, and duties; as well as that thorough cultivation of\nthe whole man, which the full success of republicanism requires.\n\n\n\n\nPart III.\n\nWelfare as Dependent on Philosophy.\n\n\nBut the whole office of Policy, in arranging the social relations,\nsupposes the prevalence of an ill-informed and misdirected self-love.\nAnd, accordingly, the second way of attempting the promotion of general\nwelfare is, to convey and impress just estimates of its constituents.\nSuch is the office of Philosophy: the study of the truly wise man-wise\nfor the present life--still leaving out man's hold on a future, and his\nrelations to his Maker.  What would such an one pursue; as life's chief\nends--covet, as life's best goods?\n\nWe still suppose self-love to be as really as ever the main-spring\nto human conduct; but that self-love enlightened, regulated, refine--\nchoosing first the goods which satisfy the nobler parts of man's\nnature, and on a liberal estimate of the ties which bind society\ntogether; in virtue of which, if one member suffer, all the members\nsuffer with it.\n\nThe items, claiming to constitute life's happiness, may be divided into\ntwo classes, distinguished by this important difference: one class\nessentially such, that only a limited number of mankind can obtain\nthem;--if some succeed in the pursuit, their success involves the\nfailure of others: The other class are such, as to involve no\ncontradiction in the supposition of their becoming the common property\nof all.  The success of a part, far from obstructing, rather\nfacilitates the success of others; they constitute a store of wealth,\nfrom which each may take his fill; and the more he takes, the more he\nleaves, to satisfy the desires of all who come after.\n\nNow, in view of the case, Philosophy inquiring for life's chief goods,\ncannot make them to be fortune's prizes, scattered to tempt the\ncupidity of all; but which a few only can catch, while their luck\nproves the disappointment and vexation of the many.  The supposition\nwere monstrous.  We so instinctively recoil from supposing such to be\nthe appointment of nature's Author, and so consciously grasp it for a\ntruth clear by its own light--the conviction of a provision fully made\nin nature for all, whenever nature's wants are truly consulted--that we\nmay safely reject, by this test, every notion of temporal good, which\nmakes it consist preeminently in whatever, by the nature of the case,\ncan be the lot of but a limited number.\n\nEminent above all other conceptions of temporal good, is that which\nmakes it to consist emphatically in the possession of money, or the\nability to command it by its equivalents.  And because the capacities\nof enjoyment have never been measured, nor material wealth rationally\nestimated as a means of meeting those capacities, riches are prized,\nnot as a means, but an end; and becoming themselves the end, no amount\nof possession lessens the desire to accumulate.\n\nA just philosophy argues on the case, that all cannot be rich, in the\ncommon acceptation of the term, whether be considered the limits to\nearth's productiveness, and the possibility of increasing material\nwealth; or whether, _rich_ being more a relative than an absolute term,\nthat the supposition of _all rich_ is self-contradictory: therefore,\nin a juster sense, the supposition of all rich must be admissible;--the\nsense, namely, that whenever riches shall be reasonably estimated\nsimply as the means of meeting capacities of enjoyment surveyed and\nknown, then it will be found that the earth's productiveness, and the\nstock of material wealth, admit each to take to the fullness of his\nwants, leaving enough for all who come after.\n\nIt is further the office of Philosophy to show in detail, what is thus\nwrought out as a conclusion from general principles; to show how much\nis consumed by artificial wants, and subjection to the tyranny of\nfashion; to show how the correction of factitious desires would leave\nnatural and rational desires for better enjoyment than is now found, so\nthat self-love would find not occasion for envy, or repining at a\nbrother's prosperity.\n\nThe unceasing desire to become richer would be, however, but a\nmitigated evil, if men sought only wealth by production.  The\naggravation of the case is, that they whom the desire most impels, seek\nthe increase of their own store, not by producing, but by contriving to\nturn to their own stock the avails of the industry of others.  Our\nyoung men, in deplorable numbers, slide into the persuasion, that any\nmeans of living and thriving are better than productive industry.\nHence the rush into trade, the professions, into speculations, where\nthe hazards are such, that the cool calculations of pure avarice would\nrather incline a man to prefer the prospect of growing rich by digging\nthe earth.  So much the preference of contrivance to labor overmaster\nthe mastering desire to become rich.\n\nBut there is a strange hankering after whatever is of the nature of a\nlottery.  So the prizes are but splendid, no matter, if they are but\nfew compared with the blanks.  We are given to presuming each on his\nown good fortune.  \"Nothing venture, nothing have,\" has become a\nproverb.  So agriculture is treated as if it had no rewards, because\none ventures so little by engaging therein.  And one might almost think\nthat the conscious earth resented the indignity.\n\nAided by Philosophy, we shall argue on this matter thus: All cannot\nlive by their wits; the many must produce with the hands; and, the\ngreater the part who shuffle off the charge, the more heavily it falls\non others.  The first law given to man in innocency, was, to keep the\ngarden and till it; the first after the loss of innocency, \"In the\nsweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread;\"--so a dispensation from such\nlaw, given by Him, who best knows what is good for man, in whatever\nstate, is not worthy to stand high among life's blessings.\n\nMore particularly we are taught in the same school, that the good thus\ncontemplated must cost something at least on the score of that best of\nphysical enjoyments--health.  If it were duly appreciated, how high\nthis stands among life's goods, and how much its perfection depends on\nfreedom to the mind from the anxieties of hazardous speculation, and a\ngoodly amount of manly labor, of which the varied occupations of\nagriculture are the most favorable of all; this consideration would\ncheck the prevalent ambition to make the contrivance of the brain\nsupply the place of the labor of the hands.\n\nHealth is commended to us, not only as among the first of present\ngoods, but as one, the security of which is placed very much in our own\npower; if we will but study and practise the means.  It is remarkable,\nthat, while the healing art is proverbial for its sects and\nuncertainties--amid the disputes of homoeopaths and allopaths,\nmineralists and herbalists, stimulators and depletors--there is a pretty\ngeneral agreement of parties on the laws of hygiene, or the art of\npreserving health.  We might find here a law, taught by the\nconstitution of nature, that its Author never intended healing to hold\nan important place in the cause of human welfare.  He meant it should\nbe well nigh dispensed with, by the obedience men should pay to laws,\nwhich they may understand.\n\nThe full appreciation of these considerations would tend greatly to\nestablish friendly relations in society; because, first, the good\ncontemplated is such, that the success of one in seeking, facilitates\nthe success of all.  Secondly, it would abate the strife for\nluxuries,--amassing without producing, and cultivating artificial\nwants,--most fertile sources of discord.  And, thirdly, it would\nestablish between physicians and their employers, relations the most\nagreeable.\n\nAnother most unmanageable misconception of life's good, makes one of\nits choicest items to be, the possession of power and superiority.\nTo what depths of degradation will man depress his fellows, just to\ncontemplate the distance between his might and their weakness!  If this\nambition seems less general than the desire of accumulating, or of\nsubstituting contrivance for productiveness, it may be, because the\nnecessity of the case more limits the number who can bear rule;\notherwise, the passion for power might find as ready an entrance to as\nmany hearts as are taken by the love of gain, or the dislike to labor.\nWe may find in this thought a partial explanation of the fact, that the\nthrift of the non-slaveholding States contrasted with the stagnation at\nthe South, is so powerless an argument addressed to the slaveholders\nthere; for you have not only to satisfy avarice of the superior\nprofitableness of free labor; you have still to contend with the lust\nof dominion--the passion for power and superiority.  To manage this\npassion is the heaviest charge of policy--to provide that the offices\nwhich must be intrusted to human hands, be filled peaceably and\nworthily.\n\nPhilosophy explodes this notion of good (as claiming to be eminently\nsuch), in that it cannot stand the general test: It is a good, which a\nfew must share by detracting so much from the happiness of others.\n\nAnd further, to the love of power is submitted the consideration, that\nknowledge is power.  It may be feared, this maxim oft suggests scarce\nother sense, that that deeper insight into the tricks of trade or\npolitics enables the possessor to outwit competitors for riches or\nhonors in the game.  It is still a low understanding, that knowledge of\nnature's laws multiplies the means of physical enjoyment.  Knowledge is\npower in a higher sense, in that it empowers the possessor to call\nforth stores of enjoyment form objects, which seem to vulgar\napprehension most barren of utility.  But knowledge--taken for the\nround of mental cultivation--is power, in that it is competent to\nyield to all more than the delightful sense of conscious superiority,\nwhich vulgar ambition may afford to a few of its successful votaries;\na store, from which each in taking does but multiply the remainder.\n\nBut to find it so one must look well, that he apprehend knowledge to be\na good of itself, independently of the distinction it confers.  For a\nvain ambition often takes this direction; and then it matters little to\none whether himself advance, or others be kept back--since, in either\ncase, the difference between him and them, the distinction chiefly\nenjoyed, is the same.\n\nNow, the love of knowledge is prior in time to the love of distinction;\nit should seem then, that, with proper care, it might maintain the\nmastery over its rival.  The child is delighted with the acquisition of\nnew ideas, before it thinks of turning them to a vain-glorious account.\nIt deserves to be considered, whether our modes of education, offering\nprizes and honors of scholarship, do not train into the ascendancy that\nlove of distinction, which education ought and might keep subordinate;\nwhich in fact is one of the greatest hinderances to progress;--for when\none's immediate aim is not truth itself, but the glory which attends\nthe acquisition, he meets a thousand sidelong impulses from the\nstraightforward search.\n\nThat knowledge is a good which grows by being shared, is a truth more\nfully apprehended, as the idea of knowledge is enlarged.  It is\nmeasurably so, while taken for eminence in common studies and the\nreceived sciences.  One's advance is facilitated by the advance of\nothers.\n\nMuch more does this hold, when the distinction between intellectual\nculture and intellectual life is made, and the preference due to the\nlatter apprehended.\n\nWhen the missionary enterprize was a new thing, in favor of the\nmissionary's being a married man was argued the advantage of having\nchildren trained up in a Christian way before the eyes of the heathen.\nBut so completely has that expectation been disappointed, that now the\nmissionaries send home their children to be educated; alleging the\ndanger, lest their children become stumbling blocks, through the\napparent little difference between them and the heathen children.\nAnd the difficulty is not, that they cannot there, as well as here, be\ntaught Latin, Greek, Mathematics--all the received sciences-the\nbranches of what is nominally education.  It is not so much, that they\ncannot there be shielded from evil influences abroad; as that their\nchildren there want, what our children enjoy--the sight of magnificent\nenterprises; a spirit of inquiry and freedom breathing all around them;\nand the healthful contact and stimulus of multitudes of young minds, in\nthe like process of intellectual and moral training.  It is such\nnameless imperceptible influences, that awaken intellectual life, from\nthe mind, and determine the future man more than the teaching, which is\nnominally education.  Why else does the acknowledged excellence of the\nteaching in the Prussian schools do so little to quicken intellectual\nlife--to form men of progressive thoughts?\n\nWe should be repaid the whole cost of the missionary enterprize, were\nit only in the clearness and importance of the lesson thus taught us,\nas otherwise we should hardly have suspected--the doctrine of our\nmutual dependencies and tendencies to a common average--how our\nintellectual life is subject to the law, \"Whether one member suffer,\nall the members suffer with it.\"\n\nWe may hence take instruction, first, in the matter of educating our\nchildren.  We have but half done our duty as parents, when we have\njoined with such of our neighbors as better appreciate, or readier\nfurnish the means, of good instruction, to unite our children in a\nselect school, furnished with competent masters and ample apparatus.\nThe children of one neighborhood educate one another mainly.  They\nreceive from one another more of those impressions which form the mind\nand fix the after character, than all they get from their masters.\nThe carefully trained will receive a deleterious impression from the\nneglected portion, despite of care to ward off evil influences.  Or,\nhowever successfully care may be applied, that is but negative success.\nOur children still want the kindly stimulus to mental growth, to be\nrealized in a whole community of young minds, all sharing the like wise\ntraining.\n\nWe may hence take occasion, secondly, to mark (what is not so obvious),\nthat through life the same law binds us: the law, that our intellectual\nlife depends more on the state of society in which we exist, than on\nour direct efforts at self-culture.  Individual effort may give one\ngreat preeminence before his associates in any of the acknowledged\nsciences, though even in such their success facilitates his; and if he\nprizes the knowledge--the truth--for itself, rather than for the\nattending glory, he will find in another's success, that, \"whether one\nmember be honored, all the members rejoice with it.\"  But distinctively\nis it so, in regard to the general progress of universal mind in\njustness of thought and sentiment--those new developed master ideas\nwhich mark the place of each successive age in the line of progression;\nand in regard to which, the masters in the received sciences are quite\nas often found lagging behind, as going before.\n\nIn regard to this, we are all of us individually very like the several\ndrops which compose the mighty current of the Mississippi, moving with\nresistless force to its destination.  A few may outstrip by a little\nthe general progress of thought, and but a little; just as one drop in\nthe current may receive an impulse, carrying it a little in advance;\nor, if we might suppose the drops gifted with intelligence, some by\nself-directed effort and seizing opportunities, might speed themselves\na little.  So study and determination will enable one to anticipate by\na little the birth of ideas.\n\nAnd, on the other hand, the current of thought none can resist.\nSometimes a man resolves to be so conservative, as to stick fast by the\nold moorings--_he_ is not going to yield to popular impulses.  But it\nfares with him very much as it would with the single drop in the\nMississippi, which should resolve to stop in its place, and so reluct\nagainst impulses and take advantage of all impediments. The result from\nday to day would be, not that it had stopped in its place, or any thing\nlike it; but that its daily approach to the ocean was a little less\nthan that of its fellows.\n\nThus we are brought round to the same position--that the attempt to\nmonopolize Heaven's best gifts to man, must be a very small affair--\nthat the individual best consults his own attainments in knowledge,\nafter the sublimest sense of the term, by consulting the progress of\nhis neighbors and the race; just as the single drop in the Mississippi\nsees its best hope of speedily reaching the ocean, in whatever gives\nonward impulse to the whole current.\n\nThe thought receives force from the consideration, that here\nemphatically is that knowledge, which he who increaseth beyond the\naverage increase, increaseth sorrow.  A saying of so much currency must\nhave some foundation in reality.  And yet is not knowledge commended to\nus as one of the richest sources of enjoyment?\n\n      \"Happy the mortal, who has traced effects\n       To their first cause.\"\n\nWhere is the reconciling link between these seeming contradictions?\n\nNow eminence in any of the received sciences, or branches of\nliterature, has rich capabilities of affording happiness.  To penetrate\nthe depths of mathematics, chemistry, or astronomy--to revel in the\nstores of ancient lore;--all such pursuits generally become more\ndelightfully attractive, the further one advances; or, after the\nancient indefinite use of terms, _knowledge_ might be taken for the\njust proportionate training of all the faculties, in distinction from\nthe teaching, which impresses so many items of truth.  And such\neducation preeminently fits one to pass time happily.\n\nThe maxim in question then applies emphatically to the forethought,\nwhich anticipates the dawn of ideas.* [Or, more generally, we might\ndefine, an accurate perception of the difference between _what is_ and\n_what ought to be_--between reality and ideal perfection.  Perhaps we\nmight say, _insight into logical futurity_.]  And although, as above\nsaid, none do greatly anticipate beyond the general sense of the age,\nyet some may too much for their own comfort.\n\nThis thought Schiller finely sets forth in his Cassandra.  At the hour\nof her sister's nuptials, while the rest give loose to merriment at the\nfestival, the prophetess wanders forth alone, complaining, that her\ninsight into futurity debars her from participation in the common joy.\n\n    \"To all its arms doth mirth unfold,\n          And every heart foregoes its cares,\n     And hope is busy in the old;\n          The bridal robe my sister wears,\n     And I alone, alone am weeping;\n          The sweet delusion mocks not me;\n     Around these walls destruction sweeping,\n          More near and near I see.\n\n     A torch before my vision glows,\n          But not in Hymen's hand it shines;\n     A flame that to the welkin goes,\n          But not from holy offering shrines:\n     Glad hands the banquet are preparing,\n          And near and near the halls of state,\n     I hear the god that comes unsparing,\n          I hear the steps of fate.\n\n     And men my prophet wail deride!\n          The solemn sorrow dies in scorn;\n     And lonely in the waste I hide\n          The tortured heart that would forewarn.\n     And the happy, unregarded,\n          Mocked by their fearful joy, I trod:\n     Oh! dark to me the lot awarded,\n          Thou evil Pythian god!\n\n     Thine oracle in vain to be,\n          Oh! wherefore am I thus consigned,\n     With eyes that every truth must see,\n          Lone in the city of the blind?\n     Cursed with the anguish of a power\n          To view the fates I may not thrall;\n     The hovering tempest still must lower,\n          The horror must befall.\n\n     Boots it, the veil to lift, and give\n          To sight the frowning fates beneath?\n     For error is the life we live,\n          And, oh, our knowledge is but death!\n     Take back the clear and awful mirror,\n          Shut from mine eyes the blood-red glare;\n     Thy truth is but a gift of terror,\n          When mortal lips declare.\n\n     My blindness give to me once more,\n          The gay, dim senses that rejoice;\n     The past's delighted songs are o'er\n          For lips that speak a prophet's voice.\n\n     To me _the future_ thou has granted;\n            I miss the moment from the chain--\n     The happy present hour enchanted!\n          Take back thy gift again!\"* [Bulwer's translation.]\n\nThese lines express more than the trite observation, that a knowledge\nof futurity would prove a torment to the possessor.  Beneath that\nobvious is couched the deeper moral, which expresses the sufferings of\nthe philosophic prophet--of the man who, too much for his own quiet,\nanticipates reasonings, conclusions, sentiments, forms of social life\nyet to prevail--the man to whom not coming events, but coming ideas,\ncast their shadows before.  If we could suppose one at the time of the\ncrusades, educated to associate and sympathize with the choice spirits\nof the age, yet anticipating the sense of their age, in making the\ncomparative estimate of chivalrous adventure, and successful\ncultivation of the arts of peace and industry; he must have felt\nsomewhat like Cassandra among the less gifted.  If we could look on\nlife, as our successors will two hundred years hence, we too might\ncomplain of being \"lone in the city of the blind;\" unless large Hope\nand Benevolence enabled us to live on the future.  Thus we find\nadditional motive to desiring a united and absolute, rather than an\nindividual and relative progress, in the consideration that knowledge\nmost worthily so called--whoso increaseth greatly beyond the average\nattainment, doth so to his own sorrow.\n\nTo complete the list of false estimates of good, refuted by one test,\nwe should allude to the frivolities of gentility and fashion-the\npassion for wearing badges of distinction, however impotent or\nunmeaning such may be.  This is the very poorest form of finding\ndelight, in what from the nature of the case can be shared by few.\nFor its incommunicableness is its only recommendation.  It is an icy\nrepellant, freezing up the kindly flow of sympathy with universal\nhumanity; and uncompensated loss of that best ingredient of earthly\nfelicity--the interchange of friendly feelings and offices; that store\nof wealth, from which the more that take, and the fuller their share,\nthe more they leave to be taken by others.\n\nThe foregoing may be treated as a fine and just speculation, but as\nwhat ever must remain a barren speculation; as if it were after the\nexample of all ages, that men should mistake the material of happiness\nfor happiness itself.  So it always has been, so it always will be,\nthat false notions of good usurp the place of the true, despite the\ndemonstrations of moralists and divines to the contrary.\n\nMind, however, has not stood still in this matter.  It has moved, and\nthat in the right direction.  We may note a progress from age to age,\nin coming to a just estimate of life.  Start not at the use of terms,\nrendered suspicious by the extravagancies of which they have been made\nthe vehicle.  But we must not reject ideas great, just, or new, because\nof the distortions and caricatures of little minds.  If one idea\noccupies the mind all them more for being great and just, it will be\nlikely to overmaster that mind, so as not to be produced in its fair\nproportions, or rightly applied.  So fare they, with whom the one idea\nis, the progress of society--the growth of thought.  The Mississippi in\nits progress throws froth and scum on its surface, more conspicuous\nthan the under-running current.  So radical folly and transcendental\nnonsense is obtruded on the sight, from the sympathy of little minds\nwith the deeper current of thought.  To gauge the progress of mind from\nthose who are most noisy on the matter, would be, like taking the\ndirection and rapidity of the Mississippi, from the froth, which the\nwind blows hither and thither over its surface.\n\n\"Let us go on to perfection\"--\"Forgetting the things behind, and\npressing onward to the things before.\"  Such language describes\ndistinctively the American character, and the spirit of Christianity.\nOnly, where is perfection?  What are the things before?  If, as a\npeople, we do fully take these expressions in their author's sense, we\nmay hope there is one element of agreement, betokening good for the\nfuture.\n\nIt is encouraging, that the two rival systems, most boldly promising to\nlead to perfection, both had their birth under political and mental\nbondage.  So evidently with Romanism, whether under its proper form and\nname, or refined and disguised after the modern fashion.  And the same\nis true of the baptized infidelity imported from Germany.  The German\nmind is cramped and diseased by the bands which confine it.  It is not\nallowed to speculate freely on politics, and the many questions most\nnearly touching present interests.  Therefore, on the records and on\nthe doctrines which pertain to eternal interests, it falls with an\ninsane avidity for innovation, and runs into licentiousness a liberty\nno where else enjoyed.  Hence the levity, in dealing with things\nsacred, in Germany often found in minds of the first and second orders,\nhere is taken up by those to the third and fourth--the copyists and\nimitators; nay, by the buffoons who figure at the farces of mock\nphilanthropy.  Now, though every folly must find minds whose caliber it\nfits, we may hope the genuine American mind will not be extensively\nbeguiled by either of the misbegotten offspring of Europe's mental\nservitude.\n\nBut, to the point--progress made in estimating life.  A few centuries\nago, a torrent of enthusiasm set in the direction of bearing the cross\ninto Asia, to fight for glory, and the propagation of Christianity, on\nthe fields of Palestine.  Already the old Roman military character was\ngreatly improved on.  Virtue, (_manliness_, a` vir-_man_) was no longer\nsupposed to fulfil its highest office in\n\n      Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.\n\nA delicate sense of honor, of the courtesy due to a foe and the\ngallantry to the other sex, betoken a type of humanity in advance of\nthe brute ferocity of the best days of Rome.\n\nBut, notwithstanding Mr. Burke's eloquence, and the opinion sometimes\nexpressed, that the courtly knight of the middle age, realized the\nperfection of humanity; we have no reason to regret that the age of\nchivalry is gone by, and that the age of speculation, and money-making,\nand industrial enterprize has succeeded.  The materialism of this age,\nwith all its faults, is better than the chivalry of an age gone by.\nIt tends to keep the world at peace; _that_ tended to perpetual\nturmoil.  The supposition _all rich_, according to modern ideas, is not\nso flat a contradiction as the supposition _all glorious_, in military\nheroism.  As the past age estimated life's supreme good, the enjoyment\nof a few _required_ the exclusion of the many from its benefits: as\nthis age estimates the enjoyment of some, _admits_ the exclusion of\nothers.  Whether the mercantile spirit thoroughly entered into makes a\nbetter man than did the spirit of chivalry, may be doubted; not so,\nwhich best comports with the welfare of society.\n\nNow if one, at the time of the crusades, had so anticipated the spirit\nof the age, as to picture to himself modern Europe and America,\nmanufacturing, trading, flocking to California, as if there a holy\nsepulcher was to be rescued from hands profane, glorying chiefly in\nmechanical development and mercantile enterprize; and had ventured to\nsuggest, that instead of trooping to Asia to fight for glory, and the\nfancy of promoting religion by arguments of steel, it would be worthier\nof the choice spirits of the age to stay at home, and by industry and\nenterprize aim at multiplying the means of content to quiet life:\nhe might have found a harder task than now devolves on him, who urges,\nthat the materialism of this age must pass away, as has passed the\nchivalry of the crusades; both for the same reason; the progress of\nthought must outgrow the one, as it has outgrown the other.\n\nA new age with another spirit will be ushered in.  What is to be the\nspirit of that age?  Are we to find the forebodings in the dreamy\nsentimentalism, which boasts so much its flights beyond common material\nideas?  I trow rather, we may trace the character of the coming age in\nan increasing estimation of health, knowledge, mental cultivation,\nintellectual life, and the flow of the social affections, as the prime\nof earthly felicities--in an approximation towards rationally\nestimating money (with the ability to command it) as the means of\nmeeting one's capacities of enjoyment--to be no longer worshipped as\nitself the idol or the end.\n\nWhen a pestilential disease breaks out in the city, the plainness and\nurgency of the case compel all to see in the sickness of one the danger\nof all.  Wants and discomforts, which charity had been too cold to\nattend to, now considered as sources of contagion, are administered to\nwith a ready alacrity.  The law is recognized, according to which, \"if\none member suffers, all the members suffer with it.\"  And this law will\nbe more fully recognized, as self-love is educated--as men better\nunderstand their own welfare, and choose with reference to the whole of\ntheir nature, and the duration of their existence.\n\nSelf-love is a motive of the indifferent kind--not of itself\nessentially good or bad.  This appears from its being an essential part\nof our nature.  Indeed, we can hardly conceive it as within the\nprovince of Omnipotence, to create a rational sentient being, who\nshould be indifferent to his own happiness.\n\nThe advantages accruing from an educated self-love are:\n\nFirst, additional security, that the good work of charity be done; and\nto all but the individual doer, it may matter little what be the\nprompting motives.\n\nSecondly, the expansion of yet nobler principles.  Each act favors the\ngrowth of the sentiments, of which it is the expression.  So he who\ndoes as benevolence bids, though from a motive secondary on the score\nof purity, will be likely again to do the same from yet purer motives.\nSo at least if the essential principle be there, though appearing no\nmore vividly than as a cold sense of duty.\n\nBut, thirdly, self-love is made the rule and standard of charity: \"Thou\nshalt love thy neighbor as thyself.\"  One must then first love himself,\nin order to loving his neighbor.  Keeping this rule, there is no danger\nof loving thyself too well; rather, the more truly thou lovest thyself,\nthe more truly thou lovest thy neighbor.\n\nSuppose one to cherish the vulgar notion of life--that it consists in\nthe abundance of the things which one possesses, in the ability to live\nwithout exertion, amid plenty of good cheer.  Suppose him to love his\nneighbor as himself.  His charity must partake of the contraction and\ngrossness of his self-love.  Suppose another to prize duly intellectual\nriches.  To him the discovery of a new principle in the physical,\nintellectual, or moral world, brings a joy unsurpassed by the\nmerchant's, on the return of his heavily laden ship from a successful\nvoyage.  As the best legacy to his children, he would leave them a good\neducation; and, knowing the natural influences and dependencies\nexisting between young minds, he aims to have all the children in\nthe neighborhood well educated, as the best security against failure in\nthe attempt to educate his own.  If all is but a refined calculation,\nhow best to benefit himself and household; it is far more estimable and\namiable than the gross selfishness which grovels after vulgar goods,\nand in the success of a brother sees an obstacle to its own success.\nBut if he too loves his neighbor as himself, why how far his self-love\nis educated to find its satisfaction in nobler ends, by so much his\ncharity is better than the other's.\n\nThere is hope for the future in the consideration, that self-interest,\nthe first, as well as love of approbation, the second, of the great\npowers which move the world, indeed all the indifferent motives, are\ngetting still more into coincidence of action with justice and\nbenevolence.\n\nWhen Jesus enforced a duty by the consideration, \"Then shalt thou have\nworship [respect, approval,] in the presence of them that sit at meat\nwith thee,\" he implied two things; first, that regard to the world's\nrespectful esteem is not a censurable motive; and, secondly, that the\nsame operates to good, rather than to evil.  So it must have been even\nin that corrupt generation, so disposed to call evil good and good\nevil.  It must be much more so now, when public sentiment has so much\nimproved.  Notwithstanding the danger of loving the praise of man more\nthan the praise of God, and the mischiefs resulting from such\npreference, we should lose, on the whole, by eradicating the love of\nhuman praise.  Witness the accounts of the atrocious outbreaks of\ndepravity at the gold diggings, while society was yet unformed.\nWitness, wherever cease the common restraints of civilization.\n\nThus agents--so often the authors of discord and confusion, so often\nthe fire-brands to set the world in fumes--philanthropy is more and\nmore firing as her sure allies.\n\n      \"Even so, the torch of hellish flames\n           Becomes a leading light to heaven:\n       And so corruption's self becomes\n           To bread of life the living leaven.\"\n\nAll analogies point to a still increasing vigor in the growth of the\nkingdom of heaven.  If the mustard tree is never seen growing, but only\nto have grown; yet the greater the tree, the greater its power of daily\nmaking large growth, without its growing being perceived.\n\nAll considerations indicate the power of each to do something to\nforward the consummation.  No member of society is so insignificant,\nthat his spiritual life does not affect the health of the whole.  The\nobscurest, who cherishes a preference of ideal wealth over material\nriches and sensual delights, does something towards forming a sane\npublic sentiment, just as surely as the tenant of the humblest city\ndwelling, who keeps clean his own premises, does something towards\npromoting the general health.\n\nIt is well to review the progress made in estimating life--to impress\nour minds with its existence as a reality; because mind and enterprize\njust now tend so strongly to the material and mechanical, that we might\nbe tempted to doubt, whether any other improvement were to be thought\nof.  If so, we might well enough stop where we are.  But we shall\ncontemplate with most satisfaction our multiplied facilities for\nmanufacturing, transportation, fertilizing the earth, and conveying\nintelligence, if we see in the whole a store, from which we may draw\nwith good effect for promoting general welfare, whenever the true end\nof these means shall be earnestly studied.  Otherwise the discovery,\nhow to make two kernels of corn grow where one grew before, would all\nredound to the tyranny of fashion, and only foreshadow an increase of\nartificial wants, quite up to the increased supply; so that want would\nstill be as close treading on our heels as ever.\n\nBut if we yet scarce attain to longer life, better health, or more\ncontent, than fell to the lot of our fathers, with their simpler arts\nand manner, because we are forgetting to discriminate between true and\nfalse wants--between real and imaginary happiness: the true voice of\nhistory still is, not that the material means must always thus fall\nshort of their legitimate end; but that, though the material and the\nmechanical travel first and fastest, the moral and the spiritual are\nfollowing after.  These in due time will reveal the meaning and the\nvalue of our stored acquisitions.\n\nDr. Franklin calculated, that the labor of all for three or four hours\na day, would furnish all the necessaries and all the conveniences of\nlife; supposing men freed from the exactions of an arbitrary fashion.\nIf he was near correctness, his time must be abundant in our day, when\nthe productiveness of machinery, and skill in the arts, are so much\nimproved.  Then it is within existing possibilities, that every mind be\nthoroughly cultivated; and every body taxed for labor, only to the\nextent required by the conditions of its own best vigor and that of the\ninhabiting mind.  So far afield from truth is the common supposition,\nthat the many can receive but the elements of learning; while the few\nmust sacrifice bodily vigor to excessive intellectual cultivation.\nConnect with this thought that before advanced of the irresistible\ntendencies of our intellectual life to one average; and what a\nboundless vista, in the direction of human progress, opens before us.\n\nAs citizens of the republic, we have comparatively little cause to\nexult in the conceit of being freer or happier than other communities;\nmuch more in the chance, having broken the fetters of superstition and\ntyranny, next to rend those of false habit and fashion--to enthrone\nreason over the authority of one another's eyes and prejudices: to say\nin truth,--\n\n     \"Here the free spirit of mankind at length\n            Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place\n      A limit to the giant's untamed strength,\n            Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?\n      Far, like the comet's way through infinite space,\n            Stretches the long untravelled path of light\n      Into the depth of ages; we may trace,\n            Distant the brightening glory of his flight,\n      Till the receding beams are lost to human sight.\"\n\n                           *Bryant.\n\n\n\n\nPart IV.\n\nWelfare as Dependent on Religion.\n\n\nBut in all our attempts to educate self-love into harmony with\nUniversal benevolence, we contend with the enemy, somewhat as Hercules\nwrestled with Antaeus:--\n\n      Und erstickst du ihn nicht in den Luften frei,\n      Stets wachst ihm die Kraft anf der Erde neu.*\n      [If thou strangle him not high lifted in air,\n      Fresh strength from the earth he continues to share.]\n\nThus we come to speak of present welfare, as dependent on the\ncultivation of the whole man--on a recognition of his immortality, his\nallegiance to his Maker, and his capacity for more disinterested\nsentiments, than self-love, however modified.\n\nThe influences thus accruing are a confirmation, from higher authority,\nof the conclusions approved by philosophy, ethics, the prudence which\ncalculates how man should live with man, considered as but creatures of\nearth--a _re-binding_--a _re-ligation_ to what was _obligation_ before;\nand such precisely is the proper sense of the word _religion_.\n\nThat the promise of the life that now is attaches to godliness-the\nvivid recognition of a Father in heaven, with the union of reverence\nand love cherished by a dutiful child--and that naught else secures the\npossession, might be argued,--\n\n1.  First, as anticipated from the nature of the case.  If man is\nformed to own allegiance to his Maker, and to spend this life as\npreparatory and introductory to a coming existence, then, till these\nconditions are fulfilled, he must be expected, not to fill worthily his\nplace, as possessor of the present life; but must, in important points,\ncompare disadvantageously with the beasts that perish.  If, like the\ninferior races, ours attained to a life which should be the full\nflourish of its demonstrable capacities, while immortality entered not\ninto account, then would fail one argument to prove us destined to an\nhereafter.  If the philosopher, from the examination of the chick\neaglet in the shell, knowing naught else of the animal, could make out\nfor it, within its narrow walls, a life answering to the indications of\nits organization; he might fitly question, whether it were destined to\nburst its prison, and soar aloft.  And such embryo eaglet is man,\nconsidered only as to what this life realizes.\n\n2.  Historically, we are in little danger of being confounded on this\nargument.  The evidence from fact is very plain and positive, that men\nhave never become wise for the life that now is, but as they have first\nbecome wise for the life that is to come; that self-love never becomes\na just prudence, till informed by the faith, hope, and charity of\nJesus; in a word, that in Him is life, and only through the light\nderived from him is life realized to men.\n\nSeeking the lowest form of worldly wisdom--political science applied as\nthe agent for promoting general welfare--we may look in vain for a\nbeginning thus to apply such science, in any nation unblest by\nrevelation.\n\nThey on whom the light has shone, have generally so imperfectly\ncomprehended it, that they have only attained to that vulgar love of\nliberty, which Guizot defines to be removed but a step from the love of\npower.  Rather, we might say, that step is not--the two are but the\nsame thing.  Viewed on one side, it is the hatred of being domineered\nover; on the other, it is the love of domineering.\n\nOnly where the Christian account of human character has been taken for\na sober reality, has been taken for a sober reality, has been\npractically understood the rule of dividing power equally, because so\nuniversal is the tendency to grasp it inordinately.  Only (we may add)\nwhere, better still, some good deference has been paid to the charge,\n\"Call no man master on earth, for one is your Master in heaven.\"  If\nthis is the instruction, after which one becomes a republican, and\nshapes his love liberty; the conclusion is equally obvious and\ninevitable-call no man slave or vassal on earth, for One in heaven\nis the common Master of all.\n\nMistaking here, France has gone through a series of signal failures.\nHer Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, still prove empty names; while want\nand oppression stare millions in the face, despite the promises of more\nthan half a century's experimenting with revolutions.  A vision of\npolitical blessedness mocks her sight, which, like fabled enchanted\nisland, ever and anon seeming just within the grasp, still escapes, and\nflies the faster, the faster it is pursued.  O my country! mercy spare\nthee from thus mistaking Heaven's high decree!\n\nBut if we should allow to some of the more enlightened Gentiles of\nantiquity, some degree of political wisdom; we might still look in vain\nfor their progress in that estimation of temporal wealth, which reveals\nour community of interests, thus divesting self-love of its\nhatefulness, by training it to its best satisfaction.  Historically, we\nevery where find self-love too blind, freakish, springing upon\nimmediate results, too envenomed with maliciousness to calculate\nprudently.\n\n3.  Religion affords altogether the readiest, shortest, directest way\nto the conclusion, that interest and duty most coincide.  It brings the\nman of humblest intellectual attainments at once to the conclusion,\nwhich the prudent calculator may reach, after long research and\nextensive induction of particulars; namely, that he cannot add\nultimately to his own stock of enjoyment, by detracting from another's\nshare.  What might seem prudence at the expense of justice and\nbenevolence, may assume a contrary aspect, at the first flush of\nconviction, that another life shall rectify the inequalities of this.\n\nPhilosophy, having done its best at showing the interest of each in the\nwelfare of all, and how much would redound to the happiness of all if\nall heartily concurred in thus regarding life, still labors at the\nquestion, as the world goes, how the individual will fare, who takes a\ncourse so different from the general current, as to devote his best\nzeal to bettering the condition of that world, which will be likely so\nlittle to appreciate his devotion.  So that, as matter of fact, one is\nlittle likely to see first (in earnestness) the reign of righteousness,\nas the best security for the necessaries and conveniences of life,\nunless in the faith which apprehends, that \"all these things shall be\nadded\" to those thus devoted to promoting the holy cause of humanity.\n\n4.  Again; to the great majority of mankind, religion is the best spur\nto the understanding, towards the conclusions of a just prudence.  \"The\nentrance of the word giveth understanding to the simple,\" says the\nPsalmist.  How often have we found its so!  How often the first impulse\nto intellectual activity is given by the man's religious interest!  How\noften they, in whom a taste for reading could never be formed\notherwise, begin to read for satisfying their spiritual wants, and so\ndevelop mental powers which else had ever lain dormant.\n\nIf we mark those extremes of social humanity, the masses of Hindostan\nand the people of New England--the monotonous stagnation there, and the\nprogressive enterprize here--we see a difference mainly attributable to\na religion whose very spirit is, forgetting the things behind, and\npressing onward to the things before.  And, though this spirit may not\nalways go forth in accordance with the teaching of that religion, it is\nnone the less true, that such was its source; mind being awake,\nenterprising, on the track of improvement, only where a lively faith in\nChristianity has kindled the flame.  Every where else, policy at best\npresses so hard on the subject individuals, as tolerably to restrain\nthe passions from breaking out of one against another.  Only \"where the\nspirit of the Lord is,\" ventured the experiment, of making the pressure\non each so light, as to become the best security for his keeping in\nplace.\n\n5.  Philosophy fails (once more), because it has no adequate malady for\nthe moral malady under which our race labors.  When we speak of men\nweighing fairly the present and the future, comparing impartially the\nsubstantial with the showy, the gross with the refined, and choosing\nafter the decision of a fully informed prudence, we suppose what does\nnot exist; \"The good that I would, I do not; but the evil that I would\nnot, that I do.\"\n\n      \"The better seeing and approving,\n       Towards the worse I still am moving:\"\n\nSuch is the united testimony of Christian and heathen to that \"law of\nsin and death,\" through whose tyranny the united decisions of reason,\nprudence and conscience are powerless, till what the law could not do,\n\"in that it was weak through the flesh,\" the grace of the Gospel\naccomplishes; restoring reason and conscience to the throne, giving\neffect to the conviction, how fully coincident are interest and duty--\n\"that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled by us, who walk\nnot after the flesh, but after the spirit.\"\n\nPaul's account of this matter may have accommodated to it, what John\nsays of the command to mutual Christian love; that it is an old\nhistory, and yet not an old but a new one.  _Old_, in the sense, that,\nfrom what time by one man sin came into the world and death by sin,\nevery one in earnest to fulfil the true end of his being, has found the\ndame impotence attached to good resolves; the same supremacy gained by\nthe baser impulses, in the hour of trial; the same temptation to find\nan excuse in what seems so like a law unavoidable, as if it were no\nmore I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, as if it were not the\nresponsible _I_ that did wrong: this _I_ being controlled by sin, which\nis fancied as a foreign agent taking up a residence within, and\ncontrolling the man in spite of him.  And, escaped from this and the\nlike deceits, all have been brought to the stand, \"O wretched man that\nI am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!\"--that species\nof self-despair, finishing the preparation for that renewing influence,\nwhich \"is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God\nthat showeth mercy.\"  Thus the enemy is raised _in die Luften frei_, no\nmore to receive fresh strength from mother Earth, to renew the contest\nsuccessfully.\n\nBut this account, so old in one sense, is not so in another--in the\nsense of being obsolete, or out of date.  It still retains the\nfreshness of novelty, to answer to the last example of a man's ordering\nlife, as, he knows, meets the approval of his Judge, and his own truest\nwelfare.\n\n6.  But \"the end of the commandment,\" or the result of the process by\nwhich the soul is put into condition to contend successfully with the\npowers of evil, \"is charity.\"  So religion preeminently rebinds men to\nthe rule of not seeking their own advantage at the cost of others;\nbecause it implants a principle, which might dispense with the\ncertainty of always calculating prudently in doing right.  Charity\nseeketh not her own--not one's own welfare calculated on the largest\nscale, exclusively, or at the cost of the greatest good of the whole.\nThus it is essentially distinct from a prudence, however refined, and\ncalculating its ends through eternity.  It is called \"the bond of\nperfectness,\" or a most perfect bond; because, if men were all devoted\nthus disinterestedly, each to the good of the whole, society would be\nperfectly held together, without other bond.  All forms of civil\ncompact and voluntary association might be dispensed with.  Even\nprudence might fail to calculate, how the present sacrifice to general\ngood is to be compensated; and charity would rebind the man to love his\nneighbor as himself, and do as he would receive again.\n\nIt is further called \"the perfect law of liberty;\" as by a simple rule\nit perfectly secures to individuals those immunities, which\nconstitutional provisions at best secure but imperfectly by complicated\napparatus, and where philosophy halts at the perversities of human\nselfishness.\n\n7.  Faith alone is the sure foundation, whereto to add virtue\n[courage], and that for the further addition of knowledge.  This\ncourage is _du Coeur_--of  the heart, and alone gives that simple love\nof truth, which, for _its_ sake, dares equally to be new and singular,\nor to be vulgar and common-place.  Without that foundation, assuming to\nbe courageous enough to leave the beaten track, and reject received\nopinions, one does but attain to the bravery, which, in its efforts to\ndare danger or opposition, is sure to overact its part.  Who holds an\neven balance in weighing evidence, equally guarded against rejecting\nthe old, because it is old, or the new, because it is new?  I know not,\nunless such as have apprehended the _urwahr_--the essential truth,\nwhich throws all temporal considerations into the shade.\n\nThere are two difficulties in the way of attempting changes in the\nexisting state of things, with good prospect of improvement.  The first\narises from the force of habit, and a reluctance to try a new, it may\nbe, hazardous course.  The other form the little discrimination\nexercised, when men set about in earnest exchanging the old for the\nnew--discrimination to avoid treating the old as necessarily\nantiquated, and the presumption of \"laying again the foundation\" of\nall things.  And these difficulties will hardly be met successfully,\nexcept by men, in whom the fear of God has cast out other fear.\n\nThe intelligent part of the people of southern Europe have been, for\nmany years, more thoroughly divested of reverence for the papacy, than\nwas Luther in the days of his greatest vehemence.  But they have\nquietly taken things as they are.  They have wanted Luther's substitute\nfor superstition--a fervently religious spirit.  They have had only\nworldly and political motives, for wishing to see the old imposition\ndone away; and these have been powerless against natural apathy, and\nthe fixedness of old establishment.  Infidelity and indifferentism\nprove poor antagonists to superstition.\n\nBut when this apathy is one overcome, then the difficulty is, to temper\nwith discretion the zeal for innovation.  Throughout, such only as\nheartily prize the true, because it is true, will be likely to shun\nalike, rejecting the old for its antiquity, and the new for its\nnovelty.\n\nThe first lesson is, to learn how much of human wisdom is but folly:\nthe second, that it is not yet all folly, but a good deal of it genuine\nwisdom.  And he will be most likely to unite these in the habit of\nthinking soberly, who first moderates his estimate of human power and\nwisdom, by marking how far their utmost flights had failed to\nanticipate, what has proved the power of God and the wisdom of God to\nthe world's renovation.  Such is the best preparation for still\nlearning, how much that wears the appearance of wisdom and science\nunsubstantial.  This best teaches so to reason soberly and\nconscientiously, as not to run into licentiousness the liberty of\nthinking.  Religious zeal indeed has hitherto been little enough\ntempered with discretion; but no other zeal has glowed so intensely,\nwithout still more disastrous consequences, in setting the world on\nfire.\n\nIt is yet a consideration in point, that, as in all undertakings hope\nof success best stimulates and sustains exertion; so the hope, that the\nworld's disorders will yet be cured, is best furnished by the faith,\nwhich recognizes a Sovereign ordering and disposing all, bringing light\nout of darkness; making the wrath of man to praise him, and the\nremainder thereof pledged to restrain.  Judging from history and\nappearances, the philanthropist may often doubt, whether the race be\nnot destined still to go a ceaseless round; ever exchanging one\ndelusion for another, but no real progress.\n\nAs it was in character for the prophetess of Apollo, it complain:\n           \"My youth was by my tears corroded,\n                   My sole familiar was my pain;\n            Each coming ill my heart foreboded,\n                   And felt at first--in vain.\"\nSo the philosophic prophet may lament, that he anticipates so much more\nclearly, what _ought_ to be, than what _will_ be; that he finds the\nincrease of knowledge, beyond the general sense of the age, to be but\nthe increase of sorrow.  But the religious insight into futurity saves\nfrom such anguish, by the hope which gilds and realizes the future:\nhope for the race, armed with a higher assurance than philosophy can\nwork out, that and right and peace shall reign triumphant; and personal\nhope, inasmuch as, however dark the prospect for earth's races may be,\nthe individual has a future, whose joy is his strength.\n\n9.  And this habitual reference of the government of earth to its\nSupreme Ruler, is not more necessary to the hope, that sustains\nendurance, than to the patience which bides the time, in opposition to\nthe indecent, passionate haste, which defeats its own end.  \"He that\nbelieveth shall not make haste.\"  There is much fruitless haste to\nbring the world to rights, for want of a lively belief in a sovereign\ncontrolling Power; whose wisdom, whose goodness, whose resources, whose\ninterest, to bring the world to order and happiness, infinitely\ntranscend ours.  Thus is missed the conclusion, if He can endure to see\nthe stream of evil flow on age after age; then discretion would set\nsome bounds to our zeal, to see all evil rectified.  And the clearer\nthis conclusion is the result of faith, the surer the bounds will be\njust such, as to save from losing all by a headlong precipitancy.\n\nIn short, that habit of mind equally ready to accept the right and the\ntrue, whether it come with a suspicious air of novelty and singularity,\nor whether as old and vulgar it be scouted for being behind the age--\nthat habit which neither yields to discouragements, nor favors the\nfool-hardy haste, which calculates neither time nor its own strength;\nwhich discriminates, when to \"contend earnestly,\" and when to \"let them\nalone,\" the dogged adherents to falsehood and wrong, to the teachings\nof time and circumstances, their conscience and their God, till every\nplant which he hath not planted be rooted up by these mightier\nenergies--the habit, realizing all the good of the radical, in proving\nall things, and all the glory of the conservative, in holding fast what\nis good;--this habit, so favorable to human progress, but involving so\nrare a combination of seemingly opposite qualities, as scarcely to be\naccounted for on all apparent influences, has been well described, as a\n\"life hid with Christ in God.\"  And truly has it been remarked, in view\nof the general result of ordinary tendencies and influences in forming\none-sided characters, that _becoming as a little child_, expresses no\nless fittingly the conditions of entering the kingdom of nature, and\nthinking with the wise, than of entering the kingdom of heaven, and\nworshipping with the holy.\n\nOf the spiritual more grievously than of the intellectual life is it\ntrue, that, \"whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with\nit.\"  Here emphatically does the individual labor hardly, to digest\ninto his life the conclusions of reason and conscience, in advance of\nthe average understanding of the age.  Professor Lyell, speaking of the\nMillerite phrenzy, and how some men of pretty sound mind were carried\naway with it, remarks to this effect: \"Religious delusion is like a\nfamine fever, which attacks first the hungry and emaciated, but in its\nprogress cuts down many of the well-fed and robust.\"\n\nSo it is.  So strong are our tendencies to one tone, that the\nChristian, in setting to his worldly desires the bounds which his\nreligion exacts, feels to be exercising a self-denial--yielding the\ntemporal to the eternal.  He scarce seems to himself to be acting the\npart of true worldly wisdom.  In reading the life of Dr. Payson, it is\nobviously manifest, that his deeply spiritual views were not inwrought\nharmoniously into his life's web, as would have been, if he had carried\nalong with him a whole community.\n\nThe materialism of this age must pass away, as has passed the quixotism\nof the crusades.  Each has but expressed a stage in the progress of\nthought; and neither measures the mature life of the soul.  It is not\nso certain to sight, what will be next grasped by this reaching onward\nto the things before; whether a better reconcilement of the life that\nnow is with that which is to come, or whether a vaporing, misty\nsentimentalism is to be the spirit of the next age.  There are not\nwanting indications, that the materialism of this age is to be followed\nby a dreamy spiritualism, raising men above the observance of vulgar\nduties, but not above the practice of the grossest vices.  It is not\nuncharitable to mark such tendencies, where we see canonized Rousseau,\nthe very embodiment of sensuality, egotism, and misanthropy; and\nprogress _so_ taught to be the law of _individual_ man, that, whether\ngoing to commit his crimes at the brothel, or to expiate them on the\ngallows, his tendencies are still and forever upward.\n\nWe need better evidence than sight can afford, to say,--\n\n      \"O no! a thousand cheerful omens give\n       Hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh:\n       He who has tamed the elements, shall not live\n       The slave of his own passions; he whose eye\n       Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky,\n       And in the abyss of brightness dares to span\n       The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high,\n       In God's magnificent works his will shall scan;\n       And love and peace shall make their paradise with man.\"\n                     *Bryant\n\n\n\n\nConclusion.\n\n\nThe matter of the preceding thoughts may be thus summed up.\n\nA progressive movement has been going on towards the rule, that,\nself-love directed towards the material, the sensible, the showy, the\ndistinguishing, is so the ruling motive of human conduct, as to\nconstitute it the first requisite in adjusting the social relations,\nthat private interests, and class interests may not flourish best,\nshort of the best attainable flourish of the whole.  When this point\nshall be so thoroughly understood, that it shall be taken for no\nreproach of any class of men to regard them practically as subject to\nthe common influences which control human conduct; we may expect an\neffective move, for giving to the lawyer and to the physician a\nrelation to society, analogous to that sustained by the pastor among\nProtestants; instead of leaving their professions to find their best\nflourish, at about the vigor of intellectual and moral life, which just\nnow we live.\n\nBut this idea loses its importance as another comes into appreciation,\n--namely, that the conflicts of self-love with self-love, suppose\nmistaken estimates of happiness to be uppermost; and, just in\nproportion as men rightly estimate life, and truly love themselves,\nthey appreciate those strong, numberless, delicate, indissoluble ties,\nwhich bind the members of the social body to suffer, or to rejoice\ntogether.\n\nAnd this idea again lessens in importance, as yet a third gains the\nascendancy--the living conviction, that time is but the portal to\neternity; the soul meanwhile tasting \"the powers of the world to come;\"\nand knowing the persuasiveness of that strongest call to mutual\nendearment, \"If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.\"\n\nAnd now the consideration of these three points is commended especially\nto the attention of those, who, in the execution of their office and\nministry, have weekly access to the mind of the people.  We mourn the\nwaning influence of the American pulpit.  Where the power thence\nemanating in the stirring days of trial to men's souls,--when its\nministers stood on that commanding point, where they caught the first\nbeams of rising day, and reflected the light in the face of the people?\nAt our Revolutionary period, ministers, in their earnestness to preach\nto the times, might have come short in preaching eternity.  So far\nthere was a mistake to be rectified; but they did well to preach to the\ntimes.  It is among the reasons, why religious so tempered political\nzeal; and, accordingly, why, as our Revolution _was_ without a model,\nso it _remains_ without a rival.  It is well that the struggle came,\nbefore the toad-eaters to capital's feed agents in legislative halls\noccupied the high seats of moral influence.\n\nThe true successors to the fathers are not the preachers of party\npolitics, but they who aim to supply the lack of all parties, in that\nthey fail to make liberty a means, valuable only as affording\nfacilities to improvement.\n\nWe are exceedingly contracted in our notions of the Christian\npreacher's just province.  If we confine it to administering directly\nto the soul's spiritual wants and everlasting interests, we stray wide\nfrom the example, which God himself sets, when he writes a revelation\nfor man.  The Bible is full of histories, maxims, laws, just as might\nbe expected in a book, which ignored any other life, than that which\nnow is.  One half of it (within bounds) might remain as it is, on the\nsupposition, that men have neither hopes nor duties, but such as\npertain to them as joint tenants of this earthly life.\n\nIf we would keep people superior to the impulses of appetite, and the\nsolicitations of sensual pleasure, we must attempt _servitute corporis\nuti_ by _imperio animi_* [In Sallust's well known sentence _servitute_\nmay be the object of _utimur_, _imperio_ the ablative of the means; or,\nreversing the construction, the sense may be, by keeping the body in\nsubjection, we better maintain the mind's supremacy.  Neither, I\nbelieve, is the common understanding of the passage.]--by training the\nmind to know its capacities and powers.  If this be neglected, purely\nspiritual influences, supposing them forthcoming, will hardly save the\nbody from unduly controlling the man.  Vulgar ambition is to be\nforestalled in the same way.  _Imperium populi_ may be expected to be\nattractive, in proportion as _imperium animi_ is unstudied, unknown;\nand of course the full sense missed, in which knowledge is power.  He\nwho knows the greatness of the world within, hears nothing strange in\nthe declaration-that \"greater is he who ruleth his own spirit, than he\nwho taketh a city.\"  That the recipients of a (so called) liberal\neducation so often become the votaries of vulgar ambition, and vulgar\npleasure too, is to be accounted for on the three-fold consideration:\nfirst, that what passes for a liberal education is often a very\nilliberal thing, doing very little to unfold the spirit to itself,\nand so impress the greatness of mastering its capabilities; secondly,\nthat merely intellectual without moral influences, do not suffice; and\nthirdly, the law is supreme, which binds all to suffer, in their\nintellectual and spiritual life, from the mental and moral degradation\nof a part.\n\nJesus thought it not beneath the dignity of his office, nor the\nsacredness of the Sabbath, nor the proprieties of the synagogue, to\ndiscourse to people on politeness and good breeding; nor to enforce\nattention to decorum, by the comparatively low consideration, \"Then\nshalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with\nthee.\"  Unworthy alike, both the lesson and the motive, would cry a\nfalse spirituality, if the example of such preaching were set by any\nlower authority.  A false spirituality it is, for it originates in\nmissing the close connection between the temporal and the spiritual,\nthe outward and the inward, the life that now is, and that which is to\ncome.\n\nIn faithfully delivering the whole counsel of God, we may encounter\nsomething like the wrath of the ruler of the synagogue, whose\nspirituality was offended at the restoration of a withered hand on the\nSabbath.  We may find, that we have cast pearls before swine.  We may\nbe referred to Paul's determination to know nothing among the\nCorinthians, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.  And, if we\nminister to a people who, like the Corinthians, need to be fed with\nmilk and not meat; like them carnal, factious, party-spirited, and if\nwe would delicately hint to them their character--let us do it\nindirectly, following Paul's example, when he put restraint on the\nfullness of matter within, and discoursed only on the elements of\nChristian doctrine.  But shall the strong man be confined to a\nmilk diet, because the careful nurse ventures to supply nothing else to\nthe tender infant?  If when for the time our people ought to be\nteachers, they need to be taught again the first principles of the\noracle of God, we may reserve pearls for a worthier reception.  But, if\nthey are well-grounded in the elements, let us lead them on to\nperfection.\n\n      Society's pillars, the temple's three P.s,\n      Philosophy, Policy, Piety--these\n      I commend to your notice.  My labor is done:\n      May we meet in that city where temple is none,\n      Nor sun supervenes on the shadows of night;\n      Jehovah--the Lamb--are its temple and light.","title":"The Growth of Thought as Affecting the Progress of Society","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":15761}