The Growth of Thought as Affecting the Progress of Society Part 2

A torch before my vision glows, But not in Hymen's hand it shines; A flame that to the welkin goes, But not from holy offering shrines: Glad hands the banquet are preparing, And near and near the halls of state, I hear the G.o.d that comes unsparing, I hear the steps of fate.

And men my prophet wail deride!

The solemn sorrow dies in scorn; And lonely in the waste I hide The tortured heart that would forewarn.

And the happy, unregarded, Mocked by their fearful joy, I trod: Oh! dark to me the lot awarded, Thou evil Pythian G.o.d!

Thine oracle in vain to be, Oh! wherefore am I thus consigned, With eyes that every truth must see, Lone in the city of the blind?

Cursed with the anguish of a power To view the fates I may not thrall; The hovering tempest still must lower, The horror must befall.

Boots it, the veil to lift, and give To sight the frowning fates beneath?

For error is the life we live, And, oh, our knowledge is but death!

Take back the clear and awful mirror, Shut from mine eyes the blood-red glare; Thy truth is but a gift of terror, When mortal lips declare.

My blindness give to me once more, The gay, dim senses that rejoice; The past's delighted songs are o'er For lips that speak a prophet's voice.

To me _the future_ thou has granted; I miss the moment from the chain-- The happy present hour enchanted!

Take back thy gift again!"* [Bulwer's translation.]

These lines express more than the trite observation, that a knowledge of futurity would prove a torment to the possessor. Beneath that obvious is couched the deeper moral, which expresses the sufferings of the philosophic prophet--of the man who, too much for his own quiet, antic.i.p.ates reasonings, conclusions, sentiments, forms of social life yet to prevail--the man to whom not coming events, but coming ideas, cast their shadows before. If we could suppose one at the time of the crusades, educated to a.s.sociate and sympathize with the choice spirits of the age, yet antic.i.p.ating the sense of their age, in making the comparative estimate of chivalrous adventure, and successful cultivation of the arts of peace and industry; he must have felt somewhat like Ca.s.sandra among the less gifted. If we could look on life, as our successors will two hundred years hence, we too might complain of being "lone in the city of the blind;" unless large Hope and Benevolence enabled us to live on the future. Thus we find additional motive to desiring a united and absolute, rather than an individual and relative progress, in the consideration that knowledge most worthily so called--whoso increaseth greatly beyond the average attainment, doth so to his own sorrow.

To complete the list of false estimates of good, refuted by one test, we should allude to the frivolities of gentility and fashion-the pa.s.sion for wearing badges of distinction, however impotent or unmeaning such may be. This is the very poorest form of finding delight, in what from the nature of the case can be shared by few.

For its incommunicableness is its only recommendation. It is an icy repellant, freezing up the kindly flow of sympathy with universal humanity; and uncompensated loss of that best ingredient of earthly felicity--the interchange of friendly feelings and offices; that store of wealth, from which the more that take, and the fuller their share, the more they leave to be taken by others.

The foregoing may be treated as a fine and just speculation, but as what ever must remain a barren speculation; as if it were after the example of all ages, that men should mistake the material of happiness for happiness itself. So it always has been, so it always will be, that false notions of good usurp the place of the true, despite the demonstrations of moralists and divines to the contrary.

Mind, however, has not stood still in this matter. It has moved, and that in the right direction. We may note a progress from age to age, in coming to a just estimate of life. Start not at the use of terms, rendered suspicious by the extravagancies of which they have been made the vehicle. But we must not reject ideas great, just, or new, because of the distortions and caricatures of little minds. If one idea occupies the mind all them more for being great and just, it will be likely to overmaster that mind, so as not to be produced in its fair proportions, or rightly applied. So fare they, with whom the one idea is, the progress of society--the growth of thought. The Mississippi in its progress throws froth and sc.u.m on its surface, more conspicuous than the under-running current. So radical folly and transcendental nonsense is obtruded on the sight, from the sympathy of little minds with the deeper current of thought. To gauge the progress of mind from those who are most noisy on the matter, would be, like taking the direction and rapidity of the Mississippi, from the froth, which the wind blows. .h.i.ther and thither over its surface.

"Let us go on to perfection"--"Forgetting the things behind, and pressing onward to the things before." Such language describes distinctively the American character, and the spirit of Christianity.

Only, where is perfection? What are the things before? If, as a people, we do fully take these expressions in their author's sense, we may hope there is one element of agreement, betokening good for the future.

It is encouraging, that the two rival systems, most boldly promising to lead to perfection, both had their birth under political and mental bondage. So evidently with Romanism, whether under its proper form and name, or refined and disguised after the modern fashion. And the same is true of the baptized infidelity imported from Germany. The German mind is cramped and diseased by the bands which confine it. It is not allowed to speculate freely on politics, and the many questions most nearly touching present interests. Therefore, on the records and on the doctrines which pertain to eternal interests, it falls with an insane avidity for innovation, and runs into licentiousness a liberty no where else enjoyed. Hence the levity, in dealing with things sacred, in Germany often found in minds of the first and second orders, here is taken up by those to the third and fourth--the copyists and imitators; nay, by the buffoons who figure at the farces of mock philanthropy. Now, though every folly must find minds whose caliber it fits, we may hope the genuine American mind will not be extensively beguiled by either of the misbegotten offspring of Europe's mental servitude.

But, to the point--progress made in estimating life. A few centuries ago, a torrent of enthusiasm set in the direction of bearing the cross into Asia, to fight for glory, and the propagation of Christianity, on the fields of Palestine. Already the old Roman military character was greatly improved on. Virtue, (_manliness_, a' vir-_man_) was no longer supposed to fulfil its highest office in

Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.

A delicate sense of honor, of the courtesy due to a foe and the gallantry to the other s.e.x, betoken a type of humanity in advance of the brute ferocity of the best days of Rome.

But, notwithstanding Mr. Burke's eloquence, and the opinion sometimes expressed, that the courtly knight of the middle age, realized the perfection of humanity; we have no reason to regret that the age of chivalry is gone by, and that the age of speculation, and money-making, and industrial enterprize has succeeded. The materialism of this age, with all its faults, is better than the chivalry of an age gone by.

It tends to keep the world at peace; _that_ tended to perpetual turmoil. The supposition _all rich_, according to modern ideas, is not so flat a contradiction as the supposition _all glorious_, in military heroism. As the past age estimated life's supreme good, the enjoyment of a few _required_ the exclusion of the many from its benefits: as this age estimates the enjoyment of some, _admits_ the exclusion of others. Whether the mercantile spirit thoroughly entered into makes a better man than did the spirit of chivalry, may be doubted; not so, which best comports with the welfare of society.

Now if one, at the time of the crusades, had so antic.i.p.ated the spirit of the age, as to picture to himself modern Europe and America, manufacturing, trading, flocking to California, as if there a holy sepulcher was to be rescued from hands profane, glorying chiefly in mechanical development and mercantile enterprize; and had ventured to suggest, that instead of trooping to Asia to fight for glory, and the fancy of promoting religion by arguments of steel, it would be worthier of the choice spirits of the age to stay at home, and by industry and enterprize aim at multiplying the means of content to quiet life: he might have found a harder task than now devolves on him, who urges, that the materialism of this age must pa.s.s away, as has pa.s.sed the chivalry of the crusades; both for the same reason; the progress of thought must outgrow the one, as it has outgrown the other.

A new age with another spirit will be ushered in. What is to be the spirit of that age? Are we to find the forebodings in the dreamy sentimentalism, which boasts so much its flights beyond common material ideas? I trow rather, we may trace the character of the coming age in an increasing estimation of health, knowledge, mental cultivation, intellectual life, and the flow of the social affections, as the prime of earthly felicities--in an approximation towards rationally estimating money (with the ability to command it) as the means of meeting one's capacities of enjoyment--to be no longer worshipped as itself the idol or the end.

When a pestilential disease breaks out in the city, the plainness and urgency of the case compel all to see in the sickness of one the danger of all. Wants and discomforts, which charity had been too cold to attend to, now considered as sources of contagion, are administered to with a ready alacrity. The law is recognized, according to which, "if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it." And this law will be more fully recognized, as self-love is educated--as men better understand their own welfare, and choose with reference to the whole of their nature, and the duration of their existence.

Self-love is a motive of the indifferent kind--not of itself essentially good or bad. This appears from its being an essential part of our nature. Indeed, we can hardly conceive it as within the province of Omnipotence, to create a rational sentient being, who should be indifferent to his own happiness.

The advantages accruing from an educated self-love are:

First, additional security, that the good work of charity be done; and to all but the individual doer, it may matter little what be the prompting motives.

Secondly, the expansion of yet n.o.bler principles. Each act favors the growth of the sentiments, of which it is the expression. So he who does as benevolence bids, though from a motive secondary on the score of purity, will be likely again to do the same from yet purer motives.

So at least if the essential principle be there, though appearing no more vividly than as a cold sense of duty.

But, thirdly, self-love is made the rule and standard of charity: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." One must then first love himself, in order to loving his neighbor. Keeping this rule, there is no danger of loving thyself too well; rather, the more truly thou lovest thyself, the more truly thou lovest thy neighbor.

Suppose one to cherish the vulgar notion of life--that it consists in the abundance of the things which one possesses, in the ability to live without exertion, amid plenty of good cheer. Suppose him to love his neighbor as himself. His charity must partake of the contraction and grossness of his self-love. Suppose another to prize duly intellectual riches. To him the discovery of a new principle in the physical, intellectual, or moral world, brings a joy unsurpa.s.sed by the merchant's, on the return of his heavily laden ship from a successful voyage. As the best legacy to his children, he would leave them a good education; and, knowing the natural influences and dependencies existing between young minds, he aims to have all the children in the neighborhood well educated, as the best security against failure in the attempt to educate his own. If all is but a refined calculation, how best to benefit himself and household; it is far more estimable and amiable than the gross selfishness which grovels after vulgar goods, and in the success of a brother sees an obstacle to its own success.

But if he too loves his neighbor as himself, why how far his self-love is educated to find its satisfaction in n.o.bler ends, by so much his charity is better than the other's.

There is hope for the future in the consideration, that self-interest, the first, as well as love of approbation, the second, of the great powers which move the world, indeed all the indifferent motives, are getting still more into coincidence of action with justice and benevolence.

When Jesus enforced a duty by the consideration, "Then shalt thou have worship [respect, approval,] in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee," he implied two things; first, that regard to the world's respectful esteem is not a censurable motive; and, secondly, that the same operates to good, rather than to evil. So it must have been even in that corrupt generation, so disposed to call evil good and good evil. It must be much more so now, when public sentiment has so much improved. Notwithstanding the danger of loving the praise of man more than the praise of G.o.d, and the mischiefs resulting from such preference, we should lose, on the whole, by eradicating the love of human praise. Witness the accounts of the atrocious outbreaks of depravity at the gold diggings, while society was yet unformed.

Witness, wherever cease the common restraints of civilization.

Thus agents--so often the authors of discord and confusion, so often the fire-brands to set the world in fumes--philanthropy is more and more firing as her sure allies.

"Even so, the torch of h.e.l.lish flames Becomes a leading light to heaven: And so corruption's self becomes To bread of life the living leaven."

All a.n.a.logies point to a still increasing vigor in the growth of the kingdom of heaven. If the mustard tree is never seen growing, but only to have grown; yet the greater the tree, the greater its power of daily making large growth, without its growing being perceived.

All considerations indicate the power of each to do something to forward the consummation. No member of society is so insignificant, that his spiritual life does not affect the health of the whole. The obscurest, who cherishes a preference of ideal wealth over material riches and sensual delights, does something towards forming a sane public sentiment, just as surely as the tenant of the humblest city dwelling, who keeps clean his own premises, does something towards promoting the general health.

It is well to review the progress made in estimating life--to impress our minds with its existence as a reality; because mind and enterprize just now tend so strongly to the material and mechanical, that we might be tempted to doubt, whether any other improvement were to be thought of. If so, we might well enough stop where we are. But we shall contemplate with most satisfaction our multiplied facilities for manufacturing, transportation, fertilizing the earth, and conveying intelligence, if we see in the whole a store, from which we may draw with good effect for promoting general welfare, whenever the true end of these means shall be earnestly studied. Otherwise the discovery, how to make two kernels of corn grow where one grew before, would all redound to the tyranny of fashion, and only foreshadow an increase of artificial wants, quite up to the increased supply; so that want would still be as close treading on our heels as ever.

But if we yet scarce attain to longer life, better health, or more content, than fell to the lot of our fathers, with their simpler arts and manner, because we are forgetting to discriminate between true and false wants--between real and imaginary happiness: the true voice of history still is, not that the material means must always thus fall short of their legitimate end; but that, though the material and the mechanical travel first and fastest, the moral and the spiritual are following after. These in due time will reveal the meaning and the value of our stored acquisitions.

Dr. Franklin calculated, that the labor of all for three or four hours a day, would furnish all the necessaries and all the conveniences of life; supposing men freed from the exactions of an arbitrary fashion.

If he was near correctness, his time must be abundant in our day, when the productiveness of machinery, and skill in the arts, are so much improved. Then it is within existing possibilities, that every mind be thoroughly cultivated; and every body taxed for labor, only to the extent required by the conditions of its own best vigor and that of the inhabiting mind. So far afield from truth is the common supposition, that the many can receive but the elements of learning; while the few must sacrifice bodily vigor to excessive intellectual cultivation.

Connect with this thought that before advanced of the irresistible tendencies of our intellectual life to one average; and what a boundless vista, in the direction of human progress, opens before us.

As citizens of the republic, we have comparatively little cause to exult in the conceit of being freer or happier than other communities; much more in the chance, having broken the fetters of superst.i.tion and tyranny, next to rend those of false habit and fashion--to enthrone reason over the authority of one another's eyes and prejudices: to say in truth,--

"Here the free spirit of mankind at length Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place A limit to the giant's untamed strength, Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?

Far, like the comet's way through infinite s.p.a.ce, Stretches the long untravelled path of light Into the depth of ages; we may trace, Distant the brightening glory of his flight, Till the receding beams are lost to human sight."

*Bryant.

Part IV.

Welfare as Dependent on Religion.

But in all our attempts to educate self-love into harmony with Universal benevolence, we contend with the enemy, somewhat as Hercules wrestled with Antaeus:--

Und erstickst du ihn nicht in den Luften frei, Stets wachst ihm die Kraft anf der Erde neu.*