post-office, of the highway, of commerce and the exchange of property,
of museums and libraries, of institutions of art and science can be
answered.
We live in a very low state of the world, and pay unwilling tribute to
governments founded on force. There is not, among the most religious and
instructed men of the most religious and civil nations, a reliance on
the moral sentiment and a sufficient belief in the unity of things,
to persuade them that society can be maintained without artificial
restraints, as well as the solar system; or that the private citizen
might be reasonable and a good neighbor, without the hint of a jail or a
confiscation. What is strange too, there never was in any man sufficient
faith in the power of rectitude to inspire him with the broad design of
renovating the State on the principle of right and love. All those
who have pretended this design have been partial reformers, and have
admitted in some manner the supremacy of the bad State. I do not call to
mind a single human being who has steadily denied the authority of the
laws, on the simple ground of his own moral nature. Such designs, full
of genius and full of fate as they are, are not entertained except
avowedly as air-pictures. If the individual who exhibits them dare to
think them practicable, he disgusts scholars and churchmen; and men of
talent and women of superior sentiments cannot hide their contempt.
Not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with
suggestions of this enthusiasm, and there are now men,--if indeed I can
speak in the plural number,--more exactly, I will say, I have just been
conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will
make it for a moment appear impossible that thousands of human beings
might exercise towards each other the grandest and simplest sentiments,
as well as a knot of friends, or a pair of lovers.
*****
NOMINALIST AND REALIST.
In countless upward-striving waves
The moon-drawn tide-wave strives:
In thousand far-transplanted grafts
The parent fruit survives;
So, in the new-born millions,
The perfect Adam lives.
Not less are summer-mornings dear
To every child they wake,
And each with novel life his sphere
Fills for his proper sake.
VIII. NONIMALIST AND REALIST.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account