Doubtless,as bringing preservation to their country,it implies preservation of themselves withal;but intrinsically it is the harshest duty a wise man,if he be indeed wise,has laid to his hand.A duty which he would fain egh shirk;which accordingly,in these sad times of doubt and cowardly sloth,he has long everywhere been endeavoring to reduce to its minimum,and has in fact in most cases nearly escaped altogether.It is an ungoverned world;a world which we flatter ourselves will henceforth need governing.On the dust of our heroic ancestors we too sit ballot-boxing,saying to one aher,It is well,it is well!By inheritance of their le struggles,we have been permitted to sit slothful so long.By le toil ,by shallow laughter and vain talk,they made this English Existence from a savage forest into an arable inhabitable field for us;and we,idly dreaming it would grow spontaneous crops forever,--find it in a too questionable state;peremptorily requiring real labor and agriculture again.Real "agriculture"is pleasant;much pleasanter to reap and win (with ballot-box or otherwise)than to plough!
Who would govern that can get along without governing?He that is fittest for it,is of all men the unwillingest unless constrained.By multifarious devices we have been endeavoring to dispense with governing;and by very superficial speculations,of laissez-faire ,supply-and-demand,&c.&c.to persuade ourselves that it is best so.The Real Captain,unless it be some Captain of mechanical Industry hired by Mammon,where is he in these days?Most likely,in silence,in sad isolation somewhere,in remote obscurity;trying if,in an evil ungoverned time,he can at least govern himself.The Real Captain undiscoverable;the Phantasm Captain everywhere very conspicuous:--it is thought Phantasm Captains,aided by ballot-boxes,are the true method,after all.They are much the pleasantest for the time being!
And so Dux or Duke of any sort,in any province of our affairs,leads :the Duke's Bailiff leads ,what little leading is required for getting in the rents;and the Duke merely rides in the state-coach.It is everywhere so:and at last we see a world all rushing towards strange consummations,because it is and has long been so!
I do suppose any reader of mine,or many persons in England at all,have much faith in Fraternity,Equality and the Revolutionary Millenniums preached by the French Prophets in this age:but there are many movements here too which tend inevitably in the like direction;and good men,who would stand aghast at Red Republic and its adjuncts,seem to me travelling at full speed towards that or a similar goal!Certainly the ion everywhere prevails among us too,and preaches itself abroad in every dialect,uncontradicted anywhere so far as I can hear,That the grand panacea for social woes is what we call "enfranchisement,""emancipation;"or,translated into practical language,the cutting asunder of human relations,wherever they are found grievous,as is like to be pretty universally the case at the rate we have been going for some generations past.Let us all be "free"of one aher;we shall then be happy.Free,without bond or connection except that of cash-payment;fair day's wages for the fair day's work;bargained for by voluntary contract,and law of supply-and-demand:this is thought to be the true solution of all difficulties and injustices that have occurred between man and man.
To rectify the relation that exists between two men,is there method,then,but that of ending it?The old relation has become unsuitable,obsolete,perhaps unjust;it imperatively requires to be amended;and the remedy is,Abolish it,let there henceforth be relation at all.From the "Sacrament of Marriage"downwards,human beings used to be manifoldly related,one to aher,and each to all;and there was relation among human beings,just or unjust,that had its grievances and difficulties,its necessities on both sides to bear and forbear.
But henceforth,be it kn,we have changed all that,by favor of Heaven:"the voluntary principle"has come up,which will itself do the business for us;and let a new Sacrament,that of Divorce,which we call emancipation,and spout of on our platforms,be universally the order of the day!--Have men considered whither all this is tending,and what it certainly egh betokens?Cut every human relation which has anywhere grown uneasy sheer asunder;reduce whatsoever was compulsory to voluntary,whatsoever was permanent among us to the condition of adic:--in other words,loosen by assiduous wedges in every joint,the whole fabric of social existence,stone from stone:till at last,all being loose egh,it can,as we already see in most countries,be overset by sudden outburst of revolutionary rage;and,lying as mere mountains of anarchic rubbish,solicit you to sing Fraternity,&c.,over it,and to rejoice in the new remarkable era of human progress we have arrived at.
Certainly Emancipation proceeds with rapid strides among us,this good while;and has got to such a length as might give rise to reflections in men of a serious turn.West-Indian Blacks are emancipated,and it appears refuse to work:Irish Whites have long been entirely emancipated;and ody asks them to work,or on condition of finding them potatoes (which,of course,is indispensable),permits them to work.--Among speculative persons,a question has sometimes risen:In the progress of Emancipation,are we to look for a time when all the Horses also are to be emancipated,and brought to the supply-and-demand principle?
Horses too have "motives;"are acted on by hunger,fear,hope,love of oats,terror of platted leather;nay they have vanity,ambition,emulation,thankfulness,vindictiveness;some rude outline of all our human spiritualities,--a rude resemblance to us in mind and intelligence,even as they have in bodily frame.