PESSIMISM AND ITS ANTIDOTE. 683 



guished, and the nation settles down to decay. Cromwell and his 

 Puritanism introduce Charles II. and licentiousness. The Pilgrim 

 Fathers, Washington, and other great men, lay with solemnity and 

 greatness of mind the foundations of the United States, and is its his- 

 tory hitherto a satisfactory result ? Nation after nation, Egyptian, 

 Persian, Jewish, Grecian, Roman, Arabian, and Celtic, shoot into blos- 

 som in order to rot back into forgetfulness. 



And if we take regard of the individual units that are always 

 swarming by the millions into the world, what vast quantities get 

 blasted out before they have well begun to cry, not to speak of the 

 possible units frustrated of birth. And of those surviving the perils 

 of the outset, how all get bruised and damaged sooner or later, till 

 death comes and snuffs out the smoky tallow-lights ! People made a 

 great fuss at the time about the late William King Thompson, of Brook- 

 lyn, New York, ship-exploder, as if he had done something more than 

 usually wicked, but now it is seen for the mere trifle it is. Say he ex- 

 ploded half a dozen ship-loads of men, was there, out of the six human 

 cargoes that flew successively all at once into ten thousand pieces, as 

 much as one individual that properly speaking ever lived, or lived 

 other than the most insignificant sensational existence? At every 

 change of the temperature of the atmosphere from heat to cold are 

 not many thousands of aerial midges summoned, on very shojt notice 

 indeed, from their gay discursions to face the solemnities of eternity ? 

 Animal existence is cheap as dust, the earth and stones only requiring 

 some little mixing and kneading in order to turn off endless batches 

 of men and women. 



Consider the tens of thousands always being born in our large 

 cities, who by bad j^arentage, bad conception, foul air, foul food, and 

 all manner of evil influences, get at once summarily stamped and sealed 

 off to depravity and perdition. Think how in all our towns are houses 

 where choice human cattle are kept, fed, and dressed, their soundness 

 attested (on the Continent) by qualified officials ; and how your choicest 

 human cattle, rejoicing in their spiritual culture, throng into these 

 shows to inspect and purchase. And in this enlightened age we know 

 this is Nature all the world over, and Nature must be obeyed. 



We are proud of the present age as the triumph of trade and 

 mechanism. And we know the high genius and aim of trade. Trade 

 thinks only on a good balance, and is proud of a good balance, be it 

 got out of the follies and vices of men or in whatever way. Trade is 

 thinning the country, crowding the towns, swelling dukes' incomes, 

 fattening distillers and brewers, disfiguring and reducing the human 

 physique^ blighting the tenderness of relations between man and man, 

 checking you off the values of the different sorts of intellect and in- 

 spiration. And, thanks to the extreme nicety of our mechanical ar- 

 rangements, we are cut down into the most fractional existences. As 

 if the disjecta membra left on a field of battle were made to spin into 



