TO THE EEADER. 



I HAVE written this volume not with any desire to stay the 

 progress of those improvements which are necessary to the 

 wants of an increasing population. We are carried along by 

 an irresistible current, and any effort to stay it would be a 

 striving against fate. But as a river may to a certain extent 

 be directed in its course, though it cannot be stopped, in like 

 manner may the progress of the civilized arts be modified by 

 a common intelligence, so as not to destroy the land whose 

 population they sustain. My object is to inspire my readers 

 with a love of nature and simplicity of life, confident that the 

 great fallacy of the present age is that of mistaking the in- 

 crease of the national wealth for the advancement of civiliza- 

 tion. Our peril lies in the speed with which every work goes 

 forward, rendering us liable, in our frantic efforts to grasp 

 certain objects of immediate value, to leave ruin and desola- 

 tion in our track which will render worthless all the desirable 

 objects we have attained. In this work I have discussed its 

 several points chiefly with reference to our material welfare. 

 The ethical part of the subject I have treated more fully in 

 an unpublished volume entitled " The Progress and Perils of 

 Civilization in America." 



