290 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



dren, passing and repassing, sauntering, walking, running, and 

 jostling each other, waiting upon and being waited upon, enter 

 taining and being entertained, carrying and being carried, labor 

 ing and enjoying. Here are caravansaries for the travellers, 

 banks for merchants, monuments to heroes and princes, schools 

 of science, galleries of art, and temples to God, adorned with 

 the finest embellishments of architectural skill, and lifting their 

 beautiful spires to the skies, as if, from the glittering vane 

 upon the top, they would emulate the brilliancy of a fixed star, 

 and as if, like the star which stood over the sacred spot of a 

 divine nativity, they would present Heaven s brilliant emblem of 

 mercy to encourage man s faith and piety. Here, too, are foun 

 tains of water throwing up their liquid treasures over their heads, 

 and coming down in constant showers of brilliants. Here are 

 men, and the busy and exciting concerns of men, under all the 

 varying aspects of human life and activity. Here are the mag 

 nificent triumphs of human art and skill ; here are the fruits of 

 centuries of toil and labor ; and here is one continued intensity 

 of action, as if it were the very heart of the great world beating 

 with violent emotion. But none of this, properly speaking, is 

 mechanical ; it is all intellectual ; it is all under the dominion of 

 mind to excite, to urge, to direct, to control it. There is a far 

 mightier power at work within than appears without. If you 

 could take off the roof of some of these moving tabernacles ; if 

 you could see what is there lying beneath, the burning thoughts, 

 the anxious desires, the resolute purposes, the beating affections, 

 and the fiery passions, which are there at work, and as it were 

 mingling in one common flame, you would indeed see objects 

 more curious and wonderful, an exhibition far more extraordinary, 

 than any thing ever before presented to your senses, or even to 

 your imagination. But what is the secret spring, the great 

 power-wheel which sets all these things in motion, which excites 

 and quickens all this activity ? It is acquisition, the desire to 

 acquire subsistence, pleasure, profit, wealth, or power. 



Would it be better that all this should cease, and society 

 become a mere stagnant pool ? Would it be better that all the 

 necessity of labor should be taken away, and men should have 

 no other destiny than to repose in quiet, with all their wants 

 supplied, and all their senses gratified ; and that down couches 

 should be spread round these gushing fountains, and instead of 



