PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XV11 



than carpeted and gilded halls ; if they could be taught to prefer skies painted 

 with clouds of brilliant hues, and studded with stars whose lustre never grows 

 dim, to palaces blazing with artificial lustres and adorned with the far inferior 

 magnificence of man s genius and taste ; if, indeed, by any possible means, you 

 could induce men and women, and, above all, the young, to love the country ; 

 if, in a word, you could keep them in the country by an attachment to its simple 

 labors and recreations, and prevent their crowding cities to repletion, and thus 

 destroying by competition the ordinary professions and trades which prevail 

 there, where so many vigorous young men, and so many fair and blooming 

 maidens rush in, like flies in a summer evening into a blazing taper, to find too 

 often the grave of their health, hopes, happiness, and virtue, what an immense 

 gain would be achieved for morals and for humanity ! 



But while matters continue otherwise, while such millions of acres remain 

 unoccupied, while such thousands upon thousands crowd into the learned pro 

 fessions, and into the mechanical arts and trades, and fill cities to repletion, 

 under the powerful stimulus of a vain ambition, an inordinate avarice, or a love 

 of excitement, luxury, and pleasure as inordinate and unrestrained, we shall 

 continue to complain of a superabundance of population ; and that superabun 

 dance, wherever the wave accumulates, will bring with it crime and misery. 

 The decrees of Divine Providence cannot be violated with impunity. Every 

 inordinate and unrestrained passion will yield its bitter fruits. Every infraction 

 of the laws of man s moral constitution will be followed with its just and inevita 

 ble penalty. 



To my mind, then, the great causes of the evils of which society, especially 

 in the old countries of Europe, is every where complaining, are primarily those 

 which are now pointed out, an excessive crowding of the professions, trades, 

 and mechanic arts, creating a most baneful competition, and an entirely false 

 assumption, which every where fixes itself in men s minds, that pecuniary wealth 

 is the true standard of prosperity. Competition, which, when excessive, is so 

 hurtful and serious in the mechanic arts ard trades, :s, . n agriculture, always a 

 good. Under proper management the earth cannot be made to produce too 

 much. It is a generally received theory, that as yet there has oeen no suirl is 

 produce ; that what is grown in one year is, upon an average, only sufficient lor 

 that year ; and that one year s entire failure of the crops would cause the 

 destruction of the human race. I shall not speculate upon this theory, which, 

 possibly, may be Avell founded, but which Heaven forbid that it should be put 

 soon to experiment. In some years there may be a surplus of some products, 

 and then there may be a dearth of others/ But I have never known too much 

 grown: 1 have never known the great mass of mankind enjoy ing too much bread, 

 b* 



