PUBLIC HEALTH OF THE BRAIN. 6bl 



With respect to the first point, or culture, it embraces the pro- 

 gressive state of religious and other knowledge, but under a form 

 established and recognized by government for the time being. The 

 beginning of it is an established church, under which comes an 

 established or sanctioned literature, to give the tone to the secular 

 thought of the year. Private churches and literatures may exist in 

 any numbers, and they belong to the department of the freedom or 

 private health of the brain ; but over them, in the order of things, 

 there ought to be public encouragement of the admitted best among 

 them, both to gain a temporary rule of thinking, and to stimulate 

 the individual to the greatest possible degree. A government loses 

 its chief handle when it ceases to dispense the prizes of thought ; it 

 cedes the courage with which dissoluteness of mind and morals is 

 to be repressed, when it no longer grasps the chief literature of an 

 age. The thing to be guarded against is the supposition, that the 

 highest reach of thought can ever come under patronage at the time 

 of its attainment; that is not the point sought; it is the best 

 average which alone any state machinery can be expected to select. 

 The prizes of a state will be the leading points by which the next 

 ages decide upon its own condition; and progress will be marked 

 chiefly by the successive adoption of works and thoughts which 

 have been rejected, but are at length received. Nevertheless, in 

 this department, religion must ever claim the first place; that is to 

 say, the Christian religion through the Bible; and we regard it as 

 a fundamental to take no thought of infidelities in the council-cham- 

 bers of culture, but to proceed as if they did not exist. Let them 

 have their private range, according to the freedom of the age ; still, 

 they can enter into no general plan, but must be discouraged, 

 though not violated, by the state. By means of this laudable 

 supervision, the governments of free nations will begin to operate 

 upon the general thought, and with various success, according to 

 their own wisdom, will stimulate knowledge, both natural and 

 divine. Much, indeed, is done in this respect already, by numerous 

 corporations addicted to special walks of art and science ; but it 

 remains to crown the heights of the possibility by a State adoption 

 of what, from time to time, seems the best. 



It will be borne in mind that we recognize two modes in all these 

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