THE LADIES' REPOSITORY. APRIL, 1852. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIETY. BY THE EDITOR. HAVING, in a previous article, in as few and fit words as I could, laid open the inner workings of nature, while in the process of forming the great world we live in, and having arrived, as I thought, to the undeniable and unanswerable conclusion, that the general scheme of society must ever remain what it is, because it grows directly and necessarily out of our own mental and physical constitution, I pass on, in the second place, to inquire into the evils connected with it. he can pervert, he can by no means preclude, the laws of his being. Like a drunken man forced homeward by his friend, he may stagger along the path of his existence, though he can not cease to go. From every relation between man and man, there grows up a duty, and, considering the mind's freedom, the possibility of a sin. From every passion of our nature, as it is governed by reason and conscience, or left without control, there may come a virtue, or a vice. That these vices, however, are not the natural fruit of society, or of the social passions, it is essential to my argument to show. There, for example, is self-love, given us for the purposes of self-protection, without which no man would take the pains necessary to preserve his being, or to promote his welfare, or to improve his character and condition in any way. Can we find any fault with it? Can we arraign it for impelling us to seek the company of our fellow-beings, in order to the greater security of our persons, the But it may be said, and probably will be said, that a system coming so immediately from nature, so directly from the hand of God, can have no evils. "Look," says the objector-"look through the wide universe. Where is there an object, made by the Creator, which is not every thing it should be? Behold the spire of grass, the flower blooming in the field, the gem fastened to an ocean rock-fuller employment of our faculties, and the attainyea, the hidden things of creation, which the light of day is never to illume, which the eye of man is never to admire the coral reef, the wild violet of the wood, the unfound pearl buried in the unsearchable depths of ocean sands-how perfect, how peerless are they all!" Indeed, this is very true; and if man were a mere physical being, a tuft of moss, or a pebble by the sea, or a stream winding down a vale, or a meteor flashing through the air, his life, his action, his destiny, would be as fixed, as finished, as complete as that of any object existing in the world. But man, reader, is not a mere physical existence. He is neither a meteor, nor a comet, nor a star. He is not a vegetable of any kind, from the tulip to the tree. Nor is he a serpent, nor a fish, nor a bird, nor a mere animal of any race. Man is an order of being by himself. Between two worlds he stands, touching both, but the property of neither. Nay, he is not property at all, except as all things are the handiwork of God. He is man, and man is free. He is as free to abuse, as to obey, his own instincts, his reason, and his moral powers. His power over himself, however, is not in every sense complete; for, though | ment of a higher good? Yet, when carried to excess, beyond the designs of nature, beyond reason, beyond the sanction of conscience, it becomes selfishness, a fountain deep and full of evil, whose black streams imbitter all the joys of life. VOL. XII.-10 What purer passion, also, than that which draws two loving, trusting, buoyant hearts together? What other hearts have found a joy more innocent, or a more radiant bliss? With what new verdure is the round world clothed! How softly glide along the days! The nights, how beautiful-how calm the moonlit scene-how pure the sky freckled with transparent clouds-how serene, and still, and sacred to them the unfrequented shade! Nay, the rougher shapes of nature are smoothed and leveled down! To them a frowning precipice, or a shaggy wood, or a desert heath, is a grassy hillock, a Hesperian grove, or a Tempean vale. Poverty itself gives only the greater romance to their visions; sickness but opens the deeper well-springs of their unfathomed love; difficulties arm their affection with a more resistless energy; and all pain is pleasure, while innocence maintains its sway. But, now, let reason give up her reign-let conscience forsake its hold—let one impure desire get echolet one false step be taken-and all is lost! The vision passes, the pageant fades; and there is nothing left but anguish of spirit and a wide waste of blighted and untasted joys! ness; not a bubbling spring, or a gray old well, whose hanging cup, or moss-covered bucket, could not become historical of socialities as pure and refreshing as their own transparent waters. There, too, is the village school-house, with its ample green, on whose verdant sward, as on a mother's their tasks are done. And there, not far away, nor quite concealed by the bloom and beauty round it, stands the village church, within whose sacred walls the voice of pure religion speaks approvingly to consciences so free from guile and evil. Behind that house of prayer, beneath the boughs of the weeping willows, the loved and the lost are lying, on whose cherished graves the tears of memory are often falling. Over all the scene, from morn till eve, a common sun pours a mellow radiance; and, at night, clad in her fleecy robes, and crowned with a wreath of light, Look you in, also, upon the family circle, which centers at that quiet hearth. The fire-how cheer-lap, the ungrown inhabitants daily gambol, when fully does it blaze; the swept stone-what token of universal cleanliness and comfort; the cleanclad table, with its furniture so tastefully laid out how emblematic of a happy life; and then, those half-furtive but all-lawful glances, between the youthful master and mistress of this house, and the sweet smiles continually caught at each other's eyes and forever playing from each other's lips-0, what flashes of that inward feeling, of that unsullied love, which spreads for them over the earth and heavens an unmeasured bliss! The younger faces, too, which Heaven has kindly given to receive and reflect the rays of parental happiness, are radiant with it as their days glide on. Bend down, ye angels, and view this living rapture, welling up like overflowing springs, whose waters mingle as they flow! Guard, ye ministering spirits-guard those fountains well! Keep, O keep, the hearts of that happy pair, and of those dear ones trusted to their love! One straying look-one truant purpose one overt act and the charm is forever gone! Jealousy, anger, hatred, revenge lead on to poverty, misery, ruin, death; and, when the last family tie is broken, when parental, filial, and fraternal love is gone, when the season of domestic suffering is full, that miserable pair lie down in a grave of tears, either carrying their children with them, or leaving them to struggle for existence in a cold world newly cursed for a father's or a mother's sin. Yes, from that sorrowing grave we have this testimony, that it was the transgression, and not the observance, of the great family law, of the domestic loves, which blasted the buds and flowers of this blooming scene. "The moon takes up the wondrous tale," and gossips of a heaven below to her attendant stars; and the stars themselves, from the zenith to the poles, shed their selectest influences on a group of families, so united, so trusting, so radiant with every earthly joy. Ay, ye heavenly watchers, be vigilant of your charge; for the hour is coming, and now is, when the beasts of prey shall break in upon this peaceful fold-when avarice, with her open throat and iron hand-when lust, with her wicked heart and watery eye-when revenge, with clinched fist and scowling brows-when jealousy, green-eyed, with suspicious step and peering look— when envy, that sinks as others soar, with a wan visage and a wasting cheek-when all this haggard band, with discord and ruin in their train, shall burst in and rend and ravage all around. But who will not say, when their foul work is done, that it was the lawful exercise of the passions, acting in obedience to reason and conscience, which wrought out this social happiness, and that it was the transgression of the dictates of the rational and moral principles, by those same passions left without restraint, which effected the fearful change? Within their just limits, they were pure, and reasonable, and right; and, like every other good, they became sinful and ruinous, only when car There, also, is the quiet, social, happy neighborhood. Each individual family not only lives in perfect harmony within itself, but is bound to every other family by long acquaintance, familiar intercourse, and unfeigned friendship, all of which bonds are made doubly strong by numerous inter-ried to excess. connections of blood and marriage. Their houses are no longer castles, as the English Constitution makes the residence of a subject, shutting in their inmates from any outward liberty, and cutting off their neighbors from the most easy and confidential intercourse. They are the homes of loving hearts, where friends in fellowship often meet, and chase the flying hours with quaint stories, or quick jokes, or the music of a song, or recollections of by-gone years. There is not a field, lying between two cottages, where the winding paths, well-beaten, do not tell tales on the frequency of social visitings; not a tree, be it ever so lonely on the adjacent landscape, where the circles round it, on which no grass grows, hint not of midday converse or moonlight cheerful Nor is there any thing, it seems to me, constitutionally and essentially sinful in the organization of a state. It grows up from necessity, in obedience to our social passions, which, as in every other case, are to be governed by reason and conscience. The different parts of it are connected by contiguity of position, by a unity of interests, by great natural boundaries and landmarks, by a common language, by marriage ties between many of its families, by a national blood, and by the imperious necessity of having a general code of laws, under whose sway the complex affairs of the people may move on in harmony. For such a people, the combined reason of all is the legislator, and the general conscience is the judge; while the THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIETY. aggregate will of the nation, guided and guarded by its intellect and moral sense, is the enlightened and virtuous executive of the laws. In a nation thus constituted, where the social feelings have full scope, so far as they can exert themselves rationally and right, without the slightest modifications of their tendencies or results, men will live as they were made to live, in the satisfaction of all their natural powers, in peace and prosperity, and in the full enjoyment of social life. But now, let one, great, national sin take possession of that people. Let self-love, in that nation, become selfishness; or sexual love pass over into lust; or paternal love, with the other domestic affections, be changed to family pride and bigotry; or friendship go on to provincialism and aristocracy; or patriotism reach the madness of feeling and acting unjustly and oppressively toward other countries; or humanity itself, that sublimest of all the affections, so set its heart on man, as to aggrandize him beyond his real character, elevating his pride to a contradiction of God's claims upon him; let reason and right, in a word, be renounced, as the conservative principles of society, and the state tends rapidly and fearfully to ruin. Unmanned and unnerved by luxury, it may be swept as bare as the rocks of Tyre, or the sand-heaps of Sidon. Sprung by a vaulting ambition, that "O'erleaps itself," 123 selves. Young men, and the other sex too, in our great cities especially, are standing on the brink of virtue, from which thousands are nightly tumbling down. Neighborhoods are rent by discord; towns are overwhelmed with drunkenness and riots; the whole country is filled with the rumor of thefts, and robberies, and murders. Such is the general corruption, no one knows how far he may trust his neighbors, or his kin. Our houses are unsafe at night; and our purses are picked in the light of day. If you buy, you expect to be deceived; if you sell, you are afraid to give credit even to a friend. Trade, in fact, to an alarming extent, has become a science of low fraud; and our youth, of both sexes, are educated in it, to turn their backs on the moral law. The watchmen, who are set to keep our cities, take advantage of our confidence, breaking into our premises, and spoiling us of our goods. Magistrates and judges, pushed by the general impulse, in haste to get rich too, are blind indeed to every object but their gain. Ministers, the representatives of virtue and religion, are often the most licentious and irreligious men we have. The rich, with more money than they know how to spend, bestow grudgingly and meanly upon public and useful enterprises, which are supported, in a great measure, by the poor. The poor, witnessing this contemptible parsimony, conceive an antipathy toward the rich, which unsettles the harmony and peace of political and social life. The employers, combining together, crowd down the price of labor to the lowest point at which a man can live; the laborers, though justly indignant at such a course, run a fierce and destructive competition with each other, which sends thouI write not, indeed, to palliate the evils of so- sands of them to starvation and the grave. The ciety. With Plato, I am ready to look upon man, unemployed, wandering over the land in search even in his best estate, as the inhabitant of a vast of business, spend the last of their earnings, and cave, with his back to the mouth of it, groping his then beg. But begging, in many countries, is a way along in pursuit of the shadows, projected crime, punishable by the state; and the offender, from without, that fit on the rocky wall before in default of a fine, is thrown into prison for askhim. With the material philosophers, I am willing ing at the door of luxury for a piece of bread. to confess, that we are all of us living contrary to When he gets out of prison, he joins a band of nature, out of harmony with the universe, having burglars, or robbers, or banditti, leaving, it may waged a war against the laws of our being, thus be, a helpless family behind. His sons, if they are turning continually the tide of battle on ourselves. old enough, follow his course, and meet with a With the modern Socialists, St. Simon, Fourier, similar fate; and his wife and daughters, punished and Owen, together with Cabet, Considerant, and for idleness when they can obtain no work, taken Enfantin, I am prepared to charge powerfully up as vagrants if they go to seek it, to save themagainst many of the artificial arrangements of so- selves from imminent starvation, offer their virtue to ciety, against war, against slavery, against domestic the highest bidder, and thus sink into eternal ruin. selfishness and general oppression. The boldest And, reader, what is worse than all the rest, those and blackest pictures of social misery and crime, very men elected to high and holy trusts, as the drawn by Louis Blanc himself, shall receive my law-makers of their respective countries, who are hearty commendation. Society is, beyond all con- expected to do every thing in their power to remedy tradiction, in a most terrible condition. The great these frightful evils, are frequently, nay too charmajority of men are seeking their own ends irre- acteristically, the most lawless, and corrupt, and spective of all other men. Heads of families are dangerous members of society. Living on the pubstriving to amass wealth, by the most dishonest lic money, they will even add to our distresses, by means, to spend in luxury, or to hoard in idle heaps. stirring up any senseless popular broils that may Husbands and wives, to an alarming extent, either bring themselves into notice; and they will wage go willingly to sin, or have fixed prices on them-wars, and plunge their countries into debt, and like Athens, it may rise and dazzle for a moment, to be obscured forever. Goaded by the love of conquest to injustice, and war, and cruelty, like Rome it may govern the world for a season, then lie down itself beneath the most severe, and dreadful, and ignominious oppression. 124 FAMILIAR CONVERSATIONS WITH AN INVALID. thus doubly oppress the laboring and the starving poor, for party or personal success. God of our fathers! happy for all nations that thy bow of promise still spans the clouds! Thrice happy, if the earth quake not, nor send us, as thy next and concluding judgment, a flood of devouring fire! FAMILIAR CONVERSATIONS WITH AN INVALID. BY MRS. SUSAN W. JEWETT. "How welcome is the friend who brings to us great thoughts! I have been quite happy to-day, for no other reason than that, my mind has been lifted up, and out of my own sufferings, by the help of one stronger than I, who did for me what I was unable to do for myself.” "That is right," replied Lucille. "It is well that there are some strong-minded people who, guided by kind and sympathizing hearts, become helpers of suffering humanity. But would it not have as good an effect upon you, if, instead of waiting to be ministered to, you were to try and minister to others? Suppose you make the effort now, as you seem a little desponding, and try to elevate me." "All can not be teachers and apostles," replied Grace. "Some of us must be contented to serve as beacons. And yet-" "And yet what?" asked Lucille. "How difficult, how impossible it is," replied Grace, sadly, "to keep those hights which the soul is competent to gain! So Wordsworth said, and so many a poor mortal must have felt, whose spirit was borne down to earth by these chains of mortality. But once to gain a vantage-ground, to catch a glimpse of the promised land, to bask in a clearer light, to drink inspiration from the fountain of all wisdom, only makes our fall to earth more dreadful." "What a pity it is, then, that these soul-inspiring, life-invigorating friends can not be forever near ns!" said Lucille. "It is not so designed," replied Grace; "because, in that case, we should never learn to stand alone. Our strength should come from within, not without; and even sympathy, sweet as it is, we are not capable of appreciating, till we have learned to do without it." "I suppose you are right," said Lucille; "because you are older, and ought to be wiser than I. But upon what hight of contemplation did your friend leave you? It is not fair that you alone should be the gainer by these angel visits. Although I confess the common earth is a very comfortable as well as safe place for me, I have no objection to try a short aerial voyage with you. I wonder how this busy, work-day world would appear seen from such an elevation." once said to me, when I asked him what good "Long live those who can bring great and high thoughts to such weak mortals as need them!" exclaimed Lucille. "Perhaps I am too satisfied with life as I find it, and with my poor, humble self as I am. It is my temperament. We can not help our temperament. We are not to blame for being too happy. I am not obliged to soar so high to feel the love of my Father in heaven. I see it all around me-in this beautiful earth, these kind friends, these simple pleasures. There must be just such commonplace sort of people-contented people like me are, after all, rather commonplace-to fill up some gaps, and preserve the equilibrium of the universe." "Dear Lucille, such happiness and contentment as yours are my admiration," replied Grace. “I do not envy you, but you do me good constantly, because in your healthy and happy soul I see a constant manifestation of God's love. It is true, we are unlike. We have each our mission. Happiness must come to us in different ways; but, if we are faithful to our own natures, we shall attain it. Happiness brings us near to God. It elevates us to the sphere of the angels. Sorrow is the exception, not the rule of our being; and this we shall see more clearly when we shake off these chains, and look at life in its vastness, from the shore of eternity, instead of this narrow belt of time. Even in looking back upon griefs that are past, how slight they seem, compared with their overpowering weight when present! And even then, if we had known ourselves, we should have known it was not the sorrow, or the disappointment, or the anxiety alone that weighed us down; but the sudden eclipse of light, which is as needful to the growth of the soul as the sunshine is to the growth of the flowers. One being we love is taken from us. Is the earth then for us desolate? One cherished hope has come to naught. Is there, then, nothing left to hope for? No, it is not this, that we have lost all, and that life is hopeless; but we are conscious of a great capacity within us, which is chained down and useless. The capacity for happiness in our nature is undeveloped. We must throw off the weight, and rise to the sphere for which we were born." "How we wrong ourselves by sorrow and sigh"You recollect," said Grace, smiling, "what P. ing!" replied Lucille. "I have not much to answer FAMILIAR CONVERSATIONS WITH AN INVALID. for on that score as yet, no thanks to my virtue, which has never yet been put to the test. But there is such an indomitable will within me to enjoy what comes along, that even grim Disappointment, frown he ever so desperately, would find it hard to vanquish it." "You speak," replied Grace, sadly, "like one who has had no bitter experience of life, no conflict with his own nature. Long may you be spared the test of your faith and your virtue! No praise is due to you for being happy; you could not be otherwise. We do not say of that merry brook yonder, which I can see dancing in the sunshine, and which I know danced as blithely as now before the eyes of our great grandmother, how strange that it should so exult in its eternal youth and gladness! But let that huge, unsightly rock be thrown so as to obstruct its current, and see what a change would ensue; or let a mountain intercept its progress, and what then?" "Why, one of two things would happen," said Lucille. "Either it would turn pleasantly and cheerfully to find a passage round it, through green and pleasant valleys; or else furiously beat against its prison wall, and struggle to force a passage through, and thereby fret and foam, and, if not aided by some convulsive effort of nature, be forced back after all. Now, I am not made for conflict, and should probably yield more readily than you to a law I could not resist; but acquiescence is, after all, what we must come to before we have learned by heart the secret of happiness. If God thwart us in our preconcerted plans of enjoyment, it is for some wise purpose, and we only make the matter worse by resistance. Better yield at once; and the more cheerfully we yield the better for us in the end." "It is easy for you to say this, because, as you confess, you have never been tried. I do not say put yourself in my place, because I consider mine the most unfortunate of conditions, but because we can all speak more conclusively from our own experience; and it is very hard, amidst the depressing influences of long-continued ill-health, to nourish the mind on cheerful thoughts and high aspirations. I can see, as well as you, how many are worse off than myself, who have yet attained to the sublimest resignation, and whose inward faith seemed to increase in proportion as their outward blessings were withdrawn. But I take my own example, because I conceive it to be the severest feature in my present discipline, that the nature of my physical complaint has so strong an effect upon my mental constitution, that though I long for life, and strive for it, and pray for it, the very effort to attain it only serves to make the darkness more visible. O, this mystery of life!" "Yes, it is a mystery; therefore, why puzzle your poor brain about it, as if it were necessary that you should solve it all at once? It reminds me of that tangled skein we attempted to wind yesterday. You, with the earnestness which is 125 characteristic of your nature, tried to find a clue to unravel it instantly, but in vain; while I, with my practical and matter-of-fact coolness, followed the single thread in and out, wherever it led me, and thus succeeded at last in finding my way through. Now, in fact, this is the only way to do, after all, with the tangled thread of human life. You must follow in and out, through the intricate windings, till you come to the end. There is no use in jerking and twitching-it only makes the snarl worse; neither is it worth while to try and look through it, for that is discouraging; or to break off and try another thread, as one is tempted to do who is overhasty. By and by, if we are patient, it will run smooth. There are very few skeins which can not be disentangled with patience. And now let us go back to the ground from which we first started: 'A blessing on those who give us great thoughts,' and rouse us above our trials! What great thought did your friend leave with you to call forth so fervent a blessing? Let me come in for a share; I may need it by and by, for, if they tell us truly who are wise by experience, the dark days must come to each one of us, and I would be prepared for them." "I doubt if that can be," replied Grace. "We* must feel our weakness before we can realize our need of help. Let me read you these few lines; they were translated from the German by my friend: 'Hast thou overlived it-the heavy hand of that gigantic misery laid stunningly, stroke after stroke, upon thine head, till thou hast shuddered at the desolation of thine own bosom, empty of joy, of consolation, of hope; thy loved ones all in the grave; thy grief longing in vain for tears; and in the whole wide world remaining to thee nothing— nothing; and yet in this nothing lies already slumbering thine all? From nothing did God create the world. So must the spirit create, calling its worlds from nothing. Ere the diamond of the depth can show forth its radiant beauty, thy heart This is the rock must crash to its very center.' not all, but is it not enough? Carry out this thought-what a volume of wisdom it comprehends within it! What hope! what encouragement to those who have lived to see in the whole wide world remaining to them nothing! Then again the earth becomes chaos. Darkness is upon the deep; but through this darkness breaks a ray, feeble and faint at first, but toward it the sinking soul turns as to the dawn of a new hope. The Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters; the mist arises, and is quenched by the steady light of eternal truth. Then, for the first time, in our Creator we recognize our Redeemer, our Savior." "One could almost wish to suffer to feel the power of such truth," added Lucille, thoughtfully. But how then can I understand your first assertion-We are born for happiness? Do you not contradict yourself, and make the heaviest discipline prove the greatest happiness?" |