TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.
TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.
TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.
TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.
[Revised from the American Workman of Oct. 30, 1870.]
[Revised from the American Workman of Oct. 30, 1870.]
[Revised from the American Workman of Oct. 30, 1870.]
When it is considered, how much the useful portion of life is dependent upon the preparatory part, the character of the influences brought to bear during that part, and the manner of their application, become a subject of deep importance. Education has received the most special attention from scholars, savants and professors; but they seem to have forgotten or to have ignored the fact that within the mind is contained the germ of all acquirements, and that teaching by rule merely what others have said or written, cramps and dwarfs the mind which, under a more natural system, would more rapidly and more healthfully develop its latent powers, through its stimulated efforts to evolve ideas connected with such facts and phenomena as may be exhibited to it, and thus become a part of the mind itself.
Instead of training the mind to rely upon method, books and authorities as rules, it should be encouraged to form methods of its own. The mind should be questioned, and its answers listened to, instead of being furnished by the teacher.
The mode proposed has many decided advantages. It inspires self-reliance, disciplines the mind to think for itself, accustoms it to express its own conclusions in its own chosen language, leads to clear and comprehensive forms of expression, gives decision and confidence, and tends to produce individuality of thought and character.
The Children’s Progressive Lyceum, instituted upon this idea, has already been inaugurated, and should receive the careful and unprejudicedattention of all interested in educational reform. Children who have been under this system but a few months are able to stand before an audience, and, in a clear and comprehensive manner, speak without embarrassment upon any subject comprehended by their minds. The coming generations will acknowledge a debt of gratitude to the founder of this system which no depth of respect or reverence could fully express.
No proposition can be made which will be more readily accepted by the general progressive mind than that, as the world advances in knowledge and wisdom, its general welfare becomes more and more dependent upon reciprocal interests; that is to say, aspersonsandnationsbecome more and better individualized, their reliance upon interests outside of themselves becomes more positively and distinctly defined; thus a system of mutual dependence and reciprocal interests is every day being more widely inaugurated, which will continue to spread until the whole world will be brought into harmonious co-operation. This iscommerce! Commerce, to the material world, is what thought is to the spiritual—interchange and exchange of material product in the one and of spiritual in the other—hence no restrictions or embargoes should be placed on the one which would not be legitimate if placed upon the other. The dependence and independence of each is mutual and general.
Restrictions upon commerce is a system of commercial slavery, flowing frompoliticandspeciallegislation, and is in violation of the eternal principles of right, because it renders equality in interchange impossible. If it is the right principle to restrict commerce between nations, it extends to States, to cities and to individuals as well.
Under the rule of an unrestricted commercial intercourse throughout the world, the principle of supply and demand would control the movements of commerce without the aid of legislation; and, when once fully established, it would give stability and security to production everywhere. The products of the world entering into commerce would localize themselves where they naturally belong—where most could be produced with the least labor; and, population obeying the laws of equalization, would adjust itself to the demands of the respective interests of productive labor. This is a vast problem, in the solution of which the whole world is vitally interested, and one which, sooner or later, must be solved. If its solution were possiblenow, coming generations would look back and bless us for the solving. An international congress should be called to consider the subject, and to take propermeasures for the inauguration of a system of general economy in production and consumption. The prophecies of the age point to this as a reform of sufficient magnitude to demand the immediate attention of the nations, and to call for aChristto rise up for their salvation more powerful than the Democratic Party.
The political, national or personal advantages which are supposed to flow from restraints upon commerce, have nothing to do with the question of general reform. While it is the duty of every nation and every individual person to press forward the work of reform upon general principles, each nation and person must always keep in view the law ofself-preservation, otherwise individuality will be lost in the struggle for supremacy, which has hitherto characterized the legislation of nations and the conduct of individual persons. The great principle of unrestricted universal commerce can only be practically established by universal acquiescence in its wisdom and justice. When legislation shall conform itself to general principles, instead of sectional, local or personal policy, and when its course shall be shaped by such broad action, it may be safely prophesied that the government it represents will be perfect and perpetual. Commerce will then obey the law of progress, and rise from the petty policies of nations, which strangle its development and limit its benefits: it will rise to be conducted upon the dignity of principle, untrammeled by policy; and on this platform the world will unite in harmonious prosperity under a universal government, not limited even by the boundaries between the material and the spiritual world.
Underlying all advancement and prosperity, material and spiritual, is action—motion—which, guided by intellect, results inlabor, without which the world would be as though man had never been; for no form of creature below him has ever left permanent artificial beauty, systems of economy or usefulness as the result of its workings, except in so far as the form itself may be accounted such.
What, in two hundred years, has so changed the face of this country from the wilderness it was to the teeming garden it is, dotted all over with the habitations of men? What has produced the floating palaces that everywhere walk its deep waters “like a thing of life?” What has united all its distant parts by iron bands, along whose guiding lines those other representatives ofartandmotionspeed, almost outstripping the wind? What has overcome time and space, and is now extending its arms to embrace the globe, that we may speak, and that the ends of the earth answer our call? Marvelous demonstration ofthe rapidly growing mutual and reciprocal dependence of the children of men! What has made the wilderness to blossom as the rose? What has achieved all these glorious, god-like results? Labor! labor! labor! physical, mental and spiritual labor!
Labor, therefore, is the fulcrum of the great lever of progress, lifting humanity from the material up to the spiritual realm. One short century ago nearly all physical labor was performed by the hands of man. Since then the mind has come up to the work, and rescued the body from the laborious servitude of former times; and now a single mind, directing a single machine, produces an hundred-fold more than it could when acting through its own personal machine. The inventive powers of the mind will continue to produce more labor-saving machines until labor directly with the hand will be almost, perhaps entirely, superseded.
The products of the mind, when compared with purely physical labor, are of inestimable value, and the great distinction everywhere recognized in their relative compensations is still too limited. No argument is needed to establish the dignity of labor; it has established itself in becoming the architect of the great future, by building the past and the present.
Out of the multiform phases of labor, questions will arise which will require for their adjustment equitable rules of compensation; the best talent in the world can find ample scope for useful employment in the solution of the numerous problems growing out of this vast subject.Labor—physical, mental and spiritual—finding itself in a position of injustice, is in a state of constant irritation and discontent, and legitimately seeks redress through the organization of associations to control its price; but it is at least questionable whether such combinations have been productive of any permanently beneficial results. If it could be perceived and comprehended, there must be, in the nature of things, perfect and complete harmony in the practical operation of all the working elements or agencies, not only in this world, but in the boundless universe.
This problem may find a practical solution in co-operative labor associations, in which the members share equally the profits upon what they produce.
Suppose the entire labor of the country were conducted upon this just principle, what would be the result? The rapidly accumulating wealth of the country is the result of labor; if the united labor of the country, producing this increase, should henceforward share it equally,the result, in time, would be theequalizationof the wealth of the country, which is now rapidly growing into a necessity, to modify the luxurious habits of the rich on the one hand, and the crying evils of poverty on the other, which are rapidly engendering an antagonism, which will continue to increase in volume and intensity until it will culminate in a storm that will consume the elements of discord in the same manner (and upon the same immutable principles) by which African slavery was abolished in the Southern States of this Union.
A careful investigation of the co-operative principle will show that it is not only possible, but perfectly simple and practicable, and that it is full of glorious prophecy to the vast numbers who are now “ground to the earth” by the condition of actual slavery to the ordinary demands of nature which is entailed upon them from generation to generation, through the operations of false systems, which were founded upon and which are sustained by injustice and usurpation.
While viewing this subject in its practical aspects, it must not be forgotten thatit, too, is intimately connected with progress, and subject to its decrees.
It is a well-established fact that the powers of endurance of the physical system are growing less, generation after generation, while the mental power is increasing in about the same ratio; the legitimate deduction from this fact is in perfect harmony with the general progressive tendency of all things leading from the purely physical to the spiritual, from which we may safely prophecy that the time will come when all labor will be performed by the mind, and when it shall have acquired perfect dominion over the material. The necessity for physical endurance will then have ended. The tendency to such a condition, though it has been, is, and may continue to be gradual, is nevertheless positive and well-defined.
Intimately connected with the subject of labor, and the tendency to perform by the agency of inventions what still devolves upon the direct application of physical strength, is that of supplying the demands of the body. The food used now is very different from that of a hundred years ago. Some who recognize this fact argue that the change of diet has produced the change in the physical condition; but reasoning from analogy, and applying the general rules of progress, leads to the conclusion that the changes in the relative conditions of the physical and mental, by which the latter asserts superior control, have rendered a corresponding change of diet necessary; hence it is fair to conclude that the change grows out of the necessities of the consumer, andis not the producing cause in the premises; in other and general terms, the physical system demands and should receive appropriate supplies.
Hundreds of people who once made use of the flesh of swine have entirely discarded it from their boards, instinctively feeling that it does not meet their present demands, and there is a growing distaste for it. Common observation shows that all kinds of flesh are gradually falling into disfavor, especially among those who labor mentally or are devoted to spiritual things.
As the physical system is gradually being relieved of labor and the consequent waste of its energies, the character of food it requires necessarily changes, and in the place of physical strength to be supplied is that upon which the brain can draw to replenish its wasting stock; the failure to recognize these demands causes very much of the dyspepsia from which those who lead sedentary lives suffer so generally; these should discard those articles of diet that principally contribute to build up the material, and use such as will impart strength to the mind.
There are quite a number of well-authenticated cases of the actual subsistence of the body upon the elements contained in the atmosphere a sufficient length of time to show that it could be continued indefinitely if the proper conditions were preserved. One of these cases in the State of Kentucky has remained seventeen years in this condition; one in Chicago nearly four years; there is one in Brooklyn of three years’ duration; and a number of others from ten to sixty days. In this condition the physical system becomes entirely renovated, purified, and almost transparent, and the spiritual faculties intensified many fold.