Page:Anti-slavery and reform papers by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/103

 92 Anti' Slavery and Reform Papers.

year, more than hitherto could be clone in thousands of 3^ears ; may level mountains, sink valleys, create lakes, drain lakes and swamps, and intersect the land everywhere with beautiful canals, and roads for transporting heavy loads of many thousand tons, and for travelling one thousand miles in twenty-four hours ; may cover the ocean with floating islands, movable in any desired direction with immense power and celerity, in perfect secnrity, and with all comforts and luxuries, bearing gardens and palaces, with thousands of families, and provided with rivulets of sweet water ; may ex- plore the interior of the globe, and travel from pole to pole in a fortnight ; provide himself with means, unheard of yet, for increasing his knowledge of the world, and so his intelli- gence ; lead a life of continual happiness, of enjoyments yet unknown; free himself from almost all the evils that afflict mankind, except death, and even put death far beyond the common period of human life, and finally render it less afflicting. Mankind may thus live in and enjoy a new world, far superior to the present, and raise themselves far higher in the scale of being." It would seem from this and various indications beside, that there is a transcendentalism in mechanics as well as in ethics. While the whole field of the one reformer lies beyond the boundaries of space, the other is pushing his schemes for the elevation of the race to its utmost limits.

While one scours the heavens, the other sweeps the earth.

One says he will reform himself, and then nature and cir- cumstances will be right. Let us not obstruct ourselves, for that is the greatest friction. It is of little importance though a cloud obstruct the view of the astronomer com- pared with his own blindness. The other will reform nature and circumstances, and then man will be right.

Talk no more vaguely, says he, of reforming the world, —