Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/276

264 that these great purposes and ideas existed consciously in the minds of men. They were in men^s character, not in their convictions; they came out in their life more than in their speech. They were in men as botany is in this plant, as chemistry in this drop of water, as gravitation which rounds it to a globe and brings it to the ground. But the camelia knows not the botany it lives; the drop of water knows nothing of the chemistry which has formed it, arranging its particles ^^by number and measure and weight; it knows not the gravitation which brings it to the ground. So it was the great soul of humanity that stirred in our fathers’ heart; it was the providence of God working by the men who formed the State. From 1620 to 1788 there was a rapid development of ideas. But since that time the outward pressure has been withdrawn. The nation is no longer called to protest against a foreign foe; no despot forces us to fall back on the great principles of human nature, and declare great universal truths. Even the Anglo-Saxon people are always metaphysical in revolution. We have ceased to be such, and have become material. We have let the programme of political principles and purposes slip out of the nation's consciousness, and have betaken ourselves, body and soul, to the creation of riches. Wealth is the great object of American desire. Covetousness is the American passion. This is so—nationally in the political affairs of the country; ecclesiastically, socially, domestically, individually. Our national character, political institutions, geographic situation,—all favour the accumulation of riches. I thank God that we are thus rich! No country was ever so rich before, nor got rich so fast; in none had wealth ever such power, or was so esteemed. It is counted as the end of life, not as the material basis to higher forms thereof. It has no conventional check in the institutions of the land, and only two natural checks in the heart of the people. One is the talent and genius—intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious—that is born in rare men; and the other is the desire, the caprice, the opinion, of the great majority of men, who oppose their collective human will against the material glitter of mere accumulated money. But money can buy intellectual talent and intellectual genius; at least it can buy American