Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/237

Rh ©noo and human development; it is likely to continue for a long time. In all civilized countries which have outgrown the period when the sword was the favourite emblem, the purse represents the favourite made of power with the moss of men; but here it is so with the men of superior education. This power is not wholly personal, but extra-personal, and the man's centre of gravity lies out of himself, less or more; somewhere between the man and his last cent, the distance being greater or less as the man is less or greater than the estate. This is wielded chiefly by men of little education, except the practical culture which they have gained in the process of accumulation. Their riches they get purposely, their training by the way, and accidentally. It is a singular misfortune of the country, that while the majority of the people are better cultivated and more enlightened than any other population in the world, the greater part of the wealth of the nation is owned by men of less education and consequently of less enlightenment than the rich men of any leading nation in Europe. In England and France the wealth of this generation is chiefly inherited, and has generally fallen to men carefully trained, with minds disciplined by academic culture. Here wealth is new, and mainly in the hands of men who have scrambled for it adroitly and with vigour. They have energy, vigour, forecast, and a certain generosity, but a? a class, are narrow, vulgar, and conceited. Nine-tenths of the property of the people is owned by one- tenth of the persons; and these capitalists are men of little culture, little moral elevation. "This is an accident of our position unavoidable, perhaps transient; but it is certainly a misfortune that the great estates of the country, and the social and political power of such wealth, should be mainly in the hands of such men. The melancholy result appears in many a disastrous shape; in the tone of the pulpit, of the press, and of the national politico; much of the vulgarity of the nation is to be ascribed to this fact, that wealth belongs to men who know nothing better.

The office represents the next most popular mode of power. This also is extra-personal, the man's centre of gravity is out of himself, somewhere between him and the lowest man in the State ; the distance depending on the proportion of manhood in him and the multitude, if the