seek it in those places in which there exists the greatest demand for intellectual effort-those in which there is the greatest variety of employment—those in which, therefore, the power of association most perfectly exists, in towns and cities. That this should be the case, is perfectly in accordance with what is everywhere else observed.

"The more imperfect a being is," says Goethe, "the more do its individual parts resemble each other, and the more do these parts resemble the whole. The more perfect a being, the more dissimilar are the parts. In the former case, the parts are more or less a repetition of the whole; in the latter case they are totally unlike the whole. The more the parts resemble each other, the less subordination is there of one to the other; subordination of parts indicates a high grade of organization."*

This is as true of societies as it is of the plants and animals in reference to which it was written. The more imperfect they arethe less the variety of employments, and the less, consequently, the development of intellect-the more do the parts resemble each other, as may readily be seen by any one who will study man in the purely agricultural countries of the earth. The greater the variety of employments the greater the demand for intellectual effort the more dissimilar become the parts, and the more perfect becomes the whole, as may readily be seen on comparing any purely agricultural district with another in which agriculture, manufactures, and commerce are happily combined. Difference is essential to

association. The farmer does not need to associate with his brother farmer, but he does need to do so with the carpenter, the blacksmith, and the miller. The mill operative has little occasion to exchange with his brother operative, but he does require to exchange with the builder of houses, or the seller of food; and the

* The same idea is thus given in a recent work of great ability: "The differences are the condition of development; the mutual exchanges, which are the consequences of these differences, waken and manifest life. The greater the diversity of organs, the more active and superior is the life of the individual. The greater the variety of individualities and relations in a society of individuals, the greater also is the sum of life, the more universal is the development of life, the more complete, and of a more elevated order. But it is necessary, not only that life should unfold itself in all its richness by diversity, but that it exhibits itself in its utility, in its beauty, in its goodness, by harmony. Thus we recognize the proof of the old proverb, Variety in unity is perfection.'"-Guyot's Earth and Man, p. 80.

more numerous the shades of difference in the society of which he is a part, the greater will be the facility for, and the tendency to, that combination of effort required for developing the peculiar qualities of its individual members. It is frequently remarked to what an extraordinary extent, when a demand arises, peculiar qualities are found whose existence had before been unsuspected. Thus, in our own revolution, blacksmiths and lawyers proved themselves distinguished soldiers, and the French revolution brought to light the military abilities of thousands of men that otherwise might have passed their lives at the tail of the plough. It is the occasion that makes the man. In every society there exists a vast amount of latent capacity waiting but the opportunity to show itself, and thus it is that in communities in which there is no diversity of employment, the intellectual power is to so great an extent wasted, producing no result. Life has been defined as being a "mutual exchange of relations," and where difference does not exist, exchanges cannot take place.

So is it everywhere throughout nature. To excite electricity, two metals are required to be brought together; but in order that they may combine, they must first be reduced to their original elements, and this can be done only by help of a third body differing totally from both. That done, what was before dull and inert becomes active and full of life, and capable at once of entering into new combinations. So, too, with the lump of coal. Break it up into pieces, however small, and scatter them in the ground, and there they will remain, still pieces of coal. Let them, however, be decomposed by the agency of heat-let the several parts be individualized—and at once they become capable of entering into new combinations, forming parts of the trunks, branches, leaves, or blossoms of trees, or of the bones, muscles, or brain of man. The wheat yielded to the labors of man, might remain, as we know it to have remained for numerous centuries, undecomposed and incapable of entering into combination with any other matter; but let it pass through the stomach, and at once it is resolved into its original element, part of which becomes bones, blood, or fat, and then again passes off in the form of perspiration-while another is ejected in the form of excrement, and ready to enter instantly into the composition of new vegetable forms. The power of association

thus exists everywhere throughout the material world in the ratio of individualization. So, too, has it everywhere been with man-and the development of individuality has, at all times, and in all countries, been in the ratio of his power to act in obedience to that prime law of his nature which imposes upon him a necessity for association with his fellow-men.

That power, as has already been seen, has always existed in the ratio of the equal action of the centralizing and decentralizing forces, and where that action has most been found we should most find individuality, and that such has been the case can readily be shown. In no country of the world has it ever existed to so great an extent as was the case in Greece in the period immediately anterior to the invasion of Xerxes, and then and there it is that we find the highest development. To the men produced in that period it is that the age of Pericles owes its illustration. The destruction of Athens by Persian armies brought with it the conversion of citizens into soldiers, with steady tendency to increase of centralization and decline of the power of voluntary association and of individuality, until the slave alone is found cultivating the lands of Attica, the free citizens of the earlier period having entirely disappeared.—So, likewise, was it in Italy, where the highest individuality was found when the Campagna was filled with cities. Following their decline the great city grows, filled with paupers, the capital of a land cultivated by slaves. So it is now throughout the East, where society is divided into two great parts-the men who toil and slave on the one side, and, on the other, those who live by the labors of the slave. Between two such masses there can be no association, and among the members there can be but little, because there is wanting among them that difference of pursuits which is required for producing an exchange of relations. The chain of society being there deficient in the connecting links, there is no motion among the parts, and where motion does not exist there can be no more development of individuality of character than could be found in the pebble-stone before it had been subjected to the action of the blowpipe.

The numerous towns and cities of Italy of the Middle Ages were remarkable for their motion, and for the development of individuality. So, likewise, was it in Belgium, and in Spain prior to

the centralization which followed close upon the expulsion of the Moors, and the discovery of the gold and silver deposits of this continent. Such was the case, too, in each of the kingdoms now composing the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. If we take Ireland separately, we find her at the close of the last century giving to the world such men as Burke, Flood, Grattan, Sheridan, and Wellington; but since then centralization has greatly grown, and individuality has passed away. So, likewise, has it been in Scotland since the union. A century since that country presented to view a body of men occupying positions as distinguished as any that could be found in Europe, but her local institutions have decayed, and there are now, as we are told, "fewer individual thinkers" in that country than at any period "since the early part of the last century."* The mind of the whole youth of that country is now, as the same journal tells us, required to be "cast in the mould of English universities," which exercise upon it "an influence unfavorable to originality and power of thought."

In England herself, centralization has made great progress, and the consequence among her people has been witnessed in the steady increase of pauperism, a condition of things adverse to the development of individuality. The little landed proprietors have gradually disappeared to make way for the farmer and his hired laborers, and the great manufacturer, surrounded by hosts of operatives, of whose names even he is ignorant—and with every step in this direction there is diminished power of voluntary association. London grows to an enormous size, at the cost of the country at large, and thus does centralization produce the disease of over population, to be cured by a colonization tending at every step further to diminish the power of association.

Looking to France, we may see the steady decline of individuality attending the growth of centralization. In the highly centralized days of Louis XIV., almost the whole land of the kingdom was in the hands of a few great proprietors and of the dignitaries of the church-nearly all of whom were mere courtiers whose faces but reflected the expression apparent on that of the sovereign they were bound to worship. The right to labor was then held to be a privilege to be exercised at the pleasure of the monarch, and men

* North British Review, Aug., 1853.

were forbidden, on pain of death, to worship God according to their consciences, or even to leave the kingdom.

Passing to this country, we find in the Northern States individuality developed to an extent elsewhere entirely unknown, and for the reason that centralization exists in a very limited degree, while decentralization facilitates the rapid growth of the associative power. All the links of the chain are here to be found, and as every man feels that he can rise if he will, there is the strongest inducement to strive for intellectual development. In the Southern States power centralizes itself in the hands of the few, and association among the slaves can take place only through the master, as a consequence of which there is little individuality.

It is in variety there is unity, and this is quite as true of the social as it is of the material world. Let the reader watch the movements of a city and study the facility with which men, so various in their qualities, combine their movements-and the number required to work in combination for the production of a penny newspaper, a ship, a house, or an opera-and then compare it with the difficulty experienced throughout the country, and particularly in the purely agricultural portions of it, of combining for even the most simple purposes, and he will see that it is difference that leads to association. The more perfect the organization of society— the greater the variety of demands for the exercise of the physical and intellectual powers-the higher will be the elevation of man as a whole, and the stronger will be the contrasts among men.

Individuality thus grows with the growth of the power of association, and prepares the way for further and more perfect combination of action.

The more perfectly the local attraction tends to counterbalance that of the centre-the more society tends to conform itself to the laws we see to govern our system of worlds-the more harmonious will be the action of all the parts, and the greater will be the tendency towards voluntary association, and to the maintenance of peace abroad and at home.

§ 3. Next among the qualities by which man is distinguished from all other animals, is that of RESPONSIBILITY before his fellowman, and before his Creator, for his actions.

The slave is not a responsible being, for he but obeys his master.