next is the mechanical age of society, which life has so outgrown
the mind that the man cannot attend to both his own affairs and the
state, which latter, therefore, he gladly yields to others. This is the
age of standing armies, hired to protect a people too careless to
protect themselves. This is the age of tyrants, as the lesser Caesars or
Philip of Macedon. This is the age which ushers in the last period of
the nation, a mechanical state of the individual, when thought has so
departed that the man is not able to attend even to his own life, and,
like a passive machine, the state is impelled and directed in even the
least things by one tyranny from without. It is hardly necessary to add
that Alexander in Greece, Elagabalus in Rome, Louis XVI in France, were
followed by a destruction as certain as the fact that God meant the
earth to be inhabited by men and not machines.

Having shown the grave consequence that lies beneath it, we come now to
the all-important consideration, whether our own social state has this
mechanical tendency. The preceding sketch not only shows the truth which
we have deduced from it, that this tendency is a prelude to a nation's
death, but it also points out another, namely, that civilization
contains within itself certain causes which finally work its
destruction. We may, by a diligent study, find out these causes, such
as increase of outward knowledge, division of labor, a complexity of
outward relations, and a consequent hurried life that leaves no time for
thought; but a careful analysis of all these reduces them to one great
cause--an undue attention to physical prosperity. This cause existed
among ancient nations in sufficient force to bring about their
destruction, but it possessed not a tithe of the universality and
strength which it holds among the modern, for, whereas it was once
individual, it is now national, pervading every part of the social
state.

Before the world was thickly settled and the nations established, it was
held that the power of a nation consisted in the extent of its
dominions, so that while the individual strove for wealth in
agriculture, manufactures, or commerce, the state despised such low
pursuits, and turned its attention to increase of territory. But when,
after the fall of Rome, it was found that the earth was too fully
peopled and national power too well established for such means of
strength, attention was turned to another source of power in the
culti