these two extremes there is a blank.
A few scattered remains of enormous buildings can therefore teach us
nothing of the social condition and the institutions of the people by
whom they were raised. I may add, though the remark leads me to step
out of my subject, that they do not make us better acquainted with its
greatness, its civilization, and its real prosperity. Whensoever a power
of any kind shall be able to make a whole people co-operate in a single
undertaking, that power, with a little knowledge and a great deal of
time, will succeed in obtaining something enormous from the co-operation
of efforts so multiplied. But this does not lead to the conclusion that
the people was very happy, very enlightened, or even very strong.

The Spaniards found the City of Mexico full of magnificent temples
and vast palaces; but that did not prevent Cortes from conquering the
Mexican Empire with 600 foot soldiers and sixteen horses. If the Romans
had been better acquainted with the laws of hydraulics, they would not
have constructed all the aqueducts which surround the ruins of their
cities--they would have made a better use of their power and their
wealth. If they had invented the steam-engine, perhaps they would not
have extended to the extremities of their empire those long artificial
roads which are called Roman roads. These things are at once the
splendid memorials of their ignorance and of their greatness. A people
which should leave no other vestige of its track than a few leaden pipes
in the earth and a few iron rods upon its surface, might have been more
the master of nature than the Romans.

Chapter XIII: Literary Characteristics Of Democratic Ages

When a traveller goes into a bookseller's shop in the United States,
and examines the American books upon the shelves, the number of works
appears extremely great; whilst that of known authors appears, on the
contrary, to be extremely small. He will first meet with a number
of elementary treatises, destined to teach the rudiments of human
knowledge. Most of these books are written in Europe; the Americans
reprint them, adapting them to their own country. Next comes an enormous
quantity of religious works, Bibles, sermons, edifying anecdotes,
controversial divinity, and reports of charitable societies; lastly,
appears the long catalogue of political pamphlets. In America, parties
do not write books to combat each others' opinions, but pamphlets which
are circulated f