and clothed and
lodged; that he ought to care for them in sickness and in old
age,--then political economy will no longer direct him, and the
relations between himself and his dependents will have to be arranged
on quite other principles.

So long as he considers only his own material profit, so long supply
and demand will settle every difficulty; but the introduction of a new
factor spoils the equation.

And it is precisely in this debatable ground of low motives and noble
emotions; in the struggle, ever failing yet ever renewed, to carry
truth and justice into the administration of human society; in the
establishment of states and in the overthrow of tyrannies; in the
rise and fall of creeds; in the world of ideas; in the character and
deeds of the great actors in the drama of life, where good and evil
fight out their everlasting battle, now ranged in opposite camps, now
and more often in the heart, both of them, of each living man,--that
the true human interest of history resides. The progress of
industries, the growth of material and mechanical civilization, are
interesting; but they are not the most interesting. They have their
reward in the increase of material comforts; but, unless we are
mistaken about our nature, they do not highly concern us after all.

Once more; not only is there in men this baffling duality of
principle, but there is something else in us which still more defies
scientific analysis.

Mr. Buckle would deliver himself from the eccentricities of this and
that individual by a doctrine of averages. Tho he can not tell whether
A, B, or C will cut his throat, he may assure himself that one man in
every fifty thousand, or thereabout (I forget the exact proportion),
will cut his throat, and with this he consoles himself. No doubt it is
a comforting discovery. Unfortunately, the average of one generation
need not be the average of the next. We may be converted by the
Japanese, for all that we know, and the Japanese methods of taking
leave of life may become fashionable among us. Nay, did not Novalis
suggest that the whole race of men would at last become so disgusted
with their impotence, that they would extinguish themselves by a
simultaneous act of suicide, and make room for a better order of
things? Anyhow, the fountain out of which the race is flowing
perpetually changes; no two generations are alike. Whether there is a
change in the organization itself we can not tell; but this is
certain,