ch
animate and illustrate the land, and see how little the government has to
do with their daily life, how self-helped and self-directed all families
are,--knots of men in purely natural societies,--societies of trade, of
kindred blood, of habitual hospitality, house and house, man acting on man
by weight of opinion of longer or better-directed industry, the refining
influence of women, the invitation which experience and permanent causes
open to youth and labor,--when I see how much each virtuous and gifted
person, whom all men consider, lives affectionately with scores of
excellent people who are not known far from home, and perhaps with great
reason reckons these people his superiors in virtue, and in the symmetry
and force of their qualities, I see what cubic values America has, and in
these a better certificate of civilization than great cities or enormous
wealth.

In strictness, the vital refinements are the moral and intellectual steps.
The appearance of the Hebrew Moses, of the Indian Buddh,--in Greece, of
the Seven Wise Masters, of the acute and upright Socrates, and of the
Stoic Zeno,--in Judaea, the advent of Jesus,--and in modern Christendom, of
the realists Huss, Savonarola, and Luther,--are casual facts which carry
forward races to new convictions, and elevate the rule of life. In the
presence of these agencies, it is frivolous to insist on the invention of
printing or gunpowder, of steam-power or gas-light, percussion-caps and
rubber-shoes, which are toys thrown off from that security, freedom, and
exhilaration which a healthy morality creates in society. These arts add a
comfort and smoothness to house and street life; but a purer morality,
which kindles genius, civilizes civilization, casts backward all that we
held sacred into the profane, as the flame of oil throws a shadow when
shined upon by the flame of the Bude-light. Not the less the popular
measures of progress will ever be the arts and the laws.

But if there be a country which cannot stand any one of these tests--a
country where knowledge cannot be diffused without perils of mob-law and
statute-law,--where speech is not free,--where the post-office is
violated, mailbags opened, and letters tampered with,--where public debts
and private debts outside of the State are repudiated,--where liberty is
attacked in the primary institution of social life,--where the position of
the white woman is injuriously affected by the outlawry of the black
woman