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ous they might become, or in which the numbers of mankind should be always, without any restraint or privation on their part, exactly proportioned to the means of subsistence. But, on either of these suppositions, the stimulus to exertion would be gone ; and that indolence, which belongs to the species, and is only removed by necessity, would repress and overpower the human faculties.*

"It is as possible to picture to the imagination a race of men, who should require no stimulus to the exercise of their minds and powers, as it is to conceive a soil that should be fertile without cultivation. But our business is with the world as it exists, and with men as we find them; and, judging according to that experience, we may affirm, without hesitation, that any ordinance which would establish universal plenty, would establish, also, universal indolence, and not only arrest civilization in its progress, but force it to retrograde, if it had once advanced. There is reason to believe, that this effect has, in some peculiar circumstances, actually taken place, when a few tribes, having left their parent and over-peopled country, and found an unexpected plenty in some new abode, have lived upon that plenty, till they have lost the arts of their ancestors, and left their posterity to work out anew, by the slow method of invention, the means of supplying wants or providing comfort. How soon rude inventions may be

* Bishop Sumner refers to Humboldt, and other travellers, for proofs of this deterioration among the indigenous inhabitants of North America. † Proofs of the natural indolence of the human species might be multiplied to any extent. A single example may be taken from the inhabitants of one of the South Sea Islands, as mentioned by Mr. Ellis. The Otaheitans, whose country, from various known circumstances, which I need not stop to mention, is not at present peopled up to its natural resources, refuse to cultivate the valuable arrow-root, because it costs them some trouble in rendering it fit for food. Their yam, also, "a most valuable root, is cultivated to no very great extent, from the labor and attention it requires, although it is one of the best flavored and most nutritive roots. 99 "When they were exhorted to adopt the comforts of Europeans, they answered, 'We should like these things very well, but we cannot have them without working: that we do not like, and, therefore, would rather do without them. The bananas and plantains ripen on the trees; the pigs fatten on the fruits that fall beneath them. These are all we want. Why, therefore, should we work?"-ELLIS's Polynesian Researches, vol. i. pp. 360, 451.

lost when the necessity which first struck them out is removed, may be learned from the example of the South Sea Islanders, some of whom are now in greater distress from the precarious supply of iron they depend upon, than, before the visits of the Europeans, they had experienced from the total want of it. Be this, however, as it may, it is certain that the effect of plenty on savage nations is indolence and extravagance, till the supply that brought the evil is exhausted, and activity returns with the necessity for its exertion.

"All mankind, as far as we know, agree in the same properties by nature, and owe their infinite varieties only to the circumstances of society. We have no right, therefore, to assume, that the consequences of plenty would be different in America and in Europe; or that, if the necessity which has produced all the multiplied inventions and ornaments of civilized life were once removed, the faculty to suggest them would be fostered or the industry to perfect them survive. But who would be so visionary as to affirm, that the comfort of society would be benefited by a system, which excluded all the useful and ingenious arts; or the general good of mankind promoted by the extinction of all the liberal professions, the absence of all science and literature? Independence would be dearly purchased at the expense of refinement and cultivation; and universal plenty would afford a poor compensation for the gross ignorance into which mankind would be plunged."*

EIGHTH WEEK-SATURDAY.

THE BLESSINGS of labor.†

INDEPENDENTLY of the declarations of Scripture, a moment's serious reflection is sufficient to convince us of

* Sumner on Creation, vol. ii. pp. 146, 147.

† These additional observations on the paternal kindness of those providential arrangements by which laborious exertion is rendered necessary

the admirable and merciful adaptation of the laws of the earth's productiveness to the moral and intellectual state of man. Were the sky ever serene, and the air ever warm and genial; were the fierce extremes of heat and cold unknown; and were every species of fruit spontaneously scattered over the earth, in exhaustless profusion, the physical wants of our race might be adequately supplied, and the world might be peopled with millions of human beings, enjoying in abundance the means of appeasing their hunger and thirst. And were these beings possessed of a sinless nature, they might, indeed, consecrate their calm and undistracted days to the high pursuits of science and religion, and might attain to heights of contemplation and social joy hitherto wholly unexperienced. But let us only consider the moral state of the race with which the earth is at present peopled, their evil passions, love of inaction, and the corrupting tendency of indolence, and we shall learn to prize and bless that arrangement by which labor is made the condition of subsistence, and all true enjoyment. Were the pressing wants of man supplied without cost or industry, what motive could prompt him to exertion, and raise him above the condition of the brutes? His food being plentifully supplied him, and clothing and shelter being almost unnecessary, would he not be contented to pass his life in slothful inactivity, or in wanton acts of mischief and violence? Indeed, seeing it is the present tendency of ease and luxury, even though checked by the most powerful religious and social restraints, to generate a spirit of selfishness and moral abandonment, may we not conclude that man, if labor and all its consequences were unknown, would only revel in the grossest indulgence, forget the Hand that fed him, and feel no desire to cultivate the moral and intellectual capacities of his nature?

to man, in procuring the means of subsistence, are furnished by the ingenious friend, to whom I am indebted for several other papers with the same signature. Some of the views already stated, will be here found repeated in a new train of thought. They will not, however, be felt to be misplaced; and they are too important to render such a repetition unedifying.

In countries where a rich soil and a powerful tropical climate produce almost spontaneously the means of subsistence, civilization, and all the refining arts of life, are in the lowest condition. Man is there unacquainted with peaceful industry, and but too frequently seeks plunder or excitement in war or the chase, or, at best, resigns himself to a savage indolence. In countries, again, where nature is less exuberant, where the soil requires cultivation to enable it to support its possessors, and the climate renders artificial shelter and clothing a necessary of life, society always flourishes, and agriculture and the useful arts give birth to commerce with all its blessings. There spring up literature, science, and the various branches of civil polity, the last and best results of human labor. Thus, in Europe, in northern America, and in several of the more temperate regions of Asia, has our race made the greatest progress in the career of social improvement. There have men achieved the mightiest deeds in the pursuits of war and peace; for there they have been driven into industry. They have become the noblest portion of mankind, because they have been constrained to be the most laborious.

To what but the necessity of procuring shelter and subsistence, do the arts of life, under Divine Providence, owe their origin? What else gave rise to agriculture, and all its subsidiary arts?-induced man to sink the mine, and to fuse and fashion the precious metals ?— produced the daring efforts of architecture, and the beauteous wonders of the loom? What but the cravings of his physical wants prompted him to cross the dangerous deep, and effect an interchange of products between the most distant lands? But for these wants, he would have been content to vegetate upon his native spot, local attachment prevailing over the promptings of curiosity itself. The sea, therefore, the best highway between remote countries, would have remained untraversed; and the earth's utmost shores would only have been visited slowly, and after the lapse of ages, by tribes of men gradually propelled from the original centre of population. Thus, the advantages of navigation and commerce would

Had not labor been

have been altogether unknown. imposed upon man, how could those sciences have arisen that give him such a mastery over brute matter, and reveal to him so many secrets of Nature? Without the glass that he employs to admit the light into his roofed abode, fashioned by his skill into the prism, how could he have unravelled the solar beam, and explained the brilliant phenomena of color? Or, without that same beautiful result of his labor, taking under his plastic hand another form, where would have been that sublime astronomy which unveils to him the glories of the universe, and exalts him, as it were, above his natural destiny ?*

Such are the thoughts that occur at this busy season, when the farmer and his laborers are so actively engaged in preparing the soil, and committing to it the precious seed. All the land is now ringing with the sound of rustic toil. The sower follows hard upon the ploughman, and is, in his turn, closely approached by the harrower. The carefully hoarded manure is carried out in carts and wagons, and scattered over the fields, where, by the kind agencies of Nature, it is destined to increase tenfold the treasures of the coming harvest. Severe and unremitting are the fatigues of the husbandman and daily laborer, engaged as they are in a continual warfare with the stubbornness of the soil, and the various inclemencies of the season. But the sweat wrung from their brow sweetens their enjoyments; after labor, comes to them the luxury of rest; and health and cheerfulness are among the fruits of their hardy occupations. They find a pleasure in active employment; so that spring and harvest, when their labors are most continued and severe, are the seasons of their highest excitement. Even to those who are not dependent for support on the work of their hands, the spectacle of the present agricultural operations must

* [Too much can hardly be said of the value and importance of labor and the necessity of laboring to man; and yet it will not do to keep out of sight that principle of progress and improvement which is a part of his spiritual nature, which is constantly urging him forward to invention and discovery, and which nothing can repress or render inactive but custom or despotism, or the extremes of climate. This principle is different in different men and races, but still it is in man.-AM. ED.]

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