We plant a tree, and we
fell it; we breed the sheep, and we shear, or we kill it,--in both cases
wholly as means to _our_ ends: for trees and animals are things. The
woodcutter and the hind are likewise employed as _means_; but on agreement,
and that too an agreement of reciprocal advantage, which includes them as
well as their employer in the _end_; for they are persons. And the
government under which the contrary takes place is not worthy to be called
a state, if, as in the kingdom of Dahomey, it be unprogressive; or only by
anticipation, where, as in Russia, it is in advance to a better and more
_manworthy_ order of things."--_Church and State_, p. 10.]
* * * * *
If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But
passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a
lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!
_December_ 27. 1831.
BEAUTY.--GENIUS.
The old definition of beauty in the Roman school of painting was, _il piu
nell' uno_--multitude in unity; and there is no doubt that such is the
principle of beauty. And as one of the most characteristic and infallible
criteria of the different ranks of men's intellects, observe the
instinctive habit which all superior minds have of endeavouring to bring,
and of never resting till they have brought, into unity the scattered facts
which occur in conversation, or in the statements of men of business.
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