So that on a survey
of society as it actually exists, one might suppose that the faculties of
the mind do really in actual experience show themselves in as separate a
form, and in as much insulation, as psychology is forced to exhibit them
in its analysis. And thus we see not only individuals, but whole classes
of men, unfolding only one part of the germs which are laid in them by the
hand of nature. In saying this I am fully aware of the advantages which
the human species of modern ages has, when considered as a unity, over the
best of antiquity: but the comparison should begin with the individuals:
and then let me ask where is the modern individual that would have the
presumption to step forward against the Athenian individual--man to man,
and to contend for the prize of human excellence? The polypus nature of
the Grecian republics, in which every individual enjoyed a separate life,
and if it were necessary could become a whole, has now given place to an
artificial watch-work, where many lifeless parts combine to form a
mechanic whole. The state and the church, laws and manners, are now torn
asunder: labor is divided from enjoyment, the means from the end, the
exertion from the reward. Chained for ever to a little individual fraction
of the whole, man himself is moulded into a fraction; and, with the
monotonous whirling of the wheel which he turns everlastingly in his ear,
he never develops the harmony of his being; and, instead of imaging the
totality of human nature, becomes a bare abstract of his business or the
science which he cultivates.
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