The spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1840-1844, 1842-03-11

the admiration Of nature, the joy Of the perception
and still more Of the creation Of poetry, is often
wholly unalIoyed.
The production and assurance of pleasure in this
highest sense is true utility. Those who produce
and preserve hs pleasure are poets or poellca phi
| losophers.
! The eXertlons of Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Vol
taire, Rousseau, and their disciples, in favor orop-
pressed aud deluded humanity, are entitled TO the
gratitude of mankind. Yet it is easy to calculate
the degree of moral and intellectual Improvement
the world would have exhibited, Ind they never
lived. A little more nonsense would have been
talked for century OF two; and perhaps few
more men, women and children, burnt as hcretics
We might not at this moment have been congrit-
ulating each other on the abolition of the Inqusi-
ton in SPAIN But it exceeds all imagination to
conceive what would have been the moral condi-
ton of the world if neither Dante, Pctrarcl, Boo
caclo, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Calderon, Lord Ba-
con, nor Milton, had ever existed; if Raphael and
Michael Angelo had never been born; il the lie
brew poetry had never been Translated; if q reyi-
val Of study of the Greek literature Ind never Ia
ken place; If no monuments of ancient scul pture
had been handed down TO us; aud if the poetry of
the religion Of the anciedt world had been ex,in-
gulshed together with its belief. The human mind
citemeuls have been awakened TO the invention of
the gosseT sciences and that application Of anayt-
ica reasoning TO the alterations Of society, which
II is now attempted 10 eXalt over the direct eX-
preston Of the inventive and creative faculty it.
sell.
We have more moral, political, and historical
wisdom, than We know how 10 reduce into pruc-
tlce; We have more scientific aud economical
knowledge than can be accommodated TO the Just
distribution Of the produce which it mulllpiies.-
| he poetry, ~ these systems OF thought, Is con-
cealed by the accumulation Of facts and calcua-
ting processes. There is no want Of knowledge
respecting what is wisGst and best in morals, gov
eminent, and political economy, or at least what
is wiser aud better than what men now practise and
endure, Blu, We let daTe not, wait upon UOuii,
like the poor cat in the adage. We want the crc-
alive faculty 10 imagine that which we know; we
want the generous inpulse to act that which we
Imagine; we want the poetry Of life; our cacuIa-
tons have outIun conception; we have eaten more
than we can digest The cultivation Of those sci
enccs which have enlarged the limits of the empire
OF man over the external world, has for want Of the
poelca faculty, propOrlionay crcunlscrbed those
of the internal world; aud man having enslayed
the elements, remains himself slave. 10 what
but II calculation OF the mechanical arts in de-
s'cc ulSpiopoilOHcu " inc presence Ol Inc CTei-
live faculty, which is the basis of all knowledge, is
10 he attributed the abase Of all invention for IL
bridging and combining labor, to the evaporation
Of the inequality Of mankiud' From what other
cause has II arisen that the discoveries which should
nave IIghlencd, have added weight to the curse
imposed on Adam' Poetry and the principle of
Self, Of which money is the visible incarnation, are
he God aud MummOn ofthc World.
The functions of the poctcaI faculty are twolod,
~ one ii creates new materials of knowledge and
'owcr and PLEASURE; BY the other it engenders in
he mind Il desire 10 reproduce and arrange them
according TO II certain rhythm and order, which
nay be called The powerful and the good. The
ui'aiion oipoery is never more to be desired
han at periods when, from an excess of the selfish
lad Calculating principle, the accumulation of the
materials Of external life exceed the quality Of the
ower assimlIallog them to the internal laws of u-
nan nature. The body has then become too I'M
Welded for that which nniulalesil.