The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1858-08-19


Books, alas from spiritual necessities Of
the author, have become commodities of
ignoble commerce, governed in all respects
by the laws which regulate the production
Of soap and candles.
Books in that old time were like rivers
springing from some mountain mind far
above the dull level Of his age, and eapipg
down, with an ever broader meaning,
through chasms, over sleeps, and winding
through the the inexplicable involution Of
events, from century TO century beautiful
but unintelligible, brilliant but useless, till
they reached the age destined to comprehend
them-till the struggling human thought
became the property Of humanity, and
the river gathering new volume with every
commentator is navigable to the whole
commerce of mind. What was poetry be-
comes philosophy-what was an idea be-
comes system-what was prophesy be-
comes an, event-and the present in every
thing an expansion Of the past.
1t used to be that the new book was
an old book before it was new. Nothing
was fresh that was not bound in centuries of
rust and cobwebs. Now, whatever is issued
from the press is TOR some contemporaueous
need Authorship has become degraded
from an inspiration to trade. Books are
no longer born-they are made, made, pri-
mariIy, to sell.
1t is possible that the few books of the
huge progeny Of the day, which will live in
after time, are just those which contempt
rary critics pass over with neglect and
scorn. For there are men TO whom the
present is but vast whispering gallery
within which the voice that speaks clearly
to the future is jargon Of confused and
tangled echoes. II is not impossible that
some derided form of social ethics, which
has no significance to generation stunned
with its reverberations, may fall upon the
ear Of posterity like n voice from heaven,
coherent and articulate expression Of the
essential law Of things.
Who knows whether PRouDHoN speaks
from above or below us! Whether CAR
LYLE is a mystic, or but too lucidly practi.
cal? Whether the most frantic absurdities
OF modern or ancient theorists are not the
ultimate truth? Each new generation
overturns what has been long established,
and re-establishes what has been long sub
verted. Everything teaches us, at least
that nothing is for certain, certain, and that
charity is the highest philosophy. Here,
for example, is this NJ. PRorDnoN, who
denounces GoD, religion, art, and all the
time-honored associations which are the
poetry of social iie-there is no reason why
we should not read NJ. PRouDHoS, and it is
no argument against his book that it has
been condemned by the censorship of the
French Government.
The radical error of our nation is the
search after the superscnsuOus. the ideal,
which according to PRouDHoS, is identical
with the unreal. To transcend experience,
is to transcend reality. For the worship OF
the ideal in art, the proclamation Of love as
the final law in ethics, and the exercise Of
love in life, which are so many errors, he
subst flutes simple work and justice; the
watchword of revolutions" La justice on
lie mort" All men, he says, are absolutely
Identical in powers, and therefore, in rights.
The apparent differences are the result OF
education and circumstances. Under the
operation Of justice in politics and socia'
life, in an enforced reciprocity OF service,
these would disappear, as would also the in-
ferior races.
lie repudiates the communism OF Plato,
Of LOUIs BLANC ard Rousseau, and wishes
not to destroy property, but to legalM it.
The producer is the only rightful proprietor
Of land all property is based upon recipro-
cal seryice-labor. lie has some curious
views upon women and marriage, which
may not prove uninstructye to some OF our
philanthropists:
Marriage" he says, is the sacrament Of
justice. Love. which before marriage ~ an
immortality, after marriage Ia eonsecrsted,
through the limitations imposed By justice On
its ideslizing and sersusi tendencies. Woman.
who when obeying her natural bias descends
only TO the depths Of hideous selfdegradation.
becomes, as the welded companion Of man.
the grace and glory Of life. Inferior 10 him In
strength. in Intellect. and in moral feeling, she
10 superior In beauty and in love. But a. these
qualities are incomrnutsble. and A. life demands
the masculine and not the feminine element for
its regulation, woman always remains subordi
nate TO man. In the eonjugsl pair alone justice
finds it, true organ. Without marriage no fam
lily, without family no city, without city no
state. In marriage, natural love 10 not only
subservient To justice, bat balanced BY an Ar,i
fetal love. To escape the alterations OF an