The weekly north Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1857-1867, 1858-09-15
From the st. Paul Pioneer
The Philosophy OF Town Sites.


Every little town site and every
scheme of town building rests upon
some thsory of geographical affinities.
Indeed. town building out west here is
partly science and partly philoso-
phical, as well as monetary, specula-
tion; and the idea is not SO ludicrous rs
it may seem at first sight, that the HIS
tory of town sites in the west affords an
excellent practical illustration of the diff
ference between positive science on the
one hand, and the empirical and specu-
lative schools of philosophy on the 9TH
er. Accordingly, We have an old fancy
for classifying town sites as metaphysi-
cal and physical town sites, which may
be found to have some correspondence
with the corporeal and incorporeal here
ditaments, whereof BLACKSTONE. The
metaphysical town site is pure hypo-
thesis from the start. We assume
everything from which we deduce its
possibility,-and it exists only as an
abstract possibility at any rate-sup-
posing certain conditions to exist which
do not exist, and certain things to be
true which are not true. Its capacity
of being represented by symhols--its
reduction to representative geometri-
cal diagram, is its nearest approach to
reality. 1t is system of metaphysics
resting, like that of PYrHAGoRAs, on
mathematical signs.
Number, with the speculator in fancy
town lots, as with this ancient philoso-
pher, is the first principle Of things
Cities. according to his theory. are the
result of certain combinations of num-
bers and right lines. l, 2, 3, 4, S, 6,
7, 8, 8, 10, are not merely designations
of lots, but are the essence of the lots
themselves. One and ten sustain the
same superior relative position to the
intervening digi.s in his system as in
the primal philosophy-for they repre-
sent corner-lots.
He has, however, simplifed the an
cient system, aud reduced the Ten
Principia to four-retaining only "the
odd and the even," "the one and the
many" ''the right and the left," and
"the square and the oMong," as the elc-
ments OF things.
A certain number of acres of land
are enormously supposed to enter into
the metaphysical town site. Land
forms no part of its substance, any
more than the black board forms a part
Of the proposition in Euclid which it 10
used to illustrate. The old Geometri-
clans described their diagrams in sand,
and this is the sole purpose of land in
the metaphysical town site. 1t has no
material basis. 1t reposes upon the
uncondition. Place in the abstract is
ascribed to it, but no one knows where
the place is. 1t is circumscribed by
boundaries. but no one knows what the
boundaries are. For all the purposes
Of actual life it belongs to the same class
of distractions as PLAro's Republic. OF
Sir THOMAS MosE's Utopia--though in
a mercantile sense it is much more
successful speculation than either o.
these.
Shares in the metaphysical town site
sell, or did sell but lately. as the astrol'
oyer used to sell stock in the constella
tions. There is fascination in this
union of numbers and parallelograms
which captivates the imagination. W.
have known men build fine houses and
conjure up u career of fabulous wealth
and splendor from the magical combi
4na'inn.