Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-07-12


Of this country is due to American institu-
tions. The idea is that our institutions have
caused a vast increase in the intelligence of
the people, which has developed extraordi-
nary enterprise, and resulted in great mate
rial progress Let us look at the philosophy
of the thing. Our institutions are fixed, and
over seventy years old. We have progressed
wonderfully in intelligence. Then our intel
lieence must exceed that which formed our
institutions. Then we ought to be able to
make better ones now, for generally it is not
allowed that any thing human is perfect, es-
peciAlly any thing of former age. Then we
must have outgrown our institutions, and
they really must be a cramp on our progress.
These are the natural conclusions, but
these are by no means allowed. An our
progress in intelligence but exalts the in
stitutions above our own wisdom, and sets
them up as sacred which it would be impious
to touch or TO attempt to change. These in
stitutions, formed seventy years ago by
people who had been reared under mon
archical institutions, and of course had moth
ing like the intelligence that is developed by
republican institutions have caused won
derful progress in popular intelligence, and
yet the institutions are so far superior to the
popular intelligence now that devout phi
losophers like the Gazette conclude that of
course the finger of God must have been in
their formation.
Others, less devout, but who also suppose
that the institutions have developed Ameri-
can intelligence think that wonderful wis
dom happened Just at that time to be concen-
trated in few, like Hamilton, Sherman,
Adams aud jefferson, who executeda work
which has caused knowledget to be wonderfully
increased, but that the seed of statesmen was
exhausted in the effort Thus each theory of
our wonderful institutions which have caused
wonderful increase of wisdom, though it is
all the while declining from the starting
point, requires the supervention of something
miraculous at the start, either divine wisdom
or set of demi-gods, like Jefferson and
Hamilton.
Can we not see in our own popular ideas
how easy tits that superstitious peoples should
acquire traditions that few ages or genera
tons ago, more or less according to the pop
ular ignorance, gods came down on earth
and mingled with mankind; how easy it is
TO believe that our ancestors ages ago had
direct inspiration from Heaven The Gazette
thinks that our institutions caused our wcn-
derful progress, and naturally accounts for
the miracle of a stream rising above its
fountain, by supposing that Providence had
hand in foriningthe institutions. To be sure
Mr.. Jefferson, who wrote the institutions had
not the creed which would now be thought an
indispensable prerequisite for divine inspira-
ton; but then some ofthe old patriarchs would
not now be called unobectonable in their
lives, and Abraham was an idolater when he
was chosen to form the institutions of an
equally progressive people.
Popular superstition already makes Jeffer-
son inspired to form our institutions; it makes
him, Washington, and some Others, demi-
gods. Suppose we had not the anchor of
Christianity, how many generations would
pass before we would fully defy them2 AS
far as the principles of government are con-
oerned, we worship them now. In all ma
tions, popular tradition makes gods of
ancestry. This is the necessary consequence
of the idea of their superior wisdom. So the
popular superstition that our ancestors were
superior in size, exalts them into giants by
going far enough back and then, in order to
account for them naturally runs into the
theory that gods came down and mingled |
with the daughters of men; who also, in ac-
eordance with the same idea were so much |
fairer than women are now, that their attrac-
tions encroached on the boundaries of
Heaven.
We have not the utmost respect for the
statistical mode of establishing principles.
There is system of deductive reasoning
applying general principles to particular
cases. There is an inductive method of rea-
soning which arrives at general principles
by what has been ascertained from particu-
lar cases or individuals of the same class. II
is difficult TO see how the deductve method
eau have anything to start on until general
principles have been established by induc-
tion. But this statistical method partakes of |
neither. 1t does not even deduce from gen. |
eral facts, but from a single one, and that |
without regard to whether any connection
of cause and effect can be traced between ii |
and the principle deduced from it. Itmerely |
bAhOo WV NOlhNluNht anu
makes one the cause and the other the effect
1T makes no difference which-and from that |
derives principle.
Thus, America has free institutions. Amer
ice hasprogressed wonderfully; therefore free
institutions are the cause, and progress the
effect. But the Democrats say, the Democratic
Party has had the control of the Government
during most Of the time of this wonderful
progress, therefore, Democratic administra-
tions are the cause. One is just as true
as the other ct is most convenient
theory, but it is indispensable that it should |
be manipulated by the proper hands. By it
the heathen show that Christianity is fatal to |
national prosperity, because the decline If |
the Roman Empire dated from the establish- |
ment of the Christian religion. By il David |
might have established the principle that
wickedness is the cause Of prosperity, for
he said the wicked were far more blessed
in their lives than the righteous, and
had no bonds in their death. By IL
Solomon established that the average of
good women was not one in thousand, a
state of feminine morality hardly better than
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