The Portland daily press., 1867-11-28

All subsists by elemental strife;
an" passions are the elements Of life."

Pope.
"itho"I the application of external or in
ternai stimuli, there can be no motion--in-
deed, without them there can be no life. For.
as DIR. Rush said, lille itself is only the effect
Of stimuli suitably applied in due degrees 10
an organized body. When they are below a
certain healthy point, stupor follows; when
they are above that point, intoxication is the
result. The air we breathe, and which presses
with its mighty weight upon the body to Keep
it together; the light by which vision is pro-
duced; the food which we eat and even the
water we drink are all stimulants acting up
on the system to keep it alive and to enable
it to resist or overcome disease. So that, in
truth, man cannot exist as physical being
without stimulants. And if his body cannot
exert itself, nor even live without the applica-
tion of external stimuli, equally true is il,
that both in his intellectual, moral and. re-
ligious nature he needs excitement to enable
him to attain the great uses OF his being. The
materials for excitement in the intellectual,
moral and religious departments are numer-
Gus and lewerful; SO powerful, indeed, as o.
ten, when applied in undue degrees, to pre-
duce intoxication and insanity. On these
subjects great care should be taken that the
appropriate stimuli are neither too weak nor
too strong; in the first case they will leave
the subject in apathy, with but little improve
ment; in the other they will drive him into
ultraisms that leave reason far behind.
No more can the body polite exist with
out excitement, than the body physical In
this country party politics afford the chief ell
ement of excitement The frequency and
multiplicity OF our elections and the influence
of legislative government upon the business,
morals and knowledge OF tie people, make this
prominent interest; and at those seasons
when great measures are at stake, the strife
OF party becomes violent. There is an ex-
citement, almost an insanity pervading the
public mind at times According to what DIR.
Rush once said, il the stmulants which frte
government gives the people are favorable to
long life, there would seem to be no reason
why the people of this country should not
live forever! .1Ir ar.
Almost all subjects have had their season
of excitement, even manufactures, commerce,
trade and invention have not tailed to furnish
subjects OF public discussion and interest. Per-
haps we cannot have an excitement in Agri-
culture: everything here, it seems, must
move in the same old plough.jogging
way-and this, alter all, we shrewdly suspect,
is the best way for all business. But, We
confess we should like to see little more ex-
citement than has yet existed in behalf Of
this great interest. Let our farmer chal
lenge his aeighbor to do-not his worst, as
politicians do, but his best, as an honest man
should See who can cultivate not the most
land, but who can cultivate his broad acres
most successfully. Let the strife be, who can
produce most with the least expense of labor
and capital-whO keep the best stock of ami
mails. Let challenges go out on these sub
jects; they will be worth vastly more than all
the present challenges OF base ball clubs,
horse jockeys or pugilists. A little more
zeal in maintaining the selfrespect OF the
profession of iarming-for farming is pro-
fession, that. should be made quite as respec-
table as any OF the 50 called "learned" pro-
fessions-might be excited with good results
upon the agricultural improvements OF the
country. Why might not one evening every
week during the approaching winter be as
signed for farmers and farmers wives and
children to meet at the district schoolhouse
to discuss subjects pertaining to their rural,
and social interests?