The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1873-02-20
Evils of Over Activity.


life arose from mans being unable to
sit still in a room :" and, though L DO
not go that length, it is certain that we
should have been a far wiser race than
we are if we had been reader to std
quiet-we should have known much
better the way in which it was best to
act when we came to act. The rise of
physical science, the first great body of
practical truth provable to all men, ex-
emplifies this in the plainest way. If
it had not been for quiet people, who
sat still and studied the other sections
of the cone, if other people had not sat
still and studied the theory of infnitesi-
mails, or other quiet people had not sat
still and worked out the doctrine of
chances, the most dreamy moonshine,''
as the purely practical mind would CON
slider, of all human pursuits if 'sidle
star-gazers ,. had not watched long and
carefully the motions of the heavenly
bOdies-our modern astronomy would
have been impossible, and, without our
astronomy, " our ships, our colonies,
our seamen, all which makes modern
life modern life, could not have existed.
Ages of sedentary, quiet, thinking peo-
pie were required before that noisy ex-
istence began, and without those pale
preliminary students it never could
have been brought into being. If we
consider how much science has done
and how. much it is doing for mankind,
and if the Over-activity of men is proved
to be the cause why science came so
late into the world, and is so small and
scanty still, that will CONVINCE most
people that our over-activity is a very
great evil. But this is only part, and
perhaps not the greatest part, of the
harm, that over-activity does. As [
have said, 1t is inherited from times
when life was simple, objects were
plain, and quick action generally led to
desirable ends If A kills B before b
kills A, then A survives and the human
race is a race of AS. But the issues of
life are plain no longer TO act rightly
in modern society requires a great deal
of previous study, a great deal of assimI
Hated information, agreat deal of sharp
ened Imagination and these prerequi-
sites of sound action require much, time
and, I was going to say, much 81 ying
in the sun, . a long period of ''mere-
passiveness." Even the Cart of killing
one another, which at first particularly
trained men to be quick, now requires
them to be slow. A hasty general is
the worst general nowadays the best
is a sort of Won Moltke, who is passive
if any man ever was passive :; who is
silent ia seven Languages > who pos
sesses more and better accumulated in
formation as to the best way of killing
people than any one who ever lived.
This man plays a restrained and eon-
siderate game of chess with his enemy.
l wish the art of benefitting men had
kept pace with the art of destroying
them for, though war has become
slow, philanthrophy has remained hasty.
The most melanchoIyrof human rreAec-
tions, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it
is question whether the benevolence
of mankind does most good or harm.
Great good, no doubt, philanthropy
does, but then it also does evil. It
augments so much vice, it multiplics so
much suffering, it brings to life such
great populations to suffer and to be
vicious, that it is open to argument
whether it be or not an evil to the
world, and this entirely because excel
lent people fancy that they can do
much by rapid action-that they will
most benefit the world when they most
relieve their own feelings; that as soon
as an evil is seen, Something ought to
be done to stay and prevent it. One
may incline to hope that the bal
ance of good over evil is in favor of be-
nevolence one can hardly bear to think
that it is so ; but anyhow it is certain
that there is most heavy debit of evil,
and that this burden might almost all
have been spared us if philanthropists
as well as others had not inherited from
their barbarous forefathers a wild pas
sion for instant acknowledgement s
Physics and Politics.