ven, but on earth never to be
unfolded!--That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for
Knowledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty
times in the minute, as by some computations it does. The miserable
fraction of Science which our united Mankind, in a wide Universe of
Nescience, has acquired, why is not this, with all diligence, imparted
to all?'

Quite in an opposite strain is the following: 'The old Spartans had a
wiser method; and went out and hunted-down their Helots, and speared
and spitted them, when they grew too numerous. With our improved
fashions of hunting, Herr Hofrath, now after the invention of
fire-arms, and standing-armies, how much easier were such a hunt!
Perhaps in the most thickly-peopled country, some three days annually
might suffice to shoot all the able-bodied Paupers that had
accumulated within the year. Let Governments think of this. The
expense were trifling: nay the very carcasses would pay it. Have them
salted and barrelled; could not you victual therewith, if not Army and
Navy, yet richly such infirm Paupers, in workhouses and elsewhere, as
enlightened Charity, dreading no evil of them, might see good to keep
alive?'

'And yet,' writes he farther on, 'there must be something wrong. A
full-formed Horse will, in any market, bring from twenty to as high as
two-hundred Friedrichs d'or: such is his worth to the world. A
full-formed Man is not only worth nothing to the world, but the world
could afford him a round sum would he simply engage to go and hang
himself. Nevertheless, which of the two was the more cunningly-devised
article, even as an Engine? Good Heavens! A white European Man,
standing on his two Legs, with his two five-fingered Hands at his
shackle-bones, and miraculous Head on his shoulders, is worth, I
should say, from fifty to a hundred Horses!'

'True, thou Gold-Hofrath,' cries the Professor elsewhere: 'too crowded
indeed! Meanwhile, what portion of this inconsiderable terraqueous
Globe have ye actually tilled and delved, till it will grow no more?
How thick stands your Population in the Pampas and Savannas of
America; round ancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa; on
both slopes of the Altaic chain, in the central Platform of Asia; in
Spain, Greece, Turkey, Crim Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare? One man,
in one year, as I have understood it, if you lend him Earth, will feed
himself and nine others. Alas, where now are the Hengsts an