ain urged by the housewife that God made
yeast as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he
does vegetation; that fermentation develops the saccharine element
in the grain, and makes it more palatable and more digestible. No,
they wish the pure wheat, and will die but it shall not ferment.
Stop, dear nature, these innocent advances of thine; let us
scotch these ever-rolling wheels! Others attacked the system of
agriculture, the use of animal manures in farming; and the tyranny
of man over brute nature; these abuses polluted his food. The ox
must be taken from the plough, and the horse from the cart, the
hundred acres of the farm must be spaded, and the man must walk
wherever boats and locomotives will not carry him. Even the insect
world was to be defended,--that had been too long neglected, and a
society for the protection of ground-worms, slugs, and mosquitoes
was to be incorporated without delay. With these appeared the adepts
of homoeopathy, of hydropathy, of mesmerism, of phrenology, and
their wonderful theories of the Christian miracles!"

We have already seen the issue of the famous Brook Farm experiment,
which was a practical outcome of the reforming agitation.

Emerson has had the name of being a leader in many movements in which he
had very limited confidence, this among others to which the idealizing
impulse derived from him lent its force, but for the organization of
which he was in no sense responsible.

He says in the lecture we are considering:--

"These new associations are composed of men and women of superior
talents and sentiments; yet it may easily be questioned whether such
a community will draw, except in its beginnings, the able and the
good; whether these who have energy will not prefer their choice of
superiority and power in the world to the humble certainties of the
association; whether such a retreat does not promise to become an
asylum to those who have tried and failed rather than a field to the
strong; and whether the members will not necessarily be fractions of
men, because each finds that he cannot enter into it without some
compromise."

His sympathies were not allowed to mislead him; he knew human nature too
well to believe in a Noah's ark full of idealists.

All this time he was lecturing for his support, giving courses of
lectures in Boston and other cities,