zation, and in its concomitants, activity and commerce, its
mortality instantly increases. But if civilization be favourable to
the prolongation of life, must it not be favourable to all that blesses
life,--to bodily health, to mental cheerfulness, to the capacities for
enjoyment? And how much more grand, how much more sublime, becomes the
prospect of gain, if we reflect that, to each life thus called forth,
there is a soul, a destiny beyond the grave, multiplied immortalities!
What an apology for the continued progress of States! But you say that,
however we advance, we continue impatient and dissatisfied: can you
really suppose that, because man in every state is discontented with
his lot, there is no difference in the _degree_ and _quality_ of his
discontent, no distinction between pining for bread and longing for the
moon? Desire is implanted within us, as the very principle of existence;
the physical desire fills the world, and the moral desire improves it.
Where there is desire, there must be discontent: if we are satisfied
with all things, desire is extinct. But a certain degree of discontent
is not incompatible with happiness, nay, it has happiness of its own;
what happiness like hope,--what is hope but desire? The European serf,
whose seigneur could command his life, or insist as a right on the
chastity of his daughter, desires to better his condition. God has
compassion on his state; Providence calls into action the ambition
of leaders, the contests of faction, the movement of men's aims and
passions: a change passes through society and legislation, and the serf
becomes free! He desires still, but what? No longer personal security,
no longer the privileges of life and health; but higher wages, greater
comforts, easier justice for diminished wrongs. Is there no difference
in the quality of that desire? Was one a greater torment than the other
is? Rise a scale higher: a new class is created--the Middle Class,--the
express creature of Civilization. Behold the burgher and the citizen,
and still struggling, still contending, still desiring, and therefore
still discontented. But the discontent does not prey upon the springs
of life: it is the discontent of _hope_, not _despair_; it calls forth
faculties, energies, and passions, in which there is more joy than
sorrow. It is this desire which makes the citizen in private life an
anxious father, a careful master, an _active_, and therefore not an
unhappy, man. You allow