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Paradise (To Be) Regained[1]

by Henry David Thoreau


We learn that Mr. Etzler is a native of Germany, and originally
published his book in Pennsylvania, ten or twelve years ago; and now a
second English edition, from the original American one, is demanded by
his readers across the water, owing, we suppose, to the recent spread
of Fourier’s doctrines. It is one of the signs of the times. We confess
that we have risen from reading this book with enlarged ideas, and
grander conceptions of our duties in this world. It did expand us a
little. It is worth attending to, if only that it entertains large
questions. Consider what Mr. Etzler proposes:

“Fellow Men! I promise to show the means of creating a paradise within
ten years, where everything desirable for human life may be had by
every man in superabundance, without labor, and without pay; where the
whole face of nature shall be changed into the most beautiful forms,
and man may live in the most magnificent palaces, in all imaginable
refinements of luxury, and in the most delightful gardens; where he may
accomplish, without labor, in one year, more than hitherto could be
done in thousands of years; may level mountains, sink valleys, create
lakes, drain lakes and swamps, and intersect the land everywhere with
beautiful canals, and roads for transporting heavy loads of many
thousand tons, and for travelling one thousand miles in twenty-four
hours; may cover the ocean with floating islands movable in any desired
direction with immense power and celerity, in perfect security, and
with all comforts and luxuries, bearing gardens and palaces, with
thousands of families, and provided with rivulets of sweet water; may
explore the interior of the globe, and travel from pole to pole in a
fortnight; provide himself with means, unheard of yet, for increasing
his knowledge of the world, and so his intelligence; lead a life of
continual happiness, of enjoyments yet unknown; free himself from
almost all the evils that afflict mankind, except death, and even put
death far beyond the common period of human life, and finally render it
less afflicting. Mankind may thus live in and enjoy a new world, far
superior to the present, and raise themselves far higher in the scale
of being.”

It would seem from this and various indications beside, that there is a
transcendentalism in mechanics as well as in ethics. While the whole
field of the one reformer lies beyond the boundaries of space, the
other is pushing his schemes for the elevation of the race to its
utmost limits. While one scours the heavens, the other sweeps the
earth. One says he will reform himself, and then nature and
circumstances will be right. Let us not obstruct ourselves, for that is
the greatest friction. It is of little importance though a cloud
obstruct the view of the astronomer compared with his own blindness.
The other will reform nature and circumstances, and then man will be
right. Talk no more vaguely, says he, of reforming the world,—I will
reform the globe itself. What matters it whether I remove this humor
out of my flesh, or this pestilent humor from the fleshy part of the
globe? Nay, is not the latter the more generous course? At present the
globe goes with a shattered constitution in its orbit. Has it not
asthma, and ague, and fever, and dropsy, and flatulence, and pleurisy,
and is it not afflicted with vermin? Has it not its healthful laws
counteracted, and its vital energy which will yet redeem it? No doubt
the simple powers of nature, properly directed by man, would make it
healthy and a paradise; as the laws of man’s own constitution but wait
to be obeyed, to restore him to health and happiness. Our panaceas cure
but few ails, our general hospitals are private and exclusive. We must
set up another Hygeian than is now worshipped. Do not the quacks even
direct small doses for children, larger for adults, and larger still
for oxen and horses? Let us remember that we are to prescribe for the
globe itself.

This fair homestead has fallen to us, and how little have we done to
improve it, how little have we cleared and hedged and ditched! We are
too inclined to go hence to a “better land,” without lifting a finger,
as our farmers are moving to the Ohio soil; but would it not be more
heroic and faithful to till and redeem this New England soil of the
world? The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be
directed in their proper channel. Every gazette brings accounts of the
untutored freaks of the wind,—shipwrecks and hurricanes which the
mariner and planter accept as special or general providences; but they
touch our consciences, they remind us of our sins. Another deluge would
disgrace mankind. We confess we never had much respect for that
antediluvian race. A thorough-bred business man cannot enter heartily
upon the business of life without first looking into his accounts. How
many things are now at loose ends. Who knows which way the wind will
blow to-morrow? Let us not succumb to nature. We will marshal the
clouds and restrain the tempests; we will bottle up pestilent
exhalations, we will probe for earthquakes, grub them up; and give vent
to the dangerous gases; we will disembowel the volcano, and extract its
poison, take its seed out. We will wash water, and warm fire, and cool
ice, and underprop the earth. We will teach birds to fly, and fishes to
swim, and ruminants to chew the cud. It is time we had looked into
these things.

And it becomes the moralist, too, to inquire what man might do to
improve and beautify the system; what to make the stars shine more
brightly, the sun more cheery and joyous, the moon more placid and
content. Could he not heighten the tints of flowers and the melody of
birds? Does he perform his duty to the inferior races? Should he not be
a god to them? What is the part of magnanimity to the whale and the
beaver? Should we not fear to exchange places with them for a day, lest
by their behavior they should shame us? Might we not treat with
magnanimity the shark and the tiger, not descend to meet there on their
own level, with spears of sharks’ teeth and bucklers of tiger’s skin?
We slander the hyæna; man is the fiercest and cruelest animal. Ah! he
is of little faith; even the erring comets and meteors would thank him,
and return his kindness in their kind.

How meanly and grossly do we deal with nature! Could we not have a less
gross labor? What else do these fine inventions suggest,—magnetism, the
daguerreotype, electricity? Can we not do more than cut and trim the
forest,—can we not assist in its interior economy, in the circulation
of the sap? Now we work superficially and violently. We do not suspect
how much might be done to improve our relation to animated nature; what
kindness and refined courtesy there might be.

There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at
least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The
keeping of bees, for instance, is a very slight interference. It is
like directing the sunbeams. All nations, from the remotest antiquity,
have thus fingered nature. There are Hymettus and Hybla, and how many
bee-renowned spots beside? There is nothing gross in the idea of these
little herds,—their hum like the faintest low of kine in the meads. A
pleasant reviewer has lately reminded us that in some places they are
led out to pasture where the flowers are most abundant. “Columella
tells us,” says he, “that the inhabitants of Arabia sent their hives
into Attica to benefit by the later-blowing flowers.” Annually are the
hives, in immense pyramids, carried up the Nile in boats, and suffered
to float slowly down the stream by night, resting by day, as the
flowers put forth along the banks; and they determine the richness of
any locality, and so the profitableness of delay, by the sinking of the
boat in the water. We are told, by the same reviewer, of a man in
Germany, whose bees yielded more honey than those of his neighbors,
with no apparent advantage; but at length he informed them that he had
turned his hives one degree more to the east, and so his bees, having
two hours the start in the morning, got the first sip of honey. Here,
there is treachery and selfishness behind all this; but these things
suggest to the poetic mind what might be done.

Many examples there are of a grosser interference, yet not without
their apology. We saw last summer, on the side of a mountain, a dog
employed to churn for a farmer’s family, travelling upon a horizontal
wheel, and though he had sore eyes, an alarming cough, and withal a
demure aspect, yet their bread did get buttered for all that.
Undoubtedly, in the most brilliant successes, the first rank is always
sacrificed. Much useless travelling of horses, _in extenso_, has of
late years been improved for man’s behoof, only two forces being taken
advantage of,—the gravity of the horse, which is the centripetal, and
his centrifugal inclination to go a-head. Only these two elements in
the calculation. And is not the creature’s whole economy better
economized thus? Are not all finite beings better pleased with motions
relative than absolute? And what is the great globe itself but such a
wheel,—a larger tread-mill,—so that our horse’s freest steps over
prairies are oftentimes balked and rendered of no avail by the earth’s
motion on its axis? But here he is the central agent and motive power;
and, for variety of scenery, being provided with a window in front, do
not the ever-varying activity and fluctuating energy of the creature
himself work the effect of the most varied scenery on a country road?
It must be confessed that horses at present work too exclusively for
men, rarely men for horses; and the brute degenerates in man’s society.

It will be seen that we contemplate a time when man’s will shall be law
to the physical world, and he shall no longer be deterred by such
abstractions as time and space, height and depth, weight and hardness,
but shall indeed be the lord of creation. “Well,” says the faithless
reader, “ ‘life is short, but art is long;’ where is the power that
will effect all these changes?” This it is the very object of Mr.
Etzler’s volume to show. At present, he would merely remind us that
there are innumerable and immeasurable powers already existing in
nature, unimproved on a large scale, or for generous and universal
ends, amply sufficient for these purposes. He would only indicate their
existence, as a surveyor makes known the existence of a water-power on
any stream; but for their application he refers us to a sequel to this
book, called the “Mechanical System.” A few of the most obvious and
familiar of these powers are the Wind, the Tide, the Waves, the
Sunshine. Let us consider their value.

First, there is the power of the Wind, constantly exerted over the
globe. It appears from observation of a sailing-vessel, and from
scientific tables, that the average power of the wind is equal to that
of one horse for every one hundred square feet. “We know,” says our
author—

“that ships of the first class carry sails two hundred feet high; we
may, therefore, equally, on land, oppose to the wind surfaces of the
same height. Imagine a line of such surfaces one mile, or about 5,000
feet, long; they would then contain 1,000,000 square feet. Let these
surfaces intersect the direction of the wind at right angles, by some
contrivance, and receive, consequently, its full power at all times.
Its average power being equal to one horse for every 100 square feet,
the total power would be equal to 1,000,000 divided by 100, or 10,000
horses’ power. Allowing the power of one horse to equal that of ten
men, the power of 10,000 horses is equal to 100,000 men. But as men
cannot work uninterruptedly, but want about half the time for sleep and
repose, the same power would be equal to 200,000 men.... We are not
limited to the height of 200 feet; we might extend, if required, the
application of this power to the height of the clouds, by means of
kites.”

But we will have one such fence for every square mile of the globe’s
surface, for, as the wind usually strikes the earth at an angle of more
than two degrees, which is evident from observing its effect on the
high sea, it admits of even a closer approach. As the surface of the
globe contains about 200,000,000 square miles, the whole power of the
wind on these surfaces would equal 40,000,000,000,000 men’s power, and
“would perform 80,000 times as much work as all the men on earth could
effect with their nerves.”

If it should be objected that this computation includes the surface of
the ocean and uninhabitable regions of the earth, where this power
could not be applied for our purposes, Mr. Etzler is quick with his
reply—“But, you will recollect,” says he, “that I have promised to show
the means for rendering the ocean as inhabitable as the most fruitful
dry land; and I do not exclude even the polar regions.”

The reader will observe that our author uses the fence only as a
convenient formula for expressing the power of the wind, and does not
consider it a necessary method of its application. We do not attach
much value to this statement of the comparative power of the wind and
horse, for no common ground is mentioned on which they can be compared.
Undoubtedly, each is incomparably excellent in its way, and every
general comparison made for such practical purposes as are
contemplated, which gives a preference to the one, must be made with
some unfairness to the other. The scientific tables are, for the most
part, true only in a tabular sense. We suspect that a loaded wagon,
with a light sail, ten feet square, would not have been blown so far by
the end of the year, under equal circumstances, as a common racer or
dray horse would have drawn it. And how many crazy structures on our
globe’s surface, of the same dimensions, would wait for dry-rot if the
traces of one horse were hitched to them, even to their windward side?
Plainly, this is not the principle of comparison. But even the steady
and constant force of the horse may be rated as equal to his weight at
least. Yet we should prefer to let the zephyrs and gales bear, with all
their weight, upon our fences, than that Dobbin, with feet braced,
should lean ominously against them for a season.

Nevertheless, here is an almost incalculable power at our disposal, yet
how trifling the use we make of it. It only serves to turn a few mills,
blow a few vessels across the ocean, and a few trivial ends besides.
What a poor compliment do we pay to our indefatigable and energetic
servant!

“If you ask, perhaps, why this power is not used, if the statement be
true, I have to ask in return, why is the power of steam so lately come
to application? so many millions of men boiled water every day for many
thousand years; they must have frequently seen that boiling water, in
tightly closed pots or kettles, would lift the cover or burst the
vessel with great violence. The power of steam was, therefore, as
commonly known down to the least kitchen or wash-woman, as the power of
wind; but close observation and reflection were bestowed neither on the
one nor the other.”

Men having discovered the power of falling water, which after all is
comparatively slight, how eagerly do they seek out and improve these
_privileges?_ Let a difference of but a few feet in level be discovered
on some stream near a populous town, some slight occasion for gravity
to act, and the whole economy of the neighborhood is changed at once.
Men do indeed speculate about and with this power as if it were the
only privilege. But meanwhile this aerial stream is falling from far
greater heights with more constant flow, never shrunk by drought,
offering mill-sites wherever the wind blows; a Niagara in the air, with
no Canada side;—only the application is hard.

There are the powers too of the Tide and Waves, constantly ebbing and
flowing, lapsing and relapsing, but they serve man in but few ways.
They turn a few tide mills, and perform a few other insignificant and
accidental services only. We all perceive the effect of the tide; how
imperceptibly it creeps up into our harbors and rivers, and raises the
heaviest navies as easily as the lightest chip. Everything that floats
must yield to it. But man, slow to take nature’s constant hint of
assistance, makes slight and irregular use of this power, in careening
ships and getting them afloat when aground.

The following is Mr. Etzler’s calculation on this head: To form a
conception of the power which the tide affords, let us imagine a
surface of 100 miles square, or 10,000 square miles, where the tide
rises and sinks, on an average, 10 feet; how many men would it require
to empty a basin of 10,000 square miles area, and 10 feet deep, filled
with sea-water, in 6¼ hours and fill it again in the same time? As one
man can raise 8 cubic feet of sea-water per minute, and in 6¼ hours
3,000, it would take 1,200,000,000 men, or as they could work only half
the time, 2,400,000,000, to raise 3,000,000,000,000 cubic feet, or the
whole quantity required in the given time.

This power may be applied in various ways. A large body, of the
heaviest materials that will float, may first be raised by it, and
being attached to the end of a balance reaching from the land, or from
a stationary support, fastened to the bottom, when the tide falls, the
whole weight will be brought to bear upon the end of the balance. Also
when the tide rises it may be made to exert a nearly equal force in the
opposite direction. It can be employed wherever a _point d’appui_ can
be obtained.

“However, the application of the tide being by establishments fixed on
the ground, it is natural to begin with them near the shores in shallow
water, and upon sands, which may be extended gradually further into the
sea. The shores of the continent, islands, and sands, being generally
surrounded by shallow water, not exceeding from 50 to 100 fathoms in
depth, for 20, 50, or 100 miles and upward. The coasts of North
America, with their extensive sand-banks, islands, and rocks, may
easily afford, for this purpose, a ground about 3,000 miles long, and,
on an average, 100 miles broad, or 300,000 square miles, which, with a
power of 240,000 men per square mile, as stated, at 10 feet tide, will
be equal to 72,000 millions of men, or for every mile of coast, a power
of 24,000,000 men.”

“Rafts, of any extent, fastened on the ground of the sea, along the
shore, and stretching far into the sea, may be covered with fertile
soil, bearing vegetables and trees, of every description, the finest
gardens, equal to those the firm land may admit of, and buildings and
machineries, which may operate, not only on the sea, where they are,
but which also, by means of mechanical connections, may extend their
operations for many miles into the continent. (Etzler’s Mechanical
System, page 24.) Thus this power may cultivate the artificial soil for
many miles upon the surface of the sea, near the shores, and, for
several miles, the dry land, along the shore, in the most superior
manner imaginable; it may build cities along the shore, consisting of
the most magnificent palaces, every one surrounded by gardens and the
most delightful sceneries; it may level the hills and unevennesses, or
raise eminences for enjoying open prospect into the country and upon
the sea; it may cover the barren shore with fertile soil, and beautify
the same in various ways; it may clear the sea of shallows, and make
easy the approach to the land, not merely of vessels, but of large
floating islands, which may come from, and go to distant parts of the
world, islands that have every commodity and security for their
inhabitants which the firm land affords.”

“Thus may a power, derived from the gravity of the moon and the ocean,
hitherto but the objects of idle curiosity to the studious man, be made
eminently subservient for creating the most delightful abodes along the
coasts, where men may enjoy at the same time all the advantages of sea
and dry land; the coasts may hereafter be continuous paradisiacal
skirts between land and sea, everywhere crowded with the densest
population. The shores and the sea along them will be no more as raw
nature presents them now, but everywhere of easy and charming access,
not even molested by the roar of waves, shaped as it may suit the
purposes of their inhabitants; the sea will be cleared of every
obstruction to free passage everywhere, and its productions in fishes,
etc., will be gathered in large, appropriate receptacles, to present
them to the inhabitants of the shores and of the sea.”

Verily, the land would wear a busy aspect at the spring and neap tide,
and these island ships—these _terræ infirmæ_—which realise the fables
of antiquity, affect our imagination. We have often thought that the
fittest locality for a human dwelling was on the edge of the land, that
there the constant lesson and impression of the sea might sink deep
into the life and character of the landsman, and perhaps impart a
marine tint to his imagination. It is a noble word, that _mariner_—one
who is conversant with the sea. There should be more of what it
signifies in each of us. It is a worthy country to belong to—we look to
see him not disgrace it. Perhaps we should be equally mariners and
terreners, and even our Green Mountains need some of that sea-green to
be mixed with them.

The computation of the power of the Waves is less satisfactory. While
only the average power of the wind and the average height of the tide
were taken before, now the extreme height of the waves is used, for
they are made to rise ten feet above the level of the sea, to which,
adding ten more for depression, we have twenty feet, or the extreme
height of a wave. Indeed, the power of the waves, which is produced by
the wind blowing obliquely and at disadvantage upon the water, is made
to be, not only three thousand times greater than that of the tide, but
one hundred times greater than that of the wind itself, meeting its
object at right angles. Moreover, this power is measured by the area of
the vessel, and not by its length mainly, and it seems to be forgotten
that the motion of the waves is chiefly undulatory, and exerts a power
only within the limits of a vibration, else the very continents, with
their extensive coasts, would soon be set adrift.

Finally, there is the power to be derived from Sunshine, by the
principle on which Archimedes contrived his burning-mirrors, a
multiplication of mirrors reflecting the rays of the sun upon the same
spot, till the requisite degree of heat is obtained. The principal
application of this power will be to the boiling of water and
production of steam.

“How to create rivulets of sweet and wholesome water, on floating
islands, in the midst of the ocean, will be no riddle now. Sea-water
changed into steam, will distill into sweet water, leaving the salt on
the bottom. Thus the steam engines on floating islands, for their
propulsion and other mechanical purposes, will serve, at the same time,
for the distillery of sweet water, which, collected in basins, may be
led through channels over the island, while, where required, it may be
refrigerated by artificial means, and changed into cool water,
surpassing, in salubrity, the best spring water, because nature hardly
ever distils water so purely, and without admixture of less wholesome
matter.”

So much for these few and more obvious powers, already used to a
trifling extent. But there are innumerable others in nature, not
described nor discovered. These, however, will do for the present. This
would be to make the sun and the moon equally our satellites. For, as
the moon is the cause of the tides, and the sun the cause of the wind,
which, in turn, is the cause of the waves, all the work of this planet
would be performed by these far influences.

“But as these powers are very irregular and subject to interruptions;
the next object is to show how they may be converted into powers that
operate continually and uniformly for ever, until the machinery be worn
out, or, in other words, into perpetual motions” . . . “Hitherto the
power of the wind has been applied immediately upon the machinery for
use, and we have had to wait the chances of the wind’s blowing; while
the operation was stopped as soon as the wind ceased to blow. But the
manner, which I shall state hereafter, of applying this power, is to
make it operate only for collecting or storing up power, and then to
take out of this store, at any time, as much as may be wanted for final
operation upon the machines. The power stored up is to react as
required, and may do so long after the original power of the wind has
ceased. And though the wind should cease for intervals of many months,
we may have by the same power a uniform perpetual motion in a very
simple way.”

“The weight of a clock being wound up gives us an image of reaction.
The sinking of this weight is the reaction of winding it up. It is not
necessary to wait till it has run down before we wind up the weight,
but it may be wound up at any time, partly or totally; and if done
always before the weight reaches the bottom, the clock will be going
perpetually. In a similar, though not in the same way, we may cause a
reaction on a larger scale. We may raise, for instance, water by the
immediate application of wind or steam to a pond upon some eminence,
out of which, through an outlet, it may fall upon some wheel or other
contrivance for setting machinery a going. Thus we may store up water
in some eminent pond, and take out of this store, at any time, as much
water through the outlet as we want to employ, by which means the
original power may react for many days after it has ceased. . . . Such
reservoirs of moderate elevation or size need not be made artificially,
but will be found made by nature very frequently, requiring but little
aid for their completion. They require no regularity of form. Any
valley, with lower grounds in its vicinity, would answer the purpose.
Small crevices may be filled up. Such places may be eligible for the
beginning of enterprises of this kind.”

The greater the height, of course, the less water required. But suppose
a level and dry country; then hill and valley, and “eminent pond,” are
to be constructed by main force; or, if the springs are unusually low,
then dirt and stones may be used, and the disadvantage arising from
friction will be counterbalanced by their greater gravity. Nor shall a
single rood of dry land be sunk in such artificial ponds as may be
wanted, but their surfaces “may be covered with rafts decked with
fertile earth, and all kinds of vegetables which may grow there as well
as anywhere else.”

And, finally, by the use of thick envelopes retaining the heat, and
other contrivances, “the power of steam caused by sunshine may react at
will, and thus be rendered perpetual, no matter how often or how long
the sunshine may be interrupted. (Etzler’s _Mechanical System_).”

Here is power enough, one would think, to accomplish somewhat. These
are the powers below. Oh ye millwrights, ye engineers, ye operatives
and speculators of every class, never again complain of a want of
power; it is the grossest form of infidelity. The question is, not how
we shall execute, but what. Let us not use in a niggardly manner what
is thus generously offered.

Consider what revolutions are to be effected in agriculture. First, in
the new country a machine is to move along, taking out trees and stones
to any required depth, and piling them up in convenient heaps; then the
same machine, “with a little alteration,” is to plane the ground
perfectly, till there shall be no hills nor valleys, making the
requisite canals, ditches, and roads as it goes along. The same
machine, “with some other little alterations,” is then to sift the
ground thoroughly, supply fertile soil from other places if wanted, and
plant it; and finally the same machine, “with a little addition,” is to
reap and gather in the crop, thresh and grind it, or press it to oil,
or prepare it any way for final use. For the description of these
machines we are referred to “Etzler’s _Mechanical System_, pages 11 to
27.” We should be pleased to see that “_Mechanical System_,” though we
have not been able to ascertain whether it has been published, or only
exists as yet in the design of the author. We have great faith in it.
But we cannot stop for applications now.

“Any wilderness, even the most hideous and sterile, may be converted
into the most fertile and delightful gardens. The most dismal swamps
may be cleared of all their spontaneous growth, filled up and levelled,
and intersected by canals, ditches and aqueducts, for draining them
entirely. The soil, if required, may be meliorated, by covering or
mixing it with rich soil taken from distant places, and the same be
mouldered to fine dust, levelled, sifted from all roots, weeds and
stones, and sowed and planted in the most beautiful order and symmetry,
with fruit trees and vegetables of every kind that may stand the
climate.”

New facilities for transportation and locomotion are to be adopted:

“Large and commodious vehicles, for carrying many thousand tons,
running over peculiarly adapted level roads, at the rate of forty miles
per hour, or one thousand miles per day, may transport men and things,
small houses, and whatever may serve for comfort and ease, by land.
Floating islands, constructed of logs, or of wooden-stuff prepared in a
similar manner, as is to be done with stone, and of live trees, which
may be reared so as to interlace one another, and strengthen the whole,
may be covered with gardens and palaces, and propelled by powerful
engines, so as to run at an equal rate though seas and oceans. Thus,
man may move, with the celerity of a bird’s flight, in terrestrial
paradises, from one climate to another, and see the world in all its
variety, exchanging, with distant nations, the surplus of productions.
The journey from one pole to another may be performed in a fortnight;
the visit to a transmarine country in a week or two; or a journey round
the world in one or two months by land and water. And why pass a dreary
winter every year while there is yet room enough on the globe where
nature is blessed with a perpetual summer, and with a far greater
variety and luxuriance of vegetation? More than one-half the surface of
the globe has no winter. Men will have it in their power to remove and
prevent all bad influences of climate, and to enjoy, perpetually, only
that temperature which suits their constitution and feeling best.”

Who knows but by accumulating the power until the end of the present
century, using meanwhile only the smallest allowance, reserving all
that blows, all that shines, all that ebbs and flows, all that dashes,
we may have got such a reserved accumulated power as to run the earth
off its track into a new orbit, some summer, and so change the tedious
vicissitude of the seasons? Or, perchance, coming generations will not
abide the dissolution of the globe, but, availing themselves of future
inventions in aerial locomotion, and the navigation of space, the
entire race may migrate from the earth, to settle some vacant and more
western planet, it may be still healthy, perchance unearthy, not
composed of dirt and stones, whose primary strata only are strewn, and
where no weeds are sown. It took but little art, a simple application
of natural laws, a canoe, a paddle, and a sail of matting, to people
the isles of the Pacific, and a little more will people the shining
isles of space. Do we not see in the firmament the lights carried along
the shore by night, as Columbus did? Let us not despair nor mutiny.

“The dwellings also ought to be very different from what is known, if
the full benefit of our means is to be enjoyed. They are to be of a
structure for which we have no name yet. They are to be neither
palaces, nor temples, nor cities, but a combination of all, superior to
whatever is known. Earth may be baked into bricks, or even vitrified
stone by heat,—we may bake large masses of any size and form, into
stone and vitrified substance of the greatest durability, lasting even
thousands of years, out of clayey earth, or of stones ground to dust,
by the application of burning mirrors. This is to be done in the open
air, without other preparation than gathering the substance, grinding
and mixing it with water and cement, moulding or casting it, and
bringing the focus of the burning mirrors of proper size upon the same.
The character of the architecture is to be quite different from what it
ever has been hitherto; large solid masses are to be baked or cast in
one piece, ready shaped in any form that may be desired. The building
may, therefore, consist of columns two hundred feet high and upwards,
of proportionate thickness, and of one entire piece of vitrified
substance; huge pieces are to be moulded so as to join and hook on to
each other firmly, by proper joints and folds, and not to yield in any
way without breaking.”

“Foundries, of any description, are to be heated by burning mirrors,
and will require no labor, except the making of the first moulds and
the superintendence for gathering the metal and taking the finished
articles away.”

Alas! in the present state of science, we must take the finished
articles away; but think not that man will always be a victim of
circumstances.

The countryman who visited the city and found the streets cluttered
with bricks and lumber, reported that it was not yet finished, and one
who considers the endless repairs and reforming of our houses, might
well wonder when they will be done. But why may not the dwellings of
men on this earth be built once for all of some durable material, some
Roman or Etruscan masonry which will stand, so that time shall only
adorn and beautify them? Why may we not finish the outward world for
posterity, and leave them leisure to attend to the inner? Surely, all
the gross necessities and economies might be cared for in a few years.
All might be built and baked and stored up, during this, the term-time
of the world, against the vacant eternity, and the globe go provisioned
and furnished like our public vessels, for its voyage through space, as
through some Pacific Ocean, while we would “tie up the rudder and sleep
before the wind,” as those who sail from Lima to Manilla.

But, to go back a few years in imagination, think not that life in
these crystal palaces is to bear any analogy to life in our present
humble cottages. Far from it. Clothed, once for all, in some “flexible
stuff,” more durable than George Fox’s suit of leather, composed of
“fibres of vegetables,” “glutinated” together by some “cohesive
substances,” and made into sheets, like paper, of any size or form, man
will put far from him corroding care and the whole host of ills.

“The twenty-five halls in the inside of the square are to be each two
hundred feet square and high; the forty corridors, each one hundred
feet long and twenty wide; the eighty galleries, each from 1,000 to
1,250 feet long; about 7,000 private rooms, the whole surrounded and
intersected by the grandest and most splendid colonnades imaginable;
floors, ceilings, columns with their various beautiful and fanciful
intervals, all shining, and reflecting to infinity all objects and
persons, with splendid lustre of all beautiful colors, and fanciful
shapes and pictures. All galleries, outside and within the halls, are
to be provided with many thousand commodious and most elegant vehicles,
in which persons may move up and down like birds, in perfect security,
and without exertion. Any member may procure himself all the common
articles of his daily wants, by a short turn of some crank, without
leaving his apartment; he may, at any time, bathe himself in cold or
warm water, or in steam, or in some artificially prepared liquor for
invigorating health. He may, at any time, give to the air in his
apartment that temperature that suits his feeling best. He may cause,
at any time, an agreeable scent of various kinds. He may, at any time,
meliorate his breathing air,—that main vehicle of vital power. Thus, by
a proper application of the physical knowledge of our days, man may be
kept in a perpetual serenity of mind, and if there is no incurable
disease or defect in his organism, in constant vigor of health, and his
life be prolonged beyond any parallel which present times afford.

“One or two persons are sufficient to direct the kitchen business. They
have nothing else to do but to superintend the cookery, and to watch
the time of the victuals being done, and then to remove them, with the
table and vessels, into the dining-hall, or to the respective private
apartments, by a slight motion of the hand at some crank. Any
extraordinary desire of any person may be satisfied by going to the
place where the thing is to be had; and anything that requires a
particular preparation in cooking or baking may be done by the person
who desires it.”

This is one of those instances in which the individual genius is found
to consent, as indeed it always does, at last, with the universal.
These last sentences have a certain sad and sober truth, which reminds
us of the scripture of all nations. All expression of truth does at
length take the deep ethical form. Here is hint of a place the most
eligible of any in space, and of a servitor, in comparison with whom,
all other helps dwindle into insignificance. We hope to hear more of
him anon, for even a crystal palace would be deficient without his
invaluable services.

And as for the environs of the establishment,

“There will be afforded the most enrapturing views to be fancied, out
of the private apartments, from the galleries, from the roof, from its
turrets and cupolas,—gardens as far as the eye can see, full of fruits
and flowers, arranged in the most beautiful order, with walks,
colonnades, aqueducts, canals, ponds, plains, amphitheatres, terraces,
fountains, sculptural works, pavilions, gondolas, places for public
amusement, etc., to delight the eye and fancy, the taste and smell. . . .
The walks and roads are to be paved with hard vitrified, large
plates, so as to be always clean from all dirt in any weather or
season. . . . The channels being of vitrified substance, and the water
perfectly clear, and filtrated or distilled if required, may afford the
most beautiful scenes imaginable, while a variety of fishes is seen
clear down to the bottom playing about, and the canals may afford at
the same time, the means of gliding smoothly along between various
sceneries of art and nature, in beautiful gondolas, while their surface
and borders may be covered with fine land and aquatic birds. The walks
may be covered with porticos adorned with magnificent columns, statues,
and sculptural works; all of vitrified substance, and lasting forever,
while the beauties of nature around heighten the magnificence and
deliciousness.

“The night affords no less delight to fancy and feelings. An infinite
variety of grand, beautiful and fanciful objects and sceneries,
radiating with crystalline brilliancy, by the illumination of
gas-light; the human figures themselves, arrayed in the most beautiful
pomp fancy may suggest, or the eye desire, shining even with brilliancy
of stuffs and diamonds, like stones of various colors, elegantly shaped
and arranged around the body; all reflected a thousand-fold in huge
mirrors and reflectors of various forms; theatrical scenes of a
grandeur and magnificence, and enrapturing illusions, unknown yet, in
which any person may be either a spectator or an actor; the speech and
the songs reverberating with increased sound, rendered more sonorous
and harmonious than by nature, by vaultings that are moveable into any
shape at any time; the sweetest and most impressive harmony of music,
produced by song and instruments partly not known yet, may thrill
through the nerves and vary with other amusements and delights.

“At night the roof, and the inside and outside of the whole square, are
illuminated by gas-light, which in the mazes of many-colored
crystal-like colonnades and vaultings, is reflected with a brilliancy
that gives to the whole a lustre of precious stones, as far as the eye
can see. Such are the future abodes of men. . . . Such is the life
reserved to true intelligence, but withheld from ignorance, prejudice,
and stupid adherence to custom.” ... “Such is the domestic life to be
enjoyed by every human individual that will partake of it. Love and
affection may there be fostered and enjoyed without any of the
obstructions that oppose, diminish, and destroy them in the present
state of men.” ... “It would be as ridiculous, then, to dispute and
quarrel about the means of life, as it would be now about water to
drink along mighty rivers, or about the permission to breathe air in
the atmosphere, or about sticks in our extensive woods.”

Thus is Paradise to be Regained, and that old and stern decree at
length reversed. Man shall no more earn his living by the sweat of his
brow. All labor shall be reduced to “a short turn of some crank,” and
“taking the finished article away.” But there is a crank,—oh, how hard
to be turned! Could there not be a crank upon a crank,—an infinitely
small crank?—we would fain inquire. No,—alas! not. But there is a
certain divine energy in every man, but sparingly employed as yet,
which may be called the crank within,—the crank after all,—the prime
mover in all machinery,—quite indispensable to all work. Would that we
might get our hands on its handle! In fact no work can be shirked. It
may be postponed indefinitely, but not infinitely. Nor can any really
important work be made easier by co-operation or machinery. Not one
particle of labor now threatening any man can be routed without being
performed. It cannot be hunted out of the vicinity like jackals and
hyenas. It will not run. You may begin by sawing the little sticks, or
you may saw the great sticks first, but sooner or later you must saw
them both.

We will not be imposed upon by this vast application of forces. We
believe that most things will have to be accomplished still by the
application called Industry. We are rather pleased after all to
consider the small private, but both constant and accumulated force,
which stands behind every spade in the field. This it is that makes the
valleys shine, and the deserts really bloom. Sometimes, we confess, we
are so degenerate as to reflect with pleasure on the days when men were
yoked like cattle, and drew a crooked stick for a plough. After all,
the great interests and methods were the same.

It is a rather serious objection to Mr. Etzler’s schemes, that they
require time, men, and money, three very superfluous and inconvenient
things for an honest and well-disposed man to deal with. “The whole
world,” he tells us, “might therefore be really changed into a
paradise, within less than ten years, commencing from the first year of
an association for the purpose of constructing and applying the
machinery.” We are sensible of a startling incongruity when time and
money are mentioned in this connection. The ten years which are
proposed would be a tedious while to wait, if every man were at his
post and did his duty, but quite too short a period, if we are to take
time for it. But this fault is by no means peculiar to Mr. Etzler’s
schemes. There is far too much hurry and bustle, and too little
patience and privacy, in all our methods, as if something were to be
accomplished in centuries. The true reformer does not want time, nor
money, nor co-operation, nor advice. What is time but the stuff delay
is made of? And depend upon it, our virtue will not live on the
interest of our money. He expects no income, but our outgoes; so soon
as we begin to count the cost the cost begins. And as for advice, the
information floating in the atmosphere of society is as evanescent and
unserviceable to him as gossamer for clubs of Hercules. There is
absolutely no common sense; it is common nonsense. If we are to risk a
cent or a drop of our blood, who then shall advise us? For ourselves,
we are too young for experience. Who is old enough? We are older by
faith than by experience. In the unbending of the arm to do the deed
there is experience worth all the maxims in the world.

“It will now be plainly seen that the execution of the proposals is not
proper for individuals. Whether it be proper for government at this
time, before the subject has become popular, is a question to be
decided; all that is to be done, is to step forth, after mature
reflection, to confess loudly one’s conviction, and to constitute
societies. Man is powerful but in union with many. Nothing great, for
the improvement of his own condition, or that of his fellow men, can
ever be effected by individual enterprise.”

Alas! this is the crying sin of the age, this want of faith in the
prevalence of a man. Nothing can be effected but by one man. He who
wants help wants everything. True, this is the condition of our
weakness, but it can never be the means of our recovery. We must first
succeed alone, that we may enjoy our success together. We trust that
the social movements which we witness indicate an aspiration not to be
thus cheaply satisfied. In this matter of reforming the world, we have
little faith in corporations; not thus was it first formed.

But our author is wise enough to say that the raw materials for the
accomplishment of his purposes are “iron, copper, wood, earth chiefly,
and a union of men whose eyes and understanding are not shut up by
preconceptions.” Aye, this last may be what we want mainly,—a company
of “odd fellows” indeed.

“Small shares of twenty dollars will be sufficient,”—in all, from
“200,000 to 300,000,”—“to create the first establishment for a whole
community of from 3,000 to 4,000 individuals”—at the end of five years
we shall have a principal of 200 millions of dollars, and so paradise
will be wholly regained at the end of the tenth year. But, alas, the
ten years have already elapsed, and there are no signs of Eden yet, for
want of the requisite funds to begin the enterprise in a hopeful
manner. Yet it seems a safe investment. Perchance they could be hired
at a low rate, the property being mortgaged for security, and, if
necessary, it could be given up in any stage of the enterprise, without
loss, with the fixtures.

Mr. Etzler considers this “Address as a touchstone, to try whether our
nation is in any way accessible to these great truths, for raising the
human creature to a superior state of existence, in accordance with the
knowledge and the spirit of the most cultivated minds of the present
time.” He has prepared a constitution, short and concise, consisting of
twenty-one articles, so that wherever an association may spring up, it
may go into operation without delay; and the editor informs us that
“Communications on the subject of this book may be addressed to C.F.
Stollmeyer, No. 6, Upper Charles street, Northampton square, London.”

But we see two main difficulties in the way. First, the successful
application of the powers by machinery (we have not yet seen the
“Mechanical System,”) and, secondly, which is infinitely harder, the
application of man to the work by faith. This it is, we fear, which
will prolong the ten years to ten thousand at least. It will take a
power more than “80,000 times greater than all the men on earth could
effect with their nerves,” to persuade men to use that which is already
offered them. Even a greater than this physical power must be brought
to bear upon that moral power. Faith, indeed, is all the reform that is
needed; it is itself a reform. Doubtless, we are as slow to conceive of
Paradise as of Heaven, of a perfect natural as of a perfect spiritual
world. We see how past ages have loitered and erred. “Is perhaps our
generation free from irrationality and error? Have we perhaps reached
now the summit of human wisdom, and need no more to look out for mental
or physical improvement?” Undoubtedly, we are never so visionary as to
be prepared for what the next hour may bring forth.

      Μέλλει τὸ θεῖον δ’ ἔστι τοιοῦτον φύσει.

The Divine is about to be, and such is its nature. In our wisest
moments we are secreting a matter, which, like the lime of the shell
fish, incrusts us quite over, and well for us if, like it, we cast our
shells from time to time, though they be pearl and of fairest tint. Let
us consider under what disadvantages science has hitherto labored
before we pronounce thus confidently on her progress.

“There was never any system in the productions of human labor; but they
came into existence and fashion as chance directed men.” “Only a few
professional men of learning occupy themselves with teaching natural
philosophy, chemistry, and the other branches of the sciences of
nature, to a very limited extent, for very limited purposes, with very
limited means.” “The science of mechanics is but in a state of infancy.
It is true, improvements are made upon improvements, instigated by
patents of government; but they are made accidentally or at hap-hazard.
There is no general system of this science, mathematical as it is,
which develops its principles in their full extent, and the outlines of
the application to which they lead. There is no idea of comparison
between what is explored and what is yet to be explored in this
science. The ancient Greeks placed mathematics at the head of their
education. But we are glad to have filled our memory with notions,
without troubling ourselves much with reasoning about them.”

Mr. Etzler is not one of the enlightened practical men, the pioneers of
the actual, who move with the slow deliberate tread of science,
conserving the world; who execute the dreams of the last century,
though they have no dreams of their own; yet he deals in the very raw
but still solid material of all inventions. He has more of the
practical than usually belongs to so bold a schemer, so resolute a
dreamer. Yet his success is in theory, and not in practice, and he
feeds our faith rather than contents our understanding. His book wants
order, serenity, dignity, everything,—but it does not fail to impart
what only man can impart to man of much importance, his own faith. It
is true his dreams are not thrilling nor bright enough, and he leaves
off to dream where he who dreams just before the dawn begins. His
castles in the air fall to the ground, because they are not built lofty
enough; they should be secured to heaven’s roof. After all, the
theories and speculations of men concern us more than their puny
execution. It is with a certain coldness and languor that we loiter
about the actual and so called practical. How little do the most
wonderful inventions of modern times detain us. They insult nature.
Every machine, or particular application, seems a slight outrage
against universal laws. How many fine inventions are there which do not
clutter the ground? We think that those only succeed which minister to
our sensible and animal wants, which bake or brew, wash or warm, or the
like. But are those of no account which are patented by fancy and
imagination, and succeed so admirably in our dreams that they give the
tone still to our waking thoughts? Already nature is serving all those
uses which science slowly derives on a much higher and grander scale to
him that will be served by her. When the sunshine falls on the path of
the poet, he enjoys all those pure benefits and pleasures which the
arts slowly and partially realize from age to age. The winds which fan
his cheek waft him the sum of that profit and happiness which their
lagging inventions supply.

The chief fault of this book is, that it aims to secure the greatest
degree of gross comfort and pleasure merely. It paints a Mahometan’s
heaven, and stops short with singular abruptness when we think it is
drawing near to the precincts of the Christian’s,—and we trust we have
not made here a distinction without a difference. Undoubtedly if we
were to reform this outward life truly and thoroughly, we should find
no duty of the inner omitted. It would be employment for our whole
nature; and what we should do thereafter would be as vain a question as
to ask the bird what it will do when its nest is built and its brood
reared. But a moral reform must take place first, and then the
necessity of the other will be superseded, and we shall sail and plough
by its force alone. There is a speedier way than the “Mechanical
System” can show to fill up marshes, to drown the roar of the waves, to
tame hyænas, secure agreeable environs, diversify the land, and refresh
it with “rivulets of sweet water,” and that is by the power of
rectitude and true behavior. It is only for a little while, only
occasionally, methinks, that we want a garden. Surely a good man need
not be at the labor to level a hill for the sake of a prospect, or
raise fruits and flowers, and construct floating islands, for the sake
of a paradise. He enjoys better prospects than lie behind any hill.
Where an angel travels it will be paradise all the way, but where Satan
travels it will be burning marl and cinders. What says Veeshnoo Sarma?
“He whose mind is at ease is possessed of all riches. Is it not the
same to one whose foot is enclosed in a shoe, as if the whole surface
of the earth were covered with leather?”

He who is conversant with the supernal powers will not worship these
inferior deities of the wind, waves, tide, and sunshine. But we would
not disparage the importance of such calculations as we have described.
They are truths in physics, because they are true in ethics. The moral
powers no one would presume to calculate. Suppose we could compare the
moral with the physical, and say how many horse-power the force of
love, for instance, blowing on every square foot of a man’s soul, would
equal. No doubt we are well aware of this force; figures would not
increase our respect for it; the sunshine is equal to but one ray of
its heat. The light of the sun is but the shadow of love. “The souls of
men loving and fearing God,” says Raleigh, “receive influence from that
divine light itself, whereof the sun’s clarity, and that of the stars,
is by Plato called but a shadow. _Lumen est umbra Dei, Deus est Lumen
Luminis._ Light is the shadow of God’s brightness, who is the light of
light,” and, we may add, the heat of heat. Love is the wind, the tide,
the waves, the sunshine. Its power is incalculable; it is many
horse-power. It never ceases, it never slacks; it can move the globe
without a resting-place; it can warm without fire; it can feed without
meat; it can clothe without garments; it can shelter without roof; it
can make a paradise within which will dispense with a paradise without.
But though the wisest men in all ages have labored to publish this
force, and every human heart is, sooner or later, more or less, made to
feel it, yet how little is actually applied to social ends! True, it is
the motive-power of all successful social machinery; but, as in physics
we have made the elements do only a little drudgery for us,—steam to
take the place of a few horses, wind of a few oars, water of a few
cranks and hand-mills,—as the mechanical forces have not yet been
generously and largely applied to make the physical world answer to the
ideal, so the power of love has been but meanly and sparingly applied,
as yet. It has patented only such machines as the almshouses, the
hospital, and the Bible Society, while its infinite wind is still
blowing, and blowing down these very structures too, from time to time.
Still less are we accumulating its power, and preparing to act with
greater energy at a future time. Shall we not contribute our shares to
this enterprise, then?

 [1] _The Paradise within the Reach of all Men, without Labor, by
 Powers of Nature and Machinery. An Address to all intelligent Men._ In
 Two Parts. By J.A. Etzler. Part First. Second English Edition. London,
 1842. Pp. 55.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63459 ***