The American Quarterly Register Volume 4 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1832 Excerpt: ...state, or to build a city, and they died on the spot, their life no benefit to the world of men around them, and their death no loss. We often read of the splendid achievements of ancient armies. But what notion are we warranted in forming of the multitudes of human beings congregated in these armies 1 They were brave, but their bravery was insensibility. They were powerful, but their power was mere brute force, having not many more marks of intelligence in it than were in the power of their battering engines. They accomplished the will of a more thinking leader, but their obedience was an almost instinctive recognition of a master. Think of the five millions whom Xerxes is said to have led into Greece. Five millions of human beings, made to think and act, and to take on themselves an individual responsibility, and at last to render an account for their thoughts and actions But how many minds do you suppose there were in this moving nation, in which you could have found traces of intelligence much beyond common animal instinct and mere contrivance to exist 1 The proud and unhappy monarch looked over this vast assemblage, and with a sickening and gloomy sensibility wept to think that all the individuals of it would be dead in less than a hundred years. But what if they did die 1 What effect could their death have upon the world? They had done nothing for it. They were capable of doing nothing for it. Excepting that the physical strength of the empire would be somewhat diminished, the world would be no more affected by their death, than by the felling of so many trees in the forests of Scythia. They might have gone with the armies of locusts, and perished on the shores of the Levant, the existence and the movements of the one, as well as the other, having be...