II.—THE CIRCULATION OF WATER ON THE LAND.
Although air is continually evaporating water from the surface of the earth, and continually restoring it again by condensation, yet, on the whole and in the course of years, there seems to be no sensible gain or loss of water in our seas, lakes, and rivers; so that the two processes of evaporation and condensation balance each other.
It is evident, however, that the moisture precipitated at any moment from the air is not at once evaporated again. The disappearance of the water is due in part to evaporation, but only in part. A great deal of it goes out of sight in other ways.
The rain which falls upon the sea is the largest part of the whole rainfall of the globe, because the surface of the sea is about three times greater than that of the land. All this rain gradually mingles with the salt water, and can then be no longer recognized. It thus helps to make up for the loss which the sea is always suffering by evaporation. For the sea is the great evaporating surface whence most of the vapor of the atmosphere is derived.
On the other hand, the total amount of rain which falls upon the land of the globe must be enormous. It has been estimated, for example, that about sixty-eight cubic miles of water annually descend as rain even upon the surface of the British Isles, and there are many much more rainy regions. If you inquire about this rain which falls upon the land, you will find that it does not at once disappear, but begins another kind of circulation. Watch what happens during a shower of rain. If the shower is heavy, you will notice little runs of muddy water coursing down the streets or roads, or flowing out of the ridges of the fields. Follow one of the runs. It leads into some drain or brook, that into some larger stream, the stream into a river; and the river, if you follow it far enough, will bring you to the sea. Now think of all the brooks and rivers of the world, where this kind of transport of water is going on, and you will at once see how vast must be the part of the rain which flows off the land into the ocean.
But does the whole of the rain flow off at once into the sea in this way? A good deal of the rain which falls upon the land must sink underground and gather there. You may think that surely the water which disappears in that way must be finally withdrawn from the general circulation which we have been tracing. When it sinks below the surface, how can it ever get up to the surface again?
Yet, if you consider for a little, you will be convinced that whatever becomes of it underneath, it can not be lost. If all the rain which sinks into the ground be forever removed from the surface circulation, you will at once see that the quantity of water upon the earth’s surface must be constantly and visibly diminishing. But no such changes, so far as can be seen, are really taking place. In spite of the rain which disappears into the ground, the circulation of water between the air, the land, and the sea continues without perceptible diminution.
You are driven to conclude, therefore, that there must be some means whereby the water underground is brought back to the surface. This is done by springs, which gush out of the earth, and bring up water to feed the brooks and rivers, whereby it is borne into the sea. Here, then, are two distinct courses which the rainfall takes—one below ground, and one above. It will be most convenient to follow the underground portion first.
A little attention to the soils and rocks which form the surface of a country is enough to show that they differ greatly from each other in hardness, and in texture or grain. Some are quite loose and porous, others are tough and close-grained. They consequently differ much in the quantity of water they allow to pass through them. A bed of sand, for example, is pervious; that is, will let water sink through it freely, because the little grains of sand lie loosely together, touching each other only at some points, so as to leave empty spaces between. The water readily finds its way among these empty spaces. In fact, the sand-bed may become a kind of sponge, quite saturated with the water which has filtered down from the surface. A bed of clay, on the other hand, is impervious; it is made up of very small particles fitting closely to each other, and therefore offering resistance to the passage of water. Wherever such a bed occurs, it hinders the free passage of the water, which, unable to sink through it from above on the way down, or from below on the way up to the surface again, is kept in by the clay, and forced to find another line of escape.
Sandy soils are dry because the rain at once sinks through them; clay soils are wet because they retain the water, and prevent it from freely descending into the earth.
Now the rocks beneath us, besides being in many cases porous in their texture, such as sandstone, are all more or less traversed with cracks—sometimes mere lines, like those of a cracked window-pane, but sometimes wide and open clefts and tunnels. These numerous channels serve as passages for the underground water. Hence, although a rock may be so hard and close-grained that water does not soak through it at all, yet if that rock is plentifully supplied with these cracks, it may allow a large quantity of water to pass through. Limestone, for example, is a very hard rock, through the grains of which water can make but little way; yet it is so full of cracks or “joints,” as they are called, and these joints are often so wide, that they give passage to a great deal of water.
In hilly districts, where the surface of the ground has not been brought under the plow, you will notice that many places are marshy and wet, even when the weather has long been dry. The soil everywhere around has perhaps been baked quite hard by the sun; but these places remain still wet, in spite of the heat. Whence do they get their water? Plainly not directly from the air, for in that case the rest of the ground would also be damp. They get it not from above, but from below. It is oozing out of the ground; and it is this constant outcome of water from below which keeps the ground wet and marshy. In other places you will observe that the water does not merely soak through the ground, but gives rise to a little run of clear water. If you follow such a run up to its source, you will see that it comes gushing out of the ground as a spring.
Springs are the natural outlets for the underground water. But, you ask, why should this water have any outlets, and what makes it rise to the surface?
Let us suppose that a flat layer of some impervious rock, like clay, underlies another layer of a porous material, like sand. The rain which falls on the surface of the ground, and sinks through the upper bed, will be arrested by the lower one, and made either to gather there, or find its escape along the surface of that lower bed. If a hollow or valley should have its bottom below the level of the line along which the water flows, springs will gush out along the sides of the valley. The line of escape may be either the junction between two different kinds of rock, or some of the numerous joints already referred to. Whatever it be, the water can not help flowing onward and downward, as long as there is any passage along which it can find its way; and the rocks underneath are so full of cracks, that it has no difficulty in doing so.
But it must happen that a great deal of the underground water descends far below the level of the valleys, and even below the level of the sea. And yet, though it should descend for several miles, it comes at last to the surface again. To realize clearly how this takes place, let us follow a particular drop of water from the time when it sinks into the earth as rain, to the time when, after a long journey up and down in the bowels of the earth, it once more reaches the surface. It soaks through the soil together with other drops, and joins some feeble trickle, or some more ample flow of water, which works its way through crevices and tunnels of the rocks. It sinks in this way to perhaps a depth of several thousand feet, until it reaches some rock through which it can not readily make further way. Unable to work its way downward, the pent-up water must try to find escape in some other direction. By the pressure from above it is driven through other cracks and passages, winding up and down until at last it comes to the surface again. It breaks out there as a gushing spring.
Rain is water nearly in a state of purity. After journeying up and down underground it comes out again in springs, always more or less mingled with other materials, which it gets from the rocks through which it travels. They are not visible to the eye, for they are held in what is called chemical solution. When you put a few grains of salt or sugar upon a plate, and pour water over them, they are dissolved in the water and disappear. They enter into union with the water. You can not see them, but you can still recognize their presence by the taste which they give to the water which holds them in solution. So water, sinking from the soil downward, dissolves a little of the substance of the subterranean rocks, and carries this dissolved material up to the surface of the ground. One of the important ingredients in the air is carbonic acid gas, and this substance is both abstracted from and supplied to the air by plants and animals. In descending through the atmosphere rain absorbs a little air. As ingredients of the air, a little carbonic acid gas, particles of dust and soot, noxious vapors, minute organisms, and other substances floating in the air, are caught up by the descending rain, which in this way washes the air, and tends to keep it much more wholesome than it would otherwise be.
But rain not merely picks up impurities from the air, it gets a large addition when it reaches the soil.
Armed with the carbonic acid which it gets from the air, and with the larger quantity which it abstracts from the soil, rainwater is prepared to attack rocks, and to eat into them in a way which pure water could not do.
Water containing carbonic acid has a remarkable effect on many rocks, even on some of the very hardest. It dissolves more or less of their substance, and removes it. When it falls, for instance, on chalk or limestone, it almost entirely dissolves and carries away the rock in solution, though still remaining clear and limpid. In countries where chalk or limestone is an abundant rock, this action of water is sometimes singularly shown in the way in which the surface of the ground is worn into hollows. In such districts, too, the springs are always hard; that is, they contain much mineral matter in solution, whereas rainwater and springs which contain little impurity are termed soft.
When a stone building has stood for a few hundred years, the smoothly-dressed face which its walls received from the mason is usually gone. Again, in the burying-ground surrounding a venerable church you see the tombstones more and more mouldered the older they are. This crumbling away of hard stone with the lapse of time is a common familiar fact to you. But have you ever wondered why it should be so? What makes the stone decay, and what purpose is served by the process?
If it seem strange to you to be told that the surface of the earth is crumbling away, you should take every opportunity of verifying the statement. Examine your own district. You will find proofs that, in spite of their apparent steadfastness, even the hardest stones are really crumbling down. In short, wherever rocks are exposed to the air they are liable to decay. Now let us see how this change is brought about.
First of all we must return for a moment to the action of carbonic acid, which has been already described. You remember that rainwater abstracts a little carbonic acid from the air, and that, when it sinks under the earth, it is enabled by means of the acid to eat away some parts of the rocks beneath. The same action takes place with the rain, which rests upon or flows over the surface of the ground. The rainwater dissolves out little by little such portions of the rocks as it can remove. In the case of some rocks, such as limestone, the whole, or almost the whole, of the substance of the rock is carried away in solution. In other kinds, the portion dissolved is the cementing material whereby the mass of the rock was bound together; so that when it is taken away, the rock crumbles into mere earth or sand, which is readily washed away by the rain. Hence one of the causes of the mouldering of stone is the action of the carbonic acid taken up by the rain.
In the second place, the oxygen of the portion of air contained in rainwater helps to decompose rocks. When a piece of iron has been exposed for a time to the weather, in a damp climate, it rusts. This rust is a compound substance, formed by the union of oxygen with iron. What happens to an iron railing or a steel knife, happens also, though not so quickly nor so strongly, to many rocks. They, too, rust by absorbing oxygen. A crust of corroded rock forms on their surface, and, when it is knocked off by the rain, a fresh layer of rock is reached by the ever-present and active oxygen.
In the third place, the surface of many parts of the world is made to crumble down by means of frost. Sometimes during winter, when the cold gets very keen, pipes full of water burst, and jugs filled with water crack from top to bottom. The reason of this lies in the fact that water expands in freezing. Ice requires more space than the water would if it remained fluid. When ice forms within a confined space, it exerts a great pressure on the sides of the vessel, or cavity, which contains it. If these sides are not strong enough to bear the strain to which they are put, they must yield, and therefore they crack.
You have learned how easily rain finds its way through soil. Even the hardest rocks are more or less porous, and take in some water. Hence, when winter comes the ground is full of moisture; not in the soil merely, but in the rocks. And so, as frost sets in, this pervading moisture freezes. Now, precisely the same kind of action takes place with each particle of water, as in the case of the water in the burst water-pipe or the cracked jar. It does not matter whether the water is collected into some hole or crevice, or is diffused between the grains of the rocks and the soil. When it freezes it expands, and in so doing tries to push asunder the walls between which it is confined.
Water freezes not only between the component grains, but in the numerous crevices or joints, as they are called, by which rocks are traversed. You have, perhaps, noticed that on the face of a cliff, or in a quarry, the rock is cut through by lines running more or less in an upright direction, and that by means of these lines the rock is split up by nature, and can be divided by the quarrymen into large four-sided blocks or pillars. These lines, or joints, have been already referred to as passages for water in descending from the surface. You can understand that only a very little water may be admitted at a time into a joint. But by degrees the joint widens a little, and allows more water to enter. Every time the water freezes it tries hard to push asunder the two sides of the joint. After many winters, it is at last able to separate them a little; then more water enters, and more force is exerted in freezing, until at last the block of rock traversed by the joint is completely split up. When this takes place along the face of a cliff, one of the loosened parts may fall and actually roll down to the bottom of the precipice.
In addition to carbonic acid, oxygen, and frost, there are still other influences at work by which the surface of the earth is made to crumble. For example, when, during the day, rocks are highly heated by strong sunshine, and then during night are rapidly cooled by radiation, the alternate expansion and contraction caused by the extremes of temperature loosen the particles of the stone, causing them to crumble away, or even making successive crusts of the stone fall off.
Again, rocks which are at one time well soaked with rain, and at another time are liable to be dried by the sun’s rays and by wind, are apt to crumble away. If then it be true, as it is, that a general wasting of the surface of the land goes on, you may naturally ask why this should be. Out of the crumbled stones all soil is made, and on the formation and renewal of the soil we depend for our daily food.
Take up a handful of soil from any field or garden, and look at it attentively. What is it made of? You see little pieces of crumbling stone, particles of sand and clay, perhaps a few vegetable fibers; and the whole soil has a dark color from the decayed remains of plants and animals diffused through it. Now let us try to learn how these different materials have been brought together.
Every drop of rain which falls upon the land helps to alter the surface. You have followed the chemical action of rain when it dissolves parts of rocks. It is by the constant repetition of the process, drop after drop, and shower after shower, for years together, that the rocks become so wasted and worn. But the rain has also a mechanical action.
Watch what happens when the first pattering drops of a shower begin to fall upon a smooth surface of sand, such as that of a beach. Each drop makes a little dint or impression. It thus forces aside the grains of sand. On sloping ground, where the drops can run together and flow downward, they are able to push or carry the particles of sand or clay along. This is called a mechanical action; while the actual solution of the particles, as you would dissolve sugar or salt, is a chemical action. Each drop of rain may act in either or both of these ways.
Now you will readily see how it is that rain does so much in the destruction of rocks. It not only dissolves out some parts of them, and leaves a crumbling crust on the surface, but it washes away this crust, and thereby exposes a fresh surface to decay. There is in this way a continual pushing along of powdered stone over the earth’s surface. Part of this material accumulates in hollows, and on sloping or level ground; part is swept into the rivers, and carried away into the sea. As the mouldering of the surface of the land is always going on, there is a constant formation of soil. Indeed, if this were not the case, if after a layer of soil had been formed upon the ground, it were to remain there unmoved and unrenewed, the plants would by degrees take out of it all the earthy materials they could, and leave it in a barren or exhausted state. But some of it is being slowly carried away by rain, fresh particles from mouldering rocks are being washed over it by the same agent, while the rock or sub-soil underneath is all the while decaying into soil. The loose stones, too, are continually crumbling down and making new earth. And thus, day by day, the soil is slowly renewed.
Plants, also, help to form and renew the soil. They send their roots among the grains and joints of the stones, and loosen them. Their decaying fibers supply most of the carbonic acid by which these stones are attacked, and furnish also most of the organic matter in the soil. Even the common worms, which you see when you dig up a spadeful of earth, are of great service in mixing the soil and bringing what lies underneath up to the surface.
One part of the rain sinks under the ground, and you have traced its progress there until it comes to the surface again. You have now to trace, in a similar way, the other portion of the rainfall which flows along the surface in brooks and rivers.
You can not readily meet with a better illustration of this subject than that which is furnished by a gently sloping road during a heavy shower of rain. Let us suppose that you know such a road, and that just as the rain is beginning you take up your station at some part where the road has a well-marked descent. At first you notice that each of the large heavy drops of rain makes in the dust, or sand, one of the little dints or rain-prints already described. As the shower gets heavier these rain-prints are effaced, and the road soon streams with water. Now mark in what manner the water moves.
Looking at the road more narrowly, you remark that it is full of little roughnesses—at one place a long rut, at another a projecting stone, with many more inequalities which your eye could not easily detect when the road was dry, but which the water at once discloses. Every little dimple and projection affects the flow of the water. You see how the raindrops gather together into slender streamlets of running water which course along the hollows, and how the jutting stones and pieces of earth seem to turn these streamlets now to one side and now to another.
Toward the top of the slope only feeble runnels of water are to be seen. But further down they become fewer in number, and at the same time larger in size. They unite as they descend; and the larger and swifter streamlets at the foot of the descent are thus made up of a great many smaller ones from the higher parts of the slope.
Why does the water run down the sloping road? why do rivers flow? and why should they always move constantly in the same direction? They do so for the same reason that a stone falls to the ground when it drops out of your hand; because they are under the sway of that attraction toward the center of the earth, to which, as you know, the name of gravity is given. Every drop of rain falls to the earth because it is drawn downward by the force of this attraction. When it reaches the ground it is still, as much as ever, under the same influence; and it flows downward in the readiest channel it can find. Its fall from the clouds to the earth is direct and rapid; its descent from the mountains to the sea, as part of a stream, is often long and slow; but the cause of the movement is the same in either case. The winding to and fro of streams, the rush of rapids, the roar of cataracts, the noiseless flow of the deep sullen currents, are all proofs how paramount is the sway of the law of gravity over the waters of the globe.
Drawn down in this way by the action of gravity, all that portion of the rain which does not sink into the earth must at once begin to move downward along the nearest slopes, and continue flowing until it can get no further. On the surface of the land there are hollows called lakes, which arrest part of the flowing water, just as there are hollows on the road which serve to collect some of the rain. But in most cases they let the water run out at the lower end as fast as it runs in at the upper, and therefore do not serve as permanent resting places for the water. The streams which escape from lakes go on as before, working their way to the seashore. So that the course of all streams is a downward one; and the sea is the great reservoir into which the water of the land is continually pouring.
The brooks and rivers of a country are thus the natural drains, by which the surplus rainfall, not required by the soil or by springs, is led back again into the sea. When we consider the great amount of rain, and the enormous number of brooks in the higher parts of the country, it seems, at first, hardly possible for all these streams to reach the sea without overflowing the lower grounds. But this does not take place; for when two streams unite into one, they do not require a channel twice as broad as either of their single water-courses. On the contrary, such an union gives rise to a stream which is not so broad as either of the two from which it flows. But it becomes swifter and deeper.
Let us return to the illustration of the roadway in rain. Starting from the foot of the slope, you found the streamlets of rain getting smaller and smaller, and when you came to the top there were none at all. If, however, you were to descend the road on the other side of the ridge, you would probably meet with other streamlets coursing down-hill in the opposite direction. At the summit the rain seems to divide, part flowing off to one side, and part to the other.
In the same way, were you to ascend some river from the sea, you would watch it becoming narrower as you traced it inland, and branching more and more into tributary streams, and these again subdividing into almost endless little brooks. But take any of the branches which unite to form the main stream, and trace it upward. You come, in the end, to the first beginnings of a little brook, and going a little further you reach the summit, down the other side of which all the streams are flowing to the opposite quarter. The line which separates two sets of streams in this way is called the water-shed. In England, for example, one series of rivers flows into the Atlantic, another into the North Sea. If you trace upon a map a line separating all the upper streams of the one side from those of the other, that line will mark the water-shed of the country.
But there is one important point where the illustration of the road in rain quite fails. It is only when rain is falling, or immediately after a heavy shower, that the rills are seen upon the road. When the rain ceases the water begins to dry up, till in a short time the road becomes once more firm and dusty. But the brooks and rivers do not cease to flow when the rain ceases to fall. In the heat of summer, when perhaps there has been no rain for many days together, the rivers still roll on, smaller usually than they were in winter, but still with ample flow. What keeps them full? If you remember what you have already been told about underground water, you will answer that rivers are fed by springs as well as by rain.
Though the weather may be rainless, the springs continue to give out their supplies of water, and these keep the rivers going. But if great drought comes, many of the springs, particularly the shallow ones, cease to flow, and the rivers fed by them shrink up or get dry altogether. The great rivers of the globe, such as the Mississippi, drain such vast territories, that any mere local rain or drought makes no sensible difference in their mass of water.
In some parts of the world, however, the rivers are larger in summer and autumn than they are in winter and spring. The Rhine, for instance, begins to rise as the heat of summer increases, and to fall as the cold of winter comes on. This happens because the river has its source among snowy mountains. Snow melts rapidly in summer, and the water which streams from it finds its way into the brooks and rivers, which are thereby greatly swollen. In winter, on the other hand, the snow remains unmelted; the moisture which falls from the air upon the mountains is chiefly snow; and the cold is such as to freeze the brooks. Hence the supplies of water at the sources of these rivers are, in winter, greatly diminished, and the rivers themselves become proportionately smaller.
[To be continued.]
[SUNDAY READINGS.]
Selected by Rev. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.
[Sunday, November 4.]
MORAL DISTINCTIONS NOT SUFFICIENTLY REGARDED IN SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.
“He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”—Proverbs xiii:20.
That “a man may be known by the company he keeps,” has passed into a proverb among all nations, thus attesting what has been the universal experience. The fact would seem to be that a man’s associates either find him, or make him like themselves. An acute but severe critic of manners, who was too often led by his disposition and circumstances to sink the philosopher in the satirist, has said: “Nothing is so contagious as example. Never was there any considerable good or ill action, that hath not produced its like. We imitate good ones through emulation; and bad ones through that malignity in our nature, which shame conceals, and example sets at liberty.”
This being the case, or anything like it, all, I think, must agree that moral distinctions are not sufficiently cared for in social intercourse. In forming our intimacies we are sometimes determined by the mere accident of being thrown together; sometimes by a view to connections and social position; sometimes by the fascination of what are called companionable qualities; seldom, I fear, by thoughtful and serious regard to the influence they are likely to have on character. We forget that other attractions, of whatsoever nature, instead of compensating for moral unfitness in a companion, only have the effect to make such unfitness the more to be dreaded.
Let me introduce what I have to say on the importance of paying more regard to moral distinctions in the choice of friends, by a few remarks on what are called, by way of distinction, companionable qualities, and on the early manifestation of a free, sociable, confiding turn of mind. Most parents hail the latter, I believe, as the best of prognostics; and in some respects it is. It certainly makes the child more interesting as a child, and more easily governed; it often passes for precocity of talent; at any rate, men are willing to construe it into evidence of the facility with which he will make his way in the world. The father is proud of such a son; the mother idolizes him. If from any cause he is brought into comparison with a reserved, awkward, and unyielding boy in the neighborhood, they are ready enough to felicitate themselves, and others are ready enough to congratulate them, on the difference. And yet I believe I keep within bounds, when I say that, of the two, there is more than an even chance that the reserved, awkward, and unyielding boy will give his parents less occasion for anxiety and mortification, and become in the end the wiser and better man. The reason is, that if a child from natural facility of disposition is easily won over to good courses, he is also, from the same cause, liable at any time to be seduced from these good courses into bad ones. On the contrary, where a child, from rigor or stubbornness of temper, is peculiarly hard to subdue or manage, there is this hope for a compensation: if by early training, or the experience of life, or a wise foresight of consequences, he is once set right, he is almost sure to keep so.
It is not enough considered, that, in the present constitution of society, men are not in so much danger from want of good dispositions, as from want of firmness and steadiness of purpose. Hence it is that gentle and affectionate minds, more perhaps than any others, stand in need of solid principle and fixed habits of virtue and piety, as a safeguard against the lures and fascinations of the world. A man of a cold, hard, and ungenial nature is comparatively safe so far as the temptations of society go: partly because of this very impracticableness of his nature, and partly because his companionship is not likely to be desired or sought even by the bad: he will be left to himself. The corrupters of innocence in social intercourse single out for their prey men of companionable qualities. Through his companionable qualities the victim is approached, and by his companionable qualities he is betrayed.
Let me not be misunderstood. Companionable qualities are not objected to as such. When they spring from genuine goodness of heart, and are the ornament of an upright life, they are as respectable as they are amiable; and it would be well if Christians and all good men cultivated them more than they do. If we would make virtue and religion to be loved, we must make ourselves to be loved for our virtue and religion; which would be done if we were faithful to carry the gentleness and charity of the gospel into our manners as well as into our morals. Nevertheless, we insist that companionable qualities, when they have no better source than a sociable disposition, or, worse still, an easy temper and loose principles, are full of danger to their possessor, and full of danger to the community; especially where, from any cause, but little regard is paid to moral distinctions in social intercourse. We also say, that in such a state of society the danger will be most imminent to those whom we should naturally be most anxious to save—I mean, persons of a loving and yielding turn of mind.
[Sunday, November 11.]
And this brings me back again to the position taken in the beginning of this discourse. The reason why companionable qualities are attended with so much danger is, that society itself is attended with so much danger; and the reason why society is attended with so much danger is, that social intercourse is not more under the control of moral principles, moral rules, and moral sanctions.
My argument does not make it necessary to exaggerate the evils and dangers of modern society. I am willing to suppose that there have been times when society was much less pure than it is now; and again, that there are places where it is much less pure than it is here; but it does not follow that there are no evils or dangers now and here. On the contrary, it is easy to see that there may be stages in the progressive improvement of society, where the improvement itself will have the effect, not to lessen, but to increase the danger, so far as good men are concerned. In a community where vice abounds, where the public manners are notoriously and grossly corrupt, good men are put on their guard. They will not be injured by such society, for they will have nothing to do with it. A broad line of demarcation is drawn between what is expected from good men, and what is expected from bad men; so that the example of the latter has no effect on the former except to admonish and to warn. But let the work of refinement and reform go on in general society until vice is constrained to wear a decent exterior, until an air of decorum and respectability is thrown over all public meetings and amusements, and one consequence will be that the distinction between Christians and the world will not be so clearly seen, or so carefully observed, as before. The standard of the world, from the very fact that it is brought nearer to the standard of the gospel, will be more frequently confounded with it; Christians will feel at liberty to do whatever the world does, and the danger is, that they will come at length to do it from the same principles.
Besides, are we sure that we have not formed too favorable an opinion of the moral condition of general society—of that general society in the midst of which we are now living, and to the influence of which we are daily and hourly exposed? We should remember that in pronouncing on the character of public opinion and public sentiment, we are very likely to be affected and determined ourselves, not a little, by the fact that we share in that very public opinion and public sentiment which we are called upon to judge. I have no doubt that virtue, in general, is esteemed by the world, or that, other things being equal, a man of integrity will be preferred on account of his integrity. But this is not enough. It shows that the multitude see, and are willing to acknowledge, the dignity and worth of an upright course; but it does not prove them to have that abhorrence for sin, which it is the purpose and the tendency of the gospel to plant in all minds. If they had this settled and rooted abhorrence for sin, which marks the Christian, and without which a man can not be a Christian, they would not prefer virtue to vice, “other things being equal,” but they would do so whether other things were equal or not; they would knowingly keep no terms with vice, however recommended or glossed over by interest or worldly favor, or refined and elegant manners.
Now, I ask whether general society, even as it exists amongst us, will bear this test? Is it not incontestable that very unscrupulous and very dangerous men, if they happen to be men of talents, or men of fashion, or men of peculiarly engaging manners, find but little difficulty in insinuating themselves into what is called good society; nay, are often among those who are most courted and caressed? Some vices, I know, are understood to put one under the social ban; but it is because they offend, not merely against morality and religion, but against taste, against good-breeding, against certain conventions of the world. To be convinced of this it is only necessary to observe that the same, or even a much larger amount of acknowledged criminality, manifested under other forms, is not found to be attended with the same result. The mischiefs of this state of things are felt by all; but especially by those who are growing up in what are generally accounted the most favored walks of life. On entering into society they see men of known profligacy mingling in the best circles, and with the best people, if not indeed on terms of entire sympathy and confidence, at least on those of the utmost possible respect and courtesy. They see all this, and they see it every day; and it is by such flagrant inconsistencies in those they look up to for guidance, more perhaps than by any other one cause, that their own principles and their own faith are undermined. And besides, being thus encouraged and countenanced in associating with dissipated and profligate men in what is called good society, they will be apt to construe it into liberty to associate with them anywhere. At any rate the intimacy is begun. As society is constituted at present, corrupting intimacies are not infrequently begun amidst all the decencies of life, and, it may be, in the presence and under the countenance and sanction of parents and virtuous friends, which are afterward renewed and consummated, and this too by an easy, natural, and almost necessary gradation, amidst scenes of excess—perhaps in the haunts of ignominy and crime.
[Sunday, November 18.]
If one should propose a reform in this respect, I am aware of the difficulties and objections that would stand in his way.
Some would affirm it to be impracticable in the nature of things. They would reason thus: “The circle in which a man visits and moves is made for him, and not by him: at any rate, it is not, and can not be, determined by moral considerations alone. Something depends on education; something on family connections or mere vicinity; something on similarity in tastes and pursuits; something also on equality or approximation in wealth and standing. A poor man, or a man having a bare competency, if he is as virtuous and industrious, is just as respectable as a rich man; but it is plain that he can not pitch his style of living, or his style of hospitality, on the same scale of expense. It is better for both, therefore, that they should visit in different circles.” Perhaps it is; but what then? I am not recommending an amalgamation of the different classes in society. I suppose that such an amalgamation would neither be practicable nor desirable in the existing state of things. All I contend for is, that in every class, open and gross immorality of any kind should exclude a man from reputable company. Will any one say that this is impracticable? Let a man, through untoward events, but not by any fault or neglect of his own, be reduced in his circumstances,—let a man become generally odious, not in consequence of any immorality, but because, perhaps, he has embraced the unpopular side in politics or religion—let a man omit some trifling formality which is construed into a vulgarity, or a personal affront, and people do not appear to find much difficulty in dropping the acquaintance. If, then, it is so easy a thing to drop a man’s acquaintance for other reasons, and for no reason,—from mere prejudice, from mere caprice,—will it still be pretended that it can not be done at the command of duty and religion?
Again, it may be objected that, if you banish a man from general society for his immoralities, you will drive him to despair, and so destroy the only remaining hope of his reformation. What! are you going to keep society corrupt in the vain expectation that a corrupt state of society will help to reform its corrupt members? Besides, I grant that we should have compassion on the guilty; but I also hold that we should have compassion on the innocent too. Would you, therefore, allow a bad man to continue in good society, when the chances are a thousand to one that he will make others as bad as himself, and not more than one to a thousand that he himself will be reclaimed? Moreover, this reasoning is fallacious throughout. By expelling a dissipated and profligate man from good society, instead of destroying all hope of his recovery, you do in fact resort to the only remaining means of reforming one over whom a fear of God, and a sense of character, and the upbraidings of conscience have lost their power. What cares he for principle, or God, or an hereafter? Nothing, therefore, is so likely to encourage and embolden him to go on in his guilty course, as the belief that he will be allowed to do so without the forfeiture of the only thing he does care for, his reputable standing in the world. On the other hand, nothing is so likely to arrest him in these courses, and bring him to serious reflection, as the stern and determined threat of absolute exclusion from good society, if he persists.
Another objection will also be made which has stronger claims on our sympathy and respect. We shall be told that the innocent as well as the guilty will suffer—the guilty man’s friends and connections, who will probably feel the indignity more than he does himself. God forbid that we should needlessly add to the pain of those who are thus connected! But we must remember that the highest form of friendship does not consist in blindly falling in with the feelings of those whom we would serve, but in consulting what will be for their real and permanent good. If, therefore, the course here recommended has been shown to be not only indispensable to public morals, but more likely than any other to reclaim the offender, it is clearly not more a dictate of justice to the community, than of Christian charity to the parties more immediately concerned. Consider, also, how much is asked, when a good man is called upon to open his doors to persons without virtue and without principle. Unless the social circle is presided over by a spirit which will rebuke and frown away immorality, whatever fashionable names and disguises it may wear,—unless your sons and daughters can meet together without being in danger of having their faith disturbed by the jeers of the infidel, or their purity sullied by the breath of the libertine, neither they nor you are safe in the most innocent enjoyments and recreations. Parents at least should take a deep interest in this subject, if they do not wish to see the virtue, which they have reared under the best domestic discipline, blighted and corrupted before their eyes by the temptations to which their children are almost necessarily exposed in general society—a society which they can not escape except by going out of the world, and which they can not partake of without endangering the loss of what is of more value than a thousand worlds.
[Sunday, November 25.]
I have failed altogether in my purpose in this discourse if I have not done something to increase your distrust of mere companionable qualities, when not under the control of moral and religious principle; and also of the moral character and moral influence of general society, as at present constituted. Still you may ask, “If I associate with persons worse than myself, how can it be made out to be more probable that they will drag me down to their level, than that I shall lift them up to mine?” The answer to this question, I hardly need say, depends, in no small measure, on the reason or motive which induces the association. If you mix with the world, not for purposes of pleasure or self-advantage—if you resort to society, not for society as an end, but as a means to a higher end, the improvement of society itself—you do but take up the heavenly mission which Christ began. For not being able to make the distinction, through the hollowness and corruption of their hearts, the Pharisees thought it to be a just ground of accusation against our Lord, that he was willing to be accounted the friend of publicans and sinners. Let the same mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, and we can not doubt that the spirit which inspires you will preserve you wherever you may go. It is of such persons that our Lord has said: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means harm you.” Very far am I, therefore, from denying that we may do good in society, as well as incur danger and evil. Even in common friendships frequent occasions will present themselves for mutual service, for mutual counsel and admonition. Let me impress upon you this duty. Perhaps there is not one among you all, who has not at this moment companions on whom he can confer an infinite blessing. If there is a weak place in their characters, if to your knowledge they are contemplating a guilty purpose, if they are on the brink of entering into dangerous connections, by a timely, affectionate, and earnest remonstrance you may save them from ruin. Remember, we shall all be held responsible, not only for the evil which we do ourselves, but for the evil which we might prevent others from doing; it is not enough that we stand; we must endeavor to hold up our friends.
Very different from this, however, is the ordinary commerce of society; and hence its danger. If we mix with the world for the pleasure it affords, we shall be likely to be among the first to be reconciled to the freedom and laxity it allows. The world is not brought up to us, but we sink down to the world; the drop becomes of the consistence and color of the ocean into which it falls; the ocean remains itself unchanged. In the words of an old writer: “Though the well-disposed will remain some good space without corruption, yet time, I know not how, worketh a wound in him, which weakness of ours considered, and easiness of nature, apt to be deceived, looked into, they do best provide for themselves that separate themselves as far as they can from the bad, and draw as nigh to the good, as by any possibility they can attain to.” “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”
[POLITICAL ECONOMY.]
By G. M. STEELE, D.D.
II.
PRODUCTION, CONTINUED—CAPITAL—COMBINATION AND DIVISION OF LABOR.
5. We have already seen that an essential to any considerable production is capital. We have seen the nature of capital and how it comes to exist. We have also learned that though capital implies saving, mere saving is not the sole condition of capital; indeed, a narrow penuriousness prevents the rapid accumulation of capital. The man who is accustomed to bring his water from a spring a quarter of a mile from his house instead of digging a well at the cost of a few dollars, or a few days’ work, acts uneconomically. In the long run the bringing of the water from the spring costs him much more than the digging of the well. The man who has extensive grain-fields, and who, for the sake of saving the expense of a reaper, or even a cradle, continues to use the sickle, will find that his saving results in a loss instead of a gain.
A man does not need to be rich in order to be a capitalist. When the savage has invented a bow and arrows he has the rudiments of capital. The laborer who has reserved out of his earnings enough to buy him a set of tools, or a few acres of land, is as really a capitalist as the owner of factories or railroads. Whatever property is used for production is capital.
Capital exists in many forms. It has been generally divided into fixed and circulating, though the limits of these divisions are not very precisely defined. The main difference consists in this, that while certain kinds of capital are used only once in the fulfillment of their purposes, other kinds are used repeatedly. Fuel can be burned but once. An axe may serve for years. Circulating capital is of two kinds:
(1) There are the stock and commodities which are to be consumed in reproduction; (a) the material out of which the new product is to be made, as lumber for cabinet ware, leather for shoes, etc.; (b) food and other provisions for the sustenance of the laborers.
(2) There is the stock of completed commodities on hand and ready for the market. The chairs that are finished and ready for sale in the chair factory are of this character. It is to be observed that the same article may be at one time circulating and at another fixed capital. Thus the chairs just spoken of, while they are in the hands of the manufacturer, or passing through those of the dealers, are circulating capital. It is only when they become fixed in use that their character changes.
Fixed capital consists (1) of all tools, implements, and machinery, used in the trades. Here, too, belong all structures of every sort for productive purposes; (2) all beasts of burden and draft; (3) all improvements of land implied in clearing, fencing, draining, fertilizing, terracing, etc.; (4) all mental acquisitions gained by labor and which give man power for productive results.
Obviously capital, by whomsoever owned, is an advantage to the laborer. But such capital is useless to the owner unless he can unite it with labor. So, too, the ability to labor is of no benefit to the laborer unless he can employ it in connection with capital. Generally the more capital there is in a community, other things being equal, the better it is for the laborer; and the more laborers there are, other things being equal, the better it is for the capitalist. When a factory burns down it may destroy only a small part of the wealth of the owners, and they may not palpably suffer; but it is very likely to deprive the laborers, who are connected with it, of the means of securing their daily sustenance.
There is no natural antagonism of interests between capital and labor, but rather the utmost concord and interdependence. Whatever conflicts arise between the laborers and the capitalists come from the unnatural selfishness and jealousy of the parties concerned.
6. As has been intimated, it is only by application of principles underlying political economy that we come to the conditions of the highest production, or, in other words, find how to satisfy the largest range of desires to the greatest extent at the smallest cost of labor. One of the chief means of effecting this is by the combination and division of labor. Recalling what was said concerning association and individuality, we shall see what principles are involved here, and how naturally they came into operation. As there was seen to be no antagonism between the two latter conceptions when carefully analyzed, so there is none, but rather the opposite, between combination and division of labor. It is true that there are instances where combination may take place without division, as when men unite to effect purposes which one could not accomplish except in much more than the proportionate time; as also in some cases to affect purposes which the individual could not effect in any length of time, such as the moving and placing of heavy timbers and stones, the management of ships and railway trains, etc. But for the most part men divide their labor in the process in order that they may combine the result. This is done in two ways:
(1) Men divide up the work of supplying human wants into different trades and occupations, according to their several tastes and aptitudes. Each man needs nearly the same that every other needs. But while each provides for only one kind of want, he provides more than enough to satisfy his own desire in that particular respect, and contributes the overplus to meet that same want in others. As all others do the same, each is contributing to meet the desires of one and all to each. The shoemaker, the tailor, the carpenter, the cabinet-maker, the blacksmith, the weaver, the paper-maker, the tin-man, the miner, the smelter, the painter, the glazier, etc., are all contributing to supply the farmer’s needs, and the farmer is contributing to all their needs. The wants of all are many times more fully met in this way than if each one should undertake to supply all his own wants.
(2) In some complicated trades the work is divided into a number of processes. There are men who could do every one of these parts; but such men are few, and their labor very costly, because some of the parts require rare skill and talent. What is needed is to organize several grades of laborers, so that the physically strong, the intelligent and skillful may have the work that only they can do; the less strong and skillful may find employment in the lighter and easier parts, and so all grades of ability down to the delicate woman or the little child, and up to the most powerful muscle and most advanced intelligence, can find their place. It is almost incredible how great is the increase of productiveness from the mere economical arrangement of workers. It is said that in so simple a matter as the making of pins, where the work is divided into ten processes and properly distributed, that the production will be two hundred and forty times as much as if each man did the whole work on each pin.
This connects itself with another important condition of large production. I mean the diversification of employment in a community. It is only in such a varied industry that all the varied tastes, aptitudes and abilities of society can find scope and adaptation; and without this, production must fall far short of its possibilities. This, too, is required to develop those differences which constitute individuality, and on which association depends.
There are other conditions of enlarged production, such as are implied in freedom, good government, and the moral character of the community, the influence of each of which will easily suggest itself to thoughtful minds.
III.—CONSUMPTION.
1. Consumption is the destruction of values. Production implies consumption. In general, all material is destroyed in entering into new forms of wealth. Thus, leather must be destroyed in order to the production of shoes. Flour must disappear in the manufacture of bread, and wheat in the making of flour. Every kind of implement, or machine or structure is consumed by use. This consumption is immediate, or by a single use; or it is gradual. The food that we eat and the fuel that we burn are examples of the former; tools, bridges, buildings and aqueducts are examples of the latter. It is accomplished in a few months or years; or is protracted through centuries.
2. Consumption is either voluntary or involuntary. Of the latter kind we have instances in the natural decay of objects, as in wood and vegetables; the rusting of iron, the mildew and the moth-eating of cotton and woolen fabrics, and the wearing away by attrition of gold, silver, and other metals; also the destruction caused by vermin. Much of this may be prevented by the prudent foresight which sound economy enjoins; yet much loss will inevitably take place. A great deal of consumption is accidental. Great destruction is caused by fires, steam-boiler explosions, floods and tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
3. Voluntary consumption is either productive or unproductive. The former is when the material appears in new form and with a higher value, as cloth made into garments and iron into hardware and cutlery. Unproductive consumption occurs, both in the cases before mentioned of natural and accidental consumption, and in cases where gratification of desire is the sole object sought and achieved, as when one eats and drinks simply for the enjoyment, and without reference to the waste of nature or the nourishment of the system.
It is not altogether easy to discriminate between these two kinds of consumption. We readily see the difference between a man’s drinking a quantity of whiskey, not because it will help him in the performance of any duty, but because he likes it, and the scattering of a quantity of seed over the ground in spring. There is no doubt that one act is productive and the other unproductive. But there are cases where the distinction is less clear.
It is not necessarily a case of unproductive consumption when one destroys value for the sake of gratifying some desire. Probably a majority of men eat and drink simply because they desire food and drink, having no thought of any ulterior object. Yet this eating and drinking is absolutely essential to productive labor. The wealth consumed in this way reappears, to a large extent, in the products of human industry.
Still there is much really unproductive consumption; a destruction of value, in the place of which no other value ever appears. There are, for instance, men and women—
* * * “who creep
Into this world to eat and sleep,
And know no reason why they’re born,
But simply to consume the corn.”
Vast quantities of wealth are consumed in riotous living, in greedy and vulgar extravagance, and unmeaning magnificence. There is also much consumption designed to be productive, but failing of its end through misdirection. Large amounts of property are sometimes invested in enterprises which prove failures. This occurs partly from miscalculation or negligence, and partly from a disposition to trust to chances—the gambler’s calculation. In these ways much wealth is consumed with no consequent product.
4. It is not easy to draw the line between the ordinary conveniences of life and its luxuries; nor can it be stated to what extent the latter in any sense of the term are economically allowable. What to one class of persons may be a luxury to another class may be almost a necessity. So what might in one age have been a rare and expensive indulgence, is in a more advanced period among the cheaper and more ordinary commodities. I call special attention to three kinds of consumption:
(1) There is the consumption necessary to life and the performance of productive labor. The word necessary here is used in its liberal rather than its restricted sense. The absolute necessities of human life are very few. It does not even require much to keep a man in working condition. But to keep him where there is a larger kind of living, and where his energies of both body and mind, together with the moral qualities which render him most efficient, are at their best, the consumption must be more generous.
Besides subsistence there must be materials, tools, machines, and a variety of conditions involving the destruction of value. It is desirable to sustain man not as a mere savage, but to give him the largest volume of human life; and the civilized man, it will be admitted, lives a broader life than the savage. We are not to forget that Political Economy aims at the increase of the value of man, more than at the multiplication of material wealth, or the increase of commerce, except as the latter are conditions of the former.
(2) A second kind of consumption is of such articles as minister to bodily enjoyment and meet certain mental appetencies of a lower order. They are not necessary to sustain life, nor to render it more efficient. On the contrary, they often impair the vigor and competence of the person. At the best they simply gratify certain desires without adding anything to the value of the man. To this category belong mere dainty food, gold and jewels, and other ornaments, valued solely because of their showiness and not for any artistic excellence; gay and costly apparel, in which the gayety and the costliness are the main features. These constitute a class of luxuries that are in nearly every sense non-productive. They favorably affect neither the individual nor society, and are for the most part hurtful to both.
(3) But not all consumption, the object of which is to gratify desire, is to be reckoned in this category. There are certain pleasures which ennoble and really enrich those who participate in them. There are desires the gratification of which enlarges the volume of one’s being. They are related not so much to man’s productive capability as to that which is the final cause of all production, and to which all wealth is only a means. The labor, material, implements, and whatever else is consumed in the production of the works or effects of genuine art, result in the most real wealth that exists. By this is meant not merely pictures, statues, books, carved work, tasteful tapestries, and similar objects which can be bought and sold, but also oratorios which you may hear but once; magnificent parks to which you may be admitted, but may never own; great actors and singers whose genius may be exhibited to others, but not possessed by them. It is true that much which properly belongs here may be so consumed as to deserve only a place in the second class; but it may also have those higher and nobler uses which imply production in the best sense.
5. Public consumption is the expenditure of means for society in its aggregate capacity. It has reference principally to the support of those agencies which are implied in the term government. The reasons for the necessity of such expenditures have already been given. The purposes to which such consumption is properly applied may be grouped as follows:
(a) The support and administration of government. This embraces compensation to executive, legislative and judicial officers, and expenditure for public buildings. (b) For works of public convenience. Here are included the paving and lighting of streets, water-works and sewerage. (c) For advancing science and promoting intelligence, by means of exploring expeditions, geological surveys, meteorological and astronomical observations, etc. (d) For the promotion of popular education. (e) For the support of the poor and the relief of the afflicted. (f) For national defense.
6. The general law of economical consumption, both individual and public, is that only so much and such a quality should be consumed as is necessary to effect the purpose designed, whether that be further production or individual gratification. It is nearly the same in the case of labor. In relation to the work to be done, the character, ability and skill of the laborer should be considered.