Aristophanes—
Come now, ye host of fading lives, like the race of withering leaves,
Who live a day, creatures of clay, tribes that flit like shadows away;
Ephemeral, wingless insects, dreamy shapes, that death expects
Soon to bind in phantom sheaves.
We will conclude our citations, which we might continue to the crack of doom, (for all who have written well and much, have indulged similar reflections,) with Doctor Johnson's Rasselas, which is intended to expand and apply what others had concisely and tersely stated. The Doctor's is an elaborate failure.
Philosophy can neither account for the past, comprehend the present, nor foresee and provide for the future. "I'll none of it."
CHAPTER VI.
FREE TRADE, FASHION AND CENTRALIZATION.
Liberty and political economy beget and encourage free trade, as well between different localities and different nations, as between individuals of the same towns, neighborhoods or nations. The nations possessed of most skill and capital, and commercial enterprise, and cunning, gradually absorb the wealth of those nations who possess less of those qualities. The effect of international free trade, aided by the facilities of the credit system, of the mail, and speedy steam communication, is to centralize wealth in a few large cities, such as New York, Paris and London; and of social free trade to aggregate wealth in a few hands in those cities. Theoretically, the disparities of shrewdness, of skill and business capacity, between nations and individuals, would, in the commercial and trading war of the wits, rob the weak and simple, and enrich the strong and cunning. The facts of history, and of the increasing inequalities of social, individual and national wealth, under the system of free trade, stimulated by political economy, correspond with the theory. Every month brings forth its millionaire, and every day its thousands of new paupers. New York and London grow richer rapidly on the fruits of a trade that robs the less commercial and skillful people who traffic with them.
But the worst effect of free trade is, that it begets centres of opinion, thought and fashions, robs men of their nationality, and impairs their patriotism by teaching them to ape foreign manners, affect foreign dress and opinions, and despise what is domestic. Paris, as the centre of thought and fashion, wields as much power, and makes almost as much money as London, by being the centre of trade and capital. An American or Englishman will give five prices for an article because it is made in Paris. Thus the want of true self-respect in America and England, makes labor produce more in Paris than elsewhere. A Virginian thinks it a disgrace to be dressed in home-spun, because home-spun is unfashionable. The Frenchman prides himself on being a Frenchman; all other people affect the cosmopolitan.