JULY 27.
. . . I should like
to see Rev. Theodore Parker move a table without touching it, directly or
indirectly. Suppose what we call electricity is the motive power of the
universe, embracing magnetism, caloric, gravitation, &c.; suppose the vital
principle in us—at least the principle of mere physical life—is electricity
too: may not an organized possessor of this principle be able to exert a force
stronger than that which operates upon unorganized bodies, or one organized
being be able to exert a controlling influence over another organized being? If
so, why may not the battery in a man's brain overcome the natural gravitation
of a table? I have seen a magnet, that could lift but a few pounds when acting
alone, lift seventeen hundred-weight when a current of magnetism was poured
through it. Now, if the brain could evolve this amount, why should not that
lift according to its size, structure, &c.? This is all I have to say on
the subject.
Kossuth designed to
leave, as I suppose, in a way to secure privacy. As for his going incog.
for any bad purpose, I do not believe a word of it; nor have I heard a lisp, to
prove it, of any credible testimony. A report was sent abroad that he had gone
without paying his debts. There could not have been a word of truth in it: a
regular Hunker lie.
I agree with you
that history is bad reading for children. What, then, must be thought of a
great part of the Old Testament, which records as terrible crimes as any to be
found on record? It is too terrible a world to make children acquainted with.
It is said we must look back to get wisdom to direct us when going forward. I
hope we shall soon get wisdom elsewhere, or be so far advanced as to need no
past warning. Biography of the right sort of lives is the
better reading for children. And science, and the elements of science, what can
be better than that, where we do see God in his works? Here the mind will find
its true discipline.
I send you a
"Liberator," which has a communication from the reformed John Wesley,
on the last page; also a speech of Mr. T. Parker's, on the inside. What can Mr.
Parker mean by saying, that, if Gen. Scott is elected, we shall probably have
an annexation of a "large slice" of Mexico during the next four
years? Will the good gained by making a man out worse than he is repay the
evil? Mr. Parker has been so much wronged himself, that he should be careful
about wronging others.
In 1837, in a speech
delivered in New York by Mr. Webster, he said,
"On
the general question of slavery, a great portion of the community is already
strongly excited. The subject has not only attracted attention as a question of
politics, but it has struck a far deeper-toned chord. It has arrested the religious
feelings of the country; it has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He
is a rash man indeed, little conversant with human nature, and especially has
he a very erroneous estimate of the character of the people of this country,
who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled with or despised. It
will assuredly cause itself to be respected. It may be reasoned with; it may be
made willing—I believe it is entirely willing to fulfil all existing
engagements and all existing ties; to uphold and defend the Constitution as it
is established, with whatever regrets about some provisions which it does
actually contain: but to coerce it into silence, to endeavor to restrain its
free expression, to seek to compress and confine it, warm as it is, and more
heated as such endeavors would inevitably render it,— should all this be
attempted, I know nothing, even in the Constitution or in the Union itself,
which would not be endangered by the explosion which might follow."
What an apostasy has
his been!
SOURCE: Mary Tyler
Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 376-7
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