I would the
book were more of a book, more worthy of my countrymen, and a
more weighty proof of the love I beat them, and with which I have
written it. All I can say is, that it is an honest book, a
sincere book, and contains my best thoughts on the subjects
treated. If well received, I shall be grateful; if neglected, I
shall endeavor to practise resignation, as I have so often done.
O. A. BROWNSON.
ELIZABETH, N. J., September 16, 1865.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The ancients summed up the whole of human wisdom in the maxim,
Know Thyself, and certainly there is for an individual no more
important as there is no more difficult knowledge, than knowledge
of himself, whence he comes, whither he goes, what he is, what he
is for, what he can do, what he ought to do, and what are his
means of doing it.
Nations are only individuals on a larger scale. They have a
life, an individuality, a reason, a conscience, and instincts of
their own, and have the same general laws of development and
growth, and, perhaps, of decay, as the individual man. Equally
important, and no less difficult than for the individual, is it
for a nation to know itself, understand its own existence, its
own powers and faculties, rights and duties, constitution,
instincts, tendencies, and destiny. A nation has a spiritual as
well as a material, a moral as well as a physical existence, and
is subjected to internal as well as external conditions of health
and virtue, greatness and grandeur, which it must in some measure
understand and observe, or become weak and infirm, stunted in its
growth, and end in premature decay and death.
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