Does he mean that our 'noblest
thought' is to be chained as a galley-slave to these, to give them
means for working a channel through which motive power may be poured in
upon them? Are we to think that our fingers and feet may move and so we
live, or they to run for our thought, and we live to think?"
"Supposing we _are_," said Herndon, "what practical good results from
knowing it? Action for action's sake, or for thinking's sake, is still
action, and all that we have to look out for. What business have the
brakemen at the wheels with the destiny of the train? Their business is
simply to lock and unlock the wheels; so that their end is in the
wheels, and not in the train."
"A somewhat dreary end," I said, half to myself. "The whole world,
then, must content itself with spinning one blind action out of
another; which means that we must continually alter or displace
something, merely to be able to displace and alter something else."
"On the contrary, we exchange vague, speculative mystifications for
definite, tangible fact. In America we have too much reality, too many
iron and steam facts, to waste much time over mere thinking. That, Sir,
does for a sleepy old country, begging your pardon, like yours; but for
one that has the world's destiny in its hands,--that is laying iron
foot-paths from the Atlantic to the Pacific for future civilization to
take an evening stroll along to see the sun set,--that is converting
black wool into white cotton, to clothe the inhabitants of
Borrioboolagha,--that is trading, farming, electing, governing,
fighting, annexing, destroying, building, puffing, blowing, steaming,
racing, as our young two-hundred-year-old is,--we must work, we must
act, and think afterwards.
Pages:
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58