acetous fermentation (as milk sometimes sours during thunder); and from
acid becoming acrid, they at length fall fairly in love with the
Erinnyes, and henceforth dote upon destruction and ugliness as happier
lovers do upon cosmical health and beauty. Concluding that the universe
is a shabby affair, they like to make it out shabbier still,--and so,
seldom brighten up till they have an ill thing to say. They are not
persons toward whom it is easy to feel amiable. Dogmatism is ever
unlovely, though it be in behalf of the sweetest hopes; but chronic
doubt and disbelief erected into a dogmatism are intolerable. Yet Mr.
Knox's misinterpretations of the facts are taking root in many minds
that do not share his fierce hypochondria and hunger for bitter herbs.
That the American has lost somewhat in animal resources is
incontestable; but Mr. Knox's ever-implied premise, "The animal is the
man," from which his Jeremiad derives its plaint, is but a provincial
paper-currency, of very local estimation, and can never, like gold and
silver, pass by weight in the world's marts of thought. The physical
constitution of the New Man is comparatively delicate and fragile; but
as a china vase is not necessarily less sound than a stone jug or iron
kettle, so delicacy and fragility in man are no proof of disease. The
ominous prognosis of this doctor, therefore, seems no occasion for
despair, perhaps not even for alarm. But to perceive what different
harping can be performed on this string, hear Carus:--"Leanness, as
such," says the master, "is the symbol of a certain lightness,
activity, rapidity, and mental power." Thus the adipose impoverishment,
which to the yellow-eyed Englishman seems utter bankruptcy, is at once
recognized by a superior man as denoting an augmentation, rather than
diminution, of proper human wealth.

But while the typical American organization is of this admitted
delicacy and lightness, it is still capable, under high and powerful