debt; it is not the intellect, not the heart, not beauty, not worship,
that costs us so much. Why needs any man be rich? Why must he have
horses, fine garments, handsome apartments, access to public houses and
places of amusement? Only for want of thought.... We are first
thoughtless, and then find that we are moneyless. We are first sensual
and then must be rich." He foresaw the young man's state of mind to-day
about marriage--I must have money before I can marry; and deals with it
thus: "Give us wealth and the home shall exist. But that is a very
imperfect and inglorious solution of the problem, and therefore no
solution. Give us wealth! You ask too much. Few have wealth; but all
must have a home. Men are not born rich; in getting wealth the man is
generally sacrificed, and often is sacrificed without acquiring wealth
at last."

We have come to understand by experience that the opinion of masses of
men is a formidable power which can be made safe and useful. In earlier
days this massed opinion was either despised or dreaded; and it is
dreadful, if either confined or misdirected. Emerson compares it to
steam. Studied, economized, and directed, steam has become the power by
which all great labors are done. Like steam is the opinion of political
masses! If crushed by castles, armies, and police, dangerously
explosive; but if furnished with schools and the ballot, developing "the
most harmless and energetic form of a state." His eyes were wide open
to some of the evil intellectual effects of democracy. The individual is
too apt to wear the time-worn yoke of the multitude's opinions. No
multiplying of contemptible units can produce an admirable mass. "If I
see nothing to admire in a unit, shall I admire a million units?" The
habit of submitting to majority rule cultivates individual subserviency.
He pointed out two generations ago that the action of violent political
parties in a democracy might provide for the individual citizen a