then sails o'er the mountain and instead of an inspiration--a
spray of tobacco-juice falls on the poet. "Calm yourself, Poet!"
says Emerson, "culture will convert furies into muses and hells
into benefit. This wouldn't have befallen you if it hadn't been
for the latest transcendent product of the genius of culture" (we
won't say what kind), a consummation of the dreams of poets, from
David to Tennyson. Material progress is but a means of
expression. Realize that man's coarseness has its future and will
also be refined in the gradual uprise. Turning the world upside
down may be one of its lesser incidents. It is the cause, seldom
the effect that interests Emerson. He can help the cause--the
effect must help itself. He might have said to those who talk
knowingly about the cause of war--or of the last war, and who
would trace it down through long vistas of cosmic, political,
moral evolution and what not--he might say that the cause of it
was as simple as that of any dogfight--the "hog-mind" of the
minority against the universal mind, the majority. The un-courage
of the former fears to believe in the innate goodness of mankind.
The cause is always the same, the effect different by chance; it
is as easy for a hog, even a stupid one, to step on a box of
matches under a tenement with a thousand souls, as under an empty
bird-house. The many kindly burn up for the few; for the minority
is selfish and the majority generous. The minority has ruled the
world for physical reasons. The physical reasons are being
removed by this "converting culture." Webster will not much
longer have to grope for the mind of his constituency. The
majority--the people--will need no intermediary. Governments will
pass from the representative to the direct. The hog-mind is the
principal thing that is making this transition slow. The biggest
prop to the hog-mind is pride--pride in property and the power