men, the open-hearted merriment of the laborers. There was, at that
time, something in their looks both of pride and feeling. The latter
came from thankfulness to God, the former from the sight of the harvest,
the reward of their labor. They felt indistinctly the grandeur and the
holiness of their part in the general work of the world; they looked with
pride upon their mountains of corn-sheaves, and they seemed to say, Next
to God, it is we who feed the world!

What a wonderful order there is in all human labor!

While the husbandman furrows his land, and prepares for every one his
daily bread, the town artizan, far away, weaves the stuff in which he is
to be clothed; the miner seeks underground the iron for his plow; the
soldier defends him against the invader; the judge takes care that the
law protects his fields; the tax-comptroller adjusts his private
interests with those of the public; the merchant occupies himself in
exchanging his products with those of distant countries; the men of
science and of art add every day a few horses to this ideal team, which
draws along the material world, as steam impels the gigantic trains of
our iron roads! Thus all unite together, all help one another; the toil
of each one benefits himself and all the world; the work has been
apportioned among the different members of the whole of society by a
tacit agreement. If, in this apportionment, errors are committed, if
certain individuals have not been employed according to their capacities,
those defects of detail diminish in the sublime conception of the whole.
The poorest man included in this association has his place, his work, his
reason for being there; each is something in the whole.

There is nothing like this for man in the state of nature. As he depends
only upon himself, it is necessary that he be sufficient for everything.