Outlooks on Society, Literature and Politics (Classic Reprint)

Download or read book Outlooks on Society, Literature and Politics (Classic Reprint) written by Edwin Percy Whipple and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2018-01-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Outlooks on Society, Literature and Politics The financial storm which of late swept so piti lessly over the commercial world has, like all other calamities, produced reflection in producing ruin. Amidst the wreck of their property men began to meditate upon the laws of trade, and if they could not pay their creditors, they were at least singularly fruitful in reasons why such payment was impossible. A note of hand falling due at a certain day was the occasion, not of the disbursement of money, but of profound speculations on the complications of the Currency Question and the fluctuations of values. Merchants became political economists, not when their obligations were incurred, but when they ma tured and the connection between debtor and cred itor assumed the character of an edifying interchange of philosophic thought, in which they were mutually improved, instead of being a cold and harsh relationof profit and loss. As nearly all creditors were like wise debtors, and as nearly all debtors were like wise creditors, the transition from mercenary to medi tative relations between men of business was effected without that profuse expenditure of profane language which in ordinary times vulgarizes the passage from facts to ideas. It was seen that to take legal means to enforce the payment of debts would be Simply to trans fer the property that remained - if such a thing as property really existed into the hands of lawyers, and as law is made by mutual assent, it was by mutual assent suspended. Meanwhile all the ethical and theological maxims relating to the evanescent nature of worldly goods were hunted out from the innermost recesses of memory, brightened into epigrams, and tossed about as good jokes from the banker who could not pay his bills to the merchant who could not pay his banker. Base is the slave who was no longer a rhetorical flourish of Ancient Pistol, but a settled principle of modern finance. Property, deified but a short time before, was now a broken and pros trate idol. From being the one solid and permanent thing in the universe, it became the most visionary and elusive of all objects of contemplation. It was ten thousand millions of dollars a month ago, - riant, exulting, glorying in its strength, - and now it hid its face in shame before the abhorred spectacle of debt. The feeling of poverty shivered in every heart; and no person, in the scepticism provoked by the tum bling of values, had the impudence to call himself rich. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.