kind--political, religious, literary, philanthropic--but what, by its
ever-multiplying regulations, its accumulating wealth, its yearly
addition of officers, and the creeping into it of patronage and party
feeling, eventually loses its original spirit, and sinks into a mere
lifeless mechanism, worked with a view to private ends--a mechanism
which not merely fails of its first purpose, but is a positive hindrance
to it.

Thus is it, too, with social usages. We read of the Chinese that they
have "ponderous ceremonies transmitted from time immemorial," which make
social intercourse a burden. The court forms prescribed by monarchs for
their own exaltation, have, in all times and places, ended in consuming
the comfort of their lives. And so the artificial observances of the
dining-room and saloon, in proportion as they are many and strict,
extinguish that agreeable communion which they were originally intended
to secure. The dislike with which people commonly speak of society that
is "formal," and "stiff," and "ceremonious," implies the general
recognition of this fact; and this recognition, logically developed,
involves that all usages of behaviour which are not based on natural
requirements, are injurious. That these conventions defeat their own
ends is no new assertion. Swift, criticising the manners of his day,
says--"Wise men are often more uneasy at the over-civility of these
refiners than they could possibly be in the conversation of peasants and
mechanics."

But it is not only in these details that the self-defeating action of
our arrangements is traceable: it is traceable in the very substance and
nature of them. Our social intercourse, as commonly managed, is a mere
semblance of the reality sought. What is it that we want? Some
sympathetic converse with our fellow-creatures: some converse that shall