C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Magazine in America
By Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
I
The present enlarged and improved state of things gives every encouragement which the editor of a new magazine can reasonably hope for. The failure of former ones cannot be drawn as a parallel now. Change of times adds propriety to new measures. In the early days of colonization, when a whisper was almost sufficient to have negotiated all our internal concerns, the publishing even of a newspaper would have been premature. Those times are past; and population has established both their use and their credit. But their plan, being almost wholly devoted to news and commerce, affords but a scanty residence to the Muses. Their path lies wide of the field of science, and has left a rich and unexplored region for new adventures.
It has always been the opinion of the learned and curious, that a magazine, when properly conducted, is the nursery of genius; and by constantly accumulating new matter, becomes a kind of market for wit and utility. The opportunities which it affords to men of abilities to communicate their studies, kindle up a spirit of invention and emulation. An unexercised genius soon contracts a kind of mossiness, which not only checks its growth, but abates its natural vigor. Like an untenanted house it falls into decay, and frequently ruins the possessor….
There is nothing which obtains so general an influence over the manners and morals of a people as the press; from that, as from a fountain, the streams of vice or virtue are poured forth over a country: and of all publications, none are more calculated to improve or infect than a periodical one. All others have their rise and their exit; but this renews the pursuit. If it has an evil tendency, it debauches by the power of repetition; if a good one, it obtains favor by the gracefulness of soliciting it. Like a lover, it woos its mistress with unabated ardor, nor gives up the pursuit without a conquest.
The two capital supports of a magazine are Utility and Entertainment: the first is a boundless path, the other an endless spring. To suppose that arts and sciences are exhausted subjects, is doing them a kind of dishonor. The divine mechanism of creation reproves such folly, and shows us by comparison the imperfection of our most refined inventions. I cannot believe that this species of vanity is peculiar to the present age only. I have no doubt but that it existed before the Flood, and even in the wildest ages of antiquity. ’Tis folly we have inherited, not created; and the discoveries which every day produces have greatly contributed to dispossess us of it. Improvement and the world will expire together; and till that period arrives, we may plunder the mine, but can never exhaust it! That “We have found out everything,” has been the motto of every age. Let our ideas travel a little into antiquity, and we shall find larger portions of it than now; and so unwilling were our ancestors to descend from this mountain of perfection, that when any new discovery exceeded the common standard the discoverer was believed to be in alliance with the Devil. It was not the ignorance of the age only, but the vanity of it, which rendered it dangerous to be ingenious. The man who first planned and erected a tenable hut, with a hole for the smoke to pass and the light to enter, was perhaps called an able architect; but he who first improved it with a chimney could be no less than a prodigy: yet had the same man been so unfortunate as to have embellished it with glass windows, he might probably have been burnt for a magician. Our fancies would be highly diverted could we look back and behold a circle of original Indians haranguing on the sublime perfection of the age; yet ’tis not impossible but future times may exceed us almost as much as we have exceeded them.
I would wish to extirpate the least remains of this impolitic vanity. It has a direct tendency to unbrace the nerves of invention, and is peculiarly hurtful to young colonies. A magazine can never want matter in America, if the inhabitants will do justice to their own abilities. Agriculture and manufactures owe much of their improvement in England to hints first thrown out in some of their magazines. Gentlemen whose abilities enabled them to make experiments, frequently chose that method of communication on account of its convenience. And why should not the same spirit operate in America? I have no doubt of seeing, in a little time, an American magazine full of more useful matter than I ever saw an English one: because we are not exceeded in abilities, have a more extensive field for inquiry; and whatever may be our political state, our happiness will always depend upon ourselves.
Something useful will always arise from exercising the invention, though perhaps, like the witch of Endor, we shall raise up a being we did not expect. We owe many of our noblest discoveries more to accident than wisdom. In quest of a pebble we have found a diamond, and returned enriched with the treasure. Such happy accidents give additional encouragement to the making experiments; and the convenience which a magazine affords of collecting and conveying them to the public, enhances their utility. Where this opportunity is wanting, many little inventions, the forerunners of improvement, are suffered to expire on the spot that produced them; and as an elegant writer beautifully expresses on another occasion, they “waste their sweetness on the desert air.”
In matters of humor and entertainment there can be no reason to apprehend a deficiency. Wit is naturally a volunteer, delights in action, and under proper discipline is capable of great execution. ’Tis a perfect master in the art of bush-fighting; and though it attacks with more subtilty than science, has often defeated a whole regiment of heavy artillery. Though I have rather exceeded the line of gravity in this description of wit, I am unwilling to dismiss it without being a little more serious. ’Tis a qualification which, like the passions, has a natural wildness that requires governing. Left to itself, it soon overflows its banks, mixes with common filth, and brings disrepute on the fountain. We have many valuable springs of it in America, which at present run purer streams than the generality of it in other countries. In France and Italy, ’tis froth highly fomented. In England it has much of the same spirit, but rather a browner complexion. European wit is one of the worst articles we can import. It has an intoxicating power with it, which debauches the very vitals of chastity, and gives a false coloring to everything it censures or defends. We soon grow fatigued with the excess, and withdraw like gluttons sickened with intemperance. On the contrary, how happily are the sallies of innocent humor calculated to amuse and sweeten the vacancy of business! We enjoy the harmless luxury without surfeiting, and strengthen the spirits by relaxing them….
I consider a magazine as a kind of beehive, which both allures the swarm and provides room to store their sweets. Its division into cells gives every bee a province of his own; and though they all produce honey, yet perhaps they differ in their taste for flowers, and extract with greater dexterity from one than from another. Thus we are not all Philosophers, all Artists, nor all Poets.