A wise man is as unconscious of the movements in the body politic as he is of the process of digestion and the circulation of the blood in the natural body.
These processes are infra-human.
I sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of these things going on about me, — as politics, society, business, etc., etc., — as a man may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion, in a morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called. It appears to me that those things which most engage the attention of men, as politics, for instance, are vital functions of human society, it is true, but should unconsciously be performed, like the vital functions of the natural body.
It is as if a thinker submitted himself to be rasped by the great gizzard of creation. Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves, which grind on each other. Not only individuals but states have thus a confirmed dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort of eloquence.
Our life is not altogether a forgetting, but also, alas, to a great extent a remembering, of that which perchance we should never have been conscious of, — the consciousness of what should not be permitted to disturb a man's waking hours.
As for society, why should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, but sometimes as eupeptic.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 10, 1851
See Life Without Principle ("Thus our life is riot altogether a forgetting, but also, alas! to a great extent, a remembering, of that which we should never have been conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as eupeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever-glorious morning? I do not make art exorbitant demand, surely. ") and William Wordsworth ("Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:/The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,/ Hath had elsewhere its setting,/And cometh from afar:/Not in entire forgetfulness,/And not in utter nakedness,/But trailing clouds of glory do we come/From God, who is our home:") See also December 13, 1851 ("This varied employment, to which my necessities compel me, serves instead of foreign travel and the lapse of time. If it makes me forget some things which I ought to remember, it no doubt enables me to forget many things which it is well to forget.By stepping aside from my chosen path so often, I see myself better and am enabled to criticise myself. Of this nature is the only true lapse of time.");May 9, 1852 ("A river of Lethe flows with many windings the year through, separating one season from another."); July 2, 1854(" The spring now seems far behind, yet I do not remember the interval. I feel as if some broad invisible lethean gulf lay behind, between this and spring."); July 19, 1851 ("Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then?"); December 7, 1856 ("It seemed as if winter had come without any interval since midsummer, . . .It was as if I had dreamed it.. . .The winters come now as fast as snowflakes. It is wonderful that old men do not lose their reckoning. It was summer, and now again it is winter.")
