p.

be one of spontaneous providential growth, and that every office under it would be strictly functional.
I doubted for some time whether the Heads of the 3 Councils would not be of
arbitary constitution; but the doubt, I think, has subsided. Your division of functions in
the department of Finance I do not well understand; and I presume that we may acknowledge
nearly equal ignorance on the details of this branch of knowledge: but the subject
could be made clear enough by the aid of one or two friends of financial experience.
My opinion generally is, that the great thought which stands embodied in your paper
(irrespective of details) is the one to which Brook Farm Phalanx and all other Phalanxes
must come at last; and that its parent, like Fourier, may well submit to wait, not
until men are willing to acccept it, but until men & circumstances have grown up to it.
How I should like to give a month to the fullest & free-est, and most deliberate & thorough
discussion of it and its practical tendencies; and I believe that the occasion will yet present
itself. I hope meanwhile that you wil labour to perfect your conception, and continue to
preserve your faith in it. I am glad to believe, from what you say, that there is not
much doubt of the adoption of the new constitution, with or without your amendments. I
had feared that its advocates might be defeated; and with that defeat lose hope for the
Association. Its success is the herald of the acceptance, at no distant day, of your scheme
of government by all; and is perhaps the necessary precedent step. And what a magnificent
step it is. Our associate Theophilus thinks that you have producd about the finest
state paper in the Annals (?) of Association; and I have not denied myself the pleasure of lending
it to your friend Lowell & his lady, whose admiration has likewise been elicited.

It is with profound regret that I state my inability to be with
you at this time. Little as is the interest I feel in my business, and the attention which
I bestow on it, a desire to extricate myself from it & to prepare for Association leaves me no
alternative but to remain here at present. And this, notwithstanding the reference
from Brook Farm of matters to my judgment which probably I ought not to have
attempted to determine except in person & viva voce. As it was, what could I do?
It was impossible that I should sanction, by indifference even, the adoption of