“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

He became aware of the growing inequalities of government, and again saw in actuality the early industrial world perceived by James. But James was a gentleman by class, almost in European terms, and Nearing picked, say, the individualism of Whitman or even Thoreau over Emerson’s “inner independence.”

Nearing then wondered how democracy could operate, when—as he saw it then—capitalism kept the poor poor, and added to the gains of the wealthy. He grew sore with the worker’s plight, and felt that thoughts of art, spiritual merit, or pretensions were meaningless if men were ill-fed. Therefore, he turned his efforts to bettering his fellow man’s physical state. He butted his head against the government. In a fashion this involved old Christian principles, of course, as pure socialism does—so that a man shared his goods with his fellows, and all land belonged to the people, so that private property—in those terms—would not exist.

(10:14.) He was too spiritually violent for the socialists or the communists. He was too socialistically inclined by far for the establishment, and when he turned finally to the land, it was a proud and yet defiant retreat. He would show how the individual could operate as divorced as possible from government. He was an esthetic in workingman’s clothes, despite himself, espousing the old Protestant virtues of diligence, hard work, and no nonsense and no frills.

These were all exterior versions of his inner spiritual journeys, for he now looked to nature for support, sustenance, and strength. He looked to nature’s virtues. It was not greedy, nor would he be. He revived within himself, and within others, the American pioneering spirit, with its distrust of government, its individualism, and its eccentrics.