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Writing: The Causes of Emigration

The Causes of Emigration, § 24

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§ 24

Thus, we have now wandered through foreign lands as well as our own country, through earlier and more recent times, sought and presumably also found the cause of emigration from our beloved fatherland; here we are confronted by the second question: By what measures may it best be prevented?

It can be answered either briefly or at length. Briefly: when its cause is removed, its effect will necessarily cease. At length, by discovering the proximate and more remote mainsprings of constraint, seeing them all in their context and indicating how one may be removed by persuasion, another by effective action, one immediately, the other gradually.

The former is likely to be inadequate in this case, the latter on the other hand excessive.

–– –– –– medium tenuere beati.1

I will try to keep to the middle way. At another time and in another place that will have to be achieved which is now inadequately dealt with.

Our countrymen are of different opinions as to the feasibility and the means of improving Sweden. Despair has seized the minds of most to such an extent that they no longer believe that it can be improved by any other measures than that of first overthrowing everything. The edifice of the state, they think, has in our time already become so distorted everywhere that even the best master builder is unable to restore its correct shape and appearance unless it is completely demolished and rebuilt again from its foundations according to the best rules of architecture. Others again praise the blessed liberty in which we live and believe that little is wanting before Sweden will reach the pinnacle of its felicity. Have not both gone too far?

If everyone is bewildered, who is then to improve our native land? The means still exist; the country still has the ability to get back on its feet, if only it understands how to use it correctly. To overthrow everything

It is not enough, however, to place a few small plasters here and there on the wounds of the country with the intention of curing its illness entirely. A corrosive sourness in the blood demands powerful internal drugs if all is not soon to be consumed.


  1. medium tenuere beati: Latin for “the happy ones have kept to the middle way”. A citation from Summa de arte praedicatoria, ch. 1, by Alanus ab Insulis (Alain de Lille) (c.1128–1202).

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