,,nature1 ,,addresses1 ,,and ,,lectures4 ,,miscellanies2 ,,embracing ,,nature1 ,,addresses1 ,,and ,,lectures4 ,,by ,r4 ,w4 ,,emerson4 ,,boston3 ,,phillips1 ,,sampson1 ,,and ,,company4 ,m4,,dccc4,,lvi4 ,entered according to ,act of ,congress1 in the year #ahee1 by ,,phillips1 ,,sampson1 ,,and ,,company1 in the ,clerk's ,office of the ,district ,court of the ,district of ,massachusetts4 ,,riverside1 ,,cambridge3 ,,stereotyped ,,by ,h4 ,o4 ,,houghton ,,and ,,company4 ,,contents4 ,,nature #e ,,the ,,american ,,scholar4 ,,an ,,oration ,,before ,,the ,,phi ,,beta ,,kappa ,,society1 ,,at ,,cambridge1 ,,august #ca1 #ahcg #ge ,,an ,,address ,,to ,,the ,,senior ,,class ,,in ,,divinity ,,college1 ,,cambridge1 ,,july #ae1 #ahch #aac ,,literary ,,ethics4 ,,an ,,address ,,to ,,the ,,literary ,,societies ,,in ,,dartmouth ,,college1 ,,july #bd1 #ahch #adg ,,the ,,method ,,of ,,nature4 ,,an ,,address ,,to ,,the ,,society ,,of ,,the ,,adelphi1 ,,in ,,waterville ,,college1 ,,maine1 ,,august #aa1 #ahda #aha ,,man ,,the ,,reformer4 ,a ,,lecture ,,read ,,before ,,the ,,mechanics' ,,apprentices' ,,library ,,association1 ,,boston1 ,,january #be1 #ahda #bag ,,introductory ,,lecture ,,on ,,the ,,times4 ,,read ,,in ,,the ,,masonic ,,temple1 ,,boston1 ,,dec4 #b1 #ahda #bdi ,,the ,,conservative4 ,a ,,lecture ,,read ,,in ,,the ,,masonic ,,temple1 ,,boston1 ,,december #i1 #ahda #bhc ,,the ,,transcendentalist4 ,a ,,lecture ,,read ,,in ,,the ,,masonic ,,temple1 ,,boston1 ,,january1 #ahdb #cag ,,the ,,young ,,american4 ,a ,,lecture ,,read ,,to ,,the ,,mercantile ,,library ,,association1 ,,in ,,boston1 ,,february #g1 #ahdd #cdi ,,nature4 ,a subtle chain of countless rings ,the next unto the farthest brings2 ,the eye reads omens where it goes1 ,and speaks all languages the rose2 ,and1 striving to be man1 the worm ,mounts through all the spires of form4 ,,introduction4 ,our age is retrospective4 ,it builds the sepulchres of the fathers4 ,it writes biographies1 histories1 and criticism4 ,the foregoing generations beheld ,god and nature face to face2 we1 through their eyes4 ,why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe8 ,why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition1 and a religion by revelation to us1 and not the history of theirs8 ,embosomed for a season in nature1 whose floods of life stream around and through us1 and invite us by the powers they supply1 to action proportioned to nature1 why should we grope among the dry bones of the past1 or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe8 ,the sun shines to-day also4 ,there is more wool and flax in the fields4 ,there are new lands1 new men1 new thoughts4 ,let us demand our own works and laws and worship4 ,undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable4 ,we must trust the perfection of the creation so far1 as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds1 the order of things can satisfy4 ,every man's condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put4 ,he acts it as life1 before he apprehends it as truth4 ,in like manner1 nature is already1 in its forms and tendencies1 describing its own design4 ,let us interrogate the great apparition1 that shines so peacefully around us4 ,let us inquire1 to what end is nature8 ,all science has one aim1 namely1 to find a theory of nature4 ,we have theories of races and of functions1 but scarcely yet a remote approach to an idea of creation4 ,we are now so far from the road to truth1 that religious teachers dispute and hate each other1 and speculative men are esteemed unsound and frivolous4 ,but to a sound judgment1 the most abstract truth is the most practical4 ,whenever a true theory appears1 it will be its own evidence4 ,its test is1 that it will explain all phenomena4 ,now many are thought not only unexplained but inexplicable2 as language1 sleep1 madness1 dreams1 beasts1 sex4 ,philosophically considered1 the universe is composed of ,nature and the ,soul4 ,strictly speaking1 therefore1 all that is separate from us1 all which ,philosophy distinguishes as the ,,not ,,me1 that is1 both nature and art1 all other men and my own body1 must be ranked under this name1 ,,nature4 ,in enumerating the values of nature and casting up their sum1 ,i shall use the word in both senses2--in its common and in its philosophical import4 ,in inquiries so general as our present one1 the inaccuracy is not material2 no confusion of thought will occur4 ,nature1 in the common sense1 refers to essences unchanged by man2 space1 the air1 the river1 the leaf4 ,art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things1 as in a house1 a canal1 a statue1 a picture4 ,but his operations taken together are so insignificant1 a little chipping1 baking1 patching1 and washing1 that in an impression so grand as that of the world on the human mind1 they do not vary the result4 ,,nature4 ,,chapter ,i4 ,to go into solitude1 a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society4 ,i am not solitary whilst ,i read and write1 though nobody is with me4 ,but if a man would be alone1 let him look at the stars4 ,the rays that come from those heavenly worlds1 will separate between him and what he touches4 ,one might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design1 to give man1 in the heavenly bodies1 the perpetual presence of the sublime4 ,seen in the streets of cities1 how great they are6 ,if the stars should appear one night in a thousand years1 how would men believe and adore2 and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of ,god which had been shown6 ,but every night come out these envoys of beauty1 and light the universe with their admonishing smile4 ,the stars awaken a certain reverence1 because though always present1 they are inaccessible2 but all natural objects make a kindred impression1 when the mind is open to their influence4 ,nature never wears a mean appearance4 ,neither does the wisest man extort her secret1 and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection4 ,nature never became a toy to a wise spirit4 ,the flowers1 the animals1 the mountains1 reflected the wisdom of his best hour1 as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood4 ,when we speak of nature in this manner1 we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind4 ,we mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects4 ,it is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter1 from the tree of the poet4 ,the charming landscape which ,i saw this morning1 is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms4 ,miller owns this field1 ,locke that1 and ,manning the woodland beyond4 ,but none of them owns the landscape4 ,there is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts1 that is1 the poet4 ,this is the best part of these men's farms1 yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title4 ,to speak truly1 few adult persons can see nature4 ,most persons do not see the sun4 ,at least they have a very superficial seeing4 ,the sun illuminates only the eye of the man1 but shines into the eye and the heart of the child4 ,the lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other2 who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood4 ,his intercourse with heaven and earth1 becomes part of his daily food4 ,in the presence of nature1 a wild delight runs through the man1 in spite of real sorrows4 ,nature says1--he is my creature1 and maugre all his impertinent griefs1 he shall be glad with me4 ,not the sun or the summer alone1 but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight2 for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind1 from breathless noon to grimmest midnight4 ,nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece4 ,in good health1 the air is a cordial of incredible virtue4 ,crossing a bare common1 in snow puddles1 at twilight1 under a clouded sky1 without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune1 ,i have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration4 ,i am glad to the brink of fear4 ,in the woods too1 a man casts off his years1 as the snake his slough1 and at what period soever of life1 is always a child4 ,in the woods1 is perpetual youth4 ,within these plantations of ,god1 a decorum and sanctity reign1 a perennial festival is dressed1 and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years4 ,in the woods1 we return to reason and faith4 ,there ,i feel that nothing can befall me in life1--no disgrace1 no calamity1 7leaving me my eyes17 which nature cannot repair4 ,standing on the bare ground1--my head bathed by the blithe air1 and uplifted into infinite space1--all mean egotism vanishes4 ,i become a transparent eye-ball2 ,i am nothing2 ,i see all2 the currents of the ,universal ,being circulate through me2 ,i am part or parcel of ,god4 ,the name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental3 to be brothers1 to be acquaintances1--master or servant1 is then a trifle and a disturbance4 ,i am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty4 ,in the wilderness1 ,i find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages4 ,in the tranquil landscape1 and especially in the distant line of the horizon1 man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature4 ,the greatest delight which the fields and woods minister1 is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable4 ,i am not alone and unacknowledged4 ,they nod to me1 and ,i to them4 ,the waving of the boughs in the storm1 is new to me and old4 ,it takes me by surprise1 and yet is not unknown4 ,its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me1 when ,i deemed ,i was thinking justly or doing right4 ,yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight1 does not reside in nature1 but in man1 or in a harmony of both4 ,it is necessary to use these pleasures with great temperance4 ,for1 nature is not always tricked in holiday attire1 but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs1 is overspread with melancholy to-day4 ,nature always wears the colors of the spirit4 ,to a man laboring under calamity1 the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it4 ,then1 there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend4 ,the sky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population4 ,,chapter ,,ii4 ,,commodity4 ,whoever considers the final cause of the world1 will discern a multitude of uses that enter as parts into that result4 ,they all admit of being thrown into one of the following classes3 ,commodity2 ,beauty2 ,language2 and ,discipline4 ,under the general name of commodity1 ,i rank all those advantages which our senses owe to nature4 ,this1 of course1 is a benefit which is temporary and mediate1 not ultimate1 like its service to the soul4 ,yet although low1 it is perfect in its kind1 and is the only use of nature which all men apprehend4 ,the misery of man appears like childish petulance1 when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made for his support and delight on this green ball which floats him through the heavens4 ,what angels invented these splendid ornaments1 these rich conveniences1 this ocean of air above1 this ocean of water beneath1 this firmament of earth between8 this zodiac of lights1 this tent of dropping clouds1 this striped coat of climates1 this fourfold year8 ,beasts1 fire1 water1 stones1 and corn serve him4 ,the field is at once his floor1 his work-yard1 his play-ground1 his garden1 and his bed4 8,more servants wait on man ,than he'll take notice of40---- ,nature1 in its ministry to man1 is not only the material1 but is also the process and the result4 ,all the parts incessantly work into each other's hands for the profit of man4 ,the wind sows the seed2 the sun evaporates the sea2 the wind blows the vapor to the field2 the ice1 on the other side of the planet1 condenses rain on this2 the rain feeds the plant2 the plant feeds the animal2 and thus the endless circulations of the divine charity nourish man4 ,the useful arts are reproductions or new combinations by the wit of man1 of the same natural benefactors4 ,he no longer waits for favoring gales1 but by means of steam1 he realizes the fable of olus's bag1 and carries the two and thirty winds in the boiler of his boat4 ,to diminish friction1 he paves the road with iron bars1 and1 mounting a coach with a ship-load of men1 animals1 and merchandise behind him1 he darts through the country1 from town to town1 like an eagle or a swallow through the air4 ,by the aggregate of these aids1 how is the face of the world changed1 from the era of ,noah to that of ,napoleon6 ,the private poor man hath cities1 ships1 canals1 bridges1 built for him4 ,he goes to the post-office1 and the human race run on his errands2 to the book-shop1 and the human race read and write of all that happens1 for him2 to the court-house1 and nations repair his wrongs4 ,he sets his house upon the road1 and the human race go forth every morning1 and shovel out the snow1 and cut a path for him4 ,but there is no need of specifying particulars in this class of uses4 ,the catalogue is endless1 and the examples so obvious1 that ,i shall leave them to the reader's reflection1 with the general remark1 that this mercenary benefit is one which has respect to a farther good4 ,a man is fed1 not that he may be fed1 but that he may work4 ,,chapter ,,iii4 ,,beauty4 ,a nobler want of man is served by nature1 namely1 the love of ,beauty4 ,the ancient ,greeks called the world 1 beauty4 ,such is the constitution of all things1 or such the plastic power of the human eye1 that the primary forms1 as the sky1 the mountain1 the tree1 the animal1 give us a delight in and for themselves2 a pleasure arising from outline1 color1 motion1 and grouping4 ,this seems partly owing to the eye itself4 ,the eye is the best of artists4 ,by the mutual action of its structure and of the laws of light1 perspective is produced1 which integrates every mass of objects1 of what character soever1 into a well colored and shaded globe1 so that where the particular objects are mean and unaffecting1 the landscape which they compose1 is round and symmetrical4 ,and as the eye is the best composer1 so light is the first of painters4 ,there is no object so foul that intense light will not make beautiful4 ,and the stimulus it affords to the sense1 and a sort of infinitude which it hath1 like space and time1 make all matter gay4 ,even the corpse has its own beauty4 ,but besides this general grace diffused over nature1 almost all the individual forms are agreeable to the eye1 as is proved by our endless imitations of some of them1 as the acorn1 the grape1 the pine-cone1 the wheat-ear1 the egg1 the wings and forms of most birds1 the lion's claw1 the serpent1 the butterfly1 sea-shells1 flames1 clouds1 buds1 leaves1 and the forms of many trees1 as the palm4 ,for better consideration1 we may distribute the aspects of ,beauty in a threefold manner4 #a4 ,first1 the simple perception of natural forms is a delight4 ,the influence of the forms and actions in nature1 is so needful to man1 that1 in its lowest functions1 it seems to lie on the confines of commodity and beauty4 ,to the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company1 nature is medicinal and restores their tone4 ,the tradesman1 the attorney comes out of the din and craft of the street1 and sees the sky and the woods1 and is a man again4 ,in their eternal calm1 he finds himself4 ,the health of the eye seems to demand a horizon4 ,we are never tired1 so long as we can see far enough4 ,but in other hours1 ,nature satisfies by its loveliness1 and without any mixture of corporeal benefit4 ,i see the spectacle of morning from the hill-top over against my house1 from day-break to sun-rise1 with emotions which an angel might share4 ,the long slender bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light4 ,from the earth1 as a shore1 ,i look out into that silent sea4 ,i seem to partake its rapid transformations3 the active enchantment reaches my dust1 and ,i dilate and conspire with the morning wind4 ,how does ,nature deify us with a few and cheap elements6 ,give me health and a day1 and ,i will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous4 ,the dawn is my ,assyria2 the sun-set and moon-rise my ,paphos1 and unimaginable realms of faerie2 broad noon shall be my ,england of the senses and the understanding2 the night shall be my ,germany of mystic philosophy and dreams4 ,not less excellent1 except for our less susceptibility in the afternoon1 was the charm1 last evening1 of a ,january sunset4 ,the western clouds divided and subdivided themselves into pink flakes modulated with tints of unspeakable softness2 and the air had so much life and sweetness1 that it was a pain to come within doors4 ,what was it that nature would say8 ,was there no meaning in the live repose of the valley behind the mill1 and which ,homer or ,shakspeare could not re-form for me in words8 ,the leafless trees become spires of flame in the sunset1 with the blue east for their back-ground1 and the stars of the dead calices of flowers1 and every withered stem and stubble rimed with frost1 contribute something to the mute music4 ,the inhabitants of cities suppose that the country landscape is pleasant only half the year4 ,i please myself with the graces of the winter scenery1 and believe that we are as much touched by it as by the genial influences of summer4 ,to the attentive eye1 each moment of the year has its own beauty1 and in the same field1 it beholds1 every hour1 a picture which was never seen before1 and which shall never be seen again4 ,the heavens change every moment1 and reflect their glory or gloom on the plains beneath4 ,the state of the crop in the surrounding farms alters the expression of the earth from week to week4 ,the succession of native plants in the pastures and roadsides1 which makes the silent clock by which time tells the summer hours1 will make even the divisions of the day sensible to a keen observer4 ,the tribes of birds and insects1 like the plants punctual to their time1 follow each other1 and the year has room for all4 ,by water-courses1 the variety is greater4 ,in ,july1 the blue pontederia or pickerel-weed blooms in large beds in the shallow parts of our pleasant river1 and swarms with yellow butterflies in continual motion4 ,art cannot rival this pomp of purple and gold4 ,indeed the river is a perpetual gala1 and boasts each month a new ornament4 ,but this beauty of ,nature which is seen and felt as beauty1 is the least part4 ,the shows of day1 the dewy morning1 the rainbow1 mountains1 orchards in blossom1 stars1 moonlight1 shadows in still water1 and the like1 if too eagerly hunted1 become shows merely1 and mock us with their unreality4 ,go out of the house to see the moon1 and 'tis mere tinsel2 it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey4 ,the beauty that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of ,october1 who ever could clutch it8 ,go forth to find it1 and it is gone2 'tis only a mirage as you look from the windows of diligence4 #b4 ,the presence of a higher1 namely1 of the spiritual element is essential to its perfection4 ,the high and divine beauty which can be loved without effeminacy1 is that which is found in combination with the human will4 ,beauty is the mark ,god sets upon virtue4 ,every natural action is graceful4 ,every heroic act is also decent1 and causes the place and the bystanders to shine4 ,we are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it4 ,every rational creature has all nature for his dowry and estate4 ,it is his1 if he will4 ,he may divest himself of it2 he may creep into a corner1 and abdicate his kingdom1 as most men do1 but he is entitled to the world by his constitution4 ,in proportion to the energy of his thought and will1 he takes up the world into himself4 8,all those things for which men plough1 build1 or sail1 obey virtue20 said ,sallust4 8,the winds and waves10 said ,gibbon1 8are always on the side of the ablest navigators40 ,so are the sun and moon and all the stars of heaven4 ,when a noble act is done1--perchance in a scene of great natural beauty2 when ,leonidas and his three hundred martyrs consume one day in dying1 and the sun and moon come each and look at them once in the steep defile of ,thermopyl2 when ,arnold ,winkelried1 in the high ,alps1 under the shadow of the avalanche1 gathers in his side a sheaf of ,austrian spears to break the line for his comrades2 are not these heroes entitled to add the beauty of the scene to the beauty of the deed8 ,when the bark of ,columbus nears the shore of ,america2--before it1 the beach lined with savages1 fleeing out of all their huts of cane2 the sea behind2 and the purple mountains of the ,indian ,archipelago around1 can we separate the man from the living picture8 ,does not the ,new ,world clothe his form with her palm-groves and savannahs as fit drapery8 ,ever does natural beauty steal in like air1 and envelope great actions4 ,when ,sir ,harry ,vane was dragged up the ,tower-hill1 sitting on a sled1 to suffer death1 as the champion of the ,english laws1 one of the multitude cried out to him1 8,you never sate on so glorious a seat40 ,charles ,,ii41 to intimidate the citizens of ,london1 caused the patriot ,lord ,russel to be drawn in an open coach1 through the principal streets of the city1 on his way to the scaffold4 8,but10 his biographer says1 8the multitude imagined they saw liberty and virtue sitting by his side40 ,in private places1 among sordid objects1 an act of truth or heroism seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple1 the sun as its cradle4 ,nature stretches out her arms to embrace man1 only let his thoughts be of equal greatness4 ,willingly does she follow his steps with the rose and the violet1 and bend her lines of grandeur and grace to the decoration of her darling child4 ,only let his thoughts be of equal scope1 and the frame will suit the picture4 ,a virtuous man is in unison with her works1 and makes the central figure of the visible sphere4 ,homer1 ,pindar1 ,socrates1 ,phocion1 associate themselves fitly in our memory with the geography and climate of ,greece4 ,the visible heavens and earth sympathize with ,jesus4 ,and in common life1 whosoever has seen a person of powerful character and happy genius1 will have remarked how easily he took all things along with him1--the persons1 the opinions1 and the day1 and nature became ancillary to a man4 #c4 ,there is still another aspect under which the beauty of the world may be viewed1 namely1 as it becomes an object of the intellect4 ,beside the relation of things to virtue1 they have a relation to thought4 ,the intellect searches out the absolute order of things as they stand in the mind of ,god1 and without the colors of affection4 ,the intellectual and the active powers seem to succeed each other1 and the exclusive activity of the one1 generates the exclusive activity of the other4 ,there is something unfriendly in each to the other1 but they are like the alternate periods of feeding and working in animals2 each prepares and will be followed by the other4 ,therefore does beauty1 which1 in relation to actions1 as we have seen1 comes unsought1 and comes because it is unsought1 remain for the apprehension and pursuit of the intellect2 and then again1 in its turn1 of the active power4 ,nothing divine dies4 ,all good is eternally reproductive4 ,the beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind1 and not for barren contemplation1 but for new creation4 ,all men are in some degree impressed by the face of the world2 some men even to delight4 ,this love of beauty is ,taste4 ,others have the same love in such excess1 that1 not content with admiring1 they seek to embody it in new forms4 ,the creation of beauty is ,art4 ,the production of a work of art throws a light upon the mystery of humanity4 ,a work of art is an abstract or epitome of the world4 ,it is the result or expression of nature1 in miniature4 ,for1 although the works of nature are innumerable and all different1 the result or the expression of them all is similar and single4 ,nature is a sea of forms radically alike and even unique4 ,a leaf1 a sun-beam1 a landscape1 the ocean1 make an analogous impression on the mind4 ,what is common to them all1--that perfectness and harmony1 is beauty4 ,the standard of beauty is the entire circuit of natural forms1--the totality of nature2 which the ,italians expressed by defining beauty 8il piu nell' uno40 ,nothing is quite beautiful alone3 nothing but is beautiful in the whole4 ,a single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace4 ,the poet1 the painter1 the sculptor1 the musician1 the architect1 seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point1 and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce4 ,thus is ,art1 a nature passed through the alembic of man4 ,thus in art1 does nature work through the will of a man filled with the beauty of her first works4 ,the world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of beauty4 ,this element ,i call an ultimate end4 ,no reason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty4 ,beauty1 in its largest and profoundest sense1 is one expression for the universe4 ,god is the all-fair4 ,truth1 and goodness1 and beauty1 are but different faces of the same ,all4 ,but beauty in nature is not ultimate4 ,it is the herald of inward and eternal beauty1 and is not alone a solid and satisfactory good4 ,it must stand as a part1 and not as yet the last or highest expression of the final cause of ,nature4 ,,chapter ,,iv4 ,,language4 ,language is a third use which ,nature subserves to man4 ,nature is the vehicle of thought1 and in a simple1 double1 and threefold degree4 #a4 ,words are signs of natural facts4 #b4 ,particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts4 #c4 ,nature is the symbol of spirit4 #a4 ,words are signs of natural facts4 ,the use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history3 the use of the outer creation1 to give us language for the beings and changes of the inward creation4 ,every word which is used to express a moral or intellectual fact1 if traced to its root1 is found to be borrowed from some material appearance4 ,right means straight2 wrong means twisted4 ,spirit primarily means wind2 transgression1 the crossing of a line2 supercilious1 the raising of the eyebrow4 ,we say the heart to express emotion1 the head to denote thought2 and thought and emotion are words borrowed from sensible things1 and now appropriated to spiritual nature4 ,most of the process by which this transformation is made1 is hidden from us in the remote time when language was framed2 but the same tendency may be daily observed in children4 ,children and savages use only nouns or names of things1 which they convert into verbs1 and apply to analogous mental acts4 #b4 ,but this origin of all words that convey a spiritual import1--so conspicuous a fact in the history of language1--is our least debt to nature4 ,it is not words only that are emblematic2 it is things which are emblematic4 ,every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact4 ,every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind1 and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture4 ,an enraged man is a lion1 a cunning man is a fox1 a firm man is a rock1 a learned man is a torch4 ,a lamb is innocence2 a snake is subtle spite2 flowers express to us the delicate affections4 ,light and darkness are our familiar expression for knowledge and ignorance2 and heat for love4 ,visible distance behind and before us1 is respectively our image of memory and hope4 ,who looks upon a river in a meditative hour1 and is not reminded of the flux of all things8 ,throw a stone into the stream1 and the circles that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence4 ,man is conscious of a universal soul within or behind his individual life1 wherein1 as in a firmament1 the natures of ,justice1 ,truth1 ,love1 ,freedom1 arise and shine4 ,this universal soul1 he calls ,reason3 it is not mine1 or thine1 or his1 but we are its2 we are its property and men4 ,and the blue sky in which the private earth is buried1 the sky with its eternal calm1 and full of everlasting orbs1 is the type of ,reason4 ,that which1 intellectually considered1 we call ,reason1 considered in relation to nature1 we call ,spirit4 ,spirit is the ,creator4 ,spirit hath life in itself4 ,and man in all ages and countries1 embodies it in his language1 as the ,,father4 ,it is easily seen that there is nothing lucky or capricious in these analogies1 but that they are constant1 and pervade nature4 ,these are not the dreams of a few poets1 here and there1 but man is an analogist1 and studies relations in all objects4 ,he is placed in the centre of beings1 and a ray of relation passes from every other being to him4 ,and neither can man be understood without these objects1 nor these objects without man4 ,all the facts in natural history taken by themselves1 have no value1 but are barren1 like a single sex4 ,but marry it to human history1 and it is full of life4 ,whole ,floras1 all ,linnus' and ,buffon's volumes1 are dry catalogues of facts2 but the most trivial of these facts1 the habit of a plant1 the organs1 or work1 or noise of an insect1 applied to the illustration of a fact in intellectual philosophy1 or1 in any way associated to human nature1 affects us in the most lively and agreeable manner4 ,the seed of a plant1--to what affecting analogies in the nature of man1 is that little fruit made use of1 in all discourse1 up to the voice of ,paul1 who calls the human corpse a seed1--8,it is sown a natural body2 it is raised a spiritual body40 ,the motion of the earth round its axis1 and round the sun1 makes the day1 and the year4 ,these are certain amounts of brute light and heat4 ,but is there no intent of an analogy between man's life and the seasons8 ,and do the seasons gain no grandeur or pathos from that analogy8 ,the instincts of the ant are very unimportant1 considered as the ant's2 but the moment a ray of relation is seen to extend from it to man1 and the little drudge is seen to be a monitor1 a little body with a mighty heart1 then all its habits1 even that said to be recently observed1 that it never sleeps1 become sublime4 ,because of this radical correspondence between visible things and human thoughts1 savages1 who have only what is necessary1 converse in figures4 ,as we go back in history1 language becomes more picturesque1 until its infancy1 when it is all poetry2 or all spiritual facts are represented by natural symbols4 ,the same symbols are found to make the original elements of all languages4 ,it has moreover been observed1 that the idioms of all languages approach each other in passages of the greatest eloquence and power4 ,and as this is the first language1 so is it the last4 ,this immediate dependence of language upon nature1 this conversion of an outward phenomenon into a type of somewhat in human life1 never loses its power to affect us4 ,it is this which gives that piquancy to the conversation of a strong-natured farmer or back-woodsman1 which all men relish4 ,a man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol1 and so to utter it1 depends on the simplicity of his character1 that is1 upon his love of truth1 and his desire to communicate it without loss4 ,the corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language4 ,when simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires1 the desire of riches1 of pleasure1 of power1 and of praise1--and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth1 the power over nature as an interpreter of the will1 is in a degree lost2 new imagery ceases to be created1 and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not2 a paper currency is employed1 when there is no bullion in the vaults4 ,in due time1 the fraud is manifest1 and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections4 ,hundreds of writers may be found in every long-civilized nation1 who for a short time believe1 and make others believe1 that they see and utter truths1 who do not of themselves clothe one thought in its natural garment1 but who feed unconsciously on the language created by the primary writers of the country1 those1 namely1 who hold primarily on nature4 ,but wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things2 so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it1 is a man in alliance with truth and ,god4 ,the moment our discourse rises above the ground line of familiar facts1 and is inflamed with passion or exalted by thought1 it clothes itself in images4 ,a man conversing in earnest1 if he watch his intellectual processes1 will find that a material image1 more or less luminous1 arises in his mind1 contemporaneous with every thought1 which furnishes the vestment of the thought4 ,hence1 good writing and brilliant discourse are perpetual allegories4 ,this imagery is spontaneous4 ,it is the blending of experience with the present action of the mind4 ,it is proper creation4 ,it is the working of the ,original ,cause through the instruments he has already made4 ,these facts may suggest the advantage which the country-life possesses for a powerful mind1 over the artificial and curtailed life of cities4 ,we know more from nature than we can at will communicate4 ,its light flows into the mind evermore1 and we forget its presence4 ,the poet1 the orator1 bred in the woods1 whose senses have been nourished by their fair and appeasing changes1 year after year1 without design and without heed1--shall not lose their lesson altogether1 in the roar of cities or the broil of politics4 ,long hereafter1 amidst agitation and terror in national councils1--in the hour of revolution1--these solemn images shall reappear in their morning lustre1 as fit symbols and words of the thoughts which the passing events shall awaken4 ,at the call of a noble sentiment1 again the woods wave1 the pines murmur1 the river rolls and shines1 and the cattle low upon the mountains1 as he saw and heard them in his infancy4 ,and with these forms1 the spells of persuasion1 the keys of power are put into his hands4 #c4 ,we are thus assisted by natural objects in the expression of particular meanings4 ,but how great a language to convey such pepper-corn informations6 ,did it need such noble races of creatures1 this profusion of forms1 this host of orbs in heaven1 to furnish man with the dictionary and grammar of his municipal speech8 ,whilst we use this grand cipher to expedite the affairs of our pot and kettle1 we feel that we have not yet put it to its use1 neither are able4 ,we are like travellers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs4 ,whilst we see that it always stands ready to clothe what we would say1 we cannot avoid the question1 whether the characters are not significant of themselves4 ,have mountains1 and waves1 and skies1 no significance but what we consciously give them1 when we employ them as emblems of our thoughts8 ,the world is emblematic4 ,parts of speech are metaphors1 because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind4 ,the laws of moral nature answer to those of matter as face to face in a glass4 8,the visible world and the relation of its parts1 is the dial plate of the invisible40 ,the axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics4 ,thus1 8the whole is greater than its part20 8reaction is equal to action20 8the smallest weight may be made to lift the greatest1 the difference of weight being compensated by time20 and many the like propositions1 which have an ethical as well as physical sense4 ,these propositions have a much more extensive and universal sense when applied to human life1 than when confined to technical use4 ,in like manner1 the memorable words of history1 and the proverbs of nations1 consist usually of a natural fact1 selected as a picture or parable of a moral truth4 ,thus2 ,a rolling stone gathers no moss2 ,a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush2 ,a cripple in the right way1 will beat a racer in the wrong2 ,make hay while the sun shines2 ',tis hard to carry a full cup even2 ,vinegar is the son of wine2 ,the last ounce broke the camel's back2 ,long-lived trees make roots first2--and the like4 ,in their primary sense these are trivial facts1 but we repeat them for the value of their analogical import4 ,what is true of proverbs1 is true of all fables1 parables1 and allegories4 ,this relation between the mind and matter is not fancied by some poet1 but stands in the will of ,god1 and so is free to be known by all men4 ,it appears to men1 or it does not appear4 ,when in fortunate hours we ponder this miracle1 the wise man doubts1 if1 at all other times1 he is not blind and deaf2 ----8,can these things be1 ,and overcome us like a summer's cloud1 ,without our special wonder80 for the universe becomes transparent1 and the light of higher laws than its own1 shines through it4 ,it is the standing problem which has exercised the wonder and the study of every fine genius since the world began2 from the era of the ,egyptians and the ,brahmins1 to that of ,pythagoras1 of ,plato1 of ,bacon1 of ,leibnitz1 of ,swedenborg4 ,there sits the ,sphinx at the road-side1 and from age to age1 as each prophet comes by1 he tries his fortune at reading her riddle4 ,there seems to be a necessity in spirit to manifest itself in material forms2 and day and night1 river and storm1 beast and bird1 acid and alkali1 prexist in necessary ,ideas in the mind of ,god1 and are what they are by virtue of preceding affections1 in the world of spirit4 ,a ,fact is the end or last issue of spirit4 ,the visible creation is the terminus or the circumference of the invisible world4 8,material objects10 said a ,french philosopher1 8are necessarily kinds of scori of the substantial thoughts of the ,creator1 which must always preserve an exact relation to their first origin2 in other words1 visible nature must have a spiritual and moral side40 ,this doctrine is abstruse1 and though the images of 8garment10 8scori10 8mirror10 c41 may stimulate the fancy1 we must summon the aid of subtler and more vital expositors to make it plain4 8,every scripture is to be interpreted by the same spirit which gave it forth10--is the fundamental law of criticism4 ,a life in harmony with nature1 the love of truth and of virtue1 will purge the eyes to understand her text4 ,by degrees we may come to know the primitive sense of the permanent objects of nature1 so that the world shall be to us an open book1 and every form significant of its hidden life and final cause4 ,a new interest surprises us1 whilst1 under the view now suggested1 we contemplate the fearful extent and multitude of objects2 since 8every object rightly seen1 unlocks a new faculty of the soul40 ,that which was unconscious truth1 becomes1 when interpreted and defined in an object1 a part of the domain of knowledge1--a new weapon in the magazine of power4 ,,chapter ,v4 ,,discipline4 ,in view of the significance of nature1 we arrive at once at a new fact1 that nature is a discipline4 ,this use of the world includes the preceding uses1 as parts of itself4 ,space1 time1 society1 labor1 climate1 food1 locomotion1 the animals1 the mechanical forces1 give us sincerest lessons1 day by day1 whose meaning is unlimited4 ,they educate both the ,understanding and the ,reason4 ,every property of matter is a school for the understanding1--its solidity or resistance1 its inertia1 its extension1 its figure1 its divisibility4 ,the understanding adds1 divides1 combines1 measures1 and finds nutriment and room for its activity in this worthy scene4 ,meantime1 ,reason transfers all these lessons into its own world of thought1 by perceiving the analogy that marries ,matter and ,mind4 #a4 ,nature is a discipline of the understanding in intellectual truths4 ,our dealing with sensible objects is a constant exercise in the necessary lessons of difference1 of likeness1 of order1 of being and seeming1 of progressive arrangement2 of assent from particular to general2 of combination to one end of manifold forces4 ,proportioned to the importance of the organ to be formed1 is the extreme care with which its tuition is provided1--a care pretermitted in no single case4 ,what tedious training1 day after day1 year after year1 never ending1 to form the common sense2 what continual reproduction of annoyances1 inconveniences1 dilemmas2 what rejoicing over us of little men2 what disputing of prices1 what reckonings of interest1--and all to form the ,hand of the mind2--to instruct us that 8good thoughts are no better than good dreams1 unless they be executed60 ,the same good office is performed by ,property and its filial systems of debt and credit4 ,debt1 grinding debt1 whose iron face the widow1 the orphan1 and the sons of genius fear and hate2--debt1 which consumes so much time1 which so cripples and disheartens a great spirit with cares that seem so base1 is a preceptor whose lessons cannot be forgone1 and is needed most by those who suffer from it most4 ,moreover1 property1 which has been well compared to snow1--8if it fall level to-day1 it will be blown into drifts to-morrow10--is the surface action of internal machinery1 like the index on the face of a clock4 ,whilst now it is the gymnastics of the understanding1 it is having in the foresight of the spirit1 experience in profounder laws4 ,the whole character and fortune of the individual are affected by the least inequalities in the culture of the understanding2 for example1 in the perception of differences4 ,therefore is ,space1 and therefore ,time1 that man may know that things are not huddled and lumped1 but sundered and individual4 ,a bell and a plough have each their use1 and neither can do the office of the other4 ,water is good to drink1 coal to burn1 wool to wear2 but wool cannot be drunk1 nor water spun1 nor coal eaten4 ,the wise man shows his wisdom in separation1 in gradation1 and his scale of creatures and of merits is as wide as nature4 ,the foolish have no range in their scale1 but suppose every man is as every other man4 ,what is not good they call the worst1 and what is not hateful1 they call the best4 ,in like manner1 what good heed nature forms in us6 ,she pardons no mistakes4 ,her yea is yea1 and her nay1 nay4 ,the first steps in ,agriculture1 ,astronomy1 ,zology1 7those first steps which the farmer1 the hunter1 and the sailor take17 teach that nature's dice are always loaded2 that in her heaps and rubbish are concealed sure and useful results4 ,how calmly and genially the mind apprehends one after another the laws of physics6 ,what noble emotions dilate the mortal as he enters into the counsels of the creation1 and feels by knowledge the privilege to ,,be6 ,his insight refines him4 ,the beauty of nature shines in his own breast4 ,man is greater than he can see this1 and the universe less1 because ,time and ,space relations vanish as laws are known4 ,here again we are impressed and even daunted by the immense ,universe to be explored4 8,what we know1 is a point to what we do not know40 ,open any recent journal of science1 and weigh the problems suggested concerning ,light1 ,heat1 ,electricity1 ,magnetism1 ,physiology1 ,geology1 and judge whether the interest of natural science is likely to be soon exhausted4 ,passing by many particulars of the discipline of nature1 we must not omit to specify two4 ,the exercise of the ,will or the lesson of power is taught in every event4 ,from the child's successive possession of his several senses up to the hour when he saith1 8,thy will be done60 he is learning the secret1 that he can reduce under his will1 not only particular events1 but great classes1 nay the whole series of events1 and so conform all facts to his character4 ,nature is thoroughly mediate4 ,it is made to serve4 ,it receives the dominion of man as meekly as the ass on which the ,saviour rode4 ,it offers all its kingdoms to man as the raw material which he may mould into what is useful4 ,man is never weary of working it up4 ,he forges the subtile and delicate air into wise and melodious words1 and gives them wing as angels of persuasion and command4 ,one after another1 his victorious thought comes up with and reduces all things1 until the world becomes1 at last1 only a realized will1--the double of the man4 #b4 ,sensible objects conform to the premonitions of ,reason and reflect the conscience4 ,all things are moral2 and in their boundless changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature4 ,therefore is nature glorious with form1 color1 and motion1 that every globe in the remotest heaven2 every chemical change from the rudest crystal up to the laws of life2 every change of vegetation from the first principle of growth in the eye of a leaf1 to the tropical forest and antediluvian coal-mine2 every animal function from the sponge up to ,hercules1 shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong1 and echo the ,ten ,commandments4 ,therefore is nature ever the ally of ,religion3 lends all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment4 ,prophet and priest1 ,david1 ,isaiah1 ,jesus1 have drawn deeply from this source4 ,this ethical character so penetrates the bone and marrow of nature1 as to seem the end for which it was made4 ,whatever private purpose is answered by any member or part1 this is its public and universal function1 and is never omitted4 ,nothing in nature is exhausted in its first use4 ,when a thing has served an end to the uttermost1 it is wholly new for an ulterior service4 ,in ,god1 every end is converted into a new means4 ,thus the use of commodity1 regarded by itself1 is mean and squalid4 ,but it is to the mind an education in the doctrine of ,use1 namely1 that a thing is good only so far as it serves2 that a conspiring of parts and efforts to the production of an end1 is essential to any being4 ,the first and gross manifestation of this truth1 is our inevitable and hated training in values and wants1 in corn and meat4 ,it has already been illustrated1 that every natural process is a version of a moral sentence4 ,the moral law lies at the centre of nature and radiates to the circumference4 ,it is the pith and marrow of every substance1 every relation1 and every process4 ,all things with which we deal1 preach to us4 ,what is a farm but a mute gospel8 ,the chaff and the wheat1 weeds and plants1 blight1 rain1 insects1 sun1--it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in the fields4 ,but the sailor1 the shepherd1 the miner1 the merchant1 in their several resorts1 have each an experience precisely parallel1 and leading to the same conclusion3 because all organizations are radically alike4 ,nor can it be doubted that this moral sentiment which thus scents the air1 grows in the grain1 and impregnates the waters of the world1 is caught by man and sinks into his soul4 ,the moral influence of nature upon every individual is that amount of truth which it illustrates to him4 ,who can estimate this8 ,who can guess how much firmness the sea-beaten rock has taught the fisherman8 how much tranquillity has been reflected to man from the azure sky1 over whose unspotted deeps the winds forevermore drive flocks of stormy clouds1 and leave no wrinkle or stain8 how much industry and providence and affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes8 ,what a searching preacher of self-command is the varying phenomenon of ,health6 ,herein is especially apprehended the unity of ,nature1--the unity in variety1--which meets us everywhere4 ,all the endless variety of things make an identical impression4 ,xenophanes complained in his old age1 that1 look where he would1 all things hastened back to ,unity4 ,he was weary of seeing the same entity in the tedious variety of forms4 ,the fable of ,proteus has a cordial truth4 ,a leaf1 a drop1 a crystal1 a moment of time is related to the whole1 and partakes of the perfection of the whole4 ,each particle is a microcosm1 and faithfully renders the likeness of the world4 ,not only resemblances exist in things whose analogy is obvious1 as when we detect the type of the human hand in the flipper of the fossil saurus1 but also in objects wherein there is great superficial unlikeness4 ,thus architecture is called 8frozen music10 by ,de ,stael and ,goethe4 ,vitruvius thought an architect should be a musician4 8,a ,gothic church10 said ,coleridge1 8is a petrified religion40 ,michael ,angelo maintained1 that1 to an architect1 a knowledge of anatomy is essential4 ,in ,hayden's oratories1 the notes present to the imagination not only motions1 as1 of the snake1 the stag1 and the elephant1 but colors also2 as the green grass4 ,the law of harmonic sounds reappears in the harmonic colors4 ,the granite is differenced in its laws only by the more or less of heat1 from the river that wears it away4 ,the river1 as it flows1 resembles the air that flows over it2 the air resembles the light which traverses it with more subtile currents2 the light resembles the heat which rides with it through ,space4 ,each creature is only a modification of the other2 the likeness in them is more than the difference1 and their radical law is one and the same4 ,a rule of one art1 or a law of one organization1 holds true throughout nature4 ,so intimate is this ,unity1 that1 it is easily seen1 it lies under the undermost garment of nature1 and betrays its source in ,universal ,spirit4 ,for1 it pervades ,thought also4 ,every universal truth which we express in words1 implies or supposes every other truth4 ,omne verum vero consonat4 ,it is like a great circle on a sphere1 comprising all possible circles2 which1 however1 may be drawn1 and comprise it1 in like manner4 ,every such truth is the absolute ,ens seen from one side4 ,but it has innumerable sides4 ,the central ,unity is still more conspicuous in actions4 ,words are finite organs of the infinite mind4 ,they cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth4 ,they break1 chop1 and impoverish it4 ,an action is the perfection and publication of thought4 ,a right action seems to fill the eye1 and to be related to all nature4 8,the wise man1 in doing one thing1 does all2 or1 in the one thing he does rightly1 he sees the likeness of all which is done rightly40 ,words and actions are not the attributes of brute nature4 ,they introduce us to the human form1 of which all other organizations appear to be degradations4 ,when this appears among so many that surround it1 the spirit prefers it to all others4 ,it says1 #8,from such as this1 have ,i drawn joy and knowledge2 in such as this1 have ,i found and beheld myself2 ,i will speak to it2 it can speak again2 it can yield me thought already formed and alive4' ,in fact1 the eye1--the mind1--is always accompanied by these forms1 male and female2 and these are incomparably the richest informations of the power and order that lie at the heart of things4 ,unfortunately1 every one of them bears the marks as of some injury2 is marred and superficially defective4 ,nevertheless1 far different from the deaf and dumb nature around them1 these all rest like fountain-pipes on the unfathomed sea of thought and virtue whereto they alone1 of all organizations1 are the entrances4 ,it were a pleasant inquiry to follow into detail their ministry to our education1 but where would it stop8 ,we are associated in adolescent and adult life with some friends1 who1 like skies and waters1 are coextensive with our idea2 who1 answering each to a certain affection of the soul1 satisfy our desire on that side2 whom we lack power to put at such focal distance from us1 that we can mend or even analyze them4 ,we cannot choose but love them4 ,when much intercourse with a friend has supplied us with a standard of excellence1 and has increased our respect for the resources of ,god who thus sends a real person to outgo our ideal2 when he has1 moreover1 become an object of thought1 and1 whilst his character retains all its unconscious effect1 is converted in the mind into solid and sweet wisdom1--it is a sign to us that his office is closing1 and he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time4 ,,chapter ,,vi4 ,,idealism4 ,thus is the unspeakable but intelligible and practicable meaning of the world conveyed to man1 the immortal pupil1 in every object of sense4 ,to this one end of ,discipline1 all parts of nature conspire4 ,a noble doubt perpetually suggests itself1 whether this end be not the ,final ,cause of the ,universe2 and whether nature outwardly exists4 ,it is a sufficient account of that ,appearance we call the ,world1 that ,god will teach a human mind1 and so makes it the receiver of a certain number of congruent sensations1 which we call sun and moon1 man and woman1 house and trade4 ,in my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the report of my senses1 to know whether the impressions they make on me correspond with outlying objects1 what difference does it make1 whether ,orion is up there in heaven1 or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul8 ,the relations of parts and the end of the whole remaining the same1 what is the difference1 whether land and sea interact1 and worlds revolve and intermingle without number or end1--deep yawning under deep1 and galaxy balancing galaxy1 throughout absolute space1--or1 whether1 without relations of time and space1 the same appearances are inscribed in the constant faith of man8 ,whether nature enjoy a substantial existence without1 or is only in the apocalypse of the mind1 it is alike useful and alike venerable to me4 ,be it what it may1 it is ideal to me1 so long as ,i cannot try the accuracy of my senses4 ,the frivolous make themselves merry with the ,ideal theory1 as if its consequences were burlesque2 as if it affected the stability of nature4 ,it surely does not4 ,god never jests with us1 and will not compromise the end of nature1 by permitting any inconsequence in its procession4 ,any distrust of the permanence of laws1 would paralyze the faculties of man4 ,their permanence is sacredly respected1 and his faith therein is perfect4 ,the wheels and springs of man are all set to the hypothesis of the permanence of nature4 ,we are not built like a ship to be tossed1 but like a house to stand4 ,it is a natural consequence of this structure1 that1 so long as the active powers predominate over the reflective1 we resist with indignation any hint that nature is more short-lived or mutable than spirit4 ,the broker1 the wheelwright1 the carpenter1 the tollman1 are much displeased at the intimation4 ,but whilst we acquiesce entirely in the permanence of natural laws1 the question of the absolute existence of nature still remains open4 ,it is the uniform effect of culture on the human mind1 not to shake our faith in the stability of particular phenomena1 as of heat1 water1 azote2 but to lead us to regard nature as phenomenon1 not a substance2 to attribute necessary existence to spirit2 to esteem nature as an accident and an effect4 ,to the senses and the unrenewed understanding1 belongs a sort of instinctive belief in the absolute existence of nature4 ,in their view1 man and nature are indissolubly joined4 ,things are ultimates1 and they never look beyond their sphere4 ,the presence of ,reason mars this faith4 ,the first effort of thought tends to relax this despotism of the senses1 which binds us to nature as if we were a part of it1 and shows us nature aloof1 and1 as it were1 afloat4 ,until this higher agency intervened1 the animal eye sees1 with wonderful accuracy1 sharp outlines and colored surfaces4 ,when the eye of ,reason opens1 to outline and surface are at once added1 grace and expression4 ,these proceed from imagination and affection1 and abate somewhat of the angular distinctness of objects4 ,if the ,reason be stimulated to more earnest vision1 outlines and surfaces become transparent1 and are no longer seen2 causes and spirits are seen through them4 ,the best moments of life are these delicious awakenings of the higher powers1 and the reverential withdrawing of nature before its ,god4 ,let us proceed to indicate the effects of culture4 #a4 ,our first institution in the ,ideal philosophy is a hint from nature herself4 ,nature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us4 ,certain mechanical changes1 a small alteration in our local position apprizes us of a dualism4 ,we are strangely affected by seeing the shore from a moving ship1 from a balloon1 or through the tints of an unusual sky4 ,the last change in our point of view1 gives the whole world a pictorial air4 ,a man who seldom rides1 needs only to get into a coach and traverse his own town1 to turn the street into a puppet-show4 ,the men1 the women1--talking1 running1 bartering1 fighting1--the earnest mechanic1 the lounger1 the beggar1 the boys1 the dogs1 are unrealized at once1 or1 at least1 wholly detached from all relation to the observer1 and seen as apparent1 not substantial beings4 ,what new thoughts are suggested by seeing a face of country quite familiar1 in the rapid movement of the railroad car6 ,nay1 the most wonted objects1 7make a very slight change in the point of vision17 please us most4 ,in a camera obscura1 the butcher's cart1 and the figure of one of our own family amuse us4 ,so a portrait of a well-known face gratifies us4 ,turn the eyes upside down1 by looking at the landscape through your legs1 and how agreeable is the picture1 though you have seen it any time these twenty years6 ,in these cases1 by mechanical means1 is suggested the difference between the observer and the spectacle1--between man and nature4 ,hence arises a pleasure mixed with awe2 ,i may say1 a low degree of the sublime is felt from the fact1 probably1 that man is hereby apprized1 that1 whilst the world is a spectacle1 something in himself is stable4 #b4 ,in a higher manner1 the poet communicates the same pleasure4 ,by a few strokes he delineates1 as on air1 the sun1 the mountain1 the camp1 the city1 the hero1 the maiden1 not different from what we know them1 but only lifted from the ground and afloat before the eye4 ,he unfixes the land and the sea1 makes them revolve around the axis of his primary thought1 and disposes them anew4 ,possessed himself by a heroic passion1 he uses matter as symbols of it4 ,the sensual man conforms thoughts to things2 the poet conforms things to his thoughts4 ,the one esteems nature as rooted and fast2 the other1 as fluid1 and impresses his being thereon4 ,to him1 the refractory world is ductile and flexible2 he invests dust and stones with humanity1 and makes them the words of the ,reason4 ,the ,imagination may be defined to be1 the use which the ,reason makes of the material world4 ,shakspeare possesses the power of subordinating nature for the purposes of expression1 beyond all poets4 ,his imperial muse tosses the creation like a bauble from hand to hand1 and uses it to embody any caprice of thought that is uppermost in his mind4 ,the remotest spaces of nature are visited1 and the farthest sundered things are brought together1 by a subtile spiritual connection4 ,we are made aware that magnitude of material things is relative1 and all objects shrink and expand to serve the passion of the poet4 ,thus1 in his sonnets1 the lays of birds1 the scents and dyes of flowers1 he finds to be the shadow of his beloved2 time1 which keeps her from him1 is his chest2 the suspicion she has awakened1 is her ornament2 ,the ornament of beauty is ,suspect1 ,a crow which flies in heaven's sweetest air4 ,his passion is not the fruit of chance2 it swells1 as he speaks1 to a city1 or a state4 ,no1 it was builded far from accident2 ,it suffers not in smiling pomp1 nor falls ,under the brow of thralling discontent2 ,it fears not policy1 that heretic1 ,that works on leases of short numbered hours1 ,but all alone stands hugely politic4 ,in the strength of his constancy1 the ,pyramids seem to him recent and transitory4 ,the freshness of youth and love dazzles him with its resemblance to morning4 ,take those lips away ,which so sweetly were forsworn3 ,and those eyes1--the break of day1 ,lights that do mislead the morn4 ,the wild beauty of this hyperbole1 ,i may say1 in passing1 it would not be easy to match in literature4 ,this transfiguration which all material objects undergo through the passion of the poet1--this power which he exerts to dwarf the great1 to magnify the small1--might be illustrated by a thousand examples from his ,plays4 ,i have before me the ,tempest1 and will cite only these few lines4 ,,ariel4 ,the strong based promontory ,have ,i made shake1 and by the spurs plucked up ,the pine and cedar4 ,prospero calls for music to soothe the frantic ,alonzo1 and his companions2 ,a solemn air1 and the best comforter ,to an unsettled fancy1 cure thy brains ,now useless1 boiled within thy skull4 ,again2 ,the charm dissolves apace1 ,and1 as the morning steals upon the night1 ,melting the darkness1 so their rising senses ,begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle ,their clearer reason4 ,their understanding ,begins to swell3 and the approaching tide ,will shortly fill the reasonable shores ,that now lie foul and muddy4 ,the perception of real affinities between events1 7that is to say1 of ideal affinities1 for those only are real17 enables the poet thus to make free with the most imposing forms and phenomena of the world1 and to assert the predominance of the soul4 #c4 ,whilst thus the poet animates nature with his own thoughts1 he differs from the philosopher only herein1 that the one proposes ,beauty as his main end2 the other ,truth4 ,but the philosopher1 not less than the poet1 postpones the apparent order and relations of things to the empire of thought4 8,the problem of philosophy10 according to ,plato1 8is1 for all that exists conditionally1 to find a ground unconditioned and absolute40 ,it proceeds on the faith that a law determines all phenomena1 which being known1 the phenomena can be predicted4 ,that law1 when in the mind1 is an idea4 ,its beauty is infinite4 ,the true philosopher and the true poet are one1 and a beauty1 which is truth1 and a truth1 which is beauty1 is the aim of both4 ,is not the charm of one of ,plato's or ,aristotle's definitions1 strictly like that of the ,antigone of ,sophocles8 ,it is1 in both cases1 that a spiritual life has been imparted to nature2 that the solid seeming block of matter has been pervaded and dissolved by a thought2 that this feeble human being has penetrated the vast masses of nature with an informing soul1 and recognised itself in their harmony1 that is1 seized their law4 ,in physics1 when this is attained1 the memory disburthens itself of its cumbrous catalogues of particulars1 and carries centuries of observation in a single formula4 ,thus even in physics1 the material is degraded before the spiritual4 ,the astronomer1 the geometer1 rely on their irrefragable analysis1 and disdain the results of observation4 ,the sublime remark of ,euler on his law of arches1 8,this will be found contrary to all experience1 yet is true20 had already transferred nature into the mind1 and left matter like an outcast corpse4 #d4 ,intellectual science has been observed to beget invariably a doubt of the existence of matter4 ,turgot said1 8,he that has never doubted the existence of matter1 may be assured he has no aptitude for metaphysical inquiries40 ,it fastens the attention upon immortal necessary uncreated natures1 that is1 upon ,ideas2 and in their presence1 we feel that the outward circumstance is a dream and a shade4 ,whilst we wait in this ,olympus of gods1 we think of nature as an appendix to the soul4 ,we ascend into their region1 and know that these are the thoughts of the ,supreme ,being4 8,these are they who were set up from everlasting1 from the beginning1 or ever the earth was4 ,when he prepared the heavens1 they were there2 when he established the clouds above1 when he strengthened the fountains of the deep4 ,then they were by him1 as one brought up with him4 ,of them took he counsel40 ,their influence is proportionate4 ,as objects of science1 they are accessible to few men4 ,yet all men are capable of being raised by piety or by passion1 into their region4 ,and no man touches these divine natures1 without becoming1 in some degree1 himself divine4 ,like a new soul1 they renew the body4 ,we become physically nimble and lightsome2 we tread on air2 life is no longer irksome1 and we think it will never be so4 ,no man fears age or misfortune or death1 in their serene company1 for he is transported out of the district of change4 ,whilst we behold unveiled the nature of ,justice and ,truth1 we learn the difference between the absolute and the conditional or relative4 ,we apprehend the absolute4 ,as it were1 for the first time1 we exist4 ,we become immortal1 for we learn that time and space are relations of matter2 that1 with a perception of truth1 or a virtuous will1 they have no affinity4 #e4 ,finally1 religion and ethics1 which may be fitly called1--the practice of ideas1 or the introduction of ideas into life1--have an analogous effect with all lower culture1 in degrading nature and suggesting its dependence on spirit4 ,ethics and religion differ herein2 that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man2 the other1 from ,god4 ,religion includes the personality of ,god2 ,ethics does not4 ,they are one to our present design4 ,they both put nature under foot4 ,the first and last lesson of religion is1 8,the things that are seen1 are temporal2 the things that are unseen1 are eternal40 ,it puts an affront upon nature4 ,it does that for the unschooled1 which philosophy does for ,berkeley and ,viasa4 ,the uniform language that may be heard in the churches of the most ignorant sects1 is1--8,contemn the unsubstantial shows of the world2 they are vanities1 dreams1 shadows1 unrealities2 seek the realities of religion40 ,the devotee flouts nature4 ,some theosophists have arrived at a certain hostility and indignation towards matter1 as the ,manichean and ,plotinus4 ,they distrusted in themselves any looking back to these flesh-pots of ,egypt4 ,plotinus was ashamed of his body4 ,in short1 they might all say of matter1 what ,michael ,angelo said of external beauty1 8it is the frail and weary weed1 in which ,god dresses the soul1 which he has called into time40 ,it appears that motion1 poetry1 physical and intellectual science1 and religion1 all tend to affect our convictions of the reality of the external world4 ,but ,i own there is something ungrateful in expanding too curiously the particulars of the general proposition1 that all culture tends to imbue us with idealism4 ,i have no hostility to nature1 but a child's love to it4 ,i expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons4 ,let us speak her fair4 ,i do not wish to fling stones at my beautiful mother1 nor soil my gentle nest4 ,i only wish to indicate the true position of nature in regard to man1 wherein to establish man1 all right education tends2 as the ground which to attain is the object of human life1 that is1 of man's connection with nature4 ,culture inverts the vulgar views of nature1 and brings the mind to call that apparent1 which it uses to call real1 and that real1 which it uses to call visionary4 ,children1 it is true1 believe in the external world4 ,the belief that it appears only1 is an afterthought1 but with culture1 this faith will as surely arise on the mind as did the first4 ,the advantage of the ideal theory over the popular faith1 is this1 that it presents the world in precisely that view which is most desirable to the mind4 ,it is1 in fact1 the view which ,reason1 both speculative and practical1 that is1 philosophy and virtue1 take4 ,for1 seen in the light of thought1 the world always is phenomenal2 and virtue subordinates it to the mind4 ,idealism sees the world in ,god4 ,it beholds the whole circle of persons and things1 of actions and events1 of country and religion1 not as painfully accumulated1 atom after atom1 act after act1 in an aged creeping ,past1 but as one vast picture1 which ,god paints on the instant eternity1 for the contemplation of the soul4 ,therefore the soul holds itself off from a too trivial and microscopic study of the universal tablet4 ,it respects the end too much1 to immerse itself in the means4 ,it sees something more important in ,christianity1 than the scandals of ecclesiastical history1 or the niceties of criticism2 and1 very incurious concerning persons or miracles1 and not at all disturbed by chasms of historical evidence1 it accepts from ,god the phenomenon1 as it finds it1 as the pure and awful form of religion in the world4 ,it is not hot and passionate at the appearance of what it calls its own good or bad fortune1 at the union or opposition of other persons4 ,no man is its enemy4 ,it accepts whatsoever befalls1 as part of its lesson4 ,it is a watcher more than a doer1 and it is a doer1 only that it may the better watch4 ,,chapter ,,vii4 ,,spirit4 ,it is essential to a true theory of nature and of man1 that it should contain somewhat progressive4 ,uses that are exhausted or that may be1 and facts that end in the statement1 cannot be all that is true of this brave lodging wherein man is harbored1 and wherein all his faculties find appropriate and endless exercise4 ,and all the uses of nature admit of being summed in one1 which yields the activity of man an infinite scope4 ,through all its kingdoms1 to the suburbs and outskirts of things1 it is faithful to the cause whence it had its origin4 ,it always speaks of ,spirit4 ,it suggests the absolute4 ,it is a perpetual effect4 ,it is a great shadow pointing always to the sun behind us4 ,the aspect of nature is devout4 ,like the figure of ,jesus1 she stands with bended head1 and hands folded upon the breast4 ,the happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship4 ,of that ineffable essence which we call ,spirit1 he that thinks most1 will say least4 ,we can foresee ,god in the coarse1 and1 as it were1 distant phenomena of matter2 but when we try to define and describe himself1 both language and thought desert us1 and we are as helpless as fools and savages4 ,that essence refuses to be recorded in propositions1 but when man has worshipped him intellectually1 the noblest ministry of nature is to stand as the apparition of ,god4 ,it is the organ through which the universal spirit speaks to the individual1 and strives to lead back the individual to it4 ,when we consider ,spirit1 we see that the views already presented do not include the whole circumference of man4 ,we must add some related thoughts4 ,three problems are put by nature to the mind2 ,what is matter8 ,whence is it8 and ,whereto8 ,the first of these questions only1 the ideal theory answers4 ,idealism saith3 matter is a phenomenon1 not a substance4 ,idealism acquaints us with the total disparity between the evidence of our own being1 and the evidence of the world's being4 ,the one is perfect2 the other1 incapable of any assurance2 the mind is a part of the nature of things2 the world is a divine dream1 from which we may presently awake to the glories and certainties of day4 ,idealism is a hypothesis to account for nature by other principles than those of carpentry and chemistry4 ,yet1 if it only deny the existence of matter1 it does not satisfy the demands of the spirit4 ,it leaves ,god out of me4 ,it leaves me in the splendid labyrinth of my perceptions1 to wander without end4 ,then the heart resists it1 because it balks the affections in denying substantive being to men and women4 ,nature is so pervaded with human life1 that there is something of humanity in all1 and in every particular4 ,but this theory makes nature foreign to me1 and does not account for that consanguinity which we acknowledge to it4 ,let it stand1 then1 in the present state of our knowledge1 merely as a useful introductory hypothesis1 serving to apprize us of the eternal distinction between the soul and the world4 ,but when1 following the invisible steps of thought1 we come to inquire1 ,whence is matter8 and ,whereto8 many truths arise to us out of the recesses of consciousness4 ,we learn that the highest is present to the soul of man1 that the dread universal essence1 which is not wisdom1 or love1 or beauty1 or power1 but all in one1 and each entirely1 is that for which all things exist1 and that by which they are2 that spirit creates2 that behind nature1 throughout nature1 spirit is present2 one and not compound1 it does not act upon us from without1 that is1 in space and time1 but spiritually1 or through ourselves3 therefore1 that spirit1 that is1 the ,supreme ,being1 does not build up nature around us1 but puts it forth through us1 as the life of the tree puts forth new branches and leaves through the pores of the old4 ,as a plant upon the earth1 so a man rests upon the bosom of ,god2 he is nourished by unfailing fountains1 and draws1 at his need1 inexhaustible power4 ,who can set bounds to the possibilities of man8 ,once inhale the upper air1 being admitted to behold the absolute natures of justice and truth1 and we learn that man has access to the entire mind of the ,creator1 is himself the creator in the finite4 ,this view1 which admonishes me where the sources of wisdom and power lie1 and points to virtue as to 8,the golden key ,which opes the palace of eternity10 carries upon its face the highest certificate of truth1 because it animates me to create my own world through the purification of my soul4 ,the world proceeds from the same spirit as the body of man4 ,it is a remoter and inferior incarnation of ,god1 a projection of ,god in the unconscious4 ,but it differs from the body in one important respect4 ,it is not1 like that1 now subjected to the human will4 ,its serene order is inviolable by us4 ,it is1 therefore1 to us1 the present expositor of the divine mind4 ,it is a fixed point whereby we may measure our departure4 ,as we degenerate1 the contrast between us and our house is more evident4 ,we are as much strangers in nature1 as we are aliens from ,god4 ,we do not understand the notes of birds4 ,the fox and the deer run away from us2 the bear and tiger rend us4 ,we do not know the uses of more than a few plants1 as corn and the apple1 the potato and the vine4 ,is not the landscape1 every glimpse of which hath a grandeur1 a face of him8 ,yet this may show us what discord is between man and nature1 for you cannot freely admire a noble landscape1 if laborers are digging in the field hard by4 ,the poet finds something ridiculous in his delight1 until he is out of the sight of men4 ,,chapter ,,viii4 ,,prospects4 ,in inquiries respecting the laws of the world and the frame of things1 the highest reason is always the truest4 ,that which seems faintly possible--it is so refined1 is often faint and dim because it is deepest seated in the mind among the eternal verities4 ,empirical science is apt to cloud the sight1 and1 by the very knowledge of functions and processes1 to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole4 ,the savant becomes unpoetic4 ,but the best read naturalist who lends an entire and devout attention to truth1 will see that there remains much to learn of his relation to the world1 and that it is not to be learned by any addition or subtraction or other comparison of known quantities1 but is arrived at by untaught sallies of the spirit1 by a continual self-recovery1 and by entire humility4 ,he will perceive that there are far more excellent qualities in the student than preciseness and infallibility2 that a guess is often more fruitful than an indisputable affirmation1 and that a dream may let us deeper into the secret of nature than a hundred concerted experiments4 ,for1 the problems to be solved are precisely those which the physiologist and the naturalist omit to state4 ,it is not so pertinent to man to know all the individuals of the animal kingdom1 as it is to know whence and whereto is this tyrannizing unity in his constitution1 which evermore separates and classifies things1 endeavoring to reduce the most diverse to one form4 ,when ,i behold a rich landscape1 it is less to my purpose to recite correctly the order and superposition of the strata1 than to know why all thought of multitude is lost in a tranquil sense of unity4 ,i cannot greatly honor minuteness in details1 so long as there is no hint to explain the relation between things and thoughts2 no ray upon the metaphysics of conchology1 of botany1 of the arts1 to show the relation of the forms of flowers1 shells1 animals1 architecture1 to the mind1 and build science upon ideas4 ,in a cabinet of natural history1 we become sensible of a certain occult recognition and sympathy in regard to the most unwieldly and eccentric forms of beast1 fish1 and insect4 ,the ,american who has been confined1 in his own country1 to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models1 is surprised on entering ,york ,minster or ,st4 ,peter's at ,rome1 by the feeling that these structures are imitations also1--faint copies of an invisible archetype4 ,nor has science sufficient humanity1 so long as the naturalist overlooks that wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world2 of which he is lord1 not because he is the most subtile inhabitant1 but because he is its head and heart1 and finds something of himself in every great and small thing1 in every mountain stratum1 in every new law of color1 fact of astronomy1 or atmospheric influence which observation or analysis lay open4 ,a perception of this mystery inspires the muse of ,george ,herbert1 the beautiful psalmist of the seventeenth century4 ,the following lines are part of his little poem on ,man4 8,man is all symmetry1 ,full of proportions1 one limb to another1 ,and to all the world besides4 ,each part may call the farthest1 brother2 ,for head with foot hath private amity1 ,and both with moons and tides4 8,nothing hath got so far ,but man hath caught and kept it as his prey2 ,his eyes dismount the highest star2 ,he is in little all the sphere4 ,herbs gladly cure our flesh1 because that they ,find their acquaintance there4 8,for us1 the winds do blow1 ,the earth doth rest1 heaven move1 and fountains flow2 ,nothing we see1 but means our good1 ,as our delight1 or as our treasure2 ,the whole is either our cupboard of food1 ,or cabinet of pleasure4 8,the stars have us to bed3 ,night draws the curtain2 which the sun withdraws4 ,music and light attend our head4 ,all things unto our flesh are kind1 ,in their descent and being2 to our mind1 ,in their ascent and cause4 8,more servants wait on man ,than he'll take notice of4 ,in every path1 ,he treads down that which doth befriend him ,when sickness makes him pale and wan4 ,oh mighty love6 ,man is one world1 and hath ,another to attend him40 ,the perception of this class of truths makes the attraction which draws men to science1 but the end is lost sight of in attention to the means4 ,in view of this half-sight of science1 we accept the sentence of ,plato1 that 8poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history40 ,every surmise and vaticination of the mind is entitled to a certain respect1 and we learn to prefer imperfect theories1 and sentences1 which contain glimpses of truth1 to digested systems which have no one valuable suggestion4 ,a wise writer will feel that the ends of study and composition are best answered by announcing undiscovered regions of thought1 and so communicating1 through hope1 new activity to the torpid spirit4 ,i shall therefore conclude this essay with some traditions of man and nature1 which a certain poet sang to me2 and which1 as they have always been in the world1 and perhaps reappear to every bard1 may be both history and prophecy4 #8,the foundations of man are not in matter1 but in spirit4 ,but the element of spirit is eternity4 ,to it1 therefore1 the longest series of events1 the oldest chronologies are young and recent4 ,in the cycle of the universal man1 from whom the known individuals proceed1 centuries are points1 and all history is but the epoch of one degradation4 #8,we distrust and deny inwardly our sympathy with nature4 ,we own and disown our relation to it1 by turns4 ,we are1 like ,nebuchadnezzar1 dethroned1 bereft of reason1 and eating grass like an ox4 ,but who can set limits to the remedial force of spirit8 #8,a man is a god in ruins4 ,when men are innocent1 life shall be longer1 and shall pass into the immortal1 as gently as we awake from dreams4 ,now1 the world would be insane and rabid1 if these disorganizations should last for hundreds of years4 ,it is kept in check by death and infancy4 ,infancy is the perpetual ,messiah1 which comes into the arms of fallen men1 and pleads with them to return to paradise4 #8,man is the dwarf of himself4 ,once he was permeated and dissolved by spirit4 ,he filled nature with his overflowing currents4 ,out from him sprang the sun and moon2 from man1 the sun2 from woman1 the moon4 ,the laws of his mind1 the periods of his actions externalized themselves into day and night1 into the year and the seasons4 ,but1 having made for himself this huge shell1 his waters retired2 he no longer fills the veins and veinlets2 he is shrunk to a drop4 ,he sees1 that the structure still fits him1 but fits him colossally4 ,say1 rather1 once it fitted him1 now it corresponds to him from far and on high4 ,he adores timidly his own work4 ,now is man the follower of the sun1 and woman the follower of the moon4 ,yet sometimes he starts in his slumber1 and wonders at himself and his house1 and muses strangely at the resemblance betwixt him and it4 ,he perceives that if his law is still paramount1 if still he have elemental power1 if his word is sterling yet in nature1 it is not conscious power1 it is not inferior but superior to his will4 ,it is ,instinct4' ,thus my ,orphic poet sang4 ,at present1 man applies to nature but half his force4 ,he works on the world with his understanding alone4 ,he lives in it1 and masters it by a penny-wisdom2 and he that works most in it1 is but a half-man1 and whilst his arms are strong and his digestion good1 his mind is imbruted1 and he is a selfish savage4 ,his relation to nature1 his power over it1 is through the understanding2 as by manure2 the economic use of fire1 wind1 water1 and the mariner's needle2 steam1 coal1 chemical agriculture2 the repairs of the human body by the dentist and the surgeon4 ,this is such a resumption of power1 as if a banished king should buy his territories inch by inch1 instead of vaulting at once into his throne4 ,meantime1 in the thick darkness1 there are not wanting gleams of a better light1--occasional examples of the action of man upon nature with his entire force1--with reason as well as understanding4 ,such examples are2 the traditions of miracles in the earliest antiquity of all nations2 the history of ,jesus ,christ2 the achievements of a principle1 as in religious and political revolutions1 and in the abolition of the ,slave-trade2 the miracles of enthusiasm1 as those reported of ,swedenborg1 ,hohenlohe1 and the ,shakers2 many obscure and yet contested facts1 now arranged under the name of ,animal ,magnetism2 prayer2 eloquence2 self-healing2 and the wisdom of children4 ,these are examples of ,reason's momentary grasp of the sceptre2 the exertions of a power which exists not in time or space1 but an instantaneous in-streaming causing power4 ,the difference between the actual and the ideal force of man is happily figured by the schoolmen1 in saying1 that the knowledge of man is an evening knowledge1 vespertina cognitio1 but that of ,god is a morning knowledge1 matutina cognitio4 ,the problem of restoring to the world original and eternal beauty1 is solved by the redemption of the soul4 ,the ruin or the blank1 that we see when we look at nature1 is in our own eye4 ,the axis of vision is not coincident with the axis of things1 and so they appear not transparent but opake4 ,the reason why the world lacks unity1 and lies broken and in heaps1 is1 because man is disunited with himself4 ,he cannot be a naturalist1 until he satisfies all the demands of the spirit4 ,love is as much its demand1 as perception4 ,indeed1 neither can be perfect without the other4 ,in the uttermost meaning of the words1 thought is devout1 and devotion is thought4 ,deep calls unto deep4 ,but in actual life1 the marriage is not celebrated4 ,there are innocent men who worship ,god after the tradition of their fathers1 but their sense of duty has not yet extended to the use of all their faculties4 ,and there are patient naturalists1 but they freeze their subject under the wintry light of the understanding4 ,is not prayer also a study of truth1--a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite8 ,no man ever prayed heartily1 without learning something4 ,but when a faithful thinker1 resolute to detach every object from personal relations1 and see it in the light of thought1 shall1 at the same time1 kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections1 then will ,god go forth anew into the creation4 ,it will not need1 when the mind is prepared for study1 to search for objects4 ,the invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common4 ,what is a day8 ,what is a year8 ,what is summer8 ,what is woman8 ,what is a child8 ,what is sleep8 ,to our blindness1 these things seem unaffecting4 ,we make fables to hide the baldness of the fact and conform it1 as we say1 to the higher law of the mind4 ,but when the fact is seen under the light of an idea1 the gaudy fable fades and shrivels4 ,we behold the real higher law4 ,to the wise1 therefore1 a fact is true poetry1 and the most beautiful of fables4 ,these wonders are brought to our own door4 ,you also are a man4 ,man and woman1 and their social life1 poverty1 labor1 sleep1 fear1 fortune1 are known to you4 ,learn that none of these things is superficial1 but that each phenomenon has its roots in the faculties and affections of the mind4 ,whilst the abstract question occupies your intellect1 nature brings it in the concrete to be solved by your hands4 ,it were a wise inquiry for the closet1 to compare1 point by point1 especially at remarkable crises in life1 our daily history1 with the rise and progress of ideas in the mind4 ,so shall we come to look at the world with new eyes4 ,it shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect1--,what is truth8 and of the affections1--,what is good8 by yielding itself passive to the educated ,will4 ,then shall come to pass what my poet said2 #8,nature is not fixed but fluid4 ,spirit alters1 moulds1 makes it4 ,the immobility or bruteness of nature1 is the absence of spirit2 to pure spirit1 it is fluid1 it is volatile1 it is obedient4 ,every spirit builds itself a house2 and beyond its house a world2 and beyond its world1 a heaven4 ,know then1 that the world exists for you4 ,for you is the phenomenon perfect4 ,what we are1 that only can we see4 ,all that ,adam had1 all that ,csar could1 you have and can do4 ,adam called his house1 heaven and earth2 ,csar called his house1 ,rome2 you perhaps call yours1 a cobbler's trade2 a hundred acres of ploughed land2 or a scholar's garret4 ,yet line for line and point for point1 your dominion is as great as theirs1 though without fine names4 ,build1 therefore1 your own world4 ,as fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind1 that will unfold its great proportions4 ,a correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit4 ,so fast will disagreeable appearances1 swine1 spiders1 snakes1 pests1 madhouses1 prisons1 enemies1 vanish2 they are temporary and shall be no more seen4 ,the sordor and filths of nature1 the sun shall dry up1 and the wind exhale4 ,as when the summer comes from the south2 the snow-banks melt1 and the face of the earth becomes green before it1 so shall the advancing spirit create its ornaments along its path1 and carry with it the beauty it visits1 and the song which enchants it2 it shall draw beautiful faces1 warm hearts1 wise discourse1 and heroic acts1 around its way1 until evil is no more seen4 ,the kingdom of man over nature1 which cometh not with observation1--a dominion such as now is beyond his dream of ,god1--he shall enter without more wonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect sight4' ,,the ,,american ,,scholar4 ,,an ,,oration ,,delivered ,,before ,,the ,,phi ,,beta ,,kappa ,,society1 ,,at ,,cambridge1 ,,august #ca1 #ahcg4 ,,the ,,american ,,scholar4 ,,mr4 ,,president ,,and ,,gentlemen1 ,i greet you on the recommencement of our literary year4 ,our anniversary is one of hope1 and1 perhaps1 not enough of labor4 ,we do not meet for games of strength or skill1 for the recitation of histories1 tragedies1 and odes1 like the ancient ,greeks2 for parliaments of love and poesy1 like the ,troubadours2 nor for the advancement of science1 like our contemporaries in the ,british and ,european capitals4 ,thus far1 our holiday has been simply a friendly sign of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy to give to letters any more4 ,as such1 it is precious as the sign of an indestructible instinct4 ,perhaps the time is already come1 when it ought to be1 and will be1 something else2 when the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under its iron lids1 and fill the postponed expectation of the world with something better than the exertions of mechanical skill4 ,our day of dependence1 our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands1 draws to a close4 ,the millions1 that around us are rushing into life1 cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests4 ,events1 actions arise1 that must be sung1 that will sing themselves4 ,who can doubt1 that poetry will revive and lead in a new age1 as the star in the constellation ,harp1 which now flames in our zenith1 astronomers announce1 shall one day be the pole-star for a thousand years8 ,in this hope1 ,i accept the topic which not only usage1 but the nature of our association1 seem to prescribe to this day1--the ,,american ,,scholar4 ,year by year1 we come up hither to read one more chapter of his biography4 ,let us inquire what light new days and events have thrown on his character1 and his hopes4 ,it is one of those fables1 which1 out of an unknown antiquity1 convey an unlooked-for wisdom1 that the gods1 in the beginning1 divided ,man into men1 that he might be more helpful to himself2 just as the hand was divided into fingers1 the better to answer its end4 ,the old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime2 that there is ,one ,man1--present to all particular men only partially1 or through one faculty2 and that you must take the whole society to find the whole man4 ,man is not a farmer1 or a professor1 or an engineer1 but he is all4 ,man is priest1 and scholar1 and statesman1 and producer1 and soldier4 ,in the divided or social state1 these functions are parcelled out to individuals1 each of whom aims to do his stint of the joint work1 whilst each other performs his4 ,the fable implies1 that the individual1 to possess himself1 must sometimes return from his own labor to embrace all the other laborers4 ,but1 unfortunately1 this original unit1 this fountain of power1 has been so distributed to multitudes1 has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out1 that it is spilled into drops1 and cannot be gathered4 ,the state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk1 and strut about so many walking monsters1--a good finger1 a neck1 a stomach1 an elbow1 but never a man4 ,man is thus metamorphosed into a thing1 into many things4 ,the planter1 who is ,man sent out into the field to gather food1 is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry4 ,he sees his bushel and his cart1 and nothing beyond1 and sinks into the farmer1 instead of ,man on the farm4 ,the tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work1 but is ridden by the routine of his craft1 and the soul is subject to dollars4 ,the priest becomes a form2 the attorney1 a statute-book2 the mechanic1 a machine2 the sailor1 a rope of the ship4 ,in this distribution of functions1 the scholar is the delegated intellect4 ,in the right state1 he is1 ,man ,thinking4 ,in the degenerate state1 when the victim of society1 he tends to become a mere thinker1 or1 still worse1 the parrot of other men's thinking4 ,in this view of him1 as ,man ,thinking1 the theory of his office is contained4 ,him nature solicits with all her placid1 all her monitory pictures2 him the past instructs2 him the future invites4 ,is not1 indeed1 every man a student1 and do not all things exist for the student's behoof8 ,and1 finally1 is not the true scholar the only true master8 ,but the old oracle said1 #8,all things have two handles3 beware of the wrong one4' ,in life1 too often1 the scholar errs with mankind and forfeits his privilege4 ,let us see him in his school1 and consider him in reference to the main influences he receives4 ,i4 ,the first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature4 ,every day1 the sun2 and1 after sunset1 night and her stars4 ,ever the winds blow2 ever the grass grows4 ,every day1 men and women1 conversing1 beholding and beholden4 ,the scholar is he of all men whom this spectacle most engages4 ,he must settle its value in his mind4 ,what is nature to him8 ,there is never a beginning1 there is never an end1 to the inexplicable continuity of this web of ,god1 but always circular power returning into itself4 ,therein it resembles his own spirit1 whose beginning1 whose ending1 he never can find1--so entire1 so boundless4 ,far1 too1 as her splendors shine1 system on system shooting like rays1 upward1 downward1 without centre1 without circumference1--in the mass and in the particle1 nature hastens to render account of herself to the mind4 ,classification begins4 ,to the young mind1 every thing is individual1 stands by itself4 ,by and by1 it finds how to join two things1 and see in them one nature2 then three1 then three thousand2 and so1 tyrannized over by its own unifying instinct1 it goes on tying things together1 diminishing anomalies1 discovering roots running under ground1 whereby contrary and remote things cohere1 and flower out from one stem4 ,it presently learns1 that1 since the dawn of history1 there has been a constant accumulation and classifying of facts4 ,but what is classification but the perceiving that these objects are not chaotic1 and are not foreign1 but have a law which is also a law of the human mind8 ,the astronomer discovers that geometry1 a pure abstraction of the human mind1 is the measure of planetary motion4 ,the chemist finds proportions and intelligible method throughout matter2 and science is nothing but the finding of analogy1 identity1 in the most remote parts4 ,the ambitious soul sits down before each refractory fact2 one after another1 reduces all strange constitutions1 all new powers1 to their class and their law1 and goes on for ever to animate the last fibre of organization1 the outskirts of nature1 by insight4 ,thus to him1 to this school-boy under the bending dome of day1 is suggested1 that he and it proceed from one root2 one is leaf and one is flower2 relation1 sympathy1 stiring in every vein4 ,and what is that root8 ,is not that the soul of his soul8--,a thought too bold1--a dream too wild4 ,yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of more earthly natures1--when he has learned to worship the soul1 and to see that the natural philosophy that now is1 is only the first gropings of its gigantic hand1 he shall look forward to an ever expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator4 ,he shall see1 that nature is the opposite of the soul1 answering to it part for part4 ,one is seal1 and one is print4 ,its beauty is the beauty of his own mind4 ,its laws are the laws of his own mind4 ,nature then becomes to him the measure of his attainments4 ,so much of nature as he is ignorant of1 so much of his own mind does he not yet possess4 ,and1 in fine1 the ancient precept1 8,know thyself10 and the modern precept1 8,study nature10 become at last one maxim4 ,,ii4 ,the next great influence into the spirit of the scholar1 is1 the mind of the ,past1--in whatever form1 whether of literature1 of art1 of institutions1 that mind is inscribed4 ,books are the best type of the influence of the past1 and perhaps we shall get at the truth1--learn the amount of this influence more conveniently1--by considering their value alone4 ,the theory of books is noble4 ,the scholar of the first age received into him the world around2 brooded thereon2 gave it the new arrangement of his own mind1 and uttered it again4 ,it came into him1 life2 it went out from him1 truth4 ,it came to him1 short-lived actions2 it went out from him1 immortal thoughts4 ,it came to him1 business2 it went from him1 poetry4 ,it was dead fact2 now1 it is quick thought4 ,it can stand1 and it can go4 ,it now endures1 it now flies1 it now inspires4 ,precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which it issued1 so high does it soar1 so long does it sing4 ,or1 ,i might say1 it depends on how far the process had gone1 of transmuting life into truth4 ,in proportion to the completeness of the distillation1 so will the purity and imperishableness of the product be4 ,but none is quite perfect4 ,as no air-pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum1 so neither can any artist entirely exclude the conventional1 the local1 the perishable from his book1 or write a book of pure thought1 that shall be as efficient1 in all respects1 to a remote posterity1 as to cotemporaries1 or rather to the second age4 ,each age1 it is found1 must write its own books2 or rather1 each generation for the next succeeding4 ,the books of an older period will not fit this4 ,yet hence arises a grave mischief4 ,the sacredness which attaches to the act of creation1--the act of thought1--is transferred to the record4 ,the poet chanting1 was felt to be a divine man3 henceforth the chant is divine also4 ,the writer was a just and wise spirit3 henceforward it is settled1 the book is perfect2 as love of the hero corrupts into worship of his statue4 ,instantly1 the book becomes noxious3 the guide is a tyrant4 ,the sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude1 slow to open to the incursions of ,reason1 having once so opened1 having once received this book1 stands upon it1 and makes an outcry1 if it is disparaged4 ,colleges are built on it4 ,books are written on it by thinkers1 not by ,man ,thinking2 by men of talent1 that is1 who start wrong1 who set out from accepted dogmas1 not from their own sight of principles4 ,meek young men grow up in libraries1 believing it their duty to accept the views1 which ,cicero1 which ,locke1 which ,bacon1 have given2 forgetful that ,cicero1 ,locke1 and ,bacon were only young men in libraries1 when they wrote these books4 ,hence1 instead of ,man ,thinking1 we have the bookworm4 ,hence1 the book-learned class1 who value books1 as such2 not as related to nature and the human constitution1 but as making a sort of ,third ,estate with the world and the soul4 ,hence1 the restorers of readings1 the emendators1 the bibliomaniacs of all degrees4 ,books are the best of things1 well used2 abused1 among the worst4 ,what is the right use8 ,what is the one end1 which all means go to effect8 ,they are for nothing but to inspire4 ,i had better never see a book1 than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit1 and made a satellite instead of a system4 ,the one thing in the world1 of value1 is the active soul4 ,this every man is entitled to2 this every man contains within him1 although1 in almost all men1 obstructed1 and as yet unborn4 ,the soul active sees absolute truth2 and utters truth1 or creates4 ,in this action1 it is genius2 not the privilege of here and there a favorite1 but the sound estate of every man4 ,in its essence1 it is progressive4 ,the book1 the college1 the school of art1 the institution of any kind1 stop with some past utterance of genius4 ,this is good1 say they1--let us hold by this4 ,they pin me down4 ,they look backward and not forward4 ,but genius looks forward3 the eyes of man are set in his forehead1 not in his hindhead3 man hopes3 genius creates4 ,whatever talents may be1 if the man create not1 the pure efflux of the ,deity is not his2--cinders and smoke there may be1 but not yet flame4 ,there are creative manners1 there are creative actions1 and creative words2 manners1 actions1 words1 that is1 indicative of no custom or authority1 but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good and fair4 ,on the other part1 instead of being its own seer1 let it receive from another mind its truth1 though it were in torrents of light1 without periods of solitude1 inquest1 and self-recovery1 and a fatal disservice is done4 ,genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over-influence4 ,the literature of every nation bear me witness4 ,the ,english dramatic poets have ,shakspearized now for two hundred years4 ,undoubtedly there is a right way of reading1 so it be sternly subordinated4 ,man ,thinking must not be subdued by his instruments4 ,books are for the scholar's idle times4 ,when he can read ,god directly1 the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings4 ,but when the intervals of darkness come1 as come they must1--when the sun is hid1 and the stars withdraw their shining1--we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray1 to guide our steps to the ,east again1 where the dawn is4 ,we hear1 that we may speak4 ,the ,arabian proverb says1 8,a fig tree1 looking on a fig tree1 becometh fruitful40 ,it is remarkable1 the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books4 ,they impress us with the conviction1 that one nature wrote and the same reads4 ,we read the verses of one of the great ,english poets1 of ,chaucer1 of ,marvell1 of ,dryden1 with the most modern joy1--with a pleasure1 ,i mean1 which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their verses4 ,there is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise1 when this poet1 who lived in some past world1 two or three hundred years ago1 says that which lies close to my own soul1 that which ,i also had wellnigh thought and said4 ,but for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical doctrine of the identity of all minds1 we should suppose some prestablished harmony1 some foresight of souls that were to be1 and some preparation of stores for their future wants1 like the fact observed in insects1 who lay up food before death for the young grub they shall never see4 ,i would not be hurried by any love of system1 by any exaggeration of instincts1 to underrate the ,book4 ,we all know1 that1 as the human body can be nourished on any food1 though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes1 so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge4 ,and great and heroic men have existed1 who had almost no other information than by the printed page4 ,i only would say1 that it needs a strong head to bear that diet4 ,one must be an inventor to read well4 ,as the proverb says1 8,he that would bring home the wealth of the ,indies1 must carry out the wealth of the ,indies40 ,there is then creative reading as well as creative writing4 ,when the mind is braced by labor and invention1 the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion4 ,every sentence is doubly significant1 and the sense of our author is as broad as the world4 ,we then see1 what is always true1 that1 as the seer's hour of vision is short and rare among heavy days and months1 so is its record1 perchance1 the least part of his volume4 ,the discerning will read1 in his ,plato or ,shakspeare1 only that least part1--only the authentic utterances of the oracle2--all the rest he rejects1 were it never so many times ,plato's and ,shakspeare's4 ,of course1 there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise man4 ,history and exact science he must learn by laborious reading4 ,colleges1 in like manner1 have their indispensable office1--to teach elements4 ,but they can only highly serve us1 when they aim not to drill1 but to create2 when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls1 and1 by the concentrated fires1 set the hearts of their youth on flame4 ,thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing4 ,gowns1 and pecuniary foundations1 though of towns of gold1 can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit4 ,forget this1 and our ,american colleges will recede in their public importance1 whilst they grow richer every year4 ,,iii4 ,there goes in the world a notion1 that the scholar should be a recluse1 a valetudinarian1--as unfit for any handiwork or public labor1 as a penknife for an axe4 ,the so-called #8practical men' sneer at speculative men1 as if1 because they speculate or see1 they could do nothing4 ,i have heard it said that the clergy1--who are always1 more universally than any other class1 the scholars of their day1--are addressed as women2 that the rough1 spontaneous conversation of men they do not hear1 but only a mincing and diluted speech4 ,they are often virtually disfranchised2 and1 indeed1 there are advocates for their celibacy4 ,as far as this is true of the studious classes1 it is not just and wise4 ,action is with the scholar subordinate1 but it is essential4 ,without it1 he is not yet man4 ,without it1 thought can never ripen into truth4 ,whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of beauty1 we cannot even see its beauty4 ,inaction is cowardice1 but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind4 ,the preamble of thought1 the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious1 is action4 ,only so much do ,i know1 as ,i have lived4 ,instantly we know whose words are loaded with life1 and whose not4 ,the world1--this shadow of the soul1 or other me1 lies wide around4 ,its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself4 ,i run eagerly into this resounding tumult4 ,i grasp the hands of those next me1 and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work1 taught by an instinct1 that so shall the dumb abyss be vocal with speech4 ,i pierce its order2 ,i dissipate its fear2 ,i dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life4 ,so much only of life as ,i know by experience1 so much of the wilderness have ,i vanquished and planted1 or so far have ,i extended my being1 my dominion4 ,i do not see how any man can afford1 for the sake of his nerves and his nap1 to spare any action in which he can partake4 ,it is pearls and rubies to his discourse4 ,drudgery1 calamity1 exasperation1 want1 are instructors in eloquence and wisdom4 ,the true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by1 as a loss of power4 ,it is the raw material out of which the intellect moulds her splendid products4 ,a strange process too1 this1 by which experience is converted into thought1 as a mulberry leaf is converted into satin4 ,the manufacture goes forward at all hours4 ,the actions and events of our childhood and youth1 are now matters of calmest observation4 ,they lie like fair pictures in the air4 ,not so with our recent actions1--with the business which we now have in hand4 ,on this we are quite unable to speculate4 ,our affections as yet circulate through it4 ,we no more feel or know it1 than we feel the feet1 or the hand1 or the brain of our body4 ,the new deed is yet a part of life1--remains for a time immersed in our unconscious life4 ,in some contemplative hour1 it detaches itself from the life like a ripe fruit1 to become a thought of the mind4 ,instantly1 it is raised1 transfigured2 the corruptible has put on incorruption4 ,henceforth it is an object of beauty1 however base its origin and neighborhood4 ,observe1 too1 the impossibility of antedating this act4 ,in its grub state1 it cannot fly1 it cannot shine1 it is a dull grub4 ,but suddenly1 without observation1 the selfsame thing unfurls beautiful wings1 and is an angel of wisdom4 ,so is there no fact1 no event1 in our private history1 which shall not1 sooner or later1 lose its adhesive1 inert form1 and astonish us by soaring from our body into the empyrean4 ,cradle and infancy1 school and playground1 the fear of boys1 and dogs1 and ferules1 the love of little maids and berries1 and many another fact that once filled the whole sky1 are gone already2 friend and relative1 profession and party1 town and country1 nation and world1 must also soar and sing4 ,of course1 he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions1 has the richest return of wisdom4 ,i will not shut myself out of this globe of action1 and transplant an oak into a flower-pot1 there to hunger and pine2 nor trust the revenue of some single faculty1 and exhaust one vein of thought1 much like those ,savoyards1 who1 getting their livelihood by carving shepherds1 shepherdesses1 and smoking ,dutchmen1 for all ,europe1 went out one day to the mountain to find stock1 and discovered that they had whittled up the last of their pine-trees4 ,authors we have1 in numbers1 who have written out their vein1 and who1 moved by a commendable prudence1 sail for ,greece or ,palestine1 follow the trapper into the prairie1 or ramble round ,algiers1 to replenish their merchantable stock4 ,if it were only for a vocabulary1 the scholar would be covetous of action4 ,life is our dictionary4 ,years are well spent in country labors2 in town1--in the insight into trades and manufactures2 in frank intercourse with many men and women2 in science2 in art2 to the one end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate and embody our perceptions4 ,i learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived1 through the poverty or the splendor of his speech4 ,life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of to-day4 ,this is the way to learn grammar4 ,colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the workyard made4 ,but the final value of action1 like that of books1 and better than books1 is1 that it is a resource4 ,that great principle of ,undulation in nature1 that shows itself in the inspiring and expiring of the breath2 in desire and satiety2 in the ebb and flow of the sea2 in day and night2 in heat and cold2 and as yet more deeply ingrained in every atom and every fluid1 is known to us under the name of ,polarity1--these 8fits of easy transmission and reflection10 as ,newton called them1 are the law of nature because they are the law of spirit4 ,the mind now thinks2 now acts2 and each fit reproduces the other4 ,when the artist has exhausted his materials1 when the fancy no longer paints1 when thoughts are no longer apprehended1 and books are a weariness1--he has always the resource to live4 ,character is higher than intellect4 ,thinking is the function4 ,living is the functionary4 ,the stream retreats to its source4 ,a great soul will be strong to live1 as well as strong to think4 ,does he lack organ or medium to impart his truth8 ,he can still fall back on this elemental force of living them4 ,this is a total act4 ,thinking is a partial act4 ,let the grandeur of justice shine in his affairs4 ,let the beauty of affection cheer his lowly roof4 ,those #8far from fame1' who dwell and act with him1 will feel the force of his constitution in the doings and passages of the day better than it can be measured by any public and designed display4 ,time shall teach him1 that the scholar loses no hour which the man lives4 ,herein he unfolds the sacred germ of his instinct1 screened from influence4 ,what is lost in seemliness is gained in strength4 ,not out of those1 on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture1 comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new1 but out of unhandselled savage nature1 out of terrible ,druids and ,berserkirs1 come at last ,alfred and ,skakspeare4 ,i hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen4 ,there is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade1 for learned as well as for unlearned hands4 ,and labor is everywhere welcome2 always we are invited to work2 only be this limitation observed1 that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i have now spoken of the education of the scholar by nature1 by books1 and by action4 ,it remains to say somewhat of his duties4 ,they are such as become ,man ,thinking4 ,they may all be comprised in self-trust4 ,the office of the scholar is to cheer1 to raise1 and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances4 ,he plies the slow1 unhonored1 and unpaid task of observation4 ,flamsteed and ,herschel1 in their glazed observatories1 may catalogue the stars with the praise of all men1 and1 the results being splendid and useful1 honor is sure4 ,but he1 in his private observatory1 cataloguing obscure and nebulous stars of the human mind1 which as yet no man has thought of as such1--watching days and months1 sometimes1 for a few facts2 correcting still his old records2--must relinquish display and immediate fame4 ,in the long period of his preparation1 he must betray often an ignorance and shiftlessness in popular arts1 incurring the disdain of the able who shoulder him aside4 ,long he must stammer in his speech2 often forego the living for the dead4 ,worse yet1 he must accept1--how often6 poverty and solitude4 ,for the ease and pleasure of treading the old road1 accepting the fashions1 the education1 the religion of society1 he takes the cross of making his own1 and1 of course1 the self-accusation1 the faint heart1 the frequent uncertainty and loss of time1 which are the nettles and tangling vines in the way of the self-relying and self-directed2 and the state of virtual hostility in which he seems to stand to society1 and especially to educated society4 ,for all this loss and scorn1 what offset8 ,he is to find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature4 ,he is one1 who raises himself from private considerations1 and breathes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts4 ,he is the world's eye4 ,he is the world's heart4 ,he is to resist the vulgar prosperity that retrogrades ever to barbarism1 by preserving and communicating heroic sentiments1 noble biographies1 melodious verse1 and the conclusions of history4 ,whatsoever oracles the human heart1 in all emergencies1 in all solemn hours1 has uttered as its commentary on the world of actions1--these he shall receive and impart4 ,and whatsoever new verdict ,reason from her inviolable seat pronounces on the passing men and events of to-day1--this he shall hear and promulgate4 ,these being his functions1 it becomes him to feel all confidence in himself1 and to defer never to the popular cry4 ,he and he only knows the world4 ,the world of any moment is the merest appearance4 ,some great decorum1 some fetish of a government1 some ephemeral trade1 or war1 or man1 is cried up by half mankind and cried down by the other half1 as if all depended on this particular up or down4 ,the odds are that the whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the scholar has lost in listening to the controversy4 ,let him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun1 though the ancient and honorable of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom4 ,in silence1 in steadiness1 in severe abstraction1 let him hold by himself2 add observation to observation1 patient of neglect1 patient of reproach2 and bide his own time1--happy enough1 if he can satisfy himself alone1 that this day he has seen something truly4 ,succcess treads on every right step4 ,for the instinct is sure1 that prompts him to tell his brother what he thinks4 ,he then learns1 that in going down into the secrets of his own mind1 he has descended into the secrets of all minds4 ,he learns that he who has mastered any law in his private thoughts1 is master to that extent of all men whose language he speaks1 and of all into whose language his own can be translated4 ,the poet1 in utter solitude remembering his spontaneous thoughts and recording them1 is found to have recorded that1 which men in crowded cities find true for them also4 ,the orator distrusts at first the fitness of his frank confessions1--his want of knowledge of the persons he addresses1--until he finds that he is the compliment of his hearers2--that they drink his words because he fulfils for them their own nature2 the deeper he dives into his privatest1 secretest presentiment1 to his wonder he finds1 this is the most acceptable1 most public1 and universally true4 ,the people delight in it2 the better part of every man feels1 ,this is my music2 this is myself4 ,in self-trust1 all the virtues are comprehended4 ,free should the scholar be1--free and brave4 ,free even to the definition of freedom1 8without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own constitution40 ,brave2 for fear is a thing1 which a scholar by his very function puts behind him4 ,fear always springs from ignorance4 ,it is a shame to him if his tranquillity1 amid1 dangerous times1 arise from the presumption1 that1 like children and women1 his is a protected class2 or if he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from politics or vexed questions1 hiding his head like an ostrich in the flowering bushes1 peeping into microscopes1 and turning rhymes1 as a boy whistles to keep his courage up4 ,so is the danger a danger still2 so is the fear worse4 ,manlike let him turn and face it4 ,let him look into its eye and search its nature1 inspect its origin1--see the whelping of this lion1--which lies no great way back2 he will then find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent2 he will have made his hands meet on the other side1 and can henceforth defy it1 and pass on superior4 ,the world is his1 who can see through its pretension4 ,what deafness1 what stone-blind custom1 what overgrown error you behold1 is there only by sufferance1--by your sufferance4 ,see it to be a lie1 and you have already dealt it its mortal blow4 ,yes1 we are the cowed1--we the trustless4 ,it is a mischievous notion that we are come late into nature2 that the world was finished a long time ago4 ,as the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of ,god1 so it is ever to so much of his attributes as we bring to it4 ,to ignorance and sin1 it is flint4 ,they adapt themselves to it as they may2 but in proportion as a man has any thing in him divine1 the firmament flows before him and takes his signet and form4 ,not he is great who can alter matter1 but he who can alter my state of mind4 ,they are the kings of the world who give the color of their present thought to all nature and all art1 and persuade men by the cheerful serenity of their carrying the matter1 that this thing which they do1 is the apple which the ages have desired to pluck1 now at last ripe1 and inviting nations to the harvest4 ,the great man makes the great thing4 ,wherever ,macdonald sits1 there is the head of the table4 ,linnus makes botany the most alluring of studies1 and wins it from the farmer and the herb-woman2 ,davy1 chemistry2 and ,cuvier1 fossils4 ,the day is always his1 who works in it with serenity and great aims4 ,the unstable estimates of men crowd to him whose mind is filled with a truth1 as the heaped waves of the ,atlantic follow the moon4 ,for this self-trust1 the reason is deeper than can be fathomed1--darker than can be enlightened4 ,i might not carry with me the feeling of my audience in stating my own belief4 ,but ,i have already shown the ground of my hope1 in adverting to the doctrine that man is one4 ,i believe man has been wronged2 he has wronged himself4 ,he has almost lost the light1 that can lead him back to his prerogatives4 ,men are become of no account4 ,men in history1 men in the world of to-day are bugs1 are spawn1 and are called #8the mass' and #8the herd4' ,in a century1 in a millennium1 one or two men2 that is to say1--one or two approximations to the right state of every man4 ,all the rest behold in the hero or the poet their own green and crude being1--ripened2 yes1 and are content to be less1 so that may attain to its full stature4 ,what a testimony1--full of grandeur1 full of pity1 is borne to the demands of his own nature1 by the poor clansman1 the poor partisan1 who rejoices in the glory of his chief4 ,the poor and the low find some amends to their immense moral capacity1 for their acquiescence in a political and social inferiority4 ,they are content to be brushed like flies from the path of a great person1 so that justice shall be done by him to that common nature which it is the dearest desire of all to see enlarged and glorified4 ,they sun themselves in the great man's light1 and feel it to be their own element4 ,they cast the dignity of man from their downtrod selves upon the shoulders of a hero1 and will perish to add one drop of blood to make that great heart beat1 those giant sinews combat and conquer4 ,he lives for us1 and we live in him4 ,men such as they are1 very naturally seek money or power2 and power because it is as good as money1--the 8spoils10 so called1 8of office40 ,and why not8 for they aspire to the highest1 and this1 in their sleep-walking1 they dream is highest4 ,wake them1 and they shall quit the false good1 and leap to the true1 and leave governments to clerks and desks4 ,this revolution is to be wrought by the gradual domestication of the idea of ,culture4 ,the main enterprise of the world for splendor1 for extent1 is the upbuilding of a man4 ,here are the materials strown along the ground4 ,the private life of one man shall be a more illustrious monarchy1--more formidable to its enemy1 more sweet and serene in its influence to its friend1 than any kingdom in history4 ,for a man1 rightly viewed1 comprehendeth the particular natures of all men4 ,each philosopher1 each bard1 each actor1 has only done for me1 as by a delegate1 what one day ,i can do for myself4 ,the books which once we valued more than the apple of the eye1 we have quite exhausted4 ,what is that but saying1 that we have come up with the point of view which the universal mind took through the eyes of one scribe2 we have been that man1 and have passed on4 ,first1 one2 then1 another2 we drain all cisterns1 and1 waxing greater by all these supplies1 we crave a better and more abundant food4 ,the man has never lived that can feed us ever4 ,the human mind cannot be enshrined in a person1 who shall set a barrier on any one side to this unbounded1 unboundable empire4 ,it is one central fire1 which1 flaming now out of the lips of ,etna1 lightens the capes of ,sicily2 and1 now out of the throat of ,vesuvius1 illuminates the towers and vineyards of ,naples4 ,it is one light which beams out of a thousand stars4 ,it is one soul which animates all men4 99 99 99 99 99 ,but ,i have dwelt perhaps tediously upon this abstraction of the ,scholar4 ,i ought not to delay longer to add what ,i have to say1 of nearer reference to the time and to this country4 ,historically1 there is thought to be a difference in the ideas which predominate over successive epochs1 and there are data for marking the genius of the ,classic1 of the ,romantic1 and now of the ,reflective or ,philosophical age4 ,with the views ,i have intimated of the oneness or the identity of the mind through all individuals1 ,i do not much dwell on these differences4 ,in fact1 ,i believe each individual passes through all three4 ,the boy is a ,greek2 the youth1 romantic2 the adult1 reflective4 ,i deny not1 however1 that a revolution in the leading idea may be distinctly enough traced4 ,our age is bewailed as the age of ,introversion4 ,must that needs be evil8 ,we1 it seems1 are critical2 we are embarrassed with second thoughts2 we cannot enjoy any thing for hankering to know whereof the pleasure consists2 we are lined with eyes2 we see with our feet2 the time is infected with ,hamlet's unhappiness1-- 8,sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought40 ,it is so bad then8 ,sight is the last thing to be pitied4 ,would we be blind8 ,do we fear lest we should outsee nature and ,god1 and drink truth dry8 ,i look upon the discontent of the literary class1 as a mere announcement of the fact1 that they find themselves not in the state of mind of their fathers1 and regret the coming state as untried2 as a boy dreads the water before he has learned that he can swim4 ,if there is any period one would desire to be born in1--is it not the age of ,revolution2 when the old and the new stand side by side1 and admit of being compared2 when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope2 when the historic glories of the old1 can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era8 ,this time1 like all times1 is a very good one1 if we but know what to do with it4 ,i read with some joy of the auspicious signs of the coming days1 as they glimmer already through poetry and art1 through philosophy and science1 through church and state4 ,one of these signs is the fact1 that the same movement which effected the elevation of what was called the lowest class in the state1 assumed in literature a very marked and as benign an aspect4 ,instead of the sublime and beautiful2 the near1 the low1 the common1 was explored and poetized4 ,that1 which had been negligently trodden under foot by those who were harnessing and provisioning themselves for long journeys into far countries1 is suddenly found to be richer than all foreign parts4 ,the literature of the poor1 the feelings of the child1 the philosophy of the street1 the meaning of household life1 are the topics of the time4 ,it is a great stride4 ,it is a sign1--is it not8 of new vigor1 when the extremities are made active1 when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet4 ,i ask not for the great1 the remote1 the romantic2 what is doing in ,italy or ,arabia2 what is ,greek art1 or ,provenal minstrelsy2 ,i embrace the common1 ,i explore and sit at the feet of the familiar1 the low4 ,give me insight into to-day1 and you may have the antique and future worlds4 ,what would we really know the meaning of8 ,the meal in the firkin2 the milk in the pan2 the ballad in the street2 the news of the boat2 the glance of the eye2 the form and the gait of the body2--show me the ultimate reason of these matters2 show me the sublime presence of the highest spiritual cause lurking1 as always it does lurk1 in these surburbs and extremities of nature2 let me see every trifle bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal law2 and the shop1 the plough1 and the leger1 referred to the like cause by which light undulates and poets sing2--and the world lies no longer a dull miscellany and lumber-room1 but has form and order2 there is no trifle2 there is no puzzle2 but one design unites and animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench4 ,this idea has inspired the genius of ,goldsmith1 ,burns1 ,cowper1 and1 in a newer time1 of ,goethe1 ,wordsworth1 and ,carlyle4 ,this idea they have differently followed and with various success4 ,in contrast with their writing1 the style of ,pope1 of ,johnson1 of ,gibbon1 looks cold and pedantic4 ,this writing is blood-warm4 ,man is surprised to find that things near are not less beautiful and wondrous than things remote4 ,the near explains the far4 ,the drop is a small ocean4 ,a man is related to all nature4 ,this perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries4 ,goethe1 in this very thing the most modern of the moderns1 has shown us1 as none ever did1 the genius of the ancients4 ,there is one man of genius1 who has done much for this philosophy of life1 whose literary value has never yet been rightly estimated2--,i mean ,emanuel ,swedenborg4 ,the most imaginative of men1 yet writing with the precision of a mathematician1 he endeavored to engraft a purely philosophical ,ethics on the popular ,christianity of his time4 ,such an attempt1 of course1 must have difficulty1 which no genius could surmount4 ,but he saw and showed the connection between nature and the affections of the soul4 ,he pierced the emblematic or spiritual character of the visible1 audible1 tangible world4 ,especially did his shade-loving muse hover over and interpret the lower parts of nature2 he showed the mysterious bond that allies moral evil to the foul material forms1 and has given in epical parables a theory of insanity1 of beasts1 of unclean and fearful things4 ,another sign of our times1 also marked by an analogous political movement1 is1 the new importance given to the single person4 ,every thing that tends to insulate the individual1--to surround him with barriers of natural respect1 so that each man shall feel the world is his1 and man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign state2--tends to true union as well as greatness4 8,i learned10 said the melancholy ,pestalozzi1 8that no man in ,god's wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man40 ,help must come from the bosom alone4 ,the scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time1 all the contributions of the past1 all the hopes of the future4 ,he must be an university of knowledges4 ,if there be one lesson more than another1 which should pierce his ear1 it is1 ,the world is nothing1 the man is all2 in yourself is the law of all nature1 and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends2 in yourself slumbers the whole of ,reason2 it is for you to know all1 it is for you to dare all4 ,mr4 ,president and ,gentlemen1 this confidence in the unsearched might of man belongs1 by all motives1 by all prophecy1 by all preparation1 to the ,american ,scholar4 ,we have listened too long to the courtly muses of ,europe4 ,the spirit of the ,american freeman is already suspected to be timid1 imitative1 tame4 ,public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat4 ,the scholar is decent1 indolent1 complaisant4 ,see already the tragic consequence4 ,the mind of this country1 taught to aim at low objects1 eats upon itself4 ,there is no work for any but the decorous and the complaisant4 ,young men of the fairest promise1 who begin life upon our shores1 inflated by the mountain winds1 shined upon by all the stars of ,god1 find the earth below not in unison with these1--but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire1 and turn drudges1 or die of disgust1--some of them suicides4 ,what is the remedy8 ,they did not yet see1 and thousands of young men as hopeful now crowding to the barriers for the career1 do not yet see1 that1 if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts1 and there abide1 the huge world will come round to him4 ,patience1--patience2--with the shades of all the good and great for company2 and for solace1 the perspective of your own infinite life2 and for work1 the study and the communication of principles1 the making those instincts prevalent1 the conversation of the world4 ,is it not the chief disgrace in the world1 not to be an unit2--not to be reckoned one character2--not to yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear1 but to be reckoned in the gross1 in the hundred1 or the thousand1 of the party1 the section1 to which we belong2 and our opinion predicted geographically1 as the north1 or the south8 ,not so1 brothers and friends1--please ,god1 ours shall not be so4 ,we will walk on our own feet2 we will work with our own hands2 we will speak our own minds4 ,the study of letters shall be no longer a name for pity1 for doubt1 and for sensual indulgence4 ,the dread of man and the love of man shall be a wall of defence and a wreath of joy around all4 ,a nation of men will for the first time exist1 because each believes himself inspired by the ,divine ,soul which also inspires all men4 ,,an ,,address ,,delivered ,,before ,,the ,,senior ,,class ,,in ,,divinity ,,college1 ,,cambridge1 ,,sunday ,,evening1 ,,july #ae1 #ahch4 ,,address4 ,in this refulgent summer1 it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life4 ,the grass grows1 the buds burst1 the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers4 ,the air is full of birds1 and sweet with the breath of the pine1 the balm-of-,gilead1 and the new hay4 ,night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade4 ,through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays4 ,man under them seems a young child1 and his huge globe a toy4 ,the cool night bathes the world as with a river1 and prepares his eyes again for the crimson dawn4 ,the mystery of nature was never displayed more happily4 ,the corn and the wine have been freely dealt to all creatures1 and the never-broken silence with which the old bounty goes forward1 has not yielded yet one word of explanation4 ,one is constrained to respect the perfection of this world1 in which our senses converse4 ,how wide2 how rich2 what invitation from every property it gives to every faculty of man6 ,in its fruitful soils2 in its navigable sea2 in its mountains of metal and stone2 in its forests of all woods2 in its animals2 in its chemical ingredients2 in the powers and path of light1 heat1 attraction1 and life1 it is well worth the pith and heart of great men to subdue and enjoy it4 ,the planters1 the mechanics1 the inventors1 the astronomers1 the builders of cities1 and the captains1 history delights to honor4 ,but when the mind opens1 and reveals the laws which traverse the universe1 and make things what they are1 then shrinks the great world at once into a mere illustration and fable of this mind4 ,what am ,i8 and ,what is8 asks the human spirit with a curiosity new-kindled1 but never to be quenched4 ,behold these outrunning laws1 which our imperfect apprehension can see tend this way and that1 but not come full circle4 ,behold these infinite relations1 so like1 so unlike2 many1 yet one4 ,i would study1 ,i would know1 ,i would admire forever4 ,these works of thought have been the entertainments of the human spirit in all ages4 ,a more secret1 sweet1 and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue4 ,then he is instructed in what is above him4 ,he learns that his being is without bound2 that1 to the good1 to the perfect1 he is born1 low as he now lies in evil and weakness4 ,that which he venerates is still his own1 though he has not realized it yet4 ,he ought4 ,he knows the sense of that grand word1 though his analysis fails to render account of it4 ,when in innocency1 or when by intellectual perception1 he attains to say1--#8,i love the ,right2 ,truth is beautiful within and without forevermore4 ,virtue1 ,i am thine3 save me3 use me3 thee will ,i serve1 day and night1 in great1 in small1 that ,i may be not virtuous1 but virtue2'--then is the end of the creation answered1 and ,god is well pleased4 ,the sentiment of virtue is a reverence and delight in the presence of certain divine laws4 ,it perceives that this homely game of life we play1 covers1 under what seem foolish details1 principles that astonish4 ,the child amidst his baubles1 is learning the action of light1 motion1 gravity1 muscular force2 and in the game of human life1 love1 fear1 justice1 appetite1 man1 and ,god1 interact4 ,these laws refuse to be adequately stated4 ,they will not be written out on paper1 or spoken by the tongue4 ,they elude our persevering thought2 yet we read them hourly in each other's faces1 in each other's actions1 in our own remorse4 ,the moral traits which are all globed into every virtuous act and thought1--in speech1 we must sever1 and describe or suggest by painful enumeration of many particulars4 ,yet1 as this sentiment is the essence of all religion1 let me guide your eye to the precise objects of the sentiment1 by an enumeration of some of those classes of facts in which this element is conspicuous4 ,the intuition of the moral sentiment is an insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul4 ,these laws execute themselves4 ,they are out of time1 out of space1 and not subject to circumstance4 ,thus2 in the soul of man there is a justice whose retributions are instant and entire4 ,he who does a good deed1 is instantly ennobled4 ,he who does a mean deed1 is by the action itself contracted4 ,he who puts off impurity1 thereby puts on purity4 ,if a man is at heart just1 then in so far is he ,god2 the safety of ,god1 the immortality of ,god1 the majesty of ,god do enter into that man with justice4 ,if a man dissemble1 deceive1 he deceives himself1 and goes out of acquaintance with his own being4 ,a man in the view of absolute goodness1 adores1 with total humanity4 ,every step so downward1 is a step upward4 ,the man who renounces himself1 comes to himself4 ,see how this rapid intrinsic energy worketh everywhere1 righting wrongs1 correcting appearances1 and bringing up facts to a harmony with thoughts4 ,its operation in life1 though slow to the senses1 is1 at last1 as sure as in the soul4 ,by it1 a man is made the ,providence to himself1 dispensing good to his goodness1 and evil to his sin4 ,character is always known4 ,thefts never enrich2 alms never impoverish2 murder will speak out of stone walls4 ,the least admixture of a lie1--for example1 the taint of vanity1 any attempt to make a good impression1 a favorable appearance1--will instantly vitiate the effect4 ,but speak the truth1 and all nature and all spirits help you with unexpected furtherance4 ,speak the truth1 and all things alive or brute are vouchers1 and the very roots of the grass underground there1 do seem to stir and move to bear you witness4 ,see again the perfection of the ,law as it applies itself to the affections1 and becomes the law of society4 ,as we are1 so we associate4 ,the good1 by affinity1 seek the good2 the vile1 by affinity1 the vile4 ,thus of their own volition1 souls proceed into heaven1 into hell4 ,these facts have always suggested to man the sublime creed1 that the world is not the product of manifold power1 but of one will1 of one mind2 and that one mind is everywhere active1 in each ray of the star1 in each wavelet of the pool2 and whatever opposes that will1 is everywhere balked and baffled1 because things are made so1 and not otherwise4 ,good is positive4 ,evil is merely privative1 not absolute3 it is like cold1 which is the privation of heat4 ,all evil is so much death or nonentity4 ,benevolence is absolute and real4 ,so much benevolence as a man hath1 so much life hath he4 ,for all things proceed out of this same spirit1 which is differently named love1 justice1 temperance1 in its different applications1 just as the ocean receives different names on the several shores which it washes4 ,all things proceed out of the same spirit1 and all things conspire with it4 ,whilst a man seeks good ends1 he is strong by the whole strength of nature4 ,in so far as he roves from these ends1 he bereaves himself of power1 or auxiliaries2 his being shrinks out of all remote channels1 he becomes less and less1 a mote1 a point1 until absolute badness is absolute death4 ,the perception of this law of laws awakens in the mind a sentiment which we call the religious sentiment1 and which makes our highest happiness4 ,wonderful is its power to charm and to command4 ,it is a mountain air4 ,it is the embalmer of the world4 ,it is myrrh and storax1 and chlorine and rosemary4 ,it makes the sky and the hills sublime1 and the silent song of the stars is it4 ,by it1 is the universe made safe and habitable1 not by science or power4 ,thought may work cold and intransitive in things1 and find no end or unity2 but the dawn of the sentiment of virtue on the heart1 gives and is the assurance that ,law is sovereign over all natures2 and the worlds1 time1 space1 eternity1 do seem to break out into joy4 ,this sentiment is divine and deifying4 ,it is the beatitude of man4 ,it makes him illimitable4 ,through it1 the soul first knows itself4 ,it corrects the capital mistake of the infant man1 who seeks to be great by following the great1 and hopes to derive advantages from another1--by showing the fountain of all good to be in himself1 and that he1 equally with every man1 is an inlet into the deeps of ,reason4 ,when he says1 8,i ought20 when love warms him2 when he chooses1 warned from on high1 the good and great deed2 then1 deep melodies wander through his soul from ,supreme ,wisdom4--,then he can worship1 and be enlarged by his worship2 for he can never go behind this sentiment4 ,in the sublimest flights of the soul1 rectitude is never surmounted1 love is never outgrown4 ,this sentiment lies at the foundation of society1 and successively creates all forms of worship4 ,the principle of veneration never dies out4 ,man fallen into superstition1 into sensuality1 is never quite without the visions of the moral sentiment4 ,in like manner1 all the expressions of this sentiment are sacred and permanent in proportion to their purity4 ,the expressions of this sentiment affect us more than all other compositions4 ,the sentences of the oldest time1 which ejaculate this piety1 are still fresh and fragrant4 ,this thought dwelled always deepest in the minds of men in the devout and contemplative ,east2 not alone in ,palestine1 where it reached its purest expression1 but in ,egypt1 in ,persia1 in ,india1 in ,china4 ,europe has always owed to oriental genius its divine impulses4 ,what these holy bards said1 all sane men found agreeable and true4 ,and the unique impression of ,jesus upon mankind1 whose name is not so much written as ploughed into the history of this world1 is proof of the subtle virtue of this infusion4 ,meantime1 whilst the doors of the temple stand open1 night and day1 before every man1 and the oracles of this truth cease never1 it is guarded by one stern condition2 this1 namely2 it is an intuition4 ,it cannot be received at second hand4 ,truly speaking1 it is not instruction1 but provocation1 that ,i can receive from another soul4 ,what he announces1 ,i must find true in me1 or reject2 and on his word1 or as his second1 be he who he may1 ,i can accept nothing4 ,on the contrary1 the absence of this primary faith is the presence of degradation4 ,as is the flood so is the ebb4 ,let this faith depart1 and the very words it spake1 and the things it made1 become false and hurtful4 ,then falls the church1 the state1 art1 letters1 life4 ,the doctrine of the divine nature being forgotten1 a sickness infects and dwarfs the constitution4 ,once man was all2 now he is an appendage1 a nuisance4 ,and because the indwelling ,supreme ,spirit cannot wholly be got rid of1 the doctrine of it suffers this perversion1 that the divine nature is attributed to one or two persons1 and denied to all the rest1 and denied with fury4 ,the doctrine of inspiration is lost2 the base doctrine of the majority of voices1 usurps the place of the doctrine of the soul4 ,miracles1 prophecy1 poetry2 the ideal life1 the holy life1 exist as ancient history merely2 they are not in the belief1 nor in the aspiration of society2 but1 when suggested1 seem ridiculous4 ,life is comic or pitiful1 as soon as the high ends of being fade out of sight1 and man becomes near-sighted1 and can only attend to what addresses the senses4 ,these general views1 which1 whilst they are general1 none will contest1 find abundant illustration in the history of religion1 and especially in the history of the ,christian church4 ,in that1 all of us have had our birth and nurture4 ,the truth contained in that1 you1 my young friends1 are now setting forth to teach4 ,as the ,cultus1 or established worship of the civilized world1 it has great historical interest for us4 ,of its blessed words1 which have been the consolation of humanity1 you need not that ,i should speak4 ,i shall endeavor to discharge my duty to you1 on this occasion1 by pointing out two errors in its administration1 which daily appear more gross from the point of view we have just now taken4 ,jesus ,christ belonged to the true race of prophets4 ,he saw with open eye the mystery of the soul4 ,drawn by its severe harmony1 ravished with its beauty1 he lived in it1 and had his being there4 ,alone in all history1 he estimated the greatness of man4 ,one man was true to what is in you and me4 ,he saw that ,god incarnates himself in man1 and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world4 ,he said1 in this jubilee of sublime emotion1 #8,i am divine4 ,through me1 ,god acts2 through me1 speaks4 ,would you see ,god1 see me2 or1 see thee1 when thou also thinkest as ,i now think4' ,but what a distortion did his doctrine and memory suffer in the same1 in the next1 and the following ages6 ,there is no doctrine of the ,reason which will bear to be taught by the ,understanding4 ,the understanding caught this high chant from the poet's lips1 and said1 in the next age1 #8,this was ,jehovah come down out of heaven4 ,i will kill you1 if you say he was a man4' ,the idioms of his language1 and the figures of his rhetoric1 have usurped the place of his truth2 and churches are not built on his principles1 but on his tropes4 ,christianity became a ,mythus1 as the poetic teaching of ,greece and of ,egypt1 before4 ,he spoke of miracles2 for he felt that man's life was a miracle1 and all that man doth1 and he knew that this daily miracle shines1 as the character ascends4 ,but the word ,miracle1 as pronounced by ,christian churches1 gives a false impression2 it is ,monster4 ,it is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain4 ,he felt respect for ,moses and the prophets2 but no unfit tenderness at postponing their initial revelations1 to the hour and the man that now is2 to the eternal revelation in the heart4 ,thus was he a true man4 ,having seen that the law in us is commanding1 he would not suffer it to be commanded4 ,boldly1 with hand1 and heart1 and life1 he declared it was ,god4 ,thus is he1 as ,i think1 the only soul in history who has appreciated the worth of man4 #a4 ,in this point of view we become sensible of the first defect of historical ,christianity4 ,historical ,christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion4 ,as it appears to us1 and as it has appeared for ages1 it is not the doctrine of the soul1 but an exaggeration of the personal1 the positive1 the ritual4 ,it has dwelt1 it dwells1 with noxious exaggeration about the person of ,jesus4 ,the soul knows no persons4 ,it invites every man to expand to the full circle of the universe1 and will have no preferences but those of spontaneous love4 ,but by this eastern monarchy of a ,christianity1 which indolence and fear have built1 the friend of man is made the injurer of man4 ,the manner in which his name is surrounded with expressions1 which were once sallies of admiration and love1 but are now petrified into official titles1 kills all generous sympathy and liking4 ,all who hear me1 feel1 that the language that describes ,christ to ,europe and ,america1 is not the style of friendship and enthusiasm to a good and noble heart1 but is appropriated and formal1--paints a demigod as the ,orientals or the ,greeks would describe ,osiris or ,apollo4 ,accept the injurious impositions of our early catechetical instruction1 and even honesty and self-denial were but splendid sins1 if they did not wear the ,christian name4 ,one would rather be #8,a pagan1 suckled in a creed outworn1' than to be defrauded of his manly right in coming into nature1 and finding not names and places1 not land and professions1 but even virtue and truth foreclosed and monopolized4 ,you shall not be a man even4 ,you shall not own the world2 you shall not dare1 and live after the infinite ,law that is in you1 and in company with the infinite ,beauty which heaven and earth reflect to you in all lovely forms2 but you must subordinate your nature to ,christ's nature2 you must accept our interpretations2 and take his portrait as the vulgar draw it4 ,that is always best which gives me to myself4 ,the sublime is excited in me by the great stoical doctrine1 ,obey thyself4 ,that which shows ,god in me1 fortifies me4 ,that which shows ,god out of me1 makes me a wart and a wen4 ,there is no longer a necessary reason for my being4 ,already the long shadows of untimely oblivion creep over me1 and ,i shall decease forever4 ,the divine bards are the friends of my virtue1 of my intellect1 of my strength4 ,they admonish me1 that the gleams which flash across my mind1 are not mine1 but ,god's2 that they had the like1 and were not disobedient to the heavenly vision4 ,so ,i love them4 ,noble provocations go out from them1 inviting me to resist evil2 to subdue the world2 and to ,be4 ,and thus by his holy thoughts1 ,jesus serves us1 and thus only4 ,to aim to convert a man by miracles1 is a profanation of the soul4 ,a true conversion1 a true ,christ1 is now1 as always1 to be made1 by the reception of beautiful sentiments4 ,it is true that a great and rich soul1 like his1 falling among the simple1 does so preponderate1 that1 as his did1 it names the world4 ,the world seems to them to exist for him1 and they have not yet drunk so deeply of his sense1 as to see that only by coming again to themselves1 or to ,god in themselves1 can they grow forevermore4 ,it is a low benefit to give me something2 it is a high benefit to enable me to do somewhat of myself4 ,the time is coming when all men will see1 that the gift of ,god to the soul is not a vaunting1 overpowering1 excluding sanctity1 but a sweet1 natural goodness1 a goodness like thine and mine1 and that so invites thine and mine to be and to grow4 ,the injustice of the vulgar tone of preaching is not less flagrant to ,jesus1 than to the souls which it profanes4 ,the preachers do not see that they make his gospel not glad1 and shear him of the locks of beauty and the attributes of heaven4 ,when ,i see a majestic ,epaminondas1 or ,washington2 when ,i see among my contemporaries1 a true orator1 an upright judge1 a dear friend2 when ,i vibrate to the melody and fancy of a poem2 ,i see beauty that is to be desired4 ,and so lovely1 and with yet more entire consent of my human being1 sounds in my ear the severe music of the bards that have sung of the true ,god in all ages4 ,now do not degrade the life and dialogues of ,christ out of the circle of this charm1 by insulation and peculiarity4 ,let them lie as they befel1 alive and warm1 part of human life1 and of the landscape1 and of the cheerful day4 #b4 ,the second defect of the traditionary and limited way of using the mind of ,christ is a consequence of the first2 this1 namely2 that the ,moral ,nature1 that ,law of laws1 whose revelations introduce greatness1--yea1 ,god himself1 into the open soul1 is not explored as the fountain of the established teaching in society4 ,men have come to speak of the revelation as somewhat long ago given and done1 as if ,god were dead4 ,the injury to faith throttles the preacher2 and the goodliest of institutions becomes an uncertain and inarticulate voice4 ,it is very certain that it is the effect of conversation with the beauty of the soul1 to beget a desire and need to impart to others the same knowledge and love4 ,if utterance is denied1 the thought lies like a burden on the man4 ,always the seer is a sayer4 ,somehow his dream is told3 somehow he publishes it with solemn joy3 sometimes with pencil on canvas2 sometimes with chisel on stone2 sometimes in towers and aisles of granite1 his soul's worship is builded2 sometimes in anthems of indefinite music2 but clearest and most permanent1 in words4 ,the man enamored of this excellency1 becomes its priest or poet4 ,the office is coeval with the world4 ,but observe the condition1 the spiritual limitation of the office4 ,the spirit only can teach4 ,not any profane man1 not any sensual1 not any liar1 not any slave can teach1 but only he can give1 who has2 he only can create1 who is4 ,the man on whom the soul descends1 through whom the soul speaks1 alone can teach4 ,courage1 piety1 love1 wisdom1 can teach2 and every man can open his door to these angels1 and they shall bring him the gift of tongues4 ,but the man who aims to speak as books enable1 as synods use1 as the fashion guides1 and as interest commands1 babbles4 ,let him hush4 ,to this holy office1 you propose to devote yourselves4 ,i wish you may feel your call in throbs of desire and hope4 ,the office is the first in the world4 ,it is of that reality1 that it cannot suffer the deduction of any falsehood4 ,and it is my duty to say to you1 that the need was never greater of new revelation than now4 ,from the views ,i have already expressed1 you will infer the sad conviction1 which ,i share1 ,i believe1 with numbers1 of the universal decay and now almost death of faith in society4 ,the soul is not preached4 ,the ,church seems to totter to its fall1 almost all life extinct4 ,on this occasion1 any complaisance would be criminal1 which told you1 whose hope and commission it is to preach the faith of ,christ1 that the faith of ,christ is preached4 ,it is time that this ill-suppressed murmur of all thoughtful men against the famine of our churches2 this moaning of the heart because it is bereaved of the consolation1 the hope1 the grandeur1 that come alone out of the culture of the moral nature2 should be heard through the sleep of indolence1 and over the din of routine4 ,this great and perpetual office of the preacher is not discharged4 ,preaching is the expression of the moral sentiment in application to the duties of life4 ,in how many churches1 by how many prophets1 tell me1 is man made sensible that he is an infinite ,soul2 that the earth and heavens are passing into his mind2 that he is drinking forever the soul of ,god8 ,where now sounds the persuasion1 that by its very melody imparadises my heart1 and so affirms its own origin in heaven8 ,where shall ,i hear words such as in elder ages drew men to leave all and follow1--father and mother1 house and land1 wife and child8 ,where shall ,i hear these august laws of moral being so pronounced1 as to fill my ear1 and ,i feel ennobled by the offer of my uttermost action and passion8 ,the test of the true faith1 certainly1 should be its power to charm and command the soul1 as the laws of nature control the activity of the hands1--so commanding that we find pleasure and honor in obeying4 ,the faith should blend with the light of rising and of setting suns1 with the flying cloud1 the singing bird1 and the breath of flowers4 ,but now the priest's ,sabbath has lost the splendor of nature2 it is unlovely2 we are glad when it is done2 we can make1 we do make1 even sitting in our pews1 a far better1 holier1 sweeter1 for ourselves4 ,whenever the pulpit is usurped by a formalist1 then is the worshipper defrauded and disconsolate4 ,we shrink as soon as the prayers begin1 which do not uplift1 but smite and offend us4 ,we are fain to wrap our cloaks about us1 and secure1 as best we can1 a solitude that hears not4 ,i once heard a preacher who sorely tempted me to say1 ,i would go to church no more4 ,men go1 thought ,i1 where they are wont to go1 else had no soul entered the temple in the afternoon4 ,a snow-storm was falling around us4 ,the snow-storm was real2 the preacher merely spectral2 and the eye felt the sad contrast in looking at him1 and then out of the window behind him1 into the beautiful meteor of the snow4 ,he had lived in vain4 ,he had no one word intimating that he had laughed or wept1 was married or in love1 had been commended1 or cheated1 or chagrined4 ,if he had ever lived and acted1 we were none the wiser for it4 ,the capital secret of his profession1 namely1 to convert life into truth1 he had not learned4 ,not one fact in all his experience1 had he yet imported into his doctrine4 ,this man had ploughed1 and planted1 and talked1 and bought1 and sold2 he had read books2 he had eaten and drunken2 his head aches2 his heart throbs2 he smiles and suffers2 yet was there not a surmise1 a hint1 in all the discourse1 that he had ever lived at all4 ,not a line did he draw out of real history4 ,the true preacher can be known by this1 that he deals out to the people his life1--life passed through the fire of thought4 ,but of the bad preacher1 it could not be told from his sermon1 what age of the world he fell in2 whether he had a father or a child2 whether he was a freeholder or a pauper2 whether he was a citizen or a countryman2 or any other fact of his biography4 ,it seemed strange that the people should come to church4 ,it seemed as if their houses were very unentertaining1 that they should prefer this thoughtless clamor4 ,it shows that there is a commanding attraction in the moral sentiment1 that can lend a faint tint of light to dulness and ignorance1 coming in its name and place4 ,the good hearer is sure he has been touched sometimes2 is sure there is somewhat to be reached1 and some word that can reach it4 ,when he listens to these vain words1 he comforts himself by their relation to his remembrance of better hours1 and so they clatter and echo unchallenged4 ,i am not ignorant that when we preach unworthily1 it is not always quite in vain4 ,there is a good ear1 in some men1 that draws supplies to virtue out of very indifferent nutriment4 ,there is poetic truth concealed in all the common-places of prayer and of sermons1 and though foolishly spoken1 they may be wisely heard2 for1 each is some select expression that broke out in a moment of piety from some stricken or jubilant soul1 and its excellency made it remembered4 ,the prayers and even the dogmas of our church1 are like the zodiac of ,denderah1 and the astronomical monuments of the ,hindoos1 wholly insulated from anything now extant in the life and business of the people4 ,they mark the height to which the waters once rose4 ,but this docility is a check upon the mischief from the good and devout4 ,in a large portion of the community1 the religious service gives rise to quite other thoughts and emotions4 ,we need not chide the negligent servant4 ,we are struck with pity1 rather1 at the swift retribution of his sloth4 ,alas for the unhappy man that is called to stand in the pulpit1 and not give bread of life4 ,everything that befalls1 accuses him4 ,would he ask contributions for the missions1 foreign or domestic8 ,instantly his face is suffused with shame1 to propose to his parish1 that they should send money a hundred or a thousand miles1 to furnish such poor fare as they have at home1 and would do well to go the hundred or the thousand miles to escape4 ,would he urge people to a godly way of living2--and can he ask a fellow-creature to come to ,sabbath meetings1 when he and they all know what is the poor uttermost they can hope for therein8 ,will he invite them privately to the ,lord's ,supper8 ,he dares not4 ,if no heart warm this rite1 the hollow1 dry1 creaking formality is too plain1 than that he can face a man of wit and energy1 and put the invitation without terror4 ,in the street1 what has he to say to the bold village blasphemer8 ,the village blasphemer sees fear in the face1 form1 and gait of the minister4 ,let me not taint the sincerity of this plea by any oversight of the claims of good men4 ,i know and honor the purity and strict conscience of numbers of the clergy4 ,what life the public worship retains1 it owes to the scattered company of pious men1 who minister here and there in the churches1 and who1 sometimes accepting with too great tenderness the tenet of the elders1 have not accepted from others1 but from their own heart1 the genuine impulses of virtue1 and so still command our love and awe1 to the sanctity of character4 ,moreover1 the exceptions are not so much to be found in a few eminent preachers1 as in the better hours1 the truer inspirations of all1--nay1 in the sincere moments of every man4 ,but with whatever exception1 it is still true1 that tradition characterizes the preaching of this country2 that it comes out of the memory1 and not out of the soul2 that it aims at what is usual1 and not at what is necessary and eternal2 that thus1 historical ,christianity destroys the power of preaching1 by withdrawing it from the exploration of the moral nature of man1 where the sublime is1 where are the resources of astonishment and power4 ,what a cruel injustice it is to that ,law1 the joy of the whole earth1 which alone can make thought dear and rich2 that ,law whose fatal sureness the astronomical orbits poorly emulate1 that it is travestied and depreciated1 that it is behooted and behowled1 and not a trait1 not a word of it articulated4 ,the pulpit in losing sight of this ,law1 loses its reason1 and gropes after it knows not what4 ,and for want of this culture1 the soul of the community is sick and faithless4 ,it wants nothing so much as a stern1 high1 stoical1 ,christian discipline1 to make it know itself and the divinity that speaks through it4 ,now man is ashamed of himself2 he skulks and sneaks through the world1 to be tolerated1 to be pitied1 and scarcely in a thousand years does any man dare to be wise and good1 and so draw after him the tears and blessings of his kind4 ,certainly there have been periods when1 from the inactivity of the intellect on certain truths1 a greater faith was possible in names and persons4 ,the ,puritans in ,england and ,america1 found in the ,christ of the ,catholic ,church1 and in the dogmas inherited from ,rome1 scope for their austere piety1 and their longings for civil freedom4 ,but their creed is passing away1 and none arises in its room4 ,i think no man can go with his thoughts about him1 into one of our churches1 without feeling1 that what hold the public worship had on men is gone1 or going4 ,it has lost its grasp on the affection of the good1 and the fear of the bad4 ,in the country1 neighborhoods1 half parishes are signing off1 to use the local term4 ,it is already beginning to indicate character and religion to withdraw from the religious meetings4 ,i have heard a devout person1 who prized the ,sabbath1 say in bitterness of heart1 8,on ,sundays1 it seems wicked to go to church40 ,and the motive1 that holds the best there1 is now only a hope and a waiting4 ,what was once a mere circumstance1 that the best and the worst men in the parish1 the poor and the rich1 the learned and the ignorant1 young and old1 should meet one day as fellows in one house1 in sign of an equal right in the soul1 has come to be a paramount motive for going thither4 ,my friends1 in these two errors1 ,i think1 ,i find the causes of a decaying church and a wasting unbelief4 ,and what greater calamity can fall upon a nation1 than the loss of worship8 ,then all things go to decay4 ,genius leaves the temple1 to haunt the senate1 or the market4 ,literature becomes frivolous4 ,science is cold4 ,the eye of youth is not lighted by the hope of other worlds1 and age is without honor4 ,society lives to trifles1 and when men die1 we do not mention them4 ,and now1 my brothers1 you will ask1 ,what in these desponding days can be done by us8 ,the remedy is already declared in the ground of our complaint of the ,church4 ,we have contrasted the ,church with the ,soul4 ,in the soul1 then1 let the redemption be sought4 ,wherever a man comes1 there comes revolution4 ,the old is for slaves4 ,when a man comes1 all books are legible1 all things transparent1 all religions are forms4 ,he is religious4 ,man is the wonderworker4 ,he is seen amid miracles4 ,all men bless and curse4 ,he saith yea and nay1 only4 ,the stationariness of religion2 the assumption that the age of inspiration is past1 that the ,bible is closed2 the fear of degrading the character of ,jesus by representing him as a man2 indicate with sufficient clearness the falsehood of our theology4 ,it is the office of a true teacher to show us that ,god is1 not was2 that ,he speaketh1 not spake4 ,the true ,christianity1--a faith like ,christ's in the infinitude of man1--is lost4 ,none believeth in the soul of man1 but only in some man or person old and departed4 ,ah me6 no man goeth alone4 ,all men go in flocks to this saint or that poet1 avoiding the ,god who seeth in secret4 ,they cannot see in secret2 they love to be blind in public4 ,they think society wiser than their soul1 and know not that one soul1 and their soul1 is wiser than the whole world4 ,see how nations and races flit by on the sea of time1 and leave no ripple to tell where they floated or sunk1 and one good soul shall make the name of ,moses1 or of ,zeno1 or of ,zoroaster1 reverend forever4 ,none assayeth the stern ambition to be the ,self of the nation1 and of nature1 but each would be an easy secondary to some ,christian scheme1 or sectarian connection1 or some eminent man4 ,once leave your own knowledge of ,god1 your own sentiment1 and take secondary knowledge1 as ,st4 ,paul's1 or ,george ,fox's1 or ,swedenborg's1 and you get wide from ,god with every year this secondary form lasts1 and if1 as now1 for centuries1--the chasm yawns to that breath1 that men can scarcely be convinced there is in them anything divine4 ,let me admonish you1 first of all1 to go alone2 to refuse the good models1 even those which are sacred in the imagination of men1 and dare to love ,god without mediator or veil4 ,friends enough you shall find who will hold up to your emulation ,wesleys and ,oberlins1 ,saints and ,prophets4 ,thank ,god for these good men1 but say1 #8,i also am a man4' ,imitation cannot go above its model4 ,the imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity4 ,the inventor did it1 because it was natural to him1 and so in him it has a charm4 ,in the imitator1 something else is natural1 and he bereaves himself of his own beauty1 to come short of another man's4 ,yourself a newborn bard of the ,holy ,ghost1--cast behind you all conformity1 and acquaint men at first hand with ,deity4 ,look to it first and only1 that fashion1 custom1 authority1 pleasure1 and money1 are nothing to you1--are not bandages over your eyes1 that you cannot see1--but live with the privilege of the immeasurable mind4 ,not too anxious to visit periodically all families and each family in your parish connection1--when you meet one of these men or women1 be to them a divine man2 be to them thought and virtue2 let their timid aspirations find in you a friend2 let their trampled instincts be genially tempted out in your atmosphere2 let their doubts know that you have doubted1 and their wonder feel that you have wondered4 ,by trusting your own heart1 you shall gain more confidence in other men4 ,for all our penny-wisdom1 for all our soul-destroying slavery to habit1 it is not to be doubted1 that all men have sublime thoughts2 that all men value the few real hours of life2 they love to be heard2 they love to be caught up into the vision of principles4 ,we mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had1 in the dreary years of routine and of sin1 with souls that made our souls wiser2 that spoke what we thought2 that told us what we knew2 that gave us leave to be what we inly were4 ,discharge to men the priestly office1 and1 present or absent1 you shall be followed with their love as by an angel4 ,and1 to this end1 let us not aim at common degrees of merit4 ,can we not leave1 to such as love it1 the virtue that glitters for the commendation of society1 and ourselves pierce the deep solitudes of absolute ability and worth8 ,we easily come up to the standard of goodness in society4 ,society's praise can be cheaply secured1 and almost all men are content with those easy merits2 but the instant effect of conversing with ,god1 will be1 to put them away4 ,there are persons who are not actors1 not speakers1 but influences2 persons too great for fame1 for display2 who disdain eloquence2 to whom all we call art and artist1 seems too nearly allied to show and by-ends1 to the exaggeration of the finite and selfish1 and loss of the universal4 ,the orators1 the poets1 the commanders encroach on us only as fair women do1 by our allowance and homage4 ,slight them by preoccupation of mind1 slight them1 as you can well afford to do1 by high and universal aims1 and they instantly feel that you have right1 and that it is in lower places that they must shine4 ,they also feel your right2 for they with you are open to the influx of the all-knowing ,spirit1 which annihilates before its broad noon the little shades and gradations of intelligence in the compositions we call wiser and wisest4 ,in such high communion1 let us study the grand strokes of rectitude3 a bold benevolence1 an independence of friends1 so that not the unjust wishes of those who love us1 shall impair our freedom1 but we shall resist for truth's sake the freest flow of kindness1 and appeal to sympathies far in advance2 and1--what is the highest form in which we know this beautiful element1--a certain solidity of merit1 that has nothing to do with opinion1 and which is so essentially and manifestly virtue1 that it is taken for granted1 that the right1 the brave1 the generous step will be taken by it1 and nobody thinks of commending it4 ,you would compliment a coxcomb doing a good act1 but you would not praise an angel4 ,the silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world1 is the highest applause4 ,such souls1 when they appear1 are the ,imperial ,guard of ,virtue1 the perpetual reserve1 the dictators of fortune4 ,one needs not praise their courage1--they are the heart and soul of nature4 ,o my friends1 there are resources in us on which we have not drawn4 ,there are men who rise refreshed on hearing a threat2 men to whom a crisis which intimidates and paralyzes the majority1--demanding not the faculties of prudence and thrift1 but comprehension1 immovableness1 the readiness of sacrifice1--comes graceful and beloved as a bride4 ,napoleon said to ,massena1 that he was not himself until the battle began to go against him2 then1 when the dead began to fall in ranks around him1 awoke his powers of combination1 and he put on terror and victory as a robe4 ,so it is in rugged crises1 in unweariable endurance1 and in aims which put sympathy out of question1 that the angel is shown4 ,but these are heights that we can scarce remember and look up to1 without contrition and shame4 ,let us thank ,god that such things exist4 ,and now let us do what we can to rekindle the smouldering1 nigh quenched fire on the altar4 ,the evils of the church that now is are manifest4 ,the question returns1 ,what shall we do8 ,i confess1 all attempts to project and establish a ,cultus with new rites and forms1 seem to me vain4 ,faith makes us1 and not we it1 and faith makes its own forms4 ,all attempts to contrive a system are as cold as the new worship introduced by the ,french to the goddess of ,reason1--to-day1 pasteboard and fillagree1 and ending to-morrow in madness and murder4 ,rather let the breath of new life be breathed by you through the forms already existing4 ,for1 if once you are alive1 you shall find they shall become plastic and new4 ,the remedy to their deformity is1 first1 soul1 and second1 soul1 and evermore1 soul4 ,a whole popedom of forms1 one pulsation of virtue can uplift and vivify4 ,two inestimable advantages ,christianity has given us2 first2 the ,sabbath1 the jubilee of the whole world2 whose light dawns welcome alike into the closet of the philosopher1 into the garret of toil1 and into prison-cells1 and everywhere suggests1 even to the vile1 the dignity of spiritual being4 ,let us stand forevermore1 a temple1 which new love1 new faith1 new sight shall restore to more than its first splendor to mankind4 ,and secondly1 the institution of preaching1--the speech of man to men1--essentially the most flexible of all organs1 of all forms4 ,what hinders that now1 everywhere1 in pulpits1 in lecture-rooms1 in houses1 in fields1 wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you1 you speak the very truth1 as your life and conscience teach it1 and cheer the waiting1 fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation8 ,i look for the hour when that supreme ,beauty1 which ravished the souls of those eastern men1 and chiefly of those ,hebrews1 and through their lips spoke oracles to all time1 shall speak in the ,west also4 ,the ,hebrew and ,greek ,scriptures contain immortal sentences1 that have been bread of life to millions4 ,but they have no epical integrity2 are fragmentary2 are not shown in their order to the intellect4 ,i look for the new ,teacher1 that shall follow so far those shining laws1 that he shall see them come full circle2 shall see their rounding complete grace2 shall see the world to be the mirror of the soul2 shall see the identity of the law of gravitation with purity of heart2 and shall show that the ,ought1 that ,duty1 is one thing with ,science1 with ,beauty1 and with ,joy4 ,,literary ,,ethics4 ,,an ,,oration ,,delivered ,,before ,,the ,,literary ,,societies ,,of ,,dartmouth ,,college1 ,,july #bd1 #ahch4 ,,oration4 ,,gentlemen1 ,the invitation to address you this day1 with which you have honored me1 was a call so welcome1 that ,i made haste to obey it4 ,a summons to celebrate with scholars a literary festival1 is so alluring to me1 as to overcome the doubts ,i might well entertain of my ability to bring you any thought worthy of your attention4 ,i have reached the middle age of man2 yet ,i believe ,i am not less glad or sanguine at the meeting of scholars1 than when1 a boy1 ,i first saw the graduates of my own ,college assembled at their anniversary4 ,neither years nor books have yet availed to extirpate a prejudice then rooted in me1 that a scholar is the favorite of ,heaven and earth1 the excellency of his country1 the happiest of men4 ,his duties lead him directly into the holy ground where other men's aspirations only point4 ,his successes are occasions of the purest joy to all men4 ,eyes is he to the blind2 feet is he to the lame4 ,his failures1 if he is worthy1 are inlets to higher advantages4 ,and because the scholar1 by every thought he thinks1 extends his dominion into the general mind of men1 he is not one1 but many4 ,the few scholars in each country1 whose genius ,i know1 seem to me not individuals1 but societies2 and1 when events occur of great import1 ,i count over these representatives of opinion1 whom they will affect1 as if ,i were counting nations4 ,and1 even if his results were incommunicable2 if they abode in his own spirit2 the intellect hath somewhat so sacred in its possessions1 that the fact of his existence and pursuits would be a happy omen4 ,meantime ,i know that a very different estimate of the scholar's profession prevails in this country1 and the importunity1 with which society presses its claim upon young men1 tends to pervert the views of the youth in respect to the culture of the intellect4 ,hence the historical failure1 on which ,europe and ,america have so freely commented4 ,this country has not fulfilled what seemed the reasonable expectation of mankind4 ,men looked1 when all feudal straps and bandages were snapped asunder1 that nature1 too long the mother of dwarfs1 should reimburse itself by a brood of ,titans1 who should laugh and leap in the continent1 and run up the mountains of the ,west with the errand of genius and of love4 ,but the mark of ,american merit in painting1 in sculpture1 in poetry1 in fiction1 in eloquence1 seems to be a certain grace without grandeur1 and itself not new but derivative2 a vase of fair outline1 but empty1--which whoso sees1 may fill with what wit and character is in him1 but which does not1 like the charged cloud1 overflow with terrible beauty1 and emit lightnings on all beholders4 ,i will not lose myself in the desultory questions1 what are the limitations1 and what the causes of the fact4 ,it suffices me to say1 in general1 that the diffidence of mankind in the soul has crept over the ,american mind2 that men here1 as elsewhere1 are indisposed to innovation1 and prefer any antiquity1 any usage1 any livery productive of ease or profit1 to the unproductive service of thought4 ,yet1 in every sane hour1 the service of thought appears reasonable1 the despotism of the senses insane4 ,the scholar may lose himself in schools1 in words1 and become a pedant2 but when he comprehends his duties1 he above all men is a realist1 and converses with things4 ,for1 the scholar is the student of the world1 and of what worth the world is1 and with what emphasis it accosts the soul of man1 such is the worth1 such the call of the scholar4 ,the want of the times1 and the propriety of this anniversary1 concur to draw attention to the doctrine of ,literary ,ethics4 ,what ,i have to say on that doctrine distributes itself under the topics of the resources1 the subject1 and the discipline of the scholar4 ,i4 ,the resources of the scholar are proportioned to his confidence in the attributes of the ,intellect4 ,the resources of the scholar are coextensive with nature and truth1 yet can never be his1 unless claimed by him with an equal greatness of mind4 ,he cannot know them until he has beheld with awe the infinitude and impersonality of the intellectual power4 ,when he has seen1 that it is not his1 nor any man's1 but that it is the soul which made the world1 and that it is all accessible to him1 he will know that he1 as its minister1 may rightfully hold all things subordinate and answerable to it4 ,a divine pilgrim in nature1 all things attend his steps4 ,over him stream the flying constellations2 over him streams ,time1 as they1 scarcely divided into months and years4 ,he inhales the year as a vapor3 its fragrant midsummer breath1 its sparkling ,january heaven4 ,and so pass into his mind1 in bright transfiguration1 the grand events of history1 to take a new order and scale from him4 ,he is the world2 and the epochs and heroes of chronology are pictorial images1 in which his thoughts are told4 ,there is no event but sprung somewhere from the soul of man2 and therefore there is none but the soul of man can interpret4 ,every presentiment of the mind is executed somewhere in a gigantic fact4 ,what else is ,greece1 ,rome1 ,england1 ,france1 ,st4 ,helena8 ,what else are churches1 literatures1 and empires8 ,the new man must feel that he is new1 and has not come into the world mortgaged to the opinions and usages of ,europe1 and ,asia1 and ,egypt4 ,the sense of spiritual independence is like the lovely varnish of the dew1 whereby the old1 hard1 peaked earth1 and its old self-same productions1 are made new every morning1 and shining with the last touch of the artist's hand4 ,a false humility1 a complaisance to reigning schools1 or to the wisdom of antiquity1 must not defraud me of supreme possession of this hour4 ,if any person have less love of liberty1 and less jealousy to guard his integrity1 shall he therefore dictate to you and me8 ,say to such doctors1 ,we are thankful to you1 as we are to history1 to the pyramids1 and the authors2 but now our day is come2 we have been born out of the eternal silence2 and now will we live1--live for ourselves1--and not as the pall-bearers of a funeral1 but as the upholders and creators of our age2 and neither ,greece nor ,rome1 nor the three ,unities of ,aristotle1 nor the three ,kings of ,cologne1 nor the ,college of the ,sorbonne1 nor the ,edinburgh ,review1 is to command any longer4 ,now that we are here1 we will put our own interpretation on things1 and our own things for interpretation4 ,please himself with complaisance who will1--for me1 things must take my scale1 not ,i theirs4 ,i will say with the warlike king1 8,god gave me this crown1 and the whole world shall not take it away40 ,the whole value of history1 of biography1 is to increase my self-trust1 by demonstrating what man can be and do4 ,this is the moral of the ,plutarchs1 the ,cudworths1 the ,tennemanns1 who give us the story of men or of opinions4 ,any history of philosophy fortifies my faith1 by showing me1 that what high dogmas ,i had supposed were the rare and late fruit of a cumulative culture1 and only now possible to some recent ,kant or ,fichte1--were the prompt improvisations of the earliest inquirers2 of ,parmenides1 ,heraclitus1 and ,xenophanes4 ,in view of these students1 the soul seems to whisper1 #8,there is a better way than this indolent learning of another4 ,leave me alone2 do not teach me out of ,leibnitz or ,schelling1 and ,i shall find it all out myself4' ,still more do we owe to biography the fortification of our hope4 ,if you would know the power of character1 see how much you would impoverish the world1 if you could take clean out of history the lives of ,milton1 ,shakspeare1 and ,plato1--these three1 and cause them not to be4 ,see you not1 how much less the power of man would be8 ,i console myself in the poverty of my thoughts2 in the paucity of great men1 in the malignity and dulness of the nations1 by falling back on these sublime recollections1 and seeing what the prolific soul could beget on actual nature2--seeing that ,plato was1 and ,shakspeare1 and ,milton1--three irrefragable facts4 ,then ,i dare2 ,i also will essay to be4 ,the humblest1 the most hopeless1 in view of these radiant facts1 may now theorize and hope4 ,in spite of all the rueful abortions that squeak and gibber in the street1 in spite of slumber and guilt1 in spite of the army1 the bar-room1 and the jail1 have been these glorious manifestations of the mind2 and ,i will thank my great brothers so truly for the admonition of their being1 as to endeavor also to be just and brave1 to aspire and to speak4 ,plotinus too1 and ,spinoza1 and the immortal bards of philosophy1--that which they have written out with patient courage1 makes me bold4 ,no more will ,i dismiss1 with haste1 the visions which flash and sparkle across my sky2 but observe them1 approach them1 domesticate them1 brood on them1 and draw out of the past1 genuine life for the present hour4 ,to feel the full value of these lives1 as occasions of hope and provocation1 you must come to know1 that each admirable genius is but a successful diver in that sea whose floor of pearls is all your own4 ,the impoverishing philosophy of ages has laid stress on the distinctions of the individual1 and not on the universal attributes of man4 ,the youth1 intoxicated with his admiration of a hero1 fails to see1 that it is only a projection of his own soul1 which he admires4 ,in solitude1 in a remote village1 the ardent youth loiters and mourns4 ,with inflamed eye1 in this sleeping wilderness1 he has read the story of the ,emperor ,charles the ,fifth1 until his fancy has brought home to the surrounding woods1 the faint roar of cannonades in the ,milanese1 and marches in ,germany4 ,he is curious concerning that man's day4 ,what filled it8 the crowded orders1 the stern decisions1 the foreign despatches1 the ,castilian etiquette8 ,the soul answers--,behold his day here6 ,in the sighing of these woods1 in the quiet of these gray fields1 in the cool breeze that sings out of these northern mountains2 in the workmen1 the boys1 the maidens1 you meet1--in the hopes of the morning1 the ennui of noon1 and sauntering of the afternoon2 in the disquieting comparisons2 in the regrets at want of vigor2 in the great idea1 and the puny execution2--behold ,charles the ,fifth's day2 another1 yet the same2 behold ,chatham's1 ,hampden's1 ,bayard's1 ,alfred's1 ,scipio's1 ,pericles's day1--day of all that are born of women4 ,the difference of circumstance is merely costume4 ,i am tasting the self-same life1--its sweetness1 its greatness1 its pain1 which ,i so admire in other men4 ,do not foolishly ask of the inscrutable1 obliterated past1 what it cannot tell1--the details of that nature1 of that day1 called ,byron1 or ,burke2--but ask it of the enveloping ,now2 the more quaintly you inspect its evanescent beauties1 its wonderful details1 its spiritual causes1 its astounding whole1--so much the more you master the biography of this hero1 and that1 and every hero4 ,be lord of a day1 through wisdom and justice1 and you can put up your history books4 ,an intimation of these broad rights is familiar in the sense of injury which men feel in the assumption of any man to limit their possible progress4 ,we resent all criticism1 which denies us any thing that lies in our line of advance4 ,say to the man of letters1 that he cannot paint a ,transfiguration1 or build a steamboat1 or be a grand-marshal1--and he will not seem to himself depreciated4 ,but deny to him any quality of literary or metaphysical power1 and he is piqued4 ,concede to him genius1 which is a sort of ,stoical plenum annulling the comparative1 and he is content2 but concede him talents never so rare1 denying him genius1 and he is aggrieved4 ,what does this mean8 ,why simply1 that the soul has assurance1 by instincts and presentiments1 of all power in the direction of its ray1 as well as of the special skills it has already acquired4 ,in order to a knowledge of the resources of the scholar1 we must not rest in the use of slender accomplishments1--of faculties to do this and that other feat with words2 but we must pay our vows to the highest power1 and pass1 if it be possible1 by assiduous love and watching1 into the visions of absolute truth4 ,the growth of the intellect is strictly analogous in all individuals4 ,it is larger reception4 ,able men1 in general1 have good dispositions1 and a respect for justice2 because an able man is nothing else than a good1 free1 vascular organization1 whereinto the universal spirit freely flows2 so that his fund of justice is not only vast1 but infinite4 ,all men1 in the abstract1 are just and good2 what hinders them1 in the particular1 is1 the momentary predominance of the finite and individual over the general truth4 ,the condition of our incarnation in a private self1 seems to be1 a perpetual tendency to prefer the private law1 to obey the private impulse1 to the exclusion of the law of universal being4 ,the hero is great by means of the predominance of the universal nature2 he has only to open his mouth1 and it speaks2 he has only to be forced to act1 and it acts4 ,all men catch the word1 or embrace the deed1 with the heart1 for it is verily theirs as much as his2 but in them this disease of an excess of organization cheats them of equal issues4 ,nothing is more simple than greatness2 indeed1 to be simple is to be great4 ,the vision of genius comes by renouncing the too officious activity of the understanding1 and giving leave and amplest privilege to the spontaneous sentiment4 ,out of this must all that is alive and genial in thought go4 ,men grind and grind in the mill of a truism1 and nothing comes out but what was put in4 ,but the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought1 then poetry1 wit1 hope1 virtue1 learning1 anecdote1 all flock to their aid4 ,observe the phenomenon of extempore debate4 ,a man of cultivated mind1 but reserved habits1 sitting silent1 admires the miracle of free1 impassioned1 picturesque speech1 in the man addressing an assembly2--a state of being and power1 how unlike his own6 ,presently his own emotion rises to his lips1 and overflows in speech4 ,he must also rise and say somewhat4 ,once embarked1 once having overcome the novelty of the situation1 he finds it just as easy and natural to speak1--to speak with thoughts1 with pictures1 with rhythmical balance of sentences1--as it was to sit silent2 for1 it needs not to do1 but to suffer2 he only adjusts himself to the free spirit which gladly utters itself through him2 and motion is as easy as rest4 ,,ii4 ,i pass now to consider the task offered to the intellect of this country4 ,the view ,i have taken of the resources of the scholar1 presupposes a subject as broad4 ,we do not seem to have imagined its riches4 ,we have not heeded the invitation it holds out4 ,to be as good a scholar as ,englishmen are2 to have as much learning as our contemporaries2 to have written a book that is read2 satisfies us4 ,we assume1 that all thought is already long ago adequately set down in books1--all imaginations in poems2 and what we say1 we only throw in as confirmatory of this supposed complete body of literature4 ,a very shallow assumption4 ,say rather1 all literature is yet to be written4 ,poetry has scarce chanted its first song4 ,the perpetual admonition of nature to us1 is1 #8,the world is new1 untried4 ,do not believe the past4 ,i give you the universe a virgin to-day4' ,by ,latin and ,english poetry1 we were born and bred in an oratorio of praises of nature1--flowers1 birds1 mountains1 sun1 and moon2--yet the naturalist of this hour finds that he knows nothing1 by all their poems1 of any of these fine things2 that he has conversed with the mere surface and show of them all2 and of their essence1 or of their history1 knowing nothing4 ,further inquiry will discover that nobody1--that not these chanting poets themselves1 knew any thing sincere of these handsome natures they so commended2 that they contented themselves with the passing chirp of a bird1 that they saw one or two mornings1 and listlessly looked at sunsets1 and repeated idly these few glimpses in their song4 ,but go into the forest1 you shall find all new and undescribed4 ,the hawking of the wild geese flying by night2 the thin note of the companionable titmouse1 in the winter day2 the fall of swarms of flies1 in autumn1 from combats high in the air1 pattering down on the leaves like rain2 the angry hiss of the woodbirds2 the pine throwing out its pollen for the benefit of the next century2 the turpentine exuding from the tree2--and1 indeed1 any vegetation2 any animation2 any and all1 are alike unattempted4 ,the man who stands on the seashore1 or who rambles in the woods1 seems to be the first man that ever stood on the shore1 or entered a grove1 his sensations and his world are so novel and strange4 ,whilst ,i read the poets1 ,i think that nothing new can be said about morning and evening4 ,but when ,i see the daybreak1 ,i am not reminded of these ,homeric1 or ,shakspearian1 or ,miltonic1 or ,chaucerian pictures4 ,no2 but ,i feel perhaps the pain of an alien world2 a world not yet subdued by the thought2 or1 ,i am cheered by the moist1 warm1 glittering1 budding1 melodious hour1 that takes down the narrow walls of my soul1 and extends its life and pulsation to the very horizon4 ,that is morning1 to cease for a bright hour to be a prisoner of this sickly body1 and to become as large as nature4 ,the noonday darkness of the ,american forest1 the deep1 echoing1 aboriginal woods1 where the living columns of the oak and fir tower up from the ruins of the trees of the last millennium2 where1 from year to year1 the eagle and the crow see no intruder2 the pines1 bearded with savage moss1 yet touched with grace by the violets at their feet2 the broad1 cold lowland1 which forms its coat of vapor with the stillness of subterranean crystallization2 and where the traveller1 amid the repulsive plants that are native in the swamp1 thinks with pleasing terror of the distant town2 this beauty1--haggard and desert beauty1 which the sun and the moon1 the snow and the rain1 repaint and vary1 has never been recorded by art1 yet is not indifferent to any passenger4 ,all men are poets at heart4 ,they serve nature for bread1 but her loveliness overcomes them sometimes4 ,what mean these journeys to ,niagara2 these pilgrims to the ,white ,hills8 ,men believe in the adaptations of utility1 always3 in the mountains1 they may believe in the adaptations of the eye4 ,undoubtedly1 the changes of geology have a relation to the prosperous sprouting of the corn and peas in my kitchen garden2 but not less is there a relation of beauty between my soul and the dim crags of ,agiocochook up there in the clouds4 ,every man1 when this is told1 hearkens with joy1 and yet his own conversation with nature is still unsung4 ,is it otherwise with civil history8 ,is it not the lesson of our experience that every man1 were life long enough1 would write history for himself8 ,what else do these volumes of extracts and manuscript commentaries1 that every scholar writes1 indicate8 ,greek history is one thing to me2 another to you4 ,since the birth of ,niebuhr and ,wolf1 ,roman and ,greek ,history have been written anew4 ,since ,carlyle wrote ,french ,history1 we see that no history1 that we have1 is safe1 but a new classifier shall give it new and more philosophical arrangement4 ,thucydides1 ,livy1 have only provided materials4 ,the moment a man of genius pronounces the name of the ,pelasgi1 of ,athens1 of the ,etrurian1 of the ,roman people1 we see their state under a new aspect4 ,as in poetry and history1 so in the other departments4 ,there are few masters or none4 ,religion is yet to be settled on its fast foundations in the breast of man2 and politics1 and philosophy1 and letters1 and art4 ,as yet we have nothing but tendency and indication4 ,this starting1 this warping of the best literary works from the adamant of nature1 is especially observable in philosophy4 ,let it take what tone of pretension it will1 to this complexion must it come1 at last4 ,take1 for example1 the ,french ,eclecticism1 which ,cousin esteems so conclusive2 there is an optical illusion in it4 ,it avows great pretensions4 ,it looks as if they had all truth1 in taking all the systems1 and had nothing to do1 but to sift and wash and strain1 and the gold and diamonds would remain in the last colander4 ,but1 ,truth is such a flyaway1 such a slyboots1 so untransportable and unbarrelable a commodity1 that it is as bad to catch as light4 ,shut the shutters never so quick1 to keep all the light in1 it is all in vain2 it is gone before you can cry1 ,hold4 ,and so it happens with our philosophy4 ,translate1 collate1 distil all the systems1 it steads you nothing2 for truth will not be compelled1 in any mechanical manner4 ,but the first observation you make1 in the sincere act of your nature1 though on the veriest trifle1 may open a new view of nature and of man1 that1 like a menstruum1 shall dissolve all theories in it2 shall take up ,greece1 ,rome1 ,stoicism1 ,eclecticism1 and what not1 as mere data and food for analysis1 and dispose of your world-containing system1 as a very little unit4 ,a profound thought1 anywhere1 classifies all things3 a profound thought will lift ,olympus4 ,the book of philosophy is only a fact1 and no more inspiring fact than another1 and no less2 but a wise man will never esteem it anything final and transcending4 ,go and talk with a man of genius1 and the first word he utters1 sets all your so-called knowledge afloat and at large4 ,then ,plato1 ,bacon1 ,kant1 and the ,eclectic ,cousin1 condescend instantly to be men and mere facts4 ,i by no means aim1 in these remarks1 to disparage the merit of these or of any existing compositions2 ,i only say that any particular portraiture does not in any manner exclude or forestall a new attempt1 but1 when considered by the soul1 warps and shrinks away4 ,the inundation of the spirit sweeps away before it all our little architecture of wit and memory1 as straws and straw-huts before the torrent4 ,works of the intellect are great only by comparison with each other2 ,ivanhoe and ,waverley compared with ,castle ,radcliffe and the ,porter novels2 but nothing is great1--not mighty ,homer and ,milton1--beside the infinite ,reason4 ,it carries them away as a flood4 ,they are as a sleep4 ,thus is justice done to each generation and individual1--wisdom teaching man that he shall not hate1 or fear1 or mimic his ancestors2 that he shall not bewail himself1 as if the world was old1 and thought was spent1 and he was born into the dotage of things2 for1 by virtue of the ,deity1 thought renews itself inexhaustibly every day1 and the thing whereon it shines1 though it were dust and sand1 is a new subject with countless relations4 ,,iii4 ,having thus spoken of the resources and the subject of the scholar1 out of the same faith proceeds also the rule of his ambition and life4 ,let him know that the world is his1 but he must possess it by putting himself into harmony with the constitution of things4 ,he must be a solitary1 laborious1 modest1 and charitable soul4 ,he must embrace solitude as a bride4 ,he must have his glees and his glooms alone4 ,his own estimate must be measure enough1 his own praise reward enough for him4 ,and why must the student be solitary and silent8 ,that he may become acquainted with his thoughts4 ,if he pines in a lonely place1 hankering for the crowd1 for display1 he is not in the lonely place2 his heart is in the market2 he does not see2 he does not hear2 he does not think4 ,but go cherish your soul2 expel companions2 set your habits to a life of solitude2 then1 will the faculties rise fair and full within1 like forest trees and field flowers2 you will have results1 which1 when you meet your fellow-men1 you can communicate1 and they will gladly receive4 ,do not go into solitude only that you may presently come into public4 ,such solitude denies itself2 is public and stale4 ,the public can get public experience1 but they wish the scholar to replace to them those private1 sincere1 divine experiences1 of which they have been defrauded by dwelling in the street4 ,it is the noble1 manlike1 just thought1 which is the superiority demanded of you1 and not crowds but solitude confers this elevation4 ,not insulation of place1 but independence of spirit is essential1 and it is only as the garden1 the cottage1 the forest1 and the rock1 are a sort of mechanical aids to this1 that they are of value4 ,think alone1 and all places are friendly and sacred4 ,the poets who have lived in cities have been hermits still4 ,inspiration makes solitude anywhere4 ,pindar1 ,raphael1 ,angelo1 ,dryden1 ,de ,stal1 dwell in crowds1 it may be1 but the instant thought comes1 the crowd grows dim to their eye2 their eye fixes on the horizon1--on vacant space2 they forget the bystanders2 they spurn personal relations2 they deal with abstractions1 with verities1 with ideas4 ,they are alone with the mind4 ,of course1 ,i would not have any superstition about solitude4 ,let the youth study the uses of solitude and of society4 ,let him use both1 not serve either4 ,the reason why an ingenious soul shuns society1 is to the end of finding society4 ,it repudiates the false1 out of love of the true4 ,you can very soon learn all that society can teach you for one while4 ,its foolish routine1 an indefinite multiplication of balls1 concerts1 rides1 theatres1 can teach you no more than a few can4 ,then accept the hint of shame1 of spiritual emptiness and waste1 which true nature gives you1 and retire1 and hide2 lock the door2 shut the shutters2 then welcome falls the imprisoning rain1--dear hermitage of nature4 ,re-collect the spirits4 ,have solitary prayer and praise4 ,digest and correct the past experience2 and blend it with the new and divine life4 ,you will pardon me1 ,gentlemen1 if ,i say1 ,i think that we have need of a more rigorous scholastic rule2 such an asceticism1 ,i mean1 as only the hardihood and devotion of the scholar himself can enforce4 ,we live in the sun and on the surface1--a thin1 plausible1 superficial existence1 and talk of muse and prophet1 of art and creation4 ,but out of our shallow and frivolous way of life1 how can greatness ever grow8 ,come now1 let us go and be dumb4 ,let us sit with our hands on our mouths1 a long1 austere1 ,pythagorean lustrum4 ,let us live in corners1 and do chores1 and suffer1 and weep1 and drudge1 with eyes and hearts that love the ,lord4 ,silence1 seclusion1 austerity1 may pierce deep into the grandeur and secret of our being1 and so diving1 bring up out of secular darkness1 the sublimities of the moral constitution4 ,how mean to go blazing1 a gaudy butterfly1 in fashionable or political saloons1 the fool of society1 the fool of notoriety1 a topic for newspapers1 a piece of the street1 and forfeiting the real prerogative of the russet coat1 the privacy1 and the true and warm heart of the citizen6 ,fatal to the man of letters1 fatal to man1 is the lust of display1 the seeming that unmakes our being4 ,a mistake of the main end to which they labor1 is incident to literary men1 who1 dealing with the organ of language1--the subtlest1 strongest1 and longest-lived of man's creations1 and only fitly used as the weapon of thought and of justice1--learn to enjoy the pride of playing with this splendid engine1 but rob it of its almightiness by failing to work with it4 ,extricating themselves from the tasks of the world1 the world revenges itself by exposing1 at every turn1 the folly of these incomplete1 pedantic1 useless1 ghostly creatures4 ,the scholar will feel1 that the richest romance1--the noblest fiction that was ever woven1--the heart and soul of beauty1--lies enclosed in human life4 ,itself of surpassing value1 it is also the richest material for his creations4 ,how shall he know its secrets of tenderness1 of terror1 of will1 and of fate8 ,how can he catch and keep the strain of upper music that peals from it8 ,its laws are concealed under the details of daily action4 ,all action is an experiment upon them4 ,he must bear his share of the common load4 ,he must work with men in houses1 and not with their names in books4 ,his needs1 appetites1 talents1 affections1 accomplishments1 are keys that open to him the beautiful museum of human life4 ,why should he read it as an ,arabian tale1 and not know1 in his own beating bosom1 its sweet and smart8 ,out of love and hatred1 out of earnings1 and borrowings1 and lendings1 and losses2 out of sickness and pain2 out of wooing and worshipping2 out of travelling1 and voting1 and watching1 and caring2 out of disgrace and contempt1 comes our tuition in the serene and beautiful laws4 ,let him not slur his lesson2 let him learn it by heart4 ,let him endeavor exactly1 bravely1 and cheerfully1 to solve the problem of that life which is set before him4 ,and this1 by punctual action1 and not by promises or dreams4 ,believing1 as in ,god1 in the presence and favor of the grandest influences1 let him deserve that favor1 and learn how to receive and use it1 by fidelity also to the lower observances4 ,this lesson is taught with emphasis in the life of the great actor of this age1 and affords the explanation of his success4 ,bonaparte represents truly a great recent revolution1 which we in this country1 please ,god1 shall carry to its farthest consummation4 ,not the least instructive passage in modern history1 seems to me a trait of ,napoleon1 exhibited to the ,english when he became their prisoner4 ,on coming on board the ,bellerophon1 a file of ,english soldiers drawn up on deck1 gave him a military salute4 ,napoleon observed1 that their manner of handling their arms differed from the ,french exercise1 and1 putting aside the guns of those nearest him1 walked up to a soldier1 took his gun1 and himself went through the motion in the ,french mode4 ,the ,english officers and men looked on with astonishment1 and inquired if such familiarity was usual with the ,emperor4 ,in this instance1 as always1 that man1 with whatever defects or vices1 represented performance in lieu of pretension4 ,feudalism and ,orientalism had long enough thought it majestic to do nothing2 the modern majesty consists in work4 ,he belonged to a class fast growing in the world1 who think1 that what a man can do is his greatest ornament1 and that he always consults his dignity by doing it4 ,he was not a believer in luck2 he had a faith1 like sight1 in the application of means to ends4 ,means to ends1 is the motto of all his behavior4 ,he believed that the great captains of antiquity performed their exploits only by correct combinations1 and by justly comparing the relation between means and consequences2 efforts and obstacles4 ,the vulgar call good fortune that which really is produced by the calculations of genius4 ,but ,napoleon1 thus faithful to facts1 had also this crowning merit2 that1 whilst he believed in number and weight1 and omitted no part of prudence1 he believed also in the freedom and quite incalculable force of the soul4 ,a man of infinite caution1 he neglected never the least particular of preparation1 of patient adaptation2 yet nevertheless he had a sublime confidence1 as in his all1 in the sallies of the courage1 and the faith in his destiny1 which1 at the right moment1 repaired all losses1 and demolished cavalry1 infantry1 king1 and kaisar1 as with irresistible thunderbolts4 ,as they say the bough of the tree has the character of the leaf1 and the whole tree of the bough1 so1 it is curious to remark1 ,bonaparte's army partook of this double strength of the captain2 for1 whilst strictly supplied in all its appointments1 and everything expected from the valor and discipline of every platoon1 in flank and centre1 yet always remained his total trust in the prodigious revolutions of fortune1 which his reserved ,imperial ,guard were capable of working1 if1 in all else1 the day was lost4 ,here he was sublime4 ,he no longer calculated the chance of the cannon ball4 ,he was faithful to tactics to the uttermost1--and when all tactics had come to an end1 then1 he dilated1 and availed himself of the mighty saltations of the most formidable soldiers in nature4 ,let the scholar appreciate this combination of gifts1 which1 applied to better purpose1 make true wisdom4 ,he is a revealer of things4 ,let him first learn the things4 ,let him not1 too eager to grasp some badge of reward1 omit the work to be done4 ,let him know1 that1 though the success of the market is in the reward1 true success is the doing2 that1 in the private obedience to his mind2 in the sedulous inquiry1 day after day1 year after year1 to know how the thing stands2 in the use of all means1 and most in the reverence of the humble commerce and humble needs of life1--to hearken what they say1 and so1 by mutual reaction of thought and life1 to make thought solid1 and life wise2 and in a contempt for the gabble of to-day's opinions1 the secret of the world is to be learned1 and the skill truly to unfold it is acquired4 ,or1 rather1 is it not1 that1 by this discipline1 the usurpation of the senses is overcome1 and the lower faculties of man are subdued to docility2 through which1 as an unobstructed channel1 the soul now easily and gladly flows8 ,the good scholar will not refuse to bear the yoke in his youth2 to know1 if he can1 the uttermost secret of toil and endurance2 to make his own hands acquainted with the soil by which he is fed1 and the sweat that goes before comfort and luxury4 ,let him pay his tithe1 and serve the world as a true and noble man2 never forgetting to worship the immortal divinities1 who whisper to the poet1 and make him the utterer of melodies that pierce the ear of eternal time4 ,if he have this twofold goodness1--the drill and the inspiration1--then he has health2 then he is a whole1 and not a fragment2 and the perfection of his endowment will appear in his compositions4 ,indeed1 this twofold merit characterizes ever the productions of great masters4 ,the man of genius should occupy the whole space between ,god or pure mind1 and the multitude of uneducated men4 ,he must draw from the infinite ,reason1 on one side2 and he must penetrate into the heart and sense of the crowd1 on the other4 ,from one1 he must draw his strength2 to the other he must owe his aim4 ,the one yokes him to the real2 the other1 to the apparent4 ,at one pole1 is ,reason2 at the other1 ,common ,sense4 ,if he be defective at either extreme of the scale1 his philosophy will seem low and utilitarian2 or it will appear too vague and indefinite for the uses of life4 ,the student1 as we all along insist1 is great only by being passive to the superincumbent spirit4 ,let this faith1 then1 dictate all his action4 ,snares and bribes abound to mislead him2 let him be true nevertheless4 ,his success has its perils too4 ,there is somewhat inconvenient and injurious in his position4 ,they whom his thoughts have entertained or inflamed1 seek him before yet they have learned the hard conditions of thought4 ,they seek him1 that he may turn his lamp on the dark riddles whose solution they think is inscribed on the walls of their being4 ,they find that he is a poor1 ignorant man1 in a white-seamed1 rusty coat1 like themselves1 no wise emitting a continuous stream of light1 but now and then a jet of luminous thought1 followed by total darkness2 moreover1 that he cannot make of his infrequent illumination a portable taper to carry whither he would1 and explain now this dark riddle1 now that4 ,sorrow ensues4 ,the scholar regrets to damp the hope of ingenuous boys2 and the youth has lost a star out of his new flaming firmament4 ,hence the temptation to the scholar to mystify2 to hear the question2 to sit upon it2 to make an answer of words1 in lack of the oracle of things4 ,not the less let him be cold and true1 and wait in patience1 knowing that truth can make even silence eloquent and memorable4 ,truth shall be policy enough for him4 ,let him open his breast to all honest inquiry1 and be an artist superior to tricks of art4 ,show frankly as a saint would do1 your experience1 methods1 tools1 and means4 ,welcome all comers to the freest use of the same4 ,and out of this superior frankness and charity1 you shall learn higher secrets of your nature1 which gods will bend and aid you to communicate4 ,if1 with a high trust1 he can thus submit himself1 he will find that ample returns are poured into his bosom1 out of what seemed hours of obstruction and loss4 ,let him not grieve too much on account of unfit associates4 ,when he sees how much thought he owes to the disagreeable antagonism of various persons who pass and cross him1 he can easily think that in a society of perfect sympathy1 no word1 no act1 no record1 would be4 ,he will learn1 that it is not much matter what he reads1 what he does4 ,be a scholar1 and he shall have the scholar's part of every thing4 ,as1 in the counting-room1 the merchant cares little whether the cargo be hides or barilla2 the transaction1 a letter of credit or a transfer of stocks2 be it what it may1 his commission comes gently out of it2 so you shall get your lesson out of the hour1 and the object1 whether it be a concentrated or a wasteful employment1 even in reading a dull book1 or working off a stint of mechanical day labor1 which your necessities or the necessities of others impose4 99 99 99 99 99 ,gentlemen1 ,i have ventured to offer you these considerations upon the scholar's place1 and hope1 because ,i thought1 that1 standing1 as many of you now do1 on the threshold of this ,college1 girt and ready to go and assume tasks1 public and private1 in your country1 you would not be sorry to be admonished of those primary duties of the intellect1 whereof you will seldom hear from the lips of your new companions4 ,you will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence4 ,you will hear1 that the first duty is to get land and money1 place and name4 #8,what is this ,truth you seek8 what is this ,beauty8' men will ask1 with derision4 ,if1 nevertheless1 ,god have called any of you to explore truth and beauty1 be bold1 be firm1 be true4 ,when you shall say1 #8,as others do1 so will ,i3 ,i renounce1 ,i am sorry for it1 my early visions2 ,i must eat the good of the land1 and let learning and romantic expectations go1 until a more convenient season2'--then dies the man in you2 then once more perish the buds of art1 and poetry1 and science1 as they have died already in a thousand thousand men4 ,the hour of that choice is the crisis of your history2 and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect4 ,it is this domineering temper of the sensual world1 that creates the extreme need of the priests of science2 and it is the office and right of the intellect to make and not take its estimate4 ,bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you from every object in nature1 to be its tongue to the heart of man1 and to show the besotted world how passing fair is wisdom4 ,forewarned that the vice of the times and the country is an excessive pretension1 let us seek the shade1 and find wisdom in neglect4 ,be content with a little light1 so it be your own4 ,explore1 and explore4 ,be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry4 ,neither dogmatize1 nor accept another's dogmatism4 ,why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth1 for the premature comforts of an acre1 house1 and barn8 ,truth also has its roof1 and bed1 and board4 ,make yourself necessary to the world1 and mankind will give you bread1 and if not store of it1 yet such as shall not take away your property in all men's possessions1 in all men's affections1 in art1 in nature1 and in hope4 ,you will not fear1 that ,i am enjoining too stern an asceticism4 ,ask not1 ,of what use is a scholarship that systematically retreats8 or1 ,who is the better for the philosopher who conceals his accomplishments1 and hides his thoughts from the waiting world8 ,hides his thoughts6 ,hide the sun and moon4 ,thought is all light1 and publishes itself to the universe4 ,it will speak1 though you were dumb1 by its own miraculous organ4 ,it will flow out of your actions1 your manners1 and your face4 ,it will bring you friendships4 ,it will impledge you to truth by the love and expectation of generous minds4 ,by virtue of the laws of that ,nature1 which is one and perfect1 it shall yield every sincere good that is in the soul1 to the scholar beloved of earth and heaven4 ,,the ,,method ,,of ,,nature4 ,,an ,,oration ,,delivered ,,before ,,the ,,society ,,of ,,the ,,adelphi1 ,,in ,,waterville ,,college1 ,,maine1 ,,august #aa1 #ahda4 ,,the ,,method ,,of ,,nature4 ,,gentlemen1 ,let us exchange congratulations on the enjoyments and the promises of this literary anniversary4 ,the land we live in has no interest so dear1 if it knew its want1 as the fit consecration of days of reason and thought4 ,where there is no vision1 the people perish4 ,the scholars are the priests of that thought which establishes the foundations of the earth4 ,no matter what is their special work or profession1 they stand for the spiritual interest of the world1 and it is a common calamity if they neglect their post in a country where the material interest is so predominant as it is in ,america4 ,we hear something too much of the results of machinery1 commerce1 and the useful arts4 ,we are a puny and a fickle folk4 ,avarice1 hesitation1 and following1 are our diseases4 ,the rapid wealth which hundreds in the community acquire in trade1 or by the incessant expansions of our population and arts1 enchants the eyes of all the rest2 the luck of one is the hope of thousands1 and the bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold mine to impoverish the farm1 the school1 the church1 the house1 and the very body and feature of man4 ,i do not wish to look with sour aspect at the industrious manufacturing village1 or the mart of commerce4 ,i love the music of the water-wheel2 ,i value the railway2 ,i feel the pride which the sight of a ship inspires2 ,i look on trade and every mechanical craft as education also4 ,but let me discriminate what is precious herein4 ,there is in each of these works an act of invention1 an intellectual step1 or short series of steps taken2 that act or step is the spiritual act2 all the rest is mere repetition of the same a thousand times4 ,and ,i will not be deceived into admiring the routine of handicrafts and mechanics1 how splendid soever the result1 any more than ,i admire the routine of the scholars or clerical class4 ,that splendid results ensue from the labors of stupid men1 is the fruit of higher laws than their will1 and the routine is not to be praised for it4 ,i would not have the laborer sacrificed to the result1--,i would not have the laborer sacrificed to my convenience and pride1 nor to that of a great class of such as me4 ,let there be worse cotton and better men4 ,the weaver should not be bereaved of his superiority to his work1 and his knowledge that the product or the skill is of no value1 except so far as it embodies his spiritual prerogatives4 ,if ,i see nothing to admire in the unit1 shall ,i admire a million units8 ,men stand in awe of the city1 but do not honor any individual citizen2 and are continually yielding to this dazzling result of numbers1 that which they would never yield to the solitary example of any one4 ,whilst the multitude of men degrade each other1 and give currency to desponding doctrines1 the scholar must be a bringer of hope1 and must reinforce man against himself4 ,i sometimes believe that our literary anniversaries will presently assume a greater importance1 as the eyes of men open to their capabilities4 ,here1 a new set of distinctions1 a new order of ideas1 prevail4 ,here1 we set a bound to the respectability of wealth1 and a bound to the pretensions of the law and the church4 ,the bigot must cease to be a bigot to-day4 ,into our charmed circle1 power cannot enter2 and the sturdiest defender of existing institutions feels the terrific inflammability of this air which condenses heat in every corner that may restore to the elements the fabrics of ages4 ,nothing solid is secure2 every thing tilts and rocks4 ,even the scholar is not safe2 he too is searched and revised4 ,is his learning dead8 ,is he living in his memory8 ,the power of mind is not mortification1 but life4 ,but come forth1 thou curious child6 hither1 thou loving1 all-hoping poet6 hither1 thou tender1 doubting heart1 who has not yet found any place in the world's market fit for thee2 any wares which thou couldst buy or sell1--so large is thy love and ambition1--thine and not theirs is the hour4 ,smooth thy brow1 and hope and love on1 for the kind heaven justifies thee1 and the whole world feels that thou art in the right4 ,we ought to celebrate this hour by expressions of manly joy4 ,not thanks1 not prayer seem quite the highest or truest name for our communication with the infinite1--but glad and conspiring reception1--reception that becomes giving in its turn1 as the receiver is only the ,all-,giver in part and in infancy4 ,i cannot1--nor can any man1--speak precisely of things so sublime1 but it seems to me1 the wit of man1 his strength1 his grace1 his tendency1 his art1 is the grace and the presence of ,god4 ,it is beyond explanation4 ,when all is said and done1 the rapt saint is found the only logician4 ,not exhortation1 not argument becomes our lips1 but pans of joy and praise4 ,but not of adulation2 we are too nearly related in the deep of the mind to that we honor4 ,it is ,god in us which checks the language of petition by a grander thought4 ,in the bottom of the heart1 it is said2 #8,i am1 and by me1 ,o child6 this fair body and world of thine stands and grows4 ,i am2 all things are mine3 and all mine are thine4' ,the festival of the intellect1 and the return to its source1 cast a strong light on the always interesting topics of ,man and ,nature4 ,we are forcibly reminded of the old want4 ,there is no man2 there hath never been4 ,the ,intellect still asks that a man may be born4 ,the flame of life flickers feebly in human breasts4 ,we demand of men a richness and universality we do not find4 ,great men do not content us4 ,it is their solitude1 not their force1 that makes them conspicuous4 ,there is somewhat indigent and tedious about them4 ,they are poorly tied to one thought4 ,if they are prophets1 they are egotists2 if polite and various1 they are shallow4 ,how tardily men arrive at any result6 how tardily they pass from it to another6 ,the crystal sphere of thought is as concentrical as the geological structure of the globe4 ,as our soils and rocks lie in strata1 concentric strata1 so do all men's thinkings run laterally1 never vertically4 ,here comes by a great inquisitor with auger and plumb-line1 and will bore an ,artesian well through our conventions and theories1 and pierce to the core of things4 ,but as soon as he probes the crust1 behold gimlet1 plumb-line1 and philosopher take a lateral direction1 in spite of all resistance1 as if some strong wind took everything off its feet1 and if you come month after month to see what progress our reformer has made1--not an inch has he pierced1--you still find him with new words in the old place1 floating about in new parts of the same old vein or crust4 ,the new book says1 #8,i will give you the key to nature1' and we expect to go like a thunderbolt to the centre4 ,but the thunder is a surface phenomenon1 makes a skin-deep cut1 and so does the sage4 ,the wedge turns out to be a rocket4 ,thus a man lasts but a very little while1 for his monomania becomes insupportably tedious in a few months4 ,it is so with every book and person3 and yet--and yet--we do not take up a new book1 or meet a new man1 without a pulse-beat of expectation4 ,and this invincible hope of a more adequate interpreter is the sure prediction of his advent4 ,in the absence of man1 we turn to nature1 which stands next4 ,in the divine order1 intellect is primary2 nature1 secondary2 it is the memory of the mind4 ,that which once existed in intellect as pure law1 has now taken body as ,nature4 ,it existed already in the mind in solution2 now1 it has been precipitated1 and the bright sediment is the world4 ,we can never be quite strangers or inferiors in nature4 ,it is flesh of our flesh1 and bone of our bone4 ,but we no longer hold it by the hand2 we have lost our miraculous power2 our arm is no more as strong as the frost2 nor our will equivalent to gravity and the elective attractions4 ,yet we can use nature as a convenient standard1 and the meter of our rise and fall4 ,it has this advantage as a witness1 it cannot be debauched4 ,when man curses1 nature still testifies to truth and love4 ,we may1 therefore1 safely study the mind in nature1 because we cannot steadily gaze on it in mind2 as we explore the face of the sun in a pool1 when our eyes cannot brook his direct splendors4 ,it seems to me1 therefore1 that it were some suitable pan1 if we should piously celebrate this hour by exploring the method of nature4 ,let us see that1 as nearly as we can1 and try how far it is transferable to the literary life4 ,every earnest glance we give to the realities around us1 with intent to learn1 proceeds from a holy impulse1 and is really songs of praise4 ,what difference can it make whether it take the shape of exhortation1 or of passionate exclamation1 or of scientific statement8 ,these are forms merely4 ,through them we express1 at last1 the fact1 that ,god has done thus or thus4 ,in treating a subject so large1 in which we must necessarily appeal to the intuition1 and aim much more to suggest1 then to describe1 ,i know it is not easy to speak with the precision attainable on topics of less scope4 ,i do not wish in attempting to paint a man1 to describe an air-fed1 unimpassioned1 impossible ghost4 ,my eyes and ears are revolted by any neglect of the physical facts1 the limitations of man4 ,and yet one who conceives the true order of nature1 and beholds the visible as proceeding from the invisible1 cannot state his thought1 without seeming to those who study the physical laws1 to do them some injustice4 ,there is an intrinsic defect in the organ4 ,language overstates4 ,statements of the infinite1 are usually felt to be unjust to the finite1 and blasphemous4 ,empedocles undoubtedly spoke a truth of thought1 when he said1 8,i am ,god20 but the moment it was out of his mouth1 it became a lie to the ear2 and the world revenged itself for the seeming arrogance1 by the good story about his shoe4 ,how can ,i hope for better hap in my attempts to enunciate spiritual facts8 ,yet let us hope1 that as far as we receive the truth1 so far shall we be felt by every true person to say what is just4 ,the method of nature3 who could ever analyze it8 ,that rushing stream will not stop to be observed4 ,we can never surprise nature in a corner2 never find the end of a thread2 never tell where to set the first stone4 ,the bird hastens to lay her egg3 the egg hastens to be a bird4 ,the wholeness we admire in the order of the world1 is the result of infinite distribution4 ,its smoothness is the smoothness of the pitch of the cataract4 ,its permanence is a perpetual inchoation4 ,every natural fact is an emanation1 and that from which it emanates is an emanation also1 and from every emanation is a new emanation4 ,if anything could stand still1 it would be crushed and dissipated by the torrent it resisted1 and if it were a mind1 would be crazed2 as insane persons are those who hold fast to one thought1 and do not flow with the course of nature4 ,not the cause1 but an ever novel effect1 nature descends always from above4 ,it is unbroken obedience4 ,the beauty of these fair objects is imported into them from a metaphysical and eternal spring4 ,in all animal and vegetable forms1 the physiologist concedes that no chemistry1 no mechanics1 can account for the facts1 but a mysterious principle of life must be assumed1 which not only inhabits the organ1 but makes the organ4 ,how silent1 how spacious1 what room for all1 yet without place to insert an atom1--in graceful succession1 in equal fulness1 in balanced beauty1 the dance of the hours goes forward still4 ,like an odor of incense1 like a strain of music1 like a sleep1 it is inexact and boundless4 ,it will not be dissected1 nor unravelled1 nor shown4 ,away profane philosopher6 seekest thou in nature the cause8 ,this refers to that1 and that to the next1 and the next to the third1 and everything refers4 ,thou must ask in another mood1 thou must feel it and love it1 thou must behold it in a spirit as grand as that by which it exists1 ere thou canst know the law4 ,known it will not be1 but gladly beloved and enjoyed4 ,the simultaneous life throughout the whole body1 the equal serving of innumerable ends without the least emphasis or preference to any1 but the steady degradation of each to the success of all1 allows the understanding no place to work4 ,nature can only be conceived as existing to a universal and not to a particular end1 to a universe of ends1 and not to one1--a work of ecstasy1 to be represented by a circular movement1 as intention might be signified by a straight line of definite length4 ,each effect strengthens every other4 ,there is no revolt in all the kingdoms from the commonweal3 no detachment of an individual4 ,hence the catholic character which makes every leaf an exponent of the world4 ,when we behold the landscape in a poetic spirit1 we do not reckon individuals4 ,nature knows neither palm nor oak1 but only vegetable life1 which sprouts into forests1 and festoons the globe with a garland of grasses and vines4 ,that no single end may be selected1 and nature judged thereby1 appears from this1 that if man himself be considered as the end1 and it be assumed that the final cause of the world is to make holy or wise or beautiful men1 we see that it has not succeeded4 ,read alternately in natural and in civil history1 a treatise of astronomy1 for example1 with a volume of ,french ,memoires pour servir4 ,when we have spent our wonder in computing this wasteful hospitality with which boon nature turns off new firmaments without end into her wide common1 as fast as the madrepores make coral1--suns and planets hospitable to souls1--and then shorten the sight to look into this court of ,louis ,quatorze1 and see the game that is played there1--duke and marshal1 abb and madame1--a gambling table where each is laying traps for the other1 where the end is ever by some lie or fetch to outwit your rival and ruin him with this solemn fop in wig and stars1--the king2 one can hardly help asking if this planet is a fair specimen of the so generous astronomy1 and if so1 whether the experiment have not failed1 and whether it be quite worth while to make more1 and glut the innocent space with so poor an article4 ,i think we feel not much otherwise if1 instead of beholding foolish nations1 we take the great and wise men1 the eminent souls1 and narrowly inspect their biography4 ,none of them seen by himself--and his performance compared with his promise or idea1 will justify the cost of that enormous apparatus of means by which this spotted and defective person was at last procured4 ,to questions of this sort1 nature replies1 #8,i grow4' ,all is nascent1 infant4 ,when we are dizzied with the arithmetic of the savant toiling to compute the length of her line1 the return of her curve1 we are steadied by the perception that a great deal is doing2 that all seems just begun2 remote aims are in active accomplishment4 ,we can point nowhere to anything final2 but tendency appears on all hands3 planet1 system1 constellation1 total nature is growing like a field of maize in ,july2 is becoming somewhat else2 is in rapid metamorphosis4 ,the embryo does not more strive to be man1 than yonder burr of light we call a nebula tends to be a ring1 a comet1 a globe1 and parent of new stars4 ,why should not then these messieurs of ,versailles strut and plot for tabourets and ribbons1 for a season1 without prejudice to their faculty to run on better errands by and by4 ,but nature seems further to reply1 #8,i have ventured so great a stake as my success1 in no single creature4 ,i have not yet arrived at any end4 ,the gardener aims to produce a fine peach or pear1 but my aim is the health of the whole tree1--root1 stem1 leaf1 flower1 and seed1--and by no means the pampering of a monstrous pericarp at the expense of all the other functions4' ,in short1 the spirit and peculiarity of that impression nature makes on us1 is this1 that it does not exist to any one or to any number of particular ends1 but to numberless and endless benefit2 that there is in it no private will1 no rebel leaf or limb1 but the whole is oppressed by one superincumbent tendency1 obeys that redundancy or excess of life which in conscious beings we call ecstasy4 ,with this conception of the genius or method of nature1 let us go back to man4 ,it is true1 he pretends to give account of himself to himself1 but1 at last1 what has he to recite but the fact that there is a ,life not to be described or known otherwise than by possession8 ,what account can he give of his essence more than so it was to be8 ,the royal reason1 the ,grace of ,god seems the only description of our multiform but ever identical fact4 ,there is virtue1 there is genius1 there is success1 or there is not4 ,there is the incoming or the receding of ,god3 that is all we can affirm2 and we can show neither how nor why4 ,self-accusation1 remorse1 and the didactic morals of self-denial and strife with sin1 is a view we are constrained by our constitution to take of the fact seen from the platform of action2 but seen from the platform of intellection1 there is nothing for us but praise and wonder4 ,the termination of the world in a man1 appears to be the last victory of intelligence4 ,the universal does not attract us until housed in an individual4 ,who heeds the waste abyss of possibility8 ,the ocean is everywhere the same1 but it has no character until seen with the shore or the ship4 ,who would value any number of miles of ,atlantic brine bounded by lines of latitude and longitude8 ,confine it by granite rocks1 let it wash a shore where wise men dwell1 and it is filled with expression2 and the point of greatest interest is where the land and water meet4 ,so must we admire in man1 the form of the formless1 the concentration of the vast1 the house of reason1 the cave of memory4 ,see the play of thoughts6 what nimble gigantic creatures are these6 what saurians1 what palaiotheria shall be named with these agile movers8 ,the great ,pan of old1 who was clothed in a leopard skin to signify the beautiful variety of things and the firmament1 his coat of stars1--was but the representative of thee1 ,o rich and various ,man6 thou palace of sight and sound1 carrying in thy senses the morning and the night and the unfathomable galaxy2 in thy brain1 the geometry of the ,city of ,god2 in thy heart1 the bower of love and the realms of right and wrong4 ,an individual man is a fruit which it cost all the foregoing ages to form and ripen4 ,the history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child4 ,he too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos1 where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order4 ,each individual soul is such1 in virtue of its being a power to translate the world into some particular language of its own2 if not into a picture1 a statue1 or a dance1--why1 then1 into a trade1 an art1 a science1 a mode of living1 a conversation1 a character1 an influence4 ,you admire pictures1 but it is as impossible for you to paint a right picture1 as for grass to bear apples4 ,but when the genius comes1 it makes fingers3 it is pliancy1 and the power of transferring the affair in the street into oils and colors4 ,raphael must be born1 and ,salvator must be born4 ,there is no attractiveness like that of a new man4 ,the sleepy nations are occupied with their political routine4 ,england1 ,france and ,america read ,parliamentary ,debates1 which no high genius now enlivens2 and nobody will read them who trusts his own eye3 only they who are deceived by the popular repetition of distinguished names4 ,but when ,napoleon unrolls his map1 the eye is commanded by original power4 ,when ,chatham leads the debate1 men may well listen1 because they must listen4 ,a man1 a personal ascendency is the only great phenomenon4 ,when nature has work to be done1 she creates a genius to do it4 ,follow the great man1 and you shall see what the world has at heart in these ages4 ,there is no omen like that4 ,but what strikes us in the fine genius is that which belongs of right to every one4 ,a man should know himself for a necessary actor4 ,a link was wanting between two craving parts of nature1 and he was hurled into being as the bridge over that yawning need1 the mediator betwixt two else unmarriageable facts4 ,his two parents held each of one of the wants1 and the union of foreign constitutions in him enables him to do gladly and gracefully what the assembled human race could not have sufficed to do4 ,he knows his materials2 he applies himself to his work2 he cannot read1 or think1 or look1 but he unites the hitherto separated strands into a perfect cord4 ,the thoughts he delights to utter are the reason of his incarnation8 ,is it for him to account himself cheap and superfluous1 or to linger by the wayside for opportunities8 ,did he not come into being because something must be done which he and no other is and does8 ,if only he sees1 the world will be visible enough4 ,he need not study where to stand1 nor to put things in favorable lights2 in him is the light1 from him all things are illuminated to their centre4 ,what patron shall he ask for employment and reward8 ,hereto was he born1 to deliver the thought of his heart from the universe to the universe1 to do an office which nature could not forego1 nor he be discharged from rendering1 and then immerge again into the holy silence and eternity out of which as a man he arose4 ,god is rich1 and many more men than one he harbors in his bosom1 biding their time and the needs and the beauty of all4 ,is not this the theory of every man's genius or faculty8 ,why then goest thou as some ,boswell or listening worshipper to this saint or to that8 ,that is the only lese-majesty4 ,here art thou with whom so long the universe travailed in labor2 darest thou think meanly of thyself whom the stalwart ,fate brought forth to unite his ragged sides1 to shoot the gulf1 to reconcile the irreconcilable8 ,whilst a necessity so great caused the man to exist1 his health and erectness consist in the fidelity with which he transmits influences from the vast and universal to the point on which his genius can act4 ,the ends are momentary3 they are vents for the current of inward life which increases as it is spent4 ,a man's wisdom is to know that all ends are momentary1 that the best end must be superseded by a better4 ,but there is a mischievous tendency in him to transfer his thought from the life to the ends1 to quit his agency and rest in his acts3 the tools run away with the workman1 the human with the divine4 ,i conceive a man as always spoken to from behind1 and unable to turn his head and see the speaker4 ,in all the millions who have heard the voice1 none ever saw the face4 ,as children in their play run behind each other1 and seize one by the ears and make him walk before them1 so is the spirit our unseen pilot4 ,that well-known voice speaks in all languages1 governs all men1 and none ever caught a glimpse of its form4 ,if the man will exactly obey it1 it will adopt him1 so that he shall not any longer separate it from himself in his thought1 he shall seem to be it1 he shall be it4 ,if he listen with insatiable ears1 richer and greater wisdom is taught him1 the sound swells to a ravishing music1 he is borne away as with a flood1 he becomes careless of his food and of his house1 he is the fool of ideas1 and leads a heavenly life4 ,but if his eye is set on the things to be done1 and not on the truth that is still taught1 and for the sake of which the things are to be done1 then the voice grows faint1 and at last is but a humming in his ears4 ,his health and greatness consist in his being the channel through which heaven flows to earth1 in short1 in the fulness in which an ecstatical state takes place in him4 ,it is pitiful to be an artist1 when1 by forbearing to be artists1 we might be vessels filled with the divine overflowings1 enriched by the circulations of omniscience and omnipresence4 ,are there not moments in the history of heaven when the human race was not counted by individuals1 but was only the ,influenced1 was ,god in distribution1 ,god rushing into multiform benefit8 ,it is sublime to receive1 sublime to love1 but this lust of imparting as from us1 this desire to be loved1 the wish to be recognized as individuals1--is finite1 comes of a lower strain4 ,shall ,i say1 then1 that1 as far as we can trace the natural history of the soul1 its health consists in the fulness of its reception1--call it piety1 call it veneration--in the fact1 that enthusiasm is organized therein4 ,what is best in any work of art1 but that part which the work itself seems to require and do2 that which the man cannot do again1 that which flows from the hour and the occasion1 like the eloquence of men in a tumultuous debate8 ,it was always the theory of literature1 that the word of a poet was authoritative and final4 ,he was supposed to be the mouth of a divine wisdom4 ,we rather envied his circumstance than his talent4 ,we too could have gladly prophesied standing in that place4 ,we so quote our ,scriptures2 and the ,greeks so quoted ,homer1 ,theognis1 ,pindar1 and the rest4 ,if the theory has receded out of modern criticism1 it is because we have not had poets4 ,whenever they appear1 they will redeem their own credit4 ,this ecstatical state seems to direct a regard to the whole and not to the parts2 to the cause and not to the ends2 to the tendency1 and not to the act4 ,it respects genius and not talent2 hope1 and not possession3 the anticipation of all things by the intellect1 and not the history itself2 art1 and not works of art2 poetry1 and not experiment2 virtue1 and not duties4 ,there is no office or function of man but is rightly discharged by this divine method1 and nothing that is not noxious to him if detached from its universal relations4 ,is it his work in the world to study nature1 or the laws of the world8 ,let him beware of proposing to himself any end4 ,is it for use8 nature is debased1 as if one looking at the ocean can remember only the price of fish4 ,or is it for pleasure8 he is mocked3 there is a certain infatuating air in woods and mountains which draws on the idler to want and misery4 ,there is something social and intrusive in the nature of all things2 they seek to penetrate and overpower1 each the nature of every other creature1 and itself alone in all modes and throughout space and spirit to prevail and possess4 ,every star in heaven is discontented and insatiable4 ,gravitation and chemistry cannot content them4 ,ever they woo and court the eye of every beholder4 ,every man who comes into the world they seek to fascinate and possess1 to pass into his mind1 for they desire to republish themselves in a more delicate world than that they occupy4 ,it is not enough that they are ,jove1 ,mars1 ,orion1 and the ,north ,star1 in the gravitating firmament3 they would have such poets as ,newton1 ,herschel and ,laplace1 that they may re-exist and re-appear in the finer world of rational souls1 and fill that realm with their fame4 ,so is it with all immaterial objects4 ,these beautiful basilisks set their brute1 glorious eyes on the eye of every child1 and1 if they can1 cause their nature to pass through his wondering eyes into him1 and so all things are mixed4 ,therefore man must be on his guard against this cup of enchantments1 and must look at nature with a supernatural eye4 ,by piety alone1 by conversing with the cause of nature1 is he safe and commands it4 ,and because all knowledge is assimilation to the object of knowledge1 as the power or genius of nature is ecstatic1 so must its science or the description of it be4 ,the poet must be a rhapsodist3 his inspiration a sort of bright casualty3 his will in it only the surrender of will to the ,universal ,power1 which will not be seen face to face1 but must be received and sympathetically known4 ,it is remarkable that we have out of the deeps of antiquity in the oracles ascribed to the half fabulous ,zoroaster1 a statement of this fact1 which every lover and seeker of truth will recognize4 8,it is not proper10 said ,zoroaster1 8to understand the ,intelligible with vehemence1 but if you incline your mind1 you will apprehend it3 not too earnestly1 but bringing a pure and inquiring eye4 ,you will not understand it as when understanding some particular thing1 but with the flower of the mind4 ,things divine are not attainable by mortals who understand sensual things1 but only the light-armed arrive at the summit40 ,and because ecstasy is the law and cause of nature1 therefore you cannot interpret it in too high and deep a sense4 ,nature represents the best meaning of the wisest man4 ,does the sunset landscape seem to you the place of ,friendship1--those purple skies and lovely waters the amphitheatre dressed and garnished only for the exchange of thought and love of the purest souls8 ,it is that4 ,all other meanings which base men have put on it are conjectural and false4 ,you cannot bathe twice in the same river1 said ,heraclitus2 and ,i add1 a man never sees the same object twice3 with his own enlargement the object acquires new aspects4 ,does not the same law hold for virtue8 ,it is vitiated by too much will4 ,he who aims at progress1 should aim at an infinite1 not at a special benefit4 ,the reforms whose fame now fills the land with ,temperance1 ,anti-,slavery1 ,non-,resistance1 ,no ,government1 ,equal ,labor1 fair and generous as each appears1 are poor bitter things when prosecuted for themselves as an end4 ,to every reform1 in proportion to its energy1 early disgusts are incident1 so that the disciple is surprised at the very hour of his first triumphs1 with chagrins1 and sickness1 and a general distrust3 so that he shuns his associates1 hates the enterprise which lately seemed so fair1 and meditates to cast himself into the arms of that society and manner of life which he had newly abandoned with so much pride and hope4 ,is it that he attached the value of virtue to some particular practices1 as1 the denial of certain appetites in certain specified indulgences1 and1 afterward1 found himself still as wicked and as far from happiness in that abstinence1 as he had been in the abuse8 ,but the soul can be appeased not by a deed but by a tendency4 ,it is in a hope that she feels her wings4 ,you shall love rectitude and not the disuse of money or the avoidance of trade3 an unimpeded mind1 and not a monkish diet2 sympathy and usefulness1 and not hoeing or coopering4 ,tell me not how great your project is1 the civil liberation of the world1 its conversion into a ,christian church1 the establishment of public education1 cleaner diet1 a new division of labor and of land1 laws of love for laws of property2--,i say to you plainly there is no end to which your practical faculty can aim1 so sacred or so large1 that1 if pursued for itself1 will not at last become carrion and an offence to the nostril4 ,the imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with objects immense and eternal4 ,your end should be one inapprehensible to the senses2 then will it be a god always approached1--never touched2 always giving health4 ,a man adorns himself with prayer and love1 as an aim adorns an action4 ,what is strong but goodness1 and what is energetic but the presence of a brave man8 ,the doctrine in vegetable physiology of the presence1 or the general influence of any substance over and above its chemical influence1 as of an alkali or a living plant1 is more predicable of man4 ,you need not speak to me1 ,i need not go where you are1 that you should exert magnetism on me4 ,be you only whole and sufficient1 and ,i shall feel you in every part of my life and fortune1 and ,i can as easily dodge the gravitation of the globe as escape your influence4 ,but there are other examples of this total and supreme influence1 besides ,nature and the conscience4 8,from the poisonous tree1 the world10 say the ,brahmins1 8two species of fruit are produced1 sweet as the waters of life1 ,love or the society of beautiful souls1 and ,poetry1 whose taste is like the immortal juice of ,vishnu40 ,what is ,love1 and why is it the chief good1 but because it is an overpowering enthusiasm8 ,never self-possessed or prudent1 it is all abandonment4 ,is it not a certain admirable wisdom1 preferable to all other advantages1 and whereof all others are only secondaries and indemnities1 because this is that in which the individual is no longer his own foolish master1 but inhales an odorous and celestial air1 is wrapped round with awe of the object1 blending for the time that object with the real and only good1 and consults every omen in nature with tremulous interest4 ,when we speak truly1--is not he only unhappy who is not in love8 his fancied freedom and self-rule--is it not so much death8 ,he who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser1 sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved1 drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses4 ,therefore if the object be not itself a living and expanding soul1 he presently exhausts it4 ,but the love remains in his mind1 and the wisdom it brought him2 and it craves a new and higher object4 ,and the reason why all men honor love1 is because it looks up and not down2 aspires and not despairs4 ,and what is ,genius but finer love1 a love impersonal1 a love of the flower and perfection of things1 and a desire to draw a new picture or copy of the same8 ,it looks to the cause and life3 it proceeds from within outward1 whilst ,talent goes from without inward4 ,talent finds its models1 methods1 and ends1 in society1 exists for exhibition1 and goes to the soul only for power to work4 ,genius is its own end1 and draws its means and the style of its architecture from within1 going abroad only for audience1 and spectator1 as we adapt our voice and phrase to the distance and character of the ear we speak to4 ,all your learning of all literatures would never enable you to anticipate one of its thoughts or expressions1 and yet each is natural and familiar as household words4 ,here about us coils forever the ancient enigma1 so old and so unutterable4 ,behold6 there is the sun1 and the rain1 and the rocks3 the old sun1 the old stones4 ,how easy were it to describe all this fitly2 yet no word can pass4 ,nature is a mute1 and man1 her articulate speaking brother1 lo6 he also is a mute4 ,yet when ,genius arrives1 its speech is like a river2 it has no straining to describe1 more than there is straining in nature to exist4 ,when thought is best1 there is most of it4 ,genius sheds wisdom like perfume1 and advertises us that it flows out of a deeper source than the foregoing silence1 that it knows so deeply and speaks so musically1 because it is itself a mutation of the thing it describes4 ,it is sun and moon and wave and fire in music1 as astronomy is thought and harmony in masses of matter4 ,what is all history but the work of ideas1 a record of the incomputable energy which his infinite aspirations infuse into man8 ,has any thing grand and lasting been done8 ,who did it8 ,plainly not any man1 but all men3 it was the prevalence and inundation of an idea4 ,what brought the pilgrims here8 ,one man says1 civil liberty2 another1 the desire of founding a church2 and a third1 discovers that the motive force was plantation and trade4 ,but if the ,puritans could rise from the dust1 they could not answer4 ,it is to be seen in what they were1 and not in what they designed2 it was the growth and expansion of the human race1 and resembled herein the sequent ,revolution1 which was not begun in ,concord1 or ,lexington1 or ,virginia1 but was the overflowing of the sense of natural right in every clear and active spirit of the period4 ,is a man boastful and knowing1 and his own master8--we turn from him without hope3 but let him be filled with awe and dread before the ,vast and the ,divine1 which uses him glad to be used1 and our eye is riveted to the chain of events4 ,what a debt is ours to that old religion which1 in the childhood of most of us1 still dwelt like a sabbath morning in the country of ,new ,england1 teaching privation1 self-denial and sorrow6 ,a man was born not for prosperity1 but to suffer for the benefit of others1 like the noble rock-maple which all around our villages bleeds for the service of man4 ,not praise1 not men's acceptance of our doing1 but the spirit's holy errand through us absorbed the thought4 ,how dignified was this6 ,how all that is called talents and success1 in our noisy capitals1 becomes buzz and din before this man-worthiness6 ,how our friendships and the complaisances we use1 shame us now6 ,shall we not quit our companions1 as if they were thieves and pot-companions1 and betake ourselves to some desert cliff of mount ,katahdin1 some unvisited recess in ,moosehead ,lake1 to bewail our innocency and to recover it1 and with it the power to communicate again with these sharers of a more sacred idea8 ,and what is to replace for us the piety of that race8 ,we cannot have theirs3 it glides away from us day by day1 but we also can bask in the great morning which rises forever out of the eastern sea1 and be ourselves the children of the light4 ,i stand here to say1 ,let us worship the mighty and transcendent ,soul4 ,it is the office1 ,i doubt not1 of this age to annul that adulterous divorce which the superstition of many ages has effected between the intellect and holiness4 ,the lovers of goodness have been one class1 the students of wisdom another1 as if either could exist in any purity without the other4 ,truth is always holy1 holiness always wise4 ,i will that we keep terms with sin1 and a sinful literature and society1 no longer1 but live a life of discovery and performance4 ,accept the intellect1 and it will accept us4 ,be the lowly ministers of that pure omniscience1 and deny it not before men4 ,it will burn up all profane literature1 all base current opinions1 all the false powers of the world1 as in a moment of time4 ,i draw from nature the lesson of an intimate divinity4 ,our health and reason as men needs our respect to this fact1 against the heedlessness and against the contradiction of society4 ,the sanity of man needs the poise of this immanent force4 ,his nobility needs the assurance of this inexhaustible reserved power4 ,how great soever have been its bounties1 they are a drop to the sea whence they flow4 ,if you say1 #8the acceptance of the vision is also the act of ,god3'--,i shall not seek to penetrate the mystery1 ,i admit the force of what you say4 ,if you ask1 #8,how can any rules be given for the attainment of gifts so sublime8' ,i shall only remark that the solicitations of this spirit1 as long as there is life1 are never forborne4 ,tenderly1 tenderly1 they woo and court us from every object in nature1 from every fact in life1 from every thought in the mind4 ,the one condition coupled with the gift of truth is its use4 ,that man shall be learned who reduceth his learning to practice4 ,emanuel ,swedenborg affirmed that it was opened to him1 8that the spirits who knew truth in this life1 but did it not1 at death shall lose their knowledge40 8,if knowledge10 said ,ali the ,caliph1 8calleth unto practice1 well2 if not1 it goeth away40 ,the only way into nature is to enact our best insight4 ,instantly we are higher poets1 and can speak a deeper law4 ,do what you know1 and perception is converted into character1 as islands and continents were built by invisible infusories1 or1 as these forest leaves absorb light1 electricity1 and volatile gases1 and the gnarled oak to live a thousand years is the arrest and fixation of the most volatile and ethereal currents4 ,the doctrine of this ,supreme ,presence is a cry of joy and exultation4 ,who shall dare think he has come late into nature1 or has missed anything excellent in the past1 who seeth the admirable stars of possibility1 and the yet untouched continent of hope glittering with all its mountains in the vast ,west8 ,i praise with wonder this great reality1 which seems to drown all things in the deluge of its light4 ,what man seeing this1 can lose it from his thoughts1 or entertain a meaner subject8 ,the entrance of this into his mind seems to be the birth of man4 ,we cannot describe the natural history of the soul1 but we know that it is divine4 ,i cannot tell if these wonderful qualities which house to-day in this mortal frame1 shall ever re-assemble in equal activity in a similar frame1 or whether they have before had a natural history like that of this body you see before you2 but this one thing ,i know1 that these qualities did not now begin to exist1 cannot be sick with my sickness1 nor buried in any grave2 but that they circulate through the ,universe3 before the world was1 they were4 ,nothing can bar them out1 or shut them in1 but they penetrate the ocean and land1 space and time1 form and essence1 and hold the key to universal nature4 ,i draw from this faith courage and hope4 ,all things are known to the soul4 ,it is not to be surprised by any communication4 ,nothing can be greater than it4 ,let those fear and those fawn who will4 ,the soul is in her native realm1 and it is wider than space1 older than time1 wide as hope1 rich as love4 ,pusillanimity and fear she refuses with a beautiful scorn2 they are not for her who putteth on her coronation robes1 and goes out through universal love to universal power4 ,,man ,,the ,,reformer4 ,a ,,lecture ,,read ,,before ,,the ,,mechanics' ,,apprentices' ,,library ,,association1 ,,boston1 ,,january #be1 #ahda4 ,,man ,,the ,,reformer4 ,,mr4 ,,president1 ,,and ,,gentlemen1 ,i wish to offer to your consideration some thoughts on the particular and general relations of man as a reformer4 ,i shall assume that the aim of each young man in this association is the very highest that belongs to a rational mind4 ,let it be granted1 that our life1 as we lead it1 is common and mean2 that some of those offices and functions for which we were mainly created are grown so rare in society1 that the memory of them is only kept alive in old books and in dim traditions2 that prophets and poets1 that beautiful and perfect men1 we are not now1 no1 nor have even seen such2 that some sources of human instruction are almost unnamed and unknown among us2 that the community in which we live will hardly bear to be told that every man should be open to ecstasy or a divine illumination1 and his daily walk elevated by intercourse with the spiritual world4 ,grant all this1 as we must1 yet ,i suppose none of my auditors will deny that we ought to seek to establish ourselves in such disciplines and courses as will deserve that guidance and clearer communication with the spiritual nature4 ,and further1 ,i will not dissemble my hope1 that each person whom ,i address has felt his own call to cast aside all evil customs1 timidities1 and limitations1 and to be in his place a free and helpful man1 a reformer1 a benefactor1 not content to slip along through the world like a footman or a spy1 escaping by his nimbleness and apologies as many knocks as he can1 but a brave and upright man1 who must find or cut a straight road to everything excellent in the earth1 and not only go honorably himself1 but make it easier for all who follow him1 to go in honor and with benefit4 ,in the history of the world the doctrine of ,reform had never such scope as at the present hour4 ,lutherans1 ,hernhutters1 ,jesuits1 ,monks1 ,quakers1 ,knox1 ,wesley1 ,swedenborg1 ,bentham1 in their accusations of society1 all respected something1--church or state1 literature or history1 domestic usages1 the market town1 the dinner table1 coined money4 ,but now all these and all things else hear the trumpet1 and must rush to judgment1--,christianity1 the laws1 commerce1 schools1 the farm1 the laboratory2 and not a kingdom1 town1 statute1 rite1 calling1 man1 or woman1 but is threatened by the new spirit4 ,what if some of the objections whereby our institutions are assailed are extreme and speculative1 and the reformers tend to idealism2 that only shows the extravagance of the abuses which have driven the mind into the opposite extreme4 ,it is when your facts and persons grow unreal and fantastic by too much falsehood1 that the scholar flies for refuge to the world of ideas1 and aims to recruit and replenish nature from that source4 ,let ideas establish their legitimate sway again in society1 let life be fair and poetic1 and the scholars will gladly be lovers1 citizens1 and philanthropists4 ,it will afford no security from the new ideas1 that the old nations1 the laws of centuries1 the property and institutions of a hundred cities1 are built on other foundations4 ,the demon of reform has a secret door into the heart of every lawmaker1 of every inhabitant of every city4 ,the fact1 that a new thought and hope have dawned in your breasts1 should apprize you that in the same hour a new light broke in upon a thousand private hearts4 ,that secret which you would fain keep1--as soon as you go abroad1 lo6 there is one standing on the doorstep1 to tell you the same4 ,there is not the most bronzed and sharpened money-catcher1 who does not1 to your consternation1 almost1 quail and shake the moment he hears a question prompted by the new ideas4 ,we thought he had some semblance of ground to stand upon1 that such as he at least would die hard2 but he trembles and flees4 ,then the scholar says1 #8,cities and coaches shall never impose on me again2 for1 behold every solitary dream of mine is rushing to fulfilment4 ,that fancy ,i had1 and hesitated to utter because you would laugh1--the broker1 the attorney1 the market-man are saying the same thing4 ,had ,i waited a day longer to speak1 ,i had been too late4 ,behold1 ,state ,street thinks1 and ,wall ,street doubts1 and begins to prophecy6' ,it cannot be wondered at1 that this general inquest into abuses should arise in the bosom of society1 when one considers the practical impediments that stand in the way of virtuous young men4 ,the young man1 on entering life1 finds the way to lucrative employments blocked with abuses4 ,the ways of trade are grown selfish to the borders of theft1 and supple to the borders 7if not beyond the borders7 of fraud4 ,the employments of commerce are not intrinsically unfit for a man1 or less genial to his faculties1 but these are now in their general course so vitiated by derelictions and abuses at which all connive1 that it requires more vigor and resources than can be expected of every young man1 to right himself in them2 he is lost in them2 he cannot move hand or foot in them4 ,has he genius and virtue8 the less does he find them fit for him to grow in1 and if he would thrive in them1 he must sacrifice all the brilliant dreams of boyhood and youth as dreams2 he must forget the prayers of his childhood2 and must take on him the harness of routine and obsequiousness4 ,if not so minded1 nothing is left him but to begin the world anew1 as he does who puts the spade into the ground for food4 ,we are all implicated1 of course1 in this charge2 it is only necessary to ask a few questions as to the progress of the articles of commerce from the fields where they grew1 to our houses1 to become aware that we eat and drink and wear perjury and fraud in a hundred commodities4 ,how many articles of daily consumption are furnished us from the ,west ,indies2 yet it is said1 that1 in the ,spanish islands1 the venality of the officers of the government has passed into usage1 and that no article passes into our ships which has not been fraudulently cheapened4 ,in the ,spanish islands1 every agent or factor of the ,americans1 unless he be a consul1 has taken oath that he is a ,catholic1 or has caused a priest to make that declaration for him4 ,the abolitionist has shown us our dreadful debt to the southern negro4 ,in the island of ,cuba1 in addition to the ordinary abominations of slavery1 it appears1 only men are bought for the plantations1 and one dies in ten every year1 of these miserable bachelors1 to yield us sugar4 ,i leave for those who have the knowledge the part of sifting the oaths of our custom-houses2 ,i will not inquire into the oppression of the sailors2 ,i will not pry into the usages of our retail trade4 ,i content myself with the fact1 that the general system of our trade1 7apart from the blacker traits1 which1 ,i hope1 are exceptions denounced and unshared by all reputable men17 is a system of selfishness2 is not dictated by the high sentiments of human nature2 is not measured by the exact law of reciprocity2 much less by the sentiments of love and heroism1 but is a system of distrust1 of concealment1 of superior keenness1 not of giving but of taking advantage4 ,it is not that which a man delights to unlock to a noble friend2 which he meditates on with joy and self-approval in his hour of love and aspiration2 but rather what he then puts out of sight1 only showing the brilliant result1 and atoning for the manner of acquiring1 by the manner of expending it4 ,i do not charge the merchant or the manufacturer4 ,the sins of our trade belong to no class1 to no individual4 ,one plucks1 one distributes1 one eats4 ,every body partakes1 every body confesses1--with cap and knee volunteers his confession1 yet none feels himself accountable4 ,he did not create the abuse2 he cannot alter it4 ,what is he8 an obscure private person who must get his bread4 ,that is the vice1--that no one feels himself called to act for man1 but only as a fraction of man4 ,it happens therefore that all such ingenuous souls as feel within themselves the irrepressible strivings of a noble aim1 who by the law of their nature must act simply1 find these ways of trade unfit for them1 and they come forth from it4 ,such cases are becoming more numerous every year4 ,but by coming out of trade you have not cleared yourself4 ,the trail of the serpent reaches into all the lucrative professions and practices of man4 ,each has it own wrongs4 ,each finds a tender and very intelligent conscience a disqualification for success4 ,each requires of the practitioner a certain shutting of the eyes1 a certain dapperness and compliance1 an acceptance of customs1 a sequestration from the sentiments of generosity and love1 a compromise of private opinion and lofty integrity4 ,nay1 the evil custom reaches into the whole institution of property1 until our laws which establish and protect it1 seem not to be the issue of love and reason1 but of selfishness4 ,suppose a man is so unhappy as to be born a saint1 with keen perceptions1 but with the conscience and love of an angel1 and he is to get his living in the world2 he finds himself excluded from all lucrative works2 he has no farm1 and he cannot get one2 for1 to earn money enough to buy one1 requires a sort of concentration toward money1 which is the selling himself for a number of years1 and to him the present hour is as sacred and inviolable as any future hour4 ,of course1 whilst another man has no land1 my title to mine1 your title to yours1 is at once vitiated4 ,inextricable seem to be the twinings and tendrils of this evil1 and we all involve ourselves in it the deeper by forming connections1 by wives and children1 by benefits and debts4 ,considerations of this kind have turned the attention of many philanthropic and intelligent persons to the claims of manual labor1 as a part of the education of every young man4 ,if the accumulated wealth of the past generation is thus tainted1--no matter how much of it is offered to us1--we must begin to consider if it were not the nobler part to renounce it1 and to put ourselves into primary relations with the soil and nature1 and abstaining from whatever is dishonest and unclean1 to take each of us bravely his part1 with his own hands1 in the manual labor of the world4 ,but it is said1 #8,what6 will you give up the immense advantages reaped from the division of labor1 and set every man to make his own shoes1 bureau1 knife1 wagon1 sails1 and needle8 ,this would be to put men back into barbarism by their own act4' ,i see no instant prospect of a virtuous revolution2 yet ,i confess1 ,i should not be pained at a change which threatened a loss of some of the luxuries or conveniences of society1 if it proceeded from a preference of the agricultural life out of the belief1 that our primary duties as men could be better discharged in that calling4 ,who could regret to see a high conscience and a purer taste exercising a sensible effect on young men in their choice of occupation1 and thinning the ranks of competition in the labors of commerce1 of law1 and of state8 ,it is easy to see that the inconvenience would last but a short time4 ,this would be great action1 which always opens the eyes of men4 ,when many persons shall have done this1 when the majority shall admit the necessity of reform in all these institutions1 their abuses will be redressed1 and the way will be open again to the advantages which arise from the division of labor1 and a man may select the fittest employment for his peculiar talent again1 without compromise4 ,but quite apart from the emphasis which the times give to the doctrine1 that the manual labor of society ought to be shared among all the members1 there are reasons proper to every individual1 why he should not be deprived of it4 ,the use of manual labor is one which never grows obsolete1 and which is inapplicable to no person4 ,a man should have a farm or a mechanical craft for his culture4 ,we must have a basis for our higher accomplishments1 our delicate entertainments of poetry and philosophy1 in the work of our hands4 ,we must have an antagonism in the tough world for all the variety of our spiritual faculties1 or they will not be born4 ,manual labor is the study of the external world4 ,the advantage of riches remains with him who procured them1 not with the heir4 ,when ,i go into my garden with a spade1 and dig a bed1 ,i feel such an exhileration and health1 that ,i discover that ,i have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what ,i should have done with my own hands4 ,but not only health1 but education is in the work4 ,is it possible that ,i who get indefinite quantities of sugar1 hominy1 cotton1 buckets1 crockery ware1 and letter paper1 by simply signing my name once in three months to a cheque in favor of ,john ,smith and ,co4 traders1 get the fair share of exercise to my faculties by that act1 which nature intended for me in making all these farfetched matters important to my comfort8 ,it is ,smith himself1 and his carriers1 and dealers1 and manufacturers2 it is the sailor1 the hidedrogher1 the butcher1 the negro1 the hunter1 and the planter1 who have intercepted the sugar of the sugar1 and the cotton of the cotton4 ,they have got the education1 ,i only the commodity4 ,this were all very well if ,i were necessarily absent1 being detained by work of my own1 like theirs1 work of the same faculties2 then should ,i be sure of my hands and feet1 but now ,i feel some shame before my wood-chopper1 my ploughman1 and my cook1 for they have some sort of self-sufficiency1 they can contrive without my aid to bring the day and year round1 but ,i depend on them1 and have not earned by use a right to my arms and feet4 ,consider further the difference between the first and second owner of property4 ,every species of property is preyed on by its own enemies1 as iron by rust2 timber by rot2 cloth by moths2 provisions by mould1 putridity1 or vermin2 money by thieves2 an orchard by insects2 a planted field by weeds and the inroad of cattle2 a stock of cattle by hunger2 a road by rain and frost2 a bridge by freshets4 ,and whoever takes any of these things into his possession1 takes the charge of defending them from this troop of enemies1 or of keeping them in repair4 ,a man who supplies his own want1 who builds a raft or a boat to go a fishing1 finds it easy to caulk it1 or put in a thole-pin1 or mend the rudder4 ,what he gets only as fast as he wants for his own ends1 does not embarrass him1 or take away his sleep with looking after4 ,but when he comes to give all the goods he has year after year collected1 in one estate to his son1 house1 orchard1 ploughed land1 cattle1 bridges1 hardware1 wooden-ware1 carpets1 cloths1 provisions1 books1 money1 and cannot give him the skill and experience which made or collected these1 and the method and place they have in his own life1 the son finds his hands full1--not to use these things1--but to look after them and defend them from their natural enemies4 ,to him they are not means1 but masters4 ,their enemies will not remit2 rust1 mould1 vermin1 rain1 sun1 freshet1 fire1 all seize their own1 fill him with vexation1 and he is converted from the owner into a watchman or a watch-dog to this magazine of old and new chattels4 ,what a change6 ,instead of the masterly good humor1 and sense of power1 and fertility of resource in himself2 instead of those strong and learned hands1 those piercing and learned eyes1 that supple body1 and that mighty and prevailing heart1 which the father had1 whom nature loved and feared1 whom snow and rain1 water and land1 beast and fish seemed all to know and to serve1 we have now a puny1 protected person1 guarded by walls and curtains1 stoves and down beds1 coaches1 and men servants and women-servants from the earth and the sky1 and who1 bred to depend on all these1 is made anxious by all that endangers those possessions1 and is forced to spend so much time in guarding them1 that he has quite lost sight of their original use1 namely1 to help him to his ends1--to the prosecution of his love2 to the helping of his friend1 to the worship of his ,god1 to the enlargement of his knowledge1 to the serving of his country1 to the indulgence of his sentiment1 and he is now what is called a rich man1--the menial and runner of his riches4 ,hence it happens that the whole interest of history lies in the fortunes of the poor4 ,knowledge1 ,virtue1 ,power are the victories of man over his necessities1 his march to the dominion of the world4 ,every man ought to have this opportunity to conquer the world for himself4 ,only such persons interest us1 ,spartans1 ,romans1 ,saracens1 ,english1 ,americans1 who have stood in the jaws of need1 and have by their own wit and might extricated themselves1 and made man victorious4 ,i do not wish to overstate this doctrine of labor1 or insist that every man should be a farmer1 any more than that every man should be a lexicographer4 ,in general1 one may say1 that the husbandman's is the oldest1 and most universal profession1 and that where a man does not yet discover in himself any fitness for one work more than another1 this may be preferred4 ,but the doctrine of the ,farm is merely this1 that every man ought to stand in primary relations with the work of the world1 ought to do it himself1 and not to suffer the accident of his having a purse in his pocket1 or his having been bred to some dishonorable and injurious craft1 to sever him from those duties2 and for this reason1 that labor is ,god's education2 that he only is a sincere learner1 he only can become a master1 who learns the secrets of labor1 and who by real cunning extorts from nature its sceptre4 ,neither would ,i shut my ears to the plea of the learned professions1 of the poet1 the priest1 the lawgiver1 and men of study generally2 namely1 that in the experience of all men of that class1 the amount of manual labor which is necessary to the maintenance of a family1 indisposes and disqualifies for intellectual exertion4 ,i know1 it often1 perhaps usually1 happens1 that where there is a fine organization apt for poetry and philosophy1 that individual finds himself compelled to wait on his thoughts1 to waste several days that he may enhance and glorify one2 and is better taught by a moderate and dainty exercise1 such as rambling in the fields1 rowing1 skating1 hunting1 than by the downright drudgery of the farmer and the smith4 ,i would not quite forget the venerable counsel of the ,egyptian mysteries1 which declared that 8there were two pairs of eyes in man1 and it is requisite that the pair which are beneath should be closed1 when the pair that are above them perceive1 and that when the pair above are closed1 those which are beneath should be opened40 ,yet ,i will suggest that no separation from labor can be without some loss of power and of truth to the seer himself2 that1 ,i doubt not1 the faults and vices of our literature and philosophy1 their too great fineness1 effeminacy1 and melancholy1 are attributable to the enervated and sickly habits of the literary class4 ,better that the book should not be quite so good1 and the bookmaker abler and better1 and not himself often a ludicrous contrast to all that he has written4 ,but granting that for ends so sacred and dear1 some relaxation must be had1 ,i think1 that if a man find in himself any strong bias to poetry1 to art1 to the contemplative life1 drawing him to these things with a devotion incompatible with good husbandry1 that man ought to reckon early with himself1 and1 respecting the compensations of the ,universe1 ought to ransom himself from the duties of economy1 by a certain rigor and privation in his habits4 ,for privileges so rare and grand1 let him not stint to pay a great tax4 ,let him be a cnobite1 a pauper1 and if need be1 celibate also4 ,let him learn to eat his meals standing1 and to relish the taste of fair water and black bread4 ,he may leave to others the costly conveniences of housekeeping1 and large hospitality1 and the possession of works of art4 ,let him feel that genius is a hospitality1 and that he who can create works of art needs not collect them4 ,he must live in a chamber1 and postpone his self-indulgence1 forewarned and forearmed against that frequent misfortune of men of genius1--the taste for luxury4 ,this is the tragedy of genius1--attempting to drive along the ecliptic with one horse of the heavens and one horse of the earth1 there is only discord and ruin and downfall to chariot and charioteer4 ,the duty that every man should assume his own vows1 should call the institutions of society to account1 and examine their fitness to him1 gains in emphasis1 if we look at our modes of living4 ,is our housekeeping sacred and honorable8 ,does it raise and inspire us1 or does it cripple us instead8 ,i ought to be armed by every part and function of my household1 by all my social function1 by my economy1 by my feasting1 by my voting1 by my traffic4 ,yet ,i am almost no party to any of these things4 ,custom does it for me1 gives me no power therefrom1 and runs me in debt to boot4 ,we spend our incomes for paint and paper1 for a hundred trifles1 ,i know not what1 and not for the things of a man4 ,our expense is almost all for conformity4 ,it is for cake that we run in debt2 'tis not the intellect1 not the heart1 not beauty1 not worship1 that costs so much4 ,why needs any man be rich8 ,why must he have horses1 fine garments1 handsome apartments1 access to public houses and places of amusement8 ,only for want of thought4 ,give his mind a new image1 and he flees into a solitary garden or garret to enjoy it1 and is richer with that dream1 than the fee of a county could make him4 ,but we are first thoughtless1 and then find that we are moneyless4 ,we are first sensual1 and then must be rich4 ,we dare not trust our wit for making our house pleasant to our friend1 and so we buy ice-creams4 ,he is accustomed to carpets1 and we have not sufficient character to put floor cloths out of his mind whilst he stays in the house1 and so we pile the floor with carpets4 ,let the house rather be a temple of the ,furies of ,lacedmon1 formidable and holy to all1 which none but a ,spartan may enter or so much as behold4 ,as soon as there is faith1 as soon as there is society1 comfits and cushions will be left to slaves4 ,expense will be inventive and heroic4 ,we shall eat hard and lie hard1 we shall dwell like the ancient ,romans in narrow tenements1 whilst our public edifices1 like theirs1 will be worthy for their proportion of the landscape in which we set them1 for conversation1 for art1 for music1 for worship4 ,we shall be rich to great purposes2 poor only for selfish ones4 ,now what help for these evils8 ,how can the man who has learned but one art1 procure all the conveniences of life honestly8 ,shall we say all we think8--,perhaps with his own hands4 ,suppose he collects or makes them ill2--yet he has learned their lesson4 ,if he cannot do that4--,then perhaps he can go without4 ,immense wisdom and riches are in that4 ,it is better to go without1 than to have them at too great a cost4 ,let us learn the meaning of economy4 ,economy is a high1 humane office1 a sacrament1 when its aim is grand2 when it is the prudence of simple tastes1 when it practised for freedom1 or love1 or devotion4 ,much of the economy which we see in houses1 is of a base origin1 and is best kept out of sight4 ,parched corn eaten to-day that ,i may have roast fowl to my dinner on ,sunday1 is a baseness2 but parched corn and a house with one apartment1 that ,i may be free of all perturbations1 that ,i may be serene and docile to what the mind shall speak1 and girt and roadready for the lowest mission of knowledge or goodwill1 is frugality for gods and heroes4 ,can we not learn the lesson of self-help8 ,society is full of infirm people1 who incessantly summon others to serve them4 ,they contrive everywhere to exhaust for their single comfort the entire means and appliances of that luxury to which our invention has yet attained4 ,sofas1 ottomans1 stoves1 wine1 game-fowl1 spices1 perfumes1 rides1 the theatre1 entertainments1--all these they want1 they need1 and whatever can be suggested more than these1 they crave also1 as if it was the bread which should keep them from starving2 and if they miss any one1 they represent themselves as the most wronged and most wretched persons on earth4 ,one must have been born and bred with them to know how to prepare a meal for their learned stomach4 ,meantime1 they never bestir themselves to serve another person2 not they6 they have a great deal more to do for themselves than they can possibly perform1 nor do they once perceive the cruel joke of their lives1 but the more odious they grow1 the sharper is the tone of their complaining and craving4 ,can anything be so elegant as to have few wants and to serve them one's self1 so as to have somewhat left to give1 instead of being always prompt to grab8 ,it is more elegant to answer one's own needs1 than to be richly served2 inelegant perhaps it may look to-day1 and to a few1 but it is an elegance forever and to all4 ,i do not wish to be absurd and pedantic in reform4 ,i do not wish to push my criticism on the state of things around me to that extravagant mark1 that shall compel me to suicide1 or to an absolute isolation from the advantages of civil society4 ,if we suddenly plant our foot1 and say1--,i will neither eat nor drink nor wear nor touch any food or fabric which ,i do not know to be innocent1 or deal with any person whose whole manner of life is not clear and rational1 we shall stand still4 ,whose is so8 ,not mine2 not thine2 not his4 ,but ,i think we must clear ourselves each one by the interrogation1 whether we have earned our bread to-day by the hearty contribution of our energies to the common benefit8 and we must not cease to tend to the correction of these flagrant wrongs1 by laying one stone aright every day4 ,but the idea which now begins to agitate society has a wider scope than our daily employments1 our households1 and the institutions of property4 ,we are to revise the whole of our social structure1 the state1 the school1 religion1 marriage1 trade1 science1 and explore their foundations in our own nature2 we are to see that the world not only fitted the former men1 but fits us1 and to clear ourselves of every usage which has not its roots in our own mind4 ,what is a man born for but to be a ,reformer1 a ,re-maker of what man has made2 a renouncer of lies2 a restorer of truth and good1 imitating that great ,nature which embosoms us all1 and which sleeps no moment on an old past1 but every hour repairs herself1 yielding us every morning a new day1 and with every pulsation a new life8 ,let him renounce everything which is not true to him1 and put all his practices back on their first thoughts1 and do nothing for which he has not the whole world for his reason4 ,if there are inconveniences1 and what is called ruin in the way1 because we have so enervated and maimed ourselves1 yet it would be like dying of perfumes to sink in the effort to reattach the deeds of every day to the holy and mysterious recesses of life4 ,the power1 which is at once spring and regulator in all efforts of reform1 is the conviction that there is an infinite worthiness in man which will appear at the call of worth1 and that all particular reforms are the removing of some impediment4 ,is it not the highest duty that man should be honored in us8 ,i ought not to allow any man1 because he has broad lands1 to feel that he is rich in my presence4 ,i ought to make him feel that ,i can do without his riches1 that ,i cannot be bought1--neither by comfort1 neither by pride1--and though ,i be utterly penniless1 and receiving bread from him1 that he is the poor man beside me4 ,and if1 at the same time1 a woman or a child discovers a sentiment of piety1 or a juster way of thinking than mine1 ,i ought to confess it by my respect and obedience1 though it go to alter my whole way of life4 ,the ,americans have many virtues1 but they have not ,faith and ,hope4 ,i know no two words whose meaning is more lost sight of4 ,we use these words as if they were as obsolete as ,selah and ,amen4 ,and yet they have the broadest meaning1 and the most cogent application to ,boston in #ahda4 ,the ,americans have no faith4 ,they rely on the power of a dollar2 they are deaf to a sentiment4 ,they think you may talk the north wind down as easily as raise society2 and no class more faithless than the scholars or intellectual men4 ,now if ,i talk with a sincere wise man1 and my friend1 with a poet1 with a conscientious youth who is still under the dominion of his own wild thoughts1 and not yet harnessed in the team of society to drag with us all in the ruts of custom1 ,i see at once how paltry is all this generation of unbelievers1 and what a house of cards their institutions are1 and ,i see what one brave man1 what one great thought executed might effect4 ,i see that the reason of the distrust of the practical man in all theory1 is his inability to perceive the means whereby we work4 ,look1 he says1 at the tools with which this world of yours is to be built4 ,as we cannot make a planet1 with atmosphere1 rivers1 and forests1 by means of the best carpenters' or engineers' tools1 with chemist's laboratory and smith's forge to boot1--so neither can we ever construct that heavenly society you prate of1 out of foolish1 sick1 selfish men and women1 such as we know them to be4 ,but the believer not only beholds his heaven to be possible1 but already to begin to exist1--not by the men or materials the statesman uses1 but by men transfigured and raised above themselves by the power of principles4 ,to principles something else is possible that transcends all the power of expedients4 ,every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm4 ,the victories of the ,arabs after ,mahomet1 who1 in a few years1 from a small and mean beginning1 established a larger empire than that of ,rome1 is an example4 ,they did they knew not what4 ,the naked ,derar1 horsed on an idea1 was found an overmatch for a troop of ,roman cavalry4 ,the women fought like men1 and conquered the ,roman men4 ,they were miserably equipped1 miserably fed4 ,they were ,temperance troops4 ,there was neither brandy nor flesh needed to feed them4 ,they conquered ,asia1 and ,africa1 and ,spain1 on barley4 ,the ,caliph ,omar's walking-stick struck more terror into those who saw it1 than another man's sword4 ,his diet was barley bread2 his sauce was salt2 and oftentimes by way of abstinence he ate his bread without salt4 ,his drink was water4 ,his palace was built of mud2 and when he left ,medina to go to the conquest of ,jerusalem1 he rode on a red camel1 with a wooden platter hanging at his saddle1 with a bottle of water and two sacks1 one holding barley1 and the other dried fruits4 ,but there will dawn ere long on our politics1 on our modes of living1 a nobler morning than that ,arabian faith1 in the sentiment of love4 ,this is the one remedy for all ills1 the panacea of nature4 ,we must be lovers1 and at once the impossible becomes possible4 ,our age and history1 for these thousand years1 has not been the history of kindness1 but of selfishness4 ,our distrust is very expensive4 ,the money we spend for courts and prisons is very ill laid out4 ,we make1 by distrust1 the thief1 and burglar1 and incendiary1 and by our court and jail we keep him so4 ,an acceptance of the sentiment of love throughout ,christendom for a season1 would bring the felon and the outcast to our side in tears1 with the devotion of his faculties to our service4 ,see this wide society of laboring men and women4 ,we allow ourselves to be served by them1 we live apart from them1 and meet them without a salute in the streets4 ,we do not greet their talents1 nor rejoice in their good fortune1 nor foster their hopes1 nor in the assembly of the people vote for what is dear to them4 ,thus we enact the part of the selfish noble and king from the foundation of the world4 ,see1 this tree always bears one fruit4 ,in every household1 the peace of a pair is poisoned by the malice1 slyness1 indolence1 and alienation of domestics4 ,let any two matrons meet1 and observe how soon their conversation turns on the troubles from their 8help10 as our phrase is4 ,in every knot of laborers1 the rich man does not feel himself among his friends1--and at the polls he finds them arrayed in a mass in distinct opposition to him4 ,we complain that the politics of masses of the people are controlled by designing men1 and led in opposition to manifest justice and the common weal1 and to their own interest4 ,but the people do not wish to be represented or ruled by the ignorant and base4 ,they only vote for these1 because they were asked with the voice and semblance of kindness4 ,they will not vote for them long4 ,they inevitably prefer wit and probity4 ,to use an ,egyptian metaphor1 it is not their will for any long time 8to raise the nails of wild beasts1 and to depress the heads of the sacred birds40 ,let our affection flow out to our fellows2 it would operate in a day the greatest of all revolutions4 ,it is better to work on institutions by the sun than by the wind4 ,the state must consider the poor man1 and all voices must speak for him4 ,every child that is born must have a just chance for his bread4 ,let the amelioration in our laws of property proceed from the concession of the rich1 not from the grasping of the poor4 ,let us begin by habitual imparting4 ,let us understand that the equitable rule is1 that no one should take more than his share1 let him be ever so rich4 ,let me feel that ,i am to be a lover4 ,i am to see to it that the world is the better for me1 and to find my reward in the act4 ,love would put a new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long1 and it would warm the heart to see how fast the vain diplomacy of statesmen1 the impotence of armies1 and navies1 and lines of defence1 would be superseded by this unarmed child4 ,love will creep where it cannot go1 will accomplish that by imperceptible methods1--being its own lever1 fulcrum1 and power1--which force could never achieve4 ,have you not seen in the woods1 in a late autumn morning1 a poor fungus or mushroom1--a plant without any solidity1 nay1 that seemed nothing but a soft mush or jelly1--by its constant1 total1 and inconceivably gentle pushing1 manage to break its way up through the frosty ground1 and actually to lift a hard crust on its head8 ,it is the symbol of the power of kindness4 ,the virtue of this principle in human society in application to great interests is obsolete and forgotten4 ,once or twice in history it has been tried in illustrious instances1 with signal success4 ,this great1 overgrown1 dead ,christendom of ours still keeps alive at least the name of a lover of mankind4 ,but one day all men will be lovers2 and every calamity will be dissolved in the universal sunshine4 ,will you suffer me to add one trait more to this portrait of man the reformer8 ,the mediator between the spiritual and the actual world should have a great prospective prudence4 ,an ,arabian poet describes his hero by saying1 8,sunshine was he ,in the winter day2 ,and in the midsummer ,coolness and shade40 ,he who would help himself and others1 should not be a subject of irregular and interrupted impulses of virtue1 but a continent1 persisting1 immovable person1--such as we have seen a few scattered up and down in time for the blessing of the world2 men who have in the gravity of their nature a quality which answers to the fly-wheel in a mill1 which distributes the motion equably over all the wheels1 and hinders it from falling unequally and suddenly in destructive shocks4 ,it is better that joy should be spread over all the day in the form of strength1 than that it should be concentrated into ecstasies1 full of danger and followed by reactions4 ,there is a sublime prudence1 which is the very highest that we know of man1 which1 believing in a vast future1--sure of more to come than is yet seen1--postpones always the present hour to the whole life2 postpones talent to genius1 and special results to character4 ,as the merchant gladly takes money from his income to add to his capital1 so is the great man very willing to lose particular powers and talents1 so that he gain in the elevation of his life4 ,the opening of the spiritual senses disposes men ever to greater sacrifices1 to leave their signal talents1 their best means and skill of procuring a present success their power and their fame1--to cast all things behind1 in the insatiable thirst for divine communications4 ,a purer fame1 a greater power rewards the sacrifice4 ,it is the conversion of our harvest into seed4 ,as the farmer casts into the ground the finest ears of his grain1 the time will come when we too shall hold nothing back1 but shall eagerly convert more than we now possess into means and powers1 when we shall be willing to sow the sun and the moon for seeds4 ,,lecture ,,on ,,the ,,times4 ,,read ,,at ,,the ,,masonic ,,temple1 ,,boston1 ,,december #b1 #ahda4 ,,lecture ,,on ,,the ,,times4 ,the ,times1 as we say--or the present aspects of our social state1 the ,laws1 ,divinity1 ,natural ,science1 ,agriculture1 ,art1 ,trade1 ,letters1 have their root in an invisible spiritual reality4 ,to appear in these aspects1 they must first exist1 or have some necessary foundation4 ,beside all the small reasons we assign1 there is a great reason for the existence of every extant fact2 a reason which lies grand and immovable1 often unsuspected behind it in silence4 ,the ,times are the masquerade of the eternities2 trivial to the dull1 tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise2 the receptacle in which the ,past leaves its history2 the quarry out of which the genius of to-day is building up the ,future4 ,the ,times--the nations1 manners1 institutions1 opinions1 votes1 are to be studied as omens1 as sacred leaves1 whereon a weighty sense is inscribed1 if we have the wit and the love to search it out4 ,nature itself seems to propound to us this topic1 and to invite us to explore the meaning of the conspicuous facts of the day4 ,everything that is popular1 it has been said1 deserves the attention of the philosopher3 and this for the obvious reason1 that although it may not be of any worth in itself1 yet it characterizes the people4 ,here is very good matter to be handled1 if we are skilful2 an abundance of important practical questions which it behoves us to understand4 ,let us examine the pretensions of the attacking and defending parties4 ,here is this great fact of ,conservatism1 entrenched in its immense redoubts1 with ,himmaleh for its front1 and ,atlas for its flank1 and ,andes for its rear1 and the ,atlantic and ,pacific seas for its ditches and trenches1 which has planted its crosses1 and crescents1 and stars and stripes1 and various signs and badges of possession1 over every rood of the planet1 and says1 #8,i will hold fast2 and to whom ,i will1 will ,i give2 and whom ,i will1 will ,i exclude and starve3' so says ,conservatism2 and all the children of men attack the colossus in their youth1 and all1 or all but a few1 bow before it when they are old4 ,a necessity not yet commanded1 a negative imposed on the will of man by his condition1 a deficiency in his force1 is the foundation on which it rests4 ,let this side be fairly stated4 ,meantime1 on the other part1 arises ,reform1 and offers the sentiment of ,love as an overmatch to this material might4 ,i wish to consider well this affirmative side1 which has a loftier port and reason than heretofore1 which encroaches on the other every day1 puts it out of countenance1 out of reason1 and out of temper1 and leaves it nothing but silence and possession4 ,the fact of aristocracy1 with its two weapons of wealth and manners1 is as commanding a feature of the nineteenth century1 and the ,american republic1 as of old ,rome1 or modern ,england4 ,the reason and influence of wealth1 the aspect of philosophy and religion1 and the tendencies which have acquired the name of ,transcendentalism in ,old and ,new ,england2 the aspect of poetry1 as the exponent and interpretation of these things2 the fuller development and the freer play of ,character as a social and political agent2--these and other related topics will in turn come to be considered4 ,but the subject of the ,times is not an abstract question4 ,we talk of the world1 but we mean a few men and women4 ,if you speak of the age1 you mean your own platoon of people1 as ,milton and ,dante painted in colossal their platoons1 and called them ,heaven and ,hell4 ,in our idea of progress1 we do not go out of this personal picture4 ,we do not think the sky will be bluer1 or honey sweeter1 or our climate more temperate1 but only that our relation to our fellows will be simpler and happier4 ,what is the reason to be given for this extreme attraction which persons have for us1 but that they are the ,age8 they are the results of the ,past2 they are the heralds of the ,future4 ,they indicate1--these witty1 suffering1 blushing1 intimidating figures of the only race in which there are individuals or changes1 how far on the ,fate has gone1 and what it drives at4 ,as trees make scenery1 and constitute the hospitality of the landscape1 so persons are the world to persons4 ,a cunning mystery by which the ,great ,desart of thoughts and of planets takes this engaging form1 to bring1 as it would seem1 its meanings nearer to the mind4 ,thoughts walk and speak1 and look with eyes at me1 and transport me into new and magnificent scenes4 ,these are the pungent instructors who thrill the heart of each of us1 and make all other teaching formal and cold4 ,how ,i follow them with aching heart1 with pining desire6 ,i count myself nothing before them4 ,i would die for them with joy4 ,they can do what they will with me4 ,how they lash us with those tongues6 ,how they make the tears start1 make us blush and turn pale1 and lap us in ,elysium to soothing dreams1 and castles in the air6 ,by tones of triumph2 of dear love2 by threats2 by pride that freezes2 these have the skill to make the world look bleak and inhospitable1 or seem the nest of tenderness and joy4 ,i do not wonder at the miracles which poetry attributes to the music of ,orpheus1 when ,i remember what ,i have experienced from the varied notes of the human voice4 ,they are an incalculable energy which countervails all other forces in nature1 because they are the channel of supernatural powers4 ,there is no interest or institution so poor and withered1 but if a new strong man could be born into it1 he would immediately redeem and replace it4 ,a personal ascendency1--that is the only fact much worth considering4 ,i remember1 some years ago1 somebody shocked a circle of friends of order here in ,boston1 who supposed that our people were identified with their religious denominations1 by declaring that an eloquent man1--let him be of what sect soever1--would be ordained at once in one of our metropolitan churches4 ,to be sure he would2 and not only in ours1 but in any church1 mosque1 or temple1 on the planet2 but he must be eloquent1 able to supplant our method and classification1 by the superior beauty of his own4 ,every fact we have was brought here by some person2 and there is none that will not change and pass away before a person1 whose nature is broader than the person which the fact in question represents4 ,and so ,i find the ,age walking about in happy and hopeful natures1 in strong eyes1 and pleasant thoughts1 and think ,i read it nearer and truer so1 than in the statute-book1 or in the investments of capital1 which rather celebrate with mournful music the obsequies of the last age4 ,in the brain of a fanatic2 in the wild hope of a mountain boy1 called by city boys very ignorant1 because they do not know what his hope has certainly apprised him shall be2 in the love-glance of a girl2 in the hair-splitting conscientiousness of some eccentric person1 who has found some new scruple to embarrass himself and his neighbors withal2 is to be found that which shall constitute the times to come1 more than in the now organized and accredited oracles4 ,for1 whatever is affirmative and now advancing1 contains it4 ,i think that only is real1 which men love and rejoice in2 not what they tolerate1 but what they choose2 what they embrace and avow1 and not the things which chill1 benumb1 and terrify them4 ,and so why not draw for these times a portrait gallery8 ,let us paint the painters4 ,whilst the ,daguerreotypist1 with camera-obscura and silver plate1 begins now to traverse the land1 let us set up our ,camera also1 and let the sun paint the people4 ,let us paint the agitator1 and the man of the old school1 and the member of ,congress1 and the college-professor1 the formidable editor1 the priest1 and reformer1 the contemplative girl1 and the fair aspirant for fashion and opportunities1 the woman of the world who has tried and knows2--let us examine how well she knows4 ,could we indicate the indicators1 indicate those who most accurately represent every good and evil tendency of the general mind1 in the just order which they take on this canvass of ,time2 so that all witnesses should recognise a spiritual law1 as each well known form flitted for a moment across the wall1 we should have a series of sketches which would report to the next ages the color and quality of ours4 ,certainly1 ,i think1 if this were done1 there would be much to admire as well as to condemn2 souls of as lofty a port1 as any in ,greek or ,roman fame1 might appear2 men of great heart1 of strong hand1 and of persuasive speech2 subtle thinkers1 and men of wide sympathy1 and an apprehension which looks over all history1 and everywhere recognises its own4 ,to be sure1 there will be fragments and hints of men1 more than enough3 bloated promises1 which end in nothing or little4 ,and then truly great men1 but with some defect in their composition1 which neutralizes their whole force4 ,here is a ,damascus blade1 such as you may search through nature in vain to parallel1 laid up on the shelf in some village to rust and ruin4 ,and how many seem not quite available for that idea which they represent8 ,now and then comes a bolder spirit1 ,i should rather say1 a more surrendered soul1 more informed and led by ,god1 which is much in advance of the rest1 quite beyond their sympathy1 but predicts what shall soon be the general fulness2 as when we stand by the seashore1 whilst the tide is coming in1 a wave comes up the beach far higher than any foregoing one1 and recedes2 and for a long while none comes up to that mark2 but after some time the whole sea is there and beyond it4 ,but we are not permitted to stand as spectators of the pageant which the times exhibit2 we are parties also1 and have a responsibility which is not to be declined4 ,a little while this interval of wonder and comparison is permitted us1 but to the end that we shall play a manly part4 ,as the solar system moves forward in the heavens1 certain stars open before us1 and certain stars close up behind us2 so is man's life4 ,the reputations that were great and inaccessible change and tarnish4 ,how great were once ,lord ,bacon's dimensions6 he is now reduced almost to the middle height2 and many another star has turned out to be a planet or an asteroid3 only a few are the fixed stars which have no parallax1 or none for us4 ,the change and decline of old reputations are the gracious marks of our own growth4 ,slowly1 like light of morning1 it steals on us1 the new fact1 that we1 who were pupils or aspirants1 are now society3 do compose a portion of that head and heart we are wont to think worthy of all reverence and heed4 ,we are the representatives of religion and intellect1 and stand in the light of ,ideas1 whose rays stream through us to those younger and more in the dark4 ,what further relations we sustain1 what new lodges we are entering1 is now unknown4 ,to-day is a king in disguise4 ,to-day always looks mean to the thoughtless1 in the face of an uniform experience1 that all good and great and happy actions are made up precisely of these blank to-days4 ,let us not be so deceived4 ,let us unmask the king as he passes4 ,let us not inhabit times of wonderful and various promise without divining their tendency4 ,let us not see the foundations of nations1 and of a new and better order of things laid1 with roving eyes1 and an attention preoccupied with trifles4 ,the two omnipresent parties of ,history1 the party of the ,past and the party of the ,future1 divide society to-day as of old4 ,here is the innumerable multitude of those who accept the state and the church from the last generation1 and stand on no argument but possession4 ,they have reason also1 and1 as ,i think1 better reason than is commonly stated4 ,no ,burke1 no ,metternich has yet done full justice to the side of conservatism4 ,but this class1 however large1 relying not on the intellect but on the instinct1 blends itself with the brute forces of nature1 is respectable only as nature is1 but the individuals have no attraction for us4 ,it is the dissenter1 the theorist1 the aspirant1 who is quitting this ancient domain to embark on seas of adventure1 who engages our interest4 ,omitting then for the present all notice of the stationary class1 we shall find that the movement party divides itself into two classes1 the actors1 and the students4 ,the actors constitute that great army of martyrs who1 at least in ,america1 by their conscience and philanthropy1 occupy the ground which ,calvinism occupied in the last age1 and compose the visible church of the existing generation4 ,the present age will be marked by its harvest of projects for the reform of domestic1 civil1 literary1 and ecclesiastical institutions4 ,the leaders of the crusades against ,war1 ,negro slavery1 ,intemperance1 ,government based on force1 ,usages of trade1 ,court and ,custom-house ,oaths1 and so on to the agitators on the system of ,education and the laws of ,property1 are the right successors of ,luther1 ,knox1 ,robinson1 ,fox1 ,penn1 ,wesley1 and ,whitfield4 ,they have the same virtues and vices2 the same noble impulse1 and the same bigotry4 ,these movements are on all accounts important2 they not only check the special abuses1 but they educate the conscience and the intellect of the people4 ,how can such a question as the ,slave-trade be agitated for forty years by all the ,christian nations1 without throwing great light on ethics into the general mind8 ,the fury1 with which the slave-trader defends every inch of his bloody deck1 and his howling auction-platform1 is a trumpet to alarm the ear of mankind1 to wake the dull1 and drive all neutrals to take sides1 and to listen to the argument and the verdict4 ,the ,temperance-question1 which rides the conversation of ten thousand circles1 and is tacitly recalled at every public and at every private table1 drawing with it all the curious ethics of the ,pledge1 of the ,wine-question1 of the equity of the manufacture and the trade1 is a gymnastic training to the casuistry and conscience of the time4 ,antimasonry had a deep right and wrong1 which gradually emerged to sight out of the turbid controversy4 ,the political questions touching the ,banks2 the ,tariff2 the limits of the executive power2 the right of the constituent to instruct the representative2 the treatment of the ,indians2 the ,boundary wars2 the ,congress of nations2 are all pregnant with ethical conclusions2 and it is well if government and our social order can extricate themselves from these alembics1 and find themselves still government and social order4 ,the student of history will hereafter compute the singular value of our endless discussion of questions1 to the mind of the period4 ,whilst each of these aspirations and attempts of the people for the ,better is magnified by the natural exaggeration of its advocates1 until it excludes the others from sight1 and repels discreet persons by the unfairness of the plea1 the movements are in reality all parts of one movement4 ,there is a perfect chain1--see it1 or see it not1--of reforms emerging from the surrounding darkness1 each cherishing some part of the general idea1 and all must be seen1 in order to do justice to any one4 ,seen in this their natural connection1 they are sublime4 ,the conscience of the ,age demonstrates itself in this effort to raise the life of man by putting it in harmony with his idea of the ,beautiful and the ,just4 ,the history of reform is always identical2 it is the comparison of the idea with the fact4 ,our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination4 ,we suspect they are unworthy4 ,we arraign our daily employments4 ,they appear to us unfit1 unworthy of the faculties we spend on them4 ,in conversation with a wise man1 we find ourselves apologizing for our employments2 we speak of them with shame4 ,nature1 literature1 science1 childhood1 appear to us beautiful2 but not our own daily work2 not the ripe fruit and considered labors of man4 ,this beauty which the fancy finds in everything else1 certainly accuses the manner of life we lead4 ,why should it be hateful8 ,why should it contrast thus with all natural beauty8 ,why should it not be poetic1 and invite and raise us8 ,is there a necessity that the works of man should be sordid8 ,perhaps not4--,out of this fair ,idea in the mind springs the effort at the ,perfect4 ,it is the interior testimony to a fairer possibility of life and manners1 which agitates society every day with the offer of some new amendment4 ,if we would make more strict inquiry concerning its origin1 we find ourselves rapidly approaching the inner boundaries of thought1 that term where speech becomes silence1 and science conscience4 ,for the origin of all reform is in that mysterious fountain of the moral sentiment in man1 which1 amidst the natural1 ever contains the supernatural for men4 ,that is new and creative4 ,that is alive4 ,that alone can make a man other than he is4 ,here or nowhere resides unbounded energy1 unbounded power4 ,the new voices in the wilderness crying 8,repent10 have revived a hope1 which had wellnigh perished out of the world1 that the thoughts of the mind may yet1 in some distant age1 in some happy hour1 be executed by the hands4 ,that is the hope1 of which all other hopes are parts4 ,for some ages1 these ideas have been consigned to the poet and musical composer1 to the prayers and the sermons of churches2 but the thought1 that they can ever have any footing in real life1 seems long since to have been exploded by all judicious persons4 ,milton1 in his best tract1 describes a relation between religion and the daily occupations1 which is true until this time4 8,a wealthy man1 addicted to his pleasure and to his profits1 finds religion to be a traffic so entangled1 and of so many piddling accounts1 that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade4 ,what should he do8 ,fain he would have the name to be religious2 fain he would bear up with his neighbors in that4 ,what does he1 therefore1 but resolve to give over toiling1 and to find himself out some factor1 to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs2 some divine of note and estimation that must be4 ,to him he adheres1 resigns the whole warehouse of his religion1 with all the locks and keys1 into his custody2 and indeed makes the very person of that man his religion2 esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety4 ,so that a man may say1 his religion is now no more within himself1 but is become a dividual moveable1 and goes and comes near him1 according as that good man frequents the house4 ,he entertains him1 gives him gifts1 feasts him1 lodges him2 his religion comes home at night1 prays1 is liberally supped1 and sumptuously laid to sleep1 rises1 is saluted1 and after the malmsey1 or some well spiced beverage1 and better breakfasted than he whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between ,bethany and ,jerusalem1 his religion walks abroad at eight1 and leaves his kind entertainer in the shop1 trading all day without his religion40 ,this picture would serve for our times4 ,religion was not invited to eat or drink or sleep with us1 or to make or divide an estate1 but was a holiday guest4 ,such omissions judge the church2 as the compromise made with the slaveholder1 not much noticed at first1 every day appears more flagrant mischief to the ,american constitution4 ,but now the purists are looking into all these matters4 ,the more intelligent are growing uneasy on the subject of ,marriage4 ,they wish to see the character represented also in that covenant4 ,there shall be nothing brutal in it1 but it shall honor the man and the woman1 as much as the most diffusive and universal action4 ,grimly the same spirit looks into the law of ,property1 and accuses men of driving a trade in the great boundless providence which had given the air1 the water1 and the land to men1 to use and not to fence in and monopolize4 ,it casts its eye on ,trade1 and ,day ,labor1 and so it goes up and down1 paving the earth with eyes1 destroying privacy and making thorough-lights4 ,is all this for nothing8 ,do you suppose that the reformers1 which are preparing1 will be as superficial as those we know8 ,by the books it reads and translates1 judge what books it will presently print4 ,a great deal of the profoundest thinking of antiquity1 which had become as good as obsolete for us1 is now re-appearing in extracts and allusions1 and in twenty years will get all printed anew4 ,see how daring is the reading1 the speculation1 the experimenting of the time4 ,if now some genius shall arise who could unite these scattered rays6 ,and always such a genius does embody the ideas of each time4 ,here is great variety and richness of mysticism1 each part of which now only disgusts1 whilst it forms the sole thought of some poor ,perfectionist or 8,comer out10 yet1 when it shall be taken up as the garniture of some profound and all-reconciling thinker1 will appear the rich and appropriate decoration of his robes4 ,these reforms are our contemporaries2 they are ourselves2 our own light1 and sight1 and conscience2 they only name the relation which subsists between us and the vicious institutions which they go to rectify4 ,they are the simplest statements of man in these matters2 the plain right and wrong4 ,i cannot choose but allow and honor them4 ,the impulse is good1 and the theory2 the practice is less beautiful4 ,the ,reformers affirm the inward life1 but they do not trust it1 but use outward and vulgar means4 ,they do not rely on precisely that strength which wins me to their cause2 not on love1 not on a principle1 but on men1 on multitudes1 on circumstances1 on money1 on party2 that is1 on fear1 on wrath1 and pride4 ,the love which lifted men to the sight of these better ends1 was the true and best distinction of this time1 the disposition to trust a principle more than a material force4 ,i think that the soul of reform2 the conviction1 that not sensualism1 not slavery1 not war1 not imprisonment1 not even government1 are needed1--but in lieu of them all1 reliance on the sentiment of man1 which will work best the more it is trusted2 not reliance on numbers1 but1 contrariwise1 distrust of numbers1 and the feeling that then are we strongest1 when most private and alone4 ,the young men1 who have been vexing society for these last years with regenerative methods1 seem to have made this mistake2 they all exaggerated some special means1 and all failed to see that the ,reform of ,reforms must be accomplished without means4 ,the ,reforms have their high origin in an ideal justice1 but they do not retain the purity of an idea4 ,they are quickly organized in some low1 inadequate form1 and present no more poetic image to the mind1 than the evil tradition which they reprobated4 ,they mix the fire of the moral sentiment with personal and party heats1 with measureless exaggerations1 and the blindness that prefers some darling measure to justice and truth4 ,those1 who are urging with most ardor what are called the greatest benefits of mankind1 are narrow1 self-pleasing1 conceited men1 and affect us as the insane do4 ,they bite us1 and we run mad also4 ,i think the work of the reformer as innocent as other work that is done around him2 but when ,i have seen it near1 ,i do not like it better4 ,it is done in the same way1 it is done profanely1 not piously2 by management1 by tactics1 and clamor4 ,it is a buzz in the ear4 ,i cannot feel any pleasure in sacrifices which display to me such partiality of character4 ,we do not want actions1 but men2 not a chemical drop of water1 but rain2 the spirit that sheds and showers actions1 countless1 endless actions4 ,you have on some occasion played a bold part4 ,you have set your heart and face against society1 when you thought it wrong1 and returned it frown for frown4 ,excellent3 now can you afford to forget it1 reckoning all your action no more than the passing of your hand through the air1 or a little breath of your mouth8 ,the world leaves no track in space1 and the greatest action of man no mark in the vast idea4 ,to the youth diffident of his ability1 and full of compunction at his unprofitable existence1 the temptation is always great to lend himself to public movements1 and as one of a party accomplish what he cannot hope to effect alone4 ,but he must resist the degradation of a man to a measure4 ,i must act with truth1 though ,i should never come to act1 as you call it1 with effect4 ,i must consent to inaction4 ,a patience which is grand2 a brave and cold neglect of the offices which prudence exacts1 so it be done in a deep upper piety2 a consent to solitude and inaction1 which proceeds out of an unwillingness to violate character1 is the century which makes the gem4 ,whilst therefore ,i desire to express the respect and joy ,i feel before this sublime connection of reforms1 now in their infancy around us1 ,i urge the more earnestly the paramount duties of self-reliance4 ,i cannot find language of sufficient energy to convey my sense of the sacredness of private integrity4 ,all men1 all things1 the state1 the church1 yea the friends of the heart are phantasms and unreal beside the sanctuary of the heart4 ,with so much awe1 with so much fear1 let it be respected4 ,the great majority of men1 unable to judge of any principle until its light falls on a fact1 are not aware of the evil that is around them1 until they see it in some gross form1 as in a class of intemperate men1 or slaveholders1 or soldiers1 or fraudulent persons4 ,then they are greatly moved2 and magnifying the importance of that wrong1 they fancy that if that abuse were redressed1 all would go well1 and they fill the land with clamor to correct it4 ,hence the missionary and other religious efforts4 ,if every island and every house had a ,bible1 if every child was brought into the ,sunday ,school1 would the wounds of the world heal1 and man be upright8 ,but the man of ideas1 accounting the circumstance nothing1 judges of the commonwealth from the state of his own mind4 #8,if1' he says1 #8,i am selfish1 then is there slavery1 or the effort to establish it1 wherever ,i go4 ,but if ,i am just1 then is there no slavery1 let the laws say what they will4 ,for if ,i treat all men as gods1 how to me can there be any such thing as a slave8' ,but how frivolous is your war against circumstances4 ,this denouncing philanthropist is himself a slaveholder in every word and look4 ,does he free me8 ,does he cheer me8 ,he is the state of ,georgia1 or ,alabama1 with their sanguinary slave-laws1 walking here on our northeastern shores4 ,we are all thankful he has no more political power1 as we are fond of liberty ourselves4 ,i am afraid our virtue is a little geographical4 ,i am not mortified by our vice2 that is obduracy2 it colors and palters1 it curses and swears1 and ,i can see to the end of it2 but1 ,i own1 our virtue makes me ashamed2 so sour and narrow1 so thin and blind1 virtue so vice-like4 ,then again1 how trivial seem the contests of the abolitionist1 whilst he aims merely at the circumstance of the slave4 ,give the slave the least elevation of religious sentiment1 and he is no slave3 you are the slave3 he not only in his humility feels his superiority1 feels that much deplored condition of his to be a fading trifle1 but he makes you feel it too4 ,he is the master4 ,the exaggeration1 which our young people make of his wrongs1 characterizes themselves4 ,what are no trifles to them1 they naturally think are no trifles to ,pompey4 ,we say1 then1 that the reforming movement is sacred in its origin2 in its management and details timid and profane4 ,these benefactors hope to raise man by improving his circumstances3 by combination of that which is dead1 they hope to make something alive4 ,in vain4 ,by new infusions alone of the spirit by which he is made and directed1 can he be re-made and reinforced4 ,the sad ,pestalozzi1 who shared with all ardent spirits the hope of ,europe on the outbreak of the ,french ,revolution1 after witnessing its sequel1 recorded his conviction1 that 8the amelioration of outward circumstances will be the effect1 but can never be the means of mental and moral improvement40 ,quitting now the class of actors1 let us turn to see how it stands with the other class of which we spoke1 namely1 the students4 ,a new disease has fallen on the life of man4 ,every ,age1 like every human body1 has its own distemper4 ,other times have had war1 or famine1 or a barbarism domestic or bordering1 as their antagonism4 ,our forefathers walked in the world and went to their graves1 tormented with the fear of ,sin1 and the terror of the ,day of ,judgment4 ,these terrors have lost their force1 and our torment is ,unbelief1 the ,uncertainty as to what we ought to do2 the distrust of the value of what we do1 and the distrust that the ,necessity 7which we all at last believe in7 is fair and beneficent4 ,our ,religion assumes the negative form of rejection4 ,out of love of the true1 we repudiate the false3 and the ,religion is an abolishing criticism4 ,a great perplexity hangs like a cloud on the brow of all cultivated persons1 a certain imbecility in the best spirits1 which distinguishes the period4 ,we do not find the same trait in the ,arabian1 in the ,hebrew1 in ,greek1 ,roman1 ,norman1 ,english periods2 no1 but in other men a natural firmness4 ,the men did not see beyond the need of the hour4 ,they planted their foot strong1 and doubted nothing4 ,we mistrust every step we take4 ,we find it the worst thing about time1 that we know not what to do with it4 ,we are so sharp-sighted that we can neither work nor think1 neither read ,plato nor not read him4 ,then there is what is called a too intellectual tendency4 ,can there be too much intellect8 ,we have never met with any such excess4 ,but the criticism1 which is levelled at the laws and manners1 ends in thought1 without causing a new method of life4 ,the genius of the day does not incline to a deed1 but to a beholding4 ,it is not that men do not wish to act2 they pine to be employed1 but are paralyzed by the uncertainty what they should do4 ,the inadequacy of the work to the faculties1 is the painful perception which keeps them still4 ,this happens to the best4 ,then1 talents bring their usual temptations1 and the current literature and poetry with perverse ingenuity draw us away from life to solitude and meditation4 ,this could well be borne1 if it were great and involuntary2 if the men were ravished by their thought1 and hurried into ascetic extravagances4 ,society could then manage to release their shoulder from its wheel1 and grant them for a time this privilege of sabbath4 ,but they are not so4 ,thinking1 which was a rage1 is become an art4 ,the thinker gives me results1 and never invites me to be present with him at his invocation of truth1 and to enjoy with him its proceeding into his mind4 ,so little action amidst such audacious and yet sincere profession1 that we begin to doubt if that great revolution in the art of war1 which has made it a game of posts instead of a game of battles1 has not operated on ,reform2 whether this be not also a war of posts1 a paper blockade1 in which each party is to display the utmost resources of his spirit and belief1 and no conflict occur2 but the world shall take that course which the demonstration of the truth shall indicate4 ,but we must pay for being too intellectual1 as they call it4 ,people are not as light-hearted for it4 ,i think men never loved life less4 ,i question if care and doubt ever wrote their names so legibly on the faces of any population4 ,this ,ennui1 for which we ,saxons had no name1 this word of ,france has got a terrific significance4 ,it shortens life1 and bereaves the day of its light4 ,old age begins in the nursery1 and before the young ,american is put into jacket and trowsers1 he says1 #8,i want something which ,i never saw before2' and #8,i wish ,i was not ,i4' ,i have seen the same gloom on the brow even of those adventurers from the intellectual class1 who had dived deepest and with most success into active life4 ,i have seen the authentic sign of anxiety and perplexity on the greatest forehead of the state4 ,the canker worms have crawled to the topmost bough of the wild elm1 and swing down from that4 ,is there less oxygen in the atmosphere8 ,what has checked in this age the animal spirits which gave to our forefathers their bounding pulse8 ,but have a little patience with this melancholy humor4 ,their unbelief arises out of a greater ,belief2 their inaction out of a scorn of inadequate action4 ,by the side of these men1 the hot agitators have a certain cheap and ridiculous air2 they even look smaller than the others4 ,of the two1 ,i own1 ,i like the speculators best4 ,they have some piety which looks with faith to a fair ,future1 unprofaned by rash and unequal attempts to realize it4 ,and truly we shall find much to console us1 when we consider the cause of their uneasiness4 ,it is the love of greatness1 it is the need of harmony1 the contrast of the dwarfish ,actual with the exorbitant ,idea4 ,no man can compare the ideas and aspirations of the innovators of the present day1 with those of former periods1 without feeling how great and high this criticism is4 ,the revolutions that impend over society are not now from ambition and rapacity1 from impatience of one or another form of government1 but from new modes of thinking1 which shall recompose society after a new order1 which shall animate labor by love and science1 which shall destroy the value of many kinds of property1 and replace all property within the dominion of reason and equity4 ,there was never so great a thought laboring in the breasts of men1 as now4 ,it almost seems as if what was aforetime spoken fabulously and hieroglyphically1 was now spoken plainly1 the doctrine1 namely1 of the indwelling of the ,creator in man4 ,the spiritualist wishes this only1 that the spiritual principle should be suffered to demonstrate itself to the end1 in all possible applications to the state of man1 without the admission of anything unspiritual1 that is1 anything positive1 dogmatic1 or personal4 ,the excellence of this class consists in this1 that they have believed2 that1 affirming the need of new and higher modes of living and action1 they have abstained from the recommendation of low methods4 ,their fault is that they have stopped at the intellectual perception2 that their will is not yet inspired from the ,fountain of ,love4 ,but whose fault is this8 and what a fault1 and to what inquiry does it lead6 ,we have come to that which is the spring of all power1 of beauty and virtue1 of art and poetry2 and who shall tell us according to what law its inspirations and its informations are given or withholden8 ,i do not wish to be guilty of the narrowness and pedantry of inferring the tendency and genius of the ,age from a few and insufficient facts or persons4 ,every age has a thousand sides and signs and tendencies2 and it is only when surveyed from inferior points of view1 that great varieties of character appear4 ,our time too is full of activity and performance4 ,is there not something comprehensive in the grasp of a society which to great mechanical invention1 and the best institutions of property1 adds the most daring theories2 which explores the subtlest and most universal problems8 ,at the manifest risk of repeating what every other ,age has thought of itself1 we might say1 we think the ,genius of this ,age more philosophical than any other has been1 righter in its aims1 truer1 with less fear1 less fable1 less mixture of any sort4 ,but turn it how we will1 as we ponder this meaning of the times1 every new thought drives us to the deep fact1 that the ,time is the child of the ,eternity4 ,the main interest which any aspects of the ,times can have for us1 is the great spirit which gazes through them1 the light which they can shed on the wonderful questions1 ,what we are8 and ,whither we tend8 ,we do not wish to be deceived4 ,here we drift1 like white sail across the wild ocean1 now bright on the wave1 now darkling in the trough of the sea2--but from what port did we sail8 ,who knows8 ,or to what port are we bound8 ,who knows8 ,there is no one to tell us but such poor weather-tossed mariners as ourselves1 whom we speak as we pass1 or who have hoisted some signal1 or floated to us some letter in a bottle from far4 ,but what know they more than we8 ,they also found themselves on this wondrous sea4 ,no2 from the older sailors1 nothing4 ,over all their speaking-trumpets1 the gray sea and the loud winds answer1 ,not in us2 not in ,time4 ,where then but in ,ourselves1 where but in that ,thought through which we communicate with absolute nature1 and are made aware that1 whilst we shed the dust of which we are built1 grain by grain1 till it is all gone1 the law which clothes us with humanity remains anew8 where1 but in the intuitions which are vouchsafed us from within1 shall we learn the ,truth8 ,faithless1 faithless1 we fancy that with the dust we depart and are not2 and do not know that the law and the perception of the law are at last one2 that only as much as the law enters us1 becomes us1 we are living men1--immortal with the immortality of this law4 ,underneath all these appearances1 lies that which is1 that which lives1 that which causes4 ,this ever renewing generation of appearances rests on a reality1 and a reality that is alive4 ,to a true scholar the attraction of the aspects of nature1 the departments of life1 and the passages of his experience1 is simply the information they yield him of this supreme nature which lurks within all4 ,that reality1 that causing force is moral4 ,the ,moral ,sentiment is but its other name4 ,it makes by its presence or absence right and wrong1 beauty and ugliness1 genius or depravation4 ,as the granite comes to the surface1 and towers into the highest mountains1 and1 if we dig down1 we find it below the superficial strata1 so in all the details of our domestic or civil life1 is hidden the elemental reality1 which ever and anon comes to the surface1 and forms the grand men1 who are the leaders and examples1 rather than the companions of the race4 ,the granite is curiously concealed under a thousand formations and surfaces1 under fertile soils1 and grasses1 and flowers1 under well-manured1 arable fields1 and large towns and cities1 but it makes the foundation of these1 and is always indicating its presence by slight but sure signs4 ,so is it with the ,life of our life2 so close does that also hide4 ,i read it in glad and in weeping eyes3 ,i read it in the pride and in the humility of people3 it is recognized in every bargain and in every complaisance1 in every criticism1 and in all praise3 it is voted for at elections2 it wins the cause with juries2 it rides the stormy eloquence of the senate1 sole victor2 histories are written of it1 holidays decreed to it2 statues1 tombs1 churches1 built to its honor2 yet men seem to fear and to shun it1 when it comes barely to view in our immediate neighborhood4 ,for that reality let us stand3 that let us serve3 and for that speak4 ,only as far as that shines through them1 are these times or any times worth consideration4 ,i wish to speak of the politics1 education1 business1 and religion around us1 without ceremony or false deference4 ,you will absolve me from the charge of flippancy1 or malignity1 or the desire to say smart things at the expense of whomsoever1 when you see that reality is all we prize1 and that we are bound on our entrance into nature to speak for that4 ,let it not be recorded in our own memories1 that in this moment of the ,eternity1 when we who were named by our names1 flitted across the light1 we were afraid of any fact1 or disgraced the fair ,day by a pusillanimous preference of our bread to our freedom4 ,what is the scholar1 what is the man for1 but for hospitality to every new thought of his time8 ,have you leisure1 power1 property1 friends8 you shall be the asylum and patron of every new thought1 every unproven opinion1 every untried project1 which proceeds out of good will and honest seeking4 ,all the newspapers1 all the tongues of to-day will of course at first defame what is noble2 but you who hold not of to-day1 not of the times1 but of the ,everlasting1 are to stand for it3 and the highest compliment man ever receives from heaven1 is the sending to him its disguised and discredited angels4 ,,the ,,conservative4 ,a ,,lecture ,,delivered ,,at ,,the ,,masonic ,,temple1 ,,boston1 ,,december #i1 #ahda4 ,,the ,,conservative4 ,the two parties which divide the state1 the party of ,conservatism and that of ,innovation1 are very old1 and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made4 ,this quarrel is the subject of civil history4 ,the conservative party established the reverend hierarchies and monarchies of the most ancient world4 ,the battle of patrician and plebeian1 of parent state and colony1 of old usage and accommodation to new facts1 of the rich and the poor1 reappears in all countries and times4 ,the war rages not only in battle-fields1 in national councils1 and ecclesiastical synods1 but agitates every man's bosom with opposing advantages every hour4 ,on rolls the old world meantime1 and now one1 now the other gets the day1 and still the fight renews itself as if for the first time1 under new names and hot personalities4 ,such an irreconcilable antagonism1 of course1 must have a correspondent depth of seat in the human constitution4 ,it is the opposition of ,past and ,future1 of ,memory and ,hope1 of the ,understanding and the ,reason4 ,it is the primal antagonism1 the appearance in trifles of the two poles of nature4 ,there is a fragment of old fable which seems somehow to have been dropped from the current mythologies1 which may deserve attention1 as it appears to relate to this subject4 ,saturn grew weary of sitting alone1 or with none but the great ,uranus or ,heaven beholding him1 and he created an oyster4 ,then he would act again1 but he made nothing more1 but went on creating the race of oysters4 ,then ,uranus cried1 #8a new work1 ,o ,saturn6 the old is not good again4' ,saturn replied1 #8,i fear4 ,there is not only the alternative of making and not making1 but also of unmaking4 ,seest thou the great sea1 how it ebbs and flows8 so is it with me2 my power ebbs2 and if ,i put forth my hands1 ,i shall not do1 but undo4 ,therefore ,i do what ,i have done2 ,i hold what ,i have got2 and so ,i resist ,night and ,chaos4' #8,o ,saturn1' replied ,uranus1 #8thou canst not hold thine own1 but by making more4 ,thy oysters are barnacles and cockles1 and with the next flowing of the tide1 they will be pebbles and sea-foam4' #8,i see1' rejoins ,saturn1 #8thou art in league with ,night1 thou art become an evil eye2 thou spakest from love2 now thy words smite me with hatred4 ,i appeal to ,fate1 must there not be rest8'--#8,i appeal to ,fate also1' said ,uranus1 #8must there not be motion8'--,but ,saturn was silent1 and went on making oysters for a thousand years4 ,after that1 the word of ,uranus came into his mind like a ray of the sun1 and he made ,jupiter2 and then he feared again2 and nature froze1 the things that were made went backward1 and1 to save the world1 ,jupiter slew his father ,saturn4 ,this may stand for the earliest account of a conversation on politics between a ,conservative and a ,radical1 which has come down to us4 ,it is ever thus4 ,it is the counteraction of the centripetal and the centrifugal forces4 ,innovation is the salient energy2 ,conservatism the pause on the last movement4 #8,that which is was made by ,god1' saith ,conservatism4 #8,he is leaving that1 he is entering this other2' rejoins ,innovation4 ,there is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism1 joined with a certain superiority in its fact4 ,it affirms because it holds4 ,its fingers clutch the fact1 and it will not open its eyes to see a better fact4 ,the castle1 which conservatism is set to defend1 is the actual state of things1 good and bad4 ,the project of innovation is the best possible state of things4 ,of course1 conservatism always has the worst of the argument1 is always apologizing1 pleading a necessity1 pleading that to change would be to deteriorate2 it must saddle itself with the mountainous load of the violence and vice of society1 must deny the possibility of good1 deny ideas1 and suspect and stone the prophet2 whilst innovation is always in the right1 triumphant1 attacking1 and sure of final success4 ,conservatism stands on man's confessed limitations2 reform on his indisputable infinitude2 conservatism on circumstance2 liberalism on power2 one goes to make an adroit member of the social frame2 the other to postpone all things to the man himself2 conservatism is debonnair and social2 reform is individual and imperious4 ,we are reformers in spring and summer2 in autumn and winter1 we stand by the old2 reformers in the morning1 conservers at night4 ,reform is affirmative1 conservatism negative2 conservatism goes for comfort1 reform for truth4 ,conservatism is more candid to behold another's worth2 reform more disposed to maintain and increase its own4 ,conservatism makes no poetry1 breathes no prayer1 has no invention2 it is all memory4 ,reform has no gratitude1 no prudence1 no husbandry4 ,it makes a great difference to your figure and to your thought1 whether your foot is advancing or receding4 ,conservatism never puts the foot forward2 in the hour when it does that1 it is not establishment1 but reform4 ,conservatism tends to universal seeming and treachery1 believes in a negative fate2 believes that men's temper governs them2 that for me1 it avails not to trust in principles2 they will fail me2 ,i must bend a little2 it distrusts nature2 it thinks there is a general law without a particular application1--law for all that does not include any one4 ,reform in its antagonism inclines to asinine resistance1 to kick with hoofs2 it runs to egotism and bloated self-conceit2 it runs to a bodiless pretension1 to unnatural refining and elevation1 which ends in hypocrisy and sensual reaction4 ,and so whilst we do not go beyond general statements1 it may be safely affirmed of these two metaphysical antagonists1 that each is a good half1 but an impossible whole4 ,each exposes the abuses of the other1 but in a true society1 in a true man1 both must combine4 ,nature does not give the crown of its approbation1 namely1 beauty1 to any action or emblem or actor1 but to one which combines both these elements2 not to the rock which resists the waves from age to age1 nor to the wave which lashes incessantly the rock1 but the superior beauty is with the oak which stands with its hundred arms against the storms of a century1 and grows every year like a sapling2 or the river which ever flowing1 yet is found in the same bed from age to age2 or1 greatest of all1 the man who has subsisted for years amid the changes of nature1 yet has distanced himself1 so that when you remember what he was1 and see what he is1 you say1 what strides6 what a disparity is here6 ,throughout nature the past combines in every creature with the present4 ,each of the convolutions of the sea-shell1 each node and spine marks one year of the fish's life1 what was the mouth of the shell for one season1 with the addition of new matter by the growth of the animal1 becoming an ornamental node4 ,the leaves and a shell of soft wood are all that the vegetation of this summer has made1 but the solid columnar stem1 which lifts that bank of foliage into the air to draw the eye and to cool us with its shade1 is the gift and legacy of dead and buried years4 ,in nature1 each of these elements being always present1 each theory has a natural support4 ,as we take our stand on ,necessity1 or on ,ethics1 shall we go for the conservative1 or for the reformer4 ,if we read the world historically1 we shall say1 ,of all the ages1 the present hour and circumstance is the cumulative result2 this is the best throw of the dice of nature that has yet been1 or that is yet possible4 ,if we see it from the side of ,will1 or the ,moral ,sentiment1 we shall accuse the ,past and the ,present1 and require the impossible of the ,future4 ,but although this bifold fact lies thus united in real nature1 and so united that no man can continue to exist in whom both these elements do not work1 yet men are not philosophers1 but are rather very foolish children1 who1 by reason of their partiality1 see everything in the most absurd manner1 and are the victims at all times of the nearest object4 ,there is even no philosopher who is a philosopher at all times4 ,our experience1 our perception is conditioned by the need to acquire in parts and in succession1 that is1 with every truth a certain falsehood4 ,as this is the invariable method of our training1 we must give it allowance1 and suffer men to learn as they have done for six millenniums1 a word at a time1 to pair off into insane parties1 and learn the amount of truth each knows1 by the denial of an equal amount of truth4 ,for the present1 then1 to come at what sum is attainable to us1 we must even hear the parties plead as parties4 ,that which is best about conservatism1 that which1 though it cannot be expressed in detail1 inspires reverence in all1 is the ,inevitable4 ,there is the question not only1 what the conservative says for himself8 but1 why must he say it8 ,what insurmountable fact binds him to that side8 ,here is the fact which men call ,fate1 and fate in dread degrees1 fate behind fate1 not to be disposed of by the consideration that the ,conscience commands this or that1 but necessitating the question1 whether the faculties of man will play him true in resisting the facts of universal experience8 ,for although the commands of the ,conscience are essentially absolute1 they are historically limitary4 ,wisdom does not seek a literal rectitude1 but an useful1 that is1 a conditioned one1 such a one as the faculties of man and the constitution of things will warrant4 ,the reformer1 the partisan loses himself in driving to the utmost some specialty of right conduct1 until his own nature and all nature resist him2 but ,wisdom attempts nothing enormous and disproportioned to its powers1 nothing which it cannot perform or nearly perform4 ,we have all a certain intellection or presentiment of reform existing in the mind1 which does not yet descend into the character1 and those who throw themselves blindly on this lose themselves4 ,whatever they attempt in that direction1 fails1 and reacts suicidally on the actor himself4 ,this is the penalty of having transcended nature4 ,for the existing world is not a dream1 and cannot with impunity be treated as a dream2 neither is it a disease2 but it is the ground on which you stand1 it is the mother of whom you were born4 ,reform converses with possibilities1 perchance with impossibilities2 but here is sacred fact4 ,this also was true1 or it could not be3 it had life in it1 or it could not have existed2 it has life in it1 or it could not continue4 ,your schemes may be feasible1 or may not be1 but this has the endorsement of nature and a long friendship and cohabitation with the powers of nature4 ,this will stand until a better cast of the dice is made4 ,the contest between the ,future and the ,past is one between ,divinity entering1 and ,divinity departing4 ,you are welcome to try your experiments1 and1 if you can1 to displace the actual order by that ideal republic you announce1 for nothing but ,god will expel ,god4 ,but plainly the burden of proof must lie with the projector4 ,we hold to this1 until you can demonstrate something better4 ,the system of property and law goes back for its origin to barbarous and sacred times2 it is the fruit of the same mysterious cause as the mineral or animal world4 ,there is a natural sentiment and prepossession in favor of age1 of ancestors1 of barbarous and aboriginal usages1 which is a homage to the element of necessity and divinity which is in them4 ,the respect for the old names of places1 of mountains1 and streams1 is universal4 ,the ,indian and barbarous name can never be supplanted without loss4 ,the ancients tell us that the gods loved the ,ethiopians for their stable customs2 and the ,egyptians and ,chaldeans1 whose origin could not be explored1 passed among the junior tribes of ,greece and ,italy for sacred nations4 ,moreover1 so deep is the foundation of the existing social system1 that it leaves no one out of it4 ,we may be partial1 but ,fate is not4 ,all men have their root in it4 ,you who quarrel with the arrangements of society1 and are willing to embroil all1 and risk the indisputable good that exists1 for the chance of better1 live1 move1 and have your being in this1 and your deeds contradict your words every day4 ,for as you cannot jump from the ground without using the resistance of the ground1 nor put out the boat to sea1 without shoving from the shore1 nor attain liberty without rejecting obligation1 so you are under the necessity of using the ,actual order of things1 in order to disuse it2 to live by it1 whilst you wish to take away its life4 ,the past has baked your loaf1 and in the strength of its bread you would break up the oven4 ,but you are betrayed by your own nature4 ,you also are conservatives4 ,however men please to style themselves1 ,i see no other than a conservative party4 ,you are not only identical with us in your needs1 but also in your methods and aims4 ,you quarrel with my conservatism1 but it is to build up one of your own2 it will have a new beginning1 but the same course and end1 the same trials1 the same passions2 among the lovers of the new ,i observe that there is a jealousy of the newest1 and that the seceder from the seceder is as damnable as the pope himself4 ,on these and the like grounds of general statement1 conservatism plants itself without danger of being displaced4 ,especially before this personal appeal1 the innovator must confess his weakness1 must confess that no man is to be found good enough to be entitled to stand champion for the principle4 ,but when this great tendency comes to practical encounters1 and is challenged by young men1 to whom it is no abstraction1 but a fact of hunger1 distress1 and exclusion from opportunities1 it must needs seem injurious4 ,the youth1 of course1 is an innovator by the fact of his birth4 ,there he stands1 newly born on the planet1 a universal beggar1 with all the reason of things1 one would say1 on his side4 ,in his first consideration how to feed1 clothe1 and warm himself1 he is met by warnings on every hand1 that this thing and that thing have owners1 and he must go elsewhere4 ,then he says2 ,if ,i am born in the earth1 where is my part8 have the goodness1 gentlemen of this world1 to show me my wood-lot1 where ,i may fell my wood1 my field where to plant my corn1 my pleasant ground where to build my cabin4 #8,touch any wood1 or field1 or house-lot1 on your peril1' cry all the gentlemen of this world2 #8but you may come and work in ours1 for us1 and we will give you a piece of bread4' ,and what is that peril8 ,knives and muskets1 if we meet you in the act2 imprisonment1 if we find you afterward4 ,and by what authority1 kind gentlemen8 ,by our law4 ,and your law1--is it just8 ,as just for you as it was for us4 ,we wrought for others under this law1 and got our lands so4 ,i repeat the question1 ,is your law just8 ,not quite just1 but necessary4 ,moreover1 it is juster now than it was when we were born2 we have made it milder and more equal4 ,i will none of your law1 returns the youth2 it encumbers me4 ,i cannot understand1 or so much as spare time to read that needless library of your laws4 ,nature has sufficiently provided me with rewards and sharp penalties1 to bind me not to transgress4 ,like the ,persian noble of old1 ,i ask 8that ,i may neither command nor obey40 ,i do not wish to enter into your complex social system4 ,i shall serve those whom ,i can1 and they who can will serve me4 ,i shall seek those whom ,i love1 and shun those whom ,i love not1 and what more can all your laws render me8 ,with equal earnestness and good faith1 replies to this plaintiff an upholder of the establishment1 a man of many virtues3 ,your opposition is feather-brained and over-fine4 ,young man1 ,i have no skill to talk with you1 but look at me2 ,i have risen early and sat late1 and toiled honestly1 and painfully for very many years4 ,i never dreamed about methods2 ,i laid my bones to1 and drudged for the good ,i possess2 it was not got by fraud1 nor by luck1 but by work1 and you must show me a warrant like these stubborn facts in your own fidelity and labor1 before ,i suffer you1 on the faith of a few fine words1 to ride into my estate1 and claim to scatter it as your own4 ,now you touch the heart of the matter1 replies the reformer4 ,to that fidelity and labor1 ,i pay homage4 ,i am unworthy to arraign your manner of living1 until ,i too have been tried4 ,but ,i should be more unworthy1 if ,i did not tell you why ,i cannot walk in your steps4 ,i find this vast network1 which you call property1 extended over the whole planet4 ,i cannot occupy the bleakest crag of the ,white ,hills or the ,alleghany ,range1 but some man or corporation steps up to me to show me that it is his4 ,now1 though ,i am very peaceable1 and on my private account could well enough die1 since it appears there was some mistake in my creation1 and that ,i have been missent to this earth1 where all the seats were already taken1--yet ,i feel called upon in behalf of rational nature1 which ,i represent1 to declare to you my opinion1 that1 if the ,earth is yours1 so also is it mine4 ,all your aggregate existences are less to me a fact than is my own2 as ,i am born to the earth1 so the ,earth is given to me1 what ,i want of it to till and to plant2 nor could ,i1 without pusillanimity1 omit to claim so much4 ,i must not only have a name to live1 ,i must live4 ,my genius leads me to build a different manner of life from any of yours4 ,i cannot then spare you the whole world4 ,i love you better4 ,i must tell you the truth practically2 and take that which you call yours4 ,it is ,god's world and mine2 yours as much as you want1 mine as much as ,i want4 ,besides1 ,i know your ways2 ,i know the symptoms of the disease4 ,to the end of your power1 you will serve this lie which cheats you4 ,your want is a gulf which the possession of the broad earth would not fill4 ,yonder sun in heaven you would pluck down from shining on the universe1 and make him a property and privacy1 if you could2 and the moon and the north star you would quickly have occasion for in your closet and bed-chamber4 ,what you do not want for use1 you crave for ornament1 and what your convenience could spare1 your pride cannot4 ,on the other hand1 precisely the defence which was set up for the ,british ,constitution1 namely1 that with all its admitted defects1 rotten boroughs and monopolies1 it worked well1 and substantial justice was somehow done2 the wisdom and the worth did get into parliament1 and every interest did by right1 or might1 or sleight1 get represented2--the same defence is set up for the existing institutions4 ,they are not the best2 they are not just2 and in respect to you1 personally1 ,o brave young man6 they cannot be justified4 ,they have1 it is most true1 left you no acre for your own1 and no law but our law1 to the ordaining of which you were no party4 ,but they do answer the end1 they are really friendly to the good2 unfriendly to the bad2 they second the industrious1 and the kind2 they foster genius4 ,they really have so much flexibility as to afford your talent and character1 on the whole1 the same chance of demonstration and success which they might have1 if there was no law and no property4 ,it is trivial and merely superstitious to say that nothing is given you1 no outfit1 no exhibition2 for in this institution of credit1 which is as universal as honesty and promise in the human countenance1 always some neighbor stands ready to be bread and land and tools and stock to the young adventurer4 ,and if in any one respect they have come short1 see what ample retribution of good they have made4 ,they have lost no time and spared no expense to collect libraries1 museums1 galleries1 colleges1 palaces1 hospitals1 observatories1 cities4 ,the ages have not been idle1 nor kings slack1 nor the rich niggardly4 ,have we not atoned for this small offence 7which we could not help7 of leaving you no right in the soil1 by this splendid indemnity of ancestral and national wealth8 ,would you have been born like a gipsy in a hedge1 and preferred your freedom on a heath1 and the range of a planet which had no shed or boscage to cover you from sun and wind1--to this towered and citied world8 to this world of ,rome1 and ,memphis1 and ,constantinople1 and ,vienna1 and ,paris1 and ,london1 and ,new ,york8 ,for thee ,naples1 ,florence1 and ,venice1 for thee the fair ,mediterranean1 the sunny ,adriatic2 for thee both ,indies smile2 for thee the hospitable ,north opens its heated palaces under the polar circle2 for thee roads have been cut in every direction across the land1 and fleets of floating palaces with every security for strength1 and provision for luxury1 swim by sail and by steam through all the waters of this world4 ,every island for thee has a town2 every town a hotel4 ,though thou wast born landless1 yet to thy industry and thrift and small condescension to the established usage1--scores of servants are swarming in every strange place with cap and knee to thy command1 scores1 nay hundreds and thousands1 for thy wardrobe1 thy table1 thy chamber1 thy library1 thy leisure2 and every whim is anticipated and served by the best ability of the whole population of each country4 ,the king on the throne governs for thee1 and the judge judges2 the barrister pleads2 the farmer tills1 the joiner hammers1 the postman rides4 ,is it not exaggerating a trifle to insist on a formal acknowledgment of your claims1 when these substantial advantages have been secured to you8 ,now can your children be educated1 your labor turned to their advantage1 and its fruits secured to them after your death4 ,it is frivolous to say1 you have no acre1 because you have not a mathematically measured piece of land4 ,providence takes care that you shall have a place1 that you are waited for1 and come accredited2 and1 as soon as you put your gift to use1 you shall have acre or acre's worth according to your exhibition of desert1--acre1 if you need land2--acre's worth1 if you prefer to draw1 or carve1 or make shoes1 or wheels1 to the tilling of the soil4 ,besides1 it might temper your indignation at the supposed wrong which society has done you1 to keep the question before you1 how society got into this predicament8 ,who put things on this false basis8 ,no single man1 but all men4 ,no man voluntarily and knowingly2 but it is the result of that degree of culture there is in the planet4 ,the order of things is as good as the character of the population permits4 ,consider it as the work of a great and beneficent and progressive necessity1 which1 from the first pulsation of the first animal life1 up to the present high culture of the best nations1 has advanced thus far4 ,thank the rude fostermother though she has taught you a better wisdom than her own1 and has set hopes in your heart which shall be history in the next ages4 ,you are yourself the result of this manner of living1 this foul compromise1 this vituperated ,sodom4 ,it nourished you with care and love on its breast1 as it had nourished many a lover of the right1 and many a poet1 and prophet1 and teacher of men4 ,is it so irremediably bad8 ,then again1 if the mitigations are considered1 do not all the mischiefs virtually vanish8 ,the form is bad1 but see you not how every personal character reacts on the form1 and makes it new8 ,a strong person makes the law and custom null before his own will4 ,then the principle of love and truth reappears in the strictest courts of fashion and property4 ,under the richest robes1 in the darlings of the selectest circles of ,european or ,american aristocracy1 the strong heart will beat with love of mankind1 with impatience of accidental distinctions1 with the desire to achieve its own fate1 and make every ornament it wears authentic and real4 ,moreover1 as we have already shown that there is no pure reformer1 so it is to be considered that there is no pure conservative1 no man who from the beginning to the end of his life maintains the defective institutions2 but he who sets his face like a flint against every novelty1 when approached in the confidence of conversation1 in the presence of friendly and generous persons1 has also his gracious and relenting motions1 and espouses for the time the cause of man2 and even if this be a shortlived emotion1 yet the remembrance of it in private hours mitigates his selfishness and compliance with custom4 ,the ,friar ,bernard lamented in his cell on ,mount ,cenis the crimes of mankind1 and rising one morning before day from his bed of moss and dry leaves1 he gnawed his roots and berries1 drank of the spring1 and set forth to go to ,rome to reform the corruption of mankind4 ,on his way he encountered many travellers who greeted him courteously2 and the cabins of the peasants and the castles of the lords supplied his few wants4 ,when he came at last to ,rome1 his piety and good will easily introduced him to many families of the rich1 and on the first day he saw and talked with gentle mothers with their babes at their breasts1 who told him how much love they bore their children1 and how they were perplexed in their daily walk lest they should fail in their duty to them4 #8,what6' he said1 #8and this on rich embroidered carpets1 on marble floors1 with cunning sculpture1 and carved wood1 and rich pictures1 and piles of books about you8'--#8,look at our pictures and books1 they said1 and we will tell you1 good ,father1 how we spent the last evening4 ,these are stories of godly children and holy families and romantic sacrifices made in old or in recent times by great and not mean persons2 and last evening1 our family was collected1 and our husbands and brothers discoursed sadly on what we could save and give in the hard times4' ,then came in the men1 and they said1 #8,what cheer1 brother8 ,does thy convent want gifts8' ,then the friar ,bernard went home swiftly with other thoughts than he brought1 saying1 #8,this way of life is wrong1 yet these ,romans1 whom ,i prayed ,god to destroy1 are lovers1 they are lovers2 what can ,i do8' ,the reformer concedes that these mitigations exist1 and that1 if he proposed comfort1 he should take sides with the establishment4 ,your words are excellent1 but they do not tell the whole4 ,conservatism is affluent and openhanded1 but there is a cunning juggle in riches4 ,i observe that they take somewhat for everything they give4 ,i look bigger1 but am less2 ,i have more clothes1 but am not so warm2 more armor1 but less courage2 more books1 but less wit4 ,what you say of your planted1 builded and decorated world1 is true enough1 and ,i gladly avail myself of its convenience2 yet ,i have remarked that what holds in particular1 holds in general1 that the plant ,man does not require for his most glorious flowering this pomp of preparation and convenience1 but the thoughts of some beggarly ,homer who strolled1 ,god knows when1 in the infancy and barbarism of the old world2 the gravity and sense of some slave ,moses who leads away his fellow slaves from their masters2 the contemplation of some ,scythian ,anacharsis2 the erect1 formidable valor of some ,dorian townsmen in the town of ,sparta2 the vigor of ,clovis the ,frank1 and ,alfred the ,saxon1 and ,alaric the ,goth1 and ,mahomet1 ,ali1 and ,omar the ,arabians1 ,saladin the ,curd1 and ,othman the ,turk1 sufficed1 to build what you call society1 on the spot and in the instant when the sound mind in a sound body appeared4 ,rich and fine is your dress1 ,o conservatism6 your horses are of the best blood2 your roads are well cut and well paved2 your pantry is full of meats and your cellar of wines1 and a very good state and condition are you for gentlemen and ladies to live under2 but every one of these goods steals away a drop of my blood4 ,i want the necessity of supplying my own wants4 ,all this costly culture of yours is not necessary4 ,greatness does not need it4 ,yonder peasant1 who sits neglected there in a corner1 carries a whole revolution of man and nature in his head1 which shall be a sacred history to some future ages4 ,for man is the end of nature2 nothing so easily organizes itself in every part of the universe as he2 no moss1 no lichen is so easily born2 and he takes along with him and puts out from himself the whole apparatus of society and condition extempore1 as an army encamps in a desert1 and where all was just now blowing sand1 creates a white city in an hour1 a government1 a market1 a place for feasting1 for conversation1 and for love4 ,these considerations1 urged by those whose characters and whose fortunes are yet to be formed1 must needs command the sympathy of all reasonable persons4 ,but beside that charity which should make all adult persons interested for the youth1 and engage them to see that he has a free field and fair play on his entrance into life1 we are bound to see that the society1 of which we compose a part1 does not permit the formation or continuance of views and practices injurious to the honor and welfare of mankind4 ,the objection to conservatism1 when embodied in a party1 is1 that in its love of acts1 it hates principles2 it lives in the senses1 not in truth2 it sacrifices to despair2 it goes for availableness in its candidate1 not for worth2 and for expediency in its measures1 and not for the right4 ,under pretence of allowing for friction1 it makes so many additions and supplements to the machine of society1 that it will play smoothly and softly1 but will no longer grind any grist4 ,the conservative party in the universe concedes that the radical would talk sufficiently to the purpose1 if we were still in the garden of ,eden2 he legislates for man as he ought to be2 his theory is right1 but he makes no allowance for friction2 and this omission makes his whole doctrine false4 ,the idealist retorts1 that the conservative falls into a far more noxious error in the other extreme4 ,the conservative assumes sickness as a necessity1 and his social frame is a hospital1 his total legislation is for the present distress1 a universe in slippers and flannels1 with bib and papspoon1 swallowing pills and herb-tea4 ,sickness gets organized as well as health1 the vice as well as the virtue4 ,now that a vicious system of trade has existed so long1 it has stereotyped itself in the human generation1 and misers are born4 ,and now that sickness has got such a foothold1 leprosy has grown cunning1 has got into the ballot-box2 the lepers outvote the clean2 society has resolved itself into a ,hospital ,committee1 and all its laws are quarantine4 ,if any man resist1 and set up a foolish hope he has entertained as good against the general despair1 society frowns on him1 shuts him out of her opportunities1 her granaries1 her refectories1 her water and bread1 and will serve him a sexton's turn4 ,conservatism takes as low a view of every part of human action and passion4 ,its religion is just as bad2 a lozenge for the sick2 a dolorous tune to beguile the distemper2 mitigations of pain by pillows and anodynes2 always mitigations1 never remedies2 pardons for sin1 funeral honors1--never self-help1 renovation1 and virtue4 ,its social and political action has no better aim2 to keep out wind and weather1 to bring the day and year about1 and make the world last our day2 not to sit on the world and steer it2 not to sink the memory of the past in the glory of a new and more excellent creation2 a timid cobbler and patcher1 it degrades whatever it touches4 ,the cause of education is urged in this country with the utmost earnestness1--on what ground8 why on this1 that the people have the power1 and if they are not instructed to sympathize with the intelligent1 reading1 trading1 and governing class1 inspired with a taste for the same competitions and prizes1 they will upset the fair pageant of ,judicature1 and perhaps lay a hand on the sacred muniments of wealth itself1 and new distribute the land4 ,religion is taught in the same spirit4 ,the contractors who were building a road out of ,baltimore1 some years ago1 found the ,irish laborers quarrelsome and refractory1 to a degree that embarrassed the agents1 and seriously interrupted the progress of the work4 ,the corporation were advised to call off the police1 and build a ,catholic chapel2 which they did2 the priest presently restored order1 and the work went on prosperously4 ,such hints1 be sure1 are too valuable to be lost4 ,if you do not value the ,sabbath1 or other religious institutions1 give yourself no concern about maintaining them4 ,they have already acquired a market value as conservators of property2 and if priest and church-member should fail1 the chambers of commerce and the presidents of the ,banks1 the very innholders and landlords of the county would muster with fury to their support4 ,of course1 religion in such hands loses its essence4 ,instead of that reliance1 which the soul suggests on the eternity of truth and duty1 men are misled into a reliance on institutions1 which1 the moment they cease to be the instantaneous creations of the devout sentiment1 are worthless4 ,religion among the low becomes low4 ,as it loses its truth1 it loses credit with the sagacious4 ,they detect the falsehood of the preaching1 but when they say so1 all good citizens cry1 ,hush2 do not weaken the state1 do not take off the strait jacket from dangerous persons4 ,every honest fellow must keep up the hoax the best he can2 must patronize providence and piety1 and wherever he sees anything that will keep men amused1 schools or churches or poetry1 or picture-galleries or music1 or what not1 he must cry 8,hist-a-boy10 and urge the game on4 ,what a compliment we pay to the good ,spirit with our superserviceable zeal6 ,but not to balance reasons for and against the establishment any longer1 and if it still be asked in this necessity of partial organization1 which party on the whole has the highest claims on our sympathy8 ,i bring it home to the private heart1 where all such questions must have their final arbitrement4 ,how1 will every strong and generous mind choose its ground1--with the defenders of the old8 or with the seekers of the new8 ,which is that state which promises to edify a great1 brave1 and beneficent man2 to throw him on his resources1 and tax the strength of his character8 ,on which part will each of us find himself in the hour of health and of aspiration8 ,i understand well the respect of mankind for war1 because that breaks up the ,chinese stagnation of society1 and demonstrates the personal merits of all men4 ,a state of war or anarchy1 in which law has little force1 is so far valuable1 that it puts every man on trial4 ,the man of principle is known as such1 and even in the fury of faction is respected4 ,in the civil wars of ,france1 ,montaigne alone1 among all the ,french gentry1 kept his castle gates unbarred1 and made his personal integrity as good at least as a regiment4 ,the man of courage and resources is shown1 and the effeminate and base person4 ,those who rise above war1 and those who fall below it1 it easily discriminates1 as well as those1 who1 accepting its rude conditions1 keep their own head by their own sword4 ,but in peace and a commercial state we depend1 not as we ought1 on our knowledge and all men's knowledge that we are honest men1 but we cowardly lean on the virtue of others4 ,for it is always at last the virtue of some men in the society1 which keeps the law in any reverence and power4 ,is there not something shameful that ,i should owe my peaceful occupancy of my house and field1 not to the knowledge of my countrymen that ,i am useful1 but to their respect for sundry other reputable persons1 ,i know not whom1 whose joint virtue still keep the law in good odor8 ,it will never make any difference to a hero what the laws are4 ,his greatness will shine and accomplish itself unto the end1 whether they second him or not4 ,if he have earned his bread by drudgery1 and in the narrow and crooked ways which were all an evil law had left him1 he will make it at least honorable by his expenditure4 ,of the past he will take no heed2 for its wrongs he will not hold himself responsible3 he will say1 all the meanness of my progenitors shall not bereave me of the power to make this hour and company fair and fortunate4 ,whatsoever streams of power and commodity flow to me1 shall of me acquire healing virtue1 and become fountains of safety4 ,cannot ,i too descend a ,redeemer into nature8 ,whosoever hereafter shall name my name1 shall not record a malefactor1 but a benefactor in the earth4 ,if there be power in good intention1 in fidelity1 and in toil1 the north wind shall be purer1 the stars in heaven shall glow with a kindlier beam1 that ,i have lived4 ,i am primarily engaged to myself to be a public servant of all the gods1 to demonstrate to all men that there is intelligence and good will at the heart of things1 and ever higher and yet higher leadings4 ,these are my engagements2 how can your law further or hinder me in what ,i shall do to men8 ,on the other hand1 these dispositions establish their relations to me4 ,wherever there is worth1 ,i shall be greeted4 ,wherever there are men1 are the objects of my study and love4 ,sooner or later all men will be my friends1 and will testify in all methods the energy of their regard4 ,i cannot thank your law for my protection4 ,i protect it4 ,it is not in its power to protect me4 ,it is my business to make myself revered4 ,i depend on my honor1 my labor1 and my dispositions1 for my place in the affections of mankind1 and not on any conventions or parchments of yours4 ,but if ,i allow myself in derelictions1 and become idle and dissolute1 ,i quickly come to love the protection of a strong law1 because ,i feel no title in myself to my advantages4 ,to the intemperate and covetous person no love flows2 to him mankind would pay no rent1 no dividend1 if force were once relaxed2 nay1 if they could give their verdict1 they would say1 that his self-indulgence and his oppression deserved punishment from society1 and not that rich board and lodging he now enjoys4 ,the law acts then as a screen of his unworthiness1 and makes him worse the longer it protects him4 ,in conclusion1 to return from this alternation of partial views1 to the high platform of universal and necessary history1 it is a happiness for mankind that innovation has got on so far1 and has so free a field before it4 ,the boldness of the hope men entertain transcends all former experience4 ,it calms and cheers them with the picture of a simple and equal life of truth and piety4 ,and this hope flowered on what tree8 ,it was not imported from the stock of some celestial plant1 but grew here on the wild crab of conservatism4 ,it is much that this old and vituperated system of things has borne so fair a child4 ,it predicts that amidst a planet peopled with conservatives1 one ,reformer may yet be born4 ,,the ,,transcendentalist4 ,a ,,lecture ,,read ,,at ,,the ,,masonic ,,temple1 ,,boston1 ,,january1 #ahdb4 ,,the ,,transcendentalist4 ,the first thing we have to say respecting what are called new views here in ,new ,england1 at the present time1 is1 that they are not new1 but the very oldest of thoughts cast into the mould of these new times4 ,the light is always identical in its composition1 but it falls on a great variety of objects1 and by so falling is first revealed to us1 not in its own form1 for it is formless1 but in theirs2 in like manner1 thought only appears in the objects it classifies4 ,what is popularly called ,transcendentalism among us1 is ,idealism2 ,idealism as it appears in #ahdb4 ,as thinkers1 mankind have ever divided into two sects1 ,materialists and ,idealists2 the first class founding on experience1 the second on consciousness2 the first class beginning to think from the data of the senses1 the second class perceive that the senses are not final1 and say1 the senses give us representations of things1 but what are the things themselves1 they cannot tell4 ,the materialist insists on facts1 on history1 on the force of circumstances1 and the animal wants of man2 the idealist on the power of ,thought and of ,will1 on inspiration1 on miracle1 on individual culture4 ,these two modes of thinking are both natural1 but the idealist contends that his way of thinking is in higher nature4 ,he concedes all that the other affirms1 admits the impressions of sense1 admits their coherency1 their use and beauty1 and then asks the materialist for his grounds of assurance that things are as his senses represent them4 ,but ,i1 he says1 affirm facts not affected by the illusions of sense1 facts which are of the same nature as the faculty which reports them1 and not liable to doubt2 facts which in their first appearance to us assume a native superiority to material facts1 degrading these into a language by which the first are to be spoken2 facts which it only needs a retirement from the senses to discern4 ,every materialist will be an idealist2 but an idealist can never go backward to be a materialist4 ,the idealist1 in speaking of events1 sees them as spirits4 ,he does not deny the sensuous fact3 by no means2 but he will not see that alone4 ,he does not deny the presence of this table1 this chair1 and the walls of this room1 but he looks at these things as the reverse side of the tapestry1 as the other end1 each being a sequel or completion of a spiritual fact which nearly concerns him4 ,this manner of looking at things1 transfers every object in nature from an independent and anomalous position without there1 into the consciousness4 ,even the materialist ,condillac1 perhaps the most logical expounder of materialism1 was constrained to say1 8,though we should soar into the heavens1 though we should sink into the abyss1 we never go out of ourselves2 it is always our own thought that we perceive40 ,what more could an idealist say8 ,the materialist1 secure in the certainty of sensation1 mocks at fine-spun theories1 at star-gazers and dreamers1 and believes that his life is solid1 that he at least takes nothing for granted1 but knows where he stands1 and what he does4 ,yet how easy it is to show him1 that he also is a phantom walking and working amid phantoms1 and that he need only ask a question or two beyond his daily questions1 to find his solid universe growing dim and impalpable before his sense4 ,the sturdy capitalist1 no matter how deep and square on blocks of ,quincy granite he lays the foundations of his banking-house1 or ,exchange1 must set it1 at last1 not on a cube corresponding to the angles of his structure1 but on a mass of unknown materials and solidity1 red-hot or white-hot1 perhaps at the core1 which rounds off to an almost perfect sphericity1 and lies floating in soft air1 and goes spinning away1 dragging bank and banker with it at a rate of thousands of miles the hour1 he knows not whither1--a bit of bullet1 now glimmering1 now darkling through a small cubic space on the edge of an unimaginable pit of emptiness4 ,and this wild balloon1 in which his whole venture is embarked1 is a just symbol of his whole state and faculty4 ,one thing1 at least1 he says is certain1 and does not give me the headache1 that figures do not lie2 the multiplication table has been hitherto found unimpeachable truth2 and1 moreover1 if ,i put a gold eagle in my safe1 ,i find it again to-morrow2--but for these thoughts1 ,i know not whence they are4 ,they change and pass away4 ,but ask him why he believes that an uniform experience will continue uniform1 or on what grounds he founds his faith in his figures1 and he will perceive that his mental fabric is built up on just as strange and quaking foundations as his proud edifice of stone4 ,in the order of thought1 the materialist takes his departure from the external world1 and esteems a man as one product of that4 ,the idealist takes his departure from his consciousness1 and reckons the world an appearance4 ,the materialist respects sensible masses1 ,society1 ,government1 social art1 and luxury1 every establishment1 every mass1 whether majority of numbers1 or extent of space1 or amount of objects1 every social action4 ,the idealist has another measure1 which is metaphysical1 namely1 the rank which things themselves take in his consciousness2 not at all1 the size or appearance4 ,mind is the only reality1 of which men and all other natures are better or worse reflectors4 ,nature1 literature1 history1 are only subjective phenomena4 ,although in his action overpowered by the laws of action1 and so1 warmly coperating with men1 even preferring them to himself1 yet when he speaks scientifically1 or after the order of thought1 he is constrained to degrade persons into representatives of truths4 ,he does not respect labor1 or the products of labor1 namely1 property1 otherwise than as a manifold symbol1 illustrating with wonderful fidelity of details the laws of being2 he does not respect government1 except as far as it reiterates the law of his mind2 nor the church2 nor charities2 nor arts1 for themselves2 but hears1 as at a vast distance1 what they say1 as if his consciousness would speak to him through a pantomimic scene4 ,his thought1--that is the ,universe4 ,his experience inclines him to behold the procession of facts you call the world1 as flowing perpetually outward from an invisible1 unsounded centre in himself1 centre alike of him and of them1 and necessitating him to regard all things as having a subjective or relative existence1 relative to that aforesaid ,unknown ,centre of him4 ,from this transfer of the world into the consciousness1 this beholding of all things in the mind1 follow easily his whole ethics4 ,it is simpler to be self-dependent4 ,the height1 the deity of man is1 to be self-sustained1 to need no gift1 no foreign force4 ,society is good when it does not violate me2 but best when it is likest to solitude4 ,everything real is self-existent4 ,everything divine shares the self-existence of ,deity4 ,all that you call the world is the shadow of that substance which you are1 the perpetual creation of the powers of thought1 of those that are dependent and of those that are independent of your will4 ,do not cumber yourself with fruitless pains to mend and remedy remote effects2 let the soul be erect1 and all things will go well4 ,you think me the child of my circumstances3 ,i make my circumstance4 ,let any thought or motive of mine be different from that they are1 the difference will transform my condition and economy4 ,i--this thought which is called ,i1--is the mould into which the world is poured like melted wax4 ,the mould is invisible1 but the world betrays the shape of the mould4 ,you call it the power of circumstance1 but it is the power of me4 ,am ,i in harmony with myself8 my position will seem to you just and commanding4 ,am ,i vicious and insane8 my fortunes will seem to you obscure and descending4 ,as ,i am1 so shall ,i associate1 and1 so shall ,i act2 ,csar's history will paint out ,csar4 ,jesus acted so1 because he thought so4 ,i do not wish to overlook or to gainsay any reality2 ,i say1 ,i make my circumstance3 but if you ask me1 ,whence am ,i8 ,i feel like other men my relation to that ,fact which cannot be spoken1 or defined1 nor even thought1 but which exists1 and will exist4 ,the ,transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine4 ,he believes in miracle1 in the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power2 he believes in inspiration1 and in ecstasy4 ,he wishes that the spiritual principle should be suffered to demonstrate itself to the end1 in all possible applications to the state of man1 without the admission of anything unspiritual2 that is1 anything positive1 dogmatic1 personal4 ,thus1 the spiritual measure of inspiration is the depth of the thought1 and never1 who said it8 ,and so he resists all attempts to palm other rules and measures on the spirit than its own4 ,in action1 he easily incurs the charge of antinomianism by his avowal that he1 who has the ,lawgiver1 may with safety not only neglect1 but even contravene every written commandment4 ,in the play of ,othello1 the expiring ,desdemona absolves her husband of the murder1 to her attendant ,emilia4 ,afterwards1 when ,emilia charges him with the crime1 ,othello exclaims1 8,you heard her say herself it was not ,i40 ,emilia replies1 8,the more angel she1 and thou the blacker devil40 ,of this fine incident1 ,jacobi1 the ,transcendental moralist1 makes use1 with other parallel instances1 in his reply to ,fichte4 ,jacobi1 refusing all measure of right and wrong except the determinations of the private spirit1 remarks that there is no crime but has sometimes been a virtue4 8,i10 he says1 8am that atheist1 that godless person who1 in opposition to an imaginary doctrine of calculation1 would lie as the dying ,desdemona lied2 would lie and deceive1 as ,pylades when he personated ,orestes2 would assassinate like ,timoleon2 would perjure myself like ,epaminondas1 and ,john de ,witt2 ,i would resolve on suicide like ,cato2 ,i would commit sacrilege with ,david2 yea1 and pluck ears of corn on the ,sabbath1 for no other reason than that ,i was fainting for lack of food4 ,for1 ,i have assurance in myself1 that1 in pardoning these faults according to the letter1 man exerts the sovereign right which the majesty of his being confers on him2 he sets the seal of his divine nature to the grace he accords40,a ,a ,coleridge's ,translation4 ,in like manner1 if there is anything grand and daring in human thought or virtue1 any reliance on the vast1 the unknown2 any presentiment2 any extravagance of faith1 the spiritualist adopts it as most in nature4 ,the oriental mind has always tended to this largeness4 ,buddhism is an expression of it4 ,the ,buddhist who thanks no man1 who says1 8do not flatter your benefactors10 but who1 in his conviction that every good deed can by no possibility escape its reward1 will not deceive the benefactor by pretending that he has done more than he should1 is a ,transcendentalist4 ,you will see by this sketch that there is no such thing as a ,transcendental party2 that there is no pure ,transcendentalist2 that we know of none but prophets and heralds of such a philosophy2 that all who by strong bias of nature have leaned to the spiritual side in doctrine1 have stopped short of their goal4 ,we have had many harbingers and forerunners2 but of a purely spiritual life1 history has afforded no example4 ,i mean1 we have yet no man who has leaned entirely on his character1 and eaten angels' food2 who1 trusting to his sentiments1 found life made of miracles2 who1 working for universal aims1 found himself fed1 he knew not how2 clothed1 sheltered1 and weaponed1 he knew not how1 and yet it was done by his own hands4 ,only in the instinct of the lower animals1 we find the suggestion of the methods of it1 and something higher than our understanding4 ,the squirrel hoards nuts1 and the bee gathers honey1 without knowing what they do1 and they are thus provided for without selfishness or disgrace4 ,shall we say1 then1 that ,transcendentalism is the ,saturnalia or excess of ,faith2 the presentiment of a faith proper to man in his integrity1 excessive only when his imperfect obedience hinders the satisfaction of his wish4 ,nature is transcendental1 exists primarily1 necessarily1 ever works and advances1 yet takes no thought for the morrow4 ,man owns the dignity of the life which throbs around him in chemistry1 and tree1 and animal1 and in the involuntary functions of his own body2 yet he is balked when he tries to fling himself into this enchanted circle1 where all is done without degradation4 ,yet genius and virtue predict in man the same absence of private ends1 and of condescension to circumstances1 united with every trait and talent of beauty and power4 ,this way of thinking1 falling on ,roman times1 made ,stoic philosophers2 falling on despotic times1 made patriot ,catos and ,brutuses2 falling on superstitious times1 made prophets and apostles2 on popish times1 made protestants and ascetic monks1 preachers of ,faith against the preachers of ,works2 on prelatical times1 made ,puritans and ,quakers2 and falling on ,unitarian and commercial times1 makes the peculiar shades of ,idealism which we know4 ,it is well known to most of my audience1 that the ,idealism of the present day acquired the name of ,transcendental1 from the use of that term by ,immanuel ,kant1 of ,konigsberg1 who replied to the skeptical philosophy of ,locke1 which insisted that there was nothing in the intellect which was not previously in the experience of the senses1 by showing that there was a very important class of ideas1 or imperative forms1 which did not come by experience1 but through which experience was acquired2 that these were intuitions of the mind itself2 and he denominated them ,transcendental forms4 ,the extraordinary profoundness and precision of that man's thinking have given vogue to his nomenclature1 in ,europe and ,america1 to that extent1 that whatever belongs to the class of intuitive thought1 is popularly called at the present day ,transcendental4 ,although1 as we have said1 there is no pure ,transcendentalist1 yet the tendency to respect the intuitions1 and to give them1 at least in our creed1 all authority over our experience1 has deeply colored the conversation and poetry of the present day2 and the history of genius and of religion in these times1 though impure1 and as yet not incarnated in any powerful individual1 will be the history of this tendency4 ,it is a sign of our times1 conspicuous to the coarsest observer1 that many intelligent and religious persons withdraw themselves from the common labors and competitions of the market and the caucus1 and betake themselves to a certain solitary and critical way of living1 from which no solid fruit has yet appeared to justify their separation4 ,they hold themselves aloof3 they feel the disproportion between their faculties and the work offered them1 and they prefer to ramble in the country and perish of ennui1 to the degradation of such charities and such ambitions as the city can propose to them4 ,they are striking work1 and crying out for somewhat worthy to do6 ,what they do1 is done only because they are overpowered by the humanities that speak on all sides2 and they consent to such labor as is open to them1 though to their lofty dream the writing of ,iliads or ,hamlets1 or the building of cities or empires seems drudgery4 ,now every one must do after his kind1 be he asp or angel1 and these must4 ,the question1 which a wise man and a student of modern history will ask1 is1 what that kind is8 ,and truly1 as in ecclesiastical history we take so much pains to know what the ,gnostics1 what the ,essenes1 what the ,manichees1 and what the ,reformers believed1 it would not misbecome us to inquire nearer home1 what these companions and contemporaries of ours think and do1 at least so far as these thoughts and actions appear to be not accidental and personal1 but common to many1 and the inevitable flower of the ,tree of ,time4 ,our ,american literature and spiritual history are1 we confess1 in the optative mood2 but whoso knows these seething brains1 these admirable radicals1 these unsocial worshippers1 these talkers who talk the sun and moon away1 will believe that this heresy cannot pass away without leaving its mark4 ,they are lonely2 the spirit of their writing and conversation is lonely2 they repel influences2 they shun general society2 they incline to shut themselves in their chamber in the house1 to live in the country rather than in the town1 and to find their tasks and amusements in solitude4 ,society1 to be sure1 does not like this very well2 it saith1 ,whoso goes to walk alone1 accuses the whole world2 he declareth all to be unfit to be his companions2 it is very uncivil1 nay1 insulting2 ,society will retaliate4 ,meantime1 this retirement does not proceed from any whim on the part of these separators2 but if any one will take pains to talk with them1 he will find that this part is chosen both from temperament and from principle2 with some unwillingness1 too1 and as a choice of the less of two evils2 for these persons are not by nature melancholy1 sour1 and unsocial1--they are not stockish or brute1--but joyous2 susceptible1 affectionate2 they have even more than others a great wish to be loved4 ,like the young ,mozart1 they are rather ready to cry ten times a day1 8,but are you sure you love me80 ,nay1 if they tell you their whole thought1 they will own that love seems to them the last and highest gift of nature2 that there are persons whom in their hearts they daily thank for existing1--persons whose faces are perhaps unknown to them1 but whose fame and spirit have penetrated their solitude1--and for whose sake they wish to exist4 ,to behold the beauty of another character1 which inspires a new interest in our own2 to behold the beauty lodged in a human being1 with such vivacity of apprehension1 that ,i am instantly forced home to inquire if ,i am not deformity itself3 to behold in another the expression of a love so high that it assures itself1--assures itself also to me against every possible casualty except my unworthiness2--these are degrees on the scale of human happiness1 to which they have ascended2 and it is a fidelity to this sentiment which has made common association distasteful to them4 ,they wish a just and even fellowship1 or none4 ,they cannot gossip with you1 and they do not wish1 as they are sincere and religious1 to gratify any mere curiosity which you may entertain4 ,like fairies1 they do not wish to be spoken of4 ,love me1 they say1 but do not ask who is my cousin and my uncle4 ,if you do not need to hear my thought1 because you can read it in my face and behavior1 then ,i will tell it you from sunrise to sunset4 ,if you cannot divine it1 you would not understand what ,i say4 ,i will not molest myself for you4 ,i do not wish to be profaned4 ,and yet1 it seems as if this loneliness1 and not this love1 would prevail in their circumstances1 because of the extravagant demand they make on human nature4 ,that1 indeed1 constitutes a new feature in their portrait1 that they are the most exacting and extortionate critics4 ,their quarrel with every man they meet1 is not with his kind1 but with his degree4 ,there is not enough of him1--that is the only fault4 ,they prolong their privilege of childhood in this wise1 of doing nothing1--but making immense demands on all the gladiators in the lists of action and fame4 ,they make us feel the strange disappointment which overcasts every human youth4 ,so many promising youths1 and never a finished man6 ,the profound nature will have a savage rudeness2 the delicate one will be shallow1 or the victim of sensibility2 the richly accomplished will have some capital absurdity2 and so every piece has a crack4 ',tis strange1 but this masterpiece is the result of such an extreme delicacy1 that the most unobserved flaw in the boy will neutralize the most aspiring genius1 and spoil the work4 ,talk with a seaman of the hazards to life in his profession1 and he will ask you1 8,where are the old sailors8 do you not see that all are young men80 ,and we1 on this sea of human thought1 in like manner inquire1 ,where are the old idealists8 where are they who represented to the last generation that extravagant hope1 which a few happy aspirants suggest to ours8 ,in looking at the class of counsel1 and power1 and wealth1 and at the matronage of the land1 amidst all the prudence and all the triviality1 one asks1 ,where are they who represented genius1 virtue1 the invisible and heavenly world1 to these8 ,are they dead1--taken in early ripeness to the gods1--as ancient wisdom foretold their fate8 ,or did the high idea die out of them1 and leave their unperfumed body as its tomb and tablet1 announcing to all that the celestial inhabitant1 who once gave them beauty1 had departed8 ,will it be better with the new generation8 ,we easily predict a fair future to each new candidate who enters the lists1 but we are frivolous and volatile1 and by low aims and ill example do what we can to defeat this hope4 ,then these youths bring us a rough but effectual aid4 ,by their unconcealed dissatisfaction1 they expose our poverty1 and the insignificance of man to man4 ,a man is a poor limitary benefactor4 ,he ought to be a shower of benefits--a great influence1 which should never let his brother go1 but should refresh old merits continually with new ones2 so that1 though absent1 he should never be out of my mind1 his name never far from my lips2 but if the earth should open at my side1 or my last hour were come1 his name should be the prayer ,i should utter to the ,universe4 ,but in our experience1 man is cheap1 and friendship wants its deep sense4 ,we affect to dwell with our friends in their absence1 but we do not2 when deed1 word1 or letter comes not1 they let us go4 ,these exacting children advertise us of our wants4 ,there is no compliment1 no smooth speech with them2 they pay you only this one compliment1 of insatiable expectation2 they aspire1 they severely exact1 and if they only stand fast in this watch-tower1 and persist in demanding unto the end1 and without end1 then are they terrible friends1 whereof poet and priest cannot choose but stand in awe2 and what if they eat clouds1 and drink wind1 they have not been without service to the race of man4 ,with this passion for what is great and extraordinary1 it cannot be wondered at1 that they are repelled by vulgarity and frivolity in people4 ,they say to themselves1 ,it is better to be alone than in bad company4 ,and it is really a wish to be met1--the wish to find society for their hope and religion1--which prompts them to shun what is called society4 ,they feel that they are never so fit for friendship1 as when they have quitted mankind1 and taken themselves to friend4 ,a picture1 a book1 a favorite spot in the hills or the woods1 which they can people with the fair and worthy creation of the fancy1 can give them often forms so vivid1 that these for the time shall seem real1 and society the illusion4 ,but their solitary and fastidious manners not only withdraw them from the conversation1 but from the labors of the world2 they are not good citizens1 not good members of society2 unwillingly they bear their part of the public and private burdens2 they do not willingly share in the public charities1 in the public religious rites1 in the enterprises of education1 of missions foreign and domestic1 in the abolition of the slave-trade1 or in the temperance society4 ,they do not even like to vote4 ,the philanthropists inquire whether ,transcendentalism does not mean sloth3 they had as lief hear that their friend is dead1 as that he is a ,transcendentalist2 for then is he paralyzed1 and can never do anything for humanity4 ,what right1 cries the good world1 has the man of genius to retreat from work1 and indulge himself8 ,the popular literary creed seems to be1 #8,i am a sublime genius2 ,i ought not therefore to labor4' ,but genius is the power to labor better and more availably4 ,deserve thy genius3 exalt it4 ,the good1 the illuminated1 set apart from the rest1 censuring their dulness and vices1 as if they thought that1 by sitting very grand in their chairs1 the very brokers1 attorneys1 and congressmen would see the error of their ways1 and flock to them4 ,but the good and wise must learn to act1 and carry salvation to the combatants and demagogues in the dusty arena below4 ,on the part of these children1 it is replied1 that life and their faculty seem to them gifts too rich to be squandered on such trifles as you propose to them4 ,what you call your fundamental institutions1 your great and holy causes1 seem to them great abuses1 and1 when nearly seen1 paltry matters4 ,each #8,cause1' as it is called1--say ,abolition1 ,temperance1 say ,calvinism1 or ,unitarianism1--becomes speedily a little shop1 where the article1 let it have been at first never so subtle and ethereal1 is now made up into portable and convenient cakes1 and retailed in small quantities to suit purchasers4 ,you make very free use of these words #8great' and #8holy1' but few things appear to them such4 ,few persons have any magnificence of nature to inspire enthusiasm1 and the philanthropies and charities have a certain air of quackery4 ,as to the general course of living1 and the daily employments of men1 they cannot see much virtue in these1 since they are parts of this vicious circle2 and1 as no great ends are answered by the men1 there is nothing noble in the arts by which they are maintained4 ,nay1 they have made the experiment1 and found that1 from the liberal professions to the coarsest manual labor1 and from the courtesies of the academy and the college to the conventions of the cotillon-room and the morning call1 there is a spirit of cowardly compromise and seeming1 which intimates a frightful skepticism1 a life without love1 and an activity without an aim4 ,unless the action is necessary1 unless it is adequate1 ,i do not wish to perform it4 ,i do not wish to do one thing but once4 ,i do not love routine4 ,once possessed of the principle1 it is equally easy to make four forty thousand applications of it4 ,a great man will be content to have indicated in any the slightest manner his perception of the reigning ,idea of his time1 and will leave to those who like it the multiplication of examples4 ,when he has hit the white1 the rest may shatter the target4 ,every thing admonishes us how needlessly long life is4 ,every moment of a hero so raises and cheers us1 that a twelvemonth is an age4 ,all that the brave ,xanthus brings home from his wars1 is the recollection that1 at the storming of ,samos1 8in the heat of the battle1 ,pericles smiled on me1 and passed on to another detachment40 ,it is the quality of the moment1 not the number of days1 of events1 or of actors1 that imports4 ,new1 we confess1 and by no means happy1 is our condition3 if you want the aid of our labor1 we ourselves stand in greater want of the labor4 ,we are miserable with inaction4 ,we perish of rest and rust3 but we do not like your work4 #8,then1' says the world1 #8show me your own4' #8,we have none4' #8,what will you do1 then8' cries the world4 #8,we will wait4' #8,how long8' #8,until the ,universe rises up and calls us to work4' #8,but whilst you wait1 you grow old and useless4' #8,be it so3 ,i can sit in a corner and perish1 7as you call it17 but ,i will not move until ,i have the highest command4 ,if no call should come for years1 for centuries1 then ,i know that the want of the ,universe is the attestation of faith by my abstinence4 ,your virtuous projects1 so called1 do not cheer me4 ,i know that which shall come will cheer me4 ,if ,i cannot work1 at least ,i need not lie4 ,all that is clearly due to-day is not to lie4 ,in other places1 other men have encountered sharp trials1 and have behaved themselves well4 ,the martyrs were sawn asunder1 or hung alive on meat-hooks4 ,cannot we screw our courage to patience and truth1 and without complaint1 or even with good-humor1 await our turn of action in the ,infinite ,counsels8' ,but1 to come a little closer to the secret of these persons1 we must say1 that to them it seems a very easy matter to answer the objections of the man of the world1 but not so easy to dispose of the doubts and objections that occur to themselves4 ,they are exercised in their own spirit with queries1 which acquaint them with all adversity1 and with the trials of the bravest heroes4 ,when ,i asked them concerning their private experience1 they answered somewhat in this wise3 ,it is not to be denied that there must be some wide difference between my faith and other faith2 and mine is a certain brief experience1 which surprised me in the highway or in the market1 in some place1 at some time1--whether in the body or out of the body1 ,god knoweth1--and made me aware that ,i had played the fool with fools all this time1 but that law existed for me and for all2 that to me belonged trust1 a child's trust and obedience1 and the worship of ideas1 and ,i should never be fool more4 ,well1 in the space of an hour1 probably1 ,i was let down from this height2 ,i was at my old tricks1 the selfish member of a selfish society4 ,my life is superficial1 takes no root in the deep world2 ,i ask1 ,when shall ,i die1 and be relieved of the responsibility of seeing an ,universe which ,i do not use8 ,i wish to exchange this flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight1 this fever-glow for a benign climate4 ,these two states of thought diverge every moment1 and stand in wild contrast4 ,to him who looks at his life from these moments of illumination1 it will seem that he skulks and plays a mean1 shiftless1 and subaltern part in the world4 ,that is to be done which he has not skill to do1 or to be said which others can say better1 and he lies by1 or occupies his hands with some plaything1 until his hour comes again4 ,much of our reading1 much of our labor1 seems mere waiting3 it was not that we were born for4 ,any other could do it as well1 or better4 ,so little skill enters into these works1 so little do they mix with the divine life1 that it really signifies little what we do1 whether we turn a grindstone1 or ride1 or run1 or make fortunes1 or govern the state4 ,the worst feature of this double consciousness is1 that the two lives1 of the understanding and of the soul1 which we lead1 really show very little relation to each other1 never meet and measure each other3 one prevails now1 all buzz and din2 and the other prevails then1 all infinitude and paradise2 and1 with the progress of life1 the two discover no greater disposition to reconcile themselves4 ,yet1 what is my faith8 ,what am ,i8 ,what but a thought of serenity and independence1 an abode in the deep blue sky8 ,presently the clouds shut down again2 yet we retain the belief that this petty web we weave will at last be overshot and reticulated with veins of the blue1 and that the moments will characterize the days4 ,patience1 then1 is for us1 is it not8 ,patience1 and still patience4 ,when we pass1 as presently we shall1 into some new infinitude1 out of this ,iceland of negations1 it will please us to reflect that1 though we had few virtues or consolations1 we bore with our indigence1 nor once strove to repair it with hypocrisy or false heat of any kind4 ,but this class are not sufficiently characterized1 if we omit to add that they are lovers and worshippers of ,beauty4 ,in the eternal trinity of ,truth1 ,goodness1 and ,beauty1 each in its perfection including the three1 they prefer to make ,beauty the sign and head4 ,something of the same taste is observable in all the moral movements of the time1 in the religious and benevolent enterprises4 ,they have a liberal1 even an sthetic spirit4 ,a reference to ,beauty in action sounds1 to be sure1 a little hollow and ridiculous in the ears of the old church4 ,in politics1 it has often sufficed1 when they treated of justice1 if they kept the bounds of selfish calculation4 ,if they granted restitution1 it was prudence which granted it4 ,but the justice which is now claimed for the black1 and the pauper1 and the drunkard is for ,beauty1--is for a necessity to the soul of the agent1 not of the beneficiary4 ,i say1 this is the tendency1 not yet the realization4 ,our virtue totters and trips1 does not yet walk firmly4 ,its representatives are austere2 they preach and denounce2 their rectitude is not yet a grace4 ,they are still liable to that slight taint of burlesque which1 in our strange world1 attaches to the zealot4 ,a saint should be as dear as the apple of the eye4 ,yet we are tempted to smile1 and we flee from the working to the speculative reformer1 to escape that same slight ridicule4 ,alas for these days of derision and criticism6 ,we call the ,beautiful the highest1 because it appears to us the golden mean1 escaping the dowdiness of the good1 and the heartlessness of the true4--,they are lovers of nature also1 and find an indemnity in the inviolable order of the world for the violated order and grace of man4 ,there is1 no doubt1 a great deal of well-founded objection to be spoken or felt against the sayings and doings of this class1 some of whose traits we have selected2 no doubt1 they will lay themselves open to criticism and to lampoons1 and as ridiculous stories will be to be told of them as of any4 ,there will be cant and pretension2 there will be subtilty and moonshine4 ,these persons are of unequal strength1 and do not all prosper4 ,they complain that everything around them must be denied2 and if feeble1 it takes all their strength to deny1 before they can begin to lead their own life4 ,grave seniors insist on their respect to this institution1 and that usage2 to an obsolete history2 to some vocation1 or college1 or etiquette1 or beneficiary1 or charity1 or morning or evening call1 which they resist1 as what does not concern them4 ,but it costs such sleepless nights1 alienations and misgivings1--they have so many moods about it2--these old guardians never change their minds2 they have but one mood on the subject1 namely1 that ,antony is very perverse1--that it is quite as much as ,antony can do1 to assert his rights1 abstain from what he thinks foolish1 and keep his temper4 ,he cannot help the reaction of this injustice in his own mind4 ,he is braced-up and stilted2 all freedom and flowing genius1 all sallies of wit and frolic nature are quite out of the question2 it is well if he can keep from lying1 injustice1 and suicide4 ,this is no time for gaiety and grace4 ,his strength and spirits are wasted in rejection4 ,but the strong spirits overpower those around them without effort4 ,their thought and emotion comes in like a flood1 quite withdraws them from all notice of these carping critics2 they surrender themselves with glad heart to the heavenly guide1 and only by implication reject the clamorous nonsense of the hour4 ,grave seniors talk to the deaf1--church and old book mumble and ritualize to an unheeding1 preccupied and advancing mind1 and thus they by happiness of greater momentum lose no time1 but take the right road at first4 ,but all these of whom ,i speak are not proficients2 they are novices2 they only show the road in which man should travel1 when the soul has greater health and prowess4 ,yet let them feel the dignity of their charge1 and deserve a larger power4 ,their heart is the ark in which the fire is concealed1 which shall burn in a broader and universal flame4 ,let them obey the ,genius then most when his impulse is wildest2 then most when he seems to lead to uninhabitable desarts of thought and life2 for the path which the hero travels alone is the highway of health and benefit to mankind4 ,what is the privilege and nobility of our nature1 but its persistency1 through its power to attach itself to what is permanent8 ,society also has its duties in reference to this class1 and must behold them with what charity it can4 ,possibly some benefit may yet accrue from them to the state4 ,in our ,mechanics' ,fair1 there must be not only bridges1 ploughs1 carpenters' planes1 and baking troughs1 but also some few finer instruments1--rain gauges1 thermometers1 and telescopes2 and in society1 besides farmers1 sailors1 and weavers1 there must be a few persons of purer fire kept specially as gauges and meters of character2 persons of a fine1 detecting instinct1 who betray the smallest accumulations of wit and feeling in the bystander4 ,perhaps too there might be room for the exciters and monitors2 collectors of the heavenly spark with power to convey the electricity to others4 ,or1 as the storm-tossed vessel at sea speaks the frigate or #8line packet' to learn its longitude1 so it may not be without its advantage that we should now and then encounter rare and gifted men1 to compare the points of our spiritual compass1 and verify our bearings from superior chronometers4 ,amidst the downward tendency and proneness of things1 when every voice is raised for a new road or another statute1 or a subscription of stock1 for an improvement in dress1 or in dentistry1 for a new house or a larger business1 for a political party1 or the division of an estate1--will you not tolerate one or two solitary voices in the land1 speaking for thoughts and principles not marketable or perishable8 ,soon these improvements and mechanical inventions will be superseded2 these modes of living lost out of memory2 these cities rotted1 ruined by war1 by new inventions1 by new seats of trade1 or the geologic changes3--all gone1 like the shells which sprinkle the seabeach with a white colony to-day1 forever renewed to be forever destroyed4 ,but the thoughts which these few hermits strove to proclaim by silence1 as well as by speech1 not only by what they did1 but by what they forbore to do1 shall abide in beauty and strength1 to reorganize themselves in nature1 to invest themselves anew in other1 perhaps higher endowed and happier mixed clay than ours1 in fuller union with the surrounding system4 ,,the ,,young ,,american4 ,a ,,lecture ,,read ,,before ,,the ,,mercantile ,,library ,,association1 ,,boston1 ,,february #g1 #ahdd4 ,,the ,,young ,,american4 ,,gentlemen3 ,it is remarkable1 that our people have their intellectual culture from one country1 and their duties from another4 ,this false state of things is newly in a way to be corrected4 ,america is beginning to assert itself to the senses and to the imagination of her children1 and ,europe is receding in the same degree4 ,this their reaction on education gives a new importance to the internal improvements and to the politics of the country4 ,who has not been stimulated to reflection by the facilities now in progress of construction for travel and the transportation of goods in the ,united ,states8 ,this rage for road building is beneficent for ,america1 where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade1 inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the ,union staunch1 whose days seemed already numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives1 judges1 and officers across such tedious distances of land and water4 ,not only is distance annihilated1 but when1 as now1 the locomotive and the steamboat1 like enormous shuttles1 shoot every day across the thousand various threads of national descent and employment1 and bind them fast in one web1 an hourly assimilation goes forward1 and there is no danger that local peculiarities and hostilities should be preserved4 #a4 ,but ,i hasten to speak of the utility of these improvements in creating an ,american sentiment4 ,an unlooked for consequence of the railroad1 is the increased acquaintance it has given the ,american people with the boundless resources of their own soil4 ,if this invention has reduced ,england to a third of its size1 by bringing people so much nearer1 in this country it has given a new celerity to time1 or anticipated by fifty years the planting of tracts of land1 the choice of water privileges1 the working of mines1 and other natural advantages4 ,railroad iron is a magician's rod1 in its power to evoke the sleeping energies of land and water4 ,the railroad is but one arrow in our quiver1 though it has great value as a sort of yard-stick1 and surveyor's line4 ,the bountiful continent is ours1 state on state1 and territory on territory1 to the waves of the ,pacific sea2 8,our garden is the immeasurable earth1 ,the heaven's blue pillars are ,medea's house40 ,the task of surveying1 planting1 and building upon this immense tract1 requires an education and a sentiment commensurate thereto4 ,a consciousness of this fact1 is beginning to take the place of the purely trading spirit and education which sprang up whilst all the population lived on the fringe of sea-coast4 ,and even on the coast1 prudent men have begun to see that every ,american should be educated with a view to the values of land4 ,the arts of engineering and of architecture are studied2 scientific agriculture is an object of growing attention2 the mineral riches are explored2 limestone1 coal1 slate1 and iron2 and the value of timber-lands is enhanced4 ,columbus alleged as a reason for seeking a continent in the ,west1 that the harmony of nature required a great tract of land in the western hemisphere1 to balance the known extent of land in the eastern2 and it now appears that we must estimate the native values of this broad region to redress the balance of our own judgments1 and appreciate the advantages opened to the human race in this country1 which is our fortunate home4 ,the land is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our culture4 ,the continent we inhabit is to be physic and food for our mind1 as well as our body4 ,the land1 with its tranquilizing1 sanative influences1 is to repair the errors of a scholastic and traditional education1 and bring us into just relations with men and things4 ,the habit of living in the presence of these invitations of natural wealth is not inoperative2 and this habit1 combined with the moral sentiment which1 in the recent years1 has interrogated every institution1 usage1 and law1 has1 naturally1 given a strong direction to the wishes and aims of active young men to withdraw from cities1 and cultivate the soil4 ,this inclination has appeared in the most unlooked for quarters1 in men supposed to be absorbed in business1 and in those connected with the liberal professions4 ,and1 since the walks of trade were crowded1 whilst that of agriculture cannot easily be1 inasmuch as the farmer who is not wanted by others can yet grow his own bread1 whilst the manufacturer or the trader1 who is not wanted1 cannot1--this seemed a happy tendency4 ,for1 beside all the moral benefit which we may expect from the farmer's profession1 when a man enters it considerately1 this promised the conquering of the soil1 plenty1 and beyond this1 the adorning of the country with every advantage and ornament which labor1 ingenuity1 and affection for a man's home1 could suggest4 ,meantime1 with cheap land1 and the pacific disposition of the people1 every thing invites to the arts of agriculture1 of gardening1 and domestic architecture4 ,public gardens1 on the scale of such plantations in ,europe and ,asia1 are now unknown to us4 ,there is no feature of the old countries that strikes an ,american with more agreeable surprise than the beautiful gardens of ,europe2 such as the ,boboli in ,florence1 the ,villa ,borghese in ,rome1 the ,villa d',este in ,tivoli1 the gardens at ,munich1 and at ,frankfort on the ,maine3 works easily imitated here1 and which might well make the land dear to the citizen1 and inflame patriotism4 ,it is the fine art which is left for us1 now that sculpture1 painting1 and religious and civil architecture have become effete1 and have passed into second childhood4 ,we have twenty degrees of latitude wherein to choose a seat1 and the new modes of travelling enlarge the opportunity of selection1 by making it easy to cultivate very distant tracts1 and yet remain in strict intercourse with the centres of trade and population4 ,and the whole force of all the arts goes to facilitate the decoration of lands and dwellings4 ,a garden has this advantage1 that it makes it indifferent where you live4 ,a well-laid garden makes the face of the country of no account2 let that be low or high1 grand or mean1 you have made a beautiful abode worthy of man4 ,if the landscape is pleasing1 the garden shows it1--if tame1 it excludes it4 ,a little grove1 which any farmer can find1 or cause to grow near his house1 will1 in a few years1 make cataracts and chains of mountains quite unnecessary to his scenery2 and he is so contented with his alleys1 woodlands1 orchards and river1 that ,niagara1 and the ,notch of the ,white ,hills1 and ,nantasket ,beach1 are superfluities4 ,and yet the selection of a fit houselot has the same advantage over an indifferent one1 as the selection to a given employment of a man who has a genius for that work4 ,in the last case1 the culture of years will never make the most painstaking apprentice his equal3 no more will gardening give the advantage of a happy site to a house in a hole or on a pinnacle4 ,in ,america1 we have hitherto little to boast in this kind4 ,the cities drain the country of the best part of its population3 the flower of the youth1 of both sexes1 goes into the towns1 and the country is cultivated by a so much inferior class4 ,the land1--travel a whole day together1--looks poverty-stricken1 and the buildings plain and poor4 ,in ,europe1 where society has an aristocratic structure1 the land is full of men of the best stock1 and the best culture1 whose interest and pride it is to remain half the year on their estates1 and to fill them with every convenience and ornament4 ,of course1 these make model farms1 and model architecture1 and are a constant education to the eye of the surrounding population4 ,whatever events in progress shall go to disgust men with cities1 and infuse into them the passion for country life1 and country pleasures1 will render a service to the whole face of this continent1 and will further the most poetic of all the occupations of real life1 the bringing out by art the native but hidden graces of the landscape4 ,i look on such improvements1 also1 as directly tending to endear the land to the inhabitant4 ,any relation to the land1 the habit of tilling it1 or mining it1 or even hunting on it1 generates the feeling of patriotism4 ,he who keeps shop on it1 or he who merely uses it as a support to his desk and ledger1 or to his manufactory1 values it less4 ,the vast majority of the people of this country live by the land1 and carry its quality in their manners and opinions4 ,we in the ,atlantic states1 by position1 have been commercial1 and have1 as ,i said1 imbibed easily an ,european culture4 ,luckily for us1 now that steam has narrowed the ,atlantic to a strait1 the nervous1 rocky ,west is intruding a new and continental element into the national mind1 and we shall yet have an ,american genius4 ,how much better when the whole land is a garden1 and the people have grown up in the bowers of a paradise4 ,without looking1 then1 to those extraordinary social influences which are now acting in precisely this direction1 but only at what is inevitably doing around us1 ,i think we must regard the land as a commanding and increasing power on the citizen1 the sanative and ,americanizing influence1 which promises to disclose new virtues for ages to come4 #b4 ,in the second place1 the uprise and culmination of the new and anti-feudal power of ,commerce1 is the political fact of most significance to the ,american at this hour4 ,we cannot look on the freedom of this country1 in connexion with its youth1 without a presentiment that here shall laws and institutions exist on some scale of proportion to the majesty of nature4 ,to men legislating for the area betwixt the two oceans1 betwixt the snows and the tropics1 somewhat of the gravity of nature will infuse itself into the code4 ,a heterogeneous population crowding on all ships from all corners of the world to the great gates of ,north ,america1 namely1 ,boston1 ,new ,york1 and ,new ,orleans1 and thence proceeding inward to the prairie and the mountains1 and quickly contributing their private thought to the public opinion1 their toll to the treasury1 and their vote to the election1 it cannot be doubted that the legislation of this country should become more catholic and cosmopolitan than that of any other4 ,it seems so easy for ,america to inspire and express the most expansive and humane spirit2 new-born1 free1 healthful1 strong1 the land of the laborer1 of the democrat1 of the philanthropist1 of the believer1 of the saint1 she should speak for the human race4 ,it is the country of the ,future4 ,from ,washington1 proverbially #8the city of magnificent distances1' through all its cities1 states1 and territories1 it is a country of beginnings1 of projects1 of designs1 of expectations4 ,gentlemen1 there is a sublime and friendly ,destiny by which the human race is guided1--the race never dying1 the individual never spared1--to results affecting masses and ages4 ,men are narrow and selfish1 but the ,genius or ,destiny is not narrow1 but beneficent4 ,it is not discovered in their calculated and voluntary activity1 but in what befalls1 with or without their design4 ,only what is inevitable interests us1 and it turns out that love and good are inevitable1 and in the course of things4 ,that ,genius has infused itself into nature4 ,it indicates itself by a small excess of good1 a small balance in brute facts always favorable to the side of reason4 ,all the facts in any part of nature shall be tabulated1 and the results shall indicate the same security and benefit2 so slight as to be hardly observable1 and yet it is there4 ,the sphere is flattened at the poles1 and swelled at the equator2 a form flowing necessarily from the fluid state1 yet the form1 the mathematician assures us1 required to prevent the protuberances of the continent1 or even of lesser mountains cast up at any time by earthquakes1 from continually deranging the axis of the earth4 ,the census of the population is found to keep an invariable equality in the sexes1 with a trifling predominance in favor of the male1 as if to counterbalance the necessarily increased exposure of male life in war1 navigation1 and other accidents4 ,remark the unceasing effort throughout nature at somewhat better than the actual creatures3 amelioration in nature1 which alone permits and authorizes amelioration in mankind4 ,the population of the world is a conditional population2 these are not the best1 but the best that could live in the existing state of soils1 gases1 animals1 and morals3 the best that could yet live2 there shall be a better1 please ,god4 ,this ,genius1 or ,destiny1 is of the sternest administration1 though rumors exist of its secret tenderness4 ,it may be styled a cruel kindness1 serving the whole even to the ruin of the member2 a terrible communist1 reserving all profits to the community1 without dividend to individuals4 ,its law is1 you shall have everything as a member1 nothing to yourself4 ,for ,nature is the noblest engineer1 yet uses a grinding economy1 working up all that is wasted to-day into to-morrow's creation2--not a superfluous grain of sand1 for all the ostentation she makes of expense and public works4 ,it is because ,nature thus saves and uses1 laboring for the general1 that we poor particulars are so crushed and straitened1 and find it so hard to live4 ,she flung us out in her plenty1 but we cannot shed a hair1 or a paring of a nail1 but instantly she snatches at the shred1 and appropriates it to the general stock4 ,our condition is like that of the poor wolves3 if one of the flock wound himself1 or so much as limp1 the rest eat him up incontinently4 ,that serene ,power interposes the check upon the caprices and officiousness of our wills4 ,its charity is not our charity4 ,one of its agents is our will1 but that which expresses itself in our will1 is stronger than our will4 ,we are very forward to help it1 but it will not be accelerated4 ,it resists our meddling1 eleemosynary contrivances4 ,we devise sumptuary and relief laws1 but the principle of population is always reducing wages to the lowest pittance on which human life can be sustained4 ,we legislate against forestalling and monopoly2 we would have a common granary for the poor2 but the selfishness which hoards the corn for high prices1 is the preventive of famine2 and the law of self-preservation is surer policy than any legislation can be4 ,we concoct eleemosynary systems1 and it turns out that our charity increases pauperism4 ,we inflate our paper currency1 we repair commerce with unlimited credit1 and are presently visited with unlimited bankruptcy4 ,it is easy to see that the existing generation are conspiring with a beneficence1 which1 in its working for coming generations1 sacrifices the passing one1 which infatuates the most selfish men to act against their private interest for the public welfare4 ,we build railroads1 we know not for what or for whom2 but one thing is certain1 that we who build will receive the very smallest share of benefit4 ,benefit will accrue2 they are essential to the country1 but that will be felt not until we are no longer countrymen4 ,we do the like in all matters3-- 8,man's heart the ,almighty to the ,future set ,by secret and inviolable springs40 ,we plant trees1 we build stone houses1 we redeem the waste1 we make prospective laws1 we found colleges and hospitals1 for remote generations4 ,we should be mortified to learn that the little benefit we chanced in our own persons to receive was the utmost they would yield4 ,the history of commerce1 is the record of this beneficent tendency4 ,the patriarchal form of government readily becomes despotic1 as each person may see in his own family4 ,fathers wish to be the fathers of the minds of their children1 and behold with impatience a new character and way of thinking presuming to show itself in their own son or daughter4 ,this feeling1 which all their love and pride in the powers of their children cannot subdue1 becomes petulance and tyranny when the head of the clan1 the emperor of an empire1 deals with the same difference of opinion in his subjects4 ,difference of opinion is the one crime which kings never forgive4 ,an empire is an immense egotism4 8,i am the ,state10 said the ,french ,louis4 ,when a ,french ambassador mentioned to ,paul of ,russia1 that a man of consequence in ,st4 ,petersburg was interesting himself in some matter1 the ,czar interrupted him1--8,there is no man of consequence in this empire1 but he with whom ,i am actually speaking2 and so long only as ,i am speaking to him1 is he of any consequence40 ,and ,nicholas1 the present emperor1 is reported to have said to his council1 8,the age is embarrassed with new opinions2 rely on me1 gentlemen1 ,i shall oppose an iron will to the progress of liberal opinions40 ,it is easy to see that this patriarchal or family management gets to be rather troublesome to all but the papa2 the sceptre comes to be a crowbar4 ,and this unpleasant egotism1 ,feudalism opposes1 and finally destroys4 ,the king is compelled to call in the aid of his brothers and cousins1 and remote relations1 to help him keep his overgrown house in order2 and this club of noblemen always come at last to have a will of their own2 they combine to brave the sovereign1 and call in the aid of the people4 ,each chief attaches as many followers as he can1 by kindness1 maintenance1 and gifts2 and as long as war lasts1 the nobles1 who must be soldiers1 rule very well4 ,but when peace comes1 the nobles prove very whimsical and uncomfortable masters2 their frolics turn out to be insulting and degrading to the commoner4 ,feudalism grew to be a bandit and brigand4 ,meantime ,trade had begun to appear3 ,trade1 a plant which grows wherever there is peace1 as soon as there is peace1 and as long as there is peace4 ,the luxury and necessity of the noble fostered it4 ,and as quickly as men go to foreign parts1 in ships or caravans1 a new order of things springs up2 new command takes place1 new servants and new masters4 ,their information1 their wealth1 their correspondence1 have made them quite other men than left their native shore4 ,they are nobles now1 and by another patent than the king's4 ,feudalism had been good1 had broken the power of the kings1 and had some good traits of its own2 but it had grown mischievous1 it was time for it to die1 and1 as they say of dying people1 all its faults came out4 ,trade was the strong man that broke it down1 and raised a new and unknown power in its place4 ,it is a new agent in the world1 and one of great function2 it is a very intellectual force4 ,this displaces physical strength1 and instals computation1 combination1 information1 science1 in its room4 ,it calls out all force of a certain kind that slumbered in the former dynasties4 ,it is now in the midst of its career4 ,feudalism is not ended yet4 ,our governments still partake largely of that element4 ,trade goes to make the governments insignificant1 and to bring every kind of faculty of every individual that can in any manner serve any person1 on sale4 ,instead of a huge ,army and ,navy1 and ,executive ,departments1 it converts ,government into an ,intelligence-,office1 where every man may find what he wishes to buy1 and expose what he has to sell1 not only produce and manufactures1 but art1 skill1 and intellectual and moral values4 ,this is the good and this the evil of trade1 that it would put everything into market1 talent1 beauty1 virtue1 and man himself4 ,by this means1 however1 it has done its work4 ,it has its faults1 and will come to an end1 as the others do4 ,the philosopher and lover of man have much harm to say of trade2 but the historian will see that trade was the principle of ,liberty2 that trade planted ,america and destroyed ,feudalism2 that it makes peace and keeps peace1 and it will abolish slavery4 ,we complain of its oppression of the poor1 and of its building up a new aristocracy on the ruins of the aristocracy it destroyed4 ,but the aristocracy of trade has no permanence1 is not entailed1 was the result of toil and talent1 the result of merit of some kind1 and is continually falling1 like the waves of the sea1 before new claims of the same sort4 ,trade is an instrument in the hands of that friendly ,power which works for us in our own despite4 ,we design it thus and thus2 it turns out otherwise and far better4 ,this beneficent tendency1 omnipotent without violence1 exists and works4 ,every line of history inspires a confidence that we shall not go far wrong2 that things mend4 ,that is the moral of all we learn1 that it warrants ,hope1 the prolific mother of reforms4 ,our part is plainly not to throw ourselves across the track1 to block improvement1 and sit till we are stone1 but to watch the uprise of successive mornings1 and to conspire with the new works of new days4 ,government has been a fossil2 it should be a plant4 ,i conceive that the office of statute law should be to express1 and not to impede the mind of mankind4 ,new thoughts1 new things4 ,trade was one instrument1 but ,trade is also but for a time1 and must give way to somewhat broader and better1 whose signs are already dawning in the sky4 #c4 ,i pass to speak of the signs of that which is the sequel of trade4 ,in consequence of the revolution in the state of society wrought by trade1 ,government in our times is beginning to wear a clumsy and cumbrous appearance4 ,we have already seen our way to shorter methods4 ,the time is full of good signs4 ,some of them shall ripen to fruit4 ,all this beneficent socialism is a friendly omen1 and the swelling cry of voices for the education of the people1 indicates that ,government has other offices than those of banker and executioner4 ,witness the new movements in the civilized world1 the ,communism of ,france1 ,germany1 and ,switzerland2 the ,trades' ,unions2 the ,english ,league against the ,corn ,laws2 and the whole ,industrial ,statistics1 so called4 ,in ,paris1 the blouse1 the badge of the operative1 has begun to make its appearance in the saloons4 ,witness1 too1 the spectacle of three ,communities which have within a very short time sprung up within this ,commonwealth1 besides several others undertaken by citizens of ,massachusetts within the territory of other ,states4 ,these proceeded from a variety of motives1 from an impatience of many usages in common life1 from a wish for greater freedom than the manners and opinions of society permitted1 but in great part from a feeling that the true offices of the ,state1 the ,state had let fall to the ground2 that in the scramble of parties for the public purse1 the main duties of government were omitted1--the duty to instruct the ignorant1 to supply the poor with work and with good guidance4 ,these communists preferred the agricultural life as the most favorable condition for human culture2 but they thought that the farm1 as we manage it1 did not satisfy the right ambition of man4 ,the farmer1 after sacrificing pleasure1 taste1 freedom1 thought1 love1 to his work1 turns out often a bankrupt1 like the merchant4 ,this result might well seem astounding4 ,all this drudgery1 from cockcrowing to starlight1 for all these years1 to end in mortgages and the auctioneer's flag1 and removing from bad to worse4 ,it is time to have the thing looked into1 and with a sifting criticism ascertained who is the fool4 ,it seemed a great deal worse1 because the farmer is living in the same town with men who pretend to know exactly what he wants4 ,on one side1 is agricultural chemistry1 coolly exposing the nonsense of our spendthrift agriculture and ruinous expense of manures1 and offering1 by means of a teaspoonful of artificial guano1 to turn a sandbank into corn2 and1 on the other1 the farmer1 not only eager for the information1 but with bad crops and in debt and bankruptcy1 for want of it4 ,here are ,etzlers and mechanical projectors1 who1 with the ,fourierists1 undoubtingly affirm that the smallest union would make every man rich2--and1 on the other side1 a multitude of poor men and women seeking work1 and who cannot find enough to pay their board4 ,the science is confident1 and surely the poverty is real4 ,if any means could be found to bring these two together6 ,this was one design of the projectors of the ,associations which are now making their first feeble experiments4 ,they were founded in love1 and in labor4 ,they proposed1 as you know1 that all men should take a part in the manual toil1 and proposed to amend the condition of men1 by substituting harmonious for hostile industry4 ,it was a noble thought of ,fourier1 which gives a favorable idea of his system1 to distinguish in his ,phalanx a class as the ,sacred ,band1 by whom whatever duties were disagreeable1 and likely to be omitted1 were to be assumed4 ,at least1 an economical success seemed certain for the enterprise1 and that agricultural association must1 sooner or later1 fix the price of bread1 and drive single farmers into association1 in selfdefence2 as the great commercial and manufacturing companies had already done4 ,the ,community is only the continuation of the same movement which made the joint-stock companies for manufactures1 mining1 insurance1 banking1 and so forth4 ,it has turned out cheaper to make calico by companies2 and it is proposed to plant corn1 and to bake bread by companies4 ,undoubtedly1 abundant mistakes will be made by these first adventurers1 which will draw ridicule on their schemes4 ,i think1 for example1 that they exaggerate the importance of a favorite project of theirs1 that of paying talent and labor at one rate1 paying all sorts of service at one rate1 say ten cents the hour4 ,they have paid it so2 but not an instant would a dime remain a dime4 ,in one hand it became an eagle as it fell1 and in another hand a copper cent4 ,for the whole value of the dime is in knowing what to do with it4 ,one man buys with it a land-title of an ,indian1 and makes his posterity princes2 or buys corn enough to feed the world2 or pen1 ink1 and paper1 or a painter's brush1 by which he can communicate himself to the human race as if he were fire2 and the other buys barley candy4 ,money is of no value2 it cannot spend itself4 ,all depends on the skill of the spender4 ,whether1 too1 the objection almost universally felt by such women in the community as were mothers1 to an associate life1 to a common table1 and a common nursery1 c41 setting a higher value on the private family with poverty1 than on an association with wealth1 will not prove insuperable1 remains to be determined4 ,but the ,communities aimed at a higher success in securing to all their members an equal and thorough education4 ,and on the whole1 one may say1 that aims so generous1 and so forced on them by the times1 will not be relinquished1 even if these attempts fail1 but will be prosecuted until they succeed4 ,this is the value of the ,communities2 not what they have done1 but the revolution which they indicate as on the way4 ,yes1 ,government must educate the poor man4 ,look across the country from any hill-side around us1 and the landscape seems to crave ,government4 ,the actual differences of men must be acknowledged1 and met with love and wisdom4 ,these rising grounds which command the champaign below1 seem to ask for lords1 true lords1 land-lords1 who understand the land and its uses1 and the applicabilities of men1 and whose government would be what it should1 namely1 mediation between want and supply4 ,how gladly would each citizen pay a commission for the support and continuation of good guidance4 ,none should be a governor who has not a talent for governing4 ,now many people have a native skill for carving out business for many hands2 a genius for the disposition of affairs2 and are never happier than when difficult practical questions1 which embarrass other men1 are to be solved4 ,all lies in light before them2 they are in their element4 ,could any means be contrived to appoint only these6 ,there really seems a progress towards such a state of things1 in which this work shall be done by these natural workmen2 and this1 not certainly through any increased discretion shown by the citizens at elections1 but by the gradual contempt into which official government falls1 and the increasing disposition of private adventurers to assume its fallen functions4 ,thus the costly ,post ,office is likely to go into disuse before the private transportation-shop of ,harnden and his competitors4 ,the currency threatens to fall entirely into private hands4 ,justice is continually administered more and more by private reference1 and not by litigation4 ,we have feudal governments in a commercial age4 ,it would be but an easy extension of our commercial system1 to pay a private emperor a fee for services1 as we pay an architect1 an engineer1 or a lawyer4 ,if any man has a talent for righting wrong1 for administering difficult affairs1 for counselling poor farmers how to turn their estates to good husbandry1 for combining a hundred private enterprises to a general benefit1 let him in the county-town1 or in ,court-street1 put up his sign-board1 ,mr4 ,smith1 ,governor1 ,mr4 ,johnson1 ,working king4 ,how can our young men complain of the poverty of things in ,new ,england1 and not feel that poverty as a demand on their charity to make ,new ,england rich8 ,where is he who seeing a thousand men useless and unhappy1 and making the whole region forlorn by their inaction1 and conscious himself of possessing the faculty they want1 does not hear his call to go and be their king8 ,we must have kings1 and we must have nobles4 ,nature provides such in every society1--only let us have the real instead of the titular4 ,let us have our leading and our inspiration from the best4 ,in every society some men are born to rule1 and some to advise4 ,let the powers be well directed1 directed by love1 and they would everywhere be greeted with joy and honor4 ,the chief is the chief all the world over1 only not his cap and his plume4 ,it is only their dislike of the pretender1 which makes men sometimes unjust to the accomplished man4 ,if society were transparent1 the noble would everywhere be gladly received and accredited1 and would not be asked for his day's work1 but would be felt as benefit1 inasmuch as he was noble4 ,that were his duty and stint1--to keep himself pure and purifying1 the leaven of his nation4 ,i think ,i see place and duties for a nobleman in every society2 but it is not to drink wine and ride in a fine coach1 but to guide and adorn life for the multitude by forethought1 by elegant studies1 by perseverance1 self-devotion1 and the remembrance of the humble old friend1 by making his life secretly beautiful4 ,i call upon you1 young men1 to obey your heart1 and be the nobility of this land4 ,in every age of the world1 there has been a leading nation1 one of a more generous sentiment1 whose eminent citizens were willing to stand for the interests of general justice and humanity1 at the risk of being called1 by the men of the moment1 chimerical and fantastic4 ,which should be that nation but these ,states8 ,which should lead that movement1 if not ,new ,england8 ,who should lead the leaders1 but the ,young ,american8 ,the people1 and the world1 is now suffering from the want of religion and honor in its public mind4 ,in ,america1 out of doors all seems a market2 in doors1 an air-tight stove of conventionalism4 ,every body who comes into our houses savors of these habits2 the men1 of the market2 the women1 of the custom4 ,i find no expression in our state papers or legislative debate1 in our lyceums or churches1 specially in our newspapers1 of a high national feeling1 no lofty counsels1 that rightfully stir the blood4 ,i speak of those organs which can be presumed to speak a popular sense4 ,they recommend conventional virtues1 whatever will earn and preserve property2 always the capitalist2 the college1 the church1 the hospital1 the theatre1 the hotel1 the road1 the ship1 of the capitalist1--whatever goes to secure1 adorn1 enlarge these1 is good2 what jeopardizes any of these1 is damnable4 ,the #8opposition' papers1 so called1 are on the same side4 ,they attack the great capitalist1 but with the aim to make a capitalist of the poor man4 ,the opposition is against those who have money1 from those who wish to have money4 ,but who announces to us in journal1 or in pulpit1 or in the street1 the secret of heroism1 8,man alone ,can perform the impossible80 ,i shall not need to go into an enumeration of our national defects and vices which require this ,order of ,censors in the state4 ,i might not set down our most proclaimed offences as the worst4 ,it is not often the worst trait that occasions the loudest outcry4 ,men complain of their suffering1 and not of the crime4 ,i fear little from the bad effect of ,repudiation2 ,i do not fear that it will spread4 ,stealing is a suicidal business2 you cannot repudiate but once4 ,but the bold face and tardy repentance permitted to this local mischief1 reveal a public mind so preoccupied with the love of gain1 that the common sentiment of indignation at fraud does not act with its natural force4 ,the more need of a withdrawal from the crowd1 and a resort to the fountain of right1 by the brave4 ,the timidity of our public opinion1 is our disease1 or1 shall ,i say1 the publicness of opinion1 the absence of private opinion4 ,good-nature is plentiful1 but we want justice1 with heart of steel1 to fight down the proud4 ,the private mind has the access to the totality of goodness and truth1 that it may be a balance to a corrupt society2 and to stand for the private verdict against popular clamor1 is the office of the noble4 ,if a humane measure is propounded in behalf of the slave1 or of the ,irishman1 or the ,catholic1 or for the succor of the poor1 that sentiment1 that project1 will have the homage of the hero4 ,that is his nobility1 his oath of knighthood1 to succor the helpless and oppressed2 always to throw himself on the side of weakness1 of youth1 of hope1 on the liberal1 on the expansive side1 never on the defensive1 the conserving1 the timorous1 the lock and bolt system4 ,more than our good-will we may not be able to give4 ,we have our own affairs1 our own genius1 which chains us to our proper work4 ,we cannot give our life to the cause of the debtor1 of the slave1 or the pauper1 as another is doing2 but to one thing we are bound1 not to blaspheme the sentiment and the work of that man1 not to throw stumbling-blocks in the way of the abolitionist1 the philanthropist1 as the organs of influence and opinion are swift to do4 ,it is for us to confide in the beneficent ,supreme ,power1 and not to rely on our money1 and on the state because it is the guard of money4 ,at this moment1 the terror of old people and of vicious people1 is lest the ,union of these ,states be destroyed3 as if the ,union had any other real basis than the good pleasure of a majority of the citizens to be united4 ,but the wise and just man will always feel that he stands on his own feet2 that he imparts strength to the state1 not receives security from it2 and that if all went down1 he and such as he would quite easily combine in a new and better constitution4 ,every great and memorable community has consisted of formidable individuals1 who1 like the ,roman or the ,spartan1 lent his own spirit to the state and made it great4 ,yet only by the supernatural is a man strong2 nothing is so weak as an egotist4 ,nothing is mightier than we1 when we are vehicles of a truth before which the state and the individual are alike ephemeral4 ,gentlemen1 the development of our ,american internal resources1 the extension to the utmost of the commercial system1 and the appearance of new moral causes which are to modify the state1 are giving an aspect of greatness to the ,future1 which the imagination fears to open4 ,one thing is plain for all men of common sense and common conscience1 that here1 here in ,america1 is the home of man4 ,after all the deductions which are to be made for our pitiful politics1 which stake every gravest national question on the silly die1 whether ,james or whether ,jonathan shall sit in the chair and hold the purse2 after all the deduction is made for our frivolities and insanities1 there still remains an organic simplicity and liberty1 which1 when it loses its balance1 redresses itself presently1 which offers opportunity to the human mind not known in any other region4 ,it is true1 the public mind wants self-respect4 ,we are full of vanity1 of which the most signal proof is our sensitiveness to foreign and especially ,english censure4 ,one cause of this is our immense reading1 and that reading chiefly confined to the productions of the ,english press4 ,it is also true1 that1 to imaginative persons in this country1 there is somewhat bare and bald in our short history1 and unsettled wilderness4 ,they ask1 who would live in a new country1 that can live in an old8 and it is not strange that our youths and maidens should burn to see the picturesque extremes of an antiquated country4 ,but it is one thing to visit the pyramids1 and another to wish to live there4 ,would they like tithes to the clergy1 and sevenths to the government1 and horse-guards1 and licensed press1 and grief when a child is born1 and threatening1 starved weavers1 and a pauperism now constituting one-thirteenth of the population8 ,instead of the open future expanding here before the eye of every boy to vastness1 would they like the closing in of the future to a narrow slit of sky1 and that fast contracting to be no future8 ,one thing1 for instance1 the beauties of aristocracy1 we commend to the study of the travelling ,american4 ,the ,english1 the most conservative people this side of ,india1 are not sensible of the restraint1 but an ,american would seriously resent it4 ,the aristocracy1 incorporated by law and education1 degrades life for the unprivileged classes4 ,it is a questionable compensation to the embittered feeling of a proud commoner1 the reflection that a fop1 who1 by the magic of title1 paralyzes his arm1 and plucks from him half the graces and rights of a man1 is himself also an aspirant excluded with the same ruthlessness from higher circles1 since there is no end to the wheels within wheels of this spiral heaven4 ,something may be pardoned to the spirit of loyalty when it becomes fantastic2 and something to the imagination1 for the baldest life is symbolic4 ,philip ,,ii4 of ,spain rated his ambassador for neglecting serious affairs in ,italy1 whilst he debated some point of honor with the ,french ambassador2 8,you have left a business of importance for a ceremony40 ,the ambassador replied1 8,your majesty's self is but a ceremony40 ,in the ,east1 where the religious sentiment comes in to the support of the aristocracy1 and in the ,romish church also1 there is a grain of sweetness in the tyranny2 but in ,england1 the fact seems to me intolerable1 what is commonly affirmed1 that such is the transcendent honor accorded to wealth and birth1 that no man of letters1 be his eminence what it may1 is received into the best society1 except as a lion and a show4 ,the ,english have many virtues1 many advantages1 and the proudest history of the world2 but they need all1 and more than all the resources of the past to indemnify a heroic gentleman in that country for the mortifications prepared for him by the system of society1 and which seem to impose the alternative to resist or to avoid it4 ,that there are mitigations and practical alleviations to this rigor1 is not an excuse for the rule4 ,commanding worth1 and personal power1 must sit crowned in all companies1 nor will extraordinary persons be slighted or affronted in any company of civilized men4 ,but the system is an invasion of the sentiment of justice and the native rights of men1 which1 however decorated1 must lessen the value of ,english citizenship4 ,it is for ,englishmen to consider1 not for us2 we only say1 let us live in ,america1 too thankful for our want of feudal institutions4 ,our houses and towns are like mosses and lichens1 so slight and new2 but youth is a fault of which we shall daily mend4 ,this land1 too1 is as old as the ,flood1 and wants no ornament or privilege which nature could bestow4 ,here stars1 here woods1 here hills1 here animals1 here men abound1 and the vast tendencies concur of a new order4 ,if only the men are employed in conspiring with the designs of the ,spirit who led us hither1 and is leading us still1 we shall quickly enough advance out of all hearing of other's censures1 out of all regrets of our own1 into a new and more excellent social state than history has recorded4 ,typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber3 the most trival the most trivial pg #bf actions externized actions externalized pg #fi ,suscess treads ,success treads pg #ih below not in unsion below not in unison pg #aaj may rightlfully hold may rightfully hold pg #aeb its sparking ,january heaven its sparkling ,january heaven pg #aec and exponent of the world an exponent of the world pg #aic tools runs away tools run away pg #bjj ,whosover hereafter ,whosoever hereafter pg #cac