{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6312/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6312","id":"gutenberg_6312","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6312","summary":null,"tags":["Biographies","Category: American Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832","Montaigne, Michel de, 1533-1592","Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821","Plato","Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616","Swedenborg, Emanuel, 1688-1772"],"text":"Produced by Miranda van de Heijning, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks\nand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.\n\n\n\n\n\nREPRESENTATIVE MEN\n\nSEVEN LECTURES\n\nBY\n\nRALPH WALDO EMERSON\n\n\n\n\n\n  I. Uses of Great Men\n\n II. Plato; or, the Philosopher\n\n    Plato; New Readings\n\nIII. Swedenborg; or, the Mystic\n\n IV. Montaigne; or, the Skeptic\n\n  V. Shakspeare; or, the Poet\n\n VI. Napoleon; or, the Man of the World\n\nVII. Goethe; or, the Writer\n\n\n\n\nI. USES OF GREAT MEN.\n\n\nIt is natural to believe in great men. If the companions of our\nchildhood should turn out to be heroes, and their condition regal, it\nwould not surprise us. All mythology opens with demigods, and the\ncircumstance is high and poetic; that is, their genius is paramount.\nIn the legends of the Gautama, the first men ate the earth, and found\nit deliciously sweet.\n\nNature seems to exist for the excellent. The world is upheld by the\nveracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome. They who lived\nwith them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable\nonly in our belief in such society; and actually, or ideally, we manage\nto live with superiors. We call our children and our lands by their\nnames. Their names are wrought into the verbs of language, their works\nand effigies are in our houses, and every circumstance of the day\nrecalls an anecdote of them.\n\nThe search after the great is the dream of youth, and the most serious\noccupation of manhood. We travel into foreign parts to find his\nworks,--if possible, to get a glimpse of him. But we are put off with\nfortune instead. You say, the English are practical; the Germans are\nhospitable; in Valencia, the climate is delicious; and in the hills\nof Sacramento there is gold for the gathering. Yes, but I do not travel\nto find comfortable, rich, and hospitable people, or clear sky, or\ningots that cost too much. But if there were any magnet that would\npoint to the countries and houses where are the persons who are\nintrinsically rich and powerful, I would sell all, and buy it, and put\nmyself on the road to-day.\n\nThe race goes with us on their credit. The knowledge, that in the city\nis a man who invented the railroad, raises the credit of all the\ncitizens. But enormous populations, if they be beggars, are disgusting,\nlike moving cheese, like hills of ants, or of fleas--the more, the\nworse.\n\nOur religion is the love and cherishing of these patrons. The gods of\nfable are the shining moments of great men. We run all our vessels\ninto one mould. Our colossal theologies of Judaism, Christism, Buddhism,\nMahometism, are the necessary and structural action of the human mind.\nThe student of history is like a man going into a warehouse to buy\ncloths or carpets. He fancies he has a new article. If he go to the\nfactory, he shall find that his new stuff still repeats the scrolls\nand rosettes which are found on the interior walls of the pyramids of\nThebes. Our theism is the purification of the human mind. Man can\npaint, or make, or think nothing but man. He believes that the great\nmaterial elements had their origin from his thought. And our philosophy\nfinds one essence collected or distributed.\n\nIf now we proceed to inquire into the kinds of service we derive from\nothers, let us be warned of the danger of modern studies, and begin\nlow enough. We must not contend against love, or deny the substantial\nexistence of other people. I know not what would happen to us. We have\nsocial strengths. Our affection toward others creates a sort of vantage\nor purchase which nothing will supply. I can do that by another which\nI cannot do alone. I can say to you what I cannot first say to myself.\nOther men are lenses through which we read our own minds. Each man\nseeks those of different quality from his own, and such as are good\nof their kind; that is, he seeks other men, and the otherest. The\nstronger the nature, the more it is reactive. Let us have the quality\npure. A little genius let us leave alone. A main difference betwixt\nmen is, whether they attend their own affair or not. Man is that noble\nendogenous plant which grows, like the palm, from within, outward. His\nown affair, though impossible to others, he can open with celerity and\nin sport. It is easy to sugar to be sweet, and to nitre to be salt.\nWe take a great deal of pains to waylay and entrap that which of itself\nwill fall into our hands. I count him a great man who inhabits a higher\nsphere of thought, into which other men rise with labor and difficulty;\nhe has but to open his eyes to see things in a true light, and in large\nrelations; whilst they must make painful corrections, and keep a\nvigilant eye on many sources of error. His service to us is of like\nsort. It costs a beautiful person no exertion to paint her image on\nour eyes; yet how splendid is that benefit! It costs no more for a\nwise soul to convey his quality to other men. And every one can do his\nbest thing easiest--\"_Peu de moyens, beaucoup d'effet._\" He is great who\nis what he is from nature, and who never reminds us of others.\n\nBut he must be related to us, and our life receive from him some promise\nof explanation. I cannot tell what I would know; but I have observed\nthere are persons, who, in their character and actions, answer questions\nwhich I have not skill to put. One man answers some questions which\nnone of his contemporaries put, and is isolated. The past and passing\nreligions and philosophies answer some other question. Certain men\naffect us as rich possibilities, but helpless to themselves and to\ntheir times,--the sport, perhaps, of some instinct that rules in the\nair;--they do not speak to our want. But the great are near: we know\nthem at sight. They satisfy expectation, and fall into place. What is\ngood is effective, generative; makes for itself room, food, and allies.\nA sound apple produces seed,--a hybrid does not. Is a man in his place,\nhe is constructive, fertile, magnetic, inundating armies with his\npurpose, which is thus executed. The river makes its own shores, and\neach legitimate idea makes its own channels and welcome,--harvest for\nfood, institutions for expression, weapons to fight with, and disciples\nto explain it. The true artist has the planet for his pedestal; the\nadventurer, after years of strife, has nothing broader than his own\nshoes.\n\nOur common discourse respects two kinds of use of service from superior\nmen. Direct giving is agreeable to the early belief of men; direct\ngiving of material or metaphysical aid, as of health, eternal youth,\nfine senses, arts of healing, magical power, and prophecy. The boy\nbelieves there is a teacher who can sell him wisdom. Churches believe\nin imputed merit. But, in strictness, we are not much cognizant of\ndirect serving. Man is endogenous, and education is his unfolding. The\naid we have from others is mechanical, compared with the discoveries\nof nature in us. What is thus learned is delightful in the doing, and\nthe effect remains. Right ethics are central, and go from the soul\noutward. Gift is contrary to the law of the universe. Serving others\nis serving us. I must absolve me to myself. \"Mind thy affair,\" says\nthe spirit:--\"coxcomb, would you meddle with the skies, or with other\npeople?\" Indirect service is left. Men have a pictorial or\nrepresentative quality, and serve us in the intellect. Behmen and\nSwedenborg saw that things were representative. Men are also\nrepresentative; first, of things, and secondly, of ideas.\n\nAs plants convert the minerals into food for animals, so each man\nconverts some raw material in nature to human use. The inventors of\nfire, electricity, magnetism, iron; lead, glass, linen, silk, cotton;\nthe makers of tools; the inventor of decimal notation; the geometer;\nthe engineer; musician,--severally make an easy way for all, through\nunknown and impossible confusions. Each man is, by secret liking,\nconnected with some district of nature, whose agent and interpreter\nhe is, as Linnaeus, of plants; Huber, of bees; Fries, of lichens; Van\nMons, of pears; Dalton, of atomic forms; Euclid, of lines; Newton, of\nfluxions.\n\nA man is a center for nature, running out threads of relation through\neverything, fluid and solid, material and elemental. The earth rolls;\nevery clod and stone comes to the meridian; so every organ, function,\nacid, crystal, grain of dust, has its relation to the brain. It waits\nlong, but its turn comes. Each plant has its parasite, and each created\nthing its lover and poet. Justice has already been done to steam, to\niron, to wood, to coal, to loadstone, to iodine, to corn, and cotton;\nbut how few materials are yet used by our arts! The mass of creatures\nand of qualities are still hid and expectant. It would seem as if each\nwaited, like the enchanted princess in fairy tales, for a destined\nhuman deliverer. Each must be disenchanted, and walk forth to the day\nin human shape. In the history of discovery, the ripe and latent truth\nseems to have fashioned a brain for itself. A magnet must be made man,\nin some Gilbert, or Swedenborg, or Oersted, before the general mind\ncan come to entertain its powers.\n\nIf we limit ourselves to the first advantages;--a sober grace adheres\nto the mineral and botanic kingdoms, which, in the highest moments,\ncomes up as the charm of nature,--the glitter of the spar, the sureness\nof affinity, the veracity of angles. Light and darkness, heat and cold,\nhunger and food, sweet and sour, solid, liquid, and gas, circle us\nround in a wreath of pleasures, and, by their agreeable quarrel, beguile\nthe day of life. The eye repeats every day the finest eulogy on\nthings--\"He saw that they were good.\" We know where to find them; and\nthese performers are relished all the more, after a little experience\nof the pretending races. We are entitled, also, to higher advantages.\nSomething is wanting to science, until it has been humanized. The table\nof logarithms is one thing, and its vital play, in botany, music,\noptics, and architecture, another. There are advancements to numbers,\nanatomy, architecture, astronomy, little suspected at first, when, by\nunion with intellect and will, they ascend into the life, and re-appear\nin conversation, character and politics.\n\nBut this comes later. We speak now only of our acquaintance with them\nin their own sphere, and the way in which they seem to fascinate and\ndraw to them some genius who occupies himself with one thing, all his\nlife long. The possibility of interpretation lies in the identity of\nthe observer with the observed. Each material thing has its celestial\nside; has its translation, through humanity, into the spiritual and\nnecessary sphere, where it plays a part as indestructible as any other.\nAnd to these, their ends, all things continually ascend. The gases\ngather to the solid firmament; the chemic lump arrives at the plant,\nand grows; arrives at the quadruped, and walks; arrives at the man,\nand thinks. But also the constituency determines the vote of the\nrepresentative. He is not only representative, but participant. Like\ncan only be known by like. The reason why he knows about them is, that\nhe is of them; he has just come out of nature, or from being a part\nof that thing. Animated chlorine knows of chlorine, and incarnate zinc,\nof zinc. Their quality makes this career; and he can variously publish\ntheir virtues, because they compose him. Man, made of the dust of the\nworld, does not forget his origin; and all that is yet inanimate will\none day speak and reason. Unpublished nature will have its whole secret\ntold. Shall we say that quartz mountains will pulverize into innumerable\nWerners, Von Buchs, and Beaumonts; and the laboratory of the atmosphere\nholds in solution I know not what Berzeliuses and Davys?\n\nThus, we sit by the fire, and take hold on the poles of the earth.\nThis quasi omnipresence supplies the imbecility of our condition. In\none of those celestial days, when heaven and earth meet and adorn each\nother, it seems a poverty that we can only spend it once; we wish for\na thousand heads, a thousand bodies, that we might celebrate its immense\nbeauty in many ways and places. Is this fancy? Well, in good faith,\nwe are multiplied by our proxies. How easily we adopt their labors!\nEvery ship that comes to America got its chart from Columbus. Every\nnovel is debtor to Homer. Every carpenter who shaves with a foreplane\nborrows the genius of a forgotten inventor. Life is girt all around\nwith a zodiac of sciences, the contributions of men who have perished\nto add their point of light to our sky. Engineer, broker, jurist,\nphysician, moralist, theologian, and every man, inasmuch as he has any\nscience, is a definer and map-maker of the latitudes and longitudes\nof our condition. These road-makers on every hand enrich us. We must\nextend the area of life, and multiply our relations. We are as much\ngainers by finding a new property in the old earth, as by acquiring\na new planet.\n\nWe are too passive in the reception of these material or semi-material\naids. We must not be sacks and stomachs. To ascend one step,--we are\nbetter served through our sympathy. Activity is contagious. Looking\nwhere others look, and conversing with the same things, we catch the\ncharm which lured them. Napoleon said, \"you must not fight too often\nwith one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.\" Talk much\nwith any man of vigorous mind, and we acquire very fast the habit of\nlooking at things in the same light, and, on each occurrence, we\nanticipate his thought.\n\nMen are helpful through the intellect and the affections. Other help,\nI find a false appearance. If you affect to give me bread and fire,\nI perceive that I pay for it the full price, and at last it leaves me\nas it found me, neither better nor worse: but all mental and moral\nforce is a positive good. It goes out from you whether you will or\nnot, and profits me whom you never thought of. I cannot even hear of\npersonal vigor of any kind, great power of performance, without fresh\nresolution. We are emulous of all that man can do. Cecil's saying of\nSir Walter Raleigh, \"I know that he can toil terribly,\" is an electric\ntouch. So are Clarendon's portraits,--of Hampden; \"who was of an\nindustry and vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most\nlaborious, and of parts not to be imposed on by the most subtle and\nsharp, and of a personal courage equal to his best parts\"--of Falkland;\n\"who was so severe an adorer of truth, that he could as easily have\ngiven himself leave to steal, as to dissemble.\" We cannot read Plutarch,\nwithout a tingling of the blood; and I accept the saying of the Chinese\nMencius: \"As age is the instructor of a hundred ages. When the manners\nof Loo are heard of, the stupid become intelligent, and the wavering,\ndetermined.\"\n\nThis is the moral of biography; yet it is hard for departed men to\ntouch the quick like our own companions, whose names may not last as\nlong. What is he whom I never think of? whilst in every solitude are\nthose who succor our genius, and stimulate us in wonderful manners.\nThere is a power in love to divine another's destiny better than that\nother can, and by heroic encouragements, hold him to his task. What\nhas friendship so signaled as its sublime attraction to whatever virtue\nis in us? We will never more think cheaply of ourselves, or of life.\nWe are piqued to some purpose, and the industry of the diggers on the\nrailroad will not again shame us.\n\nUnder this head, too, falls that homage, very pure, as I think, which\nall ranks pay to the hero of the day, from Coriolanus and Gracchus,\ndown to Pitt, Lafayette, Wellington, Webster, Lamartine. Hear the\nshouts in the street! The people cannot see him enough. They delight\nin a man. Here is a head and a trunk! What a front! What eyes! Atlantean\nshoulders, and the whole carriage heroic, with equal inward force to\nguide the great machine! This pleasure of full expression to that\nwhich, in their private experience, is usually cramped and obstructed,\nruns, also, much higher, and is the secret of the reader's joy in\nliterary genius. Nothing is kept back. There is fire enough to fuse\nthe mountain of ore. Shakspeare's principal merit may be conveyed, in\nsaying that he, of all men, best understands the English language, and\ncan say what he will. Yet these unchoked channels and floodgates of\nexpression are only health or fortunate constitution. Shakspeare's\nname suggests other and purely intellectual benefits.\n\nSenates and sovereigns have no compliment, with their medals, swords,\nand armorial coats, like the addressing to a human being thoughts out\nof a certain height, and presupposing his intelligence. This honor,\nwhich is possible in personal intercourse scarcely twice in a lifetime,\ngenius perpetually pays; contented, if now and then, in a century, the\nproffer is accepted. The indicators of the values of matter are degraded\nto a sort of cooks and confectioners, on the appearance of the\nindicators of ideas. Genius is the naturalist or geographer of the\nsupersensible regions, and draws on their map; and, by acquainting us\nwith new fields of activity, cools our affection for the old. These\nare at once accepted as the reality, of which the world we have\nconversed with is the show.\n\nWe go to the gymnasium and the swimming-school to see the power and\nbeauty of the body; there is the like pleasure, and a higher benefit,\nfrom witnessing intellectual feats of all kinds; as, feats of memory,\nof mathematical combination, great power of abstraction, the\ntransmutings of the imagination, even versatility, and concentration,\nas these acts expose the invisible organs and members of the mind,\nwhich respond, member for member, to the parts of the body. For, we\nthus enter a new gymnasium, and learn to choose men by their truest\nmarks, taught, with Plato, \"to choose those who can, without aid from\nthe eyes, or any other sense, proceed to truth and to being.\" Foremost\namong these activities, are the summersaults, spells, and resurrections,\nwrought by the imagination. When this wakes, a man seems to multiply\nten times or a thousand times his force. It opens the delicious sense\nof indeterminate size, and inspires an audacious mental habit. We are\nas elastic as the gas of gunpowder, and a sentence in a book, or a\nword dropped in conversation, sets free our fancy, and instantly our\nheads are bathed with galaxies, and our feet tread the floor of the\nPit. And this benefit is real, because we are entitled to these\nenlargements, and, once having passed the bounds, shall never again\nbe quite the miserable pedants we were.\n\nThe high functions of the intellect are so allied, that some imaginative\npower usually appears in all eminent minds, even in arithmeticians of\nthe first class, but especially in meditative men of an intuitive habit\nof thought. This class serve us, so that they have the perception of\nidentity and the perception of reaction. The eyes of Plato, Shakespeare,\nSwedenborg, Goethe, never shut on either of these laws. The perception\nof these laws is a kind of metre of the mind. Little minds are little,\nthrough failure to see them.\n\nEven these feasts have their surfeit. Our delight in reason degenerates\ninto idolatry of the herald. Especially when a mind of powerful method\nhas instructed men, we find the examples of oppression. The dominion\nof Aristotle, the Ptolemaic astronomy, the credit of Luther, of Bacon,\nof Locke,--in religion the history of hierarchies, of saints, and the\nsects which have taken the name of each founder, are in point. Alas!\nevery man is such a victim. The imbecility of men is always inviting\nthe impudence of power. It is the delight of vulgar talent to dazzle\nand to bind the beholder. But true genius seeks to defend us from\nitself. True genius will not impoverish, but will liberate, and add\nnew senses. If a wise man should appear in our village, he would create,\nin those who conversed with him, a new consciousness of wealth, by\nopening their eyes to unobserved advantages; he would establish a sense\nof immovable equality, calm us with assurances that we could not be\ncheated; as every one would discern the checks and guaranties of\ncondition. The rich would see their mistakes and poverty, the poor\ntheir escapes and their resources.\n\nBut nature brings all this about in due time. Rotation is her remedy.\nThe soul is impatient of masters, and eager for change. Housekeepers\nsay of a domestic who has been valuable, \"She has lived with me long\nenough.\" We are tendencies, or rather, symptoms, and none of us\ncomplete. We touch and go, and sip the foam of many lives. Rotation\nis the law of nature. When nature removes a great man, people explore\nthe horizon for a successor; but none comes and none will. His class\nis extinguished with him. In some other and quite different field, the\nnext man will appear; not Jefferson, nor Franklin, but now a great\nsalesman; then a road-contractor; then a student of fishes; then a\nbuffalo-hunting explorer, or a semi-savage western general. Thus we\nmake a stand against our rougher masters; but against the best there\nis a finer remedy. The power which they communicate is not theirs.\nWhen we are exalted by ideas, we do not owe this to Plato, but to the\nidea, to which, also, Plato was debtor.\n\nI must not forget that we have a special debt to a single class. Life\nis a scale of degrees. Between rank and rank of our great men are wide\nintervals. Mankind have, in all ages, attached themselves to a few\npersons, who, either by the quality of that idea they embodied, or by\nthe largeness of their reception, were entitled to the position of\nleaders and law-givers. These teach us the qualities of primary\nnature,--admit us to the constitution of things. We swim, day by day,\non a river of delusions, and are effectually amused with houses and\ntowns in the air, of which the men about us are dupes. But life is a\nsincerity. In lucid intervals we say, \"Let there be an entrance opened\nfor me into realities; I have worn the fool's cap too long.\" We will\nknow the meaning of our economies and politics. Give us the cipher,\nand, if persons and things are scores of a celestial music, let us\nread off the strains. We have been cheated of our reason; yet there\nhave been sane men, who enjoyed a rich and related existence. What\nthey know, they know for us. With each new mind, a new secret of nature\ntranspires; nor can the Bible be closed, until the last great man is\nborn. These men correct the delirium of the animal spirits, make us\nconsiderate, and engage us to new aims and powers. The veneration of\nmankind selects these for the highest place. Witness the multitude of\nstatues, pictures, and memorials which recall their genius in every\ncity, village, house, and ship:--\n\n  \"Ever their phantoms arise before us.\n  Our loftier brothers, but one in blood;\n  At bed and table they lord it o'er us,\n  With looks of beauty, and words of good.\"\n\nHow to illustrate the distinctive benefit of ideas, the service rendered\nby those who introduce moral truths into the general mind?--I am\nplagued, in all my living, with a perpetual tariff of prices. If I\nwork in my garden, and prune an apple-tree, I am well enough\nentertained, and could continue indefinitely in the like occupation.\nBut it comes to mind that a day is gone, and I have got this precious\nnothing done. I go to Boston or New York, and run up and down on my\naffairs: they are sped, but so is the day. I am vexed by the\nrecollection of this price I have paid for a trifling advantage. I\nremember the _peau d'ane_, on which whoso sat should have his desire,\nbut a piece of the skin was gone for every wish. I go to a convention of\nphilanthropists. Do what I can, I cannot keep my eyes off the clock. But\nif there should appear in the company some gentle soul who knows little\nof persons or parties, of Carolina or Cuba, but who announces a law that\ndisposes these particulars, and so certifies me of the equity which\ncheckmates every false player, bankrupts every self-seeker, and apprises\nme of my independence on any conditions of country, or time, or human\nbody, that man liberates me; I forget the clock.\n\nI pass out of the sore relation to persons. I am healed of my hurts.\nI am made immortal by apprehending my possession of incorruptible\ngoods. Here is great competition of rich and poor. We live in a market,\nwhere is only so much wheat, or wool, or land; and if I have so much\nmore, every other must have so much less. I seem to have no good,\nwithout breach of good manners. Nobody is glad in the gladness of\nanother, and our system is one of war, of an injurious superiority.\nEvery child of the Saxon race is educated to wish to be first. It is\nour system; and a man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets,\nenvies, and hatreds of his competitors. But in these new fields there\nis room: here are no self-esteems, no exclusions.\n\nI admire great men of all classes, those who stand for facts, and for\nthoughts; I like rough and smooth \"Scourges of God,\" and \"Darlings of\nthe human race.\" I like the first Caesar; and Charles V., of Spain;\nand Charles XII., of Sweden; Richard Plantagenet; and Bonaparte, in\nFrance. I applaud a sufficient man, an officer, equal to his office;\ncaptains, ministers, senators. I like a master standing firm on legs\nof iron, well-born, rich, handsome, eloquent, loaded with advantages,\ndrawing all men by fascination into tributaries and supporters of his\npower. Sword and staff, or talents sword-like or staff-like, carry on\nthe work of the world. But I find him greater, when he can abolish\nhimself, and all heroes, by letting in this element of reason,\nirrespective of persons; this subtilizer, and irresistible upward\nforce, into our thought, destroying individualism; the power so great,\nthat the potentate is nothing. Then he is a monarch, who gives a\nconstitution to his people; a pontiff, who preaches the equality of\nsouls, and releases his servants from their barbarous homages; an\nemperor, who can spare his empire.\n\nBut I intended to specify, with a little minuteness, two or three\npoints of service. Nature never spares the opium or nepenthe; but\nwherever she mars her creature with some deformity or defect, lays her\npoppies plentifully on the bruise, and the sufferer goes joyfully\nthrough life, ignorant of the ruin, and incapable of seeing it, though\nall the world point their finger at it every day. The worthless and\noffensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest,\ninvariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and never\nget over their astonishment at the ingratitude and selfishness of their\ncontemporaries. Our globe discovers its hidden virtues, not only in\nheroes and archangels, but in gossips and nurses. Is it not a rare\ncontrivance that lodged the due inertia in every creature, the\nconserving, resisting energy, the anger at being waked or changed?\nAltogether independent of the intellectual force in each, is the pride\nof opinion, the security that we are right. Not the feeblest grandame,\nnot a mowing idiot, but uses what spark of perception and faculty is\nleft, to chuckle and triumph in his or her opinion over the absurdities\nof all the rest. Difference from me is the measure of absurdity. Not\none has a misgiving of being wrong. Was it not a bright thought that\nmade things cohere with this bitumen, fastest of cements? But, in the\nmidst of this chuckle of self-gratulation, some figure goes by, which\nThersites too can love and admire. This is he that should marshal us\nthe way we were going. There is no end to his aid. Without Plato, we\nshould almost lose our faith in the possibility of a reasonable book.\nWe seem to want but one, but we want one. We love to associate with\nheroic persons, since our receptivity is unlimited; and, with the\ngreat, our thoughts and manners easily become great. We are all wise\nin capacity, though so few in energy. There needs but one wise man in\na company, and all are wise, so rapid is the contagion.\n\nGreat men are thus a collyrium to clear our eyes from egotism, and\nenable us to see other people and their works. But there are vices and\nfollies incident to whole populations and ages. Men resemble their\ncontemporaries, even more than their progenitors. It is observed in\nold couples, or in persons who have been housemates for a course of\nyears, that they grow alike; and, if they should live long enough, we\nshould not be able to know them apart. Nature abhors these\ncomplaisances, which threaten to melt the world into a lump, and hastens\nto break up such maudlin agglutinations. The like assimilation goes\non between men of one town, of one sect, of one political party; and\nthe ideas of the time are in the air, and infect all who breathe it.\nViewed from any high point, the city of New York, yonder city of London,\nthe western civilization, would seem a bundle of insanities. We keep\neach other in countenance, and exasperate by emulation the frenzy of\nthe time. The shield against the stingings of conscience, is the\nuniversal practice, or our contemporaries. Again; it is very easy to\nbe as wise and good as your companions. We learn of our contemporaries,\nwhat they know, without effort, and almost through the pores of the\nskin. We catch it by sympathy, or, as a wife arrives at the intellectual\nand moral elevations of her husband. But we stop where they stop. Very\nhardly can we take another step. The great, or such as hold of nature,\nand transcend fashions, by their fidelity to universal ideas, are\nsaviors from these federal errors, and defend us from our\ncontemporaries. They are the exceptions which we want, where all grows\nalike. A foreign greatness is the antidote for cabalism.\n\nThus we feed on genius, and refresh ourselves from too much conversation\nwith our mates, and exult in the depth of nature in that direction in\nwhich he leads us. What indemnification is one great man for populations\nof pigmies! Every mother wishes one son a genius, though all the rest\nshould be mediocre. But a new danger appears in the excess of influence\nof the great man. His attractions warp us from our place. We have\nbecome underlings and intellectual suicides. Ah! yonder in the horizon\nis our help:--other great men, new qualities, counterweights and\nchecks on each other. We cloy of the honey of each peculiar greatness.\nEvery hero becomes a bore at last. Perhaps Voltaire was not bad-hearted,\nyet he said of the good Jesus, even, \"I pray you, let me never hear\nthat man's name again.\" They cry up the virtues of George\nWashington,--\"Damn George Washington!\" is the poor Jacobin's whole\nspeech and confutation. But it is human nature's indispensable defense.\nThe centripetence augments the centrifugence. We balance one man with\nhis opposite, and the health of the state depends on the see-saw.\n\nThere is, however, a speedy limit to the use of heroes. Every genius\nis defended from approach by quantities of availableness. They are\nvery attractive, and seem at a distance our own: but we are hindered\non all sides from approach. The more we are drawn, the more we are\nrepelled. There is something not solid in the good that is done for\nus. The best discovery the discoverer makes for himself. It has\nsomething unreal for his companion, until he too has substantiated it.\nIt seems as if the Deity dressed each soul which he sends into nature\nin certain virtues and powers not communicable to other men, and,\nsending it to perform one more turn through the circle of beings, wrote\n\"Not transferable,\" and \"Good for this trip only,\" on these garments\nof the soul. There is somewhat deceptive about the intercourse of\nminds. The boundaries are invisible, but they are never crossed. There\nis such good will to impart, and such good will to receive, that each\nthreatens to become the other; but the law of individuality collects\nits secret strength: you are you, and I am I, and so we remain.\n\nFor Nature wishes every thing to remain itself; and, whilst every\nindividual strives to grow and exclude, and to exclude and grow, to\nthe extremities of the universe, and to impose the law of its being\non every other creature, Nature steadily aims to protect each against\nevery other. Each is self-defended. Nothing is more marked than the\npower by which individuals are guarded from individuals, in a world\nwhere every benefactor becomes so easily a malefactor, only by\ncontinuation of his activity into places where it is not due; where\nchildren seem so much at the mercy of their foolish parents, and where\nalmost all men are too social and interfering. We rightly speak of the\nguardian angels of children. How superior in their security from\ninfusions of evil persons, from vulgarity and second thought! They\nshed their own abundant beauty on the objects they behold. Therefore,\nthey are not at the mercy of such poor educators as we adults. If we\nhuff and chide them, they soon come not to mind it, and get a\nself-reliance; and if we indulge them to folly, they learn the\nlimitation elsewhere.\n\nWe need not fear excessive influence. A more generous trust is\npermitted. Serve the great. Stick at no humiliation. Grudge no office\nthou canst render. Be the limb of their body, the breath of their\nmouth. Compromise thy egotism. Who cares for that, so thou gain aught\nwider and nobler? Never mind the taunt of Boswellism: the devotion may\neasily be greater than the wretched pride which is guarding its own\nskirts. Be another: not thyself, but a Platonist; not a soul, but a\nChristian; not a naturalist, but a Cartesian; not a poet, but a\nShakspearian. In vain, the wheels of tendency will not stop, nor will\nall the forces of inertia, fear, or love itself, hold thee there. On,\nand forever onward! The microscope observes a monad or wheel-insect\namong the infusories circulating in water. Presently, a dot appears\non the animal, which enlarges to a slit, and it becomes two perfect\nanimals. The ever-proceeding detachment appears not less in all thought,\nand in society. Children think they cannot live without their parents.\nBut, long before they are aware of it, the black dot has appeared, and\nthe detachment taken place. Any accident will now reveal to them their\nindependence.\n\nBut great men:--the word is injurious. Is there caste? is there fate?\nWhat becomes of the promise to virtue? The thoughtful youth laments\nthe superfoetation of nature. \"Generous and handsome,\" he says, \"is\nyour hero; but look at yonder poor Paddy, whose country is his\nwheelbarrow; look at his whole nation of Paddies.\" Why are the masses,\nfrom the dawn of history down, food for knives and powder? The idea\ndignifies a few leaders, who have sentiment, opinion, love,\nself-devotion; and they make war and death sacred;--but what for the\nwretches whom they hire and kill? The cheapness of man is every day's\ntragedy. It is as real a loss that others should be low, as that we\nshould be low; for we must have society.\n\nIs it a reply to these suggestions, to say, society is a Pestalozzian\nschool; all are teachers and pupils in turn. We are equally served by\nreceiving and by imparting. Men who know the same things, are not long\nthe best company for each other. But bring to each an intelligent\nperson of another experience, and it is as if you let off water from\na lake, by cutting a lower basin. It seems a mechanical advantage, and\ngreat benefit it is to each speaker, as he can now paint out his thought\nto himself. We pass very fast, in our personal moods, from dignity to\ndependence. And if any appear never to assume the chair, but always\nto stand and serve, it is because we do not see the company in a\nsufficiently long period for the whole rotation of parts to come about.\nAs to what we call the masses, and common men;--there are no common\nmen. All men are at last of a size; and true art is only possible, on\nthe conviction that every talent has its apotheosis somewhere. Fair\nplay, and an open field, and freshest laurels to all who have won them!\nBut heaven reserves an equal scope for every creature. Each is uneasy\nuntil he has produced his private ray unto the concave sphere, and\nbeheld his talent also in its last nobility and exaltation.\n\nThe heroes of the hour are relatively great: of a faster growth; or\nthey are such, in whom, at the moment of success, a quality is ripe\nwhich is then in request. Other days will demand other qualities. Some\nrays escape the common observer, and want a finely adapted eye. Ask\nthe great man if there be none greater. His companions are; and not\nthe less great, but the more, that society cannot see them. Nature\nnever sends a great man into the planet, without confiding the secret\nto another soul.\n\nOne gracious fact emerges from these studies,--that there is true\nascension in our love. The reputations of the nineteenth century will\none day be quoted to prove its barbarism. The genius of humanity is\nthe real subject whose biography is written in our annals. We must\ninfer much, and supply many chasms in the record. The history of the\nuniverse is symptomatic, and life is mnemonical. No man, in all the\nprocession of famous men, is reason or illumination, or that essence\nwe were looking for; but is an exhibition, in some quarter, of new\npossibilities. Could we one day complete the immense figure which these\nflagrant points compose! The study of many individuals leads us to an\nelemental region wherein the individual is lost, or wherein all touch\nby their summits. Thought and feeling, that break out there, cannot\nbe impounded by any fence of personality. This is the key to the power\nof the greatest men,--their spirit diffuses itself. A new quality of\nmind travels by night and by day, in concentric circles from its origin,\nand publishes itself by unknown methods: the union of all minds appears\nintimate: what gets admission to one, cannot be kept out of any other:\nthe smallest acquisition of truth or of energy, in any quarter, is so\nmuch good to the commonwealth of souls. If the disparities of talent\nand position vanish, when the individuals are seen in the duration\nwhich is necessary to complete the career of each; even more swiftly\nthe seeming injustice disappears, when we ascend to the central identity\nof all the individuals, and know that they are made of the same\nsubstance which ordaineth and doeth.\n\nThe genius of humanity is the right point of view of history. The\nqualities abide; the men who exhibit them have now more, now less, and\npass away; the qualities remain on another brow. No experience is more\nfamiliar. Once you saw phoenixes: they are gone; the world is not\ntherefore disenchanted. The vessels on which you read sacred emblems\nturn out to be common pottery; but the sense of the pictures is sacred,\nand you may still read them transferred to the walls of the world. For\na time, our teachers serve us personally, as metres or milestones of\nprogress. Once they were angels of knowledge, and their figures touched\nthe sky. Then we drew near, saw their means, culture, and limits; and\nthey yielded their places to other geniuses. Happy, if a few names\nremain so high, that we have not been able to read them nearer, and\nage and comparison have not robbed them of a ray. But, at last, we\nshall cease to look in men for completeness, and shall content ourselves\nwith their social and delegated quality. All that respects the\nindividual is temporary and prospective, like the individual himself,\nwho is ascending out of his limits, into a catholic existence. We have\nnever come at the true and best benefit of any genius, so long as we\nbelieve him an original force. In the moment when he ceases to help\nus as a cause, he begins to help us move as an effect. Then he appears\nas an exponent of a vaster mind and will. The opaque self becomes\ntransparent with the light of the First Cause.\n\nYet, within the limits of human education and agency, we may say, great\nmen exist that there may be greater men. The destiny of organized\nnature is amelioration, and who can tell its limits? It is for man to\ntame the chaos; on every side, whilst he lives, to scatter the seeds\nof science and of song, that climate, corn, animals, men, may be milder,\nand the germs of love and benefit may be multiplied.\n\n\n\n\nII. PLATO; OR, THE PHILOSOPHER.\n\n\nAmong books, Plato only is entitled to Omar's fanatical compliment to\nthe Koran, when he said, \"Burn the libraries; for, their value is in\nthis book.\" These sentences contain the culture of nations; these are\nthe corner-stone of schools; these are the fountain-head of literatures.\nA discipline it is in logic, arithmetic, taste, symmetry, poetry,\nlanguage, rhetoric, ontology, morals, or practical wisdom. There was\nnever such range of speculation. Out of Plato come all things that are\nstill written and debated among men of thought. Great havoc makes he\namong our originalities. We have reached the mountain from which all\nthese drift bowlders were detached. The Bible of the learned for twenty-\ntwo hundred years, every brisk young man, who says in succession fine\nthings to each reluctant generation,--Boethius, Rabelais, Erasmus,\nBruno, Locke, Rousseau, Alfieri, Coleridge,--is some reader of Plato,\ntranslating into the vernacular, wittily, his good things. Even the\nmen of grander proportion suffer some deduction from the misfortune\n(shall I say?) of coming after this exhausting generalizer. St.\nAugustine, Copernicus, Newton, Behmen, Swedenborg, Goethe, are likewise\nhis debtors, and must say after him. For it is fair to credit the\nbroadest generalizer with all the particulars deducible from his thesis.\n\nPlato is philosophy, and philosophy, Plato,--at once the glory and the\nshame of mankind, since neither Saxon nor Roman have availed to add\nany idea to his categories. No wife, no children had he, and the\nthinkers of all civilized nations are his posterity, and are tinged\nwith his mind. How many great men Nature is incessantly sending up out\nof night, to be his men,--Platonists! the Alexandrians, a constellation\nof genius; the Elizabethans, not less; Sir Thomas More, Henry More,\nJohn Hales, John Smith, Lord Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Ralph Cudworth,\nSydenham, Thomas Taylor; Marcilius Ficinus, and Picus Mirandola.\nCalvinism is in his Phaedo: Christianity is in it. Mahometanism draws\nall its philosophy, in its hand-book of morals, the Akhlak-y-Jalaly,\nfrom him. Mysticism finds in Plato all its texts. This citizen of a\ntown in Greece is no villager nor patriot. An Englishman reads and\nsays, \"how English!\" a German--\"how Teutonic!\" an Italian--\"how Roman\nand how Greek!\" As they say that Helen of Argos had that universal\nbeauty that everybody felt related to her, so Plato seems, to a reader\nin New England, an American genius. His broad humanity transcends all\nsectional lines.\n\nThis range of Plato instructs us what to think of the vexed question\nconcerning his reputed works,--what are genuine, what spurious. It is\nsingular that wherever we find a man higher, by a whole head, than any\nof his contemporaries, it is sure to come into doubt, what are his\nreal works. Thus, Homer, Plato, Raffaelle, Shakspeare. For these men\nmagnetize their contemporaries, so that their companions can do for\nthem what they can never do for themselves; and the great man does\nthus live in several bodies; and write, or paint, or act, by many\nhands; and after some time, it is not easy to say what is the authentic\nwork of the master, and what is only of his school.\n\nPlato, too, like every great man, consumed his own times. What is a\ngreat man, but one of great affinities, who takes up into himself all\narts, sciences, all knowables, as his food? He can spare nothing; he\ncan dispose of everything. What is not good for virtue is good for\nknowledge. Hence his contemporaries tax him with plagiarism. But the\ninventor only knows how to borrow; and society is glad to forget the\ninnumerable laborers who ministered to this architect, and reserves\nall its gratitude for him. When we are praising Plato, it seems we are\npraising quotations from Solon, and Sophron, and Philolaus. Be it so.\nEvery book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all\nforests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation\nfrom all his ancestors. And this grasping inventor puts all nations\nunder contribution.\n\nPlato absorbed the learning of his times,--Philolaus, Timaeus,\nHeraclitus, Parmenides, and what else; then his master, Socrates; and\nfinding himself still capable of a larger synthesis,--beyond all example\nthen or since,--he traveled into Italy, to gain what Pythagoras had\nfor him; then into Egypt, and perhaps still further east, to import\nthe other element, which Europe wanted, into the European mind. This\nbreadth entitles him to stand as the representative of philosophy. He\nsays, in the Republic, \"Such a genius as philosophers must of necessity\nhave, is wont but seldom, in all its parts, to meet in one man; but\nits different parts generally spring up in different persons.\" Every\nman, who would do anything well, must come to it from a higher ground.\nA philosopher must be more than a philosopher. Plato is clothed with\nthe powers of a poet, stands upon the highest place of the poet, and\n(though I doubt he wanted the decisive gift of lyric expression) mainly\nis not a poet, because he chose to use the poetic gift to an ulterior\npurpose.\n\nGreat geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell\nyou nothing about them. They lived in their writings, and so their\nhouse and street life was trivial and commonplace. If you would know\ntheir tastes and complexions, the most admiring of their readers most\nresembles them. Plato, especially, has no external biography. If he\nhad lover, wife, or children, we hear nothing of them. He ground them\nall into paint. As a good chimney burns its smoke, so a philosopher\nconverts the value of all his fortunes into his intellectual\nperformances.\n\nHe was born 430 A. C., about the time of the death of Pericles; was\nof patrician connection in his times and city; and is said to have had\nan early inclination for war; but in his twentieth year, meeting with\nSocrates, was easily dissuaded from this pursuit, and remained for ten\nyears his scholar, until the death of Socrates. He then went to Megara;\naccepted the invitations of Dion and of Dionysius, to the court of\nSicily; and went thither three times, though very capriciously treated.\nHe traveled into Italy; then into Egypt, where he stayed a long time;\nsome say three,--some say thirteen years. It is said, he went farther,\ninto Babylonia: this is uncertain. Returning to Athens, he gave lessons,\nin the Academy, to those whom his fame drew thither; and died, as we\nhave received it, in the act of writing, at eighty-one years.\n\nBut the biography of Plato is interior. We are to account for the\nsupreme elevation of this man, in the intellectual history of our\nrace,--how it happens that, in proportion to the culture of men, they\nbecome his scholars; that, as our Jewish Bible has implanted itself\nin the table-talk and household life of every man and woman in the\nEuropean and American nations, so the writings of Plato have\npre-occupied every school of learning, every lover of thought, every\nchurch, every poet,--making it impossible to think, on certain levels,\nexcept through him. He stands between the truth and every man's mind,\nand has almost impressed language, and the primary forms of thought,\nwith his name and seal. I am struck, in reading him, with the extreme\nmodernness of his style and spirit. Here is the germ of that Europe\nwe know so well, in its long history of arts and arms; here are all\nits traits, already discernible in the mind of Plato,--and in none\nbefore him. It has spread itself since into a hundred histories, but\nhas added no new element. This perpetual modernness is the measure of\nmerit, in every work of art; since the author of it was not misled by\nanything shortlived or local, but abode by real and abiding traits.\nHow Plato came thus to be Europe, and philosophy, and almost literature,\nis the problem for us to solve.\n\nThis could not have happened, without a sound, sincere, and catholic\nman, able to honor, at the same time, the ideal, or laws of the mind,\nand fate, or the order of nature. The first period of a nation, as of\nan individual, is the period of unconscious strength. Children cry,\nscream and stamp with fury, unable to express their desires. As soon\nas they can speak and tell their want, and the reason of it, they\nbecome gentle. In adult life, whilst the perceptions are obtuse, men\nand women talk vehemently and superlatively, blunder and quarrel; their\nmanners are full of desperation; their speech is full of oaths. As\nsoon as, with culture, things have cleared up a little, and they see\nthem no longer in lumps and masses, but accurately distributed, they\ndesist from that weak vehemence, and explain their meaning in detail.\nIf the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still\nbe a beast in the forest. The same weakness and want, on a higher\nplane, occurs daily in the education of ardent young men and women.\n\"Ah! you don't understand me; I have never met with any one who\ncomprehends me:\" and they sigh and weep, write verses, and walk\nalone,--fault of power to express their precise meaning. In a month\nor two, through the favor of their good genius, they meet some one so\nrelated as to assist their volcanic estate; and, good communication\nbeing once established, they are thenceforward good citizens. It is\never thus. The progress is to accuracy, to skill, to truth, from blind\nforce.\n\nThere is a moment, in the history of every nation, when, proceeding\nout of this brute youth, the perceptive powers reach their ripeness,\nand have not yet become microscopic: so that man, at that instant,\nextends across the entire scale; and, with his feet still planted on\nthe immense forces of night, converses, by his eyes and brain, with\nsolar and stellar creation. That is the moment of adult health, the\nculmination of power.\n\nSuch is the history of Europe, in all points; and such in philosophy.\nIts early records, almost perished, are of the immigrations from Asia,\nbringing with them the dreams of barbarians; a confusion of crude\nnotions of morals, and of natural philosophy, gradually subsiding,\nthrough the partial insight of single teachers.\n\nBefore Pericles, came the Seven Wise Masters; and we have the beginnings\nof geometry, metaphysics, and ethics: then the partialists,--deducing\nthe origin of things from flux or water, or from air, or from fire,\nor from mind. All mix with these causes mythologic pictures. At last,\ncomes Plato, the distributor, who needs no barbaric paint, or tattoo,\nor whooping; for he can define. He leaves with Asia the vast and\nsuperlative; he is the arrival of accuracy and intelligence. \"He shall\nbe as a god to me, who can rightly divide and define.\"\n\nThis defining is philosophy. Philosophy is the account which the human\nmind gives to itself of the constitution of the world. Two cardinal\nfacts lie forever at the base: the one, and the two.--1. Unity, or\nIdentity; and, 2, Variety. We unite all things, by perceiving the law\nwhich pervades them; by perceiving the superficial differences, and\nthe profound resemblances. But every mental act,--this very perception\nof identity or oneness, recognizes the difference of things. Oneness\nand otherness. It is impossible to speak, or to think, without embracing\nboth.\n\nThe mind is urged to ask for one cause of many effects; then for the\ncause of that; and again the cause, diving still into the profound;\nself-assured that it shall arrive at an absolute and sufficient one,--a\none that shall be all. \"In the midst of the sun is the light, in the\nmidst of the light is truth, and in the midst of truth is the\nimperishable being, \"say the Vedas. All philosophy, of east and west,\nhas the same centripetence. Urged by an opposite necessity, the mind\nreturns from the one, to that which is not one, but other or many;\nfrom cause to effect; and affirms the necessary existence of variety,\nthe self-existence of both, as each is involved in the other. These\nstrictly-blended elements it is the problem of thought to separate,\nand to reconcile. Their existence is mutually contradictory and\nexclusive; and each so fast slides into the other, that we can never\nsay what is one, and what it is not. The Proteus is as nimble in the\nhighest as in the lowest grounds, when we contemplate the one, the\ntrue, the good,--as in the surfaces and extremities of matter.  In all\nnations, there are minds which incline to dwell in the conception of\nthe fundamental Unity. The raptures of prayer and ecstasy of devotion\nlose all being in one Being. This tendency finds its highest expression\nin the religious writings of the East, and chiefly, in the Indian\nScriptures, in the Vedas, the Bhagavat Geeta, and the Vishnu Purana.\nThose writings contain little else than this idea, and they rise to\npure and sublime strains in celebrating it.\n\nThe Same, the Same! friend and foe are of one stuff; the ploughman,\nthe plough, and the furrow, are of one stuff; and the stuff is such,\nand so much, that the variations of forms are unimportant. \"You are\nfit\" (says the supreme Krishna to a sage) \"to apprehend that you are\nnot distinct from me. That which I am, thou art, and that also is this\nworld, with its gods, and heroes, and mankind. Men contemplate\ndistinctions, because they are stupefied with ignorance.\" \"The words\nI and mine constitute ignorance. What is the great end of all, you\nshall now learn from me. It is soul,--one in all bodies, pervading,\nuniform, perfect, preeminent over nature, exempt from birth, growth,\nand decay, omnipresent, made up of true knowledge, independent,\nunconnected with unrealities, with name, species, and the rest, in\ntime past, present, and to come. The knowledge that this spirit, which\nis essentially one, is in one's own, and in all other bodies, is the\nwisdom of one who knows the unity of things. As one diffusive air,\npassing through the perforations of a flute, is distinguished as the\nnotes of a scale, so the nature of the Great Spirit is single, though\nits forms be manifold, arising from the consequences of acts. When the\ndifference of the investing form, as that of god, or the rest, is\ndestroyed, there is no distinction.\" \"The whole world is but a\nmanifestation of Vishnu, who is identical with all things, and is to\nbe regarded by the wise, as not differing from, but as the same as\nthemselves. I neither am going nor coming; nor is my dwelling in any\none place; nor art thou, thou; nor are others, others; nor am I, I.\"\nAs if he had said, \"All is for the soul, and the soul is Vishnu; and\nanimals and stars are transient painting; and light is whitewash; and\ndurations are deceptive; and form is imprisonment; and heaven itself\na decoy.\" That which the soul seeks is resolution into being, above\nform, out of Tartarus, and out of heaven,--liberation from nature.\n\nIf speculation tends thus to a terrific unity, in which all things are\nabsorbed, action tends directly backwards to diversity. The first is\nthe course of gravitation of mind; the second is the power of nature.\nNature is the manifold. The unity absorbs, and melts or reduces. Nature\nopens and creates. These two principles reappear and interpenetrate\nall things, all thought; the one, the many. One is being; the other,\nintellect; one is necessity; the other, freedom; one, rest; the other,\nmotion; one, power; the other, distribution; one, strength; the other,\npleasure; one, consciousness; the other, definition; one, genius; the\nother, talent, one, earnestness; the other, knowledge; one, possession;\nthe other, trade; one, caste; the other, culture; one king; the other,\ndemocracy; and, if we dare carry these generalizations a step higher,\nand name the last tendency of both, we might say, that the end of the\none is escape from organization,--pure science; and the end of the\nother is the highest instrumentality, or use of means, or executive\ndeity.\n\nEach student adheres, by temperament and by habit, to the first or to\nthe second of these gods of the mind. By religion, he tends to unity;\nby intellect, or by the senses, to the many. A too rapid unification,\nand an excessive appliance to parts and particulars, are the twin\ndangers of speculation.\n\nTo this partiality the history of nations corresponded. The country\nof unity, of immovable institutions, the seat of a philosophy delighting\nin abstractions, of men faithful in doctrine and in practice to the\nidea of a deaf, unimplorable, immense fate, is Asia; and it realizes\nthis fate in the social institution of caste. On the other side, the\ngenius of Europe is active and creative; it resists caste by culture;\nits philosophy was a discipline; it is a land of arts, inventions,\ntrade, freedom. If the East loved infinity, the West delighted in\nboundaries.\n\nEuropean civility is the triumph of talent, the extension of system,\nthe sharpened understanding, adaptive skill, delight in forms, delight\nin manifestation, in comprehensible results. Pericles, Athens, Greece,\nhad been working in this element with the joy of genius not yet chilled\nby any foresight of the detriment of an excess. They saw before them\nno sinister political economy; no ominous Malthus; no Paris or London;\nno pitiless subdivision of classes,--the doom of the pinmakers, the\ndoom of the weavers, of dressers, of stockingers, of carders, of\nspinners, of colliers; no Ireland; no Indian caste, superinduced by\nthe efforts of Europe to throw it off. The understanding was in its\nhealth and prime. Art was in its splendid novelty. They cut the\nPentelican marble as if it were snow, and their perfect works in\narchitecture and sculpture seemed things of course, not more difficult\nthan the completion of a new ship at the Medford yards, or new mills\nat Lowell. These things are in course, and may be taken for granted.\nThe Roman legion, Byzantine legislation, English trade, the saloons\nof Versailles, the cafes of Paris, the steam-mill, steamboat,\nsteam-coach, may all be seen in perspective; the town-meeting, the\nballot-box, the newspaper and cheap press.\n\nMeantime, Plato, in Egypt, and in Eastern pilgrimages, imbibed the\nidea of one Deity, in which all things are absorbed. The unity of Asia,\nand the detail of Europe; the infinitude of the Asiatic soul, and the\ndefining, result-loving, machine-making, surface-seeking, opera-going\nEurope,--Plato came to join, and by contact to enhance the energy of\neach. The excellence of Europe and Asia are in his brain. Metaphysics\nand natural philosophy expressed the genius of Europe; he substructs\nthe religion of Asia, as the base.\n\nIn short, a balanced soul was born, perceptive of the two elements.\nIt is as easy to be great as to be small. The reason why we do not at\nonce believe in admirable souls, is because they are not in our\nexperience. In actual life, they are so rare, as to be incredible;\nbut, primarily, there is not only no presumption against them, but the\nstrongest presumption in favor of their appearance. But whether voices\nwere heard in the sky, or not; whether his mother or his father dreamed\nthat the infant man-child was the son of Apollo; whether a swarm of\nbees settled on his lips, or not; a man who could see two sides of a\nthing was born. The wonderful synthesis so familiar in nature; the\nupper and the under side of the medal of Jove; the union of\nimpossibilities, which reappears in every object; its real and its\nideal power,--was now, also, transferred entire to the consciousness\nof a man.\n\nThe balanced soul came. If he loved abstract truth, he saved himself\nby propounding the most popular of all principles, the absolute good,\nwhich rules rulers, and judges the judge. If he made transcendental\ndistinctions, he fortified himself by drawing all his illustrations\nfrom sources disdained by orators, and polite conversers; from mares\nand puppies; from pitchers and soup-ladles; from cooks and criers;\nthe shops of potters, horse-doctors, butchers, and fishmongers. He\ncannot forgive in himself a partiality, but is resolved that the two\npoles of thought shall appear in his statement. His arguments and his\nsentences are self-poised and spherical. The two poles appear; yes,\nand become two hands, to grasp and appropriate their own.\n\nEvery great artist has been such by synthesis. Our strength is\ntransitional, alternating; or, shall I say, a thread of two strands.\nThe seashore, sea seen from shore, shore seen from sea; the taste of\ntwo metals in contact; and our enlarged powers at the approach and at\nthe departure of a friend; the experience of poetic creativeness, which\nis not found in staying at home, nor yet in traveling, but in\ntransitions from one to the other, which must therefore be adroitly\nmanaged to present as much transitional surface as possible; this\ncommand of two elements must explain the power and charm of Plato. Art\nexpresses the one, or the same by the different. Thought seeks to know\nunity in unity; poetry to show it by variety; that is, always by an\nobject or symbol. Plato keeps the two vases, one of aether and one of\npigment, at his side, and invariably uses both. Things added to things,\nas statistics, civil history, are inventories. Things used as language\nare inexhaustibly attractive. Plato turns incessantly the obverse and\nthe reverse of the medal of Jove.\n\nTo take an example:--The physical philosophers have sketched each his\ntheory of the world; the theory of atoms, of fire, of flux, of spirit;\ntheories mechanical and chemical in their genius. Plato, a master of\nmathematics, studious of all natural laws and causes, feels these, as\nsecond causes, to be no theories of the world, but bare inventories\nand lists. To the study of nature he therefore prefixes the dogma,--\"Let\nus declare the cause which led the Supreme Ordainer to produce and\ncompose the universe. He was good; and he who is good has no kind of\nenvy. Exempt from envy, he wished that all things should be as much\nas possible like himself. Whosoever, taught by wise men, shall admit\nthis as the prime cause of the origin and foundation of the world,\nwill be in the truth.\" \"All things are for the sake of the good, and\nit is the cause of everything beautiful.\" This dogma animates and\nimpersonates his philosophy. The synthesis which makes the character\nof his mind appears in all his talents. Where there is great compass\nof wit, we usually find excellencies that combine easily in the living\nman, but in description appear incompatible. The mind of Plato is not\nto be exhibited by a Chinese catalogue, but is to be apprehended by\nan original mind in the exercise of its original power. In him the\nfreest abandonment is united with the precision of a geometer. His\ndaring imagination gives him the more solid grasp of facts; as the\nbirds of highest flight have the strongest alar bones. His patrician\npolish, his intrinsic elegance, edged by an irony so subtle that it\nstings and paralyzes, adorn the soundest health and strength of frame.\nAccording to the old sentence, \"If Jove should descend to the earth,\nhe would speak in the style of Plato.\"\n\nWith this palatial air, there is, for the direct aim of several of his\nworks, and running through the tenor of them all, a certain earnestness,\nwhich mounts, in the Republic, and in the Phaedo, to piety. He has\nbeen charged with feigning sickness at the time of the death of\nSocrates. But the anecdotes that have come down from the times attest\nhis manly interference before the people in his master's behalf, since\neven the savage cry of the assembly to Plato is preserved; and the\nindignation towards popular government, in many of his pieces, expresses\na personal exasperation. He has a probity, a native reverence for\njustice and honor, and a humanity which makes him tender for the\nsuperstitions of the people. Add to this, he believes that poetry,\nprophecy, and the high insight, arc from a wisdom of which man is not\nmaster; that the gods never philosophize; but, by a celestial mania,\nthese miracles are accomplished. Horsed on these winged steeds, he\nsweeps the dim regions, visits worlds which flesh cannot enter; he saw\nthe souls in pain; he hears the doom of the judge; he beholds the penal\nmetempsychosis; the Fates, with the rock and shears; and hears the\nintoxicating hum of their spindle.\n\nBut his circumspection never forsook him. One would say, he had read\nthe inscription on the gates of Busyrane,--\"Be bold;\" and on the second\ngate,--\"Be bold, be bold and evermore be bold;\" and then again he\npaused well at the third gate,--\"Be not too bold.\" His strength is\nlike the momentum of a falling planet; and his discretion, the return\nof its due and perfect curve,--so excellent is his Greek love of\nboundary, and his skill in definition. In reading logarithms, one is\nnot more secure, than in following Plato in his flights. Nothing can\nbe colder than his head, when the lightnings of his imagination are\nplaying in the sky. He has finished his thinking, before he brings it\nto the reader; and he abounds in the surprises of a literary master.\nHe has that opulence which furnishes, at every turn, the precise weapon\nhe needs. As the rich man wears no more garments, drives no more horses,\nsits in no more chambers, than the poor,--but has that one dress, or\nequipage, or instrument, which is fit for the hour and the need; so\nPlato, in his plenty, is never restricted, but has the fit word. There\nis, indeed, no weapon in all the armory of wit which he did not possess\nand use,--epic, analysis, mania, intuition, music, satire, and irony,\ndown to the customary and polite. His illustrations are poetry and his\njests illustrations. Socrates' profession of obstetric art is good\nphilosophy; and his finding that word \"cookery,\" and \"adulatory art,\"\nfor rhetoric, in the Gorgias, does us a substantial service still. No\norator can measure in effect with him who can give good nicknames.\n\nWhat moderation, and understatement, and checking his thunder in mid\nvolley! He has good-naturedly furnished the courtier and citizen with\nall that can be said against the schools. \"For philosophy is an elegant\nthing, if any one modestly meddles with it; but, if he is conversant\nwith it more than is becoming, it corrupts the man.\" He could well\nafford to be generous,--he, who from the sunlike centrality and reach\nof his vision, had a faith without cloud. Such as his perception, was\nhis speech: he plays with the doubt, and makes the most of it: he\npaints and quibbles; and by and by comes a sentence that moves the sea\nand land. The admirable earnest comes not only at intervals, in the\nperfect yes and no of the dialogue, but in bursts of light. \"I,\ntherefore, Callicles, am persuaded by these accounts, and consider how\nI may exhibit my soul before the judge in a healthy condition.\nWherefore, disregarding the honors that most men value, and looking\nto the truth, I shall endeavor in reality to live as virtuously as I\ncan and, when I die, to die so. And I invite all other men, to the\nutmost of my power; and you, too, I in turn invite to this contest,\nwhich, I affirm, surpasses all contests here.\"\n\nHe is a great average man one who, to the best thinking, adds a\nproportion and equality in his faculties, so that men see in him their\nown dreams and glimpses made available, and made to pass for what they\nare. A great common sense is his warrant and qualification to be the\nworld's interpreter. He has reason, as all the philosophic and poetic\nclass have: but he has, also, what they have not,--this strong solving\nsense to reconcile his poetry with the appearances of the world, and\nbuild a bridge from the streets of cities to the Atlantis. He omits\nnever this graduation, but slopes his thought, however picturesque the\nprecipice on one side, to an access from the plain. He never writes\nin ecstasy, or catches us up into poetic rapture.\n\nPlato apprehended the cardinal facts. He could prostrate himself on\nthe earth, and cover his eyes, whilst he adorned that which cannot be\nnumbered, or gauged, or known, or named: that of which everything can\nbe affirmed and denied: that \"which is entity and nonentity.\" He called\nit super-essential. He even stood ready, as in the Parmenides, to\ndemonstrate that it was so,--that this Being exceeded the limits of\nintellect. No man ever more fully acknowledged the Ineffable. Having\npaid his homage, as for the human race, to the Illimitable, he then\nstood erect, and for the human race affirmed, \"And yet things are\nknowable!\"--that is, the Asia in his mind was first heartily\nhonored,--the ocean of love and power, before form, before will, before\nknowledge, the Same, the Good, the One; and now, refreshed and empowered\nby this worship, the instinct of Europe, namely, culture, returns; and\nhe cries, Yet things are knowable! They are knowable, because, being\nfrom one, things correspond. There is a scale: and the correspondence\nof heaven to earth, of matter to mind, of the part to the whole, is\nour guide. As there is a science of stars, called astronomy; a science\nof quantities called mathematics; a science of qualities, called\nchemistry; so there is a science of sciences,--I call it\nDialectic,--which is the intellect discriminating the false and the\ntrue. It rests on the observation of identity and diversity; for, to\njudge, is to unite to an object the notion which belongs to it. The\nsciences, even the best,--mathematics, and astronomy, are like\nsportsmen, who seize whatever prey offers, even without being able to\nmake any use of them. Dialectic must teach the use of them. \"This is\nof that rank that no intellectual man will enter on any study for its\nown sake, but only with a view to advance himself in that one sole\nscience which embraces all.\"\n\n\"The essence or peculiarity of man is to comprehend the whole; or that\nwhich in the diversity of sensations, can be comprised under a rational\nunity.\" \"The soul which has never perceived the truth, cannot pass\ninto the human form.\" I announce to men the intellect. I announce the\ngood of being interpenetrated by the mind that made nature: this\nbenefit, namely, that it can understand nature, which it made and\nmaketh. Nature is good, but intellect is better: as the law-giver is\nbefore the law-receiver. I give you joy, O sons of men: that truth is\naltogether wholesome; that we have hope to search out what might be\nthe very self of everything. The misery of man is to be balked of the\nsight of essence, and to be stuffed with conjecture: but the supreme\ngood is reality; the supreme beauty is reality; and all virtue and all\nfelicity depend on this science of the real: for courage is nothing\nelse than knowledge: the fairest fortune that can befall man, is to\nbe guided by his daemon to that which is truly his own. This also is\nthe essence of justice,--to attend every one his own; nay, the notion\nof virtue is not to be arrived at, except through direct contemplation\nof the divine essence. Courage, then, for \"the persuasion that we must\nsearch that which we do not know, will render us, beyond comparison,\nbetter, braver, and more industrious, than if we thought it impossible\nto discover what we do not know, and useless to search for it.\" He\nsecures a position not to be commanded, by his passion for reality;\nvaluing philosophy only as it is the pleasure of conversing with real\nbeing.\n\nThus, full of the genius of Europe, he said, \"Culture.\" He saw the\ninstitutions of Sparta, and recognized more genially, one would say,\nthan any since, the hope of education. He delighted in every\naccomplishment, in every graceful and useful and truthful performance;\nabove all, in the splendors of genius and intellectual achievement.\n\"The whole of life, O Socrates,\" said Glauco, \"is, with the wise the\nmeasure of hearing such discourses as these.\" What a price he sets on\nthe feats of talent, on the powers of Pericles, of Isocrates, of\nParmenides! What price, above price on the talents themselves! He\ncalled the several faculties, gods, in his beautiful personation. What\nvalue he gives to the art of gymnastics in education; what to geometry;\nwhat to music, what to astronomy, whose appeasing and medicinal power\nhe celebrates! In the Timseus, he indicates the highest employment of\nthe eyes. \"By us it is asserted, that God invented and bestowed sight\non us for this purpose,--that, on surveying the circles of intelligence\nin the heavens, we might properly employ those of our own minds, which,\nthough disturbed when compared with the others that are uniform, are\nstill allied to their circulations; and that, having thus learned, and\nbeing naturally possessed of a correct reasoning faculty, we might,\nby imitating the uniform revolutions of divinity, set right our own\nwanderings and blunders.\" And in the Republic,--\"By each of these\ndisciplines, a certain organ of the soul is both purified and\nreanimated, which is blinded and buried by studies of another kind;\nan organ better worth saving than ten thousand eyes, since truth is\nperceived by this alone.\"\n\nHe said, Culture; but he first admitted its basis, and gave immeasurably\nthe first place to advantages of nature. His patrician tastes laid\nstress on the distinctions of birth. In the doctrine of the organic\ncharacter and disposition is the origin of caste. \"Such as were fit\nto govern, into their composition the informing Deity mingled gold:\ninto the military, silver; iron and brass for husbandmen and\nartificers.\" The East confirms itself, in all ages, in this faith. The\nKoran is explicit on this point of caste. \"Men have their metal, as\nof gold and silver. Those of you who were the worthy ones in the state\nof ignorance, will be the worthy ones in the state of faith, as soon\nas you embrace it.\" Plato was not less firm. \"Of the five orders of\nthings, only four can be taught in the generality of men.\" In the\nRepublic, he insists on the temperaments of the youth, as the first\nof the first.\n\nA happier example of the stress laid on nature, is in the dialogue\nwith the young Theages, who wishes to receive lessons from Socrates.\nSocrates declares that, if some have grown wise by associating with\nhim, no thanks are due to him; but, simply, whilst they were with him,\nthey grew wise, not because of him; he pretends not to know the way\nof it. \"It is adverse to many, nor can those be benefited by associating\nwith me, whom the Daemons oppose, so that it is not possible for me\nto live with these. With many, however, he does not prevent me from\nconversing, who yet are not at all benefited by associating with me.\nSuch, O Theages, is the association with me; for, if it pleases the\nGod, you will make great and rapid proficiency: you will not, if he\ndoes not please. Judge whether it is not safer to be instructed by\nsome one of those who have power over the benefit which they impart\nto men, than by me, who benefit or not, just as it may happen.\" As if\nhe had said, \"I have no system. I cannot be answerable for you. You\nwill be what you must. If there is love between us, inconceivably\ndelicious and profitable will our intercourse be; if not, your time\nis lost, and you will only annoy me. I shall seem to you stupid, and\nthe reputation I have, false. Quite above us, beyond the will of you\nor me, is this secret affinity or repulsion laid. All my good is\nmagnetic, and I educate, not by lessons, but by going about my\nbusiness.\"\n\nHe said, Culture; he said, Nature; and he failed not to add, \"There\nis also the divine.\" There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly\ntends to convert itself into a power, and organizes a huge\ninstrumentality of means. Plato, lover of limits, loved the illimitable,\nsaw the enlargement and nobility which come from truth itself, and\ngood itself, and attempted, as if on the part of the human intellect,\nonce for all, to do it adequate homage,--homage fit for the immense\nsoul to receive, and yet homage becoming the intellect to render. He\nsaid, then, \"Our faculties run out into infinity, and return to us\nthence. We can define but a little way; but here is a fact which will\nnot be skipped, and which to shut our eyes upon is suicide. All things\nare in a scale; and, begin where we will, ascend and ascend. All things\nare symbolical; and what we call results are beginnings.\"\n\nA key to the method and completeness of Plato is his twice bisected\nline. After he has illustrated the relation between the absolute good\nand true, and the forms of the intelligible world, he says:--\"Let there\nbe a line cut in two, unequal parts. Cut again each of these two\nparts,--one representing the visible, the other the intelligible\nworld,--and these two new sections, representing the bright part and\nthe dark part of these worlds, you will have, for one of the sections\nof the visible world,--images, that is, both shadows and reflections;\nfor the other section, the objects of these images,-that is, plants,\nanimals, and the works of art and nature. Then divide the intelligible\nworld in like manner; the one section will be of opinions and\nhypotheses, and the other section, of truths.\" To these four sections,\nthe four operations of the soul correspond,--conjecture, faith,\nunderstanding, reason. As every pool reflects the image of the sun,\nso every thought and thing restores us an image and creature of the\nsupreme Good. The universe is perforated by a million channels for his\nactivity. All things mount and mount.\n\nAll his thought has this ascension; in Phaedrus, teaching that \"beauty\nis the most lovely of all things, exciting hilarity, and shedding\ndesire and confidence through the universe, wherever it enters; and\nit enters, in some degree, into all things; but that there is another,\nwhich is as much more beautiful than beauty, as beauty is than chaos;\nnamely, wisdom, which our wonderful organ of sight cannot reach unto,\nbut which, could it be seen, would ravish us with its perfect reality.\"\nHe has the same regard to it as the source of excellence in works of\nart. \"When an artificer, in the fabrication of any work, looks to that\nwhich always subsists according to the same; and, employing a model\nof this kind, expresses its idea and power in his work; it must follow,\nthat his production should be beautiful. But when he beholds that which\nis born and dies, it will be far from beautiful.\"\n\nThus ever: the Banquet is a teaching in the same spirit, familiar now\nto all the poetry, and to all the sermons of the world, that the love\nof the sexes is initial; and symbolizes, at a distance, the passion\nof the soul for that immense lake of beauty it exists to seek. This\nfaith in the Divinity is never out of mind, and constitutes the\nlimitation of all his dogmas. Body cannot teach wisdom;--God only. In\nthe same mind, he constantly affirms that virtue cannot be taught;\nthat it is not a science, but an inspiration; that the greatest goods\nare produced to us through mania, and are assigned to us by a divine\ngift.\n\nThis leads me to that central figure, which he has established in his\nAcademy, as the organ through which every considered opinion shall be\nannounced, and whose biography he has likewise so labored, that the\nhistoric facts are lost in the light of Plato's mind. Socrates and\nPlato are the double star, which the most powerful instruments will\nnot entirely separate. Socrates, again, in his traits and genius, is\nthe best example of that synthesis which constitutes Plato's\nextraordinary power. Socrates, a man of humble stem, but honest enough;\nof the commonest history; of a personal homeliness so remarkable, as\nto be a cause of wit in others,--the rather that his broad good nature\nand exquisite taste for a joke invited the sally, which was sure to\nbe paid. The players personated him on the stage; the potters copied\nhis ugly face on their stone jugs. He was a cool fellow, adding to his\nhumor a perfect temper, and a knowledge of his man, be he who he might\nwhom he talked with, which laid the companion open to certain defeat\nin any debate,--and in debate he immoderately delighted. The young men\nare prodigiously fond of him, and invite him to their feasts, whither\nhe goes for conversation. He can drink, too; has the strongest head\nin Athens; and, after leaving the whole party under the table, goes\naway, as if nothing had happened, to begin new dialogues with somebody\nthat is sober. In short, he was what our country-people call an old\none.\n\nHe affected a good many citizen-like tastes, was monstrously fond of\nAthens, hated trees, never willingly went beyond the walls, knew the\nold characters, valued the bores and philistines, thought everything\nin Athens a little better than anything in any other place. He was\nplain as a Quaker in habit and speech, affected low phrases, and\nillustrations from cocks and quails, soup-pans and sycamore-spoons,\ngrooms and farriers, and unnameable offices,--especially if he talked\nwith any superfine person. He had a Franklin-like wisdom. Thus, he\nshowed one who was afraid to go on foot to Olympia, that it was no\nmore than his daily walk within doors, if continuously extended, would\neasily reach.\n\nPlain old uncle as he was, with his great ears,--an immense talker,--the\nrumor ran, that, on one or two occasions, in the war with Boeotia, he\nhad shown a determination which had covered the retreat of a troop;\nand there was some story that, under cover of folly, he had, in the\ncity government, when one day he chanced to hold a seat there, evinced\na courage in opposing singly the popular voice, which had well-nigh\nruined him. He is very poor; but then he is hardy as a soldier, and\ncan live on a few olives; usually, in the strictest sense, on bread\nand water, except when entertained by his friends. His necessary\nexpenses were exceedingly small, and no one could live as he did. He\nwore no undergarment; his upper garment was the same for summer and\nwinter; and he went barefooted; and it is said that, to procure the\npleasure, which he loves, of talking at his ease all day with the most\nelegant and cultivated young men, he will now and then return to his\nshop, and carve statues, good or bad, for sale. However that be, it\nis certain that he had grown to delight in nothing else than this\nconversation; and that, under his hypocritical pretense of knowing\nnothing, he attacks and brings down all the fine speakers, all the\nfine philosophers of Athens, whether natives, or strangers from Asia\nMinor and the islands. Nobody can refuse to talk with him, he is so\nhonest, and really curious to know; a man who was willingly confuted,\nif he did not speak the truth, and who willingly confuted others,\nasserting what was false; and not less pleased when confuted than when\nconfuting; for he thought not any evil happened to men, of such a\nmagnitude as false opinion respecting the just and unjust. A pitiless\ndisputant, who knows nothing, but the bounds of whose conquering\nintelligence no man had ever reached; whose temper was imperturbable;\nwhose dreadful logic was always leisurely and sportive; so careless\nand ignorant as to disarm the weariest, and draw them, in the\npleasantest manner, into horrible doubts and confusion. But he always\nknew the way out; knew it, yet would not tell it. No escape; he drives\nthem to terrible choices by his dilemmas, and tosses the Hippiases and\nGorgiases, with their grand reputations, as a boy tosses his balls.\nThe tyrannous realist!-Meno has discoursed a thousand times, at length,\non virtue, before many companies, and very well, as it appeared to\nhim; but, at this moment, he cannot even tell what it is,--this\ncramp-fish of a Socrates has so bewitched him.\n\nThis hard-headed humorist, whose strange conceits, drollery, and\n_bon-hommie_, diverted the young patricians, whilst the rumor of\nhis sayings and quibbles gets abroad every day, turns out, in a sequel,\nto have a probity as invincible as his logic and to be either insane,\nor, at least, under cover of this play, enthusiastic in his religion.\nWhen accused before the judges of subverting the popular creed, he\naffirms the immortality of the soul, the future reward and punishment;\nand, refusing to recant, in a caprice of the popular government, was\ncondemned to die, and sent to the prison. Socrates entered the prison,\nand took away all ignominy from the place, which could not be a prison,\nwhilst he was there. Crito bribed the jailor; but Socrates would not\ngo out by treachery. \"Whatever inconvenience ensue, nothing is to be\npreferred before justice. These things I hear like pipes and drums,\nwhose sound makes me deaf to everything you say.\" The fame of this\nprison, the fame of the discourses there, and the drinking of the\nhemlock, are one of the most precious passages in the history of the\nworld.\n\nThe rare coincidence, in one ugly body, of the droll and the martyr,\nthe keen street and market debater with the sweetest saint known to\nany history at that time, had forcibly struck the mind of Plato, so\ncapacious of these contrasts; and the figure of Socrates, by a\nnecessity, placed itself in the foreground of the scene, as the fittest\ndispenser of the intellectual treasurers he had to communicate. It was\na rare fortune, that this Aesod of the mob, and this robed scholar,\nshould meet, to make each other immortal in their mutual faculty. The\nstrange synthesis, in the character of Socrates, capped the synthesis\nin the mind of Plato. Moreover, by this means, he was able, in the\ndirect way, and without envy, to avail himself of the wit and weight\nof Socrates, to which unquestionably his own debt was great; and these\nderived again their principal advantage from the perfect art of Plato.\n\nIt remains to say, that the defect of Plato in power is only that which\nresults inevitably from his quality. He is intellectual in his aim;\nand, therefore, in expression, literary. Mounting into heaven, driving\ninto the pit, expounding the laws of the state, the passion of love,\nthe remorse of crime, the hope of the parting soul,--he is literary,\nand never otherwise. It is almost the sole deduction from the merit\nof Plato, that his writings have not,--what is, no doubt, incident\nto this regnancy of intellect in his work,--the vital authority which\nthe screams of prophets and the sermons of unlettered Arabs and Jews\npossess. There is an interval; and to cohesion, contact is necessary.\n\nI know not what can be said in reply to this criticism, but that we\nhave come to a fact in the nature of things: an oak is not an orange.\nThe qualities of sugar remain with sugar, and those of salt, with salt.\n\nIn the second place, he has not a system. The dearest defenders and\ndisciples are at fault. He attempted a theory of the universe, and his\ntheory is not complete or self-evident. One man thinks he means this,\nand another, that: he has said one thing in one place, and the reverse\nof it in another place. He is charged with having failed to make the\ntransition from ideas to matter. Here is the world, sound as a nut,\nperfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never a stitch nor an\nend, not a mark of haste, or botching, or second thought; but the\ntheory of the world is a thing of shreds and patches.\n\nThe longest wave is quickly lost in the sea. Plato would willingly\nhave a Platonism, a known and accurate expression for the world, and\nit should be accurate. It shall be the world passed through the mind\nof Plato,--nothing less. Every atom shall have the Platonic tinge;\nevery atom, every relation or quality you knew before, you shall know\nagain and find here, but now ordered; not nature, but art. And you\nshall feel that Alexander indeed overran, with men and horses, some\ncountries of the planet; but countries, and things of which countries\nare made, elements, planet itself, laws of planet and of men, have\npassed through this man as bread into his body, and become no longer\nbread, but body: so all this mammoth morsel has become Plato. He has\nclapped copyright on the world. This is the ambition of individualism.\nBut the mouthful proves too large. Boa constrictor has good will to\neat it, but he is foiled. He falls abroad in the attempt; and biting,\ngets strangled: the bitten world holds the biter fast by his own teeth.\nThere he perishes: unconquered nature lives on, and forgets him. So\nit fares with all: so must it fare with Plato. In view of eternal\nnature, Plato turns out to be philosophical exercitations. He argues\non this side, and on that. The acutest German, the lovingest disciple,\ncould never tell what Platonism was; indeed, admirable texts can be\nquoted on both sides of every great question from him.\n\nThese things we are forced to say, if we must consider the effort of\nPlato, or of any philosopher, to dispose of Nature,--which will not\nbe disposed of. No power of genius has ever yet had the smallest success\nin explaining existence. The perfect enigma remains. But there is an\ninjustice in assuming this ambition for Plato. Let us not seem to treat\nwith flippancy his venerable name. Men, in proportion to their\nintellect, have admitted his transcendent claims. The way to know him,\nis to compare him, not with nature, but with other men. How many ages\nhave gone by, and he remains unapproached! A chief structure of human\nwit, like Karnac, or the mediaeval cathedrals, or the Etrurian remains,\nit requires all the breadth of human faculty to know it. I think it\nis truliest seen, when seen with the most respect. His sense deepens,\nhis merits multiply, with study. When we say, here is a fine collection\nof fables; or, when we praise the style; or the common sense; or\narithmetic; we speak as boys, and much of our impatient criticism of\nthe dialectic, I suspect, is no better. The criticism is like our\nimpatience of miles when we are in a hurry; but it is still best that\na mile should have seventeen hundred and sixty yards. The great-eyed\nPlato proportioned the lights and shades after the genius of our life.\n\n\n\nPLATO: NEW READINGS\n\n\nThe publication, in Mr. Bohn's \"Serial Library,\" of the excellent\ntranslations of Plato, which we esteem one of the chief benefits the\ncheap press has yielded, gives us an occasion to take hastily a few\nmore notes of the elevation and bearings of this fixed star; or, to\nadd a bulletin, like the journals, of Plato at the latest dates.\n\nModern science, by the extent of its generalization, has learned to\nindemnify the student of man for the defects of individuals, by tracing\ngrowth and ascent in races; and, by the simple expedient of lighting\nup the vast background, generates a feeling of complacency and hope.\nThe human being has the saurian and the plant in his rear. His arts\nand sciences, the easy issue of his brain, look glorious when\nprospectively beheld from the distant brain of ox, crocodile, and fish.\nIt seems as if nature, in regarding the geologic night behind her,\nwhen, in five or six millenniums, she had turned out five or six men,\nas Homer, Phidias, Menu, and Columbus, was nowise discontented with\nthe result. These samples attested the virtue of the tree. These were\na clear amelioration of trilobite and saurus, and a good basis for\nfurther proceeding. With this artist time and space are cheap, and she\nis insensible of what you say of tedious preparation. She waited\ntranquilly the flowing periods of paleontology, for the hour to be\nstruck when man should arrive. Then periods must pass before the motion\nof the earth can be suspected; then before the map of the instincts\nand the cultivable powers can be drawn. But as of races, so the\nsuccession of individual men is fatal and beautiful, and Plato has the\nfortune, in the history of mankind, to mark an epoch.\n\nPlato's fame does not stand on a syllogism, or on any masterpieces of\nthe Socratic, or on any thesis, as, for example, the immortality of\nthe soul. He is more than an expert, or a school-man, or a geometer,\nor the prophet of a peculiar message. He represents the privilege of\nthe intellect, the power, namely, of carrying up every fact to\nsuccessive platforms, and so disclosing, in every fact, a germ of\nexpansion. These expansions are in the essence of thought. The\nnaturalist would never help us to them by any discoveries of the extent\nof the universe, but is as poor, when cataloguing the resolved nebula\nof Orion, as when measuring the angles of an acre. But the Republic\nof Plato, by these expansions, may be said to require, and so to\nanticipate, the astronomy of Laplace. The expansions are organic. The\nmind does not create what it perceives, any more than the eye creates\nthe rose. In ascribing to Plato the merit of announcing them, we only\nsay, here was a more complete man, who could apply to nature the whole\nscale of the senses, the understanding, and the reason. These\nexpansions, or extensions, consist in continuing the spiritual sight\nwhere the horizon falls on our natural vision, and, by this second\nsight, discovering the long lines of law which shoot in every direction.\nEverywhere he stands on a path which has no end, but runs continuously\nround the universe. Therefore, every word becomes an exponent of nature.\nWhatever he looks upon discloses a second sense, and ulterior senses.\nHis perception of the generation of contraries, of death out of life,\nand life out of death,--that law by which, in nature, decomposition\nis recomposition, and putrefaction and cholera are only signals of a\nnew creation; his discernment of the little in the large, and the large\nin the small; studying the state in the citizen, and the citizen in\nthe state; and leaving it doubtful whether he exhibited the Republic\nas an allegory on the education of the private soul; his beautiful\ndefinitions of ideas, of time, of form, of figure, of the line,\nsometimes hypothetically given, as his defining of virtue, courage,\njustice, temperance; his love of the apologue, and his apologues\nthemselves; the cave of Trophonius; the ring of Gyges; the charioteer\nand two horses; the golden, silver, brass, and iron temperaments;\nTheuth and Thamus; and the visions of Hades and the Fates--fables which\nhave imprinted themselves in the human memory like the signs of the\nzodiac; his soliform eye and his boniform soul; his doctrine of\nassimilation; his doctrine of reminiscence; his clear vision of the\nlaws of return, or reaction, which secure instant justice throughout\nthe universe, instanced everywhere, but specially in the doctrine,\n\"what comes from God to us, returns from us to God,\" and in Socrates'\nbelief that the laws below are sisters of the laws above.\n\nMore striking examples are his moral conclusions. Plato affirms the\ncoincidence of science and virtue; for vice can never know itself and\nvirtue; but virtue knows both itself and vice. The eye attested that\njustice was best, as long as it was profitable; Plato affirms that it\nis profitable throughout; that the profit is intrinsic, though the\njust conceal his justice from gods and men; that it is better to suffer\ninjustice, than to do it; that the sinner ought to covet punishment;\nthat the lie was more hurtful than homicide; and that ignorance, or\nthe involuntary lie, was more calamitous than involuntary homicide;\nthat the soul is unwillingly deprived of true opinions; and that no\nman sins willingly; that the order of proceeding of nature was from\nthe mind to the body; and, though a sound body cannot restore an unsound\nmind, yet a good soul can, by its virtue, render the body the best\npossible. The intelligent have a right over the ignorant, namely, the\nright of instructing them. The right punishment of one out of tune,\nis to make him play in tune; the fine which the good, refusing to\ngovern, ought to pay, is, to be governed by a worse man; that his\nguards shall not handle gold and silver, but shall be instructed that\nthere is gold and silver in their souls, which will make men willing\nto give them everything which they need. This second sight explains\nthe stress laid on geometry. He saw that the globe of earth was not\nmore lawful and precise than was the supersensible; that a celestial\ngeometry was in place there, as a logic of lines and angles here below;\nthat the world was throughout mathematical; the proportions are constant\nof oxygen, azote, and lime; there is just so much water, and slate,\nand magnesia; not less are the proportions constant of moral elements.\n\nThis eldest Goethe, hating varnish and falsehood, delighted in revealing\nthe real at the base of the accidental; in discovering connection,\ncontinuity, and representation, everywhere; hating insulation; and\nappears like the god of wealth among the cabins of vagabonds, opening\npower and capability in everything he touches. Ethical science was new\nand vacant, when Plato could write thus:--\"Of all whose arguments are\nleft to the men of the present time, no one has ever yet condemned\ninjustice, or praised justice, otherwise than as respects the repute,\nhonors, and emoluments arising therefrom; while, as respects either\nof them in itself, and subsisting by its own power in the soul of the\npossessor, and concealed both from gods and men, no one has yet\nsufficiently investigated, either in poetry or prose writings,--how,\nnamely, that the one is the greatest of all the evils that the soul\nhas within it, and justice the greatest good.\"\n\nHis definition of ideas, as what is simple, permanent, uniform, and\nself-existent, forever discriminating them from the notions of the\nunderstanding, marks an era in the world. He was born to behold the\nself-evolving power of spirit, endless generator of new ends; a power\nwhich is the key at once to the centrality and the evanescence of\nthings. Plato is so centered, that he can well spare all his dogmas.\nThus the fact of knowledge and ideas reveals to him the fact of\neternity; and the doctrine of reminiscence he offers as the most\nprobable particular explication. Call that fanciful,--it matters not;\nthe connection between our knowledge and the abyss of being is still\nreal, and the explication must be not less magnificent.\n\nHe has indicated every eminent point in speculation. He wrote on the\nscale of the mind itself, so that all things have symmetry in his\ntablet. He put in all the past, without weariness, and descended into\ndetail with a courage like that he witnessed in nature. One would say,\nthat his forerunners had mapped out each a farm, or a district, or an\nisland, in intellectual geography, but that Plato first drew the sphere.\nHe domesticates the soul in nature; man is the microcosm. All the\ncircles of the visible heaven represent as many circles in the rational\nsoul. There is no lawless particle, and there is nothing casual in the\naction of the human mind. The names of things, too, are fatal, following\nthe nature of things. All the gods of the Pantheon are, by their names,\nsignificant of a profound sense. The gods are the ideas. Pan is speech,\nor manifestation; Saturn, the contemplative; Jove, the regal soul; and\nMars, passion. Venus is proportion; Calliope, the soul of the world;\nAglaia, intellectual illustration.\n\nThese thoughts, in sparkles of light, had appeared often to pious and\nto poetic souls; but this well-bred, all-knowing Greek geometer comes\nwith command, gathers them all up into rank and gradation, the Euclid\nof holiness, and marries the two parts of nature. Before all men, he\nsaw the intellectual values of the moral sentiment. He describes his\nown ideal, when he paints in Timaeus a god leading things from disorder\ninto order. He kindled a fire so truly in the center, that we see the\nsphere illuminated, and can distinguish poles, equator, and lines of\nlatitude, every arc and node; a theory so averaged, so modulated, that\nyou would say, the winds of ages had swept through this rhythmic\nstructure, and not that it was the brief extempore blotting of one\nshort-lived scribe. Hence it has happened that a very well-marked\nclass of souls, namely those who delight in giving a spiritual, that\nis, an ethico-intellectual expression to every truth by exhibiting an\nulterior end which is yet legitimate to it, are said to Platonize.\nThus, Michel Angelo is a Platonist, in his sonnets. Shakspeare is a\nPlatonist, when he writes, \"Nature is made better by no mean, but\nnature makes that mean,\" or,\n\n   \"He that can endure\n   To follow with allegiance a fallen lord,\n   Does conquer him that did his master conquer,\n   And earns a place in the story.\"\n\nHamlet is a pure Platonist, and 'tis the magnitude only of Shakspeare's\nproper genius that hinders him from being classed as the most eminent\nof this school. Swedenborg, throughout his prose poem of \"Conjugal\nLove,\" is a Platonist.\n\nHis subtlety commended him to men of thought. The secret of his popular\nsuccess is the moral aim, which endeared him to mankind. \"Intellect,\"\nhe said, \"is king of heaven and of earth;\" but, in Plato, intellect\nis always moral. His writings have also the sempiternal youth of poetry.\nFor their arguments, most of them, might have been couched in sonnets;\nand poetry has never soared higher than in the Timaeus and the Phaedrus.\nAs the poet, too, he is only contemplative. He did not, like Pythagoras,\nbreak himself with an institution. All his painting in the Republic\nmust be esteemed mythical, with intent to bring out, sometimes in\nviolent colors, his thought. You cannot institute, without peril of\ncharlatan.\n\nIt was a high scheme, his absolute privilege for the best (which, to\nmake emphatic, he expressed by community of women), as the premium\nwhich he would set on grandeur. There shall be exempts of two kinds:\nfirst, those who by demerit have put themselves below\nprotection,--outlaws; and secondly, those who by eminence of nature\nand desert are out of the reach of your rewards; let such be free of\nthe city, and above the law. We confide them to themselves; let them\ndo with us as they will. Let none presume to measure the irregularities\nof Michel Angelo and Socrates by village scales.\n\nIn his eighth book of the Republic, he throws a little mathematical\ndust in our eyes. I am sorry to see him, after such noble superiorities,\npermitting the lie to governors. Plato plays Providence a little with\nthe baser sort, as people allow themselves with their dogs and cats.\n\n\n\n\nIII. SWEDENBORG; OR, THE MYSTIC.\n\nAmong eminent persons, those who are most dear to men are not the class\nwhich the economists call producers; they have nothing in their hands;\nthey have not cultivated corn, nor made bread; they have not led out\na colony, nor invented a loom. A higher class, in the estimation and\nlove of this city-building, market-going race of mankind, are the\npoets, who, from the intellectual kingdom, feed the thought and\nimagination with ideas and pictures which raise men out of the world\nof corn and money, and console them for the shortcomings of the day,\nand the meannesses of labor and traffic. Then, also, the philosopher\nhas his value, who flatters the intellect of this laborer, by engaging\nhim with subtleties which instruct him in new faculties. Others may\nbuild cities; he is to understand them, and keep them in awe. But there\nis a class who lead us into another region,--the world of morals, or\nof will. What is singular about this region of thought, is, its claim.\nWherever the sentiment of right comes in, it takes precedence of\neverything else. For other things, I make poetry of them; but the moral\nsentiment makes poetry of me.\n\nI have sometimes thought that he would render the greatest service to\nmodern criticism, who shall draw the line of relation that subsists\nbetween Shakespeare and Swedenborg. The human mind stands ever in\nperplexity, demanding intellect, demanding sanctity, impatient equally\nof each without the other. The reconciler has not yet appeared. If we\ntire of the saints, Shakespeare is our city of refuge. Yet the instincts\npresently teach, that the problem of essence must take precedence of\nall others,--the questions of Whence? What? and Whither? and the\nsolution of these must be in a life, and not in a book. A drama or\npoem is a proximate or oblique reply; but Moses, Menu, Jesus, work\ndirectly on this problem. The atmosphere of moral sentiment is a region\nof grandeur which reduces all material magnificence to toys, yet opens\nto every wretch that has reason, the doors of the universe. Almost\nwith a fierce haste it lays its empire on the man. In the language of\nthe Koran, \"God said, the heaven and the earth, and all that is between\nthem, think ye that we created them in jest, and that ye shall not\nreturn to us?\" It is the kingdom of the will, and by inspiring the\nwill, which is the seat of personality, seems to convert the universe\ninto a person:--\n\n  \"The realms of being to no other bow,\n  Not only all are thine, but all are Thou.\"\n\nAll men are commanded by the saint. The Koran makes a distinct class\nof those who are by nature good, and whose goodness has an influence\non others, and pronounces this class to be the aim of creation: the\nother classes are admitted to the feast of being, only as following\nin the train of this. And the Persian poet exclaims to a soul of this\nkind:\n\n  \"Go boldly forth, and feast on being's banquet;\n  Thou art the called,--the rest admitted with thee.\"\n\nThe privilege of this caste is an access to the secrets and structure\nof nature, by some higher method than by experience. In common parlance,\nwhat one man is said to learn by experience, a man of extraordinary\nsagacity is said, without experience, to divine. The Arabians say,\nthat Abul Khain, the mystic, and Abu Ali Seena, the Philosopher,\nconferred together; and, on parting, the philosopher said, \"All that\nhe sees, I know;\" and the mystic said, \"All that he knows, I see.\" If\none should ask the reason of this intuition, the solution would lead\nus into that property which Plato denoted as Reminiscence, and which\nis implied by the Bramins in the tenet of Transmigration. The soul\nhaving been often born, or, as the Hindoos say, \"traveling the path\nof existence through thousands of births,\" having beheld the things\nwhich are here, those which are in heaven, and those which are beneath,\nthere is nothing of which she has not gained the knowledge: no wonder\nthat she is able to recollect, in regard to any one thing, what formerly\nshe knew. \"For, all things in nature being linked and related, and\nthe soul having heretofore known all, nothing hinders but that any man\nwho has recalled to mind, or, according to the common phrase, has\nlearned one thing only, should of himself recover all his ancient\nknowledge, and find out again all the rest, if he have but courage,\nand faint not in the midst of his researches. For inquiry and learning\nis reminiscence all.\" How much more, if he that inquires be a holy and\ngodlike soul! For, by being assimilated to the original soul, by whom,\nand after whom, all things subsist, the soul of man does then easily\nflow into all things, and all things flow into it: they mix: and he\nis present and sympathetic with their structure and law.\n\nThis path is difficult, secret, and beset with terror. The ancients\ncalled it ecstasy or absence,--a getting out of their bodies to think.\nAll religious history contains traces of the trance of saints,--a\nbeatitude, but without any sign of joy, earnest, solitary, even sad;\n\"the flight,\" Plotinus called it, \"of the alone to the alone.\" The\ntrances of Socrates, Plotinus, Porphyry, Behmen, Bunyan, Fox, Pascal,\nGuion, Swedenborg, will readily come to mind. But what as readily comes\nto mind, is the accompaniment of disease. This beatitude comes in\nterror, and with shocks to the mind of the receiver. \"It o'erinforms\nthe tenement of clay,\" and drives the man mad; or, gives a certain\nviolent bias, which taints his judgment. In the chief examples of\nreligious illumination, somewhat morbid, has mingled, in spite of the\nunquestionable increase of mental power. Must the highest good drag\nafter it a quality which neutralizes and discredits it?--\n\n                                \"Indeed it takes\n  From our achievements, when performed at height,\n  The pith and marrow of our attribute.\"\n\nShall we say, that the economical mother disburses so much earth and\nso much fire, by weight and metre, to make a man, and will not add a\npennyweight, though a nation is perishing for a leader? Therefore, the\nmen of God purchased their science by folly or pain. If you will have\npure carbon, carbuncle, or diamond, to make the brain transparent, the\ntrunk and organs shall be so much the grosser: instead of porcelain,\nthey are potter's earth, clay, or mud.\n\nIn modern times, no such remarkable example of this introverted mind\nhas occurred, as in Emanuel Swedenborg, born in Stockholm, in 1688.\nThis man, who appeared to his contemporaries a visionary, and elixir\nof moonbeams, no doubt led the most real life of any man then in the\nworld: and now, when the royal and ducal Frederics, Cristierns, and\nBrunswicks, of that day, have slid into oblivion, he begins to spread\nhimself into the minds of thousands. As happens in great men, he seemed,\nby the variety and amount of his powers, to be a composition of several\npersons,--like the giant fruits which are matured in gardens by the\nunion of four or five single blossoms. His frame is on a larger scale,\nand possesses the advantage of size. As it is easier to see the\nreflection of the great sphere in large globes, though defaced by some\ncrack or blemish, than in drops of water, so men of large calibre,\nthough with some eccentricity or madness, like Pascal or Newton, help\nus more than balanced mediocre minds.\n\nHis youth and training could not fail to be extraordinary. Such a boy\ncould not whistle or dance, but goes grubbing into mines and mountains,\nprying into chemistry and optics, physiology, mathematics, and\nastronomy, to find images fit for the measure of his versatile and\ncapacious brain. He was a scholar from a child, and was educated at\nUpsala. At the age of twenty-eight, he was made Assessor of the Board\nof Mines, by Charles XII. In 1716, he left home for four years, and\nvisited the universities of England, Holland, France, and Germany. He\nperformed a notable feat of engineering in 1718, at the siege of\nFredericshall, by hauling two galleys, five boats, and a sloop, some\nfourteen English miles overland, for the royal service. In 1721 he\njourneyed over Europe, to examine mines and smelting works. He\npublished, in 1716, his Daedalus Hyperboreus, and, from this time, for\nthe next thirty years, was employed in the composition and publication\nof his scientific works. With the like force, he threw himself into\ntheology. In 1743, when he was fifty-four years old, what is called\nhis illumination began. All his metallurgy, and transportation of ships\noverland, was absorbed into this ecstasy. He ceased to publish any\nmore scientific books, withdrew from his practical labors, and devoted\nhimself to the writing and publication of his voluminous theological\nworks, which were printed at his own expense, or at that of the Duke\nof Brunswick, or other prince, at Dresden, Liepsic, London, or\nAmsterdam. Later, he resigned his office of Assessor: the salary\nattached to this office continued to be paid to him during his life.\nHis duties had brought him into intimate acquaintance with King Charles\nXII., by whom he was much consulted and honored. The like favor was\ncontinued to him by his successor. At the Diet of 1751, Count Hopken\nsays, the most solid memorials on finance were from his pen. In Sweden,\nhe appears to have attracted a marked regard. His rare science and\npractical skill, and the added fame of second sight and extraordinary\nreligious knowledge and gifts, drew to him queens, nobles, clergy,\nshipmasters, and people about the ports through which he was wont to\npass in his many voyages. The clergy interfered a little with the\nimportation and publication of his religious works; but he seems to\nhave kept the friendship of men in power. He was never married. He had\ngreat modesty and gentleness of bearing. His habits were simple; he\nlived on bread, milk, and vegetables; and he lived in a house situated\nin a large garden; he went several times to England, where he does not\nseem to have attracted any attention whatever from the learned or the\neminent; and died at London, March 29, 1772, of apoplexy, in his\neighty-fifth year. He is described, when in London, as a man of quiet,\nclerical habit, not averse to tea and coffee, and kind to children.\nHe wore a sword when in full velvet dress, and, whenever he walked\nout, carried a gold-headed cane. There is a common portrait of him in\nantique coat and wig, but the face has a wandering or vacant air.\n\nThe genius which was to penetrate the science of the age with a far\nmore subtle science; to pass the bounds of space and time; venture\ninto the dim spirit-realm, and attempt to establish a new religion in\nthe world,--began its lessons in quarries and forges, in the\nsmelting-pot and crucible, in ship-yards and dissecting-rooms. No one\nman is perhaps able to judge of the merits of his works on so many\nsubjects. One is glad to learn that his books on mines and metals are\nheld in the highest esteem by those who understand these matters. It\nseems that he anticipated much science of the nineteenth century;\nanticipated, in astronomy, the discovery of the seventh planet,--but,\nunhappily, not also of the eighth; anticipated the views of modern\nastronomy in regard to the generation of earth by the sun; in magnetism,\nsome important experiments and conclusions of later students; in\nchemistry, the atomic theory; in anatomy, the discoveries of\nSchlichting, Monro, and Wilson; and first demonstrated the office of\nthe lungs. His excellent English editor magnanimously lays no stress\non his discoveries, since he was too great to care to be original; and\nwe are to judge, by what he can spare, of what remains.\n\nA colossal soul, he lies vast abroad on his times, uncomprehended by\nthem, and requires a long local distance to be seen; suggest, as\nAristotle, Bacon, Selden, Humboldt, that a certain vastness of learning,\nor _quasi_ omnipresence of the human soul in nature, is possible.\nHis superb speculations, as from a tower, over nature and arts, without\never losing sight of the texture and sequence of things, almost realizes\nhis own picture, in the \"Principia,\" of the original integrity of man.\nOver and above the merit of his particular discoveries, is the capital\nmerit of his self-equality. A drop of water has the properties of the\nsea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well\nas of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero; and, in\nSwedenborg, those who are best acquainted with modern books, will most\nadmire the merit of mass. One of the missouriums and mastodons of\nliterature, he is not to be measured by whole colleges of ordinary\nscholars. His stalwart presence would flutter the gowns of an\nuniversity. Our books are false by being fragmentary; their sentences\nare _bon mots_, and not parts of natural discourse; childish expressions\nof surprise or pleasure in nature; or, worse, owing a brief notoriety to\ntheir petulance, or aversion from the order of nature,--being some\ncuriosity or oddity, designedly not in harmony with nature, and\npurposely framed to excite a surprise, as jugglers do by concealing\ntheir means. But Swedenborg is systematic, and respective of the world\nin every sentence; all the means are orderly given; his faculties work\nwith astronomic punctuality, and this admirable writing is pure from all\npertness or egotism.\n\nSwedenborg was born into an atmosphere of great ideas. 'Tis hard to\nsay what was his own: yet his life was dignified by noblest pictures\nof the universe. The robust Aristotelian method, with its breadth and\nadequateness, shaming our sterile and linear logic by its genial\nradiation, conversant with series and degree, with effects and ends,\nskilful to discriminate power from form, essence from accident, and\nopening by its terminology and definition, high roads into nature, had\ntrained a race of athletic philosophers. Harvey had shown the\ncirculation of the blood; Gilbert had shown that the earth was a magnet;\nDescartes, taught by Gilbert's magnet, with its vortex, spiral, and\npolarity, had filled Europe with the leading thought of vortical motion,\nas the secret of nature. Newton, in the year in which Swedenborg was\nborn, published the \"Principia,\" and established the universal gravity.\nMalpighi, following the high doctrines of Hippocrates, Leucippus, and\nLucretius, had given emphasis to the dogma that nature works in\nleasts,--\"_tota in minimis existit natura_.\" Unrivalled dissectors,\nSwammerdam, Leeuwenhoek, Winslow, Eustachius, Heister, Vesalius,\nBoerhaave, had left nothing for scalpel or microscope to reveal in\nhuman or comparative anatomy; Linnaeus, his contemporary, was affirming,\nin his beautiful science, that \"Nature is always like herself;\" and,\nlastly, the nobility of method, the largest application of principles,\nhad been exhibited by Leibnitz and Christian Wolff, in cosmology;\nwhilst Locke and Grotius had drawn the moral argument. What was left\nfor a genius of the largest calibre, but to go over their ground, and\nverify and unite? It is easy to see, in these minds, the original of\nSwedenborg's studies, and the suggestion of his problems. He had a\ncapacity to entertain and vivify these volumes of thought. Yet the\nproximity of these geniuses, one or other of whom had introduced all\nhis leading ideas, makes Swedenborg another example of the difficulty,\neven in a highly fertile genius, of proving originality, the first\nbirth and annunciation of one of the laws of nature.\n\nHe named his favorite views, the doctrine of Forms, the doctrine of\nSeries and Degrees, the doctrine of Influx, the doctrine of\nCorrespondence. His statement of these doctrines deserves to be studied\nin his books. Not every man can read them, but they will reward him\nwho can. His theologic works are valuable to illustrate these. His\nwritings would be a sufficient library to a lonely and athletic student;\nand the \"Economy of the Animal Kingdom\" is one of those books which,\nby the sustained dignity of thinking, is an honor to the human race.\nHe had studied spars and metals to some purpose. His varied and solid\nknowledge makes his style lustrous with points and shooting spicula\nof thought, and resembling one of those winter mornings when the air\nsparkles with crystals. The grandeur of the topics makes the grandeur\nof the style. He was apt for cosmology, because of that native\nperception of identity which made mere size of no account to him. In\nthe atom of magnetic iron, he saw the quality which would generate the\nspiral motion of sun and planet.\n\nThe thoughts in which he lived were, the universality of each law in\nnature; the Platonic doctrine of the scale or degrees; the version or\nconversion of each into other, and so the correspondence of all the\nparts; the fine secret that little explains large, and large, little;\nthe centrality of man in nature, and the connection that subsists\nthroughout all things: he saw that the human body was strictly\nuniversal, or an instrument through which the soul feeds and is fed\nby the whole of matter: so that he held, in exact antagonism to the\nskeptics, that, \"the wiser a man is, the more will he be a worshipper\nof the Deity.\" In short, he was a believer in the Identity-philosophy,\nwhich he held not idly, as the dreamers of Berlin or Boston, but which\nhe experimented with and established through years of labor, with the\nheart and strength of the rudest Viking that his rough Sweden ever\nsent to battle.\n\nThis theory dates from the oldest philosophers, and derives perhaps\nits best illustration from the newest. It is this: that nature iterates\nher means perpetually on successive planes. In the old aphorism, nature\nis always self-similar. In the plant, the eye or germinative point\nopens to a leaf, then to another leaf, with a power of transforming\nthe leaf into radicle, stamen, pistil, petal, bract, sepal, or seed.\nThe whole art of the plant is still to repeat leaf on leaf without\nend, the more or less of heat, light, moisture, and food, determining\nthe form it shall assume. In the animal, nature makes a vertebra, or\na spine of vertebrae, and helps herself still by a new spine, with a\nlimited power of modifying its form,--spine on spine, to the end of\nthe world. A poetic anatomist, in our own day, teaches that a snake,\nbeing a horizontal line, and man, being an erect line, constitute a\nright angle; and, between the lines of this mystical quadrant, all\nanimate beings find their place; and he assumes the hair-worm, the\nspan-worm, or the snake, as the type of prediction of the spine.\nManifestly, at the end of the spine, nature puts out smaller spines,\nas arms; at the end of the arms, new spines, as hands; at the other\nend, she repeats the process, as legs and feet. At the top of the\ncolumn, she puts out another spine, which doubles or loops itself over,\nas a span-worm, into a ball, and forms the skull, with extremities\nagain; the hands being now the upper jaw, the feet the lower jaw, the\nfingers and toes being represented this time by upper and lower teeth.\nThis new spine is destined to high uses. It is a new man on the\nshoulders of the last. It can almost shed its trunk, and manage to\nlive alone, according to the Platonic idea in the Timaeus. Within it,\non a higher plane, all that was done in the trunk repeats itself.\nNature recites her lesson once more in a higher mood. The mind is a\nfiner body, and resumes its functions of feeding, digesting, absorbing,\nexcluding, and generating, in a new and ethereal element. Here, in the\nbrain, is all the process of alimentation repeated, in the acquiring,\ncomparing, digesting, and assimilating of experience. Here again is\nthe mystery of generation repeated. In the brain are male and female\nfaculties; here is marriage, here is fruit. And there is no limit to\nthis ascending scale, but series on series. Everything, at the end of\none use, is taken up into the next, each series punctually repeating\nevery organ and process of the last. We are adapted to infinity. We\nare hard to please, and love nothing which ends; and in nature is no\nend; but everything, at the end of one use, is lifted into a superior,\nand the ascent of these things climbs into daemonic and celestial\nnatures. Creative force, like a musical composer, goes on unweariedly\nrepeating a simple air or theme now high, now low, in solo, in chorus,\nten thousand times reverberated, till it fills earth and heaven with\nthe chant.\n\nGravitation, as explained by Newton, is good, but grandeur, when we\nfind chemistry only an extension of the law of masses into particles,\nand that the atomic theory shows the action of chemistry to be\nmechanical also. Metaphysics shows us a sort of gravitation, operative\nalso in the mental phenomena; and the terrible tabulation of the French\nstatists brings every piece of whim and humor to be reducible also to\nexact numerical rations. If one man in twenty thousand, or in thirty\nthousand, eats shoes, or marries his grandmother, then, in every twenty\nthousand, or thirty thousand, is found one man who eats shoes, or\nmarries his grandmother. What we call gravitation, and fancy ultimate,\nis one fork of a mightier stream, for which we have yet no name.\nAstronomy is excellent; but it must come up into life to have its full\nvalue, and not remain there in globes and spaces. The globule of blood\ngyrates around its own axis in the human veins, as the planet in the\nsky; and the circles of intellect relate to those of the heavens. Each\nlaw of nature has the like universality; eating, sleep or hybernation,\nrotation, generation, metamorphosis, vortical motion, which is seen\nin eggs as in planets. These grand rhymes or returns in nature,--the\ndear, best-known face startling us at every turn, under a mask so\nunexpected that we think it the face of a stranger, and, carrying up\nthe semblance into divine forms,--delighted the prophetic eye of\nSwedenborg; and he must be reckoned a leader in that revolution, which,\nby giving to science an idea, has given to an aimless accumulation of\nexperiments, guidance and form, and a beating heart.\n\nI own, with some regret, that his printed works amount to about fifty\nstout octaves, his scientific works being about half of the whole\nnumber; and it appears that a mass of manuscript still unedited remains\nin the royal library at Stockholm. The scientific works have just now\nbeen translated into English, in an excellent edition.\n\nSwedenborg printed these scientific books in the ten years from 1734\nto 1744, and they remained from that time neglected; and now, after\ntheir century is complete, he has at last found a pupil in Mr.\nWilkinson, in London, a philosophic critic, with a co-equal vigor of\nunderstanding and imagination comparable only to Lord Bacon's, who has\nproduced his master's buried books to the day, and transferred them,\nwith every advantage, from their forgotten Latin into English, to go\nround the world in our commercial and conquering tongue. This startling\nreappearance of Swedenborg, after a hundred years, in his pupil, is\nnot the least remarkable fact in his history. Aided, it is said, by\nthe munificence of Mr. Clissold, and also by his literary skill, this\npiece of poetic justice is done. The admirable preliminary discourses\nwith which Mr. Wilkinson has enriched these volumes, throw all the\ncontemporary philosophy of England into shade, and leave me nothing\nto say on their proper grounds.\n\nThe \"Animal Kingdom\" is a book of wonderful merits. It was written\nwith the highest end,--to put science and the soul, long estranged\nfrom each other, at one again. It was an anatomist's account of the\nhuman body, in the highest style of poetry. Nothing can exceed the\nbold and brilliant treatment of a subject usually so dry and repulsive.\nHe saw nature \"wreathing through an everlasting spiral, with wheels\nthat never dry, on axles that never creak,\" and sometimes sought \"to\nuncover those secret recess is where nature is sitting at the fires\nin the depths of her laboratory;\" whilst the picture comes recommended\nby the hard fidelity with which it is based on practical anatomy. It\nis remarkable that this sublime genius decides, peremptorily for the\nanalytic, against the synthetic method; and, in a book whose genius\nis a daring poetic synthesis, claims to confine himself to a rigid\nexperience.\n\nHe knows, if he only, the flowing of nature and how wise was that old\nanswer of Amasis to him who bade him drink up the sea,--\"Yes, willingly,\nif you will stop the rivers that flow in.\" Few knew as much about\nnature and her subtle manners, or expressed more subtly her goings.\nHe thought as large a demand is made on our faith by nature, as by\nmiracles. \"He noted that in her proceeding from first principles through\nher several subordinations, there was no state through which she did\nnot pass, as if her path lay through all things.\" \"For as often as she\nbetakes herself upward from visible phenomena, or, in other words,\nwithdraws herself inward, she instantly, as it were, disappears, while\nno one knows what has become of her, or whither she is gone; so that\nit is necessary to take science as a guide in pursuing her steps.\"\n\nThe pursuing the inquiry under the light of an end or final cause,\ngives wonderful animation, a sort of personality to the whole writing.\nThis book announces his favorite dogmas. The ancient doctrines of\nHippocrates, that the brain is a gland; and of Leucippus, that the\natom may be known by the mass; or, in Plato, the macrocosm by the\nmicrocosm; and, in the verses of Lucretius,--\n\n  Ossa videlicet e pauxillis atque minutis\n  Ossibus sic et de pauxillis atque minutis\n  Visceribus viscus gigni, sanguenque creari\n  Sanguinis inter se multis coeuntibus guttis;\n  Ex aurique putat micis consistere posse\n  Aurum, et de terris terram concrescere parvis;\n  Ignibus ex igneis, humorem humoribus esse.\n                                          Lib. I. 835.\n\n  \"The principle of all things entrails made\n  Of smallest entrails; bone, of smallest bone,\n  Blood, of small sanguine drops reduced to one;\n  Gold, of small grains; earth, of small sands compacted\n  Small drops to water, sparks to fire contracted:\"\n\nand which Malpighi had summed in his maxim, that \"nature exists entirely\nin leasts,\"--is a favorite thought of Swedenborg. \"It is a constant\nlaw of the organic body, that large, compound, or visible forms exist\nand subsist from smaller, simpler, and ultimately from invisible forms,\nwhich act similarly to the larger ones, but more perfectly and more\nuniversally, and the least forms so perfectly and universally, as to\ninvolve an idea representative of their entire universe.\" The unities\nof each organ are so many little organs, homogeneous with their\ncompound; the unities of the tongue are little tongues; those of the\nstomach, little stomachs; those of the heart are little hearts. This\nfruitful idea furnishes a key to every secret. What was too small for\nthe eye to detect was read by the aggregates; what was too large, by\nthe units. There is no end to his application of the thought. \"Hunger\nis an aggregate of very many little hungers, or losses of blood by the\nlittle veins all over the body.\" It is the key to his theology, also.\n\"Man is a kind of very minute heaven, corresponding to the world of\nspirits and to heaven. Every particular idea of man, and every\naffection, yea, every smallest spark of his affection, is an image and\neffigy of him. A spirit may be known from only a single thought. God\nis the grand man.\"  The hardihood and thoroughness of his study of\nnature required a theory of forms, also. \"Forms ascend in order from\nthe lowest to the highest. The lowest form is angular, or the\nterrestrial and corporeal. The second and next higher form is the\ncircular, which is also called the perpetual-angular, because the\ncircumference of a circle is a perpetual angle. The form above this\nis the spiral, parent and measure of circular forms; its diameters are\nnot rectilinear, but variously circular, and have a spherical surface\nfor center; therefore it is called the perpetual-circular. The form\nabove this is the vortical, or perpetual-spiral; next, the\nperpetual-vortical, or celestial; last, the perpetual-celestial, or\nspiritual.\"\n\nWas it strange that a genius so bold should take the last step,\nalso,--conceive that he might attain the science of all sciences, to\nunlock the meaning of the world? In the first volume of the \"Animal\nKingdom,\" he broaches the subject, in a remarkable note.--\n\n\"In our doctrine of Representations and Correspondences, we shall treat\nof both these symbolical and typical resemblances, and of the\nastonishing things which occur, I will not say, in the living body\nonly, but throughout nature, and which correspond so entirely to supreme\nand spiritual things, that one would swear that the physical world was\npurely symbolical of the spiritual world; insomuch, that if we choose\nto express any natural truth in physical and definite vocalterms, and\nto convert these terms only into the corresponding and spiritual terms,\nwe shall by this means elicit a spiritual truth, or theological dogma,\nin place of the physical truth or precept; although no mortal would\nhave predicted that anything of the kind could possibly arise by bare\nliteral transposition; inasmuch as the one precept, considered\nseparately from the other, appears to have absolutely no relation to\nit. I intend, hereafter, to communicate a number of examples of such\ncorrespondences, together with a vocabulary containing the terms of\nspiritual things, as well as of the physical things for which they are\nto be substituted. This symbolism pervades the living body.\"\n\nThe fact, thus explicitly stated, is implied in all poetry, in allegory,\nin fable, in the use of emblems, and in the structure of language.\nPlato knew of it, as is evident from his twice bisected line, in the\nsixth book of the Republic. Lord Bacon had found that truth and nature\ndiffered only as seal and print; and he instanced some physical\nproportions, with their translation into a moral and political sense.\nBehmen, and all mystics, imply this law in their dark riddle-writing.\nThe poets, in as far as they are poets, use it; but it is known to\nthem only, as the magnet was known for ages, as a toy. Swedenborg first\nput the fact into a detached and scientific statement, because it was\nhabitually present to him, and never not seen. It was involved, as we\nexplained already, in the doctrine of identity and iteration, because\nthe mental series exactly tallies with the material series. It required\nan insight that could rank things in order and series; or, rather, it\nrequired such rightness of position, that the poles of the eye should\ncoincide with the axis of the world. The earth has fed its mankind\nthrough five or six millenniums, and they had sciences, religions,\nphilosophies; and yet had failed to see the correspondence of meaning\nbetween every part and every other part. And, down to this hour,\nliterature has no book in which the symbolism of things is\nscientifically opened. One would say, that, as soon as men had the\nfirst hint that every sensible object,--animal, rock, river, air,--nay,\nspace and time, subsists not for itself, nor finally to a material\nend, but as a picture-language, to tell another story of beings and\nduties, other science would be put by, and a science of such grand\npresage would absorb all faculties; that each man would ask of all\nobjects, what they mean: Why does the horizon hold me fast, with my\njoy and grief, in this center? Why hear I the same sense from countless\ndiffering voices, and read one never quite expressed fact in endless\npicture-language? Yet, whether it be that these things will not be\nintellectually learned, or, that many centuries must elaborate and\ncompose so rare and opulent a soul,--there is no comet, rock-stratum,\nfossil, fish, quadruped, spider, or fungus, that, for itself, does not\ninterest more scholars and classifiers than the meaning and upshot of\nthe frame of things.\n\nBut Swedenborg was not content with the culinary use of the world. In\nhis fifty-fourth year, these thoughts held him fast, and his profound\nmind admitted the perilous opinion, too frequent in religious history,\nthat he was an abnormal person, to whom was granted the privilege of\nconversing with angels and spirits; and this ecstasy connected itself\nwith just this office of explaining the moral import of the sensible\nworld. To a right perception, at once broad and minute, of the order\nof nature, he added the comprehension of the moral laws in their widest\nsocial aspects; but whatever he saw, through some excessive\ndetermination to form, in his constitution, he saw not abstractly, but\nin pictures, heard it in dialogues, constructed it in events. When he\nattempted to announce the law most sanely, he was forced to couch it\nin parable.\n\nModern psychology offers no similar example of a deranged balance. The\nprincipal powers continued to maintain a healthy action; and, to a\nreader who can make due allowance in the report for the reporter's\npeculiarities, the results are still instructive, and a more striking\ntestimony to the sublime laws he announced, than any that balanced\ndulness could afford. He attempts to give some account of the modus\nof the new state, affirming that \"his presence in the spiritual world\nis attended with a certain separation, but only as to the intellectual\npart of his mind, not as to the will part;\" and he affirms that \"he\nsees, with the internal sight, the things that are in another life,\nmore clearly than he sees the things which are here in the world.\"\n\nHaving adopted the belief that certain books of the Old and New\nTestaments were exact allegories, or written in the angelic and ecstatic\nmode, he employed his remaining years in extricating from the literal,\nthe universal sense. He had borrowed from Plato the fine fable of \"a\nmost ancient people, men better than we, and dwelling nigher to the\ngods;\" and Swedenborg added, that they used the earth symbolically;\nthat these, when they saw terrestrial objects, did not think at all\nabout them, but only about those which they signified. The\ncorrespondence between thoughts and things henceforward occupied him.\n\"The very organic form resembles the end inscribed on it.\" A man is\nin general, and in particular, an organizd justice or injustice,\nselfishness or gratitude. And the cause of this harmony he assigned\nin the Arcana: \"The reason why all and single things, in the heavens\nand on earth, are representative, is because they exist from an influx\nof the Lord, through heaven.\" This design of exhibiting such\ncorrespondences, which, if adequately executed, would be the poem of\nthe world, in which all history and science would play an essential\npart, was narrowed and defeated by the exclusively theologic direction\nwhich his inquiries took. His perception of nature is not human and\nuniversal, but is mystical and Hebraic. He fastens each natural object\nto a theologic notion:--a horse signifies carnal understanding; a tree,\nperception; the moon, faith; a cat means this; an ostrich, that; an\nartichoke, this other; and poorly tethers every symbol to a several\necclesiastic sense. The slippery Proteus is not so easily caught. In\nnature, each individual symbol plays innumerable parts, as each particle\nof matter circulates in turn through every system. The central identity\nenables any one symbol to express successively all the qualities and\nshades of the real being. In the transmission of the heavenly waters,\nevery hose fits every hydrant. Nature avenges herself speedily on the\nhard pedantry that would chain her waves. She is no literalist.\nEverything must be taken genially, and we must be at the top of our\ncondition to understand anything rightly.\n\nHis theological bias thus fatally narrowed his interpretation of nature,\nand the dictionary of symbols is yet to be written. But the interpreter,\nwhom mankind must still expect, will find no predecessor who has\napproached so near to the true problem.\n\nSwedenborg styles himself, in the title-page of his books, \"Servant\nof the Lord Jesus Christ;\" and by force of intellect, and in effect,\nhe is the last Father in the Church, and is not likely to have a\nsuccessor. No wonder that his depth of ethical wisdom should give him\ninfluence as a teacher. To the withered traditional church yielding\ndry catechisms, he let in nature again, and the worshiper, escaping\nfrom the vestry of verbs and texts, is surprised to find himself a\nparty to the whole of his religion. His religion thinks for him, and\nis of universal application. He turns it on every side; it fits every\npart of life, interprets and dignifies every circumstance. Instead of\na religion which visited him diplomatically three or four times,--\nwhen he was born, when he married, when he fell sick, and when he died,\nand for the rest never interfered with him,--here was a teaching which\naccompanied him all day, accompanied him even into sleep and dreams;\ninto his thinking, and showed him through what a long ancestry his\nthoughts descend; into society, and showed by what affinities he was\ngirt to his equals and his counterparts; into natural objects, and\nshowed their origin and meaning, what are friendly, and what are\nhurtful; and opened the future world, by indicating the continuity of\nthe same laws. His disciples allege that their intellect is invigorated\nby the study of his books.\n\nThere is no such problem for criticism as his theological writings,\ntheir merits are so commanding; yet such grave deductions must be made.\nTheir immense and sandy diffuseness is like the prairie, or the desert,\nand their incongruities are like the last deliration. He is\nsuperfluously explanatory, and his feelings of the ignorance of men,\nstrangely exaggerated. Men take truths of this nature very fast. Yet\nhe abounds in assertions; he is a rich discoverer, and of things which\nmost import us to know. His thought dwells in essential resemblances,\nlike the resemblance of a house to the man who built it. He saw things\nin their law, in likeness of function, not of structure. There is an\ninvariable method and order in his delivery of his truth, the habitual\nproceeding of the mind from inmost to outmost. What earnestness and\nweightiness,--his eye never roving, without one swell of vanity, or\none look to self, in any common form of literary pride! a theoretic\nor speculative man, but whom no practical man in the universe could\naffect to scorn. Plato is a gownsman; his garment, though of purple,\nand almost skywoven, is an academic robe, and hinders action with its\nvoluminous folds. But this mystic is awful to Caesar. Lycurgus himself\nwould bow.\n\nThe moral insight of Swedenborg, the correction of popular errors, the\nannouncement of ethical laws, take him out of comparison with any other\nmodern writer, and entitle him to a place, vacant for some ages, among\nthe lawgivers of mankind. That slow but commanding influence which he\nhas acquired, like that of other religious geniuses, must be excessive\nalso, and have its tides, before it subsides into a permanent amount.\nOf course, what is real and universal cannot be confined to the circle\nof those who sympathize strictly with his genius, but will pass forth\ninto the common stock of wise and just thinking. The world has a sure\nchemistry, by which it attracts what is excellent in its children, and\nlets fall the infirmities and limitations of the grandest mind.\n\nThat metempsychosis which is familiar in the old mythology of the\nGreeks, collected in Ovid, and in the Indian Transmigration, and is\nthere objective, or really takes place in bodies by alien will,--in\nSwedenborg's mind, has a more philosophic character. It is subjective,\nor depends entirely upon the thought of the person. All things in the\nuniverse arrange themselves to each person anew, according to his\nruling love. Man is such as his affection and thought are. Man is man\nby virtue of willing, not by virtue of knowing and understanding. As\nhe is, so he sees. The marriages of the world are broken up. Interiors\nassociate all in the spiritual world. Whatever the angels looked upon\nwas to them celestial. Each Satan appears to himself a man; to those\nas bad as he, a comely man; to the purified, a heap of carrion. Nothing\ncan resist states; everything gravitates; like will to like; what we\ncall poetic justice takes effect on the spot. We have come into a world\nwhich is a living poem. Every thing is as I am. Bird and beast is not\nbird and beast, but emanation and effluvia of the minds and wills of\nmen there present. Every one makes his own house and state. The ghosts\nare tormented with the fear of death, and cannot remember that they\nhave died. They who are in evil and falsehood are afraid of all others.\nSuch as have deprived themselves of charity, wander and flee; the\nsocieties which they approach discover their quality, and drive them\naway. The covetous seem to themselves to be abiding in cells where\ntheir money is deposited, and these to be infested with mice. They who\nplace merit in good works seem to themselves to cut wood. \"I asked\nsuch, if they were not wearied? They replied, that they have not yet\ndone work enough to merit heaven.\"\n\nHe delivers golden sayings, which express with singular beauty the\nethical laws; as when he uttered that famed sentence, that, \"in heaven\nthe angels are advancing continually to the springtime of their youth,\nso that the oldest angel appears the youngest:\" \"The more angels, the\nmore room:\" \"The perfection of man is the love of use:\" \"Man, in his\nperfect form, is heaven:\" \"What is from Him, is Him:\" \"Ends always\nascend as nature descends:\" And the truly poetic account of the writing\nin the inmost heaven, which, as it consists of inflexions according\nto the form of heaven, can be read without instruction He almost\njustifies his claim to preternatural vision, by strange insights of\nthe structure of the human body and mind. \"It is never permitted to\nany one, in heaven, to stand behind another and look at the back of\nhis head; for then the influx which is from the Lord is disturbed.\"\nThe angels, from the sound of the voice, know a man's love; from the\narticulation of the sound, his wisdom; and from the sense of the words,\nhis science.\n\nIn the \"Conjugal Love,\" he has unfolded the science of marriage. Of\nthis book, one would say, that, with the highest elements, it has\nfailed of success. It came near to be the Hymn of Love, which Plato\nattempted in the \"Banquet;\" the love, which, Dante says, Casella sang\namong the angels in Paradise; and which, as rightly celebrated, in its\ngenesis, fruition, and effect, might well entrance the souls, as it\nwould lay open the genesis of all institutions, customs, and manners.\nThe book had been grand, if the Hebraism had been omitted, and the law\nstated without Gothicism, as ethics, and with that scope for ascension\nof state which the nature of things requires. It is a fine Platonic\ndevelopment of the science of marriage; teaching that sex is universal,\nand not local; virility in the male qualifying every organ, act, and\nthought; and the feminine in woman. Therefore, in the real or spiritual\nworld, the nuptial union is not momentary, but incessant and total;\nand chastity not a local, but a universal virtue; unchastity being\ndiscovered as much in the trading, or planting, or speaking, or\nphilosophizing, as in generation; and that, though the virgins he saw\nin heaven were beautiful, the wives were incomparably more beautiful,\nand went on increasing in beauty evermore.\n\nYet Swedenborg, after his mode, pinned his theory to a temporary form.\nHe exaggerates the circumstance of marriage; and, though he finds false\nmarriages on the earth, fancies a wiser choice in heaven. But of\nprogressive souls, all loves and friendships are momentary. Do you\nlove me? means, Do you see the same truth? If you do, we are happy\nwith the same happiness; but presently one of us passes into the\nperception of new truth;--we are divorced, and no tension in nature\ncan hold us to each other. I know how delicious is this cup of love,--I\nexisting for you, you existing for me; but it is a child's clinging\nto his toy; an attempt to eternize the fireside and nuptial chamber;\nto keep the picture-alphabet through which our first lessons are\nprettily conveyed. The Eden of God is bare and grand: like the outdoor\nlandscape, remembered from the evening fireside, it seems cold and\ndesolate, whilst you cower over the coals; but, once abroad again, we\npity those who can forego the magnificence of nature, for candle-light\nand cards. Perhaps the true subject of the \"Conjugal Love\" is\nconversation, whose laws are profoundly eliminated. It is false, if\nliterally applied to marriage. For God is the bride or bridegroom of\nthe soul. Heaven is not the pairing of two, but the communion of all\nsouls. We meet, and dwell an instant under the temple of one thought,\nand part as though we parted not, to join another thought in other\nfellowships of joy. So far from there being anything divine in the low\nand proprietary sense of, Do you love me? it is only when you leave\nand lose me, by casting yourself on a sentiment which is higher than\nboth of us, that I draw near, and find myself at your side; and I am\nrepelled, if you fix your eye on me, and demand love. In fact, in the\nspiritual world, we change sexes every moment. You love the worth in\nme; then I am your husband: but it is not me, but the worth, that fixes\nthe love; and that worth is a drop of the ocean of worth that is beyond\nme. Meantime, I adore the greater worth in another, and so become his\nwife. He aspires to a higher worth in another spirit, and is wife of\nreceiver of that influence.\n\nWhether a self-inquisitorial habit, that he grew into, from jealousy\nof the sins to which men of thought are liable, he has acquired, in\ndisentangling and demonstrating that particular form of moral disease,\nan acumen which no conscience can resist. I refer to his feeling of\nthe profanation of thinking to what is good \"from scientifics.\" \"To\nreason about faith, is to doubt and deny.\" He was painfully alive to\nthe difference between knowing and doing, and this sensibility is\nincessantly expressed. Philosophers are, therefore, vipers, cockatrices,\nasps, hemorrhoids, presters, and flying serpents; literary men are\nconjurers and charlatans.\n\nBut this topic suggests a sad afterthought, that here we find the seat\nof his own pain. Possibly Swedenborg paid the penalty of introverted\nfaculties. Success, or a fortunate genius, seems to depend on a happy\nadjustment of heart and brain; on a due proportion, hard to hit, of\nmoral and mental power, which, perhaps, obeys the law of those chemical\nratios which make a proportion in volumes necessary to combination,\nas when gases will combine in certain fixed rates, but not at any rate.\nIt is hard to carry a full cup: and this man, profusely endowed in\nheart and mind, early fell into dangerous discord with himself. In his\nAnimal Kingdom, he surprises us, by declaring that he loved analysis,\nand not synthesis; and now, after his fiftieth year, he falls into\njealousy of his intellect; and, though aware that truth is not solitary,\nnor is goodness solitary, but both must ever mix and marry, he makes\nwar on his mind, takes the part of the conscience against it, and, on\nall occasions, traduces and blasphemes it. The violence is instantly\navenged. Beauty is disgraced, love is unlovely, when truth, the half\npart of heaven, is denied, as much as when a bitterness in men of\ntalent leads to satire, and destroys the judgment. He is wise, but\nwise in his own despite. There is an air of infinite grief, and the\nsound of wailing, all over and through this lurid universe. A vampyre\nsits in the seat of the prophet, and turns with gloomy appetite to the\nimages of pain. Indeed, a bird does not more readily weave its nest,\nor a mole bore into the ground, than this seer of souls substructs a\nnew hell and pit, each more abominable than the last, round every new\ncrew of offenders. He was let down through a column that seemed of\nbrass, but it was formed of angelic spirits, that he might descend\nsafely amongst the unhappy, and witness the vastation of souls; and\nheard there, for a long continuance, their lamentations; he saw their\ntormentors, who increase and strain pangs to infinity; he saw the hell\nof the jugglers, the hell of the assassins, the hell of the lascivious;\nthe hell of robbers, who kill and boil men; the infernal tun of the\ndeceitful; the excrementitious hells; the hell of the revengeful, whose\nfaces resembled a round, broad-cake, and their arms rotate like a\nwheel. Except Rabelais and Dean Swift, nobody ever had such science\nof filth and corruption.\n\nThese books should be used with caution. It is dangerous to sculpture\nthese evanescing images of thought. True in transition, they become\nfalse if fixed. It requires, for his just apprehension, almost a genius\nequal to his own. But when his visions become the stereotyped language\nof multitudes of persons, of all degrees of age and capacity, they are\nperverted. The wise people of the Greek race were accustomed to lead\nthe most intelligent and virtuous young men, as part of their education,\nthrough the Eleusinian mysteries, wherein, with much pomp and\ngraduation, the highest truths known to ancient wisdom were taught.\nAn ardent and contemplative young man, at eighteen or twenty years,\nmight read once these books of Swedenborg, these mysteries of love and\nconscience, and then throw them aside forever. Genius is ever haunted\nby similar dreams, when the hells and the heavens are opened to it.\nBut these pictures are to be held as mystical, that is, as a quite\narbitrary and accidental picture of the truth--not as the truth. Any\nother symbol would be as good: then this is safely seen.\n\nSwedenborg's system of the world wants central spontaneity; it is\ndynamic, not vital, and lacks power to generate life. There is no\nindividual in it. The universe is a gigantic crystal, all those atoms\nand laminae lie in uninterrupted order, and with unbroken unity, but\ncold and still. What seems an individual and a will, is none. There\nis an immense chain of intermediation, extending from center to\nextremes, which bereaves every agency of all freedom and character.\nThe universe, in his poem, suffers under a magnetic sleep, and only\nreflects the mind of the magnetizer. Every thought comes into each\nmind by influence from a society of spirits that surround it, and into\nthese from a higher society, and so on. All his types mean the same\nfew things. All his figures speak one speech. All his interlocutors\nSwedenborgize. Be they who they may, to this complexion must they come\nat last. This Charon ferries them all over in his boat; kings,\ncounselors, cavaliers, doctors, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Hans Sloane,\nKing George II., Mahomet, or whosoever, and all gather one grimness\nof hue and style. Only when Cicero comes by, our gentle seer sticks\na little at saying he talked with Cicero, and, with a touch of human\nrelenting, remarks, \"one whom it was given me to believe was Cicero;\"\nand when the _soi disant_ Roman opens his mouth, Rome and eloquence\nhave ebbed away,--it is plain theologic Swedenborg, like the rest. His\nheavens and hells are dull; fault of want of individualism. The\nthousand-fold relation of men is not there. The interest that attaches\nin nature to each man, because he is right by his wrong, and wrong by\nhis right, because he defies all dogmatizing and classification, so\nmany allowances, and contingencies, and futurities, are to be taken\ninto account, strong by his vices, often paralyzed by his\nvirtues,--sinks into entire sympathy with his society. This want reacts\nto the center of the system. Though the agency of \"the Lord\" is in\nevery line referred to by name, it never becomes alive. There is no\nlustre in that eye which gazes from the center, and which should vivify\nthe immense dependency of beings.\n\nThe vice of Swedenborg's mind is its theologic determination. Nothing\nwith him has the liberality of universal wisdom, but we are always in\na church. That Hebrew muse, which taught the lore of right and wrong\nto man, had the same excess of influence for him, it has had for the\nnations. The mode, as well as the essence, was sacred. Palestine is\never the more valuable as a chapter in universal history, and ever the\nless an available element in education. The genius of Swedenborg,\nlargest of all modern souls in this department of thought, wasted\nitself in the endeavor to reanimate and conserve what had already\narrived at its natural term, and, in the great secular Providence, was\nretiring from its prominence, before western modes of thought and\nexpression. Swedenborg and Behmen both failed by attaching themselves\nto the Christian symbol, instead of to the moral sentiment, which\ncarries innumerable christianities, humanities, divinities, in its\nbosom.\n\nThe excess of influence shows itself in the incongruous importation\nof a foreign rhetoric. \"What have I to do,\" asks the impatient reader,\n\"with jasper and sardonyx, beryl and chalcedony; what with arks and\npassovers, ephahs and ephods; what with lepers and emerods; what with\nheave-offerings and unleavened bread; chariots of fire, dragons crowned\nand horned, behemoth and unicorn? Good for orientals, these are nothing\nto me. The more learning you bring to explain them, the more glaring\nthe impertinence. The more coherent and elaborate the system, the less\nI like it. I say, with the Spartan, 'Why do you speak so much to the\npurpose, of that which is nothing to the purpose?' My learning is such\nas God gave me in my birth and habit, in the delight and study of my\neyes, and not of another man's. Of all absurdities, this of some\nforeigner, purposing to take away my rhetoric, and substitute his own,\nand amuse me with pelican and stork, instead of thrush and robin;\npalm-trees and shittim-wood, instead of sassafras and hickory,--seems\nthe most needless.\" Locke said, \"God, when he makes the prophet, does\nnot unmake the man.\" Swedenborg's history points the remark. The parish\ndisputes, in the Swedish church, between the friends and foes of Luther\nand Melancthon, concerning \"faith alone,\" and \"works alone,\" intrude\nthemselves into his speculations upon the economy of the universe, and\nof the celestial societies. The Lutheran bishop's son, for whom the\nheavens are opened, so that he sees with eyes, and in the richest\nsymbolic forms, the awful truth of things, and utters again, in his\nbooks, as under a heavenly mandate, the indisputable secrets of moral\nnature,--with all these grandeurs resting upon him, remains the Lutheran\nbishop's son; his judgments are those of a Swedish polemic, and his\nvast enlargements purchased by adamantine limitations. He carries his\ncontroversial memory with him, in his visits to the souls. He is like\nMichel Angelo, who, in his frescoes, put the cardinal who had offended\nhim to roast under a mountain of devils; or, like Dante, who avenged,\nin vindictive melodies, all his private wrongs; or, perhaps still more\nlike Montaigne's parish priest, who, if a hailstorm passes over the\nvillage, thinks the day of doom has come, and the cannibals already\nhave got the pip. Swedenborg confounds us not less with the pains of\nMelancthon, and Luther, and Wolfius, and his own books, which he\nadvertises among the angels.\n\nUnder the same theologic cramp, many of his dogmas are bound. His\ncardinal position in morals is, that evils should be shunned as sins.\nBut he does not know what evil is, or what good is, who thinks any\nground remains to be occupied, after saying that evil is to be shunned\nas evil. I doubt not he was led by the desire to insert the element\nof personality of Deity. But nothing is added. One man, you say, dreads\ncrysipelas,--show him that this dread is evil: or, one dreads\nhell,--show him that dread is evil. He who loves goodness, harbors\nangels, reveres reverence, and lives with God. The less we have to do\nwith our sins, the better. No man can afford to waste his moments in\ncompunctions. \"That is active duty,\" say the Hindoos, \"which is not\nfor our bondage; that is knowledge, which is for our liberation; all\nother duty is good only unto weariness.\"\n\nAnother dogma, growing out of this pernicious theologic limitation,\nis this Inferno. Swedenborg has devils. Evil, according to old\nphilosophers, is good in the making. That pure malignity can exist,\nis the extreme proposition of unbelief. It is not to be entertained\nby a rational agent; it is atheism; it is the last profanation.\nEuripides rightly said,--\n\n\"Goodness and being in the gods are one; He who imputes ill to them\nmakes them none.\"\n\nTo what a painful perversion had Gothic theology arrived, that\nSwedenborg admitted no conversion for evil spirits! But the divine\neffort is never relaxed; the carrion in the sun will convert itself\nto grass and flowers; and man, though in brothels, or jails, or on\ngibbets, is on his way to all that is good and true. Burns, with the\nwild humor of his apostrophe to \"poor old Nickie Ben,\"\n\n\"O wad ye tak a thought, and mend!\"\n\nhas the advantage of the vindictive theologian. Everything is\nsuperficial, and perishes, but love and truth only. The largest is\nalways the truest sentiment, and we feel the more generous spirit of\nthe Indian Vishnu,-\"I am the same to all mankind. There is not one who\nis worthy of my love or hatred. They who serve me with adoration,--I\nam in them, and they in me. If one whose ways are altogether evil,\nserve me alone, he is as respectable as the just man; he is altogether\nwell employed; he soon becometh of a virtuous spirit, and obtaineth\neternal happiness.\"\n\nFor the anomalous pretension of Revelations of the other world,--only\nhis probity and genius can entitle it to any serious regard. His\nrevelations destroy their credit by running into detail. If a man say,\nthat the Holy Ghost hath informed him that the Last Judgment (or the\nlast of the judgments) took place in 1757; or, that the Dutch, in the\nother world, live in a heaven by themselves, and the English in a\nheaven by themselves; I reply, that the Spirit which is holy, is\nreserved, taciturn, and deals in laws. The rumors of ghosts and\nhobgoblins gossip and tell fortunes. The teachings of the high Spirit\nare abstemious, and, in regard to particulars, negative. Socrates'\nGenius did not advise him to act or to find, but if he proposed to do\nsomewhat not advantageous, it dissuaded him. \"What God is,\" he said,\n\"I know not; what he is not I know.\" The Hindoos have denominated the\nSupreme Being, the \"Internal Check.\" The illuminated Quakers explained\ntheir Light, not as somewhat which leads to any action, but it appears\nas an obstruction to anything unfit. But the right examples are private\nexperiences, which are absolutely at one on this point. Strictly\nspeaking, Swedenborg's revelation is a confounding of planes,--a capital\noffence in so learned a categorist. This is to carry the law of surface\ninto the plane of substance, to carry individualism and its fopperies\ninto the realm of essences and generals, which is dislocation and\nchaos.\n\nThe secret of heaven is kept from age to age. No imprudent, no sociable\nangel ever dropt an early syllable to answer the longings of saints,\nthe fears of mortals. We should have listened on our knees to any\nfavorite, who, by stricter obedience, had brought his thoughts into\nparallelism with the celestial currents, and could hint to human ears\nthe scenery and circumstance of the newly parted soul. But it is certain\nthat it must tally with what is best in nature. It must not be inferior\nin tone to the already known works of the artist who sculptures the\nglobes of the firmament, and writes the moral law. It must be fresher\nthan rainbows, stabler than mountains, agreeing with flowers, with\ntides, and the rising and setting of autumnal stars. Melodious poets\nshall be hoarse as street ballads, when once the penetrating key-note\nof nature and spirit is sounded,--the earth-beat, sea-beat, heart-beat\nwhich makes the tune to which the sun rolls, and the globule of blood,\nand the sap of trees.\n\nIn this mood, we hear the rumor that the seer has arrived, and his\ntale is told. But there is no beauty, no heaven: for angels, goblins.\nThe sad muse loves night and death, and the pit. His Inferno is\nmesmeric. His spiritual world bears the same relation to the\ngenerosities and joys of truth, of which human souls have already made\nus cognizant, as a man's bad dreams bear to his ideal life. It is\nindeed very like, in its endless power of lurid pictures, to the\nphenomena of dreaming, which nightly turns many an honest gentleman,\nbenevolent but dyspeptic, into a wretch, skulking like a dog about the\nouter yards and kennels of creation. When he mounts into the heavens,\nI do not hear its language. A man should not tell me that he has walked\namong the angels; his proof is, that his eloquence makes me one. Shall\nthe archangels be less majestic and sweet than the figures that have\nactually walked the earth? These angels that Swedenborg paints give\nus no very high idea of their discipline and culture; they are all\ncountry parsons; their heaven is a _fete champetre_, and evangelical\npicnic, or French distribution of prizes to virtuous peasants. Strange,\nscholastic, didactic, passionless, bloodless man, who denotes classes of\nsouls as a botanist disposes of a carex, and visits doleful hells as a\nstratum of chalk or hornblende! He has no sympathy. He goes up and down\nthe world of men, a modern Rhadamanthus in gold-headed cane and peruke,\nand with nonchalance, and the air of a referee, distributing souls. The\nwarm, many-weathered, passionate-peopled world is to him a grammar of\nhieroglyphs, or an emblematic freemason's procession. How different is\nJacob Behmen! he is tremulous with emotion, and listens awe-struck, with\nthe gentlest humanity, to the Teacher whose lessons he conveys; and when\nhe asserts that, \"in some sort, love is greater than God,\" his heart\nbeats so high that the thumping against his leathern coat is audible\nacross the centuries. 'Tis a great difference. Behmen is healthily and\nbeautifully wise, notwithstanding the mystical narrowness and\nincommunicableness. Swedenborg is disagreeably wise, and, with all his\naccumulated gifts, paralyzes and repels.\n\nIt is the best sign of a great nature, that it opens a foreground,\nand, like the breath of morning landscapes, invites us onward.\nSwedenborg is retrospective, nor can we divest him of his mattock and\nshroud. Some minds are forever restrained from descending into nature;\nothers are forever prevented from ascending out of it. With a force\nof many men, he could never break the umbilical cord which held him\nto nature, and he did not rise to the platform of pure genius.\n\nIt is remarkable that this man, who, by his perception of symbols, saw\nthe poetic construction of things, and the primary relation of mind\nto matter, remained entirely devoid of the whole apparatus of poetic\nexpression, which that perception creates. He knew the grammar and\nrudiments of the Mother-Tongue,--how could he not read off one strain\ninto music? Was he like Saadi, who, in his vision, designed to fill\nhis lap with the celestial flowers, as presents for his friends; but\nthe fragrance of the roses so intoxicated him, that the skirt dropped\nfrom his hands? or, is reporting a breach of the manners of that\nheavenly society? or, was it that he saw the vision intellectually,\nand hence that chiding of the intellectual that pervades his books?\nBe it as it may, his books have no melody, no emotion, no humor, no\nrelief to the dead prosaic level. In his profuse and accurate imagery\nis no pleasure, for there is no beauty. We wander forlorn in a lack-\nlustre landscape. No bird ever sang in all these gardens of the dead.\nThe entire want of poetry in so transcendent a mind betokens the\ndisease, and, like a hoarse voice in a beautiful person, is a kind of\nwarning. I think, sometimes, he will not be read longer. His great\nname will turn a sentence. His books have become a monument. His laurels\nso largely mixed with cypress, a charnel-breath so mingles with the\ntemple incense, that boys and maids will shun the spot.\n\nYet, in this immolation of genius and fame at the shrine of conscience,\nis a merit sublime beyond praise. He lived to purpose: he gave a\nverdict. He elected goodness as the clue to which the soul must cling\nin all this labyrinth of nature. Many opinions conflict as to the true\ncenter. In the shipwreck, some cling to running rigging, some to cask\nand barrel, some to spars, some to mast; the pilot chooses with\nscience,--I plant myself here; all will sink before this; \"he comes\nto land who sails with me.\" Do not rely on heavenly favor, or on\ncompassion to folly, or on prudence, on common sense, the old usage\nand main chance of men; nothing can keep you,--not fate, nor health,\nnor admirable intellect; none can keep you, but rectitude only,\nrectitude forever and ever!--and, with a tenacity that never swerved\nin all his studies, inventions, dreams, he adheres to this brave choice.\nI think of him as of some transmigratory votary of Indian legend, who\nsays, \"Though I be dog, or jackal, or pismire, in the last rudiments\nof nature, under what integument or ferocity, I cleave to right, as\nthe sure ladder that leads up to man and to God.\"\n\nSwedenborg has rendered a double service to mankind, which is now only\nbeginning to be known. By the science of experiment and use, he made\nhis first steps; he observed and published the laws of nature; and,\nascending by just degrees, from events to their summits and causes,\nhe was fired with piety at the harmonies he felt, and abandoned himself\nto his joy and worship. This was his first service. If the glory was\ntoo bright for his eyes to bear, if he staggered under the trance of\ndelight, the more excellent is the spectacle he saw, the realities of\nbeing which beam and blaze through him, and which no infirmities of\nthe prophet are suffered to obscure; and he renders a second passive\nservice to men, not less than the first,--perhaps, in the great circle\nof being, and in the retributions of spiritual nature, not less glorious\nor less beautiful to himself.\n\n\n\n\nIV. MONTAIGNE; OR, THE SKEPTIC.\n\n\nEvery fact is related on one side to sensation and, on the other, to\nmorals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two\nsides, to find the other; given the upper, to find the under side.\nNothing so thin, but has these two faces; and, when the observer has\nseen the obverse, he turns it over to see the reverse.\n\nLife is a pitching of this penny,--heads or tails. We never tire of\nthis game, because there is still a slight shudder of astonishment at\nthe exhibition of the other face, at the contrast of the two faces.\nA man is flushed with success, and bethinks himself what this good\nluck signifies. He drives his bargain in the street; but it occurs\nthat he also is bought and sold. He sees the beauty of a human face,\nand searches the cause of that beauty, which must be more beautiful.\nHe builds his fortunes, maintains the laws, cherishes his children;\nbut he asks himself, why? and whereto? This head and this tail are\ncalled, in the language of philosophy, Infinite and Finite; Relative\nand Absolute; Apparent and Real; and many fine names beside.\n\nEach man is born with a predisposition to one or the other of these\nsides of nature; and it will easily happen that men will be found\ndevoted to one or the other. One class has the perception of difference,\nand is conversant with facts and surfaces; cities and persons; and the\nbringing certain things to pass;--the men of talent and action. Another\nclass have the perception of identity, and are men of faith and\nphilosophy, men of genius.\n\nEach of these riders drives too fast. Plotinus believes only in\nphilosophers; Fenelon, in saints; Pindar and Byron, in poets. Read the\nhaughty language in which Plato and the Platonists speak of all men\nwho are not devoted to their own shining abstractions: other men are\nrats and mice. The literary class is usually proud and exclusive. The\ncorrespondence of Pope and Swift describes mankind around them as\nmonsters; and that of Goethe and Schiller, in our own time, is scarcely\nmore kind.\n\nIt is easy to see how this arrogance comes. The genius is a genius by\nthe first look he casts on any object. Is his eye creative? Does he\nnot rest in angles and colors, but beholds the design--he will presently\nundervalue the actual object. In powerful moments, his thought has\ndissolved the works of art and nature into their causes, so that the\nworks appear heavy and faulty. He has a conception of beauty which the\nsculptor cannot embody. Picture, statue, temple, railroad, steam-engine,\nexisted first in an artist's mind, without flaw, mistake, or friction,\nwhich impair the executed models. So did the church, the state, college,\ncourt, social circle, and all the institutions. It is not strange that\nthese men, remembering what they have seen and hoped of ideas, should\naffirm disdainfully the superiority of ideas. Having at some time seen\nthat the happy soul will carry all the arts in power, they say, Why\ncumber ourselves with superfluous realizations? and, like dreaming\nbeggars, they assume to speak and act as if these values were already\nsubstantiated.\n\nOn the other part, the men of toil and trade and luxury,--the animal\nworld, including the animal in the philosopher and poet also,--and the\npractical world, including the painful drudgeries which are never\nexcused to philosopher or poet any more than to the rest,--weigh heavily\non the other side. The trade in our streets believes in no metaphysical\ncauses, thinks nothing of the force which necessitated traders and a\ntrading planet to exist; no, but sticks to cotton, sugar, wool, and\nsalt. The ward meetings, on election days, are not softened by any\nmisgivings of the value of these ballotings. Hot life is streaming in\na single direction. To the men of this world, to the animal strength\nand spirits, to the men of practical power, whilst immersed in it, the\nman of ideas appears out of his reason. They alone have reason.\n\nThings always bring their own philosophy with them, that is, prudence.\nNo man acquires property without acquiring with it a little arithmetic,\nalso. In England, the richest country that ever existed, property\nstands for more, compared with personal ability, than in any other.\nAfter dinner, a man believes less, denies more; verities have lost\nsome charm. After dinner, arithmetic is the only science; ideas are\ndisturbing, incendiary, follies of young men, repudiated by the solid\nportion of society; and a man comes to be valued by his athletic and\nanimal qualities. Spence relates, that Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey\nKneller one day, when his nephew, a Guinea trader, came in. \"Nephew,\"\nsaid Sir Godfrey, \"you have the honor of seeing the two greatest men\nin the world.\" \"I don't know how great men you may be,\" said the Guinea\nman, \"but I don't like your looks. I have often bought a man much\nbetter than both of you, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas. Thus,\nthe men of the senses revenge themselves on the professors, and repay\nscorn for scorn. The first had leaped to conclusions not yet ripe, and\nsay more than is true; the others make themselves merry with the\nphilosopher, and weigh man by the pound.--They believe that mustard\nbites the tongue, that pepper is hot, friction-matches are incendiary,\nrevolvers to be avoided, and suspenders hold up pantaloons; that there\nis much sentiment in a chest of tea; and a man will be eloquent, if\nyou give him good wine. Are you tender and scrupulous,--you must eat\nmore mince-pie. They hold that Luther had milk in him when he said,\n\n\"Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib, und Gesang Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben\nlang,\"\n\nand when he advised a young scholar perplexed with fore-ordination and\nfree-will, to get well drunk. \"The nerves,\" says Cabanis, \"they are\nthe man.\" My neighbor, a jolly farmer, in the tavern bar-room, thinks\nthat the use of money is sure and speedy spending. \"For his part,\" he\nsays, \"he puts his down his neck, and gets the good of it.\"\n\nThe inconvenience of this way of thinking is, that it runs into\nindifferentism, and then into disgust. Life is eating us up. We shall\nbe fables presently. Keep cool: it will be all one a hundred years\nhence. Life's well enough; but we shall be glad to get out of it, and\nthey will all be glad to have us. Why should we fret and drudge? Our\nmeat will taste to-morrow as it did yesterday, and we may at last have\nhad enough of it. \"Ah,\" said my languid gentleman at Oxford, \"there's\nnothing new or true,--and no matter.\"\n\nWith a little more bitterness, the cynic moans: our life is like an\nass led to market by a bundle of hay being carried before him: he sees\nnothing but the bundle of hay. \"There is so much trouble in coming\ninto the world,\" said Lord Bolingbroke, \"and so much more, as well as\nmeanness, in going out of it, that 'tis hardly worth while to be here\nat all.\" I knew a philosopher of this kidney, who was accustomed briefly\nto sum up his experience of human nature in saying, \"Mankind is a\ndamned rascal:\" and the natural corollary is pretty sure to\nfollow,--\"The world lives by humbug, and so will I.\"\n\nThe abstractionist and the materialist thus mutually exasperating each\nother, and the scoffer expressing the worst of materialism, there\narises a third party to occupy the middle ground between these two,\nthe skeptic, namely. He finds both wrong by being in extremes. He\nlabors to plant his feet, to be the beam of the balance. He will not\ngo beyond his card. He sees the one-sidedness of these men of the\nstreet; he will not be a Gibeonite; he stands for the intellectual\nfaculties, a cool head, and whatever serves to keep it cool; no\nunadvised industry, no unrewarded self-devotion, no loss of the brains\nin toil. Am I an ox, or a dray?--You are both in extremes, he says.\nYou that will have all solid, and a world of pig-lead, deceive\nyourselves grossly. You believe yourselves rooted and grounded on\nadamant; and, yet, if we uncover the last facts of our knowledge, you\nare spinning like bubbles in a river, you know not whither or whence,\nand you are bottomed and capped and wrapped in delusions.\n\nNeither will he be betrayed to a book, and wrapped in a gown. The\nstudious class are their own victims; they are thin and pale, their\nfeet are cold, their heads are hot, the night is without sleep, the\nday a fear of interruption,--pallor, squalor, hunger, and egotism. If\nyou come near them, and see what conceits they entertain,--they are\nabstractionists, and spend their days and nights in dreaming some\ndreams; in expecting the homage of society to some precious scheme\nbuilt on a truth, but destitute of proportion in its presentment, of\njustness in its application, and of all energy of will in the schemer\nto embody and vitalize it.\n\nBut I see plainly, he says, that I cannot see. I know that human\nstrength is not in extremes, but in avoiding extremes. I, at least,\nwill shun the weakness of philosophizing beyond my depth. What is the\nuse of pretending to powers we have not? What is the use of pretending\nto assurances we have not, respecting the other life? Why exaggerate\nthe power of virtue? Why be an angel before your time? These strings,\nwound up too high, will snap. If there is a wish for immortality, and\nno evidence, why not say just that? If there are conflicting evidences,\nwhy not state them? If there is not ground for a candid thinker to\nmake up his mind, yea or nay,--why not suspend the judgment? I weary\nof these dogmatizers. I tire of these hacks of routine, who deny the\ndogmas. I neither affirm nor deny. I stand here to try the case. I am\nhere to consider,--to consider how it is. I will try to keep the balance\ntrue. Of what use to take the chair, and glibly rattle off theories\nof societies, religion, and nature, when I know that practical\nobjections lie in the way, insurmountable by me and by my mates? Why\nso talkative in public, when each of my neighbors can pin me to my\nseat by arguments I cannot refute? Why pretend that life is so simple\na game, when we know how subtle and elusive the Proteus is? Why think\nto shut up all things in your narrow coop, when we know there are not\none or two only, but ten, twenty, a thousand things, and unlike? Why\nfancy that you have all the truth in your keeping? There is much to\nsay on all sides.\n\nWho shall forbid a wise skepticism, seeing that there is no practical\nquestion on which anything more than an approximate solution can be\nhad? Is not marriage an open question when it is alleged, from the\nbeginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to\nget out, and such as are out wish to get in? And the reply of Socrates,\nto him who asked whether he should choose a wife, still remains\nreasonable, \"that, whether he should choose one or not, he would repent\nit.\" Is not the state a question? All society is divided in opinion\non the subject of the state. Nobody loves it; great numbers dislike\nit, and suffer conscientious scruples to allegiance: and the only\ndefense set up, is, the fear of doing worse in disorganizing. Is it\notherwise with the church? Or, to put any of the questions which touch\nmankind nearest,--shall the young man aim at a leading part in law,\nin politics, in trade? It will not be pretended that a success in\neither of these kinds is quite coincident with what is best and inmost\nin his mind. Shall he, then, cutting the stays that hold him fast to\nthe social state, put out to sea with no guidance but his genius? There\nis much to say on both sides. Remember the open question between the\npresent order of \"competition,\" and the friends of \"attractive and\nassociated labor.\" The generous minds embrace the proposition of labor\nshared by all; it is the only honesty; nothing else is safe. It is\nfrom the poor man's hut alone, that strength and virtue come; and yet,\non the other side, it is alleged that labor impairs the form, and\nbreaks the spirit of man, and the laborers cry unanimously, \"We have\nno thoughts.\" Culture, how indispensable! I cannot forgive you the\nwant of accomplishment; and yet, culture will instantly destroy that\nchiefest beauty of spontaneousness. Excellent is culture for a savage;\nbut once let him read in the book, and he is no longer able not to\nthink of Plutarch's heroes. In short, since true fortitude of\nunderstanding consists \"in not letting what we know be embarrassed by\nwhat we do not know,\" we ought to secure those advantages which we can\ncommand, and not risk them by clutching after the airy and unattainable.\nCome, no chimeras! Let us go abroad; let us mix in affairs; let us\nlearn, and get, and have, and climb. \"Men are a sort of moving plants,\nand, like trees, receive a great part of their nourishment from the\nair. If they keep too much at home, they pine.\" Let us have a robust,\nmanly life; let us know what we know, for certain; what we have, let\nit be solid, and seasonable, and our own. A world in the hand is worth\ntwo in the bush. Let us have to do with real men and women, and not\nwith skipping ghosts.\n\nThis, then, is the right ground of the skeptic,--this of consideration,\nof self-containing; not at all of unbelief; not at all of universal\ndenying, nor of universal doubting,--doubting even that he doubts;\nleast of all, of scoffing and profligate jeering at all that is stable\nand good. These are no more his moods than are those of religion and\nphilosophy. He is the considerer, the prudent, taking in sail, counting\nstock, husbanding his means, believing that a man has too many enemies,\nthan that he can afford to be his own; that we cannot give ourselves\ntoo many advantages, in this unequal conflict, with powers so vast and\nunweariable ranged on one side, and this little, conceited, vulnerable\npopinjay that a man is, bobbing up and down into every danger, on the\nother. It is a position taken up for better defense, as of more safety,\nand one that can be maintained; and it is one of more opportunity and\nrange; as, when we build a house, the rule is, to set it not too high\nnor too low, under the wind, but out of the dirt.\n\nThe philosophy we want is one of fluxions and mobility. The Spartan\nand Stoic schemes are too stark and stiff for our occasion. A theory\nof Saint John, and of non-resistance, seems, on the other hand, too\nthin and aerial. We want some coat woven of elastic steel, stout as\nthe first, and limber as the second. We want a ship in these billows\nwe inhabit. An angular, dogmatic house would be rent to chips and\nsplinters, in this storm of many elements. No, it must be tight, and\nfit to the form of man, to live at all; as a shell is the architecture\nof a house founded on the sea. The soul of man must be the type of our\nscheme, just as the body of man is the type after which a dwelling-house\nis built. Adaptiveness is the peculiarity of human nature. We are\ngolden averages, volitant stabilities, compensated or periodic errors,\nhouses founded on the sea. The wise skeptic wishes to have a near view\nof the best game, and the chief players; what is best in the planet;\nart and nature, places and events, but mainly men. Everything that is\nexcellent in mankind,--a form of grace, an arm of iron, lips of\npersuasion, a brain of resources, every one skilful to play and win,--he\nwill see and judge.\n\nThe terms of admission to this spectacle are, that he have a certain\nsolid and intelligible way of living of his own; some method of\nanswering the inevitable needs of human life; proof that he has played\nwith skill and success; that he has evinced the temper, stoutness, and\nthe range of qualities which, among his contemporaries and countrymen,\nentitle him to fellowship and trust. For, the secrets of life are not\nshown except to sympathy and likeness. Men do not confide themselves\nto boys, or coxcombs, or pedants, but to their peers. Some wise\nlimitation, as the modern phrase is; some condition between the\nextremes, and having itself a positive quality; some stark and\nsufficient man, who is not salt or sugar, but sufficiently related to\nthe world to do justice to Paris or London, and, at the same time, a\nvigorous and original thinker, whom cities cannot overawe, but who\nuses them,--is the fit person to occupy this ground of speculation.\n\nThese qualities meet in the character of Montaigne. And yet, since the\npersonal regard which I entertain for Montaigne may be unduly great,\nI will, under the shield of this prince of egotists, offer, as an\napology for electing him as the representative of skepticism, a word\nor two to explain how my love began and grew for this admirable gossip.\n\nA single odd volume of Cotton's translation of the Essays remained to\nme from my father's library, when a boy. It lay long neglected, until,\nafter many years, when I was newly escaped from college, I read the\nbook, and procured the remaining volumes. I remember the delight and\nwonder in which I lived with it. It seemed to me as if I had myself\nwritten the book, in some former life, so sincerely it spoke to my\nthought and experience. It happened, when in Paris, in 1833, that, in\nthe cemetery of Pere le Chaise, I came to a tomb of Augustus Collignon,\nwho died in 1830, aged sixty-eight years, and who, said the monument,\n\"lived to do right, and had formed himself to virtue on the Essays of\nMontaigne.\" Some years later, I became acquainted with an accomplished\nEnglish poet, John Sterling; and, in prosecuting my correspondence,\nI found that, from a love of Montaigne, he had made a pilgrimage to\nhis chateau, still standing near Castellan, in Perigord, and, after\ntwo hundred and fifty years, had copied from the walls of his library\nthe inscriptions which Montaigne had written there. That Journal of\nMr. Sterling's, published in the Westminster Review, Mr. Hazlitt has\nreprinted in the Prolegomenae to his edition of the Essays. I heard\nwith pleasure that one of the newly-discovered autographs of William\nShakspeare was in a copy of Florio's translation of Montaigne. It is\nthe only book which we certainly know to have been in the poet's\nlibrary. And, oddly enough, the duplicate copy of Florio, which the\nBritish Museum purchased, with a view of protecting the Shakspeare\nautograph (as I was informed in the Museum), turned out to have the\nautograph of Ben Jonson in the fly-leaf. Leigh Hunt relates of Lord\nByron, that Montaigne was the only great writer of past times whom he\nread with avowed satisfaction. Other coincidences, not needful to be\nmentioned here, concurred to make this old Gascon still new and immortal\nfor me.\n\nIn 1571, on the death of his father, Montaigne, then thirty-eight years\nold, retired from the practice of law, at Bordeaux, and settled himself\non his estate. Though he had been a man of pleasure, and sometimes a\ncourtier, his studious habits now grew on him, and he loved the compass,\nstaidness, and independence of the country gentleman's life. He took\nup his economy in good earnest, and made his farms yield the most.\nDownright and plain-dealing, and abhorring to be deceived or to\ndeceive, he was esteemed in the country for his sense and probity. In\nthe civil wars of the League, which converted every house into a fort,\nMontaigne kept his gates open, and his house without defense. All\nparties freely came and went, his courage and honor being universally\nesteemed. The neighboring lords and gentry brought jewels and papers\nto him for safekeeping. Gibbon reckons, in these bigoted times, but\ntwo men of liberality in France,--Henry IV. and Montaigne.\n\nMontaigne is the frankest and honestest of all writers. His French\nfreedom runs into grossness; but he has anticipated all censures by\nthe bounty of his own confessions. In his times, books were written\nto one sex only, and almost all were written in Latin; so that, in a\nhumorist, a certain nakedness of statement was permitted, which our\nmanners, of a literature addressed equally to both sexes, do not allow.\nBut, though a biblical plainness, coupled with a most uncanonical\nlevity, may shut his pages to many sensitive readers, yet the offence\nis superficial. He parades it: he makes the most of it; nobody can\nthink or say worse of him than he does. He pretends to most of the\nvices; and, if there be any virtue in him, he says, it got in by\nstealth. There is no man, in his opinion, who has not deserved hanging\nfive or six times; and he pretends no exception in his own behalf.\n\"Five or six as ridiculous stories,\" too, he says, \"can be told of me,\nas of any man living.\" But, with all this really superfluous frankness,\nthe opinion of an invincible probity grows into every reader's mind.\n\n\"When I the most strictly and religiously confess myself, I find that\nthe best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice; and I am afraid\nthat Plato, in his purest virtue (I, who am as sincere and perfect a\nlover of virtue of that stamp as any other whatever), if he had\nlistened, and laid his ear close to himself, would have heard some\njarring sound of human mixture; but faint and remote, and only to be\nperceived by himself.\"\n\nHere is an impatience and fastidiousness at color or pretense of any\nkind. He has been in courts so long as to have conceived a furious\ndisgust at appearances; he will indulge himself with a little cursing\nand swearing; he will talk with sailors and gypsies, use flash and\nstreet ballads; he has stayed indoors till he is deadly sick; he will\nto the open air, though it rain bullets. He has seen too much of\ngentlemen of the long robe, until he wishes for cannibals; and is so\nnervous, by factitious life, that he thinks, the more barbarous man\nis, the better he is. He likes his saddle. You may read theology, and\ngrammar, and metaphysics elsewhere. Whatever you get here, shall smack\nof the earth and of real life, sweet, or smart, or stinging. He makes\nno hesitation to entertain you with the records of his disease; and\nhis journey to Italy is quite full of that matter. He took and kept\nthis position of equilibrium. Over his name, he drew an emblematic\npair of scales, and wrote, _Que sais-je?_ under it. As I look at\nhis effigy opposite the title-page, I seem to hear him say, \"You may\nplay old Poz, if you will; you may rail and exaggerate,--I stand here\nfor truth, and will not, for all the states, and churches, and revenues,\nand personal reputations of Europe, overstate the dry fact, as I see\nit; I will rather mumble and prose about what I certainly know,--my\nhouse and barns; my father, my wife, and my tenants; my old lean bald\npate; my knives and forks; what meats I eat, and what drinks I prefer;\nand a hundred straws just as ridiculous,--than I will write, with a\nfine crow-quill, a fine romance. I like gray days, and autumn and\nwinter weather. I am gray and autumnal myself, and think an undress,\nand old shoes that do not pinch my feet, and old friends who do not\nconstrain me, and plain topics where I do not need to strain myself\nand pump my brains, the most suitable. Our condition as men is risky\nand ticklish enough. One cannot be sure of himself and his fortune an\nhour, but he may be whisked off into some pitiable or ridiculous plight.\nWhy should I vapor and play the philosopher, instead of ballasting,\nthe best I can, this dancing balloon? So, at least, I live within\ncompass, keep myself ready for action, and can shoot the gulf, at last,\nwith decency. If there be anything farcical in such a life, the blame\nis not mine; let it lie at fate's and nature's door.\"\n\nThe Essays, therefore, are an entertaining soliloquy on every random\ntopic that comes into his head; treating everything without ceremony,\nyet with masculine sense. There have been men with deeper insight;\nbut, one would say, never a man with such abundance of thoughts; he\nis never dull, never insincere, and has the genius to make the reader\ncare for all that he cares for.\n\nThe sincerity and marrow of the man reaches to his sentences. I know\nnot anywhere the book that seems less written. It is the language of\nconversation transferred to a book. Cut these words, and they would\nbleed; they are vascular and alive. One has the same pleasure in it\nthat we have in listening to the necessary speech of men about their\nwork, when any unusual circumstance give momentary importance to the\ndialogue. For blacksmiths and teamsters do not trip in their speech;\nit is a shower of bullets. It is Cambridge men who correct themselves,\nand begin again at every half-sentence, and, moreover, will pun, and\nrefine too much, and swerve from the matter to the expression. Montaigne\ntalks with shrewdness, knows the world, and books, and himself, and\nuses the positive degree; never shrieks, or protests, or prays; no\nweakness, no convulsion, no superlative; does not wish to jump out of\nhis skin, or play any antics, or annihilate space or time; but is stout\nand solid; tastes every moment of the day; likes pain, because it makes\nhim feel himself, and realize things; as we pinch ourselves to know\nthat we are awake. He keeps the plain; he rarely mounts or sinks; likes\nto feel solid ground, and the stones underneath. His writing has no\nenthusiasms, no aspiration; contented, self-respecting, and keeping\nthe middle of the road. There is but one exception,--in his love for\nSocrates. In speaking of him, for once his cheek flushes, and his style\nrises to passion.\n\nMontaigne died of a quinsy, at the age of sixty, in 1592. When he came\nto die, he caused the mass to be celebrated in his chamber. At the age\nof thirty-three, he had been married. \"But,\" he says, \"might I have\nhad my own will, I would not have married Wisdom herself, if she would\nhave had me; but 'tis to much purpose to evade it, the common custom\nand use of life will have it so. Most of my actions are guided by\nexample, not choice.\" In the hour of death he gave the same weight to\ncustom. _Que sais-je?_ What do I know.\n\nThis book of Montaigne the world has endorsed, by translating it into\nall tongues, and printing seventy-five editions of it in Europe; and\nthat, too, a circulation somewhat chosen, namely, among courtiers,\nsoldiers, princes, men of the world, and men of wit and generosity.\n\nShall we say that Montaigne has spoken wisely, and given the right and\npermanent expression of the human mind, on the conduct of life?\n\nWe are natural believers. Truth, or the connection between cause and\neffect, alone interests us. We are persuaded that a thread runs through\nall things; all worlds are strung on it, as beads; and men, and events,\nand life, come to us, only because of that thread; they pass and repass,\nonly that we may know the direction and continuity of that line. A\nbook or statement which goes to show that there is no line, but random\nand chaos, a calamity out of nothing, a prosperity and no account of\nit, a hero born from a fool, a fool from a hero,--dispirits us. Seen\nor unseen, we believe the tie exists. Talent makes counterfeit ties;\ngenius finds the real ones. We hearken to the man of science, because\nwe anticipate the sequence in natural phenomena which he uncovers. We\nlove whatever affirms, connects, preserves; and dislike what scatters\nor pulls down. One man appears whose nature is to all men's eyes\nconserving and constructive; his presence supposes a well-ordered\nsociety, agriculture, trade, large institutions, and empire. If these\ndid not exist, they would begin to exist through his endeavors.\nTherefore, he cheers and comforts men, who feel all this in him very\nreadily. The nonconformist and the rebel say all manner of unanswerable\nthings against the existing republic, but discover to our sense no\nplan of house or state of their own. Therefore, though the town, and\nstate, and way of living, which our counselor contemplated, might be\na very modest or musty prosperity, yet men rightly go for him, and\nreject the reformer, so long as he comes only with axe and crowbar.\n\nBut though we are natural conservers and causationists, and reject a\nsour, dumpish unbelief, the skeptical class, which Montaigne represents,\nhave reason, and every man, at some time, belongs to it. Every superior\nmind will pass through this domain of equilibration,--I should rather\nsay, will know how to avail himself of the checks and balances in\nnature, as a natural weapon against the exaggeration and formalism of\nbigots and blockheads.\n\nSkepticism is the attitude assumed by the student in relation to the\nparticulars which society adores, but which he sees to be reverent\nonly in their tendency and spirit. The ground occupied by the skeptic\nis the vestibule of the temple. Society does not like to have any\nbreath of question blown on the existing order. But the interrogation\nof custom at all points is an inevitable stage in the growth of every\nsuperior mind, and is the evidence of its perception of the flowing\npower which remains itself in all changes.\n\nThe superior mind will find itself equally at odds with the evils of\nsociety, and with the projects that are offered to relieve them. The\nwise skeptic is a bad citizen; no conservative; he sees the selfishness\nof property, and the drowsiness of institutions. But neither is he fit\nto work with any democratic party that ever was constituted; for parties\nwish every one committed, and he penetrates the popular patriotism.\nHis politics are those of the \"Soul's Errand\" of Sir Walter Raleigh;\nor of Krishna, in the Bhagavat, \"There is none who is worthy of my\nlove or hatred;\" while he sentences law, physic, divinity, commerce,\nand custom. He is a reformer: yet he is no better member of the\nphilanthropic association. It turns out that he is not the champion\nof the operative, the pauper, the prisoner, the slave. It stands in\nhis mind, that our life in this world is not of quite so easy\ninterpretation as churches and school-books say. He does not wish to\ntake ground against these benevolences, to play the part of devil's\nattorney, and blazon every doubt and sneer that darkens the sun for\nhim. But he says, There are doubts.\n\nI mean to use the occasion, and celebrate the calendar-day of our Saint\nMichel de Montaigne, by counting and describing these doubts or\nnegations. I wish to ferret them out of their holes, and sun them a\nlittle. We must do with them as the police do with old rogues, who are\nshown up to the public at the marshal's office. They will never be so\nformidable, when once they have been identified and registered. But\nI mean honestly by them--that justice shall be done to their terrors.\nI shall not take Sunday objections, made up on purpose to be put down.\nI shall take the worst I can find, whether I can dispose of them, or\nthey of me.\n\nI do not press the skepticism of the materialist. I know the quadruped\nopinion will not prevail. 'Tis of no importance what bats and oxen\nthink. The first dangerous symptom I report is, the levity of intellect;\nas if it were fatal to earnestness to know much. Knowledge is the\nknowing that we cannot know. The dull pray; the geniuses are light\nmockers. How respectable is earnestness on every platform! but intellect\nkills it. Nay, San Carlo, my subtle and admirable friend, one of the\nmost penetrating of men, finds that all direct ascension, even of lofty\npiety, leads to this ghastly insight, and sends back the votary\norphaned. My astonishing San Carlo thought the lawgivers and saints\ninfected. They found the ark empty; saw, and would not tell; and tried\nto choke off their approaching followers, by saying, \"Action, action,\nmy dear fellows, is for you!\" Bad as was to me this detection by San\nCarlo, this frost in July, this blow from a brick, there was still a\nworse, namely, the cloy or satiety of the saints. In the mount of\nvision, ere they have yet risen from their knees, they say, \"We discover\nthat this our homage and beatitude is partial and deformed; we must\nfly for relief to the suspected and reviled Intellect, to the\nUnderstanding, the Mephistopheles, to the gymnastics of latent.\"\n\nThis is hobgoblin the first; and, though it has been the subject of\nmuch elegy, in our nineteenth century, from Byron, Goethe, and other\npoets of less fame, not to mention many distinguished private\nobservers,--I confess it is not very affecting to my imagination; for\nit seems to concern the shattering of baby-houses and crockery-shops.\nWhat flutters the church of Rome, or of England, or of Geneva, or of\nBoston, may yet be very far from touching any principle of faith. I\nthink that the intellect and moral sentiment are unanimous; and that,\nthough philosophy extirpates bugbears, yet it supplies the natural\nchecks of vice, and polarity to the soul. I think that the wiser a man\nis, the more stupendous he finds the natural and moral economy, and\nlifts himself to a more absolute reliance.\n\nThere is the power of moods, each setting at nought all but its own\ntissue of facts and beliefs. There is the power of complexions,\nobviously modifying the dispositions and sentiments. The beliefs and\nunbeliefs appear to be structural; and, as soon as each man attains\nthe poise and vivacity which allow the whole machinery to play, he\nwill not need extreme examples, but will rapidly alternate all opinions\nin his own life. Our life is March weather, savage and serene in one\nhour. We go forth austere, dedicated, believing in the iron links of\nDestiny, and will not turn on our heel to save our life; but a book,\nor a bust, or only the sound of a name, shoots a spark through the\nnerves, and we suddenly believe in will: my finger-ring shall be the\nseal of Solomon: fate is for imbeciles: all is possible to the resolved\nmind. Presently, a new experience gives a new turn to our thoughts:\ncommon sense resumes its tyranny: we say, \"Well, the army, after all,\nis the gate to fame, manners, and poetry: and, look you,--on the whole,\nselfishness plants best, prunes best, makes the best commerce, and the\nbest citizen.\" Are the opinions of a man on right and wrong, on fate\nand causation, at the mercy of a broken sleep or an indigestion? Is\nhis belief in God and Duty no deeper than a stomach evidence? And what\nguaranty for the permanence of his opinions? I like not the French\ncelerity,--a new church and state once a week.--This is the second\nnegation; and I shall let it pass for what it will. As far as it asserts\nrotation of states of mind, I suppose it suggests its own remedy,\nnamely, in the record of larger periods. What is the mean of many\nstates; of all the states? Does the general voice of ages affirm any\nprinciple, or is no community of sentiment discoverable in distant\ntimes and places? And when it shows the power of self-interest, I\naccept that as a part of the divine law, and must reconcile it with\naspiration the best I can.\n\nThe word Fate, or Destiny, expresses the sense of mankind, in all\nages,--that the laws of the world do not always befriend, but often\nhurt and crush us. Fate, in the shape of Kinde or nature, grows over\nus like grass. We paint Time with a scythe; Love and Fortune, blind;\nand Destiny, deaf. We have too little power of resistance against this\nferocity which champs us up. What front can we make against these\nunavoidable, victorious, maleficent forces? What can I do against the\ninfluence of Race, in my history? What can I do against hereditary and\nconstitutional habits, against scrofula, lymph, impotence? against\nclimate, against barbarism, in my country? I can reason down or deny\neverything, except this perpetual Belly; feed he must and will, and\nI cannot make him respectable.\n\nBut the main resistance which the affirmative impulse finds, and one\nincluding all others, is in the doctrine of the Illusionists. There\nis a painful rumor in circulation, that we have been practiced upon\nin all the principal performances of life, and free agency is the\nemptiest name. We have been sopped and drugged with the air, with food,\nwith woman, with children, with sciences, with events which leave us\nexactly where they found us. The mathematics, 'tis complained, leave\nthe mind where they find it: so do all sciences; and so do all events\nand actions. I find a man who has passed through all the sciences, the\nchurl he was; and, through all the offices, learned, civil, and social,\ncan detect the child. We are not the less necessitated to dedicate\nlife to them. In fact, we may come to accept it as the fixed rule and\ntheory of our state of education, that God is a substance, and his\nmethod is illusion. The eastern sages owned the goddess Yoganidra, the\ngreat illusory energy of Vishnu, by whom, as utter ignorance, the whole\nworld is beguiled.\n\nOr, shall I state it thus?--The astonishment of life, is, the absence\nof any appearance of reconciliation between the theory and practice\nof life. Reason, the prized reality, the Law, is apprehended, now and\nthen, for a serene and profound moment, amidst the hubbub of cares and\nworks which have no direct bearing on it;--is then lost, for months\nor years, and again found, for an interval, to be lost again. If we\ncompute it in time, we may, in fifty years, have half a dozen reasonable\nhours. But what are these cares and works the better? A method in the\nworld we do not see, but this parallelism of great and little, which\nnever react on each other, nor discover the smallest tendency to\nconverge. Experiences, fortunes, governings, readings, writings are\nnothing to the purpose; as when a man comes into the room, it does not\nappear whether he has been fed on yams or buffalo,--he has contrived\nto get so much bone and fibre as he wants, out of rice or out of snow.\nSo vast is the disproportion between the sky of law and the pismire\nof performance under it, that, whether he is a man of worth or a sot,\nis not so great a matter as we say. Shall I add, as one juggle of this\nenchantment, the stunning non-intercourse law which makes cooperation\nimpossible? The young spirit pants to enter society. But all the ways\nof culture and greatness lead to solitary imprisonment. He has been\noften baulked. He did not expect a sympathy with his thought from the\nvillage, but he went with it to the chosen and intelligent, and found\nno entertainment for it, but mere misapprehension, distaste, and\nscoffing. Men are strangely mistimed and misapplied; and the excellence\nof each is an inflamed individualism which separates him more.\n\nThere are these, and more than these diseases of thought, which our\nordinary teachers do not attempt to remove. Now shall we, because a\ngood nature inclines us to virtue's side, say, There are no doubts,--and\nlie for the right? Is life to be led in a brave or in a cowardly manner?\nand is not the satisfaction of the doubts essential to all manliness?\nIs the name of virtue to be a barrier to that which is virtue? Can you\nnot believe that a man of earnest and burly habit may find small good\nin tea, essays, and catechism, and want a rougher instruction, want\nmen, labor, trade, farming, war, hunger, plenty, love, hatred, doubt,\nand terror, to make things plain to him; and has he not a right to\ninsist on being convinced in his own way? When he is convinced, he\nwill be worth the pains.\n\nBelief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief\nin denying them. Some minds are incapable of skepticism. The doubts\nthey profess to entertain are rather a civility or accommodation to\nthe common discourse of their company. They may well give themselves\nleave to speculate, for they are secure of a return. Once admitted to\nthe heaven of thought, they see no relapse into night, but infinite\ninvitation on the other side. Heaven is within heaven, and sky over\nsky, and they are encompassed with divinities. Others there are, to\nwhom the heaven is brass, and it shuts down to the surface of the\nearth. It is a question of temperament, or of more or less immersion\nin nature. The last class must needs have a reflex or parasite faith;\nnot a sight of realities, but an instinctive reliance on the seers and\nbelievers of realities. The manners and thoughts of believers astonish\nthem, and convince them that these have seen something which is hid\nfrom themselves. But their sensual habit would fix the believer to his\nlast position, whilst he as inevitably advances; and presently the\nunbeliever, for love of belief, burns the believer.\n\nGreat believers are always reckoned infidels, impracticable, fantastic,\natheistic, and really men of no account. The spiritualist finds himself\ndriven to express his faith by a series of skepticisms. Charitable\nsouls come with their projects, and ask his cooperation. How can he\nhesitate? It is the rule of mere comity and courtesy to agree where\nyou can, and to turn your sentence with something auspicious, and not\nfreezing and sinister. But he is forced to say, \"O, these things will\nbe as they must be: what can you do? These particular griefs and crimes\nare the foliage and fruit of such trees as we see growing. It is vain\nto complain of the leaf or the berry: cut it off; it will bear another\njust as bad. You must begin your cure lower down.\" The generosities\nof the day prove an intractable element for him. The people's questions\nare not his; their methods are not his; and, against all the dictates\nof good nature, he is driven to say, he has no pleasure in them.\n\nEven the doctrines dear to the hope of man, of the divine Providence,\nand of the immortality of the soul, his neighbors cannot put the\nstatement so that he shall affirm it. But he denies out of more faith,\nand not less. He denies out of honesty. He had rather stand charged\nwith the imbecility of skepticism, than with untruth. I believe, he\nsays, in the moral design of the universe; it exists hospitably for\nthe weal of the souls; but your dogmas seem to me caricatures; why\nshould I make believe them? Will any say, this is cold and infidel?\nThe wise and magnanimous will not say so. They will exult in his\nfar-sighted good-will, that can abandon to the adversary all the ground\nof tradition and common belief, without losing a jot of strength. It\nsees to the end of all transgression. George Fox saw \"that there was\nan ocean of darkness and death; but withal, an infinite ocean of light\nand love which flowed over that of darkness.\"\n\nThe final solution in which skepticism is lost is in the moral\nsentiment, which never forfeits its supremacy. All moods may be safely\ntried, and their weight allowed to all objections: the moral sentiment\nas easily outweighs them all, as any one. This is the drop which\nbalances the sea. I play with the miscellany of facts, and take those\nsuperficial views which we call skepticism; but I know that they will\npresently appear to me in that order which makes skepticism impossible.\nA man of thought must feel the thought that is parent of the universe,\nthat the masses of nature do undulate and flow.\n\nThis faith avails to the whole emergency of life and objects. The world\nis saturated with deity and with law. He is content with just and\nunjust, with sots and fools, with the triumph of folly and fraud. He\ncan behold with serenity the yawning gulf between the ambition of man\nand his power of performance, between the demand and supply of power,\nwhich makes the tragedy of all souls.\n\nCharles Fourier announced that \"the attractions of man are proportioned\nto his destinies;\" in other words, that every desire predicts its own\nsatisfaction. Yet, all experience exhibits the reverse of this; the\nincompetency of power is the universal grief of young and ardent minds.\nThey accuse the divine Providence of a certain parsimony. It has shown\nthe heaven and earth to every child, and filled him with a desire for\nthe whole; a desire raging, infinite; a hunger, as of space to be\nfilled with planets; a cry of famine, as of devils for souls. Then for\nthe satisfaction,--to each man is administered a single drop, a bead\nof dew of vital power per day,--a cup as large as space, and one drop\nof the water of life in it. Each man woke in the morning, with an\nappetite that could eat the solar system like a cake; a spirit for\naction and passion without bounds; he could lay his hand on the morning\nstar; he could try conclusions with gravitation or chemistry; but, on\nthe first motion to prove his strength--hands, feet, senses, gave way,\nand would not serve him. He was an emperor deserted by his states, and\nleft to whistle by himself, or thrust into a mob of emperors, all\nwhistling: and still the sirens sang, \"The attractions are proportioned\nto the destinies.\" In every house, in the heart of each maiden, and\nof each boy, in the soul of the soaring saint, this chasm is found,--\nbetween the largest promise of ideal power, and the shabby experience.\n\nThe expansive nature of truth comes to our succor, elastic, not to be\nsurrounded. Man helps himself by larger generalizations. The lesson\nof life is practically to generalize; to believe what the years and\nthe centuries say against the hours; to resist the usurpation of\nparticulars; to penetrate to their catholic sense. Things seem to say\none thing, and say the reverse. The appearance is immoral; the result\nis moral. Things seem to tend downward, to justify despondency, to\npromote rogues, to defeat the just; and, by knaves, as by martyrs, the\njust cause is carried forward. Although knaves win in every political\nstruggle, although society seems to be delivered over from the hands\nof one set of criminals into the hands of another set of criminals,\nas fast as the government is changed, and the march of civilization\nis a train of felonies, yet, general ends are somehow answered. We\nsee, now, events forced on, which seem to retard or retrograde the\ncivility of ages. But the world-spirit is a good swimmer, and storms\nand waves cannot drown him. He snaps his finger at laws; and so,\nthroughout history, heaven seems to affect low and poor means. Through\nthe years and the centuries, through evil agents, through toys and\natoms, a great and beneficent tendency irresistibly streams.\n\nLet a man learn to look for the permanent in the mutable and fleeting;\nlet him learn to bear the disappearance of things he was wont to\nreverence, without losing his reverence; let him learn that he is here,\nnot to work, but to be worked upon; and that, though abyss open under\nabyss, and opinion displace opinion, all are at last contained in the\nEternal cause.--\n\n  \"If my bark sink, 'tis to another sea.\"\n\n\n\n\nV. SHAKSPEARE; OR, THE POET.\n\n\nGreat men are more distinguished by range and extent than by\noriginality. If we require the originality which consists in weaving,\nlike a spider, their web from their own bowels; in finding clay, and\nmaking bricks and building the house, no great men are original. Nor\ndoes valuable originality consist in unlikeness to other men. The hero\nis in the press of knights, and the thick of events; and, seeing what\nmen want, and sharing their desire, he adds the needful length of sight\nand of arm, to come at the desired point. The greatest genius is the\nmost indebted man. A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes\nuppermost, and, because he says everything, saying, at last, something\ngood; but a heart in unison with his time and country. There is nothing\nwhimsical and fantastic in his production, but sweet and sad earnest,\nfreighted with the weightiest convictions, and pointed with the most\ndetermined aim which any man or class knows of in his times.\n\nThe Genius of our life is jealous of individuals, and will not have\nany individual great, except through the general. There is no choice\nto genius. A great man does not wake up on some fine morning, and say,\n\"I am full of life, I will go to sea, and find an Antarctic continent:\nto-day I will square the circle: I will ransack botany, and find a new\nfood for man: I have a new architecture in my mind: I foresee a new\nmechanic power;\" no, but he finds himself in the river of the thoughts\nand events, forced onward by the ideas and necessities of his\ncontemporaries. He stands where all the eyes of men look one way, and\ntheir hands all point in the direction in which he should go. The\nchurch has reared him amidst rites and pomps, and he carries out the\nadvice which her music gave him, and builds a cathedral needed by her\nchants and processions. He finds a war raging: it educates him by\ntrumpet, in barracks, and he betters the instruction. He finds two\ncounties groping to bring coal, or flour, or fish, from the place of\nproduction to the place of consumption, and he hits on a railroad.\nEvery master has found his materials collected, and his power lay in\nhis sympathy with his people, and in his love of the materials he\nwrought in. What an economy of power! and what a compensation for the\nshortness of life! All is done to his hand. The world has brought him\nthus far on his way. The human race has gone out before him, sunk the\nhills, filled the hollows, and bridged the rivers. Men, nations, poets,\nartisans, women, all have worked for him, and he enters into their\nlabors. Choose any other thing, out of the line of tendency, out of\nthe national feeling and history, and he would have all to do for\nhimself: his powers would be expended in the first preparations. Great\ngenial power, one would almost say, consists in not being original at\nall; in being altogether receptive; in letting the world do all, and\nsuffering the spirit of the hour to pass unobstructed through the mind.\n\nShakspeare's youth fell in a time when the English people were\nimportunate for dramatic entertainments. The court took offence easily\nat political allusions, and attempted to suppress them. The Puritans,\na growing and energetic party, and the religious among the Anglican\nchurch, would suppress them. But the people wanted them. Inn-yards,\nhouses without roofs, and extemporaneous enclosures at country fairs,\nwere the ready theatres of strolling players. The people had tasted\nthis new joy; and, as we could not hope to suppress newspapers now,--no,\nnot by the strongest party,--neither then could king, prelate, or\npuritan, alone or united, suppress an organ, which was ballad, epic,\nnewspaper, caucus, lecture, punch, and library, at the same time.\nProbably king, prelate and puritan, all found their own account in it.\nIt had become, by all causes, a national interest,--by no means\nconspicuous, so that some great scholar would have thought of treating\nit in an English history,--but not a whit less considerable, because\nit was cheap, and of no account, like a baker's-shop. The best proof\nof its vitality is the crowd of writers which suddenly broke into this\nfield; Kyd, Marlow, Greene, Jonson, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood,\nMiddleton, Peele, Ford, Massinger, Beaumont, and Fletcher.\n\nThe secure possession, by the stage, of the public mind, is of the\nfirst importance to the poet who works for it. He loses no time in\nidle experiments. Here is audience and expectation prepared. In the\ncase of Shakespeare there is much more. At the time when he left\nStratford, and went up to London, a great body of stage-plays, of\nall dates and writers, existed in manuscript, and were in turn produced\non the boards. Here is the Tale of Troy, which the audience will bear\nhearing some part of every week; the Death of Julius Caesar, and other\nstories out of Plutarch, which they never tire of; a shelf full of\nEnglish history, from the chronicles of Brut and Arthur, down to the\nroyal Henries, which men hear eagerly; and a string of doleful\ntragedies, merry Italian tales, and Spanish voyages, which all the\nLondon 'prentices know. All the mass has been treated, with more or\nless skill, by every playwright, and the prompter has the soiled and\ntattered manuscripts. It is now no longer possible to say who wrote\nthem first. They have been the property of the Theatre so long, and\nso many rising geniuses have enlarged or altered them, inserting a\nspeech, or a whole scene, or adding a song, that no man can any longer\nclaim copyright on this work of numbers. Happily, no man wishes to.\nThey are not yet desired in that way. We have few readers, many\nspectators and hearers. They had best lie where they are.\n\nShakspeare, in common with his comrades, esteemed the mass of old\nplays, waste stock, in which any experiment could be freely tried. Had\nthe _prestige_ which hedges about a modern tragedy existed, nothing\ncould have been done. The rude warm blood of the living England\ncirculated in the play, as in street-ballads, and gave body which he\nwanted to his airy and majestic fancy. The poet needs a ground in\npopular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain\nhis art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies\na foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so much work done to\nhis hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities\nof his imagination. In short, the poet owes to his legend what sculpture\nowed to the temple. Sculpture in Egypt, and in Greece, grew up in\nsubordination to architecture. It was the ornament of the temple wall:\nat first, a rude relief carved on pediments, then the relief became\nbolder, and a head or arm was projected from the wall, the groups being\nstill arrayed with reference to the building, which serves also as a\nframe to hold the figures; and when, at last, the greatest freedom of\nstyle and treatment was reached, the prevailing genius of architecture\nstill enforced a certain calmness and continence in the statue. As\nsoon as the statue was begun for itself, and with no reference to the\ntemple or palace, the art began to decline: freak, extravagance, and\nexhibition, took the place of the old temperance. This balance-wheel,\nwhich the sculptor found in architecture, the perilous irritability\nof poetic talent found in the accumulated dramatic materials to which\nthe people were already wonted, and which had a certain excellence\nwhich no single genius, however extraordinary, could hope to create.\n\nIn point of fact, it appears that Shakspeare did owe debts in all\ndirections, and was able to use whatever he found; and the amount of\nindebtedness may be inferred from Malone's laborious computations in\nregard to the First, Second, and Third parts of Henry VI., in which,\n\"out of 6043 lines, 1771 were written by some author preceding\nShakspeare; 2373 by him, on the foundation laid by his predecessors;\nand 1899 were entirely his own.\" And the preceding investigation hardly\nleaves a single drama of his absolute invention. Malone's sentence is\nan important piece of external history. In Henry VIII., I think I see\nplainly the cropping out of the original rock on which his own finer\nstratum was laid. The first play was written by a superior, thoughtful\nman, with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, and know well their\ncadence. See Wolsey's soliloquy, and the following scene with Cromwell,\nwhere,--instead of the metre of Shakspeare, whose secret is, that the\nthought constructs the tune, so that reading for the sense will best\nbring out the rhythm,--here the lines are constructed on a given tune,\nand the verse has even a trace of pulpit eloquence. But the play\ncontains, through all its length, unmistakable traits of Shakspeare's\nhand, and some passages, as the account of the coronation, are like\nautographs. What is odd, the compliment to Queen Elizabeth is in the\nbad rhythm.\n\nShakspeare knew that tradition supplies a better fable that any\ninvention can. If he lost any credit of design, he augmented his\nresources; and, at that day our petulant demand for originality was\nnot so much pressed. There was no literature for the million. The\nuniversal reading, the cheap press, were unknown. A great poet, who\nappears in illiterate times, absorbs into his sphere all the light\nwhich is anywhere radiating. Every intellectual jewel, every flower\nof sentiment, it is his fine office to bring to his people; and he\ncomes to value his memory equally with his invention. He is therefore\nlittle solicitous whence his thoughts have been derived; whether through\ntranslation, whether through tradition, whether by travel in distant\ncountries, whether by inspiration; from whatever source, they are\nequally welcome to his uncritical audience. Nay, he borrows very near\nhome. Other men say wise things as well as he; only they say a good\nmany foolish things, and do not know when they have spoken wisely. He\nknows the sparkle of the true stone, and puts it in high place, wherever\nhe finds it. Such is the happy position of Homer, perhaps; of Chaucer,\nof Saadi. They felt that all wit was their wit. And they are librarians\nand historiographers, as well as poets. Each romancer was heir and\ndispenser of all the hundred tales of the world,--\n\n  \"Presenting Thebes' and Pelops' line\n  And the tale of Troy divine.\"\n\nThe influence of Chaucer is conspicuous in all our early literature;\nand, more recently, not only Pope and Dryden have been beholden to\nhim, but, in the whole society of English writers, a large\nunacknowledged debt is easily traced. One is charmed with the opulence\nwhich feeds so many pensioners. But Chaucer is a huge borrower. Chaucer,\nit seems, drew continually, through Lydgate and Caxton, from Guido di\nColonna, whose Latin romance of the Trojan war was in turn a compilation\nfrom Dares Phrygius, Ovid, and Statius. Then Petrarch, Boccaccio, and\nthe Provencal poets, are his benefactors: the Romaunt of the Rose is\nonly judicious translation from William of Lorris and John of Meun:\nTroilus and Creseide, from Lollius of Urbino: The Cock and the Fox,\nfrom the _Lais_ of Marie: The House of Fame, from the French or\nItalian: and poor Gower he uses as if he were only a brick-kiln or\nstone-quarry out of which to build his house. He steals by this\napology,--that what he takes has no worth where he finds it, and the\ngreatest where he leaves it. It has come to be practically a sort of\nrule in literature, that a man, having once shown himself capable of\noriginal writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal from the writings\nof others at discretion. Thought is the property of him who can\nentertain it; and of him who can adequately place it. A certain\nawkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but, as soon as we\nhave learned what to do with them, they become our own.\n\nThus, all originality is relative. Every thinker is retrospective. The\nlearned member of the legislature, at Westminster, or at Washington,\nspeaks and votes for thousands. Show us the constituency, and the now\ninvisible channels by which the senator is made aware of their wishes,\nthe crowd of practical and knowing men, who, by correspondence or\nconversation, are feeding him with evidence, anecdotes, and estimates,\nand it will bereave his fine attitude and resistance of something of\ntheir impressiveness. As Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Webster vote, so Locke\nand Rousseau think for thousands; and so there were fountains all\naround Homer, Menu, Saadi, or Milton, from which they drew; friends,\nlovers, books, traditions, proverbs,--all perished,--which, if seen,\nwould go to reduce the wonder. Did the bard speak with authority? Did\nhe feel himself, overmatched by any companion? The appeal is to the\nconsciousness of the writer. Is there at last in his breast a Delhi\nwhereof to ask concerning any thought or thing, whether it be verily\nso, yea or nay? and to have answer, and to rely on that? All the debt\nwhich such a man could contract to other wit, would never disturb his\nconsciousness of originality: for the ministrations of books, and of\nother minds, are a whiff of smoke to that most private reality with\nwhich he has conversed.\n\nIt is easy to see that what is best written or done by genius, in the\nworld, was no man's work, but came by wide social labor, when a thousand\nwrought like one, sharing the same impulse. Our English Bible is a\nwonderful specimen of the strength and music of the English language.\nBut it was not made by one man, or at one time; but centuries and\nchurches brought it to perfection. There never was a time when there\nwas not some translation existing. The Liturgy, admired for its energy\nand pathos, is an anthology of the piety of ages and nations, a\ntranslation of the prayers and forms of the Catholic church,--these\ncollected, too, in long periods, from the prayers and meditations of\nevery saint and sacred writer, all over the world. Grotius makes the\nlike remark in respect to the Lord's Prayer, that the single clauses\nof which it is composed were already in use, in the time of Christ,\nin the rabbinical forms. He picked out the grains of gold. The nervous\nlanguage of the Common Law, the impressive forms of our courts, and\nthe precision and substantial truth of the legal distinctions, are the\ncontribution of all the sharp-sighted, strong-minded men who have lived\nin the countries where these laws govern. The translation of Plutarch\ngets its excellence by being translation on translation. There never\nwas a time when there was none. All the truly diomatic and national\nphrases are kept, and all others successively picked out and thrown\naway. Something like the same process had gone on, long before, with\nthe originals of these books. The world takes liberties with\nworld-books. Vedas, Aesop's Fables, Pilpay, Arabian Nights, Cid, Iliad,\nRobin Hood, Scottish Minstrelsy, are not the work of single men. In\nthe composition of such works, the time thinks, the market thinks, the\nmason, the carpenter, the merchant, the farmer, the fop, all think for\nus. Every book supplies its time with one good word; every municipal\nlaw, every trade, every folly of the day, and the generic catholic\ngenius who is not afraid or ashamed to owe his originality to the\noriginality of all, stands with the next age as the recorder and\nembodiment of his own.\n\nWe have to thank the researches of antiquaries, and the Shakspeare\nSociety, for ascertaining the steps of the English drama, from the\nMysteries celebrated in churches and by churchmen, and the final\ndetachment from the church, and the completion of secular plays, from\nFerrex and Porrex, and Gammer Gurton's Needle, down to the possession\nof the stage by the very pieces which Shakspeare altered, remodelled,\nand finally made his own. Elated with success, and piqued by the growing\ninterest of the problem, they have left no book-stall unsearched, no\nchest in a garret unopened, no file of old yellow accounts to decompose\nin damp and worms, so keen was the hope to discover whether the boy\nShakspeare poached or not, whether he held horses at the theater door,\nwhether he kept school, and why he left in his will only his second-best\nbed to Ann Hathaway, his wife.\n\nThere is somewhat touching in the madness with which the passing age\nmischooses the object on which all candles shine, and all eyes are\nturned; the care with which it registers every trifle touching Queen\nElizabeth, and King James, and the Essexes, Leicesters, Burleighs, and\nBuckinghams; and let pass without a single valuable note the founder\nof another dynasty, which alone will cause the Tudor dynasty to be\nremembered,--the man who carries the Saxon race in him by the\ninspiration which feeds him, and on whose thoughts the foremost people\nof the world are now for some ages to be nourished, and minds to receive\nthis and not another bias. A popular player,--nobody suspected he was\nthe poet of the human race; and the secret was kept as faithfully from\npoets and intellectual men, as from courtiers and frivolous people.\nBacon, who took the inventory of the human understanding for his times,\nnever mentioned his name. Ben Jonson, though we have strained his few\nwords of regard and panegyric, had no suspicion of the elastic fame\nwhose first vibrations he was attempting. He no doubt thought the\npraise he has conceded to him generous, and esteemed himself, out of\nall question, the better poet of the two.\n\nIf it need wit to know wit, according to the proverb, Shakspeare's\ntime should be capable of recognizing it. Sir Henry Wotton was born\nfour years after Shakspeare, and died twenty-three years after him;\nand I find among his correspondents and acquaintances, the following\npersons: Theodore Beza, Isaac Casaubon, Sir Philip Sidney, Earl of\nEssex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, Sir Henry Vane,\nIsaac Walton, Dr. Donne, Abraham Cowley, Bellarmine, Charles Cotton,\nJohn Pym, John Hales, Kepler, Vieta, Albericus Gentilis, Paul Sarpi,\nAriminius; with all of whom exist some token of his having communicated,\nwithout enumerating many others, whom doubtless he saw,--Shakspeare,\nSpenser, Jonson, Beaumont, Massinger, two Herberts, Marlow, Chapman,\nand the rest. Since the constellation of great men who appeared in\nGreece in the time of Pericles, there was never any such society;--yet\ntheir genius failed them to find out the best head in the universe.\nOur poet's mask was impenetrable. You cannot see the mountain near.\nIt took a century to make it suspected; and not until two centuries\nhad passed, after his death, did any criticism which we think adequate\nbegin to appear. It was not possible to write the history of Shakspeare\ntill now; for he is the father of German literature: it was on the\nintroduction of Shakspeare into German by Lessing, and the translation\nof his works by Wieland and Schlegel, that the rapid burst of German\nliterature was most intimately connected. It was not until the\nnineteenth century, whose speculative genius is a sort of living Hamlet,\nthat the tragedy of Hamlet should find such wondering readers. Now,\nliterature, philosophy, and thought are Shakspearized. His mind is the\nhorizon beyond which, at present, we do not see. Our ears are educated\nto music by his rhythm. Coleridge and Goethe are the only critics who\nhave expressed our convictions with any adequate fidelity: but there\nis in all cultivated minds a silent appreciation of his superlative\npower and beauty, which, like Christianity, qualifies the period.\n\nThe Shakspeare Society have inquired in all directions, advertised the\nmissing facts, offered money for any information that will lead to\nproof; and with what results? Beside some important illustration of\nthe history of the English stage, to which I have adverted, they have\ngleaned a few facts touching the property, and dealings in regard to\nproperty, of the poet. It appears that, from year to year, he owned\na larger share in the Blackfriars' Theater: its wardrobe and other\nappurtenances were his: that he bought an estate in his native village,\nwith his earnings, as writer and shareholder; that he lived in the\nbest house in Stratford; was intrusted by his neighbors with their\ncommissions in London, as of borrowing money, and the like; that he\nwas a veritable farmer. About the time when he was writing Macbeth,\nhe sues Philip Rogers, in the borough-court of Stratford, for\nthirty-five shillings ten pence, for corn delivered to him at different\ntimes; and, in all respects, appears as a good husband, with no\nreputation for eccentricity or excess. He was a good-natured sort of\nman, an actor and shareholder in the theater, not in any striking\nmanner distinguished from other actors and managers. I admit the\nimportance of this information. It was well worth the pains that have\nbeen taken to procure it.\n\nBut whatever scraps of information concerning his condition these\nresearches may have rescued, they can shed no light upon that infinite\ninvention which is the concealed magnet of his attraction for us. We\nare very clumsy writers of history. We tell the chronicle of parentage,\nbirth, birthplace, schooling, schoolmates, earning of money, marriage,\npublication of books, celebrity, death; and when we have come to an\nend of this gossip, no ray of relation appears between it and the\ngoddess-born; and it seems as if, had we dipped at random into the\n\"Modern Plutarch,\" and read any other life there, it would have fitted\nthe poems as well, It is the essence of poetry to spring, like the\nrainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past,\nand refuse all history. Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and Collier, have\nwasted their oil. The famed theaters, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the\nPark, and Tremont, have vainly assisted. Betterton, Garrick, Kemble,\nKean, and Macready, dedicate their lives to this genius; him they\ncrown, elucidate, obey, and express. The genius knows them not. The\nrecitation begins; one golden word leaps out immortal from all this\npainted pedantry, and sweetly torments us with invitations to its own\ninaccessible homes. I remember, I went once to see the Hamlet of a\nfamed performer, the pride of the English stage; and all I then heard,\nand all I now remember, of the tragedian, was that in which the\ntragedian had no part; simply, Hamlet's question to the ghost,--\n\n            \"What may this mean,\n  That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel\n  Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon?\"\n\nThat imagination which dilates the closet he writes into the world's\ndimension, crowds it with agents in rank and order, as quickly reduces\nthe big reality to be the glimpses of the moon. These tricks of his\nmagic spoil for us the illusions of the green-room. Can any biography\nshed light on the localities into which the Midsummer Night's Dream\nadmits me? Did Shakspeare confide to any notary or parish recorder,\nsacristan, or surrogate, in Stratford, the genesis of that delicate\ncreation? The forest of Arden, the nimble air of Scone Castle, the\nmoonlight of Portia's villa, \"the antres vast and desarts idle,\" of\nOthello's captivity,--where is the third cousin, or grand-nephew, the\nchancellor's file of accounts, or private letter, that has kept one\nword of those transcendent secrets. In fine, in this drama, as in all\ngreat works of art,--in the Cyclopaean architecture of Egypt and India;\nin the Phidian sculpture; the Gothic minsters; the Italian painting;\nthe Ballads of Spain and Scotland,--the Genius draws up the ladder\nafter him, when the creative age goes up to heaven, and gives way to\na new, who see the works, and ask in vain for a history.\n\nShakspeare is the only biographer of Shakspeare; and even he can tell\nnothing, except to the Shakspeare in us; that is, to our most\napprehensive and sympathetic hour. He cannot step from off his tripod,\nand give us anecdotes of his inspirations. Read the antique documents\nextricated, analyzed, and compared, by the assiduous Dyce and Collier;\nand now read one of those skyey sentences,--aerolites,--which seem to\nhave fallen out of heaven, and which, not your experience, but the man\nwithin the breast, has accepted as words of fate; and tell me if they\nmatch; if the former account in any manner for the latter; or, which\ngives the most historical insight into the man.\n\nHence, though our external history is so meager, yet, with Shakspeare\nfor biographer, instead of Aubrey and Rowe, we have really the\ninformation which is material, that which describes character and\nfortune; that which, if we were about to meet the man and deal with\nhim, would most import us to know. We have his recorded convictions\non those questions which knock for answer at every heart,--on life and\ndeath, on love, on wealth and poverty, on the prizes of life, and the\nways whereby we may come at them; on the characters of men, and the\ninfluences, occult and open, which affect their fortunes: and on those\nmysterious and demoniacal powers which defy our science, and which yet\ninterweave their malice and their gift in our brightest hours. Who\never read the volume of Sonnets, without finding that the poet had\nthere revealed, under masks that are no masks to the intelligent, the\nlore of friendship and of love; the confusion of sentiments in the\nmost susceptible, and, at the same time, the most intellectual of men?\nWhat trait of his private mind has he hidden in his dramas? One can\ndiscern, in his ample pictures of the gentleman and the king, what\nforms and humanities pleased him; his delight in troops of friends,\nin large hospitality, in cheerful giving. Let Timon, let Warwick, let\nAntonio the merchant, answer for his great heart. So far from Shakspeare\nbeing the least known, he is the one person, in all modern history,\nknown to us. What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of\nphilosophy, of religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not\nsettled? What mystery has he not signified his knowledge of? What\noffice or function, or district of man's work, has he not remembered?\nWhat king has he not taught state, as Talma taught Napoleon? What\nmaiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he\nnot outloved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not\ninstructed in the rudeness of his behavior?\n\nSome able and appreciating critics think no criticism on Shakspeare\nvaluable, that does not rest purely on the dramatic merit; that he is\nfalsely judged as poet and philosopher. I think as highly as these\ncritics of his dramatic merit, but still think it secondary. He was\na full man, who liked to talk; a brain exhaling thoughts and images,\nwhich, seeking vent, found the drama next at hand. Had he been less,\nwe should have had to consider how well he filled his place, how good\na dramatist he was,--and he is the best in the world. But it turns\nout; that what he has to say is of that weight, as to withdraw some\nattention from the vehicle; and he is like some saint whose history\nis to be rendered into all languages, into verse and prose, into songs\nand pictures, and cut up into proverbs; so that the occasions which\ngave the saint's meaning the form of a conversation, or of a prayer,\nor of a code of laws, is immaterial compared with the universality of\nits application. So it fares with the wise Shakspeare and his book of\nlife. He wrote the airs for all our modern music: he wrote the text\nof modern life; the text of manners: he drew the man of England and\nEurope; the father of the man in America: he drew the man and described\nthe day, and what is done in it: he read the hearts of men and women,\ntheir probity, and their second thought, and wiles; the wiles of\ninnocence, and the transitions by which virtues and vices slide into\ntheir contraries: he could divide the mother's part from the father's\npart in the face of the child, or draw the fine demarcations of freedom\nand fate: he knew the laws of repression which make the police of\nnature: and all the sweets and all the terrors of human lot lay in his\nmind as truly but as softly as the landscape lies on the eye. And the\nimportance of this wisdom of life sinks the form, as of Drama or Epic,\nout of notice. 'Tis like making a question concerning the paper on\nwhich a king's message is written.\n\nShakspeare is as much out of the category of eminent authors, as he\nis out of the crowd. He is inconceivably wise; the others, conceivably.\nA good reader can, in a sort, nestle into Plato's brain, and think\nfrom thence; but not into Shakspeare's. We are still out of doors. For\nexecutive faculty, for creation, Shakspeare is unique. No man can\nimagine it better. He was the farthest reach of subtlety compatible\nwith an individual self,--the subtilest of authors, and only just\nwithin the possibility of authorship. With this wisdom of life, is the\nequal endowment of imaginative and of lyric power. He clothed the\ncreatures of his legend with form and sentiments, as if they were\npeople who had lived under his roof; and few real men have left such\ndistinct characters as these fictions. And they spoke in language as\nsweet as it was fit. Yet his talents never seduced him into an\nostentation, nor did he harp on one string. An omnipresent humanity\nco-ordinates all his faculties. Give a man of talents a story to tell,\nand his partiality will presently appear. He has certain observations,\nopinions, topics, which have some accidental prominence, and which he\ndisposes all to exhibit. He crams this part, and starves that other\npart, consulting not the fitness of the thing, but his fitness and\nstrength. But Shakspeare has no peculiarity, no importunate topic; but\nall is duly given; no veins, no curiosities: no cow-painter, no\nbird-fancier, no mannerist is he: he has no discoverable egotism: the\ngreat he tells greatly; the small subordinately. He is wise without\nemphasis or assertion; he is strong, as nature is strong, who lifts\nthe land into mountain slopes without effort, and by the same rule as\nshe floats a bubble in the air, and likes as well to do the one as the\nother. This makes that equality of power in farce, tragedy, narrative,\nand love-songs; a merit so incessant, that each reader is incredulous\nof the perception of other readers.\n\nThis power of expression, or of transferring the inmost truth of things\ninto music and verse, makes him the type of the poet, and has added\na new problem to metaphysics. This is that which throws him into natural\nhistory, as a main production of the globe, and as announcing new eras\nand ameliorations. Things were mirrored in his poetry without loss or\nblur: he could paint the fine with precision, the great with compass;\nthe tragic and comic indifferently, and without any distortion or\nfavor. He carried his powerful execution into minute details, to a\nhair point; finishes an eyelash or a dimple as firmly as he draws a\nmountain; and yet these like nature's, will bear the scrutiny of the\nsolar microscope.\n\nIn short, he is the chief example to prove that more or less of\nproduction, more or fewer pictures, is a thing indifferent. He had the\npower to make one picture. Daguerre learned how to let one flower etch\nits image on his plate of iodine; and then proceeds at leisure to etch\na million. There are always objects; but there was never representation.\nHere is perfect representation, at last; and now let the world of\nfigures sit for their portraits. No recipe can be given for the making\nof a Shakspeare; but the possibility of the translation of things into\nsong is demonstrated.\n\nHis lyric power lies in the genius of the piece. The sonnets, though\ntheir excellence is lost in the splendor of the dramas, are as\ninimitable as they: and it is not a merit of lines, but a total merit\nof the piece; like the tone of voice of some incomparable person, so\nis this a speech of poetic beings, and any clause as unproducible now\nas a whole poem.\n\nThough the speeches in the plays, and single lines, have a beauty which\ntempts the ear to pause on them for their euphuism, yet the sentence\nis so loaded with meaning, and so linked with its foregoers and\nfollowers, that the logician is satisfied. His means are as admirable\nas his ends; every subordinate invention, by which he helps himself\nto connect some irreconcilable opposites, is a poem too. He is not\nreduced to dismount and walk, because his horses are running off with\nhim in some distant direction: he always rides.\n\nThe finest poetry was first experience: but the thought has suffered\na transformation since it was an experience. Cultivated men often\nattain a good degree of skill in writing verses; but it is easy to\nread, through their poems, their personal history; any one acquainted\nwith parties can name every figure: this is Andrew, and that is Rachel.\nThe sense thus remains prosaic. It is a caterpillar with wings, and\nnot yet a butterfly. In the poet's mind, the fact has gone quite over\ninto the new element of thought, and has lost all that is exuvial.\nThis generosity abides with Shakspeare. We say, from the truth and\ncloseness of his pictures, that he knows the lesson by heart. Yet there\nis not a trace of egotism.\n\nOne more royal trait properly belongs to the poet. I mean his\ncheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,--for beauty is his\naim. He loves virtue, not for its obligation, but for its grace: he\ndelights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that\nsparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds\nover the universe. Epicurus relates, that poetry hath such charms that\na lover might forsake his mistress to partake of them. And the true\nbards have been noted for their firm and cheerful temper. Homer lies\nin sunshine; Chaucer is glad and erect; and Saadi says, \"It was rumored\nabroad that I was penitent; but what had I to do with repentance?\" Not\nless sovereign and cheerful,--much more sovereign and cheerful is the\ntone of Shakspeare. His name suggests joy and emancipation to the heart\nof men. If he should appear in any company of human souls, who would\nnot march in his troop? He touches nothing that does not borrow health\nand longevity from his festive style.\n\nAnd now, how stands the account of man with this bard and benefactor,\nwhen in solitude, shutting our ears to the reverberations of his fame,\nwe seek to strike the balance? Solitude has austere lessons; it can\nteach us to spare both heroes and poets; and it weighs Shakspeare also,\nand finds him to share the halfness and imperfections of humanity.\n\nShakspeare, Homer, Dante, Chaucer, saw the splendor of meaning that\nplays over the visible world; knew that a tree had another use than\nfor apples, and corn another than for meal, and the ball of the earth,\nthan for tillage and roads: that these things bore a second and finer\nharvest to the mind, being emblems of its thoughts, and conveying in\nall their natural history a certain mute commentary on human life.\nShakspeare employed them as colors to compose his picture. He rested\nin their beauty; and never took the step which seemed inevitable to\nsuch genius, namely, to explore the virtue which resides in these\nsymbols, and imparts this power,--what is that which they themselves\nsay? He converted the elements, which waited on his command, into\nentertainments. He was master of the revels to mankind. Is it not as\nif one should have, through majestic powers of science, the comets\ngiven into his hand, or the planets and their moons, and should draw\nthem from their orbits to glare with the municipal fireworks on a\nholiday night, and advertise in all towns, \"very superior pyrotechny\nthis evening!\" Are the agents of nature, and the power to understand\nthem, worth no more than a street serenade, or the breath of a cigar?\nOne remembers again the trumpet-text in the Koran--\"The heavens and\nthe earth, and all that is between them, think ye we have created them\nin jest?\" As long as the question is of talent and mental power, the\nworld of men has not his equal to show. But when the question is to\nlife, and its materials, and its auxiliaries, how does he profit me?\nWhat does it signify? It is but a Twelfth Night, or Midsummer-Night's\nDream, or a Winter Evening's Tale: what signifies another picture more\nor less? The Egyptian verdict of the Shakspeare Societies comes to\nmind, that he was a jovial actor and manager. I cannot marry this fact\nto his verse. Other admirable men have led lives in some sort of keeping\nwith their thought; but this man, in wide contrast. Had he been less,\nhad he reached only the common measure of great authors, of Bacon,\nMilton, Tasso, Cervantes, we might leave the fact in the twilight of\nhuman fate: but, that this man of men, he who gave to the science of\nmind a new and larger subject than had ever existed, and planted the\nstandard of humanity some furlongs forward into Chaos,--that he should\nnot be wise for himself,--it must even go into the world's history,\nthat the best poet led an obscure and profane life, using his genius\nfor the public amusement.\n\nWell, other men, priest and prophet, Israelite, German, and Swede,\nbeheld the same objects: they also saw through them that which was\ncontained. And to what purpose? The beauty straightway vanishes; they\nread commandments, all-excluding mountainous duty; an obligation, a\nsadness, as of piled mountains, fell on them, and life became ghastly,\njoyless, a pilgrim's progress, a probation, beleaguered round with\ndoleful histories of Adam's fall and curse, behind us; with doomsdays\nand purgatorial and penal fires before us; and the heart of the seer\nand the heart of the listener sank in them.  It must be conceded that\nthese are half-views of half-men. The world still wants its\npoet-priest, a reconciler, who shall not trifle with Shakspeare the\nplayer, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg the mourner; but who\nshall see, speak, and act, with equal inspiration. For knowledge will\nbrighten the sunshine; right is more beautiful than private affection;\nand love is compatible with universal wisdom.\n\n\n\n\nVI. NAPOLEON; OR, THE MAN OF THE WORLD.\n\n\nAmong the eminent persons of the nineteenth century, Bonaparte is far\nthe best known, and the most powerful; and owes his predominance to\nthe fidelity with which he expresses the tone of thought and belief,\nthe aims of the masses of active and cultivated men. It is Swedenborg's\ntheory, that every organ is made up of homogeneous particles; or, as\nit is sometimes expressed, every whole is made of similars; that is,\nthe lungs are composed of infinitely small lungs; the liver, of\ninfinitely small livers; the kidney, of little kidneys, etc. Following\nthis analogy, if any man is found to carry with him the power and\naffections of vast numbers, if Napoleon is France, if Napoleon is\nEurope, it is because the people whom he sways are little Napoleons.\n\nIn our society, there is a standing antagonism between the conservative\nand the democratic classes; between those who have made their fortunes,\nand the young and the poor who have fortunes to make; between the\ninterests of dead labor,--that is, the labor of hands long ago still\nin the grave, which labor is now entombed in money stocks, or in land\nand buildings owned by idle capitalists,--and the interests of living\nlabor, which seeks to possess itself of land, and buildings, and money\nstocks. The first class is timid, selfish, illiberal, hating innovation,\nand continually losing numbers by death. The second class is selfish\nalso, encroaching, bold, self-relying, always outnumbering the other,\nand recruiting its numbers every hour by births. It desires to keep\nopen every avenue to the competition of all, and to multiply\navenues;--the class of business men in America, in England, in France,\nand throughout Europe; the class of industry and skill. Napoleon is\nits representative. The instinct of active, brave, able men, throughout\nthe middle class everywhere, has pointed out Napoleon as the incarnate\nDemocrat. He had their virtues, and their vices; above all, he had\ntheir spirit or aim. That tendency is material, pointing at a sensual\nsuccess, and employing the richest and most various means to that end;\nconversant with mechanical powers, highly intellectual, widely and\naccurately learned and skilful, but subordinating all intellectual and\nspiritual forces into means to a material success. To be the rich man\nis the end. \"God has granted\" says the Koran, \"to every people a prophet\nin its own tongue.\" Paris, and London, and New York, the spirit of\ncommerce, of money, and material power, were also to have their prophet;\nand Bonaparte was qualified and sent.\n\nEvery one of the million readers of anecdotes, or memoirs, or lives\nof Napoleon, delights in the page, because he studies in it his own\nhistory. Napoleon is thoroughly modern, and, at the highest point of\nhis fortunes, has the very spirit of the newspapers. He is no saint,--to\nuse his own word, \"no capuchin,\" and he is no hero, in the high sense.\nThe man in the street finds in him the qualities and powers of other\nmen in the street. He finds him, like himself, by birth a citizen,\nwho, by very intelligible merits, arrived at such a commanding position,\nthat he could indulge all those tastes which the common man possesses,\nbut is obliged to conceal and deny; good society, good books, fast\ntraveling, dress, dinners, servants without number, personal weight,\nthe execution of his ideas, the standing in the attitude of a benefactor\nto all persons about him, the refined enjoyments of pictures, statues,\nmusic, palaces, and conventional honors,--precisely what is agreeable\nto the heart of every man in the nineteenth century,--this powerful\nman possessed.\n\nIt is true that a man of Napoleon's truth of adaptation to the mind\nof the masses around him becomes not merely representative, but actually\na monopolizer and usurper of other minds. Thus Mirabeau plagiarized\nevery good thought, every good word, that was spoken in France. Dumont\nrelates that he sat in the gallery of the Convention, and heard Mirabeau\nmake a speech. It struck Dumont that he could fit it with a peroration,\nwhich he wrote in pencil immediately, and showed to Lord Elgin, who\nsat by him. Lord Elgin approved it, and Dumont, in the evening, showed\nit to Mirabeau. Mirabeau read it, pronounced it admirable, and declared\nhe would incorporate it into his harangue, to-morrow, to the Assembly.\n\"It is impossible,\" said Dumont, \"as, unfortunately, I have shown it\nto Lord Elgin.\" \"If you have shown it to Lord Elgin, and to fifty\npersons beside, I shall still speak it to-morrow:\" and he did speak\nit, with much effect, at the next day's session. For Mirabeau, with\nhis overpowering personality, felt that these things, which his presence\ninspired, were as much his own, as if he had said them, and that his\nadoption of them gave them their weight. Much more absolute and\ncentralizing was the successor to Mirabeau's popularity, and to much\nmore than his predominance in France. Indeed, a man of Napoleon's stamp\nalmost ceases to have a private speech and opinion. He is so largely\nreceptive, and is so placed, that he comes to be a bureau for all the\nintelligence, wit, and power, of the age and country. He gains the\nbattle; he makes the code; he makes the system of weights and measures;\nhe levels the Alps; he builds the road. All distinguished engineers,\nsavants, statists, report to him; so likewise do all good heads in\nevery kind; he adopts the best measures, sets his stamp on them, and\nnot these alone, but on every happy and memorable expression. Every\nsentence spoken by Napoleon, and every line of his writing, deserves\nreading, as it is the sense of France.\n\nBonaparte was the idol of common men, because he had in transcendent\ndegree the qualities and powers of common men. There is a certain\nsatisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground of politics, for we\nget rid of cant and hypocrisy. Bonaparte wrought, in common with that\ngreat class he represented, for power and wealth,--but Bonaparte,\nspecially, without any scruple as to the means. All the sentiments\nwhich embarrass men's pursuit of these objects, he set aside. The\nsentiments were for women and children. Fontanes, in 1804, expressed\nNapoleon's own sense, when, in behalf of the Senate, he addressed\nhim,--\"Sire, the desire of perfection is the worst disease that ever\nafflicted the human mind.\" The advocates of liberty, and of progress,\nare \"ideologists;\"--a word of contempt often in his mouth;--\"Necker\nis an ideologist:\" \"Lafayette is an ideologist.\"\n\nAn Italian proverb, too well known, declares that, \"if you would\nsucceed, you must not be too good.\" It is an advantage, within certain\nlimits, to have renounced the dominion of the sentiments of piety,\ngratitude, and generosity; since, what was an impassable bar to us,\nand still is to others, becomes a convenient weapon for our purposes;\njust as the river which was a formidable barrier, winter transforms\ninto the smoothest of roads.\n\nNapoleon renounced, once for all, sentiments and affections, and would\nhelp himself with his hands and his head. With him is no miracle, and\nno magic. He is a worker in brass, in iron, in wood, in earth, in\nroads, in buildings, in money, and in troops, and a very consistent\nand wise master-workman. He is never weak and literary, but acts with\nthe solidity and the precision of natural agents. He has not lost his\nnative sense and sympathy with things. Men give way before such a man\nas before natural events. To be sure, there are men enough who are\nimmersed in things, as farmers, smiths, sailors, and mechanics\ngenerally; and we know how real and solid such men appear in the\npresence of scholars and grammarians; but these men ordinarily lack\nthe power of arrangement, and are like hands without a head. But\nBonaparte superadded to this mineral and animal force, insight and\ngeneralization, so that men saw in him combined the natural and the\nintellectual power, as if the sea and land had taken flesh and begun\nto cipher. Therefore the land and sea seem to presuppose him. He came\nunto his own, and they received him. This ciphering operative knows\nwhat he is working with, and what is the product. He knew the properties\nof gold and iron, of wheels and ships, of troops and diplomatists, and\nrequired that each should do after its kind.\n\nThe art of war was the game in which he exerted his arithmetic. It\nconsisted, according to him, in having always more forces than the\nenemy, on the point where the enemy is attacked, or where he attacks:\nand his whole talent is strained by endless manoeuvre and evolution,\nto march always on the enemy at an angle, and destroy his forces in\ndetail. It is obvious that a very small force, skilfully and rapidly\nmanoeuvring, so as always to bring two men against one at the point\nof engagement, will be an overmatch for a much larger body of men.\n\nThe times, his constitution, and his early circumstances, combined to\ndevelop this pattern democrat. He had the virtues of his class, and\nthe conditions for their activity. That common sense, which no sooner\nrespects any end, than it finds the means to effect it; the delight\nin the use of means; in the choice, simplification, and combining of\nmeans; the directness and thoroughness of his work; the prudence with\nwhich all was seen, and the energy with which all was done, make him\nthe natural organ and head of what I may almost call, from its extent,\nthe modern party.\n\nNature must have far the greatest share in every success, and so in\nhis. Such a man was wanted, and such a man was born; a man of stone\nand iron, capable of sitting on horseback sixteen or seventeen hours,\nof going many days together without rest or food, except by snatches,\nand with the speed and spring of a tiger in action; a man not\nembarrassed by any scruples; compact, instant, selfish, prudent, and\nof a perception which did not suffer itself to be balked or misled by\nany pretences of others, or any superstition, or any heat or haste of\nhis own. \"My hand of iron,\" he said, \"was not at the extremity of my\narm; it was immediately connected with my head.\" He respected the power\nof nature and fortune, and ascribed to it his superiority, instead of\nvaluing himself, like inferior men, on his opinionativeness and waging\nwar with nature. His favorite rhetoric lay in allusion to his star:\nand he pleased himself, as well as the people, when he styled himself\nthe \"Child of Destiny.\" \"They charge me,\" he said, \"with the commission\nof great crimes: men of my stamp do not commit crimes. Nothing has\nbeen more simple than my elevation: 'tis in vain to ascribe it to\nintrigue or crime: it was owing to the peculiarity of the times, and\nto my reputation of having fought well against the enemies of my\ncountry. I have always marched with the opinion of great masses, and\nwith events. Of what use, then, would crimes be to me?\" Again he said,\nspeaking of his son, \"My son cannot replace me; I could not replace\nmyself. I am the creature of circumstances.\" He had a directness of\naction never before combined with so much comprehension. He is a\nrealist, terrific to all talkers, and confused truth-obscuring persons.\nHe sees where the matter hinges, throws himself on the precise point\nof resistance, and slights all other considerations. He is strong in\nthe right manner, namely, by insight. He never blundered into victory,\nbut won his battles in his head, before he won them on the field. His\nprincipal means are in himself. He asks counsel of no other. In 1796,\nhe writes to the Directory: \"I have conducted the campaign without\nconsulting any one. I should have done no good, if I had been under\nthe necessity of conforming to the notions of another person. I have\ngained some advantages over superior forces, and when totally destitute\nof everything, because, in the persuasion that your confidence was\nreposed in me, my actions were as prompt as my thoughts.\"\n\nHistory is full, down to this day, of the imbecility of kings and\ngovernors. They are a class of persons much to be pitied, for they\nknow not what they should do. The weavers strike for bread; and the\nking and his ministers, not knowing what to do, meet them with bayonets.\nBut Napoleon understood his business. Here was a man who, in each\nmoment and emergency, knew what to do next. It is an immense comfort\nand refreshment to the spirits, not only of kings, but of citizens.\nFew men have any next; they live from hand to mouth, without plan, and\nare ever at the end of their line, and, after each action, wait for\nan impulse from abroad. Napoleon had been the first man of the world\nif his ends had been purely public. As he is, he inspires confidence\nand vigor by the extraordinary unity of his action. He is firm, sure,\nself-denying, self-postponing, sacrificing everything to his\naim,--money, troops, generals, and his own safety also, to his aim;\nnot misled, like common adventurers, by the splendor of his own means.\n\"Incidents ought not to govern policy,\" he said, \"but policy,\nincidents.\" \"To be hurried away by every event, is to have no political\nsystem at all. His victories were only so many doors, and he never for\na moment lost sight of his way onward, in the dazzle and uproar of the\npresent circumstance. He knew what to do, and he flew to his mark. He\nwould shorten a straight line to come at his object. Horrible anecdotes\nmay, no doubt, be collected from his history, of the price at which\nhe bought his successes; but he must not therefore be set down as\ncruel; but only as one who knew no impediment to his will; not\nbloodthirsty, not cruel,--but woe to what thing or person stood in his\nway! Not bloodthirsty, but not sparing of blood,--and pitiless. He saw\nonly the object: the obstacle must give way. \"Sire, General Clarke\ncannot combine with General Junot, for the dreadful fire of the Austrian\nbattery.\"--\"Let him carry the battery.\"--\"Sire, every regiment that\napproaches the heavy artillery is sacrified: Sire, what orders?\"--\n\"Forward, forward!\" Seruzier, a colonel of artillery, gives, in his\n\"Military Memoirs,\" the following sketch of a scene after the battle\nof Austerlitz.--\"At the moment in which the Russian army was making\nits retreat, painfully, but in good order, on the ice of the lake, the\nEmperor Napoleon came riding at full speed toward the artillery. 'You\nare losing time,' he cried; 'fire upon those masses; they must be\nengulfed; fire upon the ice!' The order remained unexecuted for ten\nminutes. In vain several officers and myself were placed on the slope\nof a hill to produce the effect; their balls and mine rolled upon the\nice, without breaking it up. Seeing that, I tried a simple method of\nelevating light howitzers. The almost perpendicular fall of the heavy\nprojectiles produced the desired effect. My method was immediately\nfollowed by the adjoining batteries, and in less than no time we buried\n'some' [Footnote: As I quote at second-hand, and cannot procure\nSeruzier, I dare not adopt the high figure I find.] thousands of\nRussians and Austrians under the waters of the lake.\"\n\nIn the plenitude of his resources, every obstacle seemed to vanish.\n\"There shall be no Alps,\" he said; and he built his perfect roads,\nclimbing by graded galleries their steepest precipices, until Italy\nwas as open to Paris as any town in France. He laid his bones to, and\nwrought for his crown. Having decided what was to be done, he did that\nwith might and main. He put out all his strength. He risked everything,\nand spared nothing, neither ammunition, nor money, nor troops, nor\ngenerals, nor himself.\n\nWe like to see everything do its office after its kind, whether it be\na milch-cow or a rattlesnake; and, if fighting be the best mode of\nadjusting national differences (as large majorities of men seem to\nagree), certainly Bonaparte was right in making it thorough. \"The grand\nprinciple of war,\" he said, \"was, that an army ought always to be\nready, by day and by night, and at all hours, to make all the resistance\nit is capable of making.\" He never economized his ammunition, but, on\na hostile position, rained a torrent of iron,--shells, balls,\ngrape-shot,--to annihilate all defense. On any point of resistance,\nhe concentrated squadron on squadron in overwhelming numbers, until\nit was swept out of existence. To a regiment of horse-chasseurs at\nLobenstein, two days before the battle of Jena, Napoleon said, \"My\nlads, you must not fear death; when soldiers brave death, they drive\nhim into the enemy's ranks.\" In the fury of assault, he no more spared\nhimself. He went to the edge of his possibility. It is plain that in\nItaly he did what he could, and all that he could. He came, several\ntimes, within an inch of ruin; and his own person was all but lost.\nHe was flung into the marsh at Arcola. The Austrians were between him\nand his troops, in the melee, and he was brought off with desperate\nefforts. At Lonato, and at other places, he was on the point of being\ntaken prisoner. He fought sixty battles. He had never enough. Each\nvictory was a new weapon. \"My power would fall, were I not to support\nit by new achievements. Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest\nmust maintain me.\" He felt, with every wise man, that as much life is\nneeded for conservation as for creation. We are always in peril, always\nin a bad plight, just on the edge of destruction, and only to be saved\nby invention and courage.\n\nThis vigor was guarded and tempered by the coldest prudence and\npunctuality. A thunderbolt in the attack, he was found invulnerable\nin his intrenchments. His very attack was never the inspiration of\ncourage, but the result of calculation. His idea of the best defense\nconsists in being still the attacking party. \"My ambition,\" he says,\n\"was great, but was of a cold nature.\" In one of his conversations\nwith Las Casas, he remarked, \"As to moral courage, I have rarely met\nwith the two-o'clock-in-the-morning kind; I mean unprepared courage,\nthat which, is necessary on an unexpected occasion; and which, in spite\nof the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment and\ndecision;\" and he did not hesitate to declare that he was himself\neminently endowed with this \"two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage, and\nthat he had met with few persons equal to himself in this respect.\"\n\nEverything depended on the nicety of his combinations, and the stars\nwere not more punctual than his arithmetic. His personal attention\ndescended to the smallest particulars. \"At Montebello, I ordered\nKellermann to attack with eight hundred horse, and with these he\nseparated the six thousand Hungarian grenadiers, before the very eyes\nof the Austrian cavalry. This cavalry was half a league off, and\nrequired a quarter of an hour to arrive on the field of action; and\nI have observed, that it is always these quarters of an hour that\ndecide the fate of a battle.\" \"Before he fought a battle, Bonaparte\nthought little about what he should do in case of success, but a great\ndeal about what he should do in case of a reverse of fortune. \"The\nsame prudence and good sense mark all his behavior. His instructions\nto his secretary at the Tuilleries are worth remembering. \"During the\nnight, enter my chamber as seldom as possible. Do not wake me when you\nhave any good news to communicate; with that there is no hurry. But\nwhen you bring bad news, rouse me instantly, for then there is not a\nmoment to be lost.\" It was a whimsical economy of the same kind which\ndictated his practice, when general in Italy, in regard to his\nburdensome correspondence. He directed Bourienne to leave all letters\nunopened for three weeks, and then observed with satisfaction how large\na part of the correspondence had thus disposed of itself, and no longer\nrequired an answer. His achievement of business was immense, and\nenlarges the known powers of man. There have been many working kings,\nfrom Ulysses to William of Orange, but none who accomplished a tithe\nof this man's performance.\n\nTo these gifts of nature, Napoleon added the advantage of having been\nborn to a private and humble fortune. In his latter days, he had the\nweakness of wishing to add to his crowns and badges the prescription\nof aristocracy; but he knew his debt to his austere education, and\nmade no secret of his contempt for the born kings, and for \"the\nhereditary asses,\" as he coarsely styled the Bourbons. He said that,\n\"in their exile, they had learned nothing, and forgot nothing.\"\nBonaparte had passed through all the degrees of military service, but\nalso was citizen before he was emperor, and so had the key to\ncitizenship. His remarks and estimates discover the information and\njustness of measurement of the middle class. Those who had to deal\nwith him found that he was not to be imposed upon, but could cipher\nas well as another man. This appears in all parts of his Memoirs,\ndictated at St. Helena. When the expenses of the empress, of his\nhousehold, of his palaces, had accumulated great debts, Napoleon\nexamined the bills of the creditors himself, detected overcharges and\nerrors, and reduced the claims by considerable sums.\n\nHis grand weapon, namely, the millions whom he directed, he owed to\nthe representative character which clothed him. He interests us as he\nstands for France and for Europe; and he exists as captain and king,\nonly as far as the Revolution, or the interest of the industrious\nmasses found an organ and a leader in him. In the social interests,\nhe knew the meaning and value of labor, and threw himself naturally\non that side. I like an incident mentioned by one of his biographers\nat St. Helena. \"When walking with Mrs. Balcombe, some servants, carrying\nheavy boxes, passed by on the road, and Mrs. Balcombe desired them,\nin rather an angry tone, to keep back. Napoleon interfered, saying,\n'Respect the burden, Madam.'\" In the time of the empire, he directed\nattention to the improvement and embellishment of the market of the\ncapital. \"The market-place,\" he said, \"is the Louvre of the common\npeople.\" The principal works that have survived him are his magnificent\nroads. He filled the troops with his spirit, and a sort of freedom and\ncompanionship grew up between him and them, which the forms of his\ncourt never permitted between the officers and himself. They performed,\nunder his eye, that which no others could do. The best document of his\nrelation to his troops is the order of the day on the morning of the\nbattle of Austerlitz, in which Napoleon promises the troops that he\nwill keep his person out of reach of fire. This declaration, which is\nthe reverse of that ordinarily made by generals and sovereigns on the\neve of a battle, sufficiently explains the devotion of the army to\ntheir leader.\n\nBut though there is in particulars this identity between Napoleon and\nthe mass of the people, his real strength lay in their conviction that\nhe was their representative in his genius and aims, not only when he\ncourted, but when he controlled, and even when he decimated them by\nhis conscriptions. He knew, as well as any Jacobin in France, how to\nphilosophize on liberty and equality; and, when allusion was made to\nthe precious blood of centuries, which was spilled by the killing of\nthe Duc d'Enghien, he suggested, \"Neither is my blood ditch-water\" The\npeople felt that no longer the throne was occupied, and the land sucked\nof its nourishment, by a small class of legitimates, secluded from all\ncommunity with the children of the soil, and holding the ideas and\nsuperstitions of a long-forgotten state of society. Instead of that\nvampire, a man of themselves held, in the Tuilleries, knowledge and\nideas like their own, opening, of course, to them and their children,\nall places of power and trust. The day of sleepy, selfish policy, ever\nnarrowing the means and opportunities of young men, was ended, and a\nday of expansion and demand was come. A market for all the powers and\nproductions of man was opened: brilliant prizes glittered in the eyes\nof youth and talent. The old, iron-bound, feudal France was changed\ninto a young Ohio or New York; and those who smarted under the immediate\nrigors of the new monarch, pardoned them as the necessary severities\nof the military system which had driven out the oppressor. And even\nwhen the majority of the people had begun to ask, whether they had\nreally gained anything under the exhausting levies of men and money\nof the new master,--the whole talent of the country, in every rank and\nkindred, took his part, and defended him as its natural patron. In\n1814, when advised to rely on the higher classes, Napoleon said to\nthose around him, \"Gentlemen, in the situation in which I stand, my\nonly nobility is the rabble of the Faubourgs.\"\n\nNapoleon met this natural expectation. The necessity of his position\nrequired a hospitality to every sort of talent, and its appointment\nto trusts; and his feelings went along with this policy. Like every\nsuperior person, he undoubtedly felt a desire for men and compeers,\nand a wish to measure his power with other masters, and an impatience\nof fools and underlings. In Italy, he sought for men, and found none.\n\"Good God!\" he said, \"how rare men are! There are eighteen millions\nin Italy, and I have with difficulty found two,--Dandolo and Melzi.\"\nIn later years, with larger experience, his respect for mankind was\nnot increased. In a moment of bitterness, he said to one of his oldest\nfriends, \"Men deserve the contempt with which they inspire me. I have\nonly to put some gold lace on the coat of my virtuous republicans, and\nthey immediately become just what I wish them.\" This impatience at\nlevity was, however, an oblique tribute of respect to those able persons\nwho commanded his regard, not only when he found them friends and\ncoadjutors, but also when they resisted his will. He could not confound\nFox and Pitt, Carnot, Lafayette, and Bernadotte, with the danglers of\nhis court; and, in spite of the detraction which his systematic egotism\ndictated toward the great captains who conquered with and for him,\nample acknowledgements are made by him to Lannes Duroc, Kleber, Dessaix,\nMassena, Murat, Ney, and Augereau. If he felt himself their patron,\nand founder of their fortunes, as when he said, \"I made my generals\nout of mud,\" he could not hide his satisfaction in receiving from them\na seconding and support commensurate with the grandeur of his\nenterprise. In the Russian campaign, he was so much impressed by the\ncourage and resources of Marshal Ney, that he said, \"I have two hundred\nmillions in my coffers, and I would give them all for Ney.\" The\ncharacters which he has drawn of several of his marshals are\ndiscriminating, and, though they did not content the insatiable vanity\nof French officers, are, no doubt, substantially just. And, in fact,\nevery species of merit was sought and advanced under his government.\n\"I know,\" he said, \"the depth and draught of water of every one of my\ngenerals.\" Natural power was sure to be well received at his court.\nSeventeen men, in his time, were raised from common soldiers to the\nrank of king, marshal, duke, or general; and the crosses of his Legion\nof Honor were given to personal valor, and not to family connection.\n\"When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they\nhave all one rank in my eyes.\"\n\nWhen a natural king becomes a titular king, everybody is pleased and\nsatisfied. The Revolution entitled the strong populace of the Faubourg\nSt. Antoine, and every horse-boy and powder-monkey in the army, to\nlook on Napoleon as flesh of his flesh, and the creature of his party:\nbut there is something in the success of grand talent which enlists\nan universal sympathy. For, in the prevalence of sense and spirit over\nstupidity and malversation, all reasonable men have an interest; and,\nas intellectual beings, we feel the air purified by the electric shock,\nwhen material force is overthrown by intellectual energies. As soon\nas we are removed out of the reach of local and accidental partialities,\nman feels that Napoleon fights for him; these are honest victories;\nthis strong steam-engine does our work. Whatever appeals to the\nimagination, by transcending the ordinary limits of human ability,\nwonderfully encourages and liberates us. This capacious head, revolving\nand disposing sovereignly trains of affairs, and animating such\nmultitudes of agents; this eye, which looked through Europe; this\nprompt invention; this inexhaustible resource;--what events! what\nromantic pictures! what strange situations!--when spying the Alps, by\na sunset in the Sicilian sea; drawing up his army for battle, in sight\nof the Pyramids, and saying to his troops, \"From the tops of those\npyramids, forty centuries look down on you;\" fording the Red Sea;\nwading in the gulf of the Isthmus of Suez. On the shore of Ptolemais,\ngigantic projects agitated him. \"Had Acre fallen, I should have changed\nthe face of the world.\" His army, on the night of the battle of\nAusterlitz, which was the anniversary of his inauguration as Emperor,\npresented him with a bouquet of forty standards taken in the fight.\nPerhaps it is a little puerile, the pleasure he took in making these\ncontrasts glaring; as when he pleased himself with making kings wait\nin his antechambers, at Tilsit, at Paris, and at Erfurt.\n\nWe cannot, in the universal imbecility, indecision, and indolence of\nmen, sufficiently congratulate ourselves on this strong and ready\nactor, who took occasion by the beard, and showed us how much may be\naccomplished by the mere force of such virtues as all men possess in\nless degrees; namely, by punctuality, by personal attention, by courage,\nand thoroughness. \"The Austrians,\" he said, \"do not know the value of\ntime.\" I should cite him, in his earlier years, as a model of prudence.\nHis power does not consist in any wild or extravagant force; in any\nenthusiasm, like Mahomet's; or singular power of persuasion; but in\nthe exercise of common sense on each emergency, instead of abiding by\nrules and customs. The lesson he teaches is that which vigor always\nteaches,--that there is always room for it. To what heaps of cowardly\ndoubts is not that man's life an answer. When he appeared, it was the\nbelief of all military men that there could be nothing new in war; as\nit is the belief of men to-day, that nothing new can be undertaken in\npolitics, or in church, or in letters, or in trade, or in farming, or\nin our social manners and customs; and as it is, at all times, the\nbelief of society that the world is used up. But Bonaparte knew better\nthan society; and, moreover, knew that he knew better. I think all men\nknow better than they do; know that the institutions we so volubly\ncommend are go-carts and baubles; but they dare not trust their\npresentiments. Bonaparte relied on his own sense, and did not care a\nbean for other people's. The world treated his novelties just as it\ntreats everybody's novelties,--made infinite objection: mustered all\nthe impediments; but he snapped his finger at their objections. \"What\ncreates great difficulty,\" he remarks, \"in the profession of the land\ncommander, is the necessity of feeding so many men and animals. If he\nallows himself to be guided by the commissaries, he will never stir,\nand all his expeditions will fail.\" An example of his common sense is\nwhat he says of the passage of the Alps in winter, which all writers,\none repeating after the other, had described as impracticable. \"The\nwinter,\" says Napoleon, \"is not the most unfavorable season for the\npassage of lofty mountains. The snow is then firm, the weather settled,\nand there is nothing to fear from avalanches, the real and only danger\nto be apprehended in the Alps. On those high mountains, there are often\nvery fine days in December, of a dry cold, with extreme calmness in\nthe air.\" Read his account, too, of the way in which battles are gained.\n\"In all battles, a moment occurs, when the bravest troops, after having\nmade the greatest efforts, feel inclined to run. That terror proceeds\nfrom a want of confidence in their own courage; and it only requires\na slight opportunity, a pretense, to restore confidence to them. The\nart is to give rise to the opportunity, and to invent the pretense.\nAt Arcola, I won the battle with twenty-five horsemen. I seized that\nmoment of lassitude, gave every man a trumpet, and gained the day with\nthis handful. You see that two armies are two bodies which meet, and\nendeavor to frighten each other: a moment of panic occurs, and that\nmoment must be turned to advantage. When a man has been present in\nmany actions, he distinguishes that moment without difficulty; it is\nas easy as casting up an addition.\"\n\nThis deputy of the nineteenth century added to his gifts a capacity\nfor speculation on general topics. He delighted in running through the\nrange of practical, of literary, and of abstract questions. His opinion\nis always original, and to the purpose. On the voyage to Egypt, he\nliked, after dinner, to fix on three or four persons to support a\nproposition, and as many to oppose it. He gave a subject, and the\ndiscussions turned on questions of religion, the different kinds of\ngovernment, and the art of war. One day, he asked, whether the planets\nwere inhabited? On another, what was the age of the world? Then he\nproposed to consider the probability of the destruction of the globe,\neither by water or by fire; at another time, the truth or fallacy of\npresentiments, and the interpretation of dreams. He was very fond of\ntalking of religion. In 1806, he conversed with Fournier, bishop of\nMontpelier, on matters of theology. There were two points on which\nthey could not agree, viz., that of hell, and that of salvation out\nof the pale of the church. The Emperor told Josephine, that he disputed\nlike a devil on these two points, on which the bishop was inexorable.\nTo the philosophers he readily yielded all that was proved against\nreligion as the work of men and time; but he would not hear of\nmaterialism. One fine night, on deck, amid a clatter of materialism,\nBonaparte pointed to the stars, and said, \"You may talk as long as you\nplease, gentlemen, but who made all that?\" He delighted in the\nconversation of men of science, particularly of Monge and Berthollet;\nbut the men of letters he slighted; \"they were manufacturers of\nphrases.\" Of medicine, too, he was fond of talking, and with those of\nits practitioners whom he most esteemed,-with Corvisart at Paris, and\nwith Antonomarchi at St. Helena. \"Believe me, \"he said to the last,\n\"we had better leave off all these remedies: life is a fortress which\nneither you nor I know anything about. Why throw obstacles in the way\nof its defense? Its own means are superior to all the apparatus of\nyour laboratories. Corvisart candidly agreed with me, that all your\nfilthy mixtures are good for nothing. Medicine is a collection of\nuncertain prescriptions, the results of which, taken collectively, are\nmore fatal than useful to mankind. Water, air, and cleanliness, are\nthe chief articles in my pharmacopeia.\"\n\nHis memoirs, dictated to Count Montholon and General Gourgaud, at St.\nHelena, have great value, after all the deduction that, it seems, is\nto be made from them, on account of his known disingenuousness. He has\nthe goodnature of strength and conscious superiority. I admire his\nsimple, clear narrative of his battles;--good as Caesar's; his\ngood-natured and sufficiently respectful account of Marshal Wurmser\nand his other antagonists, and his own equality as a writer to his\nvarying subject. The most agreeable portion is the Campaign in Egypt.\n\nHe had hours of thought and wisdom. In intervals of leisure, either\nin the camp or the palace, Napoleon appears as a man of genius,\ndirecting on abstract questions the native appetite for truth, and the\nimpatience of words, he was wont to show in war. He could enjoy every\nplay of invention, a romance, a _bon mot_, as well as a stratagem\nin a campaign. He delighted to fascinate Josephine and her ladies, in\na dim-lighted apartment, by the terrors of a fiction, to which his\nvoice and dramatic power lent every addition.\n\nI call Napoleon the agent or attorney of the middle class of modern\nsociety; of the throng who fill the markets, shops, counting-houses,\nmanufactories, ships, of the modern world, aiming to be rich. He was\nthe agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the internal improver,\nthe liberal, the radical, the inventor of means, the opener of doors\nand markets, the subverter of monopoly and abuse. Of course, the rich\nand aristocratic did not like him. England, the center of capital, and\nRome and Austria, centers of tradition and genealogy, opposed him. The\nconsternation of the dull and conservative classes, the terror of the\nfoolish old men and old women of the Roman conclave,--who in their\ndespair took hold of anything, and would cling to red-hot iron,--the\nvain attempts of statists to amuse and deceive him, of the emperor of\nAustria to bribe him; and the instinct of the young, ardent, and active\nmen, everywhere, which pointed him out as the giant of the middle\nclass, make his history bright and commanding. He had the virtues of\nthe masses of his constituents; he had also their vices. I am sorry\nthat the brilliant picture has its reverse. But that is the fatal\nquality which we discover in our pursuit of wealth, that it is\ntreacherous, and is bought by the breaking or weakening of the\nsentiments; and it is inevitable that we should find the same fact in\nthe history of this champion, who proposed to himself simply a brilliant\ncareer, without any stipulation or scruple concerning the means.\n\nBonaparte was singularly destitute of generous sentiments. The\nhighest-placed individual in the most cultivated age and population\nof the world,--he has not the merit of common truth and honesty. He\nis unjust to his generals; egotistic, and monopolizing; meanly stealing\nthe credit of their great actions from Kellermann, from Bernadotte;\nintriguing to involve his faithful Junot in hopeless bankruptcy, in\norder to drive him to a distance from Paris, because the familiarity\nof his manners offends the new pride of his throne. He is a boundless\nliar. The official paper, his \"Moniteurs,\" and all his bulletins, are\nproverbs for saying what he wished to be believed; and worse,--he sat,\nin his premature old age, in his lonely island, coldly falsifying\nfacts, and dates, and characters, and giving to history, a theatrical\neclat. Like all Frenchmen, he has a passion for stage effect. Every\naction that breathes of generosity is poisoned by this calculation.\nHis star, his love of glory, his doctrine of the immortality of the\nsoul, are all French. \"I must dazzle and astonish. If I were to give\nthe liberty of the press, my power could not last three days.\" To make\na great noise is his favorite design. \"A great reputation is a great\nnoise; the more there is made, the farther off it is heard. Laws,\ninstitutions, monuments, nations, all fall; but the noise continues,\nand resounds in after ages.\" His doctrine of immortality is simply\nfame. His theory of influence is not flattering. \"There are two levers\nfor moving men,--interest and fear. Love is a silly infatuation, depend\nupon it. Friendship is but a name. I love nobody. I do not even love\nmy brothers; perhaps Joseph, a little, from habit, and because he is\nmy elder; and Duroc, I love him too; but why?--because his character\npleases me; he is stern and resolute, and, I believe, the fellow never\nshed a tear. For my part, I know very well that I have no true friends.\nAs long as I continue to be what I am, I may have as many pretended\nfriends as I please. Leave sensibility to women; but men should be\nfirm in heart and purpose, or they should have nothing to do with war\nand government.\" He was thoroughly unscrupulous. He would steal,\nslander, assassinate, drown, and poison, as his interest dictated. He\nhad no generosity; but mere vulgar hatred; he was intensely selfish;\nhe was perfidious; he cheated at cards; he was a prodigious gossip;\nand opened letters; and delighted in his infamous police; and rubbed\nhis hands with joy when he had intercepted some morsel of intelligence\nconcerning the men and women about him, boasting that \"he knew\neverything;\" and interfered with the cutting the dresses of the women;\nand listened after the hurrahs and the compliments of the street,\nincognito. His manners were coarse. He treated women with low\nfamiliarity. He had the habit of pulling their ears and pinching their\ncheeks, when he was in good humor, and of pulling the ears and whiskers\nof men, and of striking and horse-play with them, to his last days.\nIt does not appear that he listened at keyholes, or, at least, that\nhe \"was caught at it\". In short, when you have penetrated through all\nthe circles of power and splendor, you were not dealing with a\ngentleman, at last; but with an impostor and a rogue; and he fully\ndeserves the epithet of Jupiter Scapin, or a sort of Scamp Jupiter.\n\nIn describing the two parties into which modern society divides\nitself,--the democrat and the conservative,--I said, Bonaparte\nrepresents the democrat, or the party of men of business, against the\nstationary or conservative party. I omitted then to say, what is\nmaterial to the statement, namely, that these two parties differ only\nas young and old. The democrat is a young conservative; the conservative\nis an old democrat. The aristocrat is the democrat ripe, and gone to\nseed,--because both parties stand on the one ground of the supreme\nvalue of property, which one endeavors to get, and the other to keep.\nBonaparte may be said to represent the whole history of this party,\nits youth and its age; yes, and with poetic justice, its fate, in his\nown. The counter-revolution, the counter-party, still waits for its\norgan and representative, in a lover and a man of truly public and\nuniversal aims.\n\nHere was an experiment, under the most favorable conditions, of the\npowers of intellect without conscience. Never was such a leader so\nendowed, and so weaponed; never leader found such aids and followers.\nAnd what was the result of this vast talent and power, of these immense\narmies, burned cities, squandered treasures, immolated millions of\nmen, of this demoralized Europe? It came to no result. All passed away,\nlike the smoke of his artillery and left no trace. He left France\nsmaller, poorer, feebler, than he found it; and the whole contest for\nfreedom was to be begun again. The attempt was, in principle, suicidal.\nFrance served him with life, and limb, and estate, as long as it could\nidentify its interest with him; but when men saw that after victory\nwas another war; after the destruction of armies, new conscriptions;\nand they who had toiled so desperately were never nearer to the\nreward,--they could not spend what they had earned, nor repose on their\ndown-beds, nor strut in their chateaux,--they deserted him. Men found\nthat his absorbing egotism was deadly to all other men. It resembled\nthe torpedo, which inflicts a succession of shocks on any one who takes\nhold of it, producing spasms which contract the muscles of the hand,\nso that the man cannot open his fingers; and the animal inflicts new\nand more violent shocks, until he paralyzes and kills his victim. So,\nthis exorbitant egotist narrowed, impoverished, and absorbed the power\nand existence of those who served him; and the universal cry of France,\nand of Europe, in 1814, was, \"enough of him;\" \"assez de Bonaparte.\"\n\nIt was not Bonaparte's fault. He did all that in him lay, to live and\nthrive without moral principle. It was the nature of things, the eternal\nlaw of man and of the world, which baulked and ruined him; and the\nresult, in a million experiments, will be the same. Every experiment,\nby multitudes or by individuals, that has a sensual and selfish aim,\nwill fail. The pacific Fourier will be as inefficient as the pernicious\nNapoleon. As long as our civilization is essentially one of property,\nof fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches\nwill leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our\nwine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits, which we can taste\nwith all doors open, and which serves all men.\n\n\n\n\nVII. GOETHE; OR, THE WRITER\n\n\nI find a provision in the constitution of the world for the writer or\nsecretary, who is to report the doings of the miraculous spirit of\nlife that everywhere throbs and works. His office is a reception of\nthe facts into the mind, and then a selection of the eminent and\ncharacteristic experiences.\n\nNature will be reported. All things are engaged in writing their\nhistory. The planet, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The\nrolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain; the river, its\nchannel in the soil; the animal, its bones in the stratum; the fern\nand leaf their modest epitaph in the coal. The falling drop makes its\nsculpture in the sand or the stone. Not a foot steps into the snow,\nor along the ground, but prints in characters more or less lasting,\na map of its march. Every act of the man inscribes itself in the\nmemories of his fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is\nfull of sounds; the sky, of tokens; the ground is all memoranda and\nsignatures; and every object covered over with hints, which speak to\nthe intelligent.\n\nIn nature, this self-registration is incessant, and the narrative is\nthe print of the seal. It neither exceeds nor comes short of the fact.\nBut nature strives upward; and, in man, the report is something more\nthan print of the seal. It is a new and finer form of the original.\nThe record is alive, as that which it recorded is alive. In man, the\nmemory is a kind of looking-glass, which, having received the images\nof surrounding objects, is touched with life, and disposes them in a\nnew order. The facts which transpired do not lie in it inert; but some\nsubside, and others shine; so that soon we have a new picture, composed\nof the eminent experiences. The man cooperates. He loves to communicate;\nand that which is for him to say lies as a load on his heart until it\nis delivered. But, besides the universal joy of conversation, some men\nare born with exalted powers for this second creation. Men are born\nto write. The gardener saves every slip, and seed, and peach-stone;\nhis vocation is to be a planter of plants. Not less does the writer\nattend his affairs. Whatever he beholds or experiences, comes to him\nas a model, and sits for its picture. He counts it all nonsense that\nthey say, that some things are undescribable. He believes that all\nthat can be thought can be written, first or last; and he would report\nthe Holy Ghost, or attempt it. Nothing so broad, so subtle, or so dear,\nbut comes therefore commended to his pen,--and he will write. In his\neyes, a man is the faculty of reporting, and the universe is the\npossibility of being reported. In conversation, in calamity, he finds\nnew materials; as our German poet said, \"some god gave me the power\nto paint what I suffer.\" He draws his rents from rage and pain. By\nacting rashly, he buys the power of talking wisely. Vexations, and a\ntempest of passion, only fill his sails; as the good Luther writes,\n\"When I am angry I can pray well, and preach well;\" and if we knew the\ngenesis of fine-strokes of eloquence, they might recall the complaisance\nof Sultan Amurath, who struck off some Persian heads, that his\nphysician, Vesalius, might see the spasms in the muscles of the neck.\nHis failures are the preparation of his victories. A new thought, or\na crisis of passion, apprises him that all that he has yet learned and\nwritten is exoteric--is not the fact, but some rumor of the fact. What\nthen? Does he throw away the pen? No; he begins again to describe in\nthe new light which has shined on him,--if, by some means, he may yet\nsave some true word. Nature conspires. Whatever can be thought can be\nspoken, and still rises for utterance, though to rude and stammering\norgans. If they cannot compass it, it waits and works, until, at last,\nit moulds them to its perfect will, and is articulated.\n\nThis striving after imitative expression, which one meets everywhere,\nis significant of the aim of nature, but is mere stenography. There\nare higher degrees, and nature has more splendid endowments for those\nwhom she elects to a superior office; for the class of scholars or\nwriters, who see connection where the multitude see fragments, and who\nare impelled to exhibit the facts in order, and so to supply the axis\non which the frame of things turns. Nature has dearly at heart the\nformation of the speculative man, or scholar. It is an end never lost\nsight of, and is prepared in the original casting of things. He is no\npermissive or accidental appearance, but an organic agent, one of the\nestates of the realm, provided and prepared from of old and from\neverlasting, in the knitting and contexture of things. Presentiments,\nimpulses, cheer him. There is a certain heat in the breast, which\nattends the perception of a primary truth, which is the shining of the\nspiritual sun down into the shaft of the mine. Every thought which\ndawns on the mind, in the moment of its emergency announces its own\nrank,--whether it is some whimsy, or whether it is a power.\n\nIf he have his incitements, there is, on the other side, invitation\nand need enough of his gift. Society has, at all times, the same want,\nnamely, of one sane man with adequate powers of expression to held up\neach object of monomania in its right relation. The ambitious and\nmercenary bring their last new mumbo-jumbo, whether tariff, Texas,\nrailroad, Romanism, mesmerism, or California; and, by detaching the\nobject from its relations, easily succeed in making it seen in a glare;\nand a multitude go mad about it, and they are not to be reproved or\ncured by the opposite multitude, who are kept from this particular\ninsanity by an equal frenzy on another crochet. But let one man have\nthe comprehensive eye that can replace this isolated prodigy in its\nright neighborhood and bearings,--the illusion vanishes, and the\nreturning reason of the community thanks the reason of the monitor.\n\nThe scholar is the man of the ages, but he must also wish, with other\nmen, to stand well with his contemporaries. But there is a certain\nridicule, among superficial people, thrown on the scholars or clerisy,\nwhich is of no import, unless the scholars heed it. In this country,\nthe emphasis of conversation, and of public opinion, commends the\npractical man; and the solid portion of the community is named with\nsignificant respect in every circle. Our people are of Bonaparte's\nopinion concerning ideologists. Ideas are subversive of social order\nand comfort, and at last make a fool of the possessor. It is believed,\nthe ordering a cargo of goods from New York to Smyrna; or, the running\nup and down to procure a company of subscribers to set a-going five\nor ten thousand spindles; or, the negotiations of a caucus, and the\npractising on the prejudices and facility of country-people, to secure\ntheir votes in November,--is practical and commendable.\n\nIf I were to compare action of a much higher strain with a life of\ncontemplation, I should not venture to pronounce with much confidence\nin favor of the former. Mankind have such a deep stake in inward\nillumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in\ndefense of his life of thought and prayer. A certain partiality, a\nheadiness, and loss of balance, is the tax which all action must pay.\nAct, if you like,--but you do it at your peril. Men's actions are too\nstrong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the\nvictim and slave of his action. What they have done commits and enforces\nthem to do the same again. The first act, which was to be an experiment,\nbecomes a sacrament. The fiery reformer embodies his aspiration in\nsome rite or covenant, and he and his friends cleave to the form and\nlose the aspiration. The Quaker has established Quakerism, the Shaker\nhas established his monastery and his dance; and, although each prates\nof spirit, there is no spirit, but repetition, which is anti-spiritual.\nBut where are his new things of today? In actions of enthusiasm, this\ndrawback appears: but in those lower activities, which have no higher\naim than to make us more comfortable and more cowardly, in actions of\ncunning, actions that steal and lie, actions that divorce the\nspeculative from the practical faculty, and put a ban on reason and\nsentiment, there is nothing else but drawback and negation. The Hindoos\nwrite in their sacred books, \"Children only, and not the learned, speak\nof the speculative and the practical faculties as two. They are but\none, for both obtain the selfsame end, and the place which is gained\nby the followers of the one is gained by the followers of the other.\nThat man seeth, who seeth that the speculative and the practical\ndoctrines are one.\" For great action must draw on the spiritual nature.\nThe measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The\ngreatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstances.\n\nThis disparagement will not come from the leaders, but from inferior\npersons. The robust gentlemen who stand at the head of the practical\nclass, share the ideas of the time, and have too much sympathy with\nthe speculative class. It is not from men excellent in any kind, that\ndisparagement of any other is to be looked for. With such, Talleyrand's\nquestion is ever the main one; not, is he rich? is he committed? is\nhe well-meaning? has he this or that faculty? is he of the movement?\nis he of the establishment?--but, Is he anybody? does he stand for\nsomething? He must be good of his kind. That is all that Talleyrand,\nall that State-street, all that the common sense of mankind asks. Be\nreal and admirable, not as we know, but as you know. Able men do not\ncare in what kind a man is able, so only that he is able. A master\nlikes a master, and does not stipulate whether it be orator, artist,\ncraftsman, or king.\n\nSociety has really no graver interest than the well-being of the\nliterary class. And it is not to be denied that men are cordial in\ntheir recognition and welcome of intellectual accomplishments. Still\nthe writer does not stand with us on any commanding ground. I think\nthis to be his own fault. A pound passes for a pound. There have been\ntimes when he was a sacred person; he wrote Bibles; the first hymns;\nthe codes; the epics; tragic songs; Sibylline verses; Chaldean oracles;\nLaconian sentences inscribed on temple walls. Every word was true, and\nwoke the nations to new life. He wrote without levity, and without\nchoice. Every word was carved, before his eyes, into the earth and\nsky; and the sun and stars were only letters of the same purport; and\nof no more necessity. But how can he be honored, when he does not honor\nhimself; when he loses himself in the crowd; when he is no longer the\nlawgiver, but the sycophant, ducking to the giddy opinion of a reckless\npublic; when he must sustain with shameless advocacy some bad\ngovernment, or must bark, all the year round, in opposition; or write\nconventional criticism, or profligate novels; or, at any rate, write\nwithout thought, and without recurrence, by day and night, to the\nsources of inspiration?\n\nSome reply to these questions may be furnished by looking over the\nlist of men of literary genius in our age. Among these, no more\ninstructive name occurs than that of Goethe, to represent the power\nand duties of the scholar or writer.\n\nI described Bonaparte as a representative of the popular external life\nand aims of the nineteenth century. Its other half, its poet, is Goethe,\na man quite domesticated in the century, breathing its air, enjoying\nits fruits, impossible at any earlier time, and taking away, by his\ncolossal parts, the reproach of weakness, which, but for him, would\nlie on the intellectual works of the period. He appears at a time when\na general culture has spread itself, and has smoothed down all sharp\nindividual traits; when, in the absence of heroic characters, a social\ncomfort and cooperation have come in. There is no poet, but scores of\npoetic writers; no Columbus, but hundreds of post-captains, with\ntransit-telescope, barometer, and concentrated soup and pemmican; no\nDemosthenes, no Chatham, but any number of clever parliamentary and\nforensic debaters; no prophet or saint, but colleges of divinity; no\nlearned man, but learned societies, a cheap press, reading-rooms, and\nbook-clubs, without number. There was never such a miscellany of facts.\nThe world extends itself like American trade. We conceive Greek or\nRoman life,--life in the middle ages--to be a simple and comprehensive\naffair; but modern life to respect a multitude of things, which is\ndistracting.\n\nGoethe was the philosopher of this multiplicity; hundred-handed,\nArgus-eyed, able and happy to cope with this rolling miscellany of\nfacts and sciences, and, by his own versatility, to dispose of them\nwith ease; a manly mind, unembarrassed by the variety of coats of\nconvention with which life had got encrusted, easily able by his\nsubtlety to pierce these, and to draw his strength from nature, with\nwhich he lived in full communion. What is strange, too, he lived in\na small town, in a petty state, in a defeated state, and in a time\nwhen Germany played no such leading part in the world's affairs as to\nswell the bosom of her sons with any metropolitan pride, such as might\nhave cheered a French, or English, or, once, a Roman or Attic genius.\nYet there is no trace of provincial limitation in his muse. He is not\na debtor to his position, but was born with a free and controlling\ngenius.\n\nThe Helena, or the second part of Faust, is a philosophy of literature\nset in poetry; the work of one who found himself the master of\nhistories, mythologies, philosophies, sciences, and national\nliteratures, in the encyclopaedical manner in which modern erudition,\nwith its international intercourse of the whole earth's population,\nresearches into Indian, Etruscan, and all Cyclopaean arts, geology,\nchemistry, astronomy; and every one of these kingdoms assuming a certain\naerial and poetic character, by reason of the multitude. One looks at\na king with reverence; but if one should chance to be at a congress\nof kings, the eye would take liberties with the peculiarities of each.\nThese are not wild miraculous songs, but elaborate forms, to which the\npoet has confided the results of eighty years of observation. This\nreflective and critical wisdom makes the poem more truly the flower\nof this time. It dates itself. Still he is a poet,--poet of a prouder\nlaurel than any contemporary, and under this plague of microscopes\n(for he seems to see out of every pore of his skin), strikes the harp\nwith a hero's strength and grace.\n\nThe wonder of the book is its superior intelligence. In the menstruum\nof this man's wit, the past and the present ages, and their religions,\npolitics, and modes of thinking, are dissolved into archetypes and\nideas. What new mythologies sail through his head! The Greeks said,\nthat Alexander went as far as Chaos; Goethe went, only the other day,\nas far; and one step farther he hazarded, and brought himself safe\nback. There is a heart-cheering freedom in his speculation. The immense\nhorizon which journeys with us lends its majesties to trifles, and to\nmatters of convenience and necessity, as to solemn and festal\nperformances. He was the soul of his century. If that was learned, and\nhad become, by population, compact organization, and drill of parts,\none great Exploring Expedition, accumulating a glut of facts and fruits\ntoo fast for any hitherto-existing savants to classify, this man's\nmind had ample chambers for the distribution of all. He had a power\nto unite the detached atoms again by their own law. He has clothed our\nmodern existence with poetry. Amid littleness and detail, he detected\nthe Genius of life, the old cunning Proteus, nestling close beside us,\nand showed that the dullness and prose we ascribe to the age was only\nanother of his masks:--\"His very flight is presence in disguise:\" that\nhe had put off a gay uniform for a fatigue dress, and was not a whit\nless vivacious or rich in Liverpool or the Hague, than once in Rome\nor Antioch. He sought him in public squares and main streets, in\nboulevards and hotels; and, in the solidest kingdom of routine and the\nsenses, he showed the lurking daemonic power; that, in actions of\nroutine, a thread of mythology and fable spins itself; and this, by\ntracing the pedigree of every usage and practice, every institution,\nutensil, and means, home to its origin in the structure of man. He had\nan extreme impatience of conjecture, and of rhetoric. \"I have guesses\nenough of my own; if a man write a book, let him set down only what\nhe knows.\" He writes in the plainest and lowest tone, omitting a great\ndeal more than he writes, and putting ever a thing for a word. He has\nexplained the distinction between the antique and the modern spirit\nand art. He has defined art, its scope and laws. He has said the best\nthings about nature that ever were said. He treats nature as the old\nphilosophers, as the seven wise masters did,--and, with whatever loss\nof French tabulation and dissection, poetry and humanity remain to us;\nand they have some doctorial skill. Eyes are better, on the whole,\nthan telescopes or microscopes. He has contributed a key to many parts\nof nature, through the rare turn for unity and simplicity in his mind.\nThus Goethe suggested the leading idea of modern botany, that a leaf,\nor the eye of a leaf, is the unit of botany, and that every part of\nthe plant is only a transformed leaf to meet a new condition; and, by\nvarying the conditions, a leaf may be converted into any other organ,\nand any other organ into a leaf. In like manner, in osteology, he\nassumed that one vertebra of the spine might be considered the unit\nof the skeleton; the head was only the uppermost vertebra transformed.\n\"The plant goes from knot to knot, closing, at last, with the flower\nand the seed. So the tape-worm, the caterpillar, goes from knot to\nknot, and closes with the head. Men and the higher animals are built\nup through the vertebrae, the powers being concentrated in the head.\"\nIn optics, again, he rejected the artificial theory of seven colors,\nand considered that every color was the mixture of light and darkness\nin new proportions. It is really of very little consequence what topic\nhe writes upon. He sees at every pore, and has a certain gravitation\ntoward truth. He will realize what you say. He hates to be trifled\nwith, and to be made to say over again some old wife's fable, that has\nhad possession of men's faith these thousand years. He may as well see\nif it is true as another. He sifts it. I am here, he would say, to be\nthe measure and judge of these things. Why should I take them on trust?\nAnd, therefore, what he says of religion, of passion, of marriage, of\nmanners, property, of paper money, of periods or beliefs, of omens,\nof luck, or whatever else, refuses to be forgotten.\n\nTake the most remarkable example that could occur of this tendency to\nverify every term in popular use. The Devil had played an important\npart in mythology in all times. Goethe would have no word that does\nnot cover a thing. The same measure will still serve: \"I have never\nheard of any crime which I might not have committed.\" So he flies at\nthe throat of this imp. He shall be real; he shall be modern; he shall\nbe European; he shall dress like a gentleman, and accept the manner,\nand walk in the streets, and be well initiated in the life of Vienna,\nand of Heidelberg, in 1820,--or he shall not exist. Accordingly, he\nstripped him of mythologic gear, of horns, cloven foot, harpoon tail,\nbrimstone, and blue-fire, and, instead of looking in books and pictures,\nlooked for him in his own mind, in every shade of coldness, selfishness,\nand unbelief that, in crowds, or in solitude, darkens over the human\nthought,--and found that the portrait gained reality and terror by\neverything he added, and by everything he took away. He found that the\nessence of this hobgoblin, which had hovered in shadow about the\nhabitations of men, ever since they were men, was pure intellect,\napplied,--as always there is a tendency,--to the service of the senses:\nand he flung into literature, in his Mephistopheles, the first organic\nfigure that has been added for some ages, and which will remain as\nlong as the Prometheus. I have no design to enter into any analysis\nof his numerous works. They consist of translations, criticisms, dramas,\nlyric and every other description of poems, literary journals, and\nportraits of distinguished men. Yet I cannot omit to specify the Wilhelm\nMeister.\n\nWilhelm Meister is a novel in every sense, the first of its kind,\ncalled by its admirers the only delineation of modern society,--as if\nother novels, those of Scott, for example, dealt with costume and\ncondition, this with the spirit of life. It is a book over which some\nveil is still drawn. It is read by very intelligent persons with wonder\nand delight. It is preferred by some such to Hamlet, as a work of\ngenius. I suppose no book of this century can compare with it in its\ndelicious sweetness, so new, so provoking to the mind, gratifying it\nwith so many and so solid thoughts, just insights into life, and\nmanners, and characters; so many good hints for the conduct of life,\nso many unexpected glimpses into a higher sphere, and never a trace\nof rhetoric or dullness. A very provoking book to the curiosity of\nyoung men of genius, but a very unsatisfactory one. Lovers of light\nreading, those who look in it for the entertainment they find in a\nromance, are disappointed. On the other hand, those who begin it with\nthe higher hope to read in it a worthy history of genius, and the just\naward of the laurels to its toils and denials, have also reason to\ncomplain. We had an English romance here, not long ago, professing to\nembody the hope of a new age, and to unfold the political hope of the\nparty called \"Young England,\" in which the only reward of virtue is\na seat in parliament, and a peerage. Goethe's romance has a conclusion\nas lame and immoral. George Sand, in Consuelo and its continuation,\nhas sketched a truer and more dignified picture. In the progress of\nthe story, the characters of the hero and heroine expand at a rate\nthat shivers the porcelain chess-table of aristocratic convention:\nthey quit the society and habits of their rank; they lose their wealth;\nthey become the servants of great ideas, and of the most generous\nsocial ends; until, at last, the hero, who is the center and fountain\nof an association for the rendering of the noblest benefits to the\nhuman race, no longer answers to his own titled name: it sounds foreign\nand remote in his ear.\n\n\"I am only man,\" he says; \"I breathe and work for man,\" and this in\npoverty and extreme sacrifices. Goethe's hero, on the contrary, has\nso many weaknesses and impurities, and keeps such bad company, that\nthe sober English public, when the book was translated, were disgusted.\nAnd yet it is so crammed with wisdom, with knowledge of the world, and\nwith knowledge of laws; the persons so truly and subtly drawn, and\nwith such few strokes, and not a word too much, the book remains ever\nso new and unexhausted, that we must even let it go its way, and be\nwilling to get what good from it we can, assured that it has only begun\nits office, and has millions of readers yet to serve.\n\nThe argument is the passage of a democrat to the aristocracy, using\nboth words in their best sense. And this passage is not made in any\nmean or creeping way, but through the hall door. Nature and character\nassist, and the rank is made real by sense and probity in the nobles.\nNo generous youth can escape this charm of reality in the book, so\nthat it is highly stimulating to intellect and courage. The ardent and\nholy Novalis characterized the book as \"thoroughly modern and prosaic;\nthe romantic is completely leveled in it; so is the poetry of nature;\nthe wonderful. The book treats only of the ordinary affairs of men:\nit is a poeticized civic and domestic story. The wonderful in it is\nexpressly treated as fiction and enthusiastic dreaming:\"--and yet,\nwhat is also characteristic, Novalis soon returned to this book, and\nit remained his favorite reading to the end of his life.\n\nWhat distinguishes Goethe for French and English readers, is a property\nwhich he shares with his nation,--a habitual reference to interior\ntruth. In England and in America there is a respect for talent; and,\nif it is exerted in support of any ascertained or intelligible interest\nor party, or in regular opposition to any, the public is satisfied.\nIn France, there is even a greater delight in intellectual brilliancy,\nfor its own sake. And, in all these countries, men of talent write\nfrom talent. It is enough if the understanding is occupied, the taste\npropitiated,--so many columns so many hours, filled in a lively and\ncreditable way. The German intellect wants the French sprightliness,\nthe fine practical understanding of the English, and the American\nadventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a\nsuperficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German\npublic asks for a controlling sincerity. Here is activity of thought;\nbut what is it for? What does the man mean? Whence, whence, all these\nthoughts?\n\nTalent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book;\na personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines\nthere set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not\notherwise; holding things because they are things. If he cannot rightly\nexpress himself to-day, the same things subsist, and will open\nthemselves to-morrow. There lies the burden on his mind--the burden\nof truth to be declared,--more or less understood; and it constitutes\nhis business and calling in the world, to see those facts through, and\nto make them known. What signifies that he trips and stammers; that\nhis voice is harsh or hissing; that this method or his tropes are\ninadequate? That message will find method and imagery, articulation\nand melody. Though he were dumb, it would speak. If not,--if there be\nno such God's word in the man,--what care we how adroit, how fluent,\nhow brilliant he is?\n\nIt makes a great difference to the force of any sentence, whether there\nbe a man behind it, or no. In the learned journal, in the influential\nnewspaper, I discern no form; only some irresponsible shadow; oftener\nsome monied corporation, or some dangler, who hopes, in the mask and\nrobes of his paragraph, to pass for somebody. But, through every clause\nand part of speech of a right book, I meet the eyes of the most\ndetermined of men: his force and terror inundate every word: the commas\nand dashes are alive; so that the writing is athletic and nimble,--can\ngo far and live long.\n\nIn England and America, one may be an adept in the writing of a Greek\nor Latin poet, without any poetic taste or fire. That a man has spent\nyears on Plato and Proclus, does not afford a presumption that he holds\nheroic opinions, or undervalues the fashions of his town. But the\nGerman nation have the most ridiculous good faith on these subjects:\nthe student, out of the lecture-room, still broods on the lessons; and\nthe professor cannot divest himself of the fancy, that the truths of\nphilosophy have some application to Berlin and Munich. This earnestness\nenables them to out-see men of much more talent. Hence, almost all the\nvaluable distinctions which are current in higher conversation, have\nbeen derived to us from Germany. But, whilst men distinguished for wit\nand learning, in England and France, adopt their study and their side\nwith a certain levity, and are not understood to be very deeply engaged,\nfrom grounds of character, to the topic or the part they\nespouse,--Goethe, the head and body of the German nation, does not\nspeak from talent, but the truth shines through: he is very wise,\nthough his talent often veils his wisdom. However excellent his sentence\nis, he has somewhat better in view. It awakens my curiosity. He has\nthe formidable independence which converse with truth gives: hear you,\nor forbear, his fact abides; and your interest in the writer is not\nconfined to his story, and he dismissed from memory, when he has\nperformed his task creditably, as a baker when he has left his loaf;\nbut his work is the least part of him. The old Eternal Genius who built\nthe world has confided himself more to this man than to any other. I\ndare not say that Goethe ascended to the highest grounds from which\ngenius has spoken. He has not worshipped the highest unity; he is\nincapable of a self-surrender to the moral sentiment. There are nobler\nstrains in poetry than any he has sounded. There are writers poorer\nin talent, whose tone is purer, and more touches the heart. Goethe can\nnever be dear to men. His is not even the devotion to pure truth; but\nto truth for the sake of culture. He has no aims less large than the\nconquest of universal nature, of universal truth, to be his portion;\na man not to be bribed, nor deceived, nor overawed; of a stoical self-\ncommand and self-denial, and having one test for all men,--What can\nyou teach me? All possessions are valued by him for that only; rank,\nprivileges, health, time, being itself.\n\nHe is the type of culture, the amateur of all arts, and sciences, and\nevents; artistic, but not artist; spiritual, but not spiritualist.\nThere is nothing he had not right to know; there is no weapon in the\narmy of universal genius he did not take into his hand, but with\nperemptory heed that he should not be for a moment prejudiced by his\ninstruments. He lays a ray of light under every fact, and between\nhimself and his dearest property. From him nothing was hid, nothing\nwithholden. The lurking daemons sat to him, and the saint who saw the\ndaemons; and the metaphysical elements took form. \"Piety itself is no\naim, but only a means whereby, through purest inward peace, we may\nattain to highest culture.\" And his penetration of every secret of the\nfine arts will make Goethe still more statuesque. His affections help\nhim, like women employed by Cicero to worm out the secret of\nconspirators. Enmities he has none. Enemy of him you may be,--if so\nyou shall teach him aught which your good-will cannot,--were it only\nwhat experience will accrue from your ruin. Enemy and welcome, but\nenemy on high terms. He cannot hate anybody; his time is worth too\nmuch. Temperamental antagonisms may be suffered, but like feuds of\nemperors, who fight dignifiedly across kingdoms.\n\nHis autobiography, under the title of \"Poetry and Truth Out of My\nLife,\" is the expression of the idea,--now familiar to the world through\nthe German mind, but a novelty to England, Old and New, when that book\nappeared,--that a man exists for culture; not for what he can\naccomplish, but for what can be accomplished in him. The reaction of\nthings on the man is the only noteworthy result. An intellectual man\ncan see himself as a third person; therefore his faults and delusions\ninterest him equally with his successes. Though he wishes to prosper\nin affairs, he wishes more to know the history and destiny of man;\nwhilst the clouds of egotists drifting about him are only interested\nin a low success. This idea reigns in the _Dichtung und Wahrheit_,\nand directs the selection of the incidents; and nowise the external\nimportance of events, the rank of the personages, or the bulk of\nincomes. Of course, the book affords slender materials for what would\nbe reckoned with us a \"Life of Goethe;\"--few dates; no correspondence;\nno details of offices or employments; no light on his marriage; and,\na period of ten years, that should be the most active in his life,\nafter his settlement at Weimar, is sunk in silence. Meantime, certain\nlove-affairs, that came to nothing, as people say, have the strangest\nimportance: he crowds us with detail:--certain whimsical opinions,\ncosmogonies, and religions of his own invention, and, especially his\nrelations to remarkable minds, and to critical epochs of thought:--these\nhe magnifies. His \"Daily and Yearly Journal,\" his \"Italian Travels,\"\nhis \"Campaign in France\" and the historical part of his \"Theory of\nColors,\" have the same interest. In the last, he rapidly notices Kepler,\nRoger Bacon, Galileo, Newton, Voltaire, etc.; and the charm of this\nportion of the book consists in the simplest statement of the relation\nbetwixt these grandees of European scientific history and himself; the\nmere drawing of the lines from Goethe to Kepler, from Goethe to Bacon,\nfrom Goethe to Newton. The drawing of the line is for the time and\nperson, a solution of the formidable problem, and gives pleasure when\nIphigenia and Faust do not, without any cost of invention comparable\nto that of Iphigenia and Faust. This law giver of art is not an artist.\nWas it that he knew too much, that his sight was microscopic, and\ninterfered with the just perspective, the seeing of the whole? He is\nfragmentary; a writer of occasional poems, and of an encyclopaedia of\nsentences. When he sits down to write a drama or a tale, he collects\nand sorts his observations from a hundred sides, and combines them\ninto the body as fitly as he can. A great deal refuses to incorporate:\nthis he adds loosely, as letters, of the parties, leaves from their\njournals, or the like. A great deal still is left that will not find\nany place. This the bookbinder alone can give any cohesion to: and,\nhence, notwithstanding the looseness of many of his works, we have\nvolumes of detached paragraphs, aphorisms, xenien, etc.\n\nI suppose the worldly tone of his tales grew out of the calculations\nof self-culture. It was the infirmity of an admirable scholar, who\nloved the world out of gratitude; who knew where libraries, galleries,\narchitecture, laboratories, savants, and leisure, were to be had, and\nwho did not quite trust the compensations of poverty and nakedness.\nSocrates loved Athens; Montaigne, Paris; and Madame de Stael said, she\nwas only vulnerable on that side (namely, of Paris). It has its\nfavorable aspect. All the geniuses are usually so ill-assorted and\nsickly, that one is ever wishing them somewhere else. We seldom see\nanybody who is not uneasy or afraid to live. There is a slight blush\nof shame on the cheek of good men and aspiring men, and a spice of\ncaricature. But this man was entirely at home and happy in his century\nand the world. None was so fit to live, or more heartily enjoyed the\ngame. In this aim of culture, which is the genius of his works, is\ntheir power. The idea of absolute, eternal truth, without reference\nto my own enlargement by it, is higher. The surrender to the torrent,\nof poetic inspiration is higher; but compared with any motives on which\nbooks are written in England and America, this is very truth, and has\nthe power to inspire which belongs to truth. Thus has he brought back\nto a book some of its ancient might and dignity.\n\nGoethe, coming into an over-civilized time and country, when original\ntalent was oppressed under the load of books, and mechanical\nauxiliaries, and the distracting variety of claims, taught men how to\ndispose of this mountainous miscellany, and make it subservient. I\njoin Napoleon with him, as being both representatives of the impatience\nand reaction of nature against the morgue of conventions,--two stern\nrealists, who, with their scholars, have severally set the axe at the\nroot of the tree of cant and seeming, for this time, and for all time.\nThis cheerful laborer, with no external popularity or provocation,\ndrawing his motive and his plan from his own breast, tasked himself\nwith stints for a giant, and, without relaxation or rest, except by\nalternating his pursuits, worked on for eighty years with the steadiness\nof his first zeal.\n\nIt is the last lesson of modern science, that the highest simplicity\nof structure is produced, not by few elements, but by the highest\ncomplexity. Man is the most composite of all creatures: the\nwheel-insect, volvox globator, is at the other extreme. We shall learn\nto draw rents and revenues from the immense patrimony of the old and\nrecent ages. Goethe teaches courage, and the equivalence of all times:\nthat the disadvantages of any epoch exist only to the faint-hearted.\nGenius hovers with his sunshine and music close by the darkest and\ndeafest eras. No mortgage, no attainder, will hold on men or hours.\nThe world is young; the former great men call to us affectionately.\nWe too must write Bibles, to unite again the heavens and the earthly\nworld. The secret of genius is to suffer no fiction to exist for us;\nto realize all that we know; in the high refinement of modern life,\nin arts, in sciences, in books, in men, to exact good faith, reality,\nand a purpose; and first, last, midst, and without end, to honor every\ntruth by use.\n\nTHE END.","title":"Representative Men: Seven Lectures","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":57878}