AN
ORATION, DELIVERED BEFORE THE
PHI
BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, AT CAMBRIDGE, AUGUST
31,
1837.
BY
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
SECOND EDITION.
BOSTON: JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY, 1838.
LOAN STACK
CAMBRIDGE:
FOLSOM, WELLS, AND THURSTON, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
ORATION. MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN,
GREET you on the re-commencement of our Our anniversary is one of hope, literary year. I
We
do not and, perhaps, not enough of labor. meet for games of strength or skill, for the reci tation
of
histories,
ancient Greeks
tragedies,
and odes,
like
the
parliaments of love and po nor for the advance esy, like the Troubadours ment of science, like our cotemporaries in the ;
for
;
and European capitals. Thus far, our has a been holiday friendly sign of the simply
British
survival
of the love of letters amongst a people
As such, too busy to give to letters any more. is as the an of indestructible in sign precious stinct. Perhaps the time is already come, when
it
it
ought to be, and will be, something else
the sluggard
from under
intellect its
iron
;
when
of this continent will look lids,
and
fill
the
postponed
expectation of the world with something better than the exertions of mechanical skill. Our day
of
our long apprenticeship to the of other The lands, draws to a close. learning millions, that around us are rushing into life, can-
dependence,
153
4 not always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests.
Events,
actions
must be
that
arise,
Who
can doubt,
sung, that will sing themselves. that poetry will revive and lead in a new age, as the star in the constellation Harp, which now
flames in our zenith, astronomers announce, shall
one day be the pole-star In
thousand years
for a
the light of this hope,
?
accept the topic
I
which not only usage, but the nature of our as the sociation, seem to prescribe to this day, Year by year, we come up more chapter of his biography. Let us inquire what new lights, new events and more days have thrown on his character, his du ties, and his hopes.
AMERICAN SCHOLAR. hither to read one
one of those
which, out of an un an unlooked-for wisdom, known antiquity, convey It is
fables,
that the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into men, that he might be more helpful to himself ;
just as the hand was divided better to answer its end.
The
old fable covers a doctrine
sublime all
;
;
there
that
whole man.
or a professor, or
Man
is
priest,
the
each
Man
new and
present
of
joint work,
is
to
not a farm
an engineer, but he
and scholar, and
producer, and soldier. state, these functions viduals,
ever
One Man,
the
men
ciety to find the er,
is
fingers,
only partially, or through one and that you must take the whole so
particular
faculty
into
In the
whom whilst
divided or
to
all.
statesman, and
are parcelled
aims
is
social
out to indi
do his
stint
each other performs
of his.
The
fable implies, that the
must
himself,
labor
sometimes
embrace
to
all
the
individual, to possess
from
return
other
own
his
But
laborers. this
this
fountain of
original unit, unfortunately, distributed to multitudes, has has been so power,
been that
so
spilled into drops,
The
ed.
of society is one in which the suffered amputation from the trunk,
state
members have and
strut
good
and peddled out, and cannot be gather
subdivided
minutely
it is
about so a
finger,
many walking
neck,
monsters,
an
a stomach,
a
elbow, but
never a man.
Man many
thus metamorphosed into a thing, into The planter, who is Man sent out things. is
gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing be yond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man into the field
to
The tradesman
on the farm.
an ideal worth to
his
scarcely ever gives is ridden by the
work, but
routine of his craft, and the soul lars.
The
priest
a statute-book
;
is
becomes a form
;
subject to dol the attorney,
the mechanic, a machine
;
the
sail
a rope of a ship. In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he
or,
is,
Man
Thinking.
In the degenerate state,
when
the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men s thinking.
In this view of him, as Man Thinking, the whole theory of his office is contained. Him na-
ture solicits with
Him
pictures.
ture
invites.
Is
dent, and do not
behoof?
her placid,
all
her monitory Him the fu
all
the past instructs.
And,
indeed,
not, all
every
man
a stu
things exist for the student
finally,
is
s
not the true scholar the
But, as the old oracle said, only true master ? All things have two handles. Beware of the "
wrong one." In life, too often, the scholar errs with mankind and forfeits his privilege. Let us see him in his school, and consider him in refer ence to the main influences he receives. I.
The
first
and the
in time
first
in importance
of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun ; and, after sunset, night and Ever the winds blow ever the grass her stars. ;
Every day, men and women, conversing, grows. The scholar must needs beholding and beholden. stand wistful and admiring before this great spec He must settle its value in his mind. tacle.
What
is
nature to him
There
?
is
never a be
ginning, there is never an end, to the inexplica ble continuity of this web of God, but always circular
resembles his
own
itself.
Therein
it
whose beginning, whose so entire, so bound find,
spirit,
ending, he never can less.
into
power returning
Far, too, as her splendors shine, system on
system shooting like rays, upward, downward, without centre, without circumference, in the mass arid in the particle, nature hastens to render account
of
herself
begins.
To
the
to
the
mind.
Classification
young mind, every thing
is
indi-
vidual, stands
By
itself.
by
and by,
it
how
finds
one nature things, and see in them and so, tyran then three, then three thousand
two
to join
;
;
nized over by
its
own
unifying instinct,
it
goes
on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, discovering roots running under ground, whereby contrary and remote things cohere, and flower out It presently learns, that, since from one stem. the dawn of history, there has been a constant
But what accumulation and classifying of facts. is classification but the perceiving that these ob not
are
jects
mind a
and are not
chaotic,
have a law which
also
is
The astronomer
?
abstraction
pure
a law
foreign,
but
human
of the
discovers that geometry, human mind, is the
the
of
measure of planetary motion. The chemist finds proportions and intelligible method throughout matter
and science
;
nothing but the
is
finding
of analogy, identity, in the most remote parts. The ambitious soul sits down before each refrac tory fact
one after another, reduces
;
constitutions,
by
fibre
new
strange
and powers, to for ever animate the to their class
and goes on
their law, last
all
all
of organization, the outskirts of nature,
insight.
Thus to him, to this school-boy under the bend ing dome of day, is suggested, that he and it one is leaf and one is proceed from one root flower relation, sympathy, stirring in every vein. And what is that Root ? Is not that the soul of ;
;
his soul
wild.
?
A
thought too bold,
Yet when
this
spiritual
a light
dream too shall
have
when
revealed the law of more earthly natures,
he has learned to worship the
and to see
soul,
that the natural philosophy that now is, is only the first gropings of its gigantic hand, he shall
look forward to an ever expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator. He shall see, that nature the opposite of the soul, answering to
is
One
for part.
and one
is seal,
is
it
Its
print.
part
beau
Its laws are ty is the beauty of his own mind. the laws of his own mind. Nature then becomes
him the measure of
to
he
of nature
as
own mind
does he not yet possess.
ancient
the
precept,
The
"
of,
ignorant
"
modern precept, one maxim. II.
is
Know
Study
much
so
is,
the
And, and the thyself,"
become
nature,"
mind of the Past,
ever form, whether of literature, of that
mind
is
of his in fine,
next great influence into the
the scholar,
tutions,
So much
his attainments.
inscribed.
at last
spirit
in
art,
Books
of
what
of insti are
the
best type of the influence of the past, and per learn the amount haps we shall get at the truth,
of this influence
more conveniently,
ering their value alone. The theory of books
is
noble.
by consid
The
scholar of
age received into him the world around ; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of the
his
first
own mind, and
him,
came
life;
it
uttered
it
It
again.
went out from him,
came truth.
into It
to him, short-lived actions it went out from him, immortal thoughts. It came to him, ;
dead fact stand, and
now,
;
it
can go.
it
now
it
flies,
went from him,
it
business;
inspires.
is
now
endures,
was, can
now
it
Precisely in proportion to it issued, so high
mind from which
does
so long does
soar,
It
quick thought.
It
the depth of it
It
poetry.
it
sing*
might say, it depends on how far the had process gone, of transmuting life into truth. Or,
In
I
the completeness of
to
proportion
the
distil
lation, so will the purity and imperishableness of the product be. But none is quite perfect. As
no air-pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum, so neither can any artist entirely exclude the conventional, the local, the perishable from book, or write a book of pure thought, that shall be as efficient, in all respects, to a remote
his
posterity,
as to
cotemporaries, or
rather to
the
second age. Each age, it is found, must write its own books or rather, each generation for the ;
The books
next succeeding. will not fit this.
of
an older period
a grave mischief. The sacredness which attaches to the act of creation,
Yet hence
the act
arises
of thought,
The
the record.
a divine man. also.
The
instantly transferred to poet chanting, was felt to be
Henceforth the chant
writer
Henceforward
is
it
is
was a settled,
is
divine
just and wise spirit. the book is perfect;
as love of the hero corrupts into worship of his statue. Instantly, the book becomes noxious.
The and
We
guide is a tyrant. sought a brother, a The lo, governor. sluggish and perverted
10
mind of the multitude, always slow
to
open to
the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, having once received this book, stands upon it,
and makes an outcry, if it is disparaged. Col Books are written on it leges are built on it.
by
thinkers,
that
talent,
Man
not by
who
is,
Thinking
start
wrong,
;
by
who
men set
of
out
from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles. Meek young men grow up in li braries, believing it their duty to accept the views,
which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon
were
men
only young
in
libraries
when they
wrote these books.
Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence, the book-learned class, who books, as such
value
;
not as related to nature
and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate with the world and the soul.
Hence, the
restorers of readings, the emendators,
the bibliomaniacs of
This
Books
among is
the
They
bad
is
;
all
this
degrees. is
worse
than
seems.
it
are the best of things, well used ; abused, What is the right use ? What the worst.
one end, which all means go to effect ? I had bet are for nothing but to inspire.
never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made ter
a satellite instead of a system. The one world of value, is, the active soul,
in the
soul, free, sovereign, active.
entitled to
;
this every
man
This every
thing the
man
is
contains within him,
11
although, in
almost
yet unborn.
The
and
men, obstructed, and as
all
soul active sees absolute truth;
In this action,
utters truth, or creates.
it
is
not the privilege of here and there a genius In favorite, but the sound estate of every man. is The the its it book, essence, progressive. ;
the school of art, the institution of
college,
kind,
with some past utterance of
stop
This
is
good, say
let
they,
us
any
genius.
hold by
this.
They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. But genius always looks forward. The eyes of man are set in his forehead, not
Man
Genius creates. hopes. is the create, proof of a divine Whatever talents may be, if the man presence. create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not hindhead.
in his
To
his
to create,
cinders and
;
smoke there may
There are
yet flame.
and
creative actions, actions, words,
that
be, but not
creative manners, there are
creative
words
indicative
is,
;
manners, custom
of no
springing spontaneous from the sense of good and fair. other part, instead of being its own
or authority, but
mind
On
s
own the
always from another mind its were in torrents of light, with
seer, let it receive
truth,
though
it
out periods of solitude, inquest, and self-recovery, Genius is al and a fatal disservice is done. the enemy of genius by overThe literature of every nation bear me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakspearized now for two hundred years.
ways
sufficiently
influence.
Undoubtedly there
is
a
right
way
of
read-
12 ing, so
are for the scholar
God
read
wasted
Man
be sternly subordinated.
it
must not be subdued by
in
he can
men
times.
hour
directly, the
other
Books
When
idle
s
s
Thinking
his instruments.
too precious to be transcripts of their read is
But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they must, when the soul seeth not, when the sun is hid, and the stars withdraw their we repair to the lamps which were shining, ings.
by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is. We hear, that A we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, kindled
"
looking on a fig tree, becometh fruitful." It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books. They impress
fig tree,
us ever with the conviction, that one nature wrote and the same reads. read the verses of one
We
of the great English poets, of Chaucer, of Marveil, of Dryden, with the most modern joy,
with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their verses.
There
of our
surprise,
some awe mixed with the joy
is
when
some past world, two says that which lies
w hich
this
or three
close
to
poet,
who
lived
in
hundred years ago,
my own
soul, that
wellnigh thought and said. But for the evidence thence afforded to the phi losophical doctrine of the identity of all minds, r
we
I
also
had
should suppose
some preestablished harmony, were to be, and
some foresight of souls that some preparation of stores for like the
their future wants,
fact observed in insects,
who
lay
up food
13 before death for the young grub they shall never see. I
would not be hurried by any love of system,
by any exaggeration of instincts, to underrate the Book. We all know, that, as the human body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes, so the hu
And can be fed by any knowledge. al had and heroic men have who existed, great most no other information than by the printed man mind
head
only would
I
page.
to bear
say, that it needs a strong that diet. One must be an inven
He that the proverb says, the wealth of the Indies, must
As
tor to read well.
would bring home
"
There is carry out the wealth of the Indies." then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sen the
tence
is
author
what
is
is
vision
doubly significant, and the sense of our as broad as the world. We then see,
always
is
short
true,
that, as
the seer
s
hour of
and rare among heavy days and
months, so is its record, perchance, the least part of his volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato or Shakspeare, only that least part, only and all the authentic utterances of the oracle, the
rest
Plato
Of
s
he
rejects,
were
and Shakspeare
course, there
is
it
never so
many
times
s.
a portion of reading quite man. History and exact
indispensable to a wise
science he must learn by laborious reading.
Col-
14 in
leges,
manner, have their
like
to
office,
indispensable
But they can only
teach elements.
highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create ; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and,
by the concentrated
set
fires,
the hearts of their
youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail Gowns, and pecuniary foundations, nothing.
though of towns of gold, can never countervail the
least
sentence
or
of
syllable
wit.
this,
and our American colleges
their
public importance, whilst they
will
Forget recede in
grow
richer
every year. III.
the
There goes
should be
scholar
as unfit
rian,
the world a
in
for
a
recluse,
that
notion,
a valetudina
any handiwork or public
la
The so-called a penknife for an axe. bor, * sneer at speculative men, as if, practical men as
because
they I
nothing.
who
or
speculate
have heard
it
see,
said
they that
could
do
the clergy,
always, more universally than any are ad other class, the scholars of their day, dressed as women; that the rough, spontaneous are
conversation
of
a mincing and
men
they do not hear, but only
diluted
virtually disfranchised
;
is
is
essential.
often
are
and, indeed, there are ad
vocates for their celibacy.
As
far as this
is
true
not just and wise. classes, with the scholar subordinate, but it
of the studious
Action
They
speech.
Without
it
it,
is
he
is
not
yet man.
15
Without it, thought can never ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud In of beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. action
is
without
cowardice, but there can be no the
The
mind.
heroic
preamble
thought, the transition through which from the unconscious to the conscious,
Only
it
passes
is
action.
much do I know, as I have lived. In we know whose words are loaded with
and whose not.
The
this
world,
lies
me,
of
so
stantly life,
scholar
wide
shadow of the
around.
soul, or other
are
attractions
Its
the
keys which unlock my thoughts and make me I launch acquainted with myself. eagerly into resounding tumult. those next me, and take this
I
hands of
the
grasp
the ring and work, taught by an instinct, that so shall the dumb abyss be vocal with speech. I to suffer
pierce its order ; of it within the
I
So much only of so
much
my
in
place
to
life
as
of I
my
;
I
dispose
expanding
know by
life.
experience,
vanquished and extended my being, my
of the wilderness have
planted, or so far have I dominion. I do not see
fear
its
dissipate circuit
I
how any man
can afford,
sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare action in \vhich he can partake. It is pearls any and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity,
for the
exasperation, want,
and wisdom.
are
instructers
in
eloquence
The
true scholar grudges every op portunity of action past by, as a loss of power. It is the
raw material out of which the
moulds her splendid products.
A
intellect
strange process
16
by which experience
too, this,
thought, as a mulberry leaf
is
converted into
is
converted into satin.
The manufacture goes forward at all hours. The actions and events of our childhood and youth, are now matters of calmest observation. They
lie
with
our
like
fair
recent
pictures
in
with
actions,
which we now have
in
the
the
On
hand.
Not
air.
this
so
business
we
are
Our affections as yet quite unable to speculate. circulate through it. no more feel or know
We
it,
than
we
feel the feet, or the
hand, or the brain
of our body. The new deed is yet a part of remains for a time immersed in our un life, conscious
detaches
In
life.
itself
some contemplative hour,
from the
life
a ripe
like
become a thought of the mind.
fruit*
Instantly,
raised, transfigured; the corruptible has put
it
on
it
to is
in-
Always now it is an object of beau however base its origin and neighbourhood.
corruption. ty,
Observe, too, the impossibility of antedating this In its grub state, it cannot fly, it cannot act. it is a dull But suddenly, with shine, grub. thing unfurls beau So is angel of wisdom. event, in our private history,
out observation, the selfsame tiful
wings,
there no
which
and
fact,
is
no
an
shall not, sooner or later, lose its adhesive,
and astonish us by soaring from our Cradle and infancy, body into the empyrean. school and playground, the fear of boys, and inert form,
dogs, and
ferules,
the
love
of
little
maids and
and many another fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already friend and rel-
berries,
;
17
and party, town and country, nation and world, must also soar and sing. ative,
profession
Of
strength in
who
he
course, fit
has
forth
put
his
total
the richest return of
actions, has
wisdom. I will not shut myself out of this globe of action and transplant an oak into a flower-pot, nor trust the revenue there to hunger and pine ;
some
of
single
much
thought, their
faculty,
and exhaust one vein
like those
of
Savoyards, who, getting
livelihood
by carving shepherds, shepherd and esses, smoking Dutchmen, for all Europe, went out one day to the mountain to find stock, and
discovered
last of
their
numbers,
they had
that
trees.
pine
who have
we
have,
commendable prudence, who, moved by for Greece or Palestine, follow the trapper or
prairie,
in
out their vein, and
written
a
the
the
whittled up
Authors
sail
into
ramble round Algiers to replenish
their merchantable stock.
If
were only
it
for
would be covetous of
Years are well spent
tionary. in
a vocabulary the scholar action. Life is our dic
in the
town,
;
in science
;
in art
;
country labors;
manu with many men and
insight into
factures; in frank intercourse
women
in
trades and
to the
one end of
all their facts a language by which and embody our perceptions. I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has
mastering in to illustrate
already lived, through the poverty or the splen dor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the
we get tiles and copestones the masonry of to-day. This is the way to
quarry from whence for
3
18
grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made. learn
But
the
of
value
final
books, and better
than
action,
books,
is,
of
that
like
that
it
is
a
That great principle of Undulation in that shows itself in the inspiring and ex
resource. nature,
piring of the breath ; in desire and satiety ; in the ebb and flow of the sea ; in day and night ; in heat and cold ; and as yet more deeply in
grained in every atom and every fluid, is known these fits to us under the name of Polarity, of easy transmission and reflection, as Newton called them, are the law of nature because they are the law of spirit.
The mind now
thinks
;
now
acts
and each
;
When the artist has reproduces the other. exhausted his materials, when the fancy no longer
fit
when
thoughts are no longer apprehended, he has always the and books are a weariness, paints,
resource to lect.
Character
live. is
Thinking
higher than intel the function. Living is the is
The stream retreats to its source. functionary. soul will be strong to live, as well as great Does he lack organ or medium strong to think.
A
to impart his truths this elemental force total
act.
?
He
can
still
fall
of living them. Thinking is a partial act.
back on
This
is
a
Let the
Let the grandeur of justice shine in his affairs. Those beauty of affection cheer his lowly roof. far
from fame
will feel
,
who
dwell and act with him,
the force of his constitution in the do-
19 ings and passages of the day better than
it
can
be measured by any public and designed display. Time shall teach him, that the scholar loses no
man
hour which the the sacred
seemliness
lost in
is
strength.
Not out
education
have
he unfolds
his instinct, screened
germ of
What
fluence.
Herein
lives.
of those, on
exhausted
is
whom
their
from
in
gained in systems of
culture,
comes
the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature,
Druids and
out of terrible
come
Berserkirs,
and Shakspeare. hear therefore with joy whatever
at
last Alfred I
to be said of the to every citizen.
and the spade, ed
always
we
limitation
beginning
dignity and necessity of labor There is virtue yet in the hoe
for learned as well as for
And
hands.
is
are
labor
work
to
invited
unlearn
everywhere welcome
is
observed, that a
man
;
only
;
be this
shall not for
the
sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action. I
have
now spoken
of
the education
of
the
It by nature, by books, and by action. remains to say somewhat of his duties. They are such as become Man Thinking. They
scholar
may
all
be comprised in
the scholar
is
to
cheer,
men by showing them
self-trust.
to
raise,
The
office
of
and to guide
amidst appearances. plies the slow, unhonored, and unpaid task of observation. Flamsteed and Herschel, in their facts
He
glazed observatories,
may
catalogue the stars with
20 the
praise
of
splendid and his
men, and,
all
useful, honor
private observatory,
nebulous stars of the
is
the
results
sure.
But
being
and
obscure
cataloguing
in
he,
human mind, which
as yet
no man has thought of as such, watching days and months, sometimes, for a few facts correct must relinquish dis ing still his old records; ;
In the long period play and immediate fame. of his preparation, he must betray often an ig norance and shiftlessness in popular arts, incur disdain of
the
ring
Long he
aside.
who
able
the
must stammer
him
shoulder
in
his
speech
;
often forego the living for the dead. Worse yet, he must accept, how often poverty and soli !
For the ease and pleasure of treading the
tude.
old road, accepting the fashions, the education, the religion of society, he takes his
faint
heart,
time, which
the the
making
self-accusation, the
the frequent uncertainty and
loss
of
are the nettles and tangling vines in
and of the self-relying and self-directed state of virtual hostility in which he seems
way
;
and especially to educated so loss and scorn, what offset ?
to stand to society, ciety.
He
the cross of
own, and, of course, the
is
For to
all
find consolation in exercising
est functions of raises
this
himself
human from
private
He
the high one,
who
considerations,
and
nature.
is
breathes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world s eye. He is the world s heart.
He
is
to resist
the vulgar prosperity that
grades ever to barbarism,
municating
heroic
retro
by preserving and com
sentiments,
noble
biographies,
melodious verse,
and the conclusions of history. Whatsoever oracles the human heart in all emer solemn hours, has uttered as its these he commentary on the world of actions, shall receive and And whatsoever new impart. gencies, in
all
Reason from her
verdict
inviolable seat
pronoun
ces on the passing men and events of to-day, this he shall hear and promulgate.
These being
his functions,
feel all confidence in himself,
it
becomes him to
and to defer never
the popular cry. He and he only knows the world. The world of any moment is the merest to
Some great decorum, some fetish appearance. of a government, some ephemeral trade, or war, or
man,
this
cried
is
down by
up by half mankind and cried as if all depended on
other half,
the
particular
The odds
up or down.
are
that
the whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the scholar has lost in listening to the con troversy.
Let him not
quit his belief that a
pop
a popgun, though the ancient and honorable gun of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In is
silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let
him
hold by himself add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach ; and bide his ;
own self
time, alone,
truly.
happy enough, that
this
if
he can
day he has
satisfy
Success treads on every right step.
the instinct
is
brother what
him
seen something
For
sure, that prompts him to tell his he thinks. He then learns, that in
going down into the secrets of his own mind, he has descended into the secrets of all minds. He
22
who
learns that he
has mastered any law in his master to that extent of all
is
private thoughts,
men whose
language he speaks, and of all into whose language his own can be translated. The poet, in utter solitude
remembering
thoughts and recording them, have recorded that, which men in ous
find true
the
first
them
for
The
also.
of his
fitness
frank
his spontane
found
is
to
vast
cities
orator distrusts at his
confessions,
want of knowledge of he
until
his hearers
he
finds
them
he dives into to his ble,
that they drink his words because the deeper their own nature
;
for
fulfils
the persons he addresses, that he is the complement of
;
his privatest, secretest presentiment,
wonder he
finds, this is the
most public, and universally
ple delight in it;
This
feels,
is
my
In self-trust,
all
Free should the
the
better
music
most accepta
true.
part of
The peo every man
this is myself. the virtues are comprehended. scholar be, free and brave. ;
Free even to the definition of freedom,
"
without
any hindrance that does not arise out of his own for fear is a thing, which constitution." Brave ;
a scholar by his very function puts behind him. It is a Fear always springs from ignorance.
him
if his tranquillity, amid dangerous from the presumption, that, like chil or if dren and women, his is a protected class
shame
to
times, arise
;
he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from politics or vexed questions, hid ing
his
bushes,
head peeping
an ostrich in the flowering into microscopes, and turning
like
23 rhymes, as a boy whistles to keep his courage so is the So is the danger a danger still up. and face it. fear worse. Manlike let him turn ;
Let him look
into its eye and search its nature, see the whelping of this li inspect its origin, which lies no great way back ; he will then on,
comprehension of its na he will have made his hands
find in himself a perfect
ture and
extent
;
meet on the other
and can henceforth defy The world is his, who and pass on superior.
it,
can see through
side,
its
pretension.
What
deafness,
what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold, is there only by sufferance, by your sufferance. See it to be a lie, and you have al ready dealt Yes, It is a
it
we
its
are
mortal blow. the
cowed,
mischievous notion that
we we
the are
trustless.
come
late
that the world was finished a long time ago. As the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of God, so it is ever to so much of his
into nature
;
attributes as it
sin,
is
may
they
To ignorance and themselves to it as They adapt but in proportion as a man has any we
bring to
it.
flint. ;
thing in him divine, the firmament flows before him and takes his signet and form. Not he is great
my
world to
who can
state
all
alter matter, but
of mind.
are
he the
who can
alter
of the
kings They their the of color present thought give nature and all art, and persuade men by
who
the cheerful serenity of their carrying the matter, that this thing which they do, is the apple which the ages have desired to pluck, now at last ripe,
24
The
and inviting nations to the harvest.
great Wherever Macdonthe great thing. Linnaeus there is the head of the table.
man makes ald
sits,
makes botany wins
it
alluring
from the farmer and
Davy, chemistry is
most
the
always
;
great aims.
and
studies
herb-woman.
the
The day and Cuvier, fossils. works in it with serenity and
who The unstable
his,
of
estimates of
men crowd
him whose mind is filled with a truth, as the heaped waves of the Atlantic follow the moon. For this self-trust, the reason is deeper than to
can be fathomed, darker than can be enlighten I ed. might not carry with me the feeling of audience
my
in stating
my own
have already shown the
ground of
adverting to the doctrine that
man
lieve
He
himself.
lead
has
been wronged
has almost lost
him back
Men
called
of every man. hero or the poet their state
ripened
may
to the
I
be
he has wronged the light, that can
Men
in history,
are be
men
in the
one or two
men
that
;
is
one or two approximations to the right All the rest behold in the
to say,
timony,
one.
of to-day are bugs, are spawn, and are the mass In a cen and the herd.
tury, in a millenium,
that
hope, in
my
is
I
;
to his prerogatives.
come of no account. world
man
But
belief.
;
own
green and crude being,
yes, and are content to be
attain to full
its
full
stature.
of grandeur,
demands of
own
full
less,
What
of pity,
is
so
a tes
borne
nature, by the poor clansman, the poor partisan, who rejoices in the The poor and the low find glory of his chief. his
25
some amends for their
capacity, social in
be brushed
to
are content
They
and
in a political
acquiescence
feriority.
immense moral
their
to
like
from the path of a great person, so that jus be done by him to that common nature which it is the dearest desire of all to see en flies
tice shall
larged and glorified.
man
s
great element.
and
light,
feel
it
to
be
the
in
own
their
dignity of man from upon the shoulders of a
the
cast
They
downtrod
their
They sun themselves
selves
add one drop of blood to make that great heart beat, those giant sinews He lives for us, and we combat and conquer.
and will perish
hero,
him.
live in
Men
such or
money
good as office.
5
quit
are,
they
power
;
?
and
in
their
is
highest.
governments to
is
of
mestication
Wake
it
as
is <
called,
they aspire
to
of
the
sleep-walking,
they
and they
shall
them,
good and
false
revolution
for
seek
naturally
so
spoils,
not
this,
very
and power because the
money,
the
leave
as
And why
highest,
dream
to
leap to the true, and clerks and desks. This
to
be wrought by the gradual do the idea
of
Culture.
The main
enterprise of the world
for splendor, for extent, the upbuilding of a man. Here are the ma The private life terials strown along the ground.
is
of one
man
shall be a
more formidable serene
in
kingdom
its
influence
in history.
more
to its
illustrious
monarchy, enemy, more sweet and
to
its
friend,
For a man,
than
any
rightly viewed,
comprehended! the particular natures of
all
men.
26
Each
philosopher, each bard, each actor, has only done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I
can do for myself. The books which once we valued more than the apple of the eye, we have
What
quite exhausted.
that but saying, that
is
we have come up with the point of view which the universal mind took through the eyes of that one scribe we have been that man, and have ;
passed on. all
First,
one
;
then, another
;
we
drain
waxing greater by all these sup we crave a better and more abundant food.
cisterns, and,
plies,
The man has never lived that can feed us ever. The human mind cannot be enshrined in a person, who shall set a barrier on any one side to this unbounded, unboundable empire. tral
fire,
now
which, flaming
It is
one cen
out of the lips of
Etna, lightens the capes of Sicily and, now out of the throat of Vesuvius, illuminates the towers ;
and vineyards of Naples. beams out of a thousand
which animates
But
I
all
It
the Scholar.
lay longer to add
one light which It is one soul
men.
have dwelt perhaps
abstraction of
is
stars.
what
I
tediously upon this I ought not to de
have to say, of nearer
reference to the time and to this country. Historically, there is thought to be a difference in
the
ideas
which predominate over successive
epochs, and there are data for marking the genius of the Classic, of the Romantic, and now of the
With the views Reflective or Philosophical age. I have intimated of the oneness or the identity
27 of
the
mind through
much dwell on each
lieve
The boy
Greek
a
is
revolution in
do
I
individuals,
In fact,
these differences.
individual
all
;
not
be
I
passes through the youth, romantic
three.
the
;
a however, the leading idea may be distinctly
reflective.
adult,
all
I
deny
that
not,
enough traced.
Our age is bewailed as the age of Introversion. Must that needs be evil ? We, it seems, are crit
We
ical.
We
are embarrassed with second thoughts. o
cannot enjoy any thing
whereof the
pleasure
for
hankering to
know
We
lined
consists.
with eyes. We see with our feet. infected with Hamlet s unhappiness, "Sicklied
o er with the pale cast of
bad then
Is it so
are
The
time
is
thought."
Sight is the last thing to we be blind ? Do we fear
?
be pitied. Would we should outsee nature and God, and drink
lest
look upon the discontent of the literary class, as a mere announcement of the fact, that they find themselves not in the state of truth dry
mind of
?
I
their
fathers,
and
regret
the
coming
boy dreads the water be fore he has learned that he can swim. If there state as untried
is
;
as a
any period one would desire is
and
to be
born
in,
not the age of Revolution ; when the old the new stand side by side, and admit of it
when the energies of all men being compared are searched by fear and by hope when the historic glories of the old, can be compensated ;
;
by the rich
possibilities
of the
new
era
?
This
28 time, like
but
all
know what
a very good
is
times,
do with
to
if
one,
we
it.
I read with joy some of the auspicious signs of the coming days, as they glimmer already through poetry and art, through philosophy and
science,
through church and state.
One of these movement which was
signs
is
effected
the fact, that the same
marked and
in literature a very
assumed
as benign an as
Instead of the sublime and beautiful
pect.
what
elevation of
the
called the lowest class in the state,
the
;
common, was explored and That, which had been negligently trod poetized. den under foot by those who were harnessing the
near,
and
low,
the
into far countries,
than
all
themselves
for
long journeys suddenly found to be richer The literature of the poor, foreign parts.
provisioning
is
the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life, are the
of the time.
topics
a sign,
is
life
a
great
stride.
not
great,
the remote, the romantic
in Italy or Arabia
doing Provencal
is
of
?
run into the hands and the feet.
for the
It
new vigor, when the ex made active, when currents of warm
it
tremities are
It is
minstrelsy
;
;
I
what
is
I ;
Greek
ask not
what
is
art,
or
embrace the common,
explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the Give me insight into to-day, and you may low. I
have
the
and
antique
future
worlds.
would we really know the meaning of ? the milk in the pan meal in the firkin ballad in the street the news of the boat ;
;
What The ;
the
;
the
glance of the eye
body
show me show me the sublime presence of the
;
matters
the form and the gait of the the ultimate reason of these
;
;
highest spiritual cause lurking,, as always it does lurk, in these suburbs and extremities of nature ;
me
with the polarity and that ranges it instantly on an eternal law the shop, the plough, and the leger, referred to
let
see every
trifle bristling
;
the like cause by which light undulates and po ets sing and the world lies no longer a dull ;
miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and there is no puzzle but order there is no trifle one design unites and animates the farthest pin nacle and the lowest trench. ;
;
;
genius of Gold smith, Burns, Cowper, and, in a newer time, of This idea Goethe, Wordsworth, and Carlyle.
This idea has inspired the
they have
and with various
differently followed
In contrast with their writing, the style Pope, of Johnson, of Gibbon, looks cold and
success.
of
pedantic.
This writing
surprised to beautiful and
near
the
A man
in
discoveries.
the most
near
things
modem
far.
is
perception of the ful
blood-warm.
is
are
Man not
The
related
worth
to
The
a
small
nature.
This
drop all
is
of the vulgar
Goethe,
in
is
less
wondrous than things remote.
explains
ocean.
that
find
this
of the moderns, has
is
very
fruit
thing
shown
us,
as none
ever did, the genius of the ancients. There is one man of genius, who has done
much value
philosophy of life, whose literary has never yet been rightly estimated; I
for this
30
The most imagin
mean Emanuel Swedenborg.
men, jet writing with the precision of a mathematician, he endeavoured to engraft a purely
ative of
on the popular Christianity
Ethics
philosophical of his time.
Such an attempt, of course, must have difficulty, which no genius could surmount. But he saw and showed the connexion between
He
nature and the affections of the soul. the
emblematic or
ble,
audible,
pierced character of the visi
spiritual
Especially did his
world.
tangible
shade-loving muse hover over and interpret the he showed the myste lower parts of nature ;
bond that
rious
moral
allies
forms, and has given
terial
theory
of
insanity,
evil to
in
ma
the foul
epical parables a
of beasts,
and
unclean
of
fearful things.
Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political movement, is, the new impor tance given to the single person. Every thing that tends to insulate the individual, to sur ,
round him with barriers of that
man
each
man
shall
shall
treat
man
with a sovereign state as
well
as
the world
feel
with
as
a
tends
;
"
greatness.
natural
I
respect, is
so
and
his,
sovereign state to
true
learned,"
union the
said
that no man in God s melancholy Pestalozzi, wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man." Help must come from the bosom "
alone.
up the
into
The
scholar
himself
contributions
the future.
He
all
is
that
the
man who must
ability
of the
take
time,
all
hopes of must be an university of knowlof the
past,
all
the
31
which should pierce
er, is
nothing, the
of
all
bule
man
his ear,
all
is
of
sap
ascends
for
to dare
you
is
it
;
in
;
all.
man
by all have
The world
is,
in yourself is the
;
yourself
law
how
a glo slumbers the
you to know all, it Mr. President and Gen for
tlemen, this confidence in the of
it
nature, and you know not yet
whole of Reason is
one lesson more than anoth
If there be
edges.
unsearched might
all
motives, by all prophecy, preparation, to the American Scholar. listened too long to the courtly muses of belongs, by
We
The
Europe.
of the American
spirit
freeman
is
already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air w e r
breathe
and
thick
indolent,
The
fat.
scholar
See
is
decent,
the
already tragic of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There for any but the decorous and the is no work complaisant.
The mind
consequence.
Young men
of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of
complaisant.
God,
the
find
but
these,
earth are
disgust which the
managed
inspire,
They men as
of young barriers
for
the single instincts,
the
man
unison
with
from action by the on which business is principles and turn drudges, or die of
did
?
in
hindered
some of them
disgust,
remedy
below not
suicides.
What
not yet see, and
is
the
thousands
now crowding to the not yet see, that, if do career, plant himself indomitably on his
and there
hopeful
abide, the
huge world
will
come round
to
him.
with the shades of
company
;
and
own
infinite
communication
life
;
and of
for
patience
good and great
;
for
the perspective of your work, the study and the
principles,
making
prevalent, the conversion of the Is it not the chief disgrace in the world, be an unit not to be reckoned one
instincts
world.
not to
character
each
the
for solace,
the those
Patience, all
;
;
not to yield that peculiar fruit which created to bear, but to be reckoned
man was
in the gross, in the hundred, or the
thousand, of
and the party, the section, to which we belong our opinion predicted geographically, as the north, Not so, brothers and friends, or the south. ;
please God, ours shall not be so. we will work on our own feet ;
We
will
with our
walk
own Then
we will speak our own minds. shall man be no longer a name for pity, for The dread doubt, and for sensual indulgence. of man and the love of man shall be a wall of hands
;
A na defence and a wreath of joy around all. tion of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.
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