Ames.] OUU [Nov. 3, 



all men become ministers to each ollier's compleleuess. What Eraersou has 

 to say of Personal Conduct and Social Aims comes to this : That, as it takes 

 all sorts of men to make a world, each one of us can best contribute to the 

 perfect result by giving full scope to all that properly belongs to himself. 

 Be a brick and there will be a place for you in the wall. Every man, like 

 every grain of sand, is a theatre for the play of all the powers and laws 

 of the Kosmos. To distrust j'^ourself is atheism ; to despise your 

 neighbor is blasphemy; to help^yoursclf to all the benefits the universe 

 oflfers — through nature, books, society, solitude, industry and repose — is 

 only to come into your inheritance, and is therefore tUe true method of 

 culture. Disorder, misery, chaos, perdition — thej^ all come from inward 

 defect and non-fidelity. 



All this, and the. system of thought to which it belongs, may seem tame 

 and trite enough now, but it sounded strange and heretical a lialf century 

 ago. It was indeed a republication of the best thought of earlier ages; 

 but it was foreign to the common literature and the current religion. 



In 1837, Emerson gave his address on "The American Scholar, " before 

 the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard. Mr. Alcott tells us that it was 

 heard with delight by some, but with confusion and consternation by 

 others; or, as James Russell Lowell says, with " enthusiasm of approval 

 and grim silence of foregone dissent." Yet it does not now strike us as 

 dangerous doctrine to teach that America ought not to depend on imported 

 ideas but should produce her own scholars, and that these should seek 

 . truth and reality from original sources. We are no longer scared if a 

 bold thinker declares that truth should spring out of the earth Avhereon 

 we tread,, and that righteousness should look down from the heavens 

 that bend over our heads, as well as from the soil and skies of ancient 

 Palestine. Nor is it any longer an unsavory and outre discourse which 

 teaches that character is the end and aim of all truth and all discipline. 

 It is almost startling to consider how lightly and cheaply, and as matters 

 of course, we hold certain grand truths which make our common day- 

 light, but which to former times were like unrisen stars. A knowledge 

 of the inward world lias grown with a knowledge of the outward world. 



" Few mortal feet tliese loftier lieights had gained 

 Whence tlie wide realms of Nature we descry ; 

 In vain their eyes our longing fathers strained, 

 To scan with wondering gaze the summits high 

 That far beneath their children's footpaths He." 



It is not important to determine Emerson's relation to metaphysical sys- 

 tems. He was neither ignorant of them nor fond of them, being very shy 

 of finalities. But in his attemi)t at simple and large statement, he seems 

 to have incorporated the best results of other men's thinking. 



There are passages in Mr. Emerson's writings whicli strongly arraign 

 what he once called " tliis mountainous folly of Churcli and State ; " but 

 this is only his fine scorn of sham and make-believe. He is never vio- 



