1883.] on ^^ Emerson and his Vieivs of Nature ^ 219 



left cLaotic. His second essay on Nature (1844) shows liim realising 

 how vast may be the function of a small agency working in boundless 

 time and boundless space. Geology, he says, has taught us to disuse 

 our dame-school measures. " We knew nothing rightly for want of 

 persijective. Now we learn what patient periods must round them- 

 selves before the rock is formed, then before the rock is broken, and 

 the first lichen race has disintegrated the thinnest external plate into 

 soil, and opened the door for the remote flora, Ceres and Pomona, to 

 come in. How far off yet is trilobite ! how far the quadruped ! how 

 inconceivably remote is man ! All duly arrive, and then race after 

 race of men. It is a long way from granite to oyster ; farther yet to 

 Plato and the preaching of the immortality of the soul. Yet all must 

 come as surely as the atom has two sides." Simultaneously with the 

 appearance of this essay in America, the ' Vestiges of Creation ' 

 appeared in England. Agassiz sought to persuade Emerson that these 

 relations and degrees of forms were only ideal ; but Emerson's ideal- 

 ism was too wide to admit of any dualism in nature. In the order of 

 thought he read the order of nature, before it was proved. " Develop- 

 ment" was the religion of Emerson before it was the discovery of 

 science. It was the vision of his poetic genius, the affirmation of his 

 moral enthusiasm, the hope of his humanity. He founded his life and 

 work upon it long before Darwin proved that he had founded on a 

 rock. Whenever he touched the theme he broke forth into song. 

 In his poem " Musketaquid " his view of natural evolution is exquis- 

 itely humanised. 



The charm which Emerson's writings have for scientific men is 

 partly due to the nature in them ; but also to the fact that in them is 

 foreshadowed the kind of character, sentiment, religion, legitimately 

 related to the scientific generalisations which have alarmed many 

 worthy people, not unnaturally solicitous for the spiritual beauty of 

 life. When others were alarmed at this or that new statement, 

 Emerson said: "Fear not the new generalisation. Does the fact 

 look crass and material, threatening to degrade thy theory of Spirit ? 

 Resist it not ; it goes to refine thy theory of matter just as much." 

 This is from his * First Series of Essays,' a volume which closes with 

 this pregnant sentence : — " When Science is learned in love, and its 

 powers are wielded by love, they will appear the supplements and 

 continuations of the material creation." Whatever his audience, 

 Emerson always did his best ; he never put out his talent to work 

 for him, reserving his genius. In America Emerson's life and spirit 

 were always the strongest argument on the progressive side. When 

 his house was burned down, in 1872, persons of different parties and 

 beliefs insisted, despite his deprecations, on rebuilding what had been 

 a home for many minds. 



[M. D. C] 



