objects which have a brief importance, prefers it to the universe, and seems inspired and a god- send to those who wish to magnify the matter and carry a point. ’T is the difference between progress by railroad and by walking across the broken country. Immense speed, but only in one direction.
There are two theories of life; one for the demonstration of our talent, the other for the education of the man. One isactivity, the busy- body, the following of that practical talent which we have, in the belief that what is so natural, easy and pleasant to us and desirable to others will surely lead us out safely; in this direction lie usefulness, comfort, society, low power of all sorts. The other is trust, religion, consent to be nothing for eternity, entranced waiting, the wor- ship of ideas. This is solitary, grand, secular. They are in perpetual balance and strife. One is talent, the other genius. One is skill, the other character."
We are continually tempted to sacrifice genius to talent, the hope and promise of insight to the lust of a freer demonstration of those gifts we have; and we buy this freedom to glitter by the loss of general health.
POWERS AND LAWS OF THOUGHT 57 It is the levity of this country to forgive everything to talent. If a man show cleverness, rhetorical skill, bold front in the forum or sen- ate, people clap their hands without asking more. We have a juvenile love of smartness, of showy speech. We like faculty that can rapidly be coined into money, and society seems to be in conspiracy to utilize every gift prematurely, and pull down genius to lucrative talent. Every kind of meanness and mischief is forgiven to intellect. All is condoned if I can write a good song or novel.
Wide is the gulf between genius and talent. The men we know, poets, wits, writers, deal with their thoughts as jewellers with jewels, which they sell but must not wear. Like the carpenter, who gives up the key of the fine house he has built, and never enters it again.
There is a conflict between a man’s private dexterity or talent and his access to the free air and light which wisdom is; between wisdom and the habit and necessity of repeating itself which belongs to every mind. Peter is the mould into which everything is poured like warm wax, and be it astronomy or railroads or French revo- lution or theology or botany, it comes out Peter. But there are quick limits to our interest in the 58 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT personality of people. They are as much alike as their barns and pantries, and are as soon musty and dreary. They entertain us for a time, but at the second or third encounter we have nothing more to learn.‘ The daily history of the Intellect is this alter- nating of expansions and concentrations. The expansions are the invitations from heaven to try a larger sweep, a higher pitch than we have yet climbed, and to leave all our past for this enlarged scope. Present power, on the other hand, requires concentration on the moment and the thing to be done.
The condition of sanity is to respect the order of the intellectual world; to keep down talent in its place, to enthrone the instinct. There must be perpetual rallying and self-recovery. Each talent is ambitious and self-asserting; it works for show and for the shop, and the greater it grows the more is the mischief and the mis- leading, so that presently all is wrong.
No wonder the children love masks and costumes, and play horse, play soldier, play school, play bear, and delight in theatricals. The children have only the instinct of the universe, POWERS AND LAWS OF THOUGHT 59 in which becoming somewhat else is the perpet- ual game of Nature, and death the penalty of standing still. “Tis not lessin thought. I can- not conceive any good ina thought which con- fines and stagnates. The universe exists only in transit, or we behold it shooting the gulf from the past to the future. We are passing into new heavens in fact by the movement of our solar system, and in thought by our better know- ledge.* Transition is the attitude of power. A fact is only a fulcrum of the spirit. It is the ter- minus of a past thought, but only a means now to new sallies of the imagination and new pro- gress of wisdom. The habit of saliency, of not pausing but proceeding, is a sort of importation and domestication of the divine effort into a man. Routine, the rut, is the path of indolence, of cows, of sluggish animal life; as near gravitation as it can go. But wit sees the short way, puts together what belongs together, custom or no custom; in that is organization.
Inspiration is the continuation of the divine effort that built the man. The same course continues itself in the mind which we have wit- nessed in Nature, namely the carrying-on and completion of the metamorphosis from grub to worm, from worm to fly. In human thought 60 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT this process is often arrested for years and ages. The history of mankind is the history of ar- rested growth. This premature stop, I know not how, befalls most of us in early youth; as if the growth of high powers, the access to rare truths, closed at two or three years in the child, while all the pagan faculties went ripening on to sixty.
So long as you are capable of advance, so long you have not abdicated the hope and future of a divine soul. That wonderful oracle will reply when it is consulted, and there is no history or tradition, no rule of life or art or science, on which it is not a competent and the only com- petent judge.
Man was made for conflict, not for rest. In action is his power; not in his goals but in his transitions man is great. Instantly he is dwarfed by self-indulgence. The truest state of mind rested in becomes false.
The spiritual power of man is twofold, mind and heart, Intellect and morals; one respect- ing truth, the other the will. One is the man, the other the woman in spiritual nature. One is power, the other is love. These elements always coexist in every normal individual, but one predominates. And as each is easily exalted POWERS AND LAWS OF THOUGHT 61 in our thoughts till it serves to fill the universe and become the synonym of God, the soul in which one predominates is ever watchful and jealous when such immense claims are made for One as seem injurious to the other. Ideal and practical, like ecliptic and equator, are never parallel. Each has its vices, its proper dangers, obvious enough when the opposite element is deficient.
Intellect is skeptical, runs down into talent, selfish working for private ends, conceited, ostentatious and malignant. On the other side the clear-headed thinker complains of souls led hither and thither by affections which, alone, are blind guides and thriftless workmen, and in the confusion asks the polarity of intellect. But all great minds and all great hearts have mutually allowed the absolute necessity of the twain.’
If the first rule is to obey your genius, in the second place the good mind is known by the choice of what is positive, of what is advancing. We must embrace the affirmative. But the affirmative of affirmatives is love. Quantus amor tantus animus. Strength enters as the moral element enters. Lovers of men are as safe as the sun. Good will makes insight. Sensibility 62 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT is the secret readiness to believe in all kinds of power, and the contempt of any experi- ence we have not is the opposite pole. The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere, good and order, analogy, health and benefit,—the love of truth, tendency to be in the right, no fighter for victory, no cockerel.* We have all of us by nature a certain divina- tion and parturient vaticination in our minds of some higher good and perfection than either power or knowledge. Knowledge is plainly to be preferred before power, as being that which guides and directs its blind force and impetus; but Aristotle declares that the origin of reason is not reason, but something better.
The height of culture, the highest behavior, consists in the identification of the Ego with the universe; so that when a man says I hope, I find, I think, he might properly say, The human race thinks or finds or hopes. And meantime he shall be able continually to keep sight of his biographical Ego,— I have a desk, I have an office, I am hungry, I had an ague, — as rhetoric or offset to his grand spiritual Ego, without impertinence, or ever confounding them.”
POWERS AND LAWS OF THOUGHT 63 I may well say this is divine, the continua- tion of the divine effort. Alas! it seems not to be ours, to be quite independent of us. Often there is so little affinity between the man and his works that we think the wind must have writ them. Also its communication from one to another follows its own law and refuses our intrusion. It is in one, it belongs to all; yet how to impart it?
We need all our resources to live in the world which is to be used and decorated by us. Socrates kept all his virtues as well as his fac- ulties well in hand. He was sincerely humble, but he utilized his humanity chiefly as a better eye-glass to penetrate the vapors that baffled the vision of other men.
The superiority of the man is in the sim- plicity of his thought, that he has no obstruc- tion, but looks straight at the pure fact, with no color of option. Profound sincerity is the only basis of talent as of character. The virtue of the Intellect is its own, its courage is of its own kind, and at last it will be justified, though for the moment it seem hostile to what it most reveres.
64 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT We wish to sum up the conflicting impres- sions by saying that all point at last to a unity which inspires all. Our poetry, our religion are its skirts and penumbre. Yet the charm of life is the hints we derive from this. They over- come us like perfumes from a far-off shore of sweetness, and their meaning is that no tongue shall syllable it without leave; that only itself can name it; that by casting ourselves on it and being its voice it rushes each moment to positive commands, creating men and methods, and ties the will of a child to the love of the First Cause.’
II INSTINCT AND INSPIRATION N reckoning the sources of our mental power, it were fatal to omit that one which pours all the others into mould—that unknown country in which all the rivers of our know- ledge have their fountains, which by its qualities and structure determines both the nature of the waters, and the direction in which they flow. We have a certain blind wisdom, a brain of the brain, a seminal brain, which has not yet put forth organs, which rests in oversight and pre- sence, but which seems to sheathe a certain omniscience; and which, in the despair of lan- guage, is commonly called Instinct. | This is that which never pretends: nothing seems less, nothing is more. Ask what the Instinct declares, and we have little to say; he is no newsmonger, no disputant, no talker. Con- sciousness is but a taper in the great night; but the taper at which all the illumination of human arts and sciences was kindled. And in each man’s experience, from this spark torrents of light have once and again streamed and revealed the dusky landscape of his life. ’T is very cer- XII 66 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT tain that a man’s whole possibility is contained in that habitual first look which he casts on all objects. Here alone is the field of metaphys- ical discovery, yes, and of every religion and civil order that has been or shall be. All that we know is flakes and grains detached from this mountain. None of the metaphysicians have prospered in describing this power, which con- stitutes sanity; and is the corrector of private excesses and mistakes; public in all its regards, and of a balance which is never lost, not even in the insane.
All men are, in respect to this source of truth, on a certain footing of equality, equal in original science, though against appearance; and ’tis incredible to them. There is a singular credulity which no experience will cure us of, that another man has seen or may see some- what more than we, of the primary facts; as, for example, of the continuity of the individual, and, eye for eye, object for object, their expe- rience is invariably identical in a million indi- viduals. I know, of course, all the grounds on which any man affirms the immortality of the Soul. Fed from one spring, the water-tank is equally full in all the gardens: the differ- ence is in the distribution by pipes and pumps INSTINCT AND INSPIRATION 67 (difference in the aqueduct), and fine applica- tion of it. Its property is absolute science and an implicit reliance is due to it."
All true wisdom of thought and of action comes of deference to this instinct, patience with its delays.
To make a practical use of this instinct in every part of life constitutes true wisdom, and we must form the habit of preferring in all cases this guidance, which is given as it is used. To indicate a few examples of our recurrence to instinct instead of to the understanding: we can only judge safely of a discipline, of a book, of a man, or other influence, by the frame of mind it induces, as whether that be large and serene, or dispiriting and degrading. Then we get a certain habit of the mind as the measure; as Haydon found Voltaire’s tales left him mel- ancholy. The eye and ear have a logic which transcends the skill of the tongue. The ear is not to be cheated. A continuous effect cannot be produced by discontinuous thought, and when the eye cannot detect the juncture of the skilful mosaic, the spirit is apprised of dis- union, simply by the failure to affect the spirit. Objection and loud denial not less prove the reality and conquests of an idea than the friends 68 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT and advocates it finds. One often sees in the embittered acuteness of critics snuffing heresy from afar, their own unbelief, that they pour forth on the innocent promulgator of new doc- trine their anger at that which they vainly resist in their own bosom. Again, if you go to a gallery of pictures, or other works of fine art, the eye is dazzled and embarrassed by many excellences. The marble imposes on us; the exquisite details, we cannot tell if they be good or not: but long after we have quitted the place, the objects begin to take a new order; the inferior recede or are forgotten and the truly noble forms reappear to the imagina- tion.
The Instinct begins at this low point at the surface of the earth, and works for the necessi- ties of the human being; then ascends, step by step, to suggestions, which are, when expressed, the intellectual and moral laws."
And what is Inspiration? It is this Instinct, whose normal state is passive, at last put in action. We attributed power and science and good will to the Instinct, but we found it dumb and inexorable. If it would but impart itself! To coax and woo the strong Instinct to bestir itself, and work its miracle, is the end of all INSTINCT AND INSPIRATION 69 wise endeavor. It is resistless, and knows the way, is the inventor of all arts, and is melodi- ous, and at all points a god. Could we prick the sides of this slumberous giant; could we break the silence of this oldest angel, who was with God when the worlds were made! The whole art of man has been an art of excitation, to provoke, to extort speech from the drowsy genius. We ought to know the way to our nectar. We ought to know the way to insight and prophecy as surely as the plant knows its way to the light; the cowand sheep to the run- ning brook; or the feaster to his wine. We believe (the drop of blood has latent power and organs) that the rudest mind has a Delphi and Dodona — predictions of Nature and his- tory —in itself, though now dim and hard to read. All depends on some instigation, some impulse. Where is the yeast that will leaven this lump? Where the wine that will warm and open these silent lips? Where the fire that will light this combustible pile? That force or flame is alone to be considered; ’t is indifferent on what it is fed.
Here are we with all our world of facts and experience, the spontaneous impressions of Nature and men, and original oracles, —all 70 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT ready to be uttered, if only we could be set aglow. How much material lies in every man! * Who knows not the insufficiency of our forces, the solstice of genius? The star climbs for a time the heaven, but never reaches the zenith; it culminates low, and goes backward whence it came.’
The human faculty only warrants inceptions. Even those we call great men build substruc- tures, and, like Cologne Cathedral, these are never finished. Lord Bacon begins; Behmen begins; Goethe, Fourier, Schelling, Coleridge, they all begin: we, credulous bystanders, be- lieve, of course, that they can finish as they begun. If you press them, they fly to a new topic, and here, again, open a magnificent pro- mise, which serves the turn of interesting us once more, and silencing reproaches, but they never complete their work. Inspiration is vital and continuous. It is also a public or universal light, and not particular. But genius is as weary of his personality as others are, and he has the royal expedient to thrust Nature between him and you, and perpetually to divert attention from himself, by the stream of thoughts, laws and images.
In the healthy mind, the thought is not a INSTINCT AND INSPIRATION | 71 barren thesis, but expands, varies, recruits it- self with relations to all Nature, paints itself in wonderful symbols, appears in new men, in institutions, in social arrangements, in wood, in stone, in art, in books. The mark and sign of it is newness. The divine energy never rests or repeats itself, but casts its old garb, and re- appears, another creature; the old energy in a new form, with all the vigor of the earth; the Ancient of Days in the dew of the morning.
Novelty in the means by which we arrive at the old universal ends is the test of the pre- sence of the highest power, alike in intellectual and in moral action. How incomparable be- yond all price seems to us a new poem — say Spenser — or true work of literary genius! In five hundred years we shall not have a second. We brood on the words or works of our com- panion, and ask in vain the sources of his infor- mation. He exhibits an exotic culture, as if he had his education in another planet. The poet is incredible, inexplicable.
The poet works to an end above his will, and by means, too, which are out of his will. Every part of the poem is therefore a true surprise to the reader, like the parts of the plant, and legitimate as they. The muse may be defined, 72, NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT Supervoluntary ends effected by supervoluntary means. No practical rules for the poem, no work- ing-plan was ever drawn up. It is miraculous at all points. The poetic state given, a little more or a good deal more or less performance seems indifferent. It isasimpossible for labor to pro- duce a sonnet of Milton, or a song of Burns, as Shakspeare’s Hamlet, or the Iliad. There is much loss, as we say on the railway, in the stops, but the running time need be but little increased, to add great results. One master could so easily be conceived as writing all the books of the world. They are all alike. For it is a power to convert all Nature to his use. It is a tap-root that sucks all the juices of the earth.’
It is this employment of new means — of means not mechanical, but spontaneously ap- pearing for the new need, and as good as the end—that denotes the inspired man. This is equally obvious in all the fine arts; and in action as well as in fine arts. We must try our philanthropists so. The reformer comes with many plans of melioration, and the basis on which he wishes to build his new world, a great deal of money. But what is gained? Certain young men or maidens are thus to be screened from the evil influences of trade by force of INSTINCT AND INSPIRATION FQ money. Perhaps that is a benefit, but those who give the money must be just so much more shrewd, and worldly, and hostile, in order to save so much money. | see not how any virtue is thus gained to society. It is a mere transfer- ence. But he will instruct and aid us who shows us how the young may be taught without de- grading the old; how the daily sunshine and sap may be made to feed wheat instead of moss and Canada thistle; and really the capital dis- covery of modern agriculture is that it costs no more to keep a good tree than a bad one.
But how, cries my reformer, is this to be done? How could I do it, who have wife and family to keep? The question is most reasonable, — yet proves that you are not the man to do the feat. The mark of the spirit is to know its way, to invent means. It has been in the universe before, of old and from everlasting, and knows its way up and down. Power is the authentic mark of spirit...What a revelation of power is music! Yet, when we consider who and what the professors of that art usually are, does it not seem as if music falls accidentally and superficially on its artists? Is it otherwise with poetry?...Here is a fa- mous Ode, which is the first performance of the 74 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT British mind and lies in all memories as the high- water mark in the flood of thought in this age. What does the writer know of that? Converse with him, learn his opinions and hopes. He has long ago passed out of it, and perhaps his only concern with it is some copyright of an edition in which certain pages, so and so entitled, are con- tained. When a young man asked old Goethe about Faust, he replied, “‘ What can I know of this? I ought rather to ask you, who are young, and can enter much better into that feeling.’ Indeed, I believe it is true in the experience of all men, — for all are inspirable, and sometimes inspired, — that, for the memorable moments of life, we were in them, and not they in us. “<,,. How they entered into me, let them say if they can; for I have gone over all the avenues of my flesh, and cannot find by which they entered,” said Saint Augustine. And the ancient Proclus seems to signify his sense of the same fact, by saying, “ The parts in us are more the property of wholes, and of things above us, than they are our property.”
Yes, this wonderful source of knowledge remains a mystery; and its arts and methods of working remain a mystery: it is untamable; the ship of heaven guides itself, and will not INSTINCT AND INSPIRATION 75 accept a wooden rudder. It must be owned that what we call Inspiration is coy and capricious; we must lose many days to gain one; and in order to win infallible verdicts from the inner mind, we must indulge and humor it in every way, and not too exactly task and harness it. Also its communication from one to another follows its own law, and refuses our intrusion. It is one, it belongs to all: yet how to impart it? ‘This makes the perpetual problem of educa- tion. How shall I educate my children? Shall I indulge, or shall I control them? Philosophy replies, Nature is stronger ‘than your will, and were you never so vigilant, you may rely on it, your nature and genius will certainly give your vigilance the slip though it had delirium tremens, and will educate the children by the inevitable infusions of its quality. You will do as you can. Why then cumber yourself about it, and make believe be better than you are? Our teaching is indeed hazardous and rare. Our only security is in our rectitude, whose influences must be salutary. That virtue which was never taught us, we cannot teach others. They must be taught by the same schoolmaster. And in spite of our imbecility and terrors, in spite of Boston and London, and universal decay of religion, etc., 76 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT etc., the moral sense reappears forever with the same angelic newness that has been from of old the fountain of poetry and beauty and strength. Nature is forever over education; our famous orchardist once more: Van Mons of Belgium, after all his experiments at crossing and refining his fruit, arrived at last at the most complete trust in the native power. ‘‘ My part is to sow, and sow, and re-sow, and in short do nothing but sow.”
It is not in our will. That is the quality of it, that it commands, and is not commanded. And rarely, and suddenly, and without desert, we are let into the serene upper air. Is it that we are such mountains of conceit that Heaven cannot enough mortify and snub us, — I know not; but there seems a settled determination to break our spirit. We shall not think of our- selves too highly. We cannot even see what or where our stars of destiny are.*...The in- exorable Laws, the Ideas, the private Fate, the Instinct, the Intellect, Memory, Imagination, Fancy, Number, Inspiration, Nature, Duty;— ’t is very certain that these things have been hid as under towels and blankets, most part of our days, and, at certain privileged moments, they emerge unaccountably into light. I know not INSTINCT AND INSPIRATION — 77 why, but our thoughts havea life of their own, independent of our will. We call genius, in all our popular and proverbial language, divine; to signify its independence of our will. Intel- lect is universal not individual...I think this pathetic, — not to have any wisdom at our own terms, not to have any power of organiz- ing victory. The only comfort I can lay to my own sorrow is that we have a higher than a per- sonal interest, which, in the ruin of the personal, is secured. I see that all beauty of discourse or of manners lies in launching on the thought, and forgetting ourselves; and though the beati- tude of the Intellect seems to lie out of our volition, and to be unattainable as the sky, yet we can take sight beforehand of a state of being wherein the will shall penetrate and control what it cannot now reach. The old law of sci- ence, Imperat parendo, we command by obeying, is forever true; and by faithful serving, we shall complete our noviciate to this subtle art. Yes, and one day, though far off, you will attain the control of these states; you will enter them at will; you will do what now the muses only sing. That is the nobility and high prize of the world.
And this reminds me to add one more trait 78 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT of the inspired state, namely, incessant advance, — the forward foot. For it is the curious pro- perty of truth to be uncontainable and ever enlarging. Truth indeed! We talk as if we had it, or sometimes said it, or knew anything about it, — that terrified re-agent. “I is a gun with a recoil which will knock down the most nimble artillerists, and therefore is never fired. The ideal is as far ahead of the videttes of the van as it is of the rear. And before the good we aim at, all history is symptomatic, and only a good omen.
And the practical rules of literature ought to follow from these views, namely, that all writing is by the grace of God;* that none but a writer should write; that he should write affirmatively, not polemically, or should write nothing that will not help somebody, —as I knew of a good man who held conversations, and wrote on the wall, “that every person might speak to the subject, but no allusion should be made to the opinions of other speakers;”’ — that we must affirm and affirm, but neither you nor I know the value of what we say; that we must be openers of doors and nota blind alley; that we must hope and strive, for despair is no muse, and vigor always liberates.
INSTINCT AND INSPIRATION 79 The whole ethics of thought is of this kind, flowing out of reverence of the source, and is a sort of religious office. If there is inspiration let there be only that. You shall not violate its conditions, but we will by all means invite it. It is a sort of rule in Art that you shall not speak of any work of art except in its presence; then you will continue to learn something, and will make no blunder. It is not less the rule of this kingdom that you shall not speak of the mount except on the mount;* that there are certain problems one would not willingly open, except when the irresistible oracles broke silence. He needs all his health and the flower of his faculties for that. All men are inspirable. Whilst they say only the beautiful and sacred words of necessity, there is no weakness, and no repentance. But the moment they attempt to say these things by memory, charlatanism begins. I am sorry that we do not receive the higher gifts justly and greatly. The reception should be equal. The thoughts which wander through our mind, we do not absorb and make flesh of, but we report them as thoughts; we retail them as news, to our lovers and to all Athenians. At a dreadful loss we play this game; for the secret Power will not impart 80 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT himself to us for tea-table talk; he frowns on moths and puppets, passes by us, and seeks a solitary and religious heart.
All intellectual virtue consists in a reliance on Ideas. It must be carried with a certain magnificence. We must live by our strength, not by our weakness. It is the exhortation of Zoroaster, “‘ Let the depth, the immortal depth of your soul lead you.” It was the saying of Pythagoras, ‘“‘ Remember to be sober, and to be disposed to believe; for these are the nerves of wisdom.”
Why should we be the dupes of our senses, the victims of our own works, and always inferior to ourselves. We do not yet trust the unknown powers of thought. The whole world is nothing but an exhibition of the powers of this principle, which distributes men. Whence came all these tools, inventions, books, laws, parties, kingdoms? Out of the invisible world, through a few brains. Nineteen twentieths of their substance do trees draw from the air. Plant the pitch-pine in a sand-bank, where is no food, and it thrives, and presently makes a grove, and covers the sand with a soil by shed- ding its leaves. Not less are the arts and insti- tutions of men created out of thought. The INSTINCT AND INSPIRATION 81 powers that make the capitalist are metaphys- ical, the force of method and the force of will makes trade, and builds towns. “All conquests that history tells of will be found to resolve themselves into the superior mental powers of the conquerors,” and the real credentials by which man takes precedence of man, and lays his hand on those advantages which confirm and consolidate rank, are intellectual and moral. The men are all drugged with this liquor of thought, and thereby secured to their several works. It is easy to see that the races of men rise out of the ground preoccupied with a thought which rules them, divided beforehand into parties ready armed and angry to fight for they know not what. They all share, to the rankest Philistines, the same belief. The hab- erdashers and brokers and attorneys are ideal- ists and only differin the amount and clearness of their perception. Whether Whiggery, or Chartism, or Church, or a dream of Wealth, fashioned all these resolute bankers, merchants, lawyers, landlords, who administer the world of to-day, as leaves and wood are made of air, an idea fashioned them, and one related to yours. A stronger idea will subordinate them. Yours, if you see it to be nearer and truer. A man XII 82 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT of more comprehensive view can always see with good humor the seeming opposition of a powerful talent which has less comprehension. "Tis a strong paddy, who, with his burly elbows, is making place and way for him. Trust entirely the thought. Lean upon it, it will bear up thee and thine, and society, and systems, like a scrap of down.
The world is intellectual; and the man is. Every man comes into Nature impressed with his own polarity or bias, in obeying which his power, opportunity and happiness reside...He is strong by his genius, gets all his knowledge only through that aperture. Society is unani- mous against his project. He never hears it as he knows it. Nevertheless he is right; right against the world. All excellence is only an in- flamed personality. If he is wrong, increase his determination to his aim, and he is right again. What is the use of trying to be somewhat else? He has a facility, which costs him nothing, to do somewhat admirable to all men. He is strong by his genius, and happy also by the same. The secret of power is delight in one’s work. He takes delight in working, not in having wrought. His workbench he finds every- where, and his workbench is home, education, INSTINCT AND INSPIRATION 83 power and patron. Whilst he serves his genius, he works when he stands, when he sits, when he eats and when he sleeps. The dream which lately floated before the eyes of the French nation — that every man shall do that which of all things he prefers, and shall have three francs a day for doing that — is the real law of the world; and all good labor, by which society is really served, will be found to be of that kind.
All we ask of any man is to be contented with his own work. An enthusiastic workman dignifies his art and arrives at results. Him we account the fortunate man whose determination to his aim is sufficiently strong to leave him no doubt. I am aware that Nature does not always pronounce early on this point. Many men are very slow in finding their vocation. It does not at once appear what they were made for. Nature has not made up her mind in regard to her young friend, and when this happens, we feel life to be some failure. Life is not quite desir- able to themselves. It uniformly suggests in the conversation of men the presumption of continued life, of which the present is only one term. We must suppose life to such is a kind of hibernation, and ’tis to be hoped they will 84 NATURAL HISTORY OF INTELLECT be very fat and energetic in the spring. They ripen too slowly than that the determination should appear in this brief life. As with our Catawbas and Isabellas at the eastward, the season is not quite long enough for them. This determination of Genius in each is so strong that, if it were not guarded with power- ful checks, it would have made society impos- sible. As it is, men are best and most by them- selves: and always work in society with great loss of power. They are not timed each to the other: they cannot keep step, and life requires too much compromise. Men go through the world each musing on a great fable dramatically pictured and rehearsed before him. If you speak to the man, he turns his eyes from his own scene, and, slower or faster, endeavors to comprehend what you say. When you have done speaking, he returns to his private music. Men generally attempt, early in life, to make their brothers, afterwards their wives, acquainted with what is going forward in their private theatre; but they soon desist from the attempt, in finding that they also have some farce, or, perhaps, some ear- and heart-rending tragedy forward on their secret boards, on which they are intent; and all parties acquiesce, at last, INSTINCT AND INSPIRATION 85 each in a private box, with the whole play per- formed before himself so/us.