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03 - Compensation - Essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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Compensation. The wings of time are black and white, pride with morning and
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with night, mountain tall and ocean deep, trembling, balance duly keep in
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changing moon in tidal wave glows the feud of want and half gage of more
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or less through space, electric star and pencil plays the lonely earth amid the
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balls that hurry through the eternal halls. A make weight flying to the void.
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Supplemental asteroid or compensatory spark shoots across the neutral dark man's the elm and
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wealth. The vine staunch and strong, the tendrils twine, though the frail
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ringlets thee deceive none from its stock. That vine can reave. Fear not,
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then thou child infirm, there's no God. Dare wrong. A worm
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laurel crowns, cleave to deserts, and power to him who power exerts.
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Hast not thy share on winged feet lo it rushes thee to meet, and
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all that nature made thine own, floating in air or pent in stone,
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will writhe the hills and swim the sea, and like thy shadow follow thee.
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Ever since I was a boy, I have wished to write a discourse
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on compensation, for it seemed to me when very young, that on this
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subject life was ahead of theology, and the people knew more than the preacher's
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taught. The documents, too, from which the doctrine is to be drawn,
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charmed my fancy by their endless variety, and lay always before me even
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in sleep, For they are the tools in our hands, the bread in
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our basket, the transactions of the street, the farm, and the dwelling
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house, greetings, relations, debts and credits, the influence of character,
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the nature and endowment of all men. It seemed to me also that in
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it might be shown men a ray of divinity, the present action of the
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soul of this world, clean from all vestige of tradition, and so the
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heart of man might be bathed by an inundation of eternal love, conversing with
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that which he knows was always and always must be, because it really is
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now. It appeared moreover that if this doctrine could be stated in terms with
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any resemblance to those bright intuitions in which this truth is sometimes revealed to us,
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it would be a star in many dark hours and crooked passages in our
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journey that would not suffer us to lose our way. I was lately confirmed
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in these desires. By hearing a sermon at church. The preacher, a
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man esteemed for his orthodoxy, unfolded in the ordinary manner the doctrine of the
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last judgment. He assumed that judgment is not executed in this world, that
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the wicked art a successful, that the good are miserable, and then urged
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from reason and from scripture, a compensation to be made to both parties in
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the next life. No offense appeared to be taken by the congregation at this
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doctrine, as far as I could observe. When the meeting broke up,
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they separated without remark on the sermon. Yet what was the import of this
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teaching? What did the preacher mean by saying that the good are miserable in
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the present life? Was it that houses and lands, offices, wine,
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horses, dress, luxury are had by unprincipled men, whilst the saints are
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poor and despised, And that a compensation is to be made to these last
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hereafter by giving them the like gratifications another day, bank stock and do bloons,
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venison and champagne. This must be the compensation intended, For what else
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is it that they are to have? Leave to pray and praise, to
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love and so of men by that they can do now. The legitimate inference
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the disciple would draw was we are to have such a good time as the
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sinners have now, or to push it to its extreme import You sin now,
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we shall sin by and by we would sin now if we could not,
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being successful, we expect our revenge tomorrow. The fallacy lay in the
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immense concession that the bad are successful, that justice is not done now.
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The blindness of the preacher consisted in deferring to the base estimate of the market
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of what constitutes a manly success, instead of confronting and convicting the world from
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the truth, announcing the presence of the soul, the omnipotence of the will,
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and so establishing the standard of good and ill, of success and falsehood.
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I find a similar base tone in the popular religious works of the day,
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and the same doctrines assumed by the literary men when occasionally they treat the
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related topics. I think our popular theology has gained in decorum and not in
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principle, over the superstitions it has replaced. But men are better than their
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theology. Their daily life gives it the lie. Every ingenious and aspiring soul
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leaves the doctrine behind him in his own experiences? Can all men feel sometimes
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the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate? For men are wiser than they know that
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which they hear in schools and pulpits without afterthought. If said in conversation,
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would probably be questioned in silence. If a man dogmatize in a mixed company
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on providence and the divine laws, he is answered by a silence which conveys
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well enough to an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer, but his incapacity to
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make his own statement. I shall attempt, in this and the following chapter
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to record some facts that indicate the path of the law of compensation happy beyond
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expectation, if I shall truly draw the smallest arc of this circle polarity or
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action and reaction. We meet in every part of nature, in darkness and
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light, in heats and cold, in the ebb and flow of waters,
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in male and female, in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals,
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in the equation of quantity and quality, in the fluids of the animal body,
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in the sisterly and diasterly of the heart, in the undulations of fluids
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and of sound in the centrifugal and centripetal gravity. In electricity, galvanism,
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and chemical affinity superinduce magnetism at one end of a needle, the opposite magnetism
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takes place at the other end. If the south attracts the north repels to
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empty heath, you must condense there An inevitable duellism bisects nature, so that
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each thing is the half and suggests another thing to make it whole. As
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spirit, matter, man, woman, odd, even subjective objective in out
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upper under motion rest yea nay. Whilst the world is thus jewel, so
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is every one of its parts. The entire system of things gets represented.
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In every particle. There is something that resembles the ebb and flow of the
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sea day and night, man and woman, in a single needle of the
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pine, in a kernel of corn, in each individual of every animal tribe.
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The reaction so grand in the elements is repeated within these small boundaries.
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For example, in the animal kingdom, the physiologist has observed that no creatures
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are favorites, but a certain compensation balances every gift and every defect. A
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surplusage given to one part is paid out of a reduction from another part of
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the same creature. If the head and neck are enlarged, the trunk and
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extremities are cut short. The theory of the mechanic forces is another example.
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What we gain in power is lost in time, and the converse. The
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periodic or compensating errors of the planets is another instance. The influences of climate
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and soil in political history are another. The code climate invigorates the barren,
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soil does not breed fevers, crocodiles, tigers, or scorpions. The same
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dualism underlies the nature and condition of man. Every excess causes a defect.
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Every defect and excess. Every sweet hath its sour, every evil its good.
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Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure, has an equal penalty put
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on its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation with its life.
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For every grain of wit, there is a grain of folly. For everything
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you have missed, you have gained something else. And for everything you gain
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you lose something. If riches increase, they are increased that use them.
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If the gatherer gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she
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puts into his chest swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates
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monopolies and exceptions. The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a
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level from their loftiest tossing than the varieties of condition tend to equalize themselves.
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There is always some leveling circumstance that puts down the overbearing, the strong,
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the rich, the fortunate substantially on the same ground with all others. Is
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a man too strong and fears for society, and by temper and position a
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bad citizen, a morose ruffian with a dash of the pirate in him.
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Nature sends him a troop pretty sons and daughters who are getting along in the
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dame's classes at the village school, and love and fear for them smooths his
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grim scowl to courtesy. Thus she contrives to intenerate the granite, and feldspar
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takes the bore out and puts the lamb in, and keeps her balance true.
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The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President has
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paid dear for his white house. It has commonly cost him all his peace
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and the best of his manly attributes to preserve for a short time so conspicuous
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an appearance before the world. He is content to eat dust before the real
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masters, who stand erect behind the throne, Or do men desire the more
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substantial and permanent grandeur of genius. Neither has this an immunity. He who,
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by force or will or of thought is great and overlooks thousands, has
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the charges of that eminence. With every influx of light comes new danger.
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Has he light? He must bear witness to the light, and always outrun
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that sympathy which gives him such keen satisfaction. By his fidelity to new revelations
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of the incessant soul. He must hate father and mother, wife and child.
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Has he all that the world loves and admires and covets. He must
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cast behind him their admiration, and afflict them by faithfulness to his truth,
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and become a byword and a hissing. This law writes the laws of cities
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and nations. It is in vain to build, or plot or combine against
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it. Things refuse to be mismanaged. Long race no lunce du mali administrari.
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Though no checks to a new evil appear, the checks exist and will
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appear. If the government is cruel. The governor's life is not safe.
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If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing. If you make
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the criminal code, sanguinary juries will not convict. If the laws too mild,
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private vengeance comes in. If the government is a terrific democracy, the
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pressure is resisted by an overcharge of energy in the citizen, and life glows
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with a fiercer flame. The true life and satisfactions of man seem to elude
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the utmost rigors or felicities of condition, and to establish themselves with great indifferency
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under all varieties of circumstances, under all governments. The influence of character remains
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the same in Turkey and in New England about alike. Under the primeval despots
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of Egypt. History honestly confesses that man must have been as free as culture
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could make him. These appearances indicate the fact that the universe is represented in
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every one of its particles. Everything in nature contains all the powers of nature.
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Everything is made of one hidden stuff. As the naturalist sees one type
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under every metamorphosis, and regards a horse as a running man, a fish
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as a swimming man, a bird as a flying man, a tree as
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a rooted man. Each new form repeats not only the main character of the
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type, but part for part, all the details, all the aims,
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furtherances, hindrances, energies, and whole system of every other. Every occupation,
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trade, art, transaction is a compend of the world, and a
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correlative of every other. Each one is an entire emblem of human life,
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of its good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its course and
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its end. And each one must somehow accommodate the whole man and recite all
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his destiny. The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope
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cannot find the animal cule, which is less perfect for being. Little eyes,
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ears, tastes, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs
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of reproduction that take hold on eternity all find room to consist in the small
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creature. So do we put our life into every act. The true doctrine
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of omnipresence is that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb.
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The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point. If
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the good is there, so is the evil. If the affinity, so
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the repulsion, if the force so the limitation. Thus is the universe alive.
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All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment,
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outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration out there in
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history. We can see its fatal strength. It is in the world,
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and the world was made by it. Justice is not postponed, a perfect
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equity, at just its balance in all parts of life. Hoi kuboideus a
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a peep tusi. The dice of God was always loaded. The world looks
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like a multiplication table or a mathematical equation, which turn it how you will,
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balances itself. Take what figures you will. Its exact value, not
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more nor less, still returns to you. Every secret is told, every
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crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed in silence and certainty.
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What we call retribution is the universal necessity by which the whole appears wherever
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a part appears. If you see smoke, there must be fire. If
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you see a hand or a limb, you know that the trunk to which
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it belongs is there behind. Every act rewards itself, or in other words,
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integrates itself in a twofold manner, first in the thing or in real
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nature, and secondly in the circumstance or in apparent nature. Men call the
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circumstance the retribution. The casual retribution is in the thing and is seen by
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the soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the understanding. It
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is inseparable from the thing, but is often spread over a long time,
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and so does not become distinct until after many years. The specific stripes may
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follow late after the offense, but they follow because they accompany it. Crime
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and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that, unsuspected
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ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect,
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means and ends. Seed and fruit cannot be severed, for the effect already
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blooms in the cause. The end pre exists in the means, the fruit
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in the seed. Whilst thus the world will be whole and refuses to be
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disparted. We seek to act partially to sunder, to appropriate, For example,
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to gratify the senses, we saver the pleasure of the senses from the
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needs of the character. The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to the
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solution of one problem. How to detach the sensual sweet, the sensual strong,
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the sensual bright, et cetera. From the moral sweet, the moral
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deep, the moral fair. That is, again, to contrive to cut
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clean off this upper surface, so thin as to leave it bottomless, to
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get a one end without another end. The soul says, eat, the
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body would feast. The soul says, the man and woman shall be one
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flesh and one soul. The body would join the flesh only. The soul
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says, have dominion over all things, to the ends of virtue. The
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body would have the power over things to its own ends. The soul strives
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a main to live and work through all things. It would be the only
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fact. All things should be added unto it. Power, pleasure, knowledge,
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beauty. The particular man aims to be somebody, to set up for
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himself, to truck and higgle for a private good, and in particulars,
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to ride that he may ride, to dress that he may be dressed,
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to eat that he may eat, and to govern that he may be seen.
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Men seek to be great. They would have offices, wealth, power,
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and fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side
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of nature, the sweet, without the other side, the bitter. This
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dividing and detaching is steadily counteracted up to this day it must be owned.
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No projector has had the smallest success. The parted water reunites behind our hand.
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Pleasure is taken out of pleasant things, profit out of profitable things,
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power out of strong things. As soon as we seek to separate them from
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the whole, we can no more have things and get the sensual good by
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itself. Then we can get an inside that shall have no outside, or
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alight without a shadow. Drive out nature with a fork, she comes running
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back. Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the unwise seek to dodge,
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which one in another brags that he does not know that they do not
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touch him. But the brag is on his lips. The conditions are in
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his soul. If he escapes them in one part, they attack him in
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another, more vital part. If he has escaped them in form and in
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appearance, it is because he has resisted his life and fled from himself,
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and the retribution is so much death. So signal is the failure of all
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attempts to make this separation of the good from the tax, that the experiment
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would not be tried, since to try it is to be mad. But
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for the circumstance that when the disease began in the will of rebellion and separation.
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The intellect is at once infected, so that man ceases to see God
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hold in each object, but is able to see the sensual allurement of an
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object and not see the sensual hurt. He sees the mermaid's head, but
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not the dragon's tail, and thinks he can cut off that which he would
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have from that which he would not have. Quote how secret art thou,
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who dwellest in the highest heavens? In silence? O thou, only great
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God, sprinkling with an unwearied providence, certain penal blindnesses upon such as have
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unbridled desires. Saint Augustine confessions the human soul is true to these facts,
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and the painting of Fable, of history, of law, of proverbs of
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conversation, it finds a tongue in literature unawares. Thus the Greeks called Jupiter
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supreme Mind, but having traditionally ascribed to him many base actions, the involuntary
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made amends to reason. By tying up the hands of so bad a god,
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he is made as helpless as a king of England. Prometheus knows one
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secret which Jove must bargain for Minerva another he cannot get his own thunders.
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Minerva keeps the key of them. Of all the gods, I only know
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the keys that open the solid doors within whose Vaulse his thunders sleep. A
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plain confession of the in working of the all and of its moral aim.
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The Indian mythology ends in the same ethics, and it would seem impossible for
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any fable to be invented and get any currency which was not moral. Aurora
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forgot to ask youth for her lover. And though Tethanus is immortal, he
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is old. Achilles is not quite invulnerable. The sacred waters did not wash
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the heel by which Thetis held him. Siegfried in the neeblelungen is not quite
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immortal. For a leaf fell on his back whilst he was bathing in the
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dragon's blood, and that spot which it covered is mortal. And so it
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must be. There is a crack in everything God has made. It would
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seem there is always this vindictive circumstance, stealing in and unawares, even into
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the wild poesy in which the human fancy attempted to make bold holiday and to
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shake itself free of the old laws. This backstroke, this kick of the
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gun, certifying that the law is fatal, that in nature nothing can be
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given, all things are sold. This is that ancient doctrine of Nemesis,
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who keeps watch in the universe and lets no offense go unchastised. The furies,
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they said, are attendants on justice, and if the sun in heaven
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should transgress his path, they would punish him. The poets related that stone
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walls and iron swords and leathern thongs had an occult sympathy with the wrongs of
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their owners. That the belt which Ajax gave Hector d the Trojan hero over
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the field at the wheels of the car of Achilles, and the sword which
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Hector gave Ajax was that on whose point Ajax fell. They recorded that when
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the Thasians erected a statute to Theogenes, a victor in the Games, one
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of his rivals went to it by night and endeavored to throw it down by
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repeated blows, until at last he moved it from its pedestal and was crushed
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to death beneath its fall. The voice of Fable has in it something divine.
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It came from thought above the will of the writer, that is the
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best part of each writer, which has nothing private in it, that which
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he does not know, that which flowed out of his constitution, and not
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from his too active invention, that which in the study of a single artist
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you might not easily find, but in the study of many you would abstract
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as the spirit of them all Phideas, it is not but the work of
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man in that earth early Hellenic world, that I would know. The name
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and circumstance of Phidias, however convenient for history embarrass when we come to the
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highest criticism, we are to see that which man was tending to do in
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a given period, and was hindered, or if you will, modified in
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doing, by the interfering volitions of Phidias, of Dante, of Shakespeare,
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the organ, whereby man, at the moment wrought Still more striking is the
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expression of this fact in the proverbs of all nations, which are always the
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literature of reason, or the statements of an absolute truth without qualification. Proverbs,
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like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions
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that which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow the realist
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to say in his own words. It will suffer him to say in proverbs
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without contradiction. And this law of laws, which the pulpits, the Senate,
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and the College deny, is hourly preached in all markets and workshops by
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the flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as that
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of birds and flies. All things are double one against another, tit for
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tat, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, blood
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for blood, measure for measure, love for love, Give, and it
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shall be given you. He that watereth shall be watered himself. What will
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you have, quoth God? Pay for it and take it? Nothing venture,
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nothing Have Thou shalt be paid exactly for what thou hast done. No
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more nor less. Who doth not work, shall not eat, harm,
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watch harm catch. Curses always recoil on the head of him who imprecates them.
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If you put a chain round the neck of a slave, the other
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end fastens itself around your own. Bad counsel confounds the adviser. The devil
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is an ass. It is thus written because it is thus in life.
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Our action is overmastered and characterized above our will by the law of nature.
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We aim at a petty end, quite aside from the public good. But
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our act arranges itself by irresistible magnetism, in a line with the poles of
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the world. A man cannot speak, but he judges himself with his will
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or against his will. He draws his portraits to the eye of his companions.
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By every word, every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It
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is a threadball thrown at a mark, but the other end remains in the
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thrower's bag. Or rather it is a harpoon hurled at the whil unwinding as
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it flies a coil of cord in the boat. And if the harpoon is
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not good or not well thrown, it will go nigh to cut the steersman
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in twain or sink the boat. You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.
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No man had ever appoint a pride that was not injurious to him, said
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Burke. The exclusive and fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself from
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enjoyment in the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in religion does not see
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that he shuts the door of heaven on himself in striving to shut out others.
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Treat men as ponds at nine pins, and you shall suffer as well
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as they. If you leave out their heart, you shall lose your own.
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The senses would make things of all persons, of women, of children
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of the poor. The vulgar proverb I will get it from his purse or
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get it from his skin, is sound philosophy. All infractions of love and
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equity in our social relations are speedily punished. They are punished by fear.
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Whilst I stand in simple relations to my fellow man, I have no displeasure
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in meeting him. We meet as water meets water, or as too currents
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of air mix with perfect diffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as
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there is any departure from simplicity, an attempt at halfness or good from me,
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that is not good for him. My neighbor feels the wrong. He
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shrinks from me. As far as I have shrunk from him. His eyes
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no longer seek mine. There is a war between us. There is hate
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in him and fear in me. All the old abuses in society, universal
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and particular, all unjust accumulations of property and power are avenged in the same
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manner. Fear is an instructor of great sagacity. In the Herald of all
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revolutions. One thing he teaches that there is rottenness where he appears. Here
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is a carrion crow, and though you see not well what he hovers,
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for there is death somewhere. Our property is timid, our laws are timid,
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Our cultivated classes are timid. Fear for ages has boded and mode and
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gibbered over government and property. That obscene bird is not there for nothing.
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He indicates great wrongs which must be revised. Of the like nature is that
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expectation of change which instantly follows the suspension of our voluntary activity. The terror
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of cloudless noon, the emerald of poliquities, the awe of prosperity, the
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instinct which leads every generous soul to impose on itself tasks of noble asceticism and
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vicarious virtue are the tremblings of the balance of justice. Through the heart and
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mind of man. Experienced men of the world know very well that it is
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best to pay scott and lot as they go along, and that a man
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often pays dear for a small frugality. The borrower runs in his own debt.
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Has a man gained anything who has received a hundred favors and rendered none
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as he gained by borrowing, through indolence or cunning his neighbor's wares, or
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horses or money. There arises on the deed, the instant acknowledgment of benefit
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on the one part, and of debt on the other, that is,
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of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in the memory of himself and his
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neighbor, and every new transaction alters according to its nature their relation to each
30:26
other. He may soon come to see that he had better have broken his
30:30
own bones than to have ridden in his neighbor's coach, and that the highest
30:34
price that he can pay for a thing is to ask for it. A
30:38
wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and know that
30:44
it is the part of prudence to face every claimant and pay every just demand
30:48
on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay for first
30:53
or last. You must pay your entire debt. Persons and events may stand
30:59
for a time time between you and justice, but it is only a postponement.
31:03
You must pay at last your own debt. If you are wise,
31:07
you will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more benefit. Is the
31:12
end of nature but for every benefit which you receive, a tax is levied.
31:18
He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base, and
31:22
that is the one base thing in the universe, to receive favors and render
31:27
none. In the order of nature, we cannot render benefits to those from
31:32
whom we receive them, or only seldom. But the benefit we receive must
31:37
be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, sent for cent
31:41
to somebody. Beware of too much good staying in your hand. It will
31:45
fast corrupt, and worm worms pay it away quickly. In some sort,
31:53
labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws. Cheapest say, the prudent
31:59
is the dearest life labor. What we buy in a broom, a mat,
32:02
a wagon, and knife is some application of good sense to a common
32:07
want. It is best to pay in your land a skillful gardener, or
32:10
to buy good sense applied to gardening in your sailor good sense applied to navigation
32:16
in the house. Good sense apply to cooking, sewing, serving in your
32:22
agent. Good sense apply to accounts and affairs. So do you multiply your
32:27
presence or spread yourself throughout your estate. But because of the dual constitution,
32:32
of things. In labor, as in life, there can be no cheating.
32:37
The thief steals from himself. The swindler swindles himself, for the real
32:42
price of labor is knowledge and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs.
32:47
These signs, like paper money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that
32:52
which they represent, namely knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or stolen.
32:59
These ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions of the mind and
33:04
in obedience to pure motives. The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler,
33:09
cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains
33:15
yield to the operative. The law of nature is, do the thing,
33:21
and you shall have the power. But they who do not the thing have
33:23
not the power. Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening
33:30
of a stake to the construction of a city or an epic, is one
33:34
immense illustration of the perfect compensation of the universe, the absolute balance of give
33:39
and take, the doctrine that everything has its price, and if that price
33:45
is not paid, not that thing, but something else is obtained, and
33:50
that it is impossible to get anything without its price is not less sublime in
33:54
the columns of the ledger than in the budgets of states, in the laws
33:58
of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of nature. I
34:04
cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees implicated in those processes with
34:08
which he is conversant, the stern ethics which sparkle on his chisel edge,
34:14
which are measured out by his plum and foot rule, which stand as manifest
34:19
in the footing of the shop bill, as in the history of the state,
34:22
to recommend to him his trade, and though seldom named, exalt his
34:27
business to his imagination. The league between virtue and nature engages all things to
34:34
assume a hostile front to vice. The beautiful laws and substances of the world
34:38
persecute and whip the traitor. He finds that things are arranged for truth and
34:43
benefit. But there is no den in the whole world to hide a rogue.
34:47
Commit a crime, And the earth is made of glass, commit a
34:52
crime. And it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground,
34:57
such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox,
35:00
and squirrel and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word. You cannot wipe
35:07
out the foot track. You cannot draw up the latter, so as to
35:10
leave no inlet or clue. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and
35:17
the substances of nature, water, snow, wind, gravitation become penalties to
35:23
the thief. On the other hand, the law holds with equal sureness for
35:29
all right action, love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically
35:35
just as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. The good man
35:39
has absolute good, which like fire, turns everything to its old nature,
35:45
so that you cannot do him any harm. But as the royal armies sent
35:50
against Napoleon when he approached, cast down their colors and from enemies became friends,
35:55
So disasters of all kinds, as sickness of fens poverty, prove benefactors.
36:02
Winds below and waters roll strength to the brave, and power and deity
36:07
that in themselves are nothing. The good are befriended even by weakness and defect.
36:15
As no man had ever appoint of pride that was not injurious to him,
36:20
so no man had ever a defect that was not sometimes made useful to
36:23
him. The stag in the fable, admired his horns and blamed his feet,
36:28
But when the hunter came, his feet saved him, and afterwards caught
36:31
in the thicket, his horns destroyed him. Every man in his lifetime needs
36:37
to thank his faults, as no man thoroughly understands the truth until he is
36:42
contended against it. So no man has a thorough acquaintance with the hindrances or
36:46
talons of men until he has suffered from one and seen the triumph of the
36:51
other over his own. Want of the same has he a defect of temper
36:55
that unfits him to live in society. Thereby he is driven to entertain himself
37:00
alone and acquire habits of self help. And thus, like the wounded oyster,
37:07
hemends his shell with pearl. Our strength grows out of our weakness.
37:13
The indignation, which arms itself with secret forces, does not awaken until we
37:17
are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to
37:23
be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages. He goes to
37:28
sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance
37:31
to learn something he has been put on his wits on his manhood. He
37:36
has gained facts, learns his ignorance, is cured of the insanity of Conceit
37:42
has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side
37:47
of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find
37:52
his weak point. The wound secatrizes and falls off from him like a dead
37:57
skin. And when they would triumph, oh, he has passed on invulnerable.
38:02
Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper.
38:08
As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel
38:12
a certain assurance of success. But as soon as hundred words of praise are
38:16
spoken from me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies.
38:22
In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.
38:29
As the sandwich islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills
38:32
passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptation we resist.
38:39
The same guards which protect us from disaster, defect, and enmity defend us
38:45
if we will, from selfishness and fraud. Bolts and bars are not the
38:51
best of our institutions, nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of wisdom.
38:55
Men suffer all their life long under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated.
39:00
But it is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one
39:05
but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be. At
39:08
the same time, there is a third, silent party to all bargains.
39:14
The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guarantee of the fulfillment of
39:19
every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you serve
39:24
an ungrateful master, serve him the more put God in your debt. Every
39:30
stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for
39:35
you. For compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this
39:39
exchequer. The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature,
39:46
to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. It
39:50
makes no difference whether the actors be many or one, a tyrant or a
39:54
mob. A mob is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themsel of reason and
40:00
traversing its work. The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the
40:07
beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane,
40:12
like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle, It would whip aright,
40:17
It would tar and feather justice by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and
40:22
persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys who run
40:28
with fire engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The
40:34
inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrong doors. The martyr cannot be dishonored.
40:40
Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame, every prison a more illustrious
40:45
abode. Every burnt book or house enlightens the world. Every suppressed or expunged
40:52
word reverberates through the earth from side to side. Hours of sanity and consideration
40:59
are all arriving to communities as to individuals when the truth is seen and the
41:04
martyrs are justified. Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances. The
41:12
man is all. Everything has two sides, a good and an evil.
41:17
Every advantage has its tax I learn to be content. But the doctrine of
41:23
compensation is not the doctrine of indifferency. The thoughtless say, on hearing these
41:30
representations, what boots it to do well? There is one event to good
41:35
and evil. If I gain any good, I must pay for it.
41:38
If I lose any good, I will gain some other. All actions are
41:43
indifferent. There is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation, to wit
41:49
its own nature. The soul is not a compensation, but a life.
41:53
The soul is under all this running sea of circumstance, whose word waters ebb
42:00
and flow with perfect balance, lies the aboriginal abyss of real being. Essence
42:06
or God is not a relation nor a part, but the whole being is
42:10
the vast effirmity, excluding negation, self balanced and swallowing up all relations,
42:17
parts and times within itself. Nature, truth, virtue are the influx from
42:22
fence. Vice is the absence or departure of the same. Nothing. Falsehood
42:29
may indeed stand as the great night or shade on which as a background the
42:34
living universe paints itself forth. But no fact is begotten by it. It
42:38
cannot work, for it is not. It cannot work any good, It
42:44
cannot work any harm. It is harm. Inasmuch as it is worse not
42:47
to be than to be. We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil
42:54
acts. Because the criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy, and does not
43:00
come to a crisis or judgment anywhere in visible nature, there is no stunning
43:06
confutation of this nonsense before men and angels. Has he therefore outwitted the law.
43:12
Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie with him, he so
43:16
far decreases from nature in some manner. There will be a demonstration of the
43:21
wrong to the understanding also, But should we not see it, This deadly
43:27
deduction makes square the eternal account. Neither can it be said, on the
43:31
other hand, that the gain of rectitude must be bought by any loss.
43:37
There is no penalty to virtue, no penalty to wisdom. They are proper
43:42
additions of being in a virtuous action. I properly am in a virtuous act.
43:47
I add to the world, I plant into deserts conquered from chaos and
43:52
nothing, and see the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon. There
43:57
can be no excess to love, none to knowledge, none to beauty.
44:01
When these attributes are considered in the purest sense, the soul refuses limits and
44:07
always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism. His life is a progress and
44:15
not a station. His instinct is trust. Our instinct uses more and less
44:21
in the application to man of the presence of the soul, and not of
44:24
its absence. The brave man is greater than the coward, the true,
44:30
the benevolent, the wise is more a man, and not less than the
44:34
fool and knave. There is no tax on the good of virtue, for
44:38
that is the incoming of God himself, or absolute existence. Without any comparative
44:44
material good has its tax, And if it came without desert or sweat,
44:49
has no root in me, and the next wind will blow it away.
44:52
But all the good of nature is the soul's, and may be had if
44:57
paid for in Nature's lawful coin, that is, by labor, which the
45:01
heart and the head allow. I no longer wish to meet a good.
45:07
I do not earn, for example, to find a part of buried gold,
45:10
knowing that it brings with it new burdens. I do not wish more
45:15
external goods, neither possessions, nor honors, nor powers nor persons. The
45:21
gain is apparent, the tax is certain, But there is no tax on
45:25
the knowledge that the compensation exists, and that it is not desirable to dig
45:30
up treasure. Herein I rejoice with a serene, eternal peace. I contract
45:36
the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn the wisdom of Saint Bernard. Nothing
45:40
can work me damage except myself. The harm that I sustain I carry about
45:46
with me, And never am I a real sufferer. But by my own
45:50
fault in the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequalities of condition,
45:57
the radical tragedy of nature. See SEMs to be the distinction of more
46:01
and less? How can less not feel the pain? How not feel indignation
46:07
or malevolence towards more? Look at those who have less faculty, and one
46:12
feels sad and knows not well what to make of it. He almost shuns
46:16
their eye. He fears they will upbraid God. What should they do?
46:22
It seems a great injustice. But see the facts. Nearly in those mountainous
46:27
inequalities vanish love reduces them as the sun melts the iceberg in the sea.
46:34
The heart and soul of all men being one, this bitterness of his and
46:37
mind ceases. His is mine. I am my brother, and my brother
46:43
is me. If I feel overshadowed and outdone by great neighbors. I can
46:49
yet love, I can still receive, and he that loveth maketh his own
46:52
the grandeur he loves. Thereby I make the discovery that my brother is my
47:00
guardian, acting for me with the friendliest designs, and the estate I so
47:04
admired and envied is my own. It is the nature of the soul to
47:08
appropriate all things. Jesus and Shakespeare are fragments of the soul, and by
47:15
love I conquer and incorporate them in my own conscious domain. His virtue is
47:21
not that mine, his wit. If it cannot be made mine, it
47:24
is not wit. Such also is the natural history of calamity. The changes
47:31
which break up at short intervals the prosperity of men are advertisements of a nature
47:37
whose law is growth. Every soul is, by this intrinsic necessity, quitting
47:43
its whole system of things, its friends and home, and laws and faith.
47:47
As the shellfish crawls out of its beautiful but stony case because it no
47:52
longer admits of its growth, and slowly forms a new house. In proportion
47:59
to the vigor of the individual. These revolutions are frequent, until in some
48:04
happier mind, they are incessant, and all worldly relations hang very loosely about
48:09
him, becoming, as it were, a transparent fluid membrane through which the
48:14
living form is seen, and not, as in most men, an indurated,
48:19
heterogeneous fabric of many dates and of no settled character, in which the
48:23
man is imprisoned. Then there can be enlargement, and the man of to
48:29
day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday. And such should be the outward biography
48:35
of man in time, a putting off of dead circumstances day by day,
48:39
as he renews his raiments day by day. But to us in our lapsed
48:45
estate, resting, not advancing, resisting, not cooperating with the divine expansion,
48:52
this growth comes by shocks. We cannot part with our friends. We
48:59
cannot that our angels go. We do not see that they only go out
49:04
that our angels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We
49:09
do not believe in the riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and
49:13
omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to day to rival
49:19
or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent
49:23
where once we had bread and shelter and organs. Nor believe that the spirit
49:29
can feed cover and nervous again, we cannot again find aught so dear,
49:35
so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The
49:40
voice of the Almighty saith up and onward forevermore. We cannot stay amid the
49:46
ruins. Neither will we rely on the new. And so we walk ever
49:52
with reverted eyes, like those monsters who look backwards. And yet the compensation
49:59
of calamity are made apparent to the understanding. Also after long intervals of time,
50:05
a fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth,
50:09
a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss and unpayable.
50:15
But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The
50:21
death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing
50:25
but privation, somewhat later, assumes the aspect of a guide or genius,
50:31
for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life. Terminates an epic of
50:37
infancy or of youth, which was waiting to be closed, breaks up,
50:40
a wonted occupation, or a household or style of living, and allows the
50:46
formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or
50:52
constrains the formation of new acquaintances and the reception of new influences that prove of
50:59
the first importants to the next years. And the man or woman who would
51:02
have remained a sunny garden flower with no room for its roots and too much
51:08
sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of
51:13
the gardener, is made the banion of the forest, yielding shade and fruit
51:19
to wide neighborhoods of men and of compensation.