Essays Series 1Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - THERE is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent. Of the works of this mind history is the record. Its genius is illustrated by the entire series of days. Man is explicable by nothing less than all his history. Without hurry, without rest, the human spirit goes forth from the beginning to embody every faculty, every thought, every emotion, which belongs to it, in appropriate events. But the thought is always prior to the fact; all the facts of history preexist in the mind as laws. Each law in turn is made by circumstances predominant, and the limits of nature give power to but one at a time. A man is the whole encyclopaedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man. Epoch after epoch, camp, kingdom, empire, republic, democracy, are merely the application of his manifold spirit to the manifold world. |
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Page 23
... seems the same fellow - beings as I. The sun and moon , water and fire , met his heart precisely as they meet mine . Then the vaunted distinction between Greek and English , between Classic and Romantic schools , seems super- ficial and ...
... seems the same fellow - beings as I. The sun and moon , water and fire , met his heart precisely as they meet mine . Then the vaunted distinction between Greek and English , between Classic and Romantic schools , seems super- ficial and ...
Page 26
... seems the self - defence of man against this untruth , namely a discontent with the believed fact that a God exists , and a feeling that the obligation of reverence is onerous . It would steal if it could the fire of the Creator , and ...
... seems the self - defence of man against this untruth , namely a discontent with the believed fact that a God exists , and a feeling that the obligation of reverence is onerous . It would steal if it could the fire of the Creator , and ...
Page 28
... seems to vent a mere caprice and wild romance , the issue is an exact allegory . Hence Plato said that " poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand . " All the fictions of the Middle Age explain themselves ...
... seems to vent a mere caprice and wild romance , the issue is an exact allegory . Hence Plato said that " poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand . " All the fictions of the Middle Age explain themselves ...
Page 37
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Page 38
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action Aeschylus affection appear beauty become behold better black event Bonduca character conversation divine doctrine earth Egypt Epaminondas eternal evanescent experience fable fact fear feel friendship genius gifts give Greek hand heart heaven Heraclitus heroism hour human instinct intellect less light live look lose man's marriage mind moral nature never noble object ourselves OVER-SOUL painted pass passion perception perfect persons Petrarch Phidias Phocion picture Pindar plain dealing Plato Plotinus Plutarch poet poetry prudence Pyrrhonism relations religion Rome sculpture secret seek seems seen sense sensual sentiment Shakspeare shines society Socrates Sophocles soul speak Spinoza spirit stand Stoicism sweet talent teach thee things thou thought to-day to-morrow true truth universal virtue whilst whole wisdom wise words Xenophon youth Zoroaster