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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 22
Page 14
... young child plays with graybeards and in churches . Genius studies the causal thought , and far back in the womb of things sees the rays parting from one orb , that diverge , ere they fall , by infinite diameters . Genius watches the ...
... young child plays with graybeards and in churches . Genius studies the causal thought , and far back in the womb of things sees the rays parting from one orb , that diverge , ere they fall , by infinite diameters . Genius watches the ...
Page 25
... young child , in repressing his spirits and courage , paralyzing the understanding , and that without producing indignation , but only fear and obedience , and even much sympathy with the tyranny , - is a familiar fact , explained to ...
... young child , in repressing his spirits and courage , paralyzing the understanding , and that without producing indignation , but only fear and obedience , and even much sympathy with the tyranny , - is a familiar fact , explained to ...
Page 38
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 45
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 55
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
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