"Emerson, Ralph Waldo - The Conservative (1841)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Ralph Waldo)

pretension, to unnatural refining and elevation, which ends in
hypocrisy and sensual reaction.

And so whilst we do not go beyond general statements, it may be
safely affirmed of these two metaphysical antagonists, that each is a
good half, but an impossible whole. Each exposes the abuses of the
other, but in a true society, in a true man, both must combine.
Nature does not give the crown of its approbation, namely, beauty, to
any action or emblem or actor, but to one which combines both these
elements; not to the rock which resists the waves from age to age,
nor to the wave which lashes incessantly the rock, but the superior
beauty is with the oak which stands with its hundred arms against the
storms of a century, and grows every year like a sapling; or the
river which ever flowing, yet is found in the same bed from age to
age; or, greatest of all, the man who has subsisted for years amid
the changes of nature, yet has distanced himself, so that when you
remember what he was, and see what he is, you say, what strides! what
a disparity is here!

Throughout nature the past combines in every creature with the
present. Each of the convolutions of the sea-shell, each node and
spine marks one year of the fish's life, what was the mouth of the
shell for one season, with the addition of new matter by the growth
of the animal, becoming an ornamental node. The leaves and a shell
of soft wood are all that the vegetation of this summer has made, but
the solid columnar stem, which lifts that bank of foliage into the
air to draw the eye and to cool us with its shade, is the gift and
legacy of dead and buried years.

In nature, each of these elements being always present, each
theory has a natural support. As we take our stand on Necessity, or
on Ethics, shall we go for the conservative, or for the reformer. If
we read the world historically, we shall say, Of all the ages, the
present hour and circumstance is the cumulative result; this is the
best throw of the dice of nature that has yet been, or that is yet
possible. If we see it from the side of Will, or the Moral
Sentiment, we shall accuse the Past and the Present, and require the
impossible of the Future.

But although this bifold fact lies thus united in real nature,
and so united that no man can continue to exist in whom both these
elements do not work, yet men are not philosophers, but are rather
very foolish children, who, by reason of their partiality, see
everything in the most absurd manner, and are the victims at all
times of the nearest object. There is even no philosopher who is a
philosopher at all times. Our experience, our perception is
conditioned by the need to acquire in parts and in succession, that
is, with every truth a certain falsehood. As this is the invariable
method of our training, we must give it allowance, and suffer men to
learn as they have done for six millenniums, a word at a time, to