"Emerson,_Ralph_Waldo_-_Lecture_On_The_Times" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Ralph Waldo)

LECTURE ON THE TIMES

_Read at the Masonic Temple, Boston,
December 2, 1841_


The times, as we say -- or the present aspects of our social
state, theral Science, Agriculture, Art, Trade, Letters, have their
root in an invisible spiritual reality. To appear in these aspects,
they must first exist, or have some necessary foundation. Beside all
the small reasons we assign, there is a great reason for the
existence of every extant fact; a reason which lies grand and
immovable, often unsuspected behind it in silence. The Times are the
masquerade of the eternities; trivial to the dull, tokens of noble
and majestic agents to the wise; the receptacle in which the Past
leaves its history; the quarry out of which the genius of to-day is
building up the Future. The Times -- the nations, manners,
institutions, opinions, votes, are to be studied as omens, as sacred
leaves, whereon a weighty sense is inscribed, if we have the wit and
the love to search it out. Nature itself seems to propound to us
this topic, and to invite us to explore the meaning of the
conspicuous facts of the day. Everything that is popular, it has
been said, deserves the attention of the philosopher: and this for
the obvious reason, that although it may not be of any worth in
itself, yet it characterizes the people.

Here is very good matter to be handled, if we are skilful; an
abundance of important practical questions which it behoves us to
understand. Let us examine the pretensions of the attacking and
defending parties. Here is this great fact of Conservatism,
entrenched in its immense redoubts, with Himmaleh for its front, and
Atlas for its flank, and Andes for its rear, and the Atlantic and
Pacific seas for its ditches and trenches, which has planted its
crosses, and crescents, and stars and stripes, and various signs and
badges of possession, over every rood of the planet, and says, `I
will hold fast; and to whom I will, will I give; and whom I will,
will I exclude and starve:' so says Conservatism; and all the
children of men attack the colossus in their youth, and all, or all
but a few, bow before it when they are old. A necessity not yet
commanded, a negative imposed on the will of man by his condition a
deficiency in his force, is the foundation on which it rests. Let
this side be fairly stated. Meantime, on the other part, arises
Reform, and offers the sentiment of Love as an overmatch to this
material might. I wish to consider well this affirmative side, which
has a loftier port and reason than heretofore, which encroaches on
the other every day, puts it out of countenance, out of reason, and
out of temper, and leaves it nothing but silence and possession.

The fact of aristocracy, with its two weapons of wealth and