"Essays 1st Series" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Ralph Waldo )

fins of the fish foreshow that water exists, or the wings of an eagle
in the egg presuppose air. He cannot live without a world. Put
Napoleon in an island prison, let his faculties find no men to act
on, no Alps to climb, no stake to play for, and he would beat the air
and appear stupid. Transport him to large countries, dense
population, complex interests, and antagonist power, and you shall
see that the man Napoleon, bounded, that is, by such a profile and
outline, is not the virtual Napoleon. This is but Talbot's shadow;

"His substance is not here:
For what you see is but the smallest part
And least proportion of humanity;
But were the whole frame here,
It is of such a spacious, lofty pitch,
Your roof were not sufficient to contain it."
_Henry VI._

Columbus needs a planet to shape his course upon. Newton and
Laplace need myriads of ages and thick-strewn celestial areas. One
may say a gravitating solar system is already prophesied in the
nature of Newton's mind. Not less does the brain of Davy or of
Gay-Lussac, from childhood exploring the affinities and repulsions of
particles, anticipate the laws of organization. Does not the eye of
the human embryo predict the light? the ear of Handel predict the
witchcraft of harmonic sound? Do not the constructive fingers of
Watt, Fulton, Whittemore, Arkwright, predict the fusible, hard, and
temperable texture of metals, the properties of stone, water, and
wood? Do not the lovely attributes of the maiden child predict the
refinements and decorations of civil society? Here also we are
reminded of the action of man on man. A mind might ponder its
thought for ages, and not gain so much self-knowledge as the passion
of love shall teach it in a day. Who knows himself before he has
been thrilled with indignation at an outrage, or has heard an
eloquent tongue, or has shared the throb of thousands in a national
exultation or alarm? No man can antedate his experience, or guess
what faculty or feeling a new object shall unlock, any more than he
can draw to-day the face of a person whom he shall see to-morrow for
the first time.

I will not now go behind the general statement to explore the
reason of this correspondency. Let it suffice that in the light of
these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its
correlative, history is to be read and written.

Thus in all ways does the soul concentrate and reproduce its
treasures for each pupil. He, too, shall pass through the whole
cycle of experience. He shall collect into a focus the rays of
nature. History no longer shall be a dull book. It shall walk
incarnate in every just and wise man. You shall not tell me by
languages and titles a catalogue of the volumes you have read. You