BY
I. Uses of Great Men
II. Plato; or, the Philosopher
Plato; New Readings
III. Swedenborg; or, the Mystic
IV. Montaigne; or, the Skeptic
V. Shakspeare; or, the Poet
VI. Napoleon; or, the Man of the World
VII. Goethe; or, the Writer
It is natural to believe in great men. If the companions of our
childhood should turn out to be heroes, and their condition regal, it
would not surprise us. All mythology opens with demigods, and the
circumstance is high and poetic; that is, their genius is paramount.
In the legends of the Gautama, the first men ate the earth, and found
it deliciously sweet.
Nature seems to exist for the excellent. The world is upheld by the
veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome. They who lived
with them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable
only in our belief in such society; and actually, or ideally, we manage
to live with superiors. We call our children and our lands by their
names. Their names are wrought into the verbs of language, their works
and effigies are in our houses, and every circumstance of the day
recalls an anecdote of them.
The search after the great is the dream of youth, and the most serious
occupation of manhood. We travel into foreign parts to find his
works,--if possible, to get a glimpse of him. But we are put off with
fortune instead. You say, the English are practical; the Germans are
hospitable; in Valencia, the climate is delicious; and in the hills
of Sacramento there is gold for the gathering. Yes, but I do not travel
to find comfortable, rich, and hospitable people, or clear sky, or
ingots that cost too much. But if there were any magnet that would
point to the countries and houses where are the persons who are
intrinsically rich and powerful, I would sell all, and buy it, and put
myself on the road to-day.
The race goes with us on their credit. The knowledge, that in the city
is a man who invented the railroad, raises the credit of all the
citizens. But enormous populations, if they be beggars, are disgusting,
like moving cheese, like hills of ants, or of fleas--the more, the
worse.
Our religion is the love and cherishing of these patrons. The gods of
fable are the shining moments of great men. We run all our vessels
into one mould. Our colossal theologies of Judaism, Christism, Buddhism,
Mahometism, are the necessary and structural action of the human mind.
The student of history is like a man going into a warehouse to buy
cloths or carpets. He fancies he has a new article. If he go to the
factory, he shall find that his new stuff still repeats the scrolls
and rosettes which are found on the interior walls of the pyramids of
Thebes. Our theism is the purification of the human mind. Man can
paint, or make, or think nothing but man. He believes that the great
material elements had their origin from his thought. And our philosophy
finds one essence collected or distributed.