But, at last, we
shall cease to look in men for completeness, and shall content ourselves
with their social and delegated quality. All that respects the
individual is temporary and prospective, like the individual himself,
who is ascending out of his limits, into a catholic existence. We have
never come at the true and best benefit of any genius, so long as we
believe him an original force. In the moment when he ceases to help
us as a cause, he begins to help us move as an effect. Then he appears
as an exponent of a vaster mind and will. The opaque self becomes
transparent with the light of the First Cause.
Yet, within the limits of human education and agency, we may say, great
men exist that there may be greater men. The destiny of organized
nature is amelioration, and who can tell its limits? It is for man to
tame the chaos; on every side, whilst he lives, to scatter the seeds
of science and of song, that climate, corn, animals, men, may be milder,
and the germs of love and benefit may be multiplied.
II. PLATO; OR, THE PHILOSOPHER.
Among books, Plato only is entitled to Omar's fanatical compliment to
the Koran, when he said, "Burn the libraries; for, their value is in
this book.
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