as vindicator, leveling the high, lifting the low, requiring justice in
man, and always striking soon or late, when justice is not done. What is
useful will last; what is hurtful will sink. "The doer must suffer," said
the Greeks: "you would soothe a Deity not to be soothed." "God himself
cannot procure good for the wicked," said the Welsh triad. "God may
consent, but only for a time," said the bard of Spain. The limitation is
impassable by any insight of man. In its last and loftiest ascensions,
insight itself, and the freedom of the will, is one of its obedient
members. But we must not run into generalizations too large, but show the
natural bounds or essential distinctions, and seek to do justice to the
other elements as well.
* * * * *
Thus we trace Fate, in matter, mind, and morals--in race, in retardations
of strata, and in thought and character as well. It is everywhere bound or
limitation. But fate has its lord; limitation its limits; is different
seen from above and from below; from within and from without. For, though
Fate is immense, so is power, which is the other fact in the dual world,
immense. If Fate follows and limits power, power attends and antagonizes
Fate. We must respect Fate as natural history, but there is more than
natural history. For who and what is this criticism that pries into the
matter? Man is not order of nature, sack and sack, belly and members, link
in a chain, nor any ignominious baggage, but a stupendous antagonism, a
dragging together of the poles of the Universe. He betrays his relation to
what is below him--thick-skulled, small-brained, fishy,
quadrumanous--quadruped ill-disguised, hardly escaped into biped, and has
paid for the new powers by loss of some of the old ones. But the lightning
which explodes and fashions planets, maker of planets and suns, is in him.
On one side, elemental order, sandstone and granite, rock-ledges,
peat-bog, forest, sea and shore; and, on the other part, thought, the
spirit which composes and decomposes nature--here they are, side by side,
god and devil, mind and matter, king and conspirator, belt and spasm,
riding peacefully together in the eye and brain of every man.
Nor can he blink the freewill. To hazard the contradiction--freedom is
necessary. If you please to plant yourself on the side of Fate, and say,
Fate is all; then we say, a part of Fate is the freedom of man. Forever
wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in the soul. Intellect annuls
Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free. And though nothing is more
disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and
the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a
"Declaration of Independence," or the statute right to vote, by those who
have never dared to think or to act, yet it is wholesome to man to look,
not at Fate, but the other way: the practical view is the other. His sound
relation to these facts is to use and command, not to cringe to them.
"Look not on nature, for her name is fatal," said the oracle. The too much
contemplation of these limits induces meanness. They who talk much of
destiny, their birth-star, etc., are in a lower dangerous plane, and
invite the evils they fear.
I cited the instinctive and heroic races as proud believers in Destiny.
They conspire with it; a loving resignation is with the event. But the
dogma makes a different impression, when it is held by the weak and lazy.
'Tis weak and vicious people who cast the blame on Fate. The right use of
Fate is to bring up our conduct to the loftiness of nature. Rude and
invincible except by themselves are the elements. So let man be. Let him
empty his breast of his windy conceits, and show his lordship by manners
and deeds on the scale of nature. Let him hold his purpose as with the tug
of gravitation. No power, no persuasion, no bribe shall make him give up
his point. A man ought to compare advantageously with a river, an oak, or
a mountain. He shall have not less the flow, the expansion, and the
resistance of these.
'Tis the best use of Fate to teach a fatal courage. Go face the fire at
sea, or the cholera in your friend's house, or the burglar in your own, or
what danger lies in the way of duty, knowing you are guarded by the
cherubim of Destiny. If you believe in Fate to your harm, believe it, at
least, for your good.
For, if Fate is so prevailing, man also is part of it, and can confront
fate with fate. If the Universe have these savage accidents, our atoms are
as savage in resistance. We should be crushed by the atmosphere, but for
the reaction of the air within the body. A tube made of a film of glass
can resist the shock of the ocean, if filled with the same water. If
there be omnipotence in the stroke, there is omnipotence of recoil.
But Fate against Fate is only parrying and defense: there are, also, the
noble creative forces. The revelation of Thought takes man out of
servitude into freedom. We rightly say of ourselves, we were born, and
afterward we were born again, and many times. We have successive
experiences so important, that the new forgets the old, and hence the
mythology of the seven or the nine heavens. The day of days, the great day
of the feast of life, is that in which the inward eye opens to the Unity
in things, to the omnipresence of law--sees that what is must be, and
ought to be, or is the best. This beatitude dips from on high down to us,
and we see. It is not in us so much as we are in it. If the air come to
our lungs, we breathe and live; if not, we die. If the light come to our
eyes, we see; else not. And if truth come to our mind, we suddenly expand
to its dimensions, as if we grew to worlds. We are as lawgivers; we speak
for Nature; we prophesy and divine.
This insight throws us on the party and interest of the Universe, against
all and sundry; against ourselves, as much as others. A man speaking from
insight affirms of himself what is true of the mind: seeing its
immortality, he says, I am immortal; seeing its invincibility, he says, I
am strong. It is not in us, but we are in it. It is of the maker, not of
what is made. All things are touched and changed by it. This uses, and is
not used. It distances those who share it, from those who share it not.
Those who share it not are flocks and herds. It dates from itself; not
from former men or better men--gospel, or constitution, or college, or
custom. Where it shines, Nature is no longer intrusive, but all things
make a musical or pictorial impression. The world of men show like a
comedy without laughter:--populations, interests, government,
history;--'tis all toy figures in a toy house. It does not overvalue
particular truths. We hear eagerly every thought and word quoted from an
intellectual man. But, in his presence, our own mind is roused to
activity, and we forget very fast what he says, much more interested in
the new play of our own thought, than in any thought of his. 'Tis the
majesty into which we have suddenly mounted, the impersonality, the scorn
of egotisms, the sphere of laws, that engage us. Once we were stepping a
little this way, and a little that way; now, we are as men in a balloon,
and do not think so much of the point we have left, or the point we would
make, as of the liberty and glory of the way.
Just as much intellect as you add, so much organic power. He who sees
through the design, presides over it, and must will that which must be. We
sit and rule, and, though we sleep, our dream will come to pass. Our
thought, though it were only an hour old, affirms an oldest necessity, not
to be separated from thought, and not to be separated from will. They must
always have coexisted. It apprises us of its sovereignty and godhead,
which refuse to be severed from it. It is not mine or thine, but the will
of all mind. It is poured into the souls of all men, as the soul itself
which constitutes them men. I know not whether there be, as is alleged, in
the upper region of our atmosphere, a permanent westerly current, which
carries with it all atoms which rise to that height; but I see that, when
souls reach a certain clearness of perception, they accept a knowledge and
motive above selfishness. A breath of will blows eternally through the
universe of souls in the direction of the Right and Necessary. It is the
air which all intellects inhale and exhale, and it is the wind which blows
the worlds into order and orbit.
Thought dissolves the material universe, by carrying the mind up into a
sphere where all is plastic. Of two men, each obeying his own thought, he
whose thought is deepest will be the strongest character. Always one man
more than another represents the will of Divine Providence to the period.
If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment. The mixtures of
spiritual chemistry refuse to be analyzed. Yet we can see that with the
perception of truth is joined the desire that it shall prevail. That
affection is essential to will. Moreover, when a strong will appears, it
usually results from a certain unity of organization, as if the whole
energy of body and mind flowed in one direction. All great force is real
and elemental. There is no manufacturing a strong will. There must be a
pound to balance a pound. Where power is shown in will, it must rest on
the universal force. Alaric and Bonaparte must believe they rest on a
truth, or their will can be bought or bent. There is a bribe possible for
any finite will. But the pure sympathy with universal ends is an infinite
force, and cannot be bribed or bent. Whoever has had experience of the
moral sentiment cannot choose but believe in unlimited power. Each pulse
from that heart is an oath from the Most High. I know not what the word
_sublime_ means, if it be not the intimations in this infant of a terrific
force. A text of heroism, a name and anecdote of courage, are not
arguments, but sallies of freedom. One of these is the verse of the
Persian Hafiz, "'Tis written on the gate of Heaven, 'Woe unto him who
suffers himself to be betrayed by Fate!'" Does the reading of history make
us fatalists? What courage does not the opposite opinion show! A little
whim of will to be free gallantly contending against the universe of
chemistry.
But insight is not will, nor is affection will. Perception is cold, and
goodness dies in wishes; as Voltaire said, 'tis the misfortune of worthy
people that they are cowards; "_un des plus grands malheurs des honnetes
gens c'est qu'ils sont des laches_." There must be a fusion of these two
to generate the energy of will. There can be no driving force, except
through the conversion of the man into his will, making him the will, and
the will him. And one may say boldly, that no man has a right perception
of any truth, who has not been reacted on by it, so as to be ready to be
its martyr.
The one serious and formidable thing in nature is a will. Society is
servile from want of will, and therefore the world wants saviours and
religions. One way is right to go: the hero sees it, and moves on that
aim, and has the world under him for root and support. He is to others as
the world. His approbation is honor; his dissent, infamy. The glance of
his eye has the force of sunbeams. A personal influence towers up in
memory only worthy, and we gladly forget numbers, money, climate,
gravitation, and the rest of Fate.
* * * * *
We can afford to allow the limitation, if we know it is the meter of the
growing man. We can stand against Fate, as children stand up against the
wall in their father's house, and notch their height from year to year.
But when the boy grows to man, and is master of the house, he pulls down
that wall, and builds a new and bigger. 'Tis only a question of time.
Every brave youth is in training to ride, and rule this dragon. His
science is to make weapons and wings of these passions and retarding
forces. Now whether, seeing these two things, fate and power, we are
permitted to believe in unity? The bulk of mankind believe in two gods.
They are under one dominion here in the house, as friend and parent, in
social circles, in letters, in art, in love, in religion: but in
mechanics, in dealing with steam and climate, in trade, in politics, they
think they come under another; and that it would be a practical blunder
to transfer the method and way of working of one sphere into the other.
What good, honest, generous men at home, will be wolves and foxes on
change! What pious men in the parlor will vote for what reprobates at the
polls! To a certain point, they believe themselves the care of a
Providence. But in a steamboat, in an epidemic, in war, they believe a
malignant energy rules.
But relation and connection are not somewhere and sometimes, but
everywhere and always. The divine order does not stop where their sight
stops. The friendly power works on the same rules, in the next farm and
the next planet. But where they have not experience, they run against it,
and hurt themselves. Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under
the fire of thought--for causes which are unpenetrated.
But every jet of chaos which threatens to exterminate us is convertible by
intellect into wholesome force. Fate is unpenetrated causes. The water
drowns ship and sailor, like a grain of dust. But learn to swim, trim your
bark, and the wave which drowned it will be cloven by it, and carry it,
like its own foam, a plume and a power. The cold is inconsiderate of
persons, tingles your blood, freezes a man like a dew-drop. But learn to
skate, and the ice will give you a graceful, sweet, and poetic motion. The
cold will brace your limbs and brain to genius, and make you foremost men
of time. Cold and sea will train an imperial Saxon race, which nature
cannot bear to lose, and, after cooping it up for a thousand years in
yonder England, gives a hundred Englands, a hundred Mexicos. All the
bloods it shall absorb and domineer: and more than Mexicos--the secrets of
water and steam, the spasms of electricity, the ductility of metals, the
chariot of the air, the ruddered balloon, are awaiting you.
The annual slaughter from typhus far exceeds that of war; but right
drainage destroys typhus. The plague in the sea-service from scurvy is
healed by lemon juice and other diets portable or procurable; the
depopulation by cholera and small-pox is ended by drainage and
vaccination; and every other pest is not less in the chain of cause and
effect, and may be fought off. And, whilst art draws out the venom, it
commonly extorts some benefits from the vanquished enemy. The mischievous
torrent is taught to drudge for man; the wild beasts he makes useful for
food, or dress, or labor; the chemic explosions are controlled like his
watch. These are now the steeds on which he rides. Man moves in all modes,
by legs of horses, by wings of wind, by steam, by gas of balloon, by
electricity, and stands on tiptoe threatening to hunt the eagle in his own
element. There is nothing he will not make his carrier.
Steam was, till the other day, the devil which we dreaded. Every pot made
by any human potter or brazier had a hole in its cover, to let off the
enemy, lest he should lift pot and roof, and carry the house away. But the
Marquis of Worcester, Watt, and Fulton bethought themselves that where was
power was not devil, but was God; that it must be availed of, and not by
any means let off and wasted. Could he lift pots and roofs and houses so
handily? he was the workman they were in search of. He could be used to
lift away, chain, and compel other devils, far more reluctant and
dangerous, namely, cubic miles of earth, mountains, weight or resistance
of water, machinery, and the labors of all men in the world; and time he
shall lengthen, and shorten space.
It has not fared much otherwise with higher kinds of steam. The opinion of
the million was the terror of the world, and it was attempted, either to
dissipate it, by amusing nations, or to pile it over with strata of
society--a layer of soldiers; over that, a layer of lords; and a king on
the top; with clamps and hoops of castles, garrisons, and police. But,
sometimes, the religious principle would get in, and burst the hoops, and
rive every mountain laid on top of it. The Fultons and Watts of politics,
believing in unity, saw that it was a power, and, by satisfying it (as
justice satisfies everybody), through a different disposition of
society,--grouping it on a level, instead of piling it into a
mountain,--they have contrived to make of this terror the most harmless
and energetic form of a State.
Very odious, I confess, are the lessons of Fate. Who likes to have a
dapper phrenologist pronouncing on his fortunes? Who likes to believe that
he has hidden in his skull, spine, and pelvis, all the vices of a Saxon or
Celtic race, which will be sure to pull him down--with what grandeur of
hope and resolve he is fired--into a selfish, huckstering, servile,
dodging animal? A learned physician tells us, the fact is invariable with
the Neapolitan that, when mature, he assumes the forms of the unmistakable
scoundrel. That is a little overstated--but may pass.
But these are magazines and arsenals. A man must thank his defects, and
stand in some terror of his talents. A transcendent talent draws so
largely on his forces, as to lame him; a defect pays him revenues on the
other side. The sufferance, which is the badge of the Jew, has made him,
in these days, the ruler of the rulers of the earth. If Fate is ore and
quarry, if evil is good in the making, if limitation is power that shall
be, if calamities, oppositions, and weights are wings and means--we are
reconciled.
Fate involves the melioration. No statement of the universe can have any
soundness, which does not admit its ascending effort. The direction of the
whole, and of the parts, is toward benefit, and in proportion to the
health. Behind every individual closes organization: before him opens
liberty--the better, the best. The first and worst races are dead. The
second and imperfect races are dying out, or remain for the maturing of
higher. In the latest race, in man, every generosity, every new
perception, the love and praise he extorts from his fellows, are
certificates of advance out of fate into freedom. Liberation of the will
from the sheaths and clogs of organization which he has outgrown, is the
end and aim of this world. Every calamity is a spur and valuable hint; and
where his endeavors do not yet fully avail, they tell as tendency. The
whole circle of animal life,--tooth against tooth,--devouring war, war for
food, a yelp of pain and a grunt of triumph, until, at last, the whole
menagerie, the whole chemical mass, is mellowed and refined for higher
use--pleases at a sufficient perspective.
But to see how fate slides into freedom, and freedom into fate, observe
how far the roots of every creature run, or find, if you can, a point
where there is no thread of connection. Our life is consentaneous and
far-related. This knot of nature is so well tied, that nobody was ever
cunning enough to find the two ends. Nature is intricate, overlapped,
inter-weaved, and endless. Christopher Wren said of the beautiful King's
College chapel, "that, if anybody would tell him where to lay the first
stone, he would build such another." But where shall we find the first
atom in this house of man, which is all consent, inosculation, and balance
of parts?
The web of relation is shown in _habitat_, shown in hibernation. When
hibernation was observed, it was found, that, whilst some animals become
torpid in winter, others were torpid in summer: hibernation then was a
false name. The _long sleep_ is not an effect of cold, but is regulated by
the supply of food proper to the animal. It becomes torpid when the fruit
or prey it lives on is not in season, and regains its activity when its
food is ready.
Eyes are found in light; ears in auricular air; feet on land; fins in
water; wings in air; and each creature where it was meant to be, with a
mutual fitness. Every zone has its own _Fauna_. There is adjustment
between the animal and its food, its parasite, its enemy. Balances are
kept. It is not allowed to diminish in numbers, nor to exceed. The like
adjustments exist for man. His food is cooked when he arrives; his coal in
the pit; the house ventilated; the mud of the deluge dried; his companions
arrived at the same hour, and awaiting him with love, concert, laughter,
and tears. These are coarse adjustments, but the invisible are not less.
There are more belongings to every creature than his air and his food. His
instincts must be met, and he has predisposing power that bends and fits
what is near him to his use. He is not possible until the invisible things
are right for him, as well as the visible. Of what changes, then, in sky
and earth, and in finer skies and earths, does the appearance of some
Dante or Columbus apprise us!
How is this effected? Nature is no spendthrift, but takes the shortest way
to her ends. As the general says to his soldiers, "If you want a fort,
build a fort," so nature makes every creature do its own work and get its
living--is it planet, animal, or tree. The planet makes itself. The animal
cell makes itself; then, what it wants. Every creature--wren or
dragon--shall make its own lair. As soon as there is life, there is
self-direction, and absorbing and using of material. Life is freedom--life
in the direct ratio of its amount. You may be sure, the new-born man is
not inert. Life works both voluntarily and supernaturally in its
neighborhood. Do you suppose he can be estimated by his weight in pounds,
or that he is contained in his skin--this reaching, radiating, jaculating
fellow? The smallest candle fills a mile with its rays, and the papillae
of a man run out to every star.
When there is something to be done, the world knows how to get it done.
The vegetable eye makes leaf, pericarp, root, bark, or thorn, as the need
is; the first cell converts itself into stomach, mouth, nose, or nail,
according to the want; the world throws its life into a hero or a
shepherd, and puts him where he is wanted. Dante and Columbus were
Italians in their time: they would be Russians or Americans to-day. Things
ripen, new men come. The adaptation is not capricious. The ulterior aim,
the purpose beyond itself, the correlation by which planets subside and
crystallize, then animate beasts and men, will not stop, but will work
into finer particulars, and from finer to finest.
The secret of the world is, the tie between person and event. Person makes
event and event person. The "times," "the age," what is that, but a few
profound persons and a few active persons who epitomize the
times?--Goethe, Hegel, Metternich, Adams, Calhoun, Guizot, Peel, Cobden,
Kossuth, Rothschild, Astor, Brunel, and the rest. The same fitness must be
presumed between a man and the time and event, as between the sexes, or
between a race of animals and the food it eats, or the inferior races it
uses. He thinks his fate alien, because the copula is hidden. But the soul
contains the event that shall befall it, for the event is only the
actualization of its thoughts; and what we pray to ourselves for is always
granted. The event is the print of your form. It fits you like your skin.
What each does is proper to him. Events are the children of his body and
mind. We learn that the soul of Fate is the soul of us, as Hafiz sings--
Alas! till now I had not known,
My guide and fortune's guide are one.
All the toys that infatuate men, and which they play for,--houses, land,
money, luxury, power, fame,--are the self-same thing, with a new gauze or
two of illusion overlaid. And of all the drums and rattles by which men
are made willing to have their heads broke, and are led out solemnly every
morning to parade, the most admirable is this by which we are brought to
believe that events are arbitrary, and independent of actions. At the
conjurer's we detect the hair by which he moves his puppet, but we have
not eyes sharp enough to descry the thread that ties cause and effect.