ble to the infirmity of sleep. Yet politics rest on real founda-
tions and cannot be treated with levity. But the foundation is
not numbers or force, but character. Men do not see that all
force comes from this, and that the disuse of force is the edu-
cation of men to do without it. Character is the true theocracy.
It will one day suffice for the government of the world. Ab-
solutely speaking, I can only work for myself. The fight of
Leonidas, the hemlock of Socrates, the cross of Christ, is not
personal sacrifice for others, but fulfils a high necessity of his
proper character: the benefit to others is merely contingent."

Page 215, note 2. In dealing with his children after they
began to grow up, Mr. Emerson held to his theory. He did
not command or forbid, but laid principles and facts before us
and left the case in our hands, — a helpful confidence.

Page 215, note 3. His townsman, Squire Hoar, was an
exception. "When I talked with him one day of some ine-
quality of taxes in the town, he said it was his practice to pay
whatever was demanded; for, though he might think the tax-
ation large and very unequally proportioned, yet he thought
the money might as well go in this way as any other."
"Samuel Hoar," Lectures and Biographical Sketches.

Page 216, note I. When the question arose what epitaph
to put upon the stone over Emerson's grave, a young man who
had often been his guest wrote suggesting that much of the
foregoing paragraph would be fitting, beginning "The wise
needs no library," etc.

man

Page 217, note I.

His instant thought a poet spoke,
And filled the age his fame;

An inch of ground the lightning strook,

But lit the sky with flame.

"Fragments on the Poet," Poems, Appendix.

Page 220, note I. In an address prefixed to the first number of the Massachusetts Quarterly, in 1848, Mr. Emerson said: "We believe politics to be nowise accidental or exceptional, but subject to the same laws with trees, earths and acids."

Page 221, note 1. In the first edition the wording was "full of fate," instead of "full of faith."

NOMINALIST AND REALIST

I

What Emerson said in writing of Plato might, with little change, be said of himself and of his fairness in considering the "famous dispute of the Nominalists and Realists: " "The unity of Asia and the detail of Europe.

he came

to join, and by contact to enhance the energy of each. In short, a balanced soul was born, perceptive of the two elements. .. If he loved abstract truth, he saved himself by propounding the most popular of all principles, the absolute good, which rules rulers and judges the judge. If he made transcendental distinctions, he fortified himself by drawing all his illustrations from sources disdained by orators and polite from pitchers and soup-ladles, . . the shops of potters, horse-doctors, butchers, and fish-mongers. He cannot forgive in himself a partiality, but is resolved that the two poles of thought shall appear in his statement.'

conversers;

The wise men of the East and the Greek philosophers, and poets everywhere, spoke to Emerson, and in them he joyfully recognized his instinctive belief in the Soul-Universal, and in living Law. On the other hand, he was born into the hard and brilliant daylight of America in the youth of the nineteenth 1 Representative Men,

century. While by sympathy a Realist, he admired the courage and performance of the Nominalist, if only he would take the next step.

This essay does not appear to have been given as a lecture. Even in the short motto Mr. Emerson recognizes both the ideal archetype and the happiness and privilege of the individual.

Page 225, note I. In his Ode the hold which Beauty has upon him is less for what she has shown him than as a

Lavish, lavish Promiser.

Page 226, note 1. This is true in the body also, and notably in the face. Mr. Emerson's head furnishes a marked example. The sculptors who made good portraits of himDaniel Chester French, whose fine bust represents him in his serene age, and Sidney H. Morse, who made an excellent statuette bust of him in his prime - recognized this. In the work of both the face has a very different expression according to the side looked at, one representing Emerson the thinker and speaker, the other Emerson among his friends.

Page 230, note 1. He foresaw truly. Four years later in England he found good men and customs and results, but falling far short of the ideal English men and institutions. Yet he chose rather to look at and give them credit for their best tendencies. And in America, six years later, Webster, an idol of his youth, turned his back on the ideals that he had stood for in the minds of the best New England, yet for a time was supported by Northern people.

Page 231, note 1. This contest occupied the Church and the universities from the end of the ninth century down; the Realists, with the motto Universalia ante rem (or in re),

supporting revelation of law to the mind, but, as churchmen rather than philosophers, less broadly than the ancients. The Nominalists studied man and nature in the individual, "proved all things," and generalized later, —Universalia post rem, and were the party of criticism and advance. The Reformation and modern science drew their strength from this class.

Page 231, note 2. Comparing this sentence with what he has said elsewhere, it is clear that he would have dwelt a little on the words "have been.' Mr. Emerson's almost invariable rule in writing was, Never italicize.

Page 232, note 1. Compare "Aristocracy," Lectures and Biographical Sketches.

Page 233, note 1. Journal, 1839. "Plutarch fits me better than Southey or Scott, therefore I say, there is no age to good writing. Could I write as I would, I suppose the piece would be no nearer to Boston in 1839 than to Athens in the fiftieth Olympiad. Good thought, however expressed, saith to us, Come out of time; come to me in the Eternal.'"'

Page 233, note 2. Mr. Emerson had no ear for music, unless for a ballad sung with expression, and by a woman. The wild music of nature and the wind singing in the Æolian harp in his window spoke to him, as scientific music did not. Yet he was interested in it, and occasionally liked to go to a

concert.

Page 235, note 1. When all the competing reforms and theories were urged on him, instead of accepting or rejecting, he considered them calmly, and his practice was, like his Humble-bee, to

Leave the chaff and take the wheat.

Page 236, note 1.

Saw the endless rack of the firmament,

And the sailing moon where the cloud was rent,
And through man and woman and sea and star
Saw the dance of Nature forward and far.

"The Poet," Poems, Appendix.

Page 236, note 2. His reconciliation of two views here considered.

Page 238, note 1. Alphonso X., King of Castile in the thirteenth century, a monarch of wonderful literary, legal and scientific achievement, whose criticism of Nature's ways was versified by Emerson among his early poems. He is reported to have said that, had God consulted him in the making of the world, he would have made it differently. Nature's wholesome influence in bringing us down to earth after our flights is symbolized by hellebore at the bottom of her draught, because the ancients found hellebore quieted the insane. It is said that the philosophers drank hellebore to clear their brains before intellectual labor. Whether this was true helleborus or veratrum, still used as a heart-sedative, is uncertain.

Page 240, note 1. Evolution is thus condensed into an answer to the Sphinx's question,

The fate of the man-child,

The meaning of man?

Page 240, note 2. Three communities then recently established.

Page 241, note 1. From "The Paint-King," by Washington Allston. "Plato had no external biography. If he had lover, wife, or children, we hear nothing of them. He ground

› See A History of Spain, by Ulick Ralph Burke, M. A.