THE TINES:
LECTURE, BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
From Tbs Dial.
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1900


But have little patience with this melancholy
hsmsr. Their unbeei arises out of greater Be
lief; then InactIon out at a scorn OF inadequate
action. BY the side of these men, the hot agiia-
tors have a certain cheap and ridiculous air they
even look smaller than the others OF the two,
| own. like the spectators best. They have some
piety which look with faith to fair Future,
profancd by rash and unequal attempts to realize
it. And iruly shall find much to console rs,
when We consider the cause Of their unessines-.-
1t is the love OF greatness, IT s the need OF harmo-
nv the contrast Of the dwariish Actual with the
exorbtant Idea. No man can compare the ideas
and aspirations of the innoyators of the present
dav. with those of former period. without feeling
how great and high this criticism is. sc revolu-
tions that mpend Society not now from
ambition and rapacity, from impotence OF one or
another form of government, but from new modes
of thinking. which shall reccmpose Society after
a new order, which shall animate Labor by Love
and Science which shall destroy the value OF many
kinds of property, and replace all property within
the dominion OF reason and equity. There was
never so great thought lnborss in the breasts OF
men, IA now. 1t almost seems if what was
aoretme spoken fabulously and hieroc lyphically.
was now spoken plainly, the doctrine, namely, OF
the indwelling of the Creator in man. The spirit
uast wishes this only, that the spiritual principle
should be suffered to demonstrate itself to the end,
in all possible applications to the state of man,
withou, the admission of anything unsPiritua, that
is, anything positive, dogmatie, or personal The
excellence of this class consists in thi. one thing,
that they have believed that affirming the need
of new and higher modes of living and action,
they have abstained from the recommendation of
low methods. The fault is that they have stopped
the intellectual perception; that their will is not
Vet inspired from the Fountain of Love. But whose
fault is this and what fault and to What inquiry
does it lead We have come to that which Is tho
spring OF all power, Of beauty and virtue, OF art
and poetry; and who shall tell US according to
what law its inspirations and its Dformations ars
given wiIhholden


do not wish to be guilty of the narrowness
and pedantry of inferriSg the tendency and gen
irs of the Age from few and insufficient facts or
persons. Every age has a thousand sides and
signs and tendencies and il Is only when surveyed
from inferior points Of view, that great varieties of
character appear. Our time too is full of activity
and performance. Is there not something compre-
hensive in the grasp of society which to great
mechanical invention, and the best institutions of
property, adds the most daring theories wbichcx-
plores the subtlcst and most universal problems
At the manifest risk Of repeating what every other
Age has thought of itself, might say, think
the Genius of this Age more philosophical than





less fear, less fable, less mixture of any sort.


Bu, turnit how we will, as we ponder this mean
sg of the times, every new thought drives the
deep fact that the Time Is the child of the Etern
ity The main interest which any aspects of the
Times have for u.s. is the great spirit which
Cazes through them, the light which they can shed
on the wonderful questions, What are and
Whittier we tend We do not wish 10 be deceived.
Here drift like white sail across thewild ocean
now bright ON the wave, now darklDg IN the trough
of the sea but from what port did we sail
Who knows Or what port we bound
Who knowsl There is no one to tell us but such
poor weather tossed mariners as ourselves, whom
we speak we pass, or who have hosted some
signal or foated to some letter in a bottle from
far But what know tkey more than wel They
also found themselves this wondrous sea. No; /;
from the older sailors nothing. Over all their
speaking gtrumpets, the gray and the loud winds
answer, Not IN US not in Time. Where then
bu, in Ourselvcs-whcrc but in that Thought
through which we communicate with absolute ma
turc, and made aware that, whilst we shed the
dust of which built, grain by grain, till il is
all gone, the law which clothes with humanity
remains new where but in the Intuitons which
are vouchsated us from within, shall we learn the
Truth Faithless fa,hess, we fancy that with
the dust depart and are not ard do not know





last that only much as the law enters US,
becomes ss living men,-mmortal with
The Immortality of this law. Underneath all these
appearances, lies that which j., that which lives.
that which causes This ever-renewinr genera.
iion of appearances rests reality, and reali.
~ that is alive.


To true scholar the attraction OF the aspccts of
Nature, the departments OF Life and the pas.a.
ses of h's experience, Is simply the information
they yield him Of this supreme nature which turks
within all That reality, that causing force is mo.
raj. The Moral Sentiment Is but It's other name
|, makes by its presence or absencergh and wrong
beauty and ugincss, genus or deprivation. IS
the granite comes 10 the surface, and towers
into the highest mountains, and, If We dis down
we find il below the superficial straa. so in all the
details Of our domestic civil life, Is hidden the
elemental reality, which ever and anon comes 10
the surface. and forms the grand men, who are the