e the
notice of the masters of literature and religion. I have appreciated
fully the advantages of my position, for I well know there is no
scholar less willing or less able than myself to be a polemic. I
could not give an account of myself, if challenged. I could not
possibly give you one of the 'arguments' you cruelly hint at, on
which any doctrine of mine stands; for I do not know what arguments
are in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in
telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it
is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see
that either of these questions admits of an answer. So that in the
present droll posture of my affairs, when I see myself suddenly
raised to the importance of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I
advert to the supposed duties of such a personage, who is to make
good his thesis against all comers. I certainly shall do no such
thing. I shall read what you and other good men write, as I have
always done, glad when you speak my thoughts, and skipping the
page that has nothing for me. I shall go on just as before, seeing
whatever I can, and telling what I see; and, I suppose, with the
same fortune that has hitherto attended me,--the joy of finding that
my abler and better brothers, who work with the sympathy of society,
loving and beloved, do now and then unexpectedly confirm my
conceptions, and find my nonsense is only their own thought in
motley,--and so I am your affectionate servant," etc.

The controversy which followed is a thing of the past; Emerson took no
part in it, and we need not return to the discussion. He knew his
office and has defined it in the clearest manner in the letter just
given,--"Seeing whatever I can, and telling what I see." But among his
listeners and readers was a man of very different mental constitution,
not more independent or fearless, but louder and more combative, whose
voice soon became heard and whose strength soon began to be felt in the
long battle between the traditional and immanent inspiration,--Theodore
Parker. If Emerson was the moving spirit, he was the right arm in the
conflict, which in one form or another has been waged up to the present
day.

In the winter of 1838-39 Emerson delivered his usual winter course
of Lectures. He names them in a letter to Carlyle as follows: "Ten
Lectures: I. The Doctrine of