ou are not isolated, as you cannot be, as you cannot even have the
will to be (for that very will would be a paradox, a logical absurdity,
impossible to be carried out, being contrary to the eternal laws of God,
which he for nobody's sake will change); therefore to believe that you
can go on to be connected with Europe in a thousand respects, and still
remain unaffected by its social and political condition, would be indeed
a fatal delusion.

You stretch out your gigantic hands a thousandfold every day over the
waves; your relations with Europe are not only commercial as with Asia,
they are also social, moral, spiritual, intellectual; you take Europe
every day by the hand. How then could you believe, that if that hand of
Europe, which you grasp every day, remains dirty, you can escape from
soiling your own hands? The cleaner they are, all the more will the
filth of old Europe stick to them. There is no possible means to escape
from being soiled, than to help us, Europeans, to wash the hands of our
old world.

You have heard of the ostrich, that when persecuted by an enemy, it is
wont to hide its head, leaving its body exposed; it believes that by not
regarding it, it will not be seen by the enemy. That curious aberration
is worthy of reflection. It is _typical_.

Yes, gentlemen, either America will _re_generate the condition of
the old world, or it will be _de_generated by the condition of the
old world.

Sir, I implore you (Mr. Emerson), give me the aid of your philosophical
_analysis_, to impress the conviction upon the public mind of your
nation that the Revolution, to which CONCORD was the preface, is full of
a higher destiny--of a destiny broad as the world, broad as humanity
itself. Let me entreat you to apply the analytic powers of your
penetrating intellect, to disclose the character of the American
Revolution, as you disclose the character of self-reliance, of spiritual
laws, of intellect, of nature, or of politics. Lend the authority of
your judgment to the truth, that the destiny of American revolution is
not yet fulfilled; that the task is not yet completed; that to stop half
way, is worse than would have been not to stir: repeat those words of
deep meaning which once you wrote about the monsters that looked
backward, and about the walking with reverted eye, while the voice of
the Almighty says, "_up and onward for ever more_," while moreover
the instinct of your people, which never fails to be right, an