thing is
ridiculous) as this of the poor decapitated Kieran.

Mutato nomine, de te
Fabula narratur.

We see our natural faces in the glass of history, and turn away and
straightway forget what manner of men we are. The superstition of
science scoffs at the superstition of faith.

FOOTNOTES:

[Z] Written in 1850.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

1850.

From St. Anselm to Mr. Emerson, from the 'Acta Sanctorum' to the
'Representative Men;' so far in seven centuries we have travelled. The
races of the old Ideals have become extinct like the Preadamite
Saurians; and here are our new pattern specimens on which we are to
look, and take comfort and encouragement to ourselves.

The philosopher, the mystic, the poet, the sceptic, the man of the
world, the writer; these are the present moral categories, the _summa
genera_ of human greatness as Mr. Emerson arranges them. From every
point of view an exceptionable catalogue. They are all thinkers, to
begin with, except one: and thought is but a poor business compared to
action. Saints did not earn canonisation by the number of their folios;
and if the necessities of the times are now driving our best men out of
action into philosophy and verse-making, so much the worse for them and
so much the worse for the world. The one pattern actor, 'the man of the
world,' is Napoleon Bonaparte, not in the least a person, as we are most
of us at present feeling, whose example the world desires to see
followed. Mr. Emerson would have done better if he had kept to his own
side of the Atlantic. He is paying his own countrymen but a poor
compliment by coming exclusively to Europe for his heroes; and he would
be doing us in Europe more real good by a great deal if he would tell us
something of the backwoodsmen in Kentucky and Ohio. However, to let that
pass; it is not our business here to quarrel either with him or his
book; and the book stands at the head of our article rather because it
presents a very noticeable deficiency of which its writer is either
unaware or careless.

These six predicables, as the logician would call them, what are they?
Are they _ultimate genera_ refusing to be classified farther? or is
there any other larger type of greatness under which they fall? In the
naturalist's catalogue, poet, sceptic, and the rest will all be
classified as men--man being an intelligible entity. Has Mr. Emerson any
similar clear idea of great man or good man? If so, where is he?