with his
clearness of spiritual vision, saw, and this premise he subjected to the
microscopic lens of his penetrating intellect. In his essay on Fate he
says:

"Fate involves amelioration. No statement of the Universe can have any
soundness which does not admit its ascending effort. The direction of the
whole and of the parts is toward benefit. Behind every individual closes
organization; before him opens liberty. * * * The Better; the Best. The
first and worse races are dead. The second and imperfect races are dying
out, or remain for the maturing of higher. In the latest race, in man,
every generosity, every new perception, the love and praise he extorts from
his fellows, are certificates of advance _out of fate into freedom_."

This phrase, "out of fate into freedom," may be read to mean, literally,
out of the bondage of the sense-conscious life which entails rebirth and
continued experience, into the light of Illumination which makes us free.

Further commenting, Emerson says:

"Liberation of the will from the sheaths and clogs of organization which he
has outgrown _is the end and aim of the world_ * * * The whole circle of
animal life--tooth against tooth, devouring war, war for food, a yelp of
pain and a grunt of triumph, until at last the whole menagerie, the whole
chemical mass, is mellowed and refined _for higher use_ * * *"

The sense of unity which is so inseparable from the cosmic conscious
state, was always uppermost in Emerson's mind. Neither did he ever
present as unity that state of consciousness that may be termed
organization-consciousness--group-consciousness it is often called. He
realized that the person who stands for Individualism is much more than
apt to recognize his indissoluble relationship with the Cosmos. A
perception of unity is a complement of Individualism.

That which, in modern metaphysical phraseology, is best termed "The
Absolute," was expressed by Emerson as the Over-Soul, and this term meant
something much greater, more unescapable than the anthropomorphic God of
the church-goers. His assurance of unity with this Divine Spiritual Essence
was perfect. It savors more of what is termed the religious view of life
than of the philosophic, but we contend that in the coming era of the
cosmic conscious man, all life will be religious, in the true sense, and
that there will be no dividing line between philosophy and worship, because
worship will consist of living the life of the spirit