d to
assert that perfect justice is meted out to individuals in this world,
is surely mere dreaming. Moreover, we can hardly acquit him of playing
with pantheistic Mysticism of the Oriental type, without seeing, or
without caring, whither such speculations logically lead. "Within
man," he tells us, "is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the
universal beauty, to which every part and particle is _equally_
related--the eternal One." This is genuine Pantheism, and should carry
with it the doctrine that all actions are equally good, bad, or
indifferent. Emerson says that his wife kept him from antinomianism;
but this is giving up the defence of his philosophy. He also differs
from Christianity, and agrees with many Hegelians, in teaching that
God, "the Over-Soul," only attains to self-consciousness in man; and
this, combined with his denial of _degrees_ in Divine immanence, leads
him to a self-deification of an arrogant and shocking kind, such as we
find in the Persian Sufis, and in some heretical mystics of the Middle
Ages. "I, the imperfect, adore my own Perfect. I am receptive of the
great soul. I become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing. I see all.
The currents of the universal Being circulate through me. I am part of
God"; and much more to the same effect. This is not the language of
those who have travelled up the mystical ladder, instead of only
writing about it. It is far more objectionable than the bold phrases
about deification which I quoted in my fifth Lecture from the
fourteenth century mystics; because with them the passage into the
Divine glory is the final reward, only to be attained "by all manner
of exercises"; while for Emerson it seems to be a state already
existing, which we can realise by a mere act of intellectual
apprehension. And the phrase, "Man is a part of God,"--as if the
Divine Spirit were _divided_ among the organs which express its
various activities,--has been condemned by all the great speculative
mystics, from Plotinus downwards. Emerson is perhaps at his best when
he applies his idealism to love and friendship. The spiritualising and
illuminating influence of pure comradeship has never been better or
more religiously set forth. And though it is necessary to be on our
guard against the very dangerous tendency of some of his teaching, we
shall find much to learn from the brave and serene philosopher whose
first maxim was, "Come out into the azure; love the day," and who
during his wh