of the earth, nor shall we ever hereafter cease to be.' Spinoza,
the God-intoxicated man, never ventured on a declaration so bold. 'The
eternal wisdom of God, _Dei oeterna Sapientia_,' says he, more
modestly, 'is manifested in all things, but mostly in the human mind,
and most of all in Jesus Christ.' Here then we find the individuality of
Emerson, in his pure Pantheism, and, like the sword of Martin Antolinez,
it illumines all the field. Now we understand the constant warfare, the
'inevitable polarity,' in these pages. We forgive the occasional
inconsistencies of a man who is at once, by his own confession, 'God in
Nature and a weed by the wall.' His weakness strives after infinite
power. Conscious of a divinity within, he struggles to express it
worthily; but ah! says Hermes Trismegistus,--'It is hard to conceive
God, but impossible to express him.' Freedom within chafes at the iron
necessity without, 'a necessity deep as the world,' all-controlling,
imperial, which he acknowledges in the very depths of his being. But the
necessity of Emerson is a Hegelian element, such as every Aristophanic
comedy reveals. It is not the necessity of Fichte. 'I, with all that
relates to me, am imprisoned within the bonds of Necessity. I am one
link of her inflexible chain. A time was when I was not, so those have
assured me who were before me, and, as I have no consciousness of this
time, I am constrained to believe their testimony.' This is the
necessity of mere existence, which bears no relation to the will of the
man, not that inflexible destiny to which Emerson refers, that underlies
his continued being. The first does not oppose the 'instinct of an
activity free, independent,' which Emerson afterwards acknowledges. But
'I am God in Nature,' he repeats. 'The simplest person who in his
integrity proclaims God, becomes God.' 'This thorough integrity of
purpose,' writes Fichte, 'is itself the divine idea in its most common
form, and no really _honest_ mind is without communion with God.' In
Emerson the last height is reached. Brahm as Arjoon could do no more,
no less. His eye roams over the universe and sees only manifestations of
himself: the rose of morning, the shining splendor of the sea, the
purple of the distant mountains, are his dawn and noon and eve.

'Alas! what perils do environ
The man who meddles with--a siren!'

This may be Pantheism, but if it is not in accordance with the needs of
the ages, it is not the Panthei