more manifest; as in that portion of
our being which we name the Moral: for properly, indeed, all communion
is of a moral sort, whereof such intellectual communion (in the act of
knowing) is itself an example. But with regard to Morals strictly so
called, it is in Society, we might almost say, that Morality begins;
here at least it takes an altogether new form, and on every side, as
in living growth, expands itself. The Duties of Man to himself, to
what is Highest in himself, make but the First Table of the Law: to
the First Table is now superadded a Second, with the Duties of Man to
his Neighbour; whereby also the significance of the First now assumes
its true importance. Man has joined himself with man; soul acts and
reacts on soul; a mystic miraculous unfathomable Union establishes
itself; Life, in all its elements, has become intensated, consecrated.
The lightning-spark of Thought, generated, or say rather
heaven-kindled, in the solitary mind, awakens its express likeness in
another mind, in a thousand other minds, and all blaze up together in
combined fire; reverberated from mind to mind, fed also with fresh
fuel in each, it acquires incalculable new light as Thought,
incalculable new heat as converted into Action. By and by, a common
store of Thought can accumulate, and be transmitted as an everlasting
possession: Literature, whether as preserved in the memory of Bards,
in Runes and Hieroglyphs engraved on stone, or in Books of written or
printed paper, comes into existence, and begins to play its wondrous
part. Polities are formed; the weak submitting to the strong; with a
willing loyalty, giving obedience that he may receive guidance: or say
rather, in honour of our nature, the ignorant submitting to the wise;
for so it is in all even the rudest communities, man never yields
himself wholly to brute Force, but always to moral Greatness; thus the
universal title of respect, from the Oriental _Sheik_, from the
_Sachem_ of the Red Indians, down to our English _Sir_, implies only
that he whom we mean to honour is our _senior_. Last, as the crown and
all-supporting keystone of the fabric, Religion arises. The devout
meditation of the isolated man, which flitted through his soul, like a
transient tone of Love and Awe from unknown lands, acquires certainty,
continuance, when it is shared-in by his brother men. "Where two or
three are gathered together" in the name of the Highest, then first
does the Highest, as it is wri