tten, "appear among them to bless them;"
then first does an Altar and act of united Worship open a way from
Earth to Heaven; whereon, were it but a simple Jacob's-ladder, the
heavenly Messengers will travel, with glad tidings and unspeakable
gifts for men. Such is Society, the vital articulation of many
individuals into a new collective individual: greatly the most
important of man's attainments on this earth; that in which, and by
virtue of which, all his other attainments and attempts find their
arena, and have their value. Considered well, Society is the standing
wonder of our existence; a true region of the Supernatural; as it
were, a second all-embracing Life, wherein our first individual Life
becomes doubly and trebly alive, and whatever of Infinitude was in us
bodies itself forth, and becomes visible and active.

To figure Society as endowed with life is scarcely a metaphor; but
rather the statement of a fact by such imperfect methods as language
affords. Look at it closely, that mystic Union, Nature's highest work
with man, wherein man's volition plays an indispensable yet so
subordinate a part, and the small Mechanical grows so mysteriously and
indissolubly out of the infinite Dynamical, like Body out of
Spirit,--is truly enough vital, what we can call vital, and bears the
distinguishing character of life. In the same style also, we can say
that Society has its periods of sickness and vigour, of youth,
manhood, decrepitude, dissolution and new-birth; in one or other of
which stages we may, in all times, and all places where men inhabit,
discern it; and do ourselves, in this time and place, whether as
cooperating or as contending, as healthy members or as diseased ones,
to our joy and sorrow, form part of it. The question, What is the
actual condition of Society? has in these days unhappily become
important enough. No one of us is unconcerned in that question; but
for the majority of thinking men a true answer to it, such is the
state of matters, appears almost as the one thing needful. Meanwhile,
as the true answer, that is to say, the complete and fundamental
answer and settlement, often as it has been demanded, is nowhere
forthcoming, and indeed by its nature is impossible, any honest
approximation towards such is not without value. The feeblest light,
or even so much as a more precise recognition of the darkness, which
is the first step to attainment of light, will be welcome.

This once understood, let it