on of the unity which pervades all things, even in the natural
world, will be the last attainment of science; and the reconciliation of
nature and man and God is still further in the future, and will be the
last triumph of philosophy. During all the interval the world will be a
scene of warring elements; and poetry, religion, and philosophy can only
hold forth a promise, and give to man a foretaste of ultimate victory.
And in this state of things even _their_ assurance often falters. Faith
lapses into doubt, poetry becomes a wail for a lost god, and its votary
exhibits, "through Europe to the AEtolian shore, the pageant of his
bleeding heart." The optimistic faith is, as a rule, only a hope and a
desire, a "Grand Perhaps," which knows no defence against the critical
understanding, and sinks dumb when questioned. If, in the form of a
religious conviction, its assurance is more confident, then, too often,
it rests upon the treacherous foundations of authoritative ignorance,
which crumble into dust beneath the blows of awakened and liberated
reason. Nay, if by the aid of philosophy we turn our optimism into a
faith held by reason, a fact before which the intellect, as well as the
heart, worships and grows glad, it still is for most of us only a
general hypothesis, a mere leap to God which spurns the intermediate
steps, a universal without content, a bare form that lacks reality.

Such an optimism, such a plunge into the pure blue and away from facts,
was Emerson's. Caroline Fox tells a story of him and Carlyle which
reveals this very pointedly. It seems that Carlyle once led the serene
philosopher through the abominations of the streets of London at
midnight, asking him with grim humour at every few steps, "Do you
believe in the devil _now_?" Emerson replied that the more he saw of the
English people the greater and better he thought them. This little
incident lays bare the limits of both these great men. Where the one
saw, the other was blind. To the one there was the misery and the
universal mirk; to the other, the pure white beam was scarcely broken.
Carlyle believed in the good, beyond all doubt: he fought his great
battle in its strength and won, but "he was sorely wounded." Emerson was
Sir Galahad, blind to all but the Holy Grail, his armour spotless-white,
his virtue cloistered and unbreathed, his race won without the dust and
heat. But his optimism was too easy to be satisfactory. His victory was
not won in the enem