vidual, Man. In social and political life
this acme is inter-dependence; in moral life it is independence; in
intellectual life it is genius. Nor does the form of polarity, which has
accompanied the law of individuation up its whole ascent, desert it here.
As the height, so the depth. The intensities must be at once opposite and
equal. As the liberty, so must be the reverence for law. As the
independence, so must be the service and the submission to the Supreme
Will! As the ideal genius and the originality, in the same proportion must
be the resignation to the real world, the sympathy and the inter-communion
with Nature. In the conciliating mid-point, or equator, does the Man live,
and only by its equal presence in both its poles can that life be
manifested!

* * * * *

If it had been possible, within the prescribed limits of this essay, to
have deduced the philosophy of Life synthetically, the evidence would have
been carried over from section to section, and the _quod erat
demonstrandum_ at the conclusion of one section would reappear as the
principle of the succeeding--the goal of the one would be the starting-post
of the other. Positions arranged in my own mind, as intermediate and
organic links of administration, must be presented to the reader in the
first instance, at least, as a mere hypothesis. Instead of demanding his
assent as a right, I must solicit a suspension of his judgment as a
courtesy; and, after all, however firmly the hypothesis may support the
phenomena piled upon it, we can deduce no more than a practical rule,
grounded on a strong presumption. The license of arithmetic, however,
furnishes instances that a rule may be usefully applied in practice, and
for the particular purpose may be sufficiently authenticated by the
result, before it has itself been duly demonstrated. It is enough, if only
it hath been rendered fully intelligible.

In a system where every position proceeds from a scientific
preconstruction, a power acting exclusively in length, would be magnetism
by virtue of our own definition of the term. In like manner, a surface
power would be electricity, as far as that system was concerned, whether
it accorded or not with the facts ordinarily so called. But it is
incumbent on us, who must treat the subject _analytically_, to show by
experiment that magnetism does in fact act longitudinally, and electricity
superficially; and that, consequently, the former