Columbus needs a planet to shape his course upon. Newton and Laplace
need myriads of age and thick-strewn celestial areas. One may say a
gravitating solar system is already prophesied in the nature of
Newton’s mind. Not less does the brain of Davy or of Gay-Lussac, from
childhood exploring the affinities and repulsions of particles,
anticipate the laws of organization. Does not the eye of the human
embryo predict the light? the ear of Handel predict the witchcraft of
harmonic sound? Do not the constructive fingers of Watt, Fulton,
Whittemore, Arkwright, predict the fusible, hard, and temperable
texture of metals, the properties of stone, water, and wood? Do not the
lovely attributes of the maiden child predict the refinements and
decorations of civil society? Here also we are reminded of the action
of man on man. A mind might ponder its thought for ages and not gain so
much self-knowledge as the passion of love shall teach it in a day. Who
knows himself before he has been thrilled with indignation at an
outrage, or has heard an eloquent tongue, or has shared the throb of
thousands in a national exultation or alarm? No man can antedate his
experience, or guess what faculty or feeling a new object shall unlock,
any more than he can draw to-day the face of a person whom he shall see
to-morrow for the first time.
I will not now go behind the general statement to explore the reason of
this correspondency. Let it suffice that in the light of these two
facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its
correlative, history is to be read and written.
Thus in all ways does the soul concentrate and reproduce its treasures
for each pupil. He too shall pass through the whole cycle of
experience. He shall collect into a focus the rays of nature. History
no longer shall be a dull book. It shall walk incarnate in every just
and wise man. You shall not tell me by languages and titles a catalogue
of the volumes you have read. You shall make me feel what periods you
have lived. A man shall be the Temple of Fame. He shall walk, as the
poets have described that goddess, in a robe painted all over with
wonderful events and experiences;—his own form and features by their
exalted intelligence shall be that variegated vest. I shall find in him
the Foreworld; in his childhood the Age of Gold, the Apples of
Knowledge, the Argonautic Expedition, the calling of Abraham, the
building of the Temple, the Advent of Christ, Dark Ages, the Revival of
Letters, the Reformation, the discovery of new lands, the opening of
new sciences and new regions in man. He shall be the priest of Pan, and
bring with him into humble cottages the blessing of the morning stars,
and all the recorded benefits of heaven and earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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