Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 2 (of 3)Parker, Theodore
Religion
Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 2 (of 3)
Parker, Theodore
Sermons, American; Unitarianism
Let us for a moment compare these three classes of great men. Measured
by the test referred to, the discoverers are the greatest of all. They
anticipate the human race, with long steps, striding before their kind.
They learn not only from the history of man, but man's nature; not by
empirical experience alone, but by a transcendent intuition of truth,
now seen as a law, now as an idea. They are wiser than experience, and
by divination through their nobler nature know at once what the human
race has not learned in its thousands of years, kindling their lamp at
the central fire now streaming from the sky, now rushing broad-sheeted
and terrible as ground-lightning from the earth. Of such men there are
but few, especially in the highest mode of this greatness. A single One
makes a new world, and men date ages after him.
Next in order of greatness comes the organizer. He, also, must have
great intellect, and character. It is no light work to make thoughts
things. It requires mind to make a mill out of a river, bricks, iron,
and stone, and set all the Connecticut to spinning cotton. But to
construct a State, to harness fittingly twenty million men, animated by
such divergent motives, possessing interests so unlike--this is the
greatest work of constructive skill. To translate the ideas of the
discoverer into institutions, to yoke men together by mere
"abstractions," universal laws, and by such yoking save the liberty of
all and secure the welfare of each--that is the most creative of poetry,
the most constructive of sciences. In modern times, it is said, Napoleon
is the greatest example of this faculty; not a discoverer, but an
organizer of the highest power and on the largest scale. In human
history he seems to have had no superior, perhaps no equal.
Some callings in life afford little opportunity to develop the great
qualities above alluded to. How much genius lies latent no man can know;
but he that walks familiarly with humble men often stumbles over masses
of unsunned gold, where men proud in emptiness, looked only for common
dust. How many a Milton sits mute and inglorious in his shop; how many a
Cromwell rears only corn and oxen for the world's use, no man can know.
Some callings help to light, some hide and hinder. But there is none
which demands more ability than politics; they develop greatness, if the
man have the germ thereof within him. True, in politics, a man may get
along with a very little ability, without being a discoverer or an
organizer; were it otherwise we should not be blessed with a very large
House, or a crowded Senate. Nay, experience shows that in ordinary times
one not even a great administrator may creep up to a high place and hang
on there awhile. Few able administrators sit on the thrones of Europe at
this day. But if power be in the man, the hand of politics will draw out
the spark.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account