The error is obvious. It consists in the denial or in the overlooking of the fact that God creates substances, and that every substance is, as Leibnitz defines it, a force, a _vis activa_, acting always from its own centre outward. Whatever actually exists is active, and there is and can be no passivity in nature. Hence, Aristotle and the schoolmen after him call God, who is being and being in its plenitude, _actus purissimus_, or most pure act, in whom there are no possibilities to be actualized. Mr. Emerson errs in his first principles, in not recognizing the fact that God creates substances, and that every substance is an activity, therefore causative either _ad intra_ or _ad extra_, and that every created substance is causative in the order of second causes. What we maintain in opposition both to him and Plato is, that these created substances are at once methexic and mimetic in their activity. It were an easy task to show that whatever errors there may be, or may be supposed to be, in Mr. Emerson's works grow out of the two fundamental errors we have indicated--the identification of soul, freed from its personal limitations, as in Adam, John, and Richard, with God, or the real being, substance, force, or activity, and the assumption that whatever is distinguishable from God is purely phenomenal, an apparition, a sense-show, a mere bubble on the surface of the ocean of being, as we pointed out in our comments on the proceedings of the Free Religionists, in the magazine for last November, and to which we beg leave to refer our readers. Yet, though we have known Mr. Emerson personally ever since 1836, have held more than one conversation with him, listened to several courses of lectures from him, and read and even studied the greater part, if not all of his works, as they issued from the press, we must confess that, in reperusing them preparatory to writing this brief notice, we have been struck, as we never were before, with the depth and breadth of his thought, as well as with the singular force and beauty of his expression. We appreciate him much higher both as a thinker and as an observer, and we give him credit for a depth of feeling, an honesty of purpose, an earnest seeking after truth, we had not previously awarded him in so great a degree, either publicly or privately. We are also struck with his near approach to the truth as we are taught it. He seems to us to come as near to the truth as one can who is so unhappy as to miss it.