The Transcendentalist was by nature a reformer. He could not be satisfied with men as they were. His doctrine of the capacities of men, even in its most moderate statement, kindled to enthusiasm his hope of change. However his disgust may have kept him aloof for a time, his sympathy soon brought him back, and his faith sent him to the front of the battle. In beginning his lecture on "Man The Reformer," Mr. Emerson does not dissemble his hope that each person whom he addresses has "felt his own call to cast aside all evil customs, timidities and limitations, and to be in his place a free and helpful man, a reformer, a benefactor, not content to slip through the world like a footman or a spy, escaping by his nimbleness and apologies as many knocks as he can, but a brave and upright man, who must find or cut a straight path to everything excellent in the earth, and not only go honorably himself, but make it easier for all who follow him, to go in honor and with benefit." "The power," he declares, "which is at once spring and regulator in all efforts of reform, is the conviction that there is an infinite worthiness in man, which will appear at the call of worth, and that all particular reforms are the removing of some impediment. Is it not the highest duty that man should be honored in us?" "In the history of the world" the same great teacher remarks, "the doctrine of Reform had never such scope as at the present hour. Lutherans, Herrnhütters, Jesuits, Monks, Quakers, Knox, Wesley, Swedenborg, Bentham, in their accusations of society, all respected something,--church or state, literature or history, domestic usages, the market town, the dinner table, coined money. But now all these and all things else hear the trumpet and must rush to judgment,--Christianity, the laws, commerce, schools, the farm, the laboratory: and not a kingdom, town, statute, rite, calling, man, or woman but is threatened by the new spirit." "Let me feel that I am to be a lover. I am to see to it that the world is the better for me, and to find my reward in the act. Love would put a new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long, and it would warm the heart to see how fast the vain diplomacy of statesmen, the impotence of armies, and navies, and lines of defence, would be superseded by this unarmed child."