RALPH WALDO EMERSON

“On the contrary, the absence of this primary faith is the presence of degradation. As is the flood, so is the ebb . Let this faith depart, and the very words it spake and the things it made become false and hurtful. Then falls the church, the state, arts, letters, life. The doctrine of divine nature being forgotten, a sickness infects and dwarfs the constitution. Once man was all; now he is an appendage , a nuisance . And because the indwelling Supreme Spirit cannot be wholly gotten rid of, the doctrine of it suffers this perversion, that the divine nature is attributed to one or two persons , and denied to all the rest, and denied with a fury. The doctrine of inspiration is lost; the base voice of the majority usurps the place of the doctrine of the soul. Miracles, prophesy, poetry, the ideal life, the holy life, exist as ancient history merely; they are not in the belief, nor in the aspiration of society ; but when suggested seem ridiculous. Life is comic or pitiful as soon as the high ends of being fade out of sight, and man becomes near-sighted, and can only attend to what addresses the senses.” P. 67, “An Address to Harvard Divinity School Class of 1838,” THE ESSENTIAL WRITINGS OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON (2000)