Page:Henry Mulford Tichenor - A Guide to Emerson (1923).djvu/26

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
A GUIDE TO EMERSON
23

—that is, the Asia in his mind was first heartily honored—the ocean of love and power, before form, before will, before knowledge, the Same, the Good, the One; and now, refreshed and empowered by this worship, the instinct of Europe, namely, culture, returns; and he cries, Yet things are knowable! They are knowable, because, being from one, things correspond. There is a scale; and the correspondence of heaven to earth, or matter to mind, of the part to the whole, is our guide. As there is a science of stars, called astronomy; a science of quantities, called mathematics; a science of qualities, called chemistry; so there is a science of sciences—I call it Dialectic—which is the intellect discriminating the false and the true. It rests on the observation of identity and diversity; for, to judge, is to unite to an object the notion which belongs to it. The sciences, even the best—mathematics and astronomy, are Like sportsmen, who seize whatever prey offers, even without being able to make any use of it. Dialectic must teach the use of them * * *

"I announce to men the Intellect. I announce the good of being interpenetrated by the Mind that made Nature: this benefit. namely, that it can understand Nature, which it made and maketh. Nature is good, but Intellect is better; as the law-giver is before the law-receiver. I give you joy, O sons of men! that truth is altogether wholesome; that we have hope to search out what might be the very self of everything."

Emerson quotes the passage from Plato