f what we call Opinion; as preserved in
Institutions, Polities, Churches, above all in Books. Beautiful it is
to understand and know that a Thought did never yet die; that as thou,
the originator thereof, hast gathered it and created it from the whole
Past, so thou wilt transmit it to the whole Future. It is thus that
the heroic heart, the seeing eye of the first times, still feels and
sees in us of the latest; that the Wise Man stands ever encompassed,
and spiritually embraced, by a cloud of witnesses and brothers; and
there is a living, literal _Communion of Saints_, wide as the World
itself, and as the History of the World.

'Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress of this same
Individual, wilt thou find his subdivision into Generations.
Generations are as the Days of toilsome Mankind: Death and Birth are
the vesper and the matin bells, that summon Mankind to sleep, and to
rise refreshed for new advancement. What the Father has made, the Son
can make and enjoy; but has also work of his own appointed him. Thus
all things wax, and roll onwards; Arts, Establishments, Opinions,
nothing is completed, but ever completing. Newton has learned to see
what Kepler saw; but there is also a fresh heaven-derived force in
Newton; he must mount to still higher points of vision. So too the
Hebrew Lawgiver is, in due time, followed by an Apostle of the
Gentiles. In the business of Destruction, as this also is from time to
time a necessary work, thou findest a like sequence and perseverance:
for Luther it was as yet hot enough to stand by that burning of the
Pope's Bull; Voltaire could not warm himself at the glimmering ashes,
but required quite other fuel. Thus likewise, I note, the English Whig
has, in the second generation, become an English Radical; who, in the
third again, it is to be hoped, will become an English Rebuilder. Find
Mankind where thou wilt, thou findest it in living movement, in
progress faster or slower: the Phoenix soars aloft, hovers with
outstretched wings, filling Earth with her music; or, as now, she
sinks, and with spheral swan-song immolates herself in flame, that she
may soar the higher and sing the clearer.'

Let the friends of social order, in such a disastrous period, lay this
to heart, and derive from it any little comfort they can. We subjoin
another passage, concerning Titles:

'Remark, not without surprise,' says Teufelsdroeckh, 'how all high
Titles of Honour come hitherto from fighting.