cruel ages was obtained from unwilling witnesses, namely, by putting
himself to the torture.

But it is of prime importance to observe that the aforementioned mature
fruit, which so falls at the tenderest touch into the hand, is no
sudden, no idle product. It comes, on the contrary, of a depth of
operation more profound, and testifies to a genius and sincerity in
Nature more subtile and religious, than we can understand or imagine.
This apple that in fancy we now pluck, and hardly need to pluck, from
the burdened bough,--think what a pedigree it has, what aeons of
world-making and world-maturing must elapse, all the genius of God
divinely assiduous, ere this could hang in ruddy and golden ripeness
here! Think, too, what a concurrence and consent of elements, of sun and
soil, of ocean-vapors and laden winds, of misty heats in the torrid zone
and condensing blasts from the North, were required before a single
apple could grow, before a single blossom could put forth its promise,
tender and beautiful amidst the gladness of spring!--and besides these
consenting ministries of Nature, how the special genius of the tree must
have wrought, making sacrifice of woody growth, and, by marvellous and
ineffable alchemies, co-working with the earth beneath, and the heaven
above! Ah, not from any indifference, not from any haste or indolence,
in Nature, come the fruits of her seasons and her centuries!

Now he who has any faculty of thinking must see that thoughts are before
things in the order of existence. True it is, that here as elsewhere, as
everywhere, last is first and first is last. That which is innermost,
and consequently primary, is last to appear on the surface; and
accordingly thoughts _per se_ follow things in the order of
manifestation. But how could the thing exist, but for a thought that
preceded and begot it? And now that the thought has passed _through_
the material symbol, has passed forward to a new and more consummate
expression, first in the soul, and afterwards by the voice, we should
be unwise indeed to deny or forget its antiquity. Thoughts are no
_parvenus_ or _novi homines_ in Nature, but came in with that Duke
William who first struck across the unnamed seas into this island of
time and material existence which we inhabit. Accordingly, it is using
extreme understatement, to say that every pure original thought has a
genesis equally ancient, earnest, vital with any product in Nature,--has
present relation