ery cause, it has
been possible to dispense with any survey of that movement, because the
movement was simple and specific and is well remembered. But when we
come to analyze the relations he bore to some of the local agitations of
his day, it becomes necessary to weave in with the matter a discussion
of certain tendencies deeply imbedded in the life of his times, and of
which he himself was in a sense an outcome. In speaking of the
Transcendentalists, who were essentially the children of the Puritans,
we must begin with some study of the chief traits of Puritanism.

What parts the factors of climate, circumstance, and religion have
respectively played in the development of the New England character no
analysis can determine. We may trace the imaginary influence of a harsh
creed in the lines of the face. We may sometimes follow from generation
to generation the course of a truth which at first sustained the spirit
of man, till we see it petrify into a dogma which now kills the spirits
of men. Conscience may destroy the character. The tragedy of the New
England judge enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law was no new spectacle in
New England. A dogmatic crucifixion of the natural instincts had been in
progress there for two hundred years. Emerson, who is more free from
dogma than any other teacher that can be named, yet comes very near
being dogmatic in his reiteration of the Moral Law.

Whatever volume of Emerson we take up, the Moral Law holds the same
place in his thoughts. It is the one statable revelation of truth which
he is ready to stake his all upon. "The illusion that strikes me as the
masterpiece in that ring of illusions which our life is, is the timidity
with which we assert our moral sentiment. We are made of it, the world
is built by it, things endure as they share it; all beauty, all health,
all intelligence exist by it; yet we shrink to speak of it or range
ourselves by its side. Nay, we presume strength of him or them who deny
it. Cities go against it, the college goes against it, the courts snatch
any precedent at any vicious form of law to rule it out; legislatures
listen with appetite to declamations against it and vote it down."

With this very beautiful and striking passage no one will quarrel, nor
will any one misunderstand it.

The following passage has the same sort of poetical truth. "Things are
saturated with the moral law. There is no escape from it. Violets and
grass preach it; rain and snow, wi