es itself, in a
twofold manner; first, in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly,
in the circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance
the retribution. The causal retribution is in the thing, and is seen
by the soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the
understanding; it is inseparable from the thing, but is often spread
over a long time, and so does not become distinct until after many
years. The specific stripes may follow late after the offense, but
they follow because they accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out
of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the
flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and
ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms
in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.

Whilst thus the world will be whole, and refuses to be disparted, we
seek to act partially, to sunder, to appropriate; for example,--to
gratify the senses, we sever the pleasure of the senses from the needs
of the character. The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to
the solution of one problem,--how to detach the sensual sweet, the
sensual strong, the sensual bright, etc., from the moral sweet, the
moral deep, the moral fair; that is, again, to contrive to cut clean
off this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a
_one end_, without an _other end_. The soul says, Eat; the body would
feast. The soul says, The man and woman shall be one flesh and one
soul; the body would join the flesh only. The soul says, Have dominion
over all things to the ends of virtue; the body would have the power
over things to its own ends.

The soul strives amain[109] to live and work through all things. It
would be the only fact. All things shall be added unto it,--power,
pleasure, knowledge, beauty. The particular man aims to be somebody;
to set up for himself; to truck and higgle for a private good; and, in
particulars, to ride, that he may ride; to dress, that he may be
dressed; to eat, that he may eat; and to govern, that he may be seen.
Men seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and
fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of
nature,--the sweet, without the other side,--the bitter.

This dividing and detaching is steadily counteracted. Up to this day,
it must be owned, no projector has had the smallest success. The
parted water reunites behind our ha