in any of those which preceded it.

"Why then goest thou as some Boswell or literary worshipper to this
saint or to that? That is the only lese-majesty. Here art thou with
whom so long the universe travailed in labor; darest thou think
meanly of thyself whom the stalwart Fate brought forth to unite his
ragged sides, to shoot the gulf, to reconcile the irreconcilable?"

That there is an "intimate divinity" which is the source of all true
wisdom, that the duty of man is to listen to its voice and to follow it,
that "the sanity of man needs the poise of this immanent force,"
that the rule is "Do what you know, and perception is converted into
character,"--all this is strongly enforced and richly illustrated in
this Oration. Just how easily it was followed by the audience, just how
far they were satisfied with its large principles wrought into a few
broad precepts, it would be easier at this time to ask than to learn.
We notice not so much the novelty of the ideas to be found in this
discourse on "The Method of Nature," as the pictorial beauty of
their expression. The deep reverence which underlies all Emerson's
speculations is well shown in this paragraph:--

"We ought to celebrate this hour by expressions of manly joy. Not
thanks nor prayer seem quite the highest or truest name for
our communication with the infinite,--but glad and conspiring
reception,--reception that becomes giving in its turn as the
receiver is only the All-Giver in part and in infancy."--"It is God
in us which checks the language of petition by grander thought. In
the bottom of the heart it is said: 'I am, and by me, O child! this
fair body and world of thine stands and grows. I am, all things are
mine; and all mine are thine.'"