salesman; then a road-contractor; then a student of fishes; then a
buffalo-hunting explorer, or a semi-savage western general. Thus we
make a stand against our rougher masters; but against the best there
is a finer remedy. The power which they communicate is not theirs.
When we are exalted by ideas, we do not owe this to Plato, but to the
idea, to which, also, Plato was debtor.

I must not forget that we have a special debt to a single class. Life
is a scale of degrees. Between rank and rank of our great men are wide
intervals. Mankind have, in all ages, attached themselves to a few
persons, who, either by the quality of that idea they embodied, or by
the largeness of their reception, were entitled to the position of
leaders and law-givers. These teach us the qualities of primary
nature,--admit us to the constitution of things. We swim, day by day,
on a river of delusions, and are effectually amused with houses and
towns in the air, of which the men about us are dupes. But life is a
sincerity. In lucid intervals we say, "Let there be an entrance opened
for me into realities; I have worn the fool's cap too long." We will
know the meaning of our economies and politics. Give us the cipher,
and, if persons and things are scores of a celestial music, let us
read off the strains. We have been cheated of our reason; yet there
have been sane men, who enjoyed a rich and related existence. What
they know, they know for us. With each new mind, a new secret of nature
transpires; nor can the Bible be closed, until the last great man is
born. These men correct the delirium of the animal spirits, make us
considerate, and engage us to new aims and powers. The veneration of
mankind selects these for the highest place. Witness the multitude of
statues, pictures, and memorials which recall their genius in every
city, village, house, and ship:--