Page:Americans (1922).djvu/116

 it as in accordance with the proper nature of man—the humanistic sanction. This is the position taken by Marcus Aurelius in a passage extolled by Matthew Arnold. Which of these is Emerson's sanction? In the essay on "Compensation," which he thought one of his prime contributions, he argues that divine justice executes itself in this world in accordance with inevitable laws. It is essentially the argument of Franklin; one is still concerned with reward and punishment. But the general tenor of Emerson's life and teaching rises above this level. Habitually he speaks in the spirit of the Roman Emperor, so deeply appealing to the well-born soul: "A third in a manner does not even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit. As a horse when he has run, a dog when he has caught the game, a bee when it has made its honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season."

Though Emerson had thought much about the relation of the individual to society and to the state, he was not in any practical diurnal sense of the word