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 10 is needful to his government within himself." "All real good or evil that can befall him must be from himself." "There is a correspondence between the human soul and everything that exists in the world; more properly, everything that is known to man. Instead of studying things without, the principles of them all may be penetrated into within him." "The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint man with himself." "The highest revelation is that God is in every man."

Like Franklin, Emerson believed that a wise man might often change his mind; that only a fool never did. He said: "I wish to say what I feel and think today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all." Perhaps this was exemplified in the Abolition days. In 1844 Emerson wrote of the Wise Man, that he "needs no army, fort or navy—he loves men too well." In 1856 he writes, "I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom." With the outbreak of the Civil War he became an ardent and powerful supporter of the Union. James Russell Lowell says of Emerson during this period: "To him more than to all other causes did the young martyrs of our Civil War owe the sustaining strength: of thoughtful heroism that is so touching in every record of their lives."

Writing of Swendenborg, whose religious ideas made so great an impression upon him, Emerson says:

"He was a scholar from a child, and was educated at Upsala. At the age of twenty-eight he was made Assessor of the Board of Mines