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 20 things are absorbed, action tends directly backwards to diversity. The first is the course of gravitation of mind; the second is the power of Nature. Nature is manifold. The unity absorbs, and melts or reduces. Nature opens and creates. These two principles reappear and interpenetrate all things, all thought; the one, the many. The one is being, the other intellect; one is necessity, the other freedom; one rest, the other motion; one power, the other distribution; one strength, the other pleasure; one consciousness, the other definition; one genius, the other talent; one earnestness, the other knowledge; one possession, the other trade; one caste, the other culture; one king, the other democracy; and, if we dare carry these generalizations a step higher, and name the last tendency of both, we might say that the end of the one is escape from organization—pure science; and the end of the other is the highest instrumentality, or use of means, or executive deity."

To Plato, Emerson pays the highest tribute: "A balanced soul was born, perceptive of the two elements. It is as easy to be greet as to be small. The reason why we do not at once believe in admirable souls, is because they are not in our experience. In actual life they are so rare as to be incredible; but, primarily, there is not only no presumption against them, but the strongest presumption in favor of their appearance. But whether voices were heard in the sky, or not; whether his mother or his father dreamed that the infant man-child was