The American Scholar
I read with joy of the auspicious signs of the coming days, as they glimmer already through poetry and art, through philosophy and science, through church and state.
One of the signs is the fact that the same movement which affected the elevation of what was called the lowest class in the state, assumed in literature a very marked and as benign an aspect. Instead of the sublime and beautiful; the near, the low, the common, was explored and poetized. That which had been negligently trodden under foot by tho who were harnessing and provisioning themlves for long journeys into far countries, is suddenly found to be richer than all foreign parts. The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of houhold life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a sign, is it not? of new vigor, when the extremities (foot, hand, limb,) are made active, when currents of warm life run into the hands and feet. I ask not for the great, the remote, the romantic; what is doing in Italy or Arabia; what is Greek art or Provençal minstrelsy (吟游诗艺，ballad); I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and f
uture worlds. What would we really know the meaning of? The meal in the firkin, the milk in the pan, the ballad in the street, the news of the boat, the glance of the eye, the form and the gait of the body,—show me the ultimate reason of the matters; show me the sublime prence of the highest spiritual cau lurking, as always it does lurk, in the suburbs and extremities of nature; let me e every trifle bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal law; and the shop, the plough, and the ledger, referred to the like cau by which light undulates and poets sing;—and the world lies no longer a dull miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and order; there is no trifle, there is no puzzle, but one design unites and animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench.
This idea has inspired the genius of Goldsmith, Burns, Cowper, and, in a newer time, of Goethe, Wordsworth, and Carlyle. This idea they have differently followed and with various success. In contrast with their writing, the style of Pope, of Johnson, of Gibbon, looks cold and pedantic. This writing is blood-warm. Man is surprid to find that things near are not less beautiful and wondrous than things remote. The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature. This perception of the worth of t
he vulgar is fruitful in discoveries. Goethe, in this very thing the most modern of the moderns, has shown us, as none ever did, the genius of the ancients.
There is one man of genius who has done much for this philosophy of life, who literary value has never yet been rightly estimated; I mean Emanuel Swedenborg. The most imaginative of men, yet writing with the precision of a mathematician, he endeavored to engraft a purely philosophical Ethics on the popular Christianity of his time. Such an attempt, of cour, must have difficulty which no genius could surmount. But he saw and showed the connection between nature and the affections of the soul. He pierced the emblematic or spiritual character of the visible, audible, tangible world. Especially did his shade-loving mu hover over and interpret the lower parts of nature; he showed the mysterious bond that allies moral evil to the foul material forms, and has given in epical parables a theory of insanity, of beasts, of unclean and fearful things.
Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political movement, is the new importance given to the single person. Everything that tends to insulate the individual—to surround him with barriers of natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his
and man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign state—tends to true union as well as greatness. “I learned,” said the melancholy Pestalozzi, “that no man in God’s wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man.” Help must come from the bosom alone. The scholar is that man who must take up into himlf all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must be a university of knowledges. If there be one lesson more than another which should pierce his ear, it is, The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourlf is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourlf slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all. Mr. President and Gentlemen, this confidence in the unarched might of man belongs, by all motives, by all prophecy, by all preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the courtly mus of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic conquence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itlf. There is no work for any but the de
corous and the complaisant. Young men of the fairest promi, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below not in unison with the, but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and turn drudges or die of disgust—some of them suicides. What is the remedy? They did not yet e, and thousands of young men as hopeful now crowding to the barriers for the career do not yet e, that if the single man plant himlf indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. Patience, patience; with the shades of all the good and great for company; and for solace, the perspective of your own infinite life; and for work, the study and the communication of principles, the making tho instincts prevalent, the conversion of the world. Is it not the chief disgrace in the world not to be a unit, not to be reckoned one character, not to yield that peculiar fruit; which each man was created to bear; but to be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand, of the party, the ction, to which we belong; and our opinion predicted geographically, as the north, or the south? Not so, brothers and friends,—plea God, ours shall not be so. We will walk on our own
feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. The study of letters shall be no longer a name for pity, for doubt, and for nsual indulgence. The dread of man and the love of man shall be a wall of defence and a wreath of joy around all. A nation of men will for the first time exist, becau each believes himlf inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.
我喜悦地读到了那未来日子的吉兆，他们闪烁于诗歌和艺术中，体现在哲学和科学里，表现在教堂和政府里。
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这吉兆之一显现于这样的事实，有效提升所谓下层人地位的倾向， 在文学中站有显著位置而且受到欢迎。取代高贵和美丽者，和我们生活相近的人，地位低下者，普通人，他们被发掘被写入诗篇。他们，被那些曾思想报告经只为遥远国度旅行准备粮秣的作者浑然不觉地踩在脚下；现在突然被发现拥有比任何外来物更为丰富的内容。穷人的文学，孩子的情感，街市生活的哲学，居家生活的意义，这些是我们时代的话题。这是一个伟大的前进。当那躯体的四肢开始活动，当生活的热流注入那些手和脚， 它是一个征兆—难到不是吗?征兆新的活力。 我不希求述说那些伟大者，那些遥远的，浪漫的；在意大利或阿拉伯发生了什么，西腊的艺术如何，普罗旺斯的行吟诗人又怎样，对比这些，我更要拥抱普通的生活；我探索他们的生活并坐在我熟悉的同胞——那些低下者—脚边。给我对今日的洞察，你可以拥有古董和未来。我们是否确切的明晓这一切的意义：小桶中的食物，平锅里的牛奶，街道上的民谣；从船上来的消息；眼睛的一瞥；身体的结构和姿态；——告诉我这一切的究竟；向我展示隐藏在其中的最高精神原由，它的崇高外现；这原由总是隐密其踪迹于自然的边缘和远端；请让我洞悉每一生活细节中充盈的两极律，这一个拥抱使它们与永恒律并列而陈；还有那修理作坊，那铧犁和那织机工，这一切，光影舞动其上并为诗歌咏唱着—因此世界不再是索然无味的杂物堆积或储藏室，它有型有序；这里不再有无足轻重也没有惶惑；只
有纯粹的设计，它连接了遥远的高峰和最深的低谷，为它们注入生命。
这理念激发了戈德史密斯，彭斯，考珀，现代的歌德，华兹华思和卡来儿，他们的天才因此併发出来。这理念，在不同的道路上引领他们；他们走向成功。和他们的作品相比，教皇约翰，教皇吉本的文章却冷酷愚腐。他们的作品温暖人心。人后化妆品们惊奇的发现近距离的事物并不比远方的一切缺乏美缺乏新奇。近距离的揭示那远方的。一滴水就是微缩的海洋。个体人和自然的一切息息相关。这种对于平凡事物的价值观念可以导致很多新发现。歌德，在这一方面，作为最具代表性的现代人，展示了我们闻所未闻的古代天才。有这样一位天才人物，他对生活的哲学贡献良多，他著作的价值并没有得到应有的确认；——寒风凛冽的拼音我是在说心里憋一肚子火的说说伊曼纽尔。斯文顿博格。这位最具想象力的人，用数学家的精确写作，他努力为他那个时代的基督教注入哲学伦理。当然，这样的企图一定会遇到任何天才都无法超越的困难。但是，他看到并揭示了自然和心灵中情感的联系。他穿透了那可见可闻可触摸世界的表象和精神特性。特别是他浓淡分明的沉思萦回自然中低下部分并对其加以解释；他揭示了道德上的邪恶与腐败物质的隐密关联，并且以史诗般的寓言阐明了关于精神病，野兽，不洁者和可怕事物的理论送男生的花。我们时代的另一特征，为并行的政治运动打上印记，就是赋予
个体人的重要性。任何能使个体独立出来的因素，——给予他自然而然的尊重，这样个体人感到这世界就是他的，并且，人与人相处有如主权国家之间的关系；——这一切趋向于团结个体同时使个体变得崇伟。”我认识到，”忧郁的PESTALOZZI这样说道，”在上帝宽广的世界里，没有人愿意或能够帮助其他人。”
帮助一定只能源于自我的胸怀。学者就是这样的人，他要掌握时代赋予的所有能力，拥有过去的丰富贡献和未来的所有希望。他必须是知识的大学。如果存在最能令他耳目一新的一课，这一课将会是这样：世界是空洞的，人就是一切；所有的自然律都在你自己身上，而你仍不知道在头脑里的那一团物质如何超越，在你自身沉睡着全部理念；是你，要去发现这一切；是你，要去大胆探索所有领域。主席和先生们，深植于对人类心灵中江西九江学院对尚未知晓力量的信心属于美国学者，无论出于什么动干什么最赚钱机，源于何种预言，出于哪种准备。
我们倾听欧洲显贵的缪斯已经太久了。美国自由人的精神已被怀疑是怯懦的，只知模仿，十分驯良。公开的和隐密的贪婪使我们呼吸的空气厚重而污浊。学者们体面，懒惰而善于讨喜。我们已经看到那可悲的结果。所有的工作都是装饰性的都是庸懒的。有着远大前程
的青年人，诞生于我们的海岸，来自群山长风鼓动他们的胸怀，上帝的众星照耀着他们，他们却发现脚下的土地和这一切不能相互协调，——他们受制约，因着那令人作呕的行事规则被迫置身行动之外，一些转做单调乏味的苦工，另一些无法忍受那憎恶————他们中的一些人自杀而亡。如何改变这情形?他们还没有察觉，成千年青人正被阻拦于事业开始的门口；没有查觉，那只身一人，不可屈服的依靠自己的本能，坚持着的青年，那巨大的世界就会围绕他旋转。耐心，——耐心；——对那不同的人群中美德和规矩；做为安慰，你有对你长久生命的展望；你的工作是，研究和交流那些准则，让你的本能占上风，让世界转变。这难道不是世界上最大的耻辱，不能同一；不能把世界视为一个整体；人被创造的目的——结出自己的果实——不能实现，他被当做总量的一部分，属于党派或阶层成百上千成员的一个；我们的观点被地域划分为北方的，南方的。 不能这样，兄弟们朋友们，请求上帝，这不是我们应有的状态。我们要用自己的脚走路；我们要用自己的手工作；我们要说出自己的思想。从事写作，不再该是可怜，怀疑，和放纵情感的代名词。对人的恨，对人的爱应该是环绕一切的防御工事和快乐花环。人的国家将第一次真正存在，因为受圣灵的启示，每一个人都充分自信，这启示也鼓舞着所有人类。
