The Emersonian Creed [pp. 376-389]

380 THE EMERSONIAN CREED. [Dec.,
answerable for it and for everything else, as distinct personalities, not as portions of universal being. A mob is proverbially
foolish and wicked, not because the men who compose it are
bad, but because each one, feeling himself to be but a fraction,
is not controlled by his personal conscience. In like mariner
Emerson's doctrine destroys our personality, and with it our
conscience. Vehemently as he has protested against church and
creed, which encroach on the rights of each man to judge all
things for himself, his own teaching is far more destructive of
the dignity of the individual than any church or creed has yet
proved. He thinks to ennoble humanity without degrading its
Maker, but he lowers both. Beginning, as he professes to do,
by setting us firee from objective truth and from an unchangeable law, he ends by stripping us of our private worth and urg —
ing each separate existence into that which is universal. He
forbids us to aim at our own good, and commands us to seek
that which is general. How different that religion which tells
us that, as truth is one, so must we all share the same faith; that,
as God is one, so must we all obey the same lawv: but that we
are at the same time so distinct in our interests and so sacred in
our individuality that, for the sake of millions of men, we may
not tarnish our soul with the slightest blemish.
Emerson despised conformity. But is the marble abased
when it is conformed to the mind of the artist and becomes an
exquisite statue? Is it base to conform to that which is higher
than ourselves? Only in some of his works, such as the essay
on heroism, and the lecture entitled " Man the Refor-mer,"
where he rises to his highest strain, does Emerson indicate the
circumstances in which alone conformity becomes disgraceful.
His spirit, we must all acknowledge, was lofty and generous;
and he displays it in these essays, wherein he vindicates the undeniable rights of the individual and his privilege to refuse to
conform to the lower standards of life. Had he been more careful to distinguish between true and false independence of mind,
the world would have profited by his nobleness without being
led astray by his errors.
He claims for each man the right of refusing to be base because others are base. He examines the different professions
of which a man is compelled to make his choice when starting
in life. He showvs how they are, to a great extent, founded on
maxims of selfishness so complete that they must be termed dishonest. There seems no place left for the man who is not willin3 to sacrifice his principles in the ordinary routine of life.