The bearing of these general views of human nature upon actual history is direct and practical. These make the consolation of the mind under all that dejecting load of wrongdoing public and private which always gives a dubious or melancholy character to the news of the day. At this moment, the desponding patriot says, the present is full of fear; but in all ages the present is full of fear. In all ages, the majority of society are young men. In all ages the complaint has been, “the majority are wicked.” The voice of equity is drowned by the clamor of interest. The virtuous few are outvoted by the misled many. The good law is postponed; the reckless party triumphs. Meantime, the misdeeds which agitate so many true and patriotic hearts with fear and shame; the coarse malignity which they do not hide; the barefacedly selfish legislation which is palmed upon the world; which seems at the moment to threaten society with tyranny and a flood of depravity, is as short-lived and shorter-lived than the agents. They twist ever a rope of sand. Being contravened by time and nature, by the heart and mind, their house has no foundation; it is no man’s interest to keep it; it crumbles, it shrivels, it fleeth away. Where is the great empire which Napoleon built,—and every stone of whose foundation and superstructure was laid in the fear and foreboding of the nations? All gone, not a wreck remaining; here and there a plank stamped with his name floats vagabond on the waves. Contrast it on the other hand with the labors of Paul of Tarsus, the tent maker. See what a tent he built of which the world will assuredly never see the downfall, for every star in heaven shone auspiciously on a pure and beneficent design. Destroy as often as you will, the superstructure, yet Paul built his tent directly upon the human nature and so it always reappears.

And so it always is, the good institution, statute, action which you project now must meet the brunt of passion and ignorance, but slowly it shall find friends and when you are not in the earth it shall survive and be owned by good and bad alike and according to what sincere benefit is in it, shall flourish and multiply seed, and nations repose in its shade. Sufficient unto the brave good man is his own purpose and his own superiority to the hostility of the world.

The American Scholar (1837)

THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

AN ORATION DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, AT CAMBRIDGE, AUGUST 31, 1837