All men on this
hypothesis would be but _man_ in two sexes; man again might be reduced
to the animal, the animal to the plant, and the only individuality left
would be a living nature, reduced to a living matter, to the hylozoism
of Thales. However, even upon this hypothesis, if there were but one
absolute beginning, relative beginnings would still remain to us as
multiple symbols of the absolute. Every life, called individual for
convenience sake and by analogy, would represent in miniature the
history of the world, and would be to the eye of the philosopher a
microscopic compendium of it.
The history of the formation of ideas is what, frees the mind.
* * * * *
A philosophic truth does not become popular until some eloquent soul has
humanized it or some gifted personality has translated and embodied it.
Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated
by contagion.
January 30, 1876.--After dinner I went two steps off, to Marc Monnier's,
to hear the "Luthier de Cremone," a one-act comedy in verse, read by the
author, Francois Coppee.
It was a feast of fine sensations, of literary dainties. For the little
piece is a pearl. It is steeped in poetry, and every line is a fresh
pleasure to one's taste.
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