when we come to the highest criticism. We are to see that which man
was tending to do in a given period, and was hindered, or, if you
will, modified in doing, by the interfering volitions of Phidias, of
Dante, of Shakespeare, the organ whereby man at the moment wrought.

Still more striking is the expression of this fact in the proverbs of
all nations, which are always the literature of reason, or the
statements of an absolute truth, without qualification. Proverbs, like
the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions.
That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow
the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in
proverbs without contradiction. And this law of laws which the pulpit,
the senate, and the college deny, is hourly preached in all markets
and workshops by flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as
omnipresent as that of birds and flies.

All things are double, one against another.--Tit for tat;[126] an eye
for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure;
love for love.--Give and it shall be given you.--- He that watereth
shall be watered himself.--What will you have? quoth God; pay for it
and take it.--Nothing venture, nothing have.--Thou shalt be paid
exactly for what thou hast done, no more, no less.--Who doth not work
shall not eat.--Harm watch, harm catch.--Curses always recoil on the
head of him who imprecates them.--If you put a chain around the neck
of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.--Bad counsel
confounds the adviser.--The Devil is an ass.

It is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our action is
overmastered and characterized above our will by the law of nature. We
aim at a petty end quite aside from the public good, but our act