too much of the universal to be either--though he could be both
at once. To Cotton Mather, he would have been a demagogue, to a
real demagogue he would not be understood, as it was with no self
interest that he laid his hand on reality. The nearer any subject
or an attribute of it, approaches to the perfect truth at its
base, the more does qualification become necessary. Radicalism
must always qualify itself. Emerson clarifies as he qualifies, by
plunging into, rather than "emerging from Carlyle's
soul-confusing labyrinths of speculative radicalism." The
radicalism that we hear much about today, is not Emerson's kind--
but of thinner fiber--it qualifies itself by going to _A_ "root"
and often cutting other roots in the process; it is usually
impotent as dynamite in its cause and sometimes as harmful to the
wholesome progress of all causes; it is qualified by its failure.
But the Radicalism of Emerson plunges to all roots, it becomes
greater than itself--greater than all its formal or informal
doctrines--too advanced and too conservative for any specific
result--too catholic for all the churches--for the nearer it is
to truth, the farther it is from a truth, and the more it is
qualified by its future possibilities.

Hence comes the difficulty--the futility of attempting to fasten
on Emerson any particular doctrine, philosophic, or religious
theory. Emerson wrings the neck of any law, that would become
exclusive and arrogant, whether a definite one of metaphysics or
an indefinite one of mechanics. He hacks his way up and down, as
near as he can to the absolute, the oneness of all nature both
human and spiritual, and to God's benevolence. To him the
ultimate of a conception is its vastness, and it is probably
this, rather than the "blind-spots" in his expression that makes