indefinite subjective. Emerson's lack of interest in permanence
may cause him to present a subjectivity harsher on the outside
than is essential. His very universalism occasionally seems a
limitation. Somewhere here may lie a weakness--real to some,
apparent to others--a weakness in so far as his relation becomes
less vivid--to the many; insofar as he over-disregards the
personal unit in the universal. If Genius is the most indebted,
how much does it owe to those who would, but do not easily ride
with it? If there is a weakness here is it the fault of substance
or only of manner? If of the former, there is organic error
somewhere, and Emerson will become less and less valuable to man.
But this seems impossible, at least to us. Without considering
his manner or expression here (it forms the general subject of
the second section of this paper), let us ask if Emerson's
substance needs an affinity, a supplement or even a complement or
a gangplank? And if so, of what will it be composed?

Perhaps Emerson could not have risen to his own, if it had not
been for his Unitarian training and association with the
churchmen emancipators. "Christianity is founded on, and supposes
the authority of, reason, and cannot therefore oppose it, without
subverting itself."..."Its office is to discern universal truths,
great and eternal principles...the highest power of the soul."
Thus preached Channing. Who knows but this pulpit aroused the
younger Emerson to the possibilities of intuitive reasoning in
spiritual realms? The influence of men like Channing in his fight
for the dignity of human nature, against the arbitrary
revelations that Calvinism had strapped on the church, and for
the belief in the divine in human reason, doubtless encouraged
Emerson in his unshackled search for the infinite, and gave him