to say, are an altogether odious set of people, whom one would shun as the worst of liars and canters.' Temperance and anti-slavery, and so forth, are poor things when prosecuted for themselves as an end, though appealing to generous motives. The reason is that all associations must be a product of, not dependent upon, a bond. The 'union is only perfect when all the unities are isolated.' When each man sees the truth for himself, all will come together. Reform, therefore, even in the case of slavery, should proceed by the gradual elevation of the human spirit, not by direct legislation and outward agitation. When you trust to external means instead of acting upon the soul you become mechanical and take narrow and distorted views of the evil. The transcendentalists, so far as they accepted this view, were regarded as mere apostles of 'culture.' They were inclined to stand aside from active life, and leave things to be gradually improved by the slow infiltration of higher ideals. Emerson, says Lowell, was a truer follower of Goethe than Carlyle; his teaching tended to self-culture and the development of the individual man, till it seemed 'almost Pythagorean in its voluntary seclusion from commonwealth affairs.' Emerson,
