Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

to be the liberation of the will from the sheaths and clogs of organization,which he has outgrown. Again, limitation is measure of the growing man.And again, apparently formidable will in nature actually has a deeper, benevolentmission. Yet will works mysteriously. For society, a form of “notme” threatens the manhood of each of its members, yet “society is servilefrom want of will.” Limiting fate seems to work its will through particularizinginto the mass, weakening the parts. Liberating power seems to expresswill through universalizing in the individual, strengthening the whole. InExperience, Emerson explored this particularizing aspect of the will in relationto sin. The conscience, with its root in the will, must feel a sin to be aparticular essence, essentially evil. “This it is not,” says Emerson. “It hasan objective existence, but no subjective … sin, seen from the thought is adiminution, or less … shade, absence of light, and no essence.”To the intellect, not of cold geometry nor of simple understanding,but rather the light of reason imbued with the warmth of the temperate zone,to this intellect there is no crime, nor sin, for all is perceived in relation to auniversal source. All is either less or more. Power then could not be man’sfree will alone, but must be guided by man’s thought, to attract him awayfrom the pole of his particular, limited self to the pole of his more universal,free self. For, he says in “Fate,”intellect annuls Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free … every jet ofchaos which threatens to exterminate us is convertible by intellectinto wholesome force (e.g., stream was till the other day the devilwhich we dreaded). … Fate then is a name for facts not yet passedunder the fire of thought, for causes which are unpenetrated.In respect to these attributes of intellect and will, it becomes clearthat the weaker one’s thought, the more susceptible one is to the particularizingwill of fate, which pulls one out from center and down, from whichperspective Fate is perceived as limiting and malevolent. Man’s thinkingengages his will in an active whole soul, which brings him to center andthe perspective from above that all acts and events of fate can be seen in thelight of one benevolent universal source. In this light one can at least realizethat “tis the best use of Fate to teach a fatal courage. Go face the fire at sea… knowing you are guarded by the cherubim of Destiny. If you believe inFate to your harm, believe in it at least for your good.”Although his geometry was unable to reconcile the oppositions, Emerson,with the heat of wholly animated thought, conducted with increasing175