that began to think, was precisely this child-man of Plato's. Simple, open
as a child, yet with the depth and strength of a man. Nature had as yet no

name to him; he had not yet united under a name the infinitevariety of
sights, sounds, shapes and motions, which we now collectively name

Universe, Nature, or the like,--and so with a name dismiss it from us. To
the wild deep-hearted man all was yet new, not veiled under names or

formulas; it stood naked, flashing in on him there, beautiful, awful,
unspeakable. Nature was to this man, what to the Thinker and Prophet it

forever is, preternatural. This green flowery rock-built earth, the trees,
the mountains, rivers, many-sounding seas;--that great deep sea of azure

that swims overhead; the winds sweeping through it; the black cloud
fashioning itself together, now pouring out fire, now hail and rain; what

_is_ it? Ay, what? At bottom we do not yet know; we can never know at
all. It is not by our superior insight that we escape the difficulty; it

is by our superior levity, our inattention, our _want_ of insight. It is
by _not_ thinking that we cease to wonder at it. Hardened round us,

encasing wholly every notion we form, is a wrappage of traditions,
hearsays, mere _words_. We call that fire of the black thunder-cloud

"electricity," and lecture learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out
of glass and silk: but _what_ is it? What made it? Whence comes it?

Whither goes it? Science has done much for us; but it is a poor science
that would hide from us the great deep sacred infinitude of Nescience,

whither we can never penetrate, on which all science swims as a mere
superficial film. This world, after all our science and sciences, is still

a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, _magical_ and more, to whosoever will
_think_ of it.

That great mystery of TIME, were there no other; the illimitable, silent,
never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like

an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the Universe swim like
exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are _not_: this is

forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb,--for we have
no word to speak about it. This Universe, ah me--what could the wild man

know of it; what can we yet know? That it is a Force, and thousand-fold
Complexity of Forces; a Force which is _not_ we. That is all; it is not

we, it is altogether different from us. Force, Force, everywhere Force; we
ourselves a mysterious Force in the centre of that. "There is not a leaf

rotting on the highway but has Force in it; how else could it rot?" Nay
surely, to the Atheistic Thinker, if such a one were possible, it must be a

miracle too, this huge illimitable whirlwind of Force, which envelops us
here; never-resting whirlwind, high as Immensity, old as Eternity. What is

it? God's Creation, the religious people answer; it is the Almighty God's!
Atheistic science babbles poorly of it, with scientific nomenclatures,

experiments and what not, as if it were a poor dead thing, to be bottled up
in Leyden jars and sold over counters: but the natural sense of man, in

all times, if he will honestly apply his sense, proclaims it to be a living
thing,--ah, an unspeakable, godlike thing; towards which the best attitude

for us, after never so much science, is awe, devout prostration and
humility of soul; worship if not in words, then in silence.

But now I remark farther: What in such a time as ours it requires a
Prophet or Poet to teach us, namely, the stripping-off of those poor

undevout wrappages, nomenclatures and scientific hearsays,--this, the
ancient earnest soul, as yet unencumbered with these things, did for

itself. The world, which is now divine only to the gifted, was then divine
to whosoever would turn his eye upon it. He stood bare before it face to

face. "All was Godlike or God:"--Jean Paul still finds it so; the giant
Jean Paul, who has power to escape out of hearsays: but there then were no

hearsays. Canopus shining down over the desert, with its blue diamond
brightness (that wild blue spirit-like brightness, far brighter than we

ever witness here), would pierce into the heart of the wild Ishmaelitish
man, whom it was guiding through the solitary waste there. To his wild

heart, with all feelings in it, with no _speech_ for any feeling, it might
seem a little eye, that Canopus, glancing out on him from the great deep

Eternity; revealing the inner Splendor to him. Cannot we understand how
these men _worshipped_ Canopus; became what we call Sabeans, worshipping

the stars? Such is to me the secret of all forms of Paganism. Worship is
transcendent wonder; wonder for which there is now no limit or measure;

that is worship. To these primeval men, all things and everything they saw
exist beside them were an emblem of the Godlike, of some God.

And look what perennial fibre of truth was in that. To us also, through
every star, through every blade of grass, is not a God made visible, if we

will open our minds and eyes? We do not worship in that way now: but is
it not reckoned still a merit, proof of what we call a "poetic nature,"

that we recognize how every object has a divine beauty in it; how every
object still verily is "a window through which we may look into Infinitude

itself"? He that can discern the loveliness of things, we call him Poet!
Painter, Man of Genius, gifted, lovable. These poor Sabeans did even what

he does,--in their own fashion. That they did it, in what fashion soever,
was a merit: better than what the entirely stupid man did, what the horse

and camel did,--namely, nothing!
But now if all things whatever">whatsoever that we look upon are emblems to us of the

Highest God, I add that more so than any of them is man such an emblem.
You have heard of St. Chrysostom's celebratedsaying in reference to the

Shekinah, or Ark of Testimony, visible Revelation of God, among the
Hebrews: "The true Shekinah is Man!" Yes, it is even so: this is no vain

phrase; it is veritably so. The essence of our being, the mystery in us
that calls itself "I,"--ah, what words have we for such things?--is a

breath of Heaven; the Highest Being reveals himself in man. This body,
these faculties, this life of ours, is it not all as a vesture for that

Unnamed? "There is but one Temple in the Universe," says the devout
Novalis, "and that is the Body of Man. Nothing is holier shall that high

form. Bending before men is a reverence done to this Revelation in the
Flesh. We touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a human body!" This sounds

much like a mere flourish of rhetoric; but it is not so. If well
meditated, it will turn out to be a scientific fact; the expression, in

such words as can be had, of the actual truth of the thing. We are the
miracle of miracles,--the great inscrutable mystery of God. We cannot

understand it, we know not how to speak of it; but we may feel and know, if
we like, that it is verily so.

Well; these truths were once more readily felt than now. The young
generations of the world, who had in them the freshness of young children,

and yet the depth of earnest men, who did not think that they had finished
off all things in Heaven and Earth by merely giving them scientific names,

but had to gaze direct at them there, with awe and wonder: they felt
better what of divinity is in man and Nature; they, without being mad,

could _worship_ Nature, and man more than anything else in Nature.
Worship, that is, as I said above, admire without limit: this, in the full

use of their faculties, with all sincerity of heart, they could do. I
consider Hero-worship to be the grand modifying element in that ancient

system of thought. What I called the perplexed jungle of Paganism sprang,
we may say, out of many roots: every admiration, adoration of a star or

natural object, was a root or fibre of a root; but Hero-worship is the
deepest root of all; the tap-root, from which in a great degree all the

rest were nourished and grown.
And now if worship even of a star had some meaning in it, how much more

might that of a Hero! Worship of a Hero is transcendent admiration of a
Great Man. I say great men are still admirable; I say there is, at bottom,

nothing else admirable! No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one
higher than himself dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour, and

at all hours, the vivifying influence in man's life. Religion I find stand
upon it; not Paganism only, but far higher and truer religions,--all

religion hitherto known. Hero-worship, heartfelt prostrateadmiration,
submission, burning, boundless, for a noblest godlike Form of Man,--is not

that the germ of Christianity itself? The greatest of all Heroes is
One--whom we do not name here! Let sacred silence meditate that sacred

matter; you will find it the ultimateperfection of a principle extant
throughout man's whole history on earth.

Or coming into lower, less unspeakable provinces, is not all Loyalty akin
to religious Faith also? Faith is loyalty to some inspired Teacher, some

spiritual Hero. And what therefore is loyalty proper, the life-breath of
all society, but an effluence of Hero-worship, submissive admiration for

the truly great? Society is founded on Hero-worship. All dignities of
rank, on which human association rests, are what we may call a _Hero_archy

(Government of Heroes),--or a Hierarchy, for it is "sacred" enough withal!
The Duke means _Dux_, Leader; King is _Kon-ning_, _Kan-ning_, Man that

_knows_ or _cans_. Society everywhere is some representation, not
insupportably inaccurate, of a graduated Worship of Heroes--reverence and

obedience done to men really great and wise. Not insupportably inaccurate,
I say! They are all as bank-notes, these social dignitaries, all

representing gold;--and several of them, alas, always are _forged_ notes.
We can do with some forged false notes; with a good many even; but not with