NEFAS EST AB HOSTE DOCERI
In the Jacobinism of anti-jacobins, note the dreariest feature of Jacobins, a contempt for the institutions of our ancestors and of past wisdom, which has generated Cobbetts and contempt of the liberty of the press and of liberty itself. Men are not wholly unmodified by the opinion of their fellow-men, even when they happen to be enemies or (still worse) of the opposite faction.
THE MANY AND THE ONE
I saw in early youth, as in a dream, the birth of the planets; and my eyes beheld as one what the understanding afterwards divided into (1) the origin of the masses, (2) the origin of their motions, and (3) the site or position of their circles and ellipses. All the deviations, too, were seen as one intuition of one the self-same necessity, and this necessity was a law of spirit, and all was spirit. And in matter all beheld the past activity of others or their own—and this reflection, this echo is matter—its only essence, if essence it be. And of this, too, I saw the necessity and understood it, but I understood not how infinite multitude and manifoldness could be one; only I saw and understood that it was yet more out of my power to comprehend how it could be otherwise—and in this unity I worshipped in the depth of knowledge that passes all understanding the Being of all things—and in Being their sole goodness—and I saw that God is the One, the Good—possesses it not, but is it.
THE WINDMILL AND ITS SHADOW
The visibility of motion at a great distance is increased by all that increases the the distinct visibility of the moving object. This Saturday, August 3, 1804, in the room immediately under the tower in St. Antonio, as I was musing on the difference, whether ultimate or only of degree, between auffassen and erkennen (an idea received and an idea acquired) I saw on the top of the distant hills a shadow on the sunny ground moving very fast and wave-like, yet always in the same place, which I should have attributed to the windmill close by, but the windmill (which I saw distinctly too) appeared at rest. On steady gazing, however, (and most plainly with my spy-glass) I found that it was not at rest, but that this was its shadow. The windmill itself was white in the sunshine, and there were sunny white clouds at its back, the shadow black on the white ground.
SYRACUSE Thursday night at the Opera, September 27, 1804