...you believe in karma or predestination? How do you "attempt to lift this mountain of Fate"? — FATE The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is One Man,—present to all particular men only partially, or through one faculty; and that you must take...

...one of those fables," he said, "which, out of an unknown antiquity, convey an unlooked-for wisdom, that the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into...divided into fingers, the better to answer its end." Emerson interpreted the fable to sustain "a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is One Man, —...

...sentiments, they must have been thoroughly disappointed. Instead, Emerson begins by citing a fable: that the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into men, that he might he more helpful to himself; just as the hand was divided into fingers, the better to answer its end...

...his attitude toward consensual and pluralistic social structures. "The old fable," Emerson begins, "covers a doctrine ever new and sublime, that there...must take the whole society to find the whole man." In contrast to the "fable," where society is represented in an organic, masculine metaphor, the world...

...those fables, which out of an unknown antiquity, convey an unlooked-for wisdom," observes Emerson, "that the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into...divided into fingers, the better to answer its end." For Emerson, the source of this original unity is still with us. It is the power of Eros, the Over-Soul,...

...humanity. Emerson, notably, does not describe an original society but only the original individual. "One Man, present to all particular men only partially, or through one faculty" is the Platonic archetype. But humanity has since become only shadows of that ideal as social and economic...

...man thinking, or the man composing or the man painting — to lose the power to create. telling how the gods in the beginning divided man into men that...might be more helpful to himself, just as the hand was split up into fingers. The pursuer of any calling or profession is not a farmer or a carpenter, but...

...element in every conception of ideal life", he reflected. Was it not Seneca who had said that the " Gods divided man into men that he might be more helpful to himself " ?2 These were not the thoughts of a man ambitious for narrow personal ends, who therefore was given...