Essays: First Series by Ralph Waldo Emerson Essay 4 Page 25

that the strongest of defences and of ties, — that he has been understood; and he who has received an opinion may come to find it the most inconvenient of bonds.

If a teacher have any opinion which he wishes to conceal, his pupils will become as fully indoctrinated into that as into any which he publishes.

If you pour water into a vessel twisted into coils and angles, it is vain to say, I will pour it only into this or that; — it will find its level in all. Men feel and act the consequences of your doctrine without being able to show how they follow. Show us an arc of the curve, and a good mathematician will find out the whole figure. We are always reasoning from the seen to the unseen. Hence the perfect intelligence that subsists between wise men of remote ages.