" But a great many
things we say can be made to appear contradictory, simply because they
are partial views of a truth, and may often look unlike at first, as a
front view of a face and its profile often do.
Here is a distinguished divine, for whom I have great respect, for I owe
him a charming hour at one of our literary anniversaries, and he has
often spoken noble words; but he holds up a remark of my friend the
"Autocrat,"--which I grieve to say he twice misquotes, by omitting the
very word which gives it its significance,--the word fluid, intended to
typify the mobility of the restricted will,--holds it up, I say, as if it
attacked the reality of the self-determining principle, instead of
illustrating its limitations by an image. Now I will not explain any
farther, still less defend, and least of all attack, but simply quote a
few lines from one of my friend's poems, printed more than ten years ago,
and ask the distinguished gentleman where he has ever asserted more
strongly or absolutely the independent will of the "subcreative centre,"
as my heretical friend has elsewhere called man.
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