One reason in all
Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour, and is not reminded of the flux of all things? Throw a stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence. Man is conscious of a universal soul within or behind his individual life, wherein, as in a firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, Freedom, arise and shine. This universal soul, he calls Reason: it is not mine, or thine, or his, but we are its; we are its property and men. And the blue sky in which the private earth is buried, the sky with its eternal calm, and full of everlasting orbs, is the type of Reason. That which, intellectually considered, we call Reason, considered in relation to nature, we call Spirit. Spirit is the Creator. Spirit hath life in itself. And man in all ages and countries, embodies it in his language, as the FATHER.
If our intellectual part is common, the reason also, in respect of which we are rational beings, is common: if this is so, common also is the reason which commands us what to do, and what not to do; if this is so, there is a common law also; if this is so, we are fellow-citizens; if this is so, we are members of some political community; if this is so, the world is in a manner a state. For of what other common political community will any one say that the whole human race are members? And from thence, from this common political community, comes also our very intellectual faculty and reasoning faculty and our capacity for law; or whence do they come? For as my earthly part is a portion given to me from certain earth, and that which is watery from another element, and that which is hot and fiery from some peculiar source (for nothing comes out of that which is nothing, as nothing also returns to non-existence), so also the intellectual part comes from some source.
The Editors’ note
Both find in each person a reason that belongs to no one person. Emerson says man is conscious of a universal soul within or behind his individual life, which he calls Reason: “it is not mine, or thine, or his, but we are its”. Marcus Aurelius argues that if our intellectual part is common, then reason, law and citizenship are common too, so that “the world is in a manner a state”.
They take the thought in different directions. Emerson moves toward worship: the Reason that is common to all, considered in relation to nature, is Spirit, the Creator, which men in all ages have called the Father. Marcus moves toward duty: the common reason makes us fellow-citizens of one community, and he asks from what source the intellectual part has come, as the body’s elements come each from its own.