John Jay Chapman, William Lloyd Garrison

[181] describing the operation of a great law of influence, and who yet seems to see in it merely evidence of human perversity. Later on, and especially during the war, Garrison became reconciled to that law, which his own life had ever blindly obeyed and exemplified.

I must now speak of the matter of strong language. The prophet, great or small, is not so much an individual, as a part of the consciousness of all men. He acts in a particular way upon the force of life, just as a prism acts in a particular way upon light. He is formed by pressure of some sort, and appears at critical times, just as a prism is created by pressure in the womb of the mountain. His understanding of his own function is uncertain, and there have been many plain-minded prophets who could suffer martyrdom, but not explain. I cannot find that even Socrates exactly understood the theory of agitation. The world sometimes thinks of these men as stupid people who know not what they would be at. We should think of them as spirits who enact a lesson rather than as moralists who read a lecture. Let every man carry home what he can from the auto-da-fe. The prophets are hot volcanic lava, rolling out of some