all infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished. they are punished by fear. whilst i stand in simple relations to my fellow-man, i have no displeasure in meeting him. we meet as water meets water, or as two currents of air mix, with perfect diffusion and interpenetration of nature. but as soon as there is any departure from simplicity, and attempt at halfness, or good for me that is not good for him, my neighbour feels the wrong; he shrinks from me as far as i have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek mine; there is war between us; there is hate in him and fear in me. all the old abuses in society, universal and particular, all unjust accumulations of property and power, are avenged in the same manner. fear is an instructer of great sagacity, and the herald of all revolutions. one thing he teaches, that there is rottenness where he appears. he is a carrion crow, and though you see not well what he hovers for, there is death somewhere. our property is timid, our laws are timid, our cultivated classes are timid. fear for ages has boded and mowed and gibbered over government and property. that obscene bird is not there for nothing. he indicates great wrongs which must be revised.   web/transcendentalism/authors/emers on/essays/compensation.html
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