...immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. . . . Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this. ... A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titular and ephemeral....

...is it, in fact, the best fulfillment of me?14 Emerson's (intentionally) outrageous insistence that, "if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil" (p. 56), acknowledges the question. Although he never resolves the conflict between freedom and accountability,...