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HESI Comprehensive Review for the
NCLEX-PN® Examination

FIFTH EDITION

Hesi
Editor

Tina Cuellar, PhD, APRN, PMHCNS, BC

2
Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

Contributing Authors

Reviewers

Preface

1. Introduction to Testing and the NCLEX-PN® Examination

The NCLEX-PN Licensing Examination

Administration of the NCLEX-PN

Tips for NCLEX-PN Success

2. Leadership and Management

Legal Aspects of Nursing

Review of Legal Aspects of Nursing

Answers to Review

Leadership and Management

Review of Leadership and Management

Answers to Review

Disaster Nursing

Review of Disaster Nursing

Answers to Review

3
3. Advanced Clinical Concepts
Respiratory Failure

Review of Respiratory Failure

Answers to Review

Shock

Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation

Review of Shock and DIC

Answers to Review

Resuscitation

Review of Resuscitation

Answers to Review

Fluid and Electrolyte Balance

Review of Fluid and Electrolyte Balance

Answers to Review

Electrocardiogram

Review of Electrocardiogram

Answers to Review

Perioperative Care

Review of Perioperative Care

Answers to Review

HIV Infection

Pediatric HIV Infection

Review of HIV Infection

Answers to Review

Pain

Review of Pain

Answers to Review

Death and Grief

Review of Death and Grief

Answers to Review

4. Medical-Surgical Nursing
Caring and Nursing

4
Cultural Diversity

Spiritual Assessment

Respiratory System

Review of Respiratory System

Answers to Review

Renal System

Review of Renal System

Answers to Review

Cardiovascular System

Review of Cardiovascular System

Answers to Review

Gastrointestinal System

Review of Gastrointestinal System

Answers to Review

Endocrine System

Review of Endocrine System

Answers to Review

Musculoskeletal System

Review of Musculoskeletal System

Answers to Review

Neurosensory System

Neurologic System

Review of Neurosensory/Neurologic Systems

Answers to Review

Hematology/Oncology

Review of Hematology/Oncology

Answers to Review

Reproductive System

Review of Reproductive System

Answers to Review

Burns

Review of Burns

Answers to Review

5
5. Pediatric Nursing
Growth and Development

Pain Assessment and Management in the Pediatric Client

Child Health Promotion

Review of Child Health Promotion

Answers to Review

Respiratory Disorders

Review of Respiratory Disorders

Answers to Review

Cardiovascular Disorders

Review of Cardiovascular Disorders

Answers to Review

Neuromuscular Disorders

Review of Neuromuscular Disorders

Answers to Review

Renal Disorders

Review of Renal Disorders

Answers to Review

Gastrointestinal Disorders

Review of Gastrointestinal Disorders

Answers to Review

Hematologic Disorders

Hemophilia

Review of Hematologic Disorders

Answers to Review

Metabolic and Endocrine Disorders

Review of Metabolic and Endocrine Disorders

Answers to Review

Skeletal Disorders

Review of Skeletal Disorder

Answers to Review

6. Maternity Nursing

6
 Anatomy and Physiology of Reproduction

Antepartum Nursing Care

Review of Anatomy and Physiology of Reproduction and Antepartum Nursing Care

Answers to Review

Fetal/Maternal Assessment Techniques

Review of Fetal/Maternal Assessment Techniques

Answers to Review

Intrapartum Nursing Care

Review of Intrapartum Nursing Care

Answers to Review

Normal Postpartum Period (Puerperium)

Review of Normal Puerperium (Postpartum)

Answers to Review

The Normal Newborn

Review of the Normal Newborn

Answers to Review

Complications of Pregnancy

Review of Complications of Pregnancy

Answers to Review

Postpartum Complications

Review of Postpartum Complications

Answers to Review

Complications of the Newborn

Review of Complications of the Newborn

Answers to Review

7. Psychiatric Nursing
Therapeutic Communication

Review of Therapeutic Communication and Treatment Modalities

Answers to Review

Anxiety

Anxiety Disorders

Review of Anxiety and Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders

Answers to Review

7
 Somatic Symptom Disorder and Related Disorders

Review of Somatic Symptom Disorder and Related Disorders

Answers to Review

Dissociative Disorders

Review of Dissociative Disorders

Answers to Review

Personality Disorders (DSM-5 Criteria)

Review of Personality Disorders

Answers to Review

Eating Disorders

Review of Eating Disorders

Answers to Review

Mood Disorders

Review of Mood Disorders

Answers to Review

Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders

Review of Thought Disorders

Answers to Review

Substance Abuse

Review of Substance Abuse Disorder

Answers to Review

Childhood and Adolescent Disorders

Review of Childhood and Adolescent Disorders

Answers to Review

8. Gerontologic Nursing
Theories of Aging

Physiologic Changes

Psychosocial Changes

Dementia

Health Maintenance and Preventive Care

End-of-Life Care

Review of Gerontologic Nursing

Answers to Review

8
A. NANDA-Approved Nursing Diagnoses and Definitions

B. Normal Values

Index

9
Copyright

3251 Riverport Lane

St. Louis, Missouri 63043

HESI COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW FOR THE NCLEX-PN® EXAMINATION,

FIFTH EDITION ISBN: 978-0-323-42933-7

Copyright © 2018 by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by

any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publisher. Details on how to seek permission, further information about the
Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such
as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be
found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions.

This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under
copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein).

Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new
research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research
methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and
knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds,
or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods, they
should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including
parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

With respect to any drug or pharmaceutical products identified, readers are

advised to check the most current information provided 1) on procedures
featured or 2) by the manufacturer of each product to be administered to
verify the recommended dose or formula, the method and duration of
administration, and contraindications. It is the responsibility of practitioners,
relying on their own experience and knowledge of their patients, to make

10
 diagnoses, determine dosages and the best treatment for each individual
patient, and take all appropriate safety precautions.

To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors,
contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to
persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise,
or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas
contained in the material herein.

Previous editions copyrighted 2015, 2012, and 2008.

NANDA International Nursing Diagnoses: Definitions and Classifications

2012–2014; Herdman T.H. (Ed.); copyright © 2012, 1994–2012 NANDA
International; Published by John Wiley & Sons, Limited.
NCLEX®, NCLEX-RN®, and NCLEX-PN® are Registered Trademarks of the
National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Inc.

International Standard Book Number: 978-0-323-42933-7

Content Strategist: Jamie Blum

Content Development Manager: Billie Sharp
Associate Content Development Specialist: Samantha Dalton
Publishing Services Manager: Jeff Patterson
Book Production Specialist: Bill Drone
Design Direction: Ryan Cook

Printed in Canada

Last digit is the print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

11
Contributing Authors
Safa'a Al-Arabi, PhD, RN, MSN, MPH, Associate Professor and Accelerated
BSN Track Administrator, School of Nursing, University of Texas Medical
Branch, Galveston, Texas

Sharon L. Colley, PhD, MSN, BSN, RN, CNE, MSN Program Coordinator,
Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Ferris State University, Big Rapids,
Michigan

Claudine Dufrene, PhD, RN-BC, GNP-BC, CNE, Assistant Professor, Carol

and Odis Peavy School of Nursing, University of St. Thomas, Houston, Texas

Tiffany Jakubowski, BSN, RN, ONC, CMSRN, Adjunct Nursing Faculty,

Front Range Community College, Longmont, Colorado

Sandra R. Jemison, RN, MSN, Assistant Professor, Cox College of Nursing

and Health Sciences, Springfield, Missouri

Necole Leland, MSN, RN, PNP, CPN, School of Nursing, University of

Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada

Katherine Ralph, MSN, RN, Curriculum Manager, Elsevier

12
Reviewers
Kristen M. Bagby, RN, MSN, CNL, Staff Nurse, St. Louis Children’s
Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri

Judy Carlyle, RN, MNS Nursing Administration and Education, Nursing

Education, Arkansas Rural Nursing Education Consortium (ARNEC),
Nashville, Arkansas

Abimbola Farinde, Pharmacist, PhD, Professor, College of Business,

Columbia Southern University, Orange Beach, Alabama

Christina Flint, RN, MSN, MBA, Assistant Professor, Nursing, University of

Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana

Judith M. Hochberger, PhD, RN, Assistant Professor, Nursing, Roseman

University, Henderson, Nevada

Lisa Tardo-Green, ABD, MSN, RN, Assistant Professor, Associate Degree

Nursing, Cabarrus College of Health Sciences, Concord, North Carolina

Laura Williams, MSN, CNS, ONC, CCNS, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Center
for Nursing Research and Advanced Nursing Practice, Orlando Health,
Orlando, Florida

13
Preface
Welcome to HESI Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-PN® Examination with
online study exams by HESI.
Congratulations! This outstanding review manual with the companion
Evolve site is designed to prepare nursing students for what is likely the most
important examination they will ever take, the NCLEX-PN Licensing
Examination. As a graduate of a PN nursing program, the student has the basic
knowledge required to pass tests and perform safely and successfully in the
clinical area. HESI Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-PN® Examination
with the companion Evolve site allows the nursing student to prepare for the
NCLEX-PN licensure exam in a structured way.
• Organize basic nursing knowledge previously learned.
• Review content learned during basic nursing curriculum.
• Identify weaknesses in content knowledge so that study efforts can be
focused appropriately.
• Develop test-taking skills so application of safe nursing practice from
knowledge can be demonstrated.
• Reduce anxiety level by increasing ability to correctly answer NCLEX-type
questions.
• Boost test-taking confidence by being well prepared and knowing what to
expect.

14
Organization
Chapter 1, Introduction to Testing and the NCLEX-PN® Examination, gives an
overview of the NCLEX-PN Licensing Exam history and a test plan for the
examination. A review of the nursing process (updated with the latest
NANDA-approved nursing diagnoses), client needs, and prioritizing nursing
care is also presented.
Chapter 2, Leadership and Management, reviews the legal aspects of nursing,
leadership, and management, along with disaster nursing.
Chapter 3, Advanced Clinical Concepts, presents nursing assessment (data
collection), analysis (nursing diagnosis), planning, and intervention at the
practical nurse level. Respiratory failure, shock, disseminated intravascular
coagulation (DIC), resuscitation, fluid and electrolyte balance, acid-base
balance, electrocardiography (ECG), perioperative care, HIV, pain, and death
and grief are reviewed.
Chapters 4 through 8, Medical-Surgical Nursing, Pediatric Nursing,
Maternity Nursing, Psychiatric Nursing, and Gerontologic Nursing, are
presented in traditional clinical areas.
Each clinical area is divided into physiologic components, but essential
knowledge about basic anatomy, medications, nutrition, communication, client
and family education, acute and chronic care, leadership and management, and
clinical decision-making are integrated throughout the different components.
Open-ended style questions appear at the end of each chapter, which
encourage the student to think in depth about the content presented throughout
the individual chapter. When a variety of learning mechanisms is used,
students have the opportunity to comprehensively prepare for the NCLEX.
These strategies include the following:
• Reading the review book.
• Discussing content with others.
• Answering open-ended questions.
• Practicing with study exams that simulate the licensure examination.
These learning experiences are all different ways that students should use to
prepare for the NCLEX. The purpose of the open-ended questions appearing at
the end of the chapter is not a focused practice session on managing NCLEX-
style multiple-choice questions, but instead this learning approach allows for
more in-depth thinking about the particular topics in the chapter. Practice with
multiple-choice–style questions alone cannot provide the depth of critical
thinking and analysis possible with the short-answer–style questions at the end
of the chapter. Additionally, the open-ended questions provide a summary
experience that helps students focus on the main topics that were covered in the
chapter. Teachers use open-ended–style questions to stimulate the critical-
thinking process, and HESI Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-PN®

15
Examination facilitates the critical-thinking process by posing the same type of
questions the teacher might ask.
When students need to practice multiple-choice–style questions, the Study
Exams offer extensive opportunities for practice and skill-building to improve
their test-taking abilities. The Study Exams contain seven content-specific
exams (Medical-Surgical Nursing, Pharmacology, Pediatrics, Fundamentals,
Maternity, Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing, and Gerontology) and two
comprehensive exams patterned after categories on the NCLEX. The Study
Exams can be accessed as many times as necessary, and no questions are
repeated. For instance, the Medical-Surgical exam does not contain questions
that are on the Pediatrics exam. The purpose of providing these exams is to
allow practice and exposure to the critical-thinking–style questions that
students will encounter on the NCLEX. However, the Study Exams should not
be used to predict performance on the NCLEX. Only the HESI Exit Exam—a
secure, computerized exam that simulates the NCLEX test plan and has
evidenced-based results from numerous research studies indicating a high level
of accuracy in predicting NCLEX success—is offered as a true predictor of
NCLEX performance. Students are allowed unlimited practice on each Study
Exam so that they can have the opportunity to review all of the rationales for
the questions.
Here is a plan for students to use with the companion Evolve site:
• Trial 1: Take the PN Practice Exam without studying for it to determine your
areas of strengths and weaknesses.
• Trial 2: After going over the content that relates to the practice questions on a
particular practice test (for instance, Pediatrics, Medical-Surgical, Maternity),
review that section of the manual and take the test again to determine
whether you have been able to improve your scores.
• Trial 3: Purposely miss every question on the exam so that you can view
rationales for every question.
• Trial 4: Take the exam again under timed conditions at the pace that you
would have to progress to complete the NCLEX in the time allowed
(approximately 1 minute per question). Find out whether being placed under
timing constraints affects your performance.
• Trial 5: Put the exam away for a while and continue review and remediation
with other textbook resources, results of any secure exams that you are taking
at your school, and other study aids. Take the practice exams again after this
study period to see whether your performance improves with in-depth study
and a few weeks’ break from the questions.
Trial 5 represents a good activity in preparation for the HESI Exit Exam
presented in your final semester of the program, especially if you have not used
the Evolve question site for several weeks. Repeated exposure to the questions,
however, will make them less useful over time because students tend to
memorize the answers. For this reason, these tests are useful only for practice
and are not a prediction of NCLEX-PN success. The tendency to memorize the
questions after viewing them multiple times falsely elevates the student’s scores

16
on the study exams.
Additional assistance for students to study for the NCLEX-PN Licensing
Examination can be obtained from a variety of products in the Elsevier family.
Many nursing schools have also adopted the following resources:
• HESI Examinations—a comprehensive set of examinations designed to
prepare nursing students for the NCLEX exam. These enable customized
remediation from Mosby and Saunders textbooks that saves time for faculty
and students. Each student is given an individualized report detailing exam
results and is allowed to view questions and rationales for items that were
answered incorrectly. The electronic remediation, a complimentary feature of
the HESI specialty and exit exams, can be obtained on the subject matter in
which the student did not answer a question correctly.
• HESI-PN Practice Test—a test that provides an introduction to real-world
client situations with critical-thinking questions. These questions cover
nursing care for clients with a wide range of physiologic and psychosocial
alterations and a related coordination of client care, pharmacology, and
nursing concepts.
• HESI Complete PN Case Study Collection—prepares students to manage
complex patient conditions and make sound clinical judgments. These online
case studies cover a broad range of physiologic and psychosocial alterations,
in addition to related coordination of care, pharmacology, and therapeutic
concepts.
• HESI Live Review—a Live Review Course presented by an expert faculty
member who has received training by the Manager of Review Courses for
Elsevier Review and Testing. Students are presented with a workbook and
practice NCLEX-style questions that are used during the course.
• eBooks—online versions of the all Mosby and Saunders textbooks used in the
student’s Nursing Curriculum. Search across titles, highlight, make notes,
and more—all on your computer.
• Elsevier Simulations—using virtual clinical cases, standardized simulation
scenarios, and electronic documentation software, Elsevier Simulations allow
students to practice and apply skills in a controlled, monitored environment.
• Evolve Courses—created by experts using instructional design principles, this
interactive content engages students with reading, animation, video, audio,
interactive exercises, and assessments.

17
Introduction to Testing and the
NCLEX-PN® Examination

18
The NCLEX-PN Licensing Examination
A. The main purpose of a licensing examination such as the NCLEX-PN is to
protect the public.
B. The NCLEX-PN is:
1. Developed by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing.
2. Administered by the State Board of Nursing.
3. Designed to test the candidate’s capability for safe and effective nursing
practice by measuring current, entry-level practical nursing behavior.

Job Analysis Studies

A. “Essential” knowledge on the NCLEX-PN test is determined by practice
analysis studies.
B. Practical nurses (PNs or vocational nurses [VNs]) submit statements about
the frequency of nursing activities and the related impact on client safety.

HESI Hint
The 2015 LPN/VN Practice Analysis: Linking the NCLEX-PN Examination to
Practice (Vol. 58) determines how frequently new practical nurses perform
more than 150 types of nursing care activities. From the analysis, the 2017
NCLEX-PN Test Plan (effective April 1, 2017) identifies four major client
needs categories, and two of those categories are further divided into a total
of six subcategories and five fundamental nursing processes. They provide a
basis for establishing a minimum level of knowledge and skills for PNs to
use with a diverse patient population, in any setting, and within the laws
and rules of each state (Table 1.1, Client Needs, and Table 1.2,
Practical/Vocational Nursing Processes).

HESI Hint
For more information on the NCLEX-PN Test Plan and content related to
each category, go to www.ncsbn.org.

The Nursing Process and Nursing Diagnoses

A. PN role in the nursing process: Practical nurses use the nursing process to
critically think and problem solve (see Table 1.2).
B. Practical nurses assist the health care team to gather and organize data and
recognize client needs and problems regardless of the client’s developmental
stage or the health care setting. They also assist the RN in formulating nursing

19
diagnoses and developing plans of care.
C. The National Conference of the North American Nursing Diagnosis
Association (NANDA) guides nurses in the selection of nursing interventions
for the purpose of achieving specific outcomes; outcomes and interventions are
associated with specific diagnoses (Table 1.3, Components of a Nursing Diagnosis,
and Appendix A, NANDA-Approved Nursing Diagnoses).

HESI Hint
A nursing diagnosis is not a medical diagnosis because a nursing diagnosis:
Is subject to nursing management.
May or may not come from a medical diagnosis.
Is formulated and written by nurses.
Is implemented from nursing orders (care plan and nursing interventions).

Prioritizing Nursing Care on NCLEX-PN

A. Many NCLEX-PN test items are designed to test your ability to set priorities.
B. Some examples include:
1. Identify the MOST IMPORTANT client needs.
2. Identify the MOST IMPORTANT nursing intervention.
3. Which nursing action should be done FIRST?
4. Which client should be cared for FIRST?

Examination Item Formats

A. Several different item types (alternate item formats) are presented on the
NCLEX-PN examination.

TABLE 1.1
Client Needs with Threaded Integrated Processes: Caring, Clinical
Problem Solving, Culture & Spirituality, Communication & Documentation,
and Teaching & Learning

20
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Compensation
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: Compensation
Being an essay as written by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Release date: February 26, 2024 [eBook #73035]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Roycroft, 1903

Credits: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file
was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

COMPENSATION ***
THE OLD MANSE—CONCORD
COMPENSATION
BEING AN ESSAY
AS WRITTEN BY

RALPH WALDO
EMERSON

DONE INTO A PRINTED BOOK BY

THE ROYCROFTERS, AT THE SHOP,
WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, ERIE
COUNTY, NEW YORK, U.S.A. MCMIV
Copyright, 1903, by The Roycrofters, East Aurora, N. Y.
In this God’s world, with its wild-whirling
eddies and mad foam-oceans, where men
and nations perish as if without law, and
judgment for an unjust thing is sternly
delayed, dost thou think that there is
therefore no justice? * * * * I tell thee again
there is nothing else but justice. One strong
thing I find here below: the just thing, the true
thing.—Thomas Carlyle.
COMPENSATION
 ver since I was a boy I have wished to write a
discourse on Compensation; for it had seemed to
me when very young that on this subject Life was
ahead of theology and the people knew more
than the preachers taught. The documents, too,
from which the doctrine is to be drawn, charmed
my fancy by their endless variety, and lay always
before me, even in sleep; for they are the tools in our hands,
the bread in our basket, the transactions of the street, the farm
and the dwelling-house; the greetings, the relations, the debts
and credits, the influence of character, the nature and
endowment of all men. It seemed to me also that in it might be
shown men a ray of divinity, the present action of the Soul of
this world, clean from all vestige of tradition; and so the heart of
man might be bathed by an inundation of eternal love,
conversing with that which he knows was always and always
must be, because it really is now. It appeared moreover that if
this doctrine could be stated in terms with any resemblance to
those bright intuitions in which this truth is sometimes revealed
to us, it would be a star in many dark hours and crooked
passages in our journey, that would not suffer us to lose our
way.
I was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon at
church. The preacher, a man esteemed for his orthodoxy, unfolded in
the ordinary manner the doctrine of the Last Judgment. He assumed
that judgment is not executed in this world; that the wicked are
successful; that the good are miserable; and then urged from reason
and from Scripture a compensation to be made to both parties in the
next life. No offence appeared to be taken by the congregation at
this doctrine. As far as I could observe, when the meeting broke up
they separated without remark on the sermon.
Yet what was the import of this teaching? What did the preacher
mean by saying that the good are miserable in the present life? Was
it that houses and lands, offices, wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had
by unprincipled men, whilst the saints are poor and despised; and
that a compensation is to be made to these last hereafter, by giving
them the like gratifications another day,—bank-stock and doubloons,
venison and champagne? This must be the compensation intended;
for what else? Is it that they are to have leave to pray and praise? to
love and serve men? Why, that they can do now. The legitimate
inference the disciple would draw was, “We are to have such a good
time as the sinners have now;”—or, to push it to its extreme import,
—“You sin now, we shall sin by-and-by; we would sin now, if we
could; not being successful we expect our revenge to-morrow.”
The fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad are
successful; that justice is not done now. The blindness of the
preacher consisted in deferring to the base estimate of the market of
what constitutes a manly success, instead of confronting and
convicting the world from the truth; announcing the Presence of the
Soul; the omnipotence of the Will; and so establishing the standard
of good and ill, of success and falsehood, and summoning the dead
to its present tribunal.
I find a similar base tone in the popular religious works of the day,
and the same doctrines assumed by the literary men when
occasionally they treat the related topics. I think that our popular
theology has gained in decorum, and not in principle, over the
superstitions it has displaced. But men are better than this theology.
Their daily life gives it the lie. Every ingenuous and aspiring soul
leaves the doctrine behind him in his own experience, and all men
feel sometimes the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate. For
men are wiser than they know. That which they hear in schools and
pulpits without afterthought, if said in conversation would probably be
questioned in silence. If a man dogmatize in a mixed company on
Providence and the divine laws, he is answered by a silence which
conveys well enough to an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer,
but his incapacity to make his own statement.
I shall attempt in this and the following chapter to record some facts
that indicate the path of the law of Compensation; happy beyond my
expectation if I shall truly draw the smallest arc of this circle.
Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in
darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in
male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and
animals; in the systole and diastole of the heart; in the undulations of
fluids and of sound; in the centrifugal and centripetal gravity; in
electricity, galvanism and chemical affinity. Superinduce magnetism
at one end of a needle, the opposite magnetism takes place at the
other end. If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here, you
must condense there. An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that
each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole; as,
spirit, matter; man, woman; subjective, objective; in, out; upper,
under; motion, rest; yea, nay.
Whilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its parts. The entire
system of things gets represented in every particle. There is
somewhat that resembles the ebb and flow of the sea, day and night,
man and woman, in a single needle of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in
each individual of every animal tribe. The reaction, so grand in the
elements, is repeated within these small boundaries. For example, in
the animal kingdom the physiologist has observed that no creatures
are favorites, but a certain compensation balances every gift and
every defect. A surplusage given to one part is paid out of a
reduction from another part of the same creature. If the head and
neck are enlarged, the trunk and extremities are cut short.
The theory of the mechanic forces is another example. What we gain
in power is lost in time, and the converse. The periodic or
compensating errors of the planets is another instance. The
influences of climate and soil in political history are another. The cold
climate invigorates. The barren soil does not breed fevers,
crocodiles, tigers, or scorpions.
The same dualism underlies the nature and condition of man. Every
excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath
its sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of
pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its
moderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain of folly.
For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else;
and for every thing you gain, you lose something. If riches increase,
they are increased that use them. If the gatherer gathers too much,
nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the
estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies and exceptions.
The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level from their
loftiest tossing than the varieties of condition tend to equalize
themselves. There is always some leveling circumstance that puts
down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate,
substantially on the same ground with all others. Is a man too strong
and fierce for society, and by temper and position a bad citizen,—a
morose ruffian, with a dash of the pirate in him?—nature sends him
a troop of pretty sons and daughters who are getting along in the
dame’s classes at the village school, and love and fear for them
smooths his grim scowl to courtesy. Thus she contrives to intenerate
the granite and feldspar, takes the boar out and puts the lamb in, and
keeps her balance true.
The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the
President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost
him all his peace, and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve
for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he
is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind
the throne. Or do men desire the more substantial and permanent
grandeur of genius? Neither has this an immunity. He, who by force
of will or of thought is great, and overlooks thousands, has the
responsibility of overlooking. With every influx of light comes new
danger. Has he light? he must bear witness to the light, and always
outrun that sympathy which gives him such keen satisfaction, by his
fidelity to new revelations of the incessant soul. He must hate father
and mother, wife and child. Has he all that the world loves and
admires and covets?—he must cast behind him their admiration and
afflict them by faithfulness to his truth and become a byword and a
hissing.
This Law writes the laws of cities and nations. It will not be balked of
its end in the smallest iota. It is in vain to build or plot or combine
against it. Things refuse to be mismanaged long. Res nolunt diu
male administrari. Though no checks to a new evil appear, the
checks exist, and will appear. If the government is cruel, the
governor’s life is not safe. If you tax too high, the revenue will yield
nothing. If you make the criminal code sanguinary, juries will not
convict. Nothing arbitrary, nothing artificial can endure. The true life
and satisfactions of man seem to elude the utmost rigors or felicities
of condition, and to establish themselves with great indifferency
under all varieties of circumstance. Under all governments the
influence of character remains the same,—in Turkey and New
England about alike. Under the primeval despots of Egypt, history
honestly confesses that man must have been as free as culture
could make him.
These appearances indicate the fact that the universe is represented
in every one of its particles. Every thing in nature contains all the
powers of nature. Every thing is made of one hidden stuff; as the
naturalist sees one type under every metamorphosis, and regards a
horse as a running man, a fish as a swimming man, a bird as a flying
man, a tree as a rooted man. Each new form repeats not only the
main character of the type, but part for part all the details, all the
aims, furtherances, hindrances, energies and whole system of every
other. Every occupation, trade, art, transaction, is a compend of the
world and a correlative of every other. Each one is an entire emblem
of human life; of its good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its course and
its end. And each one must somehow accommodate the whole man
and recite all his destiny.
The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope cannot find
the animalcule which is less perfect for being little. Eyes, ears, taste,
smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction that
take hold on eternity,—all find room to consist in the small creature.
So do we put our life into every act. The true doctrine of
omnipresence is that God reappears with all his parts in every moss
and cobweb. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into
every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; if the affinity, so the
repulsion; if the force, so the limitation. ¶ Thus is the universe alive.
All things are moral. That soul which within us is a sentiment, outside
of us is a law. We feel its inspirations; out there in history we can see
its fatal strength. It is almighty. All nature feels its grasp. “It is in the
world, and the world was made by it.” It is eternal, but it enacts itself
in time and space. Justice is not postponed. A perfect equity adjusts
its balance in all parts of life. “The dice of God are always ready to
fall.” The dice of God are always loaded. The world looks like a
multiplication-table, or a mathematical equation, which, turn it how
you will, balances itself. Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor
more nor less, still returns to you. Every secret is told, every crime is
punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence
and certainty. What we call retribution is the universal necessity by
which the whole appears wherever a part appears. If you see smoke,
there must be fire. If you see a hand or a limb, you know that the
trunk to which it belongs is there behind.
Every act rewards itself, or in other words, integrates itself, in a
twofold manner: first, in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly, in
the circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance
the retribution. The causal retribution is in the thing and is seen by
the soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the
understanding; it is inseparable from the thing, but is often spread
over a long time and so does not become distinct until after many
years. The specific stripes may follow late after the offence, but they
follow because they accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out
of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that, unsuspected, ripens within
the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect,
means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect
already blooms in the cause, the end pre-exists in the means, the
fruit in the seed.
Whilst thus the world will be whole and refuses to be disparted, we
seek to act partially, to sunder, to appropriate; for example,—to
gratify the senses we sever the pleasure of the senses from the
needs of the character. The ingenuity of man has been dedicated to
the solution of one problem,—how to detach the sensual sweet, the
sensual strong, the sensual bright, etc., from the moral sweet, the
moral deep, the moral fair; that is, again, to contrive to cut clean off
this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a one end,
without an other end. The soul says, Eat; the body would feast. The
soul says, The man and woman shall be one flesh and one soul; the
body would join the flesh only. The soul says, Have dominion over all
things to the ends of virtue; the body would have the power over
things to its own ends.
The soul strives amain to live and work through all things. It would be
the only fact. All things shall be added unto it,—power, pleasure,
knowledge, beauty. The particular man aims to be somebody; to set
up for himself; to truck and higgle for a private good; and, in
particulars, to ride that he may ride; to dress that he may be dressed;
to eat that he may eat; and to govern, that he may be seen. Men
seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and fame.
They think that to be great is to get only one side of nature,—the
sweet, without the other side,—the bitter.
Steadily is this dividing and detaching counteracted. Up to this day it
must be owned no projector has had the smallest success. The
parted water re-unites behind our hand. Pleasure is taken out of
pleasant things, profit out of profitable things, power out of strong
things, the moment we seek to separate them from the whole. We
can no more halve things and get the sensual good, by itself, than
we can get an inside that shall have no outside, or a light without a
shadow. “Drive out nature with a fork, she comes running back.”
Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the unwise seek to
dodge, which one and another brags that he does not know, brags
that they do not touch him;—but the brag is on his lips, the
conditions are in his soul. If he escapes them in one part they attack
him in another more vital part. If he has escaped them in form and in
the appearance, it is because he has resisted his life and fled from
himself, and the retribution is so much death. So signal is the failure
of all attempts to make this separation of the good from the tax, that
the experiment would not be tried,—since to try it is to be mad,—but
for the circumstance that when the disease began in the will, of
rebellion and separation, the intellect is at once infected, so that the
man ceases to see God whole in each object, but is able to see the
sensual allurement of an object and not see the sensual hurt; he
sees the mermaid’s head but not the dragon’s tail, and thinks he can
cut off that which he would have from that which he would not have.
“How secret art thou who dwellest in the highest heavens in silence,
O thou only great God, sprinkling with an unwearied providence
certain penal blindnesses upon such as have unbridled desires!”
¶ The human soul is true to these facts in the painting of fable, of
history, of law, of proverbs, of conversation. It finds a tongue in
literature unawares. Thus the Greeks called Jupiter, Supreme Mind;
but having traditionally ascribed to him many base actions, they
involuntarily made amends to Reason by tying up the hands of so
bad a god. He is made as helpless as a king of England.
Prometheus knows one secret which Jove must bargain for;
Minerva, another. He cannot get his own thunders; Minerva keeps
the key of them:

“Of all the gods, I only know the keys

That ope the solid doors within whose vaults
His thunders sleep.”

A plain confession of the in-working of the All, and of its moral aim.
The Indian mythology ends in the same ethics; and indeed it would
seem impossible for any fable to be invented and get any currency
which was not moral. Aurora forgot to ask youth for her lover, and
though so Tithonus is immortal, he is old. Achilles is not quite
invulnerable; for Thetis held him by the heel when she dipped him in
the Styx, and the sacred waters did not wash that part. Siegfried, in
the Nibelungen, is not quite immortal, for a leaf fell on his back whilst
he was bathing in the Dragon’s blood, and that spot which it covered
is mortal. And so it always is. There is a crack in every thing God has
made. Always it would seem there is this vindictive circumstance
stealing in at unawares even into the wild poesy in which the human
fancy attempted to make bold holiday and to shake itself free of the
old laws,—this back-stroke, this kick of the gun, certifying that the
law is fatal; that in nature nothing can be given, all things are sold.
¶ This is that ancient doctrine of Nemesis, who keeps watch in the
Universe, and lets no offence go unchastised. The Furies, they said,
are attendants on Justice, and if the sun in heaven should transgress
his path, they would punish him. The poets related that stone walls
and iron swords and leathern thongs had an occult sympathy with
the wrongs of their owners; that the belt which Ajax gave Hector
dragged the Trojan hero over the field at the wheels of the car of
Achilles, and the sword which Hector gave Ajax was that on whose
point Ajax fell. They recorded that when the Thasians erected a
statue to Theogenes, a victor in the games, one of his rivals went to
it by night and endeavored to throw it down by repeated blows, until
at last he moved it from its pedestal and was crushed to death
beneath its fall.
This voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It came from thought
above the will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer which
has nothing private in it; that is the best part of each which he does
not know; that which flowed out of his constitution and not from his
too-active invention; that which in the study of a single artist you
might not easily find, but in the study of many you would abstract as
the spirit of them all. Phidias it is not, but the work of man in that
early Hellenic world that I would know. The name and circumstance
of Phidias, however convenient for history, embarasses when we
come to the highest criticism. We are to see that which man was
tending to do in a given period, and was hindered, or, if you will,
modified in doing, by the interfering volitions of Phidias, of Dante, of
Shakespeare, the organ whereby man at the moment wrought. ¶ Still
more striking is the expression of this fact in the proverbs of all
nations, which are always the literature of Reason, or the statements
of an absolute truth without qualification. Proverbs, like the sacred
books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the Intuitions. That which
the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow the realist
to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in proverbs, without
contradiction. And this law of laws, which the pulpit, the senate and
the college deny, is hourly preached in all markets and all languages
by flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent
as that of birds and flies.
All things are double, one against another.—Tit for tat; an eye for an
eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure; love
for love.—Give, and it shall be given you.—He that watereth shall be
watered himself.—What will you have? quoth God; pay for it and
take it.—Nothing venture, nothing have.—Thou shalt be paid exactly
for what thou hast done, no more, no less.—Who doth not work shall
not eat.—Harm watch, harm catch.—Curses always recoil on the
head of him who imprecates them.—If you put a chain around the
neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.—Bad
counsel confounds the adviser.—The devil is an ass. ¶ It is thus
written, because it is thus in life. Our action is overmastered and
characterized above our will by the law of nature. We aim at a petty
end quite aside from the public good, but our act arranges itself by
irresistible magnetism in a line with the poles of the world.