Emerson’s lectures in Biography (1835) and Representative Men (1850) reveal his conception of history as a dialectical process involving the heroic individual and society. The heroes of Biography play an “antithetical” role: perceiving the ever-progressive truth of the Spirit, they express that truth in and against a static and retrospective world. Their words and actions constitute the Spirit’s response to the alienation from which the Spirit suffers in society, the established “thesis.” Representative Men demonstrates Emerson’s increasing reconciliation with society in the 1840’s. His heroes are no longer inspired rebels, but instead are products of both Spirit and society. History. Emerson now shows, is not so much a matter of conflict as of synthesis. In the dialectical process rightly conceived, however, no synthesis is final—a fact which Emerson illustrates by severely criticizing his Representative Men and by showing the tentativeness and defectiveness of even their greatest achievements.