From Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay *Self-Reliance* (1841). Select the word that fits the blank. "These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in ______ against the manhood of every one of its members."

The contrast is between *solitude* (where one's own voice is audible) and *society* (where the voice goes "faint and inaudible"). Emerson is naming society as a *force working against* the individual. "Conspiracy" — a plotting against — is the precise word. It pairs with *against the manhood* to make the antagonism explicit. - "Solidarity" and "partnership" would describe society as *supportive* of the individual — the opposite of Emerson's argument. - "Wonder" is neutral and doesn't fit the *against* construction. This sentence is one of the most-quoted passages of nineteenth-century American prose; the conspiracy is its signature charge.