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Title: Transcendentalism in New England
A History
Author: Octavius Brooks Frothingham
Release Date: February 17, 2012 [EBook #38907]
Language: English
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_Engd by H. B. Hall_
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G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.]
TRANSCENDENTALISM
IN
NEW ENGLAND
_A HISTORY_
BY
OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM
_Author of "Life of Theodore Parker," "Religion of Humanity," &c., &c._
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
182 FIFTH AVENUE
1876
COPYRIGHT,
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.
1876.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CONTENTS iii
PREFACE v
I.
BEGINNINGS IN GERMANY 1
II.
TRANSCENDENTALISM IN GERMANY--KANT, JACOBI, FICHTE, etc. 14
III.
THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE--SCHLEIERMACHER, GOETHE, RICHTER, etc. 47
IV.
TRANSCENDENTALISM IN FRANCE--COUSIN, CONSTANT, JOUFFROY, etc. 60
V.
TRANSCENDENTALISM IN ENGLAND--COLERIDGE, CARLYLE, WORDSWORTH 76
VI.
TRANSCENDENTALISM IN NEW ENGLAND 105
VII.
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES 142
VIII.
RELIGIOUS TENDENCIES 185
IX.
THE SEER--EMERSON 218
X.
THE MYSTIC--ALCOTT 249
XI.
THE CRITIC--MARGARET FULLER 284
XII.
THE PREACHER--THEODORE PARKER 302
XIII.
THE MAN OF LETTERS--GEORGE RIPLEY 322
XIV.
MINOR PROPHETS 335
XV.
LITERATURE 357
PREFACE.
While we are gathering up for exhibition before other nations, the
results of a century of American life, with a purpose to show the issues
thus far of our experiment in free institutions, it is fitting that some
report should be made of the influences that have shaped the national
mind, and determined in any important degree or respect its intellectual
and moral character. A well-considered account of these influences would
be of very great value to the student of history, the statesman and
philosopher, not merely as throwing light on our own social problem, but
as illustrating the general law of human progress. This book is offered
as a modest contribution to that knowledge.
Transcendentalism, as it is called, the transcendental movement, was an
important factor in American life. Though local in activity, limited in
scope, brief in duration, engaging but a comparatively small number of
individuals, and passing over the upper regions of the mind, it left a
broad and deep trace on ideas and institutions. It affected thinkers,
swayed politicians, guided moralists, inspired philanthropists, created
reformers. The moral enthusiasm of the last generation, which broke out
with such prodigious power in the holy war against slavery; which
uttered such earnest protests against capital punishment, and the wrongs
inflicted on women; which made such passionate pleading in behalf of the
weak, the injured, the disfranchised of every race and condition; which
exalted humanity above institutions, and proclaimed the inherent worth
of man,--owed, in larger measure than is suspected, its glow and force
to the Transcendentalists. This, as a fact of history, must be admitted,
as well by those who judge the movement unfavorably, as by its friends.
In the view of history, which is concerned with causes and effects in
their large human relations, individual opinions on them are of small
moment. It was once the fashion--and still in some quarters it is the
fashion--to laugh at Transcendentalism as an incomprehensible folly, and
to call Transcendentalists visionaries. To admit that they were, would
not alter the fact that they exerted an influence on their generation.
It is usual with critics of a cold, unsympathetic, cynical cast, to
speak of Transcendentalism as a form of sentimentality, and of
Transcendentalists as sentimentalists; to decry enthusiasm, and
deprecate the mischievous effects of feeling on the discussion of social
questions. But their disapproval, however just and wholesome, does not
abolish the trace which moral enthusiasm, under whatever name these
judges may please to put upon it, has left on the social life of the
people. Whether the impression was for evil or for good, it is there,
and equally significant for warning or for commendation.
As a form of mental philosophy Transcendentalism may have had its day;
at any rate, it is no longer in the ascendant, and at present is
manifestly on the decline, being suppressed by the philosophy of
experience, which, under different names, is taking possession of the
speculative world. But neither has this consideration weight in deciding
its value as an element in progress. An unsound system requires as
accurate a description and as severe an analysis as a sound one; and no
speculative prejudice should interfere with the most candid
acknowledgment of its importance. Error is not disarmed or disenchanted
by caricature or neglect.
To those who may object that the writer has too freely indulged his own
prejudices in favor of Transcendentalism and the Transcendentalists, and
has transgressed his own rules by writing a eulogy instead of a history,
he would reply, that in his belief every system is best understood when
studied sympathetically, and is most fairly interpreted from the inside.
We can know its purposes only from its friends, and we can do justice to
its friends only when we accept their own account of their beliefs and
aims. Rénan somewhere says, that in order to judge a faith one must have
confessed it and abandoned it. Such a rule supposes sincerity in the
confession and honesty in the withdrawal; but with this qualification
its reasonableness is easily admitted. If the result of such a verdict
prove more favorable than the polemic would give, and more cordial than
the critic approves, it may not be the less just for that.
The writer was once a pure Transcendentalist, a warm sympathizer with
transcendental aspirations, and an ardent admirer of transcendental
teachers. His ardor may have cooled; his faith may have been modified;
later studies and meditations may have commended to him other ideas and
methods; but he still retains enough of his former faith to enable him
to do it justice. His purpose has been to write a history; not a
critical or philosophical history, but simply a history; to present his
subject with the smallest possible admixture of discussion, either in
defence or opposition. He has, therefore, avoided the metaphysics of his
theme, by presenting cardinal ideas in the simplest statement he could
command, and omitting the details that would only cumber a narrative.
Sufficient references are given for the direction of students who may
wish to become more intimately acquainted with the transcendental
philosophy, but an exhaustive survey of the speculative field has not
been attempted. This book has but one purpose--to define the fundamental
ideas of the philosophy, to trace them to their historical and
speculative sources, and to show whither they tended. If he has done
this inadequately, it will be disclosed; he has done it honestly, and as
well as he could. In a little while it will be difficult to do it at
all; for the disciples, one by one, are falling asleep; the literary
remains are becoming few and scarce; the materials are disappearing
beneath the rapid accumulations of thought; the new order is thrusting
the old into the background; and in the course of a few years, even they
who can tell the story feelingly will have passed away. The author,
whose task was gladly accepted, though not voluntarily chosen, ventures
to hope, that if it has not been done as well as another might have done
it, it has not been done so ill that others will wish he had left it
untouched.
O. B. F.
NEW YORK, April 12, 1876.
TRANSCENDENTALISM.
I.
BEGINNINGS IN GERMANY.
To make intelligible the Transcendental Philosophy of the last
generation in New England it is not necessary to go far back into the
history of thought. Ancient idealism, whether Eastern or Western, may be
left undisturbed. Platonism and neo-Platonism may be excused from
further tortures on the witness stand. The speculations of the mystics,
Romanist or Protestant, need not be re-examined. The idealism of Gale,
More, Pordage, of Cudworth and the later Berkeley, in England, do not
immediately concern us. We need not even submit John Locke to fresh
cross-examination, or describe the effect of his writings on the
thinkers who came after him.
The Transcendental Philosophy, so-called, had a distinct origin in
Immanuel Kant, whose "Critique of Pure Reason" was published in 1781,
and opened a new epoch in metaphysical thought. By this it is not meant
that Kant started a new movement of the human mind, proposed original
problems, or projected issues never contemplated before. The questions
he discussed had been discussed from the earliest times, and with an
acumen that had searched out the nicest points of definition. In the
controversy between the Nominalists, who maintained that the terms used
to describe abstract and universal ideas were mere names, designating no
real objects and corresponding to no actually existing things, and the
Realists, who contended that such terms were not figments of language,
but described realities, solid though incorporeal, actual existences,
not to be confounded with visible and transient things, but the
essential types of such,--the scholastics of either school discussed
after their manner, with astonishing fulness and subtlety, the matters
which later metaphysicians introduced. The modern Germans revived in
substance the doctrines held by the Realists. But the scholastic method,
which was borrowed from the Greeks, lost its authority when the power of
Aristotle's name declined, and the scholastic discussions, turning, as
they signally did, on theological questions, ceased to be interesting
when the spell of theology was broken.
Between the schools of Sensationalism and Idealism, since John Locke,
the same matters were in debate. The Scotch as well as the English
metaphysicians dealt with them according to their genius and ability.
The different writers, as they succeeded one another, took up the points
that were presented in their day, exercised on them such ingenuity as
they possessed, and in good faith made their several contributions to
the general fund of thought, but neglected to sink their shafts deep
enough below the surface to strike new springs of water.
Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding was an event that made an epoch
in philosophy, because its author, not satisfied to take up questions
where his predecessors had left them, undertook an independent
examination of the Human Mind, in order to ascertain what were the
conditions of its knowledge. The ability with which this attempt was
made, the entire sincerity of it, the patient watch of the mental
operations, the sagacity that followed the trail of lurking thoughts,
surprised them in their retreats, and extracted from them the secret of
their combinations, fairly earned for him the title of "Father of Modern
Psychology." The intellectual history of the race shows very few such
examples of single-minded fidelity combined with rugged vigor and
unaffected simplicity. With what honest directness he announced his
purpose! His book grew out of a warm discussion among friends, the
fruitlessness whereof convinced him that both sides had taken a wrong
course; that before men set themselves upon inquiries into the deep
matters of philosophy "it was necessary to examine our own abilities,
and see what objects our understandings were or were not fitted to deal
with." To do this was his purpose.
"First," he said, "I shall inquire into the original of those ideas,
notions, or whatever else you please to call them, which a man observes
and is conscious to himself he has in his mind; and the ways whereby the
understanding comes to be furnished with them.
"Secondly, I shall endeavor to show what knowledge the understanding
hath by those ideas, and the certainty, evidence and extent of it.
"Thirdly, I shall make some inquiry into the nature and grounds of faith
or opinion; whereby I mean that assent which we give to any proposition
as true, of whose truth we have yet no certain knowledge; and we shall
have occasion to examine the reasons and degrees of assent."
Locke did his work well: how well is attested by the excitement it
caused in the intellectual world, the impulse it gave to speculation in
England and on the continent of Europe, the controversies over the
author's opinions, the struggle of opposing schools to secure for their
doctrines his authority, the appreciation on one side, the depreciation
on the other, the disposition of one period to exalt him as the greatest
discoverer in the philosophic realm, and the disposition of another
period to challenge his title to the name of philosopher. The "Essay" is
a small book, written in a homely, business-like style, without
affectation of depth or pretence of learning, but it is charged with
original mental force. Exhaustive it was not; exhaustive it could not
have been. The England of the seventeenth century was not favorable to
original researches in that field. The "Essay" was planned in 1670,
completed after considerable interruptions in 1687, and published in
1690. To one acquainted with the phases through which England was
passing at that period, these dates will tell of untoward influences
that might account for graver deficiencies than characterize Locke's
work. The scholastic philosophy, from which Locke broke contemptuously
away at Oxford, seems to have left no mark on his mind; but the
contemptuous revulsion, and the naked self-reliance in which the
sagacious but not generously cultivated man found refuge, probably
roughened his speculative sensibility, and made it impossible for him to
handle with perfect nicety the more delicate facts of his science. It
can hardly be claimed that Locke was endowed by nature with
philosophical genius of the highest order. While at Oxford he abandoned
philosophy, in disgust, for medicine, and distinguished himself there by
judgment and penetration. Subsequently his attention was turned to
politics, another pursuit even less congenial with introspective genius.
These may not be the reasons for the "incompleteness" which so glowing a
eulogist as Mr. George H. Lewes admits in the "Essay;" but at all
events, whatever the reasons may have been, the incompleteness was felt;
the debate over the author's meaning was an open proclamation of it; at
the close of a century it was apparent to at least one mind that Locke's
attempt must be repeated, and his work done over again more carefully.
The man who came to this conclusion and was moved to act on it was
IMMANUEL KANT, born at Königsberg, in Prussia, April 22d, 1724; died
there February 12th, 1804. His was a life rigorously devoted to
philosophy. He inherited from his parents a love of truth, a respect for
moral worth, and an intellectual integrity which his precursor in
England did not more than match. He was a master in the sciences, a
proficient in languages, a man cultivated in literature, a severe
student, of the German type, whose long, calm, peaceful years were spent
in meditation, lecturing and writing. He was distinguished as a
mathematician before he was heard of as a philosopher, having predicted
the existence of the planet Uranus before Herschel discovered it. He was
forty-five years old when these trained powers were brought to bear on
the study of the human mind: he was sixty-seven when the meditation was
ended. His book, the "Critique of Pure Reason," was the result of twelve
years of such thinking as his genius and training made him capable of.
In what spirit and with what hope he went about his task, appears in the
Introduction and the Prefaces to the editions of 1781 and 1787. In these
he frankly opens his mind in regard to the condition of philosophical
speculation. That condition he describes as one of saddest indifference.
The throne of Metaphysics was vacant, and its former occupant was a
wanderer, cast off by the meanest of his subjects. Locke had started a
flight of hypotheses, which had frittered his force away and made his
effort barren of definite result. Theories had been suggested and
abandoned; the straw had been thrashed till only dust remained; and
unless a new method could be hit on, the days of mental philosophy might
be considered as numbered. The physical sciences would take advantage of
the time, enter the deserted house, secure possession, and set up their
idols in the ancient shrine.
These sciences, it was admitted, command and deserve unqualified
respect. To discover the secret of their success Kant passed in review
their different systems, examined them in respect to their principles
and conditions of progress, with a purpose to know what, if any,
essential difference there might be between them and the metaphysics
which had from of old claimed to be, and had the name of being, a
science. Logic, mathematics, physics, are sciences: by virtue of what
inherent peculiarity do they claim superior right to that high
appellation? Intellectual philosophy has always been given over to
conflicting parties. Its history is a history of controversies, and of
controversies that resulted in no triumph for either side, established
no doctrine, and reclaimed no portion of truth. Material philosophy has
made steady advances from the beginning; its disputes have ended in
demonstrations, its contests have resulted in the establishment of
legitimate authority: if its progress has been slow it has been
continuous; it has never receded; and its variations from a straight
course are insignificant when surveyed from a position that commands its
whole career.
Since Aristotle, logic has, without serious impediment or check, matured
its rules and methods. Holding the same cardinal positions as in
Aristotle's time, it has simply made them stronger, the rules being but
interpretations of rational principles, the methods following precisely
the indications of the human mind, which from the nature of the case
remain always the same.
The mathematics, again, have had their periods of uncertainty and
conjecture. But since the discovery of the essential properties of the
triangle, the career has been uninterrupted. The persistent study of
constant properties, which were not natural data, but mental conceptions
formed by the elimination of variable quantities, led to results which
had not to be abandoned.
It was the same with physics. The physics of the ancients were heaps of
conjecture. The predecessors of Galileo abandoned conjecture, put
themselves face to face with Nature, observed and classified phenomena,
but possessed no method by which their labors could be made productive
of cumulative results. But after Galileo had experimented with balls of
a given weight on an inclined plane, and Torricelli had pushed upward a
weight equal to a known column of water, and Stahl had reduced metals to
lime and transformed lime back again into metal, by the addition and
subtraction of certain parts, the naturalists carried a torch that
illumined their path. They perceived that reason lays her own plans,
takes the initiative with her own principles, and must compel nature to
answer her questions, instead of obsequiously following its
leading-string. It was discovered that scattered observations, made in
obedience to no fixed plan, and associated with no necessary law, could
not be brought into systematic form. The discovery of such a law is a
necessity of reason. Reason presents herself before nature, holding in
one hand the principles which alone have power to bring into order and
harmony the phenomena of nature; in the other hand grasping the results
of experiment conducted according to those principles. Reason demands
knowledge of nature, not as a docile pupil who receives implicitly the
master's word, but as a judge who constrains witnesses to reply to
questions put to them by the court. To this attitude are due the happy
achievements in physics; reason seeking--not fancying--in nature, by
conformity with her own rules, what nature ought to teach, and what of
herself she could not learn. Thus physics became established upon the
solid basis of a science, after centuries of error and groping.
Wherefore now, asks Kant, are metaphysics so far behind logic,
mathematics, and physics? Wherefore these heaps of conjecture, these
vain attempts at solution? Wherefore these futile lives of great men,
these abortive flights of genius? The study of the mind is not an
arbitrary pursuit, suggested by vanity and conducted by caprice, to be
taken up idly and relinquished at a moment's notice. The human mind
cannot acquiesce in a judgment that condemns it to barrenness and
indifference in respect to such questions as God, the Soul, the World,
the Life to Come; it is perpetually revising and reversing the decrees
pronounced against itself. It must accept the conditions of its being.
From a review of the progress of the sciences it appeared to Kant that
their advance was owing to the elimination of the variable elements, and
the steady contemplation of the elements that are invariable and
constant, the most essential of which is the contribution made by the
human mind. The laws that are the basis of logic, of the mathematics,
and of the higher physics, and that give certitude to these sciences,
are simply the laws of the human mind itself. Strictly speaking, then,
it is in the constitution of the human mind, irrespective of outward
objects and the application of principles to them, that we must seek the
principle of certitude. Thus far in the history of philosophy the human
mind had not been fairly considered. Thinkers had concerned themselves
with the objects of knowledge, not with the mind that knows. They had
collected facts; they had constructed systems; they had traced
connections; they had drawn conclusions. Few had defined the relations
of knowledge to the human mind. Yet to do that seemed the only way to
arrive at certainty, and raise metaphysics to the established rank of
physics, mathematics, and logic.
Struck with this idea, Kant undertook to transfer contemplation from the
objects that engaged the mind to the mind itself, and thus start
philosophy on a new career. He meditated a fresh departure, and proposed
to effect in metaphysics a revolution parallel with that which
Copernicus effected in astronomy. As Copernicus, finding it impossible
to explain the movements of the heavenly bodies on the supposition of
their turning round the globe as a centre, bethought him to posit the
sun as a centre, round which the earth with other heavenly bodies
turned--so Kant, perceiving the confusion that resulted from making man
a satellite of the external world, resolved to try the effect of placing
him in the position of central sway. Whether this pretension was
justifiable or not, is not a subject of inquiry here. They may be right
who sneer at it as a fallacy; they may be right who ridicule it as a
conceit. We are historians, not critics. That Kant's position was as
has been described, admits of no question. That he built great
expectations on his method is certain. He anticipated from it the
overthrow of hypotheses which, having no legitimate title to authority,
erected themselves to the dignity of dogmas, and assumed supreme rank in
the realm of speculation. That it would be the destruction of famous
demonstrations, and would reduce renowned arguments to naught, might be
foreseen; but in the place of pretended demonstrations, he was confident
that solid ones would be established, and arguments that were merely
specious would give room to arguments that were profound. Schools might
be broken up, but the interests of the human race would be secured. At
first it might appear as if cardinal beliefs of mankind must be menaced
with extinction as the ancient supports one after another fell; but as
soon as the new foundations were disclosed it was anticipated that faith
would revive, and the great convictions would stand more securely than
ever. Whatever of truth the older systems had contained would receive
fresh and trustworthy authentication; the false would be expelled; and a
method laid down by which new discoveries in the intellectual sphere
might be confidently predicted.
In this spirit the author of the transcendental philosophy began,
continued, and finished his work.
The word "transcendental" was not new in philosophy. The Schoolmen had
used it to describe whatever could not be comprehended in or classified
under the so-called categories of Aristotle, who was the recognized
prince of the intellectual world. These categories were ten in number:
Quantity, Quality, Relation, Action, Passion, The Where, The When,
Position in Space, Possession, Substance. Four things were regarded by
the Schoolmen as transcending these mental forms--namely, Being, Truth,
Unity, Goodness. It is hardly necessary to say that the
Transcendentalism of modern times owed very little to these
distinctions, if it owed anything to them. Its origin was not from
thence; its method was so dissimilar as to seem sharply opposed.
The word "transcendental" has become domesticated in science.
Transcendental anatomy inquires into the idea, the original conception
or model on which the organic frame of animals is built, the unity of
plan discernible throughout multitudinous genera and orders.
Transcendental curves are curves that cannot be defined by algebraic
equations. Transcendental equations express relations between
transcendental qualities. Transcendental physiology treats of the laws
of development and function, which apply, not to particular kinds or
classes of organisms, but to all organisms. In the terminology of Kant
the term "transcendent" was employed to designate qualities that lie
outside of all "experience," that cannot be brought within the
recognized formularies of thought, cannot be reached either by
observation or reflection, or explained as the consequences of any
discoverable antecedents. The term "transcendental" designated the
fundamental conceptions, the universal and necessary judgments, which
transcend the sphere of experience, and at the same time impose the
conditions that make experience tributary to knowledge. The
transcendental philosophy is the philosophy that is built on these
necessary and universal principles, these primary laws of mind, which
are the ground of absolute truth. The supremacy given to these and the
authority given to the truths that result from them entitle the
philosophy to its name. "I term all cognition transcendental which
concerns itself not so much with objects, as with our mode of cognition
of objects so far as this may be possible à priori. A system of such
conceptions would be called Transcendental Philosophy."
II.
TRANSCENDENTALISM IN GERMANY.
KANT.
There is no call to discuss here the system of Kant, or even to describe
it in detail. The means of studying the system are within easy reach of
English readers.[1] Our concern is to know the method which Kant
employed, and the use he made of it, the ground he took and the
positions he held, so far as this can be indicated within reasonable
compass, and without becoming involved in the complexity of the author's
metaphysics. The Critique of Pure Reason is precisely what the title
imports--a searching analysis of the human mind; an attempt to get at
the ultimate grounds of thought, to discover the à priori principles.
"Reason is the faculty which furnishes the principles of cognition à
priori. Therefore pure reason is that which contains the principles of
knowing something, absolutely à priori. An organon of pure reason would
be a summary of these principles, according to which all pure cognition
à priori can be obtained, and really accomplished. The extended
application of such an organon would furnish a system of pure reason."
[1] See Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, London, 1838; Morell's History
of Modern Philosophy; Chalybäus' Historical Development of Speculative
Philosophy from Kant to Hegel; Lewes' Biographical History of
Philosophy; Cousin's Leçons, OEuvres, Iere série, vol. 5, give a clear
account of Kant's philosophy.
The problem of modern philosophy may be thus stated: _Have we or have we
not ideas that are true of necessity, and absolutely? Are there ideas
that can fairly be pronounced independent in their origin of experience,
and out of the reach of experience by their nature?_ One party contended
that all knowledge was derived from experience; that there was nothing
in the intellect that had not previously been in the senses: the
opposite party maintained that a portion, at least, of knowledge came
from the mind itself; that the intellect contained powers of its own,
and impressed its forms upon the phenomena of sense. The extreme
doctrine of the two schools was represented, on the one side by the
materialists, on the other by the mystics. Between these two extremes
various degrees of compromise were offered.
The doctrine of innate ideas, ascribed to Descartes,--though he
abandoned it as untenable in its crude form,--affirmed that certain
cardinal ideas, such as causality, infinity, substance, eternity, were
native to the mind, born in it as part of its organic constitution,
wholly independent therefore of experience. Locke claimed for the mind
merely a power of reflection by which it was able to modify and alter
the material given by the senses, thus exploding the doctrine of innate
ideas.
Leibnitz, anxious to escape the danger into which Descartes fell, of
making the outward world purely phenomenal, an expression of unalterable
thought, and also to escape the consequences of Locke's position that
all knowledge originates in the senses, suggested that the understanding
itself was independent of experience, that though it did not contain
ideas like a vessel, it was entitled to be called a power of forming
ideas, which have, as in mathematics, a character of necessary truths.
These necessary laws of the understanding, which experience had no hand
in creating, are, according to Leibnitz, the primordial conditions of
human knowledge.
Hume, taking Locke at his word, that all knowledge came from experience,
that the mind was a passive recipient of impressions, with no
independent intellectual substratum, reasoned that mind was a fiction;
and taking Berkeley at his word that the outward world had no material
existence, and no _apparent_ existence except to our perception, he
reasoned that matter was a fiction. Mind and matter both being fictions,
there could be no certain knowledge; truth was unattainable; ideas were
illusions. The opposing schools of philosophers annihilated each other,
and the result was scepticism.
Hume started Kant on his long and severe course of investigation, the
result of which was, that neither of the antagonist parties could
sustain itself: that Descartes was wrong in asserting that such abstract
ideas as causality, infinity, substance, time, space, are independent of
experience, since without experience they would not exist, and
experience takes from them form only; that Locke was wrong in asserting
that all ideas originated in experience, and were resolvable into it,
since the ideas of causality, substance, infinity and others certainly
did not so originate, and were not thus resolvable. It is idle to
dispute whether knowledge comes from one source or another--from without
through sensation, or from within through intuition; the everlasting
battle between idealism and realism, spiritualism and materialism, can
never result in victory to either side. Mind and universe, intelligence
and experience, suppose each other; neither alone is operative to
produce knowledge. Knowledge is the product of their mutual
co-operation. Mind does not originate ideas, neither does sensation
impart them. Object and subject, sterile by themselves, become fruitful
by conjunction. There are not two sources of knowledge, but one only,
and that one is produced by the union of the two apparent opposites.
Truth is the crystallization, so to speak, that results from the
combined elements.
Let us follow the initial steps of Kant's analysis. Mind and
Universe--Subject and Object--Ego and Non-ego, stand opposite one
another, front to front. Mind is conscious only of its own operations:
the subject alone considers. The first fact noted is, that the subject
is sensitive to impressions made by outward things, and is receptive of
them. Dwelling on this fact, we discover that while the impressions are
many in number and of great variety, they all, whatever their character,
fall within certain inflexible and unalterable conditions--those of
space and time--which must, therefore, be regarded as pre-established
forms of sensibility. "Time is no empirical conception which can be
deduced from experience. Time is a necessary representation which lies
at the foundation of all intuitions. Time is given à priori. In it alone
is any reality of phenomena possible. These disappear, but it cannot be
annihilated." So of space. "Space is an intuition, met with in us à
priori, antecedent to any perception of objects, a pure, not an
empirical intuition." These two forms of sensibility, inherent and
invariable, to which all experiences are subject, are primeval facts of
consciousness. Kant's argument on the point whether or no space and time
have an existence apart from the mind, is interesting, but need not
detain us.
The materials furnished by sensibility are taken up by the
understanding, which classifies, interprets, judges, compares, reduces
to unity, eliminates, converts, and thus fashions sensations into
conceptions, transmutes impressions into thoughts. Here fresh processes
of analysis are employed in classifying judgments, and determining their
conditions. All judgments, it is found, must conform to one of four
invariable conditions. I. Quantity, which may be subdivided into unity,
plurality, and totality: the one, the many, the whole. II. Quality,
which is divisible as reality, negation, and limitation: something,
nothing, and the more or less. III. Relation, which also comprises three
heads: substance and accident, cause and effect, reciprocity, or action
and reaction. IV. Modality, which embraces the possible and the
impossible, the existent and the non-existent, the necessary and the
contingent. These categories, as they were called, after the terminology
of Aristotle, were supposed to exhaust the forms of conception.
Having thus arrived at conceptions, thoughts, judgments, another faculty
comes in to classify the conceptions, link the thoughts together, reduce
the judgments to general laws, draw inferences, fix conclusions, proceed
from the particular to the general, recede from the general to the
particular, mount from the conditioned to the unconditioned, till it
arrives at ultimate principles. This faculty is reason,--the supreme
faculty, above sensibility, above understanding. Reason gives the final
generalization, the idea of a universe comprehending the infinitude of
details presented by the senses, and the worlds of knowledge shaped by
the understanding; the idea of a personality embracing the infinite
complexities of feeling, and gathering under one dominion the realms of
consciousness; the idea of a supreme unity combining in itself both the
other ideas; the absolute perfection, the infinite and eternal One,
which men describe by the word God.
Here the thinker rested. His search could be carried no further. He had,
as he believed, established the independent dominion of the mind, had
mapped out its confines, had surveyed its surface; he had confronted the
idealist with the reality of an external world; he had confronted the
sceptic with laws of mind that were independent of experience; and,
having done so much, he was satisfied, and refused to move an inch
beyond the ground he occupied. To those who applied to him for a system
of positive doctrines, or for ground on which a system of positive
doctrines could be erected, he declined to give aid. The mind, he said,
cannot go out of itself, cannot transgress its own limits. It has no
faculty by which it can perceive things _as they are_; no vision to
behold objects corresponding to its ideas; no power to bridge over the
gulf between its own consciousness and a world of realities existing
apart from it. Whether there be a spiritual universe answering to our
conception, a Being justifying reason's idea of supreme unity, a soul
that can exist in an eternal, supersensible world, are questions the
philosopher declined to discuss. The contents of his own mind were
revealed to him, no more. Kant laid the foundations, he built no
structure. He would not put one stone upon another; he declared it to be
beyond the power of man to put one stone upon another. The attempts
which his earnest disciples--Fichte, for example--made to erect a temple
on his foundation he repudiated. As the existence of an external world,
though a necessary postulate, could not be demonstrated, but only
logically affirmed; so the existence of a spiritual world of substantial
entities corresponding to our conceptions, though a necessary inference,
could only be logically affirmed, not demonstrated. Our idea of God is
no proof that God exists. That there is a God may be an irresistible
persuasion, but it can be nothing more; it cannot be knowledge. Of the
facts of consciousness, the reality of the ideas in the mind, we may be
certain; our belief in them is clear and solid; but from _belief_ in
them there is no bridge to _them_.
Kant asserted the veracity of consciousness, and demanded an absolute
acknowledgment of that veracity. The fidelity of the mind to itself was
a first principle with him. Having these ideas, of the soul, of God, of
a moral law; being certain that they neither originated in experience,
nor depended on experience for their validity; that they transcended
experience altogether--man was committed to an unswerving and
uncompromising loyalty to himself. His prime duty consisted in deference
to the integrity of his own mind. The laws of his intellectual and moral
nature were inviolable. Whether there was or was not a God; whether
there was or was not a substantial world of experience where the idea of
rectitude could be realized, the dictate of duty justified, the soul's
affirmation of good ratified by actual felicity,--rectitude was none the
less incumbent on the rational mind; the law of duty was none the less
imperative; the vision of good none the less glorious and inspiring.
Virtue had its principle in the constitution of the mind itself. Every
virtue had there its seat. There was no sweetness of purity, no heroism
of faith, that had not an abiding-place in this impregnable fortress.
Thus, while on the speculative side Kant came out a sceptic in regard to
the dogmatic beliefs of mankind, on the practical side he remained the
fast friend of intellectual truth and moral sanctity. Practical ethics
never had a more stanch supporter than Immanuel Kant. If a man cannot
pass beyond the confines of his own mind, he has, at all events, within
his own mind a temple, a citadel, a home.
The "Critique of Pure Reason" made no impression on its first
appearance. But no sooner was its significance apprehended, than a storm
of controversy betrayed the fact that even the friends of the new
teacher were less content than he was to be shut up in their own minds.
The calm, passionless, imperturbable man smoked his pipe in the peace of
meditation; eager thinkers, desirous of getting more out of the system
than its author did, were impatient at his backwardness, and made the
intellectual world ring with their calls to improve upon and complete
his task.
The publication of Kant's great work did not put an end to the wars of
philosophy. On the contrary, they raged about it more furiously than
ever. As the two schools found in Locke fresh occasion for renewing
their strife under the cover of that great name, so here again the
latent elements of discord were discovered and speedily brought to the
surface. The sceptics seized on the sceptical bearings of the new
analysis, and proceeded to build their castle from the materials it
furnished; the idealists took advantage of the positions gained by the
last champion, and pushed their lines forward in the direction of
transcendental conquest. We are not called on to follow the sceptics,
however legitimate their course, and we shall but indicate the progress
made by the idealists, giving their cardinal principles, as we have done
those of their master.
JACOBI.
The first important step in the direction of pure transcendentalism was
taken by Frederick Henry Jacobi, who was born at Düsseldorf, January 25,
1743. He was a man well educated in philosophy, with a keen interest in
the study of it, though not a philosopher by profession, or a systematic
writer on metaphysical subjects. His position was that of a civilian who
devoted the larger part of his time to the duties of a public office
under the government. His writings consist mainly of letters, treatises
on special points of metaphysical inquiry, and articles in the
philosophical journals. His official position gave repute to the
productions of his pen, and the circumstance of his being, not an
amateur precisely, but a devotee of philosophy for the love of it and
not as a professional business, imparted to his speculation the
freshness of personal feeling. His ardent temperament, averse to
scepticism, and touched with a mystical enthusiasm, rebelled against the
formal and deadly precision of the analytical method, and sought a way
out from the intellectual bleakness of the Kantean metaphysics into the
sunshine and air of a living spiritual world. The critics busied
themselves with mining and sapping the foundations of consciousness as
laid by the philosopher of Königsberg, who, they complained, had been
too easy in conceding the necessity of an outward world. Jacobi accepted
with gratitude the intellectual basis afforded, and proceeded to erect
thereupon his observatory for studying the heavens. Though not the
originator of the "Faith Philosophy," as it was called, he became the
finisher and the best known expositor of it. "Since the time of
Aristotle," he said, "it has been the effort of philosophical schools to
rank direct and immediate knowledge below mediate and indirect; to
subordinate the capacity for original perception to the capacity for
reflection on abstract ideas; to make intuition secondary to
understanding, the sense of essential things to definitions. Nothing is
accepted that does not admit of being proved by formal and logical
process, so that, at last, the result is looked for there, and there
only. The validity of intuition is disallowed."
Jacobi's polemics were directed therefore against the systems of
Spinoza, Leibnitz, Wolf--in a word against all systems that led to
scepticism and dogmatism; and his positive efforts were employed in
constructing a system of Faith. His key-word was "Faith," by which he
meant intuition, the power of gazing immediately on essential truth; an
intellectual faculty which he finally called Reason, by which
supersensual objects become visible, as material objects become visible
to the physical eye; an inward sense, a spiritual eye, that "gives
evidence of things not seen and substance to things hoped for;" a
faculty of vision to which truths respecting God, Providence,
Immortality, Freedom, the Moral Law, are palpably disclosed. Kant had
pronounced it impossible to prove that the transcendental idea had a
corresponding reality as objective being. Jacobi declared that no such
proof was needed; that the reality was necessarily assumed. Kant had
denied the existence of any faculty that could guarantee the existence
of either a sensual or a supersensual world. Jacobi was above all else
certain that such a faculty there was, that it was altogether
trustworthy, and that it actually furnished material for religious hope
and spiritual life: the only possible material, he went on to say; for
without this capacity of intuition, philosophy could be in his judgment
nothing but an insubstantial fabric, a castle in the air, a thing of
definitions and terminologies, a shifting body of hot and cold vapor.
This, it will be observed, seemed a legitimate consequence of Kant's
method. Kant had admitted the subjective reality of sensible
impressions, and had claimed a similar reality for our mental images of
supersensible things. He allowed the validity _as conceptions_, the
practical validity, of the ideas of God, Duty, Immortality. Jacobi
contended that having gone so far, it was lawful if not compulsory to go
farther; that the subjective reality implied an objective reality; that
the practical inference was as valid as any logical inference could be;
and that through the intuition of reason the mind was placed again in a
living universe of divine realities.
Chalybäus says of Jacobi: "With deep penetration he traced the mystic
fountain of desire after the highest and best, to the point where it
discloses itself as an immediate feeling in consciousness; that this
presentiment was nothing more than Kant said it was--a faint mark made
by the compressing chain of logic, he would not allow; he described it
rather as the special endowment and secret treasure of the human mind,
which he that would not lose it must guard against the touch of
evil-minded curiosity; for whoever ventures into this sanctuary with the
torch of science, will fare as did the youth before the veiled image at
Sais." And again: "This point, that a self-subsisting truth must
correspond to the conscious idea, that the subject must have an object
which is personal like itself, is the ore that Jacobi was intent on
extracting from the layers of consciousness: he disclosed it only in
part, but unsatisfactory as his exposition was to the stern inquisition
of science, his purpose was so strong, his aim so single, we cannot
wonder that, in spite of the outcry and the scorn against his 'Faith or
Feeling Philosophy,' his thought survived, and even entered on a new
career in later times. It must, however, be confessed that instead of
following up his clue, speculative fashion, he laid down his undeveloped
theorem as an essential truth, above speculation, declaring that
speculation must end in absolute idealism, which was but another name
for nihilism and fatalism. Jacobi made his own private consciousness a
measure for the human mind." At the close of his chapter, Chalybäus
quotes Hegel's verdict, expressed in these words: "Jacobi resembles a
solitary thinker, who, in his life's morning, finds an ancient riddle
hewn in the primeval rock; he believes that the riddle contains a truth,
but he tries in vain to discover it. The day long he carries it about
with him; entices weighty suggestions from it; displays it in shapes of
teaching and imagery that fascinate listeners, inspiring noblest wishes
and anticipations: but the interpretation eludes him, and at evening he
lays him down in the hope that a celestial dream or the next morning's
waking will make articulate the word he longs for and has believed in."
FICHTE.
The transcendental philosophy received from Jacobi an impulse toward
mysticism. From another master it received an impulse toward heroism.
This master was Johann Gottlieb Fichte, born at Rammenau, in Upper
Lusatia, on the 19th of May, 1762. A short memoir of him by William
Smith, published in 1845, with a translation of the "Nature of the
Scholar," and reprinted in Boston, excited a deep interest among people
who had neither sympathy with his philosophy nor intelligence to
comprehend it. He was a great mind, and a greater character--sensitive,
proud, brave, determined, enthusiastic, imperious, aspiring; a mighty
soul; "a cold, colossal, adamantine spirit, standing erect and clear,
like a Cato Major among degenerate men; fit to have been the teacher of
the Stoa, and to have discoursed of beauty and virtue in the groves of
Academe! So robust an intellect, a soul so calm, so lofty, massive, and
immovable, has not mingled in philosophical discussion since the time of
Luther. For the man rises before us amid contradiction and debate like a
granite mountain amid clouds and winds. As a man approved by action and
suffering, in his life and in his death, he ranks with a class of men
who were common only in better ages than ours." Thus wrote Thomas
Carlyle of him more than a generation ago.
The direction given to philosophy by such a man could not but be decided
and bold. His short treatises, all marked by intellectual power, some by
glowing eloquence, carried his thoughts beyond the philosophical circle
and spread his leading principles far beyond the usual speculative
lines. "The Destination of Man," "The Vocation of the Scholar," "The
Nature of the Scholar," "The Vocation of Man," "The Characteristics of
the Present Age," "The Way towards the Blessed Life," were translated
into English, published in the "Catholic Series" of John Chapman, and
extensively read. The English reviewers helped to make the author and
his ideas known to many readers.
The contribution that Fichte made to the transcendental philosophy may
be described without using many words. He became acquainted with Kant's
system in Leipsic, where he was teaching, in 1790. The effect it had on
him is described in letters to his friends. To one he wrote: "The last
four or five months which I have passed in Leipsic have been the
happiest of my life; and the most satisfactory part of it is, that I
have to thank no man for the smallest ingredient in its pleasures. When
I came to Leipsic my brain swarmed with great plans. All were wrecked;
and of so many soap-bubbles there now remains not even the light froth
that composed them. This disturbed a little my peace of mind, and half
in despair I joined a party to which I should long ere this have
belonged. Since I could not alter my outward condition, I resolved on
internal change. I threw myself into philosophy, and, as you know, the
Kantean. Here I found the remedy for my ills, and joy enough to boot.
The influence of this philosophy, the moral part of it in particular
(which, however, is unintelligible without previous study of the
'Critique of Pure Reason'), on the whole spiritual life, and especially
the revolution it has caused in my own mode of thought, is
indescribable." To another he wrote in similar strain: "I have lived in
a new world since reading the 'Critique of Pure Reason.' Principles I
believed irrefragable are refuted; things I thought could never be
proved--the idea of absolute freedom, of duty, for example--are
demonstrated; and I am so much the happier. It is indescribable what
respect for humanity, what power this system gives us. What a blessing
to an age in which morality was torn up by the roots, and the word duty
blotted out of the dictionary!" To Johanna Rahn he expresses himself in
still heartier terms: "My scheming mind has found rest at last, and I
thank Providence that shortly before all my hopes were frustrated I was
placed in a position which enabled me to bear the disappointment with
cheerfulness. A circumstance that seemed the result of mere chance
induced me to devote myself entirely to the study of the Kantean
philosophy--a philosophy that restrains the imagination, always too
strong with me, gives reason sway, and raises the soul to an unspeakable
height above all earthly concerns. I have accepted a nobler morality,
and instead of busying myself with outward things, I concern myself
more with my own being. It has given me a peace such as I never before
experienced; amid uncertain worldly prospects I have passed my happiest
days. It is difficult beyond all conception, and stands greatly in need
of simplification.... The first elements are hard speculations, that
have no direct bearing on human life, but their conclusions are most
important for an age whose morality is corrupted at the fountain head;
and to set these consequences before the world would, I believe, be
doing it a good service. I am now thoroughly convinced that the human
will is free, and that to be happy is not the purpose of our being, but
to deserve happiness." So great was Fichte's admiration of Kant's
system, that he became at once an expositor of its principles, in the
hope that he might render it intelligible and attractive to minds of
ordinary culture.
Fichte considered himself a pure Kantean, perhaps the only absolutely
consistent one there was; and that he did so is not surprising; for, in
mending the master's positions, he seemed to be strengthening them
against assault. He did not, like Jacobi, draw inferences which Kant had
laboriously, and, as it seemed, effectually cut off; he merely
entrenched himself within the lines the philosopher of Königsberg had
drawn. Kant had, so his critics charged, taken for granted the reality
of our perceptions of outward things. This was the weak point in his
system, of which his adversaries took advantage. On this side he allowed
empiricism to construct his wall, and left incautiously an opening which
the keen-sighted foe perceived at once. Fichte bethought him to fortify
that point, and thus make the philosophy unassailable; to take it, in
fact, out of the category of a philosophical system, and give it the
character of a science. To this end, with infinite pains and incredible
labor, he tested the foundations to discover the fundamental and final
facts which rested on the solid rock. The ultimate facts of
consciousness were in question.
Fichte accepted without hesitation the confinement within the limits of
consciousness against which Jacobi rebelled, and proceeded to make the
prison worthy of such an occupant. The facts of consciousness, he
admitted, are all we have. The states and activities of the mind,
perceptions, ideas, judgments, sentiments, or by whatever other name
they may be called, constitute, by his admission, all our knowledge, and
beyond them we cannot go. They are, however, solid and substantial. Of
the outward world he knew nothing and had nothing to say; he was not
concerned with that. The mind is the man; the history of the mind is the
man's history; the processes of the mind report the whole of experience;
the phenomena of the external universe are mere phenomena, reflections,
so far as we know, of our thought; the mountains, woods, stars, are
facts of consciousness, to which we attach these names. To infer that
they exist because we have ideas of them, is illegitimate in philosophy.
The ideas stand by themselves, and are sufficient of themselves.
The mind is first, foremost, creative and supreme. It takes the
initiative in all processes. He that assumes the existence of an
external world does so on the authority of consciousness. If he says
that consciousness compels us to assume the existence of such a world,
that it is so constituted as to imply the realization of its conception,
still we have simply the fact of consciousness; power to verify the
relation between this inner fact and a corresponding physical
representation, there is none. Analyze the facts of consciousness as
much as we may, revise them, compare them, we are still within their
circle and cannot pass beyond its limit. Is it urged that the existence
of an external world is a _necessary_ postulate? The same reply avails,
namely, that the idea of necessity is but one of our ideas, a conception
of the mind, an inner notion or impression which legitimates itself
alone. Does the objector further insist, in a tone of exasperation
caused by what seems to him quibbling, that in this case consciousness
plays us false, makes a promise to the ear which it breaks to the
hope--lies, in short? The imperturbable philosopher sets aside the
insinuation as an impertinence. The fact of consciousness, he maintains,
stands and testifies for itself. It is not answerable for anything out
of its sphere. In saying what it does it speaks the truth; the whole
truth, so far as we can determine. Whether or no it is absolutely the
whole truth, the truth as it lies in a mind otherwise constituted, is no
concern of ours.
The reasoning by which Fichte cut off the certainty of a material world
outside of the mind, told with equal force against the objective
existence of a spiritual world. The mental vision being bounded by the
mental sphere, its objects being there and only there, with them we
must be content. The soul has its domain, untrodden forests to explore,
silent and trackless ways to follow, mystery to rest in, light to walk
by, fountains and floods of living water, starry firmaments of thought,
continents of reason, zones of law, and with this domain it must be
satisfied. God is one of its ideas; immortality is another; that they
are anything more than ideas, cannot be known.
That the charge of atheism should be brought against so uncompromising a
thinker, is a less grave imputation upon the discernment of his
contemporaries than ordinarily it is. That he should have been obliged,
in consequence of it, to leave Jena, and seek an asylum in Prussia, need
not excite indignation, at least in those who remember his unwillingness
or inability to modify his view, or explain the sense in which he called
himself a believer. To "charge" a man with atheism, as if atheism were
guilt, is a folly to be ashamed of; but to "class" a man among atheists
who _in no sense_ accepts the doctrine of an intelligent, creative
Cause, is just, while language has meaning. And this is Fichte's
position. In his philosophy there was no place for assurance of a Being
corresponding to the mental conception. The word "God" with him
expressed the category of the Ideal. The world being but the incarnation
of our sense of duty, the reflection of the mind, the creator of it is
the mind. God, being a reflection of the soul in its own atmosphere, is
one of the soul's creations, a shadow on the surface of a pool. The soul
creates; deity is created. This is not even ideal atheism, like that of
Etienne Vacherot; it may be much nobler and more inspiring than the
recognized forms of theism; it is dogmatic or speculative atheism only:
but that it is, and that it should confess itself. It was natural that
Fichte, being perfect master of his thought, should disclaim and resent
an imputation which in spirit he felt was undeserved. It was natural
that people who were not masters of his thought, and would not have
appreciated it if they had been, should judge him by the only
definitions they had. Berkeley and Fichte stood at opposite extremes in
their Idealism. Berkeley, starting from the theological conception of
God, maintained that the outward world had a real existence in the
supreme mind, being phenomenal only to the human. Fichte, starting from
the human mind, contended that it was _altogether_ phenomenal, the
supreme mind itself being phantasmal.
How came it, some will naturally ask, that such a man escaped the deadly
consequences of such resolute introspection? Where was there the
indispensable basis for action and reaction? Life is conditioned by
limitation; the shore gives character to the sea; the outward world
gives character to the man, excites his energy, defines his aim, trains
his perception, educates his will, offers a horizon to his hope. The
outward world being removed, dissipated, resolved into impalpable
thought, what substitute for it can be devised? Must not the man sink
into a visionary, and waste his life in dream?
That Fichte was practically no dreamer, has already been said. The man
who closed a severe, stately, and glowing lecture on duty with the
announcement--it was in 1813, when the French drums were rattling in
the street, at times drowning the speaker's voice--that the course would
be suspended till the close of the campaign, and would be resumed, if
resumed at all, in a free country, and thereupon, with a German
patriot's enthusiasm, rushed himself into the field--this man was no
visionary, lost in dreams. The internal world was with him a living
world; the mind was a living energy; ideas were things; principles were
verities; the laws of thought were laws of being. So intense was his
feeling of the substantial nature of these invisible entities, that the
obverse side of them, the negation of them, had all the _vis inertia_,
all the objective validity of external things. He spoke of "absolute
limitations," "inexplicable limitations," against which the mind pressed
as against palpable obstacles, and in pressing against which it acquired
tension and vigor. Passing from the realm of speculation into that of
practice, the obstacles assumed the attributes of powers, the
impediments became foes, to be resisted as strenuously as ever soldier
opposed soldier in battle. From the strength of this conviction he was
enabled to say: "I am well convinced that this life is not a scene of
enjoyment, but of labor and toil, and that every joy is granted but to
strengthen us for further exertion; that the control of our fate is not
required of us, but only our self-culture. I give myself no concern
about external things; I endeavor to _be_, not to _seem_; I am no man's
master, and no man's slave."
Fichte was a sublime egoist. In his view, the mind was sovereign and
absolute, capable of spontaneous, self-determined, originating action,
having power to propose its own end and pursue its own freely-chosen
course; a live intelligence, eagerly striving after self-development, to
fulfil all the possibilities of its nature. Of one thing he was
certain--the reality of the rational soul, and in that certainty lay the
ground of his tremendous weight of assertion. His professional chair was
a throne; his discourses were prophecies; his tone was the tone of an
oracle. It made the blood burn to hear him; it makes the blood burn at
this distance to read his printed words. To cite a few sentences from
his writings in illustration of the man's way of dealing with the great
problems of life, is almost a necessity. The following often-quoted but
pregnant passage is from "The Destination of Man:" "I understand thee
now, spirit sublime! I have found the organ by which to apprehend this
reality, and probably all other. It is not knowledge, for knowledge can
only demonstrate and establish itself; every kind of knowledge supposes
some higher knowledge upon which it is founded; and of this ascent there
is no end. It is faith, that voluntary repose in the ideas that
naturally come to us, because through these only we can fulfil our
destiny; which sets its seal on knowledge, and raises to conviction, to
certainty, what, without it, might be sheer delusion. It is not
knowledge, but a resolve to commit one's self to knowledge. No merely
verbal distinction this, but a true and deep one, charged with momentous
consequences to the whole character. All conviction is of faith, and
proceeds from the heart, not from the understanding. Knowing this, I
will enter into no controversy, for I foresee that in this way nothing
can be gained. I will not endeavor, by reasoning, to press my conviction
on others, nor will I be discouraged if such an attempt should fail. My
mode of thinking I have adopted for myself, not for others, and to
myself only need I justify it. Whoever has the same upright intention
will also attain the same or a similar conviction, and without it that
is impossible. Now that I know this, I know also from what point all
culture of myself and others must proceed; from the will, and not from
the understanding. Let but the first be steadily directed toward the
good, the last will of itself apprehend the true. Should the last be
exercised and developed, while the first remains neglected, nothing can
result but a facility in vain and endless refinements of sophistry. In
faith I possess the test of all truth and all conviction; truth
originates in the conscience, and what contradicts its authority, or
makes us unwilling or incapable of rendering obedience to it, is most
certainly false, even should I be unable to discover the fallacies
through which it is reached.... What unity, what completeness and
dignity, our human nature receives from this view! Our thought is not
based on itself, independently of our instincts and inclinations. Man
does not consist of two beings running parallel to each other; he is
absolutely one. Our entire system of thought is founded on intuition; as
is the heart of the individual, so is his knowledge."
"The everlasting world now rises before me more brightly, and the
fundamental laws of its order are more clearly revealed to my mental
vision. The will alone, lying hid from mortal eyes in the obscurest
depths of the soul, is the first link in a chain of consequences that
stretches through the invisible realm of spirit, as, in this terrestrial
world, the action itself, a certain movement communicated to matter, is
the first link in a material chain that encircles the whole system. The
will is the effective cause, the living principle of the world of
spirit, as motion is of the world of sense. The will is in itself a
constituent part of the transcendental world. By my free determination I
change and set in motion something in this transcendental world, and my
energy gives birth to an effect that is new, permanent, and
imperishable. Let this will find expression in a practical deed, and
this deed belongs to the world of sense and produces effects according
to the virtue it contains."
This is the stoical aspect of the doctrine. The softer side of it
appears throughout the book that is entitled "The Way towards the
Blessed Life." We quote a few passages from the many the eloquence
whereof does no more than justice to the depth of sentiment:
"Full surely there is a blessedness beyond the grave for those who have
already entered on it here, and in no other form than that wherein they
know it here, at any moment. By mere burial man arrives not at bliss;
and in the future life, throughout its whole infinite range, they will
seek for happiness as vainly as they sought it here, who seek it in
aught else than that which so closely surrounds them here--the
Infinite."
"Religion consists herein, that man in his own person, with his own
spiritual eye, immediately beholds and possesses God. This, however, is
possible through pure independent thought alone; for only through this
does man assume real personality, and this alone is the eye to which God
becomes visible. Pure thought is itself the divine existence; and
conversely, the divine existence, in its immediate essence, is nothing
else than pure thought."
"The truly religious man conceives of his world as action, which,
because it is his world, he alone creates, in which alone he can live
and find satisfaction. This action he does not will for the sake of
results in the world of sense; he is in no respect anxious in regard to
results, for he lives in action simply as action; he wills it because it
is the will of God in him, and his own peculiar portion in being."
"As to those in whom the will of God is not inwardly
accomplished,--because there is no inward life in them, for they are
altogether outward,--upon them the will of God is wrought as alone it
can be; appearing at first sight bitter and ungracious, though in
reality merciful and loving in the highest degree. To those who do not
love God, all things must work together immediately for pain and
torment, until, by means of the tribulation, they are led to salvation
at last."
Language like this from less earnest lips might be deceptive; but from
the lips of a teacher like Fichte it tells of the solid grandeurs that
faithful men possess in the ideal creations of their souls; the
habitableness of air-castles.
SCHELLING.
The chief sources from which the transcendental philosophy came from
Germany to America have been indicated. The traces of Jacobi and Fichte
are broad and distinct on the mind of the New World. Of Schelling little
need be said, for his works were not translated into English, and the
French translation of the "Transcendental Idealism" was not announced
till 1850, when the movement in New England was subsiding. His system
was too abstract and technical in form to interest any but his
countrymen. Coleridge was fascinated by it, and yielded to the
fascination so far as to allow the thoughts of the German metaphysician
to take possession of his mind; but for Coleridge, indeed, few
English-speaking men would have known what the system was.
Transcendentalism in New England was rather spiritual and practical than
metaphysical. Jacobi and Fichte were both; it can scarcely be said that
Schelling was either. His books were hard; his ideas underwent continual
changes in detail; his speculative system was developed gradually in a
long course of years. But for certain grandiose conceptions which had a
charm for the imagination and fascinated the religious sentiment, his
name need not be mentioned in this little incidental record at all.
There was, however, in Schelling something that recalled the ideal side
of Plato, more that suggested Plotinus, the neo-Platonists and
Alexandrines, a mystical pantheistic quality that mingled well with the
general elements of Idealism, and gave atmosphere, as it were, to the
tender feeling of Jacobi and the heroic will of Fichte.
Schelling was Fichte's disciple, filled his vacant chair in Jena in
1798, and took his philosophical departure from certain of his
positions. Fichte had shut the man up close in himself, had limited the
conception of the world by the boundaries of consciousness, had reduced
the inner universe to a full-orbed creation, made its facts substantial
and its fancies solid, peopled it with living forces, and found room in
it for the exercise of a complete moral and spiritual life. In his
system the soul was creator. The outer universe had its being in human
thought. Subject and object were one, and that one was the subject.
Schelling restored the external world to its place as an objective
reality, no fiction, no projection from the human mind. Subject and
object, in his view, were one, but in the ABSOLUTE, the universal soul,
the infinite and eternal mind. His original fire mist was the
unorganized intelligence of which the universe was the expression.
Finite minds are but phases of manifestation of the infinite mind,
inlets into which it flows, some deeper, wider, longer than others.
Spirit and matter are reverse aspects of being. Spirit is invisible
nature, nature invisible spirit. Starting from nature, we may work our
way into intelligence; starting from intelligence, we may work our way
out to nature. Thought and existence having the same ground, ideal and
real being one, the work of philosophy is twofold--from nature to arrive
at spirit, from spirit to arrive at nature. They who wish to know how
Schelling did it must consult the histories of philosophy; the most
popular of them will satisfy all but the experts. It is easy to
conjecture into what mysterious ways the clue might lead, and in what
wilderness of thickets the reader might be lost; how in mind we are to
see nature struggling upward into consciousness, and in nature mind
seeking endless forms of finite expression. To unfold both processes, in
uniform and balanced movement, avoiding pantheism on one side, and
materialism on the other, was the endeavor we shall not attempt, even in
the most cursory manner, to describe. God becomes conscious in man, the
philosophic man, the man of reason, in whom the absolute being
recognizes himself. The reason gazes immediately on the eternal
realities, by virtue of what was called "intellectual intuition," which
beholds both subject and object as united in a single thought. Reason
was impersonal, no attribute of the finite intelligence, no fact of the
individual consciousness, but a faculty, if that be the word for it,
that transcended all finite experience, commanded a point superior to
consciousness, was, in fact, the all-seeing eye confronting itself. What
room here for intellectual rovers! What mystic groves for ecstatic souls
to lose themselves in! What intricate mazes for those who are fond of
hunting phantoms! Flashes of dim glory from this tremendous speculation
are seen in the writings of Emerson, Parker, Alcott, and other seers,
probably caught by reflection, or struck out, as they were by Schelling
himself, by minds moving on the same level. In Germany the lines of
speculation were carried out in labyrinthine detail, as, fortunately,
they were not elsewhere.
Of Hegel, the successor in thought of Schelling, there is no call here
to speak at all. His speculation, though influential in America, as
influential as that of either of his predecessors, was scarcely known
thirty-five years ago, and if it had been, would have possessed little
charm for idealists of the New England stamp. That system has borne
fruits of a very different quality, being adopted largely by churchmen,
whom it has justified and fortified in their ecclesiastical forms,
doctrinal and sacramental, and by teachers of moderately progressive
tendencies. The duty of unfolding his ideas has devolved upon students
of German, as no other language has given them anything like adequate
expression. Hegel, too, was more formidable than Schelling; the latter
was brilliant, dashing, imaginative, glowing; his ideas shone in the
air, and were caught with little toil by enthusiastic minds. To
comprehend or even to apprehend Hegel requires more philosophical
culture than was found in New England half a century ago, more than is
by any means common to-day. Modern speculative philosophy is, as a rule,
Hegelian. Its spirit is conservative, and it scarcely at all lends
countenance to movements so revolutionary as those that shook New
England.
Long before the time we are dealing with--as early as 1824--the
philosophy of Hegel had struck hands with church and state in Prussia;
Hegel was at once prophet, priest, and prince. In the fulness of his
powers, ripe in ability and in fame, he sat in the chair that Fichte had
occupied, and gave laws to the intellectual world. He would "teach
philosophy to talk German, as Luther had taught the Bible to do." A
crowd of enthusiasts thronged about him. The scientific and literary
celebrities of Berlin sat at his feet; state officials attended his
lectures and professed themselves his disciples. The government provided
liberally for his salary, and paid the travelling expenses of this great
ambassador of the mind. The old story of disciple become master was told
again. The philosopher was the friend of those that befriended him; the
servant, some say, of those that lavished on him honors. Then the new
philosophy that was to reconstruct the mental world learned to accept
the actual world as it existed, and lent its powerful aid to the order
of things it promised to reconstruct. Throwing out the aphorism, "The
rational is the actual, the actual is the rational," Hegel declared that
natural right, morality, and even religion are properly subordinated to
authority. The despotic Prussian system welcomed the great philosopher
as its defender. The Prussian Government was not tardy in showing
appreciation of its advocate's eminent services.
The church, taking the hint, put in its claim to patronage. It needed
protection against the rationalism that was coming up; and such
protection the majesty of Hegel vouchsafed to offer. Faith and
philosophy formed a new alliance. Orthodox professors gave in their
loyalty to the man who taught that "God was in process of becoming," and
the man who taught that "God was in process of becoming" welcomed the
orthodox professors to the circle of his disciples. He was more orthodox
than the orthodox; he gave the theologians new explanations of their own
dogmas, and supplied them with arguments against their own foes.
Trinity, incarnation, atonement, redemption, were all interpreted and
justified, to the complete satisfaction of the ecclesiastical powers.
This being the influence of the master, and of philosophy as he
explained it, the formation of a new school by the earnest, liberal men
who drew very different conclusions from the master's first principles,
was to be expected. But the "New Hegelians," as they were called, became
disbelievers in religion and in spiritual things altogether, and either
lapsed, like Strauss, into intellectual scepticism, or, like Feuerbach,
became aggressive materialists. The ideal elements in Hegel's system
were appropriated by Christianity, and were employed against liberty and
progress. Spiritualists, whether in the old world or the new, had little
interest in a philosophy that so readily favored two opposite
tendencies, both of which they abhorred. To them the spiritual
philosophy was represented by Hegel's predecessors. The disciples of
sentiment accepted Jacobi; the loyalists of conscience followed Fichte;
the severe metaphysicians, of whom there were a few, adhered to Kant;
the soaring speculators and imaginative theosophists spread their
"sheeny vans," and soared into the regions of the absolute with
Schelling. The idealists of New England were largest debtors to Jacobi
and Fichte.
III.
TRANSCENDENTALISM IN THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE.
One of the earliest students of the German language in Boston was Dr. N.
L. Frothingham, Unitarian minister of the First Church. Among the
professional books that interested him was one by Herder, "Letters to a
Young Theologian," chapters from which he translated for the "Christian
Disciple," the precursor of the "Christian Examiner." Of Herder, George
Bancroft wrote an account in the "North American Review," and George
Ripley in the "Christian Examiner." The second number of "The Dial"
contains a letter from Mr. Ripley to a theological student, in which
this particular book of Herder is warmly commended, as being worth the
trouble of learning German to read. The volume was remarkable for
earnest enlightenment, its discernment of the spirit beneath the letter,
its generous interpretations, and its suggestions of a better future for
the philosophy of religion. Herder was one of the illuminated minds;
though not professedly a disciple, he had felt the influence of Kant,
and was cordially in sympathy with the men who were trying to break the
spell of form and tradition. With Lessing more especially, Herder's
"Spirit of Hebrew Poetry," of which a translation by Dr. James Marsh was
published in 1833, found its way to New England, and helped to confirm
the disposition to seek the springs of inspiration in the human mind,
whence all poetry proceeded. The writer of the book, by applying to
Hebrew poetry the rules of critical appreciation by which all poetic
creations are judged, abolished so far the distinction between sacred
and secular, and transferred to the credit of human genius the products
commonly ascribed to divine. In the persons of the great bards of Israel
all bards were glorified; the soul's creative power was recognized, and
with it the heart of the transcendental faith.
The influence of Schleiermacher was even more distinct than that of
Herder. One book of his, in particular, made a deep impression,--the
"Reden über Religion," published in 1799. The book is thus described by
Mr. George Ripley, in a controversial letter to Mr. Andrews Norton, who
had assailed Schleiermacher as an atheist. "The 'Discourses on Religion'
were not intended to present a system of theology. They are highly
rhetorical in manner, filled with bursts of impassioned eloquence,
always intense, and sometimes extravagant; addressed to the feelings,
not to speculation; and expressly disclaiming all pretensions to an
exposition of doctrine. They were published at a time when hostility to
religion, and especially to Christianity as a divine revelation, was
deemed a proof of talent and refinement. The influence of the church was
nearly exhausted; the highest efforts of thought were of a destructive
character; a frivolous spirit pervaded society; religion was deprived of
its supremacy; and a 'starveling theology' was exalted in place of the
living word. Schleiermacher could not contemplate the wretched
meagreness and degradation of his age without being moved as by 'a
heavenly impulse.' His spirit was stirred within him as he saw men
turning from the true God to base idols. He felt himself impelled to go
forth with the power of a fresh and youthful enthusiasm, for the
restoration of religion; to present it in its most sublime aspect, free
from its perversions, disentangled from human speculation, as founded in
the essential nature of man, and indispensable to the complete unfolding
of his inward being. In order to recognize everything which is really
religious among men, and to admit even the lowest degree of it into the
idea of religion, he wishes to make this as broad and comprehensive in
its character as possible." In illustration of this purpose Mr. Ripley
quotes the author as follows: "I maintain that piety is the necessary
and spontaneous product of the depths of every elevated nature; that it
possesses a rightful claim to a peculiar province in the soul, over
which it may exercise an unlimited sovereignty; that it is worthy, by
its intrinsic power, to be a source of life to the most noble and
exalted minds; and that from its essential character it deserves to be
known and received by them. These are the points which I defend, and
which I would fain establish."
From this it will appear that Schleiermacher gave countenance to the
spiritual aspect of transcendentalism, and co-operated with the general
movement it represented. His position that religion was not a system of
dogmas, but an inward experience; that it was not a speculation, but a
feeling; that its primal verities rested not on miracle or tradition,
not on the Bible letter or on ecclesiastical institution, but on the
soul's own sense of things divine; that this sense belonged by nature to
the human race, and gave to all forms of religion such genuineness as
they had; that all affirmation was partial, and all definition
deceptive; proved to be practically the same with that taken by Jacobi,
and was so received by the disciples of the new philosophy.
But Schleiermacher was an Evangelical Lutheran, a believer in
supernatural religion, in Christ, in Christianity as a special
dispensation, in the miracles of the New Testament. So far from being a
"rationalist," he was the most formidable opponent that "rationalism"
had; for his efforts were directed against the critical and theological
method, and in support of the spiritual method of dealing with religious
truths. In explaining religion as being in its primitive character a
sense of divine things in the soul, and as having its seat, not in
knowledge, nor yet in action, neither in theology nor in morality, but
in feeling, in aspiration, longing, love, veneration, conscious
dependence, filial trust, he deprived "rationalism" of its strength.
Hence his attraction for liberal orthodox believers in America.
Schleiermacher had as many disciples among the Congregationalists as
among their antagonists of the opposite school. Professors Edwards and
Park included thoughts of his in their "Selections from German
Literature." The pulpit transcendentalists acknowledged their
indebtedness to him, and the debt they acknowledged was sentimental
rather than intellectual. They thanked him for the spirit of fervent
piety, deep, cordial, human, unlimited in generosity, untrammelled by
logical distinctions, rather than for new light on philosophical
problems. His bursts of eloquent enthusiasm over men whom the church
outlawed--Spinoza for example--made amends with them for the absence of
doctrinal exactness. A warm sympathy with those who detached religion
from dogma, and recognized the religious sentiment under its most
diverse forms, was characteristic of the new spirit that burned in New
England. Schleiermacher was one of the first and foremost to encourage
such sympathy: he based it on the idea that man was by nature religious,
endowed with spiritual faculties, and that was welcome tidings; and
though he retained the essence of the evangelical system, he retained it
in a form that could be dropped without injury to the principle by which
it was justified. Thus Schleiermacher strengthened the very positions he
assailed, and gave aid and comfort to the enemy he would overthrow. The
transcendentalists, it is true, employed against the "rationalists" the
weapons that he put into their hands. At the same time they left as
unimportant the theological system which his weapons were manufactured
to support.
But it was through the literature of Germany that the transcendental
philosophy chiefly communicated itself. Goethe, Richter and Novalis were
more persuasive teachers than Kant, Jacobi or Fichte. To those who
could not read German these authors were interpreted by Thomas Carlyle,
who took up the cause of German philosophy and literature, and wrote
about them with passionate power in the English reviews; not contenting
himself with giving surface accounts of them, but plunging boldly into
the depths, and carrying his readers with him through discussions that,
but for his persuasive eloquence, would have had little charm to
ordinary minds. Goethe and Richter were his heroes: their methods and
opinions are of the greatest account with him; and he leaves nothing
unexplained of the intellectual foundations on which they builded.
Consequently in the remarkable papers that Carlyle wrote about them and
their books, full report is given of the place held by the Kantean
philosophy in their culture. The article on Novalis, in the "Foreign
Review" of 1829, No. 7, presents with a master hand the peculiarities of
the new metaphysics that were regenerating the German mind. Regenerating
is not too strong a word for the influence that he ascribes to it. Thus
in 1827 he wrote in the "Edinburgh Review:"
"The critical philosophy has been regarded by persons of approved
judgment, and nowise directly implicated in the furthering of it, as
distinctly the greatest intellectual achievement of the century in which
it came to light. August Wilhelm Schlegel has stated in plain terms his
belief that in respect of its probable influence on the moral culture of
Europe, it stands on a line with the Reformation. We mention Schlegel as
a man whose opinion has a known value among ourselves. But the worth of
Kant's philosophy is not to be gathered from votes alone. The noble
system of morality, the purer theology, the lofty views of man's nature
derived from it; nay, perhaps the very discussion of such matters, to
which it gave so strong an impetus, have told with remarkable and
beneficial influence on the whole spiritual character of Germany. No
writer of any importance in that country, be he acquainted or not with
the critical philosophy, but breathes a spirit of devoutness and
elevation more or less directly drawn from it. Such men as Goethe and
Schiller cannot exist without effect in any literature or any century;
but if one circumstance more than another has contributed to forward
their endeavors and introduce that higher tone into the literature of
Germany, it has been this philosophical system, to which, in wisely
believing its results, or even in wisely denying them, all that was
lofty and pure in the genius of poetry or the reason of man so readily
allied itself."
After quoting from "Meister's Apprenticeship" a noble passage on the
spiritual function of art, Carlyle comments thus: "To adopt such
sentiments into his sober practical persuasion; in any measure to feel
and believe that such was still and must always be, the high vocation of
the poet; on this ground of universal humanity, of ancient and now
almost forgotten nobleness, to take his stand, even in these trivial,
jeering, withered, unbelieving days, and through all their complex,
dispiriting, mean, yet tumultuous influences, to make his light shine
before men that it might beautify even our rag-gathering age with some
beams of that mild divine splendor which had long left us, the very
possibility of which was denied; heartily and in earnest to meditate all
this was no common proceeding; to bring it into practice, especially in
such a life as his has been, was among the highest and hardest
enterprises which any man whatever could engage in."
From Schiller's correspondence with Goethe, Carlyle quotes the following
tribute to the Kantean philosophy: "From the opponents of the new
philosophy I expect not that tolerance which is shown to every other
system no better seen into than this; for Kant's philosophy itself, in
its leading points, practises no tolerance, and bears much too rigorous
a character to leave any room for accommodation. But in my eyes this
does it honor, proving how little it can endure to have truth tampered
with. Such a philosophy will not be shaken to pieces by a mere shake of
the head. In the open, clear, accessible field of inquiry it builds up
its system, seeks no shade, makes no reservation, but even as it treats
its neighbors, so it requires to be treated, and may be forgiven for
lightly esteeming everything but proofs. Nor am I terrified to think
that the law of change, from which no human and no divine work finds
grace, will operate on this philosophy as on every other, and one day
its form will be destroyed, but its foundations will not have this fate
to fear, for ever since mankind has existed, and any reason among
mankind, these same first principles have been admitted, and on the
whole, acted on."
Of Richter he writes: "Richter's philosophy, a matter of no ordinary
interest, both as it agrees with the common philosophy of Germany, and
disagrees with it, must not be touched on for the present. One only
observation we shall make: it is not mechanical or sceptical; it springs
not from the forum or the laboratory, but from the depths of the human
spirit, and yields as its fairest product a noble system of morality,
and the firmest conviction of religion. An intense and continual faith
in man's immortality and native grandeur accompanies him; from amid the
vortices of life he looks up to a heavenly loadstar; the solution of
what is visible and transient, he finds in what is invisible and
eternal. He has doubted, he denies, yet he believes."
Of Novalis, scarcely more than a name to Americans, the same oracle
speaks thus: "The aim of Novalis' whole philosophy is to preach and
establish the majesty of reason, in the strict philosophical sense; to
conquer for it all provinces of human thought, and everywhere resolve
its vassal understanding into fealty, the right and only useful relation
for it. How deeply these and the like principles (those of the Kantean
philosophy) had impressed themselves on Novalis, we see more and more
the further we study his writings. Naturally a deep, religious,
contemplative spirit, purified also by harsh affliction, and familiar in
the 'Sanctuary of Sorrow,' he comes before us as the most ideal of all
idealists. For him the material creation is but an appearance, a typical
shadow in which the Deity manifests himself to man. Not only has the
unseen world a reality, but the only reality; the rest being not
metaphorically, but literally and in scientific strictness, 'a show;'
in the words of the poet:
'Sound and smoke overclouding the splendor of heaven!'
The invisible world is near us; or rather, it is here, in us and about
us; were the fleshly coil removed from our soul, the glories of the
unseen were even now around us, as the ancients fabled of the spheral
music. Thus, not in word only, but in truth and sober belief he feels
himself encompassed by the Godhead; feels in every thought that 'in Him
he lives, moves, and has his being.'"
These declarations from a man who was becoming prominent in the world of
literature, and whose papers were widely and enthusiastically read, had
great weight with people to whom the German was an unknown tongue. But
it was not an unknown tongue to all, and they who had mastered it were
active communicators of its treasures. Carlyle's efforts at interesting
English readers through his remarkable translation of Wilhelm Meister,
and the "Specimens of German Romance," which contained pieces by Tieck,
Jean Paul, Hoffmann, and Musæus, published in 1827, were seconded here
by F. H. Hedge, C. T. Brooks, J. S. Dwight, and others, who made
familiar to the American public the choicest poems of the most famous
German bards. Richter became well known by his "Autobiography," "Quintus
Fixlein," "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces," "Hesperus," "Titan," "The
Campaner Thal," the writings and versions of Madame de Staël. The third
volume of the "Dial," July, 1841, opened with a remarkable paper on
Goethe, by Margaret Fuller. The pages of the "Dial" abounded in
references to Goethe's ideas and writings. No author occupied the
cultivated New England mind as much as he did. None of these writers
taught formally the doctrines of the transcendental philosophy, but they
reflected one or another aspect of it. They assumed its cardinal
principles in historical and literary criticism, in dramatic art, in
poetry and romance. They conveyed its spirit of aspiration after ideal
standards of perfection. They caught from it their judgments on society
and religion. They communicated its aroma, and so imparted the
quickening breath of its soul to people who would have started back in
alarm from its doctrines.
The influence of the transcendental philosophy on German literature was
fully conceded by Menzel, who, however, found little trace of it in
Goethe. Of the author of the philosophy he wrote: "Kant was very far
from assenting to French infidelity and its immoral consequences. He
directed man to himself, to the moral law in his own bosom; and the
fresh breath of life of the old Grecian dignity of man penetrates the
whole of his luminous philosophy." Of Goethe he wrote: "If he ever
acknowledged allegiance to a good spirit, to great ideas, to virtue, he
did it only because they had become the order of the day, for, on the
other hand, he has, again, served every weakness, vanity and folly, if
they were but looked on with favor at the time; in short, like a good
player, he has gone through all the parts." Menzel's book was
translated by a man who had no sympathy with Transcendentalism--Prof. C.
C. Felton; was admired by people of his own school, and was sharply
criticised, especially in the portions relating to Goethe, by the
transcendentalists, who accepted Carlyle's view. He and they put the
most generous interpretations on the masterpieces of the poet, passed by
as incidental, did not see, or in their own mind transfigured, the
objectionable features that Menzel seized on. Too little was ascribed to
the foreign French element that reached the literature of Germany
through Prussia--to Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot--whose ideas fell in
with the unworthier sceptical tendencies of the Kantean system, and
polluted the waters of that clear, cold stream; too much was ascribed to
the noble idealism that was credited with power to glorify all it
touched, and redeem even low things from degradation. If therefore they
apologized for what the sensational moralists blamed, they did it in
good faith, not as excusing the indecency, but as surmounting it. What
they admired was the art, and the aspiration it expressed. The devotees
of the French spirit, in its frivolity and meretricious beauty, they
turned away from with disdain. There was enough of the nobler kind to
engage them. When they went to France they went for what France had in
common with Germany--an idealism of the wholesome, ethical and spiritual
type, which, whether German, French or English, bore always the same
characteristics of beauty and nobleness. Much that was unspiritual, all
that was merely speculative, they passed by. With an appetite for the
generous and inspiring only, they sought the really earnest teachers, of
whom in France there were a few. The influence of those few was great in
proportion to their fewness probably, quite as much as to their merit as
philosophers.
IV.
TRANSCENDENTALISM IN FRANCE.
From the time of Malebranche, who died in 1715, to Maine de Biran,
Royer-Collard, Ampère and Cousin, a period of about a century,
philosophy in France had not borne an honorable name. The French mind
was active; philosophy was a profession; the philosophical world was
larger than in Germany, where it was limited to the Universities. But
France took no lead in speculation, it waited to receive impulse from
other lands; and even then, instead of taking up the impulse and
carrying it on with original and sympathetic force, it was content to
exhibit and reproduce it. The office of expositor, made easy by the
perspicacity of its intellect and the flexibility of its language, was
accepted and discharged with a cleverness that was recognized by all
Europe. Its histories of philosophy, translations, expositions,
reproductions, were admirable for neatness and clearness. The most
obscure systems became intelligible in that limpid and lucid speech,
which reported with faultless dexterity the agile movements of the
Gallic mind, and made popular the most abstruse doctrines of
metaphysics. German philosophy in its original dress was outlandish,
even to practised students in German. The readers of French were many in
England and the United States, and the readers of French, without
severe labor on their part, were put in possession of the essential
ideas of the deep thinkers of the race. The best accounts of human
speculation are in French. Barthélemy Saint Hilaire interprets
Aristotle, and throws important light on Indian Philosophy; Bouillet
translates Plotinus; Emil Saisset translates Spinoza; Tissot and Jules
Barni perform the same service for Kant; Jules Simon and Etienne
Vacherot undertake to make intelligible the School of Alexandria; Paul
Janet explains the dialectics of Plato; Adolphe Franck deals with the
Jewish Kabbala; Charles de Rémusat with Anselm, Abelard and Bacon; MM.
Hauréau and Rousselot with the philosophy of the middle age; M. Chauvet
with the theories of the human understanding in antiquity. Cousin
published unedited works of Proclus, analyzed the commentaries of
Olympiodorus on the Platonic dialogues, made a complete translation of
Plato, admirable for clearness and strength, and proposed to present,
not of course with his own hand, but by the hands of friendly
fellow-workers, and under his own direction, examples of whatever was
best in every philosophical system. The philosophical work of France is
ably summed up in the report on "Philosophy in France in the nineteenth
century," presented by Felix Ravaisson, member of the Institute, and
published in 1868, under the auspices of the Ministry of Public
Instruction.
The ideas of Locke were brought from London to Paris by Voltaire, who
became acquainted with them during a residence in England, and found
them effective in his warfare against the ecclesiastical institutions of
his country. Through his brilliant interpretations and keen
applications, they gained currency, became fashionable among the wits,
were domesticated with people of culture and elegance, and worked their
way into the religion and politics of the time. It is needless to say
that in his hands full justice was done to their external and material
aspects.
The system found a more exact and methodical expounder in Condillac,
who reduced it to greater simplicity by eliminating from it what in the
original marred its unity, namely reflection, the bent of the mind back
on itself, whereby it took cognizance of impressions made by the outer
world. Taking what remained of the system, the notion that all knowledge
came primarily through the senses, and drawing the conclusion that the
mind itself was a product of sensation, Condillac fashioned a doctrine
which had the merit, such as it was, of utter intelligibleness to the
least instructed mind; a system of materialism naked and unadorned. If
he himself forbore to push his principle to its extreme results,
declining to assert that we were absolutely nothing else than products
of sensation, and surmising that beneath the layers of intelligence and
reason there might lurk a principle that sensation could not account
for, something stable in the midst of the ceaseless instability,
something absolute below everything relative, which might be called
action or will, the popular interpretation of his philosophy took no
account of such subtleties. In vain did his disciple Destutt de Tracy
declare that "the principle of movement is the will, and that the will
is the person, the man himself." The fascination of simplicity proved
more than a match for nicety of distinction, and both were ranked among
materialists.
Cabanis was at no pains to conceal the most repulsive features of the
system. In his work, "The Relations of the Physical and the Moral in
Man," he maintained bluntly the theory that there was no spiritual being
apart from the body; that mind had no substance, no separate existence
of its own, but was in all its parts and qualities a product of the
nervous system; that sensibility of every kind, sentimental,
intelligent, moral, spiritual, including the whole domain of conscious
and unconscious vitality, was a nervous manifestation; that man was
capable of sensation because he had nerves; that he was what he was
because of the wondrous character of the mechanism of sensation; that,
in a word, the perfection of organization was the perfection of
humanity. It was Cabanis who said "the brain secretes thought as the
liver secretes bile." Cabanis modified his philosophy before his death,
but without effect to break the force of his cardinal positions. The
results of such teaching appeared in a morality of selfishness, tending
to self-indulgence--a morality destitute of nobleness and sweetness,
summing up its lessons in the maxims that good is good to eat; that the
pleasurable thing is right, the painful thing wrong; that success is the
measure of rectitude; that the aim of life is the attainment of
happiness, and that happiness means physical enjoyment; that virtue and
vice are names for prudence and for folly,--Virtue being conformity with
the ways of the world, Vice being non-conformity with the ways of the
world; no ideal standard being recognized for the one, no law of
rectitude being confessed for the other. Conscience was regarded as an
artificial habit created by custom or acquiesced in from tradition; the
"categorical imperative" was pronounced the dogmatism of the fanatic.
From such principles atheism naturally proceeded. Atheism not of opinion
merely, but of sentiment and feeling; for at that time "the potencies"
of matter impressed no such awe upon the mind as they have done since;
the "mystery of matter" was unfelt; physiology was an unexplored region;
the materialist simply denied spirit, putting a blank where believers in
religion had been used to find a soul; and had no alternative but to run
sensationalism into sensualism, and to give the senses the flavor of the
ground. With us the sensational philosophy has become refined into a
philosophy of experience, and the materialist finds himself in a region
where to distinguish between matter and spirit is difficult, to say the
least. But a hundred years ago matter was clod, and the passion it
engendered smelt of the charnel-house. The morbid insanities of the
revolution, the orgies in which blood and wine ran together, the savage
glee, the delirium that ensued when the uncertainty of life acting on
the impulse to enjoy life while it lasted, made men ferocious in
clutching at immediate pleasure, attest the consequences that ensued
from such frank adoption of the sensational philosophy as was practised
among the French. Locke was a man of piety, which even his warmest
apologists will hardly claim for Voltaire. The English mind, grave and
thoughtful, trained by religious institutions in religious beliefs, was
less inclined than the French to drive speculative theories to extreme
conclusions. The philosophy of sensationalism culminated, not in the
French Revolution, as has been vulgarly asserted, but in the unbelief
and sensual extravagance that marked one phase of it.
In this there was nothing original; there was no originality in the
reaction that followed, and gave to modern philosophy in France its
spiritual character. Laromiguiére, educated in the school of Condillac,
improved on the suggestion that Condillac had given, and deepened into a
chasm the scratch he had made to indicate a distinction between the
results of sensation and the faculties of the mind. In his analysis of
the mental constitution he came upon two facts that denoted an original
activity in advance of sensation--namely, _attention_ and _desire_: the
former the root of the intellectual, the latter of the moral powers;
both at last resolvable into one principle--attention. This discovery
met with wide and cordial welcome, the popularity of Laromiguiére's
lectures, delivered in 1811, 1812, 1813, revealing the fact that
thoughtful people were prepared for a new metaphysical departure.
Maine de Biran, who more than the rest deserves the name of an original
investigator, a severe, solitary, independent thinker, pupil of no
school and founder of none, brought into strong relief the activity of
the intellect. Thought, he maintained, proceeds from will, which is at
the base of the personality, is, in fact, the essence of personality.
The primary fact is volition. Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am."
Maine de Biran said, "I will, therefore I am." "In every one of my
determinations," he declared, "I recognize myself as being a cause
anterior to its effect and capable of surviving it. I behold myself as
outside of the movement I produce, and independent of time; for this
reason, strictly speaking, I do not _become_, I really and absolutely
_am_." "To be, to act, to will, are the same thing under different
names." Will as the seat of activity; will as the core of personality;
will as the soul of causation: here is the corner-stone for a new
structure to replace the old one of the "Cyclopædists." Important
deductions followed from such a first principle; the dignity of the
moral being, freedom of the moral will, the nobility of existence, the
persistency of the individual as a ground for continuous effort and
far-reaching hope, the spirituality of man and his destiny. To recover
the will from the mass of sensations that had buried it out of sight,
was the achievement of this philosopher. It was an achievement by which
philosophy was disengaged from physics, and sent forth on a more
cheerful way.
The next steps were taken by disciples of the Scotch
school--Royer-Collard, Victor Cousin and Theodore Jouffroy. The last
translated Reid and Stewart from English into French; the two former
lectured on them. The three, being masters of clear and persuasive
speech, made their ideas popular in France. Cousin's lectures on the
Scotch school, including Reid, were delivered in 1819. The lectures on
Kant were given in 1820. Both courses were full and adequate. Cousin
committed himself to neither, but freely criticised both, laying stress
on the sceptical aspect of the transcendental system as expounded by
Kant.
Cousin's own system was the once famous, now discarded eclecticism,
under cover of which another phase of idealism was presented which found
favor in America. The cardinal principle of eclecticism was that truth
was contained in no system or group of systems, but in all together;
that each had its portion and made its contribution; and that the true
philosophy would be reached by a process of intellectual distillation by
which the essential truth in each would be extracted. A method like this
would have nothing to recommend it but its generosity, if there were no
criterion by which truths could be tested, no philosophical principle,
in short, to govern the selection of materials. Eclecticism must have a
philosophy before proceeding to make one, must have arrived at its
conclusion before entering on its process. And this it did. It will be
seen by the following extracts from his writings what the fundamental
ideas of M. Cousin were, and in what respect they aided the process of
rationalism.
The quotations are from his exposition of eclecticism:
"Facts are the point of departure, if not the limit of philosophy.
Now facts, whatever they may be, exist for us only as they come to
our consciousness. It is there alone that observation seizes them
and describes them, before committing them to induction, which
forces them to reveal the consequences which they contain in their
bosom. The field of philosophical observation is consciousness;
there is no other; but in this nothing is to be neglected;
everything is important, for everything is connected; and if one
part be wanting, complete unity is unattainable. To return within
our consciousness, and scrupulously to study all the phenomena,
their differences and their relations--this is the primary study of
philosophy. Its scientific name is psychology. Psychology is then
the condition and, as it were, the vestibule of philosophy. The
psychological method consists in completely retiring within the
world of consciousness, in order to become familiar in that sphere
where all is reality, but where the reality is so various and so
delicate; and the psychological talent consists in placing
ourselves at will within this interior world, in presenting the
spectacle there displayed to ourselves, and in reproducing freely
and distinctly all the facts which are accidentally and confusedly
brought to our notice by the circumstances of life."...
"The first duty of the psychological method is to retire within the
field of consciousness, where there is nothing but phenomena, that
are all capable of being perceived and judged by observation. Now
as no substantial existence falls under the eye of consciousness,
it follows that the first effect of a rigid application of method
is to postpone the subject of ontology. It postpones it, I say, but
does not destroy it. It is a fact, indeed, attested by observation,
that in this same consciousness, in which there is nothing but
phenomena, there are found notions, whose regular development
passes the limits of consciousness and attains the knowledge of
actual existences. Would you stop the development of these notions?
You would then arbitrarily limit the compass of a fact, you would
attack this fact itself, and thus shake the authority of all other
facts. We must either call in question the authority of
consciousness in itself, or admit this authority without reserve
for all the facts attested by consciousness. The reason is no less
certain and real than the will or the sensibility; its certainty
once admitted we must follow it wherever it rigorously conducts,
though it be even into the depths of ontology. For example, it is a
rational fact attested by consciousness, that in the view of
intelligence, every phenomenon which is presented supposes a cause.
It is a fact, moreover, that this principle of causality is marked
with the characteristics of universality and necessity. If it be
universal and necessary, to limit it would be to destroy it. Now in
the phenomenon of sensation, the principle of causality intervenes
universally and necessarily, and refers this phenomenon to a cause;
and our consciousness testifying that this cause is not the
personal cause which the will represents, it follows that the
principle of causality in its irresistible application conducts to
an impersonal cause, that is to say, to an external cause, which
subsequently, and always irresistibly, the principle of causality
enriches with the characteristics and laws, of which the aggregate
is the Universe. Here then is an existence; but an existence
revealed by a principle which is itself attested by consciousness.
Here is a primary step in ontology, but by the path of psychology,
that is to say, of observation. We are led by similar processes to
the Cause of all causes, to the substantial Cause, to God; and not
only to a God of Power, but to a God of Justice, a God of Holiness;
so that this experimental method, which, applied to a single order
of phenomena, incomplete and exclusive, destroyed ontology and the
higher elements of consciousness, applied with fidelity, firmness
and completeness, to all the phenomena, builds up that which it had
overthrown, and by itself furnishes ontology with a sure and
legitimate instrument. Thus, having commenced with modesty, we can
end with results whose certainty is equalled by their
importance."...
"What physical inquirer, since Euler, seeks anything in nature but
forces and laws? Who now speaks of atoms? And even molecules, the
old atoms revived--who defends them as anything but an hypothesis?
If the fact be incontestable, if modern physics be now employed
only with forces and laws, I draw the rigorous conclusion from it,
that the science of Physics, whether it know it or not, is no
longer material, and that it became spiritual when it rejected
every other method than observation and induction, which can never
lead to aught but forces and laws. Now what is there material in
forces and laws? The physical sciences, then, themselves have
entered into the broad path of an enlightened spiritualism; and
they have only to march with a firm step, and to gain a more and
more profound knowledge of forces and laws, in order to arrive at
more important generalizations. Let us go still further. As it is a
law already recognized of the same reason which governs humanity
and nature, to refer every finite cause and every multiple
law--that is to say, every phenomenal cause and every phenomenal
law--to something absolute, which leaves nothing to be sought
beyond it in relation to existence, that is to say, to a substance;
so this law refers the external world composed of forces and laws
to a substance, which must needs be a cause in order to be the
subject of the causes of this world, which must needs be an
intelligence in order to be the subject of its laws; a substance,
in fine, which must needs be the identity of activity and
intelligence. We have thus arrived accordingly, for the second
time, by observation and induction in the external sphere, at
precisely the same point to which observation and induction have
successively conducted us in the sphere of personality and in that
of reason; consciousness in its triplicity is therefore one; the
physical and moral world is one, science is one, that is to say, in
other words, God is One."...
"Having gained these heights, philosophy becomes more luminous as
well as more grand; universal harmony enters into human thought,
enlarges it, and gives it peace. The divorce of ontology and
psychology, of speculation and observation, of science and
common-sense, is brought to an end by a method which arrives at
speculation by observation, at ontology by psychology, in order
then to confirm observation by speculation, psychology by ontology,
and which starting from the immediate facts of consciousness, of
which the common-sense of the human race is composed, derives from
them the science which contains nothing more than common-sense, but
which elevates that to its purest and most rigid form, and enables
it to comprehend itself. But I here approach a fundamental point.
"If every fact of consciousness contains all the human faculties,
sensibility, free activity, and reason, the me, the not-me, and
their absolute identity; and if every fact of consciousness be
equal to itself, it follows that every man who has the
consciousness of himself possesses and cannot but possess all the
ideas that are necessarily contained in consciousness. Thus every
man, if he knows himself, knows all the rest, nature and God at the
same time with himself. Every man believes in his own existence,
every man therefore believes in the existence of the world and of
God; every man thinks, every man therefore thinks God, if we may so
express it; every human proposition, reflecting the consciousness,
reflects the idea of unity and of being that is essential to
consciousness; every human proposition therefore contains God;
every man who speaks, speaks of God, and every word is an act of
faith and a hymn. Atheism is a barren formula, a negation without
reality, an abstraction of the mind which cannot assert itself
without self-destruction; for every assertion, even though
negative, is a judgment which contains the idea of being, and,
consequently, God in His fulness. Atheism is the illusion of a few
sophists, who place their liberty in opposition to their reason,
and are unable even to give an account to themselves of what they
think; but the human race, which is never false to its
consciousness and never places itself in contradiction to its laws,
possesses the knowledge of God, believes in him, and never ceases
to proclaim Him. In fact, the human race believes in reason and
cannot but believe in it, in that reason which is manifested in
consciousness, in a momentary relation with the me--the pure though
faint reflection of that primitive light which flows from the bosom
of the eternal substance, which is at once substance, cause,
intelligence. Without the manifestation of reason in our
consciousness, there could be no knowledge--neither psychological,
nor, still less, ontological. Reason is, in some sort, the bridge
between psychology and ontology, between consciousness and being;
it rests at the same time on both; it descends from God and
approaches man; it makes its appearance in the consciousness, as a
guest who brings intelligence of an unknown world of which it at
once presents the idea and awakens the want. If reason were
personal, it would have no value, no authority, beyond the limits
of the individual subject. If it remained in the condition of
primitive substance, without manifestation, it would be the same
for the me which would not know itself, as if it were not. It is
necessary therefore that the intelligent substance should manifest
itself; and this manifestation is the appearance of reason in the
consciousness. Reason then is literally a revelation, a necessary
and universal revelation, which is wanting to no man and which
enlightens every man on his coming into the world: _illuminat omnem
hominem venientem in hunc mundum_. Reason is the necessary mediator
between God and man, the [Greek: logos] of Pythagoras and Plato,
the Word made flesh which serves as the interpreter of God and the
teacher of man, divine and human at the same time. It is not,
indeed, the absolute God in his majestic individuality, but his
manifestation in spirit and in truth; it is not the Being of
beings, but it is the revealed God of the human race. As God is
never wanting to the human race and never abandons it, so the
human race believes in God with an irresistible and unalterable
faith, and this unity of faith is its own highest unity....
"If these convictions of faith be combined in every act of
consciousness, and if consciousness be one in the whole human race,
whence arises the prodigious diversity which seems to exist between
man and man, and in what does this diversity consist? In truth,
when we perceive at first view so many apparent differences between
one individual and another, one country and another, one epoch of
humanity and another, we feel a profound emotion of melancholy, and
are tempted to regard an intellectual development so capricious,
and even the whole of humanity, as a phenomenon without
consistency, without grandeur, and without interest. But it is
demonstrated by a more attentive observation of facts, that no man
is a stranger to either of the three great ideas which constitute
consciousness, namely, personality or the liberty of man,
impersonality or the necessity of nature, and the providence of
God. Every man comprehends these three ideas immediately, because
he found them at first and constantly finds them again within
himself. The exceptions to this fact, by their small number, by the
absurdities which they involve, by the difficulties which they
create, serve only to exhibit, in a still clearer light, the
universality of faith in the human race, the treasure of good sense
deposited in truth, and the peace and happiness that there are for
a human soul in not discarding the convictions of its kind. Leave
out the exceptions which appear from time to time in certain
critical periods of history, and you will perceive that the masses
which alone have true existence, always and everywhere live in the
same faith, of which the forms only vary."
These somewhat too copious extracts have been purposely taken from the
first volume of the "Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature," edited
by George Ripley in 1838, rather than from the collected writings of
Cousin, because they show what a leading New England transcendentalist
thought most important in the teaching of the French school. His own
estimate of the philosophy and his expectations from it may be learned
from the closing passages of the introduction to that volume:
"The objects at which Mr. Coleridge aims, it seems to me, are in a
great measure accomplished by the philosophy of Cousin. This
philosophy demolishes, by one of the most beautiful specimens of
scientific analysis that is anywhere to be met with, the system of
sensation, against which Mr. Coleridge utters such eloquent and
pathetic denunciations. It establishes on a rock the truth of the
everlasting sentiments of the human heart. It exhibits to the
speculative inquirer, in the rigorous forms of science, the reality
of our instinctive faith in God, in virtue, in the human soul, in
the beauty of holiness, and in the immortality of man.
"Such a philosophy, I cannot but believe, will ultimately find a
cherished abode in the youthful affections of this nation, in whose
history, from the beginning, the love of freedom, the love of
philosophical inquiry, and the love of religion have been combined
in a thrice holy bond. We need a philosophy like this to purify and
enlighten our politics, to consecrate our industry, to cheer and
elevate society. We need it for our own use in the hours of mental
misgiving and gloom; when the mystery of the universe presses
heavily upon our souls; when the fountains of the great deep are
broken up, and the
"Intellectual power
Goes sounding on, a dim and perilous way,"
over the troubled waters of the stormy sea. We need it for the use
of our practical men, who, surrounded on every side with the
objects of sense, engrossed with the competitions of business, the
rivalries of public life, or the cares of professional duty, and
accustomed to look at the immediate and obvious utility of
everything which appeals to their notice, often acquire a distaste
for all moral and religious inquiries, and as an almost inevitable
consequence, lose their interest, and often their belief, in the
moral and religious faculties of their nature. We need it for the
use of our young men, who are engaged in the active pursuits of
life, or devoted to the cultivation of literature. How many on the
very threshold of manly responsibility, by the influence of a few
unhappy mistakes, which an acquaintance with their higher nature,
as unfolded by a sound religious philosophy, would have prevented,
have consigned themselves to disgrace, remorse, and all the evils
of a violated conscience! How many have become the dupes of the
sophists' eloquence, or the victims of the fanatics' terrors, for
whom the spirit of a true philosophy--a philosophy 'baptized in the
pure fountain of eternal love,' would have preserved the charm and
beauty of life."
Cousin's "History of Philosophy," translated by H. G. Linberg, was
published in 1832. The "Elements of Psychology," by C. S. Henry,
appeared in 1834. Thus Cousin was early introduced and recommended, and
his expositions of the German schools were received. The volume from
which passages have been cited had an important influence on New England
thought.
V.
TRANSCENDENTALISM IN ENGLAND.
The prophet of the new philosophy in England was Samuel Taylor
Coleridge; in the early part of the present century, perhaps the most
conspicuous figure in our literary world; the object of more admiration,
the centre of more sympathy, the source of more intellectual life than
any individual of his time; the criticism, the censure, the manifold
animadversion he was made the mark for, better attest his power than the
ovations he received from his worshippers. The believers in his genius
lacked words to express their sense of his greatness. He was the
"eternal youth," the "divine child." The brilliant men of his period
acknowledged his surpassing brilliancy; the deep men confessed his
depth; the spiritual men went to him for inspiration. His mind, affluent
and profuse, contained within no barriers of conventional form, poured
an abounding flood of thoughts over the whole literary domain. He was
essayist, journalist, politician, poet, dramatist, metaphysician,
philosopher, theologian, divine, critic, expositor, dreamer,
soliloquizer; in all eloquent, in all intense. The effect he produced on
the minds of his contemporaries will scarcely be believed now. At
present he is little more than a name: his books are pronounced
unreadable; his opinions are not quoted as authority; his force is
spent. But in 1851, Thomas Carlyle, then past the years of his
enthusiasm, and verging on the scornful epoch of his intellectual
career, spoke of him, in the "Life of Sterling," as "A sublime man, who,
alone in those dark days, had saved his crown of spiritual manhood;
escaping from the black materialisms and revolutionary deluges, with
God, freedom, immortality still his; a king of men. The practical
intellects of the world did not much heed him, or carelessly reckoned
him a metaphysical dreamer; but to the rising spirits of the young
generation he had this dusky, sublime character, and sat there as a kind
of _Magus_, girt in mystery and enigma, his Dodona oak grove (Mr.
Gillman's house at Highgate) whispering strange things, uncertain
whether oracles or jargon." "To the man himself, Nature had given in
high measure the seeds of a noble endowment, and to unfold it was
forbidden him. A subtle, lynx-eyed intellect, tremulous, pious
sensibility to all good and all beautiful; truly a ray of empyrean
light,--but imbedded in such weak laxity of character, in such
indolences and esuriences, as made strange work with it. Once more, the
tragic story of a high endowment with an insufficient will."
The abatement is painfully just; but while Coleridge lived, this very
indolence and moral imbecility added to the interest he excited, and
gave a mystic splendor as of a divine inspiration to his mental
performances. The distinction between unhealthiness and inspiration has
never been clearly marked, and the voluble utterances of the feebly
outlined and loosely jointed soul easily passed for oracles. Thus his
moral deficiencies aided his influence. His wonderful powers of
conversation or rather of effusion in the midst of admiring friends
helped the illusion and the fascination. He really seemed inspired while
he talked; and as his talk ranged through every domain, the listeners
carried away and communicated the impression of a superhuman wisdom.
The impression that Coleridge made on minds of a very different order
from Carlyle's, is given in the following lines by Aubrey de Vere:
"No loftier, purer soul than his hath ever
With awe revolved the planetary page
From infancy to age,
Of knowledge, sedulous and proud to give her
The whole of his great heart, for her own sake;
For what she is: not what she does, or what can make.
And mighty voices from afar came to him;
Converse of trumpets held by cloudy forms
And speech of choral storms.
Spirits of night and noontide bent to woo him;
He stood the while lonely and desolate
As Adam when he ruled a world, yet found no mate.
His loftiest thoughts were but as palms uplifted;
Aspiring, yet in supplicating guise--
His sweetest songs were sighs.
Adown Lethean streams his spirit drifted,
Under Elysian shades from poppied bank,
With amaranths massed in dark luxuriance dank.
Coleridge, farewell! That great and grave transition
Which may not king or priest or conqueror spare.
And yet a babe can bear,
Has come to thee. Through life a goodly vision
Was thine; and time it was thy rest to take.
Soft be the sound ordained thy sleep to break;
When thou art waking, wake me, for thy Master's sake."
In May, 1796,--he was then twenty-four years old,--Coleridge wrote to a
friend, "I am studying German, and in about six weeks shall be able to
read that language with tolerable fluency. Now I have some thoughts of
making a proposal to Robinson, the great London bookseller, of
translating all the works of Schiller, which would make a portly quarto,
on condition that he should pay my journey and my wife's to and from
Jena, a cheap German University where Schiller resides, and allow me two
guineas each quarto sheet, which would maintain me. If I could realize
this scheme, I should there study chemistry and anatomy, and bring over
with me all the works of Semler and Michaelis, the German theologians,
and of Kant, the great German metaphysician." In September, 1798, in
company with Wordsworth and his sister, and at the expense of his
munificent friends Josiah and Thomas Wedgewood, he went to Germany and
spent fourteen months in hard study. There he attended the lectures of
Eichhorn and Blumenbach, made the acquaintance of Tieck, dipped quite
deeply into philosophy and general literature, and took by contagion the
speculative ideas that filled his imagination with visions of
intellectual discovery. Schelling's "Transcendental Idealism," with
which Coleridge was afterwards most in sympathy, was not published till
1800. The "Philosophy of Nature" was published in 1797, the year before
Coleridge's visit. In 1817, he tells the readers of the "Biographia
Literaria" that he had been able to procure only two of Schelling's
books--the first volume of his "Philosophical Writings," and the "System
of Transcendental Idealism;" these and "a small pamphlet against Fichte,
the spirit of which was, to my feelings, painfully incongruous with the
principles, and which displayed the love of wisdom rather than the
wisdom of love."
The philosophical ideas of Schelling commended themselves at once to
Coleridge, who was a born idealist, of audacious genius, speculative,
imaginative, original, capable of any such abstract achievement as the
German undertook.
"In Schelling's _Natur Philosophie_ and the _System des
Transcendentalen Idealismus_, I first found a genial coincidence
with much that I had toiled out for myself, and a powerful
assistance in what I had yet to do. All the main and fundamental
ideas were born and matured in my mind before I had ever seen a
single page of the German philosopher; and I might indeed affirm
with truth, before the more important works of Schelling had been
written, or at least made public. Nor is this at all to be wondered
at. We had studied in the same school; been disciplined by the same
preparatory philosophy, namely, the writings of Kant; we had both
equal obligations to the polar logic and dynamic philosophy of
Giordano Bruno; and Schelling has lately, and, as of recent
acquisition, avowed that same affectionate reverence for the labors
of Behmen and other mystics which I had formed at a much earlier
period. God forbid that I should be suspected of a wish to enter
into a rivalry with Schelling for the honors so unequivocally his
right, not only as a great original genius, but as the _founder_ of
the Philosophy of Nature, and as the most successful _improver_ of
the Dynamic system, which, begun by Bruno, was reintroduced (in a
more philosophical form, and freed from all its impurities and
visionary accompaniments) by Kant, in whom it was the native and
necessary growth of his own system. Kant's followers, however, on
whom (for the greater part) their master's _cloak_ had fallen,
without, or with a very scanty portion of his _spirit_, had adopted
his dynamic ideas, only as a more refined species of mechanics.
With exception of one or two fundamental ideas which cannot be
withheld from Fichte, to Schelling we owe the completion and the
most important victories of this revolution in philosophy. To me it
will be happiness and honor enough, should I succeed in rendering
the system itself intelligible to my countrymen, and in the
application of it to the most awful of subjects for the most
important of purposes. Whether a work is the offspring of a man's
own spirit and the product of original thinking, will be discovered
by those who are its sole legitimate judges, by better tests than
the mere reference to dates."
The question of Coleridge's alleged plagiarism from Schelling does not
concern us here. Whether the philosophy he taught was the product of his
own thinking, or whether he was merely the medium for communicating the
system of Schelling to his countrymen, is of no moment to us. For us it
is sufficient to know that the English-speaking people on both shores of
the Atlantic received them chiefly through the Englishman. Those who are
interested in the other matter will find Coleridge's reputation
vindicated in a long and elaborate introduction to the "Biographia
Literaria," edition of 1847, by the poet's son.
Coleridge was a pure Transcendentalist, of the Schelling school. The
transcendental phrases came over and over in book and conversation,
"reason" and "understanding," "intuition," "necessary truths,"
"consciousness," and the rest that were used to describe the
supersensual world and the faculties by which it was made visible. He
shall speak for himself. The following passage from the "Biographia
Literaria," Chapter XII., will be sufficiently intelligible to those who
have read the previous chapters, or enough of them to comprehend their
cardinal ideas:
"The criterion is this: if a man receives as fundamental facts, and
therefore of course indemonstratable and incapable of further
analysis, the general notions of matter, spirit, soul, body,
action, passiveness, time, space, cause and effect, consciousness,
perception, memory and all these, and is satisfied if only he can
analyze all other notions into some one or more of these supposed
elements, with plausible subordination and apt arrangement; to such
a mind I would as courteously as possible convey the hint, that for
him this chapter was not written.... For philosophy, in its highest
sense, as the science of ultimate truths, and therefore _scientia
scientiarum_, this mere analysis of terms is preparative only,
though as a preparative discipline indispensable.
"Still less dare a favorable perusal be anticipated from the
proselytes of that compendious philosophy which, talking of mind,
but thinking of brick and mortar, or other images equally
abstracted from body, contrives a theory of spirit by nicknaming
matter, and in a few hours can qualify its dullest disciples to
explain the _omne scibile_ by reducing all things to impressions,
ideas, and sensations.
"But it is time to tell the truth; though it requires some courage
to avow it in an age and country in which disquisitions on all
subjects not privileged to adopt technical terms or scientific
symbols, must be addressed to the public. I say, then, that it is
neither possible nor necessary for all men, nor for many, to be
philosophers. There is a philosophic consciousness which lies
beneath or (as it were) behind the spontaneous consciousness
natural to all reflecting beings. As the elder Romans distinguished
their northern provinces into Cis-Alpine and Trans-Alpine, so may
we divide all the objects of human knowledge into those on this
side and those on the other side of the spontaneous consciousness.
The latter is exclusively the domain of pure philosophy, which is
therefore properly entitled _transcendental_, in order to
discriminate it at once, both from mere reflection and
_re_-presentation on the one hand, and on the other from those
flights of lawless speculation which, abandoned by _all_ distinct
consciousness, because transgressing the bounds and purposes of our
intellectual faculties, are justly condemned as _transcendent_.
"The first range of hills that encircles the scanty vale of human
life is the horizon for the majority of its inhabitants. On its
ridges the sun is born and departs. From them the stars rise, and
touching them they vanish. By the many, even this range, the
natural limit and bulwark of the vale, is but imperfectly known.
Its higher ascents are too often hidden in mists and clouds from
uncultivated swamps which few have courage or curiosity to
penetrate. To the multitude below these vapors appear, now as the
dark haunts of terrific agents, on which none may intrude with
impunity; and now all aglow, with colors not their own, they are
gazed at as the splendid palaces of happiness and power. But in all
ages there have been a few who, measuring and sounding the rivers
of the vale at the feet of their farthest inaccessible falls, have
learned that the sources must be far higher and far inward; a few
who, even in the level streams, have detected elements which
neither the vale itself nor the surrounding mountains contained or
could supply. How and whence to these thoughts, these strong
probabilities, the ascertaining vision, the intuitive knowledge may
finally supervene, can be learned only by the fact. I might oppose
to the question the words with which Plotinus supposes Nature to
answer a similar difficulty: 'Should any one interrogate her how
she works, if graciously she vouchsafe to listen and speak, she
will reply, it behooves thee not to disquiet me with
interrogatories, but to understand in silence, even as I am silent,
and work without words.'
"They and they only can acquire the philosophic imagination, the
sacred power of self-intuition, who within themselves can interpret
and understand the symbol, that the wings of the air-sylph are
forming within the skin of the caterpillar; those only, who feel in
their own spirits the same instinct which impels the chrysalis of
the horned fly to leave room in its _involucrum_ for _antennæ_ yet
to come. They know and feel that the potential works in them, even
as the actual works in them! In short, all the organs of sense are
framed for a corresponding world of sense; and we have it. All the
organs of spirit are framed for a correspondent world of spirit;
though the latter organs are not developed in all alike. But they
exist in all, and their first appearance discloses itself in the
moral being. How else could it be that even worldlings, not wholly
debased, will contemplate the man of simple and disinterested
goodness with contradictory feelings of pity and respect. 'Poor
man, he is not made for this world.' Oh, herein they utter a
prophecy of universal fulfilment, for man must either rise or sink.
"It is the essential mark of the true philosopher to rest satisfied
with no imperfect light, as long as the impossibility of attaining
a fuller knowledge has not been demonstrated. That the common
consciousness itself will furnish proofs by its own direction that
it is connected with master currents below the surface, I shall
merely assume as a postulate _pro tempore_.... On the IMMEDIATE
which dwells in every man, and on the original intuition or
absolute affirmation of it (which is likewise in every man, but
does not in every man rise into consciousness), all the _certainty_
of our knowledge depends; and this becomes intelligible to no man
by the ministry of mere words from without. The medium by which
spirits understand each other is not the surrounding air, but the
_freedom_ which they possess in common, as the common ethereal
element of their being, the tremulous reciprocations of which
propagate themselves even to the inmost of the soul. Where the
spirit of a man is not _filled_ with the consciousness of freedom
(were it only from its restlessness, as of one struggling in
bondage) all spiritual intercourse is interrupted, not only with
others, but even with himself. No wonder, then, that he remains
incomprehensible to himself as well as to others. No wonder that in
the fearful desert of his consciousness he wearies himself out with
empty words to which no friendly echo answers, either from his own
heart or the heart of a fellow-being; or bewilders himself in the
pursuit of _notional_ phantoms, the mere refractions from unseen
and distant truths through the distorting medium of his own
unenlivened and stagnant understanding! To remain unintelligible to
such a mind, exclaims Schelling on a like occasion, is honor and a
good name before God and man.
"Philosophy is employed on objects of the _inner sense_, and
cannot, like geometry, appropriate to every construction a
corresponding _outward_ intuition.... Now the inner sense has its
direction determined for the greater part only by an act of
freedom. One man's consciousness extends only to the pleasant or
unpleasant sensations caused in him by external impressions;
another enlarges his inner sense to a consciousness of forms and
quantity; a third, in addition to the image, is conscious of the
conception or notion of the thing; a fourth attains to a notion of
his notions--he reflects on his own reflections; and thus we may
say without impropriety, that the one possesses more or less inner
sense than the other....
"The postulate of philosophy, and at the same time the test of
philosophical capacity, is no other than the heaven-descended KNOW
THYSELF. And this at once practically and speculatively. For as
philosophy is neither a science of the reason or understanding
only, nor merely a science of morals, but the science of BEING
altogether, its primary ground can be neither merely speculative
nor merely practical, but both in one. All knowledge rests upon the
coincidence of an object with a subject. For we can _know_ only
that which is true; and the truth is universally placed in the
coincidence of the thought with the thing, of the representation
with the object represented."
Coleridge then puts and argues the two alternatives. 1. Either the
Objective is taken as primary, and then we have to account for the
supervention of the Subjective which coalesces with it, which natural
philosophy supposes. 2. Or the Subjective is taken as primary, and then
we have to account for the supervention of the objective, which
spiritual philosophy supposes. The Transcendentalist accepts the latter
alternative.
"The second position, which not only claims but necessitates the
admission of its immediate certainty, equally for the scientific
reason of the philosopher as for the common-sense of mankind at
large, namely, I AM, cannot properly be entitled a prejudice. It is
groundless indeed; but then in the very idea it precludes all
ground, and, separated from the immediate consciousness, loses its
whole sense and import. It is groundless; but only because it is
itself the ground of all other certainty. Now the apparent
contradiction, that the first position--namely, that the existence
of things without us, which from its nature cannot be immediately
certain--should be received as blindly and as independently of all
grounds as the existence of our own being, the transcendental
philosopher can solve only by the supposition that the former is
unconsciously involved in the latter; that it is not only coherent,
but identical, and one and the same thing with our own immediate
self-consciousness. To demonstrate this identity is the office and
object of his philosophy.
"If it be said that this is idealism, let it be remembered that it
is only so far idealism, as it is at the same time and on that very
account the truest and most binding realism."
To follow the exposition further is unnecessary for the present purpose,
which is to state the fundamental principles of the philosophy, not to
give the processes of reasoning by which they are illustrated. Had
Coleridge been merely a philosopher, his influence on his generation, by
this means, would have been insignificant; for his expositions were
fragmentary; his thoughts were too swift and tumultuous in their flow to
be systematically arranged; his style, forcible and luminous in
passages, is interrupted by too frequent episodes, excursions and
explanatory parentheses, to be enjoyed by the inexpert. Besides being a
philosopher, he was a theologian. His deepest interest was in the
problems of theology. His mind was perpetually turning over the
questions of trinity, incarnation, Holy Ghost, sin, redemption,
salvation. He meditated endless books on these themes, and, in special,
one "On the Logos," which was to remove all difficulties and reconcile
all contradictions. "On the whole, those dead churches, this dead
English church especially, must be brought to life again. Why not? It
was not dead; the soul of it, in this parched-up body, was tragically
asleep only. Atheistic philosophy was, true, on its side; and Hume and
Voltaire could, on their own ground, speak irrefragably for themselves
against any church: but lift the church and them into a higher sphere of
argument, _they_ died into inanition, the church revivified itself into
pristine florid vigor, became once more a living ship of the desert, and
invincibly bore you over stock and stone."
The philosophy was accepted as a basis for the theology, and apparently
only so far as it supplied the basis. Mrs. Coleridge declares, in a note
to Chapter IX. of the "Biographia Literaria," that her husband, soon
after the composition of that work, became dissatisfied with the system
of Schelling, considered as a fundamental and comprehensive scheme
intended to exhibit the relations of God to the world and man. He
objected to it, she insists, as essentially pantheistic, radically
inconsistent with a belief in God as himself moral and intelligent, as
beyond and above the world, as the supreme mind to which the human mind
owes homage and fealty--inconsistent with any just view and deep sense
of the moral and spiritual being of man. He was mainly concerned
with the construction of a "philosophical system, in which
Christianity,--based on the triune being of God, and embracing a primal
fall and universal redemption, (to use Carlyle's words) Christianity,
ideal, spiritual, eternal, but likewise and necessarily historical,
realized and manifested in time,--should be shown forth as accordant, or
rather as one with ideas of reason, and the demands of the spiritual and
of the speculative mind, of the heart, conscience, reason, which should
all be satisfied and reconciled in one bond of peace."
This explains the interest which young and enthusiastic minds in the
English Church took in Coleridge, the verses just quoted from Aubrey de
Vere, one of the new school of believers, the admiring discipleship of
Frederick Denison Maurice, the hearty allegiance of the leaders of the
spiritual reformation in England. Coleridge was the real founder of the
Broad Church, which attempted to justify creed and sacrament, by
substituting the ideas of the spiritual philosophy for the formal
authority of traditions which the reason of the age was discarding.
The men who sympathized with the same movement in America felt the same
gratitude to their leader. Already in 1829 "The Aids to Reflection" were
republished by Dr. James Marsh. Caleb Sprague Henry, professor of
philosophy and history in the University of New York in 1839, and before
that a resident of Cambridge, an enthusiastic thinker and eloquent
talker, loved to dilate on the genius of the English philosopher, and
was better than a book in conveying information about him, better than
many books in awakening interest in his thought. The name of Coleridge
was spoken with profound reverence, his books were studied
industriously, and the terminology of transcendentalism was as familiar
as commonplace in the circles of divines and men of letters. At present
Hegel is the prophet of these believers, Schelling is obsolete, and
Coleridge, the English Schelling, has had his day. The change is marked
by an all but entire absence of the passionate enthusiasm, the
imaginative glow and fervor, that characterized the transcendental
phase of the movement. Coleridge was a vital thinker; his mind was a
flame; his thoughts burned within him, and issued from him in language
that trembled and throbbed with the force of the ideas committed to it.
He was a divine, a preacher of most wonderful eloquence. At the age of
three or four and forty Serjeant Talfourd heard him talk.
"At first his tones were conversational: he seemed to dally with
the shallows of the subject and with fantastic images which
bordered it; but gradually the thought grew deeper, and the voice
deepened with the thought; the stream gathering strength seemed to
bear along with it all things which opposed its progress, and
blended them with its current; and stretching away among regions
tinted with ethereal colors, was lost at airy distance in the
horizon of fancy." At five-and-twenty William Hazlitt heard him
preach.
"It was in January, 1798, that I rose one morning before daylight,
to walk ten miles in the mud, to hear this celebrated person
preach. Never, the longest day I have to live, shall I have such
another walk as this cold, raw, comfortless one, in the winter of
the year 1798. _Il y a des impressions que ni le temps ni les
circonstances peuvent effacer. Dusse je vivre des siècles entiers,
le doux temps de ma jeunesse ne peut renaître pour moi, ni
s'effacer jamais dans ma memoire._ When I got there the organ was
playing the hundredth psalm, and when it was done Mr. Coleridge
rose and gave out his text. 'He departed again into a mountain
himself alone.' As he gave out this text his voice 'rose like a
stream of rich distilled perfumes;' and when he came to the last
two words, which he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed
to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the
bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might have floated
in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St. John came
into my mind, of one crying in the wilderness, who had his loins
girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey. The preacher
then launched into his subject, like an eagle dallying with the
wind. The sermon was upon peace and war, upon church and state, not
their alliance, but their separation; on the spirit of the world
and the spirit of Christianity, not as the same, but as opposed to
one another. He talked of those who had inscribed the cross of
Christ on banners dripping with human gore. He made a poetical and
pastoral excursion, and to show the effects of war, drew a striking
contrast between the simple shepherd boy, driving his team afield,
or sitting under the hawthorn, piping to his flock as though he
should never be old; and the same poor country lad, crimped,
kidnapped, brought into town, made drunk at an ale-house, turned
into a wretched drummer-boy, with his hair sticking on end with
powder and pomatum, a long cue at his back, and tricked out in the
finery of the profession of blood.
'Such were the notes our once loved poet sung;'
and for myself I could not have been more delighted if I had heard
the music of the spheres. Poetry and Philosophy had met together,
Truth and Genius had embraced, under the eye and with the sanction
of Religion. This was even beyond my hopes. I returned home well
satisfied."
The influence of Coleridge was greatly assisted by contemporary
magazines, which helped by their furious efforts to crush him, and won
sympathy for him by their attempts to laugh and hoot him down. Jeffrey
handled the "Biographia Literaria" in the Edinburgh Review, August,
1817; "as favorable to the book _as could be expected_," the editor
quietly says. The numberless varieties of judgment were represented in
the Dublin University Magazine, British and Foreign Quarterly, Fraser,
Blackwood, Christian Quarterly, Spectator, Monthly Review, Eclectic,
Westminster, most of which contained several articles on different
aspects of the subject. In America, Geo. B. Cheever wrote in the North
American Review, F. H. Hedge in the Christian Examiner, D. N. Lord in
Lord's Theological Journal, H. T. Tuckerman in the Southern Literary
Messenger, Noah Porter in the Bibliotheca Sacra. The New York Review,
the American Quarterly, American Whig Review, all made contributions to
the Coleridgian literature,[2] and exhibited the extensive reaches of
his power. The readers of Lamb, Hazlitt, Wordsworth, Southey and the
brilliant essayists that made so fascinating the English literature of
the first third of our century must perforce be introduced to Coleridge.
The "Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel," which lay on every table,
excited interest in the man from whom such astonishing pieces proceeded;
so that many who understood little or nothing of his philosophical
ideas, appropriated something of the spirit and tone of them. He had
disciples who never heard him speak even in print, and followers who
never saw his form even as sketched by critics. His thoughts were in the
air; the mental atmosphere of theological schools was modified by them.
They insensibly transplanted establishments and creeds from old to new
regions.
[2] See for references. Poole's Index to Periodical Literature.
In 1851, Thomas Carlyle burlesqued Coleridge, took off his solemn
oracular manner, made fun of his "plaintive snuffle and sing-song," his
"om-m-ject and sum-m-ject," his "talk not flowing anywhither like a
river, but spreading everywhither in inextricable currents and
regurgitations like a lake or sea; terribly deficient in definite goal
or aim, nay often in logical intelligibility; what you were to believe
or do, on any earthly or heavenly thing, obstinately refusing to appear
from it, so that, most times, you felt logically lost; swamped near to
drowning in this tide of ingenious vocables spreading out boundless as
if to submerge the world." But in his earlier days the "windy harangues"
and "dizzying metaphysics" had their charm for him too; the philosophy
of the Highgate sage was in essence and fruit his own. He explained at
some length and with considerable frequency, as well as much eloquence,
the distinction between "understanding," the faculty that observed,
generalized, inferred, argued, concluded, and "reason," the faculty that
saw the ideal forms of truth face to face, and beheld the inmost reality
of things. He dilated with a disciple's enthusiasm on the principles of
the transcendental philosophy, painted in gorgeous colors the promises
it held forth, prophesied earnestly respecting the better time for
literature, art, social ethics and religious faith it would bring in,
preached tempestuously against shams in church and state, from the mount
of vision that it disclosed. We have already seen how he could speak of
Kant, Fichte, Novalis, of Goethe and Jean Paul. Thirty-five years ago
Carlyle was the high priest of the new philosophy. Emerson edited his
miscellanies, and the dregs of his ink-bottle were welcomed as the
precious sediment of the fountain of inspiration. In 1827 he defended
the "Kritik of Pure Reason" against stupid objectors from the
sensational side, as, in the opinion of the most competent judges,
"distinctly the greatest intellectual achievement of the century in
which it came to light," and affirmed as by authority, that the seeker
for pure truth must begin with intuition and proceed outward by the
light of the revelation thence derived. In 1831 he carried this
principle to the extreme of maintaining that a complete surrender to the
informing genius, a surrender so entire as to amount to the abandonment
of definite purpose and will, was evidence of perfect wisdom; for such
is the interpretation we give to the paradoxical doctrine of
"unconsciousness" which implied that in order to save the soul it must
be forgotten; that consciousness was a disease; that in much wisdom was
much grief.
Had Carlyle been more of a philosopher and less of a preacher, more a
thinker and less a character, more a patient toiler after truth, and
less a man of letters, his first intellectual impulse might have lasted.
As it was, the reaction came precisely in middle life, and the apostle
of transcendental ideas became the champion of Force. His
Transcendentalism seems to have been a thing of sentiment rather than of
conviction. A man of tremendous strength of feeling, his youth, as is
the case with men of feeling, was romantic, enthusiastic, hopeful,
exuberant; his manhood, as is also the case with men of feeling, was
wilful and overbearing, with sadness deepening into moroseness and
unhopefulness verging towards despair.
The era of despair had not set in at the period when the mind of New
England was fermenting with the ideas of the new philosophy. Then all
was brave, humane, aspiring. The denunciations of materialism in
philosophy, formalism in religion and utilitarianism in personal and
social ethics, rang through the land; the superb vindications of soul
against sense, spirit against letter, faith against rite, heroism and
nobleness against the petty expediencies of the market, kindled all
earnest hearts. The emphatic declarations that "wonder and reverence are
the conditions of insight and the source of strength; that faith is
prior to knowledge and deeper too; that empirical science can but play
on the surface of unfathomable mysteries; that in the order of reality
the ideal and invisible are the world's true adamant, and the laws of
material appearance only its alluvial growths; that in the inmost
thought of men there is a thirst to which the springs of nature are a
mere mirage, and which presses on to the waters of eternity," fell like
refreshing gales from the hills on the children of men imprisoned in
custom and suffocated by tradition. The infinitely varied illustrations
of the worth of beauty, the grandeur of truth, the excellence of simple,
devout sincerity in nature, literature, character; the burning
insistance on the need of fresh inspiration from the region of serene
ideas, seemed to proceed from a soul newly awakened, if not especially
endowed with the seer's vision. It was better than philosophy; it was
philosophy made vital with sentiment and purpose.
Carlyle early learned the German language, as Coleridge did, and drank
deep from the fountains of its best literature. To him it opened a new
world of thought, which the ordinary Englishman had no conception of.
Coleridge found himself at home there by virtue of his natural genius,
and also by the introduction given him by Wm. Law, John Pordage, Richard
Saumarez, and Jacob Behmen, so that the suddenly discovered continent
broke on him with less surprise; but Carlyle was as one taken wholly
unawares, fascinated, charmed, intoxicated with the sights and sounds
about him. Being unprepared by previous reflection and overpowered by
the gorgeousness of color, the wealth was too much for him; it palled at
last on his appetite, and he experienced a reaction similar to that of
the sensualist whose delirium first persuades him that he has found his
soul, and then makes him fear that he has lost it.
With the reactionary stage of Carlyle's career when, as a frank critic
observes, "he flung away with a shriek the problems his youth
entertained, as the fruit by which paradise was lost; repented of all
knowledge of good and evil; clapped a bandage round the open eyes of
morals, religion, art, and saw no salvation but in spiritual suicide by
plunging into the currents of instinctive nature that sweep us we know
not whither"--we are not concerned. His interest for us ceases with his
moral enthusiasm.
A more serene and beneficent influence proceeded from the poet
Wordsworth, whose fame rose along with that of Coleridge, struggled
against the same opposition, and obtained even a steadier lustre. There
was a kindred between them which Wordsworth did not acknowledge, but
which Coleridge more than suspected and tried to divulge. One chapter in
the first volume of the "Biographia Literaria" and four chapters in the
second volume are devoted to the consideration of Wordsworth's poetry,
and effort is made, not quite successfully, to bring Wordsworth's
psychological faith into sympathy with his own.
Wordsworth's genius has furnished critics with materials for speculation
that must be sought in their proper places. We have no fresh analysis to
offer. That the secret of his power over the ingenuous and believing
minds of his age is to be found in the sentiment with which he invested
homely scenes and characters is a superficial conjecture. What led him
to invest homely scenes and characters with sentiment, and what made
this circumstance interesting to precisely that class of minds? What,
but the same latent idealism that came to deliberate and formal
expression in Coleridge, and suggested in the one what was proclaimed by
the other? For Wordsworth was a metaphysician, though he did not clearly
suspect it; at least, if he did, he was careful not to betray himself by
the usual signs. The philosophers recognized him and paid to him their
acknowledgments.
In the "Dial," Wordsworth is mentioned with honor; not discussed as
Goethe was, but pleasantly talked about as a well-known friend. The
third volume of that magazine, April, 1843, contains an article on
"Europe and European Books" in which occurs the following tribute to
Wordsworth:
"The capital merit of Wordsworth is that he has done more for the
sanity of this generation than any other writer. Early in life, at
a crisis, it is said, in his private affairs, he made his election
between assuming and defending some legal rights with the chances
of wealth and a position in the world--and the inward promptings of
his heavenly genius; he took his part; he accepted the call to be a
poet, and sat down, far from cities, with coarse clothing and plain
fare to obey the heavenly vision. The choice he had made in his
will manifested itself in every line to be real. We have poets who
write the poetry of society, of the patricians and conventional
Europe, as Scott and Moore; and others, who, like Byron or Bulwer,
write the poetry of vice and disease. But Wordsworth threw himself
into his place, made no reserves or stipulations; man and writer
were not to be divided. He sat at the foot of Helvellyn and on the
margin of Windermere, and took their lustrous mornings and their
sublime midnights, for his theme, and not Marlowe nor Massinger,
nor Horace, nor Milton nor Dante. He once for all forsook the
styles and standards and modes of thinking of London and Paris and
the books read there, and the aims pursued, and wrote Helvellyn and
Windermere and the dim spirits which these haunts harbored. There
was not the least attempt to reconcile these with the spirit of
fashion and selfishness, nor to show, with great deference to the
superior judgment of dukes and earls, that although London was the
home for men of great parts, yet Westmoreland had these
consolations for such as fate had condemned to the country life;
but with a complete satisfaction he pitied and rebuked their false
lives, and celebrated his own with the religion of a true priest.
Hence the antagonism which was immediately felt between his poetry
and the spirit of the age, that here not only criticism but
conscience and will were parties; the spirit of literature, and the
modes of living, and the conventional theories of the conduct of
life were called in question on wholly new grounds, not from
Platonism, nor from Christianity, but from the lessons which the
country muse taught a stout pedestrian climbing a mountain, and
following a river from its parent rill down to the sea. The
Cannings and Jeffreys of the capital, the Court Journals and
Literary Gazettes were not well pleased, and voted the poet a bore.
But that which rose in him so high as to the lips, rose in many
others as high as to the heart. What he said, they were prepared to
hear and to confirm. The influence was in the air, and was wafted
up and down into lone and populous places, resisting the popular
taste, modifying opinions which it did not change, and soon came to
be felt in poetry, in criticism, in plans of life, and at last in
legislation. In this country it very early found a stronghold, and
its effect may be traced on all the poetry both of England and
America."
This is truly and well said, though quite inadequate. The slighting
allusion to Platonism might have been omitted, for possibly Wordsworth
had caught something of the philosophy that was in the air. Mr. Emerson,
in "Thoughts on Modern Literature," in the second number of the "Dial,"
Oct. 1840, touched a deeper chord.
"The fame of Wordsworth" he says, "is a leading fact in modern
literature, when it is considered how hostile his genius at first
seemed to the reigning taste, and with what feeble poetic talents
his great and steadily growing dominion has been established. More
than any poet his success has been not his own, but that of the
idea which he shared with his coevals, and which he has rarely
succeeded in adequately expressing. The Excursion awakened in every
lover of nature the right feeling. We saw the stars shine, we felt
the awe of mountains, we heard the rustle of the wind in the grass,
and knew again the ineffable secret of solitude. It was a great
joy. It was nearer to nature than any thing we had before. But the
interest of the poem ended almost with the narrative of the
influences of nature on the mind of the Boy, in the first book.
Obviously for that passage the poem was written, and with the
exception of this and a few strains of like character in the
sequel, the whole poem was dull. Here was no poem, but here was
poetry, and a sure index where the subtle muse was about to pitch
her tent and find the argument of her song. It was the human soul
in these last ages striving for a just publication of itself. Add
to this, however, the great praise of Wordsworth, that more than
any other contemporary bard he is pervaded with a reverence of
somewhat higher than (conscious) thought. There is in him that
property common to all great poets--a wisdom of humanity, which is
superior to any talents which they exert. It is the wisest part of
Shakespeare and Milton, for they are poets by the free course which
they allow to the informing soul, which through their eyes
beholdeth again and blesseth the things which it hath made. The
soul is superior to its knowledge, wiser than any of its works."
In the general Preface to his poems, where Wordsworth discusses the
principles of the poetic art, he wrote: "The imagination is conscious of
an indestructible dominion; the soul may fall away, from its not being
able to sustain its grandeur, but if once felt and acknowledged, by no
act of any other faculty of the mind can it be relaxed, impaired or
diminished. Fancy is given to quicken and to beguile the temporal part
of our nature; Imagination to incite and support the eternal." And in
the appendix: "Faith was given to man that his affections, detached from
the treasures of time, might be inclined to settle on those of eternity:
the elevation of his nature, which this habit produces on earth, being
to him a presumptive evidence of a future state of existence, and
giving him a title to partake of its holiness. The religious man values
what he sees, chiefly as an 'imperfect shadowing forth' of what he is
incapable of seeing." Was this an echo from the German Jacobi, whose
doctrine of Faith had been some time abroad in the intellectual world?
The ode "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early
Childhood," was a clear reminiscence of Platonism. This famous poem was
the favorite above all other effusions of Wordsworth with the
Transcendentalists, who held it to be the highest expression of his
genius, and most characteristic of its bent. Emerson in his last
discourse on Immortality, calls it "the best modern essay on the
subject." Many passages in the "Excursion" attest the transcendental
character of the author's faith. Coleridge quotes the following lines:
"For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."
The passage quoted next suggests the very language of Fichte in his
Bestimmung des Menschen, "In der Liebe nur ist das Leben, ohne Sie ist
Tod und Vernichtung."
This is the genuine course, the aim, the end,
Of prescient Reason; all conclusions else
Are abject, vain, presumptuous and perverse,
The faith partaking of those holy times.
Life, I repeat, is energy of Love,
Divine or human; exercised in pain,
In strife and tribulation; and ordained,
If so approved and sanctified, to pass
Through shades and silent rest, to endless joy.
Another extract recalls the "pantheism" of Schelling.
Thou--who didst wrap the cloud
Of infancy around us, that Thyself
Therein with our simplicity awhile
Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturbed,
Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,
Or from its death-like void, with punctual care,
And touch as gentle as the morning light,
Restorest us, daily, to the powers of sense
And reason's steadfast rule,--Thou, thou alone
Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits,
Which Thou includest, as the Sea her Waves.
For adoration Thou endurest; endure
For consciousness the motions of Thy will;
For apprehension those transcendent truths
Of the pure Intellect, that stand as laws;
Submission constituting strength and power,
Even to Thy Being's infinite majesty!
Having before me a copy of Wordsworth's poems, once the possession of an
earnest Transcendentalist, I find these, and many lines of similar
import, underlined; showing how dear the English poet was to the
American reader.
There were others who held and enunciated the new faith that came from
Germany, the transfigured protestantism of the land of Luther. But these
three names will suffice to indicate the wealth of England's
contribution to the spiritual life of the New World--Coleridge, Carlyle,
Wordsworth--the philosopher, the preacher, the poet; the man of thought,
the man of letters, the man of imagination. These embrace all the
methods by which the fresh enthusiasm for the soul communicated its
power. These three were everywhere read, and everywhere talked of. They
occupied prominent places in the public eye. They sank into the shadow
only when the faith that glorified them began to decline.
It is remarkable that Emerson in the paper just quoted, written in 1840,
passes from Wordsworth to Landor; while the author of the other paper,
written in 1843, passes, and almost with an expression of relief, from
Wordsworth to Tennyson, the new poet whose breaking glory threatened the
morning star with eclipse. By this time Transcendentalism was on the
wane. The "Dial" marked for one year longer the hours of the great day,
and then was removed from its place, and the scientific method of
measuring progress was introduced. Wordsworth from year to year had a
diminishing proportion of admirers: from year to year the admirers of
Tennyson increased. As early as 1843 the passion for music, color, and
external polish was manifest. Tennyson's elegance and subtlety, his rich
fancy, his mastery of language, his metrical skill, his taste for the
sumptuous and gorgeous, were winning their way to popularity. The critic
in the "Dial" has misgivings: "In these boudoirs of damask and alabaster
one is further off from stern nature and human life than in "Lalla
Rookh" and "The Loves of the Angels." Amid swinging censers and perfumed
lamps, amidst velvet and glory, we long for rain and frost. Otto of
roses is good, but wild air is better." But the sweets have been tasted,
and have spoiled the relish for the old homeliness. For the man who
loved him the charm of Wordsworth was idyllic; for the few who bent the
head to him it was mystical and prophetic. The idyllic sentiment palled
on the taste. It was a reaction from artificial forms of sensibility,
and having enjoyed its day, submitted to the law of change that called
it into being. The moral earnestness, the mystic idealism became
unpopular along with the school of philosophy from which it sprung, and
gave place to the realism of the Victorian bards, who expressed the
sensuous spirit of a more external age. Transcendentalism lurks in
corners of England now. The high places of thought are occupied by men
who approach the great problems from the side of nature, and through
matter feel after mind; by means of the senses attempt the heights of
spirit.
VI.
TRANSCENDENTALISM IN NEW ENGLAND.
The title of this Chapter is in a sense misleading. For with some truth
it may be said that there never was such a thing as Transcendentalism
out of New England. In Germany and France there was a transcendental
philosophy, held by cultivated men, taught in schools, and professed by
many thoughtful and earnest people; but it never affected society in its
organized institutions or practical interests. In old England, this
philosophy influenced poetry and art, but left the daily existence of
men and women untouched. But in New England, the ideas entertained by
the foreign thinkers took root in the native soil and blossomed out in
every form of social life. The philosophy assumed full proportions,
produced fruit according to its kind, created a new social order for
itself, or rather showed what sort of social order it would create under
favoring conditions. Its new heavens and new earth were made visible, if
but for a moment, and in a wintry season. Hence, when we speak of
Transcendentalism, we mean New England Transcendentalism.
New England furnished the only plot of ground on the planet, where the
transcendental philosophy had a chance to show what it was and what it
proposed. The forms of life there were, in a measure, plastic. There
were no immovable prejudices, no fixed and unalterable traditions. Laws
and usages were fluent, malleable at all events. The sentiment of
individual freedom was active; the truth was practically acknowledged,
that it takes all sorts of people to make a world, and the many minds of
the many men were respected. No orders of men, no aristocracies of
intellect, no privileged classes of thought were established. The old
world supplied such literature as there was, in science, law,
philosophy, ethics, theology; but an astonishing intellectual activity
seized upon it, dealt with it in genuine democratic fashion, classified
it, accepted it, dismissed it, paying no undue regard to its foreign
reputation. Experiments in thought and life, of even audacious
description, were made, not in defiance of precedent--for precedent was
hardly respected enough to be defied--but in innocent unconsciousness of
precedent. A feeling was abroad that all things must be new in the new
world. There was call for immediate application of ideas to life. In the
old world, thoughts remained cloistered a generation before any
questioned their bearing on public or private affairs. In the new world,
the thinker was called on to justify himself on the spot by building an
engine, and setting something in motion. The test of a truth was its
availability. The popular faith in the capacities of men to make states,
laws, religions for themselves, supplied a ground work for the new
philosophy. The philosophy of sensation, making great account, as it
did, of circumstances, arrangements, customs, usages, rules of education
and discipline, was alien and disagreeable to people who, having just
emancipated themselves from political dependence on the mother country,
were full of confidence in their ability to set up society for
themselves. The philosophy that laid its foundations in human nature,
and placed stress on the organic capacities and endowments of the mind,
was as congenial as the opposite system was foreign. Every native New
Englander was at heart, whether he suspected it or not, radically and
instinctively a disciple of Fichte or Schelling, of Cousin or Jouffroy.
The religion of New England was Protestant and of the most intellectual
type. Romanism had no hold on the thinking people of Boston. None beside
the Irish laboring and menial classes were Catholics, and their religion
was regarded as the lowest form of ceremonial superstition. The
Congregational system favored individuality of thought and action. The
orthodox theology, in spite of its arbitrary character and its fixed
type of supernaturalism, exercised its professors severely in
speculative questions, and furnished occasions for discernment and
criticism which made reason all but supreme over faith. This theology
too had its purely spiritual side--nay, it was essentially spiritual.
Its root ran back into Platonism, and its flower was a mysticism which,
on the intellectual side, bordered closely on Transcendentalism. The
charge that the Trinitarian system, in its distinguishing features, was
of Platonic, and not of Jewish origin, was a confession that it was born
of the noblest idealism of the race. So in truth it was, and so
well-instructed Trinitarians will confess that it was. The Platonic
philosophy being transcendental in its essence and tendency,
communicated this character to Christian speculation. The skeletons of
ancient polemics were buried deep beneath the soil of orthodoxy, and
were not supposed to be a part of the structure of modern beliefs, but
there nevertheless they were. The living faith of New England, in its
spiritual aspects, betrayed its ancestry. The speculation had become
Christian, the powers claimed by pagan philosophers for the mind were
ascribed to the influences of the Holy Spirit and the truths revealed in
consciousness were truths of the Gospel; but the fact of immediate
communication between the soul of the believer and its Christ was so
earnestly insisted on, the sympathy was represented as being of so
kindred and organic a nature, that in reading the works of the masters
of New England theology, it requires an effort to forget that the
speculative basis of their faith was not the natural basis of the
philosopher, but the supernatural one of the believer. The spiritual
writings of Jonathan Edwards, the "Treatise on the Religious Affections"
especially, breathe the sweetest spirit of idealism. Indeed, whenever
orthodoxy spread its wings and rose into the region of faith, it lost
itself in the sphere where the human soul and the divine were in full
concurrence. Transcendentalism simply claimed for all men what
Protestant Christianity claimed for its own elect.
That adherents of the sensuous philosophy professed the orthodox
doctrines, is a circumstance that throws the above statement into bolder
relief. For these people gave to the system the hard, external,
dogmatical character which in New England provoked the Unitarian
reaction. The beliefs in scripture inspiration, incarnation, atonement,
election, predestination, depravity, fall, regeneration, redemption,
deprived of their interior meaning, became ragged heaps of dogmatism,
unbeautiful, incredible, hateful. Assault came against them from the
quarter of common intelligence and the rational understanding. The
sensuous philosophy associated with the school of Locke,--which Edwards
and the like of him scorned,--fell upon the fallen system and plucked it
unmercifully. Never was easier work than that of the early Unitarian
critics. The body of orthodoxy having lost its soul, was a very
unsightly carcass,--so evidently, to every sense, a carcass, that they
who had respected it as a celestial creation, and could not be persuaded
that this was all they respected, allowed the scavengers to take it
away, only protesting that the thing disposed of was not the revealed
gospel, or anything but a poor effigy of it.
The Unitarians as a class belonged to the school of Locke, which
discarded the doctrine of innate ideas, and its kindred beliefs.
Unitarianism from the beginning showed affinity with this school, and
avowed it more distinctly than idealists avowed Trinitarianism. Paul of
Samosata, Arius, Pelagius, Socinus, the Swiss, Polish, English advocates
of the same general theology and christology were, after their several
kinds, disciples of the same philosophical system. Unitarianism, it was
remarked, has rarely, if ever, been taught or held by any man of
eminence in the church who was a Platonist. The Unitarians of New
England, good scholars, careful reasoners, clear and exact thinkers,
accomplished men of letters, humane in sentiment, sincere in moral
intention, belonged, of course with individual exceptions, to the class
which looked without for knowledge, rather than within for inspiration.
The Unitarian in religion was a whig in politics, a conservative in
literature, art and social ethics. The Unitarian divine was more
familiar with Tillotson than with Cudworth, and more in love with
William Paley than with Joseph Butler. He was strong in the "Old
English" classics, and though a confessed devotee to no school in
philosophy, was addicted to the prevailing fashion of intelligent,
cultivated good sense. The Unitarian was disquieted by mysticism,
enthusiasm and rapture. Henry More was unintelligible to him, and Robert
Fludd disgusting. He had no sympathy with Helvetius, D'Holbach, Diderot
or Voltaire, those fierce disturbers of intellectual peace; he had as
little with William Law and Coleridge, dreamers and visionaries, who
substituted vapor for solid earth. The Unitarian leaders were
distinguished by practical wisdom, sober judgment, and balanced
thoughtfulness, that weighed opinions in the scale of evidence and
argument. Even Dr. Channing clung to the philosophical traditions that
were his inheritance from England. The splendid things he said about the
dignity of human nature, the divinity of the soul, the moral kinship
with Christ, the inspiration of the moral sentiment, the power of moral
intuition, habitual and characteristic as they were, scarcely justify
the ascription to him of sympathy with philosophical idealism. His
tenacious adherence to the record of miracle as attesting the mission of
the Christ, and his constant exaltation of the Christ above humanity,
suggest that the first principles of the transcendental philosophy had
not been distinctly accepted, even if they were distinctly apprehended.
The following extract from a letter written in 1819, expresses Dr.
Channing's feeling toward Christ, a feeling never essentially altered:
"Jesus Christ existed before he came into the world, and in a state of
great honor and felicity. He was known, esteemed, beloved, revered in
the family of heaven. He was entrusted with the execution of the most
sublime purposes of his Father." About the same time he wrote: "Jesus
ever lives, and is ever active for mankind. He is Mediator, Intercessor,
Lord, and Saviour; He has a permanent and constant connection with
mankind. He is through all time, now as well as formerly, the active and
efficient friend of the human race." The writer of such words was
certainly not a Transcendentalist in philosophy. His biographer, himself
a brilliant Transcendentalist, admits as much. "His soul" he says, "was
illuminated with the idea of the absolute immutable glory of the Moral
Good; and reverence for conscience is the key to his whole doctrine of
human destiny and duty. Many difficult metaphysical points he passed
wholly by, as being out of the sphere alike of intuition and of
experience. He believed, to be sure, in the possibility of man's gaining
some insight of Universal Order, and respected the lofty aspiration
which prompts men to seek a perfect knowledge of the Divine laws; but he
considered pretensions to absolute science as quite premature; saw more
boastfulness than wisdom in ancient and modern schemes of philosophy,
and was not a little amused at the complacent confidence with which
quite evidently fallible theorists assumed to stand at the centre, and
to scan and depict the panorama of existence." In a letter of 1840,
referring to the doctrines of Mr. Parker and that school of thinkers, he
writes: "I see and feel the harm done by this crude speculation, whilst
I also see much nobleness to bind me to its advocates. In its opinions
generally I see nothing to give me hope. I am somewhat disappointed that
this new movement is to do so little for the spiritual regeneration of
society." A year later, he tells James Martineau that the spiritualists
(meaning the Transcendentalists) "in identifying themselves a good deal
with Cousin's crude system, have lost the life of an original movement.
They are anxious to defend the soul's immediate connection with God, and
are in danger of substituting private inspiration for Christianity."
What he knew of Kant, Schelling and Fichte, through Mad. de Stael and
Coleridge, he welcomed as falling in with his own conceptions of the
grandeur of the human mind and will; but his acquaintance with them was
never complete, and if it had been, he would perhaps have been repelled
by the intellectual, as strongly as he was attracted by the moral
teaching.
In this matter the sentiment of Channing went beyond his philosophy. The
following extracts taken at random from a volume of discourses edited
in 1873 by his nephew, under the title "The Perfect Life," show that
Channing was a Transcendentalist in feeling, whatever he may have been
in thought.
"The religious principle, is, without doubt, the noblest working of
human nature. This principle God implanted for Himself. Through
this the human mind corresponds to the Supreme Divinity."
"The idea of God is involved in the primitive and most universal
idea of Reason; and is one of its central principles."
"We have, each of us, the spiritual eye to see, the mind to know,
the heart to love, the will to obey God."
"A spiritual light, brighter than that of noon, pervades our daily
life. The cause of our not seeing is in ourselves."
"The great lesson is, that there is in human nature an element
truly Divine, and worthy of all reverence; that the Infinite which
is mirrored in the outward universe, is yet more brightly imaged in
the inward spiritual world."
"They who assert the greatness of human nature, see as much of
guilt as the man of worldly wisdom. But amidst the passions and
selfishness of men they see another element--a Divine element--a
spiritual principle."
"This moral principle--the supreme law in man--is the Law of the
Universe, the very Law to which the highest beings are subject, and
in obeying which they find their elevation and their joy."
"The Soul itself,--in its powers and affections, in its
unquenchable thirst and aspiration for unattained good, gives signs
of a Nature made for an interminable progress, such as cannot be
now conceived."
The debt which Transcendentalism owed to Unitarianism was not
speculative; neither was it immediate or direct. The Unitarians, clergy
as well as laity, so far as the latter comprehended their position,
acknowledged themselves to be friends of free thought in religion. This
was their distinction. They disavowed sympathy with dogmatism, partly
because such dogmatism as there was existed in the minds of their
theological foes, and was felt in such persecution as society permitted;
and partly because they honestly respected the human mind, and valued
thought for its own sake. They had no creed, and no system of philosophy
on which a creed could be, by common consent, built. Rather were they
open inquirers, who asked questions and waited for rational answers,
having no definite apprehension of the issue to which their
investigations tended, but with room enough within the accepted theology
to satisfy them; and work enough on the prevailing doctrines to keep
them employed. Under these circumstances, they honestly but incautiously
professed a principle broader than they were able to stand by, and
avowed the absolute freedom of the human mind as their characteristic
faith; instead of a creed, the right to judge all creeds; instead of a
system, authority to try every system by rules of evidence. The
intellectual among them were at liberty to entertain views which an
orthodox mind instinctively shrank from; to read books which an orthodox
believer would not have touched with the ends of his fingers. The
literature on their tables represented a wide mental activity. Their
libraries contained authors never found before on ministerial shelves.
Skepticism throve by what it fed on; and, before they had become fully
aware of the possible results of their diligent study, their powers had
acquired a confidence that encouraged ventures beyond the walls of Zion.
This profession of free inquiry, and the practice of it within the
extensive area of Protestant theology, opened the door to the new
speculation which carried unlooked-for heresies in its bosom; and before
the gates could be closed the insidious enemy had penetrated to the
citadel.
There was idealism in New England prior to the introduction of
Transcendentalism. Idealism is of no clime or age. It has its proportion
of disciples in every period and in the apparently most uncongenial
countries; a full proportion might have been looked for in New England.
But when Emerson appeared, the name of Idealism was legion. He alone was
competent to form a school, and as soon as he rose, the scholars trooped
about him. By sheer force of genius Emerson anticipated the results of
the transcendental philosophy, defined its axioms and ran out their
inferences to the end. Without help from abroad, or with such help only
as none but he could use, he might have domesticated in Massachusetts an
idealism as heroic as Fichte's, as beautiful as Schelling's; but it
would have lacked the dialectical basis of the great German systems.
Transcendentalism, properly so called, was imported in foreign packages.
Few read German, but most read French. As early as 1804, Degerando
lectured on Kant's philosophy, in Paris; and as early as 1813 Mad. de
Stael gave an account of it. The number of copies of the original works
of either Kant, Fichte, Jacobi or Schelling, that found their way to
the United States, was inconsiderable. Half a dozen eager students
obtained isolated books of Herder, Schleiermacher, De Wette and other
theological and biblical writers, read them, translated chapters from
them, or sent notices of them to the Christian Examiner. The works of
Coleridge made familiar the leading ideas of Schelling. The foreign
reviews reported the results and processes of French and German
speculation. In 1827, Thomas Carlyle wrote, in the Edinburgh Review, his
great articles on Richter and the State of German Literature; in 1828
appeared his essay on Goethe. Mr. Emerson presented these and other
papers as "Carlyle's Miscellanies" to the American public. In 1838
George Ripley began the publication of the "Specimens of Foreign
Standard Literature," a series which extended to fourteen volumes; the
first and second comprising philosophical miscellanies by Cousin,
Jouffroy and Constant, translated with introductions by Mr. Ripley
himself; the third devoted to Goethe and Schiller, with elaborate and
discriminating prefaces by John S. Dwight; the fourth giving Eckermann's
Conversations with Goethe, done into English by Margaret Fuller; the
three next containing Menzel's German Literature, by Prof. C. C. Felton;
the eighth and ninth introducing Wm. H. Channing's version of Jouffroy's
Introduction to Ethics; the tenth and eleventh, DeWette's Theodor, by
James Freeman Clarke; the twelfth and thirteenth, DeWette's Ethics, by
Samuel Osgood; and the last offering samples of German Lyrics, by
Charles T. Brooks. These volumes, which were remarkably attractive,
both in form and contents, brought many readers into a close
acquaintance with the teaching and the spirit of writers of the new
school.
The Philosophical Miscellanies of Cousin were much noticed by the press,
George Bancroft in especial sparing no pains to commend them and the
views they presented. The spiritual philosophy had no more fervent or
eloquent champion than he. No reader of his "History of the United
States," has forgotten the noble tribute paid to it under the name of
Quakerism, or the striking parallel between the two systems represented
in the history by John Locke and Wm. Penn, both of whom framed
constitutions for the new world. For keenness of apprehension and
fullness of statement the passages deserve to be quoted here. They occur
in the XVI. chapter of the History.
"The elements of humanity are always the same, the inner light
dawns upon every nation, and is the same in every age; and the
French revolution was a result of the same principles as those of
George Fox, gaining dominion over the mind of Europe. They are
expressed in the burning and often profound eloquence of Rousseau;
they reappear in the masculine philosophy of Kant. The professor of
Königsberg, like Fox and Barclay and Penn, derived philosophy from
the voice in the soul; like them, he made the oracle within the
categorical rule of practical morality, the motive to disinterested
virtue; like them, he esteemed the Inner Light, which discerns
universal and necessary truths, an element of humanity; and
therefore his philosophy claims for humanity the right of ever
renewed progress and reform. If the Quakers disguised their
doctrine under the form of theology, Kant concealed it for a
season under the jargon of a nervous but unusual diction. But
Schiller has reproduced the great idea in beautiful verse;
Chateaubriand avowed himself its advocate; Coleridge has repeated
the doctrine in misty language; it beams through the poetry of
Lamartine and Wordsworth; while in the country of beautiful prose,
the eloquent Cousin, listening to the same eternal voice which
connects humanity with universal reason, has gained a wide fame for
"the divine principle," and in explaining the harmony between that
light and the light of Christianity, has often unconsciously
borrowed the language, and employed the arguments of Barclay and
Penn."
A few pages later is the brilliant passage describing the essential
difference between this philosophy and that of Locke:
"Locke, like William Penn, was tolerant; both loved freedom, both
cherished truth in sincerity. But Locke kindled the torch of
liberty at the fires of tradition; Penn at the living light in the
soul. Locke sought truth through the senses and the outward world;
Penn looked inward to the divine revelations in every mind. Locke
compared the soul to a sheet of white paper, just as Hobbes had
compared it to a slate on which time and chance might scrawl their
experience. To Penn the soul was an organ which of itself
instinctively breathes divine harmonies, like those musical
instruments which are so curiously and perfectly formed, that when
once set in motion, they of themselves give forth all the melodies
designed by the artist that made them. To Locke, conscience is
nothing else than our own opinion of our own actions; to Penn, it
is the image of God and his oracle in the soul.... In studying the
understanding Locke begins with the sources of knowledge; Penn with
an inventory of our intellectual treasures.... The system of Locke
lends itself to contending factions of the most opposite interests
and purposes; the doctrine of Fox and Penn, being but the common
creed of humanity, forbids division and insures the highest moral
unity. To Locke, happiness is pleasure, and things are good and
evil only in reference to pleasure and pain; and to "inquire after
the highest good is as absurd as to dispute whether the best relish
be in apples, plums or nuts." Penn esteemed happiness to lie in the
subjection of the baser instincts to the instinct of Deity in the
breast; good and evil to be eternally and always as unlike as truth
and falsehood; and the inquiry after the highest good to involve
the purpose of existence. Locke says plainly that, but for rewards
and punishments beyond the grave, 'it is certainly right to eat and
drink, and enjoy what we delight in.' Penn, like Plato and Fenelon,
maintained the doctrine so terrible to despots, that God is to be
loved for His own sake, and virtue to be practised for its
intrinsic loveliness. Locke derives the idea of infinity from the
senses, describes it as purely negative, and attributes it to
nothing but space, duration and number; Penn derived the idea from
the soul, and ascribed it to truth and virtue and God. Locke
declares immortality a matter with which reason has nothing to do;
and that revealed truth must be sustained by outward signs and
visible acts of power; Penn saw truth by its own light and summoned
the soul to bear witness to its own glory."
The justice of the comparison, in the first part of the above extract,
of Quakerism with Transcendentalism, may be disputed. Some may be of
opinion that inasmuch as Quakerism traces the source of the Inner Light
to the supernatural illumination of the Holy Spirit, while
Transcendentalism regards it as a natural endowment of the human mind,
the two are fundamentally opposed while superficially in agreement.
However this may be, the practical issues of the two coincide, and the
truth of the contrast presented between the philosophies, designated by
the name of Locke on the one side, and of Penn on the other, will not be
disputed. Mr. Bancroft's statement, though dazzling, is exact. It was
made in 1837. The third edition from which the above citation was made,
was published in 1838, the year of Mr. Emerson's address to the Divinity
students at Cambridge.
Mr. Emerson had shown his hand plainly several years before. In 1832 he
raised the whole issue in the "epoch making" sermon, in which he
advanced the view of the communion service that led to his resignation
of the Christian ministry. His elder brother, William, returning from
his studies in Germany, was turned from the profession of the church
which he had purposed entering, to the law, by similar scruples. In
1834, James Walker printed in the "Christian Examiner" an address, which
was the same year published as a tract, by the American Unitarian
Association, entitled "The Philosophy of Man's Spiritual Nature in
regard to the foundations of Faith," wherein he took frankly the
transcendental ground, contending:
"That the existence of those spiritual faculties and capacities
which are assumed as the foundation of religion in the soul of man,
is attested, and put beyond controversy by the revelations of
consciousness; that religion in the soul, consisting as it does, of
a manifestation and development of these spiritual faculties and
capacities, is as much a reality in itself, and enters as
essentially into our idea of a perfect man, as the corresponding
manifestation and development of the reasoning faculties, a sense
of justice, or the affections of sympathy and benevolence; and
that from the acknowledged existence and reality of spiritual
impressions or perceptions, we may and do assume the existence and
reality of the spiritual world; just as from the acknowledged
existence and reality of sensible impressions or perceptions, we
may and do assume the existence and realities of the sensible
world."
In this discourse, for originally it was a discourse, the worst species
of infidelity is charged to the "Sensational" philosophy, and at the
close, the speaker in impressive language, said:
"Let us hope that a better philosophy than the degrading sensualism
out of which most forms of infidelity have grown, will prevail, and
that the minds of the rising generation will be thoroughly imbued
with it. Let it be a philosophy which recognizes the higher nature
of man, and aims, in a chastened and reverential spirit, to unfold
the mysteries of his higher life. Let it be a philosophy which
comprehends the soul, a soul susceptible of religion, of the
sublime principle of faith, of a faith which 'entereth into that
within the veil.' Let it be a philosophy which continually reminds
us of our intimate relations to the spiritual world; which opens to
us new sources of consolation in trouble, and new sources of life
in death--nay, which teaches us that what we call _death_ is but
the dying of all that is mortal, that nothing but life may remain."
In 1840, the same powerful advocate of the transcendental doctrine, in a
discourse before the alumni of the Cambridge Divinity School, declared
that the return to a higher order of ideas, to a living faith in God, in
Christ, and in the church, had been promoted by such men as
Schleiermacher and De Wette; gave his opinion that the religious
community had reason to look with distrust and dread on a philosophy
which limited the ideas of the human mind to the information imparted by
the senses, and denied the existence of spiritual elements in the nature
of man; and again welcomed the philosophy taught in England by Butler,
Reid and Coleridge; in Germany, by Kant, Jacobi and Schleiermacher; in
France, by Cousin, Jouffroy and Degerando. Such words from James Walker,
always a favorite teacher with young men, a mind of judicial authority
in the liberal community, and at that time Professor of Moral Philosophy
at Harvard College, made a deep impression. When he said: "Men may put
down Transcendentalism if they can, but they must first deign to
comprehend its principles," the most conservative began to surmise that
there must be something in Transcendentalism.
But before this the movement was well under way. In 1836, Emerson's
"Nature" broke through the shell of accepted opinions on a very
essential subject: true, but five hundred copies were sold in twelve
years; critics and philosophers could make nothing of it; but those who
read it recognized signs of a new era, even if they could not describe
them; and many who did not read it felt in the atmosphere the change it
introduced. The idealism of the little book was uncompromising.
"In the presence of ideas we feel that the outward circumstance is
a dream and a shade. Whilst we wait in this Olympus of gods, we
think of nature as an appendix to the soul. We ascend into their
region, and know that these are the thoughts of the Supreme
Being."... "Idealism is an hypothesis to account for nature by
other principles than those of carpentry and chemistry. It
acquaints us with the total disparity between the evidence of our
own being, and the evidence of the world's being. The world is a
divine dream, from which we may presently awake to the glories and
certainties of day."
The same year, George Ripley reviewed in the "Christian Examiner,"
Martineau's "Rationale of Religious Enquiry." The article was furiously
assailed in the Boston Daily Advertiser. Mr. Ripley replied in the paper
of the next day, vindicating the ideas of the review and of the book as
being strictly in consonance with the principles of liberal
Christianity.
In 1838 came the wonderful "address" before the Cambridge Divinity
School, which stirred the soul of aspiring young men, and, wakened the
wrath of sedate old ones. It was idealism in its full blaze, and it made
the germs of Transcendentalism struggle in the sods.
The next year Andrews Norton attacked the new philosophy in a discourse
before the same audience, on "The Latest Form of Infidelity." The
doctrine of that discourse was "Sensationalism" in its boldest aspect.
"Christ was commissioned by God to speak to us in His name, and to
make known to us, on His authority, those truths which it most
concerns us to know; and there can be no greater miracle than this.
No proof of His divine commission could be afforded but through
miraculous displays of God's power. Nothing is left that can be
called Christianity, if its miraculous character be denied. Its
essence is gone; its evidence is annihilated."... "To the demand
for certainty let it come from whom it may, I answer that I know of
no absolute certainty beyond the limit of momentary consciousness;
a certainty that vanishes the instant it exists, and is lost in the
region of metaphysical doubt."... "There can be no intuition, no
direct perception of the truth of Christianity, no metaphysical
certainty."... "Of the facts on which religion is founded, we can
pretend to no assurance except that derived from the testimony of
God from the Christian revelation."
A pamphlet defending the discourse contained passages like the
following: "The doctrine that the mind possesses a faculty of
intuitively discovering the truths of religion, is not only utterly
untenable, but the proposition is of such a character that it cannot
well bear the test of being distinctly stated. The question respecting
the existence of such a faculty is not difficult to be decided. We are
not conscious of possessing any such faculty; and there can be no other
proof of its existence. Its defenders shrink from presenting it in broad
daylight. They are disposed to keep it out of view behind a cloud of
words."... "Consciousness or intuition can inform us of nothing but what
exists in our own minds, including the relations of our own ideas. It is
therefore not an intelligible error, but a mere absurdity to maintain
that we are conscious, or have an intuitive knowledge of the being of
God, of our own immortality, of the revelation of God through Christ, or
of any other fact of religion."... "The religion of which they (the
Transcendentalists) speak, therefore, exists merely, if it exist at all,
in undefined and unintelligible feelings, having reference, perhaps, to
certain imaginations, the result of impressions communicated in
childhood or produced by the visible signs of religious belief existing
around us, or awakened by the beautiful and magnificent spectacles which
nature presents."
Mr. Norton spoke with biting severity of the masters of German
philosophy, criticism, and literature, and exhausted his sarcasm on the
address of Mr. Emerson delivered the previous year. To Mr. Norton, Mr.
Ripley made prompt and earnest, though temperate, reply in three long
and powerful letters, devoted mainly to a refutation of his adversary's
accusations against Spinoza, Schleiermacher, De Wette, and the
philosophic theologians of Germany. Not till the end does he take issue
with the fundamental positions of Mr. Norton's philosophy; then he
brands as "revolting" the doctrine that "there can be no intuition, no
direct perception of the truth of Christianity;" that "the feeling or
direct perception of religious truth" is an "imaginary faculty;" and
affirms his conviction that "the principle that the soul has no faculty
to perceive spiritual truth, is contradicted by the universal
consciousness of man."
"Does the body see," he asks, "and is the spirit blind? No, man has
the faculty for feeling and perceiving religious truth. So far from
being imaginary, it is the highest reality of which the pure soul
is conscious. Can I be more certain that I am capable of looking
out and admiring the forms of external beauty, 'the frail and weary
weed in which God dresses the soul that he has called into time,'
than that I can also look within, and commune with the fairer forms
of truth and holiness which plead for my love, as visitants from
Heaven?"
The controversy was taken up by other pens. In 1840, Theodore Parker,
speaking as a plain man under the name of Levi Blodgett, "moved and
handled the Previous Question" after a fashion that betrayed the
practised thinker and scribe. Mr. Parker occupied substantially the same
ground that was taken by James Walker in 1834.
"The germs of religion, both the germs of religious principle and
religious sentiment, must be born in man, or innate, as our
preacher says. I reckon that man is by nature a religious being,
_i. e._ that he was made to be religious, as much as an ox was made
to eat grass. The existence of God is a fact given in our nature:
it is not something discovered by a process of reasoning, by a long
series of deductions from facts; nor yet is it the last
generalization from phenomena observed in the universe of mind or
matter. But it is a truth fundamental in our nature; given outright
by God; a truth which comes to light as soon as self-consciousness
begins. Still further, I take a sense of dependence on God to be a
natural and essential sentiment of the soul, as much as feeling,
seeing and hearing are natural sensations of the body. Here, then,
are the religious instincts which lead man to God and religion,
just as naturally as the intellectual instincts lead him to truth,
and animal instincts to his food. As there is light for the eye,
sound for the ear, food for the palate, friends for the affections,
beauty for the imagination, truth for the reason, duty for
conscience--so there is God for the religious sentiment or sense of
dependence on Him. Now all these presuppose one another, as a want
essential to the structure of man's mind or body presupposes
something to satisfy it. And as the sensation of hunger presupposes
food to satisfy it, so the sense of dependence on God presupposes
his existence and character."
From these premises Mr. Parker proceeds to discuss the questions about
miracles, inspiration, revelation, the character and functions of
Jesus, the Christ, and kindred matters belonging to the general
controversy. The year following, he preached the sermon on the
"Transient and Permanent in Christianity," which brought out the issues
between the "Sensationalists" and the "Transcendentalists," and was the
occasion of detaching the latter from the original body.
The first series of Emerson's "Essays" containing "Self Reliance,"
"Compensation," "Spiritual Laws," "The Over Soul," "Circles,"
"Intellect," was published during that year, and was followed almost
immediately by "The Transcendentalist," a lecture read in Masonic
Temple, Boston. In this lecture occurs the following allusion to Kant:
"The Idealism of the present day acquired the name of
Transcendental from the use of that term by Immanuel Kant of
Königsberg, who replied to the skeptical philosophy of Locke, which
insisted that there was nothing in the intellect which was not
previously in the experience of the senses, by showing that there
was a very important class of ideas or imperative forms, which did
not come by experience, but through which experience was acquired;
that these were intuitions of the mind itself; and he denominated
them _Transcendental_ forms. The extraordinary profoundness and
precision of that man's thinking have given vogue to his
nomenclature in Europe and America, to that extent that whatever
belongs to the class of intuitive thought is popularly called, at
the present day, Transcendental."... "The Transcendentalist adopts
the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in
miracles, in the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx
of light and power; he believes in inspiration and ecstasy. He
wishes that the spiritual principle should be suffered to
demonstrate itself to the end, in all possible applications to the
state of man, without the admission of anything unspiritual, that
is, anything positive, dogmatic, personal."
From what has been said it may be inferred that Transcendentalism in New
England was a movement within the limits of "liberal" Christianity or
Unitarianism as it was called, and had none but a religious aspect. Such
an inference would be narrow. In 1838, Orestes Augustus Brownson started
"The Boston Quarterly Review," instituted for the discussion of
questions in politics, art, literature, science, philosophy and
religion. The editor who was the principal, and almost the sole writer,
frankly declares that "he had no creed, no distinct doctrines to support
whatever;" that he "aimed to startle, and made it a point to be as
paradoxical and extravagant as he could, without doing violence to his
own reason or conscience." This avowal was made in 1857, after Mr.
Brownson had become a Roman Catholic. The pages of the Review prove the
writer to have been a pronounced Transcendentalist. A foreign journal
called him "the Coryphoeus of the sect," a designation which, at the
time, was meekly accepted.
Mr. Brownson was a remarkable man, remarkable for intellectual force,
and equally for intellectual wilfulness. His mind was restless,
audacious, swift; his self assertion was immense; his thoughts came in
floods; his literary style was admirable for freshness, terseness and
vigor. Of rational stability of principle he had nothing, but was
completely at the mercy of every novelty in speculation. That others
thought as he did, was enough to make him think otherwise; that he
thought as he had six months before was a signal that it was time for
him to strike his tent and move on. An experimenter in systems, a taster
of speculations, he passed rapidly from one phase to another, so that
his friends ascribed his steadfastness to Romanism, to the fatigue of
intellectual travelling. Mr. Brownson was born in Stockbridge, Vt.,
Sept. 16, 1803. His education was scanty; his nurture was neglected; his
discipline, if such it can be called, was to the last degree unwise. The
child had visions, fancied he had received communications from the
Christ, and held spiritual intercourse with the Virgin Mary, Angels and
Saints. Of a sensitive nature on the moral and spiritual side,
interested from boyhood in religious speculations, he had, before he
reached man's estate, asked and answered, in his own passionate way, all
the deepest questions of destiny. At the age of 21, he passed from
Supernaturalism to Rationalism; at 22 became a Universalist minister; at
28 adopted what he called "The Religion of Humanity;" the year
following, joined the Unitarian ministry. At this time he studied French
and German, and became fervidly addicted to philosophy. Benjamin
Constant's theory of religion fascinated him by its brilliant
generalizations, and its novel readings of Mythology, and was
immediately adopted because it interested him and fell in with his mood
of mind. In 1833, he accepted Cousin's philosophy as he had accepted
Constant's, "attending to those things that I could appropriate to my
purposes." In 1836 he organized the "Society for Christian Union and
Progress" in Boston, and continued to be its minister till 1843. All
this time he was dallying with Socialism, principally in the form of St.
Simonianism; thought of himself as possibly the precursor of the
Messiah; threw out strange heresies on the subject of property and the
modern industrial system; and was suspected, he declared afterwards
unjustly suspected, of holding loose opinions on love and marriage. "New
Views of Christianity, Society and the Church," appeared in 1836, a
little book, written in answer to objections brought against
Christianity as being a system of extravagant spiritualism. This idea
Mr. Brownson combated, by pointing out the true character of the
religion of Jesus as contrasted with the schemes that had borne his
name, exposing the corruptions it had undergone, during the succeeding
ages, from Protestantism as well as from Romanism, and indicating the
method and the signs of a return to the primeval faith which reconciled
God and man, spirit and matter, soul and body, heaven and earth, in the
establishment of just relations between man and man, the institution of
a simply human state of society.
"Charles Elwood, or The Infidel Converted," was published in 1840. Two
or three passages from this theological discussion, thinly masked in the
guise of a novel, will suffice to class the author with
Transcendentalists of the advanced school.
"They who deny to man all inherent capacity to know God, all
immediate perception of spiritual truth, place man out of the
condition of ever knowing anything of God."... "There must be a God
within to recognize and vouch for the God who speaks to us from
without."... "I hold that the ideas or conceptions which man
attempts to embody or realize in his forms of religious faith and
worship, are intuitions of reason." "I understand by inspiration
the spontaneous revelations of the reason; and I call these
revelations divine, because I hold the reason to be divine. Its
voice is the voice of God, and what it reveals without any aid from
human agency, is really and truly a divine revelation."... "This
reason is in all men. Hence the universal beliefs of mankind, the
universality of the belief in God and religion. Hence, too, the
power of all men to judge of supernatural revelations."... "All are
able to detect the supernatural, because all have the supernatural
in themselves."
The "Boston Quarterly," was maintained five years,--from 1838 to 1842
inclusive,--and consequently covered this period. It would therefore be
safe to assume, what the volumes themselves attest, that whatever
subject was dealt with,--and all conceivable subjects were dealt
with,--were handled by the transcendental method. In the "Christian
World," a short-lived weekly, published by a brother of Dr. W. E.
Channing, Mr. Brownson began the publication of a series of articles on
the "Mission of Jesus." Seven were admitted; the eighth was declined as
being "Romanist" in its outlook. In 1844, the writer avowed himself a
Roman Catholic, and was confirmed in Boston, October 20th. The
"Convert," which contains the spiritual biography of this extraordinary
man, and from which the above facts in his mental history are partly
taken, was published in 1857. The Romanist was at that time essentially
a Transcendentalist. "Truth," he writes, "is the mind's object, and it
seeks and accepts it intuitively, as the new-born child seeks the
mother's breast from which it draws its nourishment. The office of proof
or even demonstration is negative rather than affirmative." Mr. Brownson
was the most eminent convert to Romanism of this period, when
conversions were frequent in Boston; and his influence was considerable
in turning uneasy minds to the old faith. He was a powerful writer and
lecturer, an occasional visitor at Brook Farm, but his mental
baselessness perhaps repelled nearly as many as his ingenuity beguiled.
The literary achievements of Transcendentalism are best exhibited in the
"Dial," a quarterly "Magazine for Literature, Philosophy and Religion,"
begun July, 1840, and ending April, 1844. The editors were Margaret
Fuller and R. W. Emerson; the contributors were the bright men and women
who gave voice in literary form to the various utterances of the
transcendental genius. Mr. Emerson's bravest lectures and noblest poems
were first printed there. Margaret Fuller, besides numerous pieces of
miscellaneous criticism, contributed the article on Goethe, alone enough
to establish her fame as a discerner of spirits, and the paper on "The
Great Lawsuit; Man versus Men--Woman versus Women," which was afterwards
expanded into the book "Woman in the XIXth century." Bronson Alcott
sent in chapters the "Orphic Sayings," which were an amazement to the
uninitiated and an amusement to the profane. Charles Emerson, younger
brother of the essayist, whose premature death was bewailed by the
admirers of intellect and the lovers of pure character, proved by his
"Notes from the Journal of a Scholar," that genius was not confined to a
single member of his family. George Ripley, James Freeman Clarke,
Theodore Parker, Wm. H. Channing, Henry Thoreau, Eliot Cabot, John S.
Dwight the musical critic, C. P. Cranch the artist-poet, Wm. E.
Channing, were liberal of contributions, all in characteristic ways; and
unnamed men and women did their part to fill the numbers of this most
remarkable magazine. The freshest thoughts on all subjects were brought
to the editors' table; social tendencies were noticed; books were
received; the newest picture, the last concert, was passed upon;
judicious estimates were made of reforms and reformers abroad as well as
at home; the philosophical discussions were able and discriminating; the
theological papers were learned, broad and fresh. The four volumes are
exceedingly rich in poetry, and poetry such as seldom finds a place in
popular magazines. The first year's issue contained sixty-six pieces;
the second, thirty-five; the third, fifty; the fourth, thirty-three;
among these were Emerson's earliest inspirations. The "Problem,"
"Wood-notes," "The Sphinx," "Saadi," "Ode to Beauty," "To Rhea," first
appeared in the "Dial." Harps that had long been silent, unable to make
themselves heard amid the din of the later generation, made their music
here. For Transcendentalism was essentially poetical and put its
thoughts naturally into song. The poems in the "Dial," even leaving out
the famous ones that have been printed since with their authors' names,
would make an interesting and attractive volume. How surprised would
some of those writers be if they should now in their prosaic days read
what then they wrote under the spell of that fine frenzy!
The following mystic poem, which might have come from an ancient
Egyptian, dropped from one who has since become distinguished for
something very different from mysticism. Has he seen it these many
years? Can he believe that he was ever in the mood to write it? It is
called
VIA SACRA.
Slowly along the crowded street I go,
Marking with reverent look each passer's face,
Seeking and not in vain, in each to trace
That primal soul whereof he is the show.
For here still move, by many eyes unseen,
The blessed gods that erst Olympus kept.
Through every guise these lofty forms serene
Declare the all-holding life hath never slept,
But known each thrill that in man's heart hath been,
And every tear that his sad eyes have wept.
Alas for us! the heavenly visitants,--
We greet them still as most unwelcome guests
Answering their smile with hateful looks askance,
Their sacred speech with foolish, bitter jests;
But oh! what is it to imperial Jove
That this poor world refuses all his love?
A remarkable feature of the "Dial" were the chapters of "Ethnical
Scriptures," seven in all, containing texts from the Veeshnu Sarma, the
laws of Menu, Confucius, the Desatir, the Chinese "Four Books," Hermes
Trismegistus, the Chaldæan Oracles. Thirty-five years ago, these
Scriptures, now so accessible, and in portions so familiar, were known
to the few, and were esteemed by none but scholars, whose enthusiasm for
ancient literature got the better of their religious faith. To read such
things then, showed an enlightened and courageous mind; to print them in
a magazine under the sacred title of "Scriptures" argued a most
extraordinary breadth of view. In offering these chapters to its
readers, without apology and on their intrinsic merits,
Transcendentalism exhibited its power to overpass the limits of all
special religions, and do perfect justice to all expressions of the
religious sentiment.
The creed of Transcendentalism has been sufficiently indicated. It had a
creed, and a definite one. In his lecture on "The Transcendentalist,"
read in 1841, Mr. Emerson seems disposed to consider Transcendentalism
merely as a phase of idealism.
"Shall we say then that Transcendentalism is the Saturnalia or
excess of Faith; the presentiment of a faith proper to man in his
integrity, excessive only when his imperfect obedience hinders the
satisfaction of his wit. Nature is Transcendental, exists
primarily, necessarily, ever works and advances; yet takes no
thought for the morrow. Man owns the dignity of the life which
throbs around him in chemistry, and tree, and animal, and in the
involuntary functions of his own body; yet he is balked when he
tries to fling himself into this enchanted circle, where all is
done without degradation. Yet genius and virtue predict in man the
same absence of private ends, and of condescension to
circumstances, united with every trait and talent of beauty and
power."... "This way of thinking, falling on Roman times, made
stoic philosophers; falling on despotic times made patriot Catos
and Brutuses; falling on superstitious times, made prophets and
apostles; on popish times, made protestants and ascetic monks;
preachers of Faith against preachers of Works; on prelatical times,
made Puritans and Quakers; and falling on Unitarian and commercial
times, makes the peculiar shades of Idealism which we know."
It is audacious to criticize Mr. Emerson on a point like this; but
candor compels the remark that the above description does less than
justice to the definiteness of the transcendental movement. It was
something more than a reaction against formalism and tradition, though
it took that form. It was more than a reaction against Puritan
Orthodoxy, though in part it was that. It was in a very small degree due
to study of the ancient pantheists, of Plato and the Alexandrians, of
Plutarch, Seneca and Epictetus, though one or two of the leaders had
drunk deeply from these sources. Transcendentalism was a distinct
philosophical system. Practically it was an assertion of the inalienable
worth of man; theoretically it was an assertion of the immanence of
divinity in instinct, the transference of supernatural attributes to the
natural constitution of mankind.
Such a faith would necessarily be protean in its aspects. Philosopher,
Critic, Moralist, Poet, would give it voice according to cast of
genius. It would present in turn all the phases of idealism, and to the
outside spectator seem a mass of wild opinions; but running through all
was the belief in the Living God in the Soul, faith in immediate
inspiration, in boundless possibility, and in unimaginable good.
The editors and reviewers of its day could make nothing of it. The most
entertaining part of the present writer's task has been the reading of
articles on Transcendentalism in the contemporaneous magazines. The
reviewers were unable to resist the temptation to make themselves
ridiculous. The quarterlies and monthlies are before me, looking as if
they resented the exposure of their dusty and musty condition, and would
conceal if they could the baldness of their wit. It would be cruel to
exhume those antique judgments, so honest, yet so imbecile and so
mistaken. The doubts and misgivings, the bitternesses and the horrors,
the sinkings of heart and the revolvings of soul may be estimated by any
who will consult the numbers of the Christian Examiner, the Biblical
Repository, the Princeton Review, the New Englander, the Whig Review,
Knickerbocker, (Knickerbocker is especially facetious), but we advise
none to do it who would retain their respect for honorable names. The
writers, let us hope, did the best they knew, and it would be unkind to
expose the theological prejudice, the polemical acrimony, the narrowness
and flippancy they would have been ashamed of had they been aware of it.
A good example of the courteous kind of injustice may be found in the
Christian Examiner for January, 1837, in a review of "Nature" from the
pen of a Cambridge Professor, who writes in a kindly spirit and with an
honest intention to be fair to a movement with which he had no
intellectual sympathy:
"The aim of the Transcendentalists is high. They profess to look
not only beyond facts, but, without the aid of facts, to
principles. What is this but Plato's doctrine of innate, eternal
and immutable ideas on the consideration of which all science is
founded? Truly, the human mind advances but too often in a circle.
The New School has abandoned Bacon, only to go back and wander in
the groves of the Academy, and to bewilder themselves with the
dreams which first arose in the fervid imagination of the Greeks.
Without questioning the desirableness of this end, of considering
general truths without any previous examination of particulars, we
may well doubt the power of modern philosophers to attain it.
Again, they are busy in the enquiry (to adopt their own
phraseology) after the Real and Absolute, as distinguished from the
Apparent. Not to repeat the same doubt as to their success, we may
at least request them to beware lest they strip the truth of its
relation to Humanity, and thus deprive it of its usefulness."
We quote this passage not merely to show how inevitably the best
intentioned critics of Transcendentalism fell into sarcasm, nor to
illustrate the species of error into which the "Sensational" philosophy
betrayed even candid minds; but to call attention to another point,
namely, the general misconception of the practical aims and purposes of
the new school. It was a common prejudice that Transcendentalists were
visionaries and enthusiasts, who in pursuit of principles neglected
duties, and while seeking for The Real and The Absolute forgot the
actual and the relative. Macaulay puts the case strongly in his article
on Lord Bacon:
"To sum up the whole; we should say that the aim of the Platonic
philosophy was to exalt man into a God. The aim of the Baconian
philosophy was to provide man with what he requires while he
continues to be man. The aim of the Platonic philosophy was to
raise us far above vulgar wants. The aim of the Baconian philosophy
was to supply our wants. The former aim was noble; but the latter
was attainable. Plato drew a good bow; but, like Acestes in Virgil,
he aimed at the stars; and though there was no want of strength and
skill, the shot was thrown away. Bacon fixed his eye on a mark
which was placed on the earth, and within bow shot, and hit it in
the white. The philosophy of Plato began in words and ended in
words--noble words indeed; words such as were to be expected from
the finest of human intellects exercising boundless control over
the finest of human languages. The philosophy of Bacon began in
observations and ended in arts. The smallest actual good is better
than the most magnificent promises of impossibilities. The truth
is, that in those very matters for the sake of which they neglected
all the vulgar interests of mankind, the ancient philosophers did
nothing or worse than nothing--they promised what was
impracticable; they despised what was practicable; they filled the
world with long words and long beards; and they left it as wicked
and as ignorant as they found it."
Substitute Idealism for Platonism, and Transcendentalists for ancient
philosophers, and this expresses the judgment of "sensible men" of the
last generation, on Transcendentalism. It was not perceived that the
two schools of philosophy aimed at producing the same results, but by
different methods; that the "Sensationalist" worked up from beneath by
material processes, while the "Idealist" worked downward from above by
intellectual ones; that the former tried to push men up by mechanical
appliances, and the latter endeavored to draw them up by spiritual
attraction; that while the disciples of Bacon operated on man as if he
was a complex animal, a creature of nature and of circumstances, who was
borne along with the material progress of the planet, but had no
independent power of flight, the disciples of Kant and Fichte assumed
that man was a creative, recreative force, a being who had only to be
conscious of the capacities within him to shape circumstances according
to the pattern shown him on the Mount. The charge of shooting at stars
is puerile. The only use they would make of stars was to "hitch wagons"
to them. The Transcendentalists of New England were the most strenuous
workers of their day, and at the problems which the day flung down
before them. The most strenuous, and the most successful workers too.
They achieved more practical benefit for society, in proportion to their
numbers and the duration of their existence, than any body of Baconians
of whom we ever heard. Men and women are healthier in their bodies,
happier in their domestic and social relations, more contented in their
estate, more ambitious to enlarge their opportunities, more eager to
acquire knowledge, more kind and humane in their sympathies, more
reasonable in their expectations, than they would have been if Margaret
Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker and George Ripley and
Bronson Alcott, and the rest of their fellow believers and fellow
workers had not lived. It is the fashion of our generation to hold that
progress is, and must of necessity be, exceedingly gradual; and that no
safe advance is ever made except at snail's pace. But ever and anon the
mind of man refutes the notion by starting under the influence of a
thought, and leaping over long reaches of space at a bound.
Transcendentalism gave one of these demonstrations, sufficient to refute
the vulgar prejudice. Its brief history may have illustrated the truth
of Wordsworth's lines,
"That 'tis a thing impossible to frame
Conceptions equal to the Soul's desires;
And the most difficult of tasks to keep
Heights which the Soul is competent to gain."
The heights were gained nevertheless, and kept long enough for a view of
the land of promise; and ever since, though the ascent is a dim
recollection, and the great forms have come to look like images in
dreams, and the mighty voices are but ghostly echoes, men and women have
been happy in laboring for the heaven their fathers believed they saw.
VII.
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES.
Mr. Emerson--we find ourselves continually appealing to him as the
finest interpreter of the transcendental movement--made a confession
which its enemies were quick to seize on and turn to their purpose.
"It is a sign of our times, conspicuous to the coarsest observer,
that many intelligent and religious persons withdraw themselves
from the common labors and competitions of the market and the
caucus, and betake themselves to a certain solitary and critical
way of living, from which no solid fruit has yet appeared to
justify their separation. They hold themselves aloof; they feel the
disproportion between themselves and the work offered them, and
they prefer to ramble in the country and perish of ennui, to the
degradation of such charities and such ambitions as the city can
propose to them. They are striking work and crying out for somewhat
worthy to do. They are lonely; the spirit of their writing and
conversation is lonely; they repel influences; they shun general
society; they incline to shut themselves in their chamber in the
house; to live in the country rather than in the town; and to find
their tasks and amusements in solitude. They are not good citizens;
not good members of society; unwillingly they bear their part of
the public and private burdens; they do not willingly share in the
public charities, in the public religious rites, in the enterprises
of education, of missions, foreign or domestic, in the abolition of
the slave trade, or in the temperance society. They do not even
like to vote. The philanthropists inquire whether Transcendentalism
does not mean sloth; they had as lief hear that their friend is
dead as that he is a Transcendentalist; for then is he paralyzed,
and can do nothing for humanity."
This extreme statement must not be taken as either complete or
comprehensive. They who read it in the lecture on "The Transcendentalist"
must be careful to notice Mr. Emerson's qualifications, that
"this retirement does not proceed from any whim on the part of the
separators;" that "this part is chosen both from temperament and
from principle; with some unwillingness too, and as a choice of
the less of two evils;" "that they are joyous, susceptible,
affectionate;" that "they wish a just and even fellowship or none;" that
"what they do is done because they are overpowered by the humanities
that speak on all sides;" that "what you call your fundamental
institutions, your great and holy causes, seem to them great abuses,
and, when nearly seen, paltry matters." But even this apology does not
quite exonerate his friends.
Transcendentalism certainly did produce its share of idle, dreamy,
useless people--as "Sensationalism" produced its share of coarse,
greedy, low-lived and bestial ones. But its legitimate fruit was
earnestness, aspiration and enthusiastic energy.
We must begin with the philosophy of Man. The Transcendentalist claims
for all men as a natural endowment what "Evangelical" Christianity
ascribes to the few as a special gift of the Spirit. This faith comes
to expression continually. The numbers of the "Dial" are alight with
it.
"Man is a rudiment and embryon of God: Eternity shall develop in
him the Divine Image."
"The Soul works from centre to periphery, veiling her labors from
the ken of the senses."
"The sensible world is spirit in magnitude outspread before the
senses for their analysis, but whose synthesis is the soul herself,
whose prothesis is God."
"The time may come, in the endless career of the soul, when the
facts of incarnation, birth, death, descent into matter, and
ascension from it, shall comprise no part of her history; when she
herself shall survey this human life with emotions akin to those of
the naturalist on examining the relics of extinct races of beings."
"Of the perception now fast becoming a conscious fact,--that there
is one mind, and that also the powers and privileges which lie in
any, lie in all; that I, as a man, may claim and appropriate
whatever of true or fair or good or strong has anywhere been
exhibited; that Moses and Confucius, Montaigne and Leibnitz are not
so much individuals as they are parts of man and parts of me, and
my intelligence proves them my own,--literature is far the best
expression."
Thus Mr. Alcott and Mr. Emerson. Thomas T. Stone,--a modest, retiring,
deep and interior man, a child of the spiritual philosophy, which he
faithfully lived in and up to, and preached with singular fulness and
richness of power--makes his statement thus, in an article entitled "Man
in the Ages," contributed to the third number of the "Dial":
"Man is man, despite of all the lies which would convince him he is
not, despite of all the thoughts which would strive to unman him.
There is a spirit in man, an inspiration from the Almighty. What
is, is. The eternal is eternal; the temporary must pass it by,
leaving it to stand evermore. There is now, there has been always,
power among men to subdue the ages, to dethrone them, to make them
mere outgoings and servitors of man. It is needed only that we
assert our prerogative,--that man do with hearty faith affirm: 'I
am; in me being is. Ages, ye come and go; appear and disappear;
products, not life; vapors from the surface of the soul, not living
fountain. Ye are of me, for me, not I of you or for you. Not with
you my affinity, but with the Eternal. I am; I live; spirit I have
not; spirit am I.'"
Samuel D. Robbins, another earnest prophet of the spiritual man, utters
the creed again in the way peculiar to himself.
"There is an infinity in the human soul which few have yet
believed, and after which few have aspired. There is a lofty power
of moral principle in the depths of our nature which is nearly
allied to Omnipotence; compared with which the whole force of
outward nature is more feeble than an infant's grasp. There is a
spiritual insight to which the pure soul reaches, more clear and
prophetic, more wide and vast than all telescopic vision can
typify. There is a faith in God, and a clear perception of His will
and designs, and providence, and glory, which gives to its
possessor a confidence and patience and sweet composure, under
every varied and troubling aspect of events, such as no man can
realize who has not felt its influences in his own heart. There is
a communion with God, in which the soul feels the presence of the
unseen One, in the profound depths of its being, with a vivid
distinctness and a holy reverence such as no word can describe.
There is a state of union with God, I do not say often reached, yet
it has been attained in this world, in which all the past and
present and future seem reconciled, and eternity is won and
enjoyed: and God and man, earth and heaven, with all their
mysteries are apprehended in truth as they lie in the mind of the
Infinite."
The poet chimes in with the prophet. We marked for quotation several
passages from the "Dial," but a few detached stanzas must suffice. C. P.
Cranch opens his lines to the ocean thus:
Tell me, brothers, what are we?
Spirits bathing in the sea of Deity.
Half afloat, and half on land,
Wishing much to leave the strand,
Standing, gazing with devotion,
Yet afraid to trust the ocean,
Such are we.
And thus he closes lines to the Aurora Borealis:
But a better type thou art
Of the strivings of the heart,
Reaching upwards from the earth
To the _Soul_ that gave it birth.
When the noiseless beck of night
Summons out the inner light
That hath hid its purer ray
Through the lapses of the day,--
Then like thee, thou Northern Morn,
Instincts which we deemed unborn
Gushing from their hidden source
Mount upon their heavenward course,
And the spirit seeks to be
Filled with God's eternity.
That a philosophy like this will impel to aspiration need not be said;
aspiration is the soul of it. The Transcendentalist was constantly on
the wing.
"On all hands men's existence is converted into a preparation for
existence. We do not properly live, in these days; but everywhere
with patent inventions and complex arrangements are getting ready
to live. The end is lost in the means, life is smothered in
appliances. We cannot get to ourselves, there are so many external
comforts to wade through. Consciousness stops half way. Reflection
is dissipated in the circumstances of our environment. Goodness is
exhausted in aids to goodness, and all the vigor and health of the
soul is expended in quack contrivances to build it up."... What the
age requires is not books, but example, high, heroic example; not
words but deeds; not societies but men--men who shall have their
root in themselves, and attract and convert the world by the beauty
of their fruits. All truth must be living, before it can be
adequately known or taught. Men are anterior to systems. Great
doctrines are not the origin, but the product of great lives. The
Cynic practice must precede the Stoic philosophy, and out of
Diogenes's tub came forth in the end the wisdom of Epictetus, the
eloquence of Seneca, and the piety of Antonine."...
"The religious man lives for one great object; to perfect himself,
to unite himself by purity with God, to fit himself for heaven by
cherishing within him a heavenly disposition. He has discovered
that he has a soul; that his soul is himself; that he changes not
with the changing things of life, but receives its discipline from
them; that man does not live by bread alone, but that the most real
of all things, inasmuch as they are the most enduring, are the
things which are not seen; that faith and love and virtue are the
sources of his life, and that one realises nothing, except he lay
fast hold on them. He extracts a moral lesson, a lesson of
endurance or of perseverance for himself, or a new evidence of God
and of his own immortal destiny, from every day's hard task."
That last strain came from the man who for many years has been known as
the foremost musical critic of New England, if not of America, John S.
Dwight. Another writes:
"The soul lies buried in a ruined city, struggling to be free and
calling for aid. The worldly trafficker in life's caravan hears its
cries, and says, it is a prisoned maniac. But one true man stops
and with painful toil lifts aside the crumbling fragments; till at
last he finds beneath the choking mass a mangled form of exceeding
beauty. Dazzling is the light to eyes long blind; weak are the
limbs long prisoned; faint is the breath long pent. But oh! that
mantling flush, that liquid eye, that elastic spring of renovated
strength. The deliverer is folded to the breast of an angel."
The duty of self-culture is made primary and is eloquently preached. The
piece from which this extract is taken, entitled "The Art of Life" is
anonymous, but supposed to be from Emerson's pen:
"The work of life, so far as the individual is concerned, and that
to which the scholar is particularly called, is _Self-Culture_,
the perfect unfolding of our individual nature. To this end above
all others, the art of which I speak directs our attention and
points our endeavor. There is no man, it is presumed, to whom this
object is wholly indifferent, who would not willingly possess this
too, along with other prizes, provided the attainment of it were
compatible with personal ease and worldly good. But the business of
self-culture admits of no compromise. Either it must be made a
distinct aim or wholly abandoned."
But it is time wasted to speak on this point. It has been objected to
Transcendentalism that it made self-culture too important, carrying it
to the point of selfishness, sacrificing in its behalf, sympathy,
brotherly love, sentiments of patriotism, personal fidelity and honor,
and rejoicing in the production of a "mountainous Me" fed at the expense
of life's sweetest humanities; and Goethe is straightway cited as the
Transcendental apostle of the gospel of heartless indifference. But
allowing the charge against Goethe to rest unrefuted, it must be made
against him as a man, not as a Transcendentalist; and even were it true
of him as a Transcendentalist, it was not true of Kant or Fichte, of
Schleiermacher or Herder; of Jean Paul or Novalis; of Coleridge, Carlyle
or Wordsworth; and who ever intimated that it was true of Emerson, who
has been one of the most industrious teachers of his generation, and one
of the most earnest worshippers of the genius of his native land;--of
Margaret Fuller, whose life was a quickening flood of intellectual
influence;--of Bronson Alcott, who, every winter for years, has carried
his seed corn to the far West, seeking only a receptive furrow for his
treasured being;--of Theodore Parker, who sacrificed precious days of
study, his soul's passion for knowledge, his honorable ambition to
achieve a scholar's fame, in order that his country, in her time of
trial, might not want what he was able to give;--of Wm. Henry Channing,
to whom the thought of humanity is an inspiration, and "sacrifice an all
sufficing joy;"--of George Ripley, who offered himself, all that he had
and was, that the experiment of an honest friendly society might be
fairly tried? By "self-culture" these and the rest of their brotherhood
meant the culture of that nobler self which includes heart, and
conscience, sympathy and spirituality, not as incidental ingredients,
but as essential qualities. Self-hood they never identified with
selfishness; nor did they ever confound or associate its attainment with
the acquisition of place, power, wealth, or eminent repute; the person
was more to them than the individual; they sought no reward except for
service; and the consciousness of serving faithfully was their best
reward.
To Transcendentalism belongs the credit of inaugurating the theory and
practice of dietetics which is preached so assiduously now by
enlightened physiologists. The people who regarded man as a soul, first
taught the wisdom that is now inculcated by people who regard man as a
body. The doctrine that human beings live on air and light; that food
should be simple and nutritious; that coarse meats should be discarded
and fiery liquors abolished; that wines should be substituted for
"spirits," light wines for heavy, and pure water for wines;--has in all
ages been taught by mystics and idealists. The ancient master of it was
Pythagoras. Their idea was, that as the body was, for the time being,
the dwelling-place of the soul, its lodging and home, its prison or its
palace, its organ, its instrument, its box of tools, the medium of its
activity, it must be kept in perfect condition for these high offices.
They honored the flesh in the nobility of their care of it. No sour
ascetics they, but generous feeders on essences and elixirs; no
mortifiers of matter, but purifiers and refiners of it; regarding it as
too exquisitely mingled and tempered a substance to be tortured and
imbruted. The materialist prescribes temperance, continence, sobriety,
in order that life may be long, and comfortable, and free from disease.
The idealist prescribes them, in order that life may be intellectual,
serene, pacific, beneficent.
The chief mystic of the transcendental band has been the chief prophet
of this innocent word. "The New Ideas," wrote Mr. Alcott, "bear direct
on all the economies of life. They will revise old methods, and
institute new cultures. I look with special hope to their effect on the
regimen of the land. Our present modes of agriculture exhaust the soil,
and must, while life is made thus sensual and secular; the narrow
covetousness which prevails in trade, in labor, in exchanges, ends in
depraving the land; it breeds disease, decline, in the flesh,--debauches
and consumes the heart." "The Soul's Banquet is an art divine. To mould
this statue of flesh from chaste materials, kneading it into comeliness
and strength, this is Promethean; and this we practise, well or ill, in
all our thoughts, acts, desires. I would abstain from the fruits of
oppression and blood, and am seeking means of entire independence. This,
were I not holden by penury unjustly, would be possible. One miracle we
have wrought nevertheless, and shall soon work all of them;--our wine is
water,--flesh, bread;--drugs, fruits;--and we defy, meekly, the satyrs
all, and Esculapius."
"It was the doctrine of the Samian Sage, that whatsoever food obstructs
divination, is prejudicial to purity and chastity of mind and body, to
temperance, health, sweetness of disposition, suavity of manners, grace
of form and dignity of carriage, should be shunned. Especially should
those who would apprehend the deepest wisdom, and preserve through life
the relish for elegant studies and pursuits, abstain from flesh,
cherishing the justice which animals claim at men's hands, nor
slaughtering them for food or profit." "A purer civilization than ours
can yet claim to be, is to inspire the genius of mankind with the skill
to deal dutifully with soils and souls, exalt agriculture and manculture
into a religion of art; the freer interchange of commodities which the
current world-wide intercourse promotes, spreads a more various,
wholesome, classic table, whereby the race shall be refined of traits
reminding too plainly of barbarism and the beast." Said Timotheus of
Plato, "they who dine with the philosopher have nothing to complain of
the next morning." That the doctrine has its warm, glowing side,
appears in a characteristic poem in the little volume called "Tablets."
The anchorite's plea was not always as good as his practice. Arguing the
point once with a sagacious man of the world, he urged as a reason for
abstinence from animal food that one thereby distanced the animal. For
the eating of beef encouraged the bovine quality, and the pork diet
repeats the trick of Circe, and changes men into swine. But, rejoined
the friend, if abstinence from animal food leaves the animal out, does
not partaking of vegetable food put the vegetable in? I presume the
potato diet will change man into a potato. And what if the potatoes be
small! The philosopher's reply is not recorded. But in his case the
beast did disappear, and the leek has never become prominent. In his
case health, strength, agility, sprightliness, cheerfulness, have been
wholly compatible with disuse of animal food. Few men have preserved the
best uses of body and mind so long unimpaired. Few have lost so few
days; have misused so few; are able to give a good account of so many.
The vegetarian of seventy-six shames many a cannibal of forty.
The Transcendentalist was by nature a reformer. He could not be
satisfied with men as they were. His doctrine of the capacities of men,
even in its most moderate statement, kindled to enthusiasm his hope of
change. However his disgust may have kept him aloof for a time, his
sympathy soon brought him back, and his faith sent him to the front of
the battle. In beginning his lecture on "Man The Reformer," Mr. Emerson
does not dissemble his hope that each person whom he addresses has
"felt his own call to cast aside all evil customs, timidities and
limitations, and to be in his place a free and helpful man, a reformer,
a benefactor, not content to slip through the world like a footman or a
spy, escaping by his nimbleness and apologies as many knocks as he can,
but a brave and upright man, who must find or cut a straight path to
everything excellent in the earth, and not only go honorably himself,
but make it easier for all who follow him, to go in honor and with
benefit." "The power," he declares, "which is at once spring and
regulator in all efforts of reform, is the conviction that there is an
infinite worthiness in man, which will appear at the call of worth, and
that all particular reforms are the removing of some impediment. Is it
not the highest duty that man should be honored in us?" "In the history
of the world" the same great teacher remarks, "the doctrine of Reform
had never such scope as at the present hour. Lutherans, Herrnhütters,
Jesuits, Monks, Quakers, Knox, Wesley, Swedenborg, Bentham, in their
accusations of society, all respected something,--church or state,
literature or history, domestic usages, the market town, the dinner
table, coined money. But now all these and all things else hear the
trumpet and must rush to judgment,--Christianity, the laws, commerce,
schools, the farm, the laboratory: and not a kingdom, town, statute,
rite, calling, man, or woman but is threatened by the new spirit." "Let
me feel that I am to be a lover. I am to see to it that the world is the
better for me, and to find my reward in the act. Love would put a new
face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too
long, and it would warm the heart to see how fast the vain diplomacy of
statesmen, the impotence of armies, and navies, and lines of defence,
would be superseded by this unarmed child."
The method of reform followed from the principle. It was the method of
individual awakening and regeneration, and was to be conducted "through
the simplest ministries of family, neighborhood, fraternity, quite wide
of associations and institutions." "The true reformer," it was
proclaimed, "initiates his labor in the precincts of private life, and
makes it, not a set of measures, not an utterance, not a pledge merely,
but a life; and not an impulse of a day, but commensurate with human
existence: a tendency towards perfection of being." The
Transcendentalist might easily become an enthusiast from excess of
faith; but a fanatic, with a tinge of melancholy in his disposition, a
drop of malignity in his blood, he could not be. He was less a reformer
of human circumstance than a regenerator of the human spirit, and he was
never a destroyer except as destruction accompanied the process of
regeneration.
This fine positive purpose appeared in all he undertook. With movements
that did not start from this primary assumption of individual dignity,
and come back to that as their goal, he had nothing to do. Was he an
anti-slavery man--and he was certain to be one at heart--the
Transcendentalists were glowing friends of that reform,--he was so
because his philosophy compelled him to see in the slave the same
humanity that appeared in the master; in the African the same
possibilities that were confessed in the Frank, the Anglo-Saxon, and the
Celt. Did he take up the cause of education, it was as a believer in the
latent capacity of every child, boy or girl; as an earnest wisher that
such capacity might be stimulated by the best methods, and directed to
the best ends. What he effected, or tried to effect in this way will be
understood by the reader of the record of Mr. Alcott's school; that bold
and original attempt at educating, leading or drawing out young minds,
which showed such remarkable promise, and would have achieved such
remarkable results had more faithful trial of its method been possible.
Was he a reformer of society, it was as a vitalizer, not as a machinist.
In no respect does the Transcendentalist's idea of social reform stand
out more conspicuously than in this. With an incessant and passionate
aspiration after a pure social state,--deeply convinced of the mistakes,
profoundly sensible of the miseries of the actual condition, he would
not be committed to experiments that did not assume his first
principle--the supreme dignity of the individual man. The systems of
French socialism he distrusted from the first; for they proceeded on the
ground that man is not a self determined being, but a creature of
circumstance. Mr. Albert Brisbane's attempt to domesticate Fourierism
among us was cordially considered, but not cordially welcomed. He seemed
to have no spiritual depth of foundation; his proposition to imprison
man in a Phalanx, was rejected; his omission of moral freedom in the
scheme was resented; no sincerity, no keenness of criticism, no exposure
of existing evils or indignation of protest against them, disarmed the
jealousy of endeavors to reconstruct society, as if human beings were
piles of brick or lumps of mortar.
In 1841 a community was planned in Massachusetts, by Liberal Christians
of the Universalist sect. Though never put in operation it did not
escape the criticism of the "Dial." The good points were recognized and
commended; the moral features were praised as showing a deep insight
into the Christian idea, and the articles of confederation were
pronounced admirable in judgment and form, with a single exception,
which however was fatal. Admittance of members was conditioned on
pledges of non-resistance, abolition, temperance, abstinence from
voting, and such like. Though these conditions were easy enough in
themselves, and were expressed in the most conciliatory spirit, they
were justly regarded as giving to the community the character of a
church or party, much less than world embracing. "A true community," it
was declared, "can be founded on nothing short of faith in the universal
man, as he comes out of the hands of the Creator, with no law over his
liberty but the eternal ideas that lie at the foundation of his being."
"The final cause of human society is the unfolding of the individual
man, into every form of perfection, without let or hindrance, according
to the inward nature of each."
When the Brook Farm experiment was under way at West Roxbury, its
initiators were warned against three dangers: the first, _Organization_,
which begins by being an instrument and ends by being a master; the
second, _Endowment_, which promises to be a swift helper, and is, ere
long, a stifling encumbrance; the third, the spirit of _Coterie_, which
would in no long time, shrink their rock of ages to a platform, diminish
their brotherhood to a clique, and reduce their aims to experiences.
Brook Farm, whereof it is not probable that a history will ever be
written, for the reason that there were in it slender materials for
history,--though there were abundant materials for thought,--was
projected on the purest transcendental basis. It was neither European
nor English, neither French nor German in its origin. No doubt, among
the supporters and friends of it were some who had made themselves
acquainted with the writings of St. Simon and Chevalier, of Proudhon and
Fourier; but it does not appear that any of these authors shaped or
prescribed the plan, or influenced the spirit of the enterprise. The
Constitution which is printed herewith explains sufficiently the
project, and expresses the spirit in which it was undertaken. The
jealous regard for the rights of the individual is not the least
characteristic feature of this remarkable document. The By-Laws, which
want of space excludes from these pages, simply confirm the provisions
that were made to guard the person against unnecessary infringement of
independence.
CONSTITUTION.
In order more effectually to promote the great purposes of human
culture; to establish the external relations of life on a basis of
wisdom and purity; to apply the principles of justice and love to
our social organization in accordance with the laws of Divine
Providence; to substitute a system of brotherly coöperation for one
of selfish competition; to secure to our children and those who may
be entrusted to our care, the benefits of the highest physical,
intellectual and moral education, which in the progress of
knowledge the resources at our command will permit; to institute an
attractive, efficient, and productive system of industry; to
prevent the exercise of worldly anxiety, by the competent supply of
our necessary wants; to diminish the desire of excessive
accumulation, by making the acquisition of individual property
subservient to upright and disinterested uses; to guarantee to each
other forever the means of physical support, and of spiritual
progress; and thus to impart a greater freedom, simplicity,
truthfulness, refinement, and moral dignity, to our mode of
life;--we the undersigned do unite in a voluntary Association, and
adopt and ordain the following articles of agreement, to wit:
ARTICLE I.
NAME AND MEMBERSHIP.
SEC. 1. The name of this Association shall be "THE BROOK-FARM
ASSOCIATION FOR INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION." All persons who shall hold
one or more shares in its stock, or whose labor and skill shall be
considered an equivalent for capital, may be admitted by the vote
of two-thirds of the Association, as members thereof.
SEC. 2. No member of the Association shall ever be subjected to any
religious test; nor shall any authority be assumed over individual
freedom of opinion by the Association, nor by one member over
another; nor shall any one be held accountable to the Association,
except for such overt acts, or omissions of duty, as violate the
principles of justice, purity, and love, on which it is founded;
and in such cases the relation of any member may be suspended or
discontinued, at the pleasure of the Association.
ARTICLE II.
CAPITAL STOCK.
SEC. 1. The members of this Association shall own and manage such
real and personal estate in joint stock proprietorship, divided
into shares of one hundred dollars each, as may from time to time
be agreed on.
SEC. 2. No shareholder shall be liable to any assessment whatever
on the shares held by him; nor shall he be held responsible
individually in his private property on account of the Association;
nor shall the Trustees, or any officer or agent of the Association,
have any authority to do any thing which shall impose personal
responsibility on any shareholder, by making any contracts or
incurring any debts for which the shareholders shall be
individually or personally responsible.
SEC. 3. The Association guarantees to each shareholder the interest
of five per cent. annually on the amount of stock held by him in
the Association, and this interest may be paid in certificates of
stock and credited on the books of the Association; provided that
each shareholder may draw on the funds of the Association for the
amount of interest due at the third annual settlement from the time
of investment.
SEC. 4. The shareholders on their part, for themselves, their heirs
and assigns, do renounce all claim on any profits accruing to the
Association for the use of their capital invested in the stock of
the Association, except five per cent. interest on the amount of
stock held by them, payable in the manner described in the
preceding section.
ARTICLE III.
GUARANTIES.
SEC. 1. The Association shall provide such employment for all its
members as shall be adapted to their capacities, habits, and
tastes; and each member shall select and perform such operations of
labor, whether corporal or mental, as shall be deemed best suited
to his own endowments and the benefit of the Association.
SEC. 2. The Association guarantees to all its members, their
children and family dependents, house-rent, fuel, food, and
clothing, and the other necessaries of life, without charge, not
exceeding a certain fixed amount to be decided annually by the
Association; no charge shall ever be made for support during
inability to labor from sickness or old age, or for medical or
nursing attendance, except in case of shareholders, who shall be
charged therefor, and also for the food and clothing of children,
to an amount not exceeding the interest due to them on settlement;
but no charge shall be made to any members for education or the use
of library and public rooms.
SEC. 3. Members may withdraw from labor, under the direction of the
Association, and in that case, they shall not be entitled to the
benefit of the above guaranties.
SEC. 4. Children over ten years of age shall be provided with
employment in suitable branches of industry; they shall be credited
for such portions of each annual dividend, as shall be decided by
the Association, and on the completion of their education in the
Association at the age of twenty, shall be entitled to a
certificate of stock to the amount of credits in their favor, and
may be admitted as members of the Association.
ARTICLE IV.
DISTRIBUTION OF PROFITS.
SEC. 1. The net profits of the Association, after the payment of
all expenses, shall be divided into a number of shares
corresponding to the number of days' labor; and every member shall
be entitled to one share of every day's labor performed by him.
SEC. 2. A full settlement shall be made with every member once a
year, and certificates of stock given for all balances due; but in
case of need, to be decided by himself, every member may be
permitted to draw on the funds in the Treasury to an amount not
exceeding the credits in his favor for labor performed.
ARTICLE V.
GOVERNMENT.
SEC. 1. The government of the Association shall be vested in a
board of Directors, divided into four departments, as follows; 1st,
General Direction; 2d, Direction of Education; 3d, Direction of
Industry; 4th, Direction of Finance; consisting of three persons
each, provided that the same person may be elected member of each
Direction.
SEC. 2. The General Direction and Direction of Education shall be
chosen annually, by the vote of a majority of the members of the
Association. The Direction of Finance shall be chosen annually, by
the vote of a majority of the share-holders and members of the
Association. The direction of Industry shall consist of the chiefs
of the three primary series.
SEC. 3. The chairman of the General Direction shall be the
President of the Association, and together with the Direction of
Finance, shall constitute a board of Trustees, by whom the property
of the Association shall be held and managed.
SEC. 4. The General Direction shall oversee and manage the affairs
of the Association, so that every department shall be carried on in
an orderly and efficient manner.
SEC. 5. The departments of Education and Finance shall be under the
control each of its own Direction, which shall select, and in
concurrence with the General Direction, shall appoint such
teachers, officers, and agents, as shall be necessary to the
complete and systematic organization of the department. No
Directors or other officers shall be deemed to possess any rank
superior to the other members of the Association, nor shall they
receive any extra remuneration for their official services.
SEC. 6. The department of industry shall be arranged in groups and
series, as far as practicable, and shall consist of three primary
series; to wit, Agricultural, Mechanical, and Domestic Industry.
The chief of each series shall be elected every two months by the
members thereof, subject to the approval of the general Direction.
The chief of each group shall be chosen weekly by its members.
ARTICLE VI.
MISCELLANEOUS.
SEC. 1. The Association may from time to time adopt such by-laws,
not inconsistent with the spirit and purpose of these articles, as
shall be found expedient or necessary.
SEC. 2. In order to secure to the Association the benefits of the
highest discoveries in social science, and to preserve its fidelity
to the principles of progress and reform, on which it is founded,
any amendment may be proposed to this Constitution at a meeting
called for the purpose; and if approved by two-thirds of the
members at a subsequent meeting, at least one month after the date
of the first, shall be adopted.
From this it appears that the association was simply an attempt to
return to first principles, to plant the seeds of a new social order,
founded on respect for the dignity, and sympathy with the aspirations of
man. It was open to all sects; it admitted, welcomed, nay, demanded all
kinds and degrees of intellectual culture. The most profound regard for
individual opinion, feeling and inclination, was professed and
exhibited. Confidence that surrender to the spontaneous principle, with
no more restriction than might be necessary to secure its development,
was wisest, lay at the bottom of the scheme.
It was felt at this time, 1842, that, in order to live a religious and
moral life in sincerity, it was necessary to leave the world of
institutions, and to reconstruct the social order from new beginnings. A
farm was bought in close vicinity to Boston; agriculture was made the
basis of the life, as bringing man into direct and simple relations with
nature, and restoring labor to honest conditions. To a certain extent,
it will be seen, the principle of community in property was recognized,
community of interest and coöperation requiring it; but to satisfy the
claims and insure the rights of the individual, members were not
required to impoverish themselves, or to resign the fruit of their
earnings.
Provisions were either raised on the farm or purchased at wholesale.
Meals were eaten in "commons." It was the rule that all should
labor--choosing their occupations, and the number of hours, and
receiving wages according to the hours. No labor was hired that could be
supplied within the community; and all labor was rewarded alike, on the
principle that physical labor is more irksome than mental, more
absorbing and exacting, less improving and delightful. Moreover, to
recognize practically the nobility of labor in and of itself, none were
appointed to special kinds of work. All took their turn at the several
branches of employment. None were drudges or menials. The intellectual
gave a portion of their time to tasks such as servants and handmaidens
usually discharge. The unintellectual were allowed a portion of their
time for mental cultivation. The benefits of social intercourse were
thrown open to all. The aim was to secure as many hours as practicable
from the necessary toil of providing for the wants of the body, that
there might be more leisure to provide for the deeper wants of the soul.
The acquisition of wealth was no object. No more thought was given to
this than the exigencies of existence demanded. To live, expand, enjoy
as rational beings, was the never-forgotten aim.
The community trafficked by way of exchange and barter with the outside
world; sold its surplus produce; sold its culture to as many as came or
sent children to be taught. It was hoped that from the accumulated
results of all this labor, the appliances for intellectual and spiritual
health might be obtained; that books might be bought, works of art,
scientific collections and apparatus, means of decoration and
refinement, all of which should be open on the same terms to every
member of the association. The principle of coöperation was substituted
for the principle of competition; self development for selfishness. The
faith was avowed in every arrangement that the soul of humanity was in
each man and woman.
The reputation for genius, accomplishment and wit, which the founders of
the Brook Farm enterprise enjoyed in society, attracted towards it the
attention of the public, and awakened expectation of something much more
than ordinary in the way of literary advantages. The settlement became a
resort for cultivated men and women who had experience as teachers and
wished to employ their talent to the best effect; and for others who
were tired of the conventionalities, and sighed for honest relations
with their fellow-beings. Some took advantage of the easy hospitality of
the association, and came there to live mainly at its expense--their
unskilled and incidental labor being no compensation for their
entertainment. The most successful department was the school. Pupils
came thither in considerable numbers and from considerable distances.
Distinguished visitors gave charm and reputation to the place.
The members were never numerous; the number varied considerably from
year to year. Seventy was a fair average; of these, fewer than half were
young persons sent thither to be educated. Several adults came for
intellectual assistance. Of married people there were, in 1844, but four
pairs. A great deal was taught and learned at Brook Farm. Classics,
mathematics, general literature, æsthetics, occupied the busy hours. The
most productive work was done in these ideal fields, and the best
result of it was a harvest in the ideal world, a new sense of life's
elasticity and joy, the delight of freedom, the innocent satisfaction of
spontaneous relations.
The details above given convey no adequate idea of the Brook Farm
fraternity. In one sense it was much less than they imply; in another
sense it was much more. It was less, because its plan was not materially
successful; the intention was defeated by circumstances; the hope turned
out to be a dream. Yet, from another aspect, the experiment fully
justified itself. Its moral tone was high; its moral influence sweet and
sunny. Had Brook Farm been a community in the accepted sense, had it
insisted on absolute community of goods, the resignation of opinions, of
personal aims interests or sympathies; had the principle of
renunciation, sacrifice of the individual to the common weal, been
accepted and maintained, its existence might have been continued and its
pecuniary basis made sure. But asceticism was no feature of the original
scheme. On the contrary, the projectors of it were believers in the
capacities of the soul, in the safety, wisdom and imperative necessity
of developing those capacities, and in the benign effect of liberty. Had
the spirit of rivalry and antagonism been called in, the sectarian or
party spirit, however generously interpreted, the result would probably
have been different. But the law of sympathy being accepted as the law
of life, exclusion was out of the question; inquisition into beliefs was
inadmissible; motives even could not be closely scanned; so while some
were enthusiastic friends of the principle of association, and some
were ardent devotees to liberty, others thought chiefly of their private
education and development; and others still were attracted by a desire
of improving their social condition, or attaining comfort on easy terms.
The idea, however noble, true, and lovely, was unable to grapple with
elements so discordant. Yet the fact that these discordant elements did
not, even in the brief period of the fraternity's existence, utterly
rend and abolish the idea; that to the last, no principle was
compromised, no rule broken, no aspiration bedraggled, is a confession
of the purity and vitality of the creative thought. That a mere
aggregation of persons, without written compact, formal understanding,
or unity of purpose, men, women and children, should have lived
together, four or five years, without scandal or reproach from
dissension or evil whisper, should have separated without rancor or
bitterness, and should have left none but the pleasantest savor behind
them--is a tribute to the Transcendental Faith.
In 1844, the Directors of the Association, George Ripley, Minot Pratt,
and Charles Anderson Dana, published a statement, declaring: that every
step had strengthened the faith with which they set out; that their
belief in a divine order of human society had in their minds become an
absolute certainty; that, in their judgment, considering the state of
humanity and of social science, the world was much nearer the attainment
of such a condition than was generally supposed. They here said
emphatically that Fourier's doctrine of universal unity commanded their
unqualified assent, and that their whole observation had satisfied them
of the practical arrangements which he deduced therefrom, of the
correspondence of the law of groups and series with the law of human
nature. At this time the farm contained two hundred and eight acres, and
could be enlarged to any extent necessary. The Association held property
worth nearly or quite thirty thousand dollars, of which about twenty-two
thousand was invested, either in the stock of the company or in
permanent loans to it at six per cent., which could remain as long as the
Association might wish. The organization was pronounced to be in a
satisfactory working condition; the Department of Education, on which
much thought had been bestowed, was flourishing. With a view to an
ultimate expansion into a perfect Phalanx, it was proposed to organize
the three primary departments of labor, namely, Agriculture, Domestic
Industry, and the Mechanical Arts. Public meetings had awakened an
interest in the community. Appeals for money had been generously
answered. The numbers had been increased by the accession of many
skilful and enthusiastic laborers in various departments. About ten
thousand dollars had been added by subscription to the capital. A
work-shop sixty feet by twenty-eight had been erected; a Phalanstery, or
unitary dwelling on a large scale, was in process of erection, to meet
the early needs of the preparatory period, until success should
authorize the building of a Phalanstery "with the magnificence and
permanence proper to such a structure." The prospect was, or looked,
encouraging. The experiment had been tested by the hard discipline of
more than two years; the severest difficulties had apparently been
conquered; the arrangements had attained systematic form, as far as the
limited numbers permitted; the idea was respectfully entertained;
socialism was spreading; it embraced persons of every station in life;
and in its extent, and influence on questions of importance, it seemed,
to enthusiastic believers, to be fast assuming in the United States a
national character. This was in October 1844. At this time the Brook
Farm Associationists connected themselves with the New York Socialists
who accepted the teachings of Fourier; and the efforts described were
put forth in aid of the new and more systematic plans that had been
adopted. But this coalition, which promised so much, proved disastrous
in its result. The Association was unable to sustain industrial
competition with established trades. The expenses were more than the
receipts. In the spring of 1847 the Phalanstery was burned down; the
summer was occupied in closing up the affairs; and in the autumn the
Association was broken up. The members betook themselves to the world
again, and engaged in the ordinary pursuits of life. The farm was bought
by the town of West Roxbury, and afterwards passed into private hands.
During the civil war the government used it for military purposes. The
main building has since been occupied as a hospital. The leaders of the
Association removed to New York, and for about a year, till February
1849, continued their labors of propagandism by means of the
"Harbinger," till that expired: then their dream faded away.
The full history of that movement can be written only by one who
belonged to it, and shared its secret: and it would doubtless have been
written before this, had the materials for a history been more solid.
Aspirations have no history. It is pleasant to hear the survivors of the
pastoral experiment talk over their experiences, merrily recall the
passages in work or play, revive the impressions of country rambles,
conversations, discussions, social festivities, recount the comical
mishaps, summon the shadows of friends dead, but unforgotten, and
describe the hours spent in study or recreation, unspoiled by
carefulness. But it is in private alone that these confidences are
imparted. To the public very little has been, or will be, or can be
told.
Mr. Hawthorne was one of the first to take up the scheme. He was there a
little while at the beginning in 1841, and his note-books contain
passages that are of interest. But Hawthorne's temperament was not
congenial with such an atmosphere, nor was his faith clear or steadfast
enough to rest contented on its idea. His, however, were observing eyes;
and his notes, being soliloquies, confessions made to himself, convey
his honest impressions:
BROOK FARM, April 13th, 1841. "I have not taken yet my first lesson
in agriculture, except that I went to see our cows foddered,
yesterday afternoon. We have eight of our own; and the number is
now increased by a Transcendental heifer belonging to Miss Margaret
Fuller. She is very fractious, I believe, and apt to kick over the
milk pail.... I intend to convert myself into a milk-maid this
evening, but I pray Heaven that Mr. Ripley may be moved to assign
me the kindliest cow in the herd, otherwise I shall perform my
duties with fear and trembling. I like my brethren in affliction
very well, and could you see us sitting round our table at meal
times, before the great kitchen fire, you would call it a cheerful
sight."
"April 14. I did not milk the cows last night, because Mr. R. was
afraid to trust them to my hands, or me to their horns, I know not
which. But this morning I have done wonders. Before breakfast I
went out to the barn and began to chop hay for the cattle, and with
such "righteous vehemence," as Mr. R. says, did I labor, that in
the space of ten minutes I broke the machine. Then I brought wood
and replenished the fires; and finally went down to breakfast, and
ate up a huge mound of buckwheat cakes. After breakfast Mr. R. put
a four-pronged instrument into my hands, which he gave me to
understand was called a pitchfork; and he and Mr. Farley being
armed with similar weapons, we all three commenced a gallant attack
on a heap of manure. This office being concluded, and I having
purified myself, I sit down to finish this letter. Miss Fuller's
cow hooks other cows, and has made herself ruler of the herd, and
behaves in a very tyrannical manner."
"April 16th. I have milked a cow!!! The herd has rebelled against
the usurpation of Miss Fuller's heifer; and whenever they are
turned out of the barn, she is compelled to take refuge under our
protection. So much did she impede my labors by keeping close to
me, that I found it necessary to give her two or three gentle pats
with a shovel. She is not an amiable cow; but she has a very
intelligent face, and seems to be of a reflective cast of
character.
I have not yet been twenty yards from our house and barn; but I
begin to perceive that this is a beautiful place. The scenery is of
a mild and placid character, with nothing bold in its aspect; but I
think its beauties will grow upon us, and make us love it the more
the longer we live here. There is a brook so near the house that we
shall be able to hear its ripple in the summer evenings,--but for
agricultural purposes it has been made to flow in a straight and
rectangular fashion which does it infinite damage as a picturesque
object. Mr. R. has bought four black pigs."
"April 22nd. What an abominable hand do I scribble; but I have been
chopping wood and turning a grind-stone all the forenoon; and such
occupations are apt to disturb the equilibrium of the muscles and
sinews. It is an endless surprise to me how much work there is to
be done in the world; but thank God I am able to do my share of it,
and my ability increases daily. What a great, broad-shouldered,
elephantine personage I shall become by and by!
I read no newspapers, and hardly remember who is President, and
feel as if I had no more concern with what other people trouble
themselves about, than if I dwelt in another planet."
"May 1st. All the morning I have been at work, under the clear blue
sky, on a hill side. Sometimes it almost seemed as if I were at
work in the sky itself, though the material in which I wrought was
the ore from our gold-mine. There is nothing so disagreeable or
unseemly in this sort of toil as you could think. It defiles the
hands indeed, but not the soul.
The farm is growing very beautiful now,--not that we yet see
anything of the peas and potatoes which we have planted, but the
grass blushes green on the slopes and hollows.
I do not believe that I should be so patient here if I were not
engaged in a righteous and heaven-blessed way of life. We had some
tableaux last evening. They went off very well."
"May 11th. This morning I arose at milking time, in good trim for
work; and we have been employed partly in an Augean labor of
clearing out a wood-shed, and partly in carting loads of oak. This
afternoon I hope to have something to do in the field, for these
jobs about the house are not at all suited to my taste."
"June 1st. I think this present life of mine gives me an antipathy
to pen and ink, even more than my Custom-house experience did. In
the midst of toil, or after a hard day's work, my soul obstinately
refuses to be poured out on paper. It is my opinion that a man's
soul may be buried and perish under a dung heap, just as well as
under a pile of money."
"August 15th. Even my Custom-house experience was not such a
thraldom and weariness as this. O, labor is the curse of the world,
and nobody can meddle with it, without becoming proportionably
brutified! Is it a praiseworthy matter that I have spent five
golden months in providing food for cows and horses? It is not so."
"Salem, Sept. 3d. Really I should judge it to be twenty years since
I left Brook Farm; and I take this to be one proof that my life
there was an unnatural and unsuitable, and therefore an unreal one.
It already looks like a dream behind me. The real Me was never an
associate of the community; there had been a spectral Appearance
there, sounding the horn at daybreak, and milking the cows, and
hoeing the potatoes, and raking hay, toiling in the sun, and doing
me the honor to assume my name. But this spectre was not myself."
Mr. Hawthorne was elected to high offices, to those of Trustee of the
Brook Farm estate, and Chairman of the Committee of Finance; but he told
Mr. Ripley that he could not spend another winter there. If we could
inspect all the note-books of the community, supposing all to be as
frank as Hawthorne, our picture of Brook Farm life would be fascinating.
But his was, perhaps, the only note-book kept in the busy brotherhood,
and his rather sombre view must be accepted as the impression of one
peculiar mind. In the "Blithedale Romance," Hawthorne disclaimed any
purpose to describe persons or events at Brook Farm, and expressed a
hope that some one might yet do justice to a movement so full of earnest
aspiration. But he, himself, declined the task. "The old and
affectionately remembered home at Brook Farm--certainly the most
romantic episode of his own life--essentially a day dream, and yet a
fact--thus offering an available foothold between fiction and reality,"
merely supplied the scenery for the romance. More than twenty years have
passed since Hawthorne's appeal to his associates, but it has not been
answered.
The characteristic nature of transcendental reform was exhibited in the
temper of its agitation for the enfranchisement of women, and the
enlargement of her sphere of duty and privilege. More definitely than
any other, this reform can trace its beginnings and the source of its
inspiration to the disciples of the transcendental philosophy. The
transcendentalists gave it their countenance to some extent, to a man
and a woman, conceding the truth of its idea even when criticising the
details of its application. With almost if not quite equal unanimity,
the other school regarded it with disfavor. The cause of woman, as
entertained by the reformers, was not likely to commend itself to people
who consulted custom, law, or institution; who accepted the authority of
tradition, took history to be revelation, deferred to the decree of
circumstance, or, under any other open or disguised form, bowed to the
doctrine that might makes right. The philosophical conservatives and the
social conservatives struck hands on this; for both, the one party in
deference to established usage, the other party in deference to the
opinion that mind followed organization, defended things as they were,
and hoped for a better state of things, if they hoped for it at all, as
a result of changes in the social environment. The disciples of the same
philosophy now hold the same view of this particular reform. From them
comes the charge of unsexing women and demoralizing the sex. In the
belief of the transcendentalist, souls were of no sex. Men and women
were alike human beings, with human capacities, longings, and destinies;
and the condition of society that doomed them to hopelessness in regard
to the complete and perfect justification of their being, was,
in his judgment--not in his feeling, or sentiment, but in his
judgment--unsound.
The ablest and most judicial statement on the question was made by
Margaret Fuller in the "Dial" of July 1843. The paper entitled the
"Great Law Suit" was afterwards expanded into the little volume called
"Woman in the XIXth Century," which contains all that is best worth
saying on the subject, has been the storehouse of argument and
illustration from that time to this, and should be read by all who would
understand the cardinal points in the case. The careful student of that
book will be amazed at the misapprehensions in respect to its doctrine
that are current even in intelligent circles. Certainly Miss Fuller does
claim everything that may fairly be comprehended under woman's
education; everything that follows, or may be honestly and rationally
held as following in the course of her intellectual development. But
she claims it by rigorous fidelity to a philosophical idea; not
passionately or hastily. Not as a demand of sentiment, not as a right
under liberty, not as a conclusion from American institutions, but as
the spiritual prerogative of the spiritual being. Her argument moves on
this high table-land of thought; and moves with a steadiness, a
serenity, an ease that little resemble the heated debates on later
platforms. Miss Fuller was thoroughly feminine in her intuitions. It was
impossible for her to treat any subject, to say nothing of a subject so
complex and delicate as this, with any but the finest tempered tools.
Her sympathies were with women; she attracted women by the power of her
intelligence and fellow feeling. Women of feeling and aspiration--pure
feeling and beautiful aspiration,--came to her. The secrets of the best
hearts were revealed to her, as they could not have been, had she failed
to reach or attract them on their own level. Her idea of womanly
character as displayed in sentiment and action was as gracious as it was
lofty.
"We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have
every path laid open to women as freely as to man. Were this done,
and a slight temporary fermentation allowed to subside, we believe
that the Divine would ascend into nature to a height unknown in the
history of past ages; and nature, thus instructed, would regulate
the spheres, not only so as to avoid collision, but to bring forth
ravishing harmony."
Yet then, and only then, will human beings, in her judgment, be ripe for
this, when inward and outward freedom for woman as much as for man,
shall be acknowledged as a right, not yielded as a concession.
"What woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature
to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely, and
unimpeded to unfold such powers as were given her when we left our
common home. If fewer talents were given her, yet, if allowed the
full and free employment of these, so that she may render back to
the giver his own with usury, she will not complain, nay, I dare to
say, she will bless and rejoice in her earthly birth-place her
earthly lot."
"Man is not willingly ungenerous. He wants faith and love because
he is not yet himself an elevated being. He cries with sneering
skepticism: Give us a sign! But if the sign appears, his eyes
glisten, and he offers not merely approval but homage."
The Transcendental idea makes her just to all, to the Hebrews who
"greeted with solemn rapture all great and holy women as heroines,
prophetesses, nay judges in Israel, and if they made Eve listen to the
serpent, gave Mary to the Holy Ghost;" to the Greeks whose feminine
deities were types of dignity and loveliness; to the Romans, whose
glorious women are "of threadbare celebrity;" to Asiatics, Russians,
English. It gave her generous interpretations for laws, institutions,
customs, bidding her look on the bright side of history.
"Whatever may have been the domestic manners of the ancient
nations, the idea of woman was nobly manifested in their
mythologies and poems, where she appeared as Sita in the Ramayana,
a form of tender purity; in the Egyptian Isis, of divine wisdom
never yet surpassed. In Egypt too, the sphinx, walking the earth
with lion tread, looked out upon its marvels in the calm,
inscrutable beauty of a virgin face, and the Greek could only add
wings to the great emblem." "In Sparta the women were as much
Spartans as the men. Was not the calm equality they enjoyed well
worth the honors of chivalry? They intelligently shared the ideal
life of their nation." "Is it in vain that the truth has been
recognized that woman is not only a part of man, bone of his bone,
and flesh of his flesh, born that man might not be lonely, but in
themselves possessors of and possessed by immortal souls? This
truth undoubtedly received a greater outward stability from the
belief of the church that the earthly parent of the Saviour of
souls was a woman."
"Woman cannot complain that she has not had her share of power.
This in all ranks of society, except the lowest, has been hers to
the extent that vanity could crave, far beyond what wisdom would
accept. It is not the transient breath of poetic incense that women
want; each can receive that from a lover. It is not life-long sway;
it needs to become a coquette, a shrew, or a good cook, to be sure
of that. It is not money, nor notoriety, nor the badges of
authority that men have appropriated to themselves. It is for that
which includes all these and precludes them; which would not be
forbidden power, lest there be temptation to steal and misuse it;
which would not have the mind perverted by flattery from a
worthiness of esteem. It is for that which is the birthright of
every being capable to receive it,--the freedom, the religious, the
intelligent freedom of the universe, to use its means, to learn its
secret as far as nature has enabled them, with God alone for their
guide and their judge."
"The only reason why women ever assume what is more appropriate to
men, is because men prevent them from finding out what is fit for
themselves. Were they free, were they wise fully to develop the
strength and beauty of woman, they would never wish to be men or
manlike. The well instructed moon flies not from her orbit to seize
on the glories of her partner."
"Give the soul free course, let the organization be freely
developed, and the being will be fit for any and every relation to
which it may be called."
"Civilized Europe is still in a transition state about marriage,
not only in practice but in thought. A great majority of societies
and individuals are still doubtful whether earthly marriage is to
be a union of souls, or merely a contract of convenience and
utility. Were woman established in the rights of an immortal being,
this could not be." But "those who would reform the world, must
show that they do not speak in the heat of wild impulse; their
lives must be unstained by passionate error; they must be severe
lawgivers to themselves. As to their transgressions of opinions, it
may be observed, that the resolve of Eloise to be only the mistress
of Abelard, was that of one who saw the contract of marriage a seal
of degradation. Wherever abuses of this sort are seen, the timid
will suffer, the bold will protest; but society has the right to
outlaw them, till she has revised her law, and she must be taught
to do so, by one who speaks with authority, not in anger or haste."
"Whether much or little has been or will be done; whether women
will add to the talent of narration, the power of systematizing;
whether they will carve marble as well as iron, is not important.
But that it should be acknowledged that they have intellect which
needs developing, that they should not be considered complete, if
beings of affection and habit alone, is important. Earth knows no
fairer, holier relation than that of mother. But a being of
infinite scope must not be treated with an exclusive view to any
one relation."
"In America women are much better situated than men. Good books are
allowed, with more time to read them. They have time to think, and
no traditions chain them. Their employments are more favorable to
the inward life than those of men. Men are courteous to them;
praise them often; check them seldom. In this country, is
venerated, wherever seen, the character which Goethe spoke of as an
Ideal: 'The excellent woman is she, who, if her husband dies, can
be a father to the children.'"
Nothing can be more reasonable than this; and this is the tone of
transcendental feeling and thought on the subject. The only criticism
that can fairly be made on the Transcendentalist's idea of woman, is
that it has more regard for essential capacities and possibilities, than
for incidental circumstances, more respect for the ideal than for the
actual woman. However grave a sin this may be against common sense, it
is none against purity, nobleness, or the laws of private or public
virtue. The dream, if it be no more than a dream, is beautiful and
inspiring.
The Transcendentalist believed in man's ability to apprehend absolute
ideas of Truth, Justice, Rectitude, Goodness; he spoke of The Right, The
True, The Beautiful, as eternal realities which he perceived. The
"Sensational" philosophy was shut up in the relative and conditioned;
knew nothing higher than expediency; held prudence, caution, practical
wisdom in highest rank among the virtues; consulted the revelations of
history; recognized no law above established usage; went for guidance to
the book, the record, the statute; it could not speak therefore with
power, but could only consider, surmise, cast probabilities, devise
plans and work carefully towards their execution. The Sensationalist
distrusted the seer, rejected the prophet, and disliked the reformer.
His aim was law; his work within easy distance; his object, some
plainly visible and appreciable satisfaction. His faith in men and women
was small; his trust in circumstances and conditions was unbounded; but
as this faith had no wings, it could neither raise its possessor from
the ground, nor speed him faster than a walking pace. He was easily
satisfied with the world as it was; or if dissatisfied, had little hope
of its being made better by anything he could do. His helplessness and
hopelessness will make him in opinion an optimist, who finds it easier
to assume that the order of the world is perfect and will so appear by
and by, than that it is made imperfect for him to mend. Optimism is
perhaps oftener the creed of the indolent than of the earnest.
The Transcendentalist was satisfied with nothing so long as it did not
correspond to the ideal in the enlightened soul; and in the soul
recognized the power to make all things new. Nothing will content him
short of the absolute right, the eternally true, the unconditioned
excellence. He prays for the kingdom of Heaven, lives in expectation of
it; would not be surprised at its coming any day. For though the
distance is immense between the world as it is and his vision of the
world as it should be--a distance that the Evolutionist despairs of
seeing traversed in thousands of years, if he believes it will be
traversed at all,--still, as the power of regeneration is supposed to be
in the soul itself, which is possessed of infinite capacities and is
open continually to inspirations from the world of soul, the
transformation may begin when least expected, and may be completed
before preparation for it can be made. Hence his boundless enthusiasm
and hope; hence the order of his feeling, the glow of his language.
Hence his disposition to exaggerate the force of tendencies that point
in his direction; to take the brightest view of events, and put the
happiest construction on the signs of the times. In the anti-slavery
period the Transcendentalist glorified the negro beyond all warrant of
fact, seeing in him an imprisoned soul struggling to be free. The same
soul he sees in woman oppressed by limitations; the same in the
drunkard, the gambler, the libertine. His eye is ever fixed on the
future.
VIII.
RELIGION.
It was by no accident that the transcendental philosophy addressed
itself at once to the questions of religion. It did so at the beginning,
in Germany, and later, in England, and did so from the nature of the
case. Its very name implied that it maintained the existence of ideas in
the mind which transcended sensible experience. Such ideas fall within
the domain of religion; ideas of the infinite, the eternal, the
absolute; and the significance and import of these ideas exercised the
minds of transcendental thinkers, according to their genius. Kant felt
it necessary to reopen the problem of God and immortality; Fichte
followed, Schelling and Hegel moved on the same plane.
Transcendentalism was, in fact, a reaction against the moral and
political skepticism which resulted directly from the prevailing
philosophy of sensation. Since Bacon's day, religious beliefs had been
taking hold on the enlightened mind of England and Europe. The drift of
speculation was strongly against, not the Christian system alone, but
natural religion, and the ideal foundation of morality. The writings of
Collins, Dodwell, Mandeville, expressed more skepticism than they
created, and betrayed a deeply-seated and widely-spread misgiving in
regard to the fundamental truths of theology. Hume's argument against
the credibility of miracles was never answered, and the anxiety to
answer it was a confession of alarm from the heart of the church. The
famous XVIth chapter of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
was assailed furiously, but in vain, each assault exposing the weakness
of the assailants; and it was only by adopting his history, and editing
it with judicious notes, that the church silenced the enemy it could not
crush. The deists of the seventeenth century in no wise balanced their
denials by their affirmations, but left Christianity fearfully shattered
by their blows. The champions of the church fought skepticism with
skepticism, conceding in substance the points they superficially
attacked. Towards the close of the seventeenth century Cudworth
confronted atheism with idealism, retreating upon Plato when the foe had
carried the other works; early in the century following, Butler, in the
celebrated "Analogy," fought infidelity with weapons that infidelity
might have turned, and since has turned with deadly effect, against
himself. The ablest representative of Unitarianism was Joseph Priestley,
a materialist of the school of Hartley. The cardinal beliefs of religion
were debated in a way that was quite unsatisfactory in the light of
reason, showing the extent to which faith had been undermined. Indeed,
had it not been for the power of institutions, customs, respectability,
and tradition, the popular beliefs would have all but disappeared, so
deep into the heart of the people unbelief had penetrated. The church
stood fast, because it was allied with power and fashion, not because it
was supported by reason or faith. The whole tone of feeling on sacred
and ethical topics was low; divine ideas were defended by considerations
of expediency; God was a probability; the immortality of the soul a
possibility, a supplement to skepticism, an appendix to a philosophy
which, finding no God here, presumed there must be one hereafter. There
is no more soulless reading than the works of the Christian apologists
of the seventeenth century. The infidels had more ideas, and apparently
more sincerity, but in neither was there any spiritual impulse or
fervor.
In Germany the philosophy of Bacon and Locke did not strike deep root.
The day of Germany was to come later. Her thoughts were pent up in her
own breast. She was isolated, and almost speechless. Her genius awoke
with the new philosophy. Under the influence of idealism it bloomed in
the richest of modern literatures. Her very skepticism, the much
talked-of rationalism, had an ideal origin. Strauss was a disciple of
Hegel. Bauer, and the "historical school" of Tübingen worked out their
problem of New Testament criticism from the Hegelian idea, the
constructive force whereof was so powerful, that the negations lost
their negative character, and showed primarily as affirmations of
reason. By being adopted into the line of intellectual development of
mankind, Christianity, though dethroned and disenchanted, was dignified
as a supreme moment in the autobiography of God.
Frederick the Great, in the middle of the eighteenth century, attracted
literary celebrities to his court, and gave an impulse, so far, to the
German mind; but the French genius found more encouragement there than
the German, and in his time French genius was speeding fast in the way
of skepticism. Condillac, Cabanis, d'Holbach, Helvetius, were of that
generation. The "Encyclopædists," the most brilliant men and women of
the generation, were planning their work of demolition. Voltaire was the
great name in contemporary literature. The books of Volney were popular
towards the end of the century. Skepticism and materialism had the
floor. It was fashionable to ridicule the belief in personal
immortality, and in enlightened circles to deny the existence of God.
The doctrines of Christianity were abandoned to priests and women;
philosophers deemed them too absurd to be argued against. Had the
assault been less witty and more scientific, less acrimonious and more
reasonable, less scornful and more consistent, its apparent success
might have been permanent. As it was, a change of mood occurred; a
conservative spirit succeeded the destructive; order prevailed over
anarchy; and the Catholic church, which had only been temporarily thrust
aside--not fatally wounded, not by any means disposed of--regained its
suspended power.
But rational or intellectual Christianity--in other words the system of
Protestantism, in whatever form held--received a severe blow in France
from these audacious hands. Religion took refuge in institutions and
ceremonial forms; and there remained little else except a kernel of
sentiment in a thin shell of tradition. What beliefs were entertained
were accepted on authority; reason sought other fields of exercise,
scientific, philosophical, literary; and a chill of indifference crept
over the once religious world. From France, opinions adverse to
Christianity were brought to America by travelled or curious people;
they pervaded the creative minds of our earliest epoch, and penetrated
far into the popular intelligence. The habit of thinking independently
of authority and tradition became confirmed, and as a matter of course
led to doubts and denials; for thinking was done in a temper of
defiance, which constrained the thought to obey the wish. Such
philosophical ideas as there were, came from France and England. Paley's
was the last word in morals; the "Bridgewater Treatises" were the
received oracles in religion; the rules of practical judgment had
usurped the dominion of faith.
What pass things had come to in New England, in the centre of its
culture, has been described in a previous chapter. It was time for a
reaction to set in; and it came in the form of Transcendentalism. The
"sensational" philosophy, it was contended, could not supply a basis for
faith. Its first principle was "_Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in
sensu_." "There is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the
senses." From this principle nothing but skepticism could proceed. How,
for instance, asks the Transcendentalist, can the sensational philosophy
of Locke and his disciples give us anything approaching to a certainty
of the existence of God? The senses furnish no evidence of it. God is
not an object of sensation. He is not seen, felt, heard, tasted or
smelt. The objects of sense are material, local, incidental; God is
immaterial, universal, eternal. The objects of sense are finite; but a
finite God is no God; for God is infinite. Is it said that by men of
old, bible men, God was seen, heard, clasped in human arms? The reply
is, that whatever Being was so apparent and tangible, could not have
been God. To the assertion that the Being announced himself as God,--the
infinite, the eternal God,--the challenge straightway is given: To whom
did he say it? How can it be proved that he said it? Is the record of
his saying it authentic? Might not the Being have made a false
statement? Can we be certain there was no mental hallucination? Suppose
these and other doubts of a similar character dispelled, still, hearing
is not knowing. All we have is a tradition of God, a legend, a rumor, a
dim reminiscence, that passes like a shadow across men's minds. The
appeal to miracle is set aside by historical skepticism. The wonder
lacks evidence; and to prove the wonder a miracle, is beyond
achievement. A possibility, or at most, a probability of God's existence
is all that sensationalism, with every advantage given it, can supply.
And if this philosophy fails to give an assurance of God's existence,
the failure to throw light on his attributes is more signal. The senses
report things as they exist in relations, not as they exist in
themselves. Neither absolute power, absolute wisdom nor absolute
goodness is hinted at by the senses. The visible system of things
abounds in contradictions that we cannot reconcile, puzzles we cannot
explain, mysteries we cannot penetrate, imperfections we cannot account
for, wrongs we cannot palliate, evils we cannot cover up or justify.
That a vein of wisdom, an element of goodness, an infusion of
loving-kindness is in the world is evident; but to show that, is to go
very little way towards establishing the attributes of a Perfect Being.
A God of limited power, wisdom or goodness, is no God, and no other does
Sensationalism offer. Transcendentalism points to the fact that under
the auspices of this philosophy atheism has spread; and along with
atheism the intellectual demoralization that accompanies the
disappearance of a cardinal idea.
From this grave peril the Transcendentalist found an escape in flight to
the spiritual nature of man, in virtue of which he had an intuitive
knowledge of God as a being, infinite and absolute in power, wisdom and
goodness; a direct perception like that which the senses have of
material objects; a perception that gains in distinctness, clearness and
positiveness as the faculties through which it is obtained increase in
power and delicacy. To the human mind, by its original constitution,
belongs the firm assurance of God's existence, as a half latent fact of
consciousness, and with it a dim sense of his moral attributes. To minds
capacious and sensitive the truth was disclosed in lofty ranges that
lifted the horizon line, in every direction, above the cloud land of
doubt; to minds cultivated, earnest, devout, aspiring, the revelation
came in bursts of glory. The experiences of inspired men and women were
repeated. The prophet, the seer, the saint, was no longer a favored
person whose sayings and doings were recorded in the Bible, but a living
person, making manifest the wealth of soul in all human beings.
Communication with the ideal world was again opened through conscience;
and communion with God, close and tender as is anywhere described by
devotees and mystics, was promised to the religious affections.
The Transcendentalist spoke of God with authority. His God was not
possible, but real; not probable, but certain. In his high confidence he
had small respect for the labored reasonings of "Natural Religion;" the
argument from design, so carefully elaborated by Paley, Brougham and the
writers of the "Bridgewater Treatises," was interesting and useful as
far as it went, but was remanded to an inferior place. The demonstration
from miracle was dismissed with feelings bordering on contempt, as
illogical and childish.
Taking his faith with him into the world of nature and of human life,
the Transcendentalist, sure of the divine wisdom and love, found
everywhere joy for mourning and beauty for ashes. Passing through the
valley of Baca, he saw springs bubbling up from the sand, and making
pools for thirsty souls. Wherever he came, garments of heaviness were
dropped and robes of praise put on. Evil was but the prophecy of good,
wrong the servant of right, pain the precursor of peace, sorrow the
minister to joy. He would acknowledge no exception to the rule of an
absolute justice and an inexorable love. It was certain that all was
well, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. He was, as we have
said, an optimist--not of the indifferent sort that make the maxim
"Whatever is, is right" an excuse for idleness--but of the heroic kind
who, by refreshing their minds with thoughts of the absolute goodness,
keep alive their faith, hope, endeavor, and quicken themselves to
efforts at understanding, interpreting and bringing to the surface the
divine attributes. For himself he had no misgivings, and no alarm at the
misgivings of others; believing them due, either to some
misunderstanding that might be corrected, or to some moral defect that
could be cured. Even Atheism, of the crudest, coarsest, most stubborn
description, had no terrors for him. It was in his judgment a matter of
definition mainly. Utter atheism was all but inconceivable to him; the
essential faith in divine things under some form of mental perception
being too deeply planted in human nature to be eradicated or buried.
Taking his belief with him into the world of history, the
Transcendentalist discovered the faith in God beneath all errors,
delusions, idolatries and superstition. He read it into unintelligible
scriptures; he drew it forth from obsolete symbols; he dragged it to the
light from the darkness of hateful shrines and the bloody mire of pagan
altars. Mr. Parker meditated a work on the religious history of mankind,
in which the development of the theistic idea was to be traced from its
shadowy beginnings to its full maturity; and this he meant should be the
crowning work of his life. Sure of his first principle, he had no
hesitation in going into caves and among the ruins of temples. Had that
work been completed, the Transcendentalist's faith in God would have
received its most eloquent statement.
The other cardinal doctrine of religion--the immortality of the
soul,--Transcendentalism was proud of having rescued from death in the
same way. The philosophy of sensation could give no assurance of
personal immortality. Here, too, its fundamental axiom, "_Nihil in
intellectu quod non prius in sensu_," was discouraging to belief. For
immortality is not demonstrable to the senses. Experience affords no
basis for conviction, and knowledge cannot on any pretext be claimed.
The sensational school was divided into two parties. The first party
confessed that the immortality of the soul was a thing not only
unprovable, but a thing easily disproved, a thing improbable, and, to a
clear mind, impossible to believe. The soul being a product of
organization, at all events fatally implicated in organization,
conditioned by it in all respects, must perish with organization, as the
flower perishes with the stem. Of a spirit distinct from body there is,
according to this school, no evidence, either before death or after.
Man's prospect, therefore, is bounded by this life. Dreamers may have
visions of another; mourners may sigh for another; ardent natures may
hope for another; but to believe in another is, to the rational mind,
according to this philosophy, impossible. The sentence "dust thou art,
and to dust thou shalt return," may seem a hard one; but as it cannot be
reversed or modified, it must be accepted with submission; and in
default of another life, the honest man will make the most of the life
he has; not necessarily saying with the sensualist: "Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die;" but with the hero reminding himself that
he must "Work while it is day, for the night cometh in which no man can
work." The modern disciples of this doctrine of annihilation speak in a
tone of lofty courage of their destiny, and disguise under shining and
many-colored garments of anticipation, the fact of their personal
cessation. The thinkers find refuge in the intellectual problems of the
present; the workers pile up monuments that shall endure when they are
gone; poets like George Eliot, make grand music on the harp-strings of
the common humanity; but the fact remains that the philosophy of
experience abandons, or did before the advent of spiritualism--the
expectation of an existence after death.
The other branch of the Sensational school fell back on authority, and
received on the tradition of history what could not be verified by
science. Immortality was accepted as a doctrine of instituted religion,
taken on the credit of revelation, and sealed by the resurrection of
Jesus. As an article of faith it was accepted without comment. If we
have not seen the glorified dead, others have, and their witness is
recorded in the Scriptures. Beyond that believers did not care to go;
beyond that advised no one else to go. To question the genuineness of
the Scriptures, to cast doubt on the resurrection of Jesus, to intimate
that the tradition of the church is a thin stream that murmurs
pleasantly in the shade of the sacred groves, but would dry up if the
sun-light were let in, was resented as an offence against reverence and
morality. By such as these the belief that slipped away from the reason
was detained by the will.
But beliefs thus appropriated are insecurely held. The inactivity of the
mind cannot be guaranteed; a slight disturbance of its tamely
acquiescent condition may set its whole scheme of opinions afloat. A
sentence on a printed page, a word let fall in conversation, a
discovered fact, an awakened suspicion, a suggestion of doubt by a
friend, may stir the thought whose movement will bring the whole
structure down. There being no certainty, only arbitrary content; no
personal conviction, only formal acquiescence; there was nothing to
prevent the belief from disappearing altogether, and leaving the mind
vacant.
Even when retained, beliefs thus held have no vitality. They are not
living faiths in any intelligent sense. Useful they may be for pulpit
declamation and closet discussion; serviceable on funeral occasions and
in chambers of sorrow; available for purposes of moral impression; but
inspiring they are not; actively sustaining and consoling they are not.
Their effect on the conduct of life is almost imperceptible. They are
appendages to the mind, not parts of it; proprieties, not properties.
They are to be reckoned as part of a man's stock in trade, not as part
of his being.
Transcendentalism, by taking the belief in immortality out of these
incidental and doubtful associations, and making it a constituent
element in the constitution of the mind itself, thought to rescue it
from its precarious position, and place it beyond the reach of danger.
No belief was, on the whole, so characteristic of Transcendentalism as
this; none was so steadfastly assumed, so constantly borne in view.
Immortality was here a postulate, a first principle. Theodore Parker
called it a fact of consciousness--the intensity of his conviction
rendering him careless of precision in speech. The writings of Emerson
are redolent of the faith. Even when he argues in his way against the
accepted creed, and casts doubt on every form in which the doctrine is
entertained, the loftiness of his language about the soul carries the
presage of immortality with it. The "Dial" has no argument about
immortality; no paper in the whole series is devoted to the subject; the
faith was too deep and essential to be talked about--it was assumed. The
Transcendentalist was an enthusiast on this article. He spoke, not as
one who surmises, conjectures, is on the whole inclined to think; but as
one who knows beyond cavil or question. We never met a man whose
assurance of immortality was as strong as Theodore Parker's. The
objections of materialists did not in the least disturb him. In the
company of the most absolute of them he avowed his conviction. What
others clung to as supports--the church tradition, the story of the
raising of Lazarus, the account of the resurrection of Jesus--were to
him stumbling blocks in the way of spiritual faith, for they drew
attention away from the witness of the soul.
The preaching of Transcendentalists caused, in all parts of the
country, a revival of interest and of faith in personal immortality;
spiritualized the idea of it; enlarged the scope of the belief, and
ennobled its character; established an organic connection between the
present life and the future, making them both one in substance;
disabused people of the coarse notion that the next life was an incident
of their experience, and compelled them to think of it as a normal
extension of their being; substituted aspiration after spiritual
deliverance and perfection, for hope of happiness and fear of misery;
recalled attention to the nature and capacity of the soul itself; in a
word, announced the natural immortality of the soul by virtue of its
essential quality. The fanciful reasoning of Plato's "_Phædon_" was
supplemented by new readings in psychology, and strengthened by powerful
moral supports; the highest desires, the purest feelings, the deepest
sympathies, were enlisted in its cause; death was made incidental to
life; lower life was made subordinate to higher; and men who were
beginning to doubt whether the demand for personal immortality was
entirely honorable in one who utterly trusted in God, thoroughly
appreciated the actual world, and fairly respected his own dignity, were
reassured by a faith which promised felicity on terms that compromised
neither reason nor virtue. The very persons who had let go the hope of
immortality because they could not accept it at the cost of sacrificing
their confidence in God's instant justice, were glad to recover it as a
promise of fulfilment to their dearest desire for spiritual expansion.
The Sensational philosophy had done a worse harm to the belief in
immortality, than by rendering the prospect of it uncertain; it had
rendered the character of it pusillanimous and plebeian; it had demanded
it on the ground that God must explain himself, must correct his
blunders and apologize for his partiality in distributing sugar plums;
it had argued for it from personal, social, sectarian, and other
sympathies and antipathies; it had expected it on the strength of a
rumor that a specially holy man, a saint of Judea, had appeared after
death to his peculiar friends; it had pleaded for it, as children beg
for dessert after bread and meat. The transcendental philosophy
dismissed these unworthy claims, made no demand, put up no petition, but
simply made articulate the prophecy of the spiritual nature in man, and
trusted the eternal goodness for its fulfilment. Other arguments might
come to the support of this anticipation; history might bring its
contribution of recorded facts; suffering and sorrow might add their
pathetic voices, bewailing the oppressive power of circumstance, and
crying for peace out of affliction; the biographies of Jesus might
furnish illustration of the victory of the greatest souls over death;
but considerations of this kind received their importance from the light
they threw on the immortal attributes of spirit. Apart from these their
significance was gone.
The pure Transcendentalists saw everywhere evidence of the greatness of
the soul. Christianity they regarded as its chief manifestation.
Imperfect Transcendentalists there were, who used the fundamental
postulates of the transcendental philosophy to confirm their faith in
supernatural realities. Their Transcendentalism amounted merely to
this, that man had a natural capacity for _receiving_ supernatural
truths, when presented by revelation. The _possession_ of such truths,
even in germ; the power to unfold them naturally, by process of mental
or spiritual growth; the faculty to seize, define, shape, legitimate and
enthrone them, they denied. The soul, according to them, was recipient,
not originating or creative. They continued to be Christians of the
"Evangelical" stamp; champions of special intervention of light and
grace; hearty believers in the divinity of the Christ and the saving
influence of the Holy Ghost; holding to the peculiar inspiration of the
Bible, and the personal need of regeneration. The wisest teachers of
orthodoxy belonged to this school.
The pure Transcendentalist went much further. According to him, the
seeds of truth, if not the outline forms of truth, were contained in the
soul itself, all ready to expand in bloom and beauty, as it felt the
light and heat of the upper world. Sir Kenelm Digby relates that in
Padua he visited the laboratory of a famous physician, and was there
shown a small pile of fine ashes under a glass. On the application of a
gentle heat, it arose, assumed the shape of its original flower, all its
parts being perfectly distinct in form and well defined in character.
During the application of the heat, the spectral plant preserved its
delicate outline; but on withdrawal of the heat, it became dust again.
So, according to the Transcendentalist, the spiritual being of
man--which apparently is a heap of lifeless ashes on the surface of
material existence--when graciously shone upon by knowledge and love,
puts on divine attributes, glows with beauty, palpitates with joy, gives
out flashes of power, distils odors of sanctity, and exhibits the marks
of a celestial grace. The soul, when thus awakened, utters oracles of
wisdom, sings, prophesies, thunders decalogues, pronounces beatitudes,
discourses grandly of God and divine things, performs wonders of healing
on sick bodies and wandering minds, rises to heights of heroism and
saintliness.
From this point of vision, it was easy to survey the history of mankind,
and, in the various religions of the world, see the efforts of the soul
to express itself in scriptures, emblems, doctrines, altar forms,
architecture, painting, moods and demonstrations of piety. The
Transcendentalist rendered full justice to all these, studied them,
admired them, confessed their inspiration. Of these faiths Christianity
was cheerfully acknowledged to be the queen. The supremacy of Jesus was
granted with enthusiasm. His teachings were accepted as the purest
expressions of religious truth; His miracles were regarded as the
natural achievements of a soul of such originality and force. In his
address to the senior class in Divinity College, 1838, Mr. Emerson spoke
of Christ's miracles as being "one with the blowing clover and the
falling rain," and urged the young candidates for the ministry to let
his life and dialogues "lie as they befel, active and warm, part of
human life, and of the landscape, and of the cheerful day." When, in
1840, Theodore Parker wrote his "Levi Blodgett" letter, he believed in
miracles, the miracles of the New Testament and many others besides,
more than the Christians about him were willing to accept.
"It may be said these religious teachers (Zoroaster, Buddha, Fo)
pretended to work miracles. I would not deny that they _did_ work
miracles. If a man is obedient to the law of his mind, conscience
and heart, since his intellect, character and affections are in
harmony with the laws of God, I take it he can do works that are
impossible to others, who have not been so faithful, and
consequently are not "one with God" as he is; and this is all that
is meant by a miracle." "The possession of this miraculous power,
when it can be proved, as I look at the thing, is only a _sign_,
which may be uncertain, of the superior genius of a religious
teacher, or a _sign_ that he will utter the truth, and never a
_proof_ thereof."
The Transcendentalist was a cordial believer in marvels, as being so
hearty a believer in the potency of the spiritual laws. Parker's
opposition to the miracles of the New Testament was provoked by the
exclusive claim that was put forward by their defenders, and by the
position they were thrust into as pillars of doctrine. His wish to make
it appear that truth could stand without them, impelled him to strain at
their overthrow. Later, his studies in New Testament criticism confirmed
his suspicion that the testimony in their favor was altogether
inadequate to sustain their credibility. The theory of Bauer and his
disciples of the Tübingen school seemed to him unanswerable, and he
abandoned, as a scholar, much that as a Transcendentalist he might have
been disposed to retain. W. H. Furness, author of several biographical
studies on the life and character of Jesus--a Transcendentalist
of the most impassioned school, but no adept in historical
criticism--maintained to the last the credibility of the Christian
miracles, and purely on the ground of their perfect naturalness as
performed by a person so spiritually exalted as Jesus was. The more
ardent his admiration of that character, the more unshrinking his belief
in these manifestations of its superiority. Dr. Furness is prepared to
think that if no miracles had been recorded, nevertheless miracles must
have been wrought, and would, but for some blindness or skepticism, have
been mentioned.
The charge that Transcendentalism denied the reality of supernatural
powers and influences shows how imperfectly it was apprehended. It
seemed to deny them because it transferred them to another sphere. It
regarded man himself as a supernatural being; not the last product of
nature, but the lord of nature; not the _creature_ of organization, but
its creator. In its extreme form, Transcendentalism was a deification of
nature, in the highest aspects of Beauty. It raised human qualities to
the supreme power; it ascribed to extraordinary virtue in its exalted
states the efficient grace that is commonly attributed to the Holy
Spirit. The pure Transcendentalist spoke of the experiences and powers
of the illuminated soul with as much extravagance of rapture as one of
the newly redeemed ever expressed. The profane made sport of his
fanaticisms and fervors in the same way that they made sport of the wild
over-gush of a revival meeting. The demonstrations of feeling were in
fact, precisely similar; only in the one case the excitement was traced
to the Christ in the skies, in the other to the Christ who was the soul
of the man; in the one case a superhuman being was imagined as operating
on the soul; in the other case the soul was supposed to be giving
expression to itself.
The Transcendentalist was not careful enough in making this distinction,
and was, therefore, to blame for a portion of the misapprehension that
ensued. He often found in sacred literature, thoughts which he himself
put there. Parker, discoursing of inspiration, cites Paul and John as
holding the same doctrine with himself; though it is plain to the single
mind that their doctrine was in no respect the same, but so different as
to be in contradiction. Paul and John, it is hardly too much to say, set
up their doctrine in precise opposition to the doctrine of the
Transcendentalists. Paul declared that the natural man could _not_
discern divine things; that they were foolishness to him; that they must
be spiritually discerned; that the Christian was able to discern them
spiritually _because he had_ the "mind of Christ." The eighth chapter of
the Epistle to the Romans contains sentences that, taken singly, apart
from their connection, comfort the cockles of the transcendental heart;
but the writer is glorifying Christ the inspirer; not the soul he
inspired. He opens the chapter with the affirmation that "there is no
condemnation to them which are in CHRIST JESUS, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the spirit," and follows it with the saying that "if
any man have not the _Spirit of Christ_, he is none of his." This is
the spirit that "quickens mortal bodies," that makes believers to be
"Sons of God," giving them the spirit of adoption whereby they cry
"Abba, Father," bearing witness with their spirit that they are "the
children of God." This is the spirit that "helpeth our infirmities," and
"maketh intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered."
Transcendentalism deliberately broke with Christianity. Paul said "other
foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."
Transcendentalism responded: "Jesus Christ built on my foundation, the
soul;" and, for thus answering, was classed with those who used as
building materials "wood, hay, stubble," which the fire would consume.
In the view of Transcendentalism, Christianity was an illustrious form
of natural religion--Jesus was a noble type of human nature; revelation
was disclosure of the soul's mystery; inspiration was the filling of the
soul's lungs; salvation was spiritual vitality.
Transcendentalism carried its appeal to metaphysics. At present physics
have the floor. Our recent studies have been in the natural history of
the soul. Its spiritual history is discredited. But the human mind ebbs
and flows. The Bains and Spencers and Taines may presently give place to
other prophets; psychology may come to the front again, and with it will
reappear the sages and seers. In that event, the religion of
Transcendentalism will revive, and will have a long and fair day.
For it can hardly be supposed that the present movement in the line of
observation is the final one; that henceforth we are to continue
straight on till, by the path of physiology, we arrive at absolute
truth; that idealism is dead and gone for ever, and materialism of a
refined type holds the future in its hand. The triumphs of the
scientific method in the natural world are wonderful. The law of
evolution has its lap full of promise. But one who has studied at all
the history of human thought; who has seen philosophies crowned and
discrowned, sceptred and outcast; who has followed the changing fortunes
of opposing schools, and witnessed the alternate victories and defeats
that threatened, each in its turn, to decide the fate of philosophy,
will be slow to believe that the final conflict has been fought, or is
to be, for hundreds of years to come. The principles of the
"Sensational" philosophy have, within the last half century, been
revived and restated with great power by Mill, Bain, Spencer, Taine, and
other leaders of speculative opinion both in England and Europe. Recent
discoveries and generalizations in physical science have lent
countenance to them. The investigations in physiology and biology, the
researches in the regions of natural history, the revelations of
chemistry, have all combined to confirm their truth. Psychology, in the
hands of its latest masters, has worked successfully in their interest.
The thinness, shallowness and dry technicality of the original school
have given place to a rich and varied exposition of the facts of organic
life in its origin, development and results. The original form of the
Sensational philosophy as it prevailed in Europe is described by Mill as
"the shallowest set of doctrines which perhaps, were ever passed off
upon a cultivated age as a complete psychological system; a system which
affected to resolve all the phenomena of the human mind into sensation,
by a process which essentially consisted in merely _calling_ all states
of mind, however heterogeneous, by that name; a philosophy now
acknowledged to consist solely of a set of verbal generalizations,
explaining nothing, distinguishing nothing, leading to nothing." The
"Sensational" philosophy is now presented as the philosophy of
"experience." Its occupation is to resolve into results of experience
and processes of organic life the _à priori_ conceptions that have been
accepted as simple and primitive data of consciousness, by the Ideal
philosophy. Mill was one of the first to undertake this from the
psychological side, analyzing the processes of reason, and making
account of the contents of the mind. Lewes, Spencer, Tyndall have
approached the same problem from the side of organization. In the first
edition of the Logic, Mill clearly indicated the ground he took in the
controversy between the two schools; in the last edition, he defined his
position more clearly, against Whewell, and in agreement with Bain.
In the article on Coleridge, published in the _London and Westminister
Review_, March, 1840, and republished in the second volume of
"Dissertations and Discussions," Mill declares explicitly, that in his
judgment, the truth on the much-debated question between the two
philosophies lies with the school of Locke and Bentham:
"The nature of laws and things in themselves, or the hidden causes
of the phenomena which are the objects of experience, appear to us
radically inaccessible to the human faculties. We see no ground for
believing that any thing can be the object of our knowledge except
our experience, and what can be inferred from our experience by the
analogies of experience itself; nor that there is any idea, feeling
or power in the human mind, which, in order to account for it,
requires that its origin should be referred to any other source. We
are, therefore, at issue with Coleridge on the central idea of his
philosophy; and we find no need of, and no use for, the peculiar
technical terminology which he and his masters, the Germans, have
introduced into philosophy, for the double purpose of giving
logical precision to doctrines which we do not admit, and of
marking a relation between those abstract doctrines and many
concrete experimental truths, which this language, in our judgment,
serves not to elucidate, but to disguise and obscure."
In the examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, he still more
emphatically expressed his dissent from Schelling, Cousin, and every
school of idealism, rejecting the doctrine of intuitive knowledge;
taking the eternal ground from beneath the ideas of the Infinite and
Absolute; sharply questioning the well-conceded interpretations of
consciousness; resolving the "first principles" into mental habits; and
even going so far as to doubt whether twice two necessarily made
four.[3]
[3] Vol. 1, page 89, 90.
The system of Spencer and other expositors of the doctrine of evolution
is, in its general features and its ultimate tendency, too familiar to
be stated. Its hostility to the intuitive philosophy must be obvious
even to unpractised minds. The atomic theory of the constitution of
matter, which, in one or another form, is accepted by the majority of
scientific men, gives ominous prediction of disaster to every scheme
that is built on the necessary truths of pure reason.
But the philosophers of the experimental school are by no means in
accord among themselves, on a matter so cardinal as the relation of mind
to organization. In the latest edition of the Logic, Mill repeats the
language used in the first:[4]
"That every mental state has a nervous state for its immediate
antecedent, though extremely probable, cannot hitherto be said to
be proved, in the conclusive manner in which this can be proved of
sensations; and even were it certain, yet every one must admit that
we are wholly ignorant of the characteristics of these nervous
states; we know not, and have no means of knowing, in what respect
one of them differs from another.... The successions, therefore,
which obtain among mental phenomena, do not admit of being deduced
from the physiological laws of our nervous organization." "It must
by no means be forgotten that the laws of mind may be derivative
laws resulting from laws of animal life, and that their truth,
therefore, may ultimately depend on physical conditions; and the
influence of physiological states or physiological changes in
altering or counter-acting the mental successions, is one of the
most important departments of psychological study. But on the other
hand, to reject the resource of psychological analysis, and
construct the theory of mind solely on such data as physiology
affords at present, seems to me as great an error in principle,
and an even more serious one in practice. Imperfect as is the
science of mind, I do not scruple to affirm that it is in a
considerably more advanced state than the portion of physiology
which corresponds with it; and to discard the former for the latter
appears to me to be an infringement of the true canons of inductive
philosophy."
[4] Logic, p. 591. Amer. Edition.
In a previous chapter[5] Mill had said:
"I am far from pretending that it may not be capable of proof, or
that it is not an important addition to our knowledge, if proved,
that certain motions in the particles of bodies are the
_conditions_ of the production of heat or light; that certain
assignable physical modifications of the nerves may be the
conditions, not only of our sensations and emotions, but even of
our thoughts; that certain mechanical and chemical conditions may,
in the order of nature, be sufficient to determine to action the
physiological laws of life. All I insist upon, in common with every
thinker who entertains any clear idea of the logic of science, is,
that it shall not be supposed that by proving these things, one
step would be made toward a real explanation of heat, light, or
sensation; or that the generic peculiarity of those phenomena can
be in the least degree evaded by any such discoveries, however well
established. Let it be shown, for instance, that the most complex
series of physical causes and effects succeed one another in the
eye and in the brain, to produce a sense of color; rays falling on
the eye, refracted, converging, crossing one another, making an
inverted image on the retina; and after this a motion--let it be a
vibration, or a rush of nervous fluid, or whatever else you are
pleased to suppose, along the optic nerve--a propagation of this
motion to the brain itself, and as many more different motions as
you choose; still, at the end of these motions there is something
which is not motion, there is a feeling or sensation of color. The
mode in which any one of the motions produces the next, may
possibly be susceptible of explanation by some general law of
motion; but the mode in which the last motion produces the
sensation of color cannot be explained by any motion; it is the law
of color, which is, and must always remain a peculiar thing. Where
our consciousness recognizes between two phenomena an inherent
distinction; where we are sensible of a difference, which is not
merely of degree; and feel that no adding one of the phenomena to
itself will produce the other; any theory which attempts to bring
either under the laws of the other must be false."
[5] Logic, p. 548. Amer. Edition.
To precisely the same effect, DuBois Reymond, in an address to the
Congress of German Naturalists given in Leipsic:
"It is absolutely and forever inconceivable that a number of
carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen atoms, should be otherwise
than indifferent to their own position and motion, past, present,
or future. It is utterly inconceivable how consciousness should
result from their joint action."
The position of John Tyndall is well understood. It was avowed in 1860
in the _Saturday Review_; again in his address to the Mathematical and
Physical Section of the British Association in 1868, wherein he declared
that
"The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding
facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a thought and
a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously, we
do not possess the organ, nor, apparently, any rudiment of the
organ, which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from
the one phenomenon to the other. They appear together, but we do
not know why."
In 1875, reviewing Martineau in the _Popular Science Monthly_ for
December, Tyndall calls attention to these declarations, and quotes
other language of his own to the same purpose:
"You cannot satisfy the understanding in its demand for logical
continuity between molecular processes and the phenomena of
consciousness. This is a rock on which materialism must inevitably
split whenever it pretends to be a complete philosophy of the human
mind."
Mr. John Fiske, a disciple of Herbert Spencer, and an exceedingly able
expositor of the philosophy of which Spencer is the acknowledged chief,
makes assertions equally positive:[6]
"However strict the parallelism may be within the limits of our
experience, between the phenomena of the mind, and the segment of
the circle of motions, the task of transcending or abolishing the
radical antithesis between the phenomena of mind and the phenomena
of matter, must always remain an impracticable task; for, in order
to transcend or abolish this radical antithesis, we must be
prepared to show how a given quantity of molecular motion in nerve
tissue can be transformed into a definable amount of ideation or
feeling. But this, it is quite safe to say, can never be done."
[6] Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II., p. 442.
There are of course, distinguished names on the other side. The work on
"Intelligence," by Mr. Taine, which Mr. Mill warmly commends as the "the
first serious effort (in France) to supply the want of a better than the
official psychology," cannot be wisely overlooked by any one interested
in this problem. Taine objects to Tyndall's statement of the problem,
declares that by approaching it from another point, it is soluble, and
frankly undertakes to solve it.[7]
[7] On Intelligence, Book III., chap. I.
"When we consider closely any one of our conceptions--that of a
plant, an animal, a mineral--we find that the primitive threads of
which it is woven, are sensations, and sensations only. We have
proof of this already if we recollect that our ideas are only
reviving sensations, that our ideas are nothing more than images
which have become signs, and that thus this elementary tissue
subsists in a more or less disguised form at all stages of our
thought." "It is true that we cannot conceive the two events
otherwise than as irreducible to one another; but that may depend
on the way we conceive them, and not on their actual qualities;
their incompatibility is perhaps rather apparent than real; it
arises on our side and not on theirs."
Mr. George H. Lewes[8] follows closely Taine's line of argument, but
developes it with more system. He too quotes Tyndall, alludes to DuBois
Reymond and makes reference to Mill. Lewes holds it to be a severe
deduction from proven facts "that the neural process and the feeling are
one and the same process viewed under different aspects. Viewed from the
physical or objective side, it is a neural process; viewed from the
psychological or subjective side, it is a sentient process."
[8] Problems of Life and Mind II. pp. 410, 415.
"It is not wonderful that conceptions so dissimilar as those of
Motion and Feeling should seem irreducible to a common term, while
the one is regarded as the symbol of a process in the object, and
the other as the symbol of a process in the subject. But
psychological analysis leads to the conclusion that the objective
process and the subjective process are simply the twofold aspects
of one and the same fact; in the one aspect it is the Felt, in the
other it is the Feeling."
For the remarkable reasonings by which these assertions are justified,
the readers must consult the works quoted. Their novelty renders any but
an extended account of them unfair; and an extended account would be out
of place in a general study like this.
Should the analyses of Taine and Lewes prove successful at last, and be
accepted by the authorities in speculative philosophy, idealism, as a
philosophy, must disappear. The days of metaphysics in the old sense,
will be numbered; the German schools from Kant to Hegel will become
obsolete; Jacobi's doctrine of faith, Fichte's doctrine of the absolute
Ego, Schelling's doctrine of intellectual intuition, will be forgotten;
Cousin's influence will be gone; the fundamental ideas of Transcendental
teachers, French, English, American, will be discredited; and the
beliefs founded on them will fade away. There will, however, be no cause
to apprehend the personal, social, moral or spiritual demoralization
which the "Sensualist" doctrines of the last century were accused of
encouraging. The attitude of the human mind towards the great problems
of destiny has so far altered, the problems themselves have so far
changed their face, that no shock will be felt in the passage from the
philosophy of intuition to that of experience. Questions respecting the
origin, order and regulation of the world, the laws of character, the
constitution of society, the conditions of welfare, the prospects and
relations of the individual, are put in new forms, discussed by new
arguments, and answered by new assurances. The words atheism and
materialism have passed through so many definitions, the conceptions
they stand for have become so completely transformed by the mutations of
thought, that the ancient antipathies are not longer excusable; the
ancient fears are weak. The sanctities that once were set apart in ideal
shrines will be perfectly at home among the demonstrated facts of common
life.
If, on the other hand, the school to which Spencer, Fiske and Tyndall
belong is right, the science of mind will recover its old dignity,
though under new conditions. Nobody has spoken more plainly against the
intuitive philosophy, than Mill. No one probably is further from it than
Tyndall, though he responds in sentiment to the eloquent affirmations of
Martineau, and quotes Emerson enthusiastically, as "a profoundly
religious man who is really and entirely undaunted by the discoveries
of science, past, present or prospective; one by whom scientific
conceptions are continually transmuted into the finer forms and warmer
hues of an ideal world." Under the influences of the new psychology,
dogmatic idealism will probably be deprived of its sceptre and sway. The
claim to intuitive knowledge of definite truths of any order whatsoever
will be abandoned, as untenable on scientific or philosophical grounds;
but imagination, which, as Emerson says, "respects the cause,"--"the
vision of an inspired soul reading arguments and affirmations in all
nature of that which it is driven to say;" emotion, which contains all
the possibilities of feeling and hope; the moral sentiment, which
affirms principles with imperative authority; these remain, and claim
their right to create ideal worlds of which the natural world is image
and symbol. The Transcendentalism which concedes to all mankind
spiritual faculties by virtue whereof divine entities are seen in
definite shape--the personal God--the city of the heavenly
Jerusalem--will be superseded by the poetic idealism that is the cheer
and inspiration of poetic minds, animating them with fine visions, and
gladdening them with unfading, though vague, anticipations.
The Transcendental doctrine has been exposed to most deadly assault on
the ethical side. The theory of moral intuition, which held that "every
man is, according to the cautious statement of James Walker, born with a
moral faculty, or the elements of a moral faculty, which, on being
developed, creates in him the idea of a right and a wrong in human
conduct; which summons him before the tribunal of his own soul for
judgment on the rectitude of his purposes; which grows up into an
habitual sense of personal responsibility, and thus prepares him, as his
views are enlarged, to comprehend the moral government of God, and to
feel his own responsibility to God as a moral governor,"--has fallen
into general disrepute; and in its place a persuasion is abroad, that,
in the language of Grote, "the universal and essential tendencies of the
moral sense, admit of being most satisfactorily deduced from other
elementary principles of our nature." It is now a widely accepted belief
among conservative thinkers, that "conscience" is not a faculty, or an
element, existing here in germ, there in maturity; but is the result of
social experience. Moderate Transcendentalists conceded the necessity of
_educating_ conscience, which still implied the existence of a
conscience or moral sense to be educated. It is now contended that
conscience itself is a product of education, a deposit left in the
crucible of experiment, a habit formed by the usage of mankind. The
justification of this view has gone so far, that it seems likely to
become the recognized account of this matter; but in course of
substantiating this doctrine, a new foundation for ethical feeling and
judgment is laid, which is as immovable as the transcendental "facts of
consciousness." The moral sentiments are represented as resting on the
entire past of the race, on reefs of fact built up by the lives of
millions of men, from the bottom of the deep of humanity. The finest
moral sensibility caps the peak of the world's effort at
self-adjustment, as the white, unsullied snow rests on the summit of
the Jungfrau. The intuition is referred to in another genesis, but it is
equally clear and equally certain. The difference of origin creates no
difference of character. Moral distinctions are precisely the same for
idealists and sensationalists. Here at least, the transcendentalist and
his adversary can dwell in amity together.
IX.
THE SEER.
A discerning German writer, Herman Grimm, closes a volume of fifteen
essays, with one on Ralph Waldo Emerson, written in 1861, approved in
1874. The essay is interesting, apart from its literary merit, as giving
the impression made by Mr. Emerson on a foreigner to whom his reputation
was unknown, and a man of culture to whom books and opinions rarely
brought surprise. He saw a volume of the "Essays" lying on the table of
an American acquaintance, looked into it, and was surprised that, being
tolerably well practised in reading English, he understood next to
nothing of the contents. He asked about the author, and, learning that
he was highly esteemed in his own country, he opened the book again,
read further, and was so much struck by passages here and there, that he
borrowed it, carried it home, took down Webster's dictionary, and began
reading in earnest. The extraordinary construction of the sentences, the
apparent absence of logical continuity, the unexpected turns of thought,
the use of original words, embarrassed him at first; but soon he
discovered the secret and felt the charms. The man had fresh thoughts,
employed a living speech, was a genuine person. The book was bought,
read and re-read, "and now every time I take it up, I seem to take it up
for the first time."
The power that the richest genius has in Shakspeare, Rafael, Goethe,
Beethoven, to reconcile the soul to life, to give joy for heaviness, to
dissipate fears, to transfigure care and toil, to convert lead into
gold, and lift the veil that conceals the forms of hope, Grimm ascribes
in the highest measure to Emerson.
"As I read, all seems old and familiar as if it was my own
well-worn thought; all seems new as if it never occurred to me
before. I found myself depending on the book and was provoked with
myself for it. How could I be so captured and enthralled; so
fascinated and bewitched? The writer was but a man like any other;
yet, on taking up the volume again, the spell was renewed--I felt
the pure air; the old weather-beaten motives recovered their tone."
To him Emerson seemed to stand on the ground of simple fact, which he
accepted in all sincerity.
"He regards the world in its immediate aspect, with fresh vision;
the thing done or occurring before him opens the way to serene
heights. The living have precedence of the dead. Even the living of
to-day of the Greeks of yesterday, nobly as the latter thought,
moulded, chiselled, sang. For me was the breath of life, for me the
rapture of spring, for me love and desire, for me the secret of
wisdom and power."... "Emerson fills me with courage and
confidence. He has read and observed, but he betrays no sign of
toil. He presents familiar facts, but he places them in new lights
and combinations. From every object the lines run straight out,
connecting it with the central point of life. What I had hardly
dared to think, it was so bold, he brings forth as quietly as if it
was the most familiar commonplace. He is a perfect swimmer on the
ocean of modern existence. He dreads no tempest, for he is sure
that calm will follow it; he does not hate, contradict, or dispute,
for he understands men and loves them. I look on with wonder to see
how the hurly-burly of modern life subsides, and the elements
gently betake themselves to their allotted places. Had I found but
a single passage in his writings that was an exception to this
rule, I should begin to suspect my judgment, and should say no
further word; but long acquaintance confirms my opinion. As I think
of this man, I have understood the devotion of pupils who would
share any fate with their master, because his genius banished doubt
and imparted life to all things."
Grimm tells us that one day he found Emerson's Essays in the hands of a
lady to whom he had recommended them without effect. She had made a
thousand excuses; had declared herself quite satisfied with Goethe, who
had all that Emerson could possibly have, and a great deal more; had
expressed doubts whether, even if Emerson were all that his admirers
represented, it was worth while to make a study of him. Besides, she had
read in the book, and found only commonplace thoughts which had come to
herself, and which she considered not of sufficient importance to
express. So Emerson was neglected.
"On this occasion she made him the subject of conversation. She had
felt that he was something remarkable. She had come upon sentences,
many times, that opened the darkest recesses of thought. I listened
quietly, but made no response. Not long afterwards she poured out
to me her astonished admiration in such earnest and impassioned
strain, that she made me feel as if I was the novice and she the
apostle."
This experience was repeated again and again, and Grimm had the
satisfaction of seeing the indifferent kindle, the adverse turn, the
objectors yield. The praise was not universal indeed; there were
stubborn dissentients who did not confess the charm, and declared that
the enthusiasm was infatuation. Such remained unconverted. It was
discovered that Emerson came to his own only, though his own were a
large and increasing company.
The reasons of Grimm's admiration have been sufficiently indicated in
the above extracts. They are good reasons, but they are not the best.
They do not touch the deeper secret of power. That secret lies in the
writer's pure and perfect idealism, in his absolute and perpetual faith
in thoughts, his supreme confidence in the spiritual laws. He lives in
the region of serene ideas; lives there all the day and all the year;
not visiting the mount of vision occasionally, but setting up his
tabernacle there, and passing the night among the stars that he may be
up and dressed for the eternal sunrise. To such a spirit there is no
night: "the darkness shineth as the day; the darkness and the light are
both alike." There are no cloudy days. Tyndall's expression "in his case
Poetry, with the joy of a bacchanal, takes her graver brother science by
the hand, and cheers him with immortal laughter"--is singularly
infelicitous in phrase, for it is as easy to associate night orgies with
the dawn as the bacchanalian spirit with Emerson, who never riots and
never laughs, but is radiant with a placid buoyancy that diffuses itself
over his countenance and person. Mr. Emerson's characteristic trait is
serenity. He is faithful to his own counsel, "Shun the negative side.
Never wrong people with your contritions, nor with dismal views of
politics or society. Never name sickness; even if you could trust
yourself on that perilous topic, beware of unmuzzling a valetudinarian
who will soon give you your fill of it." He seems to be perpetually
saying "Good Morning."
This is not wholly a result of philosophy; it is rather a gift of
nature. He is the descendant of eight generations of Puritan
clergymen,--the inheritor of their thoughtfulness and contemplation,
their spirit of inward and outward communion. The dogmatism fell away;
the peaceful fruits of discipline remained, and flowered beautifully in
his richly favored spirit. An elder brother William, whom it was a
privilege to know, though lacking the genius of Waldo, was a natural
idealist and wise saint. Charles, another brother, who died young and
greatly lamented had the saintliness and the genius both. The "Dial"
contained contributions from this young man, entitled "Notes from the
Journal of a Scholar" that strongly suggest the genius of his eminent
brother; a few passages from them may be interesting as throwing light
on the secret of Emerson's inspiration.
"This afternoon we read Shakspeare. The verse so sank into me, that
as I toiled my way home under the cloud of night, with the gusty
music of the storm around and overhead, I doubted that it was all
a remembered scene; that humanity was indeed one, a spirit
continually reproduced, accomplishing a vast orbit, whilst
individual men are but the points through which it passes.
We each of us furnish to the angel who stands in the sun, a single
observation. The reason why Homer is to me like dewy morning, is
because I too lived while Troy was, and sailed in the hollow ships
of the Grecians to sack the devoted town. The rosy-fingered dawn as
it crimsoned the tops of Ida, the broad sea shore covered with
tents, the Trojan hosts in their painted armor, and the rushing
chariots of Diomed and Idomeneus,--all these I too saw: my ghost
animated the frame of some nameless Argive; and Shakspeare, in King
John, does but recall to me myself in the dress of another age, the
sport of new accidents. I who am Charles, was sometime Romeo. In
Hamlet I pondered and doubted. We forget what we have been, drugged
by the sleepy bowl of the Present. But when a lively chord in the
soul is struck, when the windows for a moment are unbarred, the
long and varied past is recovered. We recognize it all; we are no
more brief, ignoble creatures; we seize our immortality and bind
together the related parts of our secular being."
From the second record of thoughts a passage may be taken, so precisely
like paragraphs in the essays that they might have proceeded from the
same mind:
"Let us not vail our bonnets to circumstance. If we act so, because
we are so; if we sin from strong bias of temper and constitution,
at least we have in ourselves the measure and the curb of our
aberration. But if they who are around us sway us; if we think
ourselves incapable of resisting the cords by which fathers and
mothers and a host of unsuitable expectations and duties, falsely
so called, seek to bind us,--into what helpless discord shall we
not fall."
"I hate whatever is imitative in states of mind as well as in
action. The moment I say to myself, 'I ought to feel thus and so,'
life loses its sweetness, the soul her vigor and truth. I can only
recover my genuine self by stopping short, refraining from every
effort to shape my thought after a form, and giving it boundless
freedom and horizon. Then, after oscillation more or less
protracted, as the mind has been more or less forcibly pushed from
its place, I fall again into my orbit and recognize myself, and
find with gratitude that something there is in the spirit which
changes not, neither is weary, but ever returns into itself, and
partakes of the eternity of God."
Idealism is native to this temperament, the proper expression of its
feeling. Emerson was preordained an idealist; he is one of the eternal
men, bearing about him the atmosphere of immortal youth. He is now
seventy-three years old, having been born in Boston May 25th, 1803; but
his last volume, "Letters and Social Aims," shows the freshness of his
first essays. The opening chapter, "Poetry and Imagination," has the
emphasis and soaring confidence of undimmed years; and the closing one,
"Immortality," sustains an unwearied flight among the agitations of this
most hotly-debated of beliefs. The address before the Phi Beta Kappa
Society at Cambridge, in 1867, equals in moral grandeur and earnestness
of appeal, in faithfulness to ideas and trust in principles, the
addresses that made so famous the prime of his career. There is
absolutely no abatement of heart or hope; if anything, the tone is
richer and more assured than ever it was. During the season of his
popularity as a lyceum lecturer, the necessity of making his discourse
attractive and entertaining, brought into the foreground the play of his
wit, and forced the graver qualities of his mind into partial
concealment; but in later years, in the solitude of his study, the
undertone of high purpose is heard again, in solemn reverberations,
reminding us that the unseen realities are present still; that no
opening into the eternal has ever been closed.
"Shall we study the mathematics of the sphere," he says to the
Cambridge scholars, "and not its causal essence also? Nature is a
fable, whose moral blazes through it. There is no use in
Copernicus, if the robust periodicity of the solar system does not
show its equal perfection in the mental sphere--the periodicity,
the compensating errors, the grand reactions. I shall never believe
that centrifugence and centripetence balance, unless mind heats and
meliorates, as well as the surface and soil of the globe."
"On this power, this all-dissolving unity, the emphasis of heaven
and earth is laid. Nature is brute, but as this soul quickens it;
nature always the effect, mind the flowing cause. Mind carries the
law; history is the slow and atomic unfolding."
"All vigor is contagious, and when we see creation, we also begin
to create. Depth of character, height of genius, can only find
nourishment in this soil. The miracles of genius always rest on
profound convictions which refuse to be analyzed. Enthusiasm is the
leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the
understanding. Hope never spreads her golden wings but on
unfathomable seas."
"We wish to put the ideal rules into practice, to offer liberty
instead of chains, and see whether liberty will not disclose its
proper checks; believing that a free press will prove safer than
the censorship; to ordain free trade, and believe that it will not
bankrupt us; universal suffrage, believing that it will not carry
us to mobs or back to kings again."
"Every inch of the mountains is scarred by unimaginable
convulsions, yet the new day is purple with the bloom of youth and
love. Look out into the July night, and see the broad belt of
silver flame which flashes up the half of heaven, fresh and
delicate as the bonfires of the meadow flies. Yet the powers of
numbers cannot compute its enormous age--lasting as time and
space--embosomed in time and space. And time and space, what are
they? Our first problems, which we ponder all our lives through,
and leave where we found them; whose outrunning immensity, the old
Greeks believed, astonished the gods themselves; of whose dizzy
vastitudes, all the worlds of God are a mere dot on the margin;
impossible to deny, impossible to believe. Yet the moral element in
man counterpoises this dismaying immensity and bereaves it of
terror."
Emerson has been called the prince of Transcendentalists. It is nearer
the truth to call him the prince of idealists. A Transcendentalist, in
the technical sense of the term, it cannot be clearly affirmed that he
was. Certainly he cannot be reckoned a disciple of Kant, or Jacobi, or
Fichte, or Schelling. He calls no man master; he receives no teaching on
authority. It is not certain that he ever made a study of the
Transcendental philosophy in the works of its chief exposition. In his
lecture on "The Transcendentalist," delivered in 1842, he conveys the
impression that it is idealism--active and protesting--an excited
reaction against formalism, tradition, and conventionalism in every
sphere. As such, he describes it with great vividness and beauty. But as
such merely, it was not apprehended by metaphysicians like James Walker,
theologians like Parker or preachers like William Henry Channing.
Emerson does not claim for the soul a special faculty, like faith or
intuition, by which truths of the spiritual order are perceived, as
objects are perceived by the senses. He contends for no doctrines,
whether of God or the hereafter, or the moral law, on the credit of such
interior revelation. He neither dogmatizes nor defines. On the contrary,
his chief anxiety seems to be to avoid committing himself to opinions;
to keep all questions open; to close no avenue in any direction to the
free ingress and egress of the mind. He gives no description of God that
will class him as theist or pantheist; no definition of immortality that
justifies his readers in imputing to him any form of the popular belief
in regard to it. Does he believe in personal immortality? It is
impertinent to ask. He will not be questioned; not because he doubts,
but because his beliefs are so rich, various and many-sided, that he is
unwilling, by laying emphasis on any one, to do an apparent injustice to
others. He will be held to no definitions; he will be reduced to no
final statements. The mind must have free range. Critics complain of the
tantalizing fragmentariness of his writing; it is evidence of the
shyness and modesty of his mind. He dwells in principles, and will not
be cabined in beliefs. He needs the full expanse of the Eternal Reason.
In the chapter on Worship--"Conduct of Life," p. 288, he writes thus:
"Of immortality, the soul, when well employed, is incurious; it is
so well, that it is sure it will be well; it asks no questions of
the Supreme Power; 'tis a higher thing to confide, that if it is
best we should live, we shall live--it is higher to have this
conviction than to have the lease of indefinite centuries, and
millenniums and æons. Higher than the question of our duration, is
the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are
fit for it, and he who would be a great soul in future, must be a
great soul now. It is a doctrine too great to rest on any legend,
that is, on any man's experience but our own. It must be proved, if
at all, from our own activity and designs, which imply an
interminable future for their play."
The discourse on Immortality, which closes the volume, "Letters and
Social Aims," moves on with steady power, towards the conclusion of
belief. Emerson really seems about to commit himself; he argues and
affirms, with extraordinary positiveness. Of skepticism, on the subject,
he says:
"I admit that you shall find a good deal of skepticism in the
streets and hotels, and places of coarse amusement. But that is
only to say that the practical faculties are faster developed than
the spiritual. Where there is depravity there is a slaughter-house
style of thinking. One argument of future life is the recoil of the
mind in such company--our pain at every skeptical statement."
His enumeration of "the few simple elements of the natural faith," is as
clear and cogent as was ever made. He urges the delight in permanence
and stability, in immense spaces and reaches of time. "Every thing is
prospective, and man is to live hereafter." He urges that:
"The implanting of a desire indicates that the gratification of
that desire is in the constitution of the creature that feels it;
the wish for food; the wish for motion; the wish for sleep, for
society, for knowledge, are not random whims, but grounded in the
structure of the creature, and meant to be satisfied by food; by
motion; by sleep; by society; by knowledge. If there is the desire
to live, and in larger sphere, with more knowledge and power, it is
because life and knowledge and power are good for us, and we are
the natural depositaries of these gifts."
He ranks as a hint of endless being the novelty which perpetually
attends life:
"The soul does not age with the body." "Every really able man, in
whatever direction he work--a man of large affairs--an inventor, a
statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter--if you talk sincerely with
him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what
it should be. What is this 'Better,' this flying ideal but the
perpetual promise of his Creator?"
The prophecy of the intellect is enunciated in stirring tones:
"All our intellectual action, not promises but bestows a feeling of
absolute existence. We are taken out of time, and breathe a purer
air. I know not whence we draw the assurance of prolonged life: of
a life which shoots that gulf we call death, and takes hold of what
is real and abiding, by so many claims as from our intellectual
history." "As soon as thought is exercised, this belief is
inevitable; as soon as virtue glows, this belief confirms itself.
It is a kind of summary or completion of man."
This reads very much like encouragement to the popular persuasion, yet
it comes far short of it; indeed, does not, at any point touch it. The
immortality is claimed for the moral and spiritual by whom thought is
exercised, in whom virtue glows--for none beside--and for these, the
individual conscious existence is not asserted. In the midst of the high
argument occur sentences like these:
"I confess that everything connected with our personality fails.
Nature never spares the individual. We are always balked of a
complete success. No prosperity is promised to _that_. We have our
indemnity only in the success of that to which we belong. _That_ is
immortal, and we only through that." "Future state is an illusion
for the ever present state. It is not length of life, but depth of
life. It is not duration, but a taking of the soul out of time, as
all high action of the mind does; when we are living in the
sentiments we ask no questions about time. The spiritual world
takes place--that which is always the same."
Goethe is quoted to the same purpose:
"It is to a thinking being quite impossible to think himself
non-existent, ceasing to think and live; so far does every one
carry in himself the proof of immortality, and quite spontaneously.
But so soon as the man will be objective and go out of himself, so
soon as he dogmatically will grasp a personal duration to bolster
up in cockney fashion that inward assurance, he is lost in
contradiction."
It is thought worth while to dwell so long on this point, because it
furnishes a perfect illustration of Emerson's intellectual attitude
towards beliefs, its entire sincerity, disinterestedness and modesty.
The serenity of his faith makes it impossible for him to be a
controversialist. He never gave a sweeter or more convincing proof of
this than in the sermon he preached on the Communion Supper, which
terminated his connection with his Boston parish, and with it his
relations to the Christian ministry, after a short service of less than
four years. The rite in question was held sacred by his sect, as a
personal memorial of Jesus perpetuated according to his own request. To
neglect it was still regarded as a reproach; to dispute its authority
was considered contumacious; to declare it obsolete and useless, an
impediment to spiritual progress, a hindrance to Christian growth, was
to excite violent animosities, and call down angry rebuke. Yet this is
what Mr. Emerson deliberately did. That the question of retaining a
minister who declined to bless and distribute the bread and wine, was
debated at all, was proof of the extraordinary hold he had on his
people. Through the crisis he remained unruffled, calm and gracious as
in the sunniest days. On the evening when the church were considering
his final proposition, with such result as he clearly foresaw, he sat
with a brother clergyman talking pleasantly on literature and general
topics, never letting fall a hint of the impending judgment, until, as
he rose to leave, he said gently, "this is probably the last time we
shall meet as brethren in the same calling," added a few words in
explanation of the remark, and passed into the street.
The sermon alluded to was a model of lucid, orderly and simple
statement, so plain that the young men and women of the congregation
could understand it; so deep and elevated that experienced believers
were fed; learned enough, without a taint of pedantry; bold, without a
suggestion of audacity; reasonable, without critical sharpness or
affectation of mental superiority; rising into natural eloquence in
passages that contained pure thought, but for the most part flowing in
unartificial sentences that exactly expressed the speaker's meaning and
no more. By Mr. Emerson's kind permission, the discourse is printed in
the last chapter of this volume. The farewell letter to the parish is
also printed here.
BOSTON, 22d December, 1832.
_To the Second Church and Society_:
CHRISTIAN FRIENDS:--Since the formal resignation of my official
relation to you in my communication to the proprietors in
September, I had waited anxiously for an opportunity of addressing
you once more from the pulpit, though it were only to say, let us
part in peace and in the love of God. The state of my health has
prevented, and continues to prevent me from so doing. I am now
advised to seek the benefit of a sea voyage. I cannot go away
without a brief parting word to friends who have shown me so much
kindness, and to whom I have felt myself so dearly bound.
Our connection has been very short; I had only begun my work. It is
now brought to a sudden close; and I look back, I own, with a
painful sense of weakness, to the little service I have been able
to render, after so much expectation on my part,--to the checkered
space of time, which domestic affliction and personal infirmities
have made yet shorter and more unprofitable.
As long as he remains in the same place, every man flatters
himself, however keen may be his sense of his failures and
unworthiness, that he shall yet accomplish much; that the future
shall make amends for the past; that his very errors shall prove
his instructors,--and what limit is there to hope? But a separation
from our place, the close of a particular career of duty, shuts the
book, bereaves us of this hope, and leaves us only to lament how
little has been done.
Yet, my friends, our faith in the great truths of the New Testament
makes the change of places and circumstances of less account to us,
by fixing our attention upon that which is unalterable. I find
great consolation in the thought that the resignation of my present
relations makes so little change to myself. I am no longer your
minister, but am not the less engaged, I hope, to the love and
service of the same eternal cause, the advancement, namely, of the
Kingdom of God in the hearts of men. The tie that binds each of us
to that cause is not created by our connexion, and cannot be hurt
by our separation. To me, as one disciple, is the ministry of
truth, as far as I can discern and declare it, committed; and I
desire to live nowhere and no longer than that grace of God is
imparted to me--the liberty to seek and the liberty to utter it.
And, more than this, I rejoice to believe that my ceasing to
exercise the pastoral office among you does not make any real
change in our spiritual relation to each other. Whatever is most
desirable and excellent therein, remains to us. For, truly
speaking, whoever provokes me to a good act or thought, has given
me a pledge of his fidelity to virtue,--he has come under bonds to
adhere to that cause to which we are jointly attached. And so I say
to all you who have been my counsellors and coöperators in our
Christian walk, that I am wont to see in your faces the seals and
certificates of our mutual obligations. If we have conspired from
week to week in the sympathy and expression of devout sentiments;
if we have received together the unspeakable gift of God's truth;
if we have studied together the sense of any divine word; or
striven together in any charity; or conferred together for the
relief or instruction of any brother; if together we have laid down
the dead in a pious hope; or held up the babe into the baptism of
Christianity; above all, if we have shared in any habitual
acknowledgment of that benignant God, whose omnipresence raises and
glorifies the meanest offices and the lowest ability, and opens
heaven in every heart that worships him,--then indeed are we
united, we are mutually debtors to each other of faith and hope,
engaged to persist and confirm each other's hearts in obedience to
the Gospel. We shall not feel that the nominal changes and little
separations of this world can release us from the strong cordage of
this spiritual bond. And I entreat you to consider how truly
blessed will have been our connexion, if in this manner, the memory
of it shall serve to bind each one of us more strictly to the
practice of our several duties.
It remains to thank you for the goodness you have uniformly
extended towards me, for your forgiveness of many defects, and your
patient and even partial acceptance of every endeavor to serve you;
for the liberal provision you have ever made for my maintenance;
and for a thousand acts of kindness which have comforted and
assisted me.
To the proprietors I owe a particular acknowledgment, for their
recent generous vote for the continuance of my salary, and hereby
ask their leave to relinquish this emolument at the end of the
present month.
And now, brethren and friends, having returned into your hands the
trust you have honored me with,--the charge of public and private
instruction in this religious society--I pray God, that, whatever
seed of truth and virtue we have sown and watered together, may
bear fruit unto eternal life. I commend you to the Divine
Providence. May He grant you, in your ancient sanctuary the service
of able and faithful teachers. May He multiply to your families and
to your persons, every genuine blessing; and whatever discipline
may be appointed to you in this world, may the blessed hope of the
resurrection, which He has planted in the constitution of the human
soul, and confirmed and manifested by Jesus Christ, be made good
to you beyond the grave. In this faith and hope I bid you farewell.
Your affectionate servant,
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Mr. Emerson's place is among poetic, not among philosophic minds. He
belongs to the order of imaginative men. The imagination is his organ.
His reading, which is very extensive in range, has covered this
department more completely than any. He is at home with the seers,
Swedenborg, Plotinus, Plato, the books of the Hindus, the Greek
mythology, Plutarch, Chaucer, Shakspeare, Henry More, Hafiz; the books
called sacred by the religious world; "books of natural science,
especially those written by the ancients,--geography, botany,
agriculture, explorations of the sea, of meteors, of astronomy;" he
recommends "the deep books." Montaigne has been a favorite author on
account of his sincerity. He thinks Hindu books the best gymnastics for
the mind.
His estimate of the function of the poetic faculty is given in his
latest volume.
"Poetry is the perpetual endeavor to express the spirit of the
thing; to pass the brute body, and search the life and reason which
causes it to exist; to see that the object is always flowing away,
whilst the spirit or necessity which causes it subsists." "The poet
contemplates the central identity; sees it undulate and roll this
way and that, with divine flowings, through remotest things; and
following it, can detect essential resemblances in natures never
before compared." "Poetry is faith. To the poet the world is virgin
soil; all is practicable; the men are ready for virtue; it is
always time to do right. He is the true recommencer, or Adam in the
garden again." "He is the healthy, the wise, the fundamental, the
manly man, seer of the secret; against all the appearance, he sees
and reports the truth, namely, that the soul generates matter. And
poetry is the only verity, the expression of a sound mind, speaking
after the ideal, not after the apparent." "Whilst common sense
looks at things or visible nature as real and final facts, poetry,
or the imagination which dictates it, is a second sight, looking
through these and using them as types or words for thoughts which
they signify."
By the poet, Emerson is careful to say that he means the potential or
ideal man, not found now in any one person.
The upshot of it all is that soul is supreme. Not _the_ soul, as if that
term designated a constituent part of each man's nature.
"All goes to show that the soul is not an organ, but animates and
exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of
memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and
feet; is not a faculty, but a light; is not the intellect or the
will, but the master of the intellect and the will; is the
background of our being, in which they lie--an immensity not
possessed, and that cannot be possessed. From within or from
behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware
that we are nothing, but the light is all. A man is the façade of a
temple, wherein all wisdom and all good abide."
We stand now at the centre of Emerson's philosophy. His thoughts are few
and pregnant; capable of infinite expansion, illustration and
application. They crop out on almost every page of his characteristic
writings; are iterated and reiterated in every form of speech; and put
into gems of expression that may be worn on any part of the person. His
prose and his poetry are aglow with them. They make his essays oracular,
and his verse prophetic. By virtue of them his best books belong to the
sacred literature of the race; by virtue of them, but for the lack of
artistic finish of rhythm and rhyme, he would be the chief of American
poets.
The first article in Mr. Emerson's faith is the primacy of Mind. That
Mind is supreme, eternal, absolute, one, manifold, subtle, living,
immanent in all things, permanent, flowing, self-manifesting; that the
universe is the result of mind, that nature is the symbol of mind; that
finite minds live and act through concurrence with infinite mind. This
idea recurs with such frequency that, but for Emerson's wealth of
observation, reading, wit, mental variety and buoyancy, his talent for
illustration, gift at describing details, it would weary the reader. As
it is, we delight to follow the guide through the labyrinth of his
expositions, and gaze on the wonderful phantasmagoria that he exhibits.
His second article is the connection of the individual intellect with
the primal mind, and its ability to draw thence wisdom, will, virtue,
prudence, heroism, all active and passive qualities. This belief, as
being the more practical, has even more exuberant expression than the
other:
"The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it
is profane to seek to interpose helps. Whenever a mind is simple,
and receives a divine wisdom, all things pass away--means,
teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and
future into the present hour."
"Let man learn the revelation of all nature and all thought to his
heart; this, namely: that the highest dwells with him; that the
sources of nature are in his own mind, if the sentiment of duty is
there."
"Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul;
the simplest person who, in his integrity, worships God, becomes
God; yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal
self is new and unsearchable."
"We are wiser than we know. If we will not interfere with our
thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God,
we know the particular thing, and every thing, and every man. For
the Maker of all things and all persons stands behind us, and casts
His dread omniscience through us over things."
"The only mode of obtaining an answer to the questions of the
senses, is to forego all low curiosity, and, accepting the tide of
being which floats us into the secret of nature, work and live,
work and live, and all unawares the advancing soul has built and
forged for itself a new condition, and the question and the answer
are one."
"We are all discerners of spirits. That diagnosis lies aloft in our
life or unconscious power."
"We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles.
Meantime, within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence;
the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally
related; the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist,
and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only
self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and
the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the
object, are one."
"All the forms are fugitive,
But the substances survive;
Ever fresh the broad creation--
A divine improvisation,
From the heart of God proceeds,
A single will, a million deeds.
Once slept the world an egg of stone,
And pulse and sound, and light was none;
And God said 'Throb,' and there was motion,
And the vast mass became vast ocean.
Onward and on, the eternal Pan,
Who layeth the world's incessant plan,
Halteth never in one shape,
But forever doth escape,
Like wave or flame, into new forms
Of gem and air, of plants and worms.
I that to-day am a pine,
Yesterday was a bundle of grass.
He is free and libertine,
Pouring of his power, the wine
To every age--to every race;
Unto every race and age
He emptieth the beverage;
Unto each and unto all--
Maker and original.
The world is the ring of his spells,
And the play of his miracles.
As he giveth to all to drink,
Thus or thus they are, and think.
He giveth little, or giveth much,
To make them several, or such.
With one drop sheds form and feature;
With the second a special nature;
The third adds heat's indulgent spark;
The fourth gives light, which eats the dark;
In the fifth drop himself he flings,
And conscious Law is King of kings.
Pleaseth him, the Eternal Child
To play his sweet will--glad and wild.
As the bee through the garden ranges,
From world to world the godhead changes;
As the sheep go feeding in the waste,
From form to form he maketh haste.
This vault, which glows immense with light,
Is the inn, where he lodges for a night.
What recks such Traveller, if the bowers
Which bloom and fade, like meadow flowers--
A bunch of fragrant lilies be,
Or the stars of eternity?
Alike to him, the better, the worse--
The glowing angel, the outcast corse.
Thou meetest him by centuries,
And lo! he passes like the breeze;
Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy,
He hides in pure transparency;
Thou askest in fountains, and in fires,
He is the essence that inquires.
He is the axis of the star;
He is the sparkle of the spar;
He is the heart of every creature;
He is the meaning of each feature;
And his mind is the sky,
Than all it holds, more deep, more high."
Mr. Emerson is never concerned to defend himself against the charge of
pantheism, or the warning to beware lest he unsettle the foundations of
morality, annihilate the freedom of the will, abolish the distinction
between right and wrong, and reduce personality to a mask. He makes no
apology; he never explains; he trusts to affirmation, pure and simple.
By dint of affirming all the facts that appear, he makes his
contribution to the problem of solving all, and by laying incessant
emphasis on the cardinal virtues of humility, fidelity, sincerity,
obedience, aspiration, simple acquiescence in the will of the supreme
power, he not only guards himself against vulgar misconception, but
sustains the mind at an elevation that makes the highest hill-tops of
the accepted morality disappear in the dead level of the plain.
The primary thoughts of his philosophy, if such it may be termed,
Emerson takes with him wherever he goes. Does he study history, history
is the autobiography of the Eternal Mind. The key is in the sentence
that begins the Essay on History:
"There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an
inlet to the same, and to all of the same. He that is once admitted
to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What
Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may
feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who
hath access to this universal mind, is a party to all that is or
can be done, for that is the only and sovereign agent." "This human
mind wrote history, and this must read it. The sphinx must solve
her own riddle. If the whole of history is in one man, it is all to
be explained from individual experience. There is a relation
between the hours of our life and the centuries of time. Of the
universal mind each individual man is one more incarnation. All its
properties consist in him. Each new fact in his private experience
flashes a light on what great bodies of men have done, and the
crises of his life refer to national crises." In the "Progress of
Culture" the same sentiment recurs.
"What is the use of telegraphy? What of newspapers? To know in each
social crisis how men feel in Kansas, in California, the wise man
waits for no mails, reads no telegrams. He asks his own heart. If
they are made as he is, if they breathe the same air, eat of the
same wheat, have wives and children, he knows that their joy or
resentment rises to the same point as his own. The inviolate soul
is in perpetual telegraphic communication with the Source of
events, has earlier information, a private despatch, which relieves
him of the terror which presses on the rest of the community."
"We are always coming up with the emphatic facts of history in our
private experience, and verifying them here. All history becomes
subjective; in other words, there is properly no history; only
biography. Every mind must know the whole lesson for itself,--must
go over the whole ground. What it does not see, what it does not
live, it does not know."
In the appreciation of scientific facts the same method avails. Tyndall
commends Emerson as "a poet and a profoundly religious man, who is
really and entirely undaunted by the discoveries of science, past,
present, or prospective." The praise seems to imply some misconception
of Emerson's position. Tyndall intimates that Emerson is undaunted where
others fear. But this is not so. No man deserves commendation for not
dreading precisely what he desires. Emerson, by his principle, is
delivered from the alarm of the religious man who has a creed to defend,
and from the defiance of the scientific man who has creeds to assail. To
him Nature is but the symbol of spirit; this the scientific men, by
their discoveries, are continually proving. The faster they disclose
facts, and the more accurately, the more brilliantly do they illustrate
the lessons of the perfect wisdom. For the scientific _method_ he
professes no deep respect; for the scientific _assumptions_ none
whatever. He begins at the opposite end. They start with matter, he
starts with mind. They feel their way up, he feels his way down. They
observe phenomena, he watches thoughts. They fancy themselves to be
gradually pushing away as illusions the so-called entities of the soul;
he dwells serenely with those entities, rejoicing to see men paying
jubilant honor to what they mean to overturn. The facts they bring in,
chemical, physiological, biological, Huxley's facts, Helmholtz's,
Darwin's, Tyndall's, Spencer's, the ugly facts which the theologians
dispute, he accepts with eager hands, and uses to demonstrate the force
and harmony of the spiritual laws.
"Science," he says, "was false by being unpoetical. It assumed to
explain a reptile or mollusk, and isolated it,--which is hunting
for life in graveyards; reptile or mollusk, or man or angel, only
exists in system, in relation. The metaphysician, the poet, only
sees each animal form as an inevitable step in the path of the
creating mind." "The savans are chatty and vain; but hold them hard
to principle and definition, and they become mute and near-sighted.
What is motion? What is beauty? What is matter? What is life? What
is force? Push them hard and they will not be loquacious. They will
come to Plato, Proclus and Swedenborg. The invisible and
imponderable is the sole fact." "The atomic theory is only an
interior process _produced_, as geometers say, or the effect of a
foregone metaphysical theory. Swedenborg saw gravity to be only an
external of the irresistible attractions of affection and faith.
Mountains and oceans we think we understand. Yes, so long as they
are contented to be such, and are safe with the geologist; but when
they are melted in Promethean alembics and come out men; and then
melted again, come out woods, without any abatement, but with an
exaltation of power!"
Emerson is faithful in applying his principle to social institutions and
laws. His faith in ideal justice and love never blenches. In every
emergency, political, civil, national, he has been true to his
regenerating idea; true as a recreator from the inside, rather than as a
reformer of the outside world. A profounder, more consistent, more
uncompromising radical does not exist; a less heated, ruffled or anxious
one cannot be thought of. He scarcely ever suggested measures, rarely
joined in public assemblies, did not feel at home among politicians or
agitators. But his thought never swerved from the line of perfect
rectitude, his sympathies were always human. His heart was in the
anti-slavery movement from the beginning. He was abroad in its stormy
days, his steadfast bearing and cheerful countenance carrying hope
whenever he appeared. His name stood with that of his wife in the list
of signers to the call for the first National Woman's Rights Convention,
in 1850. The Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Society of
Arts and Sciences have honored themselves by electing him a member; the
Alumni of Harvard University joyfully made him an overseer; he was
proposed as rector of the University of Glasgow. Such confidence did the
great idealist inspire, that he has been even called to the duty of
Examiner at West Point Military Academy. His name is spoken in no
company with other than respect, and his influence is felt in places
where it is not acknowledged, and would be officially disavowed.
Mr. A. B. Alcott, a townsman of Mr. Emerson, and a close acquaintance,
in his "Concord Days" says pleasant things of his friend, just and
discerning things, as well as pleasant.
"Consider," he says, "how largely our letters have been enriched by
his contributions. Consider, too, the change his views have wrought
in our methods of thinking; how he has won over the bigot, the
unbeliever, at least to tolerance and moderation, if not
acknowledgment, by his circumspection and candor of statement." "A
poet, speaking to individuals as few others can speak, and to
persons in their privileged moments, he is heard as none others
are. 'Tis every thing to have a true believer in the world, dealing
with men and matters as if they were divine in idea and real in
fact, meeting persons and events at a glance, directly, not at a
millionth remove, and so passing fair and fresh into life and
literature." "His compositions affect us, not as logic linked in
syllogisms, but as voluntaries rather, as preludes, in which one is
not tied to any design of air, but may vary his key or not at
pleasure, as if improvised without any particular scope of
argument; each period, paragraph, being a perfect note in itself,
however it may chance chime with its accompaniments in the piece,
as a waltz of wandering stars, a dance of Hesperus with Orion."
After this, one is surprised to hear Mr. Alcott say, "I know of but one
subtraction from the pleasure the reading of his books--shall I say his
conversation?--gives me; his pains to be impersonal or discreet, as if
he feared any the least intrusion of himself were an offence offered to
self-respect, the courtesy due to intercourse and authorship." To others
this exquisite reserve, this delicate withdrawal behind his thought, has
seemed not only one of Emerson's peculiar charms, but one of his most
subtle powers. Personal magnetism is very delightful for the moment. The
exhibition of attractive personal traits is interesting in the lecture
room; sometimes in the parlor. The public, large or small, enjoy
confidences. But in an age of personalities, voluntary and involuntary,
the man who keeps his individual affairs in the background, tells
nothing of his private history, holds in his own breast his petty
concerns and opinions, and lets thoughts flow through him, as light
streams through plate glass, is more than attractive--is noble, is
venerable. To his impersonality in his books and addresses, Emerson owes
perhaps a large measure of his extraordinary influence. You may search
his volumes in vain for a trace of egotism. In the lecture room, he
seems to be so completely under the spell of his idea, so wholly
abstracted from his audience, that he is as one who waits for the
thoughts to come, and drops them out one by one, in a species of
soliloquy or trance. He is a bodiless idea. When he speaks or writes,
the power is that of pure mind. The incidental, accidental, occasional,
does not intrude. No abatement on the score of personal antipathy needs
to be made. The thought is allowed to present and commend itself. Hence,
when so many thoughts are forgotten, buried beneath affectation and
verbiage, his gain in brilliancy and value as time goes on; and in an
age of ephemeral literature his books find new readers, his mind exerts
wider sway. That his philosophy can be recommended as a sound rule to
live by for ordinary practitioners may be questioned. It is better as
inspiration than as prescription. For maxims it were wiser to go to
Bentham, Mill or Bain. The plodders had best keep to the beaten road.
But for them who need an atmosphere for wings, who require the impulse
of great motives, the lift of upbearing aspirations--for the
imaginative, the passionate, the susceptible, who can achieve nothing
unless they attempt the impossible--Emerson is the master. A single
thrill sent from his heart to ours is worth more to the heart that feels
it, than all the schedules of motive the utilitarian can offer.
X.
THE MYSTIC.
If among the representatives of spiritual philosophy the first place
belongs to Mr. Emerson, the second must be assigned to Mr. Amos Bronson
Alcott,--older than Mr. Emerson by four years (he was born in 1779), a
contemporary in thought, a companion, for years a fellow townsman, and,
if that were possible, more purely and exclusively a devotee of
spiritual ideas. Mr. Alcott may justly be called a mystic--one of the
very small class of persons who accept without qualification, and
constantly teach the doctrine of the soul's primacy and pre-eminence. He
is not a learned man, in the ordinary sense of the term; not a man of
versatile mind or various tastes; not a man of general information in
worldly or even literary affairs; not a man of extensive commerce with
books. Though a reader, and a constant and faithful one, his reading has
been limited to books of poetry--chiefly of the meditative and interior
sort--and works of spiritual philosophy. Plato, Plotinus, Proclus,
Jamblichus, Pythagoras, Boehme, Swedenborg, Fludd, Pordage, Henry More,
Law, Crashaw, Selden, are the names oftener than any on his pages and
lips. He early made acquaintance with Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress,"
and never ceased to hold it exceedingly precious, at one period making
it a rule to read the volume once a year. His books are his friends; his
regard for them seems to be personal; he enjoys their society with the
feeling that he gives as well as receives. He loves them in part because
they love him; consequently, in all his quoting of them, his own mind
comes in as introducer and voucher as it were. His indebtedness to them
is expressed with the cordiality of an intimate, rather than with the
gratitude of a disciple. His own mind is so wakeful and thoughtful, so
quick and ready to take the initiative, that it is hard to say in what
respect even his favorite and familiar authors have enriched him. What
was not originally his own, is so entirely made his own by sympathetic
absorption, that the contribution which others have made is not to be
distinguished from his native stores. Few men seem less dependent on
literature than he.
Mr. Alcott is a thinker, interior, solitary, deeply conversant with the
secrets of his own mind, like thinkers of his order, clear, earnest, but
not otherwise than monotonous from the reiteration of his primitive
ideas. We have called him a mystic. Bearing in mind the derivations of
the word--[Greek: myein]--to brood, to meditate, to shut one's self up
in the recesses of consciousness, to sink into the depths of one's own
being for the purpose of exploring the world which that being contains;
of discovering how deep and boundless it is, of meeting in its retreats
the form of the Infinite Being who walks there in the evening, and makes
his voice audible in the mysterious whispers that breathe over its
plains,--it well describes him. He is a philosopher of that school;
instead of seeking wisdom by intellectual processes, using induction and
deduction, and creeping step by step towards his goal,--he appeals at
once to the testimony of consciousness, claims immediate insight, and
instead of hazarding a doctrine which he has argued, announces a truth
which he has seen; he studies the mystery of being in its inward
disclosures, contemplates ultimate laws and fundamental data in his own
soul.
While Mr. Emerson's idealism was nourished--so far as it was supplied
with nourishment from foreign sources--by the genius of India, Mr.
Alcott's was fed by the speculation of Greece. Kant was not his master,
neither was Fichte nor Schelling, but Pythagoras rather; Pythagoras more
than Plato, with whom, notwithstanding his great admiration, he is less
intimately allied. He talks about Plato, he talks Pythagoras. Of the
latter he says:
"Of the great educators of antiquity, I esteem Pythagoras the most
eminent and successful; everything of his doctrine and discipline
comes commended by its elegance and humanity, and justifies the
name he bore of the golden-souled Samian, and founder of Greek
culture. He seems to have stood in providential nearness to human
sensibility, as if his were a maternal relation as well, and he
owned the minds whom he nurtured and educated. The first of
philosophers, taking the name for its modesty of pretension, he
justified his claim to it in the attainments and services of his
followers; his school having given us Socrates, Plato, Pericles,
Plutarch, Plotinus, and others of almost equal fame, founders of
states and cultures.... He was reverenced by the multitude as one
under the influence of divine inspiration. He abstained from all
intoxicating drinks, and from animal food, confining himself to a
chaste nutriment; hence his sleep was short and undisturbed; his
soul vigilant and pure; his body in state of perfect and invariable
health. He was free from the superstitions of his time, and
pervaded with a deep sense of duty towards God, and veneration for
his divine attributes and immanency in things. He fixed his mind so
intently on the attainment of wisdom, that systems and mysteries
inaccessible to others were opened to him by his magic genius and
sincerity of purpose. The great principle with which he started,
that of being a seeker rather than a possessor of truth, seemed
ever to urge him forward with a diligence and activity
unprecedented in the history of the past, and perhaps unequalled
since. He visited every man who could claim any degree of fame for
wisdom or learning; whilst the rules of antiquity and the simplest
operations of nature seemed to yield to his researches; and we
moderns are using his eyes in many departments of activity into
which pure thought enters, being indebted to him for important
discoveries alike in science and metaphysics."
It is evident that the New England sage made the Greek philosopher his
model in other respects than the adoption of his philosophical method
implied. The rules of personal conduct and behavior, of social
intercourse, and civil association, were studiously practised on by the
American disciple, who seemed never to forget the dignified and gracious
figure whose fame charmed him.
Mr. Alcott's philosophical ideas are not many, but they are profound and
significant.
"The Dialectic, or Method of the Mind,"--he says in "Concord Days,"
under the head of Ideal Culture,--"constitutes the basis of all
culture. Without a thorough discipline in this, our schools and
universities give but a showy and superficial training. The
knowledge of mind is the beginning of all knowledge; without this,
a theology is baseless, the knowledge of God impossible. Modern
education has not dealt with these deeper questions of life and
being. It has the future in which to prove its power of conducting
a cultus answering to the discipline of the Greek thinkers,
Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle."
"As yet we deal with mind with far less certainty than with matter;
the realm of intellect having been less explored than the world of
the senses, and both are treated conjecturally rather than
absolutely. When we come to perceive that intuition is the primary
postulate of all intelligence, most questions now perplexing and
obscure will become transparent; the lower imperfect methods then
take rank where they belong, and are available. The soul leads the
senses; the reason the understanding; imagination the memory;
instinct and intuition include and prompt the Personality entire."
"The categories of imagination are the poet's tools; those of the
reason, the implements of the naturalist. The dialectic philosopher
is master of them both. The tools to those only who can handle them
skilfully. All others but gash themselves and their subject at
best. Ask not a man of understanding to solve a problem in
metaphysics. He has neither wit, weight, nor scales for the task.
But a man of reason or of imagination solves readily the problems
of understanding, the moment these are fairly stated. Ideas are
solvents of all mysteries, whether in matter or in mind."
"Having drank of immortality all night, the genius enters eagerly
upon the day's task, impatient of any impertinences jogging the
full glass.... Sleep and see; wake, and report the nocturnal
spectacle. Sleep, like travel, enriches, refreshes, by varying the
day's perspective, showing us the night side of the globe we
traverse day by day. We make transits too swift for our wakeful
senses to follow; pass from solar to lunar consciousness in a
twinkling; lapse from forehead and face to occupy our lower parts,
and recover, as far as permitted, the keys of genesis and of the
fore worlds. 'All truth,' says Porphyry, 'is latent;' but this the
soul sometimes beholds, when she is a little liberated by sleep
from the employments of the body, and sometimes she extends her
sight, but never perfectly reaches the objects of her vision."
"The good alone dream divinely. Our dreams are characteristic of
our waking thoughts and states; we are never out of character;
never quite another, even when fancy seeks to metamorphose us
entirely. The Person is One in all the manifold phases of the Many,
through which we transmigrate, and we find ourself perpetually,
because we cannot lose ourself personally in the mazes of the many.
'Tis the one soul in manifold shapes. Ever the old friend of the
mirror in other face, old and new, yet one in endless revolution
and metamorphosis, suggesting a common relationship of forms at
their base, with divergent types as these range wider and farther
from their central archetype, including all concrete forms in
nature, each returning into other, and departing therefrom in
endless revolution."
"What is the bad but lapse from good,--the good blindfolded?"
"One's foes are of his own household. If his house is haunted, it
is by himself only. Our choices are our Saviors or Satans."
"The celestial man is composed more largely of light and ether. The
demoniac man of fire and vapor. The animal man of embers and
dust."
"The sacraments, symbolically considered, are
Baptism, or purification by water;
Continence, or chastity in personal indulgences;
Fasting, or temperance in outward delights;
Prayer, or aspiring aims;
Labor, or prayer in act or pursuits.
These are the regimen of inspiration and thought."
The following, from the chapter entitled "Genesis and Lapse," in
"Concord Days," extends Mr. Alcott's principle to a deep problem in
speculative truth. He quotes Coleridge thus:
"The great maxim in legislation, intellectual or physical, is
_subordinate_, not _exclude_. Nature, in her ascent, leaves nothing
behind; but at each step subordinates and glorifies,--mass,
crystal, organ, sensation, sentience, reflection."
Then he proceeds:
"Taken in reverse order of descent, spirit puts itself before; at
each step protrudes faculty in feature, function, organ, limb,
subordinating to glorify also,--person, volition, thought,
sensibility, sense, body,--animating thus and rounding creation to
soul and sense alike. The naturalist cannot urge too strongly the
claims of physical, nor the plea of the idealist be too vigorously
pressed for metaphysical studies. One body in one soul. Nature and
spirit are inseparable, and are best studied as a unit. Nature ends
where spirit begins. The idealist's point of view is the obverse of
the naturalist's, and each must accost his side with a first love
before use has worn off the bloom, and seduced their vision....
"Whether man be the successor or predecessor of his inferiors in
nature, is to be determined by exploring faithfully the realms of
matter and of spirit alike, and complementing the former in the
latter. Whether surveyed in order, descending or ascending, in
genesis or process, from the side of the idealist or of the
materialist, the keystone of the arch in either case is an ideal,
under-propped by nature or upheld by mind."
"Man, the sum total of animals, transcends all in being a Person, a
responsible creature. Man is man, in virtue of being a Person, a
self-determining will, held accountable to a spiritual Ideal. To
affirm that brute creatures are endowed with freedom and choice,
the sense of responsibility, were to exalt them into a spiritual
existence and personality; whereas, it is plain enough that they
are not above deliberation and choice, but below it, under the sway
of Fate, as men are when running counter to reason and conscience.
The will bridges the chasm between man and brute, and frees the
fated creature he were else. Solitary, not himself, the victim of
appetite, inmate of the den, is man, till freed from individualism,
and delivered into his free Personality."
The next extract is from the Chapter on Ideals:
"Enthusiasm is essential to the successful attainment of any high
endeavor; without which incentive, one is not sure of his equality
to the humblest undertakings even. And he attempts little worth
living for, if he expects completing his task in an ordinary
lifetime. This translation is for the continuance of his work here
begun; but for whose completion, time and opportunity were all too
narrow and brief. Himself is the success or failure. Step by step
one climbs the pinnacles of excellence; life itself is but the
stretch for that mountain of holiness. Opening here with humanity,
'tis the aiming at divinity in ever-ascending circles of aspiration
and endeavor. Who ceases to aspire, dies. Our pursuits are our
prayers, our ideals our gods."
In the journals of Theodore Parker, Mr. Alcott is represented as taking
an active part in the thinking and talking of the period immediately
preceding the establishment of the "Dial," and as expressing audacious
opinions; among others, this--which suggests Hegel, though it might have
reached Mr. Alcott from a different quarter--that the Almighty
progressively unfolds himself towards His own perfection; and this, that
the hideous things in nature are reflections of man's animalism; that
the world being the product of all men, man is responsible for its evil
condition; a doctrine similar to the Augustinian doctrine of the Fall,
hinted at also in the Book of Genesis. It was the doctrine of Jacob
Boehme, one of Mr. Alcott's seers, that as the inevitable consequence of
sin, the operation of the Seven Qualities in Lucifer's dominion became
perverted and corrupted. The fiery principle, instead of creating the
heavenly glory, produced wrath and torment. The astringent quality, that
should give stability and coherence, became hard and stubborn. The sweet
was changed to bitter; the bitter to raging fury. This earth--once a
province of the heavenly world--was broken up into a chaos of wrath and
darkness, roaring with the din of conflicting elements. Eden became a
waste; its innocence departed, its friendly creatures began to bite and
tear one another, and man became an exile and a bondsman to the elements
he once controlled.
In 1837 Mr. Alcott--not Mr. Emerson--was the reputed leader of the
Transcendentalists, none being more active than he in diffusing the
ideas of the Spiritual Philosophy, and none being so uncompromising in
his interpretations of them. He was generally present at the meetings of
the informal Club which, under different names, held meetings at the
private houses of members, from 1836 to 1850. Mr. Ripley had
consultations with him in regard to the proposed community which was
later established at Brook Farm. When Mr. Garrison founded the American
Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. Alcott joined that cause, and was faithful to
it till the end. With the movement for the emancipation and elevation of
women, he was a sympathizer. He was one of the reformers who met at
Chardon Street Chapel, in 1840, to discuss plans of universal
reform--Garrison, Edmund Quincy, Henry C. Wright, Theodore Parker,
William H. Channing, Christopher Greene, Maria Chapman and Abby Kelly
being of the number. In those days he was intimate with Emerson, Ripley,
Hedge, Brownson, Clarke, Bartol, Stetson, and well known as a leader in
speculative thought. His period of Pythagorean discipline had already
begun. In 1835 he put away the use of animal food. Declining to join
either the Brook Farm community, or that of Adin Ballou, at Milford, he
undertook to do his part towards the solution of the "labor and culture
problem," by supporting himself by manual labor in Concord, working
during the summer in field and garden, and in winter chopping wood in
the village woodlands, all the time keeping his mind intent on high
thoughts. To conventional people he was an object of ridicule, not
unmingled with contempt, as an improvident visionary. But Dr. Channing
held him in admiration.
"Mr. Alcott," he wrote to a friend, "little suspects how my heart
goes out to him. One of my dearest ideas and hopes is the union of
_labor_ and _culture_. I wish to see labor honored and united with
the free development of the intellect and heart. Mr. Alcott, hiring
himself out for day labor, and at the same time living in a region
of high thought, is perhaps the most interesting object in our
commonwealth. I do not care much for Orpheus, in "The Dial," but
Orpheus at the plough is after my own heart. There he teaches a
grand lesson, more than most of us teach by the pen."
The Orpheus in "The Dial" perplexed others beside Dr. Channing, and
amused nearly all he perplexed--all whom he did not exasperate and
enrage. The "Orphic Sayings"--Mr. Alcott's contribution to the
magazine--attracted the attention of the critics, who made them an
excuse for assailing with ridicule, the entire transcendental party.
"Identity halts in diversity." "The poles of things are not integrated."
"Love globes, wisdom orbs, all things." "Love is the Genius of Spirit."
"Alway are the divine Gemini intertwined,"--the very school-boys
repeated these dark sayings, with a tone that consigned the "Dial" and
its oracles to the insane asylum. Yet the thought was intelligible, and
even simple. In ordinary prose it would have sounded like common-place.
It was the mystic phrase, and the perpetual reiteration of absolute
principles that made the propositions seem obscure. The extracts from
these "Sayings," given in a previous chapter, are remarkable for
crystalline clearness of conception, as well as of expression. The
writer's aim evidently was to deliver what he had to utter, in language
of exact outline, and with the utmost economy of words. A singular
sincerity characterized his mind and his life; he formed his beliefs on
ideal laws, and based his conduct on them. In conduct and bearing, as in
thought, he was a disciple of the philosopher of Samos. Fascinated by
his vision of an ideal society, and determined to commence with a scheme
of his own, he resolutely began by withdrawing from civil society as
constituted, declined to pay the tax imposed by the authorities, and was
lodged in Concord jail, where he would have stayed, had not his friend,
Samuel Hoar, father of Judge Hoar, paid the tax for him, against his
wish, and procured his immediate release. This was in 1843. The next
spring found him inspecting lands suitable for a community. The next
summer saw him, with some English friends, domesticated on the "Wyman
Farm," at Harvard, a piece of ninety acres, bordering the Nashua river,
with an old house on it. "Fruitlands"--for so the community was
named--did not justify its name. A single summer and autumn dissipated
the hopes planted there, and with them the faith that the world could be
refashioned by artificial arrangements of circumstances.
The surprising thing was, that such a man should ever have fallen into
the notion that it could; he was an idealist; his faith was in the
soul--not in organization of any sort; he was a regenerator, not a
reformer. All the good work he had done was of the regenerative kind,
through an awakening of the spiritual powers of individuals. His mission
was to educate--to draw out souls, whether of children or adults. Faith
in the soul was his inspiration and his guide. He early accepted the
office of teacher, made it the calling of his life, and in the exercise
of it, kept in mind this faith in the soul as the highest of
qualifications. To understand his enthusiasm, it is only necessary to
apprehend his idea. In the chapter on Childhood, in "Concord Days," that
idea is thus conveyed:
"To conceive a child's acquirements as originating in nature,
dating from his birth into his body, seems an atheism that only a
shallow metaphysical theology could entertain in a time of such
marvellous natural knowledge as ours. 'I shall never persuade
myself,' says Synesius, 'to believe my soul to be of like age with
my body.' And yet we are wont to date our birth, as that of the
babes we christen, from the body's advent, so duteously inscribed
in our family registers, as if time and space could chronicle the
periods of the immortal mind, and mark its longevity by our
chronometers. Only a God could inspire a child with the intimations
seen in its first pulse-plays; the sprightly attainments of a
single day's doings afford the liveliest proofs of an omniscient
Deity, revealing His attributes in the motions of the little
one!... Were the skill for touching its tender sensibilities,
calling forth its budding gifts, equal to the charms the child has
for us, what noble characters would graduate from our families--the
community receiving its members accomplished in the personal
graces, the state its patriots, the church its saints, all
glorifying the race."
The process of education was spiritual, therefore, to entice the
indwelling deity forth by sympathy. The first experiment made with set
purpose, with definite idea and calculated method, was tried in
Cheshire, Connecticut, in 1825. So original was it in design and
execution, and so remarkable in results, that the fame of it went
abroad. Rev. Samuel J. May, minister in Brooklyn, Conn., a zealous
friend of common-school education, being, along with the school
committee, convinced that the schools throughout the State needed
improvement, prepared a printed circular calling attention to the
subject, and propounding questions so framed as to draw out full and
precise information from every town. Among the letters received in
answer to the circular was one from Dr. Wm. A. Alcott, a "philosopher
and philanthropist," author of the "House I Live In," and other books on
physical and moral training, calling particular attention to this
remarkable school, kept on a very original plan, by his kinsman:
"His account," says Mr. May, "excited so much my curiosity to know
more of the American Pestalozzi, as he has since been called, that
I wrote immediately to Mr. A. B. Alcott, begging him to send me a
detailed statement of his principles and methods of teaching and of
training children. In due time came to me a full account of the
school of Cheshire, which revealed such a depth of insight into the
nature of man; such a true sympathy with children; such profound
appreciation of the work of education; and withal, so
philosophically arranged and exquisitely written, that I at once
felt assured the man must be a genius, and that I must know him
more intimately; so I wrote, inviting him urgently, to visit me. I
also sent the account of his school to Mr. William Russell, in
Boston, then editing the first Journal of Education ever published
in our country. Mr. Russell thought as highly of the article as I
did, and gave it to the public in his next October number."
"Mr. Alcott accepted my invitation; he came and passed a week with
me before the close of the summer. I have never, but in one other
instance, been so immediately taken possession of by any man I have
ever met in life. He seemed to me like a born sage and saint. He
was radical in all matters of reform; went to the root of all
things, especially the subjects of education, mental and moral
culture. If his biography shall ever be written by one who can
appreciate him, and especially if his voluminous writings shall be
properly published, it will be known how unique he was in wisdom
and purity."
The chief peculiarity of the Cheshire School was the effort made there
to rouse and elevate individual minds. Single desks were substituted for
the long forms in common use; blackboards were introduced, and slates
which put the pupils on their mettle; a library was instituted of
carefully selected books, the reading whereof was diligently supervised
and directed; hopes were appealed to instead of fears; gentleness took
the place of severity; the affections and moral sentiments were
addressed, to give full action to the heart and conscience, the physical
being replaced by the spiritual scourge; light gymnastic exercises were
introduced; evening entertainments gladdened the school room after
working hours; even the youngest scholars were encouraged to clear their
minds by keeping diaries. In these and other ways, especially by the
enthusiasm and dignity of the master, knowledge was made attractive, and
the teacher's office was made venerable.
The plan, albeit nearly the same with that practised by Pestalozzi in
Switzerland, was original with Mr. Alcott, the product of his peculiar
philosophical ideas. Had those ideas been less deep and lofty, the
method might have commended itself to all as it did to Mr. May; but, had
they been less deep and lofty, it would not have been tried at all. A
profound faith in the soul suggested it, and certainly a profound faith
was required to sustain it. But faith in the soul was no more popular
then than it is now, implying, as it did, radical convictions on all
sorts of questions, and familiar assumption of the truth of the
opinions. Such a teacher is not permitted to be conventional. Mr. Alcott
showed himself the disciple of Pythagoras in that he was the worshipper
of ideal truth and purity, the uncompromising servant of the spiritual
laws. When this was fairly understood, as it was in two years, the
experiment was terminated.
The idea, which made the teacher suspected by the school committee
boards, was recognized and applauded by the finest spirits in New
England, New York and Pennsylvania. The reformers hailed the reformer;
the spiritualists welcomed the spiritualist. In Hartford, Drs. Gallaudet
and Barnard; in Boston, Dr. Channing and Mr. Garrison, the Mays,
Quincys, Phillipses, and other families of character and courage; in
Philadelphia, Dr. Furness, Matthew Cary, Robert Vaux, and the radical
Friends took him up. Mr. Emerson saluted him with high expectation, in
the words addressed by Burke to John Howard:
"Your plan is original, and as full of genius as of humanity; so do
not let it sleep or stop a day."
The project of a school on the new plan was started in Boston; Margaret
Fuller, Elizabeth Peabody, Miss Hoar, Mrs. Nath'l Hawthorne being among
the most deeply interested. It was kept in the Masonic Temple during the
year 1834. The account of this experiment has been so fully given by
Miss Peabody, the original scribe, in a volume entitled "Record of a
School," placed within easy reach by a Boston publisher, only two years
ago, and largely read, that to describe it here would be impertinent. In
her new preface, Miss Peabody, who of late years has become an
enthusiastic advocate of Froebel's method, which approaches the mind
from the outside, while Mr. Alcott approaches it from the inside,
frankly declares that she has
"Come to doubt the details of his method of procedure, and to
believe that Froebel's method of cultivating children through
artistic production in the childish sphere of affection and fancy
is a healthier and more effective way than self inspection, for at
least those years of a child's life before the age of seven."
While thus honestly declaring her abandonment of Mr. Alcott's plan, she
affirms her belief
"That his school was a marked benefit to every child with whom he
came into communication...."
"What I witnessed in his school room threw for me a new light into
the profoundest mysteries that have been consecrated by the
Christian symbols; and the study of childhood made there I would
not exchange for anything else I have experienced in life."
The Boston school was made more closely conformable to the spiritual
idea than any previous ones. The intellectual tone of the society he
frequented, the sympathy of his transcendental friends, the standing of
his pupils, the expectation of exacting lookers on, encouraged the
philosopher to give free rein to his theory. The principle of vicarious
punishment--the innocent bearing pain for the guilty--the master for the
pupil--was adopted as likely to enlist the sentiment of honor and noble
shame in the cause of good behavior. A portion of the time was set apart
for direct address by way of question and answer, to the higher
faculties of the scholars. Mr. Alcott gave a series of "Conversations on
the Gospels," with most interesting and surprising results. These too
were reported, and are very suggestive and astonishing reading.
But even in Boston, the teacher's faith in the soul found an
unresponsive public. The "Conversations on the Gospels" were furiously
attacked in the newspapers. The conservative spirit was aroused; the
sectarian feeling was shocked; and the school, which began with thirty
pupils, and rose to forty, fell away to ten; the receipts, which in the
first year were $1,794, in the fourth (1837), were but $549, and at last
only $343. In April, 1839, the furniture, library and apparatus of the
school were sold to pay debts. The culture, refinement, liberality,
philosophic aspiration of Boston, led by such men as James Freeman
Clarke, Frederick H. Hedge, Chandler Robbins, George Russell, and by
such women as Margaret Fuller, Miss Peabody, Miss Martineau, and the
mothers of boys who have since done credit to their names, were not
sufficient to protect the institution from failure, or the teacher from
insult and obloquy. Prejudice, and prejudice alone, defeated the scheme.
But the idea and the apostle survived. Miss Harriet Martineau, who knew
Mr. Alcott well in 1837, spoke of him on her return home to James
Pierrepont Greaves, an ardent English disciple of Pestalozzi. Mr.
Greaves gave the name "Alcott House," to a school near London, which he
had founded on the Pestalozzian method; he even meditated a visit to
America, for the express purpose of making the acquaintance of the New
England sage, and would have done so but for illness, which terminated
in death. A long letter from him to Mr. Alcott, was printed in the
"Dial" of April, 1843, a portion whereof it is interesting to read,
because it throws light on the cardinal ideas of this school of
thinkers. Mr. Alcott's reply to the letter is not before us, but it was
probably, in the main, sympathetic. The letter is dated London, 16th
December, 1837:
DEAR SIR,--Believing the Spirit has so far established its nature
in you, as to make you willing to co-operate with itself in Love
operations, I am induced, without apology, to address you as a
friend and companion in the hidden path of Love's most powerful
revelations. "The Record of a School" having fallen into my hands,
through Miss Harriet Martineau, I have perused it with deep
interest; and the object of my present address to you (occasioned
by this work) is to obtain a more intimate acquaintance with one,
in our Sister Land, who is so divinely and universally developed.
Permit me, therefore, dear sir, in simple affection, to put a few
questions to you, which, if answered, will give me possession of
that information respecting you and your work, which I think will
be useful to present and to future generations of men. Also a
mutual service may be rendered to ourselves, by assisting to evolve
our own being more completely, thereby making us more efficient
instruments for Love's use, in carrying forward the work which it
has begun within us. The Unity himself must have his divine purpose
to accomplish in and by us, or he would not have prepared us as far
as he has. I am, therefore, willing to withhold nothing, but to
receive and transmit all he is pleased to make me _be_, and thus,
at length, to become an harmonious being. This he can readily work
in the accomplishment of his primitive purposes. Should you think
that a personal intercourse of a few weeks would facilitate the
universal work, I would willingly undertake the voyage to America
for that purpose. There is so decided and general a similarity in
the sentiments and natures addressed in the account of your
teaching, that a contact of spirits so alike developed would, no
doubt, prove productive of still further development. Your school
appears to work deeper than any we have in England, and its inner
essential character interests me. If an American bookseller will
send over any of your books to his correspondents here, I shall be
happy to receive and pay for them.
In the year 1817 some strong interior visitations came over me,
which withdrew me from the world in a considerable degree, and I
was enabled to yield myself up to Love's own manner of acting,
regardless of all consequences. Soon after this time, I met with an
account of the Spirit's work in and by the late venerable
Pestalozzi, which so interested me that I proceeded at once to
visit him in Switzerland, and remained with him in holy fellowship
four years. After that I was working with considerable success
amongst the various students in that country, when the prejudices
of the self-made wise and powerful men became jealous of my
influence, and I was advised to return to England, which I did; and
have been working in various ways of usefulness ever since, from
the deep centre to the circumference; and am now engaged in writing
my conscientious experiences as well as I can represent them in
words, and in teaching all such as come within my sphere of action.
Receptive beings, however, have as yet been but limited, and those
who permanently _retain_, have been still less; yet, at present,
there appears a greater degree of awakening to the central
love-sensibility than before. I see many more symptoms of the
harvest-time approaching in this country. There is, at present, no
obvious appearance of the Love-seed beginning to germinate.
* * * * *
The child has two orders of faculties which are to be educated,
essential and semi-essential; or in other words, roots and
branches.
Radical faculties belong to the interior world, and the branchial
to the exterior.
To _produce_ a central effect on the child, the radical faculties
must be first developed; to _represent_ this effect, the branchial
faculties must be developed.
The radical faculties belong entirely to Love; the branchial to
knowledge and industry.
It is imperative upon us to follow the determination of the radical
faculties, and to modify the branchial always in obedience to the
radical.
It is the child, or the Love-Spirit in the child, that we must
obey, and not suffer the Parents or any one else to divert us from
it.
Good is not to be determined by man's wishes, but Good must
originate and determine the wish.
The Preceptor must watch attentively for every new exhibition of
the child's radical faculties, and obey them as divine laws.
We must in every movement consider that it is the Infinite
perfecting the finite.
All that is unnecessary in the external must be kept from the
child.
The Preceptor's duty is, as far as possible, to remove every
hindrance out of the child's way.
The closer he keeps the child to the Spirit, the less it will want
of us, or anyone else.
The child has an inward, sacred, and unchangeable nature; which
nature is the Temple of Love. This nature only demands what it will
give, if properly attended to, viz.: Unfettered Liberty.
The Love Germs can alone germinate with Love. Light and Life are
but conditions of Love. Divine capacities are made by love alone.
Love education is primarily a passive one; and, secondarily, an
active one. To educate the radical faculties is altogether a new
idea with Teachers at present.
The parental end must be made much more prominent than it has been.
The conceptive powers want much more purification than the
perceptive; and it is only as we purify the conceptive that we
shall get the perceptive clear.
It is the essential conceptive powers that tinge all the
consequences of the exterior conceptive powers.
We have double conceptions, and double perceptions; we are
throughout double beings; and claim the universal morality, as well
as the personal.
We must now educate the universal moral faculties, as before we
have only educated the personal moral faculties.
It is in the universal moral faculties that the laws reside; until
these laws are developed, we remain lawless beings.
The personal moral faculties cannot stand without the aid of the
universal moral faculties, any more than the branches can grow
without the roots.
Education, to be decidedly religious, should reach man's universal
faculties, those faculties which contain the laws that connect man
with his maker.
These reflections seem to me to be worthy of consideration. Should
any of them strike you as worth while to make an observation upon,
I shall be happy to hear it. Suggestions are always valuable, as
they offer to the mind the liberty of free activity. The work we
are engaged in is too extensive and important, to lose any
opportunity of gaining information.
The earlier I receive your reply, the better.
I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully,
J. P. GREAVES.
In 1842, Mr. Alcott visited England with the aim to confer with the
philanthropists and educators there, to exchange views, collect
information, and gather hints on the subject of literary and social
methods. Mr. Greaves was dead; but the living friends of the "First
Philosophy" received him with hearty respect and joy, introduced him to
men of literary and philanthropic eminence, and made his arrival the
occasion of meetings for conversation on the religious, social and
ethical questions of the day. The meetings were held mostly at an
institution managed on his own methods and called by his own name, the
school of Mr. Wright at Alcott House, Ham, Surrey. Strange people were
some of those he met, Communists, Alists (deriving their name from
Alah--the Hebrew name for God), Syncretic Associationists,
Pestalozzians, friends and advocates of self-supporting institutions,
experimental Normal Schools, Hydropathic and Philosophical Associations,
Health Unions, Philansteries, Utopias of every description, new social
arrangements between the sexes, new devices for making marriage what it
should be.
The London _Morning Chronicle_, of July 5th, contained the following
advertisement:
"Public Invitation.--An open meeting of the friends to human
progress will be held to-morrow, July 6th, at Mr. Wright's, Alcott
House School, Ham Common, near Richmond, Surrey, for the purpose of
considering and adopting means for the promotion of the great end,
when all who are interested in human destiny are earnestly urged to
attend. The chair taken at three o'clock, and again at seven, by A.
Bronson Alcott, Esq., now on a visit from America. Omnibuses travel
to and fro, and the Richmond steamboat reaches at a convenient
hour."
The call brought together some sixteen or twenty persons, from various
distances; one a hundred miles; another a hundred and fifty. "We did not
find it easy to propose a question sufficiently comprehensive to unfold
the whole of the fact with which our bosoms labored," writes a private
correspondent of the "Dial."
"We aimed at nothing less than to speak of the instauration of
spirit, and its incarnation in a beautiful form. When a word failed
in extent of meaning, we loaded the word with new meaning. The word
did not confine our experience, but from our own being we gave
significance to the word. Into one body we infused many lives, and
it shone as the image of divine or angelic, or human thought. For a
word is a Proteus, that means to a man what the man is."
The "Dial" of October, 1842, prints an abstract of the proceedings,
which are interesting, as illustrations of the phases that the Spiritual
Philosophy assumed, but would occupy more space here than their
significance warrants. Three papers were presented, on Formation,
Transition, Reformation. The views, it is needless to say, were of the
extreme school. The essayist on the first theme advanced the doctrine
that evil commenced in birth; that the unpardonable sin was an unholy
birth; that birth "must be surrendered to the spirit." The second
essayist maintained that property was held on the tenure of might and
immemorial custom; that "pure love, which is ever communicative, never
yet conceded to any being the right of appropriation." "We ignore human
governments, creeds and institutions; we deny the right of any man to
dictate laws for our regulation, or duties for our performance; and
declare our allegiance only to Universal Love, the all-embracing
Justice."
The reader of the paper on Reformation pursued the same train of
thought; he demanded amendment of monetary arrangements, the penal code,
education, the church, the law of primogeniture, and divorce; challenged
reliance on commercial prosperity and popular representation; denied the
right of man to inflict pain on man; asserted that the question of
generation preceded that of education; that the reign of love was
supreme over that of opinion; insisted on "the restoration of all things
to their primitive Owner, and hence the abrogation of property--either
individual or collective;" and on "the divine sanction, instead of the
civil and ecclesiastical authority, for marriage." It was his idea, that
"aspirations are the pledge of their own fulfilment,"--that "beneath the
actual which a man is, there is always covered a possible to tempt him
forward"--that "beneath sense lie reason and understanding; beneath them
both, humility; and beneath all, God"--that "to be God-like we must pass
through the grades of progress." "Even now the God-life is enfolded in
us; even now the streams of eternity course freely in our central heart;
if impelled by the spirit to intermingle with the arrangements of
polities of the world, in order to improve them, we shall discover the
high point from which we begin, by the God-thought in our interference;
our act must be divine; we seem to do, God does; God empowers
legislators, and ennobles them for their fidelity; let them, however,
be apostles, not apostles' representatives; men of God, not men of men;
personal elevation is our credentials; personal reform is that which is
practicable, and without it our efforts on behalf of others are dreams
only."
No remarks from Mr. Alcott are recorded. That the meetings satisfied and
cheered him may be inferred from the circumstance that, immediately
after his return from England, he undertook to inaugurate the ideal
social state at Fruitlands--with what success we know.
In 1859, Mr. Alcott had another and larger opportunity to exercise his
wisdom as an educator of youth. He was chosen superintendent of the
schools of Concord; a position that called out the finest qualities of
his mind, and put to immediate use the results of his long experience,
but relieved him from the business arrangements for which he had never
displayed an aptitude. The three brief but remarkable reports that he
made on the condition and needs of the schools, increase one's respect
for the workings of the spiritual philosophy in this field of effort. If
the suggestions offered in those reports were to any considerable extent
adopted, if the noble and gracious spirit of them was felt, the schools
of Concord should be model schools of their class.
"The school is the primary interest of the community. Every parent
naturally desires a better education for his children than he
received himself, and spends liberally of his substance for this
pleasure; wisely hoping to make up his deficiencies in that way,
and to complement himself in their better attainments; esteeming
these the richest estate he can leave, and the fairest ornaments of
his family name."
"Especially have I wished to introduce the young to the study of
their minds, the love of thinking; often giving examples of lessons
in analysis and classification of their faculties. I think I may
say that these exercises have given much pleasure, and have been
found profitable alike to the teacher and the children. In most
instances, I have closed my visits by reading some interesting
story or parable. These have never failed of gaining attention, and
in most cases, prompt responses. I consider these readings and
colloquies as among the most profitable and instructive of the
superintendent's labors."
Pilgrim's Progress, Krummacher's Parables, Æsop's Fables, Faery Queen,
the stories of Plutarch and Shakspeare, were his favorites.
"The graceful exercise of singing has been introduced into some of
the schools. It should prevail in all of them. It softens the
manners, cultivates the voice, and purifies the taste of the
children. It promotes harmony and good feelings. The old masters
thought much of it as a discipline. 'Let us sing' has the welcome
sound of 'Let us play,'--and is perhaps the child's prettiest
translation of 'Let us pray,'--admitting him soonest to the
intimacy he seeks."
"Conversations on words, paraphrases and translations of sentences,
are the natural methods of opening the study of language. A child
should never be suffered to lose sight of the prime fact that he is
studying the realities of nature and of the mind through the
picture books of language. Any teaching falling short of this is
hollow and a wrong done to the mind."
"For composition, let a boy keep his diary, write his letters, try
his hand at defining from a dictionary and paraphrasing, and he
will find ways of expressing himself simply as boys and men did
before grammars were invented."
"Teaching is a personal influence for the most part, and operating
as a spirit unsuspected at the moment. I have wished to divine the
secret source of success attained by any, and do justice to this;
it seemed most becoming to regard any blemishes as of secondary
account in the light of the acknowledged deserts. We require of
each what she has to give, no more. Does the teacher awaken
thought, strengthen the mind, kindle the affections, call the
conscience, the common sense into lively and controlling activity,
so promoting the love of study, the practice of the virtues; habits
that shall accompany the children outwards into life? The memory is
thus best cared for, the end of study answered; the debt of teacher
to parents, of parents to teacher discharged, and so the State's
bounty best bestowed."
"A little gymnasticon, a system of gestures for the body might be
organized skilfully and become part of the daily exercises in our
schools. Graceful steps, pretty musical airs, in accompaniment of
songs--suiting the sentiment to the motions, the emotions, ideas of
the child--would be conducive to health of body and mind alike. We
shall adopt dancing presently as a natural training for the manners
and morals of the young."
"Conversation is the mind's mouth-piece, its best spokesman; the
leader elect and prompter in teaching; practised daily, it should
be added to the list of school studies; an art in itself, let it be
used as such, and ranked as an accomplishment second to none that
nature or culture can give. Certainly the best we can do is to
teach ourselves and children how to talk. Let conversation displace
much that passes current under the name of recitation; mostly sound
and parrotry, a repeating by rote not by heart, unmeaning sounds
from the memory and no more. 'Take my mind a moment,' says the
teacher, 'and see how things look through that prism,' and the
pupil sees prospects never seen before or surmised by him in that
lively perspective. So taught the masters; Plato, Plutarch,
Pythagoras, Pestalozzi; so Christianity was first published from
lovely lips; so every one teaches deserving the name of teacher or
interpreter. Illustration always and apt; life calling forth life;
the giving of life and a partaking. Nothing should be interposed
between the mind and its subject matter--cold sense is impertinent;
learning is insufficient--only life alone; life like a torch
lighting the head at the heart."
"Next to thinking for themselves, the best service any teacher can
render his scholars is to show them how to use books. The wise
teacher is the key for opening the mind to the books he places
before it."
"Stories are the idyls of childhood. They cast about it the romance
it loves and lives in, rendering the commonest circumstances and
things inviting and beautiful. Parables, poems, histories,
anecdotes, are prime aids in teaching; the readiest means of
influence and inspiration; the liveliest substitutes for flagging
spirits, fatigued wits."
"A little atlas of the body mythologically shown from the artist's
points of view, the plates displaying the person to the eye, in a
set of draped figures, is a book much wanted for first lines in
drawing. A child's piety is seen in its regards for its body and
the concern it shows in its carriage and keeping. Of all forms the
human form is most marvellous; and the modest reverence for its
shadings intimates the proper mode of studying it rightly and
religiously as a pantheon of powers. The prime training best opens
here as an idealism, the soul fashioning her image in the form she
animates, and so scrutinizing piously without plucking the
forbidden fruits."
"There is a want of suitable aids to the studies of these
mysteries. The best books I know are poor enough. In the want of a
better, we name for the study of matter in its connection with the
mind, including the proper considerations regarding health and
temperance, Graham's 'Laws of Life,' a rather dull but earnest
book; and for smaller classes and beginners Dr. Alcott's 'House I
Live In.' Miss Catherine Beecher's book for studies in Physiology
and Calisthenics, is a practical treatise, and should be in all
schools. Sir John Sinclair's 'Code of Health' contains a
republication of the Wisdom of the Ancients, on these subjects, and
is a book for all persons and times."
"Perhaps we are correcting the old affection for flogging at some
risk of spoiling the boys of this generation. Girls have always
known how to cover with shame any insult of that sort, but the
power of persuasion comes slow as a promptitude to supersede its
necessity. Who deals with a child, deals with a piece of divinity
obeying laws as innate as those he transgresses; and which he must
treat tenderly, lest he put spiritual interests in jeopardy.
Punishment must be just, else it cannot be accepted as good, and
least of all by the wicked and weak."
"The accomplished teacher combines in himself the art of teaching
and of ruling; power over the intellect and the will, inspiration
and persuasiveness. And this implies a double consciousness in its
possessor that carries forward the teaching and ruling together;
noting what transpires in motive as in act; the gift that in seeing
controls. It is the sway of presence and of mien; a conversion of
the will to his wishes, without which other gifts are of little
avail."
"Be sure the liveliest dispensations, the holiest, are his (the
unruly boy's)--his as cordially as ours, and sought for as kindly.
We must meet him where he is. Best to follow his bent if bent
beautifully; else bending him gently, not fractiously, lest we snap
or stiffen a stubbornness too stiff already. Gentleness now; the
fair eye, the conquering glances straight and sure; the strong
hand, if you must, till he fall penitent at the feet of Persuasion;
the stroke of grace before the smiting of the birch; for only so is
the conquest complete, and the victory the Lord's. If she is good
enough she may strike strong and frequent, till thanks come for it;
but who is she, much less he, that dares do it more than once, nor
repents in sorrow and shame for the strokes given? Only 'the
shining ones' may do it for good."
"Our teachers open their schools with readings from the New
Testament, and this reading is in some of the schools, and would,
but for a diffident piety, be followed in all, by devotions and the
singing of some suitable morning hymn. The spoken prayers and
praises are not enjoined by our rules; and we think we show therein
that tender courtesy to the faiths of the heart that true piety
loves and cannot overstep. An earnest and sweet disposition is the
spring from which children love to taste, and best always if
insinuated softly in mild persuasions, and so leading to the
practice of the loves and graces that soften and save. A course of
readings from the Picture Testament might favor the best ends of
spiritual culture. A child should be approached with reverence, as
a recipient of the spirit from above. The best of books claims the
best of persons and the gracious moments to make its meanings
clear; else the reading and listening are but a sound, a pretence,
and of no account. I have wished these books were opened with the
awe belonging to the eminent Personalities portrayed therein,
thinking them best read when the glow of sentiment kindles the
meaning into life in the morning hour--the teacher opening her
school by opening their leaves."
The following earnest words respecting the duties of the State in regard
to the education of its children, may fitly close these fragmentary
extracts, which give but the scantiest notions of the richness of
suggestion in these reports:
"It is difficult to reach the sources of ignorance and consequent
crime in a community like ours, calling itself free, and boasting
of its right to do what it will. But freedom is a social not less
than an individual concern, and the end of the State is to protect
it. The first object of a free people is the preservation of their
liberties. It becomes, then, their first duty to assume the
training of all the children in the principles of right knowledge
and virtue, as the only safeguard of their liberties. We cannot
afford to wait at such hazards. The simplest humanities are also
the least costly, and the nearest home. We should begin there. The
State is stabbed at the hearth-side and here liberty and honor are
first sold. It is injured by family neglect, and should protect
itself in securing its children's virtue against their parents'
vices; for, by so doing, can it alone redeem its pledges to
humanity and its citizens' liberties. A virtuous education is the
greatest alms it can bestow on any of its children."
Meetings for conversation with the parents of the scholars were a device
of Mr. Alcott for bringing the subject of education home to those whose
concern in it should be the deepest.
His faith was from the first in conversation, rather than in lecturing
or in preaching. Preaching assumed too much in the single mind, paid
less than due respect to the minds of the hearers, and gave no
opportunity for the instant exchange of thoughts. Lecturing was
intellectual and even less sympathetic. By conversation the best was
drawn out and the best imparted. All were put on an equality; all were
encouraged, none oppressed.
"Truth," Mr. Alcott declares "is spherical, and seen differently
according to the culture, temperament and disposition of those who
survey it from their individual standpoint. Of two or more sides,
none can be absolutely right, and conversation fails if it find not
the central truth from which all radiate; debate is angular,
conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity. Who
speaks, deeply excludes all possibility of controversy. His
affirmation is self-sufficient; his assumption final, absolute.
Thus holding himself above the arena of dispute he gracefully
settles a question by speaking so home to the core of the matter as
to undermine the premise upon which an issue had been taken. For
whoso speaks to the personality dives beneath the grounds of
difference, and deals face to face with principles and ideas."
"Good discourse sinks differences and seeks agreements. It avoids
argument, by finding a common basis of agreement; and thus escapes
controversy by rendering it superfluous. Pertinent to the platform,
debate is out of place in the parlor. Persuasion is the better
weapon in this glittering game."
"Conversation presupposes a common sympathy in the subject, a great
equality in the speakers; absence of egotism, a tender criticism of
what is spoken. Good discourse wins from the bashful and discreet
what they have to speak, but would not, without this provocation.
The forbidding faces are Fates to overbear and blemish true
fellowship. We give what we are, not necessarily what we know;
nothing more, nothing less, and only to our kind; those playing
best their parts who have the nimblest wits, taking out the
egotism, the nonsense, putting wisdom, information in their place."
Mr. Alcott therefore forsook the platform, seldom entered the pulpit,
adopted the parlor, and made it what its name imports, the talking
place. Collecting a company of ladies and gentlemen, larger or smaller,
as nearly as possible of similar tastes and culture, he started a topic
of general interest and broad scope--usually one of social concern with
deep roots and wide branches,--and began his soliloquy in a calm and
easy strain, throwing out suggestions as he went on, and enticing
thoughts from the various minds present. If none responded or
accompanied, the discourse proceeded evenly till the measure of an hour
was filled. If the company was awake, and sympathetic, the soliloquy
became conversation and an evening full of instruction and entertainment
followed. When circumstances favored--the room, decorations, atmosphere,
mingling of elements--the season was delightful. The unfailing serenity
of the leader, his wealth of mental resource, his hospitality of
thought, his wit, his extraordinary felicity of language, his delicacy
of touch, ready appreciation of different views, and singular grace in
turning opinions towards the light, made it clear to all present that to
this especial calling he was chosen. For years Mr. Alcott's
conversations have been a recognized institution in Eastern and Western
cities. Every winter he takes the field, and goes through the Northern
and North Western States, with his scheme of topics. The best minds
collect about him, and centres of influence are established that act as
permanent distributors of culture. The noble idealism never pales or
falters. Neither politics, science, financial convulsion, or civil war,
disturb the calm serenity of the soul that is sure that mind is its own
place, and that infinite and absolute mind is supreme above all.
XI.
THE CRITIC.
Margaret Fuller--she was called Ossoli long after the time
we are concerned with, in a foreign land and amid foreign
associations--Margaret Fuller died July 16th, 1850. In 1852 her Memoirs
were published in Boston, written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Freeman
Clarke, and William Henry Channing: each giving an individual and
personal account of her. These three gentlemen--all remarkable for
intellectual capacity, sympathetic appreciation, and literary
skill--undertook their task in the spirit of loving admiration, and
executed it with extraordinary frankness, courage and delicacy. No more
unique or satisfactory book of biography was ever made. They had known
Margaret personally and well; were intimately acquainted with her mind,
and deeply interested in her character. They had access to all the
necessary materials. The whole life--inward and outward--was open to
them, and they described it with no more reserve than good taste
imposed. Those who are interested to know what sort of a person she was,
are referred to that book, from which the biographical materials for
this little sketch have, in the main, been taken. Her place here is due
to her association with the leaders of the Transcendental movement, and
to the peculiar part she played in it.
Strictly speaking, she was not a Transcendentalist, though Mr. Channing
declares her to have been "in spirit and thought pre-eminently a
transcendentalist;" and Mr. Alcott wrote that she adopted "the spiritual
philosophy, and had the subtlest perception of its bearings." She was
enthusiastic rather than philosophical, and poetic more than systematic.
Emerson's judgment is that--
"Left to herself, and in her correspondence, she was much the
victim of Lord Bacon's _idols of the cave_, or self-deceived by her
own phantasms.... Her letters are tainted with a mysticism which,
to me, appears so much an affair of constitution, that it claims no
more respect than the charity or patriotism of a man who has dined
well and feels better for it. In our noble Margaret, her personal
feeling colors all her judgment of persons, of books, of pictures,
and even of the laws of the world.... Whole sheets of warm, florid
writing are here, in which the eye is caught by 'sapphire,'
'heliotrope,' 'dragon,' 'aloes,' 'Magna Dea,' 'limboes,' 'stars,'
and 'purgatory'--but one can connect all this or any part of it
with no universal experience.
"In short, Margaret often loses herself in sentimentalism; that
dangerous vertigo nature, in her case, adopted, and was to make
respectable.... Her integrity was perfect, and she was led and
followed by love; and was really bent on truth, but too indulgent
to the meteors of her fancy."
She said of herself:
"When I was in Cambridge I got Fichte and Jacobi; I was much
interrupted, but some time and earnest thought I devoted; Fichte I
could not understand at all, though the treatise which I read was
one intended to be popular, and which he says must compel to
conviction. Jacobi I could understand in details, but not in
system. It seemed to me that his mind must have been moulded by
some other mind, with which I ought to be acquainted, in order to
know him well--perhaps Spinoza's. Since I came home I have been
consulting Buhle's and Tennemann's histories of philosophy, and
dipping into Brown, Stewart, and that class of books."
This was in 1832, before the transcendental movement began. At the same
period, writing to a friend on the subject of religious faith--a subject
intimately allied with philosophy--she said:
"I have not formed an opinion; I have determined not to form
settled opinions at present; loving or feeble natures need a
positive religion--a visible refuge, a protection--as much in the
passionate season of youth as in those stages nearer to the grave.
But mine is not such. My pride is superior to any feelings I have
yet experienced; my affection is strong admiration, not the
necessity of giving or receiving assistance or sympathy. When
disappointed, I do not ask or wish consolation; I wish to know and
feel my pain, to investigate its nature and its source; I will not
have my thoughts diverted or my feelings soothed; 'tis therefore
that my young life is so singularly barren of illusions. I know I
feel the time must come when this proud and impatient heart shall
be stilled, and turn from the ardors of search and action to lean
on something above. But shall I say it?--the thought of that calmer
era is to me a thought of deepest sadness; so remote from my
present being is that future existence, which still the mind may
conceive; I believe in eternal progression; I believe in a God, a
beauty and perfection, to which I am to strive all my life for
assimilation. From these two articles of belief I draw the rules by
which I strive to regulate my life; but though I reverence all
religions as necessary to the happiness of man, I am yet ignorant
of the religion of revelation. Tangible promises, well-defined
hopes, are things of which I do not _now_ feel the need. At
present, my soul is intent on this life, and I think of religion as
its rule; and in my opinion this is the natural and proper course
from youth to age."
The tone of this extract is negatively transcendental; that is, it
implies that the writer did not belong to the opposite school, in any
sense; and that her mind was in condition to accept the cardinal truths
of a philosophy, the special doctrines whereof she did not apprehend or
feel interested in. Had she entertained a philosophical creed, it would
have been the creed of Schelling, more likely than any other.
Margaret Fuller was a critic, and a critic rather from natural gift than
from trained perception. Her genius was her guide. Persons and things
came to her for judgment, and judgment they received. Searching and
frank, but hearty and loving, she judged from the inside. To her, so her
biographers tell, with unanimous voice, "the secrets of all hearts were
revealed." In private intercourse, in letters, in parlor conversations
on books, pictures, statues, architecture, she was ever the judge. The
most unlike minds and characters receive their dues with entire
impartiality; Goethe, Lessing, Novalis, Jean Paul, were each in kind
honored. The last is "infinitely variegated, and certainly most
exquisitely colored, but fatigues attention; his philosophy and religion
seem to be of the sighing sort." She is steeped to the lips in enjoyment
by Southey, whom she was inclined to place next to Wordsworth.
Coleridge, Heine, Carlyle, Herschel, attract her mind. She ponders
before Michael Angelo's sibyls; displays a singular penetration in her
analysis of them, and makes them all interpreters of the genius of
woman. The soul of Greek art, as contrasted with Christian, is disclosed
to her with a clear perception; the Greek mythology gave up to her its
secret; emblems, symbols, dark parables, enigmas, mysteries, laid aside
their vails. A friend said of her: "She proceeds in her search after the
unity of things, the divine harmony, not by exclusion but by
comprehension; and so no poorest, saddest spirit but she will lead to
hope and faith. I have thought, sometimes, that her acceptance of evil
was _too_ great; that her theory of the good to be educed proved too
much; but I understand her now better than I did." Atkinson, the
"mesmeric atheist," struck her as "a fine instinctive nature, with a
head for Leonardo to paint," who "seems bound by no tie, yet looks as if
he had relatives in every place." Mazzini impressed her as one "in whom
holiness has purified, but somewhat dwarfed the man." Carlyle "is
arrogant and overbearing; but in his arrogance there is no bitterness,
no self-love. It is the heroic arrogance of some old Scandinavian
conqueror; it is his nature, and the untamable energy that has given him
power to crush the dragon." Dr. Wilkinson, the Swedenborgian, is "a
sane, strong, well-exercised mind; but in the last degree unpoetical in
its structure; very simple, natural, and good; excellent to see, though
one cannot go far with him." Rachel, Fourier, Rousseau--she has a
piercing glance for them all; a word of warm admiration, all the more
weighty for being qualified by criticism.
It was probably this keen penetration, this capacity to appreciate all
kinds, this inclusiveness of sympathy, that prompted the selection of
Margaret Fuller as chief editor of the "Dial," the organ of
transcendental thought. Thus she regarded the enterprise:
"What others can do--whether all that has been said is the mere
restlessness of discontent, or there are thoughts really struggling
for utterance,--will be tested now. A perfectly free organ is to be
offered for the expression of individual thought and character.
There are no party measures to be carried, no particular standards
to be set up; a fair, calm tone, a recognition of universal
principles, will, I hope, pervade the essays in every form. I trust
there will be a spirit neither of dogmatism nor compromise, and
that this journal will aim, not at leading public opinion, but at
stimulating each man to judge for himself, and to think more deeply
and more nobly, by letting him see how some minds are kept alive by
a wise self-trust. We must not be sanguine at the amount of talent
which will be brought to bear on this publication. All concerned
are rather indifferent, and there is no great promise for the
present. We cannot show high culture, and I doubt about vigorous
thought. But we shall manifest free action as far as it goes, and a
high aim. It were much if a periodical could be kept open, not to
accomplish any outward object, but merely to afford an avenue for
what of liberal and calm thought might be originated among us, by
the wants of individual minds."
"Mr. Emerson best knows what he wants; but he has already said it
in various ways. Yet this experiment is well worth trying; hearts
beat so high, they must be full of something, and here is a way to
breathe it out quite freely. It is for dear New England that I want
this review. For myself, if I had wished to write a few pages now
and then, there were ways and means enough of disposing of them.
But in truth I have not much to say; for since I have had leisure
to look at myself, I find that, so far from being an original
genius, I have not yet learned to think to any depth, and that the
utmost I have done in life has been to form my character to a
certain consistency, cultivate my tastes, and learn to tell the
truth with a little better grace than I did at first. For this the
world will not care much, so I shall hazard a few critical remarks
only, or an unpretending chalk sketch now and then till I have
learned to do something. There will be beautiful poesies; about
prose we know not yet so well. We shall be the means of publishing
the little Charles Emerson left as a mark of his noble course, and,
though it lies in fragments, all who read will be gainers."
That these modest anticipations were justified and more, need not be
said. The "beautiful poesies" came, and so did the various, eloquent,
well-considered prose. The people who expected the whole gospel of
Transcendentalism may have been disappointed; for the editor gave the
magazine more of a literary than philosophical or reformatory tone. That
she looked for from others, and was more than willing to welcome. She
had a discerning eye for the evils of the time, and a sincere respect
for the men and women who were disposed to counteract them. Another
extract from her correspondence at this time--1840--taken, like the
former, from the second volume of the memoirs, leaves no doubt on this
point. After speaking of "the tendency of circumstances," since the
separation from England, "to make our people superficial, irreverent,
and more anxious to get a living than to live mentally and morally," she
continues:
"New England is now old enough, some there have leisure enough to
look at all this, and the consequence is a violent reaction, in a
small minority, against a mode of culture that rears such fruits.
They see that political freedom does not necessarily produce
liberality of mind, nor freedom in church institutions, vital
religion; and, seeing that these changes cannot be wrought from
without inwards, they are trying to quicken the soul, that they may
work from within outwards. Disgusted with the vulgarity of a
commercial aristocracy, they become radicals; disgusted with the
materialistic working of "rational" religion they become mystics.
They quarrel with all that is because it is not spiritual enough.
They would, perhaps, be patient, if they thought this the mere
sensuality of childhood in our nation, which it might outgrow; but
they think that they see the evil widening, deepening, not only
debasing the life, but corrupting the thought of our people; and
they feel that if they know not well what should be done, yet that
the duty of every good man is to utter a protest against what is
done amiss. Is this protest undiscriminating? Are these opinions
crude? Do these proceedings threaten to sap the bulwarks on which
men at present depend? I confess it all, yet I see in these men
promise of a better wisdom than in their opponents. Their hope for
man is grounded on his destiny as an immortal soul, and not as a
mere comfort-loving inhabitant of earth, or as a subscriber to the
social contract. It was not meant that the soul should cultivate
the earth, but that the earth should educate and maintain the soul.
Man is not made for society, but society is made for man. No
institution can be good which does not tend to improve the
individual. In these principles I have confidence so profound, that
I am not afraid to trust those who hold them, despite their partial
views, imperfectly developed characters, and frequent want of
practical sagacity. I believe, if they have opportunity to state
and discuss their opinions, they will gradually sift them,
ascertain their grounds and aims with clearness, and do the work
this country needs. I hope for them as for the 'leaven that is
hidden in the bushel of meal till all be leavened.' The leaven is
not good by itself, neither is the meal; let them combine, and we
shall yet have bread."
"Utopia it is impossible to build up; at least, my hopes for the
race on this one planet are more limited than those of most of my
friends; I accept the limitations of human nature, and believe a
wise acknowledgment of them one of the best conditions of progress;
yet every noble scheme, every poetic manifestation, prophesies to
man his eventual destiny; and were not man ever more sanguine than
facts at the moment justify, he would remain torpid, or be sunk in
sensuality. It is on this ground that I sympathize with what is
called the 'Transcendental Party,' and that I feel their aim to be
the true one. They acknowledge in the nature of man an arbiter for
his deeds--a standard transcending sense and time--and are, in my
view, the true utilitarians. They are but at the beginning of their
course, and will, I hope, learn to make use of the past, as well as
to aspire for the future, and to be true in the present moment."
Margaret Fuller's power lay in her faith in this spiritual capacity. The
confidence began with herself, and was extended to all others, without
exception. Mr. Channing says:
"Margaret cherished a trust in her powers, a confidence in her
destiny, and an ideal of her being, place and influence, so lofty
as to be extravagant. In the morning hour and mountain air of
aspiration, her shadow moved before her, of gigantic size, upon the
snow-white vapor."
Mr. Clarke says:
"Margaret's life _had an aim_, and she was, therefore, essentially
a moral person, and not merely an overflowing genius, in whom
impulse gives birth to impulse, deed to deed. This aim was
distinctly apprehended and steadily pursued by her from first to
last. It was a high, noble one, wholly religious, almost Christian.
It gave dignity to her whole career, and made it heroic.
"This aim, from first to last, was SELF-CULTURE. If she was ever
ambitious of knowledge and talent, as a means of excelling others,
and gaining fame, position, admiration--this vanity had passed
before I knew her, and was replaced by the profound desire for a
full development of her whole nature, by means of a full experience
of life."
Speaking of her demands on others, her three biographers agree that they
were based on the expectation in them of spiritual excellence:
"One thing only she demanded of all her friends--that they should
have some 'extraordinary generous seeking;' that they should not be
satisfied with the common routine of life--that they should aspire
to something higher, better, holier, than they had now attained.
Where this element of aspiration existed, she demanded no
originality of intellect, no greatness of soul. If these were
found, well; but she could love, tenderly and truly, where they
were not.
"She never formed a friendship until she had seen and known this
germ of good, and afterwards judged conduct by this. To this germ
of good, to this highest law of each individual, she held them
true.
"Some of her friends were young, gay, and beautiful; some old,
sick, or studious; some were children of the world, others pale
scholars; some were witty, others slightly dull; but all, in order
to be Margaret's friends, must be capable of seeking
something--capable of some aspiration for the better. And how did
she glorify life to all! All that was tame and common vanishing
away in the picturesque light thrown over the most familiar things
by her rapid fancy, her brilliant wit, her sharp insight, her
creative imagination, by the inexhaustible resources of her
knowledge, and the copious rhetoric, which found words and images
always apt and always ready."
"Margaret saw in each of her friends the secret interior
capability, which might be hereafter developed into some special
beauty or power. By means of this penetrating, this prophetic
insight, she gave each to himself, acted on each to draw out his
best nature; gave him an ideal, out of which he could draw strength
and liberty, hour by hour. Thus her influence was ever ennobling,
and each felt that in her society he was truer, wiser, better, and
yet more free and happy than elsewhere. The 'dry light,' which Lord
Bacon loved, she never knew: her light was life, was love, was warm
with sympathy and a boundless energy of affection and hope. Though
her love flattered and charmed her friends, it did not spoil them,
for they knew her perfect truth; they knew that she loved them, not
for what she imagined, but for what she saw, though she saw it only
in the germ. But as the Greeks beheld a Persephone and Athene in
the passing stranger, and ennobled humanity into ideal beauty,
Margaret saw all her friends thus idealized; she was a balloon of
sufficient power to take us all up with her into the serene depth
of heaven, where she loved to float, far above the low details of
earthly life; earth lay beneath us as a lovely picture--its sounds
came up mellowed into music."
"Margaret was, to persons younger than herself, a Makaria and
Natalia. She was wisdom and intellectual beauty, filling life with
a charm and glory 'known to neither sea nor land.' To those of her
own age, she was sibyl and seer,--a prophetess, revealing the
future, pointing the path, opening their eyes to the great aims
only worthy of pursuit in life. To those older than herself, she
was like the Euphorion in Goethe's drama, child of Faust and
Helen,--a wonderful union of exuberance and judgment, born of
romantic fulness and classic limitation. They saw with surprise her
clear good sense, balancing her flow of sentiment and ardent
courage. They saw her comprehension of both sides of every
question, and gave her their confidence, as to one of equal age,
because of so ripe a judgment."
"An interview with her was a joyous event; worthy men and women who
had conversed with her, could not forget her, but worked bravely on
in the remembrance that this heroic approver had recognized their
aims. She spoke so earnestly, that the depth of the sentiment
prevailed, and not the accidental expression, which might chance to
be common. Thus I learned the other day, that in a copy of Mrs.
Jameson's 'Italian Painters,' against a passage describing Coreggio
as a true servant of God in his art, above sordid ambition, devoted
to truth, 'one of those superior beings of whom there are so few;'
Margaret wrote on the margin: 'And yet all might be such.' The book
lay long on the table of the owner, in Florence, and chanced to be
read there by an artist of much talent. 'These words' said he,
months afterwards, 'struck out a new strength in me. They revived
resolutions long fallen away, and made me set my face like a
flint.'"
"'Yes, my life is strange;' she said, 'thine is strange. We are,
we shall be, in this life, mutilated beings, but there is in my
bosom a faith, that I shall see the reason; a glory, that I can
endure to be so imperfect; and a feeling, ever elastic, that fate
and time shall have the shame and the blame, if I am mutilated. I
will do all I can,--and if one cannot succeed, there is a beauty in
martyrdom.'"
"'Would not genius be common as light if men trusted their higher
selves?'"
"She won the confidence and affection of those who attracted her,
by unbounded sympathy and trust. She probably knew the cherished
secrets of more hearts than any one else, because she freely
imparted her own. With a full share both of intellectual and of
family pride, she preëminently recognized and responded to the
essential brotherhood of all human kind, and needed but to know
that a fellow being required her counsel or assistance, to render
her not merely willing, but eager to impart it. Loving ease,
luxury, and the world's good opinion, she stood ready to renounce
them all, at the call of pity or of duty. I think no one, not
radically averse to the whole system of domestic servitude, would
have treated servants, of whatever class, with such uniform and
thoughtful consideration--a regard which wholly merged their
factitious condition in their antecedent and permanent humanity. I
think few servants ever lived weeks with her, who were not
dignified and lastingly benefited by her influence and her
counsels. They might be at first repelled, by what seemed her too
stately manner and exacting disposition, but they soon learned to
esteem and love her.
"I have known few women, and scarcely another maiden, who had the
heart and the courage to speak with such frank compassion, in mixed
circles, of the most degraded and outcast portion of the sex. The
contemplation of their treatment, especially by the guilty authors
of their ruin, moved her to a calm and mournful indignation, which
she did not attempt to suppress nor control. Others were willing to
pity and deplore; Margaret was more inclined to vindicate and to
redeem.
"'In the chamber of death,' she wrote, 'I prayed in very early
years: "Give me truth; cheat me by no illusion." O, the granting of
this prayer is sometimes terrible to me! I walk over burning
ploughshares, and they sear my feet; yet nothing but truth will do;
no love will serve that is not eternal, and as large as the
universe; no philanthropy, in executing whose behests I myself
become unhealthy; no creative genius which bursts asunder my life,
to leave it a poor black chrysalid behind; and yet this last is too
true of me.'"
Margaret Fuller did justice to the character of Fourier, admired his
enthusiasm, honored his devotion, acknowledged the terrible nature of
the evils he gave the study of a life-time to correct, and paid an
unstinting tribute to the disinterested motives that impelled him; but
with his scheme for refashioning society she had no sympathy. William H.
Channing was an intimate friend, whose sincerity had her deepest
respect, whose enthusiasm won her cordial admiration; she listened to
his brilliant expositions of socialism, but was not persuaded. Practical
difficulties always appeared, and she never could believe that any
rearrangement of circumstances would effect the regeneration of mankind.
She was acquainted from the first with the experiment of Brook Farm;
knew the founders of it; watched with genuine solicitude the
inauguration of the scheme and its fortunes; talked over the principles
and details of it with the leading spirits; visited the community;
examined for herself the working of the plan; gave her talent to the
entertainment and edification of the associates; discerned with clear
eye the distinctions between this experiment and those of European
origin; but still questioned the practical wisdom of the institution,
and declined to join the fraternity, even on the most flattering terms,
for the reason that, interested as she was in the experiment, it was, in
her judgment, too purely an experiment to be personally and practically
sanctioned by one who had no more faith in its fundamental principles
than she.
She was not to be thrown off from her essential position, the primacy
and all sufficiency of the soul. No misery or guilt daunted her, no
impatience at slowness tempted her to resort to artificial methods of
cure. Her visit to Sing Sing, and her intercourse with the abandoned
women there was exceedingly interesting in this view.
"'They listened with earnest attention, and many were moved to
tears. I never felt such sympathy with an audience as when, at the
words "Men and Brethren," that sea of faces, marked with the scars
of every ill, were up-turned, and the shell of brutality burst
apart at the touch of love. I knew that at least heavenly truth
would not be kept out by self complacence and dependence on good
appearances.... These women were among the so-called worst, and all
from the lowest haunts of vice. Yet nothing could have been more
decorous than their conduct, while it was also frank; and they
showed a sensibility and sense of propriety which would not have
disgraced any society.'"
"She did not hesitate to avow that, on meeting some of these
abused, unhappy sisters, she had been surprised to find them
scarcely fallen morally below the ordinary standard of
womanhood,--realizing and loathing their debasement; anxious to
escape it; and only repelled by the sad consciousness that for them
sympathy and society remained only so long as they should persist
in the ways of pollution."
Margaret Fuller's loyalty to principles was proof against bad taste;
which is saying a good deal, for many a reformer is of opinion that
blunders are worse than crimes, and that vulgarity is more offensive
than wickedness. She found the Fourierites in Europe terribly wearisome,
and yet did not forget that they served the great future which neither
they nor she would live to see. At home she could not endure the
Abolitionists--"they were so tedious, often so narrow, always so rabid
and exaggerated in their tone. But, after all, they had a high motive,
something eternal in their desire and life; and if it was not the only
thing worth thinking of, it was really something worth living and dying
for, to free a great nation from such a blot, such a plague." In Europe
she was disgusted at hearing Americans urging the same arguments against
the freedom of the Italians that they urged at home against the
emancipation of the blacks; the same arguments in favor of the
spoliation of Poland that they used at home in favor of the conquest of
Mexico. With her, principles were independent of time and place. She
always believed in liberty as a condition of enlightenment, and in
enlightenment as a condition of progress. This practical faith in the
intellectual and moral nature is the key to all her work. Every chamber
that opened she entered and occupied, fearless of ghosts and goblins.
The chambers that opened not she was content to leave unopened
altogether.
On the table where the writer pens this poor tribute to a most
remarkable woman, are the bulky volumes of her unpublished letters and
diaries, revealing some things too personal for the public eye, but
nothing in the least incongruous with the best things recorded by her
biographers and suggested here; and how much they tell that illustrates
and confirms the moral nobleness and sweetness of her nature. They
contain a psychometric examination from two letters, given after the
manner familiar to those interested in such things, by one of the chief
of these spiritual vaticinators. We shall not transcribe it, for it is
long and indistinct. The indistinctness is the one interesting feature
of the sketch. The sensitive reporter confessed herself put out by the
singular commingling of moods and dispositions, and seemed to be
describing several persons in one. But through them all the same general
impression was clear; the impression of a fascinating, lovable, earnest
and lofty spirit, which, whether sad or gay, intellectual or
sentimental, bore itself like a queenly woman.
When the news of her death reached Boston, one of Boston's eminent men
in letters and public affairs quietly remarked: "it is just as well so."
He was thinking of the agitation she might cause by her brilliant
conversations and her lightning pen, if she brought back from her
Italian heroisms the high spirit of liberty. The times were growing dark
in America. The Slave Power was drawing its lines closer about the
citadel of freedom. The brave voices were few and fewer; the
conservatives were glad when one was hushed by death. The movement she
had encouraged was waning. The high enthusiasm was smouldering in
breasts that anticipated the battle which came ten years later. The
period of poetic aspiration and joy was ended, and the priestess, had
she survived, would have found a deserted shrine.
No accessible portrait of Margaret Fuller exists, that worthily presents
her. Thomas Hicks painted a likeness, of cabinet size, in Rome, which
her friends approved. The daguerreotype was too painfully literal to be
just; the sun having no sentiment or imagination in his eye. She was not
beautiful in youth, nor was she one of those who gain beauty with years.
Her physical attractions were of the kind that time impairs soon, and
though she died at forty, her personal charm was gone. Intellect gave
her what beauty she had, and they saw it who saw her intellect at play.
Her image, therefore, is best preserved in the memory of her friends.
They cannot put it on exhibition.
XII.
THE PREACHER.
Transcendentalism is usually spoken of as a philosophy. It is more
justly regarded as a gospel. As a philosophy it is abstract and
difficult--purely metaphysical in character, resting on no basis of
observed and scientifically-proven fact, but on the so-called data of
consciousness, which cannot be accurately defined, distinctly verified,
or generally recommended. It must be, therefore, inexact and
inconclusive; so far from uniform in its structure, that it may rather
be considered several systems than one. As a gospel, it possesses all
the qualities desirable for effect. It is worth remarking that its chief
disciples have been clergymen. In Germany, Schleiermacher--if we may
count him a Transcendentalist; he was the author of the doctrine, that
the essence of religion consisted in the _sense of dependence_, which
figured largely in the sermons of New England divines--was a clergyman;
Fichte assumed the prophetic tone; the German professors associated
religious teaching with the duties of their chairs. In England,
Coleridge was a preacher by practice, and, part of his life, by
profession; Carlyle was never anything else, his essays and even his
histories being sermons in disguise, and disguise of the most
transparent sort. In New England, Emerson began his career as a
Unitarian minister; so did Walker; so did Ripley; so did W. H. Channing;
so did J. S. Dwight; so did C. P. Cranch. Dr. Channing, a
Transcendentalist without knowing it, was the greatest preacher of his
generation. Brownson was a preacher of all orders in succession; Bartol
preaches still; Clarke preaches still. Of the younger men, Johnson,
Longfellow, Wasson, Higginson, are, or were, Unitarian clergymen. Alcott
is a preacher without a pulpit. The order of mind that was attracted to
the ministry was attracted to the Transcendental ideas.
The explanation is easy; Transcendentalism possessed all the chief
qualifications for a gospel. Its cardinal "facts" were few and
manageable. Its data were secluded in the recesses of consciousness, out
of the reach of scientific investigation, remote from the gaze of vulgar
skepticism; esoteric, having about them the charm of a sacred privacy,
on which common sense and the critical understanding might not intrude.
Its oracles proceeded from a shrine, and were delivered by a priest or
priestess, who came forth from an interior holy of holies to utter them,
and thus were invested with the air of authority which belongs to
exclusive and privileged truths, that revealed themselves to minds of a
contemplative cast. It dealt entirely with "divine things," "eternal
realities;" supersensible forms of thought; problems that lay out of the
reach of observation, such as the essential cause, spiritual laws, the
life after death, the essence of the good, the beautiful, the true; the
ideal possibilities of the soul; its organ was intuition; its method was
introspection: its brightness was inspiration. It possessed the
character of indefiniteness and mystery, full of sentiment and
suggestion, that fascinates the imagination, and lends itself so easily
to acts of contemplation and worship. The German Mystics were in spirit
Transcendentalists. The analogies are close between Boehme and
Schelling; between Eckardt and Fichte; Frederick Schlegel had much in
common with Boehme; Coleridge acknowledged his debt to him and to other
Mystics; even Hegel ran in line with them on some of his high roads.
Minds as opposite as Alcott and Parker met in communion here--Alcott
going to the Mystics for inspiration; Parker resorting to them for rest.
The Mystics were men of feeling; the Transcendentalists were men of
thought: but thought and feeling sought the same object in the same
region. Piety was a feature of Transcendentalism; it loved devout hymns,
music, the glowing language of aspiration, the moods of awe and
humility, emblems, symbols, expressions of inarticulate emotion,
silence, contemplation, breathings after communion with the Infinite.
The poetry of Transcendentalism is religious, with scarcely an
exception; the most beautiful hymns in our sacred collections, the only
deeply impressive hymns, are by transcendental writers.
This was the aspect of Transcendentalism that fascinated Theodore
Parker. His intellect was constructed on the English model. His acute
observation; his passion for external facts; his faith in statistics;
his hunger for information on all external topics of history and
politics; his capacity for retaining details of miscellaneous knowledge;
his logical method of reasoning; his ability to handle masses of raw
mental material, to distribute and classify;--all indicate intellectual
power of the English rather than of the German type. It was his custom
to speak slightingly of the "Bridgewater Treatises" and works of a
similar class, in which the processes of inductive argument are employed
to establish truths of the "Pure Reason;" but he easily fell into the
same habit, and pushed the inductive method as far as it would go. His
discourses on Providence, the Economy of Pain and Misery, Atheism,
Theism, in the volume entitled "Theism, Atheism, and The Popular
Theology," are quite in the style of the "Bridgewater Treatises." Parker
was, in many respects, the opposite of a Mystic; he was a realist of the
most concrete description, entirely at home among sensible things, a
good administrator, a safe investor of moneys, a wise counsellor in
practical affairs. But along with this intellectual quality which he
inherited from his father, was an interior, sentimental, devotional
quality, derived from his mother. The two were never wholly blended;
often they were wide apart, occupying different spheres, and engaged in
different offices; sometimes they were in apparent opposition. Neither
could subdue or overshadow the other; neither could keep the other long
in abeyance. As a rule, the dominion was divided between them: the
practical understanding assumed control of all matters pertaining to
this world; the higher reason claimed supremacy in all matters of
faith. But for the tendency to poetic idealism, which came to him from
his mother, Parker might, from the constitution of his mind, have
belonged to an opposite school. A passage in the letter from Santa Cruz,
entitled "Theodore Parker's Experience as a Minister," is curious, as
showing how the two tendencies of his mind overlapped; he is speaking of
the two methods of developing the contents "of the instinctive
intuitions of the divine, the just, and the immortal,"--the inductive
and the deductive. After a few words respecting the inductive method of
gathering facts from the history of mankind, he speaks thus of the
deductive: "Next, from the primitive facts of consciousness given by the
power of instinctive intuition, I endeavored to deduce the true notion
of God, of justice, and futurity." Then, forgetting that the power of
instinctive intuition must be self-authenticating--cannot, at any rate,
be authenticated by miscellaneous facts in the religious history of
mankind--he continues:
"To learn what I could about the spiritual faculties of man, I not
only studied the sacred books of various nations, the poets and
philosophers who professedly treat thereof, but also such as deal
with sleep-walking, dreams, visions, prophecies, second-sight,
oracles, ecstasies, witchcraft, magic-wonders, the appearance of
devils, ghosts, and the like. Besides, I studied other works which
lie out from the regular highway of theology; the spurious books
attributed to famous Jews and Christians; Pseudepigraphy of the Old
Testament, and the Apocrypha of the New; with the strange fantasies
of the Neoplatonists and Gnostics."
Very important reading all this for one who studied to qualify himself
to instruct his fellow men in the natural history of the world's
religions; but not so valuable as illustrating the "instinctive
intuitions of human nature." Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Boehme,
Eckardt, never worked by that method, which may properly be called the
method of Sensationalism applied to Transcendentalism. Parker, on the
religious side, was a pure Transcendentalist without guile, accepting
the transcendental ideas with no shadow of qualification; stating them
with the concrete sharpness of scientific propositions, and applying
them with the exactness of mathematical principles. He took them as he
found them in the writings of the great German thinkers; shaped them as
he, better than any body else, could shape thought in form of words,--as
he shaped the formula of republican government--"government of the
people, by the people, for the people"--from the looser statement of
Daniel Webster,--and laid them down as corner-stones of a new
theological structure. The materials were furnished by Schleiermacher,
Spinoza, Jacobi, Schelling; the architectural skill was his own.
Consciousness he did not undertake to analyze; the "facts of
consciousness" he took on others' verification; their spiritual import
he perceived, developed and applied. Transcendentalism put into his
hands the implements he was in special need of.
It is not easy to determine the precise period at which Parker fully
accepted, with all its consequences, the transcendental philosophy. He
was not a Transcendentalist--not distinctly and avowedly one--at the
time of his ordination, in 1837; he clearly was in 1840, the date of
the Levi Blodgett letter, which contains the most thorough-going
statement of the transcendental idea to be found in any single tractate.
The probability is, that he always was one in sentiment, and became more
and more consciously one in thought, as he found it necessary to shift
his position in order to save his faith. So long as the beliefs he
cherished seemed to be satisfactorily supported on the old grounds, he
was content; but as the old grounds, one after another, gave way, the
beliefs were transferred to the keeping of new principles. Then the
sentiments of his youth hardened into ideas; the delicate creatures that
lived and gleamed beneath the waters of faith's tropical ocean, became
reefs of white stone, that lifted their broad surface above the level of
the sea, and offered immovable support to human habitations.
Parker was, more than anything, a preacher;--preacher more than
theologian, philosopher or scholar. Whatever else he was, contributed to
his greatness in this. He had a profuse gift of language; expression was
a necessity to him; his thoughts came swiftly, and clothed in attractive
garments; he had wit, and he had humor; laughter and tears were equally
at his command. His resources of illustration, drawn from history,
literature, biography, nature, were simply inexhaustible; the fruits of
enormous reading were at the immediate disposal of a memory that never
lost a trifle of the stores committed to it. The religious emotions were
as genuine with him as they were quick, and as deep as they were
glowing: the human sympathies were wide as the widest, and tender as
the tenderest. He had the power of persuasion and of rebuke, a withering
sarcasm, a winning compassion. His indignation at wrong was not so
qualified by sentimental regard for the wrong doer that invective was
wasted on lifeless abstractions, nor was his judgment of evil doers so
austere that wickedness escaped by being made incredible. It cannot be
said of anybody that he has been able to discriminate nicely, in hours
of moral feeling, between wrong doers and wrong deeds; that cannot be
done in the present state of psychological science. We simply do not
know what the limits of personal responsibility are; how much power is
entrusted to the will; how much allowance is to be made for temperament
and circumstance; at what point the individual is detached from the mass
of mankind, and constituted an accountable person. Parker was guilty, as
others are, of personal injustice in holding individuals answerable for
sins of their generation, and for vices transmitted with their blood;
conscience and charity were occasionally at issue with him; but if
righteousness was betrayed into intemperance of zeal, peace made haste
to offer its kiss of sorrow, and unaffected tears damped down the flames
of wrath when they threatened to consume the innocent. This two-fold
power of blasting and of blessing, was vastly effective both on large
audiences and on small. The personal integrity which no one ever
doubted, the courage which was evident to even hasty observers, the
mental independence which justified the boldness of its position by an
indefatigable purpose to discover truth, were prime qualifications for
the office he filled. The very disadvantages,--an unheroic presence, an
uninspired countenance, an unmelodious and unpliable voice, the
necessity of interposing glasses between his clear blue eyes and his
audience, and thus veiling the heavens that lay behind them,--helped him
by putting out of mind all thought of meretricious attempts at
influence, and compelling recognition of the intellectual and moral
force which could so easily dispense with what most orators consider
invaluable aids.
All that Parker had went into his preaching; the wealth of his library,
the treasures of his heart, the sweetness of his closet meditations, the
solemnity of his lonely musings. But it was not this that gave him his
great power as a preacher. That, we are persuaded, was due in chief part
to the earnestness of his faith in the transcendental philosophy. How
cordially he entertained that faith, what to him it signified in
politics, ethics, religion, may be learned by any who will take pains to
read a lecture by him on Transcendentalism, recently published by the
Free Religious Association. That he ascribed the popular interest in his
preaching to his philosophical ideas will not perhaps be accepted as
evidence on the point, for men are apt to be mistaken in regard to the
sources of their power; but it is interesting as a testimony to his own
belief, to know that he did so. In a sermon preached on November 14th,
1852, the occasion being his leaving the Melodeon for the Music Hall, he
presents first the current modes of accounting for his success, and
then his own.
"The first reason assigned for the audience coming together was
this: they came from vain curiosity, having itching ears to hear
'what this babbler sayeth.'
"Then it was said, men came here because I taught utter irreligion,
blank immorality; that I had no love of God, no fear of God, no
love of man; and that you thought, if you could get rid of your
conscience and soul, and trample immortality under foot, and were
satisfied there was no God, you should have a very nice time of it
here and hereafter.
"Then it was declared that I was a shrewd, practical man, perfectly
well 'posted up' in every thing that took place; knew how to make
investments and get very large returns,--unluckily it has not been
for myself that this has been true. And it was said that I
collected large headed, practical men to hear me, and that you were
a 'boisterous assembly.'
"Then, that I was a learned man and gave learned discourses on
ecclesiastical history or political history,--things which have not
been found very attractive in the churches hitherto.
"Again, that I was a philosopher, with a wise head, and taught men
theological metaphysics; and so a large company of men seemed all
at once smitten with a panic for metaphysics and abstract
preaching. It was never so before.
"Next it was reported that I was a witty man, and shot nicely
feathered arrows very deftly into the mark; and that men came to
attend the sharp shooting of a wit.
"Then there was a seventh thing,--that I was an eloquent man; and I
remember certain diatribes against the folly of filling churches
with eloquence.
"Then again, it was charged against me that I was a philanthropist,
and taught the love of men, but did not teach at all the love of
God; and that men really loved to love one another, and so came.
"Then it was thought that I was a sentimentalist, and tickled the
ears of 'weak women,' who came to delight themselves and be filled
full of poetry and love.
"The real thing they did not seem to hit; that I preached an idea
of God, of man and of religion, which commended itself to the
nature of mankind."
The great preacher is always an idealist, and according to the fervor of
his idealism is he great. This was the source of Channing's power; it
was the charm of Emerson's. In reply to a friend who questioned her as
to the nature of the benefits conferred on her by Mr. Emerson's
preaching, Margaret Fuller wrote:
"His influence has been more beneficial to me than that of any
American, and from him I first learned what is meant by an inward
life. Many other springs have since fed the stream of living
waters, but he first opened the fountain. That the 'mind is its own
place' was a dead phrase to me till he cast light upon my mind.
Several of his sermons stand apart in memory, like landmarks of my
spiritual history. It would take a volume to tell what this one
influence did for me."
Mr. Parker's ministry had three periods, in each of which the ideal
element was the attraction. The first was the period of quiet influence
in West Roxbury, where the stream of his spiritual life flowed
peacefully through green pastures, and enriched simple hearts with its
unintermitted current. Accounts agree that at this time there was a soul
of sweetness in his preaching, that was a good deal more than the body
of its thought. The second was the period at the Boston Melodeon, the
first of his experience before the crowd of a metropolis. This was the
controversial epoch, and, from the nature of the case, was largely
polemical and negative as towards the popular theology. But even then
the strain of spiritual faith was heard above the din of battle, and
souls that were averse to polemics were fed by the enthusiasm that came
from the inner heights of aspiration. The last period was that of the
Music Hall--the famous period. Then the faith was defined and
formulated; the corner-stones were hewn and set; the fundamental
positions were announced with the fidelity of iteration that was
customary with the "painful preachers of the Word" in churches where
people were duly stretched upon the Five Points of Calvin. The three
cardinal attestations of the universal human consciousness--
The Absolute God,
The Moral Law,
The Immortal Life,
were asseverated with all the earnestness of the man, and declared to be
the constituent elements of the Rock of Ages.
Standing on this tripod, Parker spoke as one having authority; he judged
other creeds--Orthodox, Unitarian, Scientific--with the confidence of
one who felt that he had inspiration on his side. It was difficult for
him to understand how, without his faith, others could be happy. The
believers in tradition seemed to him people who walked near precipices,
leaning on broken reeds; the unbelievers were people who walked near the
same precipices, with bandaged eyes.
"If to-morrow I am to perish utterly, then I shall only take
counsel for to-day, and ask for qualities which last no longer. My
fathers will be to me only as the ground out of which my bread-corn
is grown; dead, they are like the rotten mould of earth, their
memory of small concern to me. Posterity--I shall care nothing for
the future generations of mankind. I am one atom in the trunk of a
tree, and care nothing for the roots below or the branches above; I
shall sow such seed as will bear harvest to-day; I shall know no
higher law; passion enacts my statutes to-day; to-morrow ambition
revises the statutes, and these are my sole legislators; morality
will vanish, expediency take its place; heroism will be gone, and
instead of it there will be the brute valor of the he-wolf, the
brute-cunning of the she-fox, the rapacity of the vulture, and the
headlong daring of the wild bull; but the cool, calm courage which,
for truth's sake, and for love's sake, looks death firmly in the
face, and then wheels into line, ready to be slain--that will be a
thing no longer heard of."
"The atheist sits down beside the coffin of his only child--a
rose-bud daughter, whose heart death slowly ate away; the pale
lilies of the valley which droop with fragrance above that lifeless
heart, are flowers of mockery to him, their beauty is a cheat; they
give not back his child, for whom the sepulchral monster opens his
remorseless jaws. The hopeless father looks down on the face of his
girl, silent--not sleeping, cold--dead.... He looks beyond--the
poor sad man--it is only solid darkness he looks on; no rainbow
beautifies that cloud; there is thunder in it, not light; night is
behind--without a star."
This is the way the Protestant Christians spoke of him; the
"Evangelicals" spoke thus of the Unitarians; the believers in miraculous
revelations spoke thus of the rationalists. They that are sure always
speak so of those who, in their judgment, have no right to be sure at
all.
Yet Parker had a hospitable mind, and his hospitality was due also to
his faith. The spiritual philosophy which maintained the identity in all
men of consciousness, and the eternal validity of its promises, which no
error or petulance could discredit, was indulgent to the unfortunates
who had not the satisfaction of its assurance. It pitied, but did not
reproach them. They were children of God no less for being ignorant of
their dignity. It was impossible for Parker to believe that rational
beings could be utterly insensible to the essential facts of their own
nature. Their error, misconception, misconstruction, to whatever cause
due, could be no more than incidental. Skepticism might make wild work
of definitions, but ultimate facts it could never disturb; these would
thrust themselves up at last, as inevitably as the rocky substratum of
the globe presents itself in the green field. In a thanksgiving sermon
he thanked God that atheism could freely deliver its creed and prove
that it was folly. He was persuaded that the disbelievers believed
better than they knew; in their paroxysms of denial, he saw the blind
struggles of faith; he gave the enemies of religion credit for qualities
that made their hostility look like a heroic protest against the
outrages inflicted in the name of religion upon religion itself.
"It is a fact of history, that in old time, from Epicurus to
Seneca, some of the ablest heads and best hearts of Greece and Rome
sought to destroy the idea of immortality. This was the reason:
they saw it was a torment to mankind; that the popular notion of
immortality was too bad to be true; and so they took pains to break
down the Heathen Mythology, though with it they destroyed the
notion of immortal life. They did a great service to mankind in
ridding us from this yoke of fear.
"Many a philosopher has seemed without religion, even to a careful
observer--sometimes has passed for an atheist. Some of them have to
themselves seemed without any religion, and have denied that there
was any God; but all the while their nature was truer than their
will; their instinct kept their personal wholeness better than they
were aware. These men loved absolute truth, not for its uses, but
for itself; they laid down their lives for it, rather than violate
the integrity of their intellect. They had the intellectual love of
God, though they knew it not, though they denied it.
"I have known philanthropists who undervalued piety; they liked it
not--they said it was moonshine, not broad day; it gave flashes of
lightning, all of which would not make light.... Yet underneath
their philanthropy there lay the absolute and disinterested love of
other men. They knew only the special form, not the universal
substance thereof.
"Men of science, as a class, do not war on the truths, the goodness
and the piety that are taught as religion, only on the errors, the
evil, the impiety which bear its name. Science is the natural ally
of religion. Shall we try and separate what God has joined? We
injure both by the attempt. The philosophers of this age have a
profound love of truth, and show great industry and boldness in
search thereof. In the name of truth they pluck down the
strongholds of error--venerable and old.
"All the attacks made on religion itself by men of science, from
Celsus to Feuerbach, have not done so much to bring religion into
contempt as a single persecution for witchcraft, or a Bartholomew
massacre made in the name of God."
Parker had human sympathies strong and deep, and could never have been
indifferent to the pains and misery of his fellow creatures; yet these
sympathies owed their persistency, their endurance, and their
indomitable sweetness, to the spiritual faith which he professed. He had
a passionate head-strong nature; he knew the charm of pleasant looks,
congenial companions, elegant and luxurious circumstances. His love of
leisure was keen; it was the desire of his life to enjoy the scholar's
privilege of uninterrupted hours, in the delicious seclusion of the
library. With a different philosophy he would have been a very different
man. The creed he held made self-indulgence impossible.
"I have always taught," he said--in a sermon before quoted, the last he
preached in the Melodeon--"that the religious faculty is the natural
ruler in all the commonwealth of man; the importance of religion, and
its commanding power in every relation of life. This is what I have
continually preached, and some of you will remember that the first
sermon I addressed to you was on this theme:--The absolute necessity of
religion for safely conducting the life of the individual, and the life
of the State. You knew very well I did not begin too soon; yet I did not
then foresee that it would soon be denied in America, in Boston, that
there was any law higher than an Act of Congress." The allusion is to
the Fugitive Slave Bill then recently enacted, which brought to a close
issue the controversy between the Abolitionists and the Government, and
imposed on Mr. Parker and the rest who felt as he did, duties of
watchfulness and self-denial, that for years put to flight all thoughts
of personal ease.
He continues:
"Woman I have always regarded as the equal of man--more nicely
speaking, the equivalent of man; superior in some things, inferior
in some others; inferior in the lower qualities, in bulk of body
and bulk of brain; superior in the higher and nicer qualities--in
the moral power of conscience, the loving power of affection, the
religious power of the soul; equal on the whole, and of course
entitled to just the same rights as man; the same rights of mind,
body and estate; the same domestic, social, ecclesiastical, and
political rights as man, and only kept from the enjoyment of these
by might, not right; yet herself destined one day to acquire them
all."
The belief in the spiritual eminence of woman was part of the creed of
the Transcendentalist; it was intimately connected with his reverence
for interior, poetic, emotional natures; with his preference for feeling
above thought, of spontaneity above will. In the order of rank, Parker
assigned the first place to the "religious faculty," as he termed it,
which gave immediate vision of spiritual truth; the second place was
given to the affections; conscience he ranked below these; and lowest of
all stood the intellect. The rational powers were held subordinate to
the instinctive, or rather the rational and the instinctive were held to
be coincident. The feminine characteristic being affection, which is
spontaneous, and the masculine being intellect, which is not, the
feminine was set above the masculine--love above light, pity above
justice, sympathy above rectitude, compassion above equity. Parker had
feminine attributes, and was slightly enamored of them; thought, or
tried to think them the glory of his manhood; but the masculine greatly
predominated in him. To people in general he seemed to reverse his own
order, in practice. Weak, dependent, dreamy men he had no patience with;
sentimentalism was his aversion; the moral element alone commanded his
absolute respect. Masculine women were equally distasteful; while he
admired the genius of Margaret Fuller, his personal attraction toward
her seldom brought him into her society. That a man constituted as he
was, self-reliant to aggressiveness, inclined to be arbitrary,
dogmatical, and imperious, of prodigious force of will and masterly
power of conscience, entered as he did into advocacy of the rights of
the African and the prerogatives of woman, is evidence of the
whole-heartedness with which he adopted the transcendental philosophy.
It was, indeed, a faith to him, that ruled his life and appointed his
career. It gave him his commission as prophet, reformer, philanthropist.
It was the consecrating oil that sanctified him, from the crown of his
head to the soles of his feet.
Parker believed in the gospel of Transcendentalism, and was fully
persuaded that it was to be the gospel of the future. "The religion I
preach," he was accustomed to say, "will be the religion of enlightened
men for the next thousand years." He anticipated an earthly immortality
for his thought, an extensive circulation of his books, a swift course
for his word, among the people. The expectation seemed not unreasonable
twenty years ago.
The prediction has not thus far been justified. Parker died in 1860, on
the eve of the civil war, which he prognosticated, sixteen years ago.
The war fairly ended, efforts were made to revive the prophet's memory
and carry out the cherished purpose of his heart. But their ill success
has gone far to prove--what needed no evidence--that prophecies may
fail, and tongues cease and knowledge pass away. The philosophy that
Parker combated and ridiculed and cast scorn at, declared to be
self-refuted and self-condemned, has revived under a new name, as the
"philosophy of experience," is professed by the ablest thinkers of the
day, taught in high places, in the name of science, set forth as the
hope of man; the creeds he pronounced irrational, and fancied to be
obsolete still hold nominal sway over the minds of men; the Christianity
of the letter and the form is the only Christianity that is officially
acknowledged; the gospel is an institution still, not a faith;
revivalism has the monopoly of religious enthusiasm; preaching is giving
place to lecturing; the pulpit has been taken down; science alone is
permitted to speak with authority;--literature, journalism, politics,
trade, attract the young men that once sought the ministry; the noble
preachers of a noble gospel are the few remaining idealists, who have
kept the faith of their youth; they are growing old; one by one they
leave their place, and there are none like them to fill it. Parker was
one of the last of the grand preachers who spoke with power, bearing
commission from the soul. The commissions which the soul issues are, for
the time being, discredited, and discredited they will be, so long as
the ideal philosophy is an outcast among men. Should that philosophy
revive, the days of great preaching will return with it. Bibles will be
read and hymns sung, and sermons delivered to crowds from pulpits. The
lyceum and the newspaper will occupy a subordinate position as means of
social and moral influence, and the prophets will recover their waning
reputation. Until then, the work they did when living must attest their
greatness with such as can estimate it at its worth.
XIII.
THE MAN OF LETTERS.
The man who was as influential as any in planting the seeds of the
transcendental philosophy in good soil, and in showing whither its
principles tended, is known now, and has from the first been known,
chiefly as a man of letters, a thoughtful observer, a careful student
and a serious inquirer after knowledge. George Ripley, one year older
than Emerson, was one of the forerunners and prophets of the new
dispensation. He was by temperament as well as by training, a scholar, a
reader of books, a discerner of opinions, a devotee of ideas. A mind of
such clearness and serenity, accurate judgment, fine taste, and rare
skill in the use of language, written and spoken, was of great value in
introducing, defining and interpreting the vast, vague thoughts that
were burning in the minds of speculative men. He was one of the first in
America to master the German language; and, his bent of mind being
philosophical and theological, he became a medium through which the
French and German thought found its way to New England. He was an
importer, reader and lender of the new books of the living Continental
thinkers. His library contained a rich collection of works in
philosophy, theology, hermeneutics, criticism of the Old and New
Testaments, and divinity in its different branches of dogmatics and
sentiment. He was intimate with N. L. Frothingham and Convers Francis,
the admirable scholar, the hospitable and independent thinker, the
enthusiastic and humane believer, the centre and generous distributor of
copious intellectual gifts to all who came within his reach. Theodore
Parker was the intellectual product of these two men, Convers Francis
and George Ripley. The former fed his passion for knowledge; the latter,
at the period of his life in the divinity school, gave direction to his
thought. The books that did most to determine the set of Parker's mind
were taken from Mr. Ripley's library. For a considerable time, in
Parker's early ministry, they were close and thoroughly congenial
friends. They walked and talked together; made long excursions; attended
conventions; were members of the same club or coterie; joined in the
discussions at which Emerson, Channing, Hedge, Clark, Alcott took part;
and, though parted, in after life, by circumstances which appointed them
to different spheres of labor,--one in Boston, the other in New
York,--they continued to the end, constant and hearty well wishers. At
the close of his life, Parker expressed a hope that Ripley might be his
biographer.
Mr. Ripley prepared for the ministry at the Cambridge divinity school;
in 1826 accepted a call to be pastor and preacher of the church,
organized but eighteen months before, and within two months worshipping
in their new meeting-house on Purchase street, Boston. The ordination
took place on Wednesday, Nov. 8th, of the same year. "Under his
charge," said his successor, Rev. J. I. T. Coolidge, in 1848, "the
society grew from very small beginnings to strength and prosperity. As a
preacher, he awakened the deepest interest, and as a devoted pastor, the
warmest affection, which still survives, deep and strong, in the hearts
of those who were the objects of his counsel and pastoral care. After
the lapse of almost fifteen years, the connection was dissolved, for
reasons which affected not the least the relations of friendship and
mutual respect between the parties. It has been a great satisfaction to
me, as I have passed in and out among you, to hear again and again the
expressions of love and interest with which you remember the ministry of
your first servant in this church." That this was not merely the formal
tribute which the courtesies of the profession exacted, is proved, as
well as such a thing can be proved, by the published correspondence
between the pastor and his people, by the frank declarations of the
pastor in his farewell address, and by a remarkable letter, which
discussed in full the causes that led to the separation of the pastor
and his flock. In this long and candid letter to the church, Mr. Ripley
declared himself a Transcendentalist, and avowed his sympathy with
movements larger than the Christian Church represented.
The declaration was hardly necessary. Mr. Ripley was known to be the
writer of the review of Martineau's "Rationale of Religious Enquiry,"
which raised such heated controversy; his translation of Cousin's
"Philosophical Miscellanies," with its important Introduction, had
attracted the attention of literary circles; a volume of discourses,
entitled "Discourses on the Philosophy of Religion," comprising seven
sermons delivered in the regular course of his ministry, left no doubt
in any mind respecting his position. The controversy with Andrews Norton
on "The Latest Form of Infidelity," was carried on in 1840, the year
before Mr. Ripley's ministry ended. The calmness of tone that
characterized all these writings, the clearness and serenity of
statement, the seemingly easy avoidance of extremes, the absence of
passion, showed the supremacy of intellect over feeling. Yet of feeling
there must have been a good deal. There was a great deal in the
community; there was a great deal among the clergy of his denomination;
that it had found expression within his own society, is betrayed in the
farewell sermon; that his own heart was deeply touched, was confessed by
the fact that on the very day after his parting words to his
congregation were spoken--on March 29th, 1841--Mr. Ripley took up his
new ministry at Brook Farm.
The character of that Association has been described in a previous
chapter, with as much minuteness of detail as is necessary, and the
purposes of its inaugurators have been sufficiently indicated. The
founder of it was not a "doctrinaire," but a philanthropist on ideal
principles. With the systems of socialism current in Paris, he was at
that period wholly unacquainted. The name of Charles Fourier was
unfamiliar to him. He had faith in the soul, and in the soul's prophecy
of good; he saw that the prophecy was unheeded, that society rested on
principles which the soul abhorred; that between the visions of the
spiritual philosophy and the bitter realities of vice, misery, sin, in
human life, there was an unappeasable conflict; and he was resolved to
do what one man might to create a new earth in preparation for a new
heaven. He took the Gospel at its word, and went forth to demonstrate
the power of its principles, by showing the Beatitudes to be something
more substantial than dreams. His costly library, with all its beloved
books, was offered for sale at public auction, and the price thereof,
with whatever else he possessed, was consecrated to the cause of
humanity that he had at heart. He had no children, and few ties of
kindred; but the social position of the clergy was above any secular
position in New England at that time; the prejudices and antipathies of
the clerical order were stubborn; the leaders of opinion in state and
church were conservative, to a degree it is difficult for us to believe;
the path of the reformer was strewn with thorns and beset with
difficulties most formidable to sensitive spirits. Mr. Emerson had
resigned his ministry nine years before, and for the reason too that he
was a Transcendentalist, but had retired to the peaceful walks of
literature, and had made no actual assault on social institutions. Mr.
Ripley associated himself at once with people of no worldly
consideration, avowed principles that were voted vulgar in refined
circles, and identified himself with an enterprise which the amiable
called visionary, and the unamiable wild and revolutionary. But his
conviction was clear, and his will was fixed. Sustained by the entire
sympathy of a very noble woman, his wife--who was one with him in
aspiration, purpose, and endeavor, till the undertaking ended--he put
"the world" behind him, sold all, and followed the Master.
Mr. and Mrs. Ripley were the life of the Brook Farm Association. Their
unfaltering energy, unfailing cheer, inexhaustible sweetness and gayety,
availed to keep up the tone of the institution, to prevent its becoming
common-place, and to retain there the persons on whose character the
moral and intellectual standard depended. It was due to them that the
experiment was tried as long as it was--six years;--that while it went
on, it avoided, as it did, the usual scandal and reproach that bring
ruin on schemes of that description; and that, when finally it ended in
disaster, it commanded sympathy rather than contempt, and left a sweet
memory behind. The originator was the last to leave the place of his
toil and vain endeavor; he left it, having made all necessary provision
for the discharge of debts, which only through arduous labors in
journalism he was able afterwards to pay.
In Mr. Ripley's mind the Idea was supreme. In 1844 he, with Mr. Dana and
Mr. Channing, lectured and spoke on the principles of Association,--the
foreign literature on the subject being more familiar to him
then,--commended the doctrine of Fourier, and was prepared for a more
sympathetic propagandism than he had meditated hitherto. In 1845, the
"Harbinger" was started,--a weekly journal, devoted to Social and
Political Progress; published by the Brook Farm Phalanx. The
Prospectus, written by Mr. Ripley, made this announcement: "The
principles of universal unity taught by Charles Fourier in their
application to society, we believe are at the foundation of all genuine
social progress; and it will ever be our aim to discuss and defend those
principles without any sectarian bigotry, and in the catholic and
comprehensive spirit of their great discoverer." An introductory notice
by the same pen, among other things pertaining to the aims and
intentions of the paper, contained this passage:
"The interests of Social Reform will be considered as paramount to
all others in whatever is admitted into the pages of the
"Harbinger." We shall suffer no attachment to literature, no taste
for abstract discussion, no love of purely intellectual theories,
to seduce us from our devotion to the cause of the oppressed, the
down trodden, the insulted and injured masses of our fellow men.
Every pulsation of our being vibrates in sympathy with the wrongs
of the toiling millions; and every wise effort for their speedy
enfranchisement will find in us resolute and indomitable advocates.
If any imagine from the literary tone of the preceding remarks that
we are indifferent to the radical movement for the benefit of the
masses which is the crowning glory of the nineteenth century, they
will soon discover their egregious mistake. To that movement,
consecrated by religious principle, sustained by an awful sense of
justice, and cheered by the brightest hopes of future good, all our
powers, talents, and attainments are devoted. We look for an
audience among the refined and educated circles, to which the
character of our paper will win its way; but we shall also be read
by the swart and sweaty artisan; the laborer will find in us
another champion; and many hearts struggling with the secret hope
which no weight of care and toil can entirely suppress, will pour
on us their benedictions, as we labor for the equal rights of all."
In the four years of its existence, the paper was faithful to this grand
and high sounding promise. A powerful company of writers contributed
their labor to help forward the plan. The Journal was affluent and
sparkling. The literary criticism was the work of able pens; the musical
and art criticism was in the hands of the most competent judges in the
country; the æsthetics were not neglected; the verse was excellent; but
the social questions were of first consideration. These were never
treated slightingly, and the treatment of them never deviated from the
high standard proposed by the editors. The list of its contributors
contained the names of Stephen Pearl Andrews, Albert Brisbane, W. H.
Channing, W. E. Channing, Walter Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Geo. H.
Calvert, J. J. Cooke, A. J. H. Duganne, C. P. Cranch, Geo. W. Curtis,
Charles A. Dana, J. S. Dwight, Horace Greeley, Parke Godwin, F. H.
Hedge, T. W. Higginson, M. E. Lazarus, J. R. Lowell, Osborn Macdaniel,
Geo. Ripley, S. D. Robbins, L. W. Ryckman, F. G. Shaw, W. W. Story,
Henry James, John G. Whittier, J. J. G. Wilkinson--a most remarkable
collection of powerful names.
The departments seem not to have been systematically arranged, but the
writers sent what they had, the same writer furnishing articles on a
variety of topics. Mr. F. G. Shaw published, in successive numbers, an
admirable translation of George Sand's "Consuelo," and wrote against the
iniquities of the principle of competition in trade. C. A. Dana noticed
books, reported movements, criticized men and measures, translated
poetry from the German, and sent verses of a mystical and sentimental
character of his own. C. P. Cranch contributed poems and criticisms on
art and music. J. S. Dwight paid attention to the musical department,
but also wrote book reviews and articles on the social problem. W. H.
Channing poured out his burning soul in denunciation of social wrong and
painted in glowing colors the promise of the future. G. W. Curtis sent
poetry and notes on literature and music in New York. T. W. Higginson
printed there his "Hymn of Humanity." Messrs. Brisbane, Godwin and
Greeley confined themselves to social problems, doing a large part of
the heavy work. Mr. Ripley, the Managing Editor, supervised the whole;
wrote much himself on the different aspects of Association; reported the
progress of the cause at home and abroad; answered the objections that
were current in the popular prejudice, and gave to the paper the
encouraging tone of his cheery, earnest spirit.
As interpreted by the "Harbinger," the cause of Association was
hospitable and humane. The technicalities of special systems were
avoided; dry discussions of theory and method were put aside; generous
sympathy was shown towards philanthropic workers in other fields; the
tone of wailing was never heard, and the anticipations of the future
were steadily bright and bold. When reformers of a pronounced type, like
the abolitionists, spoke of it slightingly as a "kid glove" journal that
was afraid of soiling its fingers with ugly matters like slavery, the
Associationists explained that their plan was the more comprehensive;
that they struck at the root of every kind of slavery; and that the
worst evils would disappear when their beneficent principle should be
recognized. That the "Harbinger" should have lived no longer than it
did, with such a corps of writers and so great a cause,--the last number
is dated February 10, 1849,--may be accounted for by the feeble hold
that Socialism had in this country. In Europe the hearts of the working
people were in it. It originated among them, expressed their actual
sorrows, answered their living questions, promised satisfaction to their
wants, and predicted the only future they could imagine as in any way
possible. Here it was an imported speculation; the working people were
not driven to it for refuge from their misery; they did not ask the
questions it proposed to answer, nor did it hold out prospects that
gladdened their eyes. The advocates of it were cultivated men, literary
and æsthetical, who represented the best the old world had to give,
rather than the worst the New World had experienced; and their words met
with no response from the multitudes in whose behoof they were spoken.
America was exercised then by questions of awful moment. The agitation
against slavery had taken hold of the whole country; it was in politics,
in journalism, in literature, in the public hall and the parlor. Its
issues were immediate and urgent. People had neither heads nor hearts
for schemes of comprehensive scope that must be patiently meditated and
matured for generations. No talents, no brilliancy, no earnestness even,
would engage interest in what seemed visionary, however glorious the
vision. The socialistic enterprises in America were all short lived.
Brook Farm was an idyl; and in the days of epics, the idyl is easily
forgotten.
The decease of the "Harbinger" was the end of that phase of
Transcendentalism. The dream of the kingdom of heaven faded. The
apostles were dispersed. Some kept their faith and showed their fidelity
in other places and other work. Three or four went into the Roman
Church, and found rest on its ancient bosom. Others found a field for
their talents in literature, which they beautified with their genius,
and ennobled by their ideas. Others devoted themselves to journalism. Of
the last was George Ripley. _The New York Tribune_ offered him the post
of literary critic on its editorial staff. That position he has occupied
for twenty-five years, in a way honorable to himself and to good
letters. It has been in his power to aid the development of literature
in America, in many ways, by encouraging young writers; by giving
direction to ambitious but immature gifts; by erecting a standard of
judgment, high, without being unreasonable, and strict, without being
austere. A large acquaintance with books, a cultivated taste, a
hospitable appreciation, a hearty love of good literary work, a cordial
dislike of bad, a just estimation of the rights and duties of literary
men, and the office they should fill in a republican community, have
marked his administration of the department assigned to him. He has held
it to be his duty to make intelligent reports of current literature,
with enough of criticism to convey his own opinion of its character,
without dictating opinions to others. Worthless books received their
due, and worthy books received theirs in full measure. The books in
which worth and worthlessness were united were discriminatingly handled,
the emphasis being laid on the better qualities. Many of the reviews
were essays, full of discernment. All showed that respect for mind which
might be expected from one so carefully trained.
Mr. Ripley has been true to the ideas with which he set out in his early
life. His period of philosophical propagandism being over; his young
enthusiasm having spent itself in experiments which trial proved to be
premature, to say the least, if not essentially impracticable; his
dreams having faded, when his efforts ended in disappointment, he
retired from public view neither dispirited, nor morose. His interest in
philosophy continues undiminished; his hope of man, though more subdued,
is clear; his faith in the spiritual basis of religion is serene.
Disappointment has not made him bitter, reckless or frivolous. His power
of moral indignation at wrong and turpitude is unimpaired, though it no
longer breaks out with the former vehemence. A cheerful wisdom gained by
thought and experience of sorrow, tempers his judgment of men and
measures. His confidence is in culture, in literature, generously
interpreted and fostered, in ideas honestly entertained and freely
expressed.
The Transcendentalist keeps his essential faith. Generally the
Transcendentalists have done this. It was a faith too deeply planted,
too nobly illustrated, too fervent and beautiful in youth, to be laid
aside in age. James Walker died in the ripeness of it; Parker died in
the strength of it; others--old and grave men now--live in the joy of
it. The few who have relapsed, have done so, some under pressure of
worldly seduction--they having no depth of root--and some under the
influence of scientific teaching, which has shaken the foundation of
their psychology. The original disciples, undismayed by the signs of
death, still believe in the Master, and live in the hope of his
resurrection.
XIV.
MINOR PROPHETS.
The so-called Minor Prophets of the Old Testament owed that designation
to the brevity, rather than to the insignificance of their utterances.
They were among the most glowing and exalted of the Hebrew bards, less
sustained in their flight than their great fellows, but with as much of
the ancient fire as any of them. It is proper to say as much as this to
justify the application of the title to the men who claim mention now as
prominent in the transcendental movement.
William Henry Channing is not quite fairly ranked among minor prophets,
even on this explanation, for he has been copious as well as intense. A
nephew of the great Doctor Channing--a favorite nephew, on account of
his moral earnestness, and the close sympathy he felt with views that
did honor to human nature and glorified the existence of man,--he grew
up in the purest atmosphere that New England supplied--the most
intellectual, the most quickening. He was born in the same year with
Theodore Parker, and but three months earlier, and was native to the
same spiritual climate. He was educated at Harvard, and prepared for the
ministry at Cambridge Divinity School, where the new ideas were
fermenting. He was graduated the year before Parker entered. His name
was conspicuous among the agitators of the new faith. He was a
contributor to the "Dial." In 1848 he published the Memoirs of his
uncle, in three volumes, proving his fitness for the task by the
sincerity in which he discharged it. In 1840 he translated Jouffroy's
Ethics, in two volumes, for Ripley's "Specimens of Foreign Standard
Literature." In 1852 he took part in writing the Memoirs of Margaret
Fuller, the second volume being chiefly his work. "The Life and Writings
of James H. Perkins," of Cincinnati, a pioneer of rationalism at the
West, came more fitly from his pen than from any other. In the "Western
Messenger," which he edited for one year; the "Present," and the "Spirit
of the Age," short-lived journals, of which he was the soul; in the
"Harbinger," to which he was a generous and sympathetic contributor--he
exhibited a fine quality of genius. The intensity of his nature, his
open-mindedness, frankness, and spiritual sensitiveness, his fervency of
aspiration and his outspokenness, made the office of settled pastor and
steady routine preacher distasteful to him. He was a prophet who went
from place to place, with a message of joy and hope. Meadville,
Cincinnati, Nashua, Rochester, Boston, and New York, were scenes of his
pastoral service. His preaching was every where attended by the clearest
heads and the deepest hearts. In New York his society was composed of
free elements altogether, come-outers, reformers, radicals of every
description. His command of language, his free delivery, his musical
voice, his expressive countenance, his noble air, his extraordinary
power of kindling enthusiasm, his affluence and boldness of thought, his
high standard of character, made him in his prime an enchanting speaker.
Very early in his career Mr. Channing committed himself to the
transcendental philosophy as interpreted by the French School, for he
possessed the swiftness of perception, the felicity of exposition, the
sensibility to effects, the passion for clean statement and plausible
generalization that distinguish the French genius from the German and
the English. The introduction to Jouffroy's Ethics contained the
principles of the French school of philosophy, which, to judge from his
approving tone, he had himself accepted:
That Psychology is the basis of Philosophy.
That the highest problems of Ontology may be solved by inductions from
the facts which Psychology ascertains.
That Psychology and the History of Philosophy reciprocally explain each
other.
With these ideas firmly fixed in his mind he went forth on a prophetic
mission, to which he remained unfalteringly true.
We saw him first at a convention in Boston called by the reformers who
demanded the abolition of the gallows. There were several
speakers--Edwin H. Chapin, then in the days of his moral enthusiasm,
Wendell Phillips, already known as an agitator and an orator--all spoke
well from their different grounds, but the image of Channing is the most
distinct in mind to-day. His manner, attitude, speech, are all
recalled. The arguments he used abide in memory. He wasted words on no
incidental points of detail, but at once took his stand on the principle
of the idealist that man is a sacred being, and life a sacred gift, and
love the rule of the divine law. Chapin thundered; Phillips criticized
and stung; Channing burned with a pure enthusiasm that lifted souls into
a celestial air and made all possibilities of justice seem practicable.
He did not argue or denounce; he prophesied. There was not a word of
scorn or detestation; but there were passages of touching power,
describing the influence of gentleness and the response that the hardest
hearts would give to it, that shamed the listeners out of their
vindictiveness. On the anti-slavery platform his attitude was the same.
There was no more persuasive speaker.
In the controversy between the Unitarians of the transcendental and
those of the opposite school, Mr. Channing's sympathies were with the
former, but he took no very prominent public part in it. He was averse
to controversy; questions of sectarian opinion and organization had
little interest for him. His mind lived in broad principles and positive
ideas; the method he believed in was that of winning minds to the truth
by generous appeals, and so planting out error. Against everything like
injustice or illiberality, his protest was eager, but he was willing to
leave polemics to others; what he said was in the strain of faith in
larger and more inclusive beliefs. He had a passion for catholicity,
which came partly from his temperament, and partly from the eclecticism
he professed. His word was reconciling, like his influence, which was
never associated with partisanship.
Mr. Channing was early attracted to the bearings of the spiritual
philosophy on the problems of society, the elevation of the working
classes, the rescue of humanity from pauperism and crime. As an
interpreter of Christian socialism his activity was incessant. He took
part in the discussions that led to the experiment of Brook Farm, and
was acquainted intimately with the projecting of it, having himself
entire faith in the reorganization of society on principles of equity.
Had circumstances permitted--he was then minister to a church in
Cincinnati, and much occupied with professional duties--he would have
connected himself with the Brook Farm Association. As it was, he visited
it whenever he could, spending several days at a time. In 1844, when the
union was formed with the New York Socialists and the leaders went out
to enlighten and stimulate public sentiment on the subject, Mr. Channing
did faithful work as a lecturer. He was president of the Boston Union of
Associationists, and wrote a book on the Christian Church and Moral
Reform. From the first, being of a speculative, philosophical and
experimental turn of mind, he entertained more systematic views than
were common among New England socialists, but the principle of love was
always more to him than opinions or schemes. His views coincided with
Fourier, but his heart was Christian. On the failure of the associated
plans of his friends, and the cessation of interest in Socialism on this
side of the Atlantic, his thoughts turned towards the Christian Church
as the providentially appointed means of obtaining what the Utopians had
failed of reaching. He was never a Churchman; never abandoned the views
that made him an independent preacher; but he never lost faith in the
ministry; his hopes turned toward the institutions of religion as having
in them the ideal potencies he trusted; he looked for faith and love in
the Gospel, and sought to draw out the lessons of charity that were
inculcated by Jesus; to deliver these from the hands of the formalists
and sectarians; to make peace between parties and churches; to discover
common ground for all believers to stand and labor on--was his aim. Had
his faith not been inclusive of all forms of the religious sentiment, he
might, in England, where he resided so long, have been a
broad-churchman. But Christianity, in his view, was but one of many
religions, all essentially divine, and he could not belong to any church
less wide than the church universal.
During a portion of the civil war, Mr. Channing was in Washington
preaching the gospel of liberty and loyalty, and laboring in the
hospitals with unflagging devotion, thankful for an opportunity to put
into work the enthusiasm of his passionate soul. Later, he revisited his
native country, and showed his interest in the cause of religious
freedom and unity.
The name of Channing is conspicuous in the history of American idealism.
Another nephew of Dr. Channing, William Ellery Channing,--a man of
original force of mind and character, a bold adventurer in literature
and life, of independent ideas, principles and deeds, an abolitionist,
a friend of Garrison and Parker, reformer and philosopher, author of
many volumes--wrote poetry and prose for the "Dial" and, in 1873, a life
of Henry Thoreau.
In the list of the Transcendentalists Cyrus Augustus Bartol must not be
forgotten, a soaring mind enamored of thoughts on divine things,
inextricably caught in the toils of speculation. Acute and brilliant,
but wayward; with a quick eye for analogies, fanciful and eccentric, of
clear intuitions, glimpses, perceptions astonishingly luminous; but
without fixed allegiance to system, and therefore difficult to classify
under any school. In the Unitarian controversy, which was a tryer of
spirits, it was not always plain to observers in which camp he belonged;
not that his fundamental principle was unsteady, but because his curious
and critical mind was detained by considerations that others did not
see; and his absolute sincerity gave expression to the moods of feeling
as they passed over him. Some words in Parker's farewell letter to him
seem to imply that at critical junctures they had been on opposite
sides, but the difference could scarcely have touched fundamental
truths. No man was further from the school of Locke, Paley or Bentham
than C. A. Bartol. His Transcendentalism had a cast of its own; it was
not made after any pattern; it took its color from an original genius
illuminated by various reading of books, and by deep meditation in the
privacy of the closet, and the companionship of nature of which he is a
child-like worshipper. No wealth of human sympathy prevents his being a
solitary. His song is lyrical; his prophecy drops like a voice from the
clouds. In the agitations of his time he has had small share; organized
and associated effort did not attract him. To many he represents the
model Transcendentalist, for he seems a man who lives above the
clouds,--not always _above_ them, either.
His faith in the soul has never known eclipse. It waxes strong by its
wrestling, and becomes jubilant in proportion as nature and life try to
stare it out of countenance. Ballast is wings to him.
"Transcendentalism relies on those ideas in the mind which are laws
in the life. Pantheism is said to sink man and nature in God;
Materialism to sink God and man in nature, and Transcendentalism to
sink God and nature in man. But the Transcendentalist at least is
belied and put in jail by the definition which is so neat at the
expense of truth. He made consciousness, not sense, the ground of
truth; and in the present devotion to physical science, and turn of
philosophy to build the universe on foundations of matter, we need
to vindicate and reassert his promise. Is the soul reared on the
primitive rock? or is no rock primitive, but the deposit of
spirit--therefore in its lowest form alive, and ever rising into
organism to reach the top of the eternal circle again, as in the
well one bucket goes down empty and the other rises full? The
mistake is to make the everlasting things subjects of argument
instead of sight."
"Our soul is older than our organism. It precedes its clothing. It
is the cause, not the consequence, of its material elements; else,
as materialists understand, it does not exist."
"What is it that accepts misery from the Most High, defends the
Providence that inflicts its woes, espouses its chastiser's cause,
purges itself in the pit of its misery of all contempt of His
commands, and makes its agonies the beams and rafters of the
triumph it builds? It is an immortal principle. It is an
indestructible essence. It is part and parcel of the Divinity it
adores. It can no more die than he can. It needs no more insurance
of life than its author does. Prove its title? It is proof itself
of all things else. It is substantive, and everything adjective
beside. It is the kingdom all things will be added to."
This was published in 1872, and proves that one Transcendentalist has
kept his faith.
James Freeman Clarke as little deserves to be ranked among the Minor
Prophets as any, for he was one of the earliest Transcendentalists, a
contemporary and intimate ally of Parker, a co-worker with Channing, a
close friend and correspondent of Miss Fuller, a sympathizer with Alcott
in his attempts to spiritualize education, a frequent contributor to the
"Dial," the intellectual fellow of the brilliant minds that made the
epoch what it was. But his interest was not confined to the school, nor
did the technicalities or details of the transcendental movement
embarrass him; his catholic mind took in opinions of all shades, and men
of all communions. His place is among theologians and divines rather
than among philosophers. But, though churchly tastes led him away from
the company of thinkers where he intellectually belonged, and an
unfailing common sense saved him from the extravagances into which some
of them fell, a Transcendentalist he was, and an uncompromising one. The
intuitive philosophy was his guide. It gave him his assurance of
spiritual truths; it interpreted for him the gospels and Jesus; it
inspired his endeavors to reconcile beliefs, to promote unity among the
discordant sects, to enlighten and redeem mankind. His mission has been
that of a spiritual peace-maker. But while doing this, he has worked
faithfully at particular causes; was an avowed and earnest abolitionist
in the anti-slavery days; was ever a disbeliever in war, an enemy of
vindictive and violent legislation, a hearty friend and laborer in the
field of woman's election to the full privileges of culture and
citizenship; a man in whom faith, hope and charity abounded and abound;
a man of intellectual convictions which made a groundwork for his life.
Mr. Clarke is a conspicuous example of the way in which the intuitive
philosophy leavened the whole mind. It associated him closely both with
radicals and conservatives; with the former, because his principle
involved faith in progress; with the latter, because it implied respect
for the progress of past times which institutions preserved. His
conservatism attested the fidelity of his radicalism, and both avouched
the loyalty of his idealism. The conservative aspect of
Transcendentalism which was exhibited in the case of Mr. Channing, who
never left the Christian Church, was yet more strikingly illustrated by
Mr. Clarke. All his books, but particularly the "Ten Great Religions,"
show the power of the transcendental idea to render justice to all forms
of faith, and give positive interpretations to doctrines obscure and
revolting. It detects the truth in things erroneous, the good in things
evil.
A more remarkable instance of this tendency is Samuel Johnson's volume
on the religions of India. None save a Transcendentalist could have
succeeded in extracting so much deep spiritual meaning from the symbols
and practices of those ancient faiths. The intuitive idea takes its
position at the centre, and at once all blazes with glory.
"Man is divinely prescient of his infinity of mind as soon as he
begins to meditate and respire."
"That a profound theistic instinct, the intuition of a divine and
living whole, is involved in the primitive mental processes we are
here studying, I hold to be beyond all question."
"From the first stages of its growth onwards, the spirit weaves its
own environment; nature is forever the reflex of its life, and what
but an unquenchable aspiration to truth could have made it choose
Light as its first and dearest symbol, reaching out a child's hand
to touch and clasp it, with the joyous cry, 'Tis mine, mine to
create, mine to adore!'"
"Man could not forget that pregnant dawn of revelation, the
discovery of his own power to rekindle the life of the universe."
"Man is here dimly aware of the truth that he makes and remakes his
own conception of the divine; that the revealing of duty must come
in the natural activity of his human powers."
"As far back as we can trace the life of man, we find the river of
prayer and praise flowing as naturally as it is flowing now; we
cannot find its beginning, because we cannot find the beginning of
the soul."
These passages give the key to Mr. Johnson's explanation of the oriental
religions, and to his little monograph on "The Worship of Jesus," and to
the printed lectures, addresses, essays, sermons, in which subjects of
religion, philosophy, political and social reform have been profoundly
treated.
Mr. Johnson came forward when the excitement of transcendentalism was
passing by; the "Dial" no longer marked the intellectual hours; the
Unitarian controversy had spent its violence. It was in part owing to
this, but more to the spiritual character of his genius, that his
Transcendentalism was free from polemic and dogmatic elements; but it
was none the less positive and definite for that--if anything, it was
more so. In the divinity school he was an ardent disciple of the
intuitive philosophy. On leaving Cambridge he became an independent
minister of the most pronounced views, but of most reverent spirit; a
"fideist" or faith man, he loved to call himself; his aim and effort was
to awaken the spiritual nature, to interpret the spiritual philosophy,
and to apply the spiritual laws to all personal, domestic and social
concerns. Like all the Transcendentalists, he was a reformer, and an
enthusiastic one; interested in liberty and progress, but primarily in
intellectual emancipation and the increase of rational ideas. The
alteration of the lot was incidental to the regeneration of the person.
So absolute is his faith in the soul that he renders poetic justice to
its manifestations, seeing indications of its presence where others see
none, and glorifying where others are inclined to pity. The ideal side
is never turned away from him. He discerned the angel in the native
African, the saint in the slave, the devotee in the idolater. During the
civil war, his faith in the triumph of justice and the establishment of
a pure republic, converted every defeat into a victory; as in the vision
of Ezekiel, the Son of Man was ever visible riding on the monstrous
beasts. If at any time his sympathy has seemed withdrawn from any class
of social reformers, it has been because the phase of reform they
presented held forth no promise of intellectual or moral benefit.
Mr. Johnson illustrates the individualism of the Transcendentalist.
While Mr. Channing trusted in social combinations, and Mr. Clarke put
his faith in organized religion, he had a clear eye to the integrity of
the separate soul. He attended no conventions, joined no societies,
worked with no associations, had confidence in no parties, sects,
schemes, or combinations, but nursed his solitary thought, delivered his
personal message, bore his private witness, and there rested.
Were Mr. Johnson more known, were his thoughts less interior, his genius
less retiring, his method less private, his form of statement less close
and severe, he would be one of the acknowledged and conspicuous leaders
of the ideal philosophy in the United States, as he is one of the most
discerning, penetrating, sinewy, and heroic minds of his generation.
A contemporary and intimate friend of Johnson, a Transcendentalist
equally positive, but of more mystical type, is Samuel Longfellow. The
two are interestingly contrasted, and by contrast, blended. Between them
they collected and published a book of hymns--"Hymns of the Spirit"--to
which both contributed original pieces, remarkably rich in sentiment,
and of singular poetical merit. Johnson's were the more intellectual,
Longfellow's the more tender; Johnson's the more aspiring, Longfellow's
the more devout; Johnson's the more heroic and passionate, Longfellow's
the more mystical and reflective. Like his friend, Longfellow is quiet
and retiring--not so scholarly, not so learned, but meditative. His
sermons are lyrics; his writings are serene contemplations, not white
and cold, but glowing with interior and suppressed radiance. A recluse
and solitary he is, too, though sunny and cheerful; a thinker, but not a
dry one; of intellectual sympathies, warm and generous; of feeble
intellectual antipathies, being rather unconscious of systems that are
foreign to him than hostile to them. He enjoys his own intellectual
world so much, it is so large, rich, beautiful, and satisfying, that he
is content to stay in it, to wander up and down in it, and hold
intercourse with its inhabitants; yet he understands his own system
well, is master of its ideas, and abundantly competent to defend them,
as his essays published in the "Radical" during its short existence,
testify. He has published little; ill health has prevented his taking a
forward place among reformers and teachers; but where he has ministered,
his influence has been deep and pure. Not few are the men and women who
ascribe to him their best impulses, and owe him a debt of lasting
gratitude for the moral faith and intellectual enthusiasm he awakened in
them.
Another remarkable man, of the same school, but of still different
temper--a man who would have been greatly distinguished but for the
disabilities of sickness--is David A. Wasson. Though contemporary, he
came forward later; but when he came, it was with a power that gave
promise of the finest things. As his latent faith in the intuitive
philosophy acquired strength, he broke away from the Orthodoxy in which
he had been reared, with an impulse that carried him beyond the lines of
every organized body in Christendom, and bore him into the regions of an
intellectual faith, where he found satisfaction. He has been a diligent
writer, chiefly on Ethical and Philosophical themes, on the border land
of theology. His published pamphlets and sermons on religious questions,
even the best of them, give scarcely more than an indication of his
extraordinary powers. He is a poet too, of fine quality; not a singer of
sentimental songs, nor a spinner of elegant fancies, but a discerner of
the spirit of beauty. "All's Well," "Ideals," "The Plover," "At Sea,"
are worthy of a place in the best collections.
It has been the appointed task of Mr. Wasson to be on the alert against
assaults on the intuitive philosophy from the side of material science.
Like Transcendentalists generally, he has accepted the principles of his
philosophy on the testimony of consciousness and as self-evidencing; but
more than most, he has regarded them as essential to the maintenance of
truths of the spiritual order; and as a believer in those truths, he has
been holily jealous of the influence of men like Herbert Spencer, Mill,
Bain, and the latest school of experimental psychologists. His doctrine,
in its own essence, and as related to the objective or material system,
is closely stated in the essay on the "Nature of Religion," contained
in the volume, entitled "Freedom and Fellowship in Religion," recently
published by the Free Religious Association. It is not easily quotable,
but must be read through and attentively. Whoever will take pains to do
that, may understand, not merely what Mr. Wasson's position is, but what
fine analysis the intuitive philosophy can bring to its defence. A
volume of Mr. Wasson's prose essays and poems would be a valuable
contribution to the literature of Transcendentalism; for he is, on the
whole, the most capable critic on its side. Unfortunately for the
breadth of his fame and the reach of his power, he writes for thinkers,
and the multitude will never follow in his train.
The names of the disciples and prophets of Transcendentalism multiply as
they are told off. There is T. W. Higginson, the man of letters--whom
every body knows--a born Transcendentalist, and an enthusiastic one,
from the depth of his moral nature, the quickness of his poetic
sensibility, his love of the higher culture. His sympathies early led
him to the schools of the ideal philosophy. He edited the works of
Epictetus; speaks glowingly on the "Sympathy of Religions;" is
interested in the pacification of the sects and churches on the basis of
spiritual fellowship in truths of universal import; lectures
appreciatingly on Mohammed and Buddha; holds Spencer in light esteem by
the side of Emerson. In the controversial period--which was not ended
when he left the Divinity School--he was entirely committed to the party
of progress. Hennell's "Christian Theism" lay on his table at Divinity
Hall. He was an ally of Parker; an abolitionist; the colonel of a black
regiment in the civil war; and from the first has been a champion of
woman's claim to fulness of culture and the largest political rights. A
clear and powerful mind, that in controversy would make its mark, if
controversy were to its taste, as it is not.
Earlier mention should have been made of John Weiss, who wrote
philosophical articles thirty years ago, that won encomiums from the
most competent judges--a student at Heidelberg, a scholar of Kant, and
an admirer of his system. He too has a paper on "Religion and Science,"
in the volume of "Freedom and Fellowship," which will convince the most
skeptical that the days of Transcendentalism are not numbered; a man of
insight; poetical, according to Emerson's definition; supremely
intellectual, capable of treading, with steady step, the hair lines of
thought; a poet too, as verses in the "Radical" bear witness. The
Philosophical and Æsthetic Letters and Essays of Schiller were presented
to the American public by his hand. He wrote the preface to the American
edition of Smith's Memoir of Fichte. The "Boston Quarterly," the
"Massachusetts Quarterly," the "Christian Examiner," the "Radical," were
illuminated by his brilliant thoughts on subjects of religious
philosophy. The volume entitled "American Religion," published in 1871,
shows the power of the spiritual philosophy to extract noble meanings
from the circumstances of the New World. Weiss treads the border-land
between religion and science, recognizing the claims of both, and
bringing to their adjustment as fine intellectual scales as any of his
contemporaries. His method is peculiar to himself; his is not the
exulting mood of Emerson, or the defiant mood of Wasson; it is purely
poetic, imaginative. The doctrine of the divine immanence is glorious in
his eyes; the faith in personal immortality is taken into the inner
citadel of metaphysics, where Parker seldom penetrated.
These men, Weiss and Wasson and Higginson, nursed in the transcendental
school, thoroughly imbued with its principles, committed to them, wedded
to them by the conflicts they waged in their defence when they were
assailed by literalists, dogmatists, and formalists, look out now upon
the advancing ranks of the new materialism as the holders of a royal
fortress looked out on a host of insurgents; as the king and queen of
France looked out on the revolution from the palace at Versailles: the
onset of the new era they instinctively dread, feeling that dignity,
princeliness, and spiritual worth are at stake. They will fight
admirably to the last; but should they be defeated, it is yet possible
that the revolution may bring compensations to humanity, which will make
good the overthrow of their "diademed towers."
In these sketches of transcendental leaders--as in this study of the
transcendental movement,--few have been included but those whom the
intuitive philosophy drew away from their former church connections and
gathered into a party by themselves--a party of protestants against
literalism and formalism. The transcendental philosophy in its main
ideas, was held by eminent orthodox divines who accepted it as entirely
in accordance with the Christian scheme, and used it in fact as an
efficient support for the doctrines of the church. The most eminent
divines of New England did this, and were considered entirely orthodox
in doing it, their Christian faith gaining warmth and color from the
intuitive system. As has already been said, the Trinitarian scheme has
close affinities with Platonism. But none of these men called themselves
or were called Transcendentalists. The Transcendentalist substituted the
principles of his Philosophy and the inferences therefrom for the creed
of the church, and became a separatist. With him the soul superseded the
church; the revelations of the soul took the place of bible, creed and
priesthood. The men that have been named all did this, with the
exception of James Freeman Clarke, who adhered to the ministry and the
church. But his intimacy with the transcendental leaders, and his
cooperation with them in some of their most important works, to say
nothing of the unique position his transcendental ideas compelled him to
assume, as well in ecclesiastical matters as in social reform, entitle
him to mention. Convers Francis--parish minister at Watertown from 1819
till 1842, and Parkman, professor of Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral
Care at Cambridge from 1842 till 1863--though never conspicuous either
as preacher or minister, and never recognized as a representative
apostle, was influential as a believer in the spiritual philosophy,
among young men. To him Theodore Parker acknowledged his debt; to him
successive classes of divinity students owed the stimulus and direction
that carried them into the transcendental ranks; Johnson, Longfellow,
Higginson were his pupils at Cambridge, and carried thence ideas which
he had shaped if not originated. In many things conservative,
disagreeing on some points with Emerson, whom he revered and loved as a
man, regretting much that seemed sarcastic, arrogant, derisive in
Parker's "Discourse of Religion," he gave his full assent to the
principles of the intuitive philosophy, and used them as the pillars of
Christianity. Had he been as electric and penetrating as he was truthful
and obedient, high-minded and sincere, hearty and simple, he would have
been a force as well as an influence. In 1836 he foresaw the rupture
between "the Old or English school belonging to the sensual and empiric
philosophy,--and the New or German school, belonging to the spiritual
philosophy," and gave all his sympathy to the latter as having the most
of truth. He was the senior member of the "Transcendental Club,"
composed of the liberal thinkers who met to discuss literary and
spiritual subjects on the ground of reason and the soul's intuitive
perceptions. With deep interest he followed the course of speculative
and practical reform to the close of his life. Some, of whom he was not
one, engaged in the discussions for a little while, attended the
meetings, and set forth bold opinions, but retired within their close
fellowships as soon as plans for propagandism or schemes of organization
were proposed. Their sympathies were literary and within the recognized
limits of literature; but they had either too little courage of
conviction, or too little conviction, to depart from accustomed ways or
break with existing associations. The number of professed
transcendentalists in the restricted sense, was never large, and, after
the first excitement, did not greatly increase. There was but one
generation of them. The genuine transcendentalists became so in their
youth, ripened into full conviction in middle life, and, as a rule,
continued so to old age. The desertions from the faith were not many.
Half a dozen perhaps became catholics; as many became episcopalians; but
by far the greater part maintained their principles and remained serene
dissenters, "in the world, but not of it."
Transcendentalism was an episode in the intellectual life of New
England; an enthusiasm, a wave of sentiment, a breath of mind that
caught up such as were prepared to receive it, elated them, transported
them, and passed on,--no man knowing whither it went. Its influence on
thought and life was immediate and powerful. Religion felt it,
literature, laws, institutions. To the social agitations of forty years
ago it was invaluable as an inspiration. The various reforms owed
everything to it. New England character received from it an impetus that
never will be spent. It made young men see visions and old men dream
dreams. There were mounts of Transfiguration in those days, upon which
multitudes thought they communed visibly with lawgivers and prophets.
They could not stay there always, but the memory will never cease to be
glorious. Transcendentalism as a special phase of thought and feeling
was of necessity transient--having done its work it terminated its
existence. But it did its work, and its work was glorious. Even its
failures were necessary as showing what could not be accomplished, and
its extravagances as defining the boundaries of wise experiment. Its
successes amply redeemed them all, and would have redeemed them had they
been more glaring and grotesque. Had it bequeathed nothing more than the
literature that sprung from it, and the lives of the men and women who
had their intellectual roots in it, it would have conferred a lasting
benefit on America.
XV.
LITERATURE.
A few words on the literary fruits of Transcendentalism will fitly close
this history. To gather them all would be exceedingly difficult, but
that is not necessary, and will not be required. The chief results have
already been indicated. The indirect influence may be left unestimated
in detail. Transcendentalism has more than justified itself in
literature. The ten volumes of Emerson's writings, including the two
volumes of poetry, are a literature by themselves; a classic literature
that loses no charm by age, and which years prepare new multitudes of
readers to enjoy.
The writings of Theodore Parker contain much that entitles them to a
permanent place in letters. Could they be sifted, compressed, strained,
the incidental and personal portion discarded, and the human alone
preserved, the remainder would interest, for many years yet, a numerous
class of men. In their present condition they are too diffuse, as well
as too voluminous and miscellaneous to be manageable. The sermon style
is unsuited to literature, and Parker's sermon style was especially so,
from its excessive redundancy. He paid little heed to the literary laws
in his compositions, which were all designed for immediate effect.
Aside from the fatal injury that the process must do to the intellectual
harmony of the work, there is an objection to abbreviating and
abstracting when an author does not perform the task for himself, for no
other is credited with ability or judgment to do it for him. In Parker's
case the difficulty would be more than commonly great, for the reason
that it is not a question of omitting volumes, or even chapters, but of
straining the contents of pages,--"boiling down" masses of material,
till the spiritual residue alone is left. There is no likelihood that
such a task will ever be performed, and therefore his writings must be
placed in the rank of occasional literature, valuable for many days, but
not precious for generations.
Brownson's writings were astonishingly able, particularly his
discussions in the Boston "Quarterly Review;" but their interest ceased
with their occasion. His philosophical pieces have no value. They served
polemically an incidental purpose, but having no merit of idea or
construction, they perished.
The papers of Mr. Alcott in "Tablets" and "Concord Days," are thoughtful
and quaint, written with a lucid simplicity that will always possess a
charm for a small class of people; but they have not the breadth of
humanity that commends writings to the general acceptance; nor have they
the raciness that makes books of their class spicy and aromatic to the
literary epicures who never tire of Selden or Sir Thomas Browne.
The writings of Margaret Fuller possess a lasting value, and will
continue to be read for their wit and wisdom, when those of her more
ambitious companions are forgotten. For she treated ever-recurring
themes in a living way--vigorous and original, but human. Her taste was
educated by study of the Greek classics, and she had the appreciation of
form that belongs to the literary order of mind. Her writings are not
for those who read as they run, but for those who read for instruction
and suggestion. As the number of such increases, it is not unreasonable
to expect an increase in her audience. With her, thinking and talking
were serious matters. She discussed nothing in a spirit of frivolity;
her thoughts came from a penetrating, and not from a merely acute mind;
the trains of reflection that she started are still in motion, from the
momentum she gave, and the goal she aimed at is not yet discerned by
professed disciples of her own ideas.
The "Dial" is a treasury of literary wealth. There are pieces in it of
prose and verse that should not and will not be lost. The character for
oddity and extravagance which Transcendentalism bore in its day, and has
borne on the strength of tradition ever since, would have to be borne no
longer, if the contents of that remarkable magazine could be submitted
to the calmer judgment of to-day. Not that the sixteen rich numbers
contain a great deal that would be pleasing to the hasty mental habit of
this generation, but to the lovers of earnest thinking and eloquent
writing they have the flavor of a choice intellectual vintage. It is the
misfortune of periodical literature to be ephemeral. The magazine sows,
but does not harvest. It brings thoughts suddenly to the light, but
buries them in season for the next issue, which must have its turn to
live. Volumes that are compiled from magazines have lost their bloom.
The chapters have already discharged their virtue, and spent their
perfume on the air; the smell of the "old numbers" clings to the pages,
which are not of to-day, but of the day before yesterday. We call for
living mind, and fancy that butterflies, because we see them fluttering
in the garden, are more alive than the phoenix that has risen unscathed
from the ashes of consuming fires.
The thoughts of William Henry Channing, though keen, brilliant, of great
potency in their time, and admirable in expression, were addressed to
the exigencies of the hour, and absorbed by them. Such as were committed
to paper in the "Harbinger," the "Spirit of the Age," and other
periodicals, will never be heard of again; and such as were printed in
books passed from memory with the themes he dealt with. His biographical
works deserve a place with the prominent contributions of that
department.
The poetry of William Ellery Channing has a recognized place in American
literature, though much of it has disappeared. Dana's "Household Book of
Poetry" contains a single piece of his on "Death," that is characterized
by a depth of sentiment and a richness of expression, which his more
distinguished contemporary, Mr. Bryant, does not surpass. Mr. Emerson's
"Parnassus" contains eight, the last of which, entitled "A Poet's Hope,"
closes with the wonderful line--
"If my bark sink, 'tis to another sea."
Of Cranch's poems, several have been adopted by collectors,--notably the
lines--
"Thought is deeper than all speech--
Feeling deeper than all thought;
Soul to soul can never teach
What unto itself was taught."
Weiss, Wasson, and Higginson are true artists in letters. The essays of
the last named of the three are the best known, partly by reason of
their greater popularity of theme; but Mr. Wasson's discussions on
ethical and philosophical subjects are distinguished by their luminous
quality. Except for the vein of unhopefulness--partly due to ill
health--that pervades them, the chill communicated by the regions he
sails by, three or four of them would, without hesitation, be classed
among the gems of speculative literature. The best work of Weiss, his
lectures on the Greek Ideas for example, stands apart by itself, perhaps
unrivalled as an attempt to unveil the glory of the ancient mythology.
The interpretation of religious symbols is his province, where, by the
power of "sympathetic perception,"--to use Mr. Wasson's fine phrase--he
penetrates the secret of mysteries, and brings the soul of dark enigmas
to the light; and his beauty of expression more than restores to the
imagination the splendors which the unpoetic interpreter reduces to
meretricious fancy.
The influence of Transcendentalism on pulpit literature--if there be
such a thing--has probably been sufficiently indicated; but the
privilege of printing a sermon of Mr. Emerson's--the only one ever
published, the famous one, that was the occasion of his leaving the
ministry and adopting the profession of literature--affords opportunity
for a special illustration. The sermon--which is interesting in itself,
from the subject, the occasion that called it forth, the insight it
gives into Mr. Emerson's mind and character--is interesting as an
example of the method and spirit which Transcendentalism introduced into
discussions that are usually dry and often angry.
The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.--ROMANS XIV. 17.
In the history of the Church no subject has been more fruitful of
controversy than the Lord's Supper. There never has been any unanimity
in the understanding of its nature, nor any uniformity in the mode of
celebrating it. Without considering the frivolous questions which have
been lately debated as to the posture in which men should partake of it;
whether mixed or unmixed wine should be served; whether leavened or
unleavened bread should be broken; the questions have been settled
differently in every church, who should be admitted to the feast, and
how often it should be prepared. In the Catholic Church, infants were at
one time permitted and then forbidden to partake; and, since the ninth
century, the laity receive the bread only, the cup being reserved to the
priesthood. So, as to the time of the solemnity. In the fourth Lateran
Council, it was decreed that any believer should communicate at least
once in a year--at Easter. Afterwards it was determined that this
Sacrament should be received three times in the year--at Easter,
Whitsuntide, and Christmas. But more important controversies have arisen
respecting its nature. The famous question of the Real Presence was the
main controversy between the Church of England and the Church of Rome.
The doctrine of the Consubstantiation taught by Luther was denied by
Calvin. In the Church of England, Archbishops Laud and Wake maintained
that the elements were an Eucharist or sacrifice of Thanksgiving to God;
Cudworth and Warburton, that this was not a sacrifice, but a sacrificial
feast; and Bishop Hoadley, that it was neither a sacrifice nor a feast
after sacrifice, but a simple commemoration. And finally, it is now near
two hundred years since the Society of Quakers denied the authority of
the rite altogether, and gave good reasons for disusing it.
I allude to these facts only to show that, so far from the supper being
a tradition in which men are fully agreed, there has always been the
widest room for difference of opinion upon this particular.
Having recently given particular attention to this subject, I was led to
the conclusion that Jesus did not intend to establish an institution for
perpetual observance when he ate the Passover with his disciples; and,
further, to the opinion, that it is not expedient to celebrate it as we
do. I shall now endeavor to state distinctly my reasons for these two
opinions.
I. The authority of the rite.
An account of the last supper of Christ with his disciples is given by
the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
In St. Matthew's Gospel (Matt. XXVI. 26-30) are recorded the words of
Jesus in giving bread and wine on that occasion to his disciples, but
no expression occurs intimating that this feast was hereafter to be
commemorated.
In St. Mark (Mark XIV. 23) the same words are recorded, and still with
no intimation that the occasion was to be remembered.
St. Luke (Luke XXII. 15), after relating the breaking of the bread, has
these words: This do in remembrance of me.
In St. John, although other occurrences of the same evening are related,
this whole transaction is passed over without notice.
Now observe the facts. Two of the Evangelists, namely, Matthew and John,
were of the twelve disciples, and were present on that occasion. Neither
of them drops the slightest intimation of any intention on the part of
Jesus to set up anything permanent. John, especially, the beloved
disciple, who has recorded with minuteness the conversation and the
transactions of that memorable evening, has quite omitted such a notice.
Neither does it appear to have come to the knowledge of Mark who, though
not an eye-witness, relates the other facts. This material fact, that
the occasion was to be remembered, is found in Luke alone, who was not
present. There is no reason, however, that we know, for rejecting the
account of Luke. I doubt not, the expression was used by Jesus. I shall
presently consider its meaning. I have only brought these accounts
together, that you may judge whether it is likely that a solemn
institution, to be continued to the end of time by all mankind, as they
should come, nation after nation, within the influence of the Christian
religion, would have been established in this slight manner in a manner
so slight, that the intention of commemorating it should not appear,
from their narrative, to have caught the ear or dwelt in the mind of the
only two among the twelve who wrote down what happened.
Still we must suppose that the expression, "_This do in remembrance of
me_," had come to the ear of Luke from some disciple who was present.
What did it really signify? It is a prophetic and an affectionate
expression. Jesus is a Jew, sitting with his countrymen, celebrating
their national feast. He thinks of his own impending death, and wishes
the minds of his disciples to be prepared for it. "When hereafter," he
says to them, "you shall keep the Passover, it will have an altered
aspect to your eyes. It is now a historical covenant of God with the
Jewish nation. Hereafter, it will remind you of a new covenant sealed
with my blood. In years to come, as long as your people shall come up to
Jerusalem to keep this feast, the connection which has subsisted between
us will give a new meaning in your eyes to the national festival, as the
anniversary of my death." I see natural feeling and beauty in the use of
such language from Jesus, a friend to his friends; I can readily imagine
that he was willing and desirous, when his disciples met, his memory
should hallow their intercourse; but I cannot bring myself to believe
that in the use of such an expression he looked beyond the living
generation, beyond the abolition of the festival he was celebrating,
and the scattering of the nation, and meant to impose a memorial feast
upon the whole world.
Without presuming to fix precisely the purpose in the mind of Jesus, you
will see that many opinions may be entertained of his intention, all
consistent with the opinion that he did not design a perpetual
ordinance. He may have foreseen that his disciples would meet to
remember him, and that with good effect. It may have crossed his mind
that this would be easily continued a hundred or a thousand years--as
men more easily transmit a form than a virtue--and yet have been
altogether out of his purpose to fasten it upon men in all times and all
countries.
But though the words, _Do this in remembrance of me_, do not occur in
Matthew, Mark, or John, and although it should be granted us that, taken
alone, they do not necessarily import so much as is usually thought, yet
many persons are apt to imagine that the very striking and personal
manner in which this eating and drinking is described, indicates a
striking and formal purpose to found a festival. And I admit that this
impression might probably be left upon the mind of one who read only the
passages under consideration in the New Testament. But this impression
is removed by reading any narrative of the mode in which the ancient or
the modern Jews have kept the Passover. It is then perceived that the
leading circumstances in the Gospels are only a faithful account of that
ceremony. Jesus did not celebrate the Passover, and afterwards the
Supper, but the Supper _was_ the Passover. He did with his disciples
exactly what every master of a family in Jerusalem was doing at the same
hour with his household. It appears that the Jews ate the lamb and the
unleavened bread, and drank wine after a prescribed manner. It was the
custom for the master of the feast to break the bread and to bless it,
using this formula, which the Talmudists have preserved to us, "Blessed
be Thou, O Lord our God, the King of the world, who hast produced this
food from the earth,"--and to give it to every one at the table. It was
the custom of the master of the family to take the cup which contained
the wine, and to bless it, saying, "Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who givest
us the fruit of the vine,"--and then to give the cup to all. Among the
modern Jews who in their dispersion retain the Passover, a hymn is also
sung after this ceremony, specifying the twelve great works done by God
for the deliverance of their fathers out of Egypt.
But still it may be asked, why did Jesus make expressions so
extraordinary and emphatic as these--"This is my body which is broken
for you. Take; eat. This is my blood which is shed for you. Drink
it."--I reply they are not extraordinary expressions from him. They were
familiar in his mouth. He always taught by parables and symbols. It was
the national way of teaching and was largely used by him. Remember the
readiness which he always showed to spiritualize every occurrence. He
stooped and wrote on the sand. He admonished his disciples respecting
the leaven of the Pharisees. He instructed the woman of Samaria
respecting living water. He permitted himself to be anointed, declaring
that it was for his interment. He washed the feet of his disciples.
These are admitted to be symbolical actions and expressions. Here, in
like manner, he calls the bread his body, and bids the disciples eat. He
had used the same expression repeatedly before. The reason why St. John
does not repeat his words on this occasion, seems to be that he had
reported a similar discourse of Jesus to the people of Capernaum more at
length already (John VI. 27). He there tells the Jews, "Except ye eat
the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in
you." And when the Jews on that occasion complained that they did not
comprehend what he meant, he added for their better understanding, and
as if for our understanding, that we might not think his body was to be
actually eaten, that he only meant, _we should live by his commandment_.
He closed his discourse with these explanatory expressions: "The flesh
profiteth nothing; the _words_ that I speak to you, they are spirit and
they are life."
Whilst I am upon this topic, I cannot help remarking that it is not a
little singular that we should have preserved this rite and insisted
upon perpetuating one symbolical act of Christ whilst we have totally
neglected all others--particularly one other which had at least an equal
claim to our observance. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and told
them that, as he had washed their feet, they ought to wash one another's
feet; for he had given them an example, that they should do as he had
done to them. I ask any person who believes the Supper to have been
designed by Jesus to be commemorated forever, to go and read the account
of it in the other Gospels, and then compare with it the account of this
transaction in St. John, and tell me if this be not much more explicitly
authorized than the Supper. It only differs in this, that we have found
the Supper used in New England and the washing of the feet not. But if
we had found it an established rite in our churches, on grounds of mere
authority, it would have been impossible to have argued against it. That
rite is used by the Church of Rome, and by the Sandemanians. It has been
very properly dropped by other Christians. Why? For two reasons: (1)
because it was a local custom, and unsuitable in western countries; and
(2) because it was typical, and all understand that humility is the
thing signified. But the Passover was local too, and does not concern
us, and its bread and wine were typical, and do not help us to
understand the redemption which they signified.
These views of the original account of the Lord's Supper lead me to
esteem it an occasion full of solemn and prophetic interest, but never
intended by Jesus to be the foundation of a perpetual institution.
It appears however in Christian history that the disciples had very
early taken advantage of these impressive words of Christ to hold
religious meetings, where they broke bread and drank wine as symbols.
I look upon this fact as very natural in the circumstances of the
church. The disciples lived together; they threw all their property into
a common stock; they were bound together by the memory of Christ, and
nothing could be more natural than that this eventful evening should be
affectionately remembered by them; that they, Jews like Jesus, should
adopt his expressions and his types, and furthermore, that what was done
with peculiar propriety by them, his personal friends, with less
propriety should come to be extended to their companions also. In this
way religious feasts grew up among the early Christians. They were
readily adopted by the Jewish converts who were familiar with religious
feasts, and also by the Pagan converts whose idolatrous worship had been
made up of sacred festivals, and who very readily abused these to gross
riot, as appears from the censures of St. Paul. Many persons consider
this fact, the observance of such a memorial feast by the early
disciples, decisive of the question whether it ought to be observed by
us. For my part I see nothing to wonder at in its originating with them;
all that is surprising is that it should exist among us. There was good
reason for his personal friends to remember their friend and repeat his
words. It was only too probable that among the half converted Pagans and
Jews, any rite, any form, would find favor, whilst yet unable to
comprehend the spiritual character of Christianity.
The circumstance, however, that St. Paul adopts these views, has seemed
to many persons conclusive in favor of the institution. I am of opinion
that it is wholly upon the epistle to the Corinthians, and not upon the
Gospels, that the ordinance stands. Upon this matter of St. Paul's view
of the Supper, a few important considerations must be stated.
The end which he has in view, in the eleventh chapter of the first
epistle is, not to enjoin upon his friends to observe the Supper, but to
censure their abuse of it. _We_ quote the passage now-a-days as if it
enjoined attendance upon the Supper; but he wrote it merely to chide
them for drunkenness. To make their enormity plainer he goes back to the
origin of this religious feast to show what sort of feast that was, out
of which this riot of theirs came, and so relates the transactions of
the Last Supper. "_I have received of the Lord_," he says, "_that which
I delivered to you_." By this expression it is often thought that a
miraculous communication is implied; but certainly without good reason,
if it is remembered that St. Paul was living in the lifetime of all the
apostles who could give him an account of the transaction; and it is
contrary to all reason to suppose that God should work a miracle to
convey information that could so easily be got by natural means. So that
the import of the expression is that he had received the story of an
eye-witness such as we also possess.
But there is a material circumstance which diminishes our confidence in
the correctness of the Apostle's view; and that is, the observation that
his mind had not escaped the prevalent error of the primitive church,
the belief, namely, that the second coming of Christ would shortly
occur, until which time, he tells them, this feast was to be kept.
Elsewhere he tells them, that, at that time the world would be burnt up
with fire, and a new government established, in which the Saints would
sit on thrones; so slow were the disciples during the life, and after
the ascension of Christ, to receive the idea which we receive, that his
second coming was a spiritual kingdom, the dominion of his religion in
the hearts of men, to be extended gradually over the whole world.
In this manner we may see clearly enough how this ancient ordinance got
its footing among the early Christians, and this single expectation of a
speedy reappearance of a temporal Messiah, which kept its influence even
over so spiritual a man as St. Paul, would naturally tend to preserve
the use of the rite when once established.
We arrive then at this conclusion, _first_, that it does not appear,
from a careful examination of the account of the Last Supper in the
Evangelists, that it was designed by Jesus to be perpetual; _secondly_,
that it does not appear that the opinion of St. Paul, all things
considered, ought to alter our opinion derived from the evangelists.
One general remark before quitting this branch of the subject. We ought
to be cautious in taking even the best ascertained opinions and
practices of the primitive church, for our own. If it could be
satisfactorily shown that they esteemed it authorized and to be
transmitted forever, that does not settle the question for us. We know
how inveterately they were attached to their Jewish prejudices, and how
often even the influence of Christ failed to enlarge their views. On
every other subject succeeding times have learned to form a judgment
more in accordance with the spirit of Christianity than was the
practice of the early ages.
But it is said: "Admit that the rite was not designed to be perpetual.
What harm doth it? Here it stands, generally accepted, under some form,
by the Christian world, the undoubted occasion of much good; is it not
better it should remain?"
II. This is the question of expediency.
I proceed to state a few objections that in my judgment lie against its
use in its present form.
1. If the view which I have taken of the history of the institution be
correct, then the claim of authority should be dropped in administering
it. You say, every time you celebrate the rite, that Jesus enjoined it;
and the whole language you use conveys that impression. But if you read
the New Testament as I do, you do not believe he did.
2. It has seemed to me that the use of this ordinance tends to produce
confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God. It is the old
objection to the doctrine of the Trinity,--that the true worship was
transferred from God to Christ, or that such confusion was introduced
into the soul, that an undivided worship was given nowhere. Is not that
the effect of the Lord's Supper? I appeal now to the convictions of
communicants--and ask such persons whether they have not been
occasionally conscious of a painful confusion of thought between the
worship due to God and the commemoration due to Christ. For, the service
does not stand upon the basis of a voluntary act, but is imposed by
authority. It is an expression of gratitude to Christ, enjoined by
Christ. There is an endeavor to keep Jesus in mind, whilst yet the
prayers are addressed to God. I fear it is the effect of this ordinance
to clothe Jesus with an authority which he never claimed and which
distracts the mind of the worshipper. I know our opinions differ much
respecting the nature and offices of Christ, and the degree of
veneration to which he is entitled. I am so much a Unitarian as this:
that I believe the human mind cannot admit but one God, and that every
effort to pay religious homage to more than one being, goes to take away
all right ideas. I appeal, brethren, to your individual experience. In
the moment when you make the least petition to God, though it be but a
silent wish that he may approve you, or add one moment to your life,--do
you not, in the very act, necessarily exclude all other beings from your
thought? In that act, the soul stands alone with God, and Jesus is no
more present to the mind than your brother or your child.
But is not Jesus called in Scripture the Mediator? He is the mediator in
that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and
man--that is an Instructor of man. He teaches us how to become like God.
And a true disciple of Jesus will receive the light he gives most
thankfully; but the thanks he offers, and which an exalted being will
accept, are not _compliments_--commemorations,--but the use of that
instruction.
3. Passing other objections, I come to this, that the _use of the
elements_, however suitable to the people and the modes of thought in
the East, where it originated, is foreign and unsuited to affect us.
Whatever long usage and strong association may have done in some
individuals to deaden this repulsion, I apprehend that their use is
rather tolerated than loved by any of us. We are not accustomed to
express our thoughts or emotions by symbolical actions. Most men find
the bread and wine no aid to devotion and to some, it is a painful
impediment. To eat bread is one thing; to love the precepts of Christ
and resolve to obey them is quite another.
The statement of this objection leads me to say that I think this
difficulty, wherever it is felt, to be entitled to the greatest weight.
It is alone a sufficient objection to the ordinance. It is my own
objection. This mode of commemorating Christ is not suitable to me. That
is reason enough why I should abandon it. If I believed that it was
enjoined by Jesus on his disciples, and that he even contemplated making
permanent this mode of commemoration, every way agreeable to an eastern
mind, and yet, on trial, it was disagreeable to my own feelings, I
should not adopt it. I should choose other ways which, as more effectual
upon me, he would approve more. For I choose that my remembrances of him
should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glorified
friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign
of respect, as men do to those whom they fear. A passage read from his
discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting
which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original
design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemoration.
4. Fourthly, the importance ascribed to this particular ordinance is not
consistent with the spirit of Christianity. The general object and
effect of this ordinance is unexceptionable. It has been, and is, I
doubt not, the occasion of indefinite good; but an importance is given
by Christians to it which never can belong to any form. My friends, the
apostle well assures us that "the kingdom of God is not meat and drink,
but righteousness and peace and joy, in the Holy Ghost." I am not so
foolish as to declaim against forms. Forms are as essential as bodies;
but to exalt particular forms, to adhere to one form a moment after it
is out-grown, is unreasonable, and it is alien to the spirit of Christ.
If I understand the distinction of Christianity, the reason why it is to
be preferred over all other systems and is divine is this, that it is a
moral system; that it presents men with truths which are their own
reason, and enjoins practices that are their own justification; that if
miracles may be said to have been its evidence to the first Christians,
they are not its evidence to us, but the doctrines themselves; that
every practice is Christian which praises itself, and every practice
unchristian which condemns itself. I am not engaged to Christianity by
decent forms, or saving ordinances; it is not usage, it is not what I do
not understand, that binds me to it--let these be the sandy foundations
of falsehoods. What I revere and obey in it is its reality, its
boundless charity, its deep interior life, the rest it gives to my
mind, the echo it returns to my thoughts, the perfect accord it makes
with my reason through all its representation of God and His Providence;
and the persuasion and courage that come out thence to lead me upward
and onward. Freedom is the essence of this faith. It has for its object
simply to make men good and wise. Its institutions, then, should be as
flexible as the wants of men. That form out of which the life and
suitableness have departed, should be as worthless in its eyes as the
dead leaves that are falling around us.
And therefore, although for the satisfaction of others, I have labored
to show by the history that this rite was not intended to be perpetual;
although I have gone back to weigh the expressions of Paul, I feel that
here is the true point of view. In the midst of considerations as to
what Paul thought, and why he so thought, I cannot help feeling that it
is time misspent to argue to or from his convictions, or those of Luke
and John, respecting any form. I seem to lose the substance in seeking
the shadow. That for which Paul lived and died so gloriously; that for
which Jesus gave himself to be crucified; the end that animated the
thousand martyrs and heroes who have followed his steps, was to redeem
us from a formal religion, and teach us to seek our well-being in the
formation of the soul. The whole world was full of idols and ordinances.
The Jewish was a religion of forms. The Pagan was a religion of forms;
it was all body--it had no life--and the Almighty God was pleased to
qualify and send forth a man to teach men that they must serve him with
the heart; that only that life was religious which was thoroughly good;
that sacrifice was smoke, and forms were shadows. This man lived and
died true to this purpose; and now, with his blessed word and life
before us, Christians must contend that it is a matter of vital
importance--really a duty, to commemorate him by a certain form, whether
that form be agreeable to their understandings or not.
Is not this to make vain the gift of God? Is not this to turn back the
hand on the dial? Is not this to make men--to make ourselves--forget
that not forms, but duties; not names, but righteousness and love are
enjoined; and that in the eye of God there is no other measure of the
value of any one form than the measure of its use?
There remain some practical objections to the ordinance into which I
shall not now enter. There is one on which I had intended to say a few
words; I mean the unfavorable relation in which it places that numerous
class of persons who abstain from it merely from disinclination to the
rite.
Influenced by these considerations, I have proposed to the brethren of
the Church to drop the use of the elements and the claim of authority in
the administration of this ordinance, and have suggested a mode in which
a meeting for the same purpose might be held free of objection.
My brethren have considered my views with patience and candor, and have
recommended unanimously an adherence to the present form. I have,
therefore, been compelled to consider whether it becomes me to
administer it. I am clearly of opinion I ought not. This discourse has
already been so far extended, that I can only say that the reason of my
determination is shortly this:--It is my desire, in the office of a
Christian minister, to do nothing which I cannot do with my whole heart.
Having said this, I have said all. I have no hostility to this
institution; I am only stating my want of sympathy with it. Neither
should I ever have obtruded this opinion upon other people, had I not
been called by my office to administer it. That is the end of my
opposition, that I am not interested in it. I am content that it stand
to the end of the world, if it please men and please heaven, and I shall
rejoice in all the good it produces.
As it is the prevailing opinion and feeling in our religious community,
that it is an indispensable part of the pastoral office to administer
this ordinance, I am about to resign into your hands that office which
you have confided to me. It has many duties for which I am feebly
qualified. It has some which it will always be my delight to discharge,
according to my ability, wherever I exist. And whilst the recollection
of its claims oppresses me with a sense of my unworthiness, I am
consoled by the hope that no time and no change can deprive me of the
satisfaction of pursuing and exercising its highest functions.
September 9, 1832.
* * * * *
The influence of Transcendentalism on general literature can be only
indicated in loose terms. Its current was so strong, that like the
Orinoco rushing down between the South American continent and the island
of Trinidad, it made a bright green trail upon the dark sea into which
it poured, but the vehemence of the flood forbade its diffusion. The
influence was chiefly felt on the departments of philosophy and ethics.
It created the turbulent literature of reform, the literature born of
the "Enthusiasm of Humanity," the waves whereof are still rolling,
though not with their original force. The literature of politics was
profoundly affected by it; the political radicals, philosophical
democrats, anti-slavery whigs or republicans, enthusiasts for American
ideas, prophets of America's destiny, being, more or less wittingly,
controlled by its ideas. In this department Parker made himself felt,
not on the popular mind alone, but on the recognized leaders of opinion
East and West. The writings of Sumner and his school owe their vigor to
these ideas. In history Bancroft was its great representative, his
earliest volumes especially revealing in the richness, depth, and
hopefulness of their interpretations of men and measures, the faith in
humanity so strongly characteristic of the philosophy he professed.
In poetry the influence is distinctly traceable, though here also it was
confined within somewhat narrow limits. Bryant betrays scarcely
perceptible marks of it, though he ascribed to Wordsworth a fresh
inspiration of love for nature. It is hardly perceptible in Longfellow,
whose verse, bubbling from the heart, gently meanders over the meadows
and through the villages, gladdening daily existence with its music.
Neither Bryant nor Longfellow had the intellectual passion that
Transcendentalism roused. The earlier pieces of Lowell, the anti-slavery
lyrics and poems of sentiment, were inspired by it. Whittier was wholly
under its sway. The delicious sonnets of Jones Very were oozings from
its spring. Julia Ward Howe's "Passion Flowers," though published as
late as 1854, burn and throb with feeling that had its source in these
heights.
The writers of elegant literature, essays, romances, tales, owed to
Transcendentalism but a trifling debt, not worth acknowledging. They
were out of range. It was their task to entertain people of leisure, and
they derived their impulse from the pleasure their writings gave them or
others. It was not to be expected that authors like Irving, Paulding,
Cooper, would feel an interest in ideas so grave and earnest, or would
catch a suggestion from them. But Lydia Maria Child, whose "Letters from
New York"--1841, 1843--were models in their kind; whose stories for
young people have not been surpassed by those of any writer, except
Andersen; whose more labored works have a quality that entitles them to
a high place among the products of mind, is a devotee of the
transcendental faith. A very remarkable book in the department of
fiction was Sylvester Judd's "Margaret; a tale of the Real and the
Ideal; Blight and Bloom." It contained the material for half a dozen
ordinary novels; was full of imagination, aromatic, poetical,
picturesque, tender, and in the dress of fiction set forth the whole
gospel of Transcendentalism in religion, politics, reform, social
ethics, personal character, professional and private life.
As has been already remarked, the transcendental faith found expression
in magazines and newspapers, which it called into existence, and which
no longer survive. Its elaborate compositions were, from the nature of
the case, few; its intellectual occupancy was too brief for the creation
of a permanent literature. Had Transcendentalism been chiefly remarkable
as a literary curiosity, the neglect of the smallest scrap of paper it
caused to be marked with ink would be culpable. As it was, primarily and
to the end, an intellectual episode, turning on a few cardinal ideas, it
is best studied in the writings and lives of its disciples. They knew
better than any body what they wanted; they were best acquainted with
their own ideas, and should be permitted to speak for themselves.
Earnest men and women no doubt they were; better educated men and women
did not live in America; they were well born, well nurtured, well
endowed. Their generation produced no warmer hearts, no purer spirits,
no more ardent consciences, no more devoted wills. Their philosophy may
be unsound, but it produced noble characters and humane lives. The
philosophy that takes its place may rest on more scientific foundations;
it will not more completely justify its existence or honor its day.
THE END.
INDEX.
A.
Alcott, Bronson, contributes to "The Dial," 133;
on the transcendental philosophy, tribute to Emerson quoted, 246;
the mystic, 249;
a follower of Pythagoras, 251;
"_Concord Days_" quoted, 255;
a leader of the transcendentalists, 257;
school in Cheshire, Conn., 262;
school in England named for, 267;
presides at reform meetings in England, 272;
superintendent of schools, 275;
his conversations, 283;
writings of, 358.
Alcott, Wm. A., writes on physical training, 262.
Alexandria, school of, 61.
American Unitarian Association, tract published by, 120.
Aristotle, categories of, 111.
Arius, advocate of Unitarian philosophy, 109.
B.
Bacon, Lord Francis, Macaulay on his philosophy, 139.
Bain, principles of the sensational philosophy stated by, 205.
Bancroft, George, his account of Herder, 47;
History of the United States quoted, 117;
champion of the spiritual philosophy, 117, 118;
traces of transcendentalism in his historical writings, 381.
Barni, Jules, translates Kant into French, 61.
Bartol, C. A., belongs to the transcendental school, 341.
Baur, follower of the Hegelian ideas, 186.
Biblical repository, articles on transcendentalism in, 137.
Bibliotheca Sacra, article on transcendentalism in, 92.
Biographia Literaria, of Coleridge, quoted, 82;
criticised by Edinburgh Review, 91;
Wordsworth's poetry considered in, 97.
"Blithedale Romance," published by Hawthorne, 175.
Blodgett, Levi, nom de plume of Theodore Parker, 125.
Boehme, Jacob, doctrine of, 257.
Boston Quarterly Review started by O. A. Brownson, 128.
Bouillet translates Plotinus, 61.
Brisbane, Albert, disciple of Fourier, 156.
Brook Farm, the experiment at, 157;
constitution quoted, 159;
mode of life there, 164-169;
breaking up of the society, 170.
Brooks, C. T., makes translations from German authors, 56;
German lyrics translated by, 116.
Brownson, Orestes A., description of, 128;
converted to Romanism, 131;
writings, 358.
Bruno, Giordano, founder of the Dynamic System, 81.
Bryant, Wm. C., transcendental spirit not found in his writings, 381.
Butler fights against infidelity in his _Analogy_, 185.
C.
Cabanis, philosophy of, 63;
skeptic of the 18th century, 187.
Cabot, Eliot, contributes to "The Dial," 133.
Calvin, denies doctrine of consubstantiation, 364.
Cambridge Divinity School, address before, by James Walker, 121-123.
Carlyle, Thomas, interprets the German thinkers, 52;
quoted, 52;
translates Wilhelm Meister, 56;
opinion of Coleridge quoted, 77-92;
change in his mode of thought, 94;
the preacher of transcendentalism, 103;
articles on Richter and German literature, 116.
Chalybäus, his verdict on Jacobi quoted, 25.
Channing, Dr. William, not a transcendentalist in theory, 111;
feeling toward Christ, 111;
letters of, quoted, 112;
transcendentalist in sentiment, 113;
quoted, 113;
contributes to "The Dial," 133;
tribute to Alcott, 259;
judgment of Margaret Fuller, 293;
writings of, 350.
Channing, William Ellery, writings of, 340.
Channing, Wm. H., version of Jouffroy published, 116;
contributes to "The Dial," 133;
writes on social topics, 330;
works of, 336;
as an orator, 338;
writings of, 360.
Chapin, E. H., speaks against capital punishment, 337.
Chauvet, on philosophy of the ancients, 61.
Cheever, Geo. B., article in N. A. Review, 92.
Cheshire, Conn., school at, 262.
Child, Lydia Maria, a writer of the transcendental school, 382.
Christian Examiner, account of Herder in, 47;
article by F. D. Hedge in, 92;
article by James Walker in, 120;
articles on transcendentalism in, 137;
review on Emerson in, 138.
Clarke, James Freeman, edits De Wette, 116;
contributes to "The Dial," 133;
judgment of Margaret Fuller, 293;
an early transcendentalist, 343.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, influence of Schelling on, 40;
the prophet of transcendentalism in England, 76;
his studies in Germany, 79;
on Schelling's works, 80;
alleged plagiarism from Schelling, 81.
Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, quoted, 82;
the true founder of the Broad church, 89;
described by Talfourd and Hazlitt, 90.
Coleridge, Carlyle's verdict on, 92;
his sympathy with German literature, 96;
the philosopher of transcendentalism, 103;
makes Lessing's works familiar, 116;
article on by Mill, 206.
Coleridge, Sarah, note by, in Biographia Literaria, 88.
Communism in Massachusetts, 157.
_Concord Days_, by A. B. Alcott, quoted, 246.
Condillac, doctrine of, 62;
skeptic of the 18th century, 187.
Congregationalists, followers of Schleiermacher among, 50.
Constant, English translations from, by Geo. Ripley, 116.
Consubstantiation taught by Luther, 364;
denied by Calvin, 364.
_Consuelo_ translated by F. G. Shaw, 329.
Copernicus revolutionizes astronomy, 10.
Cousin, Victor, philosophical works of, 61;
French follower of the Scotch school, 66;
his system of philosophy, 67-75;
English translations from, 116;
philosophical miscellanies noticed by the press, 117.
Cranch, C. P., contributes to "The Dial," 133;
lines from, quoted, 146;
writes for "The Harbinger," 330.
Curtis, Geo. Wm., writes for "The Harbinger," 330.
D.
Dana, Chas. A., writes for "The Harbinger," 330.
Degerando, lectures on Kant's philosophy, in Paris, 115.
Descartes, doctrine of innate ideas ascribed to, 15.
De Wette, students of, in the United States, 116;
Theodor and Ethics, English edition of, 116;
living faith in God aided by, 121.
D'Holbach, skeptic of the 18th century, 187.
Dial, the, publisher's letter on Herder, 47;
Tribute to Wordsworth in, quoted, 97-99;
articles in, 132;
writes for, 133;
ancient scriptures printed in, 135;
article on Margaret Fuller in, 176;
contains account of English reform meetings, 273.
Digby, Sir Kenelm, story related by, 199.
Dietetics, theory and practice of, introduced by transcendentalists, 150.
_Discourses on Religion_, work by Schleiermacher, 48.
Dwight, J. S., makes translations from German authors, 56;
edits selections from Goethe and Schiller, 116;
contributes to "The Dial," 133;
quoted, 148;
writes musical articles for "The Harbinger," 330.
Dynamic system, the, begun by Giordano Bruno, 80.
E.
Eckermann's conversations with Goethe translated into English, 116.
Edinburgh Review contains article by Carlyle, 52;
criticises Biographia Literaria, 91.
Edwards, Jonathan, spirit of his writings, 108.
_Elements of Psychology_, work by C. S. Henry, published, 75.
Emerson, Charles, contributes to "The Dial," 133;
articles quoted, 222.
Emerson, R. W., edits Carlyle's Miscellanies, 93-116;
on Wordsworth, 99;
an idealist, 115;
retires from the ministry, 120;
publication of "Nature," 122;
essays published, 127;
quoted, 142;
edits "The Dial," 132;
lecture on transcendentalism quoted, 135;
lecture on "The Reformer" quoted, 153;
address before Divinity College, 200;
tribute paid by Tyndall to, 214-243;
appreciation of by German readers, 218;
published works, 224;
works quoted from, 228;
letter to his church, 232;
judgment of Margaret Fuller, 285;
sermon of, reprinted, 363.
Encyclopædists, influence of, in France, 187.
England, idealists of, 1;
metaphysical schools in, 2;
transcendentalism in, 78-105.
Epictetus, works of, edited by Higginson, 350.
Excursion, Wordsworth's, quoted, 101.
F.
Felton, Prof. C. C., translates Menzel, 58;
edits Menzel's German literature, 116.
Fichte, Johann Gotlieb, treatises of, 28;
effect of Kant's system upon, 28;
outline of his system of reasoning, 31-40;
the idealists of New England his followers, 46;
few copies of his works found in the United States, 116.
Fiske, John, cosmic philosophy quoted, 211.
Foreign Review, contains article on Novalis, 52.
Fourierism not welcomed by transcendentalists, 156.
France, philosophy in, 60;
transcendentalism in, 105;
skepticism in, 189.
Francis, Convers; apostle of transcendentalism, 353.
Franck, Adolphe, explains the Jewish Kabbala, 71.
Frederick the Great, court of, 187.
Frothingham, Dr. N. L., student of German literature, 47.
Fuller, Margaret, article on Goethe, 57;
translates from the German, 116;
edits "The Dial," 132;
_Women in the 19th Century_ quoted, 177-181;
memoirs of, published, 284;
judgment of, by Emerson, 285;
on metaphysics and religion, 286;
as a critic, 287;
edits "The Dial," 289;
biographical account of, 293;
writings of, 358.
Furness, W. H., maintains belief in the miracles, 202.
G.
Galileo, experiments of, 8.
Greaves, James Pierrepont, founds the Alcott School near London, 267;
letter of, 267.
Grimm, Herman, essay on R. W. Emerson, 218.
Grote, opinion on moral intuition, 216.
German Lyrics, translation by Chas. Brooks, 116.
Germany, transcendentalism in, 14-105;
philosophy of, 60;
under the influence of idealism, 186.
Gibbon, his history assailed by the church, 185.
Goethe, appreciation of, in New England, 57.
H.
Hamilton, Sir William, Mill's criticism of, 207.
Harbinger, The, started in 1845, 327;
list of contributors to, 329.
Hauréau writes on philosophy of the middle ages, 61.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, notes on Brook Farm quoted, 171;
_Blithedale Romance_, 175.
Hazlitt, William, account of Coleridge's preaching, 90.
Hedge, F. K., German translations made by, 56;
writes articles in "Christian Examiner," 92.
Hegel, the successor of Schelling, 43;
verdict on Jacobi quoted, 26;
system of philosophy, 43-45.
Helvetius, skeptic of the 18th century, 187.
Henry, C. L., publishes elements of psychology, 75;
his admiration for Coleridge, 89.
Herder, translations of, into English, 47;
works of, read in the United States, 116.
Higginson, T. W., a disciple of transcendentalism, 350.
History of Philosophy, by Cousin, 75.
Hume, his system of reasoning, 16.
I.
Idealism in England, 7;
in New England, 115;
in Germany, 186.
J.
Jacobi, Frederick, his system of faith, 24;
idealists of New England his followers, 46;
his works in the United States, 116.
Janet, Paul, explains Plato, 61.
Jeffrey criticised Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, 91.
Johnson, Samuel, work on the "Religions of India," quoted, 345;
belongs to the transcendental school, 347.
Jouffroy, Theodore, French follower of the Scotch school, 66;
_Introduction to Ethics_, English edition of, 114.
Judd, Sylvester, a novelist of the transcendental school, 382.
K.
Kant, Immanuel, publishes "Critique of Pure Reason" (1781), 6;
Character of his work, 6;
starting-point of his philosophy, 9;
_Critique of Pure Reason_ quoted, 14;
Outline of his system of reasoning, 16-21;
Carlyle on his philosophy, 53;
Menzel on his philosophy, 57;
translated into French, 61;
reintroduces the Dynamic system, 81;
lectures on his philosophy in Paris, 115;
few copies of his works in the United States, 116.
_Knickerbocker Magazine_, articles on transcendentalism in, 137.
L.
Laromiguière, disciple of Condillac, 65.
Leibnitz, theory of, 15.
Letters to a Young Theologian, by Herder, 47.
Lewes, George H., criticism on John Locke cited, 5;
_Problems of Life and Mind_, quoted 212.
Linberg, H. G., translator of Cousin, 75.
Locke, John, _Essay on the Human Understanding_, 3;
called "Father of Modern Psychology," 3;
character of his work, 4;
opposes the doctrine of innate ideas, his ideas introduced into
France, 61;
piety of, 62;
framed a constitution for the New World, 117;
Bancroft on, 118.
Longfellow, H. W., the transcendental spirit not in his writings, 382.
Longfellow, Samuel, transcendentalist of the mystical type, 347;
hymns by, 347.
Lord, D. N., writer in Lord's _Theological Journal_, 92.
Lord's Supper, the, sermon on, by Emerson, 363.
Lord's Theological Journal, 92.
Lowell, J. R., his early poems breathe the transcendental spirit, 382.
Luther, Martin, teaches doctrine of consubstantiation, 364.
M.
Macaulay, T. B., article on Lord Bacon, quoted, 139.
Maine de Biran, philosophy of, 65.
_Margaret_, novel setting forth the gospel of transcendentalism, 382.
Marsh, Dr. James, translates Herder's Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, 47.
Martineau, Harriet, calls Alcott the American Pestalozzi, 267.
Martineau, James, letter of Channing to, 112.
Mathematics, progress in, 7.
Maurice, Frederick Denison, admirer of Coleridge, 142.
May, Rev. S. J., account of Alcott's school, 262.
Menzel, opinion of Goethe quoted, 57;
German Literature, English edition of, 116.
Mill, principles of sensational philosophy stated by, 205;
article on Coleridge, 206;
work on logic quoted, 208;
commends Taine's work, 212.
N.
_Nature_, by R. W. Emerson, quoted, 312.
New England Maga., articles on transcendentalism in, 137.
New England, transcendentalism in, 105;
religion of, 107;
idealism in, 115.
New Hegelians, the, 45.
New York Review, 92.
Nominalists, the, tenets maintained by, 2.
North American Review, 92.
Norton, Andrews, assails Schleiermacher, 48;
attacks transcendentalism, 123;
controversy with George Ripley, 124.
Novalis, article on, by Carlyle, 52;
his philosophy defined by Carlyle, 55.
O.
_Orphic Sayings_ of Alcott quoted, 259.
Osgood, Samuel, edits DeWette, 116.
P.
Parker, Theodore, referred to by Channing, enters into the
transcendental controversy, 125;
contributes to "The Dial," 133;
work meditated by, 192;
strong faith in immortality, 196;
"Levi Blodgett" letter quoted, 200;
blending of realism and transcendentalism in, 305;
as a preacher of transcendental views, 308;
writings of, 357.
Passover, the feast of, celebrated by Jesus, 364-366;
as kept by Jews, 368.
Paul of Samosata, advocate of Unitarian theology, 109.
Peabody, Elizabeth, writes record of a school, 265.
Pelagius, advocate of Unitarian theology, 109.
Penn, Wm., framed constitution for the New World, 117;
Bancroft on, 118.
Perfect Life, the work by Dr. Channing, 113.
Phillips, Wendell, speaks against capital punishment, 337.
Physics established as a science, 8.
Platonism, transcendental in its essence, 108.
Plotinus translated by Bouillet, 61.
Porter, Noah, writes article in Bibliotheca Sacra, 92.
Princeton Review, articles on transcendentalism in, 137.
Priestley, Joseph, able representative of Unitarianism, 185.
Pythagoras, the ancient teacher of dietetics, 151;
H. B. Alcott on, 251.
Q.
Quakerism, tribute to, by George Bancroft, 117;
compared with transcendentalism, 119.
R.
Rahn, Johanna, letter of Fichte to, 29.
_Rationale of Religious Inquiry_, by Martineau, 123.
Ravaisson, Felix, writes reports on French philosophy, 61.
Realists, the, tenets maintained by, 2.
Religious affections, the, treatise on, by Jonathan Edwards, 108.
Rémusat, Charles de, writer on French philosophy, 61.
Review, North American, account of Herder in, 47.
Reymond, Dubois, address to German naturalists quoted, 250.
Richter, Carlyle on his philosophy, 55;
works of, 56.
Ripley, George, his account of Herder, 47;
account of Schleiermacher, 48;
estimate of Cousin's philosophy, 74;
edits specimens of foreign standard literature, 116;
review of James Martineau, 123;
reply to Andrews Norton, 125;
contributes to "The Dial," 133;
his influence in spreading transcendentalism, 322;
published works of, 324;
controversy with Andrews Norton, 325;
at Brook Farm, 325.
Ripley, George, edits "The Harbinger," 328;
literary critic of "The Tribune," 332.
Robbins, Samuel D., quoted, 145.
Romanism not at home in New England, 107.
Rousseau, J. J., the ideas of the new philosophy expressed by, 17.
Rousselot writes on philosophy of the middle age, 61.
Royer-Collard, French followers of the Scotch school, 66.
Russell edits first journal of education, 262.
S.
Saint Hilaire, Barthelemy, French philosopher, 61.
Saisset, Emil, translates Spinoza, 61.
Schelling, system of philosophy, 40-43;
_Transcendental Idealism_ published, 80;
few copies of his works found in the United States, 116.
Schiller, letter on Kant's philosophy quoted, 54;
on Richter, 54.
Schleiermacher, influence of, 48;
quoted, 49;
philosophy of, 50;
students of, in the United States, 116;
faith in God promoted by, 122.
Schoolmen, the, their use of the word transcendental, 11.
Sensationalism in England, 2;
reaction against, 188;
the God of, 190;
ideas of immortality, 193-197;
its philosophy revived by Mill and others, 205.
Shaw, Francis G., translates Consuelo for "The Harbinger," 329.
Simon, Jules, explains the Alexandrian school, 61.
Skepticism in France, 18th century, 187;
brought to America, 188.
Smith, William, publishes memoirs of Fichte (1845), 27.
Socialists, New York union of, 339.
Socinius, advocate of Unitarian theology, 109.
Southern Literary Messenger, 92.
_Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature_, edited by George Ripley, 116.
Spencer, principles of the sensational philosophy stated by, 205;
system of, hostile to intuitive philosophy, 208.
Spinoza, translated by Saisset, 61.
Spirit of Hebrew poetry, by Herder, 47.
Staël, Madame de, gives an account of Kant's philosophy, 115.
Stahl, experiments of, 8.
Stone, Thomas T., article in "The Dial" quoted, 144.
St. Paul, his view of the Lord's Supper, 371.
Strauss a disciple of Hegel, 186.
T.
Taine, principles of the sensational philosophy stated by, 205;
work on Intelligence quoted, 212;
criticism of Tyndall, 212.
Talfourd, Sergeant, his account of Coleridge, 90.
Tennyson, Alfred, rising glory of, 103.
Thoreau, Henry D., contributes to "The Dial," 133.
Tissot translates Kant into French, 61.
Torricelli, experiments of, 8.
Transcendentalism, chiefly communicated through German literature, 51;
influence on German literature, 51;
its apostles in the New World, 103;
in New England, 105;
borders on Platonism, 107;
an enlarged orthodoxy, 108;
imported in foreign packages, 115;
Quakerism compared with, 119;
advocated by James Walker, 122;
attacked by Andrews Norton, 123;
legitimate fruits of, 143;
defined by Emerson, 127;
literary achievements of, 132;
essentially poetic, 134;
a distinct system of philosophy, 136;
misconceptions of, 138;
practical usefulness of the disciples of, 140;
objections to, 149;
inaugurated the practice of dietetics, 150;
favorable to all reform movements, 155;
ideas of women, 181;
relation to questions of religion, 184;
reaction against sensationalism, 189;
the faith of, 190-192;
asserts immortality of the soul, 193-196;
accepts the miracles, 201;
its view of Christianity, 204;
superseded by idealism, 215;
as a gospel, 302;
end of one phase of, 332;
defined by Bartol, 342;
minor followers of, 355-356;
literature of, 357-372.
Trinitarianism of Platonic origin, 107;
avowed by idealists, 109;
its debt to Unitarianism, 113.
Tuckerman, H. T., writes for Southern Literary Messenger, 92.
Tübingen, follower of the Hegelian idea, 186.
Tyndall, John, address of, quoted, 210;
objections to, by Taine, 212.
U.
Unitarians, the, belong to the school of Locke, 109;
of New England, 110;
friends to free thought, 114.
Unitarianism represented in England by Priestley, 115.
V.
Vacherot, Etienne, explains the Alexandrian school, 61.
Vere, Aubrey de, lines on Coleridge, 78.
Volney popular in the eighteenth century, 187.
Voltaire introduces Locke's ideas into France, 61;
the great name among eighteenth century skeptics, 187.
W.
Walker, James, avows transcendental views, 120;
quoted, 120, 121;
his theory of moral intuition, 215.
Wasson, D. A., sermons and poems of, 349.
Wedgewood, Josiah and Thomas, send Coleridge to Germany, 79.
Weiss, John, philosophical writings and translations, 351.
Westminster Review contains article by Mill, 206.
Whig Review, articles on transcendentalism in, 137.
Whittier, John G., under the sway of transcendental ideas, 382.
Wordsworth, Wm., in Germany with Coleridge, 79;
kinship between Coleridge and, 96;
his poetry discussed in _Biographia Literaria_, 97;
preface to his poems quoted, 100;
_Ode to Immortality and Excursion_ quoted, 101;
the poets of the transcendentalists, 103;
lines from, quoted, 141.
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