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TRANSCENDENTALISM 
 
 IN 
 
 NEW ENGLAND 
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 ¥ 
 
 BY 
 
 OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM 
 
 ii 
 
 Author of " Life of Theodore Parker" " Religio?i of Humanity," 1 &>c. &C. 
 
 1276. < 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 182 Fifth Avenue 
 1876 
 
w : ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 Copyright, 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 
 
 1876. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Contents iii 
 
 Preface v 
 
 I. 
 Beginnings in Germany * I 
 
 II. 
 
 Transcendentalism in Germany— Kant, Jacobi, Ficiite, etc. 14 
 
 III. 
 Theology and Literature — Schleiermacher, Goethe, Rich- 
 
 ter, etc 47 
 
 IV. 
 Transcendentalism in France — Cousin. Constant, Jouffroy, 
 
 etc 60 
 
 V. 
 Transcendentalism in England — Coleridge, Carlyle, 
 
 Wordsworth 76 
 
 Transcendentalism in New England 105 
 
 VII. 
 Practical Tendencies 142 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 v 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 re- 
 spect 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 con- 
 tribution 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 dura- 
 tion, engaging but a comparatively small number of in- 
 dividuals, and passing over the upper regions of the 
 mind, it left a broad and deep trace on ideas and insti- 
 tutions. It affected thinkers, swayed politicians, guided 
 moralists, inspired philanthropists, created reformers: 
 The moral enthusiasm of the last generation, which 
 
v i PREFACE. 
 
 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 institu- 
 tions, 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 Tran- 
 scendentalism 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 Transcendental - 
 ism 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. 
 
PREFACE. iiv 
 
 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 de- 
 cline, being suppressed by the philosophy of experience, 
 which, under different names, is taking' possession of 
 the speculative world. But neither has this considera- 
 tion weight in deciding its value as an element in pro- 
 gress. 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 Transcen- 
 dentalism and the Transcendentalists, and has trans- 
 gressed 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. Renan 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. 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 The writer was once a pure Transcendentalist, a warm 
 sympathizer with transcendental aspirations, and an ar- 
 dent 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 dis- 
 cussion, 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 philos- 
 ophy, 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 becom- 
 ing few and scarce ; the materials are disappearing be- 
 neath 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 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 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. 
 
 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 un- 
 disturbed. Platonism and neo-Platonism may be excused 
 from further tortures on the witness stand. The spec- 
 ulations of the mystics, Romanist or Protestant, need 
 not be re-examined. The idealism of Gale, More, Por- 
 dage, 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 de- 
 scribe the effect of his writings on the thinkers who 
 came after him. 
 
 The Transcendental Philosophy, so-called, had a dis- 
 tinct 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 
 
2 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 defini- 
 tion. 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 con- 
 founded with visible and transient things, but the essen- 
 tial types of such, — the scholastics of either school dis- 
 cussed after their manner, with astonishing fulness and 
 subtlety, the matters which later metaphysicians intro- 
 duced. 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, exer- 
 cised on them such ingenuity as they possessed, and in 
 good faith made their several contributions to the general 
 
GERMANY. 3 
 
 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, sur- 
 prised 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 intellect- 
 ual 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 under- 
 standing comes to be furnished with them. 
 
4 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 " Secondly, I shall endeavor to show what knowledge 
 the understanding hath by those ideas, and the certain- 
 ty, 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 im- 
 pulse it gave to speculation in England and on the con- 
 tinent 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 phi- 
 losophic realm, and the disposition of another period to 
 challenge his title to the name of philosopher. The " Es- 
 say " 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. Exhaus- 
 tive 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 interrup- 
 tions 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 char- 
 
GERMANY. 5 
 
 acterize 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 saga- 
 cious 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 philo- 
 sophical genius of the highest order. While at Oxford 
 he abandoned philosophy, in disgust, for medicine, and 
 distinguished himself there by judgment and penetra- 
 tion. Subsequently his attention was turned to politics, 
 anrother pursuit even less congenial with introspective 
 genius. These may not be the reasons for the " incom- 
 pleteness " 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 Konigsberg, 
 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, 
 
6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 dis- 
 tinguished 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 phi- 
 losophical speculation. That condition he describes as 
 one of saddest indifference. The throne of Metaphys- 
 ics 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 philos- 
 ophy might be considered as numbered. The physical 
 sciences would take advantage of the time, enter the de- 
 serted 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 sue- 
 
GERMANY. 7 
 
 cess Kant passed in review their different systems, ex- 
 amined 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 peculi- 
 arity do they claim superior right to that high appella- 
 tion ? 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 re- 
 claimed 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 prog- 
 ress 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 com- 
 mands its whole career. 
 
 Since Aristotle, logic has, without serious impedi- 
 ment 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 inter- 
 pretations 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 
 
8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 been uninterrupted. The persistent study of constant 
 properties, which were not natural data, but mental con- 
 ceptions 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 an- 
 cients 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 met- 
 als 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 be- 
 fore 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 prin- 
 ciples. Reason demands knowledge of nature, not as a 
 docile pupil who receives implicitly the master's word, 
 
GERMANY. 9 
 
 but as a judge who constrains witnesses to reply to ques- 
 tions 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 be- 
 hind 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 arbi- 
 trary pursuit, suggested by vanity and conducted by 
 caprice, to be taken up idly and relinquished at a mo- 
 ment'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 con- 
 templation of the elements that are invariable and con- 
 stant, 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, 
 
io TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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, mathe- 
 matics, and logic. 
 
 Struck with this idea, Kant undertook to transfer con- 
 templation 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, find- 
 ing it impossible to explain the movements of the heav- 
 enly 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 re- 
 sulted 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. 
 
GERMANY. 1 1 
 
 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 author- 
 ity, 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 trust- 
 worthy 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 philoso- 
 phy began, continued, and finished his work. 
 
 The word " transcendental " was not new in philoso- 
 phy. 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 
 
1 2 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 ten in number : Quantity, Quality, Relation, Action, Pas- 
 sion, The Where, The When, Position in Space, Posses- 
 sion, 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 dis- 
 cernible throughout multitudinous genera and orders. 
 Transcendental curves are curves that cannot be defined 
 by algebraic equations. Transcendental equations ex- 
 press relations between transcendental qualities. Trans- 
 cendental 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 ter- 
 minology of Kant the term " transcendent " was em- 
 ployed to designate qualities that lie outside of all 
 " experience," that cannot be brought within the recog- 
 nized formularies of thought, cannot be reached either 
 by observation or reflection, or explained as the conse- 
 quences of any discoverable antecedents. The term 
 "transcendental" designated the fundamental concep- 
 tions, the universal and necessary judgments, which 
 transcend the sphere of experience, and at the same 
 time impose the conditions that make experience trib- 
 
GERMANY. 13 
 
 utary 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 possi- 
 ble a. 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.* 
 Our concern is to know the method which Kant em- 
 ployed, and the use he made of it, the ground he took 
 and the positions he held, so far as this can be indi- 
 cated 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 a priori principles. " Reason is the 
 faculty which furnishes the principles of cognition a 
 priori. Therefore pure reason is that which contains the 
 principles of knowing something, absolutely a priori. 
 An organon of pure reason would be a summaiyof 
 
 * See Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, London, 1838 ; Morell's History 
 of Modern Philosophy ; Chalybaus' Historical Development of Specu- 
 lative Philosophy from Kant to Plegel ; Lewes' Biographical History of 
 Philosophy ; Cousin's Lecons, CEuvres, i ere serie, vol. 5, give a clear ac- 
 count of Kant's philosophy. 
 
GERMANY. 15 
 
 these principles, according to which all pure cognition a 
 priori can be obtained, and really accomplished. The 
 extended application of such an organon would furnish 
 a system of pure reason." 
 
 The problem of modern philosophy may be thus 
 stated : Have we or have we not ideas that are trite 
 of necessity, and absolutely ? Are there ideas that can 
 fairly be pronounced independent in their origin of expe- 
 rience, and out of the reach of experience by their 
 nature ? One party contended that all knowledge 
 was derived from experience ; that there was noth- 
 ing 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 repre- 
 sented, 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 
 
1 6 TRANS CENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 expe- 
 rience, 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, accord- 
 ing 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 intellect- 
 ual 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 anni- 
 hilated 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 causal- 
 ity, infinity, substance, time, space, are independent of 
 experience, since without experience they would not 
 exist, and experience takes from them form only ; that 
 
GERMANY. 1 7 
 
 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 cer- 
 tainly 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 material- 
 ism, 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 re- 
 
1 8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 garded 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 
 a priori. In it alone is any reality of phenomena possi- 
 ble. These disappear, but it cannot be annihilated." 
 So of space. " Space is an intuition, met with in us 
 a priori, antecedent to any perception of objects, a pure, 
 not an empirical intuition." These two forms of sensi- 
 bility, 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 im- 
 pressions into thoughts. Here fresh processes of analy- 
 sis are employed in classifying judgments, and determin- 
 ing their conditions. All judgments, it is found, must 
 conform to one of four invariable conditions. I. Quan- 
 tity, 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 acci- 
 dent, cause and effect, reciprocity, or action and reac- 
 tion. IV. Modality, which embraces the possible and 
 the impossible, the existent and the non-existent, the 
 
GERMANY. 19 
 
 necessary and the contingent. These categories, as they 
 were called, after the terminology of Aristotle, were sup- 
 posed to exhaust the forms of conception. 
 
 Having thus arrived at conceptions, thoughts, judg- 
 ments, another faculty comes in to classify the concep- 
 tions, link the thoughts together, reduce the judgments 
 to general laws, draw inferences, fix conclusions, proceed 
 from the particular to the general, recede from the gen- 
 eral to the particular, mount from the conditioned to the 
 unconditioned, till it arrives at ultimate principles. This 
 faculty is reason, — the supreme faculty, above sensi- 
 bility, above understanding. Reason gives the final gen- 
 eralization, 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 combin- 
 ing in itself both the other ideas ; the absolute perfec- 
 tion, 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 in- 
 dependent 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 
 
20 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 con- 
 sciousness 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 su- 
 preme unity, a soul that can exist in an eternal, super- 
 sensible world, are questions the philosopher declined 
 to discuss. The contents of his own mind were v 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 logi- 
 cally affirmed ; so the existence of a spiritual world 
 of substantial entities corresponding to our concep- 
 tions, 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 
 
GERMANY. 2 1 
 
 solid ; but from belief in them there is no bridge to 
 them . 
 
 Kant asserted the veracity of consciousness, and de- 
 manded 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 valid- 
 ity ; that they transcended experience altogether — man 
 was committed to an unswerving and uncompromising 
 loyalty to himself. His prime duty consisted in defer- 
 ence 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 intel- 
 lectual 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 
 
2 2 TRANS CENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 signifi- 
 cance apprehended, than a storm of controversy be- 
 trayed 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 trrat 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 proceed- 
 ed 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. 
 
GERMANY. 23 
 
 JACOBI. 
 
 The first important step in the direction of pure 
 transcendentalism was taken by Frederick Henry Jacobi, 
 who was born at Diisseldorf, 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 sub- 
 jects. 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 enthu- 
 siasm, 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 Konigsberg, 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 
 
24 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 " 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 defini- 
 tions. 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 evi- 
 dence 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 impos- 
 sible to prove that the transcendental idea had a corre- 
 sponding reality as objective being. Jacobi declared that 
 no such proof was needed; that the reality was neces- 
 sarily assumed. Kant had denied the existence of any 
 
GERMANY. 25 
 
 faculty that could guarantee the existence of either a sen- 
 sual or a supersensual world. Jacobi was above all else 
 certain that such a faculty there was, that it was alto- 
 gether trustworthy, and that it actually furnished mate- 
 rial 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 noth- 
 ing 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 conse- 
 quence of Kant's method. Kant had admitted the sub- 
 jective reality of sensible impressions, and had claimed a 
 similar reality for our mental images of supersensible 
 things He allowed the validity as conceptions, the practi- 
 cal validity, of the ideas of God, Duty, Immortality. Ja- 
 cobi 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. 
 
 Chalybaus 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 im- 
 mediate 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 
 2 
 
26 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 would not lose it must guard against the touch of evil- 
 minded curiosity ; for whoever ventures into this sanc- 
 tuary 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 ex- 
 position was to the stern inquisition of science, his pur- 
 pose 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 undevel- 
 oped 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, 
 Chalybaus 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 an- 
 ticipations : but the interpretation eludes him, and at 
 
GERMANY. 2 7 
 
 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 trans- 
 lation 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, enthusi- 
 astic, 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 theStoa, and to have discoursed of beauty 
 and virtue in the groves of Academe ! So robust an in- 
 tellect, 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 contra- 
 diction and debate like a granite mountain amid clouds 
 and winds. As a man approved by action and suffer- 
 ing, in his life and in his death, he ranks with a class of 
 men who were common only in better ages than ours." 
 
28 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 Thus wrote Thomas Carlyle of him more than a gen- 
 eration 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 elo- 
 quence, carried his thoughts bey.ond the philosophical 
 circle and spread his leading principles far beyond the 
 usual speculative lines. " The Destination of Man," 
 " The Vocation of the Scholar," l * The Nature of the 
 Scholar," "The Vocation of Man," "The Character- 
 istics of the Present Age," " The Way towards the 
 Blessed Life," were translated into English, published 
 in the " Catholic Series " of John Chapman, and exten- 
 sively read. The English reviewers helped to make the 
 author and his ideas known to many readers. 
 
 The contribution that Fichte made to the transcenden- 
 tal 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 
 
GERMANY. 29 
 
 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 phi- 
 losophy, the moral part of it in particular (which, how- 
 ever, is unintelligible without previous study of the ' Cri- 
 tique 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: iS l 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 circum- 
 stance 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 in- 
 stead of busying myself with outward things, I concern 
 
3° TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 myself more with my own being. It has given me a 
 peace such as I never before experienced ; amid uncer- 
 tain 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 be- 
 lieve, 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 prin- 
 ciples, 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 KOnigsberg 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 
 
GERMANY. 31 
 
 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 ad- 
 mitted, 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 phe- 
 nomena, 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 philoso- 
 phy. 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 author- 
 
32 , TRANSCENDENTALISM 
 
 ity of consciousness. If he says that consciousness com- 
 pels us to assume the existence of such a world, that it 
 is so constituted as to imply the realization of its con- 
 ception, 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 postu- 
 late ? The same reply avails, namely, that the idea of ne- 
 cessity 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 ex- 
 asperation caused by what seems to him quibbling, that 
 in this case consciousness plays us false, makes a prom- 
 ise to the ear which it breaks to the hope— lies, in short ? 
 The imperturbable philosopher sets aside the insinua- 
 tion as an impertinence. The fact of consciousness, he 
 maintains, stands and testifies for itself. It is not an- 
 swerable 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 con- 
 stituted, is no concern of ours. 
 
 The reasoning by which Fichte cut off the certainty ot 
 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 
 
GERMANY. S3 
 
 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, conti- 
 nents 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 im- 
 putation 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 ac- 
 cepts 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 as- 
 surance of a Being corresponding to the mental concep- 
 tion. 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 cre- 
 ated. This is not even ideal atheism, like that of Etienne 
 
34 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 con- 
 ception 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 intro- 
 spection ? 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 sub- 
 stitute 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 
 
GERMANY. 35 
 
 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 coun- 
 try, 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 liv- 
 ing 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 ob- 
 verse 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 limita- 
 tions," against which the mind pressed as against palpa- 
 ble obstacles, and in pressing against which it acquired 
 tension and vigor. Passing from the realm of specula- 
 tion 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 
 
3 6 'IRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 was sovereign and absolute, capable of spontaneous, 
 self-determined, originating action, having power to pro- 
 pose 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 tremen- 
 dous 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 ap- 
 prehend 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 knowl- 
 edge. 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 pro- 
 
GERMANY. 37 
 
 ceeds 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 understand- 
 ing. 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 re- 
 mains 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 tlie 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 in- 
 stincts 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 intui- 
 tion ; as is the heart of the individual, so is his knowl- 
 edge." 
 
38 TRANS C ENDED TALIS M. 
 
 "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 move- 
 ment 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 transcen- 
 dental 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, per- 
 manent, 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 
 14 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 
 
GERMANY. 39 
 
 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 per- 
 son, 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 exist- 
 ence, 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 pe- 
 culiar 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 ; app-earing 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 de- 
 ceptive ; but from the lips of a teacher like Fichte it 
 
40 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 philos- 
 ophy came from Germany to America have been indi- 
 cated. 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 Eng- 
 lish, and the French translation of the " Transcendental 
 Idealism " was not announced till 1850, when the move- 
 ment 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. Transcen- 
 dentalism in New England was rather spiritual and prac- 
 tical 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 grad- 
 ually in a long course of years. But for certain gran- 
 diose 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 
 
GERMANY. 41 
 
 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 com- 
 plete 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 unorgan- 
 ized intelligence of which the universe was the expression. 
 Finite minds are but phases of manifestation of the in- 
 finite 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 in- 
 visible 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 
 
42 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 having the same ground, ideal and real being one, 
 the work of philosophy is twofold — from nature to ar- 
 rive 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 con- 
 sciousness, 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 philo- 
 sophic man, the man of reason, in whom the absolute be- 
 ing recognizes himself. The reason gazes immediately 
 on the eternal realities, by virtue of what was called 
 " intellectual intuition," which beholds botrj. subject and 
 object as united in a single thought. Reason was im- 
 personal, no attribute of the finite intelligence, n,o 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, 
 
GERMANY. 43 
 
 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 justi- 
 fied and fortified in their ecclesiastical forms, doctrinal and 
 sacramental, and by teachers of moderately progressive 
 tendencies. The duty of unfolding his ideas has de- 
 volved upon students of German, as no other language 
 has given them anything like adequate expression. 
 Hegel, too, w r as 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 appre- 
 hend 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 specu- 
 lative 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 
 
44 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 celebri- 
 ties 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 philo- 
 sophy 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 re- 
 construct. Throwing out the aphorism, " The rational 
 is the actual, the actual is the rational," Hegel de- 
 clared 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 
 service^ 
 
 The church, taking the hint, put in its claim to patron- 
 age. It needed protection against the rationalism that 
 was coming up ; and such protection the majesty of He- 
 
GERMANY. 45 
 
 gel vouchsafed to offer. Faith and philosophy formed a 
 new alliance. Orthodox professors gave in their loy- 
 alty 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 ex- 
 planations of their own dogmas, and supplied them with 
 arguments against their own foes. Trinity, incarnation, 
 atonement, redemption, were all interpreted and justi- 
 fied, to the complete satisfaction of the ecclesiastical 
 powers. 
 
 This being the influence of the master, and of philoso- 
 phy as he explained it, the formation of a new school 
 by the earnest, liberal men who drew very different con- 
 clusions from the master's first principles, was to be ex- 
 pected. But the " New Hegelians," as they were called, 
 became disbelievers in religion and in spiritual things alto- 
 gether, and either lapsed, like Strauss, into intellectual 
 scepticism, or, like Feuerbach, became aggressive ma- 
 terialists. The ideal elements in Hegel's system were ap- 
 propriated 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 specu- 
 
46 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 lators 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 minis- 
 ter 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 " Chris- 
 tian 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. Rip- 
 ley 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 discern- 
 ment of the spirit beneath the letter, its generous inter- 
 pretations, and its suggestions of a better future for the 
 philosophy of religion. Herder was one of the illumi- 
 nated minds ; though not professedly a disciple, he had 
 felt the influence of Kant, and was cordially in sympa- 
 thy with the men who were trying to break the spell of 
 form and tradition. With Lessing more especially, Her- 
 der's " Spirit of Hebrew Poetry," of which a translation 
 by Dr. James Marsh was published in 1833, found its 
 
48 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 way to New England, and helped to confirm the dispo- 
 sition 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 sec- 
 ular, 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 dis- 
 tinct than that of Herder. One book of his, in particular, 
 made a deep impression, — the " Reden iiber 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 rhe- 
 torical in manner, filled with bursts of impassioned elo- 
 quence, always intense, and sometimes extravagant ; 
 addressed to the feelings, not to speculation ; and ex- 
 pressly 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 reve- 
 lation, 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 charac- 
 ter ; a frivolous spirit pervaded society ; religion was 
 deprived of its supremacy ; and a ' starveling theology ' 
 
THE OLOGY AND LITER A TURE. 49 
 
 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 re- 
 ligion ; 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 indispensa- 
 ble 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 un- 
 limited sovereignty ; that it is worthy, by its intrinsic 
 power, to be a source of life to the most noble and ex- 
 alted 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 estab- 
 lish." 
 
 From this it will appear that Schleiermacher gave 
 countenance to the spiritual aspect of transcendentalism, 
 and co-operated with the general movement it repre- 
 sented. His position that religion was not a system of 
 3 
 
50 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 genu- 
 ineness 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 Chris- 
 tianity as a special dispensation, in the miracles of the 
 New Testament. So far from being a " rationalist," 
 he was the most formidable opponent that ''rational- 
 ism " 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 aspira- 
 tion, 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 
 
THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE. 5 1 
 
 acknowledged their indebtedness to him, and the debt 
 they acknowledged was sentimental rather than intel- 
 lectual. They thanked him for the spirit of fervent piety, 
 deep, cordial, human, unlimited in generosity, untram- 
 melled by logical distinctions, rather than for new light 
 on philosophical problems. His bursts of eloquent en- 
 thusiasm 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 fore- 
 most 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 as- 
 sailed, 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 manu- 
 factured to support. 
 
 But it was through the literature of Germany that the 
 transcendental philosophy chiefly communicated itself. 
 Goethe, Richter and Novalis were more persuasive teach- 
 ers than Kant, Jacobi or Fichte. To those who could 
 
5 * TRANS CENDENTA L1SM. 
 
 not read German these authors were interpreted by 
 Thomas Carlyle, who took up the cause of German phi- 
 losophy and literature, and wrote about them with pas- 
 sionate power in the English reviews ; not contenting 
 himself with giving surface accounts of them, but plung- 
 ing boldly into the depths, and carrying his readers with 
 him through discussions that, but for his persuasive elo- 
 quence, 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 phi- 
 losophy in their culture. The article on Novalis, in Tfre 
 " Foreign Review " of 1829, No. 7, presents with a mas- 
 ter 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 per- 
 sons of approved judgment, and nowise directly impli- 
 cated in the furthering of it, as distinctly the greatest in- 
 tellectual 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 
 
THE OLOGY AND LITER A TURE. 5 3 
 
 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 spiri- 
 tual 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 ele- 
 vation 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 human- 
 ity, of ancient and now almost forgotten nobleness, to 
 take his stand, even in these trivial, jeering, withered, 
 unbelieving days, and through all their complex, dispirit- 
 ing, mean, yet tumultuous influences, to make his light 
 shine before men that it might beautify even our rag- 
 
54 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 gathering age with some beams of that mild divine splen- 
 dor 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, ac- 
 cessible 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 for- 
 given 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 princi- 
 ples have been admitted, and on the whole, acted on." 
 
 Of Richter he writes : " Richter's philosophy, a mat- 
 
THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE. 55 
 
 ter 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 ob- 
 servation we shall make : it is not mechanical or scep- 
 tical ; 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 firm- 
 est conviction of religion. An intense and continual 
 faith in man's immortality and native grandeur accom- 
 panies 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 Sor- 
 row,' 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 liter- 
 
56 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 ally 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 Musseus, 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 Thai," the 
 writings and versions of Madame de Stael. The third 
 
THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE. 57 
 
 volume of the " Dial," July, 1841, opened with a re- 
 markable 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 transcenden- 
 tal 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 Ger- 
 man literature was fully conceded by Menzel, who, how- 
 ever, 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 itfs immoral conse- 
 quences. 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 lumi- 
 nous 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." 
 3* 
 
58 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 Menzel's book was translated by a man who had no sym- 
 pathy 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 objec- 
 tionable 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 Kan'tean 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 sur- 
 mounting 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 Eng- 
 lish, bore always the same characteristics of beauty and 
 nobleness. Much that was unspiritual, all that was 
 merely speculative, they passed by. With an appetite 
 
THE OLOGY AND LITER A TURE. 5 9 
 
 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 171 5, to 
 Maine de Biran, Royer-Collard, Ampere 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 specu- 
 lation, 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 intel- 
 ligible in that limpid and lucid speech, which reported 
 with faultless dexterity the agile movements of the 
 Gallic mind, and made popular the most abstruse doc- 
 trines of metaphysics. German philosophy in its origi- 
 nal dress was outlandish, even to practised students in 
 German. The readers of French were many in Eng- 
 
FRANCE. 6 1 
 
 land and the United States, and the readers of French, 
 without severe labor on their part, were put in posses- 
 sion of the essential ideas of the deep thinkers of the 
 race. The best accounts of human speculation are in 
 French. Barthelemy 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 Alex- 
 andria ; Paul Janet explains the dialectics of Plato ; 
 Adolphe Franck deals with the Jewish Kabbala ; Charles 
 de Remusat with Anselm, Abelard and Bacon ; MM. 
 Haureau 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 com- 
 plete 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-work- 
 ers, and under his own direction, examples of whatever 
 was best in every philosophical system. The philosoph- 
 ical work of France is ably summed up in the report on 
 "Philosophy in France in the nineteenth century," pre- 
 sented 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 
 
62 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 cul- 
 ture 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 ex- 
 pounder in Condillac, who reduced it to greater simpli- 
 city 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 re- 
 sults, declining to assert that we were absolutely nothing 
 else than products of sensation, and surmising that be- 
 neath 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 interpreta- 
 tion of his philosophy took no account of such subtleties. 
 
FRANCE. 63 
 
 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 dis- 
 tinction, 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 sensi- 
 bility 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 per- 
 fection of organization was the perfection of humanity. 
 It was Cabanis who said " the brain secretes thought 
 as the liver secretes bile." Cabanis modified his phi- 
 losophy 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 hap- 
 piness, and that happiness means physical enjoyment ; 
 
64 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 "cate- 
 gorical 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 im- 
 pressed 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 philos- 
 ophy has become refined into a philosophy of experi- 
 ence, 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 
 
FRANCE. 65 
 
 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 conclu- 
 sions. The philosophy of sensationalism culminated, 
 not in the French Revolution, as has been vulgarly as- 
 serted, but in the unbelief and sensual extravagance that 
 marked one phase of it. 
 
 In this there was nothing original ; there was no origi- 
 nality in the reaction that followed, and gave to modern 
 philosophy in France its spiritual character. Laromi- 
 guiere, 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 dis- 
 tinction between the results of sensation and the facul- 
 ties of the mind. In his analysis of the mental consti- 
 tution he came upon two facts that denoted an original 
 activity in advance of sensation — namely, attevtion 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 Laromiguiere's lec- 
 tures, delivered in 181 1, 1 8 12, 18 1 3, revealing the fact 
 that thoughtful people were prepared for a new meta- 
 physical departure. 
 
 Maine de Biran, who more than the rest deserves the 
 name of an original investigator, a severe, solitary, inde- 
 pendent thinker, pupil of no school and founder of none, 
 
66 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 determi- 
 nations," 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 speak- 
 ing, 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 " Cyclopasdists." 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 sen- 
 sations that had buried it out of sight, was the achieve- 
 ment 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, 
 
FRANCE. 67 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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 dis- 
 carded 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 contri- 
 bution ; and that the true philosophy would be reached 
 by a process of intellectual distillation by which the es- 
 sential 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 
 
68 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 there alone that observation seizes them and describes 
 them, before committing them to induction, which 
 forces them to reveal the consequences which they con- 
 tain in their bosom. The field of philosophical obser- 
 vation 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 phe- 
 nomena, 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 con- 
 sists 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 re- 
 tire within the field of consciousness, w T here there is 
 nothing but phenomena, that are all capable of being 
 perceived and judged by observation. Now as no sub- 
 stantial 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 ex- 
 istences. 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 
 
FRANCE. 69 
 
 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 pre- 
 sented supposes a cause. It is a fact, moreover, that 
 this principle of causality is marked with the character- 
 istics 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 irresisti- 
 bly, the principle of causality enriches with the charac- 
 teristics 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 con- 
 sciousness, applied with fidelity, firmness and complete- 
 ness, 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." 
 
7o TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 " 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 intelli- 
 gence. We have thus arrived accordingly, for the 
 second time, by observation and induction in the exter- 
 nal sphere, at precisely the same point to which observa- 
 tion and induction have successively conducted us in the 
 sphere of personality and in that of reason ; conscious- 
 ness 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 har- 
 
FRANCE. 71 
 
 mony 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 exist- 
 ence 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 con- 
 tains 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 abstrac- 
 tion 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 illu- 
 sion of a few sophists, who place their liberty in opposi- 
 tion to their reason, and are unable even to give an ac- 
 count to themselves of what they think ; but the human 
 
72 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 rea- 
 son and cannv>t 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 sub- 
 stance 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 oninem Iiominem vcnientem hi Jniuc miindum. 
 Reason is the necessary mediator between God and man, 
 the Xo'yo? 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 
 
FRANCE. 73 
 
 ■ 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 demon- 
 strated 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 dis- 
 carding the convictions of its kind. Leave out the ex- 
 ceptions which appear from time to time in certain 
 critical periods uf 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 pur- 
 posely 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 
 
74 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 philos- 
 ophy 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 philoso- 
 phy 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 ulti- 
 mately 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 
 
FRANCE. 75 
 
 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 cultiva- 
 tion 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 con- 
 science ! 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. 
 
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 great- 
 ness. He was the " eternal youth," the " divine child." 
 The brilliant men of his period acknowledged his sur- 
 passing 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, metaphy- 
 sician, philosopher, theologian, divine, critic, expositor, 
 dreamer, soliloquizer ; in all eloquent, in all intense. 
 The effect he produced on the minds of his contempo- 
 raries will scarcely be believed now. At present he is 
 little more than a name : his books are pronounced un- 
 
TRANSCENDENTALISM. 77 
 
 readable ; his opinions are not quoted as authority ; his 
 force is spent. But in 185 1, Thomas Carlyle, then past 
 the years of his enthusiasm, and verging on the scorn- 
 ful 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 char- 
 acter, 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 endow- 
 ment 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 
 
78 ENGLAND. 
 
 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 commu- 
 nicated 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 fol- 
 lowing 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. 
 
ENGLAND. 79 
 
 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 lan- 
 guage 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 con- 
 dition that he should pay my journey and my wife's to 
 and from Jena, a cheap German University where 
 Schiller resides, and allow nje 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. Schel- 
 
8o TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 ling'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 them- 
 selves at once to Coleridge, who was a born idealist, of au** 
 dacious genius, speculative, imaginative, original, capable 
 of any such abstract achievement as the German under- 
 took. 
 
 ** 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 affec- 
 tionate reverence for the labors of Behmen and other 
 
ENGLAND. 8 1 
 
 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 unequivo- 
 cally 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 philosophi- 
 cal 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 import- 
 ant 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 think- 
 ing, or whether he was merely the medium for commu- 
 nicating 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 elabo- 
 
82 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 rate introduction to the " Biographia Literaria," edition 
 of 1847, by the poet's son. 
 
 Coleridge was a pure Transcendentalist, of the Schell- 
 ing school. The transcendental phrases came over and 
 over in book and conversation, " reason" and "under- 
 standing," "intuition," "necessary truths," "consci- 
 ousness," and the rest that were used to described the 
 •supersensual world and the faculties by which it was 
 made visible. He shall speak for himself. The follow- 
 ing passage from the " Biographia Literaria," Chapter 
 XII., will be sufficiently intelligible to those who have 
 read the previous chapters, or enough of them to com- 
 prehend their cardinal ideas : 
 
 " The criterion is this : if a man receives as funda- 
 mental 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 ele- 
 ments, with plausible subordination and apt arrange- 
 ment ; 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 scicntia 
 seientiarum, 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 ©f 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. 
 
ENGLAND, 83 
 
 " 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 reflec- 
 tion and /^-presentation on the one hand, and on the 
 other from those flights of lawless speculation which, 
 abandoned by all distinct consciousness, because trans- 
 gressing 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 inhabi- 
 tants. 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 as- 
 cents 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 pow r er. But in all 
 ages there have been a few who, measuring and sounding 
 the rivers of the vale at the feet of their farthest inacces- 
 sible 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 
 
84 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 involu- 
 crum for a?itennce 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 contem- 
 plate 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 impos- 
 sibility of attaining a fuller knowledge has not been 
 demonstrated. That the common consciousness itself 
 will furnish proofs by its own direction that it is con- 
 nected with master currents below the surface, I shall 
 merely assume as a postulate pro tempore. . . . On the 
 
ENGLAND. 85 
 
 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 sur- 
 rounding 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 inter- 
 rupted, 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 phan- 
 toms, the mere refractions from unseen and distant 
 truths through the distorting medium of his own unen- 
 livened and stagnant understanding ! To remain unin- 
 telligible 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 iiuicr sense, 
 and cannot, like geometry, appropriate to every con- 
 struction 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 im- 
 
86 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 propriety, 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 practi- 
 cally 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 uni- 
 versally 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. 
 I. Either the Objective is taken as primary, and then 
 we have to account for the supervention of the Subjec- 
 tive 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 ground- 
 less indeed ; but then in the very idea' it precludes all 
 ground, and, separated from the immediate conscious- 
 ness, loses its whole sense and import. It is ground- 
 less ; 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 with- 
 out us, which from its nature cannot be immediately 
 certain — should be received as blindly and as independ- 
 ently of all grounds as the existence of our own being, 
 
ENGLAND. 87 
 
 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 prin- 
 ciples 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 genera- 
 tion, by this means, would have been insignificant ; for 
 his expositions were fragmentary ; his thoughts were 
 too swift and tumultuous in their flow to be systemati- 
 cally arranged ; his style, forcible and luminous in pas- 
 sages, is interrupted by too frequent episodes, excursions 
 and explanatory parentheses, to be enjoyed by the inex- 
 pert. 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, salva- 
 tion. He meditated endless books on these themes, 
 and, in special, one " On the Logos," which was to re- 
 move 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, 
 
58 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 theol- 
 ogy, 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 iti 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 — in- 
 consistent with any just view and deep sense of the 
 moral and spiritual being of man. He was mainly con- 
 cerned 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." 
 
ENGLAND. 89 
 
 This explains the interest which young and enthu- 
 siastic 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 sub- 
 stituting 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 repub- 
 lished 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 Cam- 
 bridge, 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 in- 
 terest 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 char- 
 
90 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 acterized 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 be- 
 fore 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. 
 II y a des impressions que ni le temps ni les cir Constances 
 pcuvcnt effacer. DiLSse je vivre des siecles entiers, le 
 doux temps de ma jeunesse ne petit renaitre ponr moi, ni 
 s effacer jamais dans ma memoire. When 1 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 dis- 
 tinct, 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 
 
ENGLAND. 9 1 
 
 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 excur- 
 sion, 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 Phi- 
 losophy had met together, Truth and Genius had em- 
 braced, 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, 1 8 17 ; "as favorable to the book as could be ex- 
 pected," the editor quietly says. The numberless varieties 
 of judgment were represented in the Dublin University 
 
92 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 Magazine, British and Foreign Quarterly, Fraser, Black- 
 wood, 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 Bib- 
 liotheca Sacra. The New York Review, the American 
 Quarterly, American Whig Review, all made contribu- 
 tions to the Coleridgian literature,* 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 Cole- 
 ridge. 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 modi- 
 fied by them. They insensibly transplanted establish- 
 ments and creeds from old to new regions. 
 
 In 1 85 1, Thomas Carlyle burlesqued Coleridge, took 
 off his solemn oracular manner, made fun of his "plain- 
 
 See for references. Poole's Index to Periodical Literature. 
 
ENGLAND. 93 
 
 tive snuffle and sing-song," his "om-m-ject and sum-m- 
 ject," his " talk not flowing any whither 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 intelligi- 
 bility ; 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 " diz- 
 zying 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 con- 
 siderable frequency, as well as much eloquence, the dis- 
 tinction 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 col- 
 ors the promises it held forth, prophesied earnestly 
 respecting the better time for literature, art, social ethics 
 and religious faith it would bring in, preached tem- 
 pestuously 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 wel- 
 
94 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 corned 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 revela- 
 tion 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 tremen- 
 dous strength of feeling, his youth., as is the case with men 
 of feeling, was romantic, enthusiastic, hopeful, exube- 
 rant ; 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. 
 
ENGLAND. 95 
 
 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, hu- 
 mane, 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 ada- 
 mant, and the laws of material appearance only its allu- 
 vial 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 philoso- 
 phy made vital with sentiment and purpose. 
 
 Carlyle early learned the German language, as Coleridge 
 
96 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 did, and drank deep from the fountains of its best litera- 
 ture. To him it opened a new world of thought, which 
 the ordinary Englishman had no conception of. Cole- 
 ridge 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 Beh- 
 men, 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 gorgeous- 
 ness of color, the wealth was too much for him ; it pall- 
 ed at last on his appetite, and he experienced a reaction 
 similar to that of the sensualist whose delirium first per- 
 suades 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 sui- 
 cide by plunging into the currents of instinctive nature 
 that sweep us we know not whither " — we are not con- 
 cerned. His interest for us ceases with his moral en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 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 be- 
 
ENGLAND. 97 
 
 tween them which Wordsworth did not acknowledge, 
 but which Coleridge more than suspected and tried to 
 divulge. One chapter in the first volume of the " Biog- 
 raphia 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 Words- 
 worth's psychological faith into sympathy with his own. 
 
 Wordsworth's genius has furnished critics with mate- 
 rials 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 sug- 
 gested 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 mag- 
 gazine, April, 1843, contains an article on "Europe 
 and European Books" in which occurs the following tri- 
 bute to Wordsworth : 
 
 "The capital merit of Wordsw r orth is that he has 
 5 
 
98 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 lus- 
 trous 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 at- 
 tempt to reconcile these with the spirit of fashion and 
 selfishness, nor to show, with great deference to the su- 
 perior judgment of dukes and earls, that although London 
 was the home for men of great parts, yet Westmore- 
 land had these consolations for such as fate had condemn- 
 ed 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 an- 
 tagonism 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 litera- 
 ture, and the modes of living, and the conventional the- 
 ories of the conduct of life were called in question on 
 wholly new grounds, not from Platonism, nor from 
 
ENGLAND. 99 
 
 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 Jour- 
 nals 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, re- 
 sisting 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 lead- 
 ing 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 
 
too TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 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 inform- 
 ing 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 Words- 
 worth discusses the principles of the poetic art, he 
 wrote: "The imagination is conscious of an indestruct- 
 ible 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 
 
ENGLAND. ioi 
 
 a presumptive evidence of a future state of existence, and 
 giving him a title to partake of its holiness. The reli- 
 gious 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 Recollec- 
 tions of Early Childhood," was a clear reminiscence of 
 Platonism. This famous poem w r as the favorite above 
 all other effusions of Wordsworth with the Transcendent- 
 alists, 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." 
 
102 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 Vernich- 
 tung." 
 
 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 Schell- 
 
 ing. 
 
 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 ! 
 
ENGLAND. 103 
 
 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 pro- 
 testantism of the land of Luther. But these three names 
 will suffice to indicate the wealth of England's contribu- 
 tion 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 quo- 
 ted, 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. Words- 
 worth from year to year had a diminishing proportion of 
 admirers : from year to year the admirers of Tennyson 
 
104 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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: lt 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 
 re-lish 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 re- 
 action from artificial forms of sensibility, and having en- 
 joyed its day, submitted to the law of change that called 
 it into being. The moral earnestness, the mystic ideal- 
 ism became unpopular along with the school of philoso- 
 phy from which it sprung, and gave place to the real- 
 ism 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 phil- 
 osophy, 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 wonlen 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 Trans- 
 cendentalism, 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 
 5* 
 
106 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 aristo- 
 cracies of intellect, no privileged classes of thought 
 were established. The old world supplied such litera- 
 ture 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 re- 
 spected enough to be defied — but in innocent uncon- 
 sciousness 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 him- 
 self on the spot by building an engine, and setting some- 
 thing 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 
 
NEW ENGLAND. 107 
 
 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 foun- 
 dations 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 Schel- 
 ling, 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 the- 
 ology too had its purely spiritual side — nay, it was essen- 
 tially 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 
 
108 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 in its essence and tendency, communicated this char- 
 acter to Christian speculation. The skeletons of an- 
 cient 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 be- 
 come 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 commu- 
 nication between the soul of the believer and its Christ 
 was so earnestly insisted on, the sympathy was repre- 
 sented 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 specula- 
 tive 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, when- 
 ever 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 charac- 
 
NEW ENGLAND. 109 
 
 ter which in New England provoked the Unitarian 
 reaction. The beliefs in scripture inspiration, incar- 
 nation, atonement, election, predestination, depravity, 
 fall, regeneration, redemption, deprived of their interior 
 meaning, became ragged heaps of dogmatism, unbeauti- 
 ful, 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, w r as 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, di'sciples 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. 
 
no TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 The Unitarians of New England, good scholars* dareful 
 reasoners, clear and exact thinkers, accomplished .men 
 of letters, humane in sentiment, sincere in moral inten- 
 tion, belonged, of course with individual exceptions, to 
 the class which looked without for knowledge, rather 
 than wifhin 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, cultiva- 
 ted 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, Did- 
 erot or Voltaire, those fierce disturbers of intellectual 
 peace ; he had as little with William Law and Cole- 
 ridge, dreamers and visionaries, who substituted vapor 
 for solid earth. The Unitarian leaders were distin- 
 guished 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 
 
NE W ENGLAND. 1 1 1 
 
 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 essen- 
 tially 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 con- 
 nection 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 
 
1 1 2 TRANS CENDENTALISM. 
 
 aspiration which prompts men to seek a perfect know- 
 ledge 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 spiritual- 
 ists (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 aquaint- 
 ance 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 
 
NEW ENGLAND. 113 
 
 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 im- 
 planted for Himself. Through this the human mind cor- 
 responds 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, per- 
 vades 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 princi- 
 ple." 
 
 " 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 elevatio-n 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 pro- 
 gress, such as cannot be now conceived." 
 
 The debt which Transcendentalism owed to Unitarian- 
 ism was not speculative ; neither was it immediate or di- 
 
114 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 rect. 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 in- 
 quirers, who asked questions and waited for rational an- 
 swers, 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 em- 
 ployed. 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 sys- 
 tem, 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 litera- 
 ture 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 pos- 
 
NE W ENGLAND. l r 5 
 
 sible results of their diligent study, their powers had ac- 
 quired 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 pene- 
 trated to the citadel. 
 
 There was idealism in New England prior to the in- 
 troduction 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 anticipa- 
 ted 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 
 
n6 . TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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, trans- 
 lated 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 vol- 
 umes ; the first and second comprising philosophical 
 miscellanies by Cousin, JourTroy and Constant, translated 
 with introductions by Mr. Ripley himself; the third 
 devoted to Goethe and Schiller, with elaborate and dis- 
 criminating prefaces by John S. Dwight ; the fourth 
 giving Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe, done 
 into English by Margaret Fuller; the three next contain- 
 ing Menzel's German Literature, by Prof. C. C. Felton ; 
 the eighth and ninth introducing Win. H. Channing's 
 version of JoufTroy'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 re- 
 
NE W ENGLAND. 1 1 7 
 
 markably 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 repre- 
 sented 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 domin- 
 inion 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 Konigsberg, 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 
 
n8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 ; Chat- 
 eaubriand 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; bothjoved 
 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 
 
NE W ENGL AND. 1 1 9 
 
 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 li inquire after the 
 highest good is as absurd as to dispute whether the best 
 relish be in apples, plums or nuts." Penn esteemed hap- 
 piness 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 cer- 
 tainly right to eat and drink, and enjoy what we delight 
 in.' Penn, like Plato and Fenelon, maintained the doc- 
 trine 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 sum- 
 moned 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 Tran- 
 scendentalism regards it as a natural endowment of the 
 human mind, the two are fundamentally opposed while 
 superficially in agreement. However this may be, the 
 
120 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 state- 
 ment, 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 u The Philos- 
 ophy of Man's Spiritual Nature in regard to the found- 
 ations of Faith," wherein he took frankly the transcen- 
 dental ground, contending : 
 
 " That the existence of those spiritual faculties and ca- 
 pacities 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 develop- 
 ment of these spiritual faculties and capacities, is as much 
 a reality in itself, and enters as essentially into our idei 
 of a perfect man, as the corresponding manifestation 
 and development of the reasoning faculties, a sense of 
 
NEW ENGLAND. 12 r 
 
 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 suscept- 
 ible 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 transcend- 
 ental 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 
 
122 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 Schleier- 
 macher ; in France, by Cousin, JoufTroy 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 Trans- 
 cendentalism if they can, but they must first deign to 
 comprehend its principles," the most conservative began 
 to surmise that there must be something in Transcend- 
 entalism. 
 
 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 
 
NEW ENGLAND. 123 
 
 in this Olympus of gods, Ave 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 
 
124 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 pass- 
 ages 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 proposi- 
 tion 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 main- 
 tain that we are conscious, or have an intuitive know- 
 ledge 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." 
 
NEW ENGLAND. 125 
 
 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 con- 
 tradicted 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 per- 
 ceiving 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 
 
1 2 6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 Previous Question " after a fashion that betrayed the 
 practised' thinker and scribe. Mr. Parker occupied sub- 
 stantially 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 funda- 
 mental 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 es- 
 sential to the structure of man's mind or body pre- 
 supposes 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 
 
NE W ENGLAND. 1 2 J 
 
 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 "Trans- 
 cendentalists," 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, B'pston. 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 Imman- 
 uel Kant of Konigsberg, 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 experi- 
 ence 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 nomencla- 
 ture in Europe and America, to that extent that what- 
 ever 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. 
 
128 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 He wishes that the spiritual principle should be suffered 
 to demonstrate itself to the end, in all possible applica- 
 tions to the state of man, without the admission of any- 
 thing 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 Unitarian- 
 ism 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 Coryphceus 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 asser- 
 tion was immense ; his thoughts came in floods ; his 
 literary style was admirable for freshness, terseness 
 and vigor. Of rational stability of principle he had 
 
NE W ENGLAND. 1 2 9 
 
 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 educa- 
 tion 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 Super- 
 naturalism 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 
 
130 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 Constant's, "attending to those things that I could 
 appropriate to my purposes." In 1836 he organized the 
 M 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 corrup- 
 tions 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 estab- 
 lishment of just relations between man and man, the 
 institution of a simply human state of society. 
 
 11 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 Transcenden- 
 talists of the advanced school. 
 
NEW ENGLAND. 131 
 
 "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 any- 
 thing 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 con- 
 ceptions 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 univers- 
 ality 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 extraor- 
 
1 3 2 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 dinary 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 Transcendental- 
 ism " 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 demon- 
 stration 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 Mar- 
 garet 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 XlXth century." Bronson 
 
NEW ENGLAND. 133 
 
 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 charac- 
 ter, 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 them- 
 selves heard amid the din of the later generation, made 
 
134 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 ? 
 
NEW ENGLAND. 135 
 
 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 Tris- 
 megistus, the Chaldaean 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 lt Scriptures " argued a most extra- 
 ordinary 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 presentment 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, neces- 
 sarily, 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 
 
1 3 6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 des- 
 potic times made patriot Catos and Brutuses ; failing 
 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; theoreti- 
 cally 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 
 
NEW ENGLAND. 137 
 
 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 fon.honor- 
 able names. The writers, let us hope, did the best they 
 knew, and it would be unkind to expose the theologi- 
 cal 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 
 
13% TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 Abso- 
 lute, 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 
 it? relation to Humanity, and thus deprive it of its 
 usefulness." 
 
 We quote this passage not merely to show how inevita- 
 bly the best intentioned critics of Transcendentalism fell 
 into sarcasm, nor to illustrate the species of error into 
 which the " Sensational " philosophy betrayed even can- 
 did 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 preju- 
 
NEW ENGLAND. 139 
 
 dice that Transcendentalists were visionaries and enthu- 
 siasts, 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 impract- 
 icable ; 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 Transcend- 
 entalists for ancient philosophers, and this expresses the 
 judgment of " sensible men" of the last generation, on 
 
140 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 Transcendentalism. It was not perceived that the two 
 schools of philosophy aimed at producing the same 
 results, but by different methods ; that the " Sensation- 
 alist" 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 circum- 
 stances, 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 circum- 
 stances 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 strenous 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, 
 
NEW ENGLAND. 141 
 
 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 gener- 
 ation 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 appeal- 
 ing 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 com- 
 petitions of the market and the caucus, and betake them- 
 selves 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 per- 
 ish 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*%riting 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 mem- 
 bers 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 143 
 
 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 eitht * 
 complete or comprehensive. They who read it in the 
 lecture on '* The Transcendentalist " must be careful to 
 notice Mr. Emerson's qualifications, that .' this retire- 
 ment does not proceed from any whim on the part of the 
 separators;" that " this part is chosen both from tern- > 
 perament 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 human- 
 ities 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 ot 
 idle, dreamy, useless people — as " Sensationalism " pro- 
 duced 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 endow- 
 ment what "Evangelical" Christianity ascribes to the 
 few as a special gift of the Spirit. This faith comes to 
 
1 44 TAANS CENDEXTALISM. 
 
 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, — litera- 
 ture 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 con- 
 vince him he is not, despite of all the thoughts which 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 145 
 
 would strive to unman him. There is a spirit in man. an 
 inspiration from the Almighty. What is, is. The eter- 
 nal 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 ; pro- 
 ducts, 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 Eter- 
 nal. 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, y^ 
 
 "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 spirit- 
 ual 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 
 7 
 
146 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 a.ioat, and naif 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 147 
 
 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." * * * -n 
 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 ade- 
 quately 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 
 
 
148 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 endur- 
 ance 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 
 
* PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 149 
 
 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 attain- 
 ment 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 selfish- 
 ness, 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 Tran- 
 scendentalist ; and even were it true of him as a Tran- 
 scendentalism 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 
 
15° TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 human- 
 ity 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, sym- 
 pathy and spirituality, not as incidental ingredients, but 
 as essential qualities. Self-hood they never identified 
 with selfishness ; nor did they ever confound or associ- 
 ate 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 inaugur- 
 ating the theory and practice of dietetics which is 
 preached so assiduously now by enlightened physiol- 
 ogists. 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 151 
 
 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, so- 
 briety, 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 
 
152 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 what- 
 soever 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, cherish- 
 ing the justice which animals claim at men's hands, nor 
 slaughtering them for food or profit." " A purer civil- 
 ization 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 153 
 
 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 j 
 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 I 
 potato. And what if the potatoes be small ! The philos-^-^ 
 opher'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, cheer- 
 fulness, 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 doc- 
 trine 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 
 5* 
 
154 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 par- 
 ticular 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, Herrn- 
 hiitters, 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 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 155 
 
 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 regenera- 
 tion, 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 im- 
 pulse of a day, but commensurate with human existence : 
 a tendency towards perfection of being. " The Transcen- 
 dentalist 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 pro- 
 cess of regeneration. 
 
 This fine positive purpose appeared in all he under- 
 took. With movements that did not start from this prim- 
 ary 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 
 
1 5 6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 believ- 
 er 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 Transcendentalisms 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 circum- 
 stance. 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 1 57 
 
 in the scheme was resented; no sincerity, no keenness of 
 criticism, no exposure of existing evils or indignation of 
 protest against then, disarmed the jealousy of endeavors 
 to reconstruct society, as if human beings were piles 
 of brick or lumps of mortar. 
 
 In 1 841 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 com- 
 mended ; 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 con- 
 ciliatory 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 de- 
 clared, " 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 
 
1 5 8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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, ot Froudhon 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 independ- 
 ence. 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 159 
 
 CONSTITUTION. 
 
 In order more effectually to promote the great pur- 
 poses 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 orgnization in- 
 accordance with the laws of Divine Providence ; to sub- 
 stitute a system of brotherly cooperation for one of selfish ^ 
 competition ; to secure to our children and those who may 
 be entrusted to our care, the benefits of the highest phys- 
 ical, intellectual and moral education, which in the pro- 
 gress of knowledge the resources at our command will 
 permit; to institute an attractive, efficient, and productive v 
 system of industry ; to prevent the exercise of worldly 
 anxiety, by the competent supply of our necessary wants ; 
 tL drnin'sh the derire ofexcepsive 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 spiri- 
 tual 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 fol- 
 lowing articles of agreement, to wit : 
 
 ARTICLE I. 
 NAME AND MEMBERSHIP. 
 
 Sec. I. The name of this Association shall be " THE 
 Brook-Farm Association for Industry and Edu- 
 cation. " All persons who shall hold one or more 
 shares in its stock, or whose labor and skill shall be con- 
 sidered an equivalent for capital, may be admitted by 
 the vote of two-thirds of the Association, as members 
 thereof. 
 
160 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 As- 
 sociation, 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 found- 
 ed ; and in such cases the relation of any member may be 
 suspended or discontinued, at the pleasure of the Asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 ARTICLE II. 
 
 CAPITAL STOCK. 
 
 Sec. I. The members of this Association shall own 
 and manage such real and personal estate in joint stock 
 proprietorship, divided into shares of one hundred dol- 
 lars each, as may from time to time be agreed on. 
 
 SEC. 2. No shareholder shall be liable to any assess- 
 ment 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 authori- 
 ty to do any thing which shall impose personal responsi- 
 bility 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 share- 
 holder 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 settle- 
 ment from the time of investment. 
 
 SEC. 4. The shareholders on their part, for them- 
 selves, their heirs and assigns, do renounce all claim on 
 any profits accruing to the Association for the use of 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 161 
 
 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. I. The Association shall provide such employ- 
 ment 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 mem- 
 bers, 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 pro- 
 vided 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. 
 
1 62 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 ARTICLE IV. 
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF PROFITS. 
 
 Sec. i 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. I. The government of the Association shall be 
 vested in a board of Directors, divided into four depart- 
 ments, as follows ; 1st, General Direction ; 2d, Direction 
 of Education ; 3d, Direction of Industry ; 4th, Direc- 
 tion 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 163 
 
 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 man- 
 age the affairs of the Association, so that every depart- 
 ment 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 or- 
 ganization of the department. No Directors or other of- 
 ficers shall be deemed to possess any rank superior to 
 the other members of the Association, nor shall they re- 
 ceive 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 con- 
 sist of three primary series ; to wit, Agricultural, Me- 
 chanical, 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 
 
1 64 TRANS CENDENTALISM. 
 
 the purpose ; and if approved by two-thirds of the mem- 
 bers 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 
 cooperation 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 165 
 
 was the rule that all should labor — choosing their occu- 
 pations, 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 
 
1 6 6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 be open on the same terms to every member of the asso- 
 ciation. The principle of cooperation 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 settle- 
 ment 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 consider- 
 able 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, aesthetics, occupied the busy hours. The most 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 167 
 
 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 differ- 
 ent. 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 
 
1 68 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 con- 
 dition, 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 Rip- 
 ley, Minot Pratt, and Charles Anderson Dana, publish- 
 ed a statement, declaring: that every step had strength- 
 ened 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 judg- 
 ment, 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 169 
 
 unity commanded their unqualified assent, and that their 
 whole observation had satisfied them of the practical ar- 
 rangements which he deduced therefrom, of the corres- 
 pondence of the law of groups and series with the law of 
 human nature. At this time the farm contained two hun- 
 dred 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 satis- 
 factory working condition ; the Department of Education, 
 on which much thought had been bestowed, was flourish- 
 ing. 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 In- 
 dustry, 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 "w r ith 
 the magnificence and permanence proper to such a 
 structure." The prospect was, or looked, encouraging. 
 8 
 
1 70 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 The experiment had been tested by the hard discipline 
 of more than two years ; the severest difficulties had ap- 
 parently 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 Association- 
 ists 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 coal- 
 ition, 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 Phalan- 
 stery 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 Rox- 
 bury, and afterwards passed into private hands. During 
 the civil war the government used it for military pur- 
 poses. 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, contin- 
 ued their labors of propagandism by means of the " Har- 
 binger/' till that expired : then their dream faded away. 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 171 
 
 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 im- 
 pressions of country rambles, conversations, discussions, 
 social festivities, recount the comical mishaps, summon 
 the shadows of friends dead, but unforgotten, and de- 
 scribe the hours spent in study or recreation, unspoiled 
 by carefulness. But it. is in private alone that these confi- 
 dences 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 
 1 841, and his note-books contain passages that are of 
 interest. But Hawthorne's temperament was not con- 
 genial 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 so- 
 liloquies, 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 
 
172 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 reflect- 
 ive 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 1 73 
 
 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 nth. 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, 
 
174 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 
 V 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 un- 
 suitable, and therefore an unreal one. It already looks 
 like a dream behind me. The real Me was never an as- 
 sociate of the community ; there had been a spectral Ap- 
 pearance 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 175 
 
 mind. In the "Blithedale Romance," Hawthorne dis- 
 claimed 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 — cer- 
 tainly the most romantic episode of his own life — essen- 
 tially a day dream, and yet a fact — thus offering an avail- 
 able foothold between fiction and reality," merely sup- 
 plied the scenery for the romance. More than twenty 
 y<ears have passed since Hawthorne's appeal to his asso- 
 ciates, but it has not been answered. 
 
 The characteristic nature of transcendental reform was 
 exhibited in the temper of its agitation for the enfran- 
 chisement 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 philoso- 
 phy. 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 
 
1 76 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 demoral- 
 izing 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 hope- 
 lessness in regard to the complete and perfect justifica- 
 tion of their being, was, in hisjudgment — 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 
 XlXth Century," which contains all that is best worth 
 saying on the subject, has been the storehouse of argu- 
 ment 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 ; every- 
 thing that follows, or may be honestly and rationally 
 held as following in the course of her intellectual develop- 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 1J7 
 
 ment. But she claims it by rigorous fidelity to a philos- 
 ophical 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 argu- 
 ment 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 noth- 
 ing 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 aspir- 
 ation, — 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. 
 
 I 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 col- 
 lision, 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 
 
1 78 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 freedom for woman as much as for man, shall be ac- 
 knowledged 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 thread- 
 bare 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 mani- 
 fested in their mythologies and poems, where she ap- 
 peared as Sita in the Ramayana, a form of tender puri- 
 ty ; in the Egyptian Isis, of divine wisdom never yet sur- 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 179 
 
 passed. 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 pos- 
 sessed by immortal souls ? This truth undoubtedly re- 
 ceived 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 
 
i8o TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 passion- 
 ate error ; they must be severe lawgivers to themselves. 
 As to their transgressions of opinions, it maybe observed, 
 that the resolve of Eloise to be only the mistress of 
 Abelard, was that of one who saw the contract of mar- 
 riage 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 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, noble- 
 ness, 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 care- 
 fully towards their execution. The Sensationalist dis- 
 trusted the seer, rejected the prophet, and disliked the 
 reformer. His aim was law ; his work within easy dis- 
 
 
l82 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 tance ; 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 enlight- 
 ened 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 regen- 
 eration is supposed to be in the soul itself, which is pos- 
 sessed 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 
 
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 183 
 
 boundless enthusiasm and hope ; hence the order of 
 his feeling, the glow of his language. Hence his dis- 
 position 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 philoso- 
 phy 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 signifi- 
 cance 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 Christ- 
 ian system alone, but natural religion, and the ideal 
 foundation of morality. The writings of Collins, Dod- 
 well, Mandeville, expressed more skepticism than they 
 
RELIGION. i»5 
 
 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 an- 
 swer it was a confession of alarm from the heart of the 
 church. The famous XVIth chapter of Gibbon's "De- 
 cline and Fall of the Roman Empire " was assailed furi- 
 ously, 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 seven- 
 teenth 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 be- 
 liefs 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, re- 
 spectability, and tradition, the popular beliefs would 
 have all but disappeared, so deep into the heart of the 
 
1 86 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 people unbelief had penetrated. The church stoad fast, 
 because it was allied with power and fashion, not be- 
 cause 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 expedi- 
 ency ; God was a probability ; the immortality of the 
 soul a possibility, a supplement to skepticism, an appen- 
 dix to a philosophy which, finding no God here, pre- 
 sumed there must be one hereafter. There is no more 
 soulless reading than the works of the Christian apolo- 
 gists 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 litera- 
 tures. Her very skepticism, the much talked-of ra- 
 tionalism, had an ideal origin. Strauss was a disciple 
 of Hegel. Bauer, and the "historical school" of Tubin- 
 gen worked out their problem of New Testament criti- 
 cism 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 intellec- 
 tual development of mankind, Christianity, though de- 
 throned and disenchanted, was dignified as a supreme 
 moment in the autobiography of God. 
 
RELIGION. 187 
 
 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 " Encyclopae- 
 dists," the most brilliant men and women of the genera- 
 tion, 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 immor- 
 tality, 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 — re- 
 ceived a severe blow in France from these audacious 
 hands. Religion took refuge in institutions and cere- 
 monial forms ; and there remained little else except a 
 
1 8 8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 kernel of sentiment in a thin shell of tradition. What 
 beliefs were entertained were accepted on authority ; 
 reason sought other fields of exercise, scientific, philo- 
 sophical, 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 intel- 
 ligence. The habit of thinking independently of author- 
 ity 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 "sensa- 
 tional " philosophy, it was contended, could not supply 
 a basis for faith. Its first principle was "Nihil in intel- 
 lect-it quod 11011 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 sensa- 
 tional philosophy of Locke and his disciples give us any- 
 thing approaching to a certainty of the existence of God ? 
 The senses furnish no evidence of it. God is not an 
 
RELIGION. 189 
 
 object of sensation. He is not seen, felt, heard, tasted 
 or smelt. The objects of sense are material, local,, inci- 
 dental ; 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? Kow 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, hear- 
 ing 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 proba- 
 bility 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 attrib- 
 utes 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 
 
190 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 reconcile, puzzles we cannot explain, mysteries we can- 
 not 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 good- 
 ness, an infusion of loving-kindness is in the world is 
 evident ; but to show that, is to go very little way to- 
 wards establishing the attributes of a Perfect Being. 
 A God of limited power, wisdom or goodness, is no 
 God, and no other does Sensationalism offer. Trans- 
 cendentalism 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 good- 
 ness ; a direct perception like that which the senses have 
 of material objects ; a perception that gains in distinct- 
 ness, 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 revel- 
 ation came in bursts of glory. The experiences of 
 inspired men and women were repeated. The prophet, 
 
RELIGION. I9 1 
 
 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 ar- 
 gument from design, so carefully elaborated by Paley, 
 Brougham and the Writers of the " Bridgewater Treat- 
 ises," 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 1 
 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 in- 
 exorable love. It was certain that all was well, appear- 
 
192 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 ances 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 prin- 
 ciple, he had no hesitation in going into caves and among 
 
RELIGION. 193 
 
 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 immortal- 
 ity 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 im- 
 mortality. Here, too, its fundamental axiom, "Nihil in 
 intellects quod 11011 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 sen- 
 sational 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, con- 
 ditioned by it in all respects, must perish with organiza- 
 tion, 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 philoso- 
 phy, 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 
 9 
 
194 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 in- 
 tellectual 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 re- 
 surrection 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 
 
RELIGION. 195 
 
 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 sen- 
 tence 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. Use- 
 ful they may be for pulpit declamation and closet dis- 
 cussion ; serviceable on funeral occasions and in 
 chambers of sorrow ; available for purposes of moral 
 impression; but inspiring they are not; actively sustain- 
 ing and consoling they are not. Their effect on the 
 conduct of life is almost imperceptible. They are ap- 
 pendages 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 immortali- 
 ty out of these incidental and doubtful associations, and 
 making it a constituent element in the constitution of 
 
196 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 Transcen- 
 dentalism as this ; none was so steadfastly assumed, so 
 constantly borne in view. Immortality was here a pos- 
 tulate, a first principle. Theodore Parker called it a fact 
 of consciousness — the intensity of his conviction render- 
 ing 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 ar- 
 gument 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 assur- 
 ance of immortality was as strong as Theodore Parker's. 
 The objections of materialists did not in the least dis- 
 turb 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 
 
RELIGION. 197 
 
 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 char- 
 acter ; established an organic connection between the 
 present life and the future, making them both one in sub- 
 stance ; disabused people of the coarse notion that the 
 next life was an incident of their experience, and com- 
 pelled 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 " Phcedon " was supplemented by 
 new readings in psychology, and strengthened by power- 
 ful 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 subor- 
 dinate 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 re- 
 spected 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 in- 
 stant 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 
 
198 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 to the belief in immortality, than by rendering the pros- 
 pect 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 transcen- 
 dental 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 cir- 
 cumstance, and crying for peace out of affliction ; the bio- 
 graphies 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 super- 
 
RELIGION. 199 
 
 natural realities. Their Transcendentalism amounted 
 merely to this, that man had a natural capacity for 
 receiving supernatural truths, when presented by revela- 
 tion. 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, legiti- 
 mate and enthrone them, they denied. The soul, accord- 
 ing 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. Ac- 
 cording to him, the seeds of truth, if not the out- 
 line 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, ac- 
 cording to the Transcendentalist, the spiritual being of 
 man — which apparently is a heap of lifeless ashes on the 
 
200 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 re- 
 garded 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 land- 
 scape, and of the cheerful day." When, in 1840, Theo- 
 dore Parker wrote his "Levi Blodgett " letter, he 
 
RELIGION. 20 1 
 
 believed in miracles, the miracles of the New Testa- 
 ment and many others besides, more than the Christians 
 about him were willing to accept. 
 
 i( 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 im- 
 possible 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 un- 
 certain, 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 mar- 
 vels, 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 with- 
 out 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 alto- 
 gether inadequate to sustain their credibility. The 
 theory of Bauer and his disciples of the Tubingen school 
 seemed to him unanswerable, and he abandoned, as a 
 
 scholar, much that as a Transcendentalist he might have 
 9* 
 
202 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 im- 
 perfectly 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 com- 
 monly attributed to the Holy Spirit. The pure Trans- 
 cendentalist 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 
 
RELIGION. 203 
 
 a revival meeting. The demonstrations of feeling were 
 in fact, precisely similar ; only in the one case the excite- 
 ment 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 por- 
 tion 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 spiritu- 
 ally 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 the 
 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 
 
204 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 i 
 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 re- 
 sponded: "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 Trans- 
 cendentalism, 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 move- 
 ment in the line of observation is the final one ; that 
 
RELIGION. 205 
 
 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 cen- 
 tury, been revived and restated with great power by Mill, 
 Bain, Spencer, Taine, and other leaders of speculative op- 
 inion both in England and Europe. Recent discoveries 
 and generalizations in physical science have lent counten- 
 ance to them. The investigations in physiology and biol- 
 ogy, 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, 
 
206 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 sen- 
 sation, 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 d 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 con- 
 tents of the mind. Lewes, Spencer, Tyndall have 
 approached the same problem from the side of organ- 
 ization. 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 agree- 
 ment with Bain. 
 
 In the article on Coleridge, published in the London 
 and Westminister Review, March, 1840, and repub- 
 lished in the second volume of " Dissertations and Dis- 
 cussions," 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 : 
 
RELIGION. 207 
 
 " 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 expe- 
 rience 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, there- 
 fore, 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 Philoso- 
 phy, he still more emphatically expressed his dissent 
 from Schelling, Cousin, and every school of idealism, re- 
 jecting the doctrine of intuitive knowledge ; taking the 
 eternal ground from beneath the ideas of the Infinite 
 and Absolute ; sharply questioning the well-conceded in- 
 terpretations of consciousness; resolving the "first prin- 
 ciples" into mental habits; and even going so far as to 
 doubt whether twice two necessarily made four.* 
 
 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 hostili- 
 
 * Vol. 1, page 89, 90. 
 
2o8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 ty to the intuitive philosophy must be obvious even -to 
 unpractised minds. The atomic theory of the constitu- 
 tion of matter, which, in one or another form, is accepted 
 by the majority of scientific men, gives ominous predic- 
 tion of disaster to every scheme that is built on the ne- 
 cessary 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 :* 
 
 " That every mental state has a nervous state for its 
 immediate antecedent, though extremely probable, can- 
 not hitherto be said to be proved, in the conclusive man- 
 ner 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 
 maybe derivative laws resulting from laws of animal life, 
 and that their truth, therefore, may ultimately depend 
 on physical conditions ; and the influence of physiologi- 
 cal states or physiological changes in altering or counter- 
 acting the mental successions, is one of the most import- 
 ant 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 
 
 * Logic, p. 591. Amer. Edition. 
 
RELIGION. 209 
 
 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." 
 
 In a previous chapter * 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 parti- 
 cles of bodies are the conditio?ts of the production of 
 heat or light ; that certain assignable physical modifica- 
 tions 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 sup- 
 posed that by proving these things, one step would be 
 made toward a real explanation of heat, light, or sensa- 
 tion ; or that the generic peculiarity of those phenomena 
 can be in the least degree evaded by any such discov- 
 eries, 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 mo- 
 tion — 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 
 
 * Logic, p. 548. Amer. Edition. 
 
2 1 o TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 choose ; still, at the end of these motions there is some- 
 thing 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 ex- 
 planation 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 sen- 
 sible 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." 
 
 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 incon- 
 ceivable how consciousness should result from their joint 
 action." 
 
 The position of John Tyndall is well understood. It 
 was avowed in i860 in the Saturday Review ; again in 
 his address to the Mathematical and Physical Section of 
 the British Association in 1868, wherein he declared 
 that 
 
 u The passage from the physics of the brain to the cor- 
 responding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted 
 
RELIGION. 211 
 
 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 pre- 
 tends 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 : * 
 
 " 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 
 
 * Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II., p. 442. 
 
212 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 a definable amount of ideation or feeling. But this, it is 
 quite safe to say, can never be done." 
 
 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 Tyn- 
 dall's statement of the problem, declares that by 
 approaching it from another point, it is soluble, and 
 frankly undertakes to solve it,* 
 
 "When we consider closely any one of our concep- 
 tions—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 sub- 
 sists 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 t follows closely Taine's line of 
 
 argument, but developes it with more system. He too 
 quotes Tyndall, alludes to DuBois Reymond and makes 
 
 * On Intelligence, Book III., chap. I. 
 
 f Problems of Life and Mind II. pp. 410, 415. 
 
RELIGION. 213 
 
 reference to Mill. Lewes holds it to be a severe deduc- 
 tion from proven facts u that the neural process and the 
 feeling are one and the same process viewed under differ- 
 ent 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." 
 
 "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 asser- 
 tions 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 success- 
 ful at last, and be accepted by the authorities in specula- 
 tive philosophy, idealism, as a philosophy, must disap- 
 pear. 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 ; 
 
2 1 4 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 philos- 
 ophy 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 argu- 
 ments, 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 
 
RELIGION. 215 
 
 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 argu- 
 ments and affirmations in all nature of that which it is 
 driven to say ; " emotion, which contains all the possi- 
 bilities 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 spirit- 
 ual 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 
 
2 1 6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 Transcenden- 
 talists 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 con- 
 science 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 doc- 
 trine, 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 
 
RELIGION. 217 
 
 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 trans- 
 cendentalist and his adversary can dwell in amity 
 together*. 
 
 10 
 
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, a§ 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 sur- 
 prised that, being tolerably well practised in reading Eng- 
 lish, 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 charm. The man had fresh thoughts, employed a 
 living speech, was a genuine person. The book was 
 
THE SEER. 219 
 
 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 re- 
 newed — 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 pre- 
 cedence 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 com- 
 binations. From every object the lines run straight 
 out, connecting it with the central point of life. What 
 
220 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 I had hardty dared to think, it was so bold, he brings 
 forth as quietly as if it was the most familiar common- 
 place- 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 dis- 
 pute, 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 recom- 
 mended 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 con- 
 versation. She had felt that he was something remark- 
 able. She had come upon sentences, many times, that 
 opened the darkest recesses of thought. I listened 
 quietly, but made no response. Not long afterwards 
 
THE SEER. 221 
 
 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 dissen- 
 tients who did not confess the charm, and declared that 
 the enthusiasm was infatuation. Such remained uncon- 
 verted. 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 suffi- 
 ciently 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 
 
2 22 TRANS C END EN TALISM. 
 
 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 neg- 
 ative 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 gener- 
 ations 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 ideal- 
 ist 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 
 
THE SEER. 2-23 
 
 and overhead, I doubted that it was all a remembered 
 scene ; that humanity was indeed one, a spirit contin- 
 ually 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 
 
224 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 duties, falsely so called, seek to bind us, — into what help- 
 less 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 gen- 
 uine self by stopping short, refraining from every effort 
 to shape my thought after a form, and giving it bound- 
 less 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 some- 
 thing 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 ex- 
 pression 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 m Boston 
 May 25th, 1803 ; but his last volume, " Letters and So- 
 cial 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 un- 
 wearied 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 
 
THE SEER. 225 
 
 richer and more assured than ever it was. During the 
 season, of his popularity as a lyceum lecturer, the neces- 
 sity 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 con- 
 cealment ; 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 eter- 
 nal 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 ro- 
 bust 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 bal- 
 ance, unless mind heats and meliorates, as well as the 
 surface and soil of the globe." 
 
 " On this power, this all-dissolving unity, the empha- 
 sis 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 mir- 
 acles of genius always rest on profound convictions which 
 refuse to be analyzed. Enthusiasm is the leaping light- 
 ning, 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 ofTer 
 liberty instead of chains, and see whether liberty will 
 10* 
 
2 2 6 TRANS CENDENTALISM: 
 
 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; uni- 
 versal suffrage, believing that it will not carry us to 
 mobs or back to kings again." 
 
 " Every inch of the mountains is scarred by unim-, 
 aginable 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 num- 
 bers 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, impossi- 
 ble to believe. Yet the moral element in man' counter- 
 poises this dismaying immensity and bereaves it of 
 terror." 
 
 Emerson has been called the prince of Transcendental- 
 ists. 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 Tran- 
 scendental philosophy in the works of its chief expo- 
 sition. In his lecture on " The Transcendentalist," de- 
 livered in 1842, he conveys the impression that it is 
 idealism — active and protesting — an excited reaction 
 
THE SEER. 227 
 
 against formalism, tradition, and conventionalism in 
 every sphere. As such, he describes it with great vivid- 
 ness 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 descrip- 
 tion 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 be- 
 cause he doubts, but because his beliefs are so rich, va- 
 rious 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 fragmeri- 
 tariness 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 
 
228 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 the Eternal Reason. In the chapter on Worship — '.'■ Con- 
 duct 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 aeons. 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 doc- 
 trine too great to rest on any legend, that is. on any 
 man's experience but onr 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 vol- 
 ume, " 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 skepti- 
 cism 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. 
 
THE SEER. 229 
 
 He urges the delight in permanence and stability, in im- 
 mense 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 gratifi- 
 cation 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 know- 
 ledge and power, it is because life and knowledge and 
 power are good for us, and we are the natural deposi- 
 taries 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, consid- 
 ers 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 ?' 2 
 
 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 
 
230 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 real and abiding, by so many claims as from our intel- 
 lectual 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 pop- 
 ular 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 person- 
 ality 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 illu- 
 sion 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 everyone 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 dog- 
 matically will grasp a personal duration to bolster up in 
 
THE SEER. 231 
 
 cockney fashion that inward assurance, he is lost in con- 
 tradiction." 
 
 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 contro- 
 versialist. 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 con- 
 tumacious ; to declare it obsolete and useless, an impedi- 
 ment to spiritual pr6gress, a hindrance to Christian 
 growth, was to excite violent animosities, and call down 
 angry rebuke. Yet this is what Mr. Emerson deliber- 
 ately 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 un- 
 ruffled, 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 liter- 
 ature and general topics, never letting fall a hint of the 
 
232 TRANS CENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 ex- 
 planation 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, witrn 
 out a suggestion of audacity ; reasonable, without criti- 
 cal sharpness or affectation of mental superiority ; rising 
 into natural eloquence in passages that contained pure 
 thought, but for the most part flowing in unartificial sen- 
 tences that exactly expressed the speaker's meaning and 
 no more. By Mr. Emerson's kind permission, the dis- 
 course 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 pul- 
 pit, though it were only to say, let us part in peace and 
 in the love of God. The state of my health has pre- 
 vented, 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 
 
THE SEER. 233 
 
 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 infirm- 
 ities 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 circum- 
 stances 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 re- 
 lations 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 ad- 
 vancement, 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 
 
234 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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, who- 
 ever 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 cooperators in our Christian 
 walk, that I am wont to see in your faces the seals and 
 certificates of our mutual obligations. If we have con- 
 spired from week to week in the sympathy and expres- 
 sion 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 in- 
 struction 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 
 
THE SEER. 235 
 
 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 accept- 
 ance 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 acknowledg- 
 ment, 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 vir- 
 tue we have sown and watered together, may bear fruit un- 
 to 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, 
 
236 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 phil- 
 osophic 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 Sowings, through remotest things ; and 
 
THE SEER. 237 
 
 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 gener- 
 ates matter. And poetry is the only verity, the expres- 
 sion 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 facade 
 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 
 
238 TRANS CENDENTALISM. 
 
 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, perma- 
 nent, 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 phantasma- 
 goria 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 ac- 
 tive and passive qualities. This belief, as being the 
 more practical, has even more exuberant expression 
 than the other : 
 
THE SEER. 239 
 
 " 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 wis- 
 dom, all things pass away — means, teachers, texts, tem- 
 ples 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 inter- 
 fere 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 ques- 
 tions 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 parti- 
 cles. 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 be- 
 atitude 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." 
 
240 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 " 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, end 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 ; 
 
THE SEER. 241 
 
 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 be- 
 ware lest he unsettle the foundations of morality, anni- 
 hilate the freedom of the will, abolish the distinction 
 
 between right and wrong, and reduce personality to a 
 II 
 
242 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 mask. He makes no apology ; he never explains ; he 
 trusts to affirmation, pure and simple. By dint of af- 
 firming all the facts that appear, he makes his contribu- 
 tion to the problem of solving all, and by laying inces- 
 sant emphasis on the cardinal virtues of humility, fideli- 
 ty, 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 autobio- 
 graphy of the Eternal Mind. The key is in the sen- 
 tence 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 ex- 
 plained 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 
 
THE SEER. 243 
 
 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 news- 
 papers ? 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 com- 
 munication with the Source of events, has earlier infor- 
 mation, 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 un- 
 daunted by the discoveries of science, past, present, or 
 prospective." The praise seems to imply some miscon- 
 ception of Emerson's position. Tyndall intimates that 
 Emerson is undaunted where others fear. But this is 
 not so. No man deserves commendation for not dread- 
 ing precisely what he desires. Emerson, by his princi- 
 ple, 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 
 
244 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 bril- 
 liantly do they illustrate the lessons of the perfect wis- 
 dom. 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 push- 
 ing 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, physiologi- 
 cal, biological, Huxley's facts, Helmholtz's, Darwin's, 
 Tyndall's, Spencer's, the ugly facts which the theo- 
 logians 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 rela- 
 tion. 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 be- 
 come 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 
 
THE SEER. 245 
 
 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 exter- 
 nal 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 Prome- 
 thean 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 
 
246 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 University joyfully made him an overseer ; he was pro- 
 posed 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 Mili- 
 tary 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 pleas- 
 ant things of his friend, just and discerning things, as 
 well as pleasant. 
 
 (i 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 think- 
 ing ; how he has won over the bigot, the unbeliever, at 
 least to tolerance and moderation, if not acknowledg- 
 ment, 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 mat- 
 ters as if they were divine in idea and real in fact, meet- 
 ing 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 pre- 
 ludes, 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." 
 
THE SEER. 247 
 
 After this, one is surprised to hear Mr. Alcott say, " I 
 know of but one subtraction from the pleasure the read- 
 ing 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 deli- 
 cate 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 back- 
 ground, 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, Emer- 
 son 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 ab- 
 stracted 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 
 
248 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 plod- 
 ders had best keep to the beaten road. But for them 
 who need an atmosphere for wings, who require the im- 
 pulse 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- 
 trie 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 pure- 
 ly 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 or- 
 dinary 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 con- 
 stant 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 Pro- 
 11* 
 
250 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 gress," 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 
 h 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 con- 
 versant with the secrets of his own mind, like thinkers 
 of his order, clear, earnest, but not otherwise than mon- 
 otonous from the reiteration of his primitive ideas. We 
 have called him a mystic. Bearing in mind the deriva- 
 tions of the word — fivew — 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 dis- 
 covering 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 MYSTIC. 251 
 
 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 pro- 
 cesses, using induction and deduction, and creeping 
 step by step towards his goal, — he appeals at once to 
 the testimony of consciousness, claims immediate in- 
 sight, 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, con- 
 templates 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 ; Py- 
 thagoras 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 cul- 
 ture. 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, Plu- 
 
252 TRANS CENDENTALISM. 
 
 tarch, Plotinus, and others of almost equal fame, found- 
 ers of states and cultures. . . . He was rever- 
 enced 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 un- 
 disturbed ; 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 ac- 
 tivity into which pure thought enters, being indebted to 
 him for important discoveries alike in science and meta- 
 physics." 
 
 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 inter- 
 course, and civil association, were studiously practised 
 on by the American disciple, who seemed never to for- 
 get the dignified and gracious figure whose fame charmed 
 him. 
 
THE MYSTIC. 253 
 
 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, — 
 1 ' 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 ex- 
 plored 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. Indeas are solvents of all mysteries, 
 whether in matter or in mind." 
 
 " Having drank of immortality all night, the genius 
 
254 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 enters eagerly upon the day's task, impatient of any im- 
 pertinences 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 per- 
 mitted, 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 meta- 
 morphosis, suggesting a common relationship of forms at 
 their base, with divergent types as these range wider and 
 farther from their central archetype, including all con- 
 crete 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 MYSTIC. 255 
 
 " 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 prin- 
 ciple to a deep problem in speculative truth. He quotes 
 Coleridge thus : 
 
 " The great maxim in legislation, intellectual or phy- 
 sical, 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, voli- 
 tion, thought, sensibility, sense, body, — animating thus 
 and rounding creation to soul and sense alike. The 
 naturalist canrtot urge too strongly the claims of physical, 
 nbr 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 
 
256 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 faithfully the realms of matter and of spirit alike, and 
 complementing the former in the latter. Whether sur- 
 veyed 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 ac- 
 countable 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 ex- 
 istence 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 coun- 
 ter to reason and conscience. The will bridges the 
 chasm between man and brute, and frees the fated crea- 
 ture he were else. Solitary, not himself, the victim of 
 appetite, inmate of the den, is man, till freed from indi- 
 vidualism, 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 ex- 
 pects 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 ex- 
 cellence ; life itself is but the stretch for that mountain 
 of holiness. Opening here with humanity, 'tis the aim- 
 ing at divinity in ever-ascending circles of aspiration and 
 endeavor. Who ceases to aspire, dies. Our pursuits 
 are our prayers, our ideals our gods." 
 
THE MYSTIC. 257 
 
 In the journals of Theodore Parker, Mr. Alcott is rep- 
 resented as taking an active part in the thinking and 
 talking of the period immediately preceding the estab- 
 lishment 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 him- 
 self towards His own perfection ; and this, that the 
 hideous things in nature are reflections of man's animals 
 ism ; that the world being the product of all men, mart 
 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 con- 
 trolled. 
 
 In 1837 Mr. Alcott— not Mr. Emerson — was the re- 
 puted leader of the Transcendentalists, none being more 
 
258 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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. Chan- 
 ning, Christopher Greene, Maria Chapman and Abby 
 Kelly being of the number. In those days he was inti- 
 mate with Emerson, Ripley, Hedge, Brownson, Clarke, 
 Bartol, Stetson, and well known as a leader in specula- 
 tive 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 commu- 
 nity, or that of Adin Ballou, at Milford, he undertook to 
 do his part towards the solution of the " labor and cul- 
 ture 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 improvi- 
 
THE MYSTIC. 259 
 
 dent visionary. But Dr. Channing held him in admira- 
 tion. 
 
 " 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 trans- 
 cendental 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 
 
260 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 for crystalline clearness of conception, as well as of ex- 
 pression. 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 sin- 
 cerity 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 withdraw- 
 ing from civil society as constituted, declined to pay the 
 tax imposed by the authorities, and was lodged in Con- 
 cord 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 re- 
 lease. This was in 1843. The next spring found him 
 inspecting lands suitable for a community. The next 
 summer saw him, with some English friends, domesti- 
 cated 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 
 
THE MYSTIC. 261 
 
 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 : 
 
 11 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 sensi- 
 bilities, 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 
 
262 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 first experiment made with set purpose, with definite 
 idea and calculated method, was tried in Cheshire, Con- 
 necticut, in 1825. So original was it in design and exe- 
 cution, and so remarkable in results, that the fame of it 
 went abroad. Rev. Samuel J. May, minister in Brook- 
 lyn, Conn., a zealous friend of common-school educa- 
 tion, being, along with the school committee, convinced 
 that the schools throughout the State needed improve- 
 ment, 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 par- 
 ticular 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 ac- 
 count 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 as- 
 sured 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. 
 
THE MYSTIC. 263 
 
 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 imme- 
 diately 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 es- 
 pecially 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. 
 
264 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 net permit- 
 ted to be conventional. Mr. Alcott showed himself 
 the disciple of Pythagoras in that he was the wor- 
 shipper 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 : 
 
7 HE MYSTIC. 265 
 
 "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 Pea- 
 body, who of late years has become an enthusiastic 
 advocate of Frcebel'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 pro- 
 cedure, and to believe that Frcebel'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 
 12 
 
266 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 childhood made there I would not exchange for anything 
 else I have experienced in life." 
 
 The Boston school was made more closely conform- 
 able to the spiritual idea than any previous ones. The 
 intellectual tone of the society he frequented, the sym- 
 pathy 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 senti- 
 ment 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 feel- 
 ing 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 
 
THE MYSTIC. 267 
 
 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. Pre- 
 judice, and prejudice alone, defeated the scheme. 
 
 But the idea and the apostle survived. Miss Har- 
 riet 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 think- 
 ers. 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 
 
268 TRANS CENDENTALISM. 
 
 you (occasioned by this work) is to obtain a more inti- 
 mate acquaintance with one, in our Sister Land, who is so 
 divinely and universally developed. Permit me, there- 
 fore, 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 un- 
 dertake 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 consider- 
 able 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 
 
THE MYSTIC. 269 
 
 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 work- 
 ing 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 cen- 
 tral love-sensibility than before. I see many more 
 symptoms of the harvest-time approaching in this coun- 
 try, 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 
 
270 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 must obey, and no.t 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 na- 
 ture 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, sec- 
 ondarily, an active one. To educate the radical facul- 
 ties 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 con- 
 ceptive that we shall get the perceptive clear. 
 
THE MYSTIC. 271 
 
 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 univer- 
 sal 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 re- 
 side ; 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 consider- 
 ation. 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 
 
272 TRANS CENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 Philos- 
 ophy " received him with hearty respect and joy, intro- 
 duced him to men of literary and philanthropic eminence, 
 and made his arrival the occasion of meetings for con- 
 versation on the religious, social and ethical questions of 
 the day. The meetings were held mostly at an institu- 
 tion 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, Phil- 
 ansteries, Utopias of every description, new social ar- 
 rangements between the sexes, new devices for making 
 marriage what it should be. 
 
 The London Morning Chronicle, of July 5th, con- 
 tained 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 earn- 
 estly 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 MYSTIC. , 273 
 
 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 un- 
 fold the whole of the fact with which our bosoms la- 
 bored," writes a private correspondent of the " Dial." 
 
 " We aimed at nothing less than to speak of the in- 
 stauration 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 an- 
 gelic, 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 
 tl pure love, which is ever communicative, never yet 
 conceded to any being the right of appropriation." 
 " We ignore human governments, creeds and institu- 
 tions ; we deny the right of any man to dictate laws for 
 
2 74 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 our regulation, or duties for our performance ; and de- 
 clare 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; chal- 
 lenged reliance on commercial prosperity and popular 
 representation ; denied the right of man to inflict pain 
 on man ; asserted that the question of generation pre- 
 ceded that of education ; that the reign of love was 
 supreme over that of opinion ; insisted on " the rest- 
 oration of all things to their primitive Owner, and hence 
 the abrogation of property — either individual or collec- 
 tive ;" 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 ful- 
 filment," — 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 intermin- 
 gle 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 inter- 
 ference ; our act must be divine ; we seem to do, God 
 docs ; God empowers legislators, and ennobles them for 
 
THE MYSTIC. 275 
 
 their fidelity ; let them, however, be apostles, not apos- 
 tles' 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 
 fcehalf of others are dreams only." 
 
 No remarks from Mr. Alcott are recorded. That 
 the meetings satisfied and cheered him may be in- 
 ferred 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 opportu- 
 nity 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 
 
276 TRANSCENDENTALISM, 
 
 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 profit- 
 able alike to the teacher and the children. In most in- 
 stances, I have closed my visits by reading some interest- 
 ing story or parable. These have never failed of gaining 
 attention, and in most cases, prompt responses. I con- 
 sider these readings and colloquies as among the most 
 profitable and instructive of the superintendent's labors." 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress, Krummacher's Parables, ^Esop's 
 Fables, Faery Queen, the stories of Plutarch and Shaks- 
 peare, 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 trans- 
 lation of ' Let us pray,' — admitting him soonest to the 
 intimacy he seeks." 
 
 " Conversations on words, paraphrases and transla- 
 tions 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 real- 
 ities 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 
 
THE MYSTIC. 277 
 
 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 conver- 
 sation 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 sur- 
 mised by him in that lively perspective. So taught the 
 
278 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 masters ; Plato, Plutarch, Pythagoras, Pestalozzi ; so 
 Christianity was first published from lovely lips ; so 
 every one teaches deserving the name of teacher or in- 
 terpreter. 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 com- 
 monest circumstances and things inviting and beautiful. 
 Parables, poems, histories, anecdotes, are prime aids in 
 teaching ; the readiest means of influence and inspira- 
 tion ; 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 rever- 
 ence for its shadings intimates the proper mode of study- 
 ing 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 ; 
 
THE MYSTIC. 279 
 
 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 per- 
 sons and times." 
 
 " Perhaps we are correcting the old affection for flog- 
 ging 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 Car- 
 ries forward the teaching and ruling together ; noting 
 what transpires in motive as in act ; the gift that in see- 
 ing 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." 
 
 tl 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 stubborn- 
 ness 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 Per- 
 suasion ; 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 
 
280 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 there- 
 in 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 per- 
 suasions, 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 spir- 
 itual culture. A child should be approached with rever- 
 ence, as a recipient of the spirit from above. The best 
 of books claims the best of persons and the gracious mo- 
 ments 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 there- 
 in, 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 MYSTIC. 281 
 
 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 can- 
 not afford to wait at such hazards. The simplest hu- 
 manities 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 in- 
 tellectual 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 op- 
 pressed. 
 
 " 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 ab- 
 solutely right, and conversation fails if it find not the 
 central truth from which all radiate ; debate is angular, 
 
282 TRANSCENDENTALISM. . 
 
 conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity. 
 Who speaks, deeply excludes all possibility of con- 
 troversy. His affirmation is self-sufficient ; his assump- 
 tion final, absolute. Thus holding himself above the 
 arena of dispute he gracefully settles a question be- 
 speaking so home to the core of the matter as to under- 
 mine 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 prin- 
 ciples and ideas." 
 
 " Good discourse sinks differences and seeks agree- 
 ments. 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 com- 
 pany 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 
 
THE MYSTIC. 283 
 
 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 conver- 
 sation and an evening full of instruction and entertain- 
 ment followed. When circumstances favored— the room, 
 decorations, atmosphere, mingling of elements — the sea- 
 s-on 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 deli- 
 cacy 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 cen- 
 tres of influence are established that act as permanent 
 distributors of culture. The noble idealism never pales 
 or falters. Neither politics, science, financial convul- 
 sion, 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. 
 
XL 
 
 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 Free- 
 man 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 exe- 
 cuted it with extraordinary frankness, courage and deli- 
 cacy. No more unique or satisfactory book of biogra- 
 phy was ever made. They had known Margaret per- 
 sonally 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 im- 
 posed. Those who are interested to know what sort 
 of a person she was, are referred to that book, from 
 
THE CRITIC. 285 
 
 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 Transcen- 
 dental 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 bear- 
 ings." 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, ap- 
 pears 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 no- 
 ble Margaret, her personal feeling colors all her judg- 
 ment 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,' 
 1 limboes,' ' stars,' and 'purgatory' — but one can con- 
 nect all this or any part of it with no universal ex- 
 perience. 
 
 " In short, Margaret often loses herself in sentiment- 
 al ism ; that dangerous vertigo nature, in her case, adopt- 
 ed, and was to make respectable Her in- 
 tegrity 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." 
 
286 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 con- 
 viction. 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 pro- 
 tection — 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 not ask or wish consolation , 
 I wish to know and feel my pain, to investigate its na- 
 ture and its source ; I will not have my thoughts di- 
 verted 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 
 
THE CRITIC. 287 
 
 is that future existence, which still the mind may con- 
 ceive ; 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 re- 
 ligion 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 in- 
 side. To her, so her biographers tell, with unanimous 
 voice, " the secrets of all hearts were revealed." In pri- 
 vate 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 
 
288 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 last is "infinitely variegated, and certainly most ex- 
 quisitely colored, but fatigues attention ; his phil- 
 osophy 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 Words- 
 worth. 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 ; em- 
 blems, 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 har- 
 mony, 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 ahead 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 bit- 
 terness, no self-love. It is the heroic arrogance of some 
 old Scandinavian conqueror ; it is his nature, and the un- 
 tamable energy that has given him power to crush the 
 
th£ CRITIC. 289 
 
 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 ex- 
 pression of individual thought and character. There 
 are no party measures to be carried, no particular stan- 
 dards 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 dog- 
 matism 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 san- 
 guine at the amount of talent which will be brought to 
 bear on this publication. All concerned are rather in- 
 different, and there is no great promise for the present. 
 We cannot show high culture, and I doubt about vig- 
 orous 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 ob- 
 ject, but merely to afford an avenue for what of liberal 
 13 
 
290 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 cer- 
 tain 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 Trans- 
 cendentalism may have been disappointed; for the 
 editor gave the magazine more of a literary than philos- 
 ophical 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 
 
THE CRITIC. 29 1 
 
 counteract them. Another extract from her correspon- 
 dence at this time— 184O— taken, like the former, from 
 the second volume of the memoirs, leaves no doubt on 
 this point. After speaking of "the tendency of cir- 
 cumstances," since the separation from England, " to 
 make our people superficial, irreverent, and more anx- 
 ious 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 bet- 
 ter 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 
 
292 TRANS C EN DEN TALIS, M. 
 
 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 indi- 
 vidual. In these principles I have confidence so pro- 
 found, that I am not afraid to trust those who hold them, 
 despite their partial views, imperfectly developed char- 
 acters, and frequent want of practical sagacity. I be- 
 lieve, 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 limita- 
 tions of human nature, and believe a wise acknowledg- 
 ment 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 jus- 
 tify, 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 na- 
 ture of man an arbiter for his deeds — a standard tran- 
 scending 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, 
 
THE CRITIC. 293 
 
 and was extended to all others, without exception. Mr. 
 Channing says : 
 
 " Margaret cherished a trust in her powers, a confi- 
 dence 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 overflow- 
 ing 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 biog- 
 raphers 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 some- 
 thing higher, better, holier, than they had now attained. 
 Where this element of aspiration existed, she demanded 
 
294 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 beauti- 
 ful ; 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 inte- 
 rior capability, which might be hereafter developed into 
 some special beauty or power. By means of this pene- 
 trating, 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 sym- 
 pathy 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 ima- 
 gined, 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 
 
 t>' 
 
TRANSCENDENTALISM. 295 
 
 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 her- 
 self, she was like the Euphorion in Goethe's drama, 
 child of Faust and Helen, — a wonderful union of exuber- 
 ance 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 pre- 
 vailed, 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 re- 
 vived resolutions long fallen away, and made me set my 
 face like a flint.' " 
 
 " * Yes, my life is strange ;' she said, ' thine is strange. 
 
296 THE CRITIC. 
 
 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 beautv in martyr- 
 dom.'" 
 
 ' ' ' 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 preeminently recognized and responded to the essen- 
 tial brotherhood of all human kind, and needed but to 
 know that a fellow being required her counsel or assist- 
 ance, to render her not merely willing, but eager to im- 
 part 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 uni- 
 form and thoughtful consideration — a regard which 
 wholly merged their factitious condition in their ante- 
 cedent 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 contem- 
 plation of their treatment, especially by the guilty au- 
 thors 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 de- 
 
TRANSCENDENTALISM. 297 
 
 plore ; 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 illu- 
 sion." O, the granting of this prayer is sometimes ter- 
 rible 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 unstint- 
 ing tribute to the disinterested motives that impelled 
 him ; but with his scheme for refashioning society she 
 had no sympathy. William H. Channing was an inti- 
 mate friend, whose sincerity had her deepest respect, 
 whose enthusiasm won her cordial admiration ; she lis- 
 tened to his brilliant expositions of socialism, but was not 
 persuaded. Practical difficulties always appeared, and 
 she never could believe that any rearrangement of cir- 
 cumstances 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 asso- 
 13* 
 
298 THE CRITIC. 
 
 ciates ; 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 flatter- 
 ing 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 prin- 
 ciples than she. 
 
 She was not to be thrown off from her essential posi- 
 tion, 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 aban- 
 doned 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 audi- 
 ence 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 
 
TRANSCENDENTALISM. 299 
 
 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 wicked- 
 ness. She found the Fourierites in Europe terribly weari- 
 some, 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 spoli- 
 ation of Poland that they used at home in favor of the 
 conquest of Mexico. With her, principles were indepen- 
 dent 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 intel- 
 lectual 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 
 
300 THE CRITIC. 
 
 opened not she was content to leave unopened alto- 
 gether. 
 
 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 bio- 
 graphers 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 vaccinators, We shall not trans- 
 cribe it, for it is long and indistinct. The indistinctness 
 is the one interesting feature of the sketch. The sensi- 
 tive 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 impres- 
 sion 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 conversa- 
 tions and her lightning pen, if she brought back from 
 her Italian heroisms the high spirit of liberty. The 
 times were srowincr dark in America. The Slave Power 
 was drawing its lines closer about the citadel of freedom. 
 
TRANSCENDENTALISM. 301 
 
 The brave voices were few and fewer ; the conservatives 
 were glad when one was hushed by death. The move- 
 ment she had encouraged was waning. The high en- 
 thusiasm 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 like- 
 ness, of cabinet size, in Rome, which her friends ap- 
 proved. 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 at- 
 tractions 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 philo- 
 sophy. It is more justly regarded as a gospel. As a 
 philosophy it is abstract and difficult — purely meta- 
 physical 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 uni- 
 form 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 Ger- 
 many, Schleiermacher — if we may count him a Transcen- 
 dentalist ; 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 pro- 
 phetic 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, 
 
THE PREACHER. 303 
 
 and disguise of the most transparent sort. In New 
 England, Emerson began his career as a Unitarian min- 
 ister ; 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 
 Avas 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 with- 
 out 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 se- 
 cluded in the recesses of consciousness, out of the reach 
 of scientific investigation, remote from the gaze of vul- 
 gar 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 contem- 
 plative 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 
 
304 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 ideal possibilities of the soul ; its organ was intuition ; 
 its method was introspection : its brightness was inspira- 
 tion. It possessed the character of indefmiteness and 
 mystery, full of sentiment and suggestion, that fascinates 
 the imagination, and lends itself so easily to acts of con- 
 templation and worship. The German Mystics were in 
 spirit Transcendentalists. The analogies are close be- 
 tween 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 Trans- 
 cendentalists were men of thought : but thought and 
 feeling sought the same object in the same region. 
 Piety was a feature of Transcendentalism ; it loved de- 
 vout hymns, music, the glowing language of aspiration, 
 the moods of awe and humility, emblems, symbols, ex- 
 pressions 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 fas- 
 cinated Theodore Parker. His intellect was constructed 
 on the English model. His acute observation ; his pas- 
 sion for external facts ; his faith in statistics ; his hun- 
 
THE PREACHER. 3°5 
 
 ger for informaiion on all external topics of history and 
 politics ; his capacity for retaining details of miscellane- 
 ous knowledge ; his logical method of reasoning ; his 
 ability to handle masses of raw mental material, to dis- 
 tribute and classify ; — all indicate intellectual power of the 
 English rather than of the German type. It was his cus- 
 tom 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, sentimen- 
 tal, devotional quality, derived from his mother. The 
 two were never wholly blended ; often they were wide 
 apart, occupying different spheres, and engaged in dif- 
 ferent offices ; sometimes they were in apparent opposi- 
 tion. 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 prac- 
 tical understanding assumed control of all matters per- 
 taining to this world ; the higher reason claimed su- 
 
306 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 premacy 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 Experi- 
 ence 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 in- 
 stinctive intuitions of the divine, the just, and the im- 
 mortal/' — 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 con- 
 sciousness 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 in- 
 stinctive 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, ecsta- 
 sies, witchcraft, magic-wonders, the appearance of 
 devils, ghosts, and the like. Besides, I studied other 
 works which lie out from the regular highway of theol- 
 ogy ; the spurious books attributed to famous Jews and 
 Christians ; Pseudepigraphy of the Old Testament, 
 and the Apocrypha of the New ; with the strange fanta- 
 sies of the Neoplatonists and Gnostics." 
 
 Very important reading all this for one who studied 
 
THE PREACHER. 307 
 
 to qualify himself to instruct his fellow men in the natu- 
 ral 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 Transcendental- 
 ism. Parker, on the religious side, was a pure Trans- 
 cendentalist 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 prin- 
 ciples. He took them as he found them in the writings 
 of the great German thinkers ; shaped them as he, bet- 
 ter than any body else, could shape thought in form of 
 words, — as he shaped the formula of republican govern- 
 ment — " government of the people, by the people, for 
 the people" — from the looser statement of Daniel Web- r 
 ster, — and laid them down as corner-stones of a new 
 theological structure. The materials were furnished by 
 Schleiermacher, Spinoza, Jacobi, Schelling ; the archi- 
 tectural 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 Transcenden- 
 talist — not distinctly and avowedly one — at the time of 
 
308 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 neces- 
 sary to shift his position in order to save his faith. So 
 long as the beliefs he cherished seemed to be satisfac- 
 torily 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 princi- 
 ples. Then the sentiments of his youth hardened into 
 ideas ; the delicate creatures that lived and gleamed be- 
 neath 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 hu- 
 man habitations. 
 
 Parker was, more than anything, a preacher ; — preacher 
 more than theologian, philosopher or scholar. What- 
 ever 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 PREACHER. 309 
 
 the human sympathies were wide as . the widest, and 
 tender as the tenderest. He had the power of persua- 
 sion and of rebuke, a withering sarcasm, a winning com- 
 passion. 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 judg- 
 ment 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 tem- 
 perament 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 occasion- 
 ally at issue with him ; but if righteousness was be- 
 trayed 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 con- 
 sume the innocent. This two-fold power of blasting 
 and of blessing, was vastly effective both on large audi- 
 ences 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 
 
3 1 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 purpose to discover truth, were prime qualifications for 
 the office he filled. The very disadvantages, — an un- 
 heroic presence, an uninspired countenance, an unmelo- 
 dious 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 mere- 
 tricious 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 enter- 
 tained 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 preach- 
 ing 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 
 
THE PREACHER. 31 1 
 
 current modes of accounting for his success, and then, 
 his own. 
 
 " The first reason assigned for the audience coming to- 
 gether 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 my- 
 self that this has been true. And it was said that I col- 
 lected large headed, practical men to hear me, and that 
 you were a ' boisterous assembly.' 
 
 " Then, that I was a learned man and gave learned dis- 
 courses 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 elo- 
 quent 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. 
 
312 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 " 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 accord- 
 ing 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 pjace ' 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. 
 
THE PREACHER. 313 
 
 This was y the controversial epoch, and, from the nature 
 of the case, was largely polemical and negative as to- 
 wards 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 en- 
 thusiasm 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 at- 
 testations 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 sffoke as one having 
 authority; he judged other creeds — Orthodox, Uni- 
 tarian, 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. 
 14 
 
3 1 4 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 if 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 mock- 
 ery to him, their beauty is a cheat ; they give not back 
 his child, for whom the sepulchral monster opens his re- 
 morseless 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 — with- 
 out 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 
 
THE PREACHER. 315 
 
 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 conscious- 
 ness, 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 assur- 
 ance. 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 essen- 
 tial facts of their own nature. Their error, misconcep- 
 tion, 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 in- 
 evitably 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 reli- 
 gion itself. 
 
 " It is a fact of history, that in old time, from Epi- 
 curus to Seneca, some of the ablest heads and best 
 hearts of Greece and Rome sought to destroy the idea 
 
3 1 6 TRANS CEXDENTALISM. 
 
 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 perse- 
 
THE PREACHER. 317 
 
 cution 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 seclu- 
 sion 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 com- 
 monwealth 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 Fu- 
 gitive Slave Bill then recently enacted, which brought 
 
318 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 to a close issue the controversy between the Abolition- 
 ists 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 ; supe- 
 rior 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, so- 
 cial, 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 inti- 
 mately 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 affec- 
 tions ; 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 femin- 
 ine characteristic being affection, which is spontaneous, 
 
THE PREACHER. 3 J 9 
 
 and the masculine being intellect, which is not, the 
 feminine was set above the masculine — love above light, 
 pity above justice, sympathy above rectitude, compas- 
 sion 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 mascu- 
 line 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 ; sen- 
 timentalism 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 con- 
 stituted as he was, self-reliant to aggressiveness, inclined 
 to be arbitrary, dogmatical, and imperious, of prodi- 
 gious 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 trans- 
 cendental 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 im- 
 
320 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 mortality 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 i860, on the eve of the civil war, which he prog- 
 nosticated, 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 evi- 
 dence — that prophecies may fail, and tongues cease and 
 knowledge pass away. The philosophy that Parker com- 
 bated 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 Christian- 
 ity that is officially acknowledged ; the gospel is an insti- 
 tution 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 
 
THE PREACHER. 321 
 
 like them to fill it. Parker was one of the last of the 
 grand preachers who spoke with power, bearing com- 
 mission 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 out- 
 cast 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. 
 14* 
 
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. Fie was by tempera- 
 ment 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 Ger- 
 man thought found its way to New England. He was 
 an importer, reader and lender of the new books of the 
 jiving Continental thinkers. His library contained a 
 rich collection of works in philosophy, theology, hermen 
 
THE MAN OF LETTERS. 323 
 
 eutics, criticism of the Old and New Testaments, and 
 divinity in its different branches of dogmatics and sen- 
 timent. 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. Theo- 
 dore 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 Cam- 
 bridge divinity school ; in 1826 accepted a call to be 
 pastor and preacher of the church, organized but eight- 
 een 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 
 
324 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 sur- 
 vives, 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 dis- 
 solved, for reasons which affected not the least the rela- 
 tions of friendship and mutual respect between the par- 
 ties. 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 re- 
 member 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 corre- 
 spondence 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 Mar- 
 tineau's " Rationale of Religious Enquiry," which 
 raised such heated controversy ; his translation of 
 Cousin's " Philosophical Miscellanies," with its impor- 
 
THE MAN OF LETTERS. 325 
 
 tant Introduction, had attracted the attention of literary 
 circles; a volume of discourses, entitled "Discourses 
 on the Philosophy of Religion," comprising seven ser- 
 mons delivered in the regular course of his ministry, left 
 no doubt in any mind respecting his position. The con- 
 troversy 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 suprema- 
 cy 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, 1 841 — 
 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 prin- 
 ciples. 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 
 
326 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 unap- 
 peasable 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 substan- 
 tial 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 con- 
 secrated 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 posi- 
 tion 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 dif- 
 ficulties most formidable to sensitive spirits. Mr. Em- 
 erson 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. Rip- 
 ley associated himself at once with people of no worldly 
 consideration, avowed principles that were voted vulgar 
 in refined circles, and identified himself with an enter- 
 prise which the amiable called visionary, and the unamia- 
 ble wild and revolutionary. But his conviction was 
 clear, and his will was fixed. Sustained by the entire 
 
THE MAN OF LETTERS. 327 
 
 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. 
 
 s 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 com- 
 mon-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 loner 
 as it was — six years ; — that while i.t 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 origi- 
 nator was the last to leave the place of his toil and vain 
 endeavor ; he left it, having made all necessary provi- 
 sion 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, — com- 
 mended 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, 
 
328 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 with- 
 out any sectarian bigotry, and in the catholic and com- 
 prehensive spirit of their great discoverer." An intro- 
 ductory notice by the same pen, among other things 
 pertaining to the aims and intentions of the paper, con- 
 tained 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 attach- 
 ment 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 in- 
 different to the radical movement for the benefit of the 
 masses which is the crowning glory of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, they will soon discover their egregious mistake. To 
 that movement, consecrated by religious principle, sus- 
 tained 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 strug- 
 gling with the secret hope which no weight of care and 
 
THE MAN OF LETTERS. 329 
 
 toil can entirely suppress, .will pour on us their benedic- ' 
 tions, as we labor for the equal rights of all." 
 
 In the four years of its existence, the paper was faith- 
 ful to this grand and high sounding promise. A power* 
 ful company of writers contributed their labor to help 
 forward the plan. The Journal was affluent and spark- 
 ling. 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 aesthetics were not 
 neglected ; the verse was excellent ; but the social ques- 
 tions were of first consideration. These were never 
 treated slightingly, and the treatment of them never de- 
 viated from the high standard proposed by the editors. 
 The list of its contributors contained the names of 
 Stephen Pearl Andrews, Albert Brisbane, W. H. Chan- 
 ning, W. E. Channing, Walter Channing. James Free- 
 man 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 admir- 
 able translation of George Sand's " Consuelo," and wrote 
 against the iniquities of the principle of competition in 
 
33° TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 at- 
 tention 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. Bris- 
 bane, 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 Associa- 
 tion ; 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 Asso- 
 ciation 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 anticipa- 
 tions 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 
 
THE MAN OF LETTERS. 331 
 
 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 
 io, 1849, — ma y De 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 aesthetical, 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 mo- 
 ment. 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 en- 
 
33 2 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 gage 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 king- 
 dom 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 litera- 
 ture 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 
 
THE MAN OF LETTERS. 333 
 
 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 es- 
 says, 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 impractica- 
 ble ; his dreams having faded, when his efforts ended in 
 disappointment, he retired from public view neither dis- 
 pirited, nor morose. His interest in philosophy contin- 
 ues undiminished ; his hope of man, though more sub- 
 dued, 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 lon- 
 ger breaks out with the former vehemence. A cheerful 
 wisdom gained by thought and experience of sorrow, 
 tempers his judgment of men and measures. His con- 
 fidence is in culture, in literature, generously interpreted 
 and fostered, in ideas honestly entertained and freely 
 expressed. 
 
 The Transcendentalist keeps his essential faith. Gen- 
 erally the Transcendentalists have done this. It was a 
 
334 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 faith too deeply planted, too nobly illustrated, too fer- 
 vent 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, undis- 
 mayed 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 glori- 
 fied the existence of man, — he grew up in the purest at- 
 mosphere that New England supplied — the most intel- 
 lectual, the most quickening. He was born in the same 
 year with Theodore Parker, and but three months earli- 
 er, 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 
 
33 6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 un- 
 cle, 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 Mes- 
 senger," 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 ex- 
 hibited a fine quality of genius. The intensity of his 
 nature, his open-mindedness, frankness, and spiritual 
 sensitiveness, his fervency of aspiration and his out- 
 spokenness, 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 de- 
 
THE MAN OF LETTERS. 337 
 
 livery, his musical voice, his expressive countenance, his 
 noble air, his extraordinary power of kindling enthusi- 
 asm, his affluence and boldness of thought, his high 
 standard of character, made him in his prime an enchant- 
 ing 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 appro- 
 ving 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 recip- 
 rocally explain each other. 
 
 With these ideas firmly fixed in his mind he went 
 forth on a prophetic mission, to which he remained un- 
 falteringly true. 
 
 We saw him first at a convention in Boston called by 
 the reformers who demanded the abolition of the gal- 
 lows. 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. 
 IS 
 
33% TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 His manner, attitude, speech, are all recalled. The argu- 
 ments 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 de- 
 testation ; 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 catholi- 
 city, which came partly from his temperament, and partly 
 
MINOR PROPHETS. 339 
 
 from the eclecticism he professed. His word was re- 
 conciling, 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 Chris- 
 tian 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 per- 
 mitted — 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 seve- 
 ral 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 sub- 
 ject, 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, philo- 
 sophical 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 coin- 
 cided with Fourier, but his heart was Christian. On the 
 failure of the associated plans of his friends, and the ces- 
 sation of interest in Socialism on this side of the Atlantic, 
 
340 TRANSCENDENTALISM, 
 
 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 re- 
 ligion 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 formal- 
 ists 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 enthu- 
 siasm 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 
 
MINOR PROPHETS. 341 
 
 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 be- 
 longed ; 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 ab- 
 solute 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 Ben- 
 tham than C. A. Bartol. His Transcendentalism had a 
 cast of its own ; it was not made after any pattern ; it l 
 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 
 
342 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 Trans- 
 cendentalist, 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 coun- 
 tenance. 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 ex- 
 pense 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 — there- 
 fore in its lowest form alive, and ever rising in^o organ- 
 ism 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 
 
MINOR PROPHETS. 343 
 
 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 every- 
 thing 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 intel- 
 lectually belonged, and an unfailing common sense 
 saved him from the extravagances into which some of 
 them fell, a Transcendentalist he was, and an uncom- 
 promising one. The intuitive philosophy was his 
 guide. It gave him his assurance of spiritual truths ; 
 
344 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 aboli- 
 tionist 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 elec- 
 tion 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 con- 
 servatives ; with the former, because his principle in- 
 volved faith in progress ; with the latter, because it im- 
 plied respect for the progress of past times which insti- 
 tutions preserved. His conservatism attested the fidel- 
 ity of his radicalism, and both avouched the loyalty of 
 his idealism. The conservative aspect of Transcenden- 
 talism 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 doc- 
 trines obscure and revolting. It detects the truth in 
 things erroneous, the good in things evil. 
 
MINOR PROPHETS. 345 
 
 A more remarkable instance of this tendency is Sam- 
 uel Johnson's volume on the religions of India. None 
 save a Transcendentalist could have succeeded in ex- 
 tracting 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 revela- 
 tion, 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 ex- 
 planation of the oriental religions, and to his little mon- 
 ograph on " The Worship of Jesus," and to the 
 15* 
 
346 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 printed lectures, addresses, essays, sermons, in which 
 subjects of religion, philosophy, political and social re- 
 form 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 inde- 
 pendent 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 eman- 
 cipation and the increase of rational ideas. The altera- 
 tion 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 in- 
 dications 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 
 
MINOR PROPHETS. 347 
 
 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 Trans- 
 cendentalism 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 sep- 
 arate soul. 'He attended no conventions, joined no so- 
 cieties, 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 lead- 
 ers 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 
 
34^ TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 poetical merit. Johnson's were the more intellectual, 
 Longfellow's the more tender ; Johnson's the more as- 
 piring, 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 think- 
 er, 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 satis- 
 fying, 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 ex 
 istence, 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 
 
MINOR PROPHETS. 349 
 
 David A. Wasson. Though contemporary, he came for- 
 ward 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 re- 
 ligious 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 senti- 
 mental 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 Transcendental- 
 'ists generally, he has accepted the principles of his phil- 
 osophy 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 experimen- 
 tal psychologists. His doctrine, in its own essence, and 
 as related to the objective or material system, is closely 
 
3 5 o TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 stated in the essay on the " Nature of Religion, con- 
 tained in the volume, entitled " Freedom and Fellow- 
 ship in Religion," recently published by the Free Reli- 
 gious 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 Transcen- 
 dentalism 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 inter- 
 ested 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 " Chris- 
 
MINOR PROPHETS. 351 
 
 tian 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 con- 
 troversy 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 ad- 
 mirer of his system. He too has a paper on " Religion 
 and Science," in the volume of " Freedom and Fellow- 
 ship," which will convince the most skeptical that the 
 days of Transcendentalism are not numbered ; a man of 
 insight ; poetical, according to Emerson's definition ; su- 
 premely 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 
 ^Esthetic 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 
 
352 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 exult- 
 ing 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 philos- 
 ophy drew away from their former church connections 
 and gathered into a party by themselves — a party of 
 protestants against literalism and formalism. The trans- 
 cendental philosophy in its main ideas, was held by 
 
MINOR PROPHETS. 353 
 
 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 trans- 
 cendental 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 Park- 
 man, 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 
 
354 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 stimulus and direction that carried them into the trans- 
 cendental ranks; Johnson, Longfellow, Higginson were 
 his pupils at Cambridge, and carried thence ideas which 
 he had shaped if not originated. In many things con- 
 servative, 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 think- 
 ers 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 organiza- 
 tion 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 
 
MINOR PROPHETS. 355 
 
 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 sen- 
 timent, 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 power- 
 ful. 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 im- 
 petus 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 law- 
 givers and prophets. They could not stay there always, 
 but the memory will never cease to be glorious. Trans- 
 cendentalism as a special phase of thought and feeling 
 was of necessity transient — having done its work it 
 
356 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 ex- 
 travagances as defining the boundaries of wise experi- 
 ment. 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 Transcendental- 
 ism will fitly close this history. To gather them all 
 would be exceedingly difficult, but that is not neces- 
 sary, 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 litera- 
 ture that loses no charm by age, and which years pre- 
 pare 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 pre- 
 served, 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 miscellane- 
 ous 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 de- 
 
35 8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 signed for immediate effect. Aside from the fatal injur} 
 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, valu- 
 able for many days, but not precious for generations. 
 
 Brownson's writings were astonishingly able, particu- 
 larly his discussions in the Boston " Quarterly Review ;" 
 but their interest ceased with their occasion. His philo- 
 sophical 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 " Con- 
 cord 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 accept- 
 ance ; 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 wis- 
 
LITERATURE. 359 
 
 dom, when those of her more ambitious companions 
 are forgotten. For she treated ever-recurring themes 
 in a living way — vigorous and original, but human* 
 Hfer 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 in- 
 creases, it is not unreasonable to expect an increase in 
 her audience. With her, thinking and talking were se- 
 rious 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 extrava- 
 gance 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 re- 
 markable 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 misfor- 
 tune of periodical literature to be ephemeral. The 
 magazine sows, but does not harvest. It brings thoughts 
 
360 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 ad- 
 mirable 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 biographi- 
 cal works deserve a place with the prominent contribu- 
 tions of that department. 
 
 The poetry of William Ellery Channing has a recog- 
 nized 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 char- 
 acterized by a depth of sentiment and a richness of 
 expression, which his more distinguished contempo- 
 rary, 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." 
 
LITERATURE, 3 61 
 
 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 popu- 
 larity of theme ; but Mr. Wasson's discussions on ethi- 
 cal 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 at- 
 tempt 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 un- 
 poetic interpreter reduces to meretricious fancy. 
 
 The influence of Transcendentalism on pulpit litera- 
 ture — if there be such a thing — has probably been suffi- 
 ciently indicated; but the privilege of printing a sermon 
 16 
 
362 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 ex- 
 ample of the method and spirit which Transcendentalism 
 introduced into discussions that are usually dry and 
 often angry. 
 
7>\ 
 
 The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and 
 peaee, 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 permit- 
 ted 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 na- 
 
364 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 ture. 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 Consub- 
 stantiation taught by Luther was denied by Calvin. In 
 the Church of England, Archbishops Laud and Wake 
 maintained that the elements were an Eucharist or sac- 
 rifice of Thanksgiving to God ; Cudworth and Warbur- 
 ton, 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 sub- 
 ject, 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, fur- 
 ther, 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 disci- 
 ples is given by the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke, and John. 
 
 In St. Matthew's Gospel (Matt. xxvi. 26-30) are re- 
 corded the words of Jesus in giving bread and wine on 
 
LITERATURE. 365 
 
 that occasion to his disciples, but no expression occurs 
 intimating that this feast was hereafter to be commem- 
 orated. 
 
 In St. Mark (Mark XIV. 23) the same words are re- 
 corded, 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 con- 
 sider 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 
 
366 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 pre- 
 pared 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 be- 
 tween 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 can- 
 not bring myself to believe that in the use of such an 
 expression he looked beyond the living generation, be- 
 yond the abolition of the festival he was celebrating, 
 
LITERATURE. 367 
 
 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 opin- 
 ion that he did not design a perpetual ordinance. He 
 may have foreseen that his disciples would meet to re- 
 member 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 trans- 
 mit a form than a virtue — arid 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 Testa- 
 ment. 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 cele- 
 brate the Passover, and afterwards the Supper, but the 
 Supper was the Passover. He did with his disciples 
 
368 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 expres- 
 sions 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 re- 
 specting living water. ' He permitted himself to be 
 
 
LITERATURE. 369 
 
 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 re- 
 peatedly 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 under- 
 standing, 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 ex- 
 planatory 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 pre- 
 served this rite and insisted upon perpetuating one sym- 
 bolical 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 
 16* 
 
37o TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 Supper to have been designed by Jesus to be commem- 
 orated 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 : (i) because it was a local cus- 
 tom, and unsuitable in western countries ; and (2) be- 
 cause 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 typi- 
 cal, 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 disci- 
 ples 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 circum- 
 stances of the church. The disciples lived together ; 
 they threw all their property into a common stock ; 
 
LITERATURE. 371 
 
 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 com- 
 panions 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 remem- 
 ber 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 
 
372 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 matter of St. Paul's view of the Supper, a few impor- 
 tant considerations must be stated. 
 
 The end which he has in view, in the eleventh chap- 
 ter 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. ll 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 im- 
 plied ; but certainly without good reason, if it is remem- 
 bered that St. Paul was living in the lifetime of all the 
 apostles who could give him an account of the transac- 
 tion ;. 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 
 
LITERATURE. 373 
 
 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 spirit- 
 ual 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 Chris- 
 tians, and this single expectation of a speedy reappear- 
 ance of a temporal Messiah, which kept its influence 
 even over so spiritual a man as St. Paul, would natu- 
 rally 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 con- 
 sidered, 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 
 
374 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 judg- 
 ment 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 doc- 
 trine of the Trinity, — that the true worship was trans- 
 ferred 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 communi- 
 cants — 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 commemora- 
 tion due to Christ. For, the service does not stand 
 upon the basis of a voluntary act, but is imposed by 
 
LITERATURE. 375 
 
 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 com- 
 pliments — commemorations, — but the use of that instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 3. Passing other objections, I come to this, that the 
 
376 TRANS CENDENTALISM. 
 
 use of the elements, however suitable to the people and 
 the modes of thought in the East, where it origin- 
 iated, 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 glori- 
 fied 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 
 
LITERATURE. 377 
 
 tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an 
 original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true com- 
 memoration. 
 
 4. Fourthly, the importance ascribed to this partic- 
 ular ordinance is not consistent with the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity. 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 righteous- 
 ness 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 Chris- 
 tians, they are not its evidence to us, but the doctrines 
 themselves ; that every practice is Christian which 
 praises itself, and every practice unchristian which con- 
 demns 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 
 
3 7 8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 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 institu- 
 tions, 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 considera- 
 tions 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 
 
LITERATURE. 379 
 
 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 con- 
 tend 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 du- 
 ties ; 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 ordi- 
 nance 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 disin- 
 clination 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 admin- 
 
380 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 ister it. I am clearly of opinion I ought not. This dig- 
 course 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 sym- 
 pathy 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 oppo- 
 sition, 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 re- 
 ligious 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 exer- 
 cising its highest functions. 
 
 September 9, 1832. 
 
 The influence of Transcendentalism on general litera- 
 ture can be only indicated in loose terms. Its current 
 
LITERATURE. 38 1 
 
 was so strong, that like the Orinoco rushing down be- 
 tween 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 litera- 
 ture of politics was profoundly affected by it ; the po- 
 litical radicals, philosophical democrats, anti-slavery 
 whigs or republicans, enthusiasts for American ideas, 
 prophets of America's destiny, being, more or less wit- 
 tingly, controlledby its ideas. In this department Par- 
 ker 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 repre- 
 sentative, his earliest volumes especially revealing in 
 the richness, depth, and hopefulness of their interpre- 
 tations of men and measures, the faith in humanity 
 so strongly characteristic of the philosophy he pro- 
 fessed. 
 
 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 
 
382 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 daily existence with its music. Neither Bryant nor 
 Longfellow had the intellectual passion that Transcenden- 
 talism 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 pub- 
 lished 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 remarka- 
 ble 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, aro- 
 matic, poetical, picturesque, tender, and in the dress of 
 fiction set forth the whole gospel of Transcendentalism 
 
LITERATURE. 383 
 
 in religion, politics, reform, social ethics, personal char- 
 acter, 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 sur- 
 vive. 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 ac- 
 quainted 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, in. 
 
 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. 
 17 
 
386 INDEX. 
 
 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 ; trans- 
 lates 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. 
 
 Chalybaus, his verdict on Jacobi quoted, 25. 
 
 Channing, Dr. William, not a transcendentalist in theory, 11 1 ; feeling toward 
 Christ, in; 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 J 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. 
 
INDEX. 3 8 7 
 
 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, quoted, 82 ; the true founder of the Broad 
 
 ehurch, 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. Win,, 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 1 8th 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 Ken elm, 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 selec- 
 tions 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. 
 
388 INDEX. 
 
 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 Re- 
 former " 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. 
 Encyclopaedists, 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 litera- 
 ture, 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 Eng- 
 land 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. 
 
 Fourierismnot 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 J 
 edits " The Dial," 132. Women in the iglh Century quoted, 177-181 ; 
 memoirs of, published, 2S4 ; judgment of, by Emerson, 2S5 ; on meta- 
 
INDEX. 389 
 
 physics and religion, 286; as a critic, 287; edits "The Dial," 289; 
 biographical account of, 293 ; writings of, 358. 
 Fumess, 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 in- 
 fluence 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. 
 Haureau 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 w m 
 
 Coleridge, 89. 
 Herder, translations of, into English, 47 j works of, read in the United 
 
 States, n 6. 
 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. 
 Jacobi, Frederick, his system of faith, 24 ; idealists of New England his 
 followers, 46 ; his works in the United States, 116. 
 
39° INDEX. 
 
 Janet, Paul, explains Plato, 61. 
 
 Jeffrey criticised Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, 91. 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, work on the " Religions of India," quoted, 345 ; be- 
 longs 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. 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, publishes " Critique of Pure Reason " (1781) ; 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. 
 
 Laromiguiere, disciple of Condillac, 65. 
 
 Leibnitz, theory of, 15. 
 
 Letters to a Young Theologian, by Herder, 47. 
 
 Lewes, George FL, 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, U. N., writer in Lord's Theological Journal, 92. 
 Lord's Supper, the, sermon on, by Emerson. 
 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. 
 
INDEX. 391 
 
 Margaret, novel setting forth the gospel of transcendentalism, 382. 
 
 Marsh, Dr. James, translates Herder's Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, 47. 
 
 Martineau, Harriet, calls Aicott 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, Engish edition 
 of, 116. 
 
 Mill, principles of sensational philosophy stated by, 205 ; article on Cole- 
 ridge, 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 denned by Carlyle, 55. 
 
 O. 
 
 Orphic Sayings of Aicott 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. 
 
392 INDEX. 
 
 Perfect Life, the work by Dr. Charming, 113. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, speaks against capita] punishment, 337. 
 
 Physics established as a science, 8. 
 
 Platonism, transcendental in its essence, 108. 
 
 Plotinus translated by Bouillet. 
 
 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, 1175 compared with tran- 
 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. 
 
 Religous affections, the, treatise on, by Jonathan Edwards, 108. 
 
 Remusat, 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 ; contro- 
 versy with Andrews Norton, 325 ; at Brook Farm, 325. 
 
 Ripley, George, edits "The Harbinger," 328; literary critic of u 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. 
 
INDEX. 393 
 
 S. 
 
 Saint Hilaire, Barthelemy, French philosopher, 61. 
 
 Saisset, Emil, translates Spinoza, 61. 
 
 Schelling, system of philosophy, 40-43 ; Transcendental Idealism pub- 
 lished, 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 Sk The Harbinger," 329. 
 
 Simon, Jules, explains the Alexandrian school, 61. 
 
 Skepticism hi France, 18th centu^. 187 ; brought to America, 188. 
 
 Smith, William, publishes memoirs Ox 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. 
 
 Stael, 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 j 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, 6i. 
 Torricelli, experiments of, 8. 
 17* 
 
394 INDEX. 
 
 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 com- 
 pared with, 119; advocated by James Walker, 122 ; attacked by An- 
 drews Norton, 123 ; legitimate fruits of, 143 ; defined by Emerson, 
 127; literary achievements of, T32 ; essentially poetic, 134; a dis- 
 tinct 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 immortal- 
 ity of the soul, 193-196 ; accepts the miracles, 201 ; its view of Chris- 
 tianity, 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. 
 
 Tiibingen, 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, 
 
 no; 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. 
 
INDEX, 395 
 
 Westminster Review contains article by Mill, 206. 
 
 Whig Review, articles on transcendentalism in, 137. 
 
 Whittier, John G., uuder 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 Excur- 
 sion quoted, 101 ; the poets of the transcendentalists, 103 ; lines 
 from, quoted, 141. 
 
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