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 I 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 QUESTIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 (@bz ifttersitie $re#*, Cambridge 
 
 TWO COPIES RECEIVED 
 
^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY ELIOT C. CLARKE 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
fc 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 Shortly before his death, Dr. Clarke selected 
 the material for this book, and partly prepared it 
 for publication. He wished thus to preserve some 
 of his papers which had excited interest when 
 printed in periodicals or read as lectures. 
 
 With slight exceptions, the book is issued just 
 as prepared by the author. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 LITERARY STUDIES, 
 
 Lyric and Dramatic Elements in Literature and 
 
 Art .3 
 
 Dualism in National Life 28 
 
 Deo Shakespeare write Bacon's Works? . . 38 
 The Evolution of a Great Poem : Gray's Elegy 60 
 
 RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 
 
 Affinities of Buddhism and Christianity . . 71 
 
 Why I am not a Free-Religionist .... 90 
 
 Have Animals Souls? 100 
 
 Apropos of Tyndall 128 
 
 Law and Design in Nature 149 
 
 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 The Two Carlyles, or Carlyle Past and Present . 162 
 
 Buckle and his Theory of Averages . . . 196 
 
 Voltaire 235 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson 270 
 
 Harriet Martineau 284 
 
 The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in Amer- 
 ica 312 
 
LITERARY STUDIES 
 
LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS IN 
 LITERATURE AND ART 
 
 The German philosophy has made a distinction 
 between the Subjective and the Objective, which 
 has been found so convenient that it has been al- 
 ready naturalized and is almost acclimated in our 
 literature. 
 
 The distinction is this : in all thought there are 
 two factors, the thinker himself, and that about 
 which he thinks. All thought, say our friends the 
 Germans, results from these two factors : the sub- 
 ject, or the man thinking; and the object, what 
 the man thinks about. All that part of thought 
 which comes from the man himself, the Ego, 
 they call subjective ; all that part which comes 
 from the outside world, the non-Ego, they call ob- 
 jective. 
 
 I am about to apply this distinction to literature 
 and art ; but instead of the terms Subjective and 
 Objective, I shall use the words Lyric and Dra- 
 matic, 
 
 For example, when a writer or an artist puts 
 a great deal of himself into his work, I call him 
 a lyric writer or artist. Lyrical, in poetry, is the 
 
4 LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 
 
 term applied to that species of poetry which directly 
 expresses the individual emotions of the poet. On 
 the other hand, I call an artist or poet dramatic 
 when his own personality disappears, and is lost 
 in that which he paints or describes. A lyric or 
 subjective writer gives us more of himself than of 
 the outside world ; a dramatic or objective writer 
 gives us more of the outside world than of him- 
 self. 
 
 Lyric poetry is that which is to be sung ; the 
 lyre accompanies song. Now, song is mainly 
 personal or subjective. It expresses the singer's 
 personal emotions, feelings, desires ; and for these 
 reasons I select this phrase " lyric " to express all 
 subjective or personal utterances in art. 
 
 The drama, on the other hand, is a photograph 
 of life ; of live men and women acting themselves 
 out freely and individually. The dramatic writer 
 ought to disappear in his drama ; if he does not 
 do so he is not a dramatic writer, but a lyrist in 
 disguise. 
 
 The dramatic element is the power of losing one's 
 self — opinions, feeling, character — in that which 
 is outside and foreign, and reproducing it just as 
 it is. In perfect dramatic expression the personal 
 equation is wholly eliminated. The writer disap- 
 pears in his characters ; his own hopes and fears, 
 emotions and convictions, do not color his work. 
 
 But the lyric element works in the opposite way. 
 In song, the singer is prominent more than what 
 
LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 5 
 
 he sings. He suffuses his subject with his own 
 thoughts and feelings. If he describes nature, he 
 merely gives us the feelings it awakens in his own 
 mind. If he attempts to write a play, we see the 
 same actor thinly disguised reappearing in all the 
 parts. 
 
 Now, there is a curious fact connected with 
 this subject. It is that great lyric and dramatic 
 authors or artists are apt to appear in duads or 
 pairs. Whenever we meet with a highly subjec- 
 tive writer, we are apt to find him associated with 
 another as eminently objective. This happens so 
 often that one might imagine that each type of 
 thought attracts its opposite and tends to draw 
 it out and develop it. It may be that genius, 
 when it acts on disciples who are persons of talent, 
 draws out what is like itself, and makes imitators ; 
 when it acts on a disciple who himself possesses 
 genius, it draws out what is opposite to itself and 
 develops another original thinker. Genius, like 
 love, is attracted by its opposite, or counterpart. 
 Love and genius seek to form wholes ; they look 
 for what will complete and fulfill themselves. 
 When, therefore, a great genius has come, fully 
 developed on one side, he exercises an irresistible 
 attraction on the next great genius, in whom 
 the opposite side is latent, and is an important 
 factor in his development. Thus, perhaps, we ob- 
 tain the duads, whose curious concurrence I will 
 now illustrate by a few striking instances. 
 
6 LYBIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 
 
 Beginning our survey with English literature, 
 who are the first two great poets whose names 
 occur to us ? Naturally, Chaucer and Spenser. 
 Now, Chaucer is eminently dramatic and objective 
 in his genius ; while Spenser is distinctly a lyrical 
 and subjective poet. 
 
 Chaucer tells stories ; and story-telling is objec- 
 tive. One of the most renowned collections of 
 stories is the " Arabian Nights ; " but who knows 
 anything about the authors of those entertaining 
 tales ? They are merely pictures of Eastern life, 
 reflected in the minds of some impersonal authors, 
 whose names even are unknown. 
 
 Homer is another great story-teller ; and Homer 
 is so objective, so little of a personality, that some 
 modern critics suppose there may have been several 
 Homers. 
 
 Chaucer is a story-teller also ; and in his stories 
 everything belonging to his age appears, except 
 Chaucer himself. His writings are full of pictures 
 of life, sketches of character ; in one word, he is 
 a dramatic or objective writer. He paints things 
 as they are, — gives us a panorama of his period. 
 Knights, squires, yeomen, priests, friars, pass be- 
 fore us, as in Tennyson's poem " The Lady of 
 Shalott." 
 
 The mind of an objective story-teller, like Chau- 
 cer, is the faithful mirror, which impartially re- 
 flects all that passes before it, but cracks from side 
 to side whenever he lets a personal feeling enter 
 
LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 7 
 
 his mind, for then the drama suddenly disappears 
 and a lyric of personal hope or fear, gladness or 
 sadness, takes its place. 
 
 Spenser is eminently a lyric poet. His own 
 genius suffuses his stories with a summer glow of 
 warm, tender, generous sentiment. In his descrip- 
 tions of nature he does not catalogue details, but 
 suggests impressions, which is the only way of 
 truly describing nature. There are some waiters 
 who can describe scenery, so that the reader feels 
 as if he had seen it himself. The secret of all 
 such description is that it does not count or mea- 
 sure, but suggests. It is not quantitative but quali- 
 tative analysis. It does not apply a foot rule to 
 nature, but gives the impression made on the mind 
 and heart by the scene. I have never been at 
 Frascati nor in Sicily, but I can hardly persuade 
 myself that I have not seen those places. I have 
 distinct impressions of both, simply from reading 
 two of George Sand's stories. I have in my mind 
 a picture of Frascati, with deep ravines, filled 
 with foliage ; with climbing, clustering, straggling 
 vines and trees and bushes ; with overhanging 
 crags, deep masses of shadow below, bright sun- 
 shine on the stone pines above. So I have another 
 picture of Sicilian scenery, wide and open, with 
 immense depths of blue sky, and long reaches of 
 landscape; ever-present Etna, soaring snow-clad 
 into the still air ; an atmosphere of purity, filling 
 the heart with calm content. It may be that 
 
8 LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 
 
 Catania and Frascati are not like this ; but I feel 
 as if I had seen them, not as if I had heard them 
 described. 
 
 It is thus that Spenser describes nature ; by- 
 touching some chord of fancy in the soul. Notice 
 this picture of a boat on the sea : — 
 
 " So forth they rowed ; and that Ferryman 
 With his stiff oars did brush the sea so strong 
 That the hoar waters from his frigate ran, 
 And the light bubbles danced all along 
 Whiles the salt brine out of the billows sprang ; 
 At last, far off, they many islands spy, 
 On every side, floating the floods among." 
 
 You notice that you are in the boat yourself, 
 and everything is told as it appears to you there ; 
 you see the bending of the " stiff oars " by your 
 side, and the little bubbles dancing on the water, 
 and the islands, not as they are, rock-anchored, 
 but as they seem to you, floating on the water. 
 This is subjective description, — putting the reader 
 in the place, and letting him see it all from that 
 point of view. So Spenser speaks of the " oars 
 sweeping the watery wilderness ; " and of the gusty 
 winds " filling the sails with fear." 
 
 Perhaps the highest description ought to include 
 both the lyric and dramatic elements. Here is a 
 specimen of sea description, by an almost unknown 
 American poet, Fenner, perfect in its way. The 
 poem is called " Gulf Weed : " — 
 
LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 9 
 
 " A weary weed washed to and fro, 
 
 Drearily drenched in the ocean brine ; 
 Soaring high, or sinking low, 
 
 Lashed along without will of mine ; 
 Sport of the spoom of the surging sea, 
 
 Flung on the foam afar and near ; 
 Mark my manifold mystery, 
 
 Growth and grace in their place appear. 
 
 " I bear round berries, gray and red, 
 
 Rootless and rover though I be ; 
 My spangled leaves, when nicely spread, 
 
 Arboresce as a trunkless tree ; 
 Corals curious coat me o'er 
 
 White and hard in apt array ; 
 Mid the wild waves' rude uproar 
 
 Gracefully grow I, night and day. 
 
 " Hearts there are on the sounding shore, 
 
 (Something whispers soft to me,) 
 Restless and roaming for evermore, 
 
 Like this weary weed of the sea ; 
 Bear they yet on each beating breast 
 
 The eternal Type of the wondrous whole, 
 Growth unfolding amidst unrest, 
 
 Grace informing the silent soul." 
 
 All nature becomes alive in the Spenserian 
 description. Take, for example, the wonderful 
 stanza which describes the music of the " Bower 
 of Bliss:" — 
 
 " The joyous birds, shrouded in cheerful shade 
 Their notes unto the voice attemper'd sweet ; 
 Th' angelical, soft, trembling voices made 
 To the instruments divine respondence meet ; 
 The silver-sounding instruments did meet 
 
10 LYBIC AND BBAMATIC ELEMENTS 
 
 With the bass murmur of the water's fall ,* 
 The water's fall, with difference discreet, 
 Now loud, now low, unto the winds did call ; 
 The gentle warbling winds low answered to all." 
 
 Consider the splendid portrait of Belphcebe : — 
 
 " In her fair eyes two living lamps did flame, 
 Kindled above at the Heavenly Maker's light ; 
 And darted fiery beams out of the same, 
 So passing piercing, and so wondrous bright, 
 They quite bereaved the rash beholder's sight; 
 In them the blinded god his lustful fire 
 To kindle oft essay'd but had no might, 
 For with dread majesty and awful ire 
 She broke his wanton darts and quenched base desire. 
 
 " Her ivory forehead, full of bounty brave, 
 Like a broad tablet did itself dispread, 
 For love his lofty triumphs to engrave, 
 And write the battles of his great godhead ; 
 All good and honor might therein be read, 
 For there their dwelling was ; and when she spake, 
 Sweet words, like dropping honey she did shed ; 
 And, twixt the pearls and rubies softly brake 
 A silver Sound, that heavenly music seemed to make." 
 
 If we examine this picture, we see that it is not 
 a photograph, such as the sun makes, but a lover's 
 description of his mistress. He sees her, not as 
 she is, but as she is to him. He paints her out of 
 his own heart. In her eyes he sees, not only bril- 
 liancy and color, but heavenly light ; he reads in 
 them an untouched purity of soul. Looking at her 
 forehead, he sees, not whiteness and roundness, 
 but goodness and honor. 
 
LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 11 
 
 Shakespeare's lovers always describe their mis- 
 tresses in this way, out of their own soul and heart. 
 It is his own feeling that the lover gives, seeing 
 perhaps " Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt." 
 
 After Chaucer and Spenser the next great Eng- 
 lish poets whose names naturally occur to us are 
 Shakespeare and Milton. 
 
 Now, Shakespeare was the most objective dra- 
 matic writer who ever lived ; while Milton was em- 
 inently and wholly a subjective and lyrical writer. 
 
 It is true that Shakespeare was so great that he 
 is one of the very few men of genius in whom ap- 
 pear both of these elements. In his plays he is so 
 objective that he is wholly lost in his characters, 
 and his personality absolutely disappears; in his 
 sonnets he " unlocks his heart " and is lyrical and 
 subjective ; he there gives us his inmost self, and 
 we seem to know him as we know a friend with 
 whom we have lived in intimate relations for years. 
 Still, he will be best remembered by his plays ; 
 and into them he put the grandeur and universal- 
 ity of his genius ; so we must necessarily consider 
 him as the greatest dramatic genius of all time. 
 But he belonged to a group of dramatic poets of 
 whom he was the greatest : Ben Jonson, Beaumont 
 and Fletcher, Massinger, Ford, Webster, — any 
 one of whom would make the fortune of the stage 
 to-day. It was a great age of dramatic literature, 
 and it came very naturally to meet a demand. 
 The play then was what the novel is to-day. As 
 
12 LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 
 
 people to-day have no sooner read a new novel than 
 they want another, so, in Shakespeare's time, they 
 had no sooner seen a new play than they ran to 
 see another. Hence the amazing fertility of the 
 dramatic writers. Thomas Heywood wrote the 
 whole or a part of two hundred and twenty plays. 
 The manager of one of the theatres bought a hun- 
 dred and six new plays for his stage in six years ; 
 and in the next five years a hundred and sixty. 
 The price paid to an author for a play would now 
 be equal to about two or three hundred dollars. 
 The dramatic element, as is natural, abounds in 
 these writings, though in some of them the au- 
 thor's genius is plainly lyrical. Such, for example, 
 is Massinger's, who always reminds me of Schiller. 
 Both wrote plays, but in both writers the faculty 
 of losing themselves in their characters is wanting. 
 The nobleness of Schiller appears in all his works, 
 and constitutes a large part of their charm. So in 
 Massinger all tends to generosity and elevation. 
 His worst villains are ready to be converted and 
 turn saints at the least provocation. Their wick- 
 edness is in a condition of unstable equilibrium ; 
 it topples over, and goodness becomes supreme in 
 a single moment. Massinger could not create 
 really wicked people; their wickedness is like a 
 child's moment of passion or willfulness, ending 
 presently in a flood of tears, and a sweet reconcili- 
 ation with his patient mother. But how different 
 was it with Shakespeare ! Consider his Iago. 
 
LYBIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 13 
 
 How deeply rooted was his villainy ! how it was 
 a part of the very texture of his being ! He had 
 conformed to it the whole philosophy of his life. 
 His cynical notions appear in the first scene. Iago 
 believes in meanness, selfishness, everything that is 
 base ; to him all that seems good is either a pre- 
 tense or a weakness. The man who does not seek 
 the gratification of his own desires is a fool. 
 There is to Iago nothing sweet, pure, fair, or true, 
 in this world or the next. He profanes everything 
 he touches. He sneers at the angelic innocence of 
 Desdemona ; he sneers at the generous, impulsive 
 soul of Othello. When some one speaks to him of 
 virtue, he says " Virtue ? a fig ! 't is in ourselves 
 that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gar- 
 dens, to which our wills are gardeners." You can 
 plant nettles or lettuce as you please. That is to 
 say, there is no reality in goodness. The virtue of 
 Desdemona will be gone to-morrow, if she takes 
 the whim. The Moor's faith in goodness is folly ; 
 it will cause him to be led by the nose. There is 
 no converting such a man as that ; or only when, 
 by means of terrible disappointments and anguish, 
 he is brought to see the reality of human goodness 
 and divine providence. And that can hardly hap- 
 pen to him in this world. 
 
 Iago is a murderer of the soul, Macbeth a mur- 
 derer of the body. The wickedness of Macbeth 
 is different from that of Iago ; that of Shylock 
 and of Richard Third different again from either. 
 
14 LYBIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 
 
 Macbeth is a half-brute, a man in a low state of 
 development, with little intellect and strong pas- 
 sions. Shylock is a highly intellectual man, not 
 a cynic like Iago, but embittered by ill-treatment, 
 made venomous by cruel wrong and perpetual con- 
 tempt. Oppression has made this wise man mad. 
 Richard Third, originally bad, has been turned into 
 a cruel monster by the egotism born of power. 
 He has the contempt for his race that belongs to 
 the aristocrat, who looks on men in humbler places 
 as animals of a lower order made for his use or 
 amusement. Now, this wonderful power of differ- 
 entiating characters belongs to the essence of the 
 dramatic faculty. Each of these is developed 
 from within, from a personal centre, and is true to 
 that. Every manifestation of this central life is 
 correlated to every other. If one of Shakespeare's 
 characters says but ten words in one scene, and 
 then ten words more in another, we recognize him 
 as the same person. His speech bewTayeth him. 
 So it is in human life. Every man is fatally con- 
 sistent with himself. So, after we have seen a 
 number of pictures by any one of the great masters, 
 we recognize him again, as soon as we enter a gal- 
 lery. We know him by a certain style. Infe- 
 rior artists have a manner ; great artists have a 
 style ; manner is born of imitation ; style of origi- 
 nality. So, there is a special quality in every hu- 
 man being, if he will only allow it to unfold. The 
 dramatic faculty recognizes this. Its knowledge 
 
LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 15 
 
 of man is not a philosophy, nor a mere knowledge 
 of human nature, but a perception of individual 
 character. It first integrates men as human be- 
 ings ; then differentiates them as individuals. 
 Play-writers, novelists, and artists who do not pos- 
 sess this dramatic genius cannot grow their char- 
 acters from within, from a personal centre of life ; 
 but build them up from without, according to a 
 plan. In description of nature, however, Shake- 
 speare is, as he ought to be, subjective and lyric ; 
 he touches nature with human feelings. Take his 
 description of a brook : — 
 
 " The current that with gentle murmur glides 
 Thou know'st, being stopp'd impatiently doth rage ; 
 But when his fair course is not hindered, 
 He makes sweet music with the enamell'd stones, 
 Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge 
 He overtaketh in his pilgrimage, 
 And so by many winding nooks he strays 
 With willing sport to the wild ocean." 
 
 The brook is gentle ; then it becomes angry ; 
 then it is pacified and begins to sing ; then it stops 
 to kiss the sedge ; then it is a pilgrim; and it 
 walks willingly on to the ocean. 
 
 So in his sonnet : — 
 
 " Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
 Flatter the mountain top with sovereign eye ; 
 Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 
 Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy ; 
 Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 
 With ugly rack on his celestial face ; 
 And from the forlorn world his visage hide, 
 
16 LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 
 
 Stealing unseen to west with his disgrace ; 
 
 Even so my sun one early morn did shine, 
 
 With all triumphant splendor on my brow ; 
 
 But out, alack ! he was but one hour mine ; 
 
 The region cloud hath masked him from me now ; 
 
 Yet him, for this, my love no whit disdaineth, 
 
 Suns of this world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth." 
 
 From Shakespeare, the marvel of dramatic gen> 
 ius, turn to Milton, and we find the opposite ten- 
 dency unfolded. 
 
 The "Paradise Lost" is indeed dramatic in 
 form, with different characters and dialogues, in 
 hell, on earth, and in heaven. But in essence it is 
 undramatic. Milton is never for a moment lost in 
 his characters ; his grand and noble soul is always 
 appearing. Every one speaks as Milton would 
 have spoken had Milton been in the same place, 
 and looked at things from the same point of view. 
 Sin and Satan, for example, both talk like John 
 Milton. Sin is very conscientious, and before she 
 will unlock the gate of hell she is obliged to argue 
 herself into a conviction that it is right to do so. 
 Satan, she says, is her father, and children ought to 
 obey their parents ; so, since he tells her to unlock 
 the gate, she ought to do so. Death reproaches 
 Satan, in good set terms, for his treason against 
 the Almighty ; and Satan, as we all know, utters 
 the noblest sentiments, and talks as Milton would 
 have talked, had Milton been in Satan's position. 1 
 
 1 See the argument to prove that it would not be difficult to 
 climb to heaven. 
 
LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 17 
 
 Coming down nearer to our own time, we find a 
 duad of great English poets, usually associated in 
 our minds, — Byron and Scott. 
 
 Scott was almost the last of the dramatic poets 
 of England, using the word dramatic in its large 
 sense. His plays never amounted to much; but 
 his stories in verse and in prose are essentially dra- 
 matic. In neither does he reveal himself. In all 
 his poetry you scarcely find a reference to his per- 
 sonal feelings. In the L'Envoi to the " Lady of 
 the Lake " there is a brief allusion of this sort, 
 touching because so unusual, and almost the only 
 one I now recall. Addressing the " Harp of the 
 North " he says : — 
 
 * l Much have I owed thy strains through life's long way, 
 Through secret woes the world has never known, 
 When on the weary night dawned wearier day, 
 And bitterer was the grief devoured alone ; 
 That I o'erlive such woes, Enchantress! is thine own." 
 
 Scott, like Chaucer, brings before us a long suc- 
 cession of characters, from many classes, countries, 
 and times. Scotch barons and freebooters, Eng- 
 lish kings, soldiers, gentlemen, crusaders, Alpine 
 peasants, mediaeval counts, serfs, Jews, Saxons, — 
 brave, cruel, generous, — all sweep past us, in a 
 long succession of pictures ; but of Scott himself 
 nothing appears except the nobleness and purity 
 of the tone which pervades all. He is therefore 
 eminently a dramatic or objective writer. 
 
 But Byron is the exact opposite. The mighty 
 
18 LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 
 
 exuberance of his genius, which captivated his age, 
 and the echoes of which thrill down to ours, in all 
 its vast overflow of passion, imagination, wit, — 
 ever sounded but one strain, — himself. His own 
 woes, his own wrongs are the ever-recurring theme. 
 Though he wrote many dramas, he was more un- 
 dramatic than Milton. Every character in every 
 play is merely a thinly disguised Byron. It was 
 impossible for him to get away from himself. If 
 Tennyson's lovely line tells the truth when he 
 says, — 
 
 " Love took up the harp of life and smote on all its chords with 
 
 might ; 
 Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed in music out of 
 
 sight : " 
 
 then Byron never really loved ; for in his poetry 
 the chord of self never passes out of sight. 
 
 In his plays the principal characters are Byron 
 undiluted — as Manfred, Sardanapalus, Cain, 
 Werner, Arnold. All the secondary characters 
 are Byron more or less diluted, — Byron and 
 water, may we say ? Never, since the world be- 
 gan, has there been a poet so steeped in egotism, 
 so sick of self-love as he ; and the magnificence of 
 his genius appears in the unfailing interest which 
 he can give to this monotonous theme. 
 
 But he was the example of a spirit with which 
 the whole age was filled to saturation. Almost all 
 the nineteenth century poets of England are sub- 
 jective, giving us their own experience, sentiments, 
 
LYEIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 19 
 
 reflections, philosophies. Wordsworth, Coleridge, 
 Shelley, Keats, revolve in this enchanted and 
 enchanting circle. Keats and Coleridge seem 
 capable of something different. So, in the double 
 star, made up of Wordsworth and Coleridge, the 
 first is absolutely personal and lyric, the second 
 sometimes objective and dramatic. And in that 
 other double star of Shelley and Keats the same 
 difference may be noted. 
 
 A still more striking instance of the combina- 
 tion of these antagonisms is to be found in our 
 time, in Robert Browning and his wife. Mrs. 
 Browning is wholly lyric, like a bird which sings 
 its own tender song of love and hope and faith till 
 " that wild music burdens every bough ; " and 
 those " mournful hymns " hush the night to listen- 
 ing sympathy. 
 
 But in her husband we have a genuine renais- 
 sance of the old dramatic power of the English 
 bards. Robert Browning is so dramatic that he 
 forgets himself and his readers too, in his charac- 
 ters and their situations. To study the varieties 
 of men and women is his joy ; to reproduce them 
 unalloyed, his triumph. 
 
 One curious instance of this self -oblivious immer- 
 sion in the creations of his mind occurs to me. In 
 one of his early poems called " In a Gondola " — 
 as it first appeared — two lovers are happily con- 
 versing, until in a moment, we know not why, the 
 tone becomes one of despair, and they bid each 
 
20 LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 
 
 other an eternal farewell. Why this change of 
 tone there is no explanation. In a later edition he 
 condescends to inform us, inserting a note to this 
 effect: "He is surprised and stabbed." This is 
 the opposite extreme to Milton's angels carefully- 
 explaining to each other that they possess a speci- 
 fic levity which enables them to drop upward. 
 
 If we think of our own poets whose names are 
 usually connected, — Longfellow and Lowell, for 
 instance, — we shall easily see which is dramatic and 
 which lyric. But the only man of truly dramatic 
 faculty whom we have possessed was one in whom 
 the quality never fully ripened, — I mean Edgar 
 Allan Poe. 
 
 In foreign literature we may trace the same 
 tendency of men of genius to arrange themselves 
 in couplets. Take, for instance, in Italy, Dante 
 and Petrarch ; in France, Voltaire and Eousseau ; 
 in Germany, Goethe and Schiller. Dante is dra- 
 matic, losing himself in his stern subject, his 
 dramatic characters ; his awful pictures of gloomy 
 destiny. Petrarch is lyrical, personal, singing for- 
 ever his own sad and sweet fate. Again, Voltaire 
 is essentially dramatic, — immersed in things, ab- 
 sorbed in life, a man reveling in all human acci- 
 dent and adventure, and aglow with faith in an 
 earthly paradise. The sad Eousseau goes apart, 
 away from men ; standing like Byron, among them, 
 but not of them ; in a cloud of thoughts that are 
 not their thoughts. And, once more, though 
 
LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 21 
 
 Goethe resembles Shakespeare in this, that some 
 of his works are subjective, and others objective, — 
 though, in the greatness of his mind he reconciles 
 all the usual antagonisms of thought, — yet the 
 fully developed Goethe, like the fully developed 
 Shakespeare, disappears in his characters and 
 theme. Life to him, in all its forms, was so in- 
 tensely interesting that his own individual and 
 subjective sentiments are left out of sight. But 
 Schiller stands opposed to Goethe, as being a dra- 
 matist devoid of dramatic genius, but full of per- 
 sonal power ; so grand in his nobleness of soul, so 
 majestic in the aspirations of his sentiment, so 
 full of patriotic ardor and devotion to truth and 
 goodness, that he moves all hearts as he walks 
 through his dramas, — the great poet visible in 
 every scene and every line. As his tried and 
 noble friend says of him in an equally undying 
 strain : — 
 
 " Burned in his cheek, with ever-deepening fire, 
 The spirit's youth, which never passes by ; 
 The courage, which though worlds in hate conspire, 
 Conquers at last their dull hostility ; 
 The lofty faith, which ever, mounting higher, 
 Now presses on, now waiteth patiently ; 
 By which the good tends ever to its goal — 
 By which day lights at last the generous soul." 
 
 Goethe's characters and stories 'covered the 
 widest range : Faust, made sick with too much 
 thought, and seeking outward joy as a relief; 
 Werther, a self-absorbed sentimentalist ; Tasso, an 
 
22 LYEIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 
 
 Italian man of genius, a mixture of imagination, 
 aspiration, sensitive self -distrust ; susceptible to 
 opinion, sympathetic ; Iphigenia, a picture of an- 
 tique calm, simplicity, purity, classic repose, like 
 that of a statue ; Hermann and Dorothea, a sweet 
 idyl of modern life, in a simple-minded German 
 village with an opinionated, honest landlord, a 
 talkative apothecary, a motherly landlady, a sen- 
 sible and good pastor, and the two young lovers. 
 
 This law of duality, or reaction of genius on 
 genius, will also be found to apply to artists, phi- 
 losophers, historians, orators. These also come in 
 pairs, manifesting the same antagonistic qualities. 
 
 Some artists are lyric ; putting their own souls 
 into every face, every figure, making even a land- 
 scape alive with their own mood ; adding — 
 
 " A gleam 
 Of lustre known to neither sea nor land 
 But borrowed from the poet-painter's dream.' ' 
 
 In every landscape of Claude we find the soul 
 of Claude ; in every rugged rock-defile of Salvator 
 we read his mood. These artists are lyric ; but there 
 are also great dramatic painters, who give you, not 
 themselves, but men and women ; so real, so differ- 
 entiated, characters so full of the variety and 
 antagonism of nature, that the whole life of a 
 period springs into being at their touch. 
 
 Take for instance two names, which always go 
 together, standing side by side at the summit 
 of Italian art, — Michael Angelo and Raphael. 
 
LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 23 
 
 Though Raphael was a genius of boundless exu- 
 berance, and poured on the wall and canvas a flood 
 of forms, creating as nature creates, without pause 
 or self-repetition, yet there is a tone in all which 
 irresistibly speaks of the artist's own soul. He 
 created a world of Raphaels. Grace, sweetness, 
 and tenderness went into all his work. Every line 
 has the same characteristic qualities. 
 
 Turn to the frescoes by Michael Angelo in the 
 Sistine Chapel. As we look up at those mighty 
 forms — prophets, sibyls, seers, with multitudes of 
 subordinate figures — we gradually trace in each 
 prophet, king, or bard an individual character. 
 Each one is himself. How fully each face and 
 attitude is differentiated by some inward life. 
 How each — David, Isaiah, Ezekiel, the Persian 
 and the Libyan sibyl — stands out, distinct, filled 
 with a power or a tenderness all his own. Mi- 
 chael Angelo himself is not there, except as a foun- 
 tain of creative life, from whose genius all these 
 majestic persons come forth as living realities. 
 
 Hanging on my walls are the well-known en- 
 gravings of Guido's Aurora and Leonardo da 
 Vinci's Last Supper. One of these is purely lyri- 
 cal ; the other as clearly dramatic. 
 
 The Aurora is so exquisitely lovely, the forms 
 so full of grace, the movement of all the figures so 
 rapid yet so firm, that I can never pass it without 
 stopping to enjoy its charms. But variety is ab- 
 sent. The hours are lovely sisters, as Ovid de- 
 scribes sisters : — 
 
24 LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 
 
 " Faeies non omnibus una, 
 Nee diversa tamen, qualis decet esse sororum." 
 
 But when we turn to the Last Supper, we see 
 the dramatic artist at his best. The subject is 
 such as almost to compel a monotonous treatment, 
 but there is a wonderful variety in the attitudes 
 and grouping. Each apostle shows by his atti- 
 tude, gesture, expression, that he is affected dif- 
 ferently from all the others. Even the feet under 
 the table speak. Stand before the picture ; 
 put yourself into the attitude of each apostle, 
 and you will immediately understand his state of 
 mind. 1 
 
 The mediaeval religious artists were subjective, 
 sentimental, lyrical. In a scene like the cruci- 
 fixion, all the characters, whether apostles, Roman 
 soldiers, or Jewish Pharisees, hang their heads like 
 bulrushes. 
 
 But see how Rubens, that great dramatic painter, 
 
 1 Simon Peter's attitude expresses astonishment and perplexity. 
 He holds out both hands, and seems to say, " It cannot be ! " 
 
 In Thaddeus we see suspicion, doubt, distrust. " I always sus- 
 pected him." 
 
 Matthew is speaking* to Peter and Thomas, his hand held out 
 toward Jesus : " But I heard him say so." 
 
 Thomas : " What can it mean ? What will be the end ? " 
 
 James: (Hands spread wide apart in astonished perplexity:) 
 " Is it possible ? " 
 
 Philip has laid both hands on his breast, and leaning toward 
 Jesus says, "Lord, is it I ? " 
 
 At the other end, one is leaning forward, his hands resting on 
 the table, to catch the next words ; one starting back,' confused 
 and confounded. 
 
LYBIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 25 
 
 represents the scene. The Magdalen, wild with 
 grief, with disheveled hair, has thrown herself at 
 the foot of the cross, clasping and kissing the feet 
 of Jesus. On the other faces are terror, dismay, 
 doubt, unbelief, mockery, curiosity, triumph, de- 
 spair, — according to each person's character and 
 attitude toward the event. Meantime the Roman 
 centurion, seated on his splendid horse, is deliber- 
 ately and carefully striking his spear into the side 
 of the sufferer. His face expresses only that he 
 has a duty to perform and means to fulfill, it per- 
 fectly. 
 
 As Rubens is greatly dramatic, his pupil and 
 follower, Vandyke, is a great lyrical artist, whose 
 noble aspiration and generous sentiment shows 
 itself in all his work. 
 
 The school of Venice, with Titian and Tinto- 
 retto at its head, is grandly dramatic and objec- 
 tive. The school of Florence, with Guido and 
 Domenichino at its head, eminently lyrical and 
 subjective. 
 
 If we had time, we might show that the two 
 masters of Greek philosophy, Plato and Aristotle, 
 are, the one lyrical, and intensely subjective, plato- 
 nizing the universe ; and the other as evidently 
 objective, immersed in the study of things ; re- 
 joicing in their variety, their individuality, their 
 persistence of type. 
 
 The two masters of Greek history, Herodotus 
 and Thucydides, stand opposed to each other in the 
 
26 LYBIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 
 
 same way. Herodotus is the story-teller, the dra- 
 matic raconteur, whose charming tales are as enter- 
 taining as the " Arabian Nights." Thucydides is 
 the personal historian who puts himself into his 
 story, and determines its meaning and moral ac- 
 cording to his own theories and convictions. 
 
 We have another example in Livy and Tacitus. 
 
 The two great American orators most fre- 
 quently mentioned together are Webster and Clay. 
 Though you would smile if I were to call either of 
 them a lyric or a dramatic speaker, yet the essen- 
 tial distinction we have been considering may be 
 clearly seen in them. Clay's inspiration was per- 
 sonal, his influence, personal influence. His theme 
 was nothing ; his treatment of it everything. But 
 Webster rose or fell with the magnitude and im- 
 portance of the occasion and argument. When 
 on the wrong side, he failed, for his intellect 
 would not work well except in the service of 
 reality and truth. But Clay was perhaps greatest 
 when arguing against all facts and all reason. 
 Then he summoned all his powers, — wit, illus- 
 tration, analogy, syllogisms, appeals to feeling, 
 prejudice, and passion ; and so swept along his 
 confused and blinded audience to his conclusions. 
 
 I think that subjective writers are loved more 
 than dramatic. We admire the one and we love 
 the other. We admire Shakespeare and love Mil- 
 ton ; we admire Chaucer and love Spenser ; we 
 admire Dante and love Petrarch ; we admire 
 
 \. 
 
LYRIC AND DRAMATIC ELEMENTS 27 
 
 Goethe and love Schiller ; and if Byron had not 
 been so selfish a man, we should have loved him 
 too. We admire Michael Angelo and love Raphael ; 
 we admire Rubens and love Vandyke; we admire 
 Robert Browning and love Mrs. Browning. In 
 short, we care more for the man who gives us 
 himself than for the man who gives us the whole 
 outside world. 
 
 I have been able to give you only a few hints 
 of this curious distinction in art and literature. 
 But if we carry it in our mind, we shall find it 
 a key by which many doors may be unlocked. 
 It will enable us to classify authors, and under- 
 stand them better. 
 
DUALISM IN NATIONAL LIFE 
 
 The science of comparative ethnology is one 
 which has been greatly developed during the last 
 twenty-five years. The persistence of race ten- 
 dencies, as in the Semitic tribes, Jews and Arabs, 
 or in the Teutonic and Celtic branches of the great 
 Aryan stock, has been generally admitted. Though 
 few would now say, with the ethnologist Knox, 
 " Race is everything," none would wholly dispense 
 with this factor, as Buckle did, in writing a history 
 of civilization. 
 
 Racial varieties have existed from prehistoric 
 times. Their origin is lost in the remote past. 
 As far as history goes back, we find them the same 
 that they are now. When and how the primitive 
 stock differentiated itself into the great varieties 
 which we call Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian, no 
 one can tell. But there are well-established vari- 
 eties of which we can trace the rise and develop- 
 ment ; I mean national varieties. The character 
 of an Englishman or a Frenchman is as distinctly 
 marked as that of a Greek or Roman. There is a 
 general resemblance among all Englishmen ; and 
 the same kind of resemblance among all French- 
 men, Spaniards, Swedes, Poles. But this crystal- 
 
DUALISM IN NATIONAL LIFE 29 
 
 lization into national types of character has taken 
 place in a comparatively short period. We look 
 back to a time when there were no Englishmen in 
 Great Britain ; but only Danes, 4 Saxons, Normans, 
 and Celts ; no Frenchmen in France ; but Gauls, 
 Franks, and Romans. Gradually a distinct quality 
 emerges, and we have Frenchmen, Italians, Eng- 
 lishmen. The type, once arrived at, persists, and 
 becomes more marked. It is marked by personal 
 looks and manners, by a common temperament, 
 a common style of thinking, feeling, acting ; the 
 samfe kind of morals and manners. This type was 
 formed by the action and reaction of the divers 
 races brought side by side — Normans and Saxons 
 mutually influencing each other in England, and 
 being influenced again by climate, conditions of 
 life, forms of government, national customs. So, 
 at last, we have the well-developed national charac- 
 ter, — a mysterious but very certain element, from 
 which no individual can wholly escape. All drink 
 of that one spirit. 
 
 Thus far I have been stating what we all know. 
 But now I would call your attention to a curious 
 fact, which, so far as I am aware, has not before 
 been noticed. It is this, — that when two nations, 
 during their forming period, have been in relation 
 to each other, there will be a peculiar character 
 developed in each. That is to say, they will differ 
 from each other according to certain well-defined 
 lines, and these differences will repeat themselves 
 
30 DUALISM IN NATIONAL LIFE 
 
 again and again in history, in curious parallelisms, 
 or dualisms. 
 
 To take the most familiar illustration of this : 
 consider the national qualities of the French and 
 English. The English and French, during several 
 centuries, have been acting and reacting on each 
 other, both in war and peace. Now, what are the 
 typical characteristics of these two nations ? 
 Stated in a broad way they might be described 
 something as follows : — 
 
 The English mind is more practical than ideal ; 
 its movement is slow but persistent ; its progress 
 is by gradual development ; it excels in the indus- 
 trial arts ; it reverences power ; it loves liberty 
 more than equality, not objecting to an aristocracy. 
 It tends to individualism. Its conquests have been 
 due to the power of order, and adherence to law. 
 
 The French mind is more ideal than practical ; 
 versatile, rather than persistent; its movements 
 rapid, its progress by crises and revolution, rather 
 than by development ; it excels in whatever is 
 tasteful and artistic ; it admires glory rather than 
 power ; loves equality more than liberty ; objects 
 to an aristocracy, but is ready to yield individual 
 rights at the bidding of the community ; renoun- 
 cing individualism for the sake of communism ; 
 and its successes have been due to enthusiasm 
 rather than to organization. 
 
 Next, look at the Greeks and Romans. These 
 peoples were in intimate relations during the form-^ 
 
DUALISM IN NATIONAL LIFE 31 
 
 ing period of national life ; and we find in them 
 much the same contrasts of character that we do 
 in the English and the French. The Romans were 
 deficient in imagination, rather prosaic, fond of 
 rule and fixed methods, conservative of ancient 
 customs. The Greeks were quick and versatile ; 
 artistic to a high degree ; producing masterpieces 
 of architecture, painting, statuary, and creating 
 every form of literature ; inventing the drama, the 
 epic poem, oratory, odes, history, philosophy. The 
 Romans borrowed from them their art and their 
 literature, but were themselves the creators of law, 
 the organizers of force. The Greeks and Romans 
 were the English and French of antiquity ; and 
 you will notice that they occupy geographically the 
 same relative positions, — the Greeks and French 
 on the east ; the Romans and English on the west. 
 But now observe another curious fact. The 
 Roman Empire and the Greek republics came to 
 an end ; and in Greece no important nationality 
 took the place of those wonderful commonwealths. 
 But in Italy, by the union of the old inhabitants 
 with the Teutonic northern invaders, modern Italy 
 was slowly formed into a new national life. No 
 longer deriving any important influence from 
 Greece (which had ceased to be a living and inde- 
 pendent force), Italy, during the Middle Ages, 
 came into relations with Spain and the Spaniards. 
 In Spain, as in Italy, a new national life was in 
 process of formation by the union of the Gothic 
 
32 DUALISM IN NATIONAL LIFE 
 
 tribes, the Mohammedan invaders, and the ancient 
 inhabitants. The Spaniards occupied Sicily in 
 1282, and Naples fell later into their hands, about 
 1420, and in 1526 took possession of Milan. Thus 
 Italy and Spain were entangled in complex rela- 
 tions during their forming period. What was the 
 final result ? Modern Italians became the very 
 opposite of the ancient Romans. The Spaniards 
 on the west are now the Romans, and the Italians, 
 the Greeks. The Spaniards are slow, strong, con- 
 servative ; the Italians, quick-witted, full of feel- 
 ing and sentiment, versatile. The Spaniards trust 
 to organization, the Italians to enthusiasm. The 
 Spaniards are practical, the Italians ideal. In 
 fine, the Spaniards, on the west, are like the Eng- 
 lish and the ancient Romans ; the Italians, on the 
 east, like the French and the Greeks. The Eng- 
 lish pride, the Roman pride, the Spanish pride, we 
 have all heard of ; but the French, the Greeks, and 
 the Italians are not so much inclined to pride and 
 the love of power, as to vanity and the love of fame. 
 England, Rome, and Spain, united by law and 
 the love of organization, gradually became solidi- 
 fied into empires ; Greece, Italy, and France were 
 always divided into independent states, provinces, 
 or republics. 
 
 Now, let us go east and consider two empires 
 that have grown up, side by side, with constant 
 mutual relations : Japan and China. The people 
 of Japan, on the east, are described by all travelers 
 
DUALISM IN NATIONAL LIFE 33 
 
 in language that might be applied to the ancient 
 Greeks or the modern French. They are said to 
 be quick-witted, lively, volatile, ready of apprehen- 
 sion, with a keen sense of honor, which prefers 
 death to disgrace ; eminently a social and pleasure- 
 seeking people, fond of feasts, dancing, music, and 
 frolics. Men and women are pleasing, polite, 
 affable. On the other hand, the Chinese are de- 
 scribed as more given to reason than to sentiment, 
 prosaic, slow to acquire, but tenacious of all that is 
 gained, very conservative, great lovers of law and 
 order ; with little taste for art, but much national 
 pride. They are the English of Asia ; the Japan- 
 ese, the French. 
 
 Go back to earlier times, when the two oldest 
 branches of the great Aryan stock diverged on the 
 table-lands of central Asia ; the Vedic race de- 
 scending into India, and the Zend people passing 
 west, into Persia. The same duplex development 
 took place that we have seen in other instances. 
 The people on the Indus became what they still 
 are, — a people of sentiment and feeling. Like 
 the French, they are polite, and cultivate civility 
 and courtesy. The same tendency to local admin- 
 istration which we see in France is found in India ; 
 the commune being, in both, the germ-cell of na- 
 tional life. The village communities in India are 
 little republics, almost independent of anything 
 outside. Dynasties change, new rulers and kings 
 arrive; Hindoo, Mohammedan, English; but the 
 
34 DUALISM IN NATIONAL LIFE 
 
 village community remains the same. Like the 
 Japanese, the French, the Italians, the inhabitants 
 of India are skillful manufacturers of ornamental 
 articles. Their religion ■ tends to sentiment more 
 than to morality, — to feeling, rather than to ac- 
 tion. This is the development which India took 
 when these races inhabited the Punjaub. But 
 the ancient Persians were different. Their religion 
 included a morality which placed its essence in 
 right thinking and right action. A sentimental 
 religion, like that of India and of Italy, tends to 
 the adoration of saints and holy images and to 
 multiplied ceremonies. A moral religion, like 
 that of Persia, of Judea, and of the Teutonic races, 
 tends to the adoration and service of the unseen. 
 The Hindoos had innumerable gods, temples, idols. 
 The Persians worshiped the sacred fire, without 
 temple, priest, altar, sacrifice, or ritual. The an- 
 cient Persians, wholly unlike the modern Persians, 
 were a people of action, energy, enterprise. But 
 when the old Persian empire fell, the character 
 of the people changed. Just as in Italy the old 
 Roman type disappeared, and was replaced by the 
 opposite in the modern Italian, so modern Persia 
 has swung round to the opposite pole of national 
 character. The Persians and Turks, both profess- 
 ing the Mohammedan religion, belong to different 
 sects of that faith. The Turks are proud, tenacious 
 of old customs, grave in their demeanor, generally 
 just in their dealings, keeping their word. The 
 
DUALISM IN NATIONAL LIFE 35 
 
 Persians, as they appear in the works of Malcolm 
 and Monier, are changeable, kindly, polite, given 
 to ceremonies, fond of poetry, with taste for fine 
 art and decoration, — a mobile people. The Turk 
 is silent, the Persian talkative. The Turk is proud 
 and cold, the Persian affable and full of sentiment. 
 In short, the Persian is the Frenchman, and the 
 Turk the Englishman. And here again, as in the 
 other cases, the French type of nationality unfolds 
 itself on the east, and the English on the west. 
 
 These national doubles have not been exhausted. 
 We have other instances of twin nations, born of 
 much the same confluence of race elements, of 
 whom, as of Esau and Jacob, it might be predicted 
 to the mother race, " Two nations shall be born 
 of thee ; two kinds of people shall go forth from 
 thee ; and the one shall be stronger than the 
 other." Thus there are the twin races which in- 
 habit Sweden and Norway ; the Swedes, on the 
 east, are more intelligent, quick-witted, and ver- 
 satile ; the Norwegians, on the west, slow, persist- 
 ent, and disposed to foreign conquest and adven- 
 ture, as shown in the sea-kings, who discovered Ice- 
 land, Greenland, and Vinland ; and the modern 
 emigrants who reap the vast wheatfields of Min- 
 nesota. So, too, we might speak of the Poles and 
 Germans. The Polish nation, on the east, resem- 
 bling the French; the German, on the west, the 
 English. 
 
 But time will not allow me to carry out these 
 
36 DUALISM IN NATIONAL LIFE 
 
 parallels into details. The question is, are these 
 mere coincidences, or do they belong to the homo- 
 logons of history, where the same law of progress 
 repeats itself under different conditions, as the skel- 
 eton of the mammal is found in the whale. Such 
 curious homologons we find in national events, and 
 they can hardly be explained as accidental coin- 
 cidences. For instance, the English and French 
 revolutions proceeded by six identical steps. First, 
 an insurrection of the people. Secondly, the de- 
 thronement and execution of the king. Thirdly, 
 a military usurper. Fourthly, the old line restored. 
 Fifthly, after the death of the restored king, his 
 brother succeeds to the throne. Sixthly, a second 
 revolution drives the brother into exile, and a con- 
 stitutional king of a collateral branch takes his 
 place. 
 
 But if these doubles which I have described 
 come by some mysterious law of polar force, as in 
 the magnet, where the two kinds of electricity are 
 repelled to opposite poles, and yet attract each 
 other, how account for the regularity of the geo- 
 graphical position ? Why is the French, Greek, 
 Hindoo, Persian, Italian, Polish, Swedish type al- 
 ways at the east, and the English, Roman, Iranic, 
 Ottoman, Spanish, German, Norwegian type always 
 at the west ? Are nations, like tides, affected by 
 the diurnal revolution of the globe? This, I con- 
 fess, I am unable to explain; and I leave it to 
 
DUALISM IN NATIONAL LIFE 37 
 
 others to consider whether what I have described 
 is pure coincidence, or if it belongs in some way 
 to the philosophy of history and comes under uni- 
 versal law. 
 
DID SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S 
 WORKS 1 
 
 The greatest of English poets is Shakespeare. 
 The greatest prose writer in English literature is 
 probably Bacon. Each of these writers, alone, 
 is a marvel of intellectual grandeur. It is hard 
 to understand how one man, in a few years, could 
 have written all the masterpieces of Shakespeare, 
 — thirty-six dramas, each a work of genius such 
 as the world will never let die. It is a marvel 
 that from one mind could proceed the tender 
 charm of such poems as "Romeo and Juliet," 
 " As You Like It," or " The Winter's Tale ; " 
 the wild romance of " The Tempest," or of " A 
 Midsummer Night's Dream ; " the awful tragedies 
 of " Lear," " Macbeth," and " Othello ; " the pro- 
 found philosophy of " Hamlet ; " the perfect fun 
 of " Twelfth Night," and " The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor ; " and the reproductions of Roman and 
 English history. It is another marvel that a man 
 like Bacon, immersed nearly all his life in busi- 
 ness, a successful lawyer, an ambitious statesman, 
 a courtier cultivating the society of the sovereign 
 and the favorites of the sovereign, should also be 
 
 1 The North American Beview, February, 1881. 
 
BIB SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 39 
 
 the founder of a new system of philosophy, which 
 has been the source of many inventions and new 
 sciences down to the present day ; should have crit- 
 ically surveyed the whole domain of knowledge, and 
 become a master of English literary style. Each 
 of these phenomena is a marvel ; but put them 
 together, and assume that one man did it all, and 
 you have, not a marvel, but a miracle. Yet, this 
 is the result which the monistic tendency of modern 
 thought has reached. Several critics of our time 
 have attempted to show that Bacon, besides writing 
 all the works usually attributed to him, was also 
 the author of all of Shakespeare's plays and poems. 
 This theory was first publicly maintained by 
 Miss Delia Bacon in 1857. It had been, before, 
 in 1856, asserted by an Englishman, William 
 Henry Smith, but only in a small volume printed 
 for private circulation. This book made a distin- 
 guished convert in the person of Lord Palmerston, 
 who openly declared his conviction that Bacon was 
 the author of Shakespeare's plays. Two papers 
 by Appleton Morgan, written in the same sense, 
 appeared last year in " Appletons' Journal." But 
 far the most elaborate and masterly work in sup- 
 port of this attempt to dethrone Shakespeare, and 
 to give his seat on the summit of Parnassus to 
 Lord Bacon, is the book by Judge Holmes, pub- 
 lished in 1866. He has shown much ability, and 
 brought forward every argument which has any 
 plausibility connected with it. 
 
40 DIB SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WOEES 
 
 Judge Holmes was, of course, obliged to admit 
 the extreme antecedent improbability of his posi- 
 tion. Certainly it is very difficult to believe that 
 the author of such immortal works should have 
 been willing, for any reason, permanently to con- 
 ceal his authorship ; or, if he could hide that fact, 
 should have been willing to give the authorship 
 to another ; or, if willing, should have been able 
 so effectually to conceal the substitution as to blind 
 the eyes of all mankind down to the days of Miss 
 Delia Bacon and Judge Holmes. 
 
 What, then, are the arguments used by Judge 
 Holmes ? The proofs he adduces are mainly these : 
 (1st) That there are many coincidences and paral- 
 lelisms of thought and expression between the 
 works of Bacon and Shakespeare ; (2d) that there 
 is an amount of knowledge and learning in the 
 plays, which Lord Bacon possessed, but which 
 Shakespeare could hardly have had. Besides these 
 principal proofs, there are many other reasons 
 given which are of inferior weight, — a phrase in 
 a letter of Sir Tobie Matthew ; another sentence 
 of Bacon himself, which might be possibly taken 
 as an admission that he was the author of " Bich- 
 ard II. ; " the fact that some plays which Shake- 
 speare certainly did not write were first published 
 with his name or his initials. But his chief argu- 
 ment is that Shakespeare had neither the learn- 
 ing nor the time to write the plays, both of which 
 Lord Bacon possessed ; and that there are curious 
 
BID SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 41 
 
 coincidences between the plays and the prose 
 works. 
 
 These arguments have all been answered, and 
 the world still believes in Shakespeare as before. 
 But I have thought it might be interesting to show 
 how easily another argument could be made of an 
 exactly opposite kind, — how easily all these proofs 
 might be reversed. I am inclined to think that if 
 we are to believe that one man was the author both 
 of the plays and of the philosophy, it is much more 
 probable that Shakespeare wrote the works of 
 Bacon than that Bacon w 7 rote the works of Shake- 
 speare. For there is no evidence that Bacon was 
 a poet as well as a philosopher ; but there is ample 
 evidence that Shakespeare was a philosopher as 
 well as a poet. This, no doubt, assumes that 
 Shakespeare actually wrote the plays ; but this we 
 have a right to assume, in the outset of the discus- 
 sion, in order to stand on an equal ground with 
 our opponents. 
 
 The Bacon vis. Shakespeare argument runs thus : 
 " Assuming that Lord Bacon wrote the works 
 commonly attributed to him, there is reason to 
 believe that he also w^rote the plays and poems 
 commonly attributed to Shakespeare." 
 
 The counter argument would then be : " As- 
 suming that Shakespeare wrote the plays and 
 poems commonly attributed to him, there is reason 
 to believe that he also wrote the works commonly 
 attributed to Bacon." 
 
42 BIB SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 
 
 This is clearly the fair basis of the discussion. 
 What is assumed on the one side on behalf of 
 Bacon we have a right to assume on the other on 
 behalf of Shakespeare. But before proceeding on 
 this basis, I must reply to the only argument of 
 Judge Holmes which has much apparent weight. 
 He contends that it was impossible for Shake- 
 speare, with the opportunities he possessed, to 
 acquire the knowledge which we find in the plays. 
 Genius, however great, cannot give the knowledge 
 of medical and legal terms, nor of the ancient 
 languages. Now, it has been shown that the plays 
 afford evidence of a great knowledge of law and 
 medicine ; and of works in Latin and Greek, 
 French and Italian. How could such information 
 have been obtained by a boy who had no ad- 
 vantages of study except at a country grammar 
 school, which he left at the age of fourteen, who 
 went to London at twenty-three and became an 
 actor, and who spent most of his life as actor, 
 theatrical proprietor, and man of business ? 
 
 This objection presents difficulties to us, and for 
 our time, when boys sometimes spend years in the 
 study of Latin grammar. We cannot understand 
 the rapidity with which all sorts of knowledge 
 were imbibed in the period of the Renaissance. 
 Then every one studied everything. Then Greek 
 and Latin books were read by prince and peasant, 
 by queens and generals. Then all sciences and 
 arts were learned by men and women, by young 
 
BIB SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 43 
 
 and old. Thus speaks Robert Burton — who was 
 forty years old when Shakespeare died : " What 
 a world of books offers itself, in all subjects, arts 
 and sciences, to the sweet content and capacity of 
 the reader ! In arithmetic, geometry, perspective, 
 opticks, astronomy, architecture, sculptura, pic- 
 tura, of which so many and elaborate treatises 
 have lately been written ; in mechanics and their 
 mysteries, military matters, navigation, riding of 
 horses, fencing, swimming, gardening, planting, 
 great tomes of husbandry, cookery, faulconry, 
 hunting, fishing, fowling; with exquisite pictures 
 of all sports and games. . . . What vast tomes 
 are extant in law, physic, and divinity, for profit, 
 pleasure, practice. . . . Some take an infinite de- 
 light to study the very languages in which these 
 books were written : Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Chal- 
 dee, Arabick, and the like." This was the fashion 
 of that day, to study all languages, all subjects, all 
 authors. A mind like that of Shakespeare could 
 not have failed to share this universal desire for 
 knowledge. After leaving the grammar school, he 
 had nine years for such studies before he went to 
 London. As soon as he began to write plays, he 
 had new motives for study; for the subjects of 
 the drama in vogue were often taken from classic 
 story. 
 
 But Shakespeare had access to another source 
 of knowledge besides the study of books. When 
 he reached London, five or six play-houses were in 
 
44 DID SHAKESPEABE WRITE BACON'S WOBKS 
 
 full activity, and new plays were produced every 
 year in vast numbers. New plays were then in 
 constant demand, just as the new novel and new 
 daily or weekly paper are called for now. The 
 drama was the periodical literature of the time. 
 Dramatic authors wrote with wonderful rapidity, 
 borrowing their subjects from plays already on the 
 stage, and from classic or recent history. Mar- 
 lowe, Greene, Lyly, Peele, Kyd, Lodge, Nash, 
 Chettle, Munday, Wilson, were all dramatic writers 
 before Shakespeare. Philip Henslowe, a manager 
 or proprietor of the theatres, bought two hundred 
 and seventy plays in about ten years. Thomas 
 Heywood wrote a part or the whole of two hun- 
 dred and twenty plays during his dramatic career. 
 Each acted play furnished material for some other. 
 They were the property of the play-houses, not of 
 the writers. One writer after another has accused 
 Shakespeare of indifference to his reputation, be- 
 cause he did not publish a complete and revised 
 edition of his works during his life. How could 
 he do this, since they did not belong to him, but 
 to the theatre ? Yet every writer was at full liberty 
 to make use of all he could remember of other 
 plays, as he saw them acted ; and Shakespeare 
 was not slow to use this opportunity. No doubt 
 he gained knowledge in this way, which he after- 
 ward employed much better than did the authors 
 from whom he took it. 
 
 The first plays printed under Shakespeare's 
 
BIB SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 45 
 
 name did not appear till he had been connected 
 with the stage eleven years. This gives time 
 enough for him to have acquired all the knowledge 
 to be found in his books. That he had read Latin 
 and Greek books we are told by Ben Jonson ; 
 though that great scholar undervalued, as was 
 natural, Shakespeare's attainments in those lan- 
 guages. 
 
 But Ben Jonson himself furnishes the best re- 
 ply to those who think that Shakespeare could not 
 have gained much knowledge of science or litera- 
 ture because he did not go to Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge. What opportunities had Ben Jonson? 
 A bricklayer by trade, called back immediately 
 from his studies to use the trowel ; then running 
 away and enlisting as a common soldier ; fighting 
 in the Low Countries ; coming home at nineteen, 
 and going on the stage ; sent to prison for fighting 
 a duel — what opportunities for study had he ? 
 He was of a strong animal nature, combative, in 
 perpetual quarrels, fond of drink, in pecuniary 
 troubles, married at tw;enty, with a wife and chil- 
 dren to support. Yet Jonson was celebrated for 
 his learning. He was master of Greek and Latin 
 literature. He took his characters from Athenseus, 
 Libanius, Philostratus. Somehow he had found 
 time for all this study. " Greek and Latin thought," 
 says Taine, " were incorporated with his own, and 
 made a part of it. He knew alchemy, and was as 
 familiar with alembics, retorts, crucibles, etc., as if 
 
46 BIB SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 
 
 he had passed his life in seeking the philosopher's 
 stone. He seems to have had a specialty in every 
 branch of knowledge. He had all the methods 
 of Latin art, — possessed the brilliant conciseness 
 of Seneca and Lucan." If Ben Jonson — a brick- 
 layer, a soldier, a fighter, a drinker — could yet find 
 time to acquire this vast knowledge, is there any 
 reason why Shakespeare, with much more leisure, 
 might not have done the like ? He did not possess 
 as much Greek and Latin lore as Ben Jonson, 
 who, probably, had Shakespeare in his mind when 
 he wrote the following passage in his " Poetaster : " 
 
 " His learning" savors not the school-like gloss 
 That most consists in echoing words and terms, 
 And soonest wins a man an empty name ; 
 Nor any long or far-fetched circumstance 
 Wrapt in the curious generalties of art — 
 But a direct and analytic sum 
 Of all the worth and first effects of art. 
 And for his poesy, 't is so rammed with life, 
 That it shall gather strength of life with being, 
 And live hereafter more admired than now." 
 
 The only other serious proof offered in support 
 of the proposition that Bacon wrote the immortal 
 Shakespearean drama is that certain coincidences 
 of thought and language are found in the works of 
 the two writers. When we examine them, how- 
 ever, they seem very insignificant. Take, as an 
 example, two or three, on which Judge Holmes 
 relies, and which he thinks very striking. 
 
 Holmes says (page 48) that Bacon quotes Aris- 
 
DIB SHAKESPEARE WEITE BACON'S WORKS 47 
 
 totle, who said that " young men were no fit hear- 
 ers of moral philosophy," and Shakespeare says 
 (" Troilus and Cressida ") : — 
 
 " Unlike young men whom Aristotle thought 
 Unfit to hear moral philosophy." 
 
 But since Bacon's remark was published in 1605, 
 and " Troilus and Cressida " did not appear until 
 1609, Shakespeare might have seen it there, and 
 introduced it into his play from his recollection of 
 the passage in the "Advancement of Learning." 
 
 Another coincidence mentioned by Holmes is 
 that both writers use the word " thrust : " Bacon 
 saying that a ship " thrust into Weymouth ; " and 
 Shakespeare, that " Milan was thrust from Milan." 
 He also thinks it cannot be an accident that both 
 frequently use the word " wilderness," though in 
 very different ways. Both also compare Queen 
 Elizabeth to a " star." Bacon makes Atlantis an 
 island in mid-ocean ; and the island of Prospero is 
 also in mid-ocean. Both have a good deal to say 
 about " mirrors," and " props," and like phrases. 
 
 Such reasoning as this has very little weight. 
 You cannot prove two contemporaneous writings 
 to have proceeded from one author by the same 
 words and phrases being found in both ; for these 
 are in the vocabulary of the time, and are the com- 
 mon property of all who read and write. 
 
 My position is that if either of these writers 
 wrote the works attributed to the other, it is much 
 
48 DID SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 
 
 more likely that Shakespeare wrote the philosophi- 
 cal works of Bacon than that Bacon wrote the 
 poetical works of Shakespeare. Assuming then, 
 as we have a right to do in this argument, that 
 Shakespeare wrote the plays, what reasons are there 
 for believing that he also wrote the philosophy? 
 
 First, this assumption will explain at once that 
 hitherto insoluble problem of the contradiction 
 between Bacon's character and conduct and his 
 works. How could he have been, at the same 
 time, what Pope calls him, — 
 
 " The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind " ? 
 
 He was, in his philosophy, the leader of his age, 
 the reformer of old abuses, the friend of progress. 
 In his conduct, he was, as Macaulay has shown, 
 " far behind his age, — far behind Sir Edward 
 Coke ; clinging to exploded abuses, withstanding 
 the progress of improvement, struggling to push 
 back the human mind." In his writings, he was 
 calm, dignified, noble. In his life, he was an 
 office-seeker through long years, seeking place by 
 cringing subservience to men in power, made 
 wretched to the last degree when office was denied 
 him, addressing servile supplications to noblemen 
 and to the sovereign. To gain and keep office he 
 would desert his friends, attack his benefactors, 
 and make abject apologies for any manly word he 
 might have incautiously uttered. His philosophy 
 rose far above earth and time, and sailed supreme 
 
BID SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 49 
 
 in the air of universal reason. But " his desires 
 were set on things below. Wealth, precedence, 
 titles, patronage, the mace, the seals, the coronet, 
 large houses, fair gardens, rich manors, massy ser- 
 vices of plate, gay hangings," were " objects for 
 which he stooped to everything and endured every^ 
 thing." These words of Macaulay have been 
 thought too severe. But we defy any admirer of 
 Bacon to read his life, by Spedding, without admit- 
 ting their essential truth. How was it possible 
 for a man to spend half of his life in the meanest 
 of pursuits, and the other half in the noblest ? 
 
 This difficulty is removed if we suppose that 
 Bacon, the courtier and lawyer, with his other 
 ambitions, was desirous of the fame of a great phi- 
 losopher ; and that he induced Shakespeare, then 
 in the prime of his powers, to help him write the 
 prose essays and treatises which are his chief 
 works. He has himself admitted that he did actu- 
 ally ask the aid of the dramatists of his time in 
 writing his books. This remarkable fact is stated 
 by Bacon in a letter to Tobie Matthew, written in 
 June, 1623, in which he says that he is devoting 
 himself to making his writings more perfect — 
 instancing the " Essays " and the " Advancement 
 of Learning " — " by the help of some good pens, 
 which forsake me not." One of these pens was 
 that of Ben Jonson, the other might easily have 
 been that of Shakespeare. Certainly there was no 
 better pen in England at that time than his. 
 
50 BIB SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 
 
 When Shakespeare's plays were being produced, 
 Lord Bacon was fully occupied in his law practice, 
 his parliamentary duties, and his office-seeking. 
 The largest part of the Shakespeare drama was put 
 on the stage, as modern research renders probable, 
 in the ten or twelve years beginning with 1590. In 
 1597 Shakespeare was rich enough to buy the new 
 place at Stratford-on-Avon, and was also lending 
 money. In 1604 he was part owner of the Globe 
 Theatre, so that the majority of the plays which 
 gained for him this fortune must have been pro- 
 duced before that time. Now, these were just the 
 busiest years of Bacon's life. In 1584 he was 
 elected to Parliament. About the same time, he 
 wrote his famous letter to Queen Elizabeth. In 
 1585 he was already seeking office from Walsing- 
 ham and Burleigh. In 1586 he sat in Parliament 
 for Taunton, and was active in debate and on com- 
 mittees. He became a bencher in the same year, 
 and began to plead in the courts of Westminster. 
 In 1589 he became queen's counsel, and member 
 of Parliament for Liverpool. After this he con- 
 tinued active, both in Parliament and at the bar. 
 He sought, by the help of Essex, to become Attor- 
 ney-General. From that period, as crown lawyer, 
 his whole time and thought were required to trace 
 and frustrate the conspiracies with which the king- 
 dom was full. It was evident that during these 
 years he had no time to compose fifteen or twenty 
 of the greatest works in any literature. 
 
DIB SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 51 
 
 But how was Shakespeare occupied when Bacon's 
 philosophy appeared ? The " Advancement of 
 Learning " was published in 1605, after most of 
 the plays had been written, as we learn from the 
 fact of Shakespeare's purchase of houses and 
 lands. The " Novum Organum " was published in 
 1620, after Shakespeare's death. But it had been 
 written years before ; revised, altered, and copied 
 again and again — it is said twelve times. Bacon 
 had been engaged upon it during thirty years, and 
 it was at last published incomplete and in frag- 
 ments. If Shakespeare assisted in the composi- 
 tion of this work, his death in 1616 would account, 
 at once, for its being left unfinished. And Shake- 
 speare would have had ample time to furnish the 
 ideas of the " Organum " in the last years of his 
 life, when he had left the theatre. In 1613 he 
 bought a house in Black Friars, where Ben Jonson 
 also lived. Might not this have been that they 
 might more conveniently cooperate in assisting 
 Bacon to write the " Novum Organum " ? 
 
 When we ask whether it would have been easier 
 for the author of the philosophy to have composed 
 the drama, or the dramatic poet to have written 
 the philosophy, the answer will depend on which 
 is the greater work of the two. The greater in- 
 cludes the less, but the less cannot include the 
 greater. Now, the universal testimony of modern 
 criticism in England, Germany, and France de- 
 clares that no larger, deeper, or ampler intellect 
 
52 BID SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 
 
 has ever appeared than that which produced the 
 Shakespeare drama. This " myriad-minded " poet 
 was also philosopher, man of the world, acquainted 
 with practical affairs, one of those who saw the 
 present and foresaw the future. All the ideas of 
 the Baconian philosophy might easily have had 
 their home in this vast intelligence. Great as 
 are the thoughts of the " Novum Organum," they 
 are far inferior to that world of thought which is 
 in the drama. We can easily conceive that Shake- 
 speare, having produced in his prime the wonders 
 and glories of the plays, should in his after leisure 
 have developed the leading ideas of the Baconian 
 philosophy. But it is difficult to imagine that 
 Bacon, while devoting his main strength to poli- 
 tics, to law, and to philosophy, should as a mere 
 pastime for his leisure, have produced in his idle 
 moments the greatest intellectual work ever done 
 on earth. 
 
 If the greater includes the less, the mind of 
 Shakespeare includes that of Bacon, and not vice 
 versa. This will appear more plainly if we con- 
 sider the quality of intellect displayed respectively 
 in the dramas and the philosophy. The one is 
 synthetic, creative ; the other analytic, critical. 
 The one puts together, the other takes apart and 
 examines. Now, the genius which can put to- 
 gether can also take apart ; but it by no means 
 follows that the power of taking apart implies that 
 of putting together. A watch-maker, who can put 
 
BIB SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 53 
 
 a watch together, can easily take it to pieces ; but 
 many a child who has taken his watch to pieces 
 has found it impossible to put it together again. 
 
 When we compare the Shakespeare plays and 
 the Baconian philosophy, it is curious to see how 
 the one is throughout a display of the synthetic 
 intellect, and the other of the analytic. The plays 
 are pure creation, the production of living wholes. 
 They people our thought with a race of beings 
 who are living persons, and not pale abstractions. 
 These airy nothings take flesh and form, and have 
 a name and local habitation forever on the earth. 
 Hamlet, Desdemona, Othello, Miranda, are as real 
 people as Queen Elizabeth or Mary of Scotland. 
 But when we turn to the Baconian philosophy, this 
 faculty is absent. We have entered the laboratory 
 of a great chemist, and are surrounded by retorts 
 and crucibles, tests and re-agents, where the work 
 done is a careful analysis of all existing things, to 
 find what are their constituents and their qualities. 
 Poetry creates, philosophy takes to pieces and ex- 
 amines. 
 
 It is, I think, a historic fact, that while those 
 authors whose primary quality is poetic genius 
 have often been also, on a lower plane, eminent 
 as philosophers, there is, perhaps, not a single 
 instance of one whose primary distinction was, 
 philosophic analysis, who has also been, on a 
 lower plane, eminent as a poet. Milton, Petrarch, 
 Goethe, Lucretius, Voltaire, Coleridge, were pri- 
 
54 BIB SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 
 
 marily and eminently poets ; but all excelled, too, 
 in a less degree, as logicians, metaphysicians, men 
 of science, and philosophers. But what instance 
 have we of any man like Bacon, chiefly eminent 
 as lawyer, statesman, and philosopher, who was 
 also distinguished, though in a less degree, as a 
 poet ? Among great lawyers, is there one eminent 
 also as a dramatic or lyric author ? Cicero tried 
 it, but his verses are only doggerel. In Lord 
 Campbell's list of the lord chancellors and chief 
 justices of England no such instance appears. If 
 Bacon wrote the Shakespeare drama, he is the one 
 exception to an otherwise universal rule. But if 
 Shakespeare cooperated in the production of the 
 Baconian philosophy, he belongs to a class of poets 
 who have done the same. Coleridge was one of 
 the most imaginative of poets. His " Christabel " 
 and " Ancient Mariner " are pure creations. But 
 in later life he originated a new system of philoso- 
 phy in England, the influence of which has not 
 ceased to be felt to our day. The case would be 
 exactly similar if we suppose that Shakespeare, 
 having ranged the realm of imaginative poetry in 
 his youth, had in his later days of leisure coop- 
 erated with Bacon and Ben Jonson in producing 
 the " Advancement of Learning " and the " No- 
 vum Organum." We can easily think of them 
 as meeting, sometimes at the house of Ben Jonson, 
 sometimes at that of Shakespeare in Black Friars, 
 and sometimes guests at that private house built 
 
BIB SHAKESPEARE WHITE BACON'S WORKS 55 
 
 by Lord Bacon for purposes of study, near his 
 splendid palace of Gorhambury. " A most in- 
 geniously contrived house," says Basil Montagu, 
 "where, in the society of his philosophical friends, 
 he devoted himself to study and meditation." 
 Aubrey tells us that he had the aid of Hobbes in 
 writing down his thoughts. Lord Bacon appears to 
 have possessed the happy gift of using other men's 
 faculties in his service. Ben Jonson, who had 
 been a thorough student of chemistry, alchemy, 
 and science in all the forms then known, aided 
 Bacon in his observations of nature. Hobbes 
 aided him in giving clearness to his thoughts 
 and his language. And from Shakespeare he may 
 have derived the radical and central ideas of his 
 philosophy. He used the help of Dr. Playfer to 
 translate his philosophy into Latin. Tobie Mat- 
 thew gives him the last argument of Galileo for 
 the Copernican system. He sends his works to 
 others, begging them to correct the thoughts and 
 the style. It is evident, then, that he would have 
 been glad of the concurrence of Shakespeare, and 
 that could easily be had, through their common 
 friend, Ben Jonson. 
 
 If Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare, it is 
 difficult to give any satisfactory reason for his con- 
 cealment of that authorship. He had much pride, 
 not to say vanity, in being known as an author. 
 He had his name attached to all his other works, 
 and sent them as presents to the universities, and 
 
56 DID SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON'S WORKS 
 
 to individuals, with letters calling their attention 
 to these books. Would he have been willing per- 
 manently to conceal the fact of his being the author 
 of the best poetry of his time ? The reasons as- 
 signed by Judge Holmes for this are not satisfac- 
 tory. They are : his desire to rise in the profession 
 of the law, the low reputation of a play-writer, his 
 wish to write more freely under an incognito, and 
 his wish to rest his reputation on his philosophical 
 works. But if he were reluctant to be regarded 
 as the author of " Lear " and " Hamlet," he was 
 willing to be known as the writer of " Masques," 
 and a play about " Arthur," exhibited by the stu- 
 dents of Gray's Inn. It is an error to say that 
 the reputation of a play-writer was low. Judge 
 Holmes, himself, tells us that there was nothing 
 remarkable in a barrister of the inns of court writ- 
 ing for the stage. Ford and Beaumont were both 
 lawyers as well as eminent play-writers. Lord 
 Backhurst, Lord Brooke, Sir Henry Wotton, all 
 wrote plays. And we find nothing in the Shake- 
 speare dramas which Bacon need have feared to 
 say under his own name. It would have been 
 ruin to Sir Philip Francis to have avowed himself 
 the author of " Junius." But the Shakespeare 
 plays satirized no one, and made no enemies. If 
 there were any reasons for concealment, they cer- 
 tainly do not apply to the year 1628, when the 
 first folio appeared, which was after the death 
 of Shakespeare and the fall of Bacon. The ac- 
 
DIB SHAKESPEABE WRITE BACON'S WOBKS 57 
 
 knowledgment of their authorship at that time 
 could no longer interfere with Bacon's rise. And 
 it would be very little to the credit of his intelli- 
 gence to assume that he was not then aware of the 
 value of such works, or that he did not desire 
 the reputation of being their author. It would 
 have been contrary to his very nature not to have 
 wished for the credit of that authorship. 
 
 On the other hand, there would be nothing 
 surprising in the fact of Shakespeare's laying no 
 claim to credit for having assisted in the composi- 
 tion of the " Advancement of Learning." Shake- 
 speare was by nature as reticent and modest as 
 Bacon was egotistical and ostentatious. What 
 a veil is drawn over the poet's personality in his 
 sonnets ! We read in them his inmost sentiments, 
 but they tell us absolutely nothing of the events of 
 his life, or the facts of his position. And if, as 
 we assume, he was one among several who helped 
 Lord Bacon, though he might have done the most, 
 there was no special reason why he should proclaim 
 that fact. 
 
 Gervinus has shown, in three striking pages, the 
 fundamental harmony between the ideas and men- 
 tal tendencies of Shakespeare and Bacon. Their 
 philosophy of man and of life was the same. If, 
 then, Bacon needed to be helped in thinking out 
 his system, there was no one alive who would have 
 given him such stimulus and encouragement as 
 Shakespeare. This also may explain his not men- 
 
58 BIB SHAEESPEABE WRITE BACON'S WOBKS 
 
 tioning the name of Shakespeare in his works ; 
 for that might have called too much attention to 
 the source from which he received this important 
 aid. 
 
 Nevertheless, I regard the monistic theory as in 
 the last degree improbable. We have two great 
 authors, and not one only. But if we are com- 
 pelled to accept the view which ascribes a common 
 source to the Shakespeare drama and the Baconian 
 philosophy, I think there are good reasons for 
 preferring Shakespeare to Bacon as the author 
 of both. When the plays appeared, Bacon was 
 absorbed in pursuits and ambitions foreign to such 
 work ; his accepted writings show no sign of such 
 creative power ; he was the last man in the world 
 not to take the credit of such a success, and had 
 no motive to conceal his authorship. On the other 
 hand, there was a period in Shakespeare's life 
 when he had abundant leisure to cooperate in the 
 literary plans of Bacon ; his ample intellect was 
 full of the ideas which took form in those works ; 
 and he was just the person neither to claim nor to 
 desi/e any credit for lending such assistance. 
 
 There is, certainly, every reason to believe that, 
 among his other ambitions, Bacon desired that of 
 striking out a new path of discovery, and initiat- 
 ing a better method in the study of nature. But 
 we know that, in doing this, he sought aid in 
 all quarters, and especially among Shakespeare's 
 friends and companions. It is highly probable, 
 
BIB SHAKESPEARE WEITE BACON'S WORKS 59 
 
 therefore, that lie became acquainted with the 
 great dramatist, and that Shakespeare knew of 
 Bacon's designs and became interested in them. 
 And if so, who could offer better suggestions than 
 he ; and who would more willingly accept them 
 than the overworked statesman and lawyer, who 
 wished to be also a philosopher ? 
 
 Finally, we may refer those who believe that the 
 shape of the brow and head indicates the quality 
 of mental power to the portraits of the two men. 
 The head of Shakespeare, according to all the 
 busts and pictures which remain to us, belongs 
 to the type which antiquity has transmitted to us 
 in the portraits of Homer and Plato. In this vast 
 dome of thought there was room for everything. 
 The head of Bacon is also a grand one, but less 
 ample, less complete — less 
 
 * ' Teres, totus atque rotundus." 
 
 These portraits therefore agree with all we know 
 of the writings, in showing us which, and which 
 only, of the two minds was capable of containing 
 the other. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF A GREAT POEM 1 
 
 There are at least three existing manuscripts 
 of Gray's "Elegy," in the author's autograph. 
 The earliest, containing the largest number of 
 variations and the most curious, is that now in the 
 possession of Sir William Eraser in London, and 
 for which he paid the large sum of £230, in 1875. 
 By the kindness of Sir William Fraser, I examined 
 this manuscript at his rooms in London, in 1882. 
 A facsimile copy of this valuable autograph, pho- 
 tographed from the original in 1862, is now before 
 me. A second copy in the handwriting of Gray, 
 called the Pembroke manuscript, is in the library 
 of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. A facsimile of 
 this autograph appears in Matthias's edition of 
 Mason's "Gray," published in 1814. A third 
 copy, in the poet's handwriting, copied by him for 
 his friend, Dr. Wharton, is in the British Museum. 
 I examined this, also, in 1882, and had an ac- 
 curate copy made for me by one of the assistants 
 in the museum/ This was written after the other 
 two, as is evident from the fact that it approaches 
 most nearly to the form which the " Elegy " finally 
 assumed when printed. There are only nine or 
 1 The Independent, 1882. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF A GREAT POEM 61 
 
 ten expressions in this manuscript which differ 
 from the poem as published by Gray. Most of 
 these are unimportant. " Or " he changed, in 
 three places, into " and." " And in our ashes " 
 he changed into " Even in our ashes," which was 
 a clear improvement. It was not until after this 
 third copy was written that the improvement was 
 made which changed 
 
 into 
 
 "Forgive, ye Proud, the involuntary Fault, 
 If Memory to These no Trophies raise," 
 
 " Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 
 If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise." 
 
 Another important alteration of a single word was 
 also made after this third manuscript was written. 
 This was the change, in the forty-fifth stanza, of 
 " Eeins of Empire " into " Rod of Empire." 
 
 " The Elegy in a Country Churchyard " became 
 at once one of the most popular poems in the 
 language, and has remained so to this time. It 
 has. been equally a favorite with common readers, 
 with literary men, and with poets. Its place will 
 always be in the highest rank of English poetry. 
 The fact, however, is — and it is a very curious 
 fact — that this first-class poem was the work of a 
 third-class poet. For Thomas Gray certainly does 
 not stand in the first class with Shakespeare, 
 Spenser, and Milton. Nor can he fairly be put in 
 the second class with Dryden, Pope, Burns, Words- 
 worth, and Byron. He belongs to the third, with 
 
62 THE EVOLUTION OF A GBEAT POEM 
 
 Cowley, Cowper, Shelley, and Keats. There may 
 be a doubt concerning some of whom I have 
 named, but there can be no doubt that Gray will 
 never stand higher than those who may be placed 
 by critics in the third class. Yet it is equally 
 certain that he has produced a first-class poem. 
 How is this paradox to be explained ? 
 
 What is the charm of Gray's " Elegy " ? The 
 thoughts are sufficiently commonplace. That all 
 men must die, that the most humble may have had 
 in them some power which, under other circum- 
 stances, might have made them famous, — these 
 are somewhat trite statements ; but the fascination 
 of the verses consists in the tone, solemn but 
 serene, which pervades them ; in the pictures of 
 coming night, of breaking day, of cheerful rural 
 life, of happy homes ; and lastly, in the perfect 
 finish of the verse and the curious felicity of the 
 diction. In short, the poem is a work of high art. 
 It was not inspired, but it was carefully elabo- 
 rated. And this appears plainly when we com- 
 pare it, as it stands in the Fraser manuscript, with 
 its final form. 
 
 This poem was .a work of eight years. Its head- 
 ing in the Fraser manuscript is " Stanzas Wrote 
 in a Country Churchyard." It was, however, be- 
 gun at Stoke in 1742, continued at Cambridge, 
 and had its last touches added at Stoke-Pogis, 
 June 12, 1750. In a letter to Horace Walpole of 
 that date, Gray says, " Having put an end to a 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF A GREAT POEM 63 
 
 thing whose beginning you saw long ago, I im- 
 mediately send it to you." 
 
 The corrections made by Gray during this 
 period were many, and were probably all improve- 
 ments. Many poets when they try to improve 
 their verses only injure them. But Gray's correc- 
 tions were invariably for the better. We may 
 even say that, if it had been published as it was 
 first written, and as it now stands in the Fraser 
 manuscript, it would have ranked only with the 
 best poetry of Shenstone or Cowper. Let me 
 indicate some of the most important changes. 
 
 In line seventeen, the fine epithet of " incense- 
 breathing " was an addition. 
 
 " The breezy call of incense-breathing morn," 
 
 for the Fraser manuscript reads — 
 
 " Forever sleep. The breezy call of morn." 
 
 Nineteenth line, Fraser manuscript has — 
 
 il Or chanticleer so shrill, or echoing horn," 
 
 corrected to 
 
 " The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn." 
 
 Twenty-fourth — " Coming kiss " was corrected 
 to " envied kiss." 
 
 Forty -third — "Awake the silent dust" was 
 corrected to " provoke the silent dust." 
 
 Forty-seventh — The correction of " Reins of 
 Empire " to " Rod of Empire " first appears in 
 the margin of the Pembroke manuscript. 
 
64 THE EVOLUTION OF A GREAT POEM 
 
 Fifty - seventh — In the Eraser manuscript it 
 reads — 
 
 " Some village Cato, who with dauntless breast, 
 Some mute, inglorious Tully here may rest ; 
 Some Caesar," etc. 
 
 In the Pembroke manuscript, these classical per- 
 sonages have disappeared, and the great improve- 
 ment was made of substituting Hampden, Milton, 
 and Cromwell, and thus maintaining the English 
 coloring of the poem. 
 
 Fifty-first — This verse, beginning, " But Know- 
 ledge," etc., was placed, in the Fraser manuscript, 
 after the one beginning, " Some village Cato," but 
 with a note in the margin to transfer it to where 
 it now stands. The third line of the stanza was 
 first written, " Chill Penury had damped." This 
 was first corrected to " depressed," and afterward 
 to " repressed." 
 
 Fifty-fifth — "Their fate forbade," changed to 
 "Their lot forbade." 
 
 Sixty-sixth — " Their struggling virtues " was 
 improved to " Their growing virtues." 
 
 Seventy-first — " Crown the shrine " was altered 
 to " heap the shrine," and in the next line " In- 
 cense hallowed by the muse's flame " was wisely 
 changed to " Incense kindled by the muse's flame." 
 
 After the seventy-second line stand, in the 
 Fraser manuscript, the following stanzas, which 
 Gray, with admirable taste, afterward omitted. 
 But, before he decided to leave them out alto- 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF A GREAT POEM 65 
 
 gether, he drew a black line down the margin, 
 indicating that he would transfer them to another 
 place. These stanzas were originally intended to 
 close the poem. Afterward the thought occurred 
 to him of " the hoary-headed swain " and the 
 " Epitaph." 
 
 " The thoughtless World to Majesty may bow, 
 Exalt the Brave and idolize Success, 
 But more to Innocence their safety owe 
 
 Than Power and Genius e'er conspire to bless. 
 
 " And thou, who, mindful of the unhonored Dead, 
 Dost, in these Notes, their artless Tale relate, 
 By Night and lonely Contemplation led 
 To linger in the gloomy Walks of Fate ; 
 
 "Hark, how the sacred Calm that broods around 
 Bids every fierce, tumultuous Passion cease, 
 In still, small Accents whispering from the Ground 
 A grateful Earnest of eternal Peace. 
 
 " No more with Reason and thyself at Strife, 
 Give anxious Cares and useless Wishes room ; 
 But through the cool, sequestered Vale of Life 
 Pursue the silent Tenor of thy Doom." 
 
 After these stanzas, according to the Fraser 
 manuscript, were to follow these lines, which I do 
 not remember to have seen elsewhere : — 
 
 " If chance that e'er some pensive Spirit more, 
 By sympathetic Musings here delayed, 
 With vain though kind Enquiry shall explore 
 
 Thy once-loved Haunt, thy long-neglected Shade, 
 
 "Haply," etc. 
 
 But Gray soon dispensed with this feeble stanza, 
 
66 THE EVOLUTION OF A GBEAT POEM 
 
 and made a new one by changing it into the one 
 beginning : — 
 
 " For thee, who mindful." 
 
 The ninety-ninth and one hundredth lines stand in 
 the Fraser manuscript — 
 
 " With hasty footsteps brush the dews away 
 On the high brow of yonder hanging* lawn." 
 
 The following stanza is noticeable for the in- 
 versions so frequent in Gray, and which he had, 
 perhaps, unconsciously adopted from his familiarity 
 with the classics. He afterward omitted it : — 
 
 " Him have we seen the greenwood side along, 
 
 While o'er the heath we hied, our labors done. 
 Oft as the wood-lark piped her farewell song, 
 With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun." 
 
 In the manuscript the word is spelled " whistf ul." 
 In line 101, " hoary beech " is corrected to " spread- 
 ing beech," and afterward to " nodding beech." 
 
 Line 113 — " Dirges meet " was changed to 
 " dirges dire ; " and after 116 came the beautiful 
 stanza, afterward omitted by Gray as being de trop 
 in this place : — 
 
 " There, scattered oft, the earliest of the year, 
 
 By hands unseen, are showers of violets found ; 
 The redbreast loves to build and warble there, 
 And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'' 
 
 Even in this verse there were two corrections. 
 " Eobin " was altered in the Fraser manuscript 
 into " redbreast," and " frequent violets " into 
 " showers of violets." 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF A GBEAT POEM 67 
 
 One of the most curious accidents to which this 
 famous poem has been subjected was an erroneous 
 change made in the early editions, which has been 
 propagated almost to our time. In the stanza be- 
 ginning — 
 
 " The boast of Heraldry, the pomp of Power," 
 
 Gray wrote 
 
 " Awaits alike the inevitable Hour." 
 
 And so it stands in all three manuscripts, and in 
 the printed edition which he himself superintended. 
 His meaning was, " The inevitable Hour awaits 
 everything. It stands there, waiting the boast 
 of Heraldry," etc. But his editors, misled by his 
 inverted style, supposed that it was the gifts of 
 Heraldry, Power, Beauty, etc., that were* waiting, 
 and therefore corrected what they thought Gray's 
 bad grammar, and printed the word " await." But 
 so they destroyed the meaning. These things were 
 not waiting at all for the dread hour ; they were 
 enjoying themselves, careless of its approach. 
 But " the hour " was waiting for them. Gray's 
 original reading has been restored in the last 
 editions. 
 
 In tracing the development of this fine poem, we 
 see it gradually improving under his careful touch, 
 till it becomes a work of high art. In some poets 
 — Wordsworth, for example — inspiration is at 
 its maximum, and art at its minimum. In Gray, 
 I think, inspiration was at its minimum, and art at 
 its maximum. 
 
EELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPH- 
 ICAL 
 
AFFINITIES OF BUDDHISM AND CHRIS- 
 TIANITY x 
 
 It has long been known that many analogies 
 exist between Buddhism and Christianity. The 
 ceremonies, ritual, and rites of the Buddhists strik- 
 ingly resemble those of the Roman Catholic Church. 
 The Buddhist priests are monks. They take the 
 same three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience 
 which are binding on those of the Roman Church. 
 They are mendicants, like the mendicant orders of 
 St. Francis and St. Dominic. They are tonsured ; 
 use strings of beads, like the rosary, with which to 
 count their prayers ; have incense and candles in 
 their worship ; use fasts, processions, litanies, and 
 holy water. They have something akin to the 
 adoration of saints ; repeat prayers in an unknown 
 tongue; have a chanted psalmody with a double 
 choir ; and suspend the censer from five chains. 
 In China, some Buddhists worship the image of a 
 virgin, called the Queen of Heaven, having an 
 infant in her arms, and holding a cross. In Thibet 
 the Grand Lamas wear a mitre, dalmatica, and 
 cope, and pronounce a benediction on the laity by 
 extending the right hand over their heads. The 
 
 1 The North American Beview, May, 1883. 
 
72 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Dalai-Lama resembles the Pope, and is regarded 
 as the head of the Church. The worship of relics 
 is very ancient among the Buddhists, and so are 
 pilgrimages to sacred places. 
 
 Besides these resemblances in outward ceremo- 
 nies, more important ones appear in the inner life 
 and history of the two religions. Both belong to 
 those systems which derive their character from a 
 human founder, and not from a national tendency ; 
 to the class which contains the religions of Moses, 
 Zoroaster, Confucius, and Mohammed, and not to 
 that in which the Brahmanical, Egyptian, Scandi- 
 navian, Greek, and Roman religions are found. 
 Both Buddhism and Christianity are catholic, and 
 not ethnic ; that is, not confined to a single race 
 or nation, but by their missionary spirit passing 
 beyond these boundaries, and making converts 
 among many races. Christianity began among the 
 Jews as a Semitic religion, but, being rejected by 
 the Jewish nation, established itself among the 
 Aryan races of Europe. In the same way Bud- 
 dhism, beginning among an Aryan people — the 
 Hindoos — was expelled from Hindostan, and es- 
 tablished itself among the Mongol races of Eastern 
 Asia. Besides its resemblances to the Roman 
 Catholic side of Christendom, Buddhism has still 
 closer analogies with the Protestant Church. Like 
 Protestantism, it is a reform, which rejects a hie- 
 rarchal system and does away with a priestly caste. 
 Like Protestantism, it has emphasized the purely 
 
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 73 
 
 humane side of life, and is a religion of humanity 
 rather than of piety. Both the Christian and Bud- 
 dhist churches teach a divine incarnation, and both 
 worship a God-man. 
 
 Are these remarkable analogies only casual re- 
 semblances, or are they real affinities ? By affinity 
 we here mean genetic relationship. Are Buddhism 
 and Christianity related as mother and child, one 
 being derived from the other ; or are they related by 
 both being derived from some common ancestor ? Is 
 either derived from the other, as Christianity from 
 Judaism, or Protestantism from the Papal Church ? 
 That there can be no such affinity as this seems 
 evident from history. History shows no trace of 
 the contact which would be required for such influ- 
 ence. If Christianity had taken its customs from 
 Buddhism, or Buddhism from Christianity, there 
 must have been ample historic evidence of the fact. 
 But, instead of this, history shows that each has 
 grown up by its own natural development, and has 
 unfolded its qualities separately and alone. The 
 law of evolution also teaches that such great systems 
 do not come from imitation, but as growths from a 
 primal germ. 
 
 Nor does history give the least evidence of a com- 
 mon ancestry from which both took their common 
 traits. We know that Buddhism was derived from 
 Brahmanism, and that Christianity was derived 
 from Judaism. Now, Judaism and Brahmanism 
 have few analogies ; they could not, therefore, have 
 
74 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 
 
 transmitted to their offspring what they did not 
 themselves possess. Brahmanism came from an 
 Aryan stock, in Central Asia ; Judaism from a 
 Semitic stem, thousands of miles to the west. If 
 Buddhism and Christianity came from a common 
 source, that source must have antedated both the 
 Mosaic and Brahmanical systems. Even then it 
 would be a case of atavism in which the original 
 type disappeared in the children, to reappear in the 
 later descendants. 
 
 Are, then, these striking resemblances, and oth- 
 ers which are still to be mentioned, only accidental 
 analogies ? This does not necessarily follow ; for 
 there is a third alternative. They may be what 
 are called in science homologies ; that is, the same 
 law working out similar results under the same 
 conditions, though under different circumstances. 
 The whale lives under different circumstances from 
 other mammalia; but being a mammal, he has a 
 like osseous structure. What seems to be a fin, 
 being dissected, turns out to be an arm, with hand 
 and fingers. There are like homologies in history. 
 Take the instance of the English and French re- 
 volutions. In each case the legitimate king was 
 tried, condemned, and executed. A republic fol- 
 lowed. The republic gave way before a strong- 
 handed usurper. Then the original race of kings 
 was restored ; but, having learned nothing and for- 
 gotten nothing, they were displaced a second time, 
 and a constitutional monarch placed on the throne, 
 
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 75 
 
 who, though not the legitimate king, still belonged 
 to the same race. Here the same laws of human 
 nature have worked out similar results ; for no one 
 would suggest that France had copied its revolu- 
 tions from England. And, in religion, human na- 
 ture reproduces similar customs and ceremonies 
 under like conditions. When, for instance, you 
 have a mechanical system of prayer, in which the 
 number of prayers is of chief importance, there 
 must be some way of counting them, and so the 
 rosary has been invented independently in differ- 
 ent religions. We have no room to point out how 
 this law has worked in other instances ; but it is 
 enough to refer to the principle. 
 
 Besides these resemblances between Buddhism 
 and Christianity, there are also some equally re- 
 markable differences, which should be noticed. 
 
 The first of these is the striking fact that Bud- 
 dhism has been unable to recognize the existence of 
 the Infinite Being. It has been called atheism by 
 the majority of the best authorities. Even Arthur 
 Lillie, who defends this system from the charge of 
 agnosticism, says : 1 " An agnostic school of Bud- 
 dhism without doubt exists. It professes plain athe- 
 ism, and holds that every mortal, when he escapes 
 from re-births, and the causation of Karma by the 
 awakenment of the Bodhi or gnosis, will be anni- 
 hilated. This Buddhism, by Eugene Burnouf, 
 Saint-Hilaire, Max Muller, Csoma de Koros, and, 
 
 1 Buddha and Early Buddhism. Trubner & Co., 1881. 
 
76 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 
 
 I believe, almost every writer of note, is pro- 
 nounced the original Buddhism, — the Buddhism 
 of the South." Almost every writer of note, 
 therefore, who has studied Buddhism in the Pali, 
 Singhalese, Chinese, and other languages, and has 
 had direct access to its original sources, has pro- 
 nounced it a system of atheism. But this opinion 
 is opposed to the fact that Buddhists have every- 
 where worshiped unseen and superhuman powers, 
 erected magnificent temples, maintained an elabo- 
 rate ritual, and adored Buddha as the supreme 
 ruler of the worlds. How shall we explain this 
 paradox ? All depends on the definition we give 
 to the word "atheism." If a system is atheistic 
 which sees only the temporal, and not the eternal ; 
 which knows no God as the author, creator, and 
 ruler of Nature ; which ascribes the origin of the 
 universe to natural causes, to which only the finite 
 is knowable, and the infinite unknowable — -then 
 Buddhism is atheism. But, in that case, much 
 of the polytheism of the world must be regarded 
 as atheism ; for polytheism has largely worshiped 
 finite gods. The whole race of Olympian deities 
 were finite beings. Above them ruled the ever- 
 lasting necessity of things. But who calls the 
 Greek worshipers atheists ? The Buddha, to most 
 Buddhists, is a finite being, one who has passed 
 through numerous births, has reached Nirvana, and 
 will one day be superseded by another Buddha. 
 Yet, for the time, he is the Supreme Being, Ruler 
 
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 77 
 
 of all the Worlds. He is the object of worship, 
 and really divine, if in a subordinate sense. 
 
 I would not, therefore, call this religion atheism. 
 No, religion which worships superhuman powers 
 can justly be called atheistic on account of its 
 meagre metaphysics. How many Christians there 
 are who do not fully realize the infinite and eternal 
 nature of the Deity ! To many He is no more than 
 the Buddha is to his worshipers, — a supreme be- 
 ing, a mighty ruler, governing all things by his 
 will. How few see God everywhere in nature, as 
 Jesus saw Him, letting his sun shine on the evil and 
 good, and sending his rain on the just and unjust. 
 How few see Him in all of life, so that not a spar- 
 row dies, or a single hair of the head falls, without 
 the Father. Most Christians recognize the Deity 
 only as occasionally interfering by special provi- 
 dences, particular judgments, and the like. 
 
 But in Christianity this ignorance of the eternal 
 nature of God is the exception, while in Buddhism 
 it is the rule. In the reaction against Brahman- 
 ism, the Brahmanic faith in the infinite was lost. 
 In the fully developed system of the ancient Hin- 
 doo religion the infinite overpowered the finite, the 
 temporal world was regarded as an illusion, and 
 only the eternal was real. The reaction from this 
 extreme was so complete as to carry the Buddhists 
 to the exact opposite. If to the Brahman all the 
 finite visible world was only may a — illusion, to 
 the Buddhists all the infinite unseen world was un- 
 knowable, and practically nothing. 
 
78 BUDDHISM AXD CHE IS TI AX IT Y 
 
 Perhaps the most original feature of Christian- 
 ity is the fact that it has combined in a living syn- 
 thesis that which in other systems was divided. 
 Jesus regarded love to God and love to man as 
 identical, — positing a harmonious whole of time 
 and eternity, piety and humanity, faith and works, 
 — and thus laid the foundation of a larger system 
 than either Brahmanism or Buddhism. He did 
 not invent piety, nor discover humanity. Long 
 before he came the Brahmanic literature had 
 sounded the deepest depths of spiritual life, and 
 the Buddhist missionaries had preached universal 
 benevolence to mankind. But the angelic hymn 
 which foretold the new religion as bringing at once 
 " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, 
 good will to men " indicated the essence of the 
 faith which was at the same time a heavenly love 
 and an earthly blessing. This difference of result 
 in the two systems came probably from the differ- 
 ent methods of their authors. With Jesus life was 
 the source of knowledge ; the life was the light of 
 men. AVith the Buddha, reflection, meditation, 
 thought was the source of knowledge. In this, 
 however, he included intuition no less than reflec- 
 tion. Sakya-rnuni understood perfectly that a mere 
 intellectual judgment possessed little motive power ; 
 therefore he was not satisfied till he had obtained 
 an intuitive perception of truth. That alone gave 
 at once rest and power. But as the pure intel- 
 lect, even in its highest act, is unable to grasp 
 
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 79 
 
 the infinite, the Buddha was an agnostic on this 
 side of his creed by the very success of his method. 
 Who, by searching, can find out God ? The infi- 
 nite can only be known by the process of living 
 experience. This was the method of Jesus, and 
 has been that of his religion. For what is faith 
 but that receptive state of mind which waits on 
 the Lord to receive the illumination which it can- 
 not create by its own processes? However this 
 may be, it is probable that the fatal defect in 
 Buddhism which has neutralized its generous phi- 
 lanthropy and its noble humanities has been the 
 absence of the inspiration which comes from the 
 belief in an eternal world. Man is too great to be 
 satisfied with time alone, or eternity alone : he 
 needs to live from and for both. Hence, Bud- 
 dhism is an arrested religion, while Christianity is 
 progressive. Christianity has shown the capacity 
 of outgrowing its own defects and correcting its 
 own mistakes. For example, it has largely out- 
 grown its habit of persecuting infidels and here- 
 tics. No one is now put to death for heresy. It 
 has also passed out of the stage in which religion 
 is considered to consist in leaving the world and 
 entering a monastery. The anchorites of the early 
 centuries are no longer to be found in Christen- 
 dom. Even in Catholic countries the purpose of 
 monastic life is no longer to save the soul. by as- 
 cetic tortures, but to attain some practical end. 
 The Protestant Reformation, which broke the yoke 
 
80 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 
 
 of priestly power and set free the mind of Europe, 
 was a movement originating in Christianity itself, 
 like other developments of a similar kind. No 
 such signs of progress exist in the system of Bud- 
 dhism. It has lost the missionary ardor of its early 
 years ; it has ceased from creating a vast literature 
 such as grew up in its younger days ; it no longer 
 produces any wonders of architecture. It even 
 lags behind the active life of the countries where 
 it has its greatest power. 
 
 It is a curious analogy between the two systems 
 that, while neither the Christ nor the Buddha prac- 
 ticed or taught asceticism, their followers soon 
 made the essence of religion to consist in some 
 form of monastic life. Both Jesus and Sakya- 
 muni went about doing good. Both sent their fol- 
 lowers into the world to preach a gospel. Jesus, 
 after thirty years of a retired life, came among 
 men " eating and drinking," and associating with 
 " publicans and sinners." Sakya-muni, after 
 spending some years as an anchorite, deliberately 
 renounced that mode of religion as unsatisfactory, 
 and associated with all men, as Jesus afterward 
 did. Within a few centuries after their death, 
 their followers relapsed into ascetic and monastic 
 practices ; but with this difference, that while in 
 Christendom there has always been both a regu- 
 lar and a secular clergy, in the Buddhist countries 
 the whole priesthood live in monasteries. They 
 have no parish priests, unless as an exception. 
 
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 81 
 
 While in Christian countries the clergy has be- 
 come more and more a practical body, in sympathy 
 with the common life, in Buddhist lands they live 
 apart and exercise little influence on the civil con- 
 dition of the people. 
 
 Nor must we pass by the important fact that the 
 word Christendom is synonymous with a progres- 
 sive civilization, while Buddhism is everywhere 
 connected with one which is arrested and station- 
 ary. The boundaries of the Christian religion are 
 exactly coextensive with the advance of science, 
 art, literature ; and with the continued accumula- 
 tion of knowledge, power, wealth, and the comforts 
 of human life. According to Kuenen, 1 one of the 
 most recent students of these questions, this differ- 
 ence is due to the principle of hope which exists in 
 Christianity, but is absent in Buddhism. The one 
 has always believed in a kingdom of God here and 
 a blessed immortality hereafter. Buddhism has 
 not this hope ; and this, says Kuenen, " is a blank 
 which nothing can fill." So large a thinker as 
 Albert Reville has expressed his belief that even 
 the intolerance of Christianity indicated a passion- 
 ate love of truth which has created modern science. 
 He says that " if Europe had not passed through 
 those ages of intolerance, it is doubtful whether the 
 science of our day would ever have arrived." 2 It 
 is only within the boundaries of nations professing 
 
 1 Hibbert Lectures, 1882, page 291. 
 
 2 A. Ke*ville : Prolegomenes de VHistoire des Religions. 
 
82 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the Christian faith that we must go to-day to learn 
 the latest discoveries in science, the best works of 
 art, the most flourishing literature. Only within 
 the same circle of Christian states is there a gov- 
 ernment by law, and not by will. Only within 
 these boundaries have the rights of the individual 
 been secured, while the power of the state has been 
 increased. Government by law, joined with per- 
 sonal freedom, is only to be found where the faith 
 exists which teaches that God not only supports the 
 universal order of natural things, but is also the 
 friend of the individual soul ; and in just that circle 
 of states in which the doctrine is taught that there 
 is no individual soul for God to love and no Divine 
 presence in the order of nature, human life has sub- 
 sided into apathy, progress has ceased, and it has 
 been found impossible to construct national unity. 
 Saint-Hilaire affirms 1 that " in politics and legisla- 
 tion the dogma of Buddhism has remained inferior 
 even to that of Brahmanism," and " has been able 
 to do nothing to constitute states or to govern them 
 by equitable rules." These Buddhist nations are 
 really six : Siam, Burma, Nepaul, Thibet, Tartary, 
 and Ceylon. The activity and social progress in 
 China and Japan are no exceptions to this rule; 
 for in neither country has Buddhism any appre- 
 ciable influence on the character of the people. 
 To those who deny that the theology of a people 
 
 1 Le Bouddha et sa Religion, page 149, par J. Barthelemy 
 Saint-Hilaire, Paris. 
 
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 83 
 
 influences its character, it may be instructive to 
 see how exactly the good and evil influences of 
 Buddhism correspond to the positive and negative 
 traits of its doctrine. Its merits, says Saint- 
 Hilaire, are its practical character, its abnegation 
 of vulgar gratifications, its benevolence, mildness, 
 sentiment of human equality, austerity of manners, 
 dislike of falsehood, and respect for the family. 
 Its defects are want of social power, egotistical 
 aims, ignorance of the ideal good, of the sense 
 of human right and human freedom, skepticism, in- 
 curable despair, contempt of life. All its human 
 qualities correspond to its doctrinal teaching from 
 the beginning. It has always taught benevolence, 
 patience, self-denial, charity, and toleration. Its 
 defects arise inevitably from its negative aim, — to 
 get rid of sorrow and evil by sinking into apathy, 
 instead of seeking for the triumph of good and the 
 coming of a reign of God here on the earth. 
 
 As regards the Buddha himself, modern students 
 differ widely. Some, of course, deny his very 
 existence, and reduce him to a solar myth. M. 
 Emile Senart, as quoted by Oldenberg, 1 following 
 the Lalita Vistara as his authority, makes of him 
 a solar hero, born of the morning cloud, contend- 
 ing by the power of light with the demons of dark- 
 ness, rising in triumph to the zenith of heavenly 
 glory, then passing into the night of Nirvana and 
 disappearing from the scene. 
 
 1 Senart : Essai sur la Legende du Buddha. Paris, 1875. 
 
84 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The difficulty about this solar myth theory is 
 that it proves too much ; it is too powerful a sol- 
 vent; it would dissolve all history. How easy it 
 would be, in a few centuries, to turn General 
 Washington and the American Revolution into 
 a solar myth ! Great Britain, a region of clouds 
 and rain, represents the Kingdom of Darkness ; 
 America, with more sunshine, is the Day. Great 
 Britain, as Darkness, wishes to devour the Young 
 Day, or dawn of light, which America is about to 
 diffuse over the earth. But Washington, the solar 
 hero, arrives. He is from Virginia, that is, born of 
 a virgin. He was born in February, in the sign 
 of Aquarius and the Fishes, — plainly referring to 
 the birth of the sun from the ocean. As the sun 
 surveys the earth, so Washington was said to be 
 a surveyor of many regions. The story of the 
 fruitless attempts of the Indians to shoot him at 
 Braddock's defeat is evidently legendary; and, 
 in fact, this battle itself must be a myth, for how 
 can we suppose two English and French armies 
 to have crossed the Atlantic, and then gone into 
 a wilderness west of the mountains, to fight a 
 battle ? So easy is it to turn history into a solar 
 myth. 
 
 The character of Sakya-muni must be learned 
 from his religion and from authentic tradition. 
 In many respects his character and influence 
 resembled that of Jesus. He opposed priestly 
 assumptions, taught the equality and brotherhood 
 
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 85 
 
 of man, sent out disciples to teach his doctrine, 
 was a reformer who relied on the power of truth 
 and love. Many of his reported sayings resemble 
 those of Jesus. He was opposed by the Brahmans 
 as Jesus by the Pharisees. He compared the 
 Brahmans who followed their traditions to a chain 
 of blind men, who move on, not seeing where they 
 go. 1 Like Jesus, he taught that mercy was better 
 than sacrifices. Like Jesus, he taught orally, and 
 left no writing. Jesus did not teach in Hebrew, 
 but in the Aramaic, which was the popular dialect, 
 and so the Buddha did not speak to the people in 
 Sanskrit, but in their own tongue, which was Pali. 
 Like Jesus, he seems to have instructed his hear- 
 ers by parables or stories. He was one of the 
 greatest reformers the world has ever seen; and 
 his influence, after that of the Christ, has probably 
 exceeded that of any one who ever lived. 
 
 But, beside such real resemblances between 
 these two masters, we are told of others still more 
 striking, which would certainly be hard to explain 
 unless one of the systems had borrowed from the 
 other. These are said to be the preexistence of 
 Buddha in heaven ; his birth of a virgin ; saluta- 
 tion by angels ; presentation in the temple ; bap- 
 tism by fire and water ; dispute with the doctors ; 
 temptation in the wilderness; transfiguration; 
 
 1 Oldenberg : Buddha, sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde. 
 Berlin, 1881. This is one of the latest and best books on our 
 subject. 
 
86 BUDDHISM AND CHBISTIANITY 
 
 descent into hell; ascension into heaven. 1 If 
 these legends could be traced back to the time 
 before Christ, then it might be argued that the 
 Gospels have borrowed from Buddhism. Such, 
 however, is not the fact. These stories are taken 
 from the Lalita Vistara, which, according to Rhys 
 Davids, 2 was probably composed between six hun- 
 dred and a thousand years after the time of Bud- 
 dha, by some Buddhist poet in Nepaul. Rhys 
 Davids, one of our best authorities, says of this 
 poem : " As evidence of what early Buddhism ac- 
 tually was, it is of about the same value as some 
 mediaeval poem would be of the real facts of the 
 gospel history." 3 M. Ernest de Bunsen, in his 
 work on the " Angel Messiah," has given a very 
 exhaustive statement, says Mr. Davids, of all the 
 possible channels through which Christians can be 
 supposed to have borrowed from the Buddhists. 
 But Mr. Davids's conclusion is that he finds no 
 evidence of any such communications of ideas from 
 the East to the West. 3 The difference between 
 the wild stories of the Lalita Vistara and the 
 sober narratives of the Gospels is quite apparent. 
 Another writer, Professor Seydel, 4 thinks, after a 
 full and careful examination, that only five facts in 
 
 1 Three Lectures on Buddhism : " Romantic Legend of Buddha," 
 by Samuel Beal. London, 1875. Eitel. 
 
 2 Hibbert Lectures: "Origin and Growth of Buddhism," by T. 
 W. Rhys Davids. 1881. 
 
 3 Ibid., page 143. 
 
 4 Buddhistisch-Christliche Harmonie. 
 
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 87 
 
 the Gospels may have been borrowed from Bud- 
 dhism. These are : (1) The fast of Jesus before 
 his work ; (2) The question in regard to the blind 
 man — " Who did sin, this man, or his parents "? 
 (3) The preexistence of Christ ; (4) The presen- 
 tation in the Temple ; (5) Nathanael sitting under 
 a fig-tree, compared with Buddha under a Bo-tree. 
 But Kuenen has examined these parallels, and con- 
 siders them merely accidental coincidences. And, 
 in truth, it is very hard to conceive of one religion 
 borrowing its facts or legends from another, if 
 that other stands in no historic relation to it. 
 That Buddhism should have taken much from 
 Brahmanism is natural ; for Brahmanism was its 
 mother. That Christianity should have borrowed 
 many of its methods from Judaism is equally natu- 
 ral ; for Judaism was its cradle. Modern travelers 
 in Burma and Tartary have found that the Bud- 
 dhists hold a kind of camp-meeting in the open 
 air, where they pray and sing. Suppose that some 
 critic, noticing this, should assert that, when Wes- 
 ley and his followers established similar customs, 
 they must have borrowed them from the Buddhists. 
 The absurdity would be evident. New religions 
 grow, they are not imitations. 
 
 It has been thought, however, that Christianity 
 was derived from the Essenes, because of certain 
 resemblances, and ifc is argued that the Essenes 
 must have obtained their monastic habits from the 
 Therapeutse in Egypt, and that the Therapeutae 
 
88 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 
 
 received them from the Buddhists, because they 
 could not have found them elsewhere. This the- 
 ory, however, has been dismissed from the scene 
 by the young German scholar, 1 who has proved 
 that the essay on the Therapeutae ascribed to Philo 
 was really written by a Christian anchorite in the 
 third or fourth century. 
 
 The result, then, of our investigation, is this : 
 There is no probability that the analogies between 
 Christianity and Buddhism have been derived the 
 one from the other. They have come from the 
 common and universal needs and nature of man, 
 which repeat themselves again and again in like 
 positions and like circumstances. That Jesus and 
 Buddha should both have retired into the wilder- 
 ness before undertaking their great work is prob- 
 able, for it has been the habit of other reformers 
 to let a period of meditation precede their coming 
 before the world. That both should have been 
 tempted to renounce their enterprise is also in 
 accordance with human nature. That, in after 
 times, the simple narratives should be overlaid 
 with additions, and a whole mass of supernatural 
 wonders added, — as we find in the Apocryphal 
 Gospels and the Lalita Vistara, — is also in accord- 
 ance with the working of the human mind. 
 
 Laying aside all such unsatisfactory resem- 
 blances, we must regard the Buddha as having 
 
 1 P. E. Lucius : Die Therapeuten und ihre Stellung, &c. Strass- 
 burg, 1880. 
 
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 89 
 
 been one of the noblest of men, and one whom 
 Jesus would have readily welcomed as a fellow 
 worker and a friend. He opposed a dominant 
 priesthood, maintained the equal religious rights of 
 all mankind, overthrew caste, encouraged woman 
 to take her place as man's equal, forbade all bloody- 
 sacrifices, and preached a religion of peace and 
 good will, seeking to triumph only in the fair con- 
 flict of reason with reason. If he was defective 
 in the loftiest instincts of the soul ; if he knew no- 
 thing of the infinite and eternal; if he saw nothing 
 permanent in the soul of man ; if his highest pur- 
 pose was negative, — to escape from pain, sorrow, 
 anxiety, toil, — let us still be grateful for the in- 
 fluence which has done so much to tame the savage 
 Mongols, and to introduce hospitality and humanity 
 into the homes of Lassa and Siam. If Edwin 
 Arnold, a poet, idealizes him too highly, it is the 
 better fault, and should be easily forgiven. Hero- 
 worshipers are becoming scarce in our time ; let us 
 make the most of those we have. 
 
WHY I AM NOT A FREE-RELIGIONIST 1 
 
 What is meant by " Free Religion " ? I under- 
 stand by it, individualism in religion. It is the 
 religious belief which has made itself independ- 
 ent of historic and traditional influences, so far 
 as it is in the power of any one to attain such 
 independence. In Christian lands it means a re- 
 ligion which has cut loose from the Bible and the 
 Christian Church, and which is as ready to ques- 
 tion the teaching of Jesus as that of Socrates or 
 Buddha. It is, what Emerson called himself, an 
 endless seeker, with no past behind it. It is entire 
 trust in the private reason as the sole authority in 
 matters of religion. 
 
 Free Religion may be regarded as Protestantism 
 carried to its ultimate results. A Protestant 
 Christian accepts the leadership of Jesus, and 
 keeps himself in the Christian communion ; but he 
 uses his own private judgment to discover what 
 Jesus taught, and what Christianity really is. The 
 Free Religionist goes a step farther, and decides 
 by his own private judgment what is true and 
 what false, no matter whether taught by Jesus or 
 not. 
 
 1 The North American Review, October, 1887. 
 
WHY I AM NOT A FBEE-BELIGIONIST 91 
 
 Free Religion, as thus understood, seems to me 
 opposed to the law of evolution, and incompatible 
 with it. Evolution educes the present from the 
 past by a continuous process. Free Religion cuts 
 itself loose from the past, and makes every man 
 the founder of his own religion. According to 
 the law of evolution, confirmed by history, every 
 advance in religion is the development from some- 
 thing going before. Jewish monotheism grew out 
 of polytheism ; Christianity and Mohammedanism 
 out of Judaism ; Buddhism out of Brahmanism ; 
 Protestant Christianity out of the Roman Catholic 
 Church. Jesus himself said, " Think not that I 
 am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets : 
 I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." The 
 higher religions are not made ; they grow. Of 
 each it may be said, as of the poet : " Nascitur, 
 non fit." Therefore, if there is to arrive some- 
 thing higher than our existing Christianity, it 
 must not be a system which forsakes the Christian 
 belief, but something developed from it. 
 
 According to the principle of evolution, every 
 growing and productive religion obeys the laws of 
 heredity and of variation. It has an inherited 
 common life, and a tendency to modification by 
 individual activity. Omit or depress either factor, 
 and the religion loses its power of growth. With- 
 out a common life, the principle of development is 
 arrested. He who leaves the great current which 
 comes from the past loses headway. This current, 
 
92 WHY I AM NOT A FREE-RELIGIONIST 
 
 in the Christian communion, is the inherited 
 spirit of Jesus. It is his life, continued in his 
 Church ; his central convictions of love to God 
 and to man ; of fatherhood and brotherhood ; of 
 the power of truth to conquer error, of good 
 to overcome evil ; of a Kingdom of Heaven to 
 come to us here. It is the faith of Jesus in things 
 unseen ; his hope of the triumph of right over 
 wrong; his love going down to the lowliest child 
 of God. These vital convictions in the soul of 
 Jesus are commimicated by contact from genera- 
 tion to generation. They are propagated, as he 
 suggested, like leaven hidden in the dotigh. By 
 a different figure, Plato, in his dialogue of Ion, 
 shows that inspiration is transmitted like the mag- 
 netic influence, which causes iron rings to adhere 
 and hang together in a chain. Thoughts and 
 opinions are communicated by argument, reason- 
 ing, speech, and writing ; but faith and inspiration 
 by the influence of life on life. The life of Jesus 
 is thus continued in his Church, and those who 
 stand outside of it lose much of this transmitted 
 and sympathetic influence. Common life in a 
 religious body furnishes the motive force which 
 carries it forward, while individual freedom gives 
 the power of improvement. The two principles 
 of heredity and variation must be united in order 
 to combine union and freedom, and to secure pro- 
 gress. Where freedom of thought ceases, religion 
 becomes rigid. It is incapable of development. 
 
WHY I AM NOT A FREE-RELIGIONIST 93 
 
 Such, for instance, is the condition of Buddhism, 
 which, at first full of intellectual activity, has now 
 hardened into a monkish ritual. 
 
 Free Keligion sacrifices the motive power de- 
 rived from association and religious sympathy for 
 the sake of a larger intellectual freedom. The 
 result is individualism. It founds no churches, 
 but spends much force in criticising the Christian 
 community, its belief, and its methods. These 
 are, no doubt, open to criticism, which would do 
 good if administered sympathetically and from 
 within, but produce little result when delivered 
 in the spirit of antagonism. Imperfect as the 
 Christian Church is, it ought to be remembered 
 that in it are to be found the chief strength and 
 help of the charities, philanthropies, and moral 
 reforms of our time. Every one who has at heart 
 a movement for the benefit of humanity appeals 
 instinctively for aid to the Christian churches. It 
 is in these that such movements usually originate, 
 and are carried on. Even when, as in the anti- 
 slavery movement, a part of the churches refuse 
 to sympathize with a new moral or social move- 
 ment, the reproaches made against them show that 
 in the mind of the community an interest in all 
 humane endeavor is considered to be a part of 
 their work. The common life and convictions 
 of these bodies enable them to accomplish what 
 individualism does not venture to undertake. In- 
 dividualism is incapable of organized and sustained 
 
94 WHY I AM XOT A FREE-BELIGIOXIST 
 
 work of this sort, though it can. and often does, 
 cooperate earnestly with it. 
 
 The teaching of Jesus is founded on the syn- 
 thesis of Truth and Love. Jesus declares himself 
 to have been born " to bear witness to the truth," 
 and he also makes love, divine and human, the 
 substance of Ins gospel. The love element pro- 
 duces union, the truth element, freedom. Union 
 without freedom stiffens into a rigid conservatism. 
 Freedom without union breaks up into an intel- 
 lectual atomism. The Christian churches have 
 gone into both extremes, but never permanently ; 
 for Christianity, as long as it adheres to its founder 
 and his ideas, has the power of self-recovery. Its 
 diseases are self-limited. 
 
 It has had many such periods, but has recovered 
 from them. It passed through an age in which 
 it ran to ascetic self-denial, and made saints of 
 self-torturing anchorites. It afterward became a 
 speculative system, and tended to metaphysical 
 creeds and doctrinal distinctions. It became a 
 persecuting church, burning heretics and Jews, 
 and torturing infidels as an act of faith. It was 
 tormented by dark superstitions, believing in witch- 
 craft and magic. But it has left all these evils 
 behind. Xo one is now put to death for heresy or 
 witchcraft. The monastic orders in the Church 
 are preachers and teachers, or given to charity. 
 Xo one could be burned to-day as a heretic. Xo 
 one to-day believes in witchcraft. The old creeds 
 
WHY I AM NOT A FREE-RELIGIONIST 95 
 
 which once held the Church in irons are now slowly 
 disintegrating. But reform, as I have said, must 
 come from within, by the gradual elimination of 
 those inherited beliefs which interfere with the 
 unity of the Church and the leadership of Christ 
 himself. The Platonic and Egyptian Trinity re- 
 maining as dogma, repeated but not understood, 
 — the Manichaean division of the human race into 
 children of God and children of the Devil, — 
 the scholastic doctrine of the Atonement, by which 
 the blood of Jesus expiates human guilt, — are 
 being gradually explained in accordance with rea- 
 son and the teaching of Jesus. 
 
 Some beliefs, once thought to be of vital impor- 
 tance, are now seen by many to be unessential, or 
 are looked at in a different light. Instead of mak- 
 ing Jesus an exceptional person, we are coming to 
 regard him as a representative man, the realized 
 ideal of what man was meant to be, and will one 
 day become. Instead of considering his sinless- 
 ness as setting him apart from his race, we look 
 on it as showing that sin is not the natural, but 
 unnatural, condition of mankind. His miracles 
 are regarded not as violations of the laws of 
 nature, but anticipations of laws which one day 
 will be universally known, and which are bound- 
 less as the universe. Nor will they in future be 
 regarded as evidence of the mission of Jesus, since 
 he himself was grieved when they were so looked 
 upon, and he made his truth and his character the 
 
96 WHY I AM NOT A FREE-RELIGIONIST 
 
 true evidence that he came from God. The old 
 distinction between " natural " and " supernatural " 
 will disappear when it is seen that Jesus had a 
 supernatural work and character, the same in kind 
 as ours, though higher in degree. The supreme 
 gifts which make him the providential leader of 
 the race do not set him apart from his brethren 
 if we see that it is a law of humanity that gifts 
 differ, and that men endowed with superior powers 
 become leaders in science, art, literature, politics ; 
 as Jesus has become the chief great spiritual leader 
 of mankind. 
 
 Men are now searching the Scriptures, not under 
 the bondage of an infallible letter, but seeking 
 for the central ideas of Jesus and the spirit of 
 his gospel. They begin to accept the maxim of 
 Goethe : " No matter how much the gospels con- 
 tradict each other, provided the Gospel does not 
 contradict itself." The profound convictions of 
 Christ, which pervade all his teaching, give the 
 clue by which to explain the divergences in the 
 narrative. We interpret the letter by the light 
 of the spirit. We see how Jesus emphasized the 
 law of human happiness, — that it comes from 
 within, not from without ; that the pure in heart 
 see God, and that it is more blessed to give than 
 to receive. We comprehend the stress he lays on 
 the laws of progress, — that he who humbleth him- 
 self shall be exalted. We recognize his profound 
 conviction that all God's children are dear to him, 
 
WHY I AM NOT A FREE-RELIGIONIST 97 
 
 that his sun shines on the evil and the good, and 
 that he will seek the one lost sheep till he find it. 
 We see his trust in the coming of the Kingdom 
 of God in this world, the triumph of good over 
 evil, and the approaching time when the know- 
 ledge of God shall fill the earth as the waters 
 cover the sea. And we find his profound faith 
 in the immortal life which abides in us, so that 
 whoever shares that faith with him can never die. 
 
 The more firmly these central ideas of Jesus are 
 understood and held, the less importance belongs 
 to any criticism of the letter. This or that saying, 
 attributed to Jesus in the record, may be subjected 
 to attack ; but it is the main current of his teach- 
 ing which has made him the leader of civilized 
 man for eighteen centuries. That majestic stream 
 will sweep on undisturbed, though there may be 
 eddies here or stagnant pools there, which induce 
 hasty observers to suppose that it has ceased to 
 flow. 
 
 " Rusticus expectat dum defluit amnis, at ille 
 Volvitur et volvetur, in omne volubilis sevium." 
 
 I sometimes read attacks on special sayings of 
 the record, which argue, to the critic's mind, that 
 Jesus was in error here, or mistaken there. But 
 I would recommend to such writers to ponder the 
 suggestive rule of Coleridge : " Until I can under- 
 stand the ignorance of Plato, I shall consider 
 myself ignorant of his understanding ; " or the 
 remark of Emerson to the youth who brought him 
 
98 WHY I AM NOT A FREE-RELIGIONIST 
 
 a paper in which he thought he had refuted Plato : 
 " If you attack the king, be sure that you kill 
 him." 
 
 When the Christian world really takes Jesus 
 himself as its leader, instead of building its faith 
 on opinions about him, we may anticipate the 
 arrival of that union which he foresaw and fore- 
 told — " As thou, father, art in me, and I in thee, 
 that they also may be one in us, that the world may 
 believe that thou hast sent me." Then Christians, 
 ceasing from party strife and sectarian dissension, 
 will unite in one mighty effort to cure the evils of 
 humanity and redress its wrongs. Before a united 
 Christendom, what miseries could remain unre- 
 lieved ? War, that criminal absurdity, that mon- 
 strous anachronism, must at last be abolished. 
 Pauperism, vice, and crime, though continuing in 
 sporadic forms, would cease to exist as a part of 
 the permanent institutions of civilization. A truly 
 Catholic Church, united under the Master, would 
 lead all humanity up to a higher plane. The im- 
 mense forces developed by modern science, and the 
 magnificent discoveries in the realm of nature, help- 
 less now to cure the wrongs of suffering man, would 
 become instruments of potent use under the guid- 
 ance of moral forces. 
 
 According to the law of evolution, this is what 
 we have a right to expect. If we follow the lines 
 of historic development, not being led into ex- 
 treme individualism ; if we maintain the continuity 
 
WHY I AM NOT A FREE-RELIGIONIST 99 
 
 of human progress, this vast result must finally 
 arrive. For such reasons I prefer to remain in 
 the communion of the Christian body, doing what 
 I may to assist its upward movement. For such 
 reasons I am not a Free Religionist. 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 1 
 
 To answer this question, we must first inquire 
 what we mean by a soul. If we mean a human 
 soul, it is certain that animals do not possess it, — 
 at least not in a fully developed condition. If we 
 mean, " Do they possess an immortal soul? " that 
 is, perhaps, a question difficult to answer either in 
 the affirmative or the negative. But if we mean 
 by the soul an immaterial principle of life, which 
 coordinates the bodily organization to a unity ; 
 which is the ground of growth, activity, percep- 
 tion, volition ; which is intelligent, affectionate, 
 and to a certain extent free ; then we must admit 
 that animals have souls. 
 
 The same arguments which induce us to believe 
 that there is a soul in man apply to animals. The 
 world has generally believed that in man, beside 
 the body, there is also soul. Why have people 
 believed it ? The reason probably is, that, beside 
 all that can be accounted for as the result of the 
 juxtaposition of material particles, there remains 
 a very important element unaccounted for. Me- 
 chanical and physical agency may explain much, 
 but the most essential characteristic of vital phe- 
 
 1 The Atlantic Monthly, October, 1874. 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 101 
 
 nomena they do not explain. They do not account 
 for the unity in variety, permanence in change, 
 growth from within by continuous processes, com- 
 ing from the vital functions in an organized body. 
 Every such body has a unity peculiar to itself, 
 which cannot be considered the result of the collo- 
 cation of material molecules. It is a unity which 
 controls these molecules, arranges and rearranges 
 them, maintains a steady activity, carries the body 
 through the phenomena of growth, and causes the 
 various organs to cooperate for the purposes of 
 the whole. The vital power is not merely the 
 result of material phenomena, but it reacts on these 
 as a cause. Add to this that strange phenomenon 
 of human consciousness, the sense of personality, 
 — which is the clear perception of selfhood as a 
 distinct unchanging unit, residing in a body all of 
 whose parts are in perpetual flux, — and we see 
 w r hy the opinion of a soul has arisen. It has been 
 assumed by the common sense of mankind that in 
 every living body the cause of the mode of exist- 
 ence of each part is contained in the whole. As 
 soon as death intervenes each part is left free 
 to pass through changes peculiar to itself alone. 
 Life is a power which acts from the whole upon 
 the parts, causing them to resist chemical laws, 
 which begin to act as soon as life departs. The 
 unity of a living body does not result from an in- 
 genious juxtaposition of parts, like that of a watch, 
 for example. For the unity of a living body im- 
 
102 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 plies that which is called " the vital vortex," or 
 perpetual exchange of particles. 
 
 A watch or clock is the nearest approach which 
 has been made by man to the creation of a living 
 being. A watch, for instance, contains the prin- 
 ciple of its action in itself, and is not moved from 
 without ; in that it resembles a living creature. 
 We can easily conceive of a watch which might be 
 made to go seventy years, without being wound up. 
 It might need to be oiled occasionally, but not as 
 often as an animal needs to be fed. A watch is 
 also like a living creature in having a unity as a 
 whole not belonging to the separate parts, and to 
 which all parts conspire, — namely, that of marking 
 the progress of time. Why, then, say that a man 
 has a soul, and that a watch has not ? The dif- 
 ference is this. The higher principle of unity in 
 the watch, that is, its power of marking time, is 
 wholly an effect, and never a cause. It is purely 
 and only the result of the arrangement of wheels 
 and springs ; in other words, of material conditions. 
 But in man, the principle of unity is also a cause. 
 Life reacts upon body. The laws of matter are 
 modified by the power of life, chemical action is 
 suspended, living muscles are able to endure with- 
 out laceration the application of forces which 
 would destroy the dead fibre. So the thought, the 
 love, the will of a living creature react on the physi- 
 cal frame. A sight, a sound, a few spoken words, 
 a message seen in a letter, cause an immense revul- 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 103 
 
 sion in the physical condition. Something is sud- 
 denly told us, and we faint away, or even die, from 
 the effect of the message. Here mind acts upon 
 matter, showing that in man mind is not merely a 
 result, but also a cause. Hence men have gener- 
 ally believed in the existence of a soul in man. 
 They have not been taught it by metaphysicians, it 
 is one of the spontaneous inductions of common 
 sense from universal experience. 
 
 But this argument applies equally to prove a 
 soul in animals. The same reaction of soul on 
 body is constantly apparent. Every time that you 
 whistle to your dog, and he comes bounding toward 
 you, his mind has acted on his body. His will has 
 obeyed his thought, his muscles have obeyed his 
 will. The cause of his motion was mental, not 
 physical. This is too evident to require any fur- 
 ther illustration. Therefore, regarding the soul 
 as a principle of life, connected with the body but 
 not its result, or, in other words, as an immaterial 
 principle of activity, there is the same reason for 
 believing in the soul of animals that there is for 
 believing in the soul of man. 
 
 But when we ask as to the nature of the animal 
 soul, and how far it is analogous to that of man, 
 we meet with certain difficulties. Let us see then 
 how many of the human qualities of the soul are to 
 be found in animals, and so discover if there is any 
 remainder not possessed by them, peculiar to our- 
 selves. 
 
104 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 That the vital soul, or principle of life, belongs 
 equally to plants, animals, and men, is evident. 
 This is so apparent as to be granted even by Des- 
 cartes, who regards animals as mere machines, or 
 automata, destitute of a thinking soul, but not of 
 life or feeling. They are automata, but living and 
 feeling automata. Descartes denies them a soul, 
 because he defines the soul as the thinking and 
 knowing power. But Locke (with whom Leibnitz 
 fully agreed on this point) ascribes to animals 
 thought as well as feeling, and makes their differ- 
 ence from man to consist in their not possessing 
 abstract ideas. "We shall presently see the truth 
 of this most sagacious remark. 
 
 Plants, animals, and men are alike in possessing 
 the vital principle, which produces growth, which 
 causes them to pass through regular phases of de- 
 velopment, which enables them to digest and assim- 
 ilate food taken from without, and which carries on 
 a steady circulation within. To this are added, in 
 the animal, the function of voluntary locomotion, 
 perception through the senses of an outward world, 
 the power of feeling pleasure and pain, some 
 wonderful instincts, and some degree of reflective 
 thought. Animals also possess memory, imagina- 
 tion, playfulness, industry, the sense of shame, and 
 many other very human qualities. 
 
 Take, for example, Buffon's fine description of 
 the dog ("Histoire du Chien") : — 
 
 "By nature fiery, irritable, ferocious, and san- 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 105 
 
 guinary, the dog in his savage state is a terror to 
 other animals. But domesticated he becomes 
 gentle, attached, and desirous to please. He has- 
 tens to lay at the feet of his master his courage, 
 his strength, and all his abilities. He listens for 
 his master's orders, inquires his will, consults his 
 opinion, begs his permission, understands the in- 
 dications of his wishes. Without possessing the 
 power of human thought, he has all the warmth of 
 human sentiment. He has more than human fidel- 
 ity, he is constant in his attachments. He is made 
 up of zeal, ardor, and obedience. He remembers 
 kindness longer than wrong. He endures bad 
 treatment and forgets it — disarming it by patience 
 and submission." 
 
 No one who has ever had a dog for a friend will 
 think this description exaggerated. If any should 
 so consider it, we will cite for their benefit what 
 Mr. Jesse, one of the latest students of the canine 
 race, asserts concerning it, in his " Researches into 
 the History of the British Dog" (London, 1866). 
 He says that remarkable instances of the following 
 virtues, feelings, and powers of mind are well au- 
 thenticated : — 
 
 " The dog risks his life to give help ; goes for 
 assistance ; saves life from drowning, fire, other 
 animals, and men ; assists distress ; guards pro- 
 perty ; knows boundaries ; resents injuries ; repays 
 benefits ; communicates ideas ; combines with other 
 dogs for several purposes ; understands language ; 
 
106 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 knows when he is about to die ; knows death in a 
 human being ; devotes his whole life to the object 
 of his love ; dies of grief and of joy ; dies in his 
 master's defense ; commits suicide ; remains by the 
 dead ; solicits, and gives alarm ; knows the charac- 
 ters of men ; recognizes a portrait, and men after 
 long absence ; is fond of praise and sensible to ridi- 
 cule ; feels shame, and is sensible of a fault ; is 
 playful ; is incorruptible ; finds his way back from 
 distant countries ; is magnanimous to smaller ani- 
 mals ; is jealous ; has dreams ; and takes a last 
 farewell when dying." 
 
 Much of this, it may be said, is instinctive. We 
 must therefore distinguish between Instinct and 
 Intelligence ; or, rather, between instinctive intelli- 
 gence and reflective intelligence. Many writers 
 on the subject of animals have not carefully distin- 
 guished these very different activities of the soul. 
 Even M. Leroy, one of the first in modern times 
 who brought careful observation to the study of 
 the nature of animals, has not always kept in view 
 this distinction — as has been noticed by a subse- 
 quent French writer of very considerable ability, 
 M. Flourens. 1 The following marks, according 
 to M. Flourens, distinguish instinct from intelli- 
 gence : — 
 
 1 The Intelligence and Perfectibility of Animals, by C. G. Leroy. 
 Translated into English in 1870. Be V Instinct et V Intelligence des 
 Animaux, par P. Flourens. Paris, 1864. 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 107 
 
 INSTINCT INTELLIGENCE 
 
 Is spontaneous, Is deliberate, 
 
 " necessary, u conditional, 
 
 " invariable, " modifiable, 
 
 " innate, comes from observation 
 
 and experience, 
 
 " fatal, is free, 
 
 " particular. " general. 
 
 Thus the building faculty of the beaver is an in- 
 stinct, for it acts spontaneously, and always in the 
 same way. It is not a general faculty of building 
 in all places and ways, but a special power of 
 building houses of sticks, mud, and other materials, 
 with the entrance under water and a dry place 
 within. When beavers build on a running stream, 
 they begin by making a dam across it, which pre- 
 serves them from losing the water in a drought ; 
 but this also is a spontaneous and invariable act. 
 The old stories of their driving piles, using their 
 tails for trowels, and having well-planned houses 
 with many chambers, have been found to be ficti- 
 tious. That the beaver builds by instinct, though 
 intelligence comes in to modify the instinct, appears 
 from his wishing to build his house or his dam 
 when it is not needed. Mr. Broderip, the English 
 naturalist, had a pet beaver that manifested his 
 building instinct by dragging together warming- 
 pans, sweeping-brushes, boots, and sticks, which he 
 would lay crosswise. He then would fill in his 
 wall with clothes, bits of coal, turf, laying it very 
 
108 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 even. Finally, he made a nest for himself behind 
 his wall with clothes, hay, and cotton. As this 
 creature had been brought from America very 
 young, all this procedure must have been instinc- 
 tive. But his intelligence showed itself in his 
 adapting his mode of building to his new circum- 
 stances. His instinct led him to build his wall, 
 and to lay his sticks crosswise, and to fill in with 
 what he could find, according to the universal and 
 spontaneous procedure of all beavers. But his 
 making use of a chest of drawers for one side of 
 his wall, and taking brushes and boots instead of 
 cutting down trees, were no doubt acts of intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 A large part of the wonderful procedure of bees 
 is purely instinctive. Bees, from the beginning 
 of the world, and in all countries of the earth, 
 have lived in similar communities ; have had their 
 queen, to lay eggs for them : if their queen is lost, 
 have developed a new one in the same way, by 
 altering the conditions of existence in one of their 
 larvae ; have constructed their hexagonal cells by 
 the same mathematical law, so as to secure the 
 most strength with the least outlay of material. 
 All this is instinct — for it is spontaneous and not 
 deliberate ; it is universal and constant. But when 
 the bee deflects his comb in order to avoid a stick 
 thrust across the inside of the hive, and begins the 
 variation before he reaches the stick, this can only 
 be regarded as an act of intelligence. 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 109 
 
 Animals, then, have both instincts and intelli- 
 gence ; and so has man. A large part of human 
 life proceeds from tendencies as purely, if not as 
 vigorously, instinctive as those of animals. Man 
 has social instincts, which create human society. 
 Children play- from an instinct. The maternal 
 instinct in a human mother is, till modified by 
 reflection, as spontaneous, universal, and necessary 
 as the same instinct in animals. But in man the 
 instincts are reduced to a minimum, and are soon 
 modified by observation, experience, and reflection. 
 In animals they are at their maximum, and are 
 modified in a much less degree. 
 
 It is sometimes said that animals do not reason, 
 but man does. But animals are quite capable of 
 at least two modes of reasoning, that of compari- 
 son and that of inference. They compare two 
 modes of action, or two substances, and judge the 
 one to be preferable to the other, and accordingly 
 select it. Sir Emerson Tennent tells us that ele- 
 phants, employed to build stone walls in Ceylon, 
 will lay each stone in its place, then stand off and 
 look to see if it is plumb, and, if not, will move 
 it with their trunk, till it lies perfectly straight. 
 This is a pure act of reflective judgment. He 
 narrates an adventure which befell himself in Cey- 
 lon while riding on a narrow road through the 
 forest. He heard a rumbling sound approaching, 
 and directly there came to meet him an elephant, 
 bearing on his tusks a large log of wood, which he 
 
110 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 had been directed to carry to the place where it 
 was needed. Sir Emerson Tennent's horse, unused 
 to these monsters, was alarmed, and refused to go 
 forward. The sagacious elephant, perceiving this, 
 evidently decided that he must himself go out of 
 the way. But to do this, he was obliged first 
 to take the log from his tusks with his trunk, 
 and lay it on the ground, which he did, and then 
 backed out of the road between the trees till only 
 his head was visible. But the horse was still too 
 timid to go by, whereupon the judicious pachyderm 
 pushed himself farther back, till all of his body, 
 except the end of his trunk, had disappeared. 
 Then Sir Emerson succeeded in getting his horse 
 by, but stopped to witness the result. The ele- 
 phant came out, took the log up again, laid it 
 across his tusks, and went on his way. This story, 
 told by an unimpeachable witness, shows several 
 successive acts of reasoning. The log-bearer in- 
 ferred from the horse's terror that it would not 
 pass ; he again inferred that in that case he must 
 himself get out of the way ; that, to do this, he 
 must lay down his log ; that he must go farther 
 back; and accompanying this was his sense of 
 duty, making him faithful to his task ; and, most 
 of all, his consideration of what was due to this 
 human traveler, which kept him from driving the 
 horse and man before him as he went on. 
 
 There is another well-authenticated anecdote of 
 an elephant ; he was following an ammunition 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 111 
 
 wagon, and saw the man who was seated on it fall 
 off just before the wheel. The man would have 
 been crushed had not the animal instantly run 
 forward, and, without an order, lifted the wheel 
 with his trunk, and held it suspended in the air, 
 till the wagon had passed over the man without 
 hurting him. Here were combined presence of 
 mind, good will, knowledge of the danger to the 
 man, and a rapid calculation of how he could be 
 saved. 
 
 Perhaps I may properly introduce here an ac- 
 count of the manifestations of mind in the animals 
 I have had the most opportunity of observing. I 
 have a horse, who was named Rubezahl, after 
 the mountain spirit of the Harz made famous in 
 the stories of Musaeus. We have contracted his 
 name to Ruby for convenience. Now I have rea- 
 son to believe that Ruby can distinguish Sunday 
 from other days. On Sunday I have been in the 
 habit of driving to Boston to church ; but on 
 other days, I drive to the neighboring village, 
 where are the post-office, shops of mechanics, and 
 other stores. To go to Boston, I usually turn to 
 the right when I leave my driveway ; to go to the 
 village, I turn to the left. Now, on Sunday, if I 
 leave the reins loose, so that the horse may do as 
 he pleases, he invariably turns to the right, and 
 goes to Boston. On other days, he as invariably 
 turns to the left, and goes to the village. He does 
 this so constantly and regularly, that none of the 
 
112 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 family have any doubt of the fact that he knows 
 that it is Sunday ; how he knows it we are unable 
 to discover. I have left my house at the same 
 hour on Sunday and on Monday, in the same 
 carriage, with the same number of persons in it ; 
 and yet on Sunday he always turns to the right, 
 and on Monday to the left. He is fed at the same 
 time on Sunday as on other days, but the man 
 comes back to harness him a little later on Sunday 
 than at other times, and that is possibly his method 
 of knowing that it is the day for going to Boston. 
 But see how much of observation, memory, and 
 thought is implied in all this. 
 
 Again, Ruby has shown a very distinct feeling 
 of the supernatural. Driving one day up a hill 
 near my house, we met a horse-car coming down 
 toward us, running without horses, simply by the 
 force of gravity. My horse became so frightened 
 that he ran into the gutter, and nearly overturned 
 me ; and I got him past with the greatest difficulty. 
 Now he had met the cars coming down that hill, 
 drawn by horses, a hundred times, and had never 
 been alarmed. Moreover, only a day or two after, 
 in going up the same hill, we saw a car moving 
 uphill, before us, where the horses were entirely 
 invisible, being concealed by the car itself, which 
 was between us and the horses. But this did not 
 frighten Ruby at all. He evidently said to him- 
 self, " The horses are there, though I do not 
 see them." But in the other case it seemed to 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 113 
 
 him an effect without a cause — something plainly 
 supernatural. There was nothing in the aspect 
 of the car itself to alarm him ; he had seen that 
 often enough. He was simply terrified by seeing 
 it move without any adequate cause — just as we 
 should be, if we saw our chairs begin to walk 
 about the room. 
 
 Our Newfoundland dog's name is Donatello ; 
 which, again, is shortened to Don in common par- 
 lance. He has all the affectionate and excellent 
 qualities of his race. He is the most good-natured 
 creature I ever saw. Nothing provokes him. Little 
 dogs may yelp at him, the cat or kittens may snarl 
 and spit at him : he pays no attention to them. 
 A little dog climbs on his back, and lies down 
 there ; one of the cats will lie between his legs. 
 But at night, when he is on guard, no one can ap- 
 proach the house unchallenged. 
 
 But his affection for the family is very great. 
 To be allowed to come into the house and lie down 
 near us is his chief happiness. He was very fond 
 
 of my son E , who played with him a good 
 
 deal, and when the young man went away, during 
 the war, with a three months' regiment, Don was 
 much depressed by his absence. He walked down 
 regularly to the station, and stood there till a train 
 of cars came in ; and when his friend did not arrive 
 in it, he went back, with a melancholy air, to the 
 house. But at last the young man returned. It 
 was in the evening, and Don was lying on the 
 
114 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 piazza. As soon as lie saw his friend, his exulta- 
 tion knew no bounds. He leaped upon him, and 
 ran round him, barking and showing th^ wildest 
 signs of delight. All at once he turned and ran 
 up into the garden, and came back bringing an 
 apple, which he laid down at the feet of his young 
 master. It was the only thing he could think of 
 to do for him — and this sign of his affection was 
 quite pathetic. 
 
 The reason why Don thought of the apple was 
 probably this : we had taught him to go and get 
 an apple for the horse, when so directed. We 
 would say, " Go, Don, get an apple for poor 
 Ruby ; " then he would run up into the garden, 
 and bring an apple, and hold it up to the horse ; 
 and perhaps when the horse tried to take it he 
 would pull it away. After doing this a few times, 
 he would finally lie down on his back under the 
 horse's nose, and allow the latter to take the apple 
 from his mouth. He would also kiss the horse, on 
 being told to do so. When we said, " Don, kiss 
 poor Ruby," he leaped up and kissed the horse's 
 nose. But he afterwards hit upon a more conven- 
 ient method of doing it. He got his paw over the 
 rein and pulled down the horse's head, so that he 
 could continue the osculatory process more at his 
 ease, sitting comfortably on the ground. 
 
 Animals know when they have done wrong ; so 
 far, at least, as that means disobeying our will 
 or command. The only great fault which Don 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 115 
 
 ever committed was stealing a piece of meat from 
 our neighbor's kitchen. I do not think he was 
 punished or even scolded for it ; for we did not 
 find it out till later, when it would have done no 
 good to punish him. But a week or two after 
 that, the gentleman whose kitchen had been robbed 
 was standing on my lawn, talking with me, and he 
 referred, laughingly, to what Don had done. He 
 did not even look at the dog, much less change his 
 tones to those of rebuke. But the moment Don 
 heard bis name mentioned, he turned and walked 
 away, and hid himself under the low branches of 
 a Norway spruce near by. He was evidently pro- 
 foundly ashamed of himself. Was this the result 
 of conscience, or of the love of approbation ? In 
 either case, it was very human. 
 
 That the love of approbation is common to many 
 animals we all know. Dogs and horses certainly 
 can be influenced by praise and blame, as easily as 
 men. Many years ago we had occasion to draw 
 a load of gravel, and we put Ruby into a tip-cart 
 to do the work. He was profoundly depressed, 
 and evidently felt it as a degradation. He hung 
 his head, and showed such marks of humiliation 
 that we have never done it since. But on the 
 other hand, when he goes out, under the saddle, 
 by the side of a young horse, this veteran animal 
 tries as hard to appear young as any old bachelor 
 of sixty years who is still ambitious of social 
 triumphs. He dances along, and goes sideways, 
 
116 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 and has all the airs and graces of a young colt. 
 All this, too, is very human. 
 
 At one time my dog was fond of going to the 
 railway station to see the people, and I always 
 ordered him to go home, fearing he should be hurt 
 by the cars. He easily understood that if he went 
 there, it was contrary to my wishes. Nevertheless, 
 he often went ; and I do not know but this fond- 
 ness for forbidden fruit was rather human, too. 
 So, whenever he was near the station, if he saw 
 me coming, he would look the other way, and pre- 
 tend not to know me. If he met me anywhere 
 else, he always bounded to meet me with great 
 delight. But at the station it was quite different. 
 He would pay no attention to my whistle or my 
 call. He even pretended to be another dog, and 
 would look me right in the face without appar- 
 ently recognizing me. He gave me the cut direct, 
 in the most impertinent manner; the reason evi- 
 dently being that he knew he was doing what was 
 wrong, and did not like to be found out. Possibly 
 he may have relied a little on my near-sightedness, 
 in this manoeuvre. 
 
 That animals have acute observation, memory, 
 imagination, the sense of approbation, strong af- 
 fections, and the power of reasoning is therefore 
 very evident. Lord Bacon also speaks of a dog's 
 reverence for his master as partaking of a religious 
 element. " Mark," says he, " what a generosity 
 and courage a dog will put on, when he finds him- 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 117 
 
 self maintained by a man, who to him is instead 
 of a God — which courage he could not attain, 
 without that confidence in a better nature than his 
 own." Who that has seen the mute admiration 
 and trust in a dog's eye, as he looks up at his 
 master, but can see in it something of a religious 
 reverence, the germ and first principle of religion ? 
 
 What, then, is the difference between the human 
 soul and that of the animal in its highest develop- 
 ment ? 
 
 That there is a very marked difference between 
 man and the highest animal is evident. The hu- 
 man being, weaker in proportion than all other 
 animals, has subjected them all to himself. He 
 has subdued the earth by his inventions. Physi- 
 cally too feeble to dig a hole in the ground like 
 a rabbit, or to fell a tree like a beaver ; unable to 
 live in the water like a fish, or to move through 
 the air like a bird ; he yet, by his inventive power 
 and his machinery, can compel the forces of nature 
 to work for him. They are the true genii, slaves 
 of his lamp. Air, fire, water, electricity, and mag- 
 netism build his cities and his stately ships, run 
 his errands, carry him from land to land, and ac- 
 cept him as their master. 
 
 Whence does man obtain this power? Some 
 say it is the human hand which has made man 
 supreme. It is, no doubt, a wonderful machine ; 
 a box of tools in itself. The size and strength of 
 the thumb, and the power of opposing it to the 
 
118 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 extremities of the fingers, distinguishes, according 
 to most anatomists, the human hand from that of 
 the quadrumanous animals. In those monkeys 
 which are nearest to man, the thumb is so short 
 and weak, and the fingers so long and slender, that 
 their tips can scarcely be brought in opposition. 
 Excellent for climbing, they are not good for tak- 
 ing up small objects or supporting large ones. 
 But the hand of man could accomplish little with- 
 out the mind behind it. It was therefore a good 
 remark of Galen, that " man is not the wisest of 
 animals because he has a hand ; but God has given 
 him a hand because he is the wisest of animals." 
 
 The size of the human brain, relatively greater 
 than that of almost any other animal ; man's struc- 
 ture, adapting him to stand erect ; his ability to 
 exist in all climates ; his power of subsisting on 
 varied food : all these facts of his physical nature 
 are associated with his superior mental power, but 
 do not produce it. The question recurs, What 
 enables him to stand at the head of the animal 
 creation ? 
 
 Perhaps the chief apparent distinctions between 
 man and other animals are these : — 
 
 1. The lowest races of men use tools ; other 
 animals do not. 
 
 2. The lowest human beings possess a verbal 
 language ; other animals have none. 
 
 3. Man has the capacity of self-culture, as an 
 individual ; other animals have not. 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 119 
 
 4. Human beings, associated in society, are 
 capable of progress in civilization, by means of 
 science, art, literature, and religion ; other animals 
 are not. 
 
 5. Men have a capacity for religion ; no animal, 
 except man, has this. 
 
 The lowest races of men use tools, but no other 
 animal does this. This is so universally admitted 
 by science that the presence of the rudest tools of 
 stone is considered a sufficient trace of the presence 
 of man. If stone hatchets or hammers or arrow- 
 heads are found in any stratum, though no human 
 bones are detected, anthropologists regard this as a 
 sufficient proof of the existence of human beings in 
 the period indicated by such a geologic formation. 
 The only tools used by animals in procuring food, 
 in war, or in building their homes, are their natural 
 organs : their beaks, teeth, claws, etc. It may be 
 added that man alone wears clothes ; other animals 
 being sufficiently clothed by nature. No animals 
 make a fire, though they often suffer from cold ; 
 but there is no race of men unacquainted with the 
 use of fire. 1 
 
 No animals possess a verbal language. Animals 
 can remember some of the words used by men, and 
 associate with them their meaning. But this is 
 not the use of language. It is merely the memory 
 of two associated facts, — as when the animal re- 
 collects where he found food, and goes to the same 
 
 1 It is a mistake to say that the Tasmanians do not use fire. 
 
120 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 place to look for it again. Animals have different 
 cries, indicating different wants. They use one 
 cry to call their mate, another to terrify their prey. 
 But this is not the use of verbal language. Hu- 
 man language implies not merely an acquaintance 
 with the meaning of particular words, but the 
 power of putting them together in a sentence. 
 Animals have no such language as this ; for, if 
 they had, it would have been learned by men. 
 Man has the power of learning any verbal lan- 
 guage. Adelung and Vater reckon over three 
 thousand languages spoken by men, and any man 
 can learn any of them. The negroes speak their 
 own languages in their own countries ; they speak 
 Arabic in North Africa ; they learn to speak Eng- 
 lish, French, and Spanish in America, and Oriental 
 languages when they go to the East. If any ani- 
 mals had a verbal language, with its vocabulary 
 and grammar, men would long ago have learned 
 it, and would have been able to converse with 
 them. 
 
 Again, no animal except man is capable of self- 
 culture, as an individual. Animals are trained by 
 external influences ; they do not teach themselves. 
 An old wolf is much more cunning than a young 
 one, but he has been made so by the force of cir- 
 cumstances. You can teach your dog tricks, but 
 no dog has ever taught himself any. Yet the 
 lowest savages teach themselves to make tools, 
 to ornament their paddles and clubs, and acquire 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 121 
 
 certain arts by diligent effort. Birds will some- 
 times practice the tunes which they hear played, 
 till they have learned them. They will also some- 
 times imitate each other's songs. That is, they 
 possess the power of vocal imitation. But to imi- 
 tate the sounds we hear is not self-culture. It is 
 not developing a new power, but it is exercising 
 in a new way a natural gift. Yet we must admit 
 that in this habit of birds there is the rudiment, at 
 least, of self-education. 
 
 All races of men are capable of progress in civ- 
 ilization. Many, indeed, remain in a savage state 
 for thousands of years, and we cannot positively 
 prove that any particular race which has always 
 been uncivilized is capable of civilization. But we 
 are led to believe it from having known of so many 
 tribes of men who have emerged from apathy, igno- 
 rance, and barbarism into the light of science and 
 art. So it was with all the Teutonic races, — the 
 Goths, Germans, Kelts, Lombards, Scandinavians. 
 So it was with the Arabs, who roamed for thou- 
 sands of years over the deserts, a race of ignorant 
 robbers, and then, filled with the great inspiration 
 of Islam, flamed up into a brilliant coruscation 
 of science, literature, art, military success, and 
 profound learning. What great civilizations have 
 grown up in China, India, Persia, Assyria, Baby- 
 lon, Phoenicia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Carthage, 
 Etruria ! But no such progress has ever appeared 
 among the animals. As their parents were, five 
 
122 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 thousand years ago, so, essentially, are they 
 now. 
 
 Nor are animals religious, in the sense of wor- 
 shiping unseen powers higher than themselves. 
 My horse showed a sense of the supernatural, but 
 this is not worship. 
 
 These are some of the most marked points of 
 difference between man and all other animals. 
 Now these can all be accounted for by the hypo- 
 thesis in which Locke and Leibnitz both agreed ; 
 namely, that while animals are capable of reason- 
 ing about facts, they are incapable of abstract 
 ideas. Or, we may say with Coleridge, that while 
 animals, in common with man, possess the faculty 
 of understanding, they do not possess that of reason. 
 Coleridge seems to have intended by this exactly 
 what Locke and Leibnitz meant by their statement. 
 When my dog Don heard the word " apple," he 
 thought of the particular concrete apple under the 
 tree ; and not of apples in general, and their re- 
 lation to pears, peaches, etc. Don understood me 
 when I told him to go and get an apple, and 
 obeyed ; but he would not have understood me if 
 I had remarked to him that apples were better than 
 pears, more wholesome than peaches, not so hand- 
 some as grapes. I should then have gone into the 
 region of abstract and general ideas. 
 
 Now it is precisely the possession of this power 
 of abstract thought which will explain the superi- 
 ority of man to all other animals. It explains the 
 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 123 
 
 use of tools ; for a tool is an instrument prepared, 
 not for one special purpose, but to be used gener- 
 ally, in certain ways. A baboon, like a man, might 
 pick up a particular stone with which to crack a 
 particular nut ; but the ape does not make and 
 keep a stone hammer, to be used on many similar 
 occasions. A box of tools contains a collection of 
 saws, planes, draw-knives, etc., not made to use on 
 one occasion merely, but made for sawing, cutting, 
 and planing purposes generally. 
 
 Still more evident is it that the power of ab- 
 straction is necessary for verbal language. We do 
 not here use the common term " articulate speech," 
 for we can conceive of animals articulating their 
 vocal sounds. But " a word " is an abstraction. 
 The notion is lifted out of the concrete particular 
 fact, and deposited in the abstract general term. 
 All words, except proper names, are abstract; and 
 to possess and use a verbal language is impossible, 
 without the possession of this mental faculty. 
 
 In regard to self-culture, it is clear that for any 
 steady progress one must keep before his mind an 
 abstract idea of what hie wishes to do. This ena- 
 bles him to rise above impulse, passion, instinct, 
 habit, circumstance. By the steady contemplation 
 of the proposed aim, one can arrange circum- 
 stances, restrain impulse, direct one's activity, and 
 become really free. 
 
 In like manner, races become developed in civi- 
 lization by the impact of abstract ideas. Some- 
 
124 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 times it is by coming in contact with other civilized 
 nations, which gives them an ideal superior to any- 
 thing before known. Sometimes the motive power 
 of their progress is the reception of truths of sci- 
 ence, art, literature, or religion. 
 
 It is not necessary to show that without abstract, 
 universal, and necessary ideas no religion is pos- 
 sible ; for religion, being the worship of unseen 
 powers, conceived as existing, as active, as spirit- 
 ual, necessarily implies these ideas in the mind of 
 the worshiper. 
 
 We find, then, in the soul of animals all active, 
 affectionate, and intelligent capacities, as in that 
 of man. The only difference is that man is capable 
 of abstract ideas, which give him a larger liberty of 
 action, which enable him to adopt an aim and pur- 
 sue it, and which change his affections from an in- 
 stinctive attachment into a principle of generous 
 love. Add, then, to the animal soul the capacity 
 for abstract ideas, and it would rise at once to the 
 level of man. Meantime, in a large part of their 
 nature, they have the same faculties with ourselves. 
 They share our emotions, and we theirs. They 
 are made " a little lower " than man, and if we 
 are souls, so surely are they. 
 
 Are they immortal? To discuss this question 
 would require more space than we can here give to 
 it. For my own part, I fully believe in the con- 
 tinued existence of all souls, at the same time as- 
 suming their continued advance. The law of life 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 125 
 
 is progress ; and one of the best features in the 
 somewhat unspiritual theory of Darwin is its pro- 
 found faith in perpetual improvement. This theory 
 is the most startling optimism that has ever been 
 taught, for it makes perpetual progress to be the 
 law of the whole universe. 
 
 Many of the arguments for the immortality of 
 man cannot indeed be used for our dumb relations, 
 the animals. We cannot argue from their univer- 
 sal faith in a future life ; nor contend that they 
 need an immortality on moral grounds, to recom- 
 pense their good conduct and punish their wicked- 
 ness. We might indeed adduce a reason implied 
 in our Saviour's parable, and believe that the poor 
 creatures who have received their evil things in this 
 life will be comforted in another. Moreover, we 
 might find in many animals qualities fitting them 
 for a higher state. There are animals, as we have 
 seen, who show a fidelity, courage, generosity, 
 often superior to what we see in man. The dogs 
 who have loved their master more than food, and 
 starved to death on his grave, are surely well fitted 
 for a higher existence, Jesse tells a story of a cat 
 which was being stoned by cruel boys. Men went 
 by, and did not interfere ; but a dog, that saw 
 it, did. He drove away the boys, and then took 
 the cat to his kennel, licked her all over with his 
 tongue, and his conduct interested people, who 
 brought her milk. The canine nurse took care of 
 her till she was well, and the cat and dog remained 
 
126 HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 
 
 fast friends ever after. Such an action in a man 
 would have been called heroic ; and we think such 
 a dog would not be out of place in heaven. 
 
 Yet it is not so much on particular cases of ani- 
 mal superiority that we rely, but on the difficulty 
 of conceiving, in any sense, of the destruction of 
 life. The principle of life, whether we call it soul 
 or body, matter or spirit, escapes all observation of 
 the senses. All that we know of it by observation 
 is that, beside the particles of matter which com- 
 pose an organized body, there is something else, 
 not cognizable by the senses, which attracts and 
 dismisses them, modifies and coordinates them. 
 The unity of the body is not to be found in its 
 sensible phenomena, but in something which escapes 
 the senses. Into the vortex of that life material 
 molecules are being continually absorbed, and from 
 it they are perpetually discharged. If death means 
 the dissolution of the body, we die many times in 
 the course of our earthly career, for every body is 
 said by human anatomists to be changed in all its 
 particles once in seven years. What then remains, 
 if all the particles go ? The principle of organiza- 
 tion remains, and this invisible, persistent principle 
 constitutes the identity of every organized body. If 
 I say that I have the same body when I am fifty 
 which I had at twenty, it is because I mean by 
 " body " that which continues unaltered amid the 
 fast-flying particles of matter. This life principle 
 makes and remakes the material frame ; that body 
 
 
HAVE ANIMALS SOULS 127 
 
 does not make it. When what we call death inter- 
 venes, all that we can assert is that the life prin- 
 ciple has done wholly and at once what it has 
 always been doing gradually and in part. What 
 happens to the material particles, we see : they be- 
 come detached from the organizing principle, and 
 relapse into simply mechanical and chemical con- 
 ditions. What has happened to that organizing 
 principle we neither see nor know ; and we have 
 absolutely no reason at all for saying that it has 
 ceased to exist. 
 
 This is as true of plants and of animals as of 
 men ; and there is no reason for supposing that 
 when these die their principle of life is ended. It 
 probably has reached a crisis, which consists in 
 the putting on of new forms and ascending into 
 a higher order of organized existence. 
 
APROPOS OF TYNDALL 1 
 
 We have all read in our " Vicar of Wakefield " 
 the famous speech made by the venerable and 
 learned Ephraim Jenkinson to good Dr. Prim- 
 rose : " The cosmogony, or creation of the world, 
 has puzzled philosophers in all ages. Sanchonia- 
 thon, Manetho, Berosus, and Ocellus Lucanus 
 have all attempted it in vain," etc. But we hardly 
 expected to have this question of cosmogony re- 
 opened by an eminent scientist in an address to 
 the British Association. What " Sanchoniathon, 
 Manetho, Berosus, and Ocellus Lucanus have all 
 attempted in vain" Professor Tyndall has not 
 only discussed before a body of men learned in 
 the physical sciences, but has done it in such a 
 manner as to rouse two continents to a new inter- 
 est in the question. One party has immediately 
 accused him of irreligion and infidelity, while an- 
 other has declared his statements innocent if not 
 virtuous. But the question which has been least 
 debated is, What has the professor really said ? 
 or, Has he said anything ? 
 
 The celebrated sentence which has occasioned 
 this excitement is as follows : — 
 
 1 The Galaxy, December, 1874. 
 
 
APROPOS OF TYNDALL 129 
 
 " Abandoning all disguise, the confession that I 
 feel bound to make before you is, that I prolong 
 the vision backward across the boundary of the 
 experimental evidence, and discern in that matter 
 which we in our ignorance, and notwithstanding 
 our professed reverence for its Creator, have 
 hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise 
 and potency of every form and quality of life." 
 
 Does he, then, declare himself a materialist ? A 
 materialist is one who asserts everything which 
 exists to be matter, or an affection of matter. 
 What, then, is matter, and how is that to be de- 
 fined ? The common definition of matter is, that 
 which is perceived by the senses, or the substance 
 underlying sensible phenomena. By means of the 
 senses we perceive such qualities or phenomena as 
 resistance, form, color, perfume, sound. When- 
 ever we observe these phenomena, whenever we 
 see, hear, ta*ste, touch, or smell, we attribute the 
 affections thus excited to an external substance, 
 which we call matter. But we are aware of other 
 phenomena which are not perceived by the senses, 
 — such as thought, love, and will. We are as 
 certain of their existence as we are of sensible 
 phenomena. I am as sure of the reality of love 
 as I am of the whiteness of chalk. By a law 
 of our mind, whenever we perceive sensible phe- 
 nomena, we necessarily attribute them to a sub- 
 stance outside of ourselves, which we call matter. 
 And by another law, or the same law, whenever 
 
130 APROPOS OF TYXDALL 
 
 we perceive the phenomena of consciousness, we 
 necessarily attribute them to a substance which we 
 call soul, mind, or spirit. All that we know of 
 matter, and all that we know of soul, is their phe- 
 nomena, and as these are entirely different, we are 
 obliged to assume that matter and mind are dif- 
 ferent. Xone of the qualities or attributes of 
 matter belong to mind, none of those of mind to 
 matter. 
 
 Does Tyndall deny this distinction ? Appar- 
 ently not. He not only makes Bishop Butler de- 
 clare, with unanswerable power, that materialism 
 can never show any connection between molecular 
 processes and the phenomena of consciousness, but 
 he distinctly iterates this in his own person at the 
 end of the address ; asserting that there is no 
 fusion possible between the two classes of facts, 
 those of sensation and those of consciousness. 
 Professor Tyndall, then, in the famous sentence 
 above quoted, does not declare himself a material- 
 ist in the only sense in which the term has hitherto 
 been used. He does not pretend that sensation, 
 thought, emotion, and will are reducible, in the 
 last analysis, to solidity, extension, divisibility, 
 etc. ; he positively and absolutely denies this. 
 
 When Tyndall, therefore, asserts that he dis- 
 cerns in matter the promise and potency of every 
 form and quality of life, he uses the word " mat- 
 ter " in a new sense. He does not mean by it the 
 underlying subject of sensible phenomena. It is 
 
APROPOS OF TYNDALL 131 
 
 not the matter which we see, hear, touch, taste, 
 and smell. What is it then? It is something 
 beyond the limits of observation and experiment ; 
 for he says that in order to discover it we must 
 " prolong the vision backward across the boundary 
 of the experimental evidence." In short, it is 
 something which we know nothing about. It is a 
 conjecture, an opinion, a theoretical matter. In 
 another place he calls this imaginary substance " a 
 cosmical life." This something, which shall be 
 the common basis of the phenomena of sense and 
 soul, not only is not known, but apparently is not 
 knowable. For he assures us that the very at- 
 tempt to understand this cosmical life which makes 
 the connection between physical and mental phe- 
 nomena, is "to soar in a vacuum," or " to try to 
 lift one's self by his own waistband." 
 
 Of course, then, the contents of the famous 
 sentence are not science. It is not the great scien- 
 tist, the profound observer of nature, the distin- 
 guished experimentalist, who speaks to us in that 
 sentence, but one who is theorizing, as we all have 
 a right to theorize. We also, if we choose, may 
 imagine some " cosmical life " behind both matter 
 and soul, as the common origin of both, and call 
 this life spirit. We shall then be thinking of 
 exactly the same substance that Tyndall is think- 
 ing of, only we give it another name. He has 
 merely given another name to the great Being 
 behind all the phenomena of body and soul, out of 
 
132 APROPOS OF TYNDALL 
 
 which or whom all proceed. But to give another 
 name to a fact is not to tell us anything more 
 about it. All meaning having evaporated from the 
 word " matter," the sentence loses its whole sig- 
 nificance, and it appears that the alarming decla- 
 ration asserts nothing at all ! In " abandoning all 
 disguise " Tyndall has run little risk, for our 
 analysis shows that he has not asserted anything 
 except, perhaps, this, that there is, in his judg- 
 ment, some unknown common basis in which mat- 
 ter and mind both inhere. This assertion is not 
 alarming nor dangerous, for it is only what has 
 always been believed. 
 
 As there is no materialism, in any known sense 
 of that term, in the doctrine of this address, so 
 likewise there is no atheism. In fact, in this same 
 sentence Tyndall speaks of the " creator " of what 
 he likes to call " matter " or " cosmical life." He 
 objects strongly to a creator who works mechan- 
 ically, and he seems to reprove Darwin for ad- 
 mitting an original or primordial form, created 
 at first by the Deity. " The anthropomorphism, 
 which it seemed the object of Mr. Darwin to set 
 aside, is as firmly associated with the creation of a 
 few forms as with the creation of a multitude." 
 In another passage he says : " Is there not a temp- 
 tation to close to some extent with Lucretius, 
 when he affirms that nature is seen to do all 
 things spontaneously of herself without the med- 
 dling of the gods? " But this last sentence shows 
 
APROPOS OF TYNDALL 133 
 
 a singular vacillation in so clear a thinker as 
 Tyndall. How can one close " to some extent " 
 with such a statement as that of Lucretius ? Either 
 the gods meddle, or they do not meddle. They 
 can hardly be considered as meddling " to some ex- 
 tent." In still another passage he contrasts the 
 doctrine of evolution with the usual doctrine of 
 creation, rejecting the last in favor of the other, 
 because creation makes of God " an artificer, fash- 
 ioned after the human model, and acting by bro- 
 ken efforts, as man is seen to act." 
 
 All these expressions are somewhat vague, im- 
 plying, as it seems, a certain obscurity in Tyndall's 
 own thought. But it is not atheism. His " cos- 
 mical life " probably is exactly what Cudworth 
 means by " plastic life." It is well known that 
 Cudworth, whose great work is a confutation of 
 all atheism, himself admits what he calls " a plas- 
 tic nature " in the universe as a subordinate in- 
 strument of divine Providence. Just as Tyndall 
 objects to regarding the Deity as " an artificer," 
 Cudworth objects to the "mechanic theists," who 
 make the Deity act directly upon matter from 
 without, by separate efforts, instead of pouring a 
 creative and arranging life into nature. We can 
 easily see that Cudworth, like Tyndall, would 
 object to Darwin's one or two " primordial germs." 
 His " plastic nature " is working everywhere and 
 always, though under a divine guidance. It is " a 
 life," and therefore incorporeal. It is an uncon- 
 
134 
 
 APROPOS OF TYNBALL 
 
 scions life, which acts, not knowingly, but fatally. 
 Man, according to Cud worth, partakes of this life 
 from the life of the universe, just as he partakes 
 of heat and cold from the heat and cold of the 
 universe. Thus Cudworth, believing in some such 
 " cosmical life " as Tyndall imagines, conceives it 
 as being itself the organ and instrument of the 
 Deity. Tyndall, therefore, though less clear in 
 his statements than Cudworth, is not logically 
 involved in atheism by those statements, unless we 
 implicate in the same condemnation the writer 
 whose vast work constitutes the fullest arsenal of 
 weapons against all the forms of atheism. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, Tyndall does not come 
 to any clearness on this point, which in one pos- 
 sessing such a lucidity of intellect must be occa- 
 sioned by his leaving his own domain of science 
 and venturing into this metaphysical world, with 
 which he is not so familiar. His acquaintance 
 with the history of these studies seems not to be 
 extensive. For example, he attributes to Herbert 
 Spencer, as if he were the discoverer, what both 
 Hobbes and Descartes had already stated, that 
 there is no necessary resemblance between our sen- 
 sations and the external objects from which they 
 are derived. In regard to a belief in God, he tells 
 us that in his weaker moments he loses it, or that 
 it becomes clouded and dim, but that when he is 
 at his best he accepts it most fully. This belief, 
 therefore, is not with Tyndall a matter of convic- 
 
APROPOS OF TYNBALL 135 
 
 tion, founded on reason, but a question of moods. 
 No wonder, then, that he relegates religion to the 
 region of sentiment, and declares that it has no- 
 thing to do with knowledge. It must not touch 
 any question of cosmogony, or, if it does, must " sub- 
 mit to the control of science " in that field. But 
 what has science to do with cosmogony? Science 
 rests on observation of facts ; but our professor 
 tells us that he obtains his great cosmological idea 
 of " a cosmical life " by prolonging his vision back- 
 ward " across the boundary of the experimental evi- 
 dence." Such science as this, which is based on 
 no experience, and is incapable of verification, has 
 hardly the right to warn religious belief away from 
 any field. 
 
 Tyndall seems a little astray in making crea- 
 tion and evolution contradictory and incompatible. 
 Evolution, he tells us, is the manifestation of a 
 power wholly inscrutable to the intellect of man. 
 We know that God is, — that is, we know it in our 
 better moods, — but what God is, we cannot ever 
 know. At all events we must not consider him as 
 a Creator. " Two courses," says Tyndall, " and 
 only two, are possible. Either let us open our 
 doors freely to the conception of creative acts, or, 
 abandoning them, let us radically change our no- 
 tions of matter." His objections to the idea of a 
 Creator appear to be (1) that it is " derived, not 
 from the study of Nature, but from the observation 
 of men ; " and (2) that it represents the Deity " as 
 
136 APBOPOS OF TYNBALL 
 
 an artificer, fashioned after a human model, and 
 acting by broken efforts as man is seen to act." 
 
 Are these objections sound? When we study- 
 man, are we not then also studying Nature ? Is 
 not man himself the highest manifestation of Na- 
 ture ? If so, and if we see the quality of any 
 power best in its highest and fullest operations, 
 we can study the nature of God best by looking 
 into our own. We should, in fact, know very little 
 of Nature if we did not look within as well as with- 
 out. Tyndall justly demands unlimited freedom of 
 investigation in the pursuit of science. But whence 
 came this very idea of freedom except from the 
 human mind? Nothing in the external world is 
 free ; all is fatal. Such ideas as cause, force, sub- 
 stance, law, unity, ideality, are not observed in the 
 outward world — they are given by the activity of 
 the mind itself. Subtract these from our thought, 
 and we should know very little of Nature or its 
 origin. 
 
 No doubt the idea of a Creator, and of one per- 
 fect in wisdom, power, and goodness, is derived by 
 man from his own mind. But it is not necessary 
 that such a Creator should be an " artificer," or 
 proceed by " broken efforts." He may act by 
 evolution, or processes of development. He may 
 create perpetually, by a life flowing from himself 
 into all things. He may create the universe anew 
 at every moment — not as a man lights a torch 
 with a match and then goes away, but as the sun 
 
APEOPOS OF TYNDALL 137 
 
 creates his image in the water by a perpetual pro- 
 cess. Thus God may be regarded as creating each 
 animal and each plant, while he maintains the mys- 
 terious force of development by which it grows 
 from its egg or its seed. The essential idea of 
 creation is an infinite cause, acting according to 
 a perfect intelligence, for a perfect good. There 
 is nothing, necessarily, of an artificer or of broken 
 efforts in this. It is the very idea of divine crea- 
 tion given in the New Testament. " From whom, 
 and through whom, and to whom, are all things." 
 " In him, we live, and move, and have our being." 
 The theist may well accept the view given by 
 Goethe, in his little poem, " Gott, Gemiith, und 
 Welt." 
 
 1 ' What kind of God would He be who only pushes the universe 
 from without ? 
 
 Who lets the All of Things run round and round on his finger ? 
 
 It becomes him far better to move the universe from within, 
 
 To take Nature up into Himself, to let Himself down into Na- 
 ture, 
 
 So that whatever lives, and moves, and has its being in Him 
 
 Never loses His power, never misses His spirit." 
 
 Such a conception of God, as a perpetual Creator, 
 is essential to the intellectual rest of the human 
 mind, and it is painful to see the irresolution of 
 Professor Tyndall in regard to it. " Clear and 
 confident as Jove " in the domain which is his own, 
 where his masterly powers of observation, discrimi- 
 nation, and judgment leave him without a peer, 
 he seems shorn of his strength on entering this 
 
138 APROPOS OF TYNBALL 
 
 field of metaphysics. He lias warned theology not 
 to trespass on the grounds of science ; or, if she 
 enters them, to submit to science as her superior. 
 Theology has been in the habit of treating science 
 in the same supercilious way ; telling her that she 
 was an intruder if she ventured to discuss ques- 
 tions of psychology or religion. This is equally 
 unwise on either part. Theologians should be glad 
 when men of science become seriously interested 
 in these great questions of the Whence and the 
 Whither. The address of Professor Tyndall is ex- 
 cellent in its intention as well as in its candid and 
 manly treatment of the subject. Its indecision 
 and indistinctness are probably due to his having 
 accepted too implicitly the guidance of Spencer, 
 thus assuming that religious truth is unknowable, 
 that creation is impossible, and that only pheno- 
 mena can become objects of knowledge. " Insolu- 
 ble mystery " is therefore his final answer to the 
 questions he has himself raised. 
 
 Goethe is wiser when he follows the Apostle 
 Paul, and regards the Deity as " the fullness which 
 filleth all in all." There is no unity to thought, 
 and* no hope for scientific progress, more than for 
 moral culture, unless we see intelligence at the 
 centre, intelligence on the circumference of being. 
 To place an impenetrable darkness instead of an 
 unclouded light on the throne of the universe, 
 is to throw a shadow over the Creation. 
 
 We say that there is no unity in thought with- 
 
APROPOS OF TYNDALL 139 
 
 out this conviction. The only real unity we know 
 in the world is our own. All we see around us, in- 
 cluding our own body, is divisible, subject to alter- 
 ation and change. Only the ego, or soul, is con- 
 scious of a perfect unity in a perpetual identity. 
 Unless we can attribute to the source of all being 
 a similar personal unity, there can be no coherence 
 to science, but it must forever remain fragmentary 
 and divided. This is what we mean by asserting 
 the personality of Deity. This idea reaches what 
 Lord Bacon calls "the vertical point of natural 
 philosophy " or " the summary law of Nature," 
 and constitutes, as he declares, " the union of all 
 things in a perpetual and uniform law." 
 
 And unless we can recognize in the ultimate 
 fountain of being an intelligent purpose, the mean- 
 ing of the universe departs. Without intelligence 
 in the cause there is none in the effect. Then the 
 world has no meaning, life no aim. The universe 
 comes out of darkness, and is plunging into dark- 
 ness again. 
 
 Take away from the domain of knowledge the 
 idea of a creating and presiding intelligence, and 
 there remains no motive for science itself. Profes- 
 sor Tyndall is sagacious enough to see and candid 
 enough to admit that " without moral force to whip 
 it into action the achievements of the intellect 
 would be poor indeed," and that " science itself 
 not unfrequently derives motive power from ultra- 
 scientific sources." Faith in God, as an intelli- 
 
140 APROPOS OF TYNDALL 
 
 gent creator and ruler of the world, has awakened 
 enthusiasm for scientific investigation among both 
 the Aryan and the Semitic races. 
 
 The purest and highest form of monotheism 
 is that of Christianity ; and in Christendom has 
 science made its largest progress. Not by martyrs 
 for science, but by martyrs for religion, has the 
 human mind been emancipated. Mr. Tyndall says 
 of scientific freedom, " We fought and won our 
 battle even in the middle ages." But the heroes 
 of intellectual liberty have been the heroes of 
 faith. Hundreds of thousands have died for a 
 religious creed ; but how many have died for a 
 scientific theory? Luther went to Worms, and 
 maintained his opinions there in defiance of the 
 anathemas of the church and the ban of the empire, 
 but Galileo denied his most cherished convictions 
 on his knees. Galileo was as noble a character as 
 Luther ; but science does not create the texture of 
 soul which makes so many martyrs in all the reli- 
 gious sects of Christendom. Let the doctrine of 
 cosmical force supplant our faith in the Almighty, 
 and in a few hundred years science would probably 
 fade out of the world from pure inanition. The 
 world would probably not care enough for any- 
 thing to care for science. The light of eternity 
 must fall on this our human and earthly life, to 
 arouse the soul to a living and permanent interest 
 even in things seen and temporal. 
 
 Professor Tyndall says : " Whether the views of 
 
APROPOS OF TYNDALL 141 
 
 Lucretius, Darwin, and Spencer are right or wrong, 
 we claim the freedom to discuss them. The ground 
 which they cover is scientific ground." 
 
 It is not only a right, but a duty to examine 
 these theories, since they are held seriously and 
 urged earnestly by able men. But we must doubt 
 whether they ought to claim the authority of 
 science. They are proposed by scientific men, and 
 they refer to scientific subjects. But these theo- 
 ries, in their present development, belong to meta- 
 physics rather than to science. Science consists, 
 first, of observation of facts ; secondly, of laws 
 inferred from those facts ; and thirdly, of a veri- 
 fication of those laws by new observation and ex- 
 periment. That which cannot be verified is no 
 part of science ; astronomy is a science, since every 
 eclipse and occultation verifies its laws ; geology 
 is a science, since every new observation of the 
 strata and their contents accords with the estab- 
 lished part of the system ; chemistry is a science 
 for the same reason. But Darwin's theory of the 
 transformation of species by natural selection is as 
 yet unverified. " There is no evidence of a direct 
 descent of earlier from later species in the geolo- 
 gical succession of animals." So says Agassiz, and 
 on this point his testimony can hardly be im- 
 peached. Professor W'. Thompson, another good 
 geological authority, says : " In successive geologi- 
 cal formations, although new species are constantly 
 appearing, and there is abundant evidence of 
 
142 APROPOS OF TYNDALL 
 
 progressive change, no single case has yet been 
 observed of one species passing through a series of 
 inappreciable modifications into another." Neither 
 has any such change taken place within historic 
 times, for the animals and plants found in the 
 tombs of Egypt are " identical, in all respects," 
 says M. Quatrefages, " with those now existing." 
 He adds the opinion, after a very careful and can- 
 did examination of the hypothesis of Darwin, that 
 "the theory and the facts do not agree." Not 
 being verified, then, this theory is not yet science, 
 but an unverified mental hypothesis, that is, meta- 
 physics. 
 
 It is important that this should be distinctly 
 said, for when men eminent in science propound 
 new theories, these theories themselves are apt to 
 be regarded as science, and those who oppose them 
 are accused of being opposed to science. This is 
 the tendency which Professor Tyndall has so justly 
 described in this very address : " When the human 
 mind has achieved greatness and given evidence of 
 power in any domain, there is a tendency to credit 
 it with similar power in any other domain." Be- 
 cause Tyndall is great in experimental science, 
 many are apt to accept his cosmological conclu- 
 sions. Because he is a great observer in natural 
 history, his metaphysical theories are supposed to 
 be supported by observation, and to rest on experi- 
 ence. Professor Tyndall' s own address terminates, 
 not in science, but nescience. It treats of a realm 
 
APROPOS OF TYNBALL 143 
 
 of atoms and molecules whose existence science 
 has never demonstrated, and attributes to them 
 potencies which science has never verified. It is a 
 system, not made necessary by the stringent con- 
 straint of facts, but avowedly constructed in order 
 to avoid the belief in an intelligent Creator, and a 
 universe marked by the presence of design. His 
 theory, he admits, no less than that of Darwin, 
 was not constructed in the pure interests of truth 
 for its own sake. There was another purpose in 
 both, — to get rid of a theology of final causes, of a 
 theology which conceives of God as a human ar- 
 tificer. He wished to exclude religion from the 
 field of cosmogony, and forbid it to intrude on the 
 region of knowledge. Theologians have often been 
 reproached for studying " with a purpose," but it 
 seems that this is a frailty belonging not to theolo- 
 gians only, but to all human beings who care a 
 good deal for what they believe. 
 
 Professor Tyndall accepts religious faith as an 
 important element of human nature, but considers 
 it as confined to the sentiments, and as not based 
 in knowledge. He doubtless comes to this conclu- 
 sion from following too implicitly the traditions of 
 modern English psychology. These assume that 
 knowledge comes only from without, through the 
 senses, and never from within, through intuition. 
 This prepossession, singularly English and insular, 
 is thus stated by John Stuart Mill in his article on 
 Coleridge. " Sensation, and the mind's conscious- 
 
144 APROPOS OP TYXDALL 
 
 ness of its own acts, are not only the exclusive 
 sources, but the sole materials of our knowledge. 
 There is no knowledge a priori; no truths cogniz- 
 able by the mind's inward light, and grounded on 
 intuitive evidence." These views have been de- 
 veloped in England by the two Mills, Herbert 
 Spencer, Bain, and others, who have made great 
 efforts to show how sensations may be transformed 
 into thoughts : how association of ideas may have 
 developed instincts : how hereditary impressions, 
 repeated for a million years, may at last have 
 taken on the aspect of necessary truths. In short, 
 they have laid out great labor and ingenuity in 
 proving that a sensation may, very gradually, be 
 transformed into a thought. 
 
 But all this labor is probably a waste of time 
 and of intellectual power. The attempt at turn- 
 ing sensation into thought only results in turning 
 thought into sensation. It is an error that we 
 only know what we perceive through the senses, 
 or transform by the action of the mind. It is not 
 true that we only know that of which we can form 
 a sensible image. We know the existence of the 
 soul as certainly as that of the body. We know 
 the infinite and the eternal as well as we know the 
 finite and temporal. TTe know substance, cause, 
 immortal beauty, absolute truth, as surely as the 
 flitting phenomena which pass within the sphere 
 of sensational experience. These convictions be- 
 long, not to the sphere of sentiment and emotion, 
 
APROPOS OF TYNBALL 145 
 
 but to that of knowledge. It is because they 
 show us realities and not imaginations, that they 
 nerve the soul to such vast efforts in the sphere of 
 morals, literature, and religion. 
 
 The arguments against the independent exist- 
 ence of the soul which Tyndall puts into the 
 mouth of his Lucretian disciple are not difficult to 
 answer. " You can form no picture of the soul," 
 he says. No ; and neither can we form a mental 
 picture of love or hate, of right and wrong, or 
 even of bodily pain and pleasure. " If localized 
 in the body, the soul must have form." Must a 
 pain, localized in the finger, have form ? " When 
 a leg is amputated, in which part does the soul 
 reside? " We answer, that the soul resides in the 
 body, with reduced power. Its instrument is less 
 perfect than before — like a telescope which has 
 lost a lens. " If consciousness is an essential at- 
 tribute of the soul, where is the soul when con- 
 sciousness ceases by the depression of the brain ? " 
 Is there any difficulty, we reply, in supposing that 
 the soul may pass sometimes into a state of torpor, 
 when its instrument is injured ? A soul may 
 sleep, and so be unconscious, without being dead. 
 " The diseased brain may produce immorality : 
 can the reason control it ? If not, what is the use 
 of the reason?" To this we answer that the soul 
 may lose its power with a diseased body; but 
 when furnished w T ith another and better body, it 
 will regain it. " If you regard the body only as 
 
146 APROPOS OF TYNDALL 
 
 an instrument, you will neglect to take care of it." 
 Does the astronomer neglect to take care of his 
 telescope ? 
 
 These answers to the Lucretian may be far 
 from complete ; but they are at least as good as 
 the objections. The soul, no doubt, depends on 
 the body, and cannot do its work well when the 
 body is out of order ; but does that prove it to be 
 the result of the body ? If so, the same argument 
 would prove the carpenter to be the result of his 
 box of tools, and the organist to be the result of 
 his organ. The organist draws sweet music from 
 his instrument. But as his organ grows old, or is 
 injured by the weather, or the pipes crack, and the 
 pedals get out of order r the music becomes more 
 and more imperfect. At last the instrument is 
 wholly ruined, and the music wholly ceases. Is t 
 then, the organist dead, or was he only the result 
 of the organ ? " Without phosphorus, no thought," 
 say the materialists. True. So, "without the 
 organ, no music." Just as in addition to the 
 musical instrument we need a performer, so in 
 addition to the brain we need a soul. 
 
 There are two worlds of knowledge, — the out- 
 ward world, which is perceived through the senses, 
 and which belongs to physical science, and the 
 inward world, perceived by the nobler reason, and 
 from which a celestial light streams in, irradiating 
 the mind through all its powers. Religion and 
 science are not opposed, though different ; their 
 
APROPOS OF TYNDALL 147 
 
 spheres are different, though not to be divided. 
 Each is supreme in its own region, but each needs 
 the help of the other in order to do its own work 
 well. Professor Tyndall claims freedom of dis- 
 cussion and inquiry for himself and his scientific 
 brethren, and says he will oppose to the death any 
 limitation of this liberty. He need not be anxious 
 on this point. Religious faith has already fought 
 this battle, and won for science as well as for it- 
 self perfect liberty of thought. The Protestant 
 churches may say, " With a great sum obtained 
 we this freedom." By the lives of its confessors 
 and the blood of its martyrs has it secured for all 
 men to-day equal rights of thought and speech. 
 What neither Copernicus, Kepler, nor Galileo 
 could do was accomplished by the courage of 
 Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and 
 Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 And now the freedom they obtained by such 
 sacrifices we inherit and enjoy : " We are free- 
 born." We may be thankful that in most coun- 
 tries to-day no repression nor dictation prevents 
 any man from expressing his inmost thought. 
 We are glad that the most rabid unbelief and 
 extreme denial can be spoken calmly in the open 
 day. This is one great discovery of modern times, 
 that errors lose half their influence when openly 
 uttered. We owe this discovery to the Reforma- 
 tion. The reformers made possible a toleration 
 much larger than their own; unwittingly, while 
 
148 APROPOS OF TYNBALL 
 
 seeking freedom for their own thoughts, they won 
 the same freedom for others, who went farther 
 than they. They builded better than they knew. 
 
 Professor Tyndall's address is tranquil yet earn- 
 est, modest, and manly. But its best result is, that 
 it shows us the impotence of the method of sensa- 
 tion to explain the mystery of the universe. It 
 has shown us clearly the limitations of " the under- 
 standing judging by sense " — shown that it sees 
 our world clearly, but is blind to the other. It 
 can tell every blade of grass, and name every 
 mineral ; but it stands helpless and hopeless be- 
 fore the problem of being. Science and religion 
 may each say with the apostle, " We know in part 
 and prophesy in part." Together and united, 
 they may one day see and know the whole. 
 
LAW AND DESIGN IN NATURE 1 
 
 In the paper which opens this discussion on 
 "Law and Design in Nature," Prof essor Newcomb 
 announces in a single sentence a proposition, the 
 truth or falsehood of which, he tells us, is " the sole 
 question presented for discussion in the present 
 series of papers." 
 
 But, as soon as we examine this proposition, we 
 find that it contains not one sole question, but 
 three. The three are independent of each other, 
 and do not necessarily stand or fall together. They 
 are these : — 
 
 1. " The whole course of Nature, considered as 
 a succession of phenomena, is conditioned solely 
 by antecedent causes." 
 
 2. In the action of these causes, " no regard to 
 consequences is traceable." 
 
 3. And no regard to consequences is " necessary 
 to foresee the phenomena." 
 
 Of these three propositions I admit the truth 
 of the first ; deny the truth of the second ; and, 
 for want of space, and because of its relative un- 
 importance, leave the third unexamined. 
 
 1 Symposium in the North American Review, May, 1879. 
 
150 LAW AND DESIGN IN NATURE 
 
 The first proposition is so evidently true, and 
 so universally admitted, that it was hardly worth 
 positing for discussion. It is merely affirming that 
 every natural phenomenon implies a cause. The 
 word " antecedent " is ambiguous, but, if it intends 
 logical and not chronological antecedence, it is un- 
 objectionable. So understood, we are merely asked 
 if we can accept the law of universal causation ; 
 which I suppose we shall all readily do, since this 
 law is the basis of theology no less than of science. 
 Without it, we could not prove the existence of 
 the first cause. Professor Newcomb has divided 
 us into two conflicting schools, one of theology 
 and the other of science. Taking my place in the 
 school of theology, I think I may safely assert for 
 my brethren that on this point there is no conflict, 
 but that we all admit the truth of the law of uni- 
 versal causation. It will be noticed that Professor 
 Newcomb has carefully worded his statement, so 
 as not to confine us to physical causes, nor even 
 to exclude supernatural causes from without, work- 
 ing into the nexus of natural laws. He does not 
 say " antecedent physical causes," nor does he say 
 " causes which have existed from the beginning." 
 
 Admitting thus the truth of the first proposition, 
 I must resolutely deny that of the second ; since, 
 by accepting it, I should surrender the very cause 
 I wish to defend, namely, that we can perceive 
 design in Nature. Final causes are those which 
 " regard consequences." The principle of finality 
 
LAW AND DESIGN IN NATURE 151 
 
 is defined by M. Janet (in his recent exhaustive 
 work, " Les Causes finales ") as " the present de- 
 termined by the future." One example of the way 
 in which we can trace in Nature " a regard to con- 
 sequences " is so excellently stated by this eminent 
 philosopher that we will introduce it here : " Con- 
 sider what is implied in the egg of a bird. In the 
 mystery and night of incubation there comes, by 
 the combination of an incredible number of causes, 
 a living machine within the egg. It is absolutely 
 separated from the external world, but every part 
 is related to some future use. The outward physi- 
 cal world which the creature is to inhabit is wholly 
 divided by impenetrable veils from this internal 
 laboratory ; but a preestablished harmony exists 
 between them. Without, there is light ; within, 
 an optical machine adapted to it. Without, there 
 is sound ; within, an acoustic apparatus. Without, 
 are vegetables and animals ; within, organs for 
 their reception and assimilation. Without, is air ; 
 within, lungs with which to breathe it. Without, 
 is oxygen ; within, blood to be oxygenized. With- 
 out, is earth ; within, feet are being made to walk 
 on it. Without, is the atmosphere ; within, are 
 wings with which to fly through it. Now imagine 
 a blind and idiotic workman, alone in a cellar, who 
 simply by moving his limbs to and fro should be 
 found to have forged a key capable of opening the 
 most complex lock. If we exclude design, this is 
 what Nature is supposed to be doing." 
 
152 LAW AND DESIGN IN NATURE 
 
 That design exists in Nature, and that earthly- 
 phenomena actually depend on final causes as well 
 as on efficient causes, appears from the industry of 
 man. Man is certainly a part of Nature, and those 
 who accept evolution must regard him as the high- 
 est development resulting from natural processes. 
 Now, all over the earth, from morning till even- 
 ing, men are acting for ends. " Regard to conse- 
 quences is traceable " in all their conduct. They 
 are moved by hope and expectation. They devise 
 plans, and act for a purpose. From the savage 
 hammering his flint arrowheads, up to a Shake- 
 speare composing " Hamlet," a Columbus seeking 
 a new way to Asia, or a Paul converting Europe 
 to a Syrian religion, human industry is a constant 
 proof that a large part of the course of Nature on 
 this earth is the result of design. And, as man 
 develops into higher stages, this principle of design 
 rises also from the simple to the complex, taking 
 ever larger forms. A ship, for instance, shows 
 throughout the adaptation of means to ends, by 
 which complex adaptations produce a unity of 
 result. 
 
 And that there is no conflict between the action 
 of physical causes and final causes is demonstrated 
 by the works of man, since they all result from the 
 harmonious action of both. In studying human 
 works we ask two questions, — " How ? " and 
 " Why ? " We ask, " What is it for ? " and " How 
 is it done ? " The two lines of inquiry run paral- 
 
LAW AND DESIGN IN NATURE 153 
 
 lei, and without conflict. So, in studying the 
 works of Nature, to seek for design does not ob- 
 struct the investigation of causes, and may often 
 aid it. Thus Harvey is said to have been led to 
 the discovery of the circulation of the blood by 
 seeking for the use of the valves of the veins and 
 heart. 
 
 The human mind is so constituted that, when- 
 ever it sees an event, it is obliged to infer a cause. 
 So, whenever it sees adaptation, it infers design. 
 It is not necessary to know the end proposed, or 
 who were the agents. Adaptation itself, implying 
 the use of means, leads us irresistibly to infer in- 
 tention. We do not know who built Stonehenge, 
 or some of the pyramids, or what they were built 
 for ; but no one doubts that they were the result 
 of design. This inference is strengthened if we 
 see combination toward an end, and preparation 
 made beforehand for a result which comes after- 
 ward. From preparation, combination, and adap- 
 tation, we are led to believe in the presence of hu- 
 man design even where we did not before know 
 of the presence of human beings. A few rudely 
 shaped stones, found in a stratum belonging to the 
 Quaternary period, in which man had before not 
 been believed to exist, changed that opinion. Those 
 chipped flints showed adaptation ; from adaptation 
 design was inferred ; and design implied the pre- 
 sence of man. 
 
 Now, we find in Nature, especially in the organ- 
 
154 LAW AND DESIGN IN NATURE 
 
 ization and instincts of animals, myriads of similar 
 instances of preparation, combination, and adapta- 
 tion. Two explanations only of this occurred to 
 antiquity, — design and chance. Socrates, Plato, 
 and others, were led by such facts to infer the 
 creation of the world by an intelligent author — 
 41 ille opifex rerum.' 9 Democritus, Epicurus, and 
 Lucretius, ascribed it to the fortuitous concourse 
 of atoms. But modern science has expelled chance 
 from the universe, and substituted law. Laplace, 
 observing forty-three instances in the solar system 
 of planets and their satellites revolving on their 
 axes or moving in their orbits, from west to east, 
 declared that this could not be a mere coincidence. 
 Chance, therefore, being set aside, the question 
 takes another form : " Did the cosmos that we see 
 come by design or by law? " 
 
 But does this really change the question? 
 Granting, for example, the truth of the theory 
 of the development of all forms of life, under the 
 operation of law, from a primal cell, we must then 
 ask, " Did these laws come by chance or by de- 
 sign ? " It is not possible to evade that issue. If 
 the universe resulted from non-intelligent forces, 
 those forces themselves must have existed as the 
 result of chance or of intelligence. If you put out 
 the eyes, you leave blindness ; if you strike intelli- 
 gence out of the creative mystery, you leave blind 
 forces, the result of accident. Whatever is not 
 from intelligence is from accident. To substitute 
 
LAW AND DESIGN IN NATURE 155 
 
 law for chance is merely removing the difficulty a 
 little further back ; it does not solve it. 
 
 To eliminate interventions from the universe is 
 not to remove design. The most profound theists 
 have denied such interruptions of the course of Na- 
 ture. Leibnitz is an illustrious example of this. 
 Janet declares him to have been the true author of 
 the theory of evolution, by his " Law of Conti- 
 nuity," of " Insensible Perceptions," and of " Infin- 
 itely Small Increments." Yet he also fully believed 
 in final causes. Descartes, who objected to some 
 teleological statements, believed that the Creator 
 imposed laws on chaos by which the world emerged 
 into a cosmos. We know that existing animals 
 are evolved by a continuous process from eggs, and 
 existing vegetables by a like process from seeds. 
 No one ever supposed that there was less of design 
 on this account in their creation. So, if all exist- 
 ing things came at first by a like process from a 
 single germ, it would not argue less, but far more, 
 of design in the universe. 
 
 The theory of " natural selection " does not 
 enable us to dispense with final causes. This 
 theory requires the existence of forces working 
 according to the law of heredity and the law of 
 variation, together with a suitable environment. 
 But whence came this arrangement, by which a 
 law of heredity was combined with a law of varia- 
 tion, and both made to act in a suitable environ- 
 ment ? Here we find again the three marks of a 
 
156 LAW AND DESIGN IN NATUBE 
 
 designing intelligence : preparation, combination, 
 adaptation. That intelligence which combines and 
 adapts means to ends is merely remanded to the 
 initial step of the process, instead of being allowed 
 to act continuously along the whole line of evolu- 
 tion. Even though you can explain by the action 
 of mechanical forces the whole development of the 
 solar system and its contents from a nebula, you 
 have only accumulated all the action of a creative 
 intelligence in the nebula itself. Because I can 
 explain the mechanical process by which a watch 
 keeps time, I have not excluded the necessity of a 
 watchmaker. Because, walking through my neigh- 
 bor's grounds, I come upon a water-ram pumping 
 up water by a purely mechanical process, I do not 
 argue that this mechanism makes the assumption 
 of an inventor superfluous. In human industry 
 we perceive a power capable of using the blind 
 forces of Nature for an intelligent end ; which pre- 
 pares beforehand for the intended result ; which 
 combines various conditions suited to produce it, 
 and so creates order, system, use. But we observe 
 in Nature exactly similar examples of order, method, 
 and system, resulting from a vast number of com- 
 binations, correlations, and adaptations of natural 
 forces. Man himself is such a result. He is an 
 animal capable of activity, happiness, progress. 
 But innumerable causes are combined and har- 
 monized in his physical frame, each necessary to 
 this end. As the human intelligence is the only 
 
LAW AND DESIGN IN NATURE 157 
 
 i 
 power we know capable of accomplishing such 
 
 results, analogy leads us to assume that a similar 
 intelligence presides over the like combinations of 
 means to ends in Nature. If any one questions 
 the value of this argument from analogy, let him 
 remember how entirely we rely upon it in all the 
 business of life. We know only the motives which 
 govern our own actions ; but we infer by analogy 
 that others act from similar motives. Knowing 
 that we ourselves combine means designed to effect 
 ends, when we see others adapting means to ends, 
 we assume that they act also with design. Hence 
 we have a right to extend the argument further 
 and higher. 
 
 The result of what I have said is this : The 
 phenomena of the universe cannot be satisfacto- 
 rily explained except by the study both of efficient 
 causes and of final causes. Routine scientists, 
 confining themselves to the one, and routine theo- 
 logians, confining themselves to the other, may 
 suppose them to be in conflict. But men of larger 
 insight, like Leibnitz, Newton, Descartes, and 
 Bacon, easily see the harmony between them. 
 Like Hegel they say: "Nature is no less artful 
 than powerful ; it attains its end while it allows 
 all things to act according to their constitution ; " 
 or they declare with Bacon that " the highest link 
 of Nature's chain is fastened to the foot of Jupi- 
 ter's chair." But the belief in final causes does 
 not imply belief in supernatural intervention, nor 
 
158 LAW AND DESIGN IN NATURE 
 
 of any disturbance in the continuity of natural 
 processes. It means that Nature is pervaded by 
 an intelligent presence; that mind is above and 
 around matter ; that mechanical laws are them- 
 selves a manifestation of some providing wisdom, 
 and that when we say Nature we also say God. 1 
 
 1 In this brief paper it is not possible even to allude to the 
 objections which have been brought against the doctrine of final 
 causes. For these objections, and the answers to them, I would 
 refer the reader to the work of Janet, before mentioned. 
 
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPH- 
 ICAL 
 
THE TWO CARLYLES, OR CARLYLE PAST 
 AND PRESENT 1 
 
 In Thomas Carlyle's earlier days, when he fol- 
 lowed a better inspiration than his present, — 
 when his writings were steeped, not in cynicism, 
 but in the pure human love of his fellow beings, 
 — in the days when he did not worship Force, but 
 Truth and Goodness, — in those days, it was the 
 fashion of critics to pass the most sweeping cen- 
 sures on his writings as " affected," " unintelligi- 
 ble," " extravagant." But he worked his way on, 
 in spite of that superficial criticism, — he won for 
 himself an audience ; he gained renown ; he be- 
 came authentic. JVow, the same class of critics 
 admire and praise whatever he writes. For the 
 rule with most critics is that of the bully in school 
 and college, — to tyrannize over the new boys, to 
 abuse the strangers, but to treat with respect who- 
 ever has bravely fought his way into a recognized 
 position. Carlyle has fought his way into the posi- 
 tion of a great literary chief, — so now he may be 
 ever so careless, ever so willful, and he will be spo- 
 ken of in high terms by all monthlies and quarter- 
 lies. When he deserved admiration, he was treated 
 
 1 The Christian Examiner, September 1864. 
 
162 THE TWO CAELYLES 
 
 with cool contempt ; now that he deserves the sharp- 
 est criticism, not only for his false moral position, 
 but for his gross literary sins, the critics treat him 
 with deference and respect. 
 
 But let us say beforehand that we can never 
 write of Thomas Carlyle with bitterness. We 
 have received too much good from him in past 
 days. He is our " Lost Leader," but we have 
 loved and honored him as few men were ever loved 
 and honored. It is therefore with tenderness, and 
 not any cold, indifferent criticism, that we find 
 fault with him now. We shall always be grateful 
 to the real Carlyle, the old Carlyle of " Sartor Re- 
 sartus," of the " French Revolution," of the " Life 
 of Schiller," of " Heroes and Hero- Worship," and 
 of that long and noble series of articles in the 
 Edinburgh, Foreign Review, Westminster, and 
 Frazer, each of which illuminated some theme, and 
 threw the glory of genius over whatever his mind 
 touched or his pencil drew. 
 
 Carlyle's " Frederick the Great " 1 seems to us a 
 badly written book. Let us consider the volume 
 containing the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth 
 chapters. Nothing in these chapters is brought 
 out clearly. When we have finished the book, the 
 mind is filled with a confusion of vague images. 
 
 1 History of Friedrich the Second, called Frederick the Great, 
 by Thomas Carlyle. In four volumes. Harper and Brothers, 
 
 1864. 
 
THE TWO CAELYLJES 163 
 
 We know that Mr. Carlyle is not bound to " pro- 
 vide^ with brains " as well as with a history, but 
 neither was he so bound in other days. Yet no 
 such confusion was left after reading the " French 
 Revolution. " How brilliantly distinct was every 
 leading event, every influential person, every pa- 
 thetic or poetic episode, in that charmed narrative ! 
 Who can forget Carlyle's account of the " Me- 
 nads," the King's " Flight to Varennes," the Con- 
 stitutions that " would not march," the " Septem- 
 ber Massacres," " Charlotte Corday," — every chief 
 tragic movement, every grotesque episode, moving 
 forward, distinct and clear, to the final issue, " a 
 whiff of grapeshot " ? Is there anything like that 
 in this confused " Frederick " ? 
 
 Compare, for example, the chapters on Voltaire 
 in the present volume with the article on Voltaire 
 published in 1829. 
 
 The sixteenth book is devoted to the ten years 
 of peace which followed the second Silesian war. 
 These were from 1746 to 1756. The book con- 
 tains fifteen chapters. Carlyle begins, in chapter 
 i., by lamenting that there is very little to be 
 known or said about these ten years. " Nothing 
 visible in them of main significance but a crash of 
 authors' quarrels, and the crowning visit of Vol- 
 taire." Yet one would think that matter enough 
 might be found in describing the immense activity 
 of Friedrich, of which Macaulay says, " His exer- 
 tions were such as were hardly to be expected 
 
164 THE TWO CABLYLES 
 
 from a human body or a human mind." During 
 these years Frederick brought a seventh part of 
 his people into the army, and organized and drilled 
 it under his own personal inspection, till it became 
 the finest in Europe. He compiled a code of laws, 
 in which he, among the first, abolished torture. 
 He made constant journeys through his domin- 
 ions, examining the condition of manufactures, 
 arts, commerce, and agriculture. He introduced 
 the strictest economy into the expenditures of the 
 state. He indulged himself, indeed, in various 
 architectural extravagances at Berlin and Pots- 
 dam, — but otherwise saved every florin for his 
 army. He wrote " Memoirs of the House of 
 Brandenburg," and an epic poem on the " Art of 
 War." But our author disdains to give us an 
 account of these things. They are not picturesque, 
 they can be told in only general terms, and Carlyle 
 will tell us only what an eyewitness could see or a 
 listener hear. Accordingly, instead of giving us 
 an account of these great labors of his hero, he 
 inserts (chapter ii.) " a peep at Voltaire and his 
 divine Emilie," " a visit to Frederick by Marshal 
 Saxe ; " (chapter iii.) a long account of Candi- 
 date Linsenbarth's visit to the king ; " Sir Jonas 
 Hanway stalks across the scene ; " the lawsuit of 
 Voltaire about the Jew Hirsch ; " a demon news- 
 writer gives an idea of Friedrich ; " the quarrel of 
 Voltaire and Maupertuis ; " Friedrich is visible in 
 Holland to the naked eye for some minutes." 
 
THE TWO CARLYLES 165 
 
 This is very unsatisfactory. Reports of eyewit- 
 nesses" are, no doubt, picturesque and valuable ; but 
 so only on condition of being properly arranged, 
 and tending, in their use, toward some positive 
 result. Then the tone of banter, of irony, almost 
 of persiflage, is discouraging. If the whole story 
 of Friedrich is so unintelligible, uninteresting, or 
 incommunicable, why take the trouble to write it ? 
 The poco-curante air with which he narrates, as 
 though it were of no great consequence whether he 
 told his story or not, contrasts wonderfully with 
 his early earnestness. Carlyle writes this history 
 like a man thoroughly blase. Impossible for him 
 to take any interest in it himself, — how, then, does 
 he expect to interest us ? Has he not himself told 
 us, in his former writings, that the man who 
 proposes to teach others anything must be good 
 enough to believe it first himself ? 
 
 Here is the problem we have to solve. How 
 came this change from the Carlyle of the Past to 
 the Carlyle of the Present, — from Carlyle the 
 universal believer to. Carlyle the universal skeptic, 
 — from him to whom the world was full of wonder 
 and beauty, to him who can see in it nothing but 
 Force on the one side and Shams on the other ? 
 What changed that tender, loving, brave soul into 
 this hard cynic ? And how was it, as Faith and 
 Love faded out of him, that the life passed from 
 his thought, the glory from his pen, and the 
 page, once alive with flashing ideas, turned into 
 
166 THE TWO CARLYLES 
 
 this confused heap of rubbish, in which silver 
 spoons, old shoes, gold sovereigns, and copper pen- 
 nies are pitched out promiscuously, for the patient 
 reader to sift and pick over as he can ? In read- 
 ing the Carlyle of thirty years ago, we were like 
 California miners, — come upon a rich placer, 
 never before opened, where we could all become 
 rich in a day. Now the reader of Carlyle is a 
 chiffonier, raking in a heap of street dust for what- 
 ever precious matters may turn up. 
 
 To investigate this question is our purpose now, 
 — and in doing so we w r ill consider, in succession, 
 these two Carlyles. 
 
 I. It was about the year 1830 that readers of 
 books in this vicinity became aware of a new power 
 coming up in the literary republic. Opinions con- 
 cerning him varied widely. To some he seemed a 
 Jack Cade, leader of rebels, foe to good taste and all 
 sound opinions. Especially did his admiration for 
 Goethe and for German literature seem to many 
 preposterous and extravagant. It was said of 
 these, that " the force of folly could no further 
 go," — that they " constituted a burlesque too 
 extravagant to be amusing." The tone of Carlyle 
 was said to be of " unbounded assumption ; " his 
 language to be " obscure and barbarous ; " his 
 ideas composed of " extravagant paradoxes, fami- 
 liar truths or familiar falsehoods ; " " wildest ex- 
 travagance and merest silliness." 
 
 But to others, and especially to the younger 
 
THE TWO CARLYLES 167 
 
 men, this new writer came, opening up unknown 
 wdrtehf of beauty and wonder. A strange influ- 
 ence, unlike any other, attracted us to his writing. 
 Before we knew his name, we knew him. We 
 could recognize an article by our new author as 
 soon as we opened the pages of the Foreign Re- 
 view, Edinburgh, or Westminster, and read a few 
 paragraphs. But it was not the style, though 
 marked by a singular freedom and originality — 
 not the tone of kindly humor, the good-natured 
 irony, the happy illustrations brought from afar, 
 — not the amount of literary knowledge, the fa- 
 miliarity with German, French, Italian, Spanish 
 literature, — not any or all of these which so be- 
 witched us. We knew a young man who used to 
 walk from a neighboring town to Boston every 
 week, in order to read over again two articles by 
 Carlyle in two numbers of the Foreign Review 
 lying on a table in the reading-room of the Athe- 
 naeum. This was his food, in the strength of 
 which he could go a week, till hunger drove him 
 back to get another meal at the same table. We 
 knew other young men and young women who 
 taught themselves German in order to read for 
 themselves the authors made so luminous by this 
 writer. Those were counted fortunate who pos- 
 sessed the works of our author, as yet unpublished 
 in America, — his " Life of Schiller," his " Ger- 
 man Romance," his Review articles. What, then, 
 was the charm, — whence the fascination? 
 
168 THE TWO CABLYLES 
 
 To explain this we must describe a little the 
 state of literature and opinion in this vicinity at 
 the time when Carlyle's writings first made their 
 appearance. 
 
 Unitarianism and Orthodoxy had fought their 
 battle, and were resting on their arms. Each had 
 intrenched itself in certain positions, each had won 
 to its side most of those who legitimately belonged 
 to it. Controversy had done all it could, and had 
 come to an end. Among the Unitarians, the so- 
 called " practical preaching " was in vogue ; that 
 is, ethical and moral essays, pointing out the good- 
 ness of being good, and the excellence of what was 
 called " moral virtue." There was, no doubt, a 
 body of original thinkers and writers, — better 
 thinkers and writers, it may be, than we have now, 
 — who were preparing the way for another ad- 
 vance. Channing had already unfolded his doc- 
 trine of man, of which the central idea is, that 
 human nature is not to be moulded by religion, 
 but to be developed by it. Walker, Greenwood, 
 Ware, and their brave associates, were conducting 
 this journal with unsurpassed ability. But some- 
 thing more was needed. The general character of 
 preaching was not of a vitalizing sort. It was 
 much like what Carlyle says of preaching in Eng- 
 land at the same period : " The most enthusiastic 
 Evangelicals do not preach a Gospel, but keep 
 describing how it should and might be preached ; 
 to awaken the sacred fire of faith is not their en- 
 
THE TWO CABLYLES 169 
 
 dea^w^Jbut at most, to describe how faith shows 
 and acts, and scientifically to distinguish true faith 
 from false." It is " not the Love of God which is 
 taught, but the love of the Love of God." 
 
 According to this, God was outside of the world, 
 at a distance from his children, and obliged to 
 communicate with them in this indirect way, by 
 breaking through the walls of natural law with an 
 occasional miracle. There was no door by which 
 he could enter into the sheepfold to his sheep. 
 Miracles were represented, even by Dr. Channing, 
 as abnormal, as " violations of the laws of nature ; " 
 something, therefore, unnatural and monstrous, 
 and not to be believed except on the best evidence. 
 God could not be supposed to break through the 
 walls of this house of nature, except in order to 
 speak to his children on some great occasions. 
 That he had done it, in the case of Christianity, 
 could be proved by the eleven volumes of Dr. 
 Lardner, which showed the Four Gospels to have 
 been written by the companions of Christ, and not 
 otherwise. 
 
 The whole of this theory rested, it will be ob- 
 served, on a sensuous system of mental philosophy. 
 " All knowledge comes through the senses," was 
 its foundation. Kevelation, like every other form 
 of knowledge, must come through the senses. A 
 miracle, which appeals to the sight, touch, hearing, 
 is the only possible proof of a divine act. For, 
 in the last analysis, all our theology rests on our 
 
170 THE TWO CABLYLES 
 
 philosophy. Theology, being belief, must pro- 
 ceed according to those laws of belief, whatever 
 they are, which we accept and hold. The man 
 who thinks that all knowledge comes through the 
 senses must receive his theological knowledge also 
 that way, and no other. This was the general 
 opinion thirty or forty years ago ; hence this the- 
 ory of Christianity, which supposes that God is 
 obliged to break his own laws in order to com- 
 municate it. 
 
 But the result of this belief was harmful. It 
 tended to make our religion formal, our worship 
 a mere ceremony; it made real communication 
 with God impossible; it turned prayer into a 
 self -magnetizing operation ; it left us virtually 
 " without God and hope in the world." Thanks 
 to Him who never leaves himself without a witness 
 in the human heart, this theory was often nullified 
 in practice by the irrepressible instincts which it 
 denied, by the spiritual intuitions which it ridi- 
 culed. Even Professor Norton, its chief champion, 
 had a heart steeped in the sweetest piety. Deny- 
 ing, intellectually, all intuitions of God, Duty, 
 and Immortality, his beautiful and tender hymns 
 show the highest spiritual insight. Still it cannot 
 be denied that this theory tended to dry up the 
 fountains of religious faith in the human heart, 
 and to leave us in a merely mechanical and unspirit- 
 ualized world. 
 
 Now the first voice which came to break this 
 
THE TWO CARLYLES 171 
 
 enchantment was, to many, the voice of Thomas 
 Carlyle. It needed for this end, it always needs, 
 a man who could come face to face with Truth. 
 Every great idol-breaker, every man who has de- 
 livered the world from the yoke of Forms, has 
 been one who was able to see the substance of 
 things, who was gifted with the insight of realities. 
 Forms of worship, forms of belief, at first the 
 channels of life, through which the Living Spirit 
 flowed into human hearts, at last became petrified, 
 incrusted, choked. A few drops of the vital 
 current still ooze slowly through them, and our 
 parched lips, sucking these few drops, cling all the 
 more closely to the form as it becomes less and 
 less a vehicle of life. The poorest word, old and 
 trite, is precious when there is no open vision. 
 We do well continually to resort to the half-dead 
 form, " till the day dawn, and the day-star arise in 
 our hearts." 
 
 But at last there comes a man capable of dis- 
 pensing with the form, — a man endowed with a 
 high degree of the intuitive faculty, — a born seer, 
 a prophet, seeing the great realities of the universe 
 with open vision. The work of such a man is to 
 break up the old formulas and introduce new light 
 and life. This work was done for the Orthodox 
 thirty years ago by the writings of Coleridge ; for 
 the Unitarians in this vicinity, by the writings of 
 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 This was the secret of the enthusiasm felt for 
 
172 THE TWO CAELYLES 
 
 Carlyle, in those days, by so many of the younger 
 men and women. He taught us to look at reali- 
 ties instead of names, at substance instead of sur- 
 face, — to see God in the world, in nature, in life, 
 in providence, in man, — to see divine truth and 
 beauty and wonder everywhere around. He taught 
 that the only organ necessary by which to see the 
 divine in all things was sincerity, or inward truth. 
 And so he enabled us to escape from the form into 
 the spirit, he helped us to rise to that plane of 
 freedom from which we could see the divine in the 
 human, the infinite in the finite, God in man, 
 heaven on earth, immortality beginning here, eter- 
 nity pervading time. This made for us a new 
 heaven and a new earth, a new religion and a new 
 life. Faith was once more possible, a faith not 
 bought by the renunciation of mature reason or 
 the beauty and glory of the present hour. 
 
 But all this was taught us by our new prophet, 
 not by the intellect merely, but by the spirit in 
 which he spoke. He did not seem to be giving us 
 a new creed, so much as inspiring us with a new 
 life. That which came from his experience went 
 into ours. Therefore it might have been difficult, 
 in those days, for any of his disciples to state what 
 it was that they had learned from him. They had 
 not learned his doctrine, — they had absorbed it. 
 Hence, very naturally, came the imitations of 
 Carlyle, which so disgusted the members of the 
 old school. Hence the absurd Carlylish writing, 
 
THE TWO CABLYLES 173 
 
 the feeBle imitations by honest, but weak disciples 
 of the great master. It was a pity, but not un- 
 natural, and it soon passed by. 
 
 As Carlyle thus did his work, not so much 
 by direct teaching as by an influence hidden in 
 all that he said, it did not much matter on what 
 subject he wrote, — the influence was there still. 
 But his articles on Goethe were the most attrac- 
 tive, because he asserted that in this patriarch of 
 German literature he had found one who saw in 
 all things their real essence, one whose majestic 
 and trained intelligence could interpret to us in all 
 parts of nature and life the inmost quality, the 
 terza essenza, as the Italian Platonists called it, 
 which made each itself. Goethe was announced 
 as the prophet of Realism. He, it should seem, 
 had perfectly escaped from words into things. He 
 saw the world, not through dogmas, traditions, 
 formulas, but as it was in itself, To him 
 
 " the world's unwithered countenance 
 Was fresh as on creation's day." 
 
 Consider the immense charm of such hopes as 
 these ! No wonder that the critics complained 
 that the disciples of Carlyle were " insensible to 
 ridicule." What did they care for the laughter, 
 which seemed to them, in their enthusiasm, like 
 " the crackling of thorns under the pot." Ridi- 
 cule, in fact, never touches the sincere enthusiast. 
 It is a good and useful weapon against affectation, 
 but it falls, shivered to pieces, from the magic 
 
174 THE TWO CABLYLES 
 
 breastplate of truth. No sincere person, at work 
 in a cause which he knows to be important, ever 
 minds being laughed at. 
 
 But besides his admirable discussions of Goethe, 
 Carlyle's " Life of Schiller " opened the portals of 
 German literature, and made an epoch in biogra- 
 phy and criticism. It was a new thing to read a 
 biography written with such enthusiasm, — to find 
 a critic who could really write with reverence and 
 tender love of the poet whom he criticised. In- 
 stead of taking his seat on the judicial bench, and 
 calling his author up before him to be judged as 
 a culprit, Carlyle walks with Schiller through the 
 circles of his poems and plays, as Dante goes with 
 Virgil through the Inferno and Paradiso. He 
 accepts the great poet as his teacher and master, 1 
 a thing unknown before in all criticism. It was 
 supposed that a biographer would become a mere 
 Boswell if he looked up to his hero, instead of 
 looking down on him. It was not understood that 
 it was that " angel of the world," Reverence, 
 which had exalted even a poor, mean, vain fool, 
 like Boswell, and enabled him to write one of the 
 best books ever written. It was not his reverence 
 for Johnson which made Boswell a fool, — his 
 reverence for Johnson made him, a fool, capable of 
 writing one of the best books of modern times. 
 
 This capacity of reverence in Carlyle — this 
 
 1 " Tu se' lo mio maestro, e '1 mfo autore, 
 O degli altri poeti onore e lume." 
 
THE TWO CABLYLES 175 
 
 power-of perceiving a divine, infinite quality in 
 human souls — tinges all his biographical writing 
 with a deep religious tone. He wrote of Goethe, 
 Schiller, Bichter, Burns, Novalis, even Voltaire, 
 with reverence. He could see their defects easily 
 enough, he could playfully expose their weaknesses ; 
 but beneath all was the sacred undertone of rever- 
 ence for the divine element in each, — for that 
 which God had made and meant them to be, and 
 which they had realized more or less imperfectly 
 in the struggle of life. The difference between 
 the reverence of a Carlyle and that of a Boswell 
 is, that one is blind and the other intelligent. The 
 one worships his hero down to his shoes and stock- 
 ings, the other distinguishes the divine idea from 
 its weak embodiment. 
 
 Two articles from this happy period — that on 
 the " Signs of the Times " and that called " Char- 
 acteristics " — indicate some of Carlyle's leading 
 ideas concerning right thinking and right living. 
 In the first, he declares the present to be an age 
 of mechanism, — not heroic, devout, or philoso- 
 phic. All things are done by machinery. " Men 
 have no faith in individual endeavor or natu- 
 ral force." "Metaphysics has become material." 
 Government is a machine. All this he thinks 
 evil. The living force is in the individual soul, — 
 not mechanic, but dynamic. Religion is a calcula- 
 tion of expediency, not an impulse of worship ; no 
 thousand- voiced psalm from the heart of man to his 
 
176 THE TWO CARLYLES 
 
 invisible Father, the Fountain of all goodness, 
 beauty, and truth, but a contrivance by which a 
 small quantum of earthly enjoyment may be ex- 
 changed for a much larger quantum of celestial 
 enjoyment. " Virtue is pleasure, is profit." "In 
 all senses we worship and follow after power, which 
 may be called a physical pursuit." (Ah, Carlyle 
 of the Present ! does not that wand of thine old 
 true self touch thee ?) " No man now loves truth, 
 as truth must be loved, with an infinite love ; but 
 only with a finite love, and, as it were, par amours" 
 
 In the other article, " Characteristics," printed 
 two years later, in 1831, he unfolds the doctrine of 
 " Unconsciousness " as the sign of health in soul 
 as well as body. He finds society sick every- 
 where ; he finds its religion, literature, science, all 
 diseased, yet he ends the article, as the other was 
 ended, in hope of a change to something better. 
 
 These two articles may be considered as an in- 
 troduction to his next great work, " Sartor Eesar- 
 tus," or the " Clothes-Philosophy." Here, in a 
 vein of irony and genial humor, he unfolds his 
 doctrine of substance and form. The object of all 
 thought and all experience is to look through 
 the clothes to the living beneath them. Accord- 
 ing to his book, all human institutions are the 
 clothing of society ; language is the garment of 
 thought, the heavens and earth the time-vesture 
 of the Eternal. So, too, are religious creeds and 
 ceremonies the clothing of religion ; so are all sym- 
 
THE TWO CABLYLES 177 
 
 bols the vesture of some idea ; so are the crown 
 and sceptre the vesture of government. This book 
 is the autobiography of a seeker for truth. In it 
 he is led from the shows of things to their inner- 
 most substance, and as in all his other writings, he 
 teaches here also that sincerity, truthfulness, is the 
 organ by which we are led to the solid rock of 
 reality, which underlies all shows and shams. 
 
 II. We now come to treat of Carlyle in his pre- 
 sent aspect, — a much less agreeable task. We 
 leave Carlyle the generous and gentle, for Carlyle 
 the hard cynic. We leave him, the friend of man, 
 lover of his race, for another Carlyle, advocate of 
 negro slavery, worshiper of mere force, sneering 
 at philanthropy, and admiring only tyrants, des- 
 pots, and slaveholders. The change, and the steps 
 which led to it, chronologically and logically, it is 
 our business to scrutinize, — not a grateful occu- 
 pation indeed, but possibly instructive and useful. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle, after spending his previous life 
 in Scotland, and from 1827 to 1834 in his solitude 
 at Craigenputtoch, removed to London in the latter 
 year, when thirty-eight years old. Since then he 
 has permanently resided in London, in a house 
 situated on one of the quiet streets running at 
 right angles with the Thames. He came to Lon- 
 don almost an unknown man ; he has there become 
 a great name and power in literature. He has had 
 for friends such men as John Stuart Mill, Sterling, 
 Maurice, Leigh Hunt, Browning, Thackeray, and 
 
178 THE TWO CARLYLES 
 
 Emerson. His " French Revolution " was pub- 
 lished in 1837 ; " Sartor Resartus " (published 
 in Frazer in 1833, and in Boston in a volume in 
 1836) was put forth collectively in 1838 ; and 
 in the same year his " Miscellanies " (also collected 
 and issued in Boston in 1838) were published in 
 London, in four volumes. " Chartism " was issued 
 in 1839. He gave four courses of Lectures in 
 Willis's rooms "to a select but crowded audience," 
 in 1837, 1838, 1839, and 1840. Only the last of 
 these — " Heroes and Hero-Worship " — was pub- 
 lished. " Past and Present " followed in 1843, 
 " Oliver Cromwell " in 1845. In 1850 he printed 
 " Latter-Day Pamphlets," and subsequently his 
 " Life of Sterling " (1851), and the four volumes, 
 now issued, of " Frederick the Great." 
 
 The first evidence of an altered tendency is per- 
 haps to be traced in the " French Revolution." 
 It is a noble and glorious book ; but, as one of his 
 friendly critics has said, " its philosophy is con- 
 temptuous and mocking, and it depicts the varied 
 and gigantic characters which stalk across the 
 scene, not so much as responsible and living mor- 
 tals, as the mere mechanical implements of some 
 tremendous and irresistible destiny." In " Heroes 
 and Hero-Worship " the habit has grown of rever- 
 ing mere will, rather than calm intellectual and 
 moral power. The same thing is shown in " Past 
 and Present," in " Cromwell," and in " Latter- 
 Day Pamphlets," which the critic quoted above 
 
THE TWO CARLYLES 179 
 
 \. 
 
 says isT ■" only remarkable as a violent imitation of 
 himself, and not of his better self." For the works 
 of this later period, indeed, the best motto would 
 be that verse from Daniel : " He shall exalt him- 
 self, and magnify himself, and speak marvelous 
 things ; neither shall he regard the God of his 
 fathers, but in his stead shall he honor the God 
 of Forces, a god whom his fathers knew not." 
 
 Probably this apostasy from his better faith had 
 begun, before this, to show itself in conversation. 
 At least Margaret Fuller, in a letter dated 1846, 
 finds herself in his presence admiring his bril- 
 liancy, but " disclaiming and rejecting almost 
 everything he said." " For a couple of hours," 
 says she, " he was talking about poetry, and the 
 whole harangue was one eloquent proclamation of 
 the defects in his own mind." " All Carlyle's talk, 
 another evening," says she, " was a defence of mere 
 force, — success the test of right ; if people would 
 not behave well, put collars round their necks ; 
 find a hero, and let them be his slaves." " Maz- 
 zini was there, and, after some vain attempts to 
 remonstrate, became very sad. Mrs. Carlyle said 
 to me, ' These are but opinions to Carlyle ; but to 
 Mazzini, who has given his all, and helped bring 
 his friends to the scaffold, in pursuit of such sub- 
 jects, it is a matter of life and death.' ' 
 
 As this mood of Mr. Carlyle comes out so 
 strongly in the " Latter-Day Pamphlets," it is per- 
 haps best to dwell on them at greater leisure. 
 
180 THE TWO CARLYLES 
 
 The first is " The Present Time." In this he 
 describes Democracy as inevitable, but as utterly- 
 evil ; calls for a government ; finds most European 
 governments, that of England included, to be shams 
 and falsities, — no-government, or drifting, to be a 
 yet greater evil. The object, he states, is to find 
 the noblest and best men to govern. Democracy 
 fails to do this ; for universal balloting is not ade- 
 quate to the task. Democracy answered in the old 
 republics, when the mass were slaves, but will not 
 answer now. The United States are no proof of 
 its success, for (1st) anarchy is avoided merely by 
 the quantity of cheap land, and (2d) the United 
 States have produced no spiritual results, but only 
 material. Democracy in America is no-govern- 
 ment, and " its only feat is to have produced eigh- 
 teen millions of the greatest bores ever seen in the 
 world." Mr. Carlyle's plan, therefore, is to find, 
 somehow, the best man for a ruler, to make him a 
 despot, to make the mass of the English and Irish 
 slaves, to beat them if they will not work, to shoot 
 them if they still refuse. The only method of find- 
 ing this best man, which he suggests, is to call for 
 him. Accordingly, Mr. Thomas Carlyle calls, say- 
 ing, " Best man, come forward, and govern." 
 
 The sum, therefore, of his recipe for the diseases 
 of the times is Slavery. 
 
 The second pamphlet is called " Model Prisons," 
 and the main object of this is to ridicule all at- 
 tempts at helping men by philanthropy or human- 
 
THE TWO CARLYLES 181 
 
 ity. The talk of " Fraternity " is nonsense, and 
 must be drummed out of the world. Beginning 
 with model prisons, he finds them much too good 
 for the " scoundrels " who are shut up there. He 
 would have them whipped and hung (seventy 
 thousand in a year, we suppose, as in bluff King 
 Harry's time, with no great benefit therefrom). 
 " Revenge," he says, " is a right feeling against bad 
 men, — only the excess of it wrong." The proper 
 thing to say to a bad man is, " Caitiff, I hate thee." 
 "A collar round the neck, and a cart-whip over 
 the back," is what he thinks would be more just to 
 criminals than a model prison. The whole effort 
 of humanity should be to help the industrious and 
 virtuous poor ; the criminals should be swept out of 
 the way, whipt, enslaved, or hung. As for human 
 brotherhood, he does not admit brotherhood with 
 " scoundrels." Particularly disgusting to him is it 
 to hear this philanthropy to bad men called Chris- 
 tianity. Christianity, he thinks, does not tell us to 
 love the bad, but to hate them as God hates them. 
 According, probably, to his private expurgated 
 version of the Gospel, " that ye may be the chil- 
 dren of your Father in heaven, whose sun rises 
 only on the good, and whose rain falls only on the 
 just." 
 
 " Downing Street " and " New Downing Street " 
 are fiery tirades against the governing classes in 
 England. Mr. Carlyle says (according to his in- 
 evitable refrain), that England does not want a 
 
182 THE TWO CARLYLES 
 
 reformed Parliament, a body of talkers, but a 
 reformed Downing Street, a body of workers. He 
 describes the utter imbecility of the English gov- 
 ernment, and calls loudly for some able man to 
 take its place. Two passages are worth quoting ; 
 the first as to England's aspect in her foreign rela- 
 tions, which is quite as true for 1864 as for 1854. 
 
 " How it stands with the Foreign Office, again, 
 one still less knows. Seizures of Sapienza, and the 
 like sudden appearances of Britain in the charac- 
 ter of Hercules-Harlequin, waving, with big bully- 
 voice, her sword of sharpness over field-mice, and 
 in the air making horrid circles (horrid Catherine- 
 wheels and death-disks of metallic terror from said 
 huge sword) to see how they will like it. Her- 
 cules-Harlequin, the Attorney Triumphant, the 
 World's Busybody ! " 
 
 Or see the following description of the sort of 
 rulers who prevail in England, no less than in 
 America : — 
 
 " If our government is to be a No-Government, 
 what is the matter who administers it? Fling an 
 orange-skin into St. James Street, let the man it 
 hits be your man. He, if you bend him a little to 
 it, and tie the due official bladders to his ankles, 
 will do as well as another this sublime problem of 
 balancing himself upon the vortexes, with the long 
 loaded pole in his hand, and will, with straddling, 
 painful gestures, float hither and thither, walking 
 the waters in that singular manner for a little 
 
THE TWO CABLYLES 183 
 
 while><till he also capsize, and be left floating feet 
 uppermost, — after which you choose another." 
 
 Concerning which we may say, that if this is the 
 result of monarchy and aristocracy in England, 
 we can stick a little longer to our democracy in 
 America. Mr. Carlyle says that the object of all 
 these methods is to find the ablest man for a ruler. 
 He thinks our republican method very insufficient 
 and absurd, — much preferring the English sys- 
 tem, — and then tells us that this is the outcome 
 of the latter ; that you might as well select your 
 ruler by throwing an orange-skin into the street as 
 by the method followed in England. 
 
 Despotism, tempered by assassination, seems to 
 be Carlyle's notion of a good government. 
 
 The pamphlet " Stump-Orator" is simply a bit- 
 ter denunciation of all talking, speech-making, 
 and writing, as the curse of the time, and ends with 
 the proposition to cut out the tongues of one whole 
 generation, as an act of mercy to them and a bless- 
 ing to the human race. 
 
 Thus this collection of " Latter-Day Pamphlets " 
 consists of the bitterest cynicism. Carlyle sits in 
 it, as in a tub, snarling at freedom, yelping at phi- 
 lanthropy, growling at the English government, 
 snapping at all men who speak or write, and end- 
 ing with one long howl over the universal falsity 
 and hollowness of mankind in general. 
 
 After which he proceeds to his final apotheosis 
 of despotism pure and simple, in this "Life of 
 
184 THE TWO CABLYLES 
 
 Frederick the Great." Of this it is not necessary 
 to say more than that Frederick, being an absolute 
 despot, but a very able one, having plunged Eu- 
 rope into war in order to steal Silesia, is every- 
 where admired, justified, or excused by Carlyle, 
 who reserves his rebukes and contempt for those 
 who find fault with all this. 
 
 That, with these opinions, Carlyle should have 
 taken sides with the slaveholders' conspiracy 
 against the Union is not surprising. His sym- 
 pathies were with them ; first, as slaveholders, 
 secondly, as aristocrats. He hates us because we 
 are democrats, and he loves them because they are 
 despots and tyrants. Long before the outbreak of 
 the rebellion, he had ridiculed emancipation, and 
 denounced as folly and evil the noblest deed of 
 England, — the emancipation of her West India 
 slaves. In scornful, bitter satire, he denounced 
 England for keeping the fast which God had cho- 
 sen,' in undoing the heavy burdens, letting the 
 oppressed go free, and breaking every yoke. He 
 ridiculed the black man, and described the poor 
 patient African as " Quashee, steeped to the eyes 
 in pumpkin." In the hateful service of oppression 
 he had already done his best to uphold slavery and 
 discourage freedom. And while he fully belie vod 
 in enslaving the laboring population, black or white, 
 and driving it to work by the cart- whip, he as fully 
 abhorred republicanism everywhere, and most of 
 all in the United States. He had exhausted the 
 
THE TWO CABLYLES 185 
 
 resources of language in vilifying American insti- 
 tutions. It was a matter of course, therefore, that 
 at the outbreak of this civil war all his sympathies 
 should be with those who whip women and sell 
 babies. 
 
 How is it that this great change should have 
 taken place ? Men change, — but not often in 
 this way. The ardent reformer often hardens into 
 the stiff conservative. The radical in religion is 
 very likely to join the Catholic Church. If a 
 Catholic changes his religion, he goes over to 
 atheism. To swing from one extreme to another, 
 is a common experience. But it is a new thing to 
 see calmness in youth, violence in age, — to find 
 the young man wise and all-sided, the old man 
 bigoted and narrow. 
 
 We think the explanation to be this. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle from the beginning has not 
 shown the least appreciation of the essential thing 
 in Christianity. Brought up in Scotland, inherit- 
 ing from Calvinism a sense of truth, a love of 
 justice, and a reverence for the Jewish Bible, he 
 has never passed out of Judaism into Christianity. 
 To him, Oliver Cromwell is the best type of true 
 religion ; inflexible justice the best attribute of 
 God or man. He is a worshiper of Jehovah, not 
 of the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 He sees in God truth and justice ; he does not see 
 in him love. He is himself a prophet after the 
 type of Elijah and John the Baptist. He is the 
 
186 THE TWO CABLYLES 
 
 voice crying in the wilderness ; and we may say of 
 him, therefore, as was said of his prototype, " He 
 was a burning and a shining light, and ye were 
 willing, for a season, to rejoice in his light," — 
 but not always, — not now. 
 
 Carlyle does not, indeed, claim to be a Jew, or 
 to reject Christ. On the contrary, he speaks of 
 him with very sincere respect. He seems, how- 
 ever, to know nothing of him but what he has read 
 in Goethe about the "worship of sorrow." The 
 Gospel appears to him to be, essentially, a worship 
 of sorrow. That Christ " came to save sinners," 
 — of that Carlyle has not the faintest idea. To 
 him the notion of " saving sinners " is only " rose- 
 water philanthropy." He does not wish them 
 saved, he wishes them damned, — swept into hell 
 as soon as convenient. 
 
 But, as everything which is real has two sides, 
 that of truth and that of love, — it usually happens 
 that he who only sees one side at last ceases even 
 to see that. All goodness, to Carlyle, is truth, — 
 in man it is sincerity, or love of reality, sight of 
 the actual facts, — in God it is justice, divine 
 adherence to law, infinite guidance of the world 
 and of every human soul according to a strict and 
 inevitable rule of righteousness. At first this 
 seems to be a providence, — and Carlyle has 
 everywhere, in the earlier epoch, shown full con- 
 fidence in Providence. But believe only in jus- 
 tice and truth, — omit the doctrine of forgiveness, 
 
THE TWO CABLYLES 187 
 
 redemption, salvation, — and faith in Providence 
 becomes sooner or later a despairing fatalism. 
 The dark problem of evil remains insoluble with- 
 out the doctrine of redemption. 
 
 So it was that Carlyle, seeing at first the chief 
 duty of man to be the worship of reality, the love 
 of truth, next made that virtue to consist in 
 sincerity, or being in earnest. Truth was being 
 true to one's self. In this lay the essence of hero- 
 ism. So that Burns, being sincere and earnest, 
 was a hero, — Odin was a hero, — Mohammed 
 was a hero, — Cromwell was a hero, — Mirabeau 
 and Danton were heroes, — and Frederick the 
 Great was a hero. That which was first the love 
 of truth, and caused him to reverence the calm 
 intellectual force of Schiller and Goethe, soon 
 became earnestness and sincerity, and then became 
 power. For the proof of earnestness is power. 
 So from power, by eliminating all love, all tender- 
 ness, as being only rose-water philanthropy, he at 
 last became a worshiper of mere will, of force in 
 its grossest form. So he illustrates those lines of 
 Shakespeare in which this process is so well de- 
 scribed. In " Troilus and Cressida " Ulysses is 
 insisting on the importance of keeping everything 
 in its place, and giving to the best things and 
 persons their due priority. Otherwise, mere force 
 will govern all things. 
 
 "Strength would be lord of imbecility, " — 
 
188 THE TWO CARLYLES 
 
 as Carlyle indeed openly declares that it ought to 
 be, — 
 
 " And the rude son should strike his father dead," 
 
 which Carlyle does not quite approve of in the 
 case of Dr. Francia. But why not, if he main- 
 tains that strength is the measure of justice ? 
 
 " Force should be right ; or, rather, right and wrong 
 (Between whose endless jar justice resides) 
 Should lose their names and so should justice, too. 
 Then everything includes itself in power, 
 Power into will, will into appetite ; 
 And appetite, an universal wolf, 
 So doubly seconded with will and power, 
 Must make perforce an universal prey, 
 And, last, eat up himself 11 
 
 Just so, in the progress of Carlyle's literary 
 career, first, force became right, — then, every- 
 thing included itself in power, — next, power was 
 lost in will, and will in mere caprice or appetite. 
 From his admiration for Goethe, as the type of 
 intellectual power, he passed to the praise of 
 Cromwell as the exponent of will, and then to that 
 of Frederick, whose appetite for plunder and terri- 
 tory was seconded by an iron will and the highest 
 power of intellect ; but whose ambition devoured 
 himself, his country, and its prosperity, in the mad 
 pursuit of victory and conquest. 
 
 The explanation, therefore, of our author's lapse, 
 is simply this, that he worshiped truth divorced 
 from love, and so ceased to worship truth, and fell 
 into the idolatry of mere will. Truth without 
 
THE TWO CARLYLES 189 
 
 love is\not truth, but hard, willful opinion, just as 
 love without truth is not love, but weak good- 
 nature and soft concession. 
 
 Carlyle has no idea of that sublime feature of 
 Christianity, which shows to us God caring more 
 for the one sinner who repents than the ninety 
 and nine just persons which need no repentance. 
 To him one just person deserves more care than 
 ninety-nine sinners. Yet it is strange that he did 
 not learn from his master, Goethe, this essential 
 trait of the Gospel. For Goethe, in a work trans- 
 lated by Carlyle himself, distinguishes between 
 the three religions thus. The ethnic or Gentile 
 religions, he says, reverence what is above us, — 
 the religion of the philosopher reverences what is 
 on our own level, — but Christianity reverences 
 what is beneath us. " This is the last step," says 
 Goethe, " which mankind were destined to attain, 
 
 — to recognize humility and poverty, mockery 
 and despite, disgrace and wretchedness, as divine, 
 
 — nay, even on sin and crime to look not as hin- 
 drances, but to honor and love them as fur- 
 therances of what is holy" 
 
 On sin and crime, as we have seen, Carlyle 
 looks with no such tenderness. But if he does not 
 care for the words of Christ, teaching us that we 
 must forgive if we hope to be forgiven, if he does 
 not care for the words of his master, Goethe, he 
 might at least remember his own exposition of this 
 doctrine in an early work, where he shows that the 
 
190 THE TWO CABLYLES 
 
 poor left to perish by disease infect a whole com- 
 munity, and declares that the safety of all is in- 
 volved in the safety of the humblest. 
 
 In 1840, when he wrote " Chartism," Carlyle 
 seems to have known better than he did in 1855, 
 when he wrote these "Latter-Day Pamphlets." 
 Then he said : — 
 
 " To believe practically that the poor and luck- 
 less are here only as a nuisance to be abraded and 
 abated, and in some permissible manner made 
 away, and swept out of sight, is not an amiable 
 faith." 
 
 Of Ireland, too, he said : — 
 
 " We English pay, even now, the bitter smart 
 of long centuries of injustice to Ireland." " It is 
 the feeling of injustice that is insupportable to 
 all men. The brutalest black African feels it, 
 and cannot bear that, he should be used unjustly. 
 No man can bear it, or ought to bear it." 
 
 This seems like the " rose-water philanthropy " 
 which he subsequently so much disliked. In this 
 book also he speaks of a " seven years' Silesian 
 robber-war," — we trust not intending to call his 
 beloved Frederick a robber ! And again he pro- 
 poses, as one of the best things to be done 
 in England, to have all the people taught by 
 government to read and write, — the same thing 
 which this American democracy, in which he could 
 see not one good thing, has so long been doing. 
 That was the plan by which England was to be 
 
THE TWO CARLYLES 191 
 
 saved. — a plan first suggested in England in 
 1840, — adopted and acted on in America for two 
 hundred years. 
 
 But just as love separated from truth becomes 
 cruelty, so truth by itself — truth not tempered 
 and fulfilled by love — runs sooner or later into 
 falsehood. Truth, after a while, becomes dogma- 
 tism, overbearing assertion, willful refusal to see 
 and hear other than one's own belief ; that is to 
 say, it becomes falsehood. Such has been the case 
 with our author. On all the subjects to which 
 he has committed himself he closes his eyes, and 
 refuses to see the other side. Like his own sym- 
 bol, the mighty Bull, he makes his charge with his 
 eyes shut. 
 
 Determined, for example, to rehabilitate such 
 men as Mirabeau, Cromwell, Frederick, and Fred- 
 erick's father, he does thorough work, and defends 
 or excuses all their enormities, palliating whenever 
 he cannot justify. 
 
 What can we call this which he says 1 concerning 
 the execution of Lieutenant Katte, by order of old 
 King Friedrich Wilhelm? Tired of the tyranny 
 of his father, tired of being kicked and caned, the 
 young prince tried to escape. He was caught and 
 held as a deserter from the army, and his father 
 tried to run him through the body. Lieutenant 
 Katte, who had aided him in getting away, having 
 been kicked and caned, was sent to a court-martial 
 
 1 Frederick the Great, vol. ii. p. 223. 
 
192 THE TWO CABLYLES 
 
 to be tried. The court-martial found him guilty 
 not of deserting, but of intending to desert, and 
 sentenced him to two years' imprisonment. Where- 
 upon the king went into a rage, declared that Katte 
 had committed high treason, and ordered him to be 
 executed. Whereupon Carlyle thus writes : — 
 
 " ' Never was such a transaction before or since 
 in modern history,' cries the angry reader ; ' cruel, 
 like the grinding of human hearts under millstones ; 
 like — ' Or, indeed, like the doings of the gods, 
 which are cruel, but not that alone." 
 
 In other words, Carlyle cannot make up his mind 
 frankly to condemn this atrocious murder, and call 
 it by its right name. He must needs try to sophis- 
 ticate us by talking about " the doings of the 
 gods." Because Divine Providence takes men out 
 of the world in various ways, it is therefore allow- 
 able to a king, provided he be a hero grim enough 
 and "earnest" enough, to kick men, cane them, 
 and run them through the body when he pleases ; 
 and, after having sent a man to be tried by court- 
 martial, if the court acquits him, to order him to 
 be executed by his own despotic will. A truth- 
 telling Carlyle ought to have said, " I admit this 
 is murder ; but I like the old fellow, and so I will 
 call it right." A Carlyle grown sophistical mum- 
 bles something about its being like " the doings of 
 the gods," and leaves off with that small attempt 
 at humbug. Be brave, my men, and defend my 
 Lord Jeffreys next for bullying juries into hanging 
 
THE TWO CABLYLES 193 
 
 prisoners. Was not Jeffreys " grim " too ? In 
 fact, are not most murderers "grim " ? 
 
 We have had occasion formerly, in this journal, 
 to examine the writings of another very positive 
 and clear-headed thinker, — Mr. Henry James. 
 Mr. James is, in his philosophy, the very antithesis 
 of Carlyle. With equal fervor of thought, with a 
 like vehemence of style, with a somewhat similar 
 contempt for his opponents, Mr. James takes ex- 
 actly the opposite view of religion and duty. As 
 Carlyle preaches the law, and the law alone, main- 
 taining justice as the sole Divine attribute, so Mr. 
 James preaches the Gospel only, denying totally 
 that to the Divine Mind any distinction exists be- 
 tween saint and sinner, unless that the sinner is 
 somewhat more of a favorite than the saint. We 
 did not, do not, agree with Mr. James in his anti- 
 nomianism ; as between him and Carlyle, we think 
 his doctrine far the truer and nobler. He stands 
 on a higher plane, and sees much the farther. A 
 course of reading in Mr. James's books might, we 
 think, help our English cynic not a little. 
 
 God is the perfect harmony of justice and love. 
 His justice is warmed through and through with 
 love, his love is sanctified and made strong by jus- 
 tice. And so, in Christ, perfect justice was ful- 
 filled in perfect love. But in him first was fully 
 revealed, in this world, the Divine fatherly tender- 
 ness to the lost, to the sinner, to those lowest down 
 and farthest away. In him was taught that our 
 
194 THE TWO CARLYLES 
 
 own redemption from evil does not lie in despising 
 and hating men worse than ourselves, but in sav- 
 ing them. The hard Pharisaic justice of Carlyle 
 may call this " rose-water philanthropy," but till 
 he accepts it from his heart, and repents of his con- 
 tempt for his fallen fellowmen, till he learns to 
 love " scoundrels," there is no hope for him. He 
 lived once in the heaven of reverence, faith, and 
 love ; he has gone from it into the hell of Pharisaic 
 scorn and contempt. Till he comes back out of 
 that, there is no hope for him. 
 
 But such a noble nature cannot be thus lost. 
 He will one day, let us trust, worship the divine 
 love which he now abhors. Cromwell asked, on 
 his death-bed, " if those once in a state of grace 
 could fall," and, being assured not, said, " I am 
 safe then, for I am sure I was once in a state of 
 grace." There is a truth in this doctrine of the 
 perseverance of saints. Some truths once fully 
 seen, even though afterward rejected by the mind 
 and will, stick like a barbed arrow in the con- 
 science, tormenting the soul till they are again 
 accepted and obeyed. Such a truth Carlyle once 
 saw, in the great doctrine of reverence for the 
 fallen and the sinful. He will see it again, if not 
 in this world, then in some other world. 
 
 The first Carlyle was an enthusiast, the last 
 Carlyle is a cynic. From enthusiasm to cynicism, 
 from the spirit of reverence to the spirit of con- 
 tempt, the way seems long, but the condition of 
 
THE TWO CARLYLES 195 
 
 arriVing is simple. Discard Love, and the whole 
 road is passed over. Divorce love from truth, and 
 truth ceases to be open and receptive, — ceases to 
 be a positive function, turns into acrid criticism, 
 bitter disdain, cruel and hollow laughter, empty of 
 all inward peace. Such is the road which Carlyle 
 has passed over, from his earnest, hopeful youth to 
 his bitter old age. 
 
 Carlyle fulfilled for many, during these years, 
 the noble work of a mediator. By reverence and 
 love he saw what was divine in nature, in man, 
 and in life. By the profound sincerity of his 
 heart, his worship of reality, his hatred of false- 
 hood, he escaped from the commonplaces of litera- 
 ture to a better land of insight and knowledge. 
 So he was enabled to lead many others out of their 
 entanglements, into his own luminous insight. It 
 was a great and blessed work. Would that it had 
 been sufficient for him ! 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 1 
 
 We welcomed kindly the first installment of Mr. 
 Buckle's work, 2 giving a cursory account of it, and 
 hinting, rather than urging, the objections which 
 readily suggested themselves against theories con- 
 cerning Man, History, Civilization, and Human 
 Progress. But now it seems a proper time to dis- 
 cuss with a little more deliberation the themes 
 opened before us by this intrepid writer, — this 
 latest champion of that theory of the mind which 
 in the last century was called Materialism and 
 Necessity, and which in the present has been re- 
 baptized as Positivism. 
 
 The doctrines of which Mr. Buckle is the ardent 
 advocate seem to us, the more thoroughly we con- 
 sider them, to be essentially theoretical, superficial, 
 and narrow. They are destitute of any broad 
 basis of reality. In their application by Mr. 
 Buckle, they fail to solve the historic problems 
 upon which he tries their power. With a show of 
 science, they are unscientific, being a mere collec- 
 
 1 The Christian Examiner, November, 1861. 
 
 2 History of Civilization in England. By Henry Thomas 
 Buckle. Vols. I. and II. New York: D. Appleton and Com- 
 pany. 
 
UCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 197 
 
 tion of unverified hypotheses. And if Mr. Buckle 
 should succeed in introducing his principles and 
 methods into the study of history, it would be 
 equivalent to putting backward for about a century 
 this whole department of thought. 
 
 Yet, while we state this as our opinion, and one 
 which we shall presently endeavor to substantiate 
 by ample proof, we do not deny to Mr. Buckle's 
 volumes the interest arising from vigorous and 
 independent thinking, faithful study of details, 
 and a strong, believing purpose. They are inter- 
 esting and valuable contributions to our literature. 
 But this is not on account of their purpose, but 
 in spite of it ; notwithstanding their doctrines, not 
 because of them. The interest of these books, as 
 of all good history, derives itself from their pic- 
 turesque reproduction of life. Whatever of value 
 belongs to Mr. Buckle's work is the same as that 
 of the writings of Macaulay, Motley, and Carlyle. 
 Whoever has the power of plunging like a diver 
 into the spirit of another period, sympathizing with 
 its tone, imbuing himself with its instincts, sharing 
 its loves and hates, its faith and its skepticism, will 
 write its history so as to interest us. For whoever 
 will really show to us the breathing essence of any 
 age, any state of society, or any course of human 
 events, cannot fail of exciting that element of the 
 soul which causes man everywhere to rejoice in 
 meeting with man. He who will write the history 
 of Arabians, Kelts, or Chinese, of the Middle 
 
198 BUCKLE AND HIS THEOEY OF AVERAGES 
 
 Ages, the Norman Sea-kings, or the Soman Plebs, 
 so that we can see ourselves beneath these diverse 
 surroundings of race, country, and period, and see 
 that these also are really men, — this writer in- 
 stantly awakens our interest, whether he call him- 
 self poet, novelist, or historian. In all cases, the 
 secret of success is to write so as to enable the 
 reader to identify himself with the characters of 
 another age. Great authors enable us to look 
 at actions, not from without, but from within. 
 When we read the historic plays of Shakespeare, 
 or the historic novels of Scott, we are charmed by 
 finding that kings and queens are, after all, our 
 poor human fellow-creatures, sharing all our old, 
 familiar struggles, pains, and joys. When we read 
 that great historic masterpiece, the " French Revo- 
 lution " of Carlyle, the magic touch of the artist 
 introduces us into the heart of every character in 
 the motley, shifting scene. We are the poor king 
 escaping to Varennes under the dewy night and 
 solemn stars. We are tumultuous Mirabeau, with 
 his demonic but generous soul. We are devoted 
 Charlotte Cor day ; we are the Gironde ; we the 
 poor prisoners of Terror, waiting in our prison for 
 the slow morning to bring the inevitable doom. 
 This is the one indispensable faculty for the his- 
 torian ; and this faculty Mr. Buckle so far pos- 
 sesses as to make his page a living one. It is true 
 that his sympathy is intellectual rather than imagi- 
 native. It is not of the high order of Shakespeare, 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 199 
 
 nor^even of that of Carlyle. But, so far as it goes, 
 it is a true faculty, and makes a true historian. 
 
 Yet we cannot but notice how the effectual 
 working of this historic organ is interfered with 
 by the dogmatic purpose of Mr. Buckle ; and, on 
 the other hand, how his theoretic aim is disturbed 
 by the interest of his narrative. His history is 
 always meant to be an argument. His narrations 
 of events are never for their own sake, but always 
 to prove some thesis. There is, therefore, no con- 
 secutive narrative, no progress of events, no sus- 
 tained interest. These volumes are episodes, put 
 together we cannot well say how, or why. In the 
 seventh chapter of the first volume we have a 
 graphic description of the Court life in England in 
 the days of Charles II., James II., William, and 
 the Georges, in connection with the condition of 
 the Church and clergy. From this we are taken, 
 in the next chapter, to France, and to similar rela- 
 tions between Henry IV., Louis XIII., Richelieu, 
 and the French Catholics and Protestants. We 
 then are brought back to England, to consider the 
 protective system there ; and once more we return 
 to France, to investigate its operation in that 
 country. Afterward we have an essay on "The 
 State of Historical Literature in France from the 
 End of the Sixteenth to the End of the Eighteenth 
 Century," followed by another essay on the "Prox- 
 imate Causes of the French Revolution." Many 
 very well finished biographic portraits are given 
 
200 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 us in these chapters. There are excellent sketches 
 of Burke, Voltaire, Richelieu, Bossuet, Montes- 
 quieu, Rousseau, Bichat, in the first volume; and 
 of Adam Smith, Reid, Black, Leslie, Hutton, 
 Cullen, Hunter, ' in the second. These jiumerous 
 biographic sketches, which are often accompanied 
 with good literary notices of the writings of these 
 authors, are very ably written ; but it is curious to 
 remember, while reading them, that Mr. Buckle 
 thinks that, as history advances, it has less and 
 less to do with biography. 
 
 There is an incurable defect in the method of 
 this work. On the one hand, the dogmatic pur- 
 pose is constantly breaking into the interest of the 
 narration ; on the other, the interest of the narra- 
 tion is continually enticing the writer from his 
 argument into endless episodes and details of bio- 
 graphy. The argument is deprived of its force by 
 the story ; the story is interrupted continually on 
 account of the argument. Mr. Buckle has mis- 
 taken the philosophy of history for history itself. 
 A history of civilization is not a piece of meta- 
 physical argument, but a consecutive account of the 
 social progress either of an age or of a nation. 
 This irreconcilable conflict of purpose, while it 
 leaves to the parts of the work their value, des- 
 troys its worth as a whole. 
 
 Mr. Buckle might probably inquire whether we 
 would eliminate wholly from history all philoso- 
 phic aim, all teleologic purpose. He objects, and 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 201 
 
 very properly, to degrading history into mere an- 
 nals, without any instructive purpose. We agree 
 with him. We do not admire the style of history 
 which feels neither passion nor sympathy, which 
 narrates crimes without indignation, and which 
 has no aim in its narration except to entertain a 
 passing hour. But it is one thing deliberately to 
 announce a thesis and bring detached passages of 
 history to prove it, and another to write a history 
 which, by its incidents, spirit, and characters shall 
 convey impulse and instruction. The historian 
 may dwell upon the events which illustrate his 
 convictions, and may develop the argument during 
 the progress of his moving panorama ; but the his- 
 tory itself, as it moves, should impress the lesson. 
 The history of Mr. Motley, for example, illus- 
 trates and impresses the evils of bigotry, supersti- 
 tion, and persecution on the life of nations, quite 
 as powerfully as does that of Mr. Buckle ; but 
 Mr. Motley never suspends his narrative in order 
 to prove to us logically that persecution is an evil. 
 Mr. Buckle, in his style of writing, belongs to a 
 modern class of authors whom we may call the 
 bullying school. It is true that he is far less ex- 
 travagant than some of them, and indeed is not 
 deeply tinged with their peculiar manner. The 
 first great master of this class of writers is Thomas 
 Carlyle ; but their peculiarity has been carried to 
 its greatest extent by Euskin. Its characteristic 
 feature is treating with supreme contempt, as 
 
202 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 though they were hopeless imbeciles, all who ven- 
 ture to question the dicta of the writer. This 
 superb arrogance makes these writers rather popu- 
 lar with the English, who, as a nation, like equally 
 well to bully and to be bullied. 
 
 Buckle professes to have at last found the only 
 true key to history, and to have discovered some of 
 its important laws, especially those which regard 
 the progress of civilization. 
 
 I. His View of Freedom. — Mr. Buckle's fun- 
 damental position is, that the actions of men are 
 governed by fixed laws, and that, when these laws 
 are discovered, history will become a science, like 
 geometry, geology, or astronomy. The chief ob- 
 stacle hitherto to its becoming a science has been 
 the belief that the actions of men were determined, 
 not by fixed laws, but by free will (which he con- 
 siders equivalent to chance), or by supernatural 
 interference or providence (which he regards as 
 equivalent to fate). " We shall thus be led," he 
 says (Vol. I. p. 6, Am. ed.), " to one vast question, 
 which, indeed, lies at the root of the whole subject, 
 and is simply this : Are the actions of men, and 
 therefore of societies, governed by fixed laws, or 
 are they the result either of chance or of super- 
 natural interference ? " Identifying freedom with 
 chance, Mr. Buckle denies that there is such a 
 thing, and maintains that every human action is 
 determined by some antecedent, inward or out- 
 ward, and that not one is determined by the free 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 203 
 
 choice of the man himself. His principal argu- 
 ment against free will is the law of averages, which 
 we will therefore proceed to consider in its bearing 
 on this point. 
 
 Statistics, carefully collected during many years 
 and within different countries, show a regularity 
 of return in certain vices and crimes, which indi- 
 cates the presence of law. Thus, about the same 
 number of murders are committed every year in cer- 
 tain countries and large cities, and even the instru- 
 ments by which they are committed are employed 
 in the same proportion. Suicide also follows some 
 regular law. " In a given state of society, a cer- 
 tain number of persons must put an end to their 
 own life." In London, about two hundred and 
 forty persons kill themselves every year, — in 
 years of panic and disaster a few more, in prosper* 
 ous years not quite so many. Other actions of 
 men are determined in the same way, — not by 
 personal volition, but by some controlling circum- 
 stance. " It is now known that the number of 
 marriages in England bears a fixed and definite 
 relation to the price of corn." "Aberrations of 
 memory are marked by this general character of 
 necessary and invariable order." The same aver- 
 age number of persons forget every year to direct 
 the letters dropped into the post-offices of London 
 and Paris. Facts of this kind " force us to the 
 conclusion," says Buckle, " that the offenses of 
 men are the result, not so much of the vices of the 
 
204 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 individual offender, as of the state of society into 
 which he is thrown." 
 
 The argument then is : If man's moral actions 
 are under law, they are not free, for freedom is 
 the absence of law. The argument of Mr. Buckle 
 is conclusive, provided freedom does necessarily 
 imply the absence of law. But such, we think, is 
 not the fact. 
 
 The actions of man do not proceed solely from 
 the impact of external circumstances ; for then he 
 would be no better than a ball struck with a bat. 
 Nor do they proceed solely from the impulses of 
 his animal nature ; for then he would be only a 
 superior kind of machine, moved by springs and 
 wheels. But in addition to external and internal 
 impulse there is also in man the power of personal 
 effort, activity, will, — to which we give the name 
 of Free Choice, or Freedom. This modifies and 
 determines a part of his actions, — while a second 
 part come from the influence of circumstance, and 
 a third from organic instincts and habitual tenden- 
 cies. 
 
 Now, it is quite certain that no man has freedom 
 of will enough to cause his whole nexus of activity 
 to proceed from it. For if a man could cause all 
 his actions to proceed by a mere choice or effort, 
 he could turn himself at will into another man. 
 In other words, there could be no such thing as 
 permanent moral character. No one could be de- 
 scribed ; for while we were describing him, he might 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 205 
 
 choose to be different, and so would become some- 
 body else. It is evident, therefore, that some part 
 of every man's life must lie outside of the domain 
 of freedom. 
 
 In what, then, does the essence of freedom con- 
 sist ? If it be not the freedom to do whatever we 
 choose, what is it ? Plainly, if we analyze our own 
 experience, we shall find that it is simply what its 
 scholastic name implies, freedom of choice, or liber 
 arbitrio. It is not, in the last analysis, freedom 
 to act, but it is freedom to choose. 
 
 But freedom to choose what ? Can we choose 
 anything ? Certainly not. Our freedom of choice 
 is limited by our knowledge. We cannot choose 
 that which we do not know. We must choose some- 
 thing within the range of our experience. And our 
 freedom of choice consists in the alternative of mak- 
 ing this choice or omitting to make it, — exerting 
 ourselves or not exerting ourselves. Consciousness 
 testifies universally to this extent of freedom. We 
 know by our consciousness that we can exert our- 
 selves or not exert ourselves at any moment, — 
 exert ourselves to act or not exert ourselves to act, 
 to speak or not to speak. This power of making 
 or not making an effort is freedom in its simplest 
 and lowest form. 
 
 In this lowest form, it is apparent that human 
 freedom is inadequate to give any permanent char- 
 acter to human actions. They will be directed by 
 the laws of organization and circumstance. Free- 
 
206 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 dom in this sense may be compared to the power 
 which a man has of rowing a boat in the midst of 
 a fog. He may exert himself to row, he may row 
 at any moment forward or backward, to the right 
 or to the left. He has this freedom, — but it does 
 not enable him to go in any special direction. Not 
 being able to direct his boat to any fixed aim, it is 
 certain that it will be drifted by the currents or 
 blown by the winds. Freedom in this form is only 
 willfulness, because devoid of an inward law. 
 
 But let the will direct itself by a fixed law, and 
 it at once becomes true freedom, and begins to im- 
 press itself upon actions, modifying the results of 
 organization and circumstance. Not even in this 
 case can it destroy those results ; it only modifies 
 them. It enters as a third factor with those other 
 two to produce the product. The total character 
 of a man's actions will be represented by a formula, 
 thus : John's Organization X John's Circumstances 
 X John's Freedom = John's Character. 
 
 Apply this to the state of society where the law 
 of averages has been discovered. In such a society 
 there are always to be found three classes of per- 
 sons. In the first class, freedom is either dormant 
 or is mere willfulness. The law of mind is subject 
 therefore in these to the law of the members. 
 The will is an enslaved will, and its influence on 
 action is a nullity, not needing to be taken into 
 the account. From this class come the largest pro- 
 portion of the crimes and vices, regular in number 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 207 
 
 because resulting from constant conditions of so- 
 ciety. Of these persons we can predict with cer- 
 tainty that, under certain strong temptations to 
 evil, they will inevitably yield. 
 
 But in another class of persons the will has 
 learned to direct itself by a moral law toward a 
 fixed aim. The man in the boat is now steering 
 by a compass, and ceases to be the sport of current 
 and gale. The will reacts upon organization, and 
 directs circumstance. The man has learned how 
 to master his own nature, and how to arrange ex- 
 ternal conditions. We can predict with certainty 
 that under no possible influences will this class 
 yield to some forms of evil. 
 
 There is also in each community a third class, 
 who are struggling, but not emancipated. They 
 are partly free, but not wholly so. From this class 
 come the slight variations of the average, now a 
 little better, now a little worse. 
 
 Applying this view of the freedom of the will to 
 history, we see that the problem is far more com- 
 plicated than Mr. Buckle admits. Man's freedom, 
 with him, is an element not to be taken into con- 
 sideration, because it does not exist. But the truth 
 is, that human freedom is not only a factor, but a 
 variable factor, the value of which changes with 
 every variety of human condition. In the savage 
 condition it obeys organization and circumstances, 
 and has little effect on social condition. But as 
 civilization advances, the power of freedom to react 
 
208 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 on organization and circumstance increases, vary- 
 ing however again, according to the force and in- 
 spiration of the ideas by which it is guided. And 
 of all these ideas, precisely those which Mr. Buckle 
 underrates, namely, moral and religious ideas, are 
 those which most completely emancipate the will 
 from circumstances, and vitalize it with an all-con- 
 quering force. 
 
 To see this, take two extreme cases, — that of an 
 African Hottentot, and that of Joan of Arc. Free 
 will in the African is powerless ; he remains the 
 helpless child of his situation. But the Maid of 
 Arc, though utterly destitute of Mr. Buckle's " In- 
 tellectual Truths " (being unable to read or write, 
 and having received no instruction save religious 
 ideas), and wanting in the " Skepticism " which he 
 thinks so essential to all historic progress, yet de- 
 velops a power of will which reacts upon circum- 
 stances so as to turn into another channel the cur- 
 rent of French history. All bonds of situation 
 and circumstance are swept asunder by the power 
 of a will set free by mighty religious convictions. 
 The element of freedom, therefore, is one not to be 
 neglected by an historian, except to his own loss. 
 
 The law of averages applies only to undeveloped 
 men, or to the undeveloped sides of human nature, 
 where the element of freedom has not come in 
 play. When the human race shall have made 
 such progress that it shall contain a city inhabited 
 by a million persons all equal to the Apostle Paul 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 209 
 
 and the Apostle John in spiritual development, it 
 will not be found that a certain regular number 
 kill their wives every year, or that from two hun- 
 dred and thirteen to two hundred and forty annu- 
 ally commit suicide. Nor will this escape from 
 the averages be owing to an increased acquaintance 
 with physical laws so much as to a higher moral 
 development. We shall return to this point, how- 
 ever, when we examine more fully Buckle's doc- 
 trine in regard to the small influence of religion 
 on civilization. 
 
 II. Mr. Buckle's View of Organization. — Mr. 
 Buckle sets aside entirely the whole great fact of 
 organization, upon which the science of ethnology 
 is based. Perhaps the narrowness of his mind 
 shows more conspicuously in this than elsewhere. 
 He attributes no influence to race in civilization. 
 While so many eminent writers at the present day 
 say, with Mr. Knox, that " Race is everything," 
 Mr. Buckle quietly rejoins that Race is nothing. 
 " Original distinctions of race," he says, " are al- 
 together hypothetical." " We have no decisive 
 ground for saying that the moral and intellectual 
 faculties in man are likely to be greater in an in- 
 fant born in the most civilized part of Europe, 
 than in one born in the wildest region of a barbar- 
 ous country." (Vol. I. p. 127, Am. ed.) " We 
 often hear of hereditary talents, hereditary vices, 
 and hereditary virtues ; but whoever will critically 
 examine the evidence will find that we have no 
 
210 BUCKLE AXD HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 proof of their existence." He doubts the existence 
 of hereditary insanity, or a hereditary tendency to 
 suicide, or even to disease. (Vol. I. p. 128, note.) 
 He does not believe in any progress of natural 
 capacity in man, but only of opportunity, " that is, 
 an improvement in the circumstances under which 
 that capacity after birth comes into play." " Here 
 then is the gist of the whole matter. The progress 
 is one, not of internal power, but of external ad- 
 vantage." He goes on to say, in so many words, 
 that the only difference between a barbarian child 
 and a civilized child is in the pressure of surround- 
 ing circumstances. In support of these opinions 
 he quotes Locke and Turgot. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how an intelligent 
 and well-informed man, an immense reader and 
 active thinker, can have lived in the midst of the 
 nineteenth century and retain these views. For 
 students at every extreme of thought have equally 
 recognized the force* of organization, the constancy 
 of race, the permanent varieties existing in the hu- 
 man family, the steady riding of the laws of descent. 
 If there is any one part of the science of anthropo- 
 logy in which the nineteenth century has reversed 
 the judgment of the eighteenth, — and that equally 
 among men of science, poets, materialists, idealists, 
 anatomists, philologists, — it is just here. To find 
 so intelligent a man reproducing the last century 
 in the midst of the present is a little extraordi- 
 nary. 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 211 
 
 Perhaps there could not be found four great 
 thinkers more different in their tendencies of 
 thought and range of study than Goethe, Spurz- 
 heim, Dr. Prichard, and Max Miiller ; yet these 
 four, each by his own method of observation, have 
 shown with conclusive force the law of variety and 
 of permanence in organization. Goethe asserts 
 that every individual man carries from his birth to 
 his grave an unalterable speciality of being, — 
 that he is, down to the smallest fibre of his charac- 
 ter, one and the same man ; and that the whole 
 mighty power of circumstance, modifying every- 
 thing, cannot abolish anything, — that organiza- 
 tion and circumstance hold on together with an 
 equally permanent influence in every human life. 
 Gall and Spurzheim teach that every fibre of the 
 brain has its original quality and force, and that 
 such qualities and forces are transmitted by ob- 
 scure but certain laws of descent. Prichard, with 
 immense learning, describes race after race, giving 
 the types of each human family in its physiology. 
 And, finally, the great science of comparative philo- 
 logy, worked out by such thinkers and students as 
 Bopp, Latham, Humboldt, Bunsen, Max Miiller, 
 and a host of others, has proved the permanence 
 of human varieties by ample glossological evidence. 
 Thus the modern science of ethnology has arisen, 
 on the basis of physiology, philology, and ethology, 
 and is perhaps the chief discovery of the age. 
 Yet Mr. Buckle quietly ignores the whole of it, 
 
212 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 and continues, with Locke, to regard every human 
 mind as a piece of white paper, to be written on 
 by external events, — a piece of soft putty, to be 
 moulded by circumstances. 
 
 The facts on which the science of ethnology 
 rests are so numerous and so striking, that the 
 only difficulty in selecting an illustration is from 
 the quantity and richness of material. But we 
 may take two instances, — that of the Teutons and 
 Kelts, to show the permanence of differences under 
 the same circumstances, and that of the Jews, the 
 Arabs, and the Gypsies, to show the continuity of 
 identity under different circumstances. For if it 
 can be made evident that different races of men 
 preserve different characters, though living for 
 long periods under similar circumstances, and that 
 the same race preserves the same character, though 
 living for long periods under different circum- 
 stances, the proof is conclusive that character is 
 not derived from circumstances only. We shall 
 not indeed go to the extreme of such ethnologists 
 as Knox, Nott, or Gliddon, and say that " Race is 
 everything, and circumstances nothing," but we 
 shall see that Mr. Buckle is mistaken in saying 
 that " Circumstances are everything, and race no- 
 thing." 
 
 The differences of character between the Ger- 
 man and Keltic varieties of the human race are 
 marked, but not extreme. They both belong to 
 the same great Indo-European or Aryan family. 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 213 
 
 They both originated in Asia, and the German 
 emigration seems to have followed immediately 
 after that of the Kelts. Yet when described by 
 Caesar, Tacitus, and Strabo, they differed from 
 each other exactly as they differ now. They have 
 lived for some two thousand years in the same 
 climate, under similar political and social institu- 
 tions, and yet they have preserved their original 
 diversity. 
 
 According to the description of Caesar 1 and 
 Tacitus 2 the German tribes differed essentially 
 from the Gauls or Kelts in the following particu- 
 lars. The Germans loved freedom, and were all 
 free. The Kelts did not care for freedom. The 
 meanest German was free. But all the inferior 
 people among the Kelts were virtually slaves. 
 The Germans had no priests, and did not care for 
 sacrifices. The Kelts had a powerful priesthood 
 and imposing religious rites. The Germans were 
 remarkable for their blue eyes, light hair, and 
 large limbs. The Kelts were dark-complexioned. 
 The Gauls were more quick, but less persevering, 
 than the Germans. Ready to attack, they were 
 soon discouraged. Tacitus, describing the Ger- 
 mans, says : " They are a pure, unmixed, and 
 independent race ; there is a family likeness 
 through the nation, the same form and features, 
 stern blue eyes, ruddy hair ; a strong sense of 
 honor ; reverence for women ; religious, but with- 
 
 1 Coram. VI. 11, et seq. 2 Ger mania. 
 
214 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 out a ritual ; superstitiously believing in super- 
 natural signs and portents, but not in a priesthood ; 
 not living in cities, but in scattered homes ; re- 
 specting marriage ; the children brought up in the 
 dirt, among the cattle; hospitable, frank, and 
 generous ; fond of drinking beer, and eating pre- 
 parations of milk." 
 
 The German and Keltic races, thus distinguished 
 in the days of Caesar, are equally distinct to-day. 
 Catholicism, the religion of a priesthood, a ritual, 
 and authority, prevails among the Kelts ; Protes- 
 tantism among the Germans. Ireland, being mainly 
 Keltic, is Catholic, though a part of a Protestant 
 nation. Prance, being mainly Keltic, is also 
 Catholic, in spite of all its illumination, its sci- 
 ence, and its knowledge of " intellectual laws." 
 But as France contains a large infusion of German 
 (Frankish) blood, it is the most Protestant of 
 Catholic nations ; while Scotland, containing the 
 largest infusion of Keltic blood, is the most priest- 
 ridden of Protestant nations. This last fact, which 
 Mr. Buckle asserts, and spends half a volume in 
 trying to account for, is explained at once by 
 ethnology. Wherever the Germans go to-day, 
 they remain the same people they were in the days 
 of Tacitus ; they carry the same blue eyes and 
 light hair, the same love of freedom and hatred 
 of slavery, the same tendencies to individualism in 
 thought and life, the same tendency to supersti- 
 tious belief in supernatural events, even when 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 215 
 
 without belief in any religion or church ; and even 
 the same love for beer, and " lac concretum," now 
 called " schmeercase " in our Western settlements. 
 The Kelt, also, everywhere continues the same. 
 He loves equality more than freedom. He is a 
 democrat, but not an abolitionist. Very social, 
 clannish, with more wit than logic, very sensitive 
 to praise, brave, but not determined, needing a 
 leader, he carries the spirit of the Catholic Church 
 into Protestantism, and the spirit of despotism 
 into free institutions. And that physical, no less 
 than mental qualities, continue under all climates 
 and institutions is illustrated by the blue eyes and 
 light hair which the traveller meets among the 
 Genoese and Florentines, reminding him of their 
 Lombard ancestors ; while their superior tenden- 
 cies to freedom in church and state suggest the 
 same origin. 
 
 Nineteen hundred years have passed since Julius 
 Caesar pointed out these diversities of character 
 then existing between the Germans and Kelts. 
 Since then they have passed from barbarism to 
 civilization. Instead of living in forests, as hunt- 
 ers and herdsmen, they have built cities, engaged 
 in commerce, manufactures, and agriculture. They 
 have been converted to Christianity, have con- 
 quered the Roman empire, engaged in crusades,, 
 fought in a hundred different wars, developed 
 literatures, arts, and sciences, changed and changed 
 again their forms of government, have been or- 
 
216 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 ganized by Feudalism, by Despotism, by Demo- 
 cracy, have gone through the Protestant reforma- 
 tion, have emigrated to all countries and climates ; 
 and yet, at the end of this long period, the Ger- 
 man everywhere remains a German, and the Kelt 
 a Kelt. The descriptions of Tacitus and Caesar 
 still describe them accurately. And yet Mr. 
 Buckle undertakes to write a history of civiliza- 
 tion without taking the element of race into ac- 
 count. 
 
 Perhaps, however, the power of this element of 
 race is illustrated still more strikingly in the case 
 of the wandering and dispersed families, who, 
 having ceased to be a nation, continue in their 
 dispersions to manifest the permanent type of their 
 original and ineffaceable organization. Wher- 
 ever the Jew goes, he remains a Jew. In all 
 climates, under all governments, speaking all lan- 
 guages, his physical and mental features continue 
 the same. This amazing fact bas been held by 
 many theologians to be a standing miracle of 
 Divine Providence. But Providence works by 
 law, and through second causes, and uses in this 
 instance the laws of a specially stubborn organiza- 
 tion and the force of a tenacious and persistent 
 blood to accomplish its ends. The same kind of 
 blood in the kindred Semitic family of Arabs pro= 
 duces a like result, though to a less striking degree. 
 The Bedouins wander for thousands of miles away 
 from their peninsula, but always continue Arabs 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 217 
 
 in appearance and character. The light, sinewy 
 body and brilliant dark eye, the abstemious habit 
 and roaming tendency, mark the Arab in Hin- 
 dostan or Barbary. It is a thousand years since 
 these nomad tribes left their native home, but 
 they continue the same people on the Persian Gulf 
 or amid the deserts of Sahara. 
 
 The case of the Gypsies, however, may be still 
 more striking, because these seem, in their wan- 
 derings over the earth, to have gradually divested 
 themselves of every other common attribute ex- 
 cept that of race. Unlike the Jews and Arabs, 
 they not only adopt the language, but also the 
 religion, of the country where they happen to be. 
 Yet they always remain unfused and unassimilated. 
 
 The Gypsies first appeared in Europe in 1417, 
 in Moldavia, and thence spread into Transylvania 
 and Hungary. 1 They afterward passed into all 
 the countries of Europe, where their number, at 
 the present time, is supposed to reach 700,000 or 
 800,000. Everywhere they adopt the common 
 form of worship, but are without any real faith. 
 Partially civilized in some countries, they always 
 retain their own language beside that of the people 
 among whom they live. This language, being evi- 
 dently derived from the Sanskrit, settles the ques- 
 tion of their origin. It is common to all their 
 
 1 George Borrow, The Zincali. See also an excellent article 
 by A. G. Paspati, translated from Modern Greek by Rev. C. Ham- 
 lin, D. D., in Journal of American Oriental Society, 1861. 
 
218 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 branches through the world ; as are also the sweet 
 voice of their maidens, and their habits of horse- 
 dealing, fortune-telling, and petty larceny. With- 
 out the bond of religion, history, government, 
 literature, or mutual knowledge and intercourse, 
 they still remain one and the same people in all 
 their dispersions. What gives this unity and per- 
 manence, if not race ? Yet race, to Mr. Buckle, 
 means nothing. 
 
 III. Mr. Buckle's Theory concerning Skepti- 
 cism. — One of the laws of history which Mr. 
 Buckle considers himself to have established, if 
 not discovered, is that a spirit of skepticism pre- 
 cedes necessarily the progress of knowledge, and 
 therefore of civilization. By skepticism he means 
 a doubt of the truth of received opinions. He 
 asserts that " a spirit of doubt " is the necessary 
 antecedent to "the love of inquiry." (Vol. I. p. 
 242, Am. ed.) " Doubt must intervene before 
 investigation can begin. Here, then, we have the 
 act of doubting as the originator, or at all events 
 the necessary antecedent, of all progress." 
 
 If this were so, progress would be impossible. 
 For the great groundwork of knowledge for each 
 generation must be laid in the minds of children ; 
 and children learn, not by doubting, but by be- 
 lieving. Children are actuated at the same time 
 by an insatiable curiosity and an unquestioning 
 faith. They ask the reason of everything, and 
 they accept every reason which is given them. If 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 219 
 
 they stopped to question and to doubt, they would 
 learn very little. But by not doubting at all, 
 while they are made to believe some errors, they 
 acquire an immense amount of information. Kind 
 Mother Nature understands the process of learn- 
 ing and the principle of progress much better than 
 Mr. Buckle, and fortunately supplies every new 
 generation of children with an ardent desire for 
 knowledge, and a disposition to believe everything 
 they hear. 
 
 Perhaps, however, Mr. Buckle refers to men 
 rather than children. He may not insist on chil- 
 dren's stopping to question everything they hear 
 before they believe. But in men perhaps this 
 spirit is essential to progress. What great skeptics, 
 then, have been also great discoverers? Which 
 was the greatest discoverer, Leibnitz or Bayle, 
 Sir Isaac Newton or Voltaire ? A faith amount- 
 ing nearly to credulity is almost essential to dis- 
 covery, — a faith which foresees what it cannot 
 prove, which follows suggestions and hints, and so 
 traces the faintest impressions left by the flying 
 footsteps of truth. The attitude of the intellect 
 in all discovery is not that of doubt, but of faith. 
 The discoverer always appears to critical and skep- 
 tical men as a visionary. 
 
 " To skepticism," says Mr. Buckle, " we owe the 
 spirit of inquiry, which, during the last two centu- 
 ries, has gradually encroached on every possible 
 subject, and reformed every department of prac- 
 
220 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 tical and speculative knowledge." But this is 
 plainly what logicians call a vo-rcpov 7rpor€poi/, or 
 what common people call " putting the cart before 
 the horse." It is not skepticism which produces 
 the spirit of inquiry, but the spirit of inquiry 
 which produces skepticism. It was not a doubt 
 concerning the Mosaic cosmogony which led to the 
 study of geology ; the study of geology led to the 
 doubt of the cosmogony. Skepticism concerning 
 the authority of the Church did not lead to the 
 discovery of the Copernican system ; the discovery 
 of the Copernican system led to doubts concern- 
 ing the authority of the Church which denied it. 
 People do not begin by doubting, but by seeking. 
 The love of knowledge leads them to inquire, and 
 inquiry shows to them new truths. The new 
 truths, being found to be opposed to received opin- 
 ions, cause a doubt concerning those opinions to 
 arise in the mind. Skepticism, therefore, may 
 easily follow, but does not precede inquiry. 
 
 Skepticism, being a negative principle, is neces- 
 sarily unproductive and barren. To have no 
 strong belief, no fixed opinion, no vital conviction 
 for or against anything, — this is surely not a state 
 of intellect favorable to any great creation or dis- 
 covery. Goethe, who was certainly no bigot, says, in 
 a volume of his posthumous works, that skepticism 
 is only an inverted superstition, and that this skep- 
 ticism is one of the chief evils of the present age. 
 "It is worse," he adds, "than superstition, for 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 221 
 
 superstition is the inheritance of energetic, heroic, 
 progressive natures ; skepticism belongs to weak, 
 contracted, shrinking men, who venture not out of 
 themselves." Lord Bacon says (" Advancement of 
 Learning," Book II.) that doubts have their advan- 
 tages in learning, of which he mentions two, but 
 says that "both these commodities do scarcely 
 countervail an inconvenience which will intrude 
 itself, if it be not debarred ; which is, that when a 
 doubt is once received, men labor rather how to 
 keep it a doubt than how to solve it." It will be 
 seen, therefore, that Lord Bacon gives to skepti- 
 cism scarcely more encouragement than is given it 
 by Goethe. 
 
 Mr. Buckle says (Vol. I. p. 250) that " Skepti- 
 cism, which in physics must always be the begin- 
 ning of science, in religion must always be the 
 beginning of toleration." We have seen that in 
 physics skepticism is rather the end of science than 
 its beginning, and the same is true of toleration. 
 Skepticism does not necessarily produce toleration. 
 The Roman augurs, who laughed in each other's 
 faces, were quite ready to assist at the spectacle of 
 Christians thrown to the lions. Skeptics, not hav- 
 ing any inward conviction as a support, rest on 
 established opinions, and are angry at seeing them 
 disturbed. A strong belief is sufficient for itself, 
 but a half-belief wishes to put down all doubts by 
 force. This is well expressed by Thomas Burnet 
 (Epistola 2, De Arch. Phil.) : " Non potui non in 
 
222 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 illam semper propendere opinionein, Neminem 
 irasci in veritate defendenda, qui eandem plene 
 possidet, viditque in elaro lumine. Evidens enim, 
 et indubitata ratio, sibi sufficit et acquiescit : aliis- 
 que a scopo oberrantibus, non tarn succenset, quam 
 miseretur. Sed cum argumentorum adversantium 
 aculeos sentimus, et quodammodo periclitari cau- 
 sam nostram, turn demum sestuamus, et effervesei- 
 mus." 
 
 The least firm believers have often been the 
 most violent persecutors. Nero persecuted the 
 Christians; Marcus Antoninus persecuted them; 
 but neither Nero nor Antoninus had any religious 
 reason for this persecution. Antoninus, the best 
 head of his time, was a sufficient skeptic to suit 
 Mr. Buckle, as regards all points of the estab- 
 lished religion, but his skepticism did not prevent 
 him from being a persecutor. Unbelieving Popes, 
 like Alexander VI. and Leo X., have persecuted. 
 True toleration is not born of unbelief, as Mr. 
 Buckle supposes, but of a deeper faith. Religious 
 liberty has not been given to the world by skeptics, 
 but by such men as Milton, Baxter, Jeremy Tay- 
 lor, and Roger Williams. 
 
 So far from general skepticism being the ante- 
 cedent condition of intellectual progress and dis- 
 covery, it is a sign of approaching intellectual stag- 
 nation and decay. A great religious movement 
 usually precedes and prepares the way for a great 
 mental development. Thus the religious activity 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 223 
 
 born of Protestantism showed its results in Eng- 
 land in the age of Elizabeth, and in a general out- 
 break of intellectual activity over all Europe. On 
 the other hand, the skepticism of the eighteenth 
 century was accompanied by comparative stagna- 
 tion of thought throughout Christendom. 
 
 IV. Mr. Buckle's View of the small Influence of 
 Religion on Civilization. — Mr. Buckle thinks it 
 is erroneous to suppose that religion is one of the 
 prime movers of human affairs. (Vol. I. p. 183.) 
 Religion, according to him, has little to do with 
 human progress. In this opinion, he differs from 
 nearly all other great historians and philosophical 
 thinkers. In modern times, Hegel, Niebuhr, Gui- 
 zot, Arnold, and Macaulay, among others, have 
 discussed the part taken by religious ideas in the de- 
 velopment of man, laying the greatest stress on this 
 element. But Mr. Buckle denies that religion is 
 one of the prime movers in human affairs. The 
 Crusades have been thought to have exercised 
 some influence on European civilization. But reli- 
 gion was certainly the prime mover of the Crusades. 
 Mohammedanism exercised some influence on the 
 development of European life. But Mohamme- 
 danism was an embodiment of religious ideas. 
 The Protestant Reformation shook every institu- 
 tion, every nation, every part of social life, in 
 Christendom, and Europe rocked to its foundations 
 under the influence of this great movement. But 
 religion was the prime mover of it all. The Eng- 
 
224 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 lish Revolution turned on religious ideas. The 
 rise of the Dutch Republic was determined by 
 them. In one form they colonized South America 
 and Mexico ; in another form, they planted New 
 England. Such great constructive minds as those 
 of Alfred and Charlemagne have been benevolently 
 inspired by rational religion ; such dark, destruc- 
 tive natures as those of Philip II. of Spain, Catha- 
 rine de Medicis of France, and Mary Tudor of 
 England have been malevolently inspired by fana- 
 tical religion. 
 
 On what grounds, then, does Mr. Buckle dis- 
 pute the influence of religion? On two grounds 
 mainly. First, he tells us that moral ideas are 
 not susceptible of progress, and therefore cannot 
 have exercised any perceptible influence on the 
 progress of civilization. For that which does not 
 change, he argues, cannot influence that which 
 changes. That which has been known for thou- 
 sands of years cannot be the cause of an event 
 which took place for the first time only yesterday. 
 " Since civilization is the product of moral and 
 intellectual agencies," says Mr. Buckle, " and since 
 that product is constantly changing, it cannot be 
 regulated by the stationary agent ; because when 
 surrounding circumstances are unchanged, a sta- 
 tionary agent can produce only a stationary effect." 
 On this principle, gravitation could not be the 
 cause of the appearance of Donati's comet in the 
 neighborhood of the sun. For gravitation is a 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 225 
 
 stationary and uniform agent ; it cannot therefore 
 produce an accelerated motion. Mr. Buckle will 
 answer, that though the law of gravitation is one 
 and the same in all ages, and uniform in its action, 
 the result of its action may be different at different 
 times, according to the position in the universe of 
 the object acted upon. True ; and in like manner 
 we may say, that, though religious ideas are immu- 
 table, the result of their action on the human mind 
 may be different, according to the position of that 
 mind in relation to them. The doctrine of one 
 God, the Maker and Lord of all things, was not a 
 new one, or one newly discovered in the seventh 
 century. Yet when applied by Mohammed to the 
 Arabian mind, it was like a spark coming in con- 
 tact with gunpowder. Those wandering sons of 
 the desert, unknown before in the affairs of the 
 world, and a negative quantity in human history, 
 sprang up a terrible power, capable of overrunning 
 and conquering half the earth. Religion awakened 
 them ; religion organized them ; religion directed 
 them. The fact that an idea is an old one is no 
 proof, therefore, that it may not suddenly begin to 
 act with awful efficiency on civilization and the 
 destiny of man. 
 
 The other reason given by Mr. Buckle why reli- 
 gious ideas have little influence in history is, that 
 the religion of a nation is symptomatic of its men- 
 tal and moral state. Men take the religious ideas 
 which suit them. A religion not suited to a people 
 
226 BUCKLE AXD HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 cannot be accepted by it : or, if accepted, has no 
 influence on it. This thought, argued at consider- 
 able length by Mr. Buckle, is so perfectly true as 
 to be a truism. The religion of a people is no 
 doubt an effect. But may it not also be a cause ? 
 It. no doubt, cannot be received by a people not 
 prepared for it. But does it therefore exercise no 
 influence on a people which it finds prepared? 
 Fire cannot explode an unexplosive material, nor 
 inflame one not inflammable. But does it follow 
 that it effects nothing when brought into contact 
 with one which is inflammable or explosive ? A 
 burning coal laid on a rock or put into the water 
 produces no effect. But does this prove that the 
 explosion of gunpowder is in no manner due to the 
 contact of fire ? 
 
 "The religion of mankind." says Mr. Buckle, 
 M is the effect of their improvement, and not the 
 cause of it." His proof is that missions and mis- 
 sionaries among the heathen produce only a super- 
 ficial change among barbarous and unenlightened 
 tribes. Knowledge, he says, must prepare the 
 way for it. There must, no doubt, be some kind 
 of preparation for Christianity. But does it fol- 
 low that Christianity, when its way is prepared, is 
 only an effect? Why may it not be also a cause ? 
 Judaism prepared the way for Christianity. But 
 did not Christianity produce some effect on Juda- 
 ism ? The Arab mind was prepared for Moham- 
 medanism. But did not Mohammedanism produce 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 227 
 
 some effect on the Arab mind ? Europe was pre- 
 pared by various influences for Protestantism. 
 But did not Protestantism produce some effects on 
 Europe ? 
 
 It might, with equal truth, and perhaps with 
 greater truth, be asserted that intellectual ideas 
 are the result of previous training, and that they 
 are therefore an effect, and by no means a cause. 
 The intellectual truths accepted by any period de- 
 pend certainly on the advanced condition of human 
 culture. You cannot teach logarithms to Hotten- 
 tots, trigonometry to Digger Indians, or the differ- 
 ential calculus to the Feejee Islanders. Hence, 
 according to our author's logic, those very intel- 
 lectual ideas which he thinks the only great movers 
 in human affairs are really no movers at all, but 
 only symptoms of the actual intellectual condition 
 of a nation. 
 
 But it is a curious fact, that, while Mr. Buckle 
 considers religious ideas of so little importance in 
 the history of civilization, he nevertheless devotes 
 a large part of both his volumes to proving the 
 great evil done to civilization by erroneous forms 
 of religious opinion. Nearly the whole of his sec- 
 ond volume is in fact given to showing the harm 
 done in Spain and Scotland by false systems of 
 religious thought. Why spend page after page 
 in showing the evil influence of false religion on 
 society, if religion, whether true or false, has 
 scarcely any influence at all ? Why search through 
 
228 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 all the records of religious fanaticism and supersti- 
 tion, to bring up to the day the ghosts of dead be- 
 liefs, if these beliefs are, after all, powerless either 
 for good or evil ? 
 
 The second volume, the recent publication of 
 which has suggested this second review of Mr. 
 Buckle's work, contains much of interest and 
 value, but suffers from the imperfect method of 
 which we complained at the beginning of this arti- 
 cle. It is chiefly devoted to a description of the 
 evils resulting from priestcraft in the two countries 
 of Spain and Scotland. It contains six chapters. 
 The first is on the History of the Spanish Intel- 
 lect from the fifth to the middle of the nineteenth 
 century. The other five chapters relate to Scot- 
 land. 
 
 In the chapter on Spain Buckle attempts to show 
 how loyalty and superstition began in this nation, 
 and what has been the result. Of course, accord- 
 ing to his theory, he is obliged to trace their origin 
 to external circumstances, and he finds the cause 
 of the superstition in the climate, which produced 
 drought and famine, and in the earthquakes which 
 alarmed the people. And here Mr. Buckle, follow- 
 ing the philosophy of Lucretius, confounds religion 
 and fear, and puts the occasion for the cause. But, 
 beside earthquakes, the Arian heresy helped to 
 create this superstition, by identifying the wars 
 for national independence with those for religion, 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 229 
 
 and so giving a great ascendency to the priests. 
 Hence the Church in Spain early acquired great 
 power, and, naturally allying itself with the govern- 
 ment, gave rise to the sentiment of loyalty, which 
 was increased by the Moorish invasion and the 
 long wars which followed. Loyalty and supersti- 
 tion thus became so deeply rooted in the Spanish 
 mind, that they could not be eradicated by the 
 efforts of the government. Nothing but know- 
 ledge can cure this blind and servile loyalty and 
 this abject superstition, and while Spain continues 
 sunk in ignorance it must always remain supersti- 
 tious and submissive. 
 
 Some difficulties, however, suggest themselves 
 in the way of this very simple explanation. If 
 superstitious loyalty to Church and king comes 
 from earthquakes, why are not the earthquake 
 regions of the West Indies and of South America 
 more loyal, instead of being in a state of chronic 
 revolution ? And how came Scotland to be so 
 diseased with loyalty and superstition, when she 
 is so free from earthquakes ? And if knowledge 
 is such a certain cure for superstition, why was not 
 Spain cured by the flood of light which she, alone 
 of all European countries, enjoyed in the Middle 
 Ages ? Spain was for a long time the source of 
 science and art to all Europe, whose Christian 
 sons resorted to her universities and libraries for 
 instruction. There was taught to English, French, 
 and German students the philosophy of Aristotle, 
 
230 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 the Grseco- Arabic literature, mathematics, and nat- 
 ural history. The numerals, gunpowder, paper, 
 and other inventions of the Arabs, passed into 
 Europe from Spain. She possessed, therefore, 
 that knowledge of physical laws which Mr. Buckle 
 declares to be the only cure for superstition. Yet 
 she was not cured. The nation which, according 
 to his theory, ought to have been soonest delivered 
 from superstition, according to his statements has 
 retained its yoke longer than any other. 
 
 From Spain Mr. Buckle passes to Scotland, 
 where he finds a still more complicated problem. 
 Superstition and loyalty ought to go together, he 
 thinks, — and usually do ; but in Scotland they are 
 divorced. The Scotch have always been supersti- 
 tious, but disloyal. To the explanation of this fact 
 Mr. Buckle bends his energies of thought, and of 
 course is able to find a theory to account for it. 
 This theory we shall not stop to detail ; it is too 
 complex, and at the same time too superficial, to 
 dwell upon. Its chief point is that the Protestant 
 noblemen and Protestant clergy quarreled about 
 the wealth of the Catholic Church, and so there 
 was in Scotland a complete rupture between the 
 two classes elsewhere in alliance. Thus " the 
 clergy, finding themselves despised by the govern- 
 ing class, united themselves heartily with the peo- 
 ple, and advocated democratic principles." Such 
 is the explanation given to the course of history in 
 a great nation. A quarrel between its noblemen 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 231 
 
 and its ministers (who are of course represented as 
 mercenary self-seekers) determines its permanent 
 character ! 
 
 Mr. Buckle, to whom the love of plunder appears 
 as the cause of what other men regard as loyalty 
 or religion, explains by the same fact the loyalty of 
 the Highlanders to King Charles. They thought 
 that, if he conquered, he would allow them to plun- 
 der the Lowlanders once more. This is Buckle's 
 explanation. An ethnologist would have remem- 
 bered the fact that the Gaels are pure-blooded 
 Kelts, and that the Kelts pur sang are everywhere 
 distinguished for loyalty to their chiefs. 
 
 Mr. Buckle encounters another difficulty in 
 Scottish history in this, that though a new and 
 splendid literature arose in Scotland at the begin- 
 ning of the eighteenth century, it was unable to 
 diminish national superstition. It was thoroughly 
 skeptical, and yet did not produce the appropriate 
 effect of skepticism. So that at this point one of Mr. 
 Buckle's four great laws of history seems to break 
 down. For a moment he appears discouraged, 
 and laments, with real pathos, the limitations of 
 the human intellect. But in the next chapter he 
 addresses himself again to the solution of his two- 
 fold problem, viz. : " 1st, that the same people 
 should be liberal in their politics and illiberal in 
 their religion ; and, 2d, that their free and skepti- 
 cal literature in the eighteenth century should 
 have been unable to lessen their religious illiber- 
 ality." 
 
232 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 In approaching this part of his task, in the fifth 
 chapter, our author gives a very elaborate and 
 highly colored picture of the religion of Scotland. 
 It is too well done. Like some of Macaulay's 
 descriptions, it is so very striking as to impress us 
 almost inevitably as a caricature. Every state- 
 ment in which the horrors and cruelties of Calvin- 
 ism are described is indeed reinforced by ample 
 citations or plentiful references in the footnotes. 
 But some of these seem capable of a different 
 inference from that drawn in the text. For in- 
 stance, he charges the Scottish clergy with teach- 
 ing, that, though the arrangements originally 
 made by the Deity to punish his creatures were 
 ample, " they were insufficient ; and hell, not 
 being big enough to contain the countless victims 
 incessantly poured into it, had in these latter days 
 been enlarged. There was now sufficient room." 
 He supports the charge by this reference to Aber- 
 nethy, — " Hell has enlarged itself," — apparently 
 not being aware that Abernethy was merely quot- 
 ing from Isaiah. He says that to write poetry 
 was considered by the Scotch clergy to be a griev- 
 ous offence, and worthy of special condemnation. 
 He supports his statement by this reference : " A 
 mastership in a grammar school was offered in 
 1767 to John Wilson, the author of fc Clyde ' " (a 
 poet, by the by, not found among the twenty John 
 Wilsons commemorated by Watt). " But, says 
 his biographer, the magistrates and ministers of 
 
BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 233 
 
 Greenock thought fit, before they would admit 
 Mr. Wilson to the superintendence of the gram- 
 mar school, to stipulate that he should abandon 
 8 the profane and unprofitable art of poem-mak- 
 ing.' " This fact, however, by no means proves 
 that poetry was considered, theologically, a sin, 
 for perhaps it was regarded practically as only a 
 disqualification. It is to be feared that many of 
 our school committees now — country shopkeepers, 
 perhaps, or city aldermen — would, apart from 
 Calvinism, think that a poet must be necessarily a 
 dreamer and an unpractical man. 
 
 A few exaggerations o£ this kind there may be. 
 But, on the whole, the account seems to be cor- 
 rectly given ; and it is one which will do good. 
 
 In the remaining portion of the second volume 
 Mr. Buckle gives a very vigorous description of 
 the intellectual progress of the Scotch during the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His ac- 
 count of Adam Smith as a writer is peculiarly 
 brilliant. His views of Hume and Reid are ably 
 drawn. Thence he proceeds to discuss the dis- 
 coveries of Black and Leslie in natural philosophy, 
 of Smith and Hutton in geology, of Cavendish in 
 chemistry, of Cullen and Hunter in physiology 
 and pathology. These discussions are interesting, 
 and show a great range of knowledge and power 
 of study in the writer. Yet they are episodes, and 
 have little bearing on the main course of his 
 thought. 
 
234 BUCKLE AND HIS THEORY OF AVERAGES 
 
 We have thus given a cursory survey of these 
 volumes. We do not think Buckle's philosophy 
 sound, his method good, or his doctrines tenable. 
 Yet we cannot but sympathize with one who has 
 devoted his strength and youth with such untiring 
 industry to such a great enterprise. And we must 
 needs be touched with the plaintive confession 
 which breaks from his wearied mind and exhausted 
 hope in the last volume, when he accepts the de- 
 feat of his early endeavor, and submits to the 
 disappointment of his youthful hope. We should 
 be glad to quote the entire passage, 1 because it is 
 the best in the book, and because he expresses in 
 it, in the most condensed form, his ideas and pur- 
 poses as an historic writer. But our limited space 
 allows us only to commend it to the special atten- 
 tion of the reader. 
 
 1 See Vol. II. pp. 255-259, American edition. 
 
VOLTAIRE l 
 
 Mr. Parton has given us in these volumes 2 
 another of his interesting and instructive biogra- 
 phies. Not as interesting, indeed, as some others, 
 — for example, as his life of Andrew Jackson ; 
 nor as instructive as his lives of Franklin and of 
 Jefferson. The nature of the case made this im- 
 possible. The story of Jackson had never been 
 told till Mr. Parton undertook it. It was a his- 
 tory of frontier life, of strange adventures, of 
 desperate courage, of a force of character which 
 conquered all obstacles and achieved extraordinary 
 results ; a story 
 
 " Of moving accidents by flood and field, 
 Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach, 
 Of being taken by the insolent foe." 
 
 No such interest attaches to the " Life of Voltaire." 
 His most serious adventure was being shut up in 
 the Bastille for a pasquinade, and being set free 
 again on his solemn protestation, true or false, 
 that he never wrote it. It is an old story, told a 
 thousand times, with all its gloss, if it ever had any, 
 
 1 The Atlantic Monthly, August, 1881. 
 
 2 Life of Voltaire, by James Parton. In two vols. Boston: 
 Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1886. 
 
236 VOLTAIRE 
 
 quite worn off. The " Life of Franklin," which, 
 on the whole, we think the best of Parton's biogra- 
 phies, was full of interest and instruction of an- 
 other kind. It was the life of a builder, — of one 
 who gave his great powers to construction, to 
 building up new institutions and new sciences, to 
 the discovery of knowledge and the creation of 
 national life. Voltaire was a diffuser of know- 
 ledge already found, but he had not the patience 
 nor the devotion of a discoverer. His gift was 
 not to construct good institutions, but to destroy 
 bad ones, — a work the interest of which is neces- 
 sarily ephemeral. No wonder, therefore, that Mr. 
 Parton, with all his practiced skill as a biographer, 
 has not been able to give to the story of Voltaire 
 the thrilling interest which he imparted to that of 
 Franklin and of Jackson. 
 
 We gladly take the present opportunity to add 
 our recognition of Mr. Parton's services to those 
 which have come to him from other quarters. A 
 writer of unequal merit, and one whose judgment 
 is often biased by his prejudices, he nevertheless 
 has done much to show how biography should be 
 written. Of all forms of human writing there is 
 none which ought to be at once so instructive and 
 so interesting as this, but in the large majority of 
 instances it is the most vapid and empty. The 
 good biographies, in all languages, are so few that 
 they can almost be counted on the fingers ; but 
 these are among the most precious books in the 
 
VOLTAIRE 237 
 
 literature of mankind. The story of Ruth, the 
 Odyssey of Homer, Plutarch's lives, the Memora- 
 bilia of Xenophon, the life of Agricola, the Con- 
 fessions of Augustine, among the ancients ; and, in 
 modern times, Boswell's "Johnson," the autobio- 
 graphies of Alfieri, Benvenuto Cellini, Franklin, 
 Goethe, Voltaire's " Charles XII.," and Southey's 
 " Life of Wesley " are specimens of what may 
 be accomplished in this direction. It has been 
 thought that any man can write a biography, but 
 it requires genius to understand genius. How 
 much intelligence is necessary to collect with dis- 
 crimination the significant facts of a human life ; 
 to penetrate to the law of which they are the ex- 
 pression ; to give the picturesque proportions to 
 every part, to arrange the foreground, the middle 
 distance, and the background of the panorama ; to 
 bring out in proper light and shadow the features 
 and deeds of the hero ! Few biographers take 
 this trouble. They content themselves with col- 
 lecting the letters written by and to their subject ; 
 sweeping together the facts of his life, important 
 or otherwise ; arranging them in some kind of 
 chronological order ; and then having this printed 
 and bound up in one or two heavy volumes. 
 
 To all this many writers of biography add an- 
 other fault, which is almost a fatal one. They 
 treat their subject de haut en has, preferring to 
 look down upon him rather than to look up to 
 him. They occupy themselves in criticising his 
 
238 VOLTAIRE 
 
 faults and pointing out his deficiencies, till they 
 forget to mention what he has accomplished to 
 make him worthy of having his life written at all. 
 We lately saw a life of Pope treated in this style. 
 One unacquainted with Pope, after reading it, 
 would say, " If he was such a contemptible fellow, 
 and his writings so insignificant, why should we 
 have to read his biography?" Thomas Carlyle 
 has the great merit of leading the way in the 
 opposite direction, and of thus initiating a new 
 style of biography. The old method was for the 
 writer to regard himself as a judge on the bench, 
 and the subject of his biography as a prisoner at 
 the bar. Carlyle, in his " Life of Schiller," showed 
 himself a loving disciple, sitting at the feet of his 
 master. We recollect that when this work first 
 appeared there were only a few copies known to be 
 in this country. One was in the possession of an 
 eminent professor in Harvard College, of whom 
 the present writer borrowed it. On returning it, 
 he was asked what he thought of it, and replied 
 that he considered it written with much enthusi- 
 asm. " Yes," responded the professor, " I myself 
 thought it rather extravagant." Enthusiasm in a 
 biographer was then considered to be the same as 
 extravagance. But this hero-worship, which is 
 the charm in Plutarch, Xenophon, and Bosw r ell, 
 inspired a like interest in Carlyle's portraits of 
 Schiller, Goethe, Richter, Burns, and the actors in 
 the French Revolution. So true is his own warn- 
 
VOLTAIRE 239 
 
 ing : " Friend, if you wish me to take an interest 
 in what you say, be so kind as to take some in- 
 terest in it yourself " — a golden maxim, to be 
 kept in mind by all historians, writers of travels, 
 biographers, preachers, and teachers. A social 
 success may sometimes be accomplished by assum- 
 ing the blase air of the Roman emperor who said, 
 " Omnia fui, nihil expedit ; " but this tone is 
 ruinous for one who wishes the ear of the public. 
 
 Since the days of Carlyle, others have written 
 in the same spirit, allowing themselves to take 
 more or less interest in the man whose life they 
 were relating. So Macaulay, in his sketches of 
 Clive, Hastings, Chatham, Pym, and Hampden ; 
 so Lewes, in his " Life of Goethe ; " and so Parton, 
 in his various biographies. 
 
 In some respects Mr. Parton's biography re- 
 minds us of Macaulay's History. Both have been 
 credited with the same qualities, both charged 
 with the same defects. Both are indefatigable in 
 collecting material from all quarters, — from other 
 histories and biographies, memoirs, letters, news- 
 papers, broadsides, and personal communications 
 gathered in many out-of-the-way localities. Both 
 have the power of discarding insignificant details 
 and retaining what is suggestive and picturesque. 
 Both, therefore, have the same supreme merit of 
 being interesting. Both have strong prejudices, 
 take sides earnestly, forget that they are narrators, 
 and begin to plead as attorneys and advocates. 
 
240 VOLTAIRE 
 
 Both have been accused, rightly or wrongly, of 
 grave inaccuracies. But their defects will not pre- 
 vent them from holding their place as teachers of 
 the English-speaking public. English and Ameri- 
 can readers will long continue to think of Marl- 
 borough as Macaulay represents him ; of Jackson 
 and Jefferson as Parton describes them. Such 
 Rembrandt-like portraits fix the attention by their 
 strange chiaro-oscuro. They may not be like na- 
 ture, but they take the place of nature. The most 
 remarkable instance of this kind is the representa- 
 tion of Tiberius by Tacitus, which has caused 
 mankind, until very recently, to consider Tiberius 
 a monster of licentiousness and cruelty, in spite of 
 the almost self-evident absurdity and self-contra- 
 diction of this assumption. 1 Limners with such a 
 terrible power of portraiture should be very care- 
 ful how they use it, and not abuse the faculty in 
 the interest of their prejudices. 
 
 If Mr. Parton resembles Macaulay in some re- 
 spects, in one point, at least, he is like Carlyle : 
 that is, that his last hero is the least interesting. 
 From Schiller and Goethe to Frederic the Great 
 was a fall; and so from Franklin to Voltaire. 
 Carlyle tells us what a weary task he had with his 
 Prussian king, and we think that Mr. Parton's 
 labors over the patriarch of the eighteenth-century 
 
 1 Voltaire himself, with his acute perception, seems to have 
 been one of the first to discover the absurdity of the representa- 
 tion of Tiberius by Tacitus. 
 
VOLTAIRE 241 
 
 literature must have been equally distressing. At 
 a distance, Voltaire is a striking phenomenon : the 
 most brilliant wit of almost any period ; the most 
 prolific writer ; a successful dramatist, historian, 
 biographer, story-teller, controversialist, lyrical 
 poet, student of science. " Truly, a universal 
 genius, a mighty power ! " we say. But look 
 more closely, and this genius turns into talent ; 
 this encyclopaedic knowledge becomes only super- 
 ficial half knowledge ; this royalty is a sham roy- 
 alty; it does not lead the world, but follows it. 
 The work into which Voltaire put his heart was 
 destruction — the destruction of falsehoods, bigo- 
 tries, cruelties, and shams. It was an important 
 duty, and some one had to do it. But it was 
 temporary, and one of which the interest is soon 
 over. If Luther and the other reformers had 
 aimed at only destroying the Church of Rome, 
 their influence would have speedily ceased. But 
 they rebuilt, as they destroyed ; the sword in one 
 hand, and the trowel in the other. They destroyed 
 in order to build ; they took away the outgrown 
 house, to put another in its place. Voltaire did 
 not go so far as that ; he wanted no new church 
 in the place of the old one. 
 
 Voltaire and Rousseau are often spoken of as 
 though they were fellow-workers, and are associ- 
 ated in many minds as sharing the same convic- 
 tions. Nothing can be more untrue. They were 
 radically opposite in the very structure of their 
 
242 VOLTAIRE 
 
 minds, and their followers and admirers are 
 equally different. If all men can be divided into 
 Platonists and Aristotelians, they may be in like 
 manner classified as those who prefer Voltaire to 
 Rousseau, and vice versa. Both were indeed the- 
 ists, and both opposed to the popular religion of 
 their time. Both were brilliant writers, masters 
 of the French language, listened to by the people, 
 and with a vast popularity. Both were more or 
 less persecuted for their religious heresies. So far 
 they resemble each other. But these are only 
 external resemblances ; radically and inwardly 
 they were polar opposites. What attracted one 
 repelled the other. Voltaire w r as a man of the 
 world, fond of society and social pleasures ; the 
 child of his time, popular, a universal favorite. 
 Rousseau shrank from society, hated its fashions, 
 did not enjoy its pleasures, and belonged to an- 
 other epoch than the eighteenth century. Rous- 
 seau believed in human nature, and thought that 
 if we could return to our natural condition the 
 miseries of life would cease. Voltaire despised 
 human nature ; he forever repeated that the ma- 
 jority of men were knaves and fools. Rousseau 
 distrusted education and culture as they are com- 
 monly understood; but to Voltaire's mind they 
 were the only matters of any value, — all that 
 made life worth living. Rousseau was more like 
 Pascal than like Voltaire ; far below Pascal, no 
 doubt, in fixed moral principles and ascetic virtue. 
 
VOLTAIRE 243 
 
 Yet he resembled him in his devotion to ideas, his 
 enthusiasm for some better day to come. Both 
 were out of place in their own time ; both were 
 prophets crying in the wilderness. Put Voltaire 
 between Pascal and Rousseau, and it would be 
 something like the tableau of Goethe between 
 Basedow and Lavater. 
 
 u Prophete rechts, Prophete links, 
 Das Weltkind in der Mitte." 
 
 The difference between Voltaire and Rousseau was 
 really that between a man of talent and a man of 
 genius. Voltaire, brilliant, adroit, full of resource, 
 quick as a flash, versatile, with immense powers of 
 working, with a life full of literary successes, has 
 not left behind him a single masterpiece. He 
 comes in everywhere second best. As a tragedian 
 he is inferior to Racine ; as a wit and comic writer 
 far below Moliere ; and he is quite surpassed as a 
 historian and biographer by many modern French 
 authors. No germinating ideas are to be found in 
 his writings, no seed corn for future harvests. » He 
 thought himself a philosopher, and was so re- 
 garded by others ; but neither had his philosophy 
 any roots to it. A sufficient proof of this is the 
 fact that he shared the superficial optimism of the 
 English deists, as expressed by Bolingbroke and 
 Pope, until the Lisbon earthquake, by destroying 
 thirty thousand people, changed his whole mental 
 attitude. Till then he could say with Pope, 
 " Whatever is, is right." After that, most things 
 
244 VOLTAIRE 
 
 which are, appeared to him fatally and hopelessly 
 wrong. That thirty thousand persons should per- 
 ish in a few minutes, in great suffering, he thought 
 inconsistent with the goodness of God. But take 
 the whole world over, thirty thousand people are 
 continually perishing, in the course of a few hours 
 or days. What difference does it make, in a 
 philosophical point of view, if they die all at once 
 in a particular place, or at longer intervals in 
 many places ? Voltaire asks, " What crime had 
 those infants committed who lie crushed on their 
 mother's breasts ? " What crime, we reply, have 
 the infants committed who have been dying by 
 millions, in suffering, since the world began ? 
 " Was Lisbon," he asks, " more wicked than 
 Paris ? " But had Voltaire never noticed before 
 that wicked people often live on in health and 
 pleasure, while the good suffer and die ? Voltaire 
 did not see, what it requires very little philosophy 
 to discover, that a Lisbon earthquake really pre- 
 sents no more difficulty to the reason than the 
 suffering and death of a single child. 
 
 Another fact which shows the shallow nature of 
 Voltaire's way of thinking is his expectation of 
 destroying Christianity by a combined attack upon 
 it of all the wits and philosophers. Mr. Parton 
 tells us that " l'lnfame," which Voltaire expected 
 to crush, " was not religion, nor the Christian 
 religion, nor the Roman Catholic Church. It was," 
 he says, " religion claiming supernatural author- 
 
VOLTAIRE 245 
 
 ity, and enforcing that claim by pains and penal- 
 ties" No doubt it was the spirit of intolerance 
 and persecution which excited his indignation. 
 But the object of that indignation was not the 
 abstraction which Mr. Parton presents to us. It 
 was something far more concrete. There is no 
 doubt that Voltaire confounded Christianity with 
 the churches about him, and these with their 
 abuses ; and thus his object was to sweep away all 
 positive religious institutions, and to leave in their 
 place a philosophic deism. Else what meaning in 
 his famous boast that " it required twelve men to 
 found a belief, which it would need only one man 
 to destroy"? What meaning, otherwise, in his 
 astonishment that Locke, " having in one book so 
 profoundly traced the development of the under- 
 standing, could so degrade his own understanding 
 in another "? — referring, as Mr. Morley believes, 
 to Locke's " Reasonableness of Christianity." Vol- 
 taire saw around him Christianity represented by 
 cruel bigots, ecclesiastics living in indolent luxury, 
 narrow-minded and hard-hearted priests. That 
 was all the Christianity he saw with his sharp per- 
 ceptive faculty ; and he had no power of penetrat- 
 ing into the deeper life of the soul which these 
 corruptions misrepresented. We do not blame 
 him for this ; he was made so ; but it was a fatal 
 defect in a reformer. The first work of a re- 
 former is to discover the truth and the good latent 
 amid the abuses he wishes to reform, and for the 
 
246 VOLTAIRE 
 
 sake of which men endure the evil. A Buddhist 
 proverb says, " The human mind is like a leech : 
 it never lets go with its tail till it has taken hold 
 somewhere else with its head." Distinguish the 
 good in a system from the evil ; show how the 
 good can be preserved, though the evil is aban- 
 doned, and then you may hope to effect a truly 
 radical reform. Radicalism means going to the 
 roots of anything. Voltaire was incapable of be- 
 coming a radical reformer of the Christian Church, 
 because he had in himself no faculty by which he 
 could appreciate the central forces of Christianity. 
 Mr. Morley says that Voltaire " has said no word, 
 nor even shown an indirect appreciation of any 
 word said by another, which stirs and expands 
 that indefinite exaltation known as the love of 
 God," " or of the larger word holiness." " Through 
 the affronts which his reason received from certain 
 pretensions, both in the writers and in some of 
 those whose actions they commemorated, this sub- 
 lime trait in the Bible, in both portions of it, was 
 unhappily lost to Voltaire. He had no ear for the 
 finer vibrations of the spiritual voice." And so 
 also speaks Carlyle : " It is a much more serious 
 ground of offense that he intermeddled in religion 
 without being himself, in any measure, religious ; 
 that he entered the temple and continued there 
 with a levity which, in any temple where men 
 worship, can beseem no brother man ; that, in a 
 word, he ardently, and with long-continued effort. 
 
VOLTAIRE 247 
 
 warred against Christianity, without understanding 
 beyond the mere superficies of what Christianity 
 was." In fact, in the organization of Voltaire, 
 the organ of reverence, " the crown of the whole 
 moral nature," seems to have been at its minimum. 
 A sense of justice there was ; an ardent sympathy 
 with the oppressed, a generous hatred of the op- 
 pressor, a ready devotion of time, thought, wealth, 
 to the relief of the down-trodden victim. There- 
 fore, with such qualities, Voltaire, by the addi- 
 tional help of his indefatigable energy, often suc- 
 ceeded in plucking the prey from the jaws of the 
 lion. He was able to defeat the combined powers 
 of Church and State in his advocacy of some indi- 
 vidual sufferer, in his battle against some single 
 wrong. But his long war against the Catholic 
 Church in France left it just where it was when 
 that war began. Its power to-day in France is 
 greater than it was then, because it is a purer and 
 better institution than it was then. That Sphinx 
 still sits by the roadside propounding its riddle. 
 Voltaire was not the QEdipus who could solve it, 
 and so the life of that mystery remains untouched 
 until now. 
 
 The Henriade has often been considered the 
 great epic poem of France. This merely means 
 that France has never produced a great epic poem. 
 The Henriade is artificial, prosaic, and has no 
 particle of the glow, the fire, the prolonged, en- 
 thusiasm, which alone can give an epic poem to 
 
248 VOLTAIRE 
 
 mankind. In this sentence all competent critics 
 are agreed. 
 
 Voltaire was busy with literature during his 
 whole life. He not only wrote continually him- 
 self, but he was a critic of the writings of others. 
 His mind was essentially critical, — formed to 
 analyze, discriminate sharply, compare, and judge 
 by some universal standard of taste. Here, if 
 anywhere, he ought to be at his best ; here, if in 
 any department, he should stand at the head of 
 the world's board of literary censors. But here, 
 again, he is not even second-rate ; here, more than 
 elsewhere, he show r s how superficial are his judg- 
 ments. He tests every writer by the French 
 standard in the eighteenth century. Every word 
 which Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, have said of 
 other writers is full of value and interest to-day. 
 But who would go to Voltaire for light on any 
 book or author ? We have an instinctive but cer- 
 tain conviction that all his views are limited by 
 his immediate environment, perverted by his per- 
 sonal prejudices. Thus, he prefers Ariosto to the 
 Odyssey, and Tasso's Jerusalem to the Iliad. 1 
 His inability to comprehend the greatness of 
 Shakespeare is well known. He is filled with 
 indignation because a French critic had called 
 Shakespeare " the god of the stage." " The blood 
 boils in my old veins," says he ; " and what is 
 frightful to think of, it was I myself who first 
 1 Essai sur les Moeurs, ch. cxxi. 
 
VOLTAIRE 249 
 
 showed to Frenchmen the few pearls to be found 
 in the dunghill." 1 Chesterfield's Letters to his 
 Son he considers " the best book upon education 
 ever written." 2 This is the book in which a 
 father teaches his son the art of polite falsehood, 
 of which Dr. Johnson says that " it shows how 
 grace can be united with wickedness," — the book 
 whose author is called by De Vere the philosopher 
 of flattery and dissimulation. He admitted that 
 there were some good things in Milton, but speaks 
 of his conceptions as " odd and extravagant." 3 
 He thought Condorcet much superior to Pascal. 
 The verses of Helvetius he believed better than 
 any but those of Racine. The era was what Ville- 
 main calls " the golden age of mediocre writers ; " 
 and Voltaire habitually praised them all. But 
 these writers mostly belonged to a mutual admira- 
 tion society. The anatomist Tissot, in one of his 
 physiological works, says that the genius of Dide- 
 rot came to show to mankind how every variety of 
 talent could be brought to perfection in one man. 
 Diderot, in his turn, went into frantic delight over 
 the novels of Richardson. " Since I have read 
 these works," he says, " I make them my touch- 
 stone ; those who do not admire them are self- 
 condemned. O my friends, what majestic dramas 
 are these three, Clarissa, Sir Charles Grandison, 
 and Pamela ! " Such was the eighteenth century ; 
 and Voltaire belonged to it with all the intensity 
 1 Parton, ii. 549. 2 Ibid., ii. 551. 3 Ibid., i. 232. 
 
250 VOLTAIRE 
 
 of his ardent nature. He may be said never to 
 have seen or foreseen anything better. Living on 
 the very verge of a great social revolution, he does 
 not appear to have suspected what its nature 
 would be, even if he suspected its approach. The 
 cruelties of the Church exasperated him, but the 
 political condition of society, the misery of the 
 peasants, the luxury of the nobles, the despotism 
 of the king, left him unmoved. He was singularly 
 deficient in any conception of the value of political 
 liberty or of free institutions. If he had lived to 
 see the coming of the Revolution, it would have 
 utterly astounded him. His sympathies were with 
 an enlightened aristocracy, not with the people. 
 In this, too, he was the man of his time, and be- 
 longed to the middle of his century, not the end of 
 it. He saw and lamented the evils of bad govern- 
 ment. He pointed out the miseries produced by 
 war. He abhorred and denounced the military 
 spirit. He called on the clergy, in the name of 
 their religion, to join him in his righteous appeals 
 against this great curse of mankind. " Where," 
 he asks, " in the five or six thousand sermons of 
 Massillon, are there two in which anything is said 
 against the scourge of war?" He rebukes the 
 philosophers and moralists, also, for their delin- 
 quency in this matter, and replies forcibly to Mon- 
 tesquieu's argument that self-defense sometimes 
 makes it necessary to begin the attack on a neigh- 
 boring nation. But he does not go back to trace 
 
VOLTAIRE 251 
 
 the evil to its root in the absence of self-govern- 
 ment. In a letter to the King of Prussia he says, 
 " When I asked you to become the deliverer of 
 Greece, I did not mean to have you restore the 
 democracy. I do not love the rule of the rabble " 
 (jgouvernement cle la canaille). Again, writing to 
 the same, in January, 1757, he says, " Your ma- 
 jesty will confer a great benefit by destroying this 
 infamous superstition [Christianity] ; I do not say 
 among the canaille, who do not deserve to be en- 
 lightened, and who ought to be kept down under 
 all yokes, but among honest people, people who 
 think. Give white bread to the children, but only 
 black bread to the dogs." In 1762, writing to the 
 Marquis d'Argens, he says, " The Turks say that 
 their Koran has sometimes the face of an angel, 
 sometimes the face of a beast. This description 
 suits our time. There are a few philosophers, — 
 they have the face of an angel; all else much 
 resembles that of a beast." Again, he says to 
 Helvetius, " Consider no man your neighbor but 
 the man who thinks ; look on all other men as 
 wolves, foxes, and deer." "We shall soon see," 
 he writes to D'Alembert, " new heavens and a 
 new earth, — I mean for honest people ; for as to 
 the canaille, the stupidest heaven and earth is all 
 they are fit for." The real government of nations, 
 according to him, should be administered by abso- 
 lute kings, in the interest of freethinkers. 
 
 It is true that after Rousseau had published his 
 
252 VOLTAIRE 
 
 trumpet-call in behalf of democratic rights, Vol- 
 taire began to waver. It has been remarked that 
 " at the very time when he expressed an increasing 
 ill-will against the person of the author of ' Emile,' 
 he was irresistibly attracted to the principal doc- 
 trines of Eousseau. He entered, as if in spite of 
 himself, into paths toward which his feet were 
 never before directed. As if to revenge himself 
 for coming under this salutary influence, he pur- 
 sued Eousseau with blind anger." 1 He harshly 
 attacked the Social Contract, but accepted the 
 sovereignty of the people ; saying that " civil gov- 
 ernment is the will of all, executed by a single 
 one, or by several, in virtue of the laws which all 
 have enacted." He, however, speedily restricted 
 this democratic principle by confining the right of 
 making laws to the owners of real estate. He de- 
 clares that those who have neither house nor land 
 ought not to have any voice in the matter. He 
 now began (in 1764) to look forward to the end 
 of monarchies, and to expect a revolution. Never- 
 theless, he plainly declares, " The pretended 
 equality of man is a pernicious chimera. If there 
 were not thirty laborers to one master, the earth 
 would not be cultivated." But in practical and 
 humane reforms Voltaire took the lead, and did 
 good work. He opposed examination by torture, 
 the punishment of death for theft, the confiscation 
 of the property of the condemned, the penalties 
 
 1 Martin's History of France, 
 
VOLTAIRE 253 
 
 against heretics ; secret trials ; praised trial by 
 jury, civil marriage, right of divorce, and reforms 
 in the direction of hygiene and education. 
 
 And, above all, whatever fault may be found 
 with Voltaire, let us never cease to appreciate his 
 generous efforts in behalf of the unfortunate vic- 
 tims of the atrocious bigotry which then prevailed 
 in France. It is not necessary to dwell here on 
 the cases of Calas, the Sirvens, La Barre, and the 
 Count de Lally. They are fully told by Mr. Par- 
 ton, and to his account we refer our readers. In 
 1762 the Protestant pastor Rochette was hanged, 
 by order of the Parliament of Toulouse, for having 
 exercised his ministry in Languedoc. At the same 
 time three young gentlemen, Protestants, were be- 
 headed, for having taken arms to defend them- 
 selves from being slaughtered by the Catholics. 
 In 1762, the Protestant merchant Calas, an aged 
 and worthy citizen of Toulouse, was tortured and 
 broken on the wheel, on a wholly unsupported 
 charge of having killed his son to keep him from 
 turning Catholic. A Protestant girl named Sirven 
 was, about the same time, taken from her parents, 
 and shut up in a convent, to compel her to change 
 her religion. She escaped, and perished by acci- 
 dent during her flight. The parents were accused 
 of having killed her to keep her from becoming a 
 Catholic. They escaped, but the wife died of ex- 
 posure and want. In 1766 a crucifix was injured 
 by some wanton persons. The Bishop of Amiens 
 
254 VOLTAIRE 
 
 called out for vengeance. Two young officers, 
 eighteen years old, were accused. One escaped ; 
 the other, La Barre, was condemned to have his 
 tongue cut out, his right hand cut off, and to be 
 burned alive. The sentence was commuted to death 
 by decapitation. Voltaire, seventy years old, de- 
 voted himself with masterly ability and untiring 
 energy to save these victims ; and when he failed 
 in that, to show the falsehood of the charges, and 
 to obtain a revision of the judgments. He used 
 all means : personal appeals to men in power and 
 to female favorites, eloquence, wit, pathos in every 
 form of writing. He called on all his friends to 
 aid him. He poured a flood of light into these 
 dark places of iniquity. His generous labors were 
 crowned with success. He procured a reversal of 
 these iniquitous decisions ; in some cases a resto- 
 ration of the confiscated property, and a public 
 recognition of the innocence of those condemned. 
 Without knowing it, he was acting as a disciple 
 of Jesus. Perhaps he may have met in the other 
 world with the great leader of humanity, whom he 
 never understood below, and been surprised to hear 
 him say, " Inasmuch as thou hast done it to the 
 least of my little ones, thou hast done it unto me." 
 Carlyle tells us that the chief quality of Voltaire 
 was adroitness. He denies that he was really a 
 great man, and says that in one essential mark 
 of greatness he was wholly wanting, that is, ear- 
 nestness. He adds that Voltaire was by birth a 
 
VOLTAIRE 255 
 
 mocker ; that this was the irresistible bias of his 
 disposition ; that the first question with him was 
 always not what is true but what is false, not what 
 is to be loved but what is to be contemned. He 
 was shallow without heroism, full of pettiness, full 
 of vanity ; " not a great man, but only a great per- 
 sifleur" 
 
 But certainly some other qualities than these 
 were essential to produce the immense influence 
 which he exerted in his own time, and since. Be- 
 side the extreme adroitness of which Carlyle speaks, 
 he had as exhaustless an energy as was ever granted 
 to any of the sons of men. He was never happy 
 except when he was at work. He worked at home, 
 he worked when visiting, he worked in his carriage, 
 he worked at hotels. Amid annoyances and dis- 
 turbances which would have paralyzed the thought 
 and pen of others, Voltaire labored on. Upon his 
 sick bed, in extreme debility and in old age, that 
 untiring pen was ever in motion, and whatever 
 came from it interested all mankind. Besides the 
 innumerable books, tracts, and treatises which fill 
 the volumes of his collected works, there are said 
 to be in existence fourteen thousand of his letters, 
 half of which have never been printed. But this 
 was only a part of the outcome of his terrible vital- 
 ity. He was also an enterprising and energetic 
 man of business. He speculated in the funds, lent 
 money on interest, fitted out ships, bought and sold 
 real estate, solicited and obtained pensions. In this 
 
256 VOLTAIRE 
 
 way he changed his patrimony of about two hun- 
 dred thousand francs to an annual income of the 
 same amount, — equal to at least one hundred 
 thousand dollars a year at the present time. He 
 was determined to be rich, and he became so ; not 
 because he loved money for itself, nor because he 
 was covetous. He gave money freely ; he used it 
 in large ways. He sought wealth as a means of 
 self-defense, — to protect himself against the perse- 
 cution which his attacks on the Church might bring 
 upon him. He also had, like a great writer of the 
 present century, Walter Scott, the desire of being 
 a large landed proprietor and lord of a manor; 
 and, like Scott, he became one, reigning at Ferney 
 as Scott ruled at Abbotsford. 
 
 In defending himself against his persecutors he 
 used other means not so legitimate. One of his 
 methods was systematic falsehood. He first con- 
 cealed, and then denied, the authorship of any 
 works which would expose him to danger. He took 
 the tone of injured innocence. For example, he 
 had worked with delight, during twenty years, on 
 his wretched " Pucelle." To write new lines in it, 
 or a new canto, was his refreshment ; to read them 
 to his friends gave him the most intense satisfac- 
 tion. But when the poem found its way into print, 
 with what an outcry he denies the authorship, al- 
 most before he is charged with it. He assumes 
 the air of calumniated virtue. The charge, he de- 
 clares, is one of the infamous inventions of his ene- 
 
VOLTAIRE 257 
 
 mies. He writes to the " Journal Encyclopedique," 
 " The crowning point of their devilish manoeuvres 
 is the edition of a poem called 4 La Pucelle d'Or- 
 leans.' The editor has the face to attribute this 
 work to the author of the 4 Henriade,' the ' Zaire,' 
 the ' Merope,' the ' Alzire,' the ' Siecle de Louis 
 XIV.' He dares to ascribe to this author the flat- 
 test, meanest, and most gross work which can come 
 from the press. My pen refuses to copy the tissue 
 of silly and abominable obscenities of this work 
 of darkness." When the " Dictionnaire Philoso- 
 phique" began to appear, he wrote to D'Alembert, 
 " As soon as any danger arises, I beg you will let 
 me know, that I may disavow the work in all the 
 public papers with my usual candor and innocence." 
 Mr. Parton tells us that he had a hundred and 
 eight pseudonyms. He signed his pamphlets A 
 Benedictine, The Archbishop of Canterbury, A 
 Quaker, Rev. Josias Roussette, the Abbe Lilladet, 
 the Abbe Bigorre, the Pastor Bourn. He was also 
 ready to tell a downright lie when it suited his con- 
 venience. 
 
 When " Candide " was printed, in 1758, he 
 wrote, as Mr. Parton tells us, to a friendly pastor 
 in Geneva, " I have at length read i Candide.' 
 People must have lost their senses to attribute to 
 me that pack of nonsense. I have, thank God, 
 better occupation. This optimism [of Pangloss] 
 obviously destroys the foundation of our holy re- 
 ligion." Our holy religion ! 
 
258 VOLTAIRE 
 
 An excuse may be found for these falsehoods. 
 A writer, it may be said, has a right to his in- 
 cognito ; if so, he has a right to protect it by deny- 
 ing the authorship of a book when charged with it. 
 This is doubtful morality, but Voltaire went far 
 beyond this. He volunteered his denials. He as- 
 serted in every way, with the most solemn assevera- 
 tions, that he was not the author of a book which 
 he had written with delight. But this was not the 
 worst. He not only told these author's lies, but 
 he was a deliberate hypocrite, professing faith in 
 Christianity, receiving its sacraments, asking spir- 
 itual help from the Pope, and begging for relics 
 from the Vatican, at the very time that he was 
 hoping by strenuous efforts to destroy both Catholi- 
 cism and Christianity. 
 
 When he was endeavoring to be admitted to a 
 place in the French Academy, he wrote thus to the 
 Bishop of Mirepoix : 1 " Thanks to Heaven, my re- 
 ligion teaches me to know how to suffer. The 
 God who founded it, as soon as he deigned to be- 
 come man, was of all men the most persecuted. 
 After such an example, it is almost a crime to 
 complain. ... I can say, before God who hears 
 me, that I am a good citizen and a true Catholic. 
 ... I have written many pages sanctified by re- 
 ligion." In this Mr. Parton admits that he went 
 too far. 
 
 When at Colmar, as a measure of self-protec- 
 
 1 Parton. i. 461. 
 
VOLTAIRE 259 
 
 tion, he resolved to commune at Easter. Mr. Par- 
 ton says that Voltaire had pensions and rents to 
 the amount of sixty thousand livres annually, of 
 which the king could deprive him by a stroke 
 of the pen. So he determined to prove himself 
 a good Catholic by taking the sacraments. As a 
 necessary preliminary, he confessed to a Capuchin 
 monk. He wrote to D'Argens just before, " If I 
 had a hundred thousand men, I know what I 
 should do ; but as I have them not, I shall com- 
 mune at Easter ! " But, writing to Rousseau, he 
 thinks it shameful in Galileo to retract his opin- 
 ions. Mr. Parton too, who is disposed to excuse 
 some of these hypocrisies in Voltaire, is scanda- 
 lized because the pastors of Geneva denied the 
 charges of heresy brought against them by Vol- 
 taire ; saying that " we live, as they lived, in an 
 atmosphere of insincerity." In the midst of all 
 this, Voltaire took credit to himself for his frank 
 avowals of the truth : "I am not wrong to dare to 
 utter what worthy men think. For forty years I 
 have braved the base empire of the despots of the 
 mind." Mr. Parton elsewhere seems to think it 
 would have been impossible for Voltaire to versify 
 the Psalms ; as it was " asked him to give the lie 
 publicly to his whole career." But if communing 
 at Easter did not do this, how could a versification 
 of a few psalms accomplish it? Parton quotes 
 Condorcet as saying that Voltaire could not be- 
 come a hypocrite, even to be a cardinal. Could 
 
260 VOLTAIRE 
 
 any one do a more hypocritical action than to par- 
 take the sacraments of a Church which he despised 
 in order to escape the danger of persecution ? 
 
 When building his house at Ferney, the neigh- 
 boring Catholic cures interfered with him. They 
 prohibited the laborers from working for him. To 
 meet this difficulty he determined to obtain the 
 protection of the Pope himself. So he wrote to 
 the Pope, asking for a relic to put in the church 
 he had built, and received in return a piece of the 
 hair-shirt of St. Francis. He went to mass fre- 
 quently. Meantime, in his letters to his brother 
 freethinkers, he added his usual postscript, " Ecra- 
 sez l'lnfame ; " begging their aid in crushing 
 Catholicism and Christianity. Yet it does not 
 seem that he considered himself a hypocrite in 
 thus conforming outwardly to a religion which he 
 hated. He thinks that others who do so are hypo- 
 crites, but not that he is one. In 1764 he writes 
 to Madame du Deffand, " The worst is that we 
 are surrounded by hypocrites, who worry us to 
 make us think what they themselves do not think 
 at all." So singular are the self-deceptions of the 
 human mind. He writes to Frederic ridiculing 
 the sacrament of extreme unction, and then sol- 
 emnly partakes of the eucharist. Certainly he 
 did not belong to the noble army of martyrs. He 
 expected to overturn a great religious system, not 
 by the power of faith, but by ingenious pamphlets, 
 brilliant sarcasms, adroit deceptions. In thus 
 thinking he was eminently superficial. 
 
VOLTAIRE 261 
 
 His theory on this subject is given in an article 
 in the " Dictionnaire Philosophique," quoted by 
 Mr. Parton : " Distinguish honest people who think, 
 from the populace who were not made to think. 
 If usage obliges you to perform a ridiculous cere- 
 mony for the sake of the canaille, and on the road 
 you meet some people of understanding, notify 
 them by a sign of the head, or a look, that you 
 think as they do. . . . If imbeciles still wish to 
 eat acorns, let them have acorns." 
 
 Mr. Parton describes in full (vol. ii. p. 410) 
 the ceremony of the eucharist of which Voltaire 
 partook in his own church at Ferney. It was 
 Easter Sunday, and Voltaire mounted the pulpit 
 and preached a sermon against theft. Hearing of 
 this, the bishop was scandalized, and forbade all 
 the curates of the diocese from confessing, absolv- 
 ing, or giving the sacrament to Voltaire. Upon 
 this Voltaire writes and signs a formal demand on 
 the curate of Ferney to allow him to confess and 
 commune in the Catholic Church, in which he was 
 born, has lived, and wishes to die ; offering to 
 make all necessary declarations, all requisite pro- 
 testations, in public or private, submitting himself 
 absolutely to all the rules of the Church, for the 
 edification of Catholics and Protestants. All this 
 was a mere piece of mystification and fun. He 
 pretended to be too sick to go to the church, and 
 made a Capuchin come and administer the eucha- 
 rist to him in bed ; Voltaire saying, " Having my 
 
262 VOLTAIRE 
 
 God in my mouth, I declare that I forgive all my 
 enemies." No wonder that with all his marvelous 
 ability and his long war upon the Catholic Church 
 he was unable to make any lasting impression upon 
 it. Talent is not enough to make revolutions of 
 opinion. No serious faith was ever destroyed by 
 a jest. 
 
 If we return to Rousseau, and compare his in- 
 fluence with that of Voltaire, we shall find that it 
 went far deeper. Voltaire was a man of immense 
 talent. Talent originates nothing, but formulates 
 into masterly expression what has come to it from 
 the age in which it lives. Not a new idea can be 
 found, we believe, in all Voltaire's innumerable 
 writings. But genius has a vision of ideal truth. 
 It is a prophet of the future. Rousseau, with his 
 many faults, weaknesses, follies, was a man of gen- 
 ius. He was probably the most eloquent writer of 
 French prose who has ever appeared. He was a 
 man possessed by his ideas. He had none of the 
 adroitness, wit, ingenuity, of Voltaire. Instead 
 of amassing an enormous fortune, he supported 
 himself by copying music. Instead of being sur- 
 rounded by admirers and flatterers, he led a soli- 
 tary life, alone with his ideas. Instead of deny- 
 ing the authorship of his works, and so giving an 
 excuse to the authorities to leave him quiet, he put 
 his name to his writings. He worked for his 
 bread with his hands, and in his "Emile" he recom- 
 mended that all boys should be taught some man- 
 
VOLTAIRE 263 
 
 ual craft. Voltaire ridiculed the gentleman car- 
 penter of Eousseau ; but before that generation 
 passed away, many a French nobleman had rea- 
 son to lament that he had not been taught to use 
 the saw and the plane. 
 
 If Voltaire belonged to the eighteenth century, 
 and brought to a brilliant focus its scattered 
 rays, Eousseau belonged more to the nineteenth. 
 Amidst the persiflage, the mockery, the light and 
 easy philosophy, of his day, he stood, " among 
 them, but not of them, in a crowd of thoughts 
 which were not their thoughts." This is the true 
 explanation of his weakness and strength, and of 
 the intense dislike felt for him by Voltaire and 
 the school of Voltaire. They belonged to their 
 time, Eousseau to a coming time. 
 
 The eighteenth century, especially in France, 
 was one in which nature was at its minimum and 
 art at its maximum. All was art. But art sepa- 
 rated from nature becomes artificial, not to say 
 artful. Decorum was the law in morals ; the 
 bienseances and convenances ruled in society. 
 The stage was bound by conventional rules. Poe- 
 try walked in silk attire, and made its toilette 
 with the elaborate dignity of the levee of the 
 Grand Monarque. Against all this Eousseau led 
 the reaction — the reaction inevitable as destiny. 
 As art had been pushed to an extreme, so now 
 naturalism was carried to the opposite extreme. 
 Eousseau was the apostle of nature in all things. 
 
264 VOLTAIBE 
 
 Children were to be educated by the methods of 
 nature, not according to the routine of old custom. 
 Governments were to go back to their origin in 
 human nature ; society was to be reorganized on 
 first principles. This voice crying in the wilder- 
 ness was like the trumpet of doom to the age, an- 
 nouncing the age to come. It laid the axe at the 
 root of the tree. Its outcome was the French 
 Revolution, that rushing, mighty flood, which car- 
 ried away the throne, the aristocracy, the manners, 
 laws, and prejudices of the past. 
 
 In his first great work, the work which startled 
 Europe, Rousseau recalled man to himself. He 
 said, " The true philosophy is to commune with 
 one's self, " — the greatest saying, thinks Henri 
 Martin, that had been pronounced in that century. 
 Rousseau condemned luxury, and uttered a pro- 
 phetic cry of woe over the tangled perplexities of 
 the time. " There is no longer a remedy, unless 
 through some great revolution, almost as much to 
 he feared as the evil it would cure, — which it is 
 blamable to desire, impossible to foresee ." 
 
 " Man is naturally good," says Rousseau. Be- 
 fore the frightful words " mine " and " thine " 
 were invented, how could there have been, he 
 asks, any vices or crimes ? He denounced all 
 slavery, all inequality, all forms of oppression. 
 His writings were full of exaggeration, but, says 
 the French historian, " no sooner had he opened 
 his lips than he restored earnestness to the world." 
 
VOLTAIRE 265 
 
 The same writer, after speaking of the faults of 
 the "Nouvelle Heloi'se," adds that nevertheless " a 
 multitude of the letters of his ' Julie ' are master- 
 pieces of eloquence, passion, and profundity ; and 
 the last portions are signalized by a moral pur- 
 ity, a wisdom of views, and a religious elevation 
 altogether new in the France of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury." Concerning " Emile," he says, " It is the pro- 
 f oundest study of human nature in our language ; 
 it was an ark of safety, launched by Providence 
 on the waves of skepticism and materialism. If 
 Eousseau had been stricken out of the eighteenth 
 century, whither, we seriously ask, would the hu- 
 man mind have drifted ? " 1 
 
 The "Social Contract" appeared in 1762. In 
 this work Eousseau swept away by his powerful 
 eloquence the arguments which placed sovereignty 
 elsewhere than in the hands of the people. This 
 fundamental idea was the seed corn which broke 
 from the earth in the first Revolution, and bears its 
 ripe fruit in republican France to-day. D'Alem- 
 bert, who disliked Eousseau, said of " Emile " 
 that " it placed him at the head of all writers." 
 The " Social Contract," illogical and unsound in 
 many things, yet tore down the whole framework 
 of despotism. Van Laun, a more recent histo- 
 rian, tells us that Eousseau was a man of the 
 people, who knew all their wants ; that every vice 
 he attacked was one that they saw really present 
 1 Martin's History of France. 
 
266 VOLTAIRE 
 
 in their midst ; that he " opened the flood-gates of 
 suppressed desires, which gushed forth, over- 
 whelming a whole artificial world." Villemain 
 writes that the words of Rousseau, " descending 
 like a flame of fire, moved the souls of his con- 
 temporaries ; " and that " his books glow with an 
 eloquence which can never pass away." Morley, 
 to whom Rousseau is essentially antipathic, says of 
 the " Social Contract " that its first words, " Man 
 is born free, but is everywhere in chains, " thrilled 
 two continents, — that it was the gospel of the 
 Jacobins ; and the action of the convention in 
 1794 can be explained only by the influence of 
 Rousseau. He taught France to believe in a gov- 
 ernment of the people, by the people, and for the 
 people. Locke had already taught this doctrine 
 in England, where it produced no such violent 
 outbreak, because it encountered no such glaring 
 abuses. 
 
 Such is the striking contrast between these two 
 greatest writers in modern French literature. It 
 is singular to observe their instinctive antagonism 
 in every point of belief and character. The merits 
 of one are precisely opposite to those of the other : 
 their faults are equally opposed. 
 
 The events of Voltaire's life have been so often 
 told that Mr. Parton has not been able to acid 
 much to our knowledge of his biography. He was 
 born in 1694 and died in 1778, at the age of 
 eighty-four, though at his birth he was so feeble 
 
VOLTAIRE 267 
 
 that those who believe that the world's progress 
 depends on the survival of the fittest would have 
 thought him not fit to be brought up. This was 
 also the case with Goethe and Walter Scott. His 
 father was a notary, and the name Arouet had 
 that of Voltaire added to it, it being a name in his 
 mother's family. This affix was adopted by the 
 lad when in the Bastille, at the age of twenty-four. 
 As a duck takes to water, so Voltaire took to his 
 pen. In his twelfth year he wrote verses ad- 
 dressed to the Dauphin, which so pleased the 
 famous Ninon de l'Enclos, then in her ninetieth 
 year, that she left the boy a legacy of two thou- 
 sand francs. He went to a Jesuits' school, and 
 always retained a certain liking for the Jesuits. 
 His father wished to make him a notary, but he 
 would " pen a stanza when he should engross ; " 
 and the usual struggles between the paternal pur- 
 pose and the filial instinct ended, as usual, in the 
 triumph of the latter. He led a wild career for a 
 time, in the society of dissipated abbes, debauched 
 noblemen, and women to whom pleasure was the 
 only object. Suspected of having written a lam- 
 poon on the death of Louis XIV., he was sent to 
 the Bastille, and came forth not only with a new 
 name, but with literature as his aim for the rest of 
 his life. His first play appeared on the stage in 
 1718, and from that time he continued to write 
 till his death. He traveled from the chateau of 
 one nobleman to another, pouring out his satires 
 
268 VOLTAIRE 
 
 and sarcasms through the press ; threatened by 
 the angry rulers and priests who governed France, 
 but always escaping by some adroit manoeuvre. 
 In England he became a deist and a mathemati- 
 cian. His views of Christ and Christianity were 
 summed up in a quatrain which may be thus 
 translated. Speaking of Jesus, he says, — 
 
 " His actions are holy, his ethics divine ; 
 Into hearts which are wounded he pours oil and wine. 
 And if, through imposture, those truths are received, 
 It still is a blessing to be thus deceived." 
 
 He lived many years at Cirey with the Marchion- 
 ess of Chatelet ; the marquis, her husband, accept- 
 ing the curious relation without any objection. 
 Then followed the still stranger episode of his 
 residence with Frederic the Great, their love quar- 
 rels and reconciliations. After this friendship 
 came to ^n end, Voltaire went to live near Geneva 
 in Switzerland, but soon bought another estate 
 just out of Switzerland, in France, and a third a 
 short distance away, in the territory of another 
 power. Thus, if threatened in one state, he could 
 easily pass into another. Here he lived and 
 worked till the close of his life, an untiring writer. 
 He was a man of infinite wit, kind-hearted, w r ith 
 little malignity of any sort, wishing in the main 
 to do good. His violent attacks upon Christianity 
 may be explained by the fact of the corruptions of 
 the Church which were around him. The. Church 
 of France in that day, in its higher circles, was a 
 
VOLTAIRE 269 
 
 persecuting Church, yet without faith : greedy for 
 wealth, living in luxury, careless of the poor, and 
 well deserving the attacks of Voltaire. That he 
 could not look deeper and see the need of reli- 
 gious institutions of a better sort was his mis- 
 fortune. 
 
 This work is a storehouse of facts for the history 
 of Voltaire and his time. We do not think it will 
 materially alter the judgment pronounced on him 
 by such critics as Carlyle, Morley, and the majority 
 of French writers in our day. Voltaire was a shin- 
 ing light in his age, but that age has gone by, and 
 can never return. 
 
EALPH WALDO EMEESON 1 
 
 Matt. vi. 23. — If thine eye he single, thy whole body shall be full of 
 
 light. 
 
 It is natural and fit that many pulpits to-day 
 should take for their theme the character and influ- 
 ence of the great thinker and poet who has just 
 left us ; for every such soul is a new revelation of 
 God's truth and love. Each opens the gateway be- 
 tween our lower world of earthly care and earthly 
 pleasure into a higher heavenly world of spirit. 
 Such men lift our lives to a higher plane, and con- 
 vince us that we, also, belong to God, to eternity, 
 to heaven. And few, in our day, have been such 
 mediators of heavenly things to mankind as Ralph 
 Waldo Emerson. 
 
 Last Sunday afternoon, when the town of Con- 
 cord was mourning through all its streets for the 
 loss of its beloved and revered citizen ; when the 
 humblest cottage had on its door the badge of sor- 
 row ; when great numbers came from abroad to 
 testify their affection and respect, that which im- 
 pressed me the most was the inevitable response 
 of the human heart to whatever is true and good. 
 Cynics may tell us that men are duped by charla- 
 
 1 A sermon preached May 7, 1882. 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 271 
 
 tans, led by selfish demagogues, incapable of know- 
 ing honor and truth when set before them ; that 
 they always stone their prophets and crucify their 
 saviors ; that they have eyes, and do not see ; ears, 
 and never hear. This is all true for a time ; but 
 inevitably, by a law as sure as that which governs 
 the movements of the planets, the souls of men 
 turn at last toward what is true, generous, and 
 noble. The prophets and teachers of the race may 
 be stoned by one generation, but their monuments 
 are raised by the next. They are misunderstood 
 and misrepresented to-day, but to-morrow they be- 
 come the accredited leaders of their time. Jesus, 
 who knew well that he would be rejected and mur- 
 dered by a people blind and deaf to his truth, also 
 knew that this truth would sooner or later break 
 down all opposition, and make him master and 
 king of the world. " I, if I be lifted up, will draw 
 all men unto me." 
 
 Last Sunday afternoon, as the grateful proces- 
 sion followed their teacher to his grave in the Con- 
 cord cemetery, the harshness of our spring seemed 
 to relent, and Nature became tender toward him 
 who had loved her so well. I thought of his words, 
 " The visible heavens and earth sympathized with 
 Jesus." The town where " the embattled farmers 
 stood ; " where the musket was discharged which 
 opened the War of the Revolution — the gun of 
 which Lafayette said, " It was the alarm-gun of the 
 world ; " the town of Hawthorne's " Old Manse," 
 
272 BALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 and of his grave, now that Emerson also sleeps in 
 its quiet valley, has received an added glory. It 
 has become one of the "Meccas of the mind." 
 
 Let me describe the mental and spiritual condi- 
 tion of New England when Emerson appeared. 
 Calvinism, with its rigorous dogmatism, was slowly 
 dying, and had been succeeded by a calm and some- 
 what formal rationalism. Locke was still the mas- 
 ter in the realm of thought; Addison and Blair in 
 literary expression. In poetry, the school of Pope 
 was engaged in conflict with that of Byron and his 
 contemporaries. Wordsworth had led the way to 
 a deeper view of nature ; but Wordsworth could 
 scarcely be called a popular writer. In theology a 
 certain literalism prevailed, and the doctrines of 
 Christianity were inferred from counting and weigh- 
 ing texts on either side. Not the higher reason, 
 with its intuition of eternal ideas, but the analytic 
 understanding, with its logical methods, was con- 
 sidered to be the ruler in the world of thought. 
 There was more of culture than of intellectual life, 
 more of good habits than of moral enthusiasm. 
 Religion had become very much of an external 
 institution. Christianity consisted in holding ra- 
 tional or orthodox opinions, going regularly to 
 church, and listening every Sunday to a certain 
 number of prayers, hymns, and sermons. These 
 sermons, with some striking exceptions, were rather 
 tame and mechanical. In Boston, it is true, Buck- 
 minster had appeared, — that soul of flame which 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 273 
 
 soon wore to decay its weak body. The consum- 
 mate orator Edward Everett had followed him in 
 Brattle Square pulpit. Above all, Channing had 
 looked, with a new spiritual insight, into the truths 
 of religion and morality. But still the mechanical 
 treatment prevailed in a majority of the churches 
 of New England, and was considered, on the whole, 
 to be the wisest and safest method. There was an 
 unwritten creed of morals, literature, and social 
 thought to which all were expected to conform. 
 There was little originality and much repetition. 
 On all subjects there were certain formulas which 
 it was considered proper to repeat. " Thou art a 
 blessed fellow," says one of Shakspeare's charac- 
 ters, " to think as other people think. Not a man's 
 thought in the world keeps the roadway better than 
 thine." The thought of New England kept the 
 roadway. Of course, at all times a large part of 
 the belief of the community is derived from mem- 
 ory, custom, and imitation ; but in those days, if 
 I remember them aright, it was regarded as a kind 
 of duty to think as every one else thought ; a sort 
 of delinquency, or weakness, to differ from the ma- 
 jority. 
 
 If the movements of thought are now much 
 more independent and spontaneous ; if to-day tra- 
 ditions have lost their despotic power; if even 
 those who hold an orthodox creed are able to treat 
 it as a dead letter, respectable for its past uses, 
 but by no means binding on us now, this is largely 
 
274 BALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 owing to the manly position taken by Emerson. 
 And yet, let it be observed, this influence was not 
 exercised by attacking old opinions, by argument, 
 by denial, by criticism. Theodore Parker did all 
 this, but his influence on thought has been far less 
 than that of Emerson. Parker was a hero who 
 snuffed the battle afar off, and flung himself, 
 sword in hand, into the thick of the conflict. But, 
 much as we love and reverence his honesty, his 
 immense activity, his devotion to truth and right, 
 we must admit to-day, standing by these two 
 friendly graves, that the power of Emerson to 
 soften the rigidity of time-hardened belief was far 
 the greater. It is the old fable of the storm and 
 sun. The violent attacks of the tempest only 
 made the traveler cling more closely to his cloak ; 
 the genial heat of the sun compelled him to throw 
 it aside. In all Emerson's writings there is 
 scarcely any argument. He attacks no man's be- 
 lief; he simply states his own. His method is 
 always positive, constructive. He opens the win- 
 dows and lets in more light. He is no man's 
 opponent ; the enemy of no one. He states what 
 he sees, and that which he does not see he passes 
 by. He was often attacked, but never replied. 
 His answer was to go forward, and say something 
 else. He did not care for what he called the 
 " bugbear consistency." If to-day he said what 
 seemed like Pantheism, and to-morrow he saw 
 some truth which seemed to reveal a divine per- 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 275 
 
 sonality, a supreme will, he uttered the last, as he 
 had declared the first, always faithful to the light 
 within. He left it to the spirit of truth to recon- 
 cile such apparent contradictions. He was like 
 his ow T n humble-bee — 
 
 " Seeing* only what is fair, 
 
 Sipping* only what is sweet ; 
 Thou dost mock at fate and care, 
 
 Leave the chaff and take the wheat." 
 
 By this method of positive statement he not 
 only saved the time usually wasted in argument, 
 attack, reply, rejoinder, but he gave us the sub- 
 stance of Truth, instead of its form. Logic and 
 metaphysic reveal no truths ; they merely arrange 
 in order what the higher faculties of the mind 
 have made known. Hence the speedy oblivion 
 which descends on polemics of all sorts. The 
 great theological debaters, where are they ? The 
 books of Horsley and McGee are buried in 
 the same grave with those of Belsham and 
 Priestley, their old opponents. The bitter attacks 
 on Christianity by Voltaire and Paine are inurned 
 in the same dark and forgotten vaults with the 
 equally bitter defenses of Christianity by its 
 nnmerous champions. Argument may often be 
 necessary, but no truth is slain by argument ; no 
 error can be kept alive by it. Emerson is an emi- 
 nent example of a man who never replied to at- 
 tacks, but went on his way, and saw at last all 
 opposition hushed, all hostility at an end. He 
 
276 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 devoted his powers to giving to his readers his 
 insights, knowing that these alone feed the soul. 
 Thus men came to him to be fed. His sheep 
 heard his voice. Those who felt themselves better 
 for his instruction followed him. He collected 
 around him thus an ever-increasing band of disci- 
 ples, until in England, in Germany, in all lands 
 where men read and think, he is looked up to as a 
 master. Many of these disciples were persons of 
 rare gifts and powers, like Margaret Fuller, Theo- 
 dore Parker, George Ripley, Hawthorne. Many 
 others were unknown to fame, yet deeply sensible 
 of the blessings they had received from their pro- 
 phet and seer of the nineteenth century. For this 
 was his office. He was a man who saw. He had 
 the vision and the faculty divine. He sat near 
 the fountain-head, and tasted the waters of Heli- 
 con in their source. 
 
 His first little book, a duodecimo of less than a 
 hundred pages, called "Nature," published in 
 1836, indicates all these qualities. It begins 
 thus : — 
 
 " Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepul- 
 chres of the fathers. It writes biographies, his- 
 tories, criticisms. The foregoing generations be- 
 held God and Nature face to face; we, through 
 their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an 
 original relation to the universe? Why should 
 not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight, 
 and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 277 
 
 to us, and not the history of theirs ? . . . The sun 
 shines to-day also. . . . Undoubtedly we have no 
 questions to ask which are unanswerable." 
 
 This was his first doctrine, that of self-reliance. 
 He taught that God had given to every man the 
 power to see with his own eyes, think with his own 
 mind, believe what seemed to him true, plant him- 
 self on his instincts, and, as he says, " call a pop- 
 gun a pop-gun, though the ancient and honorable 
 of the earth declare it to be the crack of doom." 
 This was manly and wholesome doctrine. It 
 might, no doubt, be abused, and lead some persons 
 to think they were men of original genius when 
 they were only eccentric. It may have led others 
 to attack all institutions and traditions, as though, 
 if a thing were old, it was necessarily false. But 
 Emerson himself was the best antidote to such 
 extravagance. To a youth who brought to him a 
 manuscript confuting Plato he replied, " When 
 you attack the king you ought to be sure to kill 
 him." But his protest against the prevailing con- 
 ventionalism was healthy, and his call on all " to 
 be themselves " was inspiring. 
 
 The same doctrine is taught in the introductory 
 remarks of the editors of the " Dial." They say 
 they have obeyed with joy the strong current of 
 thought which has led many sincere persons to 
 reprobate that rigor of conventions which is turn- 
 ing them to stone, which renounces hope and only 
 looks backward, which suspects improvement, and 
 
278 BALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 holds nothing so much in horror as the dreams of 
 youth. This work, the " Dial," made a great 
 impression, out of all proportion to its small cir- 
 culation. By the elders it was cordially declared 
 to be unintelligible mysticism, and so, no doubt, 
 much of it was. Those inside, its own friends, 
 often made as much fun of it as those outside. 
 Yet it opened the door for many new and noble 
 thoughts, and was a wild bugle-note, a reveille, 
 calling on all generous hearts to look toward the 
 coming day. 
 
 Here is an extract from one of Emerson's letters 
 from Europe as early as March, 1833. It is dated 
 Naples : — 
 
 " And what if it be Naples ! It is only the 
 same world of cakes and ale, of man, and truth, 
 and folly. I will not be imposed upon by a name. 
 It is so easy to be overawed by names that it is 
 hard to keep one's judgment upright, and be 
 pleased only after your own way. Baiae and Pau- 
 silippo sound so big that we are ready to surren- 
 der at discretion, and not stickle for our private 
 opinion against what seems the human race. But 
 here 's for the plain old Adam, the simple, genu- 
 ine self against the whole world." 
 
 Again he says : " Nothing so fatal to genius as 
 genius. Mr. Taylor, author of ' Van Artevelde,' 
 is a man of great intellect, but by study of Shake- 
 speare is forced to reproduce Shakespeare." 
 
 Thus the first great lesson taught by Mr. Emer- 
 
BALPH WALDO EMERSON 279 
 
 son was " self-reliance." And the second was 
 like it, though apparently opposed to it, " God- 
 reliance." Not really opposed to it, for it meant 
 this : God is near to your mind and heart, as 
 he was to the mind and heart of the prophets 
 and inspired men of the past. God is ready to 
 inspire you also if you will trust in him. In the 
 little book called " Nature " he says : — 
 
 u The highest is present to the soul of man ; the 
 dread universal essence, which is not wisdom, or 
 love, or power, or beauty, but all in one, and each 
 entirely, is that for which all things exist, and by 
 which they are. Believe that throughout nature 
 spirit is present ; that it is one, that it does no.t 
 act upon us from without, but through ourselves. 
 • . • As a plant on the earth, so man rests on the 
 bosom of God, nourished by unfailing fountains, 
 and drawing at his need inexhaustible power." 
 
 And so in his poem called "The Problem" he 
 teaches that all religions are from God; that all 
 the prophets and sibyls and lofty souls that have 
 sung psalms, written scripture, and built the tem- 
 ples and cathedrals of men, were inspired by a 
 spirit above their own. He puts aside the shallow 
 explanation that any of the great religions ever 
 came from priestcraft : — 
 
 " Out from the heart of Nature rolled 
 The burdens of the Bible old ; 
 The litanies of nations came, 
 Like the volcano's tongue of flame, 
 Up from the burning core below, 
 The canticles of love and woe. 
 
280 BALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 " The word unto the prophet spoken 
 Was writ on tables yet unbroken ; 
 The word by seers or sibyls told, 
 In groves of oak or fanes of gold, 
 Still floats upon the moving wind, 
 Still whispers to the willing mind. 
 One accent of the Holy Ghost 
 The heedless world hath never lost." 
 
 In all that Emerson says of nature he is equally 
 devout. He sees God in it all. It is to him full 
 of a divine charm. " In the woods," he says, " is 
 perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God 
 a decorum and sanctity reigns, and we return to 
 reason and faith." " The currents of the Univer- 
 sal Being circulate through me. I am part and 
 particle of God." For saying such things as these 
 he was accused of Pantheism. And he was a Pan- 
 theist ; yet only as Paul was a Pantheist when he 
 said, " In Him we live and move and have our 
 being ; " " From whom and through whom are all 
 things ; " " The fullness of him who filleth all in 
 all." Emerson was, in his view of nature, at one 
 with Wordsworth, who said : — 
 
 " The clouds were touched, 
 And in their silent faces he could read 
 Unutterable love. Sensation, soul, and form 
 All melted into him ; they swallowed up 
 His animal being ; in them did he live, 
 And by them did he live ; they were his life. 
 
 In such high hour 
 Of visitation from the living God, 
 Thought was not ; in enjoyment it expired." 
 
 Emerson has thus been to our day the prophet 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 281 
 
 of God in the soul, in nature, in life. He has 
 stood for spirit against matter. Darwin, his great 
 peer, the serene master in the school of science, 
 was like him in this, — that he also said what he 
 saw and no more. He also taught what God 
 showed to him in the outward world of sense, as 
 Emerson what God showed in the inward world of 
 spirit. Amid the stormy disputes of their time, 
 each of these men went his own way, his eye sin- 
 gle and his whole body full of light. The work of 
 Darwin was the easier, for he floated with the 
 current of the time, which sets at present so strongly 
 toward the study of things seen and temporal. 
 But the work of Emerson was more noble, for he 
 stands for things unseen and eternal, — for a larger 
 religion, a higher faith, a nobler worship. This 
 strong and tender soul has done its work and gone 
 on its way. But he will always fill a niche of the 
 universal Church as a New England prophet. He 
 had the purity of the New England air in his moral 
 nature, a touch of the shrewd Yankee wit in his 
 speech, and the long inheritance of ancestral faith 
 incarnate and consolidated in blood and brain. 
 But to this were added qualities which were de- 
 rived from some far-off realm of human life: an 
 Oriental cast of thought, a touch of mediaeval 
 mysticism, and a vocabulary brought from books 
 unknown to our New England literature. No 
 commonplaces of language are to be found in his 
 writings, and though he read the older writers, he 
 
282 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 does not imitate them. He, also, like his humble- 
 bee, has gathered contributions from remotest fields, 
 and enriched our language with a new and pictu- 
 resque speech all his own. 
 
 Let us, then, be grateful for this best of God's 
 gifts, — another soul sent to us filled with divine 
 light. Thus we learn anew how full are nature 
 and life of God : — 
 
 " Ever fresh the broad creation, 
 A divine improvisation ; 
 From the heart of God proceeds 
 A single will, a million deeds." 
 
 One word concerning Mr. Emerson's relation to 
 Christ and to Christianity. The distinction which 
 he made between Jesus and other teachers was, no 
 doubt, one of degree and not one of kind. He put 
 no great gulf of supernatural powers, origin, or of- 
 fice between Christ and the ethnic prophets. But 
 his reverence for Jesus was profound and tender. 
 Nor did he object to the word " Christian " or to 
 the Christian Church. In recent years, at least, he 
 not unfrequently attended the services of the Uni- 
 tarian Church in his town, and I have met him at 
 Unitarian conventions, a benign and revered pre- 
 sence. 
 
 In the cemetery at Bonn, on the Rhine, is the 
 tomb of Niebuhr, the historian, a man of some- 
 what like type, as I judge, to our Emerson. At 
 least, some texts on his monument would be admi- 
 rably appropriate for any stone which may be 
 
BALPH WALDO EMERSON 283 
 
 placed over the remains of the American prophet 
 and poet in the sweet valley of tombs in Concord. 
 One of these texts was from Sirach xlvii. 14, 17 : 
 
 " How wise wast thou in thy youth, and as a flood filled with 
 understanding* ! 
 
 Thy soul covered the whole earth, and thou filledst it with 
 dark parables. 
 
 Thy name went far unto the islands, and for thy peace thou 
 wast beloved. 
 
 The countries marvelled at thee for thy songs and proverbs 
 and parables and interpretations." 
 
 And equally appropriate would be this Horatian 
 line, also on Niebuhr's monument : — 
 
 M Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tarn cari capitis." 
 
 From a lifelong friend of Emerson I have just 
 received a letter containing these words, which, 
 better than most descriptions, give the character of 
 his soul : — 
 
 " And so the white wings have spread, and the 
 great soul has left us. 
 
 * 'Tis death is dead ; not he.' 
 
 He had no vanity, no selfishness ; no greed, no 
 hate ; none of the weights that drag on common 
 mortals. His life was an illumination ; a large, 
 fair light ; the Pharos of New England, as in other 
 days our dear brother called him. And this light 
 shone further and wider the longer it burned." 
 
HARRIET MARTINEAU 1 
 
 The whole work 2 is very interesting. How could 
 it be otherwise, in giving the history of so remark- 
 able a life ? The amount of literary work which 
 Miss Martineau performed is amazing. She began 
 to write for the press when she was nineteen, and 
 continued until she could no longer hold her pen. 
 The pen was her sword, which she wielded with a 
 warrior's joy, in the conflict of truth with error, of 
 right with wrong. She wrote many books ; but 
 her articles in reviews and newspapers were innu- 
 merable. We find no attempt in either part of this 
 biography to give a complete list of her writings. 
 Perhaps it would be impossible. She never seems 
 to have thought of keeping such a record herself, 
 any more than a hero records the number of the 
 blows he strikes in battle. No sooner had she dis- 
 missed one task than another came ; and sometimes 
 several were going on together. Like other volu- 
 minous writers, she enjoyed the exercise of her pro- 
 ductive powers ; and, as she somewhere tells us, her 
 happiest hours were those in which she was seated 
 at her desk with her pen. 
 
 1 The North American Review, May, 1877. 
 
 2 Harriet Martineau 's Autobiography. Edited by Maria Weston 
 Chapman. 2 vols. 
 
HARRIET MARTIN E ATI 285 
 
 Her principal works cover a large range of 
 thought and study. One of her first books, " The 
 Traditions of Palestine," she continued to regard 
 long after with more affection than any other of 
 her writings, except " Eastern Life." But her 
 authorship began when she was nineteen, in an arti- 
 cle contributed to a Unitarian monthly. After- 
 wards she obtained three separate prizes offered by 
 the Central Unitarian Association for three essays 
 on different topics. About the same time she wrote 
 "Five Years of Youth," a tale which she never 
 looked at afterward. But her first great step in 
 authorship, and that which at once made her a 
 power in politics and in literature, was taken when 
 she commenced her series of tales on " Political 
 Economy." She began, however, to write these 
 stories, not knowing that she was treating questions 
 of Political Economy, " the very name of which," 
 she says, " was then either unknown to me, or con- 
 veyed no meaning." She was then about twenty- 
 five years old. She had the usual difficulties with 
 various publishers which unknown authors are sure 
 to experience, and these tales, which became so 
 popular, were rejected by one firm after another. 
 Oue of them was refused by the Society for the 
 Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, as being too dull. 
 The president of that Society, Lord Brougham, 
 afterward vented his rage on the sub-committee 
 which rejected the offered story, and so had per- 
 mitted their Society, " instituted for that very pur- 
 
286 HARRIET MARTIN EAU 
 
 pose, to be driven out of the field by a little deaf 
 woman at Norwich." At last a publisher was 
 found who agreed to take the books on very un- 
 satisfactory terms. As soon as the first number 
 appeared, the success of the series was established. 
 A second edition of five thousand copies was im- 
 mediately called for, — the entire periodical press 
 came out in favor of the tales, — and from that 
 hour Miss Martineau had only to choose what to 
 write, sure that it would at once find a publisher. 
 
 She was at this time thirty years old. She was 
 already deaf, her health poor ; but she then began 
 a career of intellectual labor seldom equaled by 
 the strongest man through the longest life. She 
 began to write every morning after breakfast ; and, 
 unless when traveling, seldom passed a morning 
 during the rest of her life without writing, — 
 working from eight o'clock until two. Her method 
 was, after selecting her subject, to procure all the 
 standard works upon it, and study them. She then 
 proceeded to make the plan of her work, and to 
 draw the outline of her story. If the scene was 
 laid abroad, she procured books of travels and 
 topography. Then she drew up the contents of 
 each chapter in detail, and, after this preliminary 
 labor, the story was written easily and with joy. 
 
 Of these stories she wrote thirty-four in two 
 years and a half. She was then thirty -two. She 
 received £2,000 for the whole series, — a suffi- 
 ciently small compensation, — but she established 
 
HARRIET MARTINEAU 287 
 
 her position and her fame. Her principal books pub- 
 lished afterward were her two works on America, 
 the novels " Deerbrook " and " The Hour and the 
 Man ; " nine volumes of tales on the Forest and 
 Game Laws ; four stories in the " Playfellow ; " 
 " Life in the Sick-Room ; " " Letters on Mesmer- 
 ism ; " " Eastern Life, Past and Present ; " " His- 
 tory of England during the Thirty Years' Peace ; " 
 " Letters on the Laws of Man's Social Nature and 
 Development ; " " Translation and Condensation 
 of Comte's Positive Philosophy ; " besides many 
 smaller works, making fifty-two titles in Allibone. 
 In addition to this, she wrote many articles in re- 
 views and magazines ; and Mrs. Chapman mentions 
 that she sent to a single London journal, the 
 " Daily News," sixteen hundred articles, at the rate 
 sometimes of six a week. Surely Harriet Marti- 
 neau was one who worked faithfully while her day 
 endured. 
 
 But, if we would do her justice, we must con- 
 sider also the motive and spirit in which she 
 worked. Each thing she did had for its purpose 
 nothing merely personal, but some good to man- 
 kind. Though there was nothing in her character 
 of the sentimentalism of philanthropy, she was 
 filled with the spirit of philanthropy. A born re- 
 former, she inherited from her Huguenot and her 
 Unitarian ancestors the love of truth and the hatred 
 of error, with the courage which was ready to avow 
 her opinions, however unpopular. Thus, her work 
 
288 HARRIET MARTINEAU 
 
 was warfare, and every article or book which she 
 printed was a blow delivered against some flagrant 
 wrong, or what she believed such, — in defense of 
 some struggling truth, or something supposed to be 
 truth. She might be mistaken ; but her purposes 
 through life were, in the main, noble, generous, and 
 good. 
 
 And there can be no question of her ability, 
 moral and intellectual. No commonplace mind 
 could have overcome such obstacles and achieved 
 such results. Apparently she had no very high 
 opinion of her own intellectual powers. She denies 
 that she possesses genius ; but she asserts her own 
 power. She criticises " Deerbrook " with some 
 severity. And, in fact, Harriet Martineau's mind 
 is analytic rather than creative ; it is strong rather 
 than subtle ; and, if it possesses imagination, it is 
 of rather a prosaic kind. Her intellect is of a 
 curiously masculine order ; no other female writer 
 was ever less feminine. With all her broad hu- 
 manity she has little sympathy for individuals. A 
 large majority of those whom she mentions in her 
 memoirs she treats with a certain contempt. 
 
 Her early life seems to have been very sad. We 
 are again and again told how she was misunder- 
 stood and maltreated in her own home. Her health 
 was bad until she was thirty ; partly owing, as she 
 supposed, to ill-treatment. She needed affection, 
 and was treated with sternness. Justice she did 
 not receive, nor kindness, and her heart was soured 
 
HARRIET MARTIN EAU 289 
 
 and her temper spoiled, so she tells us, by this mis- 
 management. As she does not specify, or give us 
 the details of this ill-treatment, the story is useless 
 as a warning ; and we hardly see the reason for 
 thus publishing the wrongs of her childhood. As 
 children may be sometimes unjust to parents, no 
 less than parents to children, the facts and the 
 moral are both left uncertain. And, on the whole, 
 her chief reason for telling the story appears to be 
 the mental necessity she was under of judging and 
 sentencing those from whom she supposes herself 
 to have received ill-treatment in any part of her 
 life. 
 
 This is indeed the most painful feature of the 
 work before us. Knowing the essentially generous 
 and just spirit of Harriet Martineau, it is strange 
 to see how carefully she has loaded this piece of 
 artillery with explosive and lacerating missiles, 
 to be discharged after her death among those with 
 whom she had mingled in social intercourse or lit- 
 erary labors. Some against whom she launches 
 her sarcasms are still living ; some are dead, but 
 have left friends behind, to be wounded by her 
 caustic judgments. Is it that her deficiency in a 
 woman's sensibility, or the absence of a poetic 
 imagination, prevented her from realizing the suf- 
 fering she would inflict ? Or is it the habit of mind 
 from which those are apt to suffer who devote them- 
 selves to the reform of abuses ? As each kind of 
 manual occupation exposes the workman to some 
 
290 HARRIET MARTINEAU 
 
 special disease, — as those who dig canals suffer 
 from malaria, and file-grinders from maladies of 
 the lungs, — so it seems that each moral occupation 
 has its appropriate moral danger. Clergymen are 
 apt to be dogmatic or sectarian ; lawyers become 
 sharp and sophistical ; musicians and artists are 
 irritable ; and the danger of a reformer is of be- 
 coming a censorious critic of those who cannot ac- 
 cept his methods, or who will not join his party. 
 That Harriet Martineau did not escape this risk 
 will presently appear. 
 
 While writing her politico-economical stories she 
 moved to London, and there exchanged the quiet 
 seclusion of her Norwich life for social triumphs of 
 the first order, and intercourse with every kind of 
 celebrity. All had read her books, from Victoria, 
 who was then a little girl perusing them with her 
 governess, to foreign kings and savants of the high- 
 est distinction. So this young author — for she was 
 only thirty — was received at once into the most 
 brilliant circles of London society. But it does not 
 appear that she lost a single particle of her dignity 
 or self-possession. Among the great she neither 
 asserted herself too much nor showed too much de- 
 ference. Vanity was not her foible ; and her head 
 was too solidly set upon her shoulders to be turned 
 by such successes. She enjoyed the society of these 
 people of superior refinement, rank, and culture, 
 but did not come to depend upon it ; and in all this 
 Harriet Martineau sinned not in her spirit. 
 
HARRIET MARTINEAU 291 
 
 But why, in writing about these people long 
 afterward, should she have thought it necessary to 
 produce such sharp and absolute sentences on each 
 and all ? Into this judgment-hall of Osiris-Marti- 
 neau, every one whom she has ever known is called 
 up to receive his final doom. The poor Unitarian 
 ministers, who had taught the child as they best 
 could, are dismissed with contemptuous severity. 
 This religious instruction had certainly done her 
 some good. Religion, she admits, was her best 
 resource till she wrought her way to something 
 better. Ann Turner, daughter of the Unitarian 
 minister, gave her piety a practical turn, and when 
 afraid of every one she saw, she was not at all 
 afraid of God ; and, on the whole, she says religion 
 was a great comfort and pleasure to her. Never- 
 theless, she is astonished that Unitarians should 
 believe that they are giving their children a Chris- 
 tian education. She accuses these teachers of her 
 childhood of altering the Scripture to suit their 
 own notions ; being apparently ignorant that most 
 of the interpolations or mistranslations of which 
 they complained have since been conceded as such 
 by the best Orthodox critics. But she does not 
 hesitate to give her opinion of all her old acquaint- 
 ances in the frankest manner, and for the most 
 part it is unfavorable. Mrs. Opie and Mrs. John 
 Taylor are among the " mere pedants." William 
 Taylor, from want of truth and conviction, talked 
 blasphemy. She speaks with contempt of a physi- 
 
292 HARRIET MARTINEAU 
 
 cian who politely urged her to come and dine with 
 him, because he had neglected her until she became 
 famous. Lord Brougham was "vain and selfish, 
 low in morals, and unrestrained in temper." Lord 
 Campbell was " flattering to an insulting degree ; " 
 Archbishop Whately, " odd and overbearing," 
 " sometimes rude and tiresome," and " singularly 
 overrated ; " Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, " timid," 
 "sensitive," "heedless," "without courage or dig- 
 nity." Macaulay "talked nonsense" about the 
 copyright bill, and " set at naught every principle 
 of justice in regard to authors' earnings." Macau- 
 lay's opposition to that bill was based on such 
 grounds of perfect justice that he defeated it sin- 
 gle-handed. But Harriet Martineau decided then 
 and there that Macaulay was a failure, and that 
 "he wanted heart," and that he "never has 
 achieved any complete success." The poet Camp- 
 bell had "a morbid craving for praise." As to 
 women, Lady Morgan, Lady Davy, Mrs. Jameson, 
 Mrs. Austin, " may make women blush and men 
 be insolent " with their " gross and palpable vani- 
 ties." Landseer was a toady to great people. 
 Morpeth had " evident weaknesses." Sir Charles 
 Bell showed his ignorance by relying on the argu- 
 ment for Design. The resources of Eastlake were 
 very homes. John Sterling " rudely ignored me." 
 Lady Mary Shepherd was " a pedant." Coleridge, 
 she asserts, will only be remembered as a warning ; 
 though twenty years ago she, Miss Martineau, 
 
HARRIET MARTINEAU 293 
 
 " regarded him as a poet." Godwin was " timid." 
 Basil Montagu was " cowardly ; " and Lord Mon- 
 teagle " agreeable enough to those who were not 
 particular about sincerity." Urquhart had " in- 
 sane egotism and ferocious discontent." The 
 Howitts made " an unintelligible claim to my 
 friendship," their " tempers are turbulent and 
 unreasonable." It may be some explanation of 
 this unintelligible claim that it was heard through 
 her trumpet. Fredrika Bremer is accused of habits 
 of " flattery " and " a want of common sense." 
 Miss Mitford is praised, but then accused of a 
 " habit of flattery," and blamed for her " dispar- 
 agement of others." And it is Miss Martineau 
 who brings this charge! She also tells us that 
 Miss Bremer " proposes to reform the world by a 
 floating religiosity," whatever that may be. But 
 perhaps her severest sentence is pronounced on the 
 Kembles, who are accused of " incurable vulgarity " 
 and "unreality." In this case, as in others, Miss 
 Martineau pronounces this public censure on those 
 whom she had learned to know in the intimacy of 
 private friendship and personal confidence. She 
 thus violates the rules rather ostentatiously laid 
 down in her Introduction. For she claims there 
 that she practices self-denial in interdicting the 
 publication of her letters, 1 and gives her reasons 
 
 1 For some reason she afterward saw fit partially to abandon 
 this self-denial, and allowed Mrs. Chapman to print any letters 
 written to herself by Miss Martineau. 
 
294 HARRIET MARTINEAU 
 
 thus : " Epistolary conversation is written speech ; 
 and the onus rests with those who publish it to 
 show why the laws of honor, which are uncontested 
 in regard to conversation, may be violated when 
 the conversation is written instead of spoken." 
 Most of her sharp judgments above quoted are 
 pronounced on those whom she learned to know 
 in the private intercourse of society. Sometimes 
 she recites the substance of what she heard (or 
 supposed that she heard ; for she used an ear-tube 
 when she first went to live in London). Thus she 
 tells about a conversation with Wordsworth, and 
 reports his complaints of Jeffrey and other re- 
 viewers, and quotes him as saying about one of his 
 own poems, that it was " a chain of very valooable 
 thoughts." " You see, it does not best fulfill the 
 conditions of poetry; but it is" (solemnly) "a 
 chain of extremely valooable thoughts." She then 
 proceeds to pronounce her sentence on Wordsworth 
 as she did on Coleridge. She felt at once, she 
 says, in Wordsworth's works, " the absence of 
 sound, accurate, weighty thought, and of genuine 
 poetic inspiration." She also informs us that " the 
 very basis of philosophy is absent in him," and 
 that it is only necessary " to open Shelley, Tenny- 
 son, or even poor Keats ... to feel that, with all 
 their truth and all their charm, few of Words- 
 worth's pieces are poems." " Even poor Keats 1" 
 This is her de haut en has style of criticism 
 on Wordsworth, one of whose poems is generally 
 
HABEIET MAETINEAU 295 
 
 accepted as the finest written in the English lan- 
 guage during the last hundred years. And this is 
 her way of respecting " the code of honor " in re- 
 gard to private conversation ! 
 
 In 1834, at the age of thirty-two, Harriet Marti- 
 neau sailed for the United States, where she re- 
 mained two years. She went for rest; but the 
 quantity of work done in those two years would 
 have been enough to fill five or six years of any 
 common life. At this point she began a new ca- 
 reer; forming new ties, engaging in new duties, 
 studying new problems, and beginning a new activ- 
 ity in another sphere of labor. The same great 
 qualities which she had hitherto displayed showed 
 themselves here again; accompanied with their 
 corresponding defects. Her wonderful power of 
 study enabled her to enter into the very midst of 
 the phenomena of American life ; her noble gener- 
 osity induced her to throw herself heart, hand, and 
 mind into the greatest struggle then waging on the 
 face of the earth. The anti-slavery question, which 
 the great majority of people of culture despised 
 or disliked, took possession of her soul. She be- 
 came one of the party of Abolitionists, of which 
 Mr. Garrison was the chief, and lived to see that 
 party triumph in the downfall of slavery. She 
 took her share of the hatred or the scorn heaped 
 on that fiery body of zealous propagandists, and 
 was counted worthy of belonging to what she her- 
 self called " the Martyr Age of the United States." 
 
296 HARRIET MARTIN EAU 
 
 Fortunately for herself, before she visited Bos- 
 ton, and became acquainted with the Abolitionists, 
 she went to Washington, and traveled somewhat 
 extensively in the Southern States. At Washing- 
 ton she saw many eminent Southern senators, who 
 cordially invited her to visit them at their homes. 
 In South Carolina she was welcomed or introduced 
 by Mr. Calhoun, Governor Hayne, and Colonel 
 Preston. Judge Porter took charge of her in 
 Louisiana. In Kentucky she was the guest of 
 Mrs. Irwin, Henry Clay's daughter and neighbor. 
 Without fully accepting Mrs. Chapman's some- 
 what sweeping assertion that there was no eminent 
 statesman, man of science, politician, partisan, 
 philanthropist, jurist, professor, merchant, divine, 
 nor distinguished woman, in the whole land, who 
 did not pay her homage, there is no doubt that she 
 received the respect and good-will of many such. 
 She was deeply impressed, she says, on arriving in 
 the United States, with a society basking in one 
 bright sunshine of good-will. She thought the New 
 Englanders, perhaps, the best people in the world. 
 Many well-known names appear in these pages, as 
 soon becoming intimate acquaintances or friends ; 
 among these were Judge Story, John G. Pal- 
 frey, Stephen C. Phillips, the Gilmans of South 
 Carolina, Mr. and Mrs. Furness of Philadelphia, 
 and in Massachusetts the Sedgwicks, the Follens, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Gray Loring, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Charles G. Loring, Dr. Channing, Mr. and Mrs. 
 
HARRIET MARTIN EAU 297 
 
 Henry Ware, Dr. Flint of Salem, and Ephraim 
 Peabody. 
 
 When Miss Martineau had identified herself 
 with Mr. Garrison and his friends by taking part 
 in their meetings, those who had merely sought 
 her on account of her position and reputation natu- 
 rally fell away. But it may be doubted whether 
 she was in such danger of being mobbed or mur- 
 dered as she and her editor suppose. She seems 
 to think that Mr. Henry Ware did a very brave 
 deed in driving to Mr. Francis Jackson's house to 
 take her home from an antislavery meeting. She 
 speaks of the reign of terror which existed in Bos- 
 ton at that time. No doubt she, and other Aboli- 
 tionists, had their share of abuse ; but it is not 
 probable that any persons were, as she thought, 
 plotting against her life. She and her friends 
 were deterred from taking a proposed journey to 
 Cincinnati and Louisville by being informed that 
 it was intended to mob her in the first city and 
 to hang her in the second. Now, the writer of this 
 article was at that time residing in Louisville, and 
 though antislavery discussions and antislavery lec- 
 tures had taken place there about that period, and 
 though antislavery articles not unfrequently ap- 
 peared in the city journals, no objection or opposi- 
 tion was made to all this by anybody in that place. 
 In fact, it was easier at that time to speak against 
 slavery in Louisville than in Boston. The leading 
 people in Kentucky of all parties were then openly 
 
298 HARRIET MARTWEATJ 
 
 opposed to slavery, and declared their hope and 
 purpose of making Kentucky a free State. A year 
 later, Dr. Channing published his work on slav- 
 ery, which was denounced for its abolitionism by 
 the " Boston Statesman," and sharply criticised in 
 a pamphlet by the Massachusetts attorney-general. 
 But copious extracts from this work, especially of 
 the parts which exposed the sophisms of the de- 
 fenders of slavery, were published in a Louisville 
 magazine, and not the least objection was made 
 to it in that city. At a later period it might have 
 been different, though an antislavery paper was 
 published in Louisville as late as 1845, one of the 
 editors being a native Kentuckian. 
 
 After her return from the United States she 
 published her two works, " Society in America," 
 and " Retrospect of Western Travel ; " and then 
 wrote her first novel, " Deerbrook." The books 
 on America were perhaps the best then written by 
 any foreigner except De Tocqueville. They were 
 generous, honest, kind, and utterly frank, — they 
 were full of capital descriptions of American 
 scenery. She spoke the truth to us, and she 
 spoke it in love. The chief fault in these works 
 was her tone of dogmatism, and her ex cathedra 
 judgments ; which, as we have before hinted, are 
 among the defects of her qualities. 
 
 In 1838, when thirty-six years old, she was 
 taken with serious illness, which confined her to 
 her room for six years. She attributes this illness 
 
HARRIET MARTIN EAU 299 
 
 to her anxiety about her aged aunt and mother. 
 Her mother, she tells us, was irritable on account 
 of Miss Martineau's fame and position in society ; 
 in short, she was jealous of her daughter's success. 
 Miss Martineau was obliged to sit up late after 
 midnight to mend her own clothes, as she was not 
 allowed to have a maid or to hire a working- 
 woman, even at her own expense. How she could 
 have been prevented is difficult to see, especially as 
 she was the money-making member of the family. 
 It seems hardly worth while to give us this glimpse 
 into domestic difficulties. But, no doubt, she is 
 quite correct in adding, as another reason for her 
 illness, the toils which were breaking her down. 
 The strongest men could hardly bear such a strain 
 on the nervous system without giving way. 
 
 And here comes in the important episode of Mr. 
 Atkinson, mesmerism, and the New Philosophy. 
 She believes that she was cured of a disease, pro- 
 nounced incurable by the regular physicians, by 
 mesmerism. By this she means the influence ex- 
 erted upon her by certain manipulations from 
 another person. And as long as we are con- 
 fessedly so ignorant of nervous diseases, there 
 seems no reason to question the facts to which 
 Miss Martineau testifies. She was, there is little 
 doubt, cured by these manipulations ; what the 
 power was which wrought through them remains 
 to be ascertained. 
 
 In regard to Mr. Atkinson and his philosophy, 
 
300 HARRIET MARTINEAU 
 
 accepted by her with such satisfaction, and which 
 henceforth became the master-light of all her see- 
 ing, our allotted space will allow us only to speak 
 very briefly. The results of this new mental de- 
 parture could not but disturb and afflict many of 
 her friends, to whom faith in God, Christ, and 
 immortality was still dear. To Miss Martineau 
 herself, however, her disbelief in these seemed a 
 happy emancipation. She carried into the asser- 
 tion of her new and unpopular ideas the same 
 honesty and courage she had always shown, and 
 also the same superb dogmatism and contempt for 
 those who differed from her. Apparently it was 
 always to her an absolute impossibility to imagine 
 herself wrong when she had once come to a con- 
 clusion. In theory she might conceive it possible 
 to be mistaken, but practically she felt herself 
 infallible. The following examples will show how 
 she speaks, throughout her biography, of those 
 who held the opinions she had rejected. 
 
 Miss Martineau, being a Necessarian, says, 
 " All the best minds I know are Necessarians ; all, 
 indeed, who are qualified to discuss the subject at 
 all." " The very smallest amount of science is 
 enough to enable any rational being to see that 
 the constitution and action of will are determined 
 by the influences beyond the control of the posses- 
 sor of the faculty." She adds, that for more than 
 thirty years she has seen how awful " are the evils 
 which arise from that monstrous remnant of old 
 
HARRIET MARTIN E ATI 301 
 
 superstition, — the supposition of a self-deter- 
 mining power, etc." Now, among those she had 
 intimately known were Dr. Channing and James 
 Martineau, neither of them believing in the doc- 
 trine of Necessity. 
 
 Speaking of Christianity, after she had rejected 
 it, she calls it " a monstrous superstition." Else- 
 where she speaks of " the Christian superstition of 
 the contemptible nature of the body ; " says that 
 " Christians deprave their moral sense ; " talks of 
 " the selfish complacencies of religion," and of 
 " the atmosphere of selfishness which is the very 
 life of Christian doctrine and of every other theo- 
 logical scheme ; " speaks of " the Christian mytho- 
 logy as a superstition which fails to make happy, 
 fails to make good, fails to make wise, and has be- 
 come as great an obstacle in the way of progress 
 as the prior mythologies it took the place of." 
 " For three centuries it has been undermined, and 
 its overthrow completely decided." Thus easily 
 does she settle the question of Christianity. 
 
 Miss Martineau ceased to believe in immortal- 
 ity ; and immediately all believers in immortality 
 became, to her mind, selfish or stupid, or both. 
 " I neither wish to live longer here," she says, 
 " nor to find life again elsewhere. It seems to me 
 simply absurd to expect it, and a mere act of 
 restricted human imagination and morality to con- 
 ceive of it." There is " a total absence of evi- 
 dence for a renewed life." " I myself utterly dis- 
 
302 HARRIET MARTIN E ATI 
 
 believe in a future life." She would submit, 
 though reluctantly, to live again, if compelled to. 
 " If I find myself conscious after the lapse of life, 
 it will be all right, of course ; but, as I said, the 
 supposition appears to me absurd." 
 
 Under the instructions of Mr. Atkinson, Miss 
 Martineau ceased to believe in a personal .God, or 
 any God but an unknown First Cause, identical 
 with the Universe. The argument for Design, on 
 which Mr. John Stuart Mill, for instance, lays 
 such stress, seemed to her " puerile and unphilo- 
 sophical." The God of Christians she calls an 
 " invisible idol." He " who does justice to his 
 own faculties " must give up " the personality of 
 the First Cause." She considered the religion in 
 her " Life in the Sick-Eoom " to have been " in- 
 sincere ; " which we, who know the perfect honesty 
 of Harriet Martineau, must take the liberty to 
 deny. Though declaring herself to be no Atheist, 
 because she believes in an unknown and unknow- 
 able First Cause, she regards philosophical Athe- 
 ists as the best people she had ever known, and 
 was delighted in finding herself w?iacquainted with 
 God, and so at peace. 
 
 It is curious to read these " Letters on the Laws 
 of Man's Nature and Development," of which 
 Harriet Martineau and Mr. Atkinson are the joint 
 authors. The simple joy with which they declare 
 themselves the proud discoverers of this, happy 
 land of the unknowable is almost touching. All 
 
HARRIET MARTINEAU 303 
 
 that we know, say they, is matter or its manifesta- 
 tion. " Mind is the product of the brain," and 
 " the brain is not, as even some phrenologists have 
 asserted, the instrument of the mind." The brain 
 is the source of consciousness, will, reason. Man 
 is " a creature of necessity." " It seems certain 
 that mind, or the conditions essential to mind, is 
 evolved from gray vesicular matter." "Nothing 
 in nature indicates a future life." " Knowledge 
 recognizes that nothing can be free, or by chance ; 
 no, not even God, — God is the substance of 
 Law." Whereupon Miss Martineau inquires 
 whether Mr. Atkinson, in speaking of God, did 
 not merely use another name for Law. " We 
 know nothing beyond law, do we?" asks this 
 meek disciple, seeking for information. Mr. At- 
 kinson replies that we must assume some funda- 
 mental principle "as a thing essential, though 
 unknown ; and it is this which I wrongly enough 
 perhaps termed God." But if it is wrong to call 
 this principle God, and if they know nothing else 
 behind phenomena, why do they complain so bit- 
 terly at being charged with Atheism ? And di- 
 rectly Mr. Atkinson asserts that " Philosophy 
 finds no God in nature ; no personal being or 
 creator, nor sees the want of any." " A Creator 
 after the likeness of man " he affirms to be " an 
 impossibility." For, though he professes to know 
 nothing about God, he somehow contrives to know 
 that God is not what others believe him to be. 
 
304 HARRIET MARTINEAU 
 
 Eternal sleep after death lie professes to be the 
 only hope of a wise man. The idea of free-will is 
 so absurd that it " would make a Democritus fall 
 on his back and roar with laughter/' " Chris- 
 tianity is neither reasonable nor moral." Miss 
 Martineau responds that " deep and sweet " is her 
 repose in the conviction that " there is no theory 
 of God, of an author of Nature, of an origin of the 
 Universe, which is not utterly repugnant to my 
 faculties ; which is not (to my feelings) so irreve- 
 rent as to make me blush, so misleading as to 
 make me mourn." And thus do the apostle and 
 the disciple go on, triumphantly proclaiming their 
 own limitations to the end of the volume. 
 
 And yet the effect of this book is by no means 
 wholly disagreeable. To be sure, in their constant 
 assertions of the " impossibility " of any belief but 
 their own being true, their honest narrowness may 
 often be a little amusing. They seem like two eye- 
 less fish in the recesses of the darkness of the Mam- 
 moth Cave talking to each other of the absurdity 
 of believing in any sun or upper world. But they 
 are so honest, so sincere, so much in love with 
 Truth, and so free from any self-seeking, that we 
 find it easy to sympathize with their nai've sense of 
 discovery, as they go sounding on their dim and 
 perilous way. Only we cannot but think what a 
 disappointment it must be to Harriet Martineau 
 to find herself alive again in the other world. In 
 her case, as Mr. Wentworth Higginson acutely 
 
HARRIET MARTIN EAU 305 
 
 t 
 remarks, we are deprived of the pleasure of sym- 
 pathizing with her gladness at discovering her 
 mistake, since another life will be to her a disa- 
 greeable as well as an unforeseen event. 
 
 Nor is it extraordinary, to those who trace 
 Harriet Martineau's intellectual history, that she 
 should have fallen into these melancholy conclu- 
 sions. In her childhood and youth, most of the 
 Unitarians of England, followers of Priestley, 
 adopted his philosophy of materialism and neces- 
 sity. Priestley did not believe in a soul, but 
 trusted for a future life to the resurrection of the 
 body. He was also a firm believer in philosophi- 
 cal necessity. An active and logical mind like 
 Miss Martineau's, destitute of the keenness and 
 profundity which belonged to that of her brother 
 James, might very naturally arrive at a disbelief 
 in anything but matter and its phenomena. From 
 ignorance of these facts, Mrs. Chapman expresses 
 surprise that the inconsistency of Harriet Marti- 
 neau's belief in necessity, with other parts of her 
 Unitarianism, " should not have struck herself, her 
 judges, or the denomination at large." It would 
 have been inconsistent with American Unitarian- 
 ism, but it was not foreign from the views of Eng- 
 lish Unitarians at that time. 
 
 The publication of these " Letters " naturally 
 caused pain to religious people, and especially to 
 those of them who had known and honored Miss 
 Martineau for her many past services in the cause 
 
306 HARRIET MARTINEAU 
 
 of human freedom and progress. Many of these 
 were Unitarians and Unitarian ministers, who had 
 been long proud of her as a member of their de- 
 nomination and one of their most valued co-work- 
 ers. It seemed necessary for them to declare their 
 dissent from her new views, and this dissent was 
 expressed in an article in the " Prospective Re- 
 view," written by her own brother, James Marti- 
 neau. Mrs. Chapman now makes known, what has 
 hitherto been only a matter of conjecture, that this 
 review gave such serious offense to Miss Marti- 
 neau that she from that time refused to recognize 
 her brother or to have any further communication 
 with him. Mrs. Chapman, who seldom or never 
 finds her heroine in the wrong, justifies and ap- 
 proves her conduct also here, quoting a passage 
 from the review in support of Miss Martineau' s 
 conduct in treating her brother as one. of "the 
 defamers of old times whom she must never again 
 meet." In this passage Mr. Martineau only ex- 
 presses his profound grief that his sister should sit 
 at the feet of such a master as Mr. Atkinson, and 
 lay down at his bidding her early faith in moral 
 obligation, in the living God, in the immortal 
 sanctities. He calls this " an inversion of the 
 natural order of nobleness," implying that Mr. 
 Atkinson ought to have sat at her feet instead ; 
 and, turning to the review itself, we find this the 
 only passage in which a single word is said, which 
 could be regarded as a censure on Miss Martineau. 
 
HARRIET MARTIN EAU 307 
 
 But Mr. Atkinson is indeed handled with some 
 severity. His language is criticised, and his logic 
 is proved fallacious. Much the largest part of the 
 review is, however, devoted to a refutation of his 
 philosophy and doctrines. Now, as so large a part 
 of the " Letters " is pervaded with denunciations 
 of the bigotry which will not hear the other side of 
 a question, and filled with admiration of those who 
 prefer truth to the ties of kindred, friendship, and 
 old association, we should have thought that Miss 
 Martineau would rejoice in having a brother who 
 could say, " Arnica Harriet, sed magis arnica Veri- 
 tas." Not at all. It was evident that he had said 
 nothing about herself at which she could take 
 offense ; but in speaking against her new philoso- 
 phy and her new philosopher he had committed 
 the unpardonable sin. And Mrs. Chapman allows 
 herself to regard it as a natural inference that 
 this honest and manly review resulted from " mas- 
 culine terror, fraternal jealousy of superiority, with 
 a sectarian and provincial impulse to pull down 
 and crush a world-wide celebrity." She consid- 
 ers it " incomprehensible in an advocate of free 
 thought " that he should express his thoughts 
 freely in opposition to a book which argued 
 against all possible knowledge of God and against 
 all faith in a future life. It is, however, only just 
 to Miss Martineau to say that she herself has 
 brought no such charges against her brother, but 
 left the matter in silence. We cannot but think 
 
308 HAERIET MARTIN EAU 
 
 that it would have been better for Miss Marti- 
 neau's reputation if her biographer had followed 
 her example. 
 
 But, though we must object to Mrs. Chapman's 
 views on this point, and on some others, we must 
 add that her part of the second volume is prepared 
 with much ability, and is evidently the result of 
 diligent and loyal friendship. Miss Martineau 
 could not have selected a more faithful friend to 
 whom to confide the history of her life. On two 
 subjects, however, we are obliged to dissent from 
 her statements. One is in regard to Dr. Chan- 
 ning, whom she, for some unknown reason, syste- 
 matically disparages. He was a good man, Mrs. 
 Chapman admits, "but not in any sense a great 
 one. With benevolent intentions, he could not 
 greatly help the nineteenth century, for he knew 
 very little about it, or, indeed, of any other. He 
 had neither insight, courage, nor firmness. In his 
 own Church had sprung up a vigorous opposition 
 to slavery, which he innocently, in so far as igno- 
 rantly, used the little strength he had to stay." 
 Certainly it is not necessary to defend the memory 
 of Dr. Channing against such a supercilious judg- 
 ment as this. But we might well ask why, if he is 
 not a great man, and did not help the nineteenth 
 century, his works should continue to be circu- 
 lated all over Europe ? Why should such men in 
 France as Laboulaye and Bemusat occupy them- 
 selves in translating and diffusing them ? Why 
 
 
 
HABBIET MARTIN EAU 309 
 
 should Bunsen class him among the five prophets 
 of the Divine Consciousness in Human History, — 
 speaking of " his fearless speech," his unfailing 
 good sense," and "his grandeur of soul, which 
 makes him a prophet of the Christianity of the 
 Future " ? Bunsen calls him a Greek in his 
 manly nature, a Roman in his civic qualities, and 
 an apostle in his Christianity. And was that man 
 deficient in courage or firmness who never faltered 
 in the support of any opinions, however unpopu- 
 lar, whether it was to defend Unitarianism in its 
 weak beginnings, to appear in Faneuil Hall as 
 the leader against the defenders of the Alton mob, 
 to head the petition for the pardon of Abner 
 Kneeland, and to lay on the altar of antislavery 
 the fame acquired by past labors ? Is he to be 
 accused of repressing the antislavery movement 
 in his own church, when there is on record the 
 letter in which he advocated giving the use of the 
 church building to the society represented by Mrs. 
 Chapman herself ; and when the men of influence 
 in his society refused it? Nor, in those days of 
 their unpopularity, did Mrs. Chapman and her 
 friends count Dr. Channing's aid so insignificant. 
 In her article on " The Martyr Age," Miss Mar- 
 tineau describes the profound impression caused by 
 Dr. Channing's sudden appearance in the State 
 House to give his countenance and aid to Garri- 
 son and the Abolitionists, in what, she says, was a 
 matter to them of life and death. And she adds, 
 
310 HARRIET MARTIN EAU 
 
 " He was thenceforth considered by the world an 
 accession to their principles, though not to their 
 organized body." 
 
 Nor do we quite understand Mrs. Chapman's 
 giving to Miss Martineau the credit of being the 
 cause of the petition for the pardon of Abner 
 Kneeland ; as his conviction, and the consequent 
 petition, did not take place until she had been 
 nearly two years out of the country. And why 
 does Mrs. Chapman select for special contempt, as 
 unfaithful to their duty to mankind, the Unitarian 
 ministers ? Why does she speak of " the cowardly 
 ranks of American Unitarians " with such peculiar 
 emphasis ? It is not our business here to defend 
 this denomination ; but we cannot but recall the 
 "Protest against American Slavery " prepared and 
 signed in 1845 by one hundred and seventy-three 
 Unitarian ministers, out of a body containing not 
 more than two hundred and fifty in all. And it 
 was this body which furnished to the cause some 
 of its most honored members. Of those who have 
 belonged to the Unitarian body, we now recall the 
 names of such persons as Samuel J. May, Samuel 
 May, Josiah Quincy, John Quincy Adams, John 
 Pierpont, Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Gray Loring, John 
 G. Palfrey, John P. Hale, Dr. and Mrs. Follen, 
 Theodore Parker, John Parkman, John T. Sar- 
 gent, James Russell Lowell, Wm. H. Furness, 
 Charles Sumner, Caleb Stetson, John A. Andrew, 
 Lydia Maria Child, Dr. S. G. Howe, Horace 
 
HARRIET MARTIN EAU 311 
 
 Mann, T. W. Higginson. So much for the " cow- 
 ardly ranks of American Unitarians." 
 
 The last years of Miss Martineau were happy 
 and peaceful. She had a pleasant home at Am- 
 bleside, on Lake Windermere. She had many 
 friends, was conscious of having done a good work, 
 and if she had no hopes in the hereafter, neither 
 had she any fears concerning it. She was a 
 strong, upright, true-hearted woman ; one of those 
 who have helped to vindicate " the right of women 
 to learn the alphabet." 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE 
 POWER IN AMERICA 1 
 
 On the first day of January, 1832, when the 
 American Antislavery Society was formed in the 
 office of Samuel E. Sewall in Boston, the abolition 
 of slavery through any such agency seemed impos- 
 sible. Almost all the great interests of the country 
 were combined to defend and sustain the system. 
 The capital invested in slaves amounted to at least 
 one thousand millions of dollars. This vast pecuni- 
 ary interest was rapidly increasing by the growing 
 demand for the cotton crop of the Southern States 
 — a demand which continually overlapped the sup- 
 ply. The whole political power of the thirteen 
 slave States was in the hands of the slaveholders. 
 No white man in the South, unless he was a slave- 
 holder, was ever elected to Congress, or to any im- 
 portant political position at home. The two great 
 parties, Whig and Democrat, were pledged to the 
 support of slavery in all its constitutional rights, 
 and vied with each other in giving to these the 
 largest interpretation. By a constitutional provi- 
 sion, which could not be altered, the slave States 
 
 1 " History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America," 
 by Henry Wilson, North American Review, January, 1875. 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 313 
 
 had in Congress, in 1840, twenty-five more Repre- 
 sentatives in proportion to their number of voters 
 than the free States. By the cohesion of this great 
 political and pecuniary interest the slaveholders, 
 though comparatively few in number, were able to 
 govern the nation. The Presidents, both houses of 
 Congress, the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 the two great political parties, the press of the 
 country, the mercantile interest, and that mysteri- 
 ous force which we call society, were virtually in 
 the hands of the slaveholders. Whenever their 
 privileges were attacked, all these powers rallied 
 to their defense. Public opinion, in the highest 
 circles of society and in the lowest, was perfectly 
 agreed on this one question. The saloons of the 
 Fifth Avenue and the mob of the Five Points w r ere 
 equally loyal to the sacred cause of slavery. Thus 
 all the great powers which control free states were 
 combined for its defense ; and the attempt to as- 
 sail this institution might justly be regarded as 
 madness. In fact, all danger seemed so remote, 
 that even so late as 1840 it was common for slave- 
 holders to admit that property in man was an ab- 
 surdity and an injustice. The system itself was so 
 secure, that they could afford to concede its prin- 
 ciple to their opponents. Just as men formerly 
 fought duels as a matter of course, while frankly 
 admitting that it was wrong to do so, — just as at 
 the present time we concede that war is absurd and 
 unchristian, but yet go to war continually, because 
 
314 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 we know no other way of settling international dis- 
 putes, — so the slaveholders used to say, " Slavery 
 is wrong ; we know that : but how is it to be abol- 
 ished ? What can we do about it ? " 
 
 Such was the state of things in the United States 
 less than half a century ago. On one side was an 
 enormous pecuniary interest, vast political power, 
 the weight of the press, an almost unanimous pub- 
 lic opinion, the necessities of commerce, the au- 
 thority of fashion, the teachings of nearly every 
 denomination in the Christian church, and the 
 moral obligations attributed to the sacred cove- 
 nants of the fathers of the Republic. On the other 
 side there were only a few voices crying in the wil- 
 derness, " It is unjust to claim property in man." 
 The object of the work before us is to show how, 
 after the slave power had reached this summit of 
 influence, it lost it all in a single generation ; how, 
 less by the zeal of its opponents than by the mad- 
 ness of its defenders, this enormous fabric of op- 
 pression was undermined and overthrown ; and 
 how, in a few years, the insignificant handful of 
 antislavery people brought to their side the great 
 majority of the nation. 
 
 Certainly a work which should do justice to such 
 a history would be one of the most interesting 
 books ever written. For in this series of events 
 everything was involved which touches most nearly 
 the mind, the conscience, the imagination, and the 
 heart of man. How many radical problems in 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 315 
 
 statesmanship, in political economy, in ethics, in 
 philosophy, in theology, in history, in science, came 
 up for discussion during this long controversy ! 
 What pathetic stories of suffering, what separation 
 of families, what tales of torture, what cruelty 
 grown into a custom, what awful depths of misery, 
 came continually to light, as though the judgment- 
 day were beginning to dawn on the dark places of 
 the earth ! What romances of adventure, what 
 stories of courage and endurance, of ingenuity in 
 contrivance, of determination of soul, were listened 
 to by breathless audiences as related by the humble 
 lips of the fugitives from bondage ! How trite 
 and meagre became all the commonplaces of ora- 
 tory before the flaming eloquence of these terri- 
 ble facts ! How tame grew all the conventional 
 rhetoric of pulpit and platform, by the side of 
 speech vitalized by the immediate presence of this 
 majestic argument ! The book which should re- 
 produce the antislavery history of those thirty years 
 would possess an unimagined charm. 
 
 We cannot say that Mr. Wilson's volumes do all 
 this, nor had we any right to expect it. He pro- 
 poses to himself nothing of the sort. What he 
 gives us is, however, of very great value. It is a 
 very carefully collected, clearly arranged, and accu- 
 rate account of the rise and progress, decline and 
 catastrophe, of slavery in the United States. Mr. 
 Wilson does not attempt to be philosophical like 
 Bancroft and Draper ; nor are his pages as pictu- 
 
316 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 resque as are those of Motley and Carlyle. He 
 tells us a plain unvarnished tale, the interest of 
 which is to be found in the statement of the facts 
 exactly as they occurred. Considering that it is a 
 story of events all of which he saw and a large part 
 of which he was, there is a singular absence of pre- 
 judice. He is no man's enemy. He has passed 
 through the fire, and there is no smell of smoke on 
 his garments. An intelligent indignation against 
 the crimes committed in defense of the system he 
 describes pervades his narrative. His impartiality 
 is not indifference, but an absence of personal ran- 
 cor. Individuals and their conduct are criticised 
 only so far as is necessary to make clear the course 
 of events and the condition of public feeling. The 
 defenders of slavery at the North and South are 
 regarded not as bad men, but as the outcome of a 
 bad system. 
 
 Mr. Wilson's book is a treasury of facts, and 
 will never be superseded so far as this peculiar 
 value is concerned. In this respect it somewhat 
 resembles Hildreth's "History of the United 
 States." Taking little space for speculation, com- 
 ment, or picturesque coloring, there is all the more 
 room left for the steady flow of the narrative. 
 
 With a few unimportant omissions, the two vol- 
 umes now published contain a full history of slav- 
 ery and antislavery from the Ordinance of 1787 
 and the compromises of the Constitution down to 
 the election of Lincoln and the outbreak of the 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 317 
 
 civil war. As a work of reference they are invalu- 
 ble, for each event in the long struggle for freedom 
 is distinctly and accurately told, while the calm 
 story advances through its various stages. Instead 
 of following this narrative in detail, which our space 
 will not allow, we prefer to call our readers' atten- 
 tion to some of the more striking incidents of this 
 great revolution. 
 
 Our fathers, when they founded the nation, had 
 little thought that slavery was ever to attain such 
 vast extension. They supposed that it would grad- 
 ually die out from the South, as it had disappeared 
 from the North. Yet the whole danger to their 
 work lay here. Slavery, if anything, was the 
 wedge which was to split the Union asunder. 
 When the Constitution was formed, in 1787, the 
 slaveholders, by dint of great effort, succeeded in 
 getting the little end of the wedge inserted. It 
 was very narrow, a mere sharp line, and it went in 
 only a very little way ; so it seemed to be nothing 
 at all. The slaveholders at that time did not con- 
 tend that slavery was right or good. They ad- 
 mitted that it was a political evil. They confessed, 
 many of them, that it was a moral evil. All the 
 great Southern revolutionary bodies had accus- 
 tomed themselves to believe in the rights of man, 
 in the principles of humanity, in the blessings of 
 liberty ; and they could not defend slavery. Ma- 
 son of Virginia, in the debates in the Federal Con- 
 vention, denounced slavery and the slave-trade. 
 
318 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 " The evil of slavery," said he, " affects the whole 
 Union. Slavery discourages arts and manufac- 
 tures. The poor despise labor when done by 
 slaves. They prevent the immigration of whites, 
 who really enrich a country. They produce the 
 most pernicious effects on the manners. Every mas- 
 ter of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the 
 judgment of Heaven on a country." Williamson 
 of North Carolina declared himself in principle 
 and practice opposed to slavery. Madison " thought 
 it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that 
 there could be property in man." But the extreme 
 Southern States, South Carolina and Georgia, in- 
 sisted on the right of importing slaves, at least for 
 a little while ; and so they were allowed to import 
 them for twenty years. They also insisted on hav- 
 ing their slaves represented by themselves in Con- 
 gress, and so they were allowed to count three 
 fifths of the slaves in determining the ratio. This 
 seemed a small thing, but it was the entering of 
 the wedge. It was tolerating the principle of slav- 
 ery; not admitting it, but tolerating it. At the 
 same time that this Convention was forming, the 
 Federal Constitution Congress was prohibiting 
 slavery in all the territory northwest of the Ohio. 
 This prohibition of slavery was adopted by the 
 unanimous votes of the eight States present, includ- 
 ing Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Two 
 years later it was recognized and confirmed by the 
 first Congress under the Constitution. Jefferson, 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 319 
 
 a commissioner to revise the statute law of Vir- 
 ginia, prepared a bill for gradual emancipation in 
 that State. In 1790 a petition was presented to 
 Congress, signed by Benjamin Franklin, the last 
 public act of his life, declaring equal liberty to be 
 the birthright of all, and asking Congress to " de- 
 vise means for restoring liberty to the slaves, and 
 so removing this inconsistency from the character 
 of the American people." In 1804 the people of 
 Virginia petitioned Congress to have the Ordinance 
 of 1787 suspended, that they might hold slaves ; 
 but a committee of Congress, of which John Ran- 
 dolph of Virginia was chairman, reported that it 
 would be " highly dangerous and inexpedient to 
 impair a provision wisely calculated to promote the 
 happiness and prosperity of the Northwest Terri- 
 tory." 
 
 But in 1820 the first heavy blow came on the 
 wedge to drive it into the log. The Union is a 
 tough log, and the wedge could be driven a good 
 way in without splitting it ; but the first blow 
 which drove it in was the adopting the Missouri 
 Compromise, allowing slavery to come North and 
 take possession of Missouri. 
 
 The thirty years of prosperity which had fol- 
 lowed the adoption of the Constitution had changed 
 the feelings of men both North and South. The 
 ideas of the Revolution had receded into the back- 
 ground ; the thirst for wealth and power had taken 
 their place. So the Southern States, which had 
 
320 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 cordially agreed thirty years before to prohibit the 
 extension of slavery, and had readily admitted it 
 to be a political evil, now demanded as a right the 
 privilege of carrying slaves into Missouri. They 
 threatened to dissolve the Union, talked of a fire 
 only to be extinguished by seas of blood, and pro- 
 posed to hang a member from New Hampshire 
 who spoke of liberty. Some of the Northern men 
 were not frightened by these threats, and valued 
 them at their real worth. But we know that the 
 result was a compromise. Slavery was to take 
 possession of Missouri, on condition that no other 
 State as far north as Missouri should be slave- 
 holding. Slavery was to be excluded from the 
 rest of the territory forever. This bargain was 
 applauded and justified by Southern politicians 
 and newspapers as a great triumph on their part ; 
 and it was. That fatal compromise was a surren- 
 der of principle for the sake of peace, bartering 
 conscience for quiet ; and we were soon to reap the 
 bitter fruits. 
 
 Face to face, in deadly opposition, each deter- 
 mined on the total destruction of his antagonist, 
 stood this Goliath of the slave power and the little 
 David of antislavery, at the beginning of the ten 
 years which extended from 1830 to 1840. The 
 giant was ultimately to fall from the wounds of 
 his minute opponent, but not during this decade 
 or the next. For many years each of the parties 
 was growing stronger, and the fight was growing 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 321 
 
 fiercer. Organization on the one side was continu- 
 ally becoming more powerful ; enthusiasm on the 
 other continually built up a more determined opin- 
 ion. The slave power won repeated victories ; but 
 every victory increased the number and ardor of 
 its opponents. 
 
 The first attempt to destroy antislavery princi- 
 ples was by means of mobs. Mobs seldom take 
 place in a community unless where the upper stra- 
 tum of society and the lower are in sympathetic 
 opposition to some struggling minority. Then the 
 lower class takes its convictions from the higher, 
 and regards itself as the hand executing what the 
 head thinks ought to be done. Respectability de- 
 nounces the victim, and the rabble hastens to take 
 vengeance on him. Even a mob cannot act effi- 
 ciently unless inspired by ideas ; and these it must 
 receive from some higher source. So it was when 
 Priestley was mobbed at Birmingham ; so it was 
 when Wesley and his friends were mobbed in all 
 parts of England. So it was also in America when 
 the office of the " Philanthropist " was destroyed 
 in Cincinnati ; when halls and churches were 
 burned in Philadelphia ; when Miss Crandall was 
 mobbed in Connecticut ; when Lovejoy was killed 
 at Alton. Antislavery meetings were so often in- 
 vaded by rioters, that on one occasion Stephen 
 S. Foster is reported to have declared that the 
 speakers were not doing their duty, because the 
 people listened so quietly. "If we were doing 
 
322 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 our duty," said he, " they would be throwing brick- 
 bats at us." 
 
 These demonstrations only roused and intensi- 
 fied the ardor of the Abolitionists, while bringing 
 to their side those who loved fair play, and those 
 in whom the element of battle was strong. Mobs 
 also were an excellent advertisement for the Anti- 
 slavery Society ; and this is what every new cause 
 needs most for its extension. Every time that one 
 of their meetings was violently broken up, every 
 time that any outrage or injury was offered to the 
 Abolitionists, all the newspapers in the land gave 
 them a gratuitous advertisement by conspicuous 
 notices of the event. So the public mind was di- 
 rected to the question, and curiosity was excited. 
 The antislavery conventions were more crowded 
 from day to day, their journals were more in de- 
 mand, and their plans and opinions became the 
 subject of conversation everywhere. 
 
 And certainly there could be no more interesting 
 place to visit than one of these meetings of the 
 Antislavery Society. With untiring assiduity the 
 Abolitionists brought to their platform everything 
 which could excite and impress their audience. 
 Their orators were of every kind, — rough men 
 and shrill-voiced women, polished speakers from 
 the universities, stammering fugitives from slavery, 
 philosophers and fanatics, atheists and Christian 
 ministers, wise men who had been made mad by 
 oppression, and babes in intellect to whom God 
 
EISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 323 
 
 had revealed some of the noblest truths. They 
 murdered the King's English, they uttered glaring 
 fallacies, the blows aimed at evildoers often glanced 
 aside and hit good men. Invective was, perhaps, 
 the too frequent staple of their argument, and any 
 difference of opinion would be apt to turn their 
 weapons against each other. This church-militant 
 often became a church-termagant. Yet, after all 
 such abatement for errors of judgment or bad taste, 
 their meetings were a splendid arena on which was 
 fought one of the greatest battles for mankind. 
 The eloquence we heard there was not of the 
 schools, and had nothing artificial about it. It 
 followed the rule of Demosthenes, and was all di- 
 rected to action. Every word was a blow. There 
 was no respect for dignities or authorities. The 
 Constitution of the United States, the object of 
 such unfeigned idolatry to the average American, 
 was denounced as "a covenant with hell." The 
 great men of the nation, Webster, Clay, Jackson, 
 were usually selected as the objects of the severest 
 censure. The rule was to strike at the heads 
 which rose above the crowd, as deserving the 
 sternest condemnation. Presidents and gover- 
 nors, heads of universities, eminent divines, great 
 churches and denominations, were convicted as 
 traitors to the right, or held up to unsparing ridi- 
 cule. No conventional proprieties were regarded 
 in the terrible earnestness of this enraged speech. 
 It was like the lava pouring from the depths of 
 
324 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 the earth, and melting the very rocks which op- 
 posed its resistless course. 
 
 Of course this fierce attack roused as fierce a 
 defense. One extreme generated the other. The 
 cry for " immediate abolition " was answered by 
 labored defenses of slavery itself. Formerly its 
 advocates only excused it as a necessary evil ; now 
 they began to defend it as a positive good. Then 
 was seen the lamentable sight of Christian minis- 
 ters and respected divines hurrying to the support 
 of the " sum of all villanies." The Episcopal 
 bishop of a New England State defended with 
 ardor the system of slavery as an institution sup- 
 ported by the Bible and commanded by God him- 
 self. The president of a New England college 
 declared slavery to be a positive institution of 
 revealed religion, and not inconsistent with the 
 law of love. The minister of a Boston church, 
 going to the South for his health, amused his 
 leisure by writing a book on slavery, in which it is 
 made to appear as a rose-colored and delightful 
 institution, and its opposers are severely censured. 
 One of the most learned professors in a Massa- 
 chusetts theological school composed a treatise to 
 refute the heresy of the higher law, and to main- 
 tain the duty of returning fugitive slaves to bond- 
 age. Under such guidance it was natural that the 
 churches should generally stand aloof from the 
 Abolitionists and condemn their course. It was 
 equally natural that the Abolitionists should then 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 325 
 
 denounce the churches as the bulwark of slavery. 
 Nevertheless, from the Christian body came most 
 of those who devoted their lives to the extirpation 
 of this great evil and iniquity. And Mr. Garri- 
 son, at least, always maintained that his converts 
 were most likely to be made among those whose 
 consciences had been educated by the Church and 
 the Bible. 
 
 From public meetings in the North, the conflict 
 of ideas next extended itself to the floor of Congress, 
 where it continued to rage during nearly thirty 
 years, until " the war of tongue and pen " changed 
 to that of charging squadrons, the storm of shot 
 and the roll of cannon. The question found its 
 way into the debates of Congress in the form of 
 petitions for the abolition of slavery and the slave- 
 trade in the District of Columbia. If the slave- 
 holders had allowed these petitions to be received 
 and referred, taking no notice of them, it seems 
 probable that no important results would have 
 followed. But, blinded by rage and fear, they 
 opposed their reception, thus denying a privilege 
 belonging to all mankind, — that of asking the 
 government to redress their grievances. Then 
 came to the front a man already eminent by his 
 descent, his great attainments, his long public 
 service, his great position, and his commanding 
 ability. John Quincy Adams, after having been 
 President of the United States, accepted a seat in 
 the House of Representatives, and was one of the 
 
326 EISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 most laborious and useful of its members. He 
 was not then an Abolitionist, nor in favor even of 
 abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 But he believed that the people had the right to 
 petition the government for anything they desired, 
 and that their respectful petitions should be re- 
 spectfully received. Sixty-five years old in 1832, 
 when he began this conflict, his warfare with the 
 slave power ended only when, struck with death 
 while in his seat, he saw the last of earth and was 
 content. With what energy, what dauntless cour- 
 age, what untiring industry, what matchless powers 
 of argument, what inexhaustible resources of know- 
 ledge, he pursued his object, the future historian 
 of the struggle who can fully paint what Mr. 
 Wilson is only able to indicate, will take pleasure 
 in describing. One scene will remain forever mem- 
 orable as one of the most striking triumphs of 
 human oratory; and this we must describe a little 
 more fully. 
 
 February 6, 1837, being the day for presenting 
 petitions, Mr. Adams had already presented 
 several petitions for the abolition of slavery in the 
 District of Columbia (a measure to which he was 
 himself then opposed), when he proceeded to state * 
 that he had in his possession a paper upon which 
 he wished the decision of the Speaker. The paper, 
 he said, came from twenty persons declaring them- 
 selves to be slaves. He wished to know whether 
 
 m 
 
 1 Congressional Globe for February 6, 1837. 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 327 
 
 the Speaker would consider this paper as coming 
 under the rule of the House. 1 The Chair said he 
 would take the advice of the House on that ques- 
 tion. And thereupon began a storm of indigna- 
 tion which raged around Mr. Adams during four 
 days. 2 Considering that the House had ordered, 
 less than three weeks before, that all papers re- 
 lating in any way to slavery should be laid on the 
 table without any action being taken on them, this 
 four days' discussion about such a paper, ending 
 in the passing of several resolutions, was rather an 
 amusing illustration of the irrepressible character 
 of the antislavery movement. The Southern mem- 
 bers seemed at first astonished at what they hastily 
 assumed to be an attempt of Mr. Adams to intro- 
 duce a petition from slaves. One moved that it 
 be not received. Another, indignant at such a 
 tame way of meeting the question, declared that 
 any one attempting to introduce such a petition 
 should be immediately punished ; and if that was 
 not done at once, all the members from the slave 
 States should leave the House. Loud cries arose, 
 " Expel him ! expel him ! " Mr. Alfred declared 
 that the petition ought to be burned. Mr. Waddy 
 Thompson of South Carolina, who soon received a 
 castigation which he little anticipated, moved that 
 John Quincy Adams, having committed a gross 
 
 1 Rule adopted January 18, that all petitions relating" to slavery 
 be laid on the table without any action being taken on them. 
 
 2 February 6, 7, 9, 11. 
 
328 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 disrespect to the House in attempting to introduce 
 a petition from slaves, ought to be instantly 
 brought to the bar of the House to receive the 
 severe censure of the Speaker. Similar resolu- 
 tions were offered by Mr. Haynes and Mr. Lewis, 
 all assuming that Mr. Adams had attempted to 
 introduce this petition. He at last took the floor, 
 and said that he thought the time of the House 
 was being consumed needlessly, since all these 
 resolutions were founded on an error. He had 
 not attempted to present the petition, — he had 
 only asked the Speaker a question in regard to it. 
 He also advised the member from Alabama to 
 amend his resolution, which stated the petition to 
 be for the abolition of slavery in the District, 
 whereas it was the very reverse of that. It was a 
 petition for something which would be very objec- 
 tionable to himself, though it might be the very 
 thing for which the gentleman from Alabama was 
 contending. Then Mr. Adams sat down, leaving 
 his opponents more angry than ever, but some- 
 what confused in their minds. They could not 
 very well censure him for doing what he had not 
 done, but they wished very much to censure him. 
 So Mr. Waddy Thompson modified his resolution, 
 making it state that Mr. Adams, " by creating the 
 impression, and leaving the House under the im- 
 pression, that the petition was for the abolition of 
 slavery," had trifled with the House, and should 
 receive its censure. After a multitude of other 
 
BISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 329 
 
 speeches from the enraged Southern chivalry, the 
 debate of the first day came to an end. 
 
 On the next day (February 7), in reply to a 
 question, Mr. Adams stated again that he had not 
 attempted to present the petition, though his own 
 feelings would have led him to do so, but had kept 
 it in his possession, out of respect to the House. 
 He had said nothing to lead the House to infer 
 that this petition was for the abolition of slavery. 
 He should consider before presenting a petition 
 from slaves ; though, in his opinion, slaves had a 
 right to petition, and the mere fact of a petition 
 being from slaves would not of itself prevent him 
 from presenting it. If the petition were a proper 
 one, he should present it. A petition was a 
 prayer, a supplication to a superior being. Slaves 
 might pray to God ; was this House so superior 
 that it could not condescend to hear a prayer from 
 those to whom the Almighty listened ? He ended 
 by saying that, in asking the question of the 
 Speaker, he had intended to show the greatest 
 respect to the House, and had not the least pur- 
 pose of trifling with it. 
 
 These brief remarks of Mr. Adams made it 
 necessary for the slaveholders again to change 
 their tactics. Mr. Dromgoole of Virginia now 
 brought forward his famous resolution, which Mr- 
 Adams afterwards made so ridiculous, accusing 
 him of having "given color to an idea" that 
 slaves had a right to petition, and that he should 
 
330 EISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 be censured by the Speaker for this act. Another 
 member proposed, rather late in the day, that a 
 committee be appointed to inquire whether any 
 attempt had been made, or not, to offer a petition 
 from slaves. Another offered a series of resolu- 
 tions, declaring that if any one " hereafter " should 
 offer petitions from slaves he ought to be regarded 
 as an enemy of the South, and of the Union ; but 
 that " as John Quincy Adams had stated that he 
 meant no disrespect to the House, that all proceed- 
 ings as to his conduct should now cease." And 
 so, after many other speeches, the second day's 
 debate came to an end. 
 
 The next day was set apart to count the votes 
 for President, and so the debate was resumed 
 February 9. It soon become more confused than 
 ever. Motions were made to lay the resolutions 
 on the table ; they were withdrawn ; they were 
 renewed ; they were voted down ; and, finally, 
 after much discussion, and when at last the final 
 question was about being taken, Mr. Adams in- 
 quired whether he was to be allowed to be heard 
 in his own defense before being condemned. So 
 he obtained the floor, and immediately the whole 
 aspect of the case was changed. During three 
 days he had been the prisoner at the bar ; sud- 
 denly he became the judge on the bench. Never, 
 in the history of forensic eloquence, has a single 
 speech effected a greater change in the purpose of 
 a deliberative assembly. Often as the Horatian 
 
BISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 331 
 
 description has been quoted of the just man, tena- 
 cious of his purpose, who fears not the rage of citi- 
 zens clamoring for what is wrong, it has never 
 found a fitter application than to the unshaken 
 mind of John Quincy Adams, standing alone, in 
 the midst of his antagonists, like a solid monument 
 which the idle storms beat against in vain. 
 
 He began by saying that he had been waiting 
 during these three days for an answer to the ques- 
 tion which he had put to the Speaker, and which 
 the Speaker had put to the House, but which the 
 House had not yet answered, namely, whether the 
 paper he held in his hand came under the rule of 
 the House or not. They had discussed every- 
 thing else, but had not answered that question. 
 They had wasted the time of the House in consid- 
 ering how they could censure him for doing what 
 he had not done. All he wished to know was, 
 whether a petition from slaves should be received 
 or not. He himself thought that it ought to be 
 received ; but if the House decided otherwise, he 
 should not present it. Only one gentleman had 
 undertaken to discuss that question, and his argu- 
 ment was, that if slavery was abolished by Con- 
 gress in any State, the Constitution was violated ; 
 and, therefore, slaves ought not to be allowed to 
 petition for anything. He, Mr. Adams, was un- 
 able to see the connection between the premises 
 and the conclusion. 
 
 Hereupon poor Mr. French, the author of this 
 
332 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 argument, tried to explain what he meant by it, 
 but left his meaning as confused as before. 
 
 Then Mr. Adams added, that if you deprived 
 any one in the community of the right of petition, 
 which was only the right of offering a prayer, you 
 would find it difficult to know where to stop ; one 
 gentleman had objected to the reception of one 
 petition, because offered by women of a bad char- 
 acter. Mr. Patton of Virginia says he knows that 
 one of the names is of a woman of a bad character. 
 Sow does he know it ? 
 
 Hereupon Mr. Patton explained that he did not 
 himself know the woman, but had been told that 
 her character was not good. 
 
 So, said Mr. Adams, you first deny the right of 
 petition to slaves, then to free people of color, and 
 then you inquire into the moral character of a peti- 
 tioner before you receive his petition. The next 
 step will be to inquire into the political belief of 
 the petitioners before you receive your petition. 
 Mr. Robertson of Virginia had said that no peti- 
 tions ought to be received for an object which Con- 
 gress had no power to grant. Mr. Adams replied, 
 with much acuteness, that on most questions the 
 right of granting the petition might be in doubt : 
 a majority must decide that point ; it would there- 
 fore follow, from Mr. Robertson's rule, that no one 
 had a right to petition unless he belonged to the 
 predominant party. Mr. Adams then turned to 
 Mr. Dromgoole, who had charged him with the 
 
BISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE FOWEB 333 
 
 remarkable crime of " giving color to an idea," and 
 soon made that Representative of the Old Domin- 
 ion appear very ridiculous. 
 
 Mr. Adams then proceeded to rebuke, with dig- 
 nity but severity, the conduct of those who had 
 proposed to censure him without any correct know- 
 ledge of the facts of the case. His criticisms had 
 the effect of compelling these gentlemen to excuse 
 themselves and to offer various explanations of 
 their mistakes. These assailants suddenly found 
 themselves in an attitude of self-defense. Mr. 
 Adams graciously accepted their explanations, ad- 
 vising them in future to be careful when they 
 undertook to offer resolutions of censure. He 
 then informed Mr. Waddy Thompson of South 
 Carolina that he had one or two questions to put 
 to him. By this time it had become a pretty 
 serious business to receive the attentions of Mr. 
 Adams ; and Mr. Waddy Thompson immediately 
 rose to explain. But Mr. Adams asked him to 
 wait until he had fully stated the question which 
 Mr. Thompson was to answer. This Southern 
 statesman had threatened the ex-President of the 
 United States with an indictment by the grand 
 jury of the District for words spoken in debate in 
 the House of Representatives, and had added that, 
 if the petition was presented, Mr. Adams would be 
 sent to the penitentiary. " Sir," said Mr. Adams, 
 " the only answer I make to such a threat from 
 that gentleman is, to invite him, when he returns 
 
334 BISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 to his constituents, to study a little the first prin- 
 ciples of civil liberty." He then called on the 
 gentlemen from the slave States to say how many 
 of them indorsed that sentiment. " / do not," said 
 Mr. Underwood of Kentucky. " I do not," said 
 Mr. Wise of Virginia. Mr. Thompson was com- 
 pelled to attempt another explanation, and said 
 he meant that, in South Carolina, any member 
 of the legislature who should present a petition 
 from slaves could be indicted. " Then," replied 
 Mr. Adams, and this produced a great sensation, 
 " if it is the law of South Carolina that members 
 of her Legislature may be indicted by juries for 
 words spoken in debate, God Almighty receive my 
 thanks that I am not a citizen of South Carolina." 
 
 Mr. Adams ended his speech by declaring that 
 the honor of the House of Representatives was 
 always regarded by him as a sacred sentiment, and 
 that he should feel a censure from that House as 
 the heaviest misfortune of a long life, checkered 
 as it had been by many vicissitudes. 
 
 When Mr, Adams began his defense, not only 
 was a large majority of the House opposed to his 
 course, but they had brought themselves by a series 
 of violent harangues into a condition of bitter ex- 
 citement against him. When he ended, the effect 
 of this extraordinary speech was such, that all the 
 resolutions were rejected, and out of the whole 
 House only twenty-two members could be found 
 to pass a vote of even indirect censure. The 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 335 
 
 victory was won, and won by Mr. Adams almost 
 single-handed. We count Horatius Codes a hero 
 for holding the Roman bridge against a host of 
 enemies ; but greater honors belong to him who 
 successfully defends against overwhelming num- 
 bers the ancient safeguards of public liberty. For 
 this reason we have repeated here at such length 
 the story of three days, which the people of the 
 United States ought always to remember. It took 
 ten years to accomplish the actual repeal of these 
 gag-laws. But the main work was done when the 
 right of speech was obtained for the friends of 
 freedom in Congress; and John Quincy Adams 
 was the great leader in this warfare. He was 
 joined on that arena by other noble champions, — 
 Giddings, Mann, Palfrey, John P. Hale, Chase, 
 Seward, Slade of Vermont, Julian of Indiana. 
 Others no less devoted followed them, among 
 whom came from Massachusetts Charles Sumner 
 and Henry Wilson, the author of the present 
 work. What he cannot properly say of himself 
 should be said for him. Though an accomplished 
 and eager politician, Henry Wilson has never sac- 
 rificed any great principle for the sake of political 
 success. His services to the antislavery cause 
 have been invaluable, his labors in that cause un- 
 remitting. Personal feelings and personal inter- 
 ests he has been ready to sacrifice for the sake of 
 the cause. Loyal to his friends, he has not been 
 bitter to his opponents; and if any man who 
 
336 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 fought through that loug struggle were to be its 
 historian, no one will deny the claims of Mr. Wil- 
 son to that honor. 
 
 Under the lead of John Quincy Adams, the 
 power to discuss the whole subject of slavery in 
 the National Legislature was won, and never again 
 lost. This was the second triumph of the anti- 
 slavery movement ; its first was the power won by 
 Garrison and his friends of discussing the subject 
 before the people. The wolfish mob in the cities 
 and in Congress might continue to howl, but it had 
 lost its claws and teeth. But now came the first 
 great triumph of the slave power, in the annexa- 
 tion of Texas. This was a cruel blow to the 
 friends of freedom. It was more serious because 
 the motive of annexation was openly announced, 
 and the issue distinctly presented in the Presiden- 
 tial election. Mr. Upshur, Tyler's Secretary of 
 State, in an official dispatch, declared that the 
 annexation of Texas was necessary to secure the 
 institution of slavery. The Democratic Conven- 
 tion which nominated Mr. Polk for the Presi- 
 dency deliberately made the annexation of Texas 
 the leading .feature of its platform. Nor was the 
 slave power in this movement opposed merely by 
 the antislavery feeling of the country. Southern 
 senators helped to defeat the measure when first 
 presented in the form of a treaty by Mr. Tyler's 
 administration. Nearly the whole Whig party 
 was opposed to it. The candidate of the Whigs, 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 337 
 
 Henry Clay, had publicly declared that annexa- 
 tion would be a great evil to the nation. Twenty 
 members of Congress, with John Quincy Adams at 
 their head, had proclaimed in an address to their 
 constituents that it would be equivalent to a disso- 
 lution of the Union. Dr. Channing, in 1838, had 
 said that it would be better for the nation to per- 
 ish than to commit such an outrageous wrong. 
 Edward Everett, in 1837, spoke of annexation as 
 "an enormous crime." Whig and Democratic 
 legislatures had repeatedly denounced it. In 1843, 
 when the Democrats had a majority in the Massa- 
 chusetts legislature, they resolved that " under no 
 circumstances whatever " could the people of Mas- 
 sachusetts approve of annexation. Martin Van 
 Buren opposed it as unjust to Mexico. Senator 
 Benton, though previously in favor of the mea- 
 sure, in a speech in Missouri declared that the 
 object of those who were favoring the scheme was 
 to dissolve the Union, though he afterward came 
 again to its support. And yet when the Presiden- 
 tial campaign was in progress, a Democratic torch- 
 light procession miles long was seen marching 
 through the streets of Boston, and flaunting the 
 lone star of Texas along its whole line. And when 
 Polk was elected, and the decision of the nation 
 virtually given for this scheme, it seemed almost 
 hopeless to contend longer against such a triumph 
 of slavery. If the people of the North could sub- 
 mit to this outrage, it appeared as if they could 
 submit to anything. 
 
338 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 Such, however, was not the case. On one side 
 the slave power was greatly strengthened by the 
 admission of Texas to the Union as a slave State ; 
 but, on the other hand, there came a large acces- 
 sion to the antislavery body. And this continued 
 to be the case during many years. The slave 
 power won a succession of political victories, each 
 of which was a moral victory to its opponents. 
 Many who were not converted to antislavery by 
 the annexation of Texas in 1845 were brought over 
 by the defeat of the Wilmot Proviso and the pas- 
 sage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. Many 
 who were not alarmed by these successes of slavery 
 were convinced of the danger when they beheld the 
 actual working of the Fugitive Slave Act. How 
 many Boston gentlemen, before opposed to the 
 Abolitionists, were brought suddenly to their side 
 when they saw the Court House in chains, and were 
 prevented by soldiers guarding Anthony Burns 
 from going to their banks or insurance offices in 
 State Street ! All those bitter hours of defeat and 
 disaster planted the seeds of a greater harvest for 
 freedom. Others who remained insensible to the 
 disgrace of the slave laws of 1850 were recruited 
 to the ranks of freedom by the repeal of the Mis- 
 souri Compromise in 1854. This last act, Mr. 
 Wilson justly says, did more than any other to 
 arouse the North, and convince it of the desperate 
 encroachments of slavery. Men who tamely acqui- 
 esced in this great wrong were startled into moral 
 
EISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 339 
 
 life by the murderous assault on Charles Sumner 
 by Preston Brooks in 1856. Those who could sub- 
 mit to this were roused by the border ruffians from 
 Missouri who invaded Kansas, and made the pro- 
 slavery Constitution for that State. The Dred 
 Scott decision in 1857, which declared slavery to 
 be no local institution, limited to a single part of 
 the land, but having a right to exist in the free 
 States under the Constitution, alarmed even those 
 who had been insensible to the previous aggres- 
 sions of slavery. This series of political successes 
 of the slave power was appalling. Every principle 
 of liberty, every restraint on despotism, was over- 
 thrown in succession, until the whole power of the 
 nation had fallen into the hands of an oligarchy of 
 between three and four hundred thousand slave- 
 holders. But every one of their political victories 
 was a moral defeat ; every access to their strength 
 as an organization added an immense force to the 
 public opinion opposed to them ; and each of their 
 successes was responded to by some advance of the 
 antislavery movement. The annexation of Texas 
 in 1845 was answered by the appearance of John 
 P. Hale, in 1847, in the United States Senate, — 
 the first man who was elected to that body on dis- 
 tinctly antislavery grounds and independent of 
 either of the great parties. The response to the 
 defeat of the Wilmot Proviso and passage of the 
 Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 was the election of 
 Charles Sumner to the Senate in April, 1851, and 
 
340 EISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 the establishment of the underground railroad in 
 all the free States. When the South abrogated 
 the Missouri Compromise, the North replied by the 
 initiation of the Republican party. The Kansas 
 outrages gave to freedom John Brown of Osawat- 
 omie. And the answer to the Dred Scott decision 
 was the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. Till 
 that moment the forces of freedom and slavery had 
 stood opposed, like two great armies, each receiv- 
 ing constant recruits and an acccession of new 
 power. On one side, hitherto, had been. all the 
 political triumphs, and on the other all the moral. 
 But with this first great political success of their 
 opponents the slave power became wholly demoral- 
 ized, gave up the conflict, threw away the results 
 of all its former victories, and abandoned the field 
 to its enemies, plunging into the dark abyss of seces- 
 sion and civil war. 
 
 And yet, what was the issue involved in that 
 election ? It was simply whether slavery should 
 or should not be extended into new Territories. 
 All that the Republican party demanded was that 
 slavery should not be extended. It did not dream 
 of abolishing slavery in the slave States. We re- 
 member how, long after the war began, we refused 
 to do this. The Southerners had every guaranty 
 they could desire that they should not be interfered 
 with at home. If they had gracefully acquiesced 
 in the decision of the majority, their institution 
 might have flourished for another century. The 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 341 
 
 Fugitive Slave Law would have been repealed ; or, 
 at all events, trial by jury would have been given 
 to the man claimed as a fugitive. But no attempt 
 would have been made by the Republican party to 
 interfere with slavery in the slave States, for that 
 party did not believe it had the right so to do. 
 
 But, in truth, the course of the Southern leaders 
 illustrated in a striking way the distinction between 
 a politician and a statesman. They were very acute 
 politicians, trained in all the tactics of their art ; 
 but they were poor statesmen, incapable of any 
 large strategic plan of action. As statesmen, they 
 should have made arrangements for the gradual 
 abolition of slavery, as an institution incapable of 
 sustaining itself in civilized countries in the nine- 
 teenth century. Or, if they wished to maintain it 
 as long as possible, they ought to have seen that 
 this could only be accomplished by preserving the 
 support of the interests and the public opinion of 
 the North. Alliance with the Northern States was 
 their only security ; and, therefore, they ought to 
 have kept the Northern conscience on their side by 
 a loyal adherence to all compacts and covenants. 
 Instead of this, they contrived to outrage, one by 
 one, every feeling of honor, every sentiment of 
 duty, and every vested right of the free States, 
 until, at last, it became plain to all that it was an 
 " irrepressible conflict," and must be settled defi- 
 nitely either for slavery or for freedom. When 
 this point was reached by the American people, 
 
342 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 they saw also that it could not be settled in favor 
 of slavery, for no concession would satisfy the slave- 
 holders, and no contract these might make could be 
 depended on. The North gave them, in 1850, the 
 Fugitive Slave Law for the sake of peace. Did it 
 gain peace ? No. It relinquished, for the sake 
 of peace, the Wilmot Proviso. Was the South 
 satisfied? No. In 1853 Mr. Douglas offered it 
 the Nebraska Bill. Was it contented ? By no 
 means. Mr. Pierce and Mr. Buchanan did their 
 best to give it Kansas. Did they content the South 
 by their efforts ? No. Mr. Douglas, Mr. Pierce, 
 and Mr. Buchanan were all set aside by the South. 
 The Lecompton Bill was not enough. The Dred 
 Scott decision was not enough. The slaveholders 
 demanded that slavery should be established by a 
 positive act of Congress in all the Territories of 
 the Union. Even Judge Douglas shrank aghast 
 from the enterprise of giving them such a law as 
 that ; and so Judge Douglas was immediately 
 thrown aside. Thus, by the folly of the Southern 
 leaders themselves, more than by the efforts of their 
 opponents, the majority was obtained by the Re- 
 publicans in the election of 1860. 
 
 But during this conflict came many very dark 
 days for freedom. One of these was after the pas- 
 sage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. That law 
 was one of a series of compromises, intended to 
 make a final settlement of the question and to si- 
 lence all antislavery agitation. Although defended 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 343 
 
 by great lawyers, who thought it necessary to save 
 the Union, there is little doubt that it was as un- 
 constitutional as it was cruel. The Constitution 
 declares that " no person shall be deprived of his 
 liberty without due process of law," and also that 
 " in suits at common law, when the value in contro- 
 versy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial 
 by jury shall be preserved." Anthony Burns was 
 in full possession of his liberty ; he was a self-sup- 
 porting, tax-paying citizen of Massachusetts : and 
 in ten days, by the action of the Fugitive Slave 
 Law, he was turned into a slave under the decision 
 of a United States commissioner, without seeing a 
 judge or a jury. The passage of this law, and its 
 actual enforcement, caused great excitement among 
 the free colored people at the North, as well as 
 among the fugitives from slavery. No one was 
 safe. It was evident that it was meant to be en- 
 forced, — it was not meant to be idle thunder. 
 But instead of discouraging the friends of freedom, 
 it roused them to greater activity. More fugitives 
 than ever came from the slave States, and the 
 underground railroad was in fuller activity than 
 before. The methods employed by fugitives to es- 
 cape were very various and ingenious. One man 
 was brought away in a packing-box. Another 
 clung to the lower side of the guard of a steamer, 
 washed by water at every roll of the vessel. One 
 well-known case was that of Ellen Crafts, who 
 came from Georgia disguised as a young Southern 
 
344 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 gentleman, attended by her husband as body-ser- 
 vant. She rode in the cars, sitting near Southern- 
 ers who knew her, but did not recognize her in 
 this costume, and at last arrived safe in Philadel- 
 phia. In one instance a slave escaped from Ken- 
 tucky, with all his family, walking some distance 
 on stilts, in order to leave no scent for the pursu- 
 ing blood-hounds. When these poor people reached 
 the North, and told their stories on the antislavery 
 platform, they excited great sympathy, which was 
 not confined to professed antislavery people. A 
 United States commissioner, who might be called 
 on to return fugitives to bondage, frequently had 
 them concealed in his own house, by the action of 
 his wife, whose generous heart never wearied in 
 this work, and who was the means of saving many 
 from bondage. A Democratic United States mar- 
 shal, in Boston, whose duty it was to arrest fugitive 
 slaves, was in the habit of telling the slave-owner 
 who called on him for assistance that he " did not 
 know anything about niggers, but he would find 
 out where the man was from those who did." 
 Whereupon he would go directly to Mr. Garrison's 
 office and tell him he wanted to arrest such or such 
 a man, a fugitive from slavery. " But," said he, 
 " curiously enough, the next thing I heard would 
 be, that the fellow was in Canada." And when a 
 colored man was actually sent back to slavery, as 
 in the case of Burns, the event excited so much 
 sympathy with the fugitive, and so much horror of 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 345 
 
 the law, that its effects were disastrous to the slave 
 power. Thomas M. Simrus was arrested in Boston 
 as a fugitive from slavery, April 3, 1851, and was 
 sent to slavery by the decision of George Ticknor 
 Curtis, a United States commissioner. The answer 
 to this act, by Massachusetts, was the election of 
 Charles Sumner, twenty-one days after, to the 
 United States Senate. Anthony Burns was re- 
 turned to slavery by order of Edward G. Loring, 
 in May, 1854; and Massachusetts responded by 
 removing him from his office as Judge of Probate, 
 and refusing his confirmation as a professor in Har- 
 vard University. 
 
 The passage of what were called the compromise 
 measures of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave 
 Law, had, it was fondly believed, put an end to the 
 whole antislavery agitation. The two great parties, 
 Whig and Democrat, had agreed that such should 
 be the case. The great leaders, Henry Clay and 
 Daniel Webster, Cass and Buchanan, were active 
 in calling on the people to subdue their prejudices 
 in favor of freedom. Southern fire-eaters, like 
 Toombs and Alexander Stephens, joined these 
 Union-savers, and became apostles of peace. Agi- 
 tation was the only evil, and agitation must now 
 come to an end. Public meetings were held in the 
 large cities, — one in Castle Garden in New York, 
 another in Faneuil Hall in Boston. In these meet- 
 ings the lion and the lamb lay down together. 
 Rufus Choate and Benjamin Hallet joined in de- 
 
346 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 manding that all antislavery agitation should now 
 cease. The church was called upon to assist in the 
 work of Union-saving, and many leading divines 
 lent their aid in this attempt to silence those who 
 desired that the oppressed should go free, and who 
 wished to break every yoke. Many seemed to sup- 
 pose that all antislavery agitation was definitely 
 suppressed. President Fillmore called the com- 
 promise measures " a final adjustment." All the 
 powers which control human opinion — the two 
 great political parties, the secular and the religious 
 newspapers, the large churches and popular divines, 
 the merchants and lawyers — had agreed that the 
 antislavery agitation should now cease. 1 
 
 But just at that moment, when the darkness was 
 
 1 The writer of this article recalls a scene which occurred in his 
 presence in the United States Senate early in 1851. Mr. Clay was 
 speaking of the antislavery agitators and of the Free-Soil party, 
 and said, with much bitterness, " We have put them down, — 
 down, — down, where they will remain ; down to a place so low, 
 that they can never get up again." John P. Hale, never at a loss 
 for a reply, immediately arose and said, " The Senator from Ken- 
 tucky says that I and my friends have been put down, — down, 
 — down, where we shall have to stay. It may be so. Indeed, if 
 the Senator says so, I am afraid it must be so. For, if there is any 
 good authority on this subject, any man who knows by his own per- 
 sonal and constant experience what it is to be put down, and to be 
 kept down, it is the honorable Senator from Kentucky." Mr. 
 Clay's aspirations had been so often baffled, that this was a very 
 keen thrust. The writer spoke to Mr. Hale shortly after, and he 
 said, " I do not think Mr. Clay will forgive me that hit ; but I 
 could not help it. They may have got us down, but they shall 
 not trample upon us." 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 347 
 
 the deepest, and all the great powers in the church 
 and state had decreed that there should be no more 
 said concerning American slavery, the voice of a 
 woman broke the silence, and American slavery- 
 became the one subject of discussion throughout 
 the world. " Uncle Tom's Cabin " was written by 
 Mrs. Stowe for the " National Era," Dr. Bailey's 
 paper in Washington. It was intended to be a 
 short story, running through two or three numbers 
 of the journal, and she was to receive a hundred 
 dollars for writing it. But, as she wrote, the fire 
 burned in her soul, a great inspiration came over 
 her, and, not knowing what she was about to do, 
 she moved the hearts of two continents to their 
 very depths. After her story had appeared in the 
 newspaper, she offered it as a novel to several pub- 
 lishers, who refused it. Accepted at last, it had a 
 circulation unprecedented in the annals of litera- 
 ture. In eight weeks its sale had reached one hun- 
 dred thousand copies in the United States, while 
 in England a million copies were sold within the 
 year. On the European Continent the sale was 
 immense. A single publisher in Paris issued five 
 editions in a few weeks, and before the end of 1852 
 it was translated into Italian, Spanish, Danish, 
 Swedish, Dutch, Flemish, German, Polish, and 
 Magyar. To these were afterward added transla- 
 tions into Portuguese, Welsh, Russian, Arabic, and 
 many other languages. For a time, it stopped the 
 publication and sale of all other works ; and within 
 
348 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 a year or two from the day when the politicians 
 had decided that no more should be said concern- 
 ing American slavery, it had become the subject of 
 conversation and discussion among millions. 
 
 " Uncle Tom's Cabin " was published in 1852. 
 Those were very dark hours in the great struggle 
 for freedom. Who that shared them can ever for- 
 get the bitterness caused by the defection of Dan- 
 iel Webster, and his 7th of March speech in 1850 ; 
 by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, which 
 made the whole area of the free States a hunting- 
 ground for the slaveholders ; and by the rejection 
 of the Wilmot Proviso, which abandoned all the 
 new territory to slavery ? This was followed by 
 the election of Franklin Pierce as President in 
 1852, on a platform in which the Democratic party 
 pledged itself to resist all agitation of the subject 
 of slavery in Congress or outside of it. And in 
 December, 1853, Stephen A. Douglas introduced 
 his Nebraska Bill, which repealed the Missouri 
 Compromise of 1820, and opened all the territory 
 heretofore secured to freedom to slaveholders and 
 their slaves. This offer on the part of Mr. Doug- 
 las was a voluntary bid for the support of the slave- 
 holders in the next Presidential election. And in 
 spite of all protests from the North, all resistance 
 by Democrats as well as their opponents, all argu- 
 ments and appeals, this solemn agreement between 
 the North and the South was violated, and every 
 restriction on slavery removed. Nebraska and 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 349 
 
 Kansas were organized as Territories, and the 
 question of slavery left to local tribunals, or what 
 was called " squatter sovereignty." 
 
 The passage of this measure showed the vast 
 political advance of the slave power in the country, 
 and how greatly it had corrupted the political con- 
 science of the nation. It also showed, to those 
 who had eyes, that slavery was the wedge which 
 was to split the Union asunder. But there were 
 in the North many persons who still thought that 
 danger to the Union came rather from the discus- 
 sion of slavery than from slavery itself. They sup- 
 posed that if all opposition to slavery should cease, 
 then there would be no more danger. The Abo- 
 litionists were the cause of all the peril ; and the 
 way to save the Union was to silence the Abolition- 
 ists. That, however, had been tried ineffectually 
 when they were few and weak ; and now it was 
 too late, as these Union-savers ought to have seen. 
 
 Mr. Douglas and his supporters defended their 
 cause by maintaining that the Missouri Compro- 
 mise was not a contract, but a simple act of legis- 
 lation, and they tauntingly asked, " Why, since 
 antislavery men had always thought that Compro- 
 mise a bad thing, should they now object to its 
 being repealed?" Even this sophism had its 
 effect with some, who did not notice that Doug- 
 las's resolutions only repealed that half of the Com- 
 promise which was favorable to freedom, while 
 letting the other half remain. One part of the 
 
350 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 Act of 1820 was that Missouri should be admitted 
 as a slave State ; the other part was that all the 
 rest of the Territory should be forever free. Only 
 the last part was now repealed. Missouri was left 
 in the Union as a slave State. 
 
 The political advance now made by slavery will 
 appear from the following facts : — 
 
 In 1797 the slave power asked for only life ; it 
 did not wish to extend itself ; it united with the 
 North in prohibiting its own extension into the 
 Northwest Territory. 
 
 In 1820 it did wish to extend itself ; it refused 
 to be shut out of Missouri, but was willing that 
 the rest of the Territory should be always free. 
 
 In 1845 it insisted on extending itself by annex- 
 ing Texas, but it admitted that it had no right to 
 go into any Territory as far north as Missouri. 
 
 In 1850 it refused to be shut out of any of the 
 new territory, and resisted the Wilmot Proviso ; 
 but still confessed that it had no right to go into 
 Kansas or Nebraska. 
 
 Five years after, by the efforts of Stephen A. 
 Douglas and Franklin Pierce, it refused to be shut 
 out of Kansas, and repealed the part of the Mis- 
 souri Compromise which excluded it from that 
 region. But, in order to accomplish this repeal, it 
 took the plausible name of " popular sovereignty," 
 and claimed that the people should themselves 
 decide whether they would have a slave State or 
 a free State. 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 351 
 
 One additional step came. The people decided 
 or were about to decide for freedom ; and then the 
 slave power set aside its own doctrine of popular 
 sovereignty and invaded the Territory with an 
 army of Missourians, chose a legislature for the 
 people of Kansas composed of Missourians, who 
 passed laws establishing slavery and punishing 
 with fine and imprisonment any who should even 
 speak against it. 
 
 The people of Kansas refused to obey these 
 laws. They would have been slaves already if they 
 had obeyed them. Then their own governor, ap- 
 pointed by our President, led an army of Mis- 
 sourians to destroy their towns and plunder and 
 murder their people. Nothing was left them but 
 to resist. They did resist manfully but prudently, 
 and by a remarkable combination of courage and 
 caution the people of the little Free-State town of 
 Lawrence succeeded in saving themselves from this 
 danger without shedding a drop of blood. Men, 
 women, and children were animated by the same 
 heroic spirit. The women worked by the side of 
 the men. The men were placed on the outposts as 
 sentinels and ordered by their general not to fire 
 as long as they could possibly avoid it. And these 
 men stood on their posts, and allowed themselves 
 to be shot at by the invaders, and did not return 
 the fire. One man received two bullets through 
 his hat, and was ready to fire if the enemy came 
 nearer, but neither fired nor quitted his post. 
 
352 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 The men were brave and obedient to orders ; the 
 women were resolute, sagacious, and prudent. So 
 they escaped their first great danger. 
 
 But slavery does not give up its point so easily 
 after one defeat. Preparations were made along 
 the Missouri frontier for another invasion, con- 
 ducted in a more military manner and by troops 
 under better discipline. The Free-State people of 
 Kansas were to be exterminated. From week to 
 week they were expecting an attack, and had to 
 watch continually against it. After having worked 
 all day the men were obliged to do military duty 
 and stand guard all night. Men who lived four 
 and five miles out from Lawrence got wood and 
 water for their wives in the morning, left them a 
 revolver with which to defend themselves, and 
 went to Lawrence to do military duty, returning 
 at night again. 
 
 If we had a writer gifted with the genius of 
 Macaulay to describe the resistance of Kansas to 
 the Federal authorities on one side and the Mis- 
 souri invaders on the other, it would show as heroic 
 courage and endurance as are related in the bril- 
 liant pages which tell of the defense of London- 
 derry. The invaders were unscrupulous, knowing 
 that they had nothing to fear from the government 
 at Washington. Senator Atchison, formerly the 
 presiding officer of the United States Senate, 
 openly advised the people of Missouri to go and 
 vote in Kansas. General Stringfellow told them 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 353 
 
 to take their bowie-knives and exterminate e very- 
 scoundrel who was tainted with Free-soilisin or 
 Abolitionism. The orders were obeyed. The first 
 legislature was elected by armed invaders from 
 Missouri, and Buford with a regiment of Southern 
 soldiers entered the Territory in 1856, and sur- 
 rounded Lawrence. These troops, under Atchi- 
 son, Buford, and Stringfellow, burned houses and 
 hotels, and stole much property. Osawatomie was 
 sacked and burned, Leavenworth invaded and 
 plundered, and Free-State men were killed. A 
 proslavery constitution formed by Missouri slave- 
 holders was forced through Congress, but rejected 
 by the people of Kansas, who at last gained posses- 
 sion of their own State by indomitable courage and 
 patience. Four territorial governors, appointed by 
 the President, selected from the Democratic party 
 and favorable to the extension of slavery, were all 
 converted to the cause of freedom by the sight of 
 the outrages committed by the Missouri invaders. 
 
 Amid this scene of tumult arose a warrior on 
 the side of freedom destined to take his place with 
 William Wallace and William Tell among the 
 few names of patriots which are never forgotten. 
 John Brown of Osawatomie was one of those 
 who, in these later days, have reproduced for us 
 the almost forgotten type of the Jewish hero and 
 prophet. He was a man who believed in a God of 
 justice, who believed in fighting fire with fire. He 
 was one who came in the spirit and power of Eli- 
 
354 BISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 jali, an austere man, a man absorbed in his ideas, 
 fixed as fate in pursuing them. Yet his heart was 
 full of tenderness, he had no feeling of revenge 
 toward any, and he really lost his own life rather 
 than risk the lives of others. While in Kansas he 
 become a leader of men, a captain, equal to every 
 exigency. The ruffians from Missouri found to 
 their surprise that, before they could conquer Kan- 
 sas, they had some real fighting to do, and must 
 face Sharpe's rifles ; and as soon as they under- 
 stood this, their zeal for their cause was very much 
 abated. In this struggle John Brown was being 
 educated for the last scene of his life, which has 
 lifted up his name, and placed it in that body 
 which Daniel O'Connell used to call " The order 
 of Liberators." l 
 
 Out of these persecutions of Free-State men in 
 Kansas came the assault on Charles Sumner, for 
 words spoken in debate. Charles Sumner was 
 elected to the United States Senate in 1851. He 
 found in Congress some strong champions of free- 
 dom. John Quincy Adams was gone ; but Seward 
 was there, and Chase, and John P. Hale, in the 
 Senate ; and Horace Mann, Giddings, and other 
 true men in the House. Henry Wilson himself, 
 always a loyal friend to Sumner, did not come till 
 1855. These men all differed from one another, 
 and each possessed special gifts for his arduous 
 
 1 O'Connell, in an album belonging to John Howard Payne, 
 writes this sentence after his name. 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 355 
 
 work. They stood face to face with an imperious 
 majority, accustomed to rule. They had only im- 
 perfect support at home, — people and press at 
 the North had been demoralized by slavery. They 
 must watch their words, be careful of what they 
 said, control their emotions, maintain an equal 
 temper. Something of the results of this disci- 
 pline we think we perceive in the calm tone of Mr. 
 Wilson's volumes, and the absence of passion in 
 his narration. These men must give no occasion 
 to the enemy to blaspheme, but be careful of their 
 lips and their lives. Their gifts, we have said, 
 were various. Seward was a politician, trained in 
 all the intricate ways of New York party strug- 
 gles ; but he was also a thinker of no small power 
 of penetration. He could see principles, but was 
 too much disposed to sacrifice or postpone them to 
 some supposed exigency of the hour. In his ora- 
 tions, when he spoke for mankind, his views were 
 large ; but in his politics he sometimes gave up to 
 party his best-considered convictions. Thought 
 and action, he seemed to believe, belonged to two 
 spheres ; in his thought he was often broader in 
 his range than any other senator, but in action he 
 was frequently tempted to temporize. Mr. Chase 
 was a man of a different sort. He had no disposi- 
 tion to concede any of his views. A cautious man, 
 he moved slowly ; but when he had taken his posi- 
 tion, he was not disposed to leave it. John P. 
 Hale was admirable in reply. His retorts were 
 
356 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 rapid and keen, and yet were uttered so good- 
 naturedly, and with so much, wit, that it was diffi- 
 cult for his opponents to take offense. But 
 Charles Sumner was " the noblest Roman of them 
 all." With a more various culture, a higher tone 
 of moral sentiment, he was also a learned student 
 and a man of implacable opinions. He never 
 could comprehend Mr. Seward's diplomacy, and 
 probably Mr. Seward could never understand Sum- 
 ner's inability to compromise. He was deficient 
 in imagination and in tact ; therefore he could not 
 enter into the minds of others, and imperfectly 
 understood them. But the purity of his soul and 
 life, the childlike simplicity of his purposes, and 
 the sweetness of his disposition, were very charm- 
 ing to those who knew him well. Add to this the 
 resources of a mind stored with every kind of 
 knowledge, and a memory which never forgot any- 
 thing, and his very presence in Washington gave 
 an added value to the place. He had seen men 
 and cities, and was intimate with European celeb- 
 rities, but yet was an Israelite indeed in whom was 
 no guile. Fond of the good opinions of others, 
 and well pleased with their approbation, he never 
 sacrificed a conviction to win their praise or to 
 avoid their censure. Certainly, he was one of the 
 purest men who ever took part in American poli- 
 tics. 
 
 It was such a man as this, so gifted and adorned, 
 so spotless and upright, who by the wise provi- 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 357 
 
 dence of God was permitted to be the victim of a 
 brutal assassin. It was this noble head, the in- 
 strument of laborious thought for the public wel- 
 fare, which was beaten and bruised by the club of 
 a ruffian, on May 22, 1856. Loud was the tri- 
 umph through the South, great the joy of the slave 
 power. They had disabled, with cruel blows, their 
 chief enemy. Little did they foresee — bad men 
 never do foresee — that Charles Sumner was to 
 return to his seat, and become a great power in the 
 land, long after their system had been crushed, and 
 their proud States trampled into ruin by the tread 
 of Northern armies. They did not foresee that he 
 was to be the trusted counselor of Lincoln during 
 those years of war ; and that, after they had been 
 conquered, he would become' one of their best 
 friends in their great calamity, and repay their 
 evil with good. 
 
 This murderous assault on Mr. Sumner cannot 
 be considered as having strengthened the political 
 position of the slave power. It was a great mis- 
 take in itself, and it was a greater mistake in be- 
 ing indorsed by such multitudes in the slave States. 
 In thus taking the responsibility of the act, they 
 fully admitted that brutality, violence, and cow- 
 ardly attempts at assassination are natural char- 
 acteristics of slavery. A thrill of horror went 
 through the civilized world on this occasion. All 
 the free States felt themselves outraged. That 
 an attempt should be made to kill in his seat a 
 
358 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 Northern man, for words spoken in debate, was a 
 gross insult and wrong to the nation, and deep- 
 ened everywhere the detestation felt for the sys- 
 tem. 
 
 But madness must have its perfect work. One 
 more step remained to be taken by the slave power, 
 and that was to claim the right, under the Consti- 
 tution, and protected by the general government, 
 to carry slaves and slavery into all the Territories. 
 It was not enough that they were not prohibited 
 by acts of Congress. They must not allow the 
 people of the Territories to decide for themselves 
 whether slavery should exist among them or not. 
 It had a right to exist there, in spite of the people. 
 A single man from South Carolina, going with his 
 slaves into Nebraska, should have the power of 
 making that a slave State, though all the rest of its 
 inhabitants wished it to be free. And if he were 
 troubled by his neighbors, he had a right to call 
 on the military power of the United States to pro- 
 tect him against them. Such was the doctrine of 
 the Dred Scott case, such the doctrine accepted by 
 the majority of the United States Senate under the 
 lead of Jefferson Davis in the spring of 1859. 
 Such was the doctrine demanded by the Southern 
 members of the Democratic Convention in Charles- 
 ton, S. C, in May, 1860, and, failing to carry it, 
 they broke up that convention. And it was be- 
 cause they were defeated in this purpose of carry- 
 ing slavery into the Territories that they seceded 
 
BISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 359 
 
 from the Union, and formed the Southern Con- 
 federacy. 
 
 They had gained a long succession of political 
 triumphs, which we have briefly traced in this 
 article. They had annexed Texas, and made an- 
 other slave State of that Territory. They had estab- 
 lished the principle that slavery was not to be 
 excluded by law from any of the Territories of the 
 nation. They had repealed the Missouri Compro- 
 mise, passed the Fugitive Slave Law, obtained the 
 Dred Scott decision from the Supreme Court. In 
 all this they had been aided by the Democratic 
 party, and were sure of the continued help of that 
 party. With these allies, they were certain to 
 govern the country for a long period of years. 
 The President, the Senate, the Supreme Court, 
 were all on their side. As regarded slavery in the 
 States, there was nothing to threaten its existence 
 there. The Republicans proposed only to restrict 
 it to the region where it actually existed, but could 
 not and would not meddle with it therein. If the 
 slave power had been satisfied with this, it seems 
 probable that it might have retained its ascendency 
 in the country for a long period. An immense 
 region was still open to its colonies. Cotton was 
 still king, and the slaveholders possessed all the 
 available cotton-growing regions. They were 
 wealthy, they were powerful, they governed the 
 nation. They threw all this power away by seced- 
 ing from the Union. Why did they do this ? 
 
360 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 The frequent answer to this question is con- 
 tained in the proverb, " Whom the gods would de- 
 stroy they first make mad." No doubt this act 
 was one of madness, and no doubt it was providen- 
 tial. But Providence works not by direct inter- 
 ference, but by maintaining the laws of cause and 
 effect. Why did they become so mad ? Why this 
 supreme folly of relinquishing actual enormous 
 power, in order to set their lives and fortunes on 
 the hazard of a die ? 
 
 It seems to be the doom of all vaulting ambition 
 to overleap itself, and to fall on the other side. 
 When Macbeth had gained all his ends, when he 
 had become Thane of Cawdor and Glamis, and 
 king, he had no peace, because the succession had 
 been promised to Banquo : — 
 
 " Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, 
 And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, 
 Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand, 
 No son of mine succeeding. If 't be so, 
 For Banquo 's issue have I filed my mind, 
 For them the gracious Duncan have I murthered, 
 Put rancors in the vessel of my peace. 
 . . . To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings ! 
 Rather than so, come fate into the list, 
 And champion me to the utterance." 
 
 When Napoleon the First was master of nearly 
 all Europe, he could not be satisfied while Eng- 
 land resisted his power, and Russia had not sub- 
 mitted to it. So he also said, — 
 
 " Rather than so, come fate into the list, 
 And champion me to the utterance." 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 361 
 
 He also threw away all his immense power because 
 he could not arrest his own course or limit his own 
 demands on fate. Such ambitions cannot stop, so 
 long as there is anything unconquered or unpos- 
 sessed. " All this avails me nothing, so long as I 
 see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate." 
 The madness which seizes those greedy of power 
 is like the passion of the gamester, who is unable 
 to limit his desire of gain. By this law of insa- 
 tiable ambition Providence equalizes destinies, and 
 power is prevented from being consolidated in a 
 few hands. 
 
 The motive which actuates these ambitions, and 
 makes them think that nothing is gained so long as 
 anything remains to be gained, seems to be a secret 
 fear that they are in danger of losing all unless 
 they can obtain more. 
 
 This inward dread appears to have possessed 
 the hearts of the Southern slaveholders. Since 
 slavery has been abolished, many of them admit 
 that they have more content in their present 
 poverty than they formerly had in their large 
 possessions. They were then sensitive to every 
 suggestion which touched their institution. Hence 
 their persecution of Abolitionists, hence their 
 cruelty to the slaves themselves, — for cruelty is 
 often the child of fear. Hence the atrocity of the 
 slave laws. Hence the desire to secure more and 
 larger guaranties from the United States for their 
 institution. Every rumor in the air troubled 
 
362 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 them. The fact that antislavery opinion existed 
 at the North, that it was continually increasing, 
 that a great political party was growing up which 
 was opposed to their system, that such men as 
 Garrison and Wendell Phillips existed in Boston, 
 that Seward and Sumner were in the Senate, — 
 all this was intolerable. The only way of ac- 
 counting for Southern irritability, for Southern 
 aggressions, for its perpetual demand for more 
 power, is to be found in this latent terror. They 
 doubted whether the foundations of their whole 
 system were not rotten ; they feared that it rested 
 on falsehood and lies ; they secretly felt that it 
 was contrary to the will of God ; an instinct in 
 their souls told them that it was opposed to the 
 spirit of the age and the laws of progress; and 
 this fear made them frantic. 
 
 When men's minds are in this state, they are 
 like the glass toy called a Rupert's bubble. A 
 single scratch on the surface causes it to fly in 
 pieces. The scratch on the surface of the slave 
 system which caused it to rush into secession and 
 civil war was the attempt of John Brown on 
 Harper's Ferry. It seemed a trifle, but it indi- 
 cated a great deal. It was the first drop of a com- 
 ing storm. When one man was able to lay down 
 his life, in a conflict with their system, with such 
 courage and nobleness, in a cause not his own, a 
 shudder ran through the whole South. To what 
 might this grow ? And so they said, " Let us cut 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 363 
 
 ourselves wholly off from these dreadful fanati- 
 cisms, from these terrible dangers. Let us make a 
 community of our own, and shut out from it en- 
 tirely all antislavery opinion, and live only with 
 those who think as we do." And so came the end. 
 
 In reviewing Mr. Wilson's work, we have thus 
 seen how it describes the gradual and simultaneous 
 growth in the United States of two hostile powers, 
 — one political, the other moral. The one con- 
 tinued to accumulate the outward forces which 
 belong to the organization ; the other, the inward 
 forces which are associated with enthusiasm. The 
 one added continually to its external strength by 
 the passage of new laws, the addition of new terri- 
 tory, the more absolute control of parties, govern- 
 ment, courts, the press, and the street. The other 
 increased its power by accumulating an intenser 
 conviction, a clearer knowledge, a firmer faith, and 
 a more devoted consecration to its cause. The 
 weapons of the one were force, adroitness, and 
 worldly interest ; those of the other, faith in God, 
 in man, and in truth. 
 
 Great truths draw to their side noble auxiliaries. 
 So it was with the antislavery movement. The 
 heroism, the romance, the eloquence, the best 
 literature, the grandest forms of religion, the most 
 generous and purest characters, — all were brought 
 to it by a sure affinity. As Wordsworth said to 
 Toussaint l'Ouverture, so it might be declared 
 here : — 
 
364 BISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWEE 
 
 tl Thou hast great allies ; 
 Thy friends are exaltations, agonies, 
 And love, and man's unconquerable mind." 
 
 The best poets of America, Bryant, Longfellow, 
 Whittier, Lowell, were in full sympathy with this 
 cause, and their best poetry was their songs for 
 freedom. Shall we ever forget the caustic humor 
 of "Hosea Biglow" and " Birdof redum Sawin"? 
 And how lofty a flight of inspiration did the same 
 bard take, when he chanted in verses nobler, as it 
 seems to us, than anything since Wordsworth's 
 " Ode to Immortality," the Return of the Heroes 
 who had wrought salvation for the dear land 
 " bright beyond compare " among the nations ! 
 What heroism, what tenderness, what stern re- 
 buke, what noble satire, have attended every event 
 in this long struggle, from the lyre of Whittier ! 
 Nothing in Campbell excels the ring of some of 
 his trumpet-calls, nothing in Cowper the pathos of 
 his elegies over the martyrs of freedom. The 
 best men and the best women were always to be 
 found at the meetings of the Antislavery Society. 
 There were to be seen such upright lawyers as 
 Ellis Gray Loring and Samuel E. Sewall and John 
 A. Andrew, such eminent writers as Emerson, 
 such great preachers as Theodore Parker and 
 Beecher, such editors as Bryant and Greeley. To 
 this cause did William Ellery Channing devote 
 his last years and best thoughts. If the churches 
 as organizations stood aloof, being only " timidly 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 365 
 
 good," as organizations are apt to be, the purest of 
 their body were sure to be found in this great 
 company of latter-day saints. 
 
 Antislavery men had their faults. They were 
 often unjust to their opponents, though uninten- 
 tionally so. They were sometimes narrow and 
 bitter ; and with them, as with all very earnest 
 people, any difference of opinion as to methods 
 seemed to involve moral obliquity. But they were 
 doing the great work of the age, — the most neces- 
 sary work of all, — and much might be pardoned 
 to their passionate love of justice and humanity. 
 In their meetings could be heard many of the 
 ablest speakers of the time, and one, the best of 
 all. He held the silver bow of Apollo, and dread- 
 ful was its clangor when he launched its shafts 
 against spiritual wickedness in high places. Those 
 deadly arrows were sometimes misdirected, and 
 occasionally they struck the good men who were 
 meaning to do their duty. Such errors, we sup- 
 pose, are incident to all who are speaking and act- 
 ing in such terrible earnest ; in the great day of 
 accounts many mistakes will have to be rectified. 
 But surely among the goodly company of apostles 
 and prophets, and in the noble army of martyrs 
 there assembled, few will be found more free from 
 the sins of selfish interest and personal ambition 
 than those who in Congress, in the pulpit, on the 
 platform, or with the pen, fought the great battle 
 of American freedom. 
 
366 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 One great moral must be drawn from this story 
 before we close. It demonstrates, by a great his- 
 torical proof, that no evil however mighty, no 
 abuse however deeply rooted, can resist the power 
 of truth faithfully uttered and steadily applied. 
 If this great institution of slavery, resting on such 
 a foundation of enormous pecuniary interest, but- 
 tressed by such powerful supports, fell in the life 
 of a single generation before the unaided power of 
 truth, why should we ever despair ? Henceforth, 
 whenever a mighty evil is to be assailed, or a cruel 
 despotism overthrown, men will look to this his- 
 tory of the greatness and decadence of slavery ; 
 and, so encouraged, will believe that God is on the 
 side of justice, and that truth will always prevail 
 against error. 
 
 But to this we must add, that it is only where 
 free institutions exist that truth has full power in 
 such a conflict. We need free speech, a free 
 press, free schools, and free churches, in order that 
 truth may have a free course. The great advan- 
 tage of a republic like ours is, that it gives to 
 truth a fair chance in its conflict with error. The 
 Southern States would long ago have abolished 
 slavery if it had possessed such institutions. But, 
 though republican in form, the Southern States 
 were in reality an oligarchy, in which five millions 
 of whites and three millions of slaves were gov- 
 erned by the absolute and irresponsible power of 
 less than half a million of slaveholders. Freedom 
 
RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 367 
 
 was permitted by them except when this institution 
 was concerned, then it was absolutely forbidden. 
 No book written against their peculiar institution 
 could be printed on any Southern press or sold in 
 any Southern bookstore. No newspaper attacking 
 slavery was allowed to be circulated through 
 Southern mails. No public meeting could be held 
 to discuss the right and wrong of slavery. No 
 minister could preach against the system. No 
 man could express, even in conversation, his hos- 
 tility to it, without risk of personal injury. An 
 espionage as sharp, and an inquisition as relentless 
 as those of Venice or Spain, governed society, at 
 least in the cotton and sugar States of the Union. 
 But at the North opinion was free, and therefore 
 slavery fell. Fisher Ames compressed in an epi- 
 gram the evil and good of republican institutions. 
 " In a monarchy," said he, " we are in a ship, very 
 comfortable while things go well ; but strike a 
 rock, and we go to the bottom. In a republic, we 
 are on a raft ; our feet are wet, and it is not always 
 agreeable, but we are safe." It is a lasting proof 
 of the conservative power of free institutions, that 
 they were able to uproot such a system as slavery 
 by creating a moral force capable of putting it 
 down ; that they could carry us through a civil 
 war, still leaving the press and speech free : that 
 they stood the strain of a presidential election 
 without taking from the voters a single right ; and 
 so, at last, conquered a rebellion on so vast a scale 
 
368 RISE AND FALL OF THE SLAVE POWER 
 
 that every European monarchy, with its immense 
 standing army, would have been powerless in its 
 presence. Let those Americans who are disposed 
 to disparage their own institutions ,bear this his- 
 tory in mind. We have evils here, and great 
 ones ; but they come at once to the surface, and 
 therefore can be met and overcome by the power 
 of intelligent opinion. So it has always been in 
 the past; so it will be, God aiding us, in the 
 future. We are about to meet the Centennial 
 Anniversary of our national life ; and on that day 
 we can look back to our fathers, the founders of 
 the Republic, and say to them, — " You gave us 
 the inestimable blessing of free institutions ; we 
 have used those institutions to destroy the only 
 great evil which you transmitted to us untouched. 
 We now can send down the Republic to our chil- 
 dren, pure from this stain, and capable of enduring 
 
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