Some Phases of Idealism in New England

AMONG the papers of the late George Ripley is the following list of names under the head of “ Transcendentalism,” plainly intended to convey his notion of the phases through which idealism in New England passed during the several passages of its career. No hint is given of the rule adopted by the author in making this enumeration. It was evidently not the order of development in time, for in that case W. E. Channing, R. W. Emerson, James Walker, F. H. Hedge, would claim mention among the first. It was not the order of speculative rank ; for in that case some who are placed at the beginning would be omitted entirely. The author probably followed a classification suggested by some conception of his own in regard to the unfolding of ideas and their sequence from one stage to another. It will be observed that a few important names are passed by altogether, as, for instance, that of O. A. Brownson, who made idealism the basis of his speculative position, first as a reformer, and afterwards as a Roman Catholic ; and also that of Henry James, an exceedingly able, eloquent, and uncompromising writer, who applied the Transcendental postulate to society in a manner to terrify cautious men. Why these were omitted does not appear ; perhaps Mr. Ripley did not take the trouble to complete his list ; perhaps he had in view only the philosophical aspects of the Transcendental movement, and did not care to follow it beyond the line of recognized ideas, either in reform or theology. Here is the list, as existing in his manuscript : N. L.

Frothingham (1820), Convers Francis, John Pierpont, George Ripley (1830), F. H. Hedge, James Walker, Thomas T. Stone, W. E. Channing, J. F. Clarke, R. W. Emerson, W. H. Channing, Theodore Parker. Such a grouping of itself implies that idealism took its hue from the temperament of those professing it; that it was no definite or fixed system, but rather a mode of speculative thought which each believer pursued according to the bent of his mind. The first two names suggest the literary tendency of the new faith; the third, its application to specific reform ; the next four, its bearing on the principles of philosophy ; the two Channings, J. F. Clarke, and Theodore Parker illustrate its bearing on points of religious opinion ; while Mr. Emerson represents idealism pure and simple, apart from all philosophical or sectarian beliefs, from all critical or speculative dogmas.

Only by virtue of some such general classification can N. L. Frothingham be ranked among Transcendentalists. He was not a philosopher, not a man interested in abstruse speculation, not a reformer of society as a whole or in part, not an innovator on established ways of thinking or living. He was a man of letters, an enthusiastic admirer of literary form, of eloquent language, of ingenious, elegant thought. His large library contained none of the great masterpieces of speculation, little of Plato, less of Aristotle, next to nothing of Spinoza or Kant, nothing of Schelling or Hegel, but much of Heine, Schiller, Rückert, and poets in either prose or verse, whether English, French, or German. Writers of opposite schools interested him if they wrote brilliantly, but to profound spiritual differences he was insensible. He enjoyed Macaulay and Raskin, Walter Scott and Dickens, Cicero and Shakespeare. Novelties he disliked and repelled. Wordsworth he did not read, or Byron ; Keats he never spoke of ; Shelley he abhorred ; the Victorian bards he could not relish. In the Transcendental reform of his time he took no part, had little sympathy with Dr. Channing, and, though personally intimate with R. W. Emerson, F. H. Hedge, George Ripley, Theodore Parker, and other leaders in the new movement, could not be persuaded to concern himself with it, even in its initiatory stages. When invited to conferences, he courteously declined, as one might do who did not feel called to leave his wonted round of pursuits. But his interest in theological and Biblical literature was very keen, as the books on his shelves and his translations of Herder’s Briefe abundantly attest. It is on the strength of these translations, and of an article in the Christian Examiner on The Beginning and Perfection of Christianity, evidently prepared for the pulpit, that Mr. Ripley assigns to him a place among the friends of Transcendentalism. This place he undoubtedly deserved, for, although averse to public demonstration, and unoccupied with speculative issues, topics, or discussions, his mind lived in the spirit of the new ideas. He was at heart an idealist. His sermons were free from dogma, from doctrinal bias, from controversial animosity, almost from debatable opinion on the theological ground. He was a friend of knowledge. With him, refined reason was the test of truth. He loved air and light, liberty combined with law. Views that exhilarated, books that cheered, intercourse with expansive, joyous intellects, charmed him especially. If hard-pushed by antagonists, he might have called himself an idealist, but he never was hard - pushed. The smooth and even tenor of his life fell in with his scholarly disposition, and allowed him to pursue his favorite studies undisturbed by polemical aggressions. He had all the liberty he wanted. Emerson called him an Erasmus, and he had some warrant for his definition. But it must be remembered that Mr. Frothingham belonged to an older generation, and consequently was less open than young men are

to new emotions. Had he been Luther’s contemporary he would have been more open to criticism than he was. The only ones of his generation who took an active part in the new protest were Convers Francis and Caleb Stetson. Dr. Channing was in sympathy with the movement, but did not join it. The rest were new men. Belonging to the most liberal sect of Christians, while others broached new doctrines or contended for larger spiritual freedom, his gentle, peace-loving spirit was contented with the permission to read and think without embarrassment. Neither Dr. Channing’s earnest pleading for the dignity of human nature, nor George Ripley’s calm exposition of the powers of the soul, nor James Walker’s vindication of the spiritual philosophy, nor Theodore Parker’s vehement denunciation of formalism in religion, nor William Lloyd Garrison’s arraignment of the United States Constitution stirred his enthusiasm. The numerous projects for regenerating society which hurtled in the air offended him. He was not of the crowd which followed Mr. Emerson. He never visited Brook Farm. Like Longfellow, he hated violence, delighting in the still air of his books, and lacking faith in the transforming efficacy of insurgent ideas. His was a poetic mind, — delicate, fastidious, disinclined to entertain depressing views, averse to contention on any field. The evils of the world did not shroud him in gloom, or summon him to the combat with either error or sin. Very far from being self-indulgent, — on the contrary, being generous, affectionate, disinterested, — he was wanting in the vigor of conviction which makes the champion, the reformer, or the martyr. His conscience was overlaid by the peradventures of critical thought. He detested Calvinism, for in his nostrils it smelt of blood. He had no liking for the ordinary Uuitarianism, which, in his view, was prosaic. Idealism fascinated him by its poetic beauty rather than by its philosophical truth, and drew him towards the teachers whose steps he could not follow. This position was fully recognized by his friends, who read his books, enjoyed his conversation, profited by his counsel, and were inspired by his enthusiasm for generous thoughts, but soon ceased to expect partisan sympathy or coöperation from him. Such a man may be called a pioneer in the Transcendental movement, for he was in the spirit of it, and such force as he threw was cast in that direction ; but in no other sense was he a leader.

The service rendered by men of his cast was nevertheless very great at a time when literature was so closely associated with theology as to be quite unemancipated. In fact, there was no such thing as a literary spirit in America before Transcendentalism created one, by overthrowing dogma and transferring the tribunal of judgment to the human mind. A literary taste, correct, fastidious, refined, and firm, first became possible when all literary productions were placed on the same level and submitted to the same laws of criticism ; and idealism of this type supplied the necessary conditions. One must have been through and through pervaded by the Transcendental principle before he could have cast a free, bold regard on the beauties of the pagan classics, or on the deformities of books hitherto looked on as above human estimate. The services of those scholars who first ventured to do this, who did it without hesitation, who encouraged others to do it, has never been appraised at its full value. The influence of Transcendentalism on literature has been lasting and deep, and that influence is shown in nothing more signally than in this liberation of the human mind from theological prejudice. Writers felt it who would not call themselves Transcendentalists, but who read books which had been sealed to them before. In Germany the literary spirit was illustrated by minds like Goethe, Schiller, Herder, to mention only three of many names. In France authors famed for brilliancy made it attractive. In England Coleridge, among others, made it honorable. In New England Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Hedge, the writers in the Dial, took up the tradition. For pure literary enthusiasm, N. L. Frothingham was distinguished among his compeers. On his library shelves all books stood side by side. His sermons were marked by exquisite felicity of expression and by admirable literary proportion. The appeal was always made to the hearer’s reason ; the argument was in all cases addressed to his understanding ; and the assumption was that the human heart was the final tribunal. Many things were doubted that were not disproved. Some things were questioned in private that were not doubted in public, the evidence not being esteemed conclusive, and official responsibility forbidding hasty utterances.

It has been conjectured that Theodore Parker had Dr. Frothingham in mind in the famous discourse on the Transient and Permanent, where he vehemently rebukes the preacher who said one thing in his study and another in his pulpit. But this could hardly have been the case, for Mr. Parker was a man of scrupulous honor, and Dr. Frothingham was his personal friend. Besides, it was not true that Dr. Frothingham said one thing in his study and another in his pulpit. He simply did not say everything in his pulpit that he said in his study. He was a scholar and a critic ; he was, too, a singularly frank, conversable, outspoken man among his friends and intimates. But he was likewise a preacher, a man addressing from week to week an assembly of people who were neither scholars nor critics, but plain men and women looking to him for rational instruction in religion. There is no reason to think that he ever pushed outside of cardinal beliefs, or ever felt the ground giving way beneath his Unitarian feet. In his own mind he may have entertained speculations which, if carried out in all their bearings, would have been destructive of the usual conventionalities of faith. But he never did carry them out in all their bearings. In his pulpit he was a thoughtful man, mindful of his accountabilities to the truth. It never occurred to him to utter all the misgivings that came into his head. In this he was not alone. James Walker, a more pronounced Transcendentalist than he, and a far more impressive preacher, — an authority on matters of belief; looked up to, quoted, followed ; a wise, deeply-inquiring man, — said in private things more searching than Dr. Frothingham, while his public addresses were more conservative; he felt that his personal lucubrations, however interesting they might be to him, would be quite out of place in sermons which aimed at inculcating broad truths and urging universal sentiments.

In a word, temperament is one thing, philosophy is another. There was a temporary coolness — there could not be a long one, with two such men — between Theodore Parker and his old friend and benefactor, Convers Francis, because the latter declined to compromise the Divinity School at Cambridge by preaching for him. But Mr. Francis, however much he admired Mr. Parker, and however warm his personal sympathy with his position may have been, felt the pressure of organized responsibilities, and postponed his private predilections to his public duty. He belonged to the first generation of New England Transcendentalism. He was a man of deep emotions, strong feelings of personal affection, a true friend, an ardent humanitarian, an anti-slavery man of pronounced opinions, a dear lover of intellectual liberty, as all Transcendentalists were. But he had none of the gifts of the popular orator ; his voice was unmusical, his action unimpassioned, his style of address scholastic. An enthusiast in his love of natural beauty, the melodies of creation, the singing of birds, the rustling of leaves, the murmur of brooks did not get into his discourse. There was dryness in his tone and in his manner. A quality of bookishness seemed a part of the man. He was an enormous reader of all sorts of books, old and new, conservative and liberal ; but his delight was in books that emancipated the mind, whether theological, philosophical, critical, poetical, or simply literary. He was too universal a reader to be a partisan of reform. He saw the strong features of both sides, and while holding very decided opinions of his own, was respectful towards the honest opinions of others. Mr. Francis was a devoted member of “ The Transcendental Club ; ” an attendant at its initial meeting at the house of George Ripley; an intimate friend of Mr. Emerson ; in close, sympathetic intercourse with all the men who favored what were known as “ advanced opinions.” There is no doubt whatever that he belonged to the party of progress. He himself never concealed or disguised the fact that he did. Nevertheless, such was the literary attitude of his mind that he was asked by the party which was not that of progress to leave his parish in Watertown for a professorship in the Divinity School at Cambridge.

His teaching there, on pulpit eloquence, the pastoral office, with all that it implied of history, doctrine, Biblical criticism, was characterized by the same temperate, impartial, truthful spirit. Such, in fact, was his fidelity to the unprejudiced view that it often seemed as if he had no view of his own. The students tried, usually in vain, to drive him into a corner, and extract from him an avowal of private belief ; until at last it was the current opinion that he had no belief of his own. Never was there a greater mistake. Out of the class-room he could be explicit enough. Nobody who conversed with him on books, men, and doctrines could for a moment doubt where his personal convictions were. As one who was in the Divinity School during his service there, I can bear witness to the singular candor of his instruction, and to the pleasure he took in imparting knowledge, in stimulating inquiry, in extending the intellectual horizon of young men. His library, his erudition, his thought, were open and free to all. He was even grateful when a scholar wanted anything he had. As I look back over the long course of years that has elapsed since those university days, I can trace distinctly to him liberating and gladdening influences, which, at the time, were not acknowledged as they should have been.

Mr. Francis was an early friend of Theodore Parker, then a youth, teaching school at Watertown. He lent him books, gave him suggestions, encouraged his pursuits, sympathized with his aims, poured out his own stores of learning, put the ambitious scholar in the way of mental advance. And though the pupil presently took a stand which the teacher could not altogether applaud, the feeling of affectionate interest never was diminished, nor at the last was the cordial regard less than it was at the first. The two men, so unlike, yet understood and loved one another.

The philosophical phase of Boston Transcendentalism was also represented by two men, — James Walker and George Ripley. The former has already been spoken of. He was a thinker, calm, profound, silent; a student of opinions, a reader of books, a friendly, warm-hearted man, candid and generous, but in no way demonstrative or oracular. His was a judicial mind, slow in coming to conclusions, but clear, close, firm, reticent ; never impatient or forward, outspoken only when fully and finally convinced. His tastes were not especially literary; his reading was severe ; he did not much concern himself

with political or social reform ; was neither leader nor orator. He pondered over Cudworth, Butler, Reid, in Englaud ; over Kant, Jacobi, Schleiermacher, in Germany ; over Cousin, Jouffroy, Degerando, in France. He occupied himself with problems. In 1834, in a discourse printed later as a tract, on the Philosophy of Man’s Spiritual Nature in Regard to the Foundations of Faith, he said, “ Let us hope that a better philosophy than the degrading sensualism out of which most forms of infidelity have grown will prevail, and that the minds of the rising generation will be thoroughly imbued with it. Let it be a philosophy which recognizes the higher nature of man, and aims, in a chastened and reverential spirit, to unfold the mysteries of his higher life. Let it be a philosophy which continually reminds us of our intimate relations to the spiritual world,” etc. The philosophy thus commended was, it is quite unnecessary to say, Transcendentalism. In 1840, the same teacher, discoursing to the alumni of the Cambridge Divinity School, declared that the return to a higher order of ideas had been promoted by such men as Schleiermacher and De Wette, and gave his opinion that the religious community had reason to look with distrust and dread on a philosophy which limited the ideas of the human mind to information imparted by the senses, and denied the existence of spiritual elements in the nature of man. This was two years after the delivery of Mr. Emerson’s famous “ Address ” which brought on the controversy between Mr. Norton and Mr. Ripley. Mr. Walker’s statement was cautious, inasmuch as orthodox theologians might maintain the existence of a spiritual susceptibility which revelation would develop; but at that epoch of time, and from Unitarian lips, the declaration was construed as a confession of faith in the “ intuitive ” doctrine. There is no evidence that Mr. Walker went beyond the opinion given above, unless an expression used in a sermon be taken as evidence. “ The drunkard and the sensualist,” he said, “ are the monsters ; ” implying that depravity was not of nature, but a violation of nature, which was holy and divine. This, however, may have been only another way of saying that evil was a deprivation, and that goodness was the normal condition of man, — a very innocent proposition. Mr. Walker was in no sense a naturalist, a believer in instinct, an advocate of passion, a patron of organic temperament or constitutional bias. He was a devout Christian in every practical respect,— humble, submissive, obedient. Infidelity he ascribed to the opposite school of speculation, and looked to the system he espoused for a restoration of faith. For his own part, he held fast to divine inspiration, Christ, Bible, Church, the established means of grace, simply transferring the sanctions of authority from outward to inward, from external testimony to immediate consciousness, from the senses to the soul, as the deepest thinkers in all ages had done. It was not in his thought to erect a new tribunal, merely to remove an old one from an exposed and precarious position to one of absolute safety. Beyond that he seems not to have gone. In other words, he attributed to the soul a receptive but not a creative power ; an ability to take what was given, but not to originate ideas. Dr. Walker had great influence over the young men of his generation, and imparted to them an impulse toward spiritual belief; made them self-respecting, high-principled, noble of purpose, pure, and God-fearing, but he made no skeptics. His last asseveration was of a personal faith in prayer.

The same, essentially, was the position of George Ripley, though the more ardent, impulsive temperament of the man pushed him nearer to the social confines of liberalism. Ripley was not

a slow, silent, recluse thinker, not an original, creative mind ; but a great reader, a student of German, a lover of philosophy, a master of elegant English, a careful writer, a singularly clear expositor. Only in an ideal sense, however, and as democratic ideas were involved in the Transcendental premises, was he a social reformer. He took on himself the most opprobrious names, the more heroically as he was not distinguished as a worker in any of the causes which those names represented. He made heavy sacrifices for Brook Farm, but his was rather a Utopian view of the possibilities of such an institution. There seems to have been a gulf between his conception and his execution. He raised his hand, but could not strike the blow. He was convinced, yet cautious ; frank in his persuasions, but reserved in his expressions; his feelings were warm, but he kept them very much to himself. A Transcendentalist he certainly was, an outspoken one ; but his chief interest was in the speculative aspects of the faith. He perceived whither the faith tended in times like his, and was not sorry to see others — Parker, for instance— push it to its conclusion, but he could not do so himself. The philosophy alone would not necessarily have led to rationalism. Ripley stood midway between the philosophy and the rationalism to which it readily lent itself, and while standing apart welcomed all earnest scholars in the new field. Materialism he detested ; animalism he feared; criticism he never pursued. The French school, as represented by Cousin, Jouffroy, and Constant, was his favorite before the German, which he sought rather for literary stimulus, Goethe being his model writer. It was evident that the Transcendental system, which was but a literal form of idealism, was running into sentimentalism, the deification of human nature, but in 1836 that was merely a tendency. Its real influence was conservative of established institutions and ideas. So it was in James Walker, so it was in George Ripley, the two men who stood for the philosophical truth of idealism. From thought to feeling, however, the step was short and quickly taken, as we shall see.

The ethical element in Transcendentalism followed closely on the intellectual. This, also, had two representatives, — John Pierpont and Theodore Parker. Why John Pierpont? He is the third named on Mr. Ripley’s list, and is a good example of the indirect force of philosophical ideas. Forty years ago he was conspicuous as a champion of temperance in Boston, as the hero, in fact, of an ecclesiastical council held to determine his relations to his parish in Hollis Street. He was not a philosopher, not a man of letters, though he wrote verses. “Poetry is not my vocation,” he said, in the preface to his published volume. It evidently was not. With a few exceptions, his verses were reform manifestoes, rhymed sermons, exhortations in metrical form. He published sermons and letters, but they were more remarkable as specimens of dialectics than as examples of philosophical acuteness. Apparently he was not greatly concerned with speculative questions, not abstract, introspective, ethereal, but tremendously concrete. In the ranks of the idealists he was never conspicuous. The lists of attendants on the discussions of the newest phases of thought do not contain his name. He was a reformer of an extreme description, — an abolitionist, a temperance man, a general iconoclast. But all this he seems to have been by virtue of that faith in the natural man which was characteristic of the Transcendentalism of the period. His views of Christianity as a religion of humanity; of the gospel as a prociamation of universal good will; of the Christ as an elder brother, saving by unfolding men and women ; of God as a loving Father, — all pointed in the direction of social reconstruction. He believed in remodeling circumstances, in obtaining liberty, in securing better conditions of life for the unprivileged. The agitators loved him, the teetotalers, the come-outers, the spiritualists, because he hit hard the lucrative, organized evils of the time, but he was a thorn in the flesh of moderate people who hated such inspiration.

The air of the period was agitated by furious winds. Naturalism in every shape was abroad. Meetings were held, newspapers were printed, and “organs” were established in advocacy of new ideas in every direction. Temperance, anti-slavery, non-resistance, mesmerism, phrenology, Swedenborgianism, spiritualism, autimonianism, materialism, had all their prophets. There was a general outbreak of protest against received dogmas and institutions. In the heat of this turmoil appeared the Luther of the time, — Theodore Parker. He was a man of prodigious intellectual voracity united with a corresponding moral earnestness ; no mystic or seraphic enthusiast, no idealist by native temperament, but a stout reformer in the sphere of practical ethics, honest, faithful, courageous, uncompromising. His first direction was theological. Convers Francis stimulated his appetite for reading of a religious character. The Divinity School at Cambridge threw him into a whirl of questioning, which involved him in argument, and resulted in doubt. The spirit of the age added fuel to the flame. N. L. Frothingham lent him books. George Ripley gave him the guidance of a clear mind, of capacious knowledge and firm convictions, not to speak of the quickening sympathy of a hopeful, bright spirit. The new theology found him an easy convert, especially as led by men like Herder, Schleiermacher, De Wette, in Germany ; like Channing, Walker, Ripley, at home. Emerson fascinated him, excited in him the passion for liberty, animated his courage, awoke his confidence in the soul. But after all he did not come rapidly to his final convictions. To be a Unitarian, making reason a critic of dogmas, was something. To be a liberal Unitarian, setting reason to judge certain records of the Bible, as well as certain dogmas of the creed, was the next step. To exalt reason as the final judge of revelation was the final conclusion. He was critical rather than speculative, concrete rather than abstract. He became an idealist from reading and personal association, but he was not one by constitution. He preferred Aristotle to Plato, Fichte and Jacobi to Kant and Schelling, was more akin to Paley than to Cudworth. His Transcendentalism had a basis in commonsense. Instead of serenely withdrawing, like Emerson, from a profession he could not follow, instead of plunging heroically into some humane enterprise, like Brook Farm, as his friend Ripley did, leaving the pulpit he could not occupy with hearty conviction, he maintained his attitude, threw down the glove of defiance, and took the profession to task for its shortcomings, waging a war that lasted for years. He was not a seer or a regenerator, but a prophet and a warrior, “ the Orson of parsons,” as Lowell called him. He used idealism as a safe territory to lodge cardinal truths in while criticism was ravaging the country of historical Christianity. His very idealism took practical form. Not satisfied with the sublime indefiniteness of Emerson, or the silent stoicism of Ripley, he put his transcendental postulates into portable packages, doing for them what he did for Webster’s philosophy of a republic: “The people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.” Parker turned the formula over in his mind as the sea turns over rough stones, until finally it became smooth and round, as thus : “ Democracy, that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people.” So, unable to hold idealism pure and simple, he condensed its aroma into the three ultimate facts of consciousness : The Existence of God; The Immortality of the Individual Soul; The Moral Law. When Ripley was content, in the controversy with Andrews Norton, to illustrate and maintain the excellence of the spiritual philosophy, Parker, as “ Levi Blodgett,” contended that man had a spiritual eye by which he could look directly on specific ideas, and obtain an immediate knowledge of truths. Emerson knew Parker incidentally only, and, while admiring his brave independence, was too far removed from him by the method of arriving at convictions, as well as by the convictions themselves, to be intimate with him.

In a word, Parker was a reformer. Yet, even as a reformer, he was a critic. He saw the weak points in the argument of the total abstinence men ; he detected the vulnerable places in the armor of the champions for a secular Sunday; and he shot deadly arrows at phrenology. Though a close personal friend of Ripley, a minister at West Roxbury, a frequent visitor at Brook Farm, he would not join the community ; once, being asked what he thought of it, he replied : “ Ripley, there, seems like a highly finished engine drawing a train of mud-cars.” The anti-slavery reform seems to have been the only one to which he gave himself without reserve, and to this he devoted his energies with singular constancy and extraordinary power. It summoned his whole force to combat,—his religious zeal, his moral earnestness, his scorn, his pity, his faith in God, his confidence in man, his trust in Providence, his belief in democratic institutions, his passion for statistical proof, his love of conflict, his eloquence, his sarcasm. Here was genuine, unadulterated humanity in its most practical shape. It is hardly doubtful that multitudes were attracted to him by this alone, — multitudes who did not comprehend or sympathize with his religious views, but were fascinated by his manliness, and by the undercurrent of faith which sustained it. Finally he became an ethical idealist. Had he lived longer, he would probably have thrown himself into one of the social causes that have come up since the war. The much meditated book on Theism which was to have embodied his spiritual ideas would have been interrupted by the battle-cry that summoned him to arms. The music of the spheres would have been drowned in the din of conflict.

To Dr. Channing really belongs the credit of transferring the evidence of Christianity to the field of human nature. He was a Christian, but a spiritual one. He believed in Christ as “ Mediator, Intercessor. Lord and Saviour, ever living, and ever active for mankind ; through all time, now as well as formerly, the active and efficient friend of the human race.” He was persuaded that all spiritual wisdom and influence came from above. From this persuasion he never was separated. At the same time he had faith in the human soul as the organ through which the divine communications were made. “ We have, each of us, the spiritual eye to see, the mind to know, the heart to love, the will to obey God.” “ A spiritual light, brighter than that of noon, pervades our daily life. The cause of our not seeing it is in ourselves.” “ They who assert the greatness of human nature see as much of guilt as the man of worldly wisdom. But amid the passions and the selfishness of men, they see another element, — a divine element, — a spiritual principle.” He was not afraid of philosophy or criticism ; in fact, he listened to them patiently, hopefully, as long as they promised a nearer access of the human soul to the divine, as long, that is, as they tended to remove obstructions of ignorance ; beyond that he had no interest in them. To him the panic about Emerson’s famous Divinity School address seemed uncalled for. Parker’s positions gave him no uneasiness. But he did not think that science or philosophy or criticism were likely to solve the problems of being, and when he perceived that their energies were expended in a mundane direction, his expectation from them was at an end. “ I see and feel the harm done by this crude speculation,” he wrote in a letter, “ whilst I also see much nobleness to bind me to its advocates. In its opinions generally I see nothing to give me hope. I am somewhat disappointed that this new movement is to do so little for the spiritual regeneration of society.”

Dr. Channing’s faith in human nature led him to take a deep concern in all reforms that contained the germ of a new life for the future of humanity, — temperance, the education of the working classes, anti-slavery. He was one of the inspirers of Brook Farm. To use the language of his biographer, — “His soul was illuminated with the idea of the absolute, immutable glory of the Moral Good; and reverence for conscience is the key to his whole doctrine of human destiny and duty.” But Channing thought as well as felt, considered as well as burned. Hence the restraining limitations of his zeal. He desired the elevation of the race, not of any single class. His very idealism, therefore, in proportion to its earnestness and breadth, made him pause. He was in communication, chiefly through letters and conversation, with the current ideas of the time, but no thought fairly engaged him that had not an ideal aspect ; no reform enlisted his support which did not hold out the prospect of a large future for mankind. He was a Unitarian, primarily because Unitarianism seemed to him the more spiritual form of the Christian faith. His whole view of Unitarianism was spiritual, and except for that had little attraction for his mind. The dogmatic side of it had no charm for him ; he was not a formalist in any degree, and it is not probable that he would have advocated any system of mere opinions which promised nothing for the well being of the race.

Mr. Emerson was a man of different stamp from any of those mentioned. An artist in the construction of sentences and the choice of words, he was not a man of letters, for he ever put substance before form. A student of Plato, he was not a philosopher, for the intellectual method was foreign to his genius. Though foremost in every movement of radical reform,— the antislavery cause, the claims of woman, the stand for freedom in religion, a bold speaker for human rights, a eulogist of John Brown, of Theodore Parker, of Henry Thoreau, he was not a reformer, for he avoided conventions, eluded associations, and perceived the limitations of all applied ethics. He was not, in any recognized sense of the term, a Christian. He would call no man Master. He knew of no such thing as authority over the soul. He would acknowledge no mediator between finite and infinite. He had no belief in Satan ; evil, in his view, was a shadow; the sense of sin was a disease ; Jesus was a myth. “There are no such men as we fable; no Jesus, nor Pericles, nor Cæsar, nor Angelo, nor Washington, such as we have made. We consecrate a great deal of nonsense because it was allowed by great men.” “ A personal influence is an ignis fatuus.” All his life he resisted interference with the spiritual laws. One might call him Buddhist as easily as Christian. He was the precise opposite of that, — the purest idealist we have ever known.

But no diligent reader of his books will doubt that Emerson was a theist of a most earnest description ; so earnest that he would not accept any definition of deity. From this faith came his passion for wild, uncultivated nature, for rude, unsophisticated men, as most likely to be informed with the immanent Spirit. From this came his invincible optimism ; his boundless anticipation of good; his brave attitude of expectancy ; his sympathy with whatever promised emancipation, light, the bursting of spiritual bonds ; his love of health, beauty, simplicity ; his serene confidence that the best would ultimately befall in spite of grief and loss. He was disappointed in individuals, in groups of individuals, in causes and movements; but although the looked-for Spirit did not come down, his assurance of the justness of his method kept him on tiptoe with expectation. He would not call himself a Transcendentalist. “ There is no such thing as a Transcendental party ; there is no pure Transcendentalist; we know of none but prophets and heralds of such a philosophy ; all who by strong bias of nature have leaned to the spiritual side in doctrine, have stopped short of their goal. We have had many harbingers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history has afforded no example.” Transcendentalism, he said, was but a form of idealism, a name bestowed on it in these latter days; but the fact was as old as thinking. The notion that the soul of man could create truth, or do anything but meekly receive it from the divine mind, probably never occurred to Emerson. No virtue was more characteristic of him than humility.

Shortly after the History of Transcendentalism in New England was published, Mr. Emerson said to the author, that in his view, Transcendentalism, as it was called, was simply a protest against formalism and dogmatism in religion ; not a philosophical, but a spiritual movement, looking toward a spiritual faith. And so it was in great part, undoubtedly, though it may he questioned if it would have seized on minds like Walker, Ripley, Hedge, and many besides, but for Kant, Fichte, Jacobi, Shelling, Schleiermacher, De Wette in Germany, Cousin in France, Coleridge and Carlyle in England. Unitarianism had lapsed into a thin, barren conventionality, a poor mixture of Arianism, Arminianism, Priestleyism. Consciously or unconsciously, an arid version of Locke’s empirical philosophy was accepted by the leaders of the sect. Materialism was avowed and proclaimed. The lectures of Dr. Spurzheim created a rage for phrenology throughout New England, and many a Socinian fell a prey to what Emerson then called a doctrine of “ mud and blood.” Transcendentalism was a reaction from this earthward tendency, and Emerson was one of its leaders. The young men principally felt the new afflatus. Hedge, who was educated in Germany, and brought the German atmosphere home with him; Parker and Ripley, who read German ; Bartol, Bartlett, Dwight, Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Peabody, W. H. Channing, Orestes Brownson, added their genius and fiery zeal.

Thus philosophy and faith, thought and feeling, literary and poetic fervor, united to produce that singular outburst of idealism which has left so deep an impression on the New England intellect. The circumstances of the time determined the particular form it assumed. As those circumstances passed away, the fashion of speculation altered, but the old original idealism remained, and will remain when Channing and Emerson are forgotten except as its interpreters. The local and incidental phases that have been noticed are of the remote past. Literature has come into possession of all its rights. Philosophy sits serenely on its throne, unvexed by its old-fashioned controversy with materialism. Reform is no longer obliged to be one-sided, or extreme, or anarchical, but is taken up by reasonable men and women. Religion is released from dogmatism, at least in a measure, the championship of it being left to scholars of whatever denomination. And all this has been, in great degree, accomplished by men who were once called heretics.

O. B. Frothingham.