The American Idealist

THE word “idealism” is in many minds connected with a philosophical system that is mainly negative. The critical and destructive portion of Kant’s work has become so widely known as the basis of German philosophy that an idealist is supposed to be one who believes the whole empirical world to be a delusion; who sees no reality but his own thought, and cannot rest even that reality on a solid foundation; a nihilist, in short. Could anything be move mistaken ? Is there a philosophy more triumphant, more overflowing with faith, more world-storming, than true idealism? Is there a man whose convictions are firmer, more self-asserting, more vigorous, more joyous, than those of the true idealist? Instead of doubting the existence of things, he is penetrated with the intensity, the self-demonstrating sureness, of reality ; he cannot resist it if he would ; every moment of life is to him crowded and packed with certainty, though perhaps not so much with the certainty of material phenomena as with that of moral and spiritual facts, of ideas. He is by nature a believer. Everything shows, I think, that Kant himself, in spite of his “ world - overturning ” speculations, was the profoundest of believers.

At the same time something can be said for the common view. If the idealist does not dissolve the world in his own mind, he projects his own mind upon the world. He lives among theories, among types, to which facts must accommodate themselves or suffer for it. He does not love inductive methods, prefers working a priori. How can things be except as they ought to be ? Every idealist constructs in his own way a skeleton like the great logical schemes of Plato or Hegel, round which the world of perception must flow gently, and shape itself in a fleshly garment, sometimes beautifully draped and adjusted, sometimes falling in harsh folds with a melancholy stiffness, In this sense it may be said that the idealist destroys the world, and builds it for himself anew.

The division on these lines into idealist and realist absorbs all humanity. There are the men who see things as they are, and the men who sets them as they would have them. To put it more fairly, there are those who take each fact of experience by itself, letting it get connected with other facts as it can ; there are those who find for every fact its proper place in the vast and perfect order of nature. These two different classes can never quite understand each other or work together. In one the subjective is subordinated to the objective; in the other the subject rides triumphant and supreme, the object being reduced to servile insignificance.

The scientific tone of mind, the modern critical spirit, is distinctly realist. It aims to make itself a mere passive instrument, played upon, like an Æolian harp, by all the influences of the outer world. Indeed, the intellect pure and simple does not favor idealism, which springs essentially from the moral side of our nature.

The intellect is always striving to be impersonal; the heart, the emotions, are what drive us, with feverish intensity, to assert ourselves. Now, the intellect has become more predominant in the nineteenth century than it has ever been before in the history of the world.

Yet what a curious illustration of nature’s revenges is the spread of pessimism side by side with this mighty development of the intellect! Pessimism is idealism turned inside out. Every pessimist has in him the elements of an enthusiastic idealist; for if he did not imagine a more perfect world, why should he find so much fault with this ? Only the clear-eyed intellect thinks the ideal world hopelessly far away ; and the dull, muddy world about us seems vile in comparison. A French critic remarks: “ I wrote it twenty-five years ago, ‘ the supernatural ’ ” —let us read, the ideal,— “ ‘ is the sphere of the soul,’ and I see no reason for changing my mind. The only thing I would add now is this melancholy reflection, that one may demand the absolute without being sure of getting it. The child, also, cries for the moon, when it has seen the reflection in a well.”

Of the numerous spiritual types that humanity presents, some are permanent and some are transitory. A good example of the latter is the miser. There is plenty of meanness, of niggardliness and foolish sparing, in the nineteenth century; but you do not often find, in this country, at any rate, a man who hoards gold simply for the pleasure of counting it, of eying it, — who grudges equally the spending of one dollar and of a thousand. People seek to acquire money, as they have always done, because money gives the means for gratifying their passions, because it gives power ; but they do not often seek it for the actual accumulation of precious metal. This may be owing to the colossal size of modern fortunes, which makes money less a reality than a dream ; it is more probably caused by the introduction of paper currency and the banking system. The clink of gold affords a pleasure not to be found in fingering greenbacks. Certain literary figures have lost their interest for us on account of this change, — figures like Molière’s Harpagon and the heroes of many of La Fontaine’s fables.

On the other hand, some types belong to this century only, or to this and the preceding. The philanthropist is one of these, — the man who devotes his life to working for mankind not from any lofty religious principle, sometimes even with no great belief in the goodness or worth of humanity; doing it either from pure sympathy and love, or because he has no other means of satisfying a restless desire for action. Another modern type is the critic, perhaps I should say the scientist, who has reduced his own personality to a minimum, and lives on curiosity ; who thrusts himself into the spiritual garments of other men, or probes the secrets of nature, drawing into his own veins the blood and life that circulate elsewhere.

But idealists are confined neither to the ninth century nor to the nineteenth. The first man who framed for himself another life beyond this world or outside of it, the first man who labored and toiled with hand and brain to bring about a paradise in the future, or dreamed of a paradise in the past, was the first idealist.

In spite of all negations, of all iconoclasms, of the downfall of this creed and of that creed, the world will never see the last. The ideal is infinite in its persistence, infinite in its protean power of reëmbodiment, remanifestation. All it demands is faith in something, belief in something, beyond the passing sensuous impression : give it that and it will conquer the world. For its advantage over positivism and skepticism consists in its being affirmative, in its perpetual selfassertion. Those who follow it follow undoubting, absolutely mastered. In Heine’s words, — and let me remark that Heine wrote “Idea,” and not “ideas,” as it stands in the epigraph of one of our magazines : “ We do not seize upon the Idea ; the Idea seizes us, and enslaves us, and lashes us into the arena, where we fight for it like gladiators, whether we will or no.” What a masquerade this worship of the Idea gives us, sweeping down in bright order through the shadowy past! The obstinate hope of the Jews for their Messiah, the patriotism of the Greeks at Thermopylae, the Christian martyrs, the glittering Crusades, the Renaissance, the sanguinary passion of the French Revolution, — these are the gleaming points in the great web of enthusiasm for all causes and all faiths. Believe ! Believe ! Only believe ! And all things shall be added unto you.

It will be seen from the above enumeration that nations are idealists as well as individuals. Is not the Bible the monument of indomitable idealism in a Whole race ? — a race narrow, indeed, in its conceptions, not much concerned with the intellectual problems that please the Aryans, yet intensely and fiercely moral, and showing its idealism in the positive force of its morality, in not being content with perfecting itself, but in being determined to overcome the whole world. Has idealism ever been manifested with more energy and splendor than in the lament of Job, or the denunciation of David, or the lovely visions of Isaiah ? “ For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth : and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” Is not that the text of the idealist everywhere ? “ But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.” For that rising not only Jew but Gentile waits, has waited, and will wait forever, with the fervor of an unconquerable hope.

A blind enthusiasm of the same sort, though grosser in its materialism, was at the bottom of the great Mohammedan movement. The intenser form of idealism, at least in religious matters, seems to be found outside the Aryan races, which agrees with what I said above as to the results of intellectual development in individuals. Even among Aryan nations, however, there are, as one can see, vast differences in this respect. Perhaps, taking into account the fact that we must live in this world as it is, with all its imperfections, the Greeks, in their best days, came as near to a just harmonizing of the real and the ideal as is possible. The Romans, on the other hand, were, as a people, positivists beyond any the world has seen ; positivists to such a point that, with the exception of two great poems, — even those largely imitative,— they alone of all important nations, ancient or modern, left behind them no trace of original work in any one of the fine arts.

Among modern European nations, the English are most like the Romans, in this as in other things. Their poetry saves them from the same degree of reproach ; yet their poetry is at its best in the drama, and the drama is the form of poetry that lends itself least to idealistic purposes. The French are more distinctly idealist. Indeed, we may safely say that, generally speaking, the Celts always are so, while the Teutonic races are soberer, more practical. A moment’s consideration of English history and character compared with French or Irish will suffice to prove this.

To return to individuals. This enthusiasm, faith, takes naturally very different forms in different minds. In some it is calm, serene, gentle; works upon mankind by mild and sweet persuasiveness, by an influence that spreads unconsciously, yet all the more powerfully. In others it is stormy, impetuous, rejoicing in difficulties, rejoicing in struggle and sacrifice, seeming to acquire firmer conviction by the sense of victory hardly earned. We need not go far for examples of both these classes. Where could we find the contrast better illustrated than in the Founder of Christianity and its greatest apostle ? Paul cries, not once, but again and again, in varying words : “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man : but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? ” How different, ah, how different is this other tone ! ‘ Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me. . . . For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Examples of such opposite tendencies might be multiplied infinitely. In literature, take, for instance, Byron and Shelley. Byron was certainly an idealist in his way ; but he would have been inclined to mend the world by shattering it to pieces. Shelley, whose “ passion for reforming the world ” marks him as one of the most intense idealists of our century, was the sweetest of men.

It is clear enough that the idealist is not necessarily either moral or religious. What he must have is an abiding and inspiring enthusiasm for something that demands devotion and sacrifice ; this something may be religion, it may be humanity, it may be beauty, it may be one’s country, it may be power, it may be wealth. The distinction lies not so much in the object as in the spirit with which it is pursued. Alexander was an idealist; Caesar was not. Shakespeare, so far as we can judge, was not; Milton was. Napoleon, in spite of his hatred of idéologues, was an idealist himself. There is no way to make this felt more dearly than by contrasting him with Wellington, in whom the genius of his country may be said to have been embodied, as, in a certain sense, that of France was in Napoleon. The idealist may, then, be selfish in as high a degree, as absolutely, as he may be virtuous. Indeed, even when his preoccupation is wholly with what is high and pure, he may be caustic, crabbed, unlovable, to those about him. He often is so, with his impatience at not being understood, his keen perception of the woeful difference between the world as it is and the world as he would have it.

There is the limitation, the negative side. Conviction, in this world, so often brings intolerance. The French writer I quoted just now says elsewhere: “The fundamental dogma of intolerance is that there are dogmas ; that of tolerance, that there are only opinions.” But the Idea is more than a dogma, it is a fact, in the mind of the believer. How can he look upon it as a mere opinion, discutable, disputable? How can he put himself in the place of another, disown his own position, admit even the possibility of being wrong? He works by sight, not by faith; by an intuition that allows no question and no doubt. Hence the sweetest of idealists must think you ignorant and to be pitied, if you differ from him. He will not abuse or revile you, but he will regard you at best as an object for conversion. The idealist who is not sweet will not refrain from expressing his opinion.

To come to what is properly American. The typical American is, or was, English in his origin, and I have said that the English are not idealists. Furthermore, it was the Puritans who emigrated to this country, and the Puritans embodied what was least idealistic in the English nature. It is bold, perhaps, to say so, but I am convinced that what makes the Puritans unattractive, in spite of their virtues, is this very fact, that they were not idealists. For the most part, the English religious movement of the seventeenth century was a revolt of common sense, as indeed was the Reformation in general. The English political movement of the seventeenth century was of the same nature, as one may see by contrasting it with the French Revolution, Hampden with Robespierre. It may be said that if this be the case the English were blessed in not being idealists. With that we have nothing to do in this simple search after facts. What I have asserted above is exactly what Matthew Arnold meant when he spoke of Luther as the “ Philistine of genius in religion,” Bunyan as the “ Philistine of genius in literature,” Cromwell as the “Philistine of genius in polities,” all taken from the group of men connected with new-born Protestantism.

The Puritans who left England for America were perhaps more idealistic than those who remained at home ; yet the most striking thing about the founders of New England is their stern good sense. It has stuck by their descendants till the present day. The characteristic religion of New England, Unitarianism, is the religion of good sense, the least idealistic religion that has ever professed to connect itself with Christianity.

The American of to - day, however, either from race intermixture or from influences of climate or of institutions, is manifestly different from his English progenitor. He is quicker, keener, less conservative, though still conservative. His intelligence is inventive, and proverbially seeks rapid ways to come at things. He is extremely practical, — more than that, material; dazed, it would seem, by the immense resources of his country, by the immense opportunities it affords for accumulating wealth, and with it power. He is, for the present, wholly absorbed in the means; careless of the end, if there be an end at all. Yet his spiritual eye is shut rather than blinded. If you can open it, it is wonderfully quick and penetrating. He is restless, too, dissatisfied with traditions, with old-world beliefs, doctrines, ideas. He half thinks there should be a new religion, as vast and modern as his needs. We perceive the same restlessness in the later Roman world, with somewhat similar conditions. Men were dissatisfied with their old faith; all vital belief in it had disappeared ; everywhere they were doubting, wondering. Before the spread of Christianity, all sorts of religions from the East — Mithraism, for instance — found numerous followers. In such a soil Christianity could not but grow vigorously. The Roman world resembled us, indeed, only in the sudden increase of material prosperity. The newness of conditions is far more general with us than it was with them. Yet here, too, what a hold has been taken by Spiritualism, by Christian Science, by the mystical philosophies of India, even where they are only half, if at all, understood!

When the American is possessed by the Idea, he is possessed by it thoroughly; not with a Celtic unreason, but with an enthusiasm that seems quite out of harmony with his ordinary half-skeptical self, and that goes great lengths. The most interesting point in the history of American thought is the transcendental movement of the first half of this century, which was idealism incarnate. Practically, it showed itself in that curious experiment, Brook Farm, which was an attempt to realize what has been in one form or another the social Utopia of all idealists; an attempt to overcome the biting stress of individualism, to “ pool,” as the railroad men say, the interests of all humanity; an attempt—which failed. What was far more serious, and what did not fail, was the great antislavery movement, as truly a result of idealism here as was the French devolution in Europe, and managed in a far purer spirit. It has been argued, to be sure, that the English got rid of slavery with less idealism, but without bloodshed. The cases were, however, very different.

The list of great names connected with all these movements is not a short one. Active in the antislavery agitation, we have Garrison, Phillips, Sumner. More especially connected with transcendentalism, we have the group that centred in Concord: Alcott, about whom critical judgments differ most; Margaret Fuller, pathetic in her actual fate without any addition of romance ; Thoreau, robust, self-asserting, not to say egotistical,— more arrogant than some of his comrades, but touched with a fine and peculiar genius most nearly allied to the greatest of them all. Lastly, rising with his whole figure above these, who are only grouped about the pedestal upon which he stands, comes the representative American idealist, — one may almost say the representative idealist of all times and nations; the man who came nearest to uniting the high enthusiasm of the saint with the calm vision of the seer, who touched with a holy fire the speculations of Plato and Hegel, who blended the philosophy of Germany with the mysticism of Asia; the man who, for the first time in nineteen centuries, owned the all-importance of religion, and yet looked forward, and not back, — Ralph Waldo Emerson. No doubt the Puritan lack of imagination does make itself felt in Emerson, at times almost repulsively; no doubt minds of another type do and must weary of his eternal optimism; but never was there a truer servant of the Idea than he; never has the high enthusiasm of that service been better voiced than it so often was by him.

“ The soul is not a compensation, but a life. The soul is. Under all this running sea of circumstance, whose waters ebb and flow with perfect balance, lies the aboriginal abyss of real Being. . . . Nothing, Falsehood, may indeed stand as the great night or shade on which, as a background, the living universe paints itself forth, but no fact is begotten by it; it cannot work, for it is not; it cannot work any harm; it cannot work any good. It is harm inasmuch as it is worse not to be than to be.

“ In a virtuous action I properly am; in a virtuous act I add to the world; I plant into deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing, and see the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon. There can be no excess to love, none to knowledge, none to beauty, when these attributes are considered in the purest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism.”

Essay after essay is but one continuous joyous proclamation of the permanence, the inexhaustible vitality, of the Idea.

As was natural, this vigorous and potent personality influenced a great number of people. Many of them sought an expression for their enthusiasm in literature, — some successfully, the majority not so. But there were others who were contented to live quietly in the calm and pure light of their high faith, making no attempt to communicate it, unless indirectly by a certain spiritual atmosphere that constantly surrounded them. One such I have in mind : a man who was for many years, for life almost, an intimate friend of Emerson’s; who had imbibed his spirit thoroughly, yet united with it a peculiar gentleness and sweetness all his own. His nature was feminine in its delicacy, subtly sensitive to all impressions, —morbid in some ways, unquestionably. He was at times the slave of a conscientiousness that ruled him tyrannically, exposing him to ridicule from those who did not understand ; but the fine purity of his character, his imaginative sympathy, his infinite patience, tolerance, readiness to find excuses even for those he disapproved of, his loyalty and devotion to the people and the ideas he loved, above all his supreme unworldliness and indomitable conviction of the truth, — when shall we look upon his like again ?

The men of that generation have passed away. Have their enthusiasms vanished with them ? I do not believe it. Material prosperity has lured us all more or less from the things of the spirit. The high light of thought and devotion seems obscured by the mist of lower passions, sordid rivalries, eager greed. But, as a people, we are not — as yet we are not — corrupted or decadent. We are ever on the watch for what points upward, full of generous impulses, ready sympathies. Above all, we are hopeful; we look forward. We feel in a manner bound to grow to the great destinies of a great country. All sorts of speculative opinions find a ready acceptance. I have alluded to Christian Science, and the fascination exercised by half-mystical theories about new discoveries in the nature of mind. Politically, the idealistic tendency shows itself in the projects of the Nationalists, the followers of George and Bellamy. It shows itself also in agitations for woman’s rights and objects of that nature. Indeed, it may be said, in passing, that the most typical American idealist is a woman; idealism, with its merits and defects, being more natural to women than to men.

No, from whatever source derived, whether it be a reflection of Divinity in the human heart, or a mere figment of the imagination projected on the realm of “Chaos and old Night,” the Idea can never die, never lose its influence over mankind, never cease to be the mainspring of all that is accomplished in the world, — of all progress, of all virtue, of all happiness. It clothes itself in many forms. It puts on and casts off religions and philosophies like worn and faded garments. All these change, but the Idea remains the same. Something outside, something beyond, something larger than itself, humanity must have to strive for, to hope for. It would be useless to oppose this tendency, even if it were desirable. The pessimist will revile it, cherishing it all the while more than any one else. The critic will find in it an ever-changing and infinitely curious object of study. The wise statesman will seek to guide it and profit by it. But he who is a born idealist himself will see in its vitality its justification. He will bow down with his whole heart and soul in infinite worship before the unchanged, immortal spirit of virtue, loveliness, and truth, which, underneath the shifting illusion of the world, is all that is firm, all that is abiding.

Gamaliel Bradford, Jr.