I. The best work for liberty has been done by men who loved her too
wisely to vituperate anyone for differing from them, or to forestall
the final verdict of public opinion by appealing to an ordeal by battle.
Such were the men who took the lead in establishing freedom of thought
in America. Very little individual independence of opinion was found
there by Tocqueville in 1831; and the flood of new ideas which had
already burst forth in England was not as yet feeding the growth of
originality in American literature. This sterility was largely due to
preoccupation with business and politics; but even the best educated men
in the United States were repressed by the dead weight of the popular
theology; and Channing complained that the orthodox churches were
"arrayed against intellect." The silence of the pulpit about slavery
is only one instance of the general indifference of the clergy to new
ideas. We shall see that at least one other reform was opposed much more
zealously. The circulation of new books and magazines from Europe was
retarded by warnings against infidelity; and colleges were carefully
guarded against the invasion of new truth.
Intercourse with Europe was fortunately close enough for the brightness
of her literature and art to attract many longing eyes from New England.
Goethe, Schiller, Fichte, Jean Paul, Mme. de Stael, and Rousseau won
readers in the original, as well as in translations; and the influence
of Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Carlyle increased rapidly.
Plato and Kant found many worshippers, and a few students. The plain
incapacity of orthodoxy to solve the pressing moral and intellectual
problems of the day permitted young people who knew nothing about
science to welcome the idea that the highest truth is revealed by
intuitions which transcend experience and should supersede logic. This
system is peculiarly that of Schelling, who was then expounding it in
Germany; but the credit for it in America was given to his disciples,
and especially to Coleridge. A few admirers of these authors formed
the Transcendental Club in Boston, in September, 1836; and the new
philosophy made converts rapidly. Severity of climate and lack of social
amusements favoured introspection. Thinkers welcomed release from the
tyranny of books. Lovers of art were glad of the prospect of a broader
culture than was possible in the shadow of Puritanism. Reformers seized
the opportunity of appealing from pro-slavery texts and constitutions
to a higher law. Friends of religion hoped that the gloom of the popular
theology would be dispelled by a new revelation coming direct from God
into their souls.
II. A mighty declaration of religious independence was made on July 15,
1838, when Emerson said to the Unitarian ministers: "The need was never
greater of new revelation than now." "It cannot be received at second
hand." There has been "noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus."
"Cast aside all conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with
Deity." "The old is for slaves." Much controversy was called out by
the publication of this address. It was preceded by another in which
educated men were told that they must believe themselves "inspired
by the Divine Soul which inspires all men." "There can be no scholar
without the heroic mind." "Each age must write its own books." Emerson
had also sent out in 1836 a pamphlet entitled _Nature_; and one of its
first readers has called it "an 'open sesame' to all thought, and
the first we had ever had." Still more important were the essays on
"Heroism" and "Self-Reliance," which were part of a volume published in
1841. Then Emerson's readers were awakened from the torpor of submission
to popular clergymen and politicians by the stern words: "Whoso would
be a man must be a nonconformist." "Insist on yourself: never imitate."
"The soul looketh steadily forwards." "It is no follower: it never
appeals from itself." The Russian Government was so well aware of the
value of these essays as to imprison a student for borrowing them. A
Lord Mayor in England acknowledged that their influence had raised him
out of poverty and obscurity. Bradlaugh's first impulse to do battle for
freedom in religion came from Emerson's exhortation to self-reliance.
The author's influence was all the greater, because he was already an
impressive lecturer. There was much more demand, both in England and
in America, between 1830 and 1860, for literary culture and useful
knowledge than was supplied by the magazines and public libraries.
The Americans were peculiarly destitute of public amusements. Dancing,
playing cards, and going to the theatre were still under the ban; and
there was not yet culture enough for concerts to be popular. There was
at the same time much more interest, especially in New England, in the
anti-slavery movement than has been called out for later reforms; for
these have been much less picturesque. The power with which Phillips and
Parker pleaded for the slave was enough to make lectures popular; but
I have known courses attended, even in 1855, by young people who went
merely because there was nowhere else to go, and who came away in
blissful ignorance of the subjects. Deeper than all other needs lay that
of a live religion. Emerson was among the first to satisfy this demand.
His earliest lecture, in 1833, took a scientific subject, as was then
customary; but he soon found that he had the best possible opportunity
for declaring that "From within, or from behind, a light shines through
upon things and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is
all." Invitations were frequent as early as 1844, though the audience
was usually small; and his genius became generally recognised after his
return, in 1848, from a visit to England. There scholarship was high
enough to give him, as early as 1844, thousands of readers for that
little book on _Nature_, of which only a few hundred copies had been
sold in America. Invitations to lecture came from all parts of Great
Britain, and in such numbers that many had to be declined. The
aristocracy of rank as well as of intellect helped to crowd the halls in
Manchester, Edinburgh, and London. Once at least, he had more than two
thousand hearers. The newspapers reported his lectures at such length
that much of his time was spent in writing new ones. He had not intended
to be anyone's guest; but invitations were so numerous and cordial, that
he could seldom escape into solitude. He wrote to his wife, "My
reception here is really a premium on authorship."
Success in England increased his opportunities, as well as his courage,
to speak in America. Invitations grew more and more frequent, and
compensation more liberal. His thrilling voice was often heard,
thenceforth, in the towns and cities of New England. In 1850, he went to
lecture at St. Louis, and met audience after audience on the way. During
the next twenty years he spent at least two months of discomfort,
every winter, lecturing in city after city throughout the free States.
Everywhere he gave his best thought, and as much as possible of it, in
every lecture. Logical order seemed less important; and he spent much
more time in condensing than in arranging the sentences selected from
his note-books. Strikingly original ideas, which had flashed upon him at
various times, were presented one after another as if each were complete
in itself. The intermixture of quotations and anecdotes did not save the
general character from becoming often chaotic; but the chaos was
always full of power and light. Star after star rose rapidly upon his
astonished and delighted hearers. They sometimes could not understand
him; but they always felt lifted up. Parker described him in 1839 as
pouring forth "a stream of golden atoms of thought"; and Lowell called
him some twenty years later "the most steadily attractive lecturer in
America." These young men and others of like aspirations walked long
distances to visit him or hear him speak in public. The influence of
his lectures increased that of the books into which they finally
crystallised. In 1860, he had made his way of thinking so common that
his _Conduct of Life_ had a sale of 2500 copies in two days. His readers
were nowhere numerous, outside of Boston; but they were, and are, to be
found everywhere.
Lovers of liberty on both sides of the Atlantic were brought into closer
fellowship by books singularly free from anti-British prejudice; but he
was so thoroughly American that he declared, even in London, that the
true aristocracy must be founded on merit, for "Birth has been tried and
failed." This lecture was often repeated, and was finally given in 1881
as his last word in public. Introspective and retiring habits kept him
for some time from engaging actively in the reforms which were in full
blast about 1840; but Lowell said he was "the sleeping partner who has
supplied a great part of their capital." His words about slavery
were few and cold before the Fugitive Slave Bill was passed in 1850.
Indignation at this command to kidnap made him publicly advise his
neighbours to break the wicked law. He spoke in support of a Free Soil
candidate in 1852, and for the Republican party in 1854; but John Brown
called out much more of his praise than any other abolitionist. The
attempt of the Garrisonians to persuade the North to suffer the seceders
to depart in peace won his active aid; but the speech which he tried to
deliver on their platform, early in 1861, was made inaudible by a mob
of enthusiasts for maintaining the Union by war. He rejoiced in
emancipation; but it was not achieved until he had lost much of his
mental vigour. This, in fact, was at its height between 1840 and 1850.
His last volumes were in great part made up of his earliest writings.
There was no change in his opinions; and his address in 1838 was fully
approved by him when he re-read it shortly before his death.
His most useful contribution to the cause of reform was the
characteristic theory which underlies all he wrote. In the essays
published in 1841, he states it thus: "Every man knows that to his
involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due."... "We know truth when
we see it." From first to last he held that "Books are for the
scholar's idle hours."... "A sound mind will derive its principles from
insight."... "Truth is always present; it only needs to lift the iron
lids of the mind's eye to read its oracles." This was a doctrine much
more revolutionary than Luther's. Emerson proclaimed independence of the
Bible as well as of the Church. His innate reverence was expressed in
such sayings as "The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so
pure, that it is profane to interpose helps." Love of spontaneity made
him declare that "Creeds are a disease of the intellect." It was in
his indignation at the Fugitive-Slave Law that he said, "We should not
forgive the clergy for taking on every issue the immoral side." His
treatment of religious institutions was not perfectly consistent; but
the aim of all his writings was to encourage heroic thought. He wrote
the Gospel of Nonconformity. Personal knowledge of his influence
justified Bishop Huntington in saying that he has "done more to unsettle
the faith of the educated young men of our age and country in the
Christianity of the Bible than any other twenty men combined."
How desirous Emerson was to have the inner light obeyed promptly and
fully may be judged from his describing his own habit of writing as
follows: "I would not degrade myself by casting about for a thought,
nor by waiting for it."... "If it come not spontaneously, it comes not
rightly at all." Much of the peculiar charm of his books is due to his
having composed them thus. Again and again he says: "It is really of
little importance what blunders in statement we make, so only that we
make no wilful departure from the truth."... "Why should I give up
my thought, because I cannot answer an objection to it?"... "With
consistency, a great soul has simply nothing to do."... "Speak what you
think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in
hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day."...
"I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and
consistency. Let the words be"... "ridiculous henceforward." This
is not meant for mere theory. We are told often that "Virtue is the
spontaneity of the will."... "Our spontaneous action is always the
best."... "The only right is what is after my own constitution, the only
wrong what is against it."
III. The passages quoted in the last paragraph are of great importance;
for they did more than any others to abolish slavery. Its defenders
appealed to the Bible as confidently as to the national Constitution;
but the Garrisonians declared with Emerson, that "The highest virtue is
always against the law." They were confident that they knew the truth
as soon as they saw it, and had no need to answer objections. The same
faith in spontaneous impressions inspired the suffragists, of whom the
next chapter will give some account. Agitations against
established institutions sprang up thickly under the first step of
Transcendentalism. Church, State, family ties, and business relations
seemed all likely to be broken up. Lowell says that "Everybody had a
mission (with a capital M) to attend to everybody else's business."...
"Conventions were held for every hitherto inconceivable purpose."
"Communities were established where everything was to be in common
but common sense." The popular authors about 1840 were mostly
Transcendentalists; and nearly every Transcendentalist was a Socialist.
Some forty communities were started almost simultaneously; but not
one-half lasted through the second year. One of the first failures was
led by a man who had been working actively against slavery, but who had
come to think that the only way to attack it was to try to do away with
all private property whatever. Brook Farm lasted half a dozen years,
with a success due partly to the high culture of the inmates, and partly
to some recognition of the right of private ownership. The general
experience, however, was that a Transcendentalist was much more willing
to make plans for other people, than to conform in his own daily life
to regulations proposed by anyone else. The very multiplicity of the
reforms, started in the light of the new philosophy, did much to prevent
most of them from attaining success. We have seen how slavery was
abolished; but no one should regret the failure of most of the
Transcendentalist schemes.
The subsidence of Socialism was especially fortunate on account of the
frankness with which matrimony was repudiated by the system most in
vogue, that of Fourier. He had followed the spontaneous and instinctive
impulses of man with the utmost consistency. Other Socialists have been
more cautious; but the problem of reconciling family ties with communal
life has not been solved. Some of the English Transcendentalists
published a pamphlet recommending systematic encouragement of
licentiousness; and an American philosopher, who turned Roman Catholic
in 1844, declared that free love was "Transcendentalism in full
bloom." The term "higher law" was used to support the pretence of some
obligation more binding than marriage. A free-love convention was held
in New York about 1857; and very lax ideas had been already announced by
active apostles of spontaneity known as Spiritualists.
No writer has done more to encourage purity of thought than Emerson. His
life was stainless; but perhaps the best proof of this is his saying,
"Our moral nature is vitiated by any interference of our will"; and
again, "If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts,
and there abide, the huge world will come round to him." No man
ever wrote thus who was not either notoriously corrupt or singularly
innocent. Policemen and jailers exist largely for the purpose of
preventing people from planting themselves on their instincts--for
instance, those which lead to theft, drunkenness, and murder. Socialism
would perhaps be practicable if industry were as natural as laziness.
Almost all moralists have thought it necessary to insist on constant
interference with the instincts. So earnest and able a Transcendentalist
as Miss Cobbe gives these definitions in her elaborate treatise on
_Intuitive Morals_: "Happiness is the gratification of all the desires
of our nature." "Virtue is the renunciation of such of them as are
forbidden by the moral law." Theodore Parker insisted on the duty of
subordinating "the low qualities to the higher," but Emerson held, as
already mentioned, that "Virtue is the spontaneity of the will."
Such language was largely due to his perception that all activity,
however innocent, of thought and feeling had been too much repressed by
the Puritanical churches, in whose shadow he was brought up. The same
mistake was made in the Dark Ages; and the reaction from that asceticism
was notorious during the Renaissance. The early Unitarians overrated
human nature in their hostility to the Trinitarians, who underrated
it; and Emerson went beyond his original associates in the Unitarian
ministry because he was more Transcendental. The elevation of his own
character encouraged him to hope that our higher qualities are so strong
as to need only freedom to be enabled to keep all impure desire in
subjection. It was a marked change of tone when in 1876 he allowed these
words to be printed in one of his books: "Self-control is the rule. You
have in you there a noisy, sensual savage which you are to keep down,
and turn all his strength to beauty." Similar passages, especially
a censure of the pruriency of Fourierism, occur in essays which were
probably written some years earlier, but were not published until after
his death. Most of the Transcendentalists have fortunately acknowledged
the duty of self-control much more plainly and readily. It is a fair
question whether they were more consistent. How does anyone know which
of his instincts and impulses to control and which to cultivate? What
better light has he than is given either by his own experience or by
that of his parents and other teachers? I acknowledge the power of
conscience; but its dictates differ so much in different individuals as
to be plainly due to early education. Thus even a Transcendentalist has
to submit himself to experience; as he would not do if it were really
transcended by his philosophy.
Emerson himself was singularly fortunate in his "involuntary
perceptions." Those of most men are dark with superstition and
prejudice. It is what we have heard earliest and oftenest that recurs
most spontaneously. If all mankind had continued satisfied to "trust
the instinct to the end though it can render no reason," we should still
believe in the divine right of kings, and the supremacy of evil spirits.
There would have been very little persecution if men could have known
truth when they saw it. Parker believed devoutly in the intuitions, but
he said that Emerson exaggerated their accuracy to such an extent that
he "discourages hard and continuous thought." "Some of his followers
will be more faithful than he to the false principles which he lays
down, and will think themselves wise because they do not study, and
inspired because they say what outrages common sense." The danger of
following instinctive impressions in regard to the currency has
been shown in recent American politics. Anyone who is familiar with
scientific methods will see where Emerson's failed. It is true that he
prized highly many of the results of science, especially the theory of
evolution as it was taught by Lamarck and other forerunners of Darwin.
His inability to see the value of investigation and verification is
disclosed plainly; and he preferred to have people try to "build science
on ideas." He acknowledged that too much time was given to Latin and
Greek in college; but his wishes in regard to study of the sciences were
so old-fashioned as to call out a remonstrance from Agassiz.
IV. How little scientific culture there was before 1860 may be judged
from the rapid growth of Spiritualism. Transcendentalism had shown
tremendous strength in helping people escape from the old churches; but
it was of little use in building new ones. Churches exist for the
express purpose of enabling believers in a common faith to unite in
public worship. No society could be so holy as solitude to a sincere
Transcendentalist; and the beliefs of his neighbours seemed much less
sacred than his own peculiar intuitions. Exceptional eloquence might
make him pastor of a large society; but it began to decline when he
ceased to speak. Transcendentalism was excellent material for
weathercocks, but it had to be toughened by adulteration with baser
metal before it supplied any solid foundation for a new temple.
Most of the people who had lost faith in the old churches were longing
after some better way of receiving knowledge about the heavenly world.
Millions of Americans and Europeans rejoiced to hear that spirits had
begun to communicate by mysterious raps at Rochester, N. Y., on the last
day of March, 1848. Messages from the departed were soon received in
many places; but the one thing needful was that the room be filled with
believers; and a crowded hall was peculiarly likely to be favoured with
strange sounds and sights. Here was the social element necessary for
founding a new religion. It appealed as confidently as its rivals to
miracles and prophecies, while it had the peculiar attraction of being
preached mainly by young women. Instinctive impulses were regarded as
revelations from the spirit-land, but not considered infallible except
by the very superstitious. The highest authority of an intelligent
Spiritualist has usually been his own individual intuition. Some of
the earliest lectures on that platform had little faith in anything but
science, and put their main strength into announcing those revelations
of geology which have dethroned Genesis. One of the first teachers of
evolution in America was a Spiritualist named Denton, who held a public
debate in Ohio, in 1858, when he defended the theory of man's gradual
development from lower animals against a preacher named Garfield, who
became President of the United States. Some eminent scientists have
become converts to Spiritualism; but its general literature has shown
little influence from scientific methods of thought.
The advocates of the new religion have owed much of their success to
impassioned eloquence. Opposition to Christianity has been expressed
boldly and frequently. Girls of seventeen have declared, before large
audiences, that all the creeds and ceremonies of the churches are mere
idolatry. Among the earliest communications which were published as
dictated by angels in the new dispensation were denials of the miracles
of Jesus, and denunciations of the clergy as "the deadliest foes of
progress." An eminent Unitarian divine declared in 1856, that "the
doctrines professedly revealed by a majority of the spirits, whose
words we have seen quoted, are at open war with the New Testament."
Some moderate Spiritualists have kept in friendly relations with liberal
churches; but many others have been in active co-operation with the most
aggressive of unbelievers in religion. The speakers at the Spiritualist
anniversary in 1897 said to one another, "You and I are Christs, just
as Jesus was," and claimed plainly that "our religion" was distinct from
every "Christian denomination." Spiritualists have all, I think, been in
favour of woman suffrage; and the majority were abolitionists. Some
of Garrison's companions, however, deserted in the heat of the battle,
saying that there was nothing more to do, for the spirits would free
the slaves. Anti-slavery lecturers in the North-west found themselves
crowded out of halls and school-houses by trance-speakers and mediums.
One of the most eminent of converts made by the latter, Judge Edmonds,
was prominent among the defenders of slavery in the free States.
Freedom from any definite creed or rigid code of morality joined with
the constant supply of ever-varying miracles in attracting converts.
Those in the United States were soon estimated in millions. Spiritualism
swept over Great Britain so rapidly that it was declared by the
_Westminster Review_ to give quite as much promise as Christianity had
done, at the same age, of becoming a universal religion. No impartial
observer expects that now. Believers are still to be found in all parts
of Europe and South America, and they are especially numerous in the
United States. Proselytes do not seem to be coming in anywhere very
thickly; and the number of intelligent men and women who have renounced
Spiritualism, after a brief trial, is known to be large. The new
religion has followed the old ones into the policy of standing on the
defensive.
One instance of this is the opposition to investigation. A Mediums'
National Defence Association was in open operation before 1890. A
leading Spiritualist paper suggested in 1876, that the would-be inquirer
should be "tied securely hand and foot, and placed in a strong iron
cage, with a rope or small chain put tightly about his neck, and
fastened to an iron ring in the wall." Early in 1897, some young men
who claimed to have exposed an impostor, before a large audience in the
Spiritualist Temple in Boston, were prosecuted by his admirers on the
charge of having disturbed public worship.
V. During the last quarter of the century, free love has been much
less prominent than before in Spiritualistic teachings; but the
only Americans who were able to proclaim liberty without encouraging
self-indulgence, prior to 1870, were the logical and scholarly
Transcendentalists. Theodore Parker, for instance, is to be reckoned
among the followers of Hegel rather than of Schelling; for he tried by
hard study and deep thought to build up a consistent system of religion
and morality by making deductions from a few central principles which he
revered as great primary intuitions, held always and everywhere sacred.
His faith in his ideas of God, duty, and immortality was very firm; and
he did his best to live and think accordingly. He began to preach in
1836, the year of the publication of Emerson's first book, but soon
found his work hindered by an idolatry of the Bible, then prevalent even
among Unitarians. Familiarity with German scholarship enabled him to
teach his people to think rationally.
His brethren in the Unitarian ministry were alarmed; and a sermon
which he preached in Boston against the mediatorship of Jesus made it
impossible for him to occupy an influential pulpit. The lectures which
he delivered that year in a hall in the city, and published in 1842,
won the support of many seekers for a new religion. They voted that he
should "have a chance to be heard in Boston"; and on February 16, 1845,
he preached in a large hall to what soon became a permanent and famous
congregation.
Thither, as Parker said, he "came to build up piety and morality; to
pull down only what cumbered the ground." His main purpose to the last
was to teach "the naturalness of religion," "the adequacy of man for
his functions" without priestly aid, and, most important of all, that
superiority of the real Deity to the pictures drawn in the orthodox
creeds, which Parker called "the infinite perfection of God." He was
singularly successful in awakening the spirit of religion in men who
were living without it, but the plainness with which he stated his
faith, in sermons which had a large circulation, called out many
attacks. Prayers were publicly offered up in Boston, asking that the
Lord would "put a hook in this man's jaws, so that he may not be able to
preach, or else remove him out of the way and let his influence die with
him." No controversy hindered his labouring systematically for the moral
improvement of his hearers, who sometimes amounted to three thousand.
His sermons are full of definite appeals for self-control and
self-culture; and his personal interest in every individual who could
be helped was so active that he soon had seven thousand names on his
pastoral visiting list. Appeals for advice came from strangers at a
distance, and were never neglected.
Not one of the great national sins, however popular, escaped his severe
rebuke; and he became prominent as early as 1845 among the preachers
against slavery. He was active in many ways as an abolitionist, but was
not a disunionist. He seldom quitted his pulpit without speaking for the
slave; and every phase of the anti-slavery movement is illustrated in
his published works. Pro-slavery politicians were as bitter as orthodox
clergymen against him; and he describes himself as "continually fired
upon for many years from the barroom and pulpit." His resistance to the
Fugitive Slave Law caused him to be arrested and prosecuted, in company
with Wendell Phillips, by the officials of the national Government.
Desire to awaken the people to the danger that lay in the growth of the
national sin made him begin to lecture in 1844. Invitations flowed in
freely; and he said, after he had broken down under the joint burden
of overwork and of exposure in travelling: "Since 1848, I have lectured
eighty or a hundred times each year, in every Northern State east of the
Mississippi,--once also in a slave State and on slavery itself."
This was his favourite subject, but he never missed an opportunity of
encouraging intellectual independence; and he found he could say what he
pleased. The total number of hearers exceeded half a million; among them
were the most influential men in the North; and he never failed to make
himself understood. No one else did so much to develop that love of the
people for Union and Liberty which secured emancipation. His works have
no such brilliancy as Emerson's; but they burned at the time of need
with a much more warm and steady light. No words did more to melt the
chains of millions of slaves. No excess of individualism made him shrink
back, like Emerson, from joining the abolitionists; or discredit them,
as Thoreau did, by publicly renouncing his allegiance to Massachusetts
in 1854, when that State stood foremost on the side of freedom.
The account of a solitary life in the woods, which Thoreau published
that year, has done much to encourage independence of public opinion;
and Americans of that generation needed sadly to be told that they took
too little amusement, especially out of doors, and made too great haste
to get rich. Their history, however, like that of the Swiss, Scotch,
and ancient Athenians, proves that it is the industrious, enterprising,
money-making nations that are best fitted for maintaining free
institutions. As for individual independence of thought and action,
the average man will enjoy much more of it, while he keeps himself in
comfortable circumstances by regular but not excessive work, than he
could if he were to follow the advice of an author who prided himself
on not working more than "about six weeks in a year," and on enduring
privations which apparently shortened his days.
Thoreau's self-denial was heroic; but he sometimes failed to see the
right of his neighbours to indulge more expensive tastes than his own.
The necessary conditions of health and comfort for different individuals
vary much more than he realised. Many a would-be reformer still
complains of the "luxury" of people who find physical rest or mental
culture in innocent ways, not particularly to his own fancy. Such
censures are really intolerant. They are survivals of that meddlesome
disposition which has sadly restricted freedom of trade, amusement, and
worship.
We have had only one Emerson; but many scholarly Transcendentalists have
laboured to construct the new morality needed in the nineteenth
century. Parker's work has peculiar interest, because done in a terrible
emergency; but others have toiled as profitably though less famously.
The search after fundamental intuitions has led to a curious variety of
statements which agree only in the assumption of infallibility; but the
result has been the general agreement of liberal preachers in teaching a
system of ethics at once free from superstition, bigotry, or asceticism,
and at the same time vigorous enough to repress impure desire and
encourage active philanthropy. Theology has improved in liberality, as
well as in claiming less prominence. Thus the clergy have come into much
more friendly relations with the philosophers than in the middle of the
century. Our popular preachers quote Emerson; but really they follow,
though often unconsciously, the methods of Hegel and Kant. This
increases their sympathy with Parker, who has the advantage over Emerson
of having believed strongly in personal immortality. His works are
circulated by the very denomination which cast him out. The most popular
preachers in many sects openly accept him and Emerson among their
highest authorities. Transcendentalism has become the foundation of
liberal Christianity.
This agreement is not, however, necessary and may not be permanent.
Hegel's great success was in bringing forward the old dogmas with new
claims to infallibility. When some of his disciples showed that his
methods were equally well adapted for the destruction of orthodoxy,
Schelling gave his last lectures in its defence. The singular fitness
of traditions for acceptance as intuitions has been proved, late in the
century, by the Rev. Joseph Cook in Boston as well as by many speakers
at the Concord School of Philosophy. The reactionary tendency is already
so strong that it may yet become predominant. We must not forget that
Shelley called himself an atheist, or that among Hegel's most famous
followers were Strauss and Renan. Who can say whether unbelief,
orthodoxy, or liberal Christianity is the legitimate outcome of this
ubiquitous philosophy?
Transcendentalism has been the inspiration of the century. Its influence
has been mighty in behalf of political liberty and social progress. But
there was no inconsistency in Hegel's opposing the education of women,
and denying the possibility of a great republic, or in Carlyle's
defending absolute monarchy and chattel slavery, or in Parker's
successor in Boston trying to justify the Russian despotism.
Transcendentalism is a swivel-gun, which can be fired easily in any
direction. Perhaps it can be used most easily against science. The
difference in methods, of course, is irreconcilable, as is seen in
Emerson; and the brilliant results attained by Herbert Spencer have been
sadly disparaged by leading Transcendentalists in the conventions of the
Free Religious Association, as well as in sessions of the Concord School
of Philosophy.
VI. The necessary tendency of Transcendentalism may be seen in the
agitation against vivisection, which was begun in 1863 by Miss Cobbe.
She was aided by Carlyle, Browning, Ruskin, Lecky, Mar-tineau, and other
Transcendentalists, one of whom, Rev. W. H. Channing, had been prominent
in America about 1850. Most of the active anti-vivisectionists, however,
belong to the sex which has been peculiarly ready to adopt unscientific
methods of thought. It is largely due to women with a taste for
metaphysics or theology that the agitation still goes on in Great
Britain and the United States.
Attempts ought certainly to be made to prevent torture of animals by
inexperienced students, or by teachers who merely wish to illustrate
the working of well-known laws. There ought to be little difficulty
in securing the universal adoption of such statutes as were passed by
Parliament in 1876. Vivisection was then forbidden, except when carried
out for the purpose of important discoveries, by competent investigators
duly licensed, and in regular laboratories. It was further required that
complete protection against suffering pain be given by anaesthetics,
though these last could be dispensed with in exceptional cases covered
by a special license.
The animal must at all events be killed as soon as the experiment was
over. This law actually put a stop to attempts to find some antidote
to the poison of the cobra, which slays thousands of Hindoos annually.
Professor Ferrier, who was discovering the real functions of various
parts of the brain, was prosecuted in 1881 by the Anti-Vivisection
Society for operating without a license upon monkeys; but the charge
turned out to be false.
The real question since 1876 has been as to whether vivisection should
be tolerated as an aid to scientific and medical discovery. Darwin's
opinion on this point is all the more valuable, because he hated all
cruelty to animals. In April, 1881, he wrote to _The Times_ as follows:
"I know that physiology cannot possibly progress except by means of
experiments on living animals; and I feel the deepest conviction that
he who retards the progress of physiology commits a crime against
mankind.... No one, unless he is grossly ignorant of what science has
done for mankind, can entertain any doubt of the incalculable benefits
which will hereafter be derived from physiology, not only by man but by
the lower animals. Look, for instance, at Pasteur's results in modifying
the germs of the most malignant diseases, from which, as it so happens,
animals will in the first place receive more relief than man. Let it be
remembered how many lives, and what a fearful amount of suffering,
have been saved by the knowledge gained of parasitic worms, through the
experiments of Virchow and others upon living animals."
Another high authority, Carpenter, says that vivisection has greatly
aided physicians in curing heart disease, as well as in preventing
blood-poisoning by taking antiseptic precautions. Much has been learned
as to the value of hypodermic injections, and also of bromide of
potassium, chloral, salicylic acid, cocaine, amyl, digitalis, and
strychnia. Some of these drugs are so poisonous that they would never
have been administered to human beings if they could not have been
tried previously on the lower animals. The experiments in question have
recently assisted in curing yellow fever, sunstroke, diabetes, epilepsy,
erysipelas, cholera, consumption, and trichinosis. The German professors
of medicine testified in a body that vivisection has regenerated the
healing art. Similar testimony was given in 1881 by the three thousand
members of the International Medical Congress; and the British Medical
Association has taken the same position.
The facts are so plain that an English judge, who was a vice-president
of Miss Cobbe's society, admitted that "vivisection enlarges knowledge";
but he condemned it as ''displeasing to Almighty God.'' It was said to
go "hand in hand with atheism"; and several of the Episcopalian bishops,
together with Cardinal Manning, opposed it as irreligious.
Transcendentalists are compelled by their philosophy to decide on the
morality of all actions solely by the inner light, and not permitted to
pay any attention to consequences. Many of them in England and America
agreed to demand the total suppression of vivisection, "even should it
chance to prove useful." This ground was taken in 1877 by Miss Cobbe's
society; and she declared, five years later, in _The Fortnightly_,
that she was determined "to stop the torture of animals, a grave moral
offence, with the consequences of which--be they fortunate or the
reverse--we are no more concerned than with those of any other evil
deed." Later she said: "Into controversies concerning the utility of
vivisection, I for one refuse to enter"; and she published a leaflet
advising her sisters to follow her example. Ruskin took the same ground.
These hasty enthusiasts were equally indifferent to another fact, which
ought not to have been overlooked, namely, that suffering was usually
prevented by the use of anaesthetics, which are indispensable for the
success of many experiments. The bill for prohibiting any vivisection
was brought into the House of Lords in 1879; But was opposed by a
nobleman who presided over the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals; and it was lost by 16 votes against 97. The House of Commons
refused even to take action on the subject, despite four years of
agitation. Thus the right of scientific research was finally secured.
Miss Cobbe was one of the noblest of women; but even she was made blind
by her philosophy to the right of people who prefer scientific methods
to act up to their convictions. Garrison, too, was notoriously unable to
do justice to anyone, even an abolitionist, who did not agree with
him. There is nothing in Transcendentalism to prevent intolerance. This
philosophy has done immense service to the philanthropy as well as the
poetry of the nineteenth century; but human liberty will gain by the
discovery that no such system of metaphysics can be anything better than
a temporary bridge for passing out of the swamps of superstition, across
the deep and furious torrent of scepticism, into a land of healthy
happiness and clear, steady light.