in America by President James McCosh (1811-1894). Born in Ayrshire,
Scotland, of a sturdy middle-class family, he was educated at Glasgow
and Edinburgh. His graduation essay on the Stoic philosophy won him
the honorary degree of A.M. Becoming a minister of the Established
Kirk, he seceded with Chalmers and rendered valuable service to the
Free Church. His “Method of the Divine Government, Physical and Moral”
(1850) laid the foundation of his fame as a philosophical writer, and
doubtless led to his appointment in 1852 to the professorship of logic
and metaphysics in Queen’s College, Belfast. From Belfast, after an
active literary and educational career, he was called to the presidency
of Princeton College, and thenceforward was a distinguished figure
in the American intellectual world. His numerous writings after 1868
include “The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository, Critical”
(1874), “The Emotions” (1880), “Philosophical Series” (1882-1885, eight
volumes), “Psychology of the Cognitive Powers” (1886), “Realistic
Philosophy Defended” (1887), “The Religious Aspect of Evolution”
(1887), and “First and Fundamental Truths” (1894). Dr. McCosh was one
of the first to point out the theological bearing of Darwinism and to
announce his acceptance of it when properly understood. “Touching the
thought of his time,” says Professor Sloane, “at its salient points and
with tremendous vitality, he constantly insisted on the few central
truths of his system in their application to each new question as it
arose. Incisive, intense, and real, or rather concrete in his thinking,
he felt a loyalty to truth which he sought to instil with all his might
into the minds of others.”
_William Torrey Harris._--William T. Harris (born in 1835) left Yale in
1857 to become a teacher in St. Louis, where he was superintendent of
schools from 1867 till 1888. From 1889 till 1906 he was United States
Commissioner of Education. Although leading a busy life as a teacher,
he found time for philosophical work. He founded (1867) and has since
edited _The Journal of Speculative Philosophy_, the first philosophical
periodical in English. His “Hegel’s Logic” (1890), while highly
technical, is one of the clearest and most scholarly expositions of
Hegelian thought. He has written also “An Introduction to the Study of
Philosophy” (1889), “Psychologic Foundations of Education” (1898), and
many smaller educational and philosophical studies.
_John Fiske._--One of the greatest of modern expositors of science was
John Fiske (1842-1901). He was born at Middletown, Connecticut, and
entered Harvard as a sophomore in 1860, graduating in 1863. The works
of Spencer and Darwin opened a new world to his vigorous imagination
and he devoted many years to elucidating and applying their doctrines,
in “Myths and Myth Makers” (1872), “Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy”
(1874), “The Unseen World” (1876), “Darwinism, and Other Essays”
(1879), “Excursions of an Evolutionist” (1883), “The Destiny of Man
Viewed in the Light of His Origin” (1884), and “The Idea of God as
Affected by Modern Knowledge” (1885). His later years were devoted to
studies in American history, the events of which he interpreted as the
result of evolutionary processes. His work reveals a uniform optimism.
=Some Living Writers.=--Among living writers on philosophical themes
space will permit the mention of only two or three. The son of Henry
James, the theologian, and the brother of Henry James, Jr., the
novelist, William James (born in 1842) was educated privately and
at Harvard, from which he received the degree of M.D. in 1870. Two
years later he became an instructor and in 1881 a full professor, the
subjects of his later interest being psychology and philosophy. He has
written, among a large number of books and articles, “Principles of
Psychology” (1890), “The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular
Philosophy” (1897), “Human Immortality” (the Ingersoll Lecture, 1898),
“The Varieties of Religious Experience” (Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh
University, 1902), and “Pragmatism” (1907). Especially noteworthy is
his work in analytical psychology. Always clear and fresh in style, his
writings have exerted a marked influence on thought both in Europe and
in America.
Borden Parker Bowne (born in 1847), who, after graduating at New York
University in 1871, studied at Halle, Göttingen, and Paris, in 1876
became professor of philosophy at Boston University. He has written
“The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer” (1874), “Studies in Theism” (1879),
“Metaphysics” (1882), “Introduction to Psychological Theory” (1886),
and “Principles of Ethics” (1892).
Jacob Gould Schurman (born in 1854) has made some worthy contributions
to the literature of ethics; it is a matter of regret that
administrative work has of late kept him from writing more for the
general public. He was born at Freetown, Prince Edward Island, and
studied at Acadia College. In 1875 he won the Gilchrist Dominion
Scholarship in the University of London, from which he graduated in
1877. He later studied at Edinburgh, Heidelberg, Berlin, and Göttingen,
and in Italy. From 1886 till 1892 he was professor of philosophy in
Cornell University, of which he became president in 1892. He has
written lucid studies of “Kantian Ethics and the Ethics of Evolution”
(1881), “The Ethical Import of Darwinism” (1888), “Belief in God”
(1890), and “Agnosticism and Religion” (1896).
Josiah Royce (born in 1855), a Californian who studied at the
University of California, Leipsic, Göttingen, and Johns Hopkins,
has done much to interpret and popularise the thought of Hegel, and
has made valuable original contributions to contemporary idealistic
thought. His philosophical works include “The Religious Aspect of
Philosophy” (1885), “The Spirit of Modern Philosophy” (1892), “The
Conception of God” (1895), “Studies of Good and Evil” (1898), “The
Conception of Immortality” (1900, an Ingersoll Lecture), and “The
World and the Individual” (1900-1901). A close thinker, he writes in a
remarkably fresh, vigorous, and informal style.
=Political and Legal Science.=--In the fields of political, economic,
social, and legal science the most that can be claimed for American
writers is that a fair number of them have achieved genuine
distinction and enjoy international reputations. America is still too
young to be expected to have produced independent schools of thought in
these lines. What Dr. Sherwood says of the economists may have a larger
application here:
The chief reason for our failure to make large contributions
to economic science [he remarks in his “Tendencies in American
Economic Thought”] is the same reason which explains the meagreness
of our contribution to general science, viz., the all-absorbing
problem of making use of the advantages within our grasp. Within a
century we have been compelled to work out several most difficult
problems: how to unite in a solid empire many vigorous, large,
and discordant nationalities; how to stretch this empire over the
adjacent territories, so as to remove dangerous enemies; how to
get rid of slavery without disrupting the Union; how to make our
general education keep pace with our growth in numbers and with
the advance of science; how, with the rapidly shifting forms of
industrial organisation, to maintain purity of government and
social order; how to govern an empire without an emperor; how to
push forward material civilisation without going backwards in
intellectual and moral civilisation; how to stimulate invention so
as to win wealth for all, with inadequate labour and capital.
These practical problems have kept us from producing men with wealth
and leisure for working out solutions of the large abstract questions
raised in these sciences. Nor have our writers yet succeeded in
handling large masses of facts with the skill of some foreign writers.
The best comprehensive work on American institutions remains Bryce’s
“American Commonwealth,” the work of an Englishman. Yet in Marshall,
Kent, and Story we have produced some great jurists; in Wheaton,
Lawrence, and Woolsey some great writers on legal science; in Carey,
Wells, Walker, and George writers of commanding importance in the
sphere of political economy.
_John Marshall._--Pre-eminent among the jurists of America is John
Marshall (1755-1835), for thirty-four years Chief-Justice of the
United States Supreme Court. Marshall served as an officer in the
Revolution; in 1780, being without a command, he attended Chancellor
Wyeth’s lectures on law at William and Mary College. Entering upon the
practice of law, he quickly became known for his acumen. His accession
to the Supreme Court bench (1801) marks an epoch in our legal and
constitutional history. He had, as it were, to blaze a trail. The
Constitution had been adopted; it had yet to be construed. A thousand
questions arose as to what it meant, what it included, what it was
meant not to include. Marshall’s decisions, recorded in thirty-two
volumes of reports, reveal the impartial workings of a master legal
mind. Such men do not often appear; it was fortunate that the American
Government in its early years was guided by Marshall’s constitutional
constructions. They virtually form a system of law, a system which
has not since been seriously modified. “The judge who rears such a
monument to his memory,” says Mr. Magruder, his biographer, “will
never be forgotten; in the united domain of English and American
jurisprudence there are not half a dozen such memorials; but not the
least distinguished is that of Marshall.”
_James Kent._--It has been said of Kent’s “Commentaries upon American
Law” (1826-1830) that they had a deeper and more lasting influence upon
the American character than any other secular book of the nineteenth
century. James Kent (1763-1847) graduated from Yale in 1781 and then
practised law, first at Poughkeepsie, and after 1793 in New York City.
In the same year he became professor of law in Columbia College. The
Federalist leaders rapidly advanced him; he was made Chief-Justice of
the New York Supreme Court in 1804 and Chancellor in 1814. Retiring in
1823, he resumed his teaching at Columbia, and later published many of
his lectures in the “Commentaries.” His Chancery decisions, to be found
in Caines’ and Johnson’s reports, were of fundamental importance and
form the basis of American equity jurisprudence.
_Joseph Story._--With Chancellor Kent, Joseph Story (1779-1845)
shares the glory of having laid the foundations of American equity
jurisprudence. Story graduated from Harvard in 1798 and was admitted
to the bar in 1801. Becoming a leader of what was later the Democratic
party, in 1808 he entered Congress and in 1811 was appointed an
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. From 1829 on he
was also a professor of law at Harvard. For some time after Marshall’s
death he was acting Chief-Justice. Many of his opinions in patent
and admiralty law are still authoritative. Some of his writings are
“Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States” (1833), “The
Conflict of Laws” (1834), “Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence”
(1835-1836), and treatises on agency, partnership, bills, and notes.
_Henry Wheaton._--Less known than Story, yet in his day a prominent
figure in the legal world, was Henry Wheaton (1785-1848), of
Providence, Rhode Island, a graduate of Brown University in the
class of 1802. He was a lawyer, an editor, and a diplomatist (from
1837 till 1846 Minister Plenipotentiary to Prussia). His “Elements
of International Law” (1836, republished in several editions, and
translated into French, Chinese, and Japanese) remains one of the
leading authorities. Another important work was his “Histoire du
progrès des gens en Europe depuis le paix de Westphalie jusqu’au
Congrès de Vienne” (1841, English translation 1846). He was widely
respected for sound learning and diplomatic ability.
_Francis Lieber._--Francis Lieber (1800-1872), a native of Berlin and
a Ph.D. of the University of Jena (1820), came to America virtually
a political exile, and, though an ardent worshipper of freedom, was
at first, as Dr. Harley remarks, obliged to make his home in the
very heart of the slave power. For twenty-one years he was professor
of history and political economy in South Carolina College, being
“the first great teacher in this country of history and politics as
co-ordinated subjects.” From 1856 till 1860 he held the chair of
political economy in Columbia College; and from 1860 till his death
he was professor of political science in the Columbia Law School.
The great works on which his fame rests are his “Political Ethics”
(1838), “Legal and Political Hermeneutics” (1839), and “Civil Liberty
and Self-Government” (1853). In writing these books he was a pioneer,
and pointed out some important principles of American liberty. In his
later years he gave much attention to international and military law.
From his proposals originated the Institut de Droit International,
started at Ghent in 1873, “the organ for the legal consciousness of the
civilised world.”
_William Beach Lawrence._--Another writer whose name is linked with
Columbia College is William B. Lawrence (1800-1881). Born in New York
City, he graduated from Columbia in 1818, was admitted to the bar in
1823, and gave attention chiefly to international law. For a time
he lectured at Columbia on political economy, defending free trade.
Removing to Rhode Island, he served as acting Governor in 1852. In
1872-1873 he lectured on international law in the Columbian University
at Washington. His works are marked by breadth of view and soundness
of judgment. They include “The Bank of the United States” (1831),
“Institutions of the United States” (1832), “Discourses on Political
Economy” (1834), “The Law of Charitable Uses” (1845), “Commentaire sur
les éléments du droit international” (1868-1880), and “The Treaty of
Washington” (1871).
_Theodore Dwight Woolsey._--Theodore D. Woolsey (1801-1889) had a
varied preparation for his notable career. Graduating at Yale in 1820,
he studied law in Philadelphia, theology at Princeton, and Greek at
Leipsic, Bonn, and Berlin. From 1831 till 1846 he was professor of
Greek at Yale. Becoming president of Yale in 1846, he thenceforward
confined his teaching to history, political science, and international
law, and became eminent as a writer on subjects in these fields. Among
his works are “An Introduction to the Study of International Law”
(1860), “Essays on Divorce and Divorce Legislation” (1869), “Political
Science” (two volumes, 1877), and “Communism and Socialism, in Their
History and Theory” (1880).
_Henry Wager Halleck._--Chiefly known as a soldier, and as general
of the armies of the United States from July, 1862, till March,
1864, Henry W. Halleck (1815-1872) was after all more skilled in
the science of war than in its practice in the field. He studied at
Union College and West Point, from which he graduated in 1839. Before
the Lowell Institute in 1845 he lectured on the science of war; his
lectures, published as “Elements of Military Art and Science,” were
much used later as a training manual. The chief of his other works,
“International Law, or Rules Regulating the Intercourse of States in
Peace and War” (1861), abridged in 1866 for college use, still ranks
among the highest authorities.
_Henry Charles Carey._--In his day the foremost champion of
governmental protection to private industry was Henry C. Carey
(1793-1879). The eldest son of Matthew Carey, the Philadelphia
publisher, he devoted his early years to carrying on the bookselling
and publishing business, retiring in 1835. His essay on “The
Rate of Wages” (1835) was soon expanded into “The Principles of
Political Economy” (1837-1840), which found favour abroad and was
translated into Swedish and Italian. His other leading works were
“The Credit System of France, Great Britain, and the United States”
(1838), “The Past, the Present, and the Future” (1848), “Letters
on the International Copyright” (1853), “The Principles of Social
Science” (1858), and “The Unity of Law” (1873). Carey was originally
a free-trader, but early became a supporter of protection on the
ground of temporary expediency. Some of his views have been attacked
as unwarranted and dogmatically expressed; it must be conceded,
however, that he had a strong grasp of facts and that his works are an
invaluable contribution to economic and social science.
_David Ames Wells._--For many years, it is safe to say, the leading
economist in America was David A. Wells (1828-1898). He was descended
from Thomas Welles, Governor of Connecticut in 1655-1658, was born at
Springfield, Massachusetts, and was graduated from Williams College
in 1847 and from the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard in 1852.
For some years he taught physics and chemistry, and was engaged
also in writing school text-books on these subjects. An essay (“Our
Burden and Strength”) on the resources and financial ability of the
United States (1864) brought Wells into prominence, while it did much
to restore confidence in the Federal Government. President Lincoln
summoned Mr. Wells to Washington, and appointed him chairman of the
Revenue Commission of 1865-1866. As special commissioner of the revenue
(1866-1870) he completed vast reforms in the complex system of revenue
which had grown up during the war. Thereafter he was largely engaged
in writing and speaking on economic topics. Among his books are
“Robinson Crusoe’s Money,” illustrated by Nast (1876), “Our Merchant
Marine: How It Rose, Increased, Became Great, Declined, and Decayed”
(1882), “Practical Economics” (1885), “A Study of Mexico” (1887), “The
Relation of the Tariff to Wages” (1888), and “Recent Economic Changes”
(1898).
_Francis Amasa Walker._--Born in Boston, Francis A. Walker (1840-1897)
graduated from Amherst at twenty, then served in the Union Army,
becoming a brigadier-general. In 1869 he was put at the head of the
Bureau of Statistics; he was superintendent of the Ninth and the Tenth
Census, and held other prominent positions, including (1873-1881)
the professorship of political economy and history at the Sheffield
Scientific School of Yale and (1881-1897) the presidency of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a prolific writer; of
his economic works we can mention only “The Indian Question” (1874),
“The Wages Question” (1876), “Money” (1878), “Money in its Relations
to Trade and Industry” (Lowell Institute lectures, 1879), “Political
Economy” (1883), “Land and its Rent” (1883), and “International
Bimetallism” (1896). Walker’s influence as an economist was felt
especially in connection with the theory of wages. “The central idea of
his theory,” says Dr. Sherwood, “that the amount of wages under free
competition tends to equal the product due to the labour, has been
generally accepted, although not altogether as the direct result of his
writing.”
_Henry George._--The theories of Henry George (1839-1896) have been
widely discussed. They were first put forth in “Our Land and Land
Policy” (1871), in which he held that the burden of taxation should
be borne by the land and not by industry, and that thus opportunities
for progress would be equalised. His most important book was “Progress
and Poverty” (1879), which in a few years made George virtually the
apostle of a new economic and social creed. Conservative economists
have been slow to accept his single-tax theory; it has, however, called
attention to the enormous waste and wrong that result from granting
public franchises to private corporations without due compensation. His
theory of wages, that they arise from a value created by the efficiency
of the labourer, has been generally accepted and may be regarded as a
real contribution to economic science.
=Some Other Writers.=--More than a generation of Williams College
men sat under the teaching of Arthur Latham Perry (1830-1905), for
thirty-eight years professor of history and political economy. Perry
published his “Elements of Political Economy” in 1865; some twenty
editions have since appeared. His advocacy of free trade in the sixties
cost him many friends. He published also a work on “International
Commerce” (1866) and smaller treatises on political economy. Elisha
Mulford (1833-1885), a graduate of Yale College and an Episcopal
clergyman, was the author of two highly powerful and stimulating books:
“The Nation” (1870), dealing with the philosophy of the state, and “The
Republic of God” (1880), a religious work of similar character. William
Graham Sumner (born in 1840) became prominent for his advocacy of free
trade and of the gold standard. Graduating at Yale in 1863, he studied
at Göttingen and Oxford, then took orders in the Episcopal Church.
Since 1872 he has been professor of political and social science at
Yale. He has written “A History of American Currency” (1874), “Lectures
on the History of Protection in the United States” (1875), “What Social
Classes Owe Each Other” (1882), “Collected Essays in Political and
Social Science” (1885), “The Financier and Finances of the American
Revolution” (1892), and “A History of Banking in the United States”
(1896). Another well known political economist is Richard Theodore
Ely (born in 1854), a graduate of Columbia College (1876) and of
Heidelberg (Ph.D. _summa cum laude_, 1879), who, as director of the
School of Economics, Political Science, and History in the University
of Wisconsin, has trained more teachers of economic science than any
other American living and has exerted marked influence on the thought
of his time. He has to his credit a long list of valuable publications;
some of them are “French and German Socialism in Modern Times” (1883),
“The Labour Movement in America” (1886), “Taxation in American States
and Cities” (1888), “Socialism, an Examination of Its Nature, Its
Strength, and Its Weakness, with Suggestions for Social Reform” (1894),
“The Social Law of Service” (1896), and “Monopolies and Trusts” (1900).
The tendency of the Government to regulate economic movements is in
harmony with a doctrine of which he has been a bold champion. Another
equally high authority on trusts and currency problems is Jeremiah
Whipple Jenks (born in 1856), since 1891 professor of political economy
at Cornell University. His “The Trust Problem” (1900) and “Trusts and
Industrial Combinations” (1900) have circulated widely. President
Woodrow Wilson (born in 1856) of Princeton, discussed elsewhere as a
historian, must also be mentioned here for his standard work on “The
State: Elements of Historical and Practical Politics” (1889), “An Old
Master, and Other Political Essays” (1893), and “Mere Literature, and
Other Essays,” in which large and sound views of government and its
functions are set forth in a clear and attractive style.
=Ethnological and Linguistic Science.=--In the broad field of
ethnological research the work of American scholars has been chiefly
devoted to the native and primitive races of America. This offers,
as has been pointed out by Mr. McGee,[23] “the finest field the
world affords,” exhibiting nearly every stage of development and
nearly every type of mankind; and American contributions to ethnology
and anthropology have been correspondingly important. The names
of Gallatin, Schoolcraft, Morgan, Powell, Brinton, will be at once
recalled; probably the last named is our best known ethnologist. In the
science of language our showing is, in point of numbers, somewhat more
creditable. The lexicographical work of Webster, Worcester, Whitney,
and March, and the grammatical work of Child and Gildersleeve have
been recognised and appreciated the world over. In these sciences
America’s debt to Germany is a heavy one. Most of our greater teachers
of language received their professional training in Germany; and while
fewer of our students now go to Germany for the doctor’s degree, the
influence of German scholarship is still strongly felt among us.
_Pierre Étienne Duponceau._--Duponceau (1760-1844) was one of the
pioneers of American philology. Born in France, he came to America
in 1777 as secretary to Baron Steuben, served in the American army
as captain till 1781, and afterward practised law in Philadelphia,
becoming well known. He wrote treatises on law: “Exposition sommaire de
la constitution des États-Unis d’Amérique” (1837); and in linguistics:
“English Phonology” (1818), “Mémoire sur le système grammatical des
languages de quelques nations indiennes de 1’Amérique du Nord” (1838),
which was awarded a medal by the French Institute, and “A Dissertation
on the Nature and Character of the Chinese System of Writing” (1838).
_Albert Gallatin._--The long and illustrious political career of Albert
Gallatin (1761-1849) must not detain us here. Most of his literary and
ethnological work was done in his later years. In 1836 he published his
“Synopsis of the Indian Tribes within the United States, East of the
Rocky Mountains, and in the British and Russian Possessions in North
America.” In 1845 appeared his “Notes on the Semi-Civilised Nations
of Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America.” He founded the American
Ethnological Society in 1842; and he is rightly known and will be
remembered as the father of American ethnology.