Few read German, but most read French. As early as 1804, Degerando
lectured on Kant's philosophy, in Paris; and as early as 1813 Mad. de
Stael gave an account of it. The number of copies of the original works
of either Kant, Fichte, Jacobi or Schelling, that found their way to
the United States, was inconsiderable. Half a dozen eager students
obtained isolated books of Herder, Schleiermacher, De Wette and other
theological and biblical writers, read them, translated chapters from
them, or sent notices of them to the Christian Examiner. The works of
Coleridge made familiar the leading ideas of Schelling. The foreign
reviews reported the results and processes of French and German
speculation. In 1827, Thomas Carlyle wrote, in the Edinburgh Review, his
great articles on Richter and the State of German Literature; in 1828
appeared his essay on Goethe. Mr. Emerson presented these and other
papers as "Carlyle's Miscellanies" to the American public. In 1838
George Ripley began the publication of the "Specimens of Foreign
Standard Literature," a series which extended to fourteen volumes; the
first and second comprising philosophical miscellanies by Cousin,
Jouffroy and Constant, translated with introductions by Mr. Ripley
himself; the third devoted to Goethe and Schiller, with elaborate and
discriminating prefaces by John S. Dwight; the fourth giving Eckermann's
Conversations with Goethe, done into English by Margaret Fuller; the
three next containing Menzel's German Literature, by Prof. C. C. Felton;
the eighth and ninth introducing Wm. H. Channing's version of Jouffroy's
Introduction to Ethics; the tenth and eleventh, DeWette's Theodor, by
James Freeman Clarke; the twelfth and thirteenth, DeWette's Ethics, by
Samuel Osgood; and the last offering samples of German Lyrics, by
Charles T. Brooks. These volumes, which were remarkably attractive,
both in form and contents, brought many readers into a close
acquaintance with the teaching and the spirit of writers of the new
school.
The Philosophical Miscellanies of Cousin were much noticed by the press,
George Bancroft in especial sparing no pains to commend them and the
views they presented. The spiritual philosophy had no more fervent or
eloquent champion than he. No reader of his "History of the United
States," has forgotten the noble tribute paid to it under the name of
Quakerism, or the striking parallel between the two systems represented
in the history by John Locke and Wm. Penn, both of whom framed
constitutions for the new world. For keenness of apprehension and
fullness of statement the passages deserve to be quoted here. They occur
in the XVI. chapter of the History.
"The elements of humanity are always the same, the inner light
dawns upon every nation, and is the same in every age; and the
French revolution was a result of the same principles as those of
George Fox, gaining dominion over the mind of Europe. They are
expressed in the burning and often profound eloquence of Rousseau;
they reappear in the masculine philosophy of Kant. The professor of
Koenigsberg, like Fox and Barclay and Penn, derived philosophy from
the voice in the soul; like them, he made the oracle within the
categorical rule of practical morality, the motive to disinterested
virtue; like them, he esteemed the Inner Light, which discerns
universal and necessary truths, an element of humanity; and
therefore his philosophy claims for humanity the right of ever
renewed progress and reform. If the Quakers disguised their
doctrine under the form of theology, Kant concealed it for a
season under the jargon of a nervous but unusual diction. But
Schiller has reproduced the great idea in beautiful verse;
Chateaubriand avowed himself its advocate; Coleridge has repeated
the doctrine in misty language; it beams through the poetry of
Lamartine and Wordsworth; while in the country of beautiful prose,
the eloquent Cousin, listening to the same eternal voice which
connects humanity with universal reason, has gained a wide fame for
"the divine principle," and in explaining the harmony between that
light and the light of Christianity, has often unconsciously
borrowed the language, and employed the arguments of Barclay and
Penn."
A few pages later is the brilliant passage describing the essential
difference between this philosophy and that of Locke:
"Locke, like William Penn, was tolerant; both loved freedom, both
cherished truth in sincerity. But Locke kindled the torch of
liberty at the fires of tradition; Penn at the living light in the
soul. Locke sought truth through the senses and the outward world;
Penn looked inward to the divine revelations in every mind. Locke
compared the soul to a sheet of white paper, just as Hobbes had
compared it to a slate on which time and chance might scrawl their
experience. To Penn the soul was an organ which of itself
instinctively breathes divine harmonies, like those musical
instruments which are so curiously and perfectly formed, that when
once set in motion, they of themselves give forth all the melodies
designed by the artist that made them. To Locke, conscience is
nothing else than our own opinion of our own actions; to Penn, it
is the image of God and his oracle in the soul.... In studying the
understanding Locke begins with the sources of knowledge; Penn with
an inventory of our intellectual treasures.... The system of Locke
lends itself to contending factions of the most opposite interests
and purposes; the doctrine of Fox and Penn, being but the common
creed of humanity, forbids division and insures the highest moral
unity. To Locke, happiness is pleasure, and things are good and
evil only in reference to pleasure and pain; and to "inquire after
the highest good is as absurd as to dispute whether the best relish
be in apples, plums or nuts." Penn esteemed happiness to lie in the
subjection of the baser instincts to the instinct of Deity in the
breast; good and evil to be eternally and always as unlike as truth
and falsehood; and the inquiry after the highest good to involve
the purpose of existence. Locke says plainly that, but for rewards
and punishments beyond the grave, 'it is certainly right to eat and
drink, and enjoy what we delight in.' Penn, like Plato and Fenelon,
maintained the doctrine so terrible to despots, that God is to be
loved for His own sake, and virtue to be practised for its
intrinsic loveliness. Locke derives the idea of infinity from the
senses, describes it as purely negative, and attributes it to
nothing but space, duration and number; Penn derived the idea from
the soul, and ascribed it to truth and virtue and God. Locke
declares immortality a matter with which reason has nothing to do;
and that revealed truth must be sustained by outward signs and
visible acts of power; Penn saw truth by its own light and summoned
the soul to bear witness to its own glory."
The justice of the comparison, in the first part of the above extract,
of Quakerism with Transcendentalism, may be disputed. Some may be of
opinion that inasmuch as Quakerism traces the source of the Inner Light
to the supernatural illumination of the Holy Spirit, while
Transcendentalism regards it as a natural endowment of the human mind,
the two are fundamentally opposed while superficially in agreement.
However this may be, the practical issues of the two coincide, and the
truth of the contrast presented between the philosophies, designated by
the name of Locke on the one side, and of Penn on the other, will not be
disputed. Mr. Bancroft's statement, though dazzling, is exact. It was
made in 1837. The third edition from which the above citation was made,
was published in 1838, the year of Mr. Emerson's address to the Divinity
students at Cambridge.
Mr. Emerson had shown his hand plainly several years before. In 1832 he
raised the whole issue in the "epoch making" sermon, in which he
advanced the view of the communion service that led to his resignation
of the Christian ministry. His elder brother, William, returning from
his studies in Germany, was turned from the profession of the church
which he had purposed entering, to the law, by similar scruples. In
1834, James Walker printed in the "Christian Examiner" an address, which
was the same year published as a tract, by the American Unitarian
Association, entitled "The Philosophy of Man's Spiritual Nature in
regard to the foundations of Faith," wherein he took frankly the
transcendental ground, contending:
"That the existence of those spiritual faculties and capacities
which are assumed as the foundation of religion in the soul of man,
is attested, and put beyond controversy by the revelations of
consciousness; that religion in the soul, consisting as it does, of
a manifestation and development of these spiritual faculties and
capacities, is as much a reality in itself, and enters as
essentially into our idea of a perfect man, as the corresponding
manifestation and development of the reasoning faculties, a sense
of justice, or the affections of sympathy and benevolence; and
that from the acknowledged existence and reality of spiritual
impressions or perceptions, we may and do assume the existence and
reality of the spiritual world; just as from the acknowledged
existence and reality of sensible impressions or perceptions, we
may and do assume the existence and realities of the sensible
world."
In this discourse, for originally it was a discourse, the worst species
of infidelity is charged to the "Sensational" philosophy, and at the
close, the speaker in impressive language, 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
comprehends the soul, a soul susceptible of religion, of the
sublime principle of faith, of a faith which 'entereth into that
within the veil.' Let it be a philosophy which continually reminds
us of our intimate relations to the spiritual world; which opens to
us new sources of consolation in trouble, and new sources of life
in death--nay, which teaches us that what we call _death_ is but
the dying of all that is mortal, that nothing but life may remain."
In 1840, the same powerful advocate of the transcendental doctrine, in a
discourse before the alumni of the Cambridge Divinity School, declared
that the return to a higher order of ideas, to a living faith in God, in
Christ, and in the church, had been promoted by such men as
Schleiermacher and De Wette; 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 the information imparted by
the senses, and denied the existence of spiritual elements in the nature
of man; and again welcomed the philosophy taught in England by Butler,
Reid and Coleridge; in Germany, by Kant, Jacobi and Schleiermacher; in
France, by Cousin, Jouffroy and Degerando. Such words from James Walker,
always a favorite teacher with young men, a mind of judicial authority
in the liberal community, and at that time Professor of Moral Philosophy
at Harvard College, made a deep impression. When he said: "Men may put
down Transcendentalism if they can, but they must first deign to
comprehend its principles," the most conservative began to surmise that
there must be something in Transcendentalism.
But before this the movement was well under way. In 1836, Emerson's
"Nature" broke through the shell of accepted opinions on a very
essential subject: true, but five hundred copies were sold in twelve
years; critics and philosophers could make nothing of it; but those who
read it recognized signs of a new era, even if they could not describe
them; and many who did not read it felt in the atmosphere the change it
introduced. The idealism of the little book was uncompromising.
"In the presence of ideas we feel that the outward circumstance is
a dream and a shade. Whilst we wait in this Olympus of gods, we
think of nature as an appendix to the soul. We ascend into their
region, and know that these are the thoughts of the Supreme
Being."... "Idealism is an hypothesis to account for nature by
other principles than those of carpentry and chemistry. It
acquaints us with the total disparity between the evidence of our
own being, and the evidence of the world's being. The world is a
divine dream, from which we may presently awake to the glories and
certainties of day."
The same year, George Ripley reviewed in the "Christian Examiner,"
Martineau's "Rationale of Religious Enquiry." The article was furiously
assailed in the Boston Daily Advertiser. Mr. Ripley replied in the paper
of the next day, vindicating the ideas of the review and of the book as
being strictly in consonance with the principles of liberal
Christianity.
In 1838 came the wonderful "address" before the Cambridge Divinity
School, which stirred the soul of aspiring young men, and, wakened the
wrath of sedate old ones. It was idealism in its full blaze, and it made
the germs of Transcendentalism struggle in the sods.
The next year Andrews Norton attacked the new philosophy in a discourse
before the same audience, on "The Latest Form of Infidelity." The
doctrine of that discourse was "Sensationalism" in its boldest aspect.
"Christ was commissioned by God to speak to us in His name, and to
make known to us, on His authority, those truths which it most
concerns us to know; and there can be no greater miracle than this.
No proof of His divine commission could be afforded but through
miraculous displays of God's power. Nothing is left that can be
called Christianity, if its miraculous character be denied. Its
essence is gone; its evidence is annihilated."... "To the demand
for certainty let it come from whom it may, I answer that I know of
no absolute certainty beyond the limit of momentary consciousness;
a certainty that vanishes the instant it exists, and is lost in the
region of metaphysical doubt."... "There can be no intuition, no
direct perception of the truth of Christianity, no metaphysical
certainty."... "Of the facts on which religion is founded, we can
pretend to no assurance except that derived from the testimony of
God from the Christian revelation."
A pamphlet defending the discourse contained passages like the
following: "The doctrine that the mind possesses a faculty of
intuitively discovering the truths of religion, is not only utterly
untenable, but the proposition is of such a character that it cannot
well bear the test of being distinctly stated. The question respecting
the existence of such a faculty is not difficult to be decided. We are
not conscious of possessing any such faculty; and there can be no other
proof of its existence. Its defenders shrink from presenting it in broad
daylight. They are disposed to keep it out of view behind a cloud of
words."... "Consciousness or intuition can inform us of nothing but what
exists in our own minds, including the relations of our own ideas. It is
therefore not an intelligible error, but a mere absurdity to maintain
that we are conscious, or have an intuitive knowledge of the being of
God, of our own immortality, of the revelation of God through Christ, or
of any other fact of religion."... "The religion of which they (the
Transcendentalists) speak, therefore, exists merely, if it exist at all,
in undefined and unintelligible feelings, having reference, perhaps, to
certain imaginations, the result of impressions communicated in
childhood or produced by the visible signs of religious belief existing
around us, or awakened by the beautiful and magnificent spectacles which
nature presents."
Mr. Norton spoke with biting severity of the masters of German
philosophy, criticism, and literature, and exhausted his sarcasm on the
address of Mr. Emerson delivered the previous year. To Mr. Norton, Mr.
Ripley made prompt and earnest, though temperate, reply in three long
and powerful letters, devoted mainly to a refutation of his adversary's
accusations against Spinoza, Schleiermacher, De Wette, and the
philosophic theologians of Germany. Not till the end does he take issue
with the fundamental positions of Mr. Norton's philosophy; then he
brands as "revolting" the doctrine that "there can be no intuition, no
direct perception of the truth of Christianity;" that "the feeling or
direct perception of religious truth" is an "imaginary faculty;" and
affirms his conviction that "the principle that the soul has no faculty
to perceive spiritual truth, is contradicted by the universal
consciousness of man."
"Does the body see," he asks, "and is the spirit blind? No, man has
the faculty for feeling and perceiving religious truth. So far from
being imaginary, it is the highest reality of which the pure soul
is conscious. Can I be more certain that I am capable of looking
out and admiring the forms of external beauty, 'the frail and weary
weed in which God dresses the soul that he has called into time,'
than that I can also look within, and commune with the fairer forms
of truth and holiness which plead for my love, as visitants from
Heaven?"
The controversy was taken up by other pens. In 1840, Theodore Parker,
speaking as a plain man under the name of Levi Blodgett, "moved and
handled the Previous Question" after a fashion that betrayed the
practised thinker and scribe. Mr. Parker occupied substantially the same
ground that was taken by James Walker in 1834.
"The germs of religion, both the germs of religious principle and
religious sentiment, must be born in man, or innate, as our
preacher says. I reckon that man is by nature a religious being,
_i. e._ that he was made to be religious, as much as an ox was made
to eat grass. The existence of God is a fact given in our nature:
it is not something discovered by a process of reasoning, by a long
series of deductions from facts; nor yet is it the last
generalization from phenomena observed in the universe of mind or
matter. But it is a truth fundamental in our nature; given outright
by God; a truth which comes to light as soon as self-consciousness
begins. Still further, I take a sense of dependence on God to be a
natural and essential sentiment of the soul, as much as feeling,
seeing and hearing are natural sensations of the body. Here, then,
are the religious instincts which lead man to God and religion,
just as naturally as the intellectual instincts lead him to truth,
and animal instincts to his food. As there is light for the eye,
sound for the ear, food for the palate, friends for the affections,
beauty for the imagination, truth for the reason, duty for
conscience--so there is God for the religious sentiment or sense of
dependence on Him. Now all these presuppose one another, as a want
essential to the structure of man's mind or body presupposes
something to satisfy it. And as the sensation of hunger presupposes
food to satisfy it, so the sense of dependence on God presupposes
his existence and character."
From these premises Mr. Parker proceeds to discuss the questions about
miracles, inspiration, revelation, the character and functions of
Jesus, the Christ, and kindred matters belonging to the general
controversy. The year following, he preached the sermon on the
"Transient and Permanent in Christianity," which brought out the issues
between the "Sensationalists" and the "Transcendentalists," and was the
occasion of detaching the latter from the original body.
The first series of Emerson's "Essays" containing "Self Reliance,"
"Compensation," "Spiritual Laws," "The Over Soul," "Circles,"
"Intellect," was published during that year, and was followed almost
immediately by "The Transcendentalist," a lecture read in Masonic
Temple, Boston. In this lecture occurs the following allusion to Kant:
"The Idealism of the present day acquired the name of
Transcendental from the use of that term by Immanuel Kant of
Koenigsberg, who replied to the skeptical philosophy of Locke, which
insisted that there was nothing in the intellect which was not
previously in the experience of the senses, by showing that there
was a very important class of ideas or imperative forms, which did
not come by experience, but through which experience was acquired;
that these were intuitions of the mind itself; and he denominated
them _Transcendental_ forms. The extraordinary profoundness and
precision of that man's thinking have given vogue to his
nomenclature in Europe and America, to that extent that whatever
belongs to the class of intuitive thought is popularly called, at
the present day, Transcendental."... "The Transcendentalist adopts
the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in
miracles, in the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx
of light and power; he believes in inspiration and ecstasy. He
wishes that the spiritual principle should be suffered to
demonstrate itself to the end, in all possible applications to the
state of man, without the admission of anything unspiritual, that
is, anything positive, dogmatic, personal."
From what has been said it may be inferred that Transcendentalism in New
England was a movement within the limits of "liberal" Christianity or
Unitarianism as it was called, and had none but a religious aspect. Such
an inference would be narrow. In 1838, Orestes Augustus Brownson started
"The Boston Quarterly Review," instituted for the discussion of
questions in politics, art, literature, science, philosophy and
religion. The editor who was the principal, and almost the sole writer,
frankly declares that "he had no creed, no distinct doctrines to support
whatever;" that he "aimed to startle, and made it a point to be as
paradoxical and extravagant as he could, without doing violence to his
own reason or conscience." This avowal was made in 1857, after Mr.
Brownson had become a Roman Catholic. The pages of the Review prove the
writer to have been a pronounced Transcendentalist. A foreign journal
called him "the Coryphoeus of the sect," a designation which, at the
time, was meekly accepted.