and equally for intellectual wilfulness. His mind was restless,
audacious, swift; his self assertion was immense; his thoughts came in
floods; his literary style was admirable for freshness, terseness and
vigor. Of rational stability of principle he had nothing, but was
completely at the mercy of every novelty in speculation. That others
thought as he did, was enough to make him think otherwise; that he
thought as he had six months before was a signal that it was time for
him to strike his tent and move on. An experimenter in systems, a taster
of speculations, he passed rapidly from one phase to another, so that
his friends ascribed his steadfastness to Romanism, to the fatigue of
intellectual travelling. Mr. Brownson was born in Stockbridge, Vt.,
Sept. 16, 1803. His education was scanty; his nurture was neglected; his
discipline, if such it can be called, was to the last degree unwise. The
child had visions, fancied he had received communications from the
Christ, and held spiritual intercourse with the Virgin Mary, Angels and
Saints. Of a sensitive nature on the moral and spiritual side,
interested from boyhood in religious speculations, he had, before he
reached man's estate, asked and answered, in his own passionate way, all
the deepest questions of destiny. At the age of 21, he passed from
Supernaturalism to Rationalism; at 22 became a Universalist minister; at
28 adopted what he called "The Religion of Humanity;" the year
following, joined the Unitarian ministry. At this time he studied French
and German, and became fervidly addicted to philosophy. Benjamin
Constant's theory of religion fascinated him by its brilliant
generalizations, and its novel readings of Mythology, and was
immediately adopted because it interested him and fell in with his mood
of mind. In 1833, he accepted Cousin's philosophy as he had accepted
Constant's, "attending to those things that I could appropriate to my
purposes." In 1836 he organized the "Society for Christian Union and
Progress" in Boston, and continued to be its minister till 1843. All
this time he was dallying with Socialism, principally in the form of St.
Simonianism; thought of himself as possibly the precursor of the
Messiah; threw out strange heresies on the subject of property and the
modern industrial system; and was suspected, he declared afterwards
unjustly suspected, of holding loose opinions on love and marriage. "New
Views of Christianity, Society and the Church," appeared in 1836, a
little book, written in answer to objections brought against
Christianity as being a system of extravagant spiritualism. This idea
Mr. Brownson combated, by pointing out the true character of the
religion of Jesus as contrasted with the schemes that had borne his
name, exposing the corruptions it had undergone, during the succeeding
ages, from Protestantism as well as from Romanism, and indicating the
method and the signs of a return to the primeval faith which reconciled
God and man, spirit and matter, soul and body, heaven and earth, in the
establishment of just relations between man and man, the institution of
a simply human state of society.
"Charles Elwood, or The Infidel Converted," was published in 1840. Two
or three passages from this theological discussion, thinly masked in the
guise of a novel, will suffice to class the author with
Transcendentalists of the advanced school.
"They who deny to man all inherent capacity to know God, all
immediate perception of spiritual truth, place man out of the
condition of ever knowing anything of God."... "There must be a God
within to recognize and vouch for the God who speaks to us from
without."... "I hold that the ideas or conceptions which man
attempts to embody or realize in his forms of religious faith and
worship, are intuitions of reason." "I understand by inspiration
the spontaneous revelations of the reason; and I call these
revelations divine, because I hold the reason to be divine. Its
voice is the voice of God, and what it reveals without any aid from
human agency, is really and truly a divine revelation."... "This
reason is in all men. Hence the universal beliefs of mankind, the
universality of the belief in God and religion. Hence, too, the
power of all men to judge of supernatural revelations."... "All are
able to detect the supernatural, because all have the supernatural
in themselves."
The "Boston Quarterly," was maintained five years,--from 1838 to 1842
inclusive,--and consequently covered this period. It would therefore be
safe to assume, what the volumes themselves attest, that whatever
subject was dealt with,--and all conceivable subjects were dealt
with,--were handled by the transcendental method. In the "Christian
World," a short-lived weekly, published by a brother of Dr. W. E.
Channing, Mr. Brownson began the publication of a series of articles on
the "Mission of Jesus." Seven were admitted; the eighth was declined as
being "Romanist" in its outlook. In 1844, the writer avowed himself a
Roman Catholic, and was confirmed in Boston, October 20th. The
"Convert," which contains the spiritual biography of this extraordinary
man, and from which the above facts in his mental history are partly
taken, was published in 1857. The Romanist was at that time essentially
a Transcendentalist. "Truth," he writes, "is the mind's object, and it
seeks and accepts it intuitively, as the new-born child seeks the
mother's breast from which it draws its nourishment. The office of proof
or even demonstration is negative rather than affirmative." Mr. Brownson
was the most eminent convert to Romanism of this period, when
conversions were frequent in Boston; and his influence was considerable
in turning uneasy minds to the old faith. He was a powerful writer and
lecturer, an occasional visitor at Brook Farm, but his mental
baselessness perhaps repelled nearly as many as his ingenuity beguiled.
The literary achievements of Transcendentalism are best exhibited in the
"Dial," a quarterly "Magazine for Literature, Philosophy and Religion,"
begun July, 1840, and ending April, 1844. The editors were Margaret
Fuller and R. W. Emerson; the contributors were the bright men and women
who gave voice in literary form to the various utterances of the
transcendental genius. Mr. Emerson's bravest lectures and noblest poems
were first printed there. Margaret Fuller, besides numerous pieces of
miscellaneous criticism, contributed the article on Goethe, alone enough
to establish her fame as a discerner of spirits, and the paper on "The
Great Lawsuit; Man versus Men--Woman versus Women," which was afterwards
expanded into the book "Woman in the XIXth century." Bronson Alcott
sent in chapters the "Orphic Sayings," which were an amazement to the
uninitiated and an amusement to the profane. Charles Emerson, younger
brother of the essayist, whose premature death was bewailed by the
admirers of intellect and the lovers of pure character, proved by his
"Notes from the Journal of a Scholar," that genius was not confined to a
single member of his family. George Ripley, James Freeman Clarke,
Theodore Parker, Wm. H. Channing, Henry Thoreau, Eliot Cabot, John S.
Dwight the musical critic, C. P. Cranch the artist-poet, Wm. E.
Channing, were liberal of contributions, all in characteristic ways; and
unnamed men and women did their part to fill the numbers of this most
remarkable magazine. The freshest thoughts on all subjects were brought
to the editors' table; social tendencies were noticed; books were
received; the newest picture, the last concert, was passed upon;
judicious estimates were made of reforms and reformers abroad as well as
at home; the philosophical discussions were able and discriminating; the
theological papers were learned, broad and fresh. The four volumes are
exceedingly rich in poetry, and poetry such as seldom finds a place in
popular magazines. The first year's issue contained sixty-six pieces;
the second, thirty-five; the third, fifty; the fourth, thirty-three;
among these were Emerson's earliest inspirations. The "Problem,"
"Wood-notes," "The Sphinx," "Saadi," "Ode to Beauty," "To Rhea," first
appeared in the "Dial." Harps that had long been silent, unable to make
themselves heard amid the din of the later generation, made their music
here. For Transcendentalism was essentially poetical and put its
thoughts naturally into song. The poems in the "Dial," even leaving out
the famous ones that have been printed since with their authors' names,
would make an interesting and attractive volume. How surprised would
some of those writers be if they should now in their prosaic days read
what then they wrote under the spell of that fine frenzy!
The following mystic poem, which might have come from an ancient
Egyptian, dropped from one who has since become distinguished for
something very different from mysticism. Has he seen it these many
years? Can he believe that he was ever in the mood to write it? It is
called
VIA SACRA.
Slowly along the crowded street I go,
Marking with reverent look each passer's face,
Seeking and not in vain, in each to trace
That primal soul whereof he is the show.
For here still move, by many eyes unseen,
The blessed gods that erst Olympus kept.
Through every guise these lofty forms serene
Declare the all-holding life hath never slept,
But known each thrill that in man's heart hath been,
And every tear that his sad eyes have wept.
Alas for us! the heavenly visitants,--
We greet them still as most unwelcome guests
Answering their smile with hateful looks askance,
Their sacred speech with foolish, bitter jests;
But oh! what is it to imperial Jove
That this poor world refuses all his love?
A remarkable feature of the "Dial" were the chapters of "Ethnical
Scriptures," seven in all, containing texts from the Veeshnu Sarma, the
laws of Menu, Confucius, the Desatir, the Chinese "Four Books," Hermes
Trismegistus, the Chaldaean Oracles. Thirty-five years ago, these
Scriptures, now so accessible, and in portions so familiar, were known
to the few, and were esteemed by none but scholars, whose enthusiasm for
ancient literature got the better of their religious faith. To read such
things then, showed an enlightened and courageous mind; to print them in
a magazine under the sacred title of "Scriptures" argued a most
extraordinary breadth of view. In offering these chapters to its
readers, without apology and on their intrinsic merits,
Transcendentalism exhibited its power to overpass the limits of all
special religions, and do perfect justice to all expressions of the
religious sentiment.
The creed of Transcendentalism has been sufficiently indicated. It had a
creed, and a definite one. In his lecture on "The Transcendentalist,"
read in 1841, Mr. Emerson seems disposed to consider Transcendentalism
merely as a phase of idealism.
"Shall we say then that Transcendentalism is the Saturnalia or
excess of Faith; the presentiment of a faith proper to man in his
integrity, excessive only when his imperfect obedience hinders the
satisfaction of his wit. Nature is Transcendental, exists
primarily, necessarily, ever works and advances; yet takes no
thought for the morrow. Man owns the dignity of the life which
throbs around him in chemistry, and tree, and animal, and in the
involuntary functions of his own body; yet he is balked when he
tries to fling himself into this enchanted circle, where all is
done without degradation. Yet genius and virtue predict in man the
same absence of private ends, and of condescension to
circumstances, united with every trait and talent of beauty and
power."... "This way of thinking, falling on Roman times, made
stoic philosophers; falling on despotic times made patriot Catos
and Brutuses; falling on superstitious times, made prophets and
apostles; on popish times, made protestants and ascetic monks;
preachers of Faith against preachers of Works; on prelatical times,
made Puritans and Quakers; and falling on Unitarian and commercial
times, makes the peculiar shades of Idealism which we know."
It is audacious to criticize Mr. Emerson on a point like this; but
candor compels the remark that the above description does less than
justice to the definiteness of the transcendental movement. It was
something more than a reaction against formalism and tradition, though
it took that form. It was more than a reaction against Puritan
Orthodoxy, though in part it was that. It was in a very small degree due
to study of the ancient pantheists, of Plato and the Alexandrians, of
Plutarch, Seneca and Epictetus, though one or two of the leaders had
drunk deeply from these sources. Transcendentalism was a distinct
philosophical system. Practically it was an assertion of the inalienable
worth of man; theoretically it was an assertion of the immanence of
divinity in instinct, the transference of supernatural attributes to the
natural constitution of mankind.
Such a faith would necessarily be protean in its aspects. Philosopher,
Critic, Moralist, Poet, would give it voice according to cast of
genius. It would present in turn all the phases of idealism, and to the
outside spectator seem a mass of wild opinions; but running through all
was the belief in the Living God in the Soul, faith in immediate
inspiration, in boundless possibility, and in unimaginable good.
The editors and reviewers of its day could make nothing of it. The most
entertaining part of the present writer's task has been the reading of
articles on Transcendentalism in the contemporaneous magazines. The
reviewers were unable to resist the temptation to make themselves
ridiculous. The quarterlies and monthlies are before me, looking as if
they resented the exposure of their dusty and musty condition, and would
conceal if they could the baldness of their wit. It would be cruel to
exhume those antique judgments, so honest, yet so imbecile and so
mistaken. The doubts and misgivings, the bitternesses and the horrors,
the sinkings of heart and the revolvings of soul may be estimated by any
who will consult the numbers of the Christian Examiner, the Biblical
Repository, the Princeton Review, the New Englander, the Whig Review,
Knickerbocker, (Knickerbocker is especially facetious), but we advise
none to do it who would retain their respect for honorable names. The
writers, let us hope, did the best they knew, and it would be unkind to
expose the theological prejudice, the polemical acrimony, the narrowness
and flippancy they would have been ashamed of had they been aware of it.
A good example of the courteous kind of injustice may be found in the
Christian Examiner for January, 1837, in a review of "Nature" from the
pen of a Cambridge Professor, who writes in a kindly spirit and with an
honest intention to be fair to a movement with which he had no
intellectual sympathy:
"The aim of the Transcendentalists is high. They profess to look
not only beyond facts, but, without the aid of facts, to
principles. What is this but Plato's doctrine of innate, eternal
and immutable ideas on the consideration of which all science is
founded? Truly, the human mind advances but too often in a circle.
The New School has abandoned Bacon, only to go back and wander in
the groves of the Academy, and to bewilder themselves with the
dreams which first arose in the fervid imagination of the Greeks.
Without questioning the desirableness of this end, of considering
general truths without any previous examination of particulars, we
may well doubt the power of modern philosophers to attain it.
Again, they are busy in the enquiry (to adopt their own
phraseology) after the Real and Absolute, as distinguished from the
Apparent. Not to repeat the same doubt as to their success, we may
at least request them to beware lest they strip the truth of its
relation to Humanity, and thus deprive it of its usefulness."
We quote this passage not merely to show how inevitably the best
intentioned critics of Transcendentalism fell into sarcasm, nor to
illustrate the species of error into which the "Sensational" philosophy
betrayed even candid minds; but to call attention to another point,
namely, the general misconception of the practical aims and purposes of
the new school. It was a common prejudice that Transcendentalists were
visionaries and enthusiasts, who in pursuit of principles neglected
duties, and while seeking for The Real and The Absolute forgot the
actual and the relative. Macaulay puts the case strongly in his article
on Lord Bacon:
"To sum up the whole; we should say that the aim of the Platonic
philosophy was to exalt man into a God. The aim of the Baconian
philosophy was to provide man with what he requires while he
continues to be man. The aim of the Platonic philosophy was to
raise us far above vulgar wants. The aim of the Baconian philosophy
was to supply our wants. The former aim was noble; but the latter
was attainable. Plato drew a good bow; but, like Acestes in Virgil,
he aimed at the stars; and though there was no want of strength and
skill, the shot was thrown away. Bacon fixed his eye on a mark
which was placed on the earth, and within bow shot, and hit it in
the white. The philosophy of Plato began in words and ended in
words--noble words indeed; words such as were to be expected from
the finest of human intellects exercising boundless control over
the finest of human languages. The philosophy of Bacon began in
observations and ended in arts. The smallest actual good is better
than the most magnificent promises of impossibilities. The truth
is, that in those very matters for the sake of which they neglected
all the vulgar interests of mankind, the ancient philosophers did
nothing or worse than nothing--they promised what was
impracticable; they despised what was practicable; they filled the
world with long words and long beards; and they left it as wicked
and as ignorant as they found it."
Substitute Idealism for Platonism, and Transcendentalists for ancient
philosophers, and this expresses the judgment of "sensible men" of the
last generation, on Transcendentalism. It was not perceived that the
two schools of philosophy aimed at producing the same results, but by
different methods; that the "Sensationalist" worked up from beneath by
material processes, while the "Idealist" worked downward from above by
intellectual ones; that the former tried to push men up by mechanical
appliances, and the latter endeavored to draw them up by spiritual
attraction; that while the disciples of Bacon operated on man as if he
was a complex animal, a creature of nature and of circumstances, who was
borne along with the material progress of the planet, but had no
independent power of flight, the disciples of Kant and Fichte assumed
that man was a creative, recreative force, a being who had only to be
conscious of the capacities within him to shape circumstances according
to the pattern shown him on the Mount. The charge of shooting at stars
is puerile. The only use they would make of stars was to "hitch wagons"
to them. The Transcendentalists of New England were the most strenuous
workers of their day, and at the problems which the day flung down
before them. The most strenuous, and the most successful workers too.
They achieved more practical benefit for society, in proportion to their
numbers and the duration of their existence, than any body of Baconians
of whom we ever heard. Men and women are healthier in their bodies,
happier in their domestic and social relations, more contented in their
estate, more ambitious to enlarge their opportunities, more eager to
acquire knowledge, more kind and humane in their sympathies, more
reasonable in their expectations, than they would have been if Margaret
Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker and George Ripley and
Bronson Alcott, and the rest of their fellow believers and fellow
workers had not lived. It is the fashion of our generation to hold that
progress is, and must of necessity be, exceedingly gradual; and that no
safe advance is ever made except at snail's pace. But ever and anon the
mind of man refutes the notion by starting under the influence of a
thought, and leaping over long reaches of space at a bound.
Transcendentalism gave one of these demonstrations, sufficient to refute
the vulgar prejudice. Its brief history may have illustrated the truth
of Wordsworth's lines,
"That 'tis a thing impossible to frame
Conceptions equal to the Soul's desires;
And the most difficult of tasks to keep
Heights which the Soul is competent to gain."
The heights were gained nevertheless, and kept long enough for a view of
the land of promise; and ever since, though the ascent is a dim
recollection, and the great forms have come to look like images in
dreams, and the mighty voices are but ghostly echoes, men and women have
been happy in laboring for the heaven their fathers believed they saw.
VII.
PRACTICAL TENDENCIES.
Mr. Emerson--we find ourselves continually appealing to him as the
finest interpreter of the transcendental movement--made a confession
which its enemies were quick to seize on and turn to their purpose.
"It is a sign of our times, conspicuous to the coarsest observer,
that many intelligent and religious persons withdraw themselves
from the common labors and competitions of the market and the
caucus, and betake themselves to a certain solitary and critical
way of living, from which no solid fruit has yet appeared to
justify their separation. They hold themselves aloof; they feel the
disproportion between themselves and the work offered them, and
they prefer to ramble in the country and perish of ennui, to the
degradation of such charities and such ambitions as the city can
propose to them. They are striking work and crying out for somewhat
worthy to do. They are lonely; the spirit of their writing and
conversation is lonely; they repel influences; they shun general
society; they incline to shut themselves in their chamber in the
house; to live in the country rather than in the town; and to find
their tasks and amusements in solitude. They are not good citizens;
not good members of society; unwillingly they bear their part of
the public and private burdens; they do not willingly share in the
public charities, in the public religious rites, in the enterprises
of education, of missions, foreign or domestic, in the abolition of
the slave trade, or in the temperance society. They do not even
like to vote. The philanthropists inquire whether Transcendentalism
does not mean sloth; they had as lief hear that their friend is
dead as that he is a Transcendentalist; for then is he paralyzed,
and can do nothing for humanity."
This extreme statement must not be taken as either complete or
comprehensive. They who read it in the lecture on "The Transcendentalist"
must be careful to notice Mr. Emerson's qualifications, that
"this retirement does not proceed from any whim on the part of the
separators;" that "this part is chosen both from temperament and
from principle; with some unwillingness too, and as a choice of
the less of two evils;" "that they are joyous, susceptible,
affectionate;" that "they wish a just and even fellowship or none;" that
"what they do is done because they are overpowered by the humanities
that speak on all sides;" that "what you call your fundamental
institutions, your great and holy causes, seem to them great abuses,
and, when nearly seen, paltry matters." But even this apology does not
quite exonerate his friends.
Transcendentalism certainly did produce its share of idle, dreamy,
useless people--as "Sensationalism" produced its share of coarse,
greedy, low-lived and bestial ones. But its legitimate fruit was
earnestness, aspiration and enthusiastic energy.
We must begin with the philosophy of Man. The Transcendentalist claims
for all men as a natural endowment what "Evangelical" Christianity
ascribes to the few as a special gift of the Spirit. This faith comes
to expression continually. The numbers of the "Dial" are alight with
it.
"Man is a rudiment and embryon of God: Eternity shall develop in
him the Divine Image."
"The Soul works from centre to periphery, veiling her labors from
the ken of the senses."
"The sensible world is spirit in magnitude outspread before the
senses for their analysis, but whose synthesis is the soul herself,
whose prothesis is God."
"The time may come, in the endless career of the soul, when the
facts of incarnation, birth, death, descent into matter, and
ascension from it, shall comprise no part of her history; when she
herself shall survey this human life with emotions akin to those of
the naturalist on examining the relics of extinct races of beings."
"Of the perception now fast becoming a conscious fact,--that there
is one mind, and that also the powers and privileges which lie in
any, lie in all; that I, as a man, may claim and appropriate
whatever of true or fair or good or strong has anywhere been
exhibited; that Moses and Confucius, Montaigne and Leibnitz are not
so much individuals as they are parts of man and parts of me, and
my intelligence proves them my own,--literature is far the best
expression."
Thus Mr. Alcott and Mr. Emerson. Thomas T. Stone,--a modest, retiring,
deep and interior man, a child of the spiritual philosophy, which he
faithfully lived in and up to, and preached with singular fulness and
richness of power--makes his statement thus, in an article entitled "Man
in the Ages," contributed to the third number of the "Dial":
"Man is man, despite of all the lies which would convince him he is
not, despite of all the thoughts which would strive to unman him.
There is a spirit in man, an inspiration from the Almighty. What
is, is. The eternal is eternal; the temporary must pass it by,
leaving it to stand evermore. There is now, there has been always,
power among men to subdue the ages, to dethrone them, to make them
mere outgoings and servitors of man. It is needed only that we
assert our prerogative,--that man do with hearty faith affirm: 'I
am; in me being is. Ages, ye come and go; appear and disappear;
products, not life; vapors from the surface of the soul, not living
fountain. Ye are of me, for me, not I of you or for you. Not with
you my affinity, but with the Eternal. I am; I live; spirit I have
not; spirit am I.'"
Samuel D. Robbins, another earnest prophet of the spiritual man, utters
the creed again in the way peculiar to himself.