Part 15

The other branch of the Sensational school fell back on authority, and received on the tradition of history what could not be verified by science. Immortality was accepted as a doctrine of instituted religion, taken on the credit of revelation, and sealed by the resurrection of Jesus. As an article of faith it was accepted without comment. If we have not seen the glorified dead, others have, and their witness is recorded in the Scriptures. Beyond that believers did not care to go; beyond that advised no one else to go. To question the genuineness of the Scriptures, to cast doubt on the resurrection of Jesus, to intimate that the tradition of the church is a thin stream that murmurs pleasantly in the shade of the sacred groves, but would dry up if the sun-light were let in, was resented as an offence against reverence and morality. By such as these the belief that slipped away from the reason was detained by the will.

But beliefs thus appropriated are insecurely held. The inactivity of the mind cannot be guaranteed; a slight disturbance of its tamely acquiescent condition may set its whole scheme of opinions afloat. A sentence on a printed page, a word let fall in conversation, a discovered fact, an awakened suspicion, a suggestion of doubt by a friend, may stir the thought whose movement will bring the whole structure down. There being no certainty, only arbitrary content; no personal conviction, only formal acquiescence; there was nothing to prevent the belief from disappearing altogether, and leaving the mind vacant.

Even when retained, beliefs thus held have no vitality. They are not living faiths in any intelligent sense. Useful they may be for pulpit declamation and closet discussion; serviceable on funeral occasions and in chambers of sorrow; available for purposes of moral impression; but inspiring they are not; actively sustaining and consoling they are not. Their effect on the conduct of life is almost imperceptible. They are appendages to the mind, not parts of it; proprieties, not properties. They are to be reckoned as part of a man's stock in trade, not as part of his being.

Transcendentalism, by taking the belief in immortality out of these incidental and doubtful associations, and making it a constituent element in the constitution of the mind itself, thought to rescue it from its precarious position, and place it beyond the reach of danger. No belief was, on the whole, so characteristic of Transcendentalism as this; none was so steadfastly assumed, so constantly borne in view. Immortality was here a postulate, a first principle. Theodore Parker called it a fact of consciousness--the intensity of his conviction rendering him careless of precision in speech. The writings of Emerson are redolent of the faith. Even when he argues in his way against the accepted creed, and casts doubt on every form in which the doctrine is entertained, the loftiness of his language about the soul carries the presage of immortality with it. The "Dial" has no argument about immortality; no paper in the whole series is devoted to the subject; the faith was too deep and essential to be talked about--it was assumed. The Transcendentalist was an enthusiast on this article. He spoke, not as one who surmises, conjectures, is on the whole inclined to think; but as one who knows beyond cavil or question. We never met a man whose assurance of immortality was as strong as Theodore Parker's. The objections of materialists did not in the least disturb him. In the company of the most absolute of them he avowed his conviction. What others clung to as supports--the church tradition, the story of the raising of Lazarus, the account of the resurrection of Jesus--were to him stumbling blocks in the way of spiritual faith, for they drew attention away from the witness of the soul.

The preaching of Transcendentalists caused, in all parts of the country, a revival of interest and of faith in personal immortality; spiritualized the idea of it; enlarged the scope of the belief, and ennobled its character; established an organic connection between the present life and the future, making them both one in substance; disabused people of the coarse notion that the next life was an incident of their experience, and compelled them to think of it as a normal extension of their being; substituted aspiration after spiritual deliverance and perfection, for hope of happiness and fear of misery; recalled attention to the nature and capacity of the soul itself; in a word, announced the natural immortality of the soul by virtue of its essential quality. The fanciful reasoning of Plato's "_Phædon_" was supplemented by new readings in psychology, and strengthened by powerful moral supports; the highest desires, the purest feelings, the deepest sympathies, were enlisted in its cause; death was made incidental to life; lower life was made subordinate to higher; and men who were beginning to doubt whether the demand for personal immortality was entirely honorable in one who utterly trusted in God, thoroughly appreciated the actual world, and fairly respected his own dignity, were reassured by a faith which promised felicity on terms that compromised neither reason nor virtue. The very persons who had let go the hope of immortality because they could not accept it at the cost of sacrificing their confidence in God's instant justice, were glad to recover it as a promise of fulfilment to their dearest desire for spiritual expansion.

The Sensational philosophy had done a worse harm to the belief in immortality, than by rendering the prospect of it uncertain; it had rendered the character of it pusillanimous and plebeian; it had demanded it on the ground that God must explain himself, must correct his blunders and apologize for his partiality in distributing sugar plums; it had argued for it from personal, social, sectarian, and other sympathies and antipathies; it had expected it on the strength of a rumor that a specially holy man, a saint of Judea, had appeared after death to his peculiar friends; it had pleaded for it, as children beg for dessert after bread and meat. The transcendental philosophy dismissed these unworthy claims, made no demand, put up no petition, but simply made articulate the prophecy of the spiritual nature in man, and trusted the eternal goodness for its fulfilment. Other arguments might come to the support of this anticipation; history might bring its contribution of recorded facts; suffering and sorrow might add their pathetic voices, bewailing the oppressive power of circumstance, and crying for peace out of affliction; the biographies of Jesus might furnish illustration of the victory of the greatest souls over death; but considerations of this kind received their importance from the light they threw on the immortal attributes of spirit. Apart from these their significance was gone.

The pure Transcendentalists saw everywhere evidence of the greatness of the soul. Christianity they regarded as its chief manifestation. Imperfect Transcendentalists there were, who used the fundamental postulates of the transcendental philosophy to confirm their faith in supernatural realities. Their Transcendentalism amounted merely to this, that man had a natural capacity for _receiving_ supernatural truths, when presented by revelation. The _possession_ of such truths, even in germ; the power to unfold them naturally, by process of mental or spiritual growth; the faculty to seize, define, shape, legitimate and enthrone them, they denied. The soul, according to them, was recipient, not originating or creative. They continued to be Christians of the "Evangelical" stamp; champions of special intervention of light and grace; hearty believers in the divinity of the Christ and the saving influence of the Holy Ghost; holding to the peculiar inspiration of the Bible, and the personal need of regeneration. The wisest teachers of orthodoxy belonged to this school.

The pure Transcendentalist went much further. According to him, the seeds of truth, if not the outline forms of truth, were contained in the soul itself, all ready to expand in bloom and beauty, as it felt the light and heat of the upper world. Sir Kenelm Digby relates that in Padua he visited the laboratory of a famous physician, and was there shown a small pile of fine ashes under a glass. On the application of a gentle heat, it arose, assumed the shape of its original flower, all its parts being perfectly distinct in form and well defined in character. During the application of the heat, the spectral plant preserved its delicate outline; but on withdrawal of the heat, it became dust again. So, according to the Transcendentalist, the spiritual being of man--which apparently is a heap of lifeless ashes on the surface of material existence--when graciously shone upon by knowledge and love, puts on divine attributes, glows with beauty, palpitates with joy, gives out flashes of power, distils odors of sanctity, and exhibits the marks of a celestial grace. The soul, when thus awakened, utters oracles of wisdom, sings, prophesies, thunders decalogues, pronounces beatitudes, discourses grandly of God and divine things, performs wonders of healing on sick bodies and wandering minds, rises to heights of heroism and saintliness.

From this point of vision, it was easy to survey the history of mankind, and, in the various religions of the world, see the efforts of the soul to express itself in scriptures, emblems, doctrines, altar forms, architecture, painting, moods and demonstrations of piety. The Transcendentalist rendered full justice to all these, studied them, admired them, confessed their inspiration. Of these faiths Christianity was cheerfully acknowledged to be the queen. The supremacy of Jesus was granted with enthusiasm. His teachings were accepted as the purest expressions of religious truth; His miracles were regarded as the natural achievements of a soul of such originality and force. In his address to the senior class in Divinity College, 1838, Mr. Emerson spoke of Christ's miracles as being "one with the blowing clover and the falling rain," and urged the young candidates for the ministry to let his life and dialogues "lie as they befel, active and warm, part of human life, and of the landscape, and of the cheerful day." When, in 1840, Theodore Parker wrote his "Levi Blodgett" letter, he believed in miracles, the miracles of the New Testament and many others besides, more than the Christians about him were willing to accept.

"It may be said these religious teachers (Zoroaster, Buddha, Fo) pretended to work miracles. I would not deny that they _did_ work miracles. If a man is obedient to the law of his mind, conscience and heart, since his intellect, character and affections are in harmony with the laws of God, I take it he can do works that are impossible to others, who have not been so faithful, and consequently are not "one with God" as he is; and this is all that is meant by a miracle." "The possession of this miraculous power, when it can be proved, as I look at the thing, is only a _sign_, which may be uncertain, of the superior genius of a religious teacher, or a _sign_ that he will utter the truth, and never a _proof_ thereof."

The Transcendentalist was a cordial believer in marvels, as being so hearty a believer in the potency of the spiritual laws. Parker's opposition to the miracles of the New Testament was provoked by the exclusive claim that was put forward by their defenders, and by the position they were thrust into as pillars of doctrine. His wish to make it appear that truth could stand without them, impelled him to strain at their overthrow. Later, his studies in New Testament criticism confirmed his suspicion that the testimony in their favor was altogether inadequate to sustain their credibility. The theory of Bauer and his disciples of the Tübingen school seemed to him unanswerable, and he abandoned, as a scholar, much that as a Transcendentalist he might have been disposed to retain. W. H. Furness, author of several biographical studies on the life and character of Jesus--a Transcendentalist of the most impassioned school, but no adept in historical criticism--maintained to the last the credibility of the Christian miracles, and purely on the ground of their perfect naturalness as performed by a person so spiritually exalted as Jesus was. The more ardent his admiration of that character, the more unshrinking his belief in these manifestations of its superiority. Dr. Furness is prepared to think that if no miracles had been recorded, nevertheless miracles must have been wrought, and would, but for some blindness or skepticism, have been mentioned.

The charge that Transcendentalism denied the reality of supernatural powers and influences shows how imperfectly it was apprehended. It seemed to deny them because it transferred them to another sphere. It regarded man himself as a supernatural being; not the last product of nature, but the lord of nature; not the _creature_ of organization, but its creator. In its extreme form, Transcendentalism was a deification of nature, in the highest aspects of Beauty. It raised human qualities to the supreme power; it ascribed to extraordinary virtue in its exalted states the efficient grace that is commonly attributed to the Holy Spirit. The pure Transcendentalist spoke of the experiences and powers of the illuminated soul with as much extravagance of rapture as one of the newly redeemed ever expressed. The profane made sport of his fanaticisms and fervors in the same way that they made sport of the wild over-gush of a revival meeting. The demonstrations of feeling were in fact, precisely similar; only in the one case the excitement was traced to the Christ in the skies, in the other to the Christ who was the soul of the man; in the one case a superhuman being was imagined as operating on the soul; in the other case the soul was supposed to be giving expression to itself.

The Transcendentalist was not careful enough in making this distinction, and was, therefore, to blame for a portion of the misapprehension that ensued. He often found in sacred literature, thoughts which he himself put there. Parker, discoursing of inspiration, cites Paul and John as holding the same doctrine with himself; though it is plain to the single mind that their doctrine was in no respect the same, but so different as to be in contradiction. Paul and John, it is hardly too much to say, set up their doctrine in precise opposition to the doctrine of the Transcendentalists. Paul declared that the natural man could _not_ discern divine things; that they were foolishness to him; that they must be spiritually discerned; that the Christian was able to discern them spiritually _because he had_ the "mind of Christ." The eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans contains sentences that, taken singly, apart from their connection, comfort the cockles of the transcendental heart; but the writer is glorifying Christ the inspirer; not the soul he inspired. He opens the chapter with the affirmation that "there is no condemnation to them which are in CHRIST JESUS, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit," and follows it with the saying that "if any man have not the _Spirit of Christ_, he is none of his." This is the spirit that "quickens mortal bodies," that makes believers to be "Sons of God," giving them the spirit of adoption whereby they cry "Abba, Father," bearing witness with their spirit that they are "the children of God." This is the spirit that "helpeth our infirmities," and "maketh intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered." Transcendentalism deliberately broke with Christianity. Paul said "other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Transcendentalism responded: "Jesus Christ built on my foundation, the soul;" and, for thus answering, was classed with those who used as building materials "wood, hay, stubble," which the fire would consume. In the view of Transcendentalism, Christianity was an illustrious form of natural religion--Jesus was a noble type of human nature; revelation was disclosure of the soul's mystery; inspiration was the filling of the soul's lungs; salvation was spiritual vitality.

Transcendentalism carried its appeal to metaphysics. At present physics have the floor. Our recent studies have been in the natural history of the soul. Its spiritual history is discredited. But the human mind ebbs and flows. The Bains and Spencers and Taines may presently give place to other prophets; psychology may come to the front again, and with it will reappear the sages and seers. In that event, the religion of Transcendentalism will revive, and will have a long and fair day.

For it can hardly be supposed that the present movement in the line of observation is the final one; that henceforth we are to continue straight on till, by the path of physiology, we arrive at absolute truth; that idealism is dead and gone for ever, and materialism of a refined type holds the future in its hand. The triumphs of the scientific method in the natural world are wonderful. The law of evolution has its lap full of promise. But one who has studied at all the history of human thought; who has seen philosophies crowned and discrowned, sceptred and outcast; who has followed the changing fortunes of opposing schools, and witnessed the alternate victories and defeats that threatened, each in its turn, to decide the fate of philosophy, will be slow to believe that the final conflict has been fought, or is to be, for hundreds of years to come. The principles of the "Sensational" philosophy have, within the last half century, been revived and restated with great power by Mill, Bain, Spencer, Taine, and other leaders of speculative opinion both in England and Europe. Recent discoveries and generalizations in physical science have lent countenance to them. The investigations in physiology and biology, the researches in the regions of natural history, the revelations of chemistry, have all combined to confirm their truth. Psychology, in the hands of its latest masters, has worked successfully in their interest. The thinness, shallowness and dry technicality of the original school have given place to a rich and varied exposition of the facts of organic life in its origin, development and results. The original form of the Sensational philosophy as it prevailed in Europe is described by Mill as "the shallowest set of doctrines which perhaps, were ever passed off upon a cultivated age as a complete psychological system; a system which affected to resolve all the phenomena of the human mind into sensation, by a process which essentially consisted in merely _calling_ all states of mind, however heterogeneous, by that name; a philosophy now acknowledged to consist solely of a set of verbal generalizations, explaining nothing, distinguishing nothing, leading to nothing." The "Sensational" philosophy is now presented as the philosophy of "experience." Its occupation is to resolve into results of experience and processes of organic life the _à priori_ conceptions that have been accepted as simple and primitive data of consciousness, by the Ideal philosophy. Mill was one of the first to undertake this from the psychological side, analyzing the processes of reason, and making account of the contents of the mind. Lewes, Spencer, Tyndall have approached the same problem from the side of organization. In the first edition of the Logic, Mill clearly indicated the ground he took in the controversy between the two schools; in the last edition, he defined his position more clearly, against Whewell, and in agreement with Bain.

In the article on Coleridge, published in the _London and Westminister Review_, March, 1840, and republished in the second volume of "Dissertations and Discussions," Mill declares explicitly, that in his judgment, the truth on the much-debated question between the two philosophies lies with the school of Locke and Bentham:

"The nature of laws and things in themselves, or the hidden causes of the phenomena which are the objects of experience, appear to us radically inaccessible to the human faculties. We see no ground for believing that any thing can be the object of our knowledge except our experience, and what can be inferred from our experience by the analogies of experience itself; nor that there is any idea, feeling or power in the human mind, which, in order to account for it, requires that its origin should be referred to any other source. We are, therefore, at issue with Coleridge on the central idea of his philosophy; and we find no need of, and no use for, the peculiar technical terminology which he and his masters, the Germans, have introduced into philosophy, for the double purpose of giving logical precision to doctrines which we do not admit, and of marking a relation between those abstract doctrines and many concrete experimental truths, which this language, in our judgment, serves not to elucidate, but to disguise and obscure."

In the examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, he still more emphatically expressed his dissent from Schelling, Cousin, and every school of idealism, rejecting the doctrine of intuitive knowledge; taking the eternal ground from beneath the ideas of the Infinite and Absolute; sharply questioning the well-conceded interpretations of consciousness; resolving the "first principles" into mental habits; and even going so far as to doubt whether twice two necessarily made four.[3]

[3] Vol. 1, page 89, 90.

The system of Spencer and other expositors of the doctrine of evolution is, in its general features and its ultimate tendency, too familiar to be stated. Its hostility to the intuitive philosophy must be obvious even to unpractised minds. The atomic theory of the constitution of matter, which, in one or another form, is accepted by the majority of scientific men, gives ominous prediction of disaster to every scheme that is built on the necessary truths of pure reason.

But the philosophers of the experimental school are by no means in accord among themselves, on a matter so cardinal as the relation of mind to organization. In the latest edition of the Logic, Mill repeats the language used in the first:[4]