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't. Ut .

/P\

OUR NEW RELIGIONS. 5 ^S'

RALPH WALDO EMERSON;

HIS WRITINGS AND OPINIONS

A LECTURE

BY JOHN C. OEIKIE

]n Afftmind all creation ioduly respected

As parts of himself— just a little projected :

And 7ie> willinR to worship the stars and the son.

A convert to— nothing but Emerson.

Life. Nature, Love. God. and affairs of that sort,

He looks at as merely Ideas : in short

As if they were fossils stnck round in a cabinet,

< »f such vast extent that our earth's a mere dab in it •
Composed Just as he is inclined to conjecture her
Namely, one part p« e earth, ninety-nine parts pure lecturer."

James Russui Lowell.

PtJBLIBHBD BY REQUEST.

TORONTO:
JOHN C. O E I K I K.

«1, KING STREET.

1859.

»Vr

g;6*«g*-^.-=rt^Tn.i^f^:j^,y^|i,l^.^j^^^

Toronto, 2Htli January, 1859.

John C. Gkikik, Esy.

Dear Sir,

Believiug that the publication of the Lecture you lately
delivero.1 in the Temperance Hall, avouIcI be pro.luctive of n.u.h good,
we respectfully request you to allow the same to be published.

We are, Dear Sir,

Yours truly.

Adam Wilson, Q.O. (Mayor.)

A. LiLLIK, D. D.

John JENNiN(i.«, d. d.
R. A. Fyfk, I). I).

J. McMuRKICH,
And otLum.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON:

lis Writings a'.b ©jinians.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is the son of a Unitarian Cleriryman
of Boston, and was born about 1803. After sjraduatintr at Howard
College, he became the pastor of a Unitarian Congregation in his
native city. But the state of the religious body to which he
belonged was, at that time, as now, so unsettled, after the movement
induced by the separation from it of the orthodox Churches in
Massachusetts a few years before, that uninquiring ease was
impossible in any of its ministers who had ambition or earnestness.
There arc two doors opening from the chambers of doubt, one
towards still darker and wider doubt; the other, towards the peaceful
landscape of Faith, and the choice of either determines the future
life. Like Blanco White or Francis N<nvman, Mr. Emerson, un-
happily for him.self and others, chose tho wrong one. and. **assing
out int/) a sky in which all his old marks and certainties had h come
ccnfused and bewildering, succeeding years have found him still
further from th:>t only horizon of trust and love where the spirit
finds both earth and heaven alike inviting its repose. \ connection
of seven or eight years was sufficient to make his hearers and him-
self alike willing to dissolve their relations, the received worship and
creed gradually falling far behind iMr. Emerson's continual sniftings.
Free, at last, Mr. Emerson abandoned a profession which tramel-
led him, eyen in a denomination so liberal to the views of its teachers,

and turning altogether from the pulpit, retired to the village of
Concord, where he gave himself up to the investigation of theology,
morals, and philosophy. Articles in the ''North American Review"
on the great writers and artistH of Kuropc, and lectures during the
winter in Boston, were, in these years, his principal communications
with the world of letters. In 1836, however, he came upon a larger
Btage by the publication of an Essay on Nature, in which the Pan-
theistic doctrines were urged to their extreme results, and a religion
of Nature was sought to be substituted for revelation. Its novelty
and audacity no less than a certain air of greatness in the style, and
an oracular certainty assumed in its statements, attracted attention.
He had now taken ground openly as the Apostle of an apparently
new faith, and as such secured the position and prestige which are
always conceded to those who thus force on us their own individu-
ality. It is in the nature of men to follow rather than to lead, and
to pay deference, and, in a measure, yield, to whatever asserts itself
with sufficient force and persistency.

Since his successful debut in his native country, ^Ir. Emerson has

had the benefit of an introduction to the British public in connection

with two courses of lectures — the latterof which, on English Traits,

is the latest of his publications of any note, so far as I am aware.

His published works comprise six volumes — one on Representative

Men — two of Essays — one of Miscellanies — one of Poems, and his

book on England. In the merely artistic aspect of his writings,

Mr. Emerson has various excellencies, and no less various defects.

His language is pure and idiomatic, and his expression has often a

vigour and a happy turn which are striking and forcible. Aside from

his peculiar opinions he criticises at once with a breadth of view

and penetration of the spirit of his subject. But he mars his best

pages with an effort at epigrammatic point which often fails ; he

cloaks in oracular words very ordinary facts, and deals in undefined

hints and vague obscurities, through which no meaning looms to even

the most attentive. His reputation, I apprehend, rests as much on

these defects as on his merits, for the standard of criticism which

Sir Thomas More tells us prevailed in Utopia, is not less in vogue

¥%

(Tillage of
thcolopy,

Review"
uring the
iniciitions
n a larger

the Pan-
a religion
8 novelty
stylo, and
attention,
ipparently
which are

individu-
I lead, and
jerts iteelf

nerson has
3onnection
ish Traits,
am aware,
•esentativc
s, and his
i writings,
J8 defects.
18 often a
Vside from

h of view
Irs his best
fails ; he

undefined
Inis to even
much on

sm which
in vogue

elsewhere, to think an author original and profound, in proportion as
he is incomprrhensiblc.

Mr. Emerson is cminontly a religious :.'ithor, that is, religious —
as ho reads religion. It is this characteristic which leads nu; t(»
address you to-night, for as his zeal is, in my opinion, altogether mis-
directed, and is calculated in proportion to its success to do lasting
injury, a review of his doctrines, separated from the decking of words
in which they are set forth, and an examination of their tendencies,
is desirable. There is a fashion in the scepticisms of each genera-
tion as in its literature and dress, and that which Mr. Emerson
represents is at present in vogue. He has transplanted to this conti-
nent, a religion ot .sentiment and man-worship which was dying out m
its native soil, and seeks, with the aid of some fellow-workers, to get it
acclimated amongst us, and, in a measure, has succeeded, for a time.
The Pantheistic tendencies of the present day have become a topic
for the platform and pulpit. From their head-quarters in Boston,
its Apostles, including Mr. Emerson, seek to pervade our literature
with its spirit ; and by introducing it mildly in their public ap-
pearances as lecturers or preachers, where they thus address the
public, to float off its influences through the public mind. Differing
in the length to which they push their views, these philosophic pro-
pagandists are united in the desire to overthrow Revelation. Old
Cato had for his burden, " Carthage must be destroyed, "and theirs is
that "Christianity must perish." Theodore Parker, Mr. Emerson, and,
I am sorry to say, the " Atlantic Monthly," as it seems, are the leaders
in this new Crusade. An American Clergyman just returned from
India, expressed himself lately at a public meeting as shocked to find
the progress of Pantheism in America during his fourteen years' ab-
sence. How far the contagion has affected Canada I cannot say, but I
feel bound to do my part in tearing off the mask of attractiveness from
the deadly lie, and in piercing it with the Ithuriel's Spear of Truth,
that it may lose its fair dissimulations, and start into all the horrors
of its naked outline.

Most of you have, perhaps, heard, or have otherwise learned, that
Mr. Emerson is a representative in America of the Transcendental
Philosophy which took its rise, in later times, from Immanuel Kant,

and has, since, been dcvolopod. tolonijths of which he did not. drcnm,
by Ficlito, SohoUin;^', and lloiji'l. Thr niini4>. Transcendentalism,
has in it the central idea of Kant's system. In the terminolopy of
that philosopher, it means that which transcends or rises beyond ex-
perimental knowledge, and is determined, // ]>n'i>r/\ withontarjjument
or proof, in ret^ard to the j)rin(!iplesand sni)ie<'tsof hnman knowledge.
Mis fundamental doctrine is that all our knowled;^e is from within,
out; not from without, //</'> our minds: and that we know nothing
eertuitdy, except our own con.xciousness — that, is tliat we are. We
have /'Afj.s* respectinii; the apptarancos around us, but our knowled|^t^
of them is simply a knowledi^e of the forms witli which the mind itself
clothes them. ()f the reality of the apparent objeet,s themselves, we
can know uothintr. We act according; to the necessity of our consti-
tution, drawinj; certain conclusions, and the.se only, from the data
nature affords, lint that these conclusions, that is, that the testi-
!nony of our senses, ajiree with external truth, cannot be proved. If
the laws of our mental action were changed, we would, according? to
Kant, see cverythin<]^ chan<;ed around us. Man is the self-complete,
self-dependent Tnit, amidst a universe of shadows.

This principle laid down, Kant found himself open to imputations
of atheism, which he repudiated. It was urged, that, if we can know
nothing certainly outside ourselves, there remain no means of provinj^
the existence of Ciod or any of the 2;reat doctrines of man's relation to
Ilim. It will be remembered that revelation has no place in the
sources from which Kant would d;;rlvo our knowled^ie, for that, of
course, must be from uithonf. Shrinking from the desolation of
a universe in which man alone existed, amidst illusions and shadows,
with nothing possible to be proved except his own existence, he
sought to save himself by demanding that the existence of God, the
immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will, bo admitted a.s
first truths, as the existence of man him.self had been already. They
were to be taken for granted as points which must be conceded as a
necessary basis of a system of morals. IJut they could not by any
possibility be proved.

The active faculties of the mind he classed under two great divi-

lot drcnm,
(lontnlism,
linolopy of
)»»yoti(l ox-

nr<;uinont

nowlodijo.
>iii within,
w nothing;

art'. We
knowiod^e
iiind itself
isi'lvos, we
lur consti-
tliu data

the t€Rti-
roved. If
jordinj^ to
-complete,

iputationH

can know

f provin«^

relation to

je in the

r that, of

)lation of

shadows,

tence, he

God, the

mitted a.s

\>' They

dcd aH a

t by any

•eat divi-

lions: the Understanding, which finds its fit ministry in inductive
study, as of the physical sciences ; — and, as a far higher agency,
" Pure Keason" — that i.s, in common words, Imagination, ova priori
speculation, which is to guide us intuitively into the knowledge of
*' absolute truth." Understanding watches and notes the phenomena
around us ; Pure Koason combines its judgments, and draws general
conclusions. Our " conceptions" arc derived immediately from expe-
rience, and nmy be traced back to some experimental reality, and
hence may be fitly used in the elaboration of scientific knowledge.
But the far higher office of the Reason is to generalize its conclusions
and create " ideas" which are the appointed means of regulating the
Understanding, which can never, by itself, conduct us to essential
truth. Thus the " Understanding" is left to the drudgery
of life, while this faculty called Keason reigns imperially over all its
higher interests. It is not likely that this theory will be perfectly
clear to you, for Fichte himself, the successor of Kant in the high
priesthood of German Transcendentalism, declares that he holds the
writings of that philosopher to bo altogether unintelligible to any
one who does not know beforehand what they contain. An accurate
definition of whnt is meant by "Pure Reason," it appears impossible
to obtain. M Carlyle, who cleaves to Kant with his whole soul in
this particular, tries his best to explain it in his Miscellanies, but all
even he can do is to vilify the understanding and exalt this airy attri-
bute in vague and general torms. " The province of the Understand-
ing," he says, " is of the earth, earthy ; it has to do only with real,
practical, and material knowledge — mathematics, physics, political
economy, and such like, but must not step beyond. On the other hand,
it is the province of Reason to discern virtue, true poetry, or that
God exists. Its domain lies in that higher region, whither logic and
argument cannot reach ; in that holier region, where poetry, virtue,
and divinity abide ; in whose presence Understanding wavers and
recoils, dazzled into utter darkness by that sea of light, at once the
fountain and the termination of all true knowledge." These are Mr.
Carlyle's words (Mis. I. 102, 103), and they state the creed of his
school, on the fundamental point of the basis of our belief, beyond a

cavil. '' Reason," whatever it be, is alone to invcsti,c:ate and decide
on all relij^ious <|Ucstions. Man, unaided, is to elimb the heavens and
pierce their secrets ; and in so doinij;, he is to discard all help IVoiu
" lo<MC or ar<;ument." from the testimony of his senses and the accu-
mulation of proof. The inductive principle which alone has wrested
secular knowledge from the dreams of fiincy, and m:iile progress possi-
ble, is to be shunned in all questions ol' morals or religion. I'roofs from
any source are to be discarded. V;igue thoughts, uncertain leelinga,
intuitions and impressions are to decide without (juestion or appeal in
morals and faith. Such is Kant's system in its practical bearing.s. Its
deadly opposition to Revelation is on its forehead. Man is hence-
forth, according to this doctrine, to make his own Religion by reve-
lations of his own reason ; he is to hold out his flaring candle into
the dark and deou it illumination. Mr. Emer.son follows in the
footsteps of this theory with a zeal which his words can express,
apparently, only feebly. 1 le speaks of "the wintry light of the under-
standing, " ''the despotism of the senses :" " its officious activity is to
be renounced"' and '• Iree and ample leave to be given to the sponta-
neous sentiment (what does this mean ?) if we would be great ;" "the
low views and utilitarian hardness of men arc owing to their working
on the world with the understanding only." We are to discard it
henceforth if we would know the truth. The source of our know-
ledge of trutii is thus metaphorically stated : "The doors of the temple
stand open day and night, before every man, and the oracles of the
truth cease never ; yet it is guarded by one condition ; this, namely ;
it is an intuition." That is, we learn it on the instant without
examination or reflection ; we have an intuitive perception of it8
being truth without the intervention of testimony or argument. All
the truths which it takes a whole Bible to tell are thus to flash from
the reason at a stroke, and light up the secrets of the Universe I
This " intuition" is very commonly spoken of by Mr. Emerson under
the more familiar name of "genius;" an epithet varied elsewhere by
the statement that "the essence of all religion" is "the sentiment of
virtue," but this, too, " is an intuition ;" — a looking into it directly,
without a medium, and as by a law of our being. Kant tells us that the

d decide
vons and
lelp Iroiu
the accu-
i wrested
Dss possi"
oofs from
reelin}i;a,
appeal in
lnt!;s. It«
is hence-
i by reve-
ndlc into
s'S in the
I express,
he undcr-
ivity is to
le sponta-
at ;" "the
r working
discard it
ur know-
l;o temple
es of the
namely ;
without
on of its
lent. All
ash from
ni verse I
son under
where by
iment of
directly,
8 that the

"spontaneous intuitions of positive reason are the standard in the soul
by which wc are to judge the claims of any object of adoration or
article of belief," and I might put the words in Mr. Emerson's mouth,
80 exactly do they state his constantly repeated sentiment. But is it
true that reason is thus fit to create for man a Religion — that he can
make one for himself and will be under no obligation to his Maker for
any help in the matter ? If so, why is the doctrine so powerless on the
mass of mankind ? Why did we never see an example of its truth in
any nation ? Whence the sunken immorality of Greece with all its
philosophers? Is there in tlic general consciousness a corroboration
of this doctrine ? Does not the history of the temples, offerings,
prayers, priesthoods, literature, public and private life of all ages
give it the lie ? Everywhere, from all the generations of our race,
a need of help from above has been felt; and can the vain self-suffi-
ciency of a few metaphysicians bo set up to neutralize the sorrowing
confession of a world ? Are we prepared to abdicate onr honours as
thinking beings tlius? Is the Baconian method to remain the glory
of the world, and the only received basis of knowledge, in all other
domains of the intellect, but to be barred out if it attempt to lift a
footstep into the territory of morals ? Are we to return to the '' sand-
wastes and mirage of a specuh'tive theology,'' as Coleridge aptly calls
them, and instead of gathering and collating the facts which God
has strewn over the face of nature, and of human experience, and of
Revelation, instead of using these to deduce sure generalizations and
thus sound our way with patient toil toward the indisputable, are
we to be flung back into misty hypotheses, and a prion' dreams?
Are we to discard contemptuously, without a hearing, a Record pur-
porting to be a Revelation of the laws of our moral constitution, a
record endorsed by the gratcl'ul faith of the wise and good through
untold generations; are we contemptuously to reject it without
examination, without argument, despising its proferred evidences,
and scouting the condescension of any criticism of its claims, deciding
against it by the easy process of an intuition, vaulting over the
encircling hills into Paradise, as Satan of old into Eden, by the won-
drous spring-board of this mental magic ?

John Dryden, in his Rcligio Laici, puts the claims of reaion in

a light as beautiful as it is striking :

"Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and etarf
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,
Is reason to the soul ; and, as on high,
Those rolling fires discover but the sky.
Not light us here ; so reason's gliramering ray,
Was lent, not to assure one doubtful way,
But guide us upwards to a better day."

Apart from the artless confession of the heart and the lessons of
experience, the results of the worship of reason in Kant's own country
are enough to keep us from trusting to our own speculations and
sentimental fancies in morals and religion. The old fable of Phaeton
attempting to drive the chariot of the sun, has been re-acted, and
presumption has set the sphere of truth and spiritual law a-blaze as
his, erewhile, did the material heavens. We shall see before we close
what a dancing will-of-the-wisp reason is in Mr. Emerson's own
case, and how foolishly it has bemircd himself.

As he has accepted Kant's theory of Pure Reason, so our author
has no less fervently adopted his teachings on the fundamental laws
of knowledge. A *' noble doubt" he tells us, '• perpetually suggests
itself, ''^ -^ whether nature outwardly exists. Jt is a svffirient ac-
count of that appearance ice call the world, that God will teach a
human mind, and so makes it the receiver of a certain number of
congruent sensations which we call sun and moon, man and women,
house and trade. In my utter impotence to test the authenticity of
the report of my senses, to know whether the impressions they make
on me correspond with out-lying objects, what diflference does it make
whether Orion is up there in heaven, or some god paints the image
in the firmament of the soul ?" " Nature," with him, *' is a phenome-
non, not a substance" — the Universe is " the great apparition shining
so peacefully on us." Without troubling you with metaphysics, I
leave common sense to supply the corrective to these echoes of Ger-
mony. If you wish to sec them demolished scientifically, you may
turn to Reid, or Stewart, or Hamilton.

I leave you to judge the measure of reliance to be placed on the

roMon in

lessons of
n country
itions and
f Phaeton
ctcd, and
a-blazo as
e wc close
?on'8 own

lur author

sntal laws

y suggests

firient ac-

II teach a

umber of

women,

nticity of

icy make

s it make

the image

)henome-

n shining

ihysics, I

)8 of Ger-

you may

sd on the

guidance of one to whom his fellow men, and the varied scenery of
the earth iind heavens, arc only so many sensations and so many
apparitlon.s.

After Kant camo Fichte ;is tlio ncxthiorarch cfGonnun philosophy.
Chocked by no h\k\\ .r of Cdiiscfjiicneea as Kant, he at once dis-
carded the rundam{i..ai truths that philosopher had assumed as
necessary, while confessing their incapability of proof. Fichte re-
duced our only eert:iiii knowledge to that of our own existence, which
he admitted as a first truth requiring no jirgunient. but the right
to assume anything further was given up. The formula of Dcs
Cartes — Co(/i.fo nyn smn — "' T think, therefore T am," was virtually
the motto of Fichte. But the absolute solitude of man in the
universe, thus implied, left its countless phenomena unexplained. The
empty Infinite around nuii^t be filled with at least the appearance of in-
telligent agency, and. for this, the illusions of Pantheism offered the
necessary aid. Cherished for immemorial ages along the ancient
rivers of the east, they had travelled to the west before the days of
Plato, and had been, through the history of early '"philosophy, the
favourite doctrines of the educated few, when Polytheism held away
with the mass, and Revelation was confined to the hills of Judea.
Their dreamy vagueness and the scope it gives for poetic sensibility
has always made them attractive, while their airy abstraction has no
less unfitted them for securing the interest of nuinkind at larj^e. In
modern times they owe their revival in Western Europe mainly to
the dislike of Spinoza to llevelation, and througli him they have
gained their latest introduction as the basis of a philosophical reli-
gion. Seeing their fitness for his want, Fichte embraced them with
ardour, and inaugurated the era which Mr. Emerson labours to make
permanent. Af a middle position between the acceptance of a personal
God and the black vacuity of Atheism, he adopted the Pantheistic
doctrine of one absolute existence in all things — in the *' Me" — that
is in man, and in the " Not Me" — that is the universe at large ; one
undefined and undefinable spiritual essence pervading all things. —
Man and the universe were thus alike conceded a spiritual reality.
Our common idea of matter, Fichte, however, would not at all admit

14' ■ •* ' ■

P-

'»

V-l>

s .

A pervading soul, the same in the world around, and in man himself,
was the one lonely and mysterious truth. As the hitrhost manifes-
tation of this all-inhabitin.i!; force, man is. of course, in Fichto's
view, as in Kant's, above the need of aiiy revelation. Indeed, a re-
velation is impossible, for man is bimscjt' the purest revelation
of the Divine. It is an affront to our nature to speak nf it. Thus
another step was taken in the protrress of error. After Fiehte, came
SehelliniT. who pushed the Pantheistic doctrines of his ])redeees.'<ors
still further. Hy an "intuitive" t^lance he discovered that the mind
and external nature are not only mere modifications of the one Univer-
sal iilxistenee. hut that njan,as the hiuihest manifestation of the Divine,
learns, in the processes of his own thoupiht, the secret of the nature of
this existence — that, in short, the processes, of thought are identical
with those of creation, so that were we to construct the universe in
thour!;ht, by loirical deduction, we would do virtually the same thing
as Deity does in developinir himself into the forms and regions of
creation. Thus Man becomes, by this theory, really God. The
baseless hypothesis, from which such results are drawn, is a striking
sample of what iutnitifu) accomplishes, as the standard of the truth.
The " intellectual intuition" of Sehelling — which is only a fuller deve-
lopment of what others call simply "intuition"-was supposed to open to
us the whole secrets of nat\ire, and to enable us, without "reasoning" or
''argument," to lay bare the whole processes of its darkest mysteries.
Induction was thrown to the winds, and " the science of all things '
was created from the lawless dreams of hypothesis, as Wordsworth's
grand city in the clouds shaped itself from the shifting vapours of
the air.

The mantle of Philosophy next rested on the shoulders of II egel
whose expansions and corrections of former speculations have seemed
to some of his followers so admirable that they have not scrupled to
apply to him the words of the Apostle, " When that which is perfect
is come, that which is, in part, shall be done away." Determined to
avoid the appearance of taking anything for granted as a first truth,
he went back a step further than any of his most adventurous pre-
decessors. Not willing to yield even the solitary postulate of our

>• t

an himBelf,

st nianifbs-

iti Fichtc's

ndccd, a ro-

rcvolatioii

fit. Thus

'iclito, canio

ircdcccssors

ut the mind

;)ne Univer-

' the Divine,

he nature of

ire identical

universe in

' same thinj;

1 regions of

God. The

H a striking

>f the truth.

I fuller devc-

i?d to open to

masoning" or

t mysteries.

all things" '

)rds\vorth"s

vapours of

rs of Hegel
ave seenjed
scrupled to
■h is perfect
termined to
first truth,
iturous pre-
ilate of our

own being, ho started from the gloomy premises that neither the ex-
istence of I he world, nor our o\.., can be certainly known. The
mind itself and the objects of our peieeptions are, with Hegel,
alike beyond the reach of our proofs, and our whole domain of assu-
rance lies in the relations between the mind seeing and what is seen.
These alone, according to him, <;in be affirmed to be realities. To form
an idea, there need to bo two opposites. The conception oi' a tree needs
both the mind and the tree, before it can exist, and I'rom the mutual in-
fluence of the two, the idea of it springs ; and ideas thus derived, are the
only realities in the universe. As they could not exist but for their
relations, the relationship is the on/j/nhso/nfc nuliii/ to be found, the
one truth, that is — God. This process of the evolution of Ideas is the
process of our lieing, and likewise of all Uoing, that is — it is the Abso-
lute — it is God. Every huuiun thought is a thought of the One great
Divine mind. Being and thought are identical, and thus God is a
process continually going on, but never accomplished; the Divine
consciousness is absolutely one with the advancing consciousness of
mankind ; the conceptions of the human mind are, alone, in their con-
stant development — the Divine. Our thought, and God, are identical.
Here, then, we have reached the highest flight of Transcendentalism,
the sublimated perfection of speculation, and it gives as its pro-
duct a Universe with nothing real but ideas, and no God through
all its dreary spaces but the pulsations of human thought. Thug
God is annihilated, silence lifts its leaden sceptre over all things,
and man, a phantasm himself, is left to look out on an empty infinity
amidst whoso shadows there stirs no motion of intelligence. What a
result for so much philosophy ! One is reminded involuntarily of a
Scripture text : '' Professing themselves to be wise, they became
fools." It is hard to put such abstract speculations in simple words,
and I know not whether I have been able to do it altogether correctly
or clearly, for even Germans have their sects in interpreting these
systems. Do Quincy affirms, indeed, that fully a thousand books
have been written to clear up what Kant is supposed to have meant,
and his followers are no less misty than their apostle. With the de-
velopements of Hegelianism I shall not trouble you, but you will

ll'

8CC the connection of tlic modern Continental philosophy, as a whole.
with my subject, in the fact that Mr. Kmerson lillsliis nrn with li;j:ht
at their central lire, and is rather a pale reflection of them than an
orit^inator ior himself We have hence, in Mr. Kmerson's writinirs.
aloni; with Kants idealisin. all the varyin-j: dreams of the Panthe-
ism of hi>< successors. \\(\ helieves in no intelliirent existence
except m;m. hut. hesitatin-^ to ado}tt the conclusion that the
I'niverse is a fortuitous concourse of nttuns. dishelieviniLi', iv.decd. that
it is more than the reflection of our tnvn thoufjht IVoni so many sha-
dows ami appearances, he adopts tiie ultra I'antheistie theory of the
unity and identity of all things as only varyimi' nuinifestations of the
Divine, nishelievinjr in a Personal (iod, he end)odies such of His
attributes as please Him in the spirit of nuin, and, in a lower dciiree,
in the phenomena of the heavens and the earth around us. But the
adequate utt(>ranee of a creed like this, in the <lialects of the too prac-
tical west, is a difficult task. .Mr. iMnerson. therefore. I'ollowini: tlie
example of his (rerman instructors, betakes himself to the sufliciently
distant and venerable Brahminism of I ndia for a becomimr statement.
Jesus Christ is with him a far more lightly esteemed authority than
Krishna, and the Bible nothing alontrside the Vedas and the Puranas
of Hindooism. He lets Vishnu — the member of the IHndoo triad,
speak for him, thus: "The whole world is but a manifestation of
Vishnu, who is identical with all things, and is to be regarded by
the wise as not differing from, but as the same as themselves. I
neither am poinc nor coming ; nor is my dwelling in any one place ;
nor art thou, thou; nor arc others, others; nor am I, I." As if, says
he, " He had said. All is for the soul, and the soul is Vishnu ; and
animals and stars arc transient paintings, and light is whitewa.sh,* *
and heaven itself a decoy." Elsewhere, he gives his estimate of him-
self, thus — " I am nothing; 1 see all; the currents of the Universal
Being circulate through me ; I am part and parcel of God." A per-
sonal God is thus utterly rejected ; the world is God, and God is the
world, with man as his highest manifestation. Shooting far ahead
of Kant's assumed first truths of the existence of God, man's free
will and immortality, he stops only with the annihilation of them all.

.irif

:>s !i wliolo.
n witlj liiilit
cMii tliaii ail
IS writinirs.
the Piiiithc-
t <'xistoi\c«i
1 that tho
i'.'.li'rd. that
1 many sha-
iioory ol' the
it ions of the
<iK'h of His
Dwer decree.
IS. Hut the
the too prae-
oUowinir tlie
e sufliciently
jr statement,
thority than
the Puranas
indoo triad,
ifestation of
rejrarded by
mselves. 1

one place ;
As it", says

shnu ; and

tewash,-'- *
nate of him-

e l-niver.sal
A per-

d God is the
far ahead

man'8 free

of them all.

It grate.s aadly on Mr. Emerson's sensibilities that any one should
be willing to stand indebted to the past for his religion. It is a
favourite theme with the school he represents, as it has been since tlie
days of Spinoza, that everything in faith which is old and venerable
is worthies.^ — as if morals grew old, or truth decayed. Carlyle tells
us that the "old Jew stars" (the Bible) "are gone out." Mr. Emer-
son asks, " why sh<nild we gropi' among the dry bones of the past or
put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe?"
'• Let us demand our own works and laws and worship." Now, with-
out discussing the question how new moralities can be possible, any
more than new laws of numbers oroiany other eternal truths, how can
that which was wrong, essentially, yesterday, be right to day, or how
can each generation liave a new wor.ship, unless each is to find the
former in error lor ever ? 1 beg you to keep this doctrine of Mr.
Emerson's in mind, as we trace the outline of his philosophy. You
shall judge how much the sneer at the Bible is worth from one who
rcverendly accepts translaticjns of the interminable Vedas and Pur-
anas of llindooism, with their mysticism, their puerilities, and their
frequently false moralities, in itsi)lace: and the originality will no
less strike you, which is, throughout, only a faint lunar reflection of
other men's thoughts.

Mr. Emerson has adopted in full Hegel's notion of the Identity
of the Divinity with the Human Consciousness — that is, that
thought is the one absolute Truth, or God — and we know that man's
Thought, the ideas developed from his mental action, are all he ad-
mits to exist. *' Empcdocles," says he, " undoubtedly spoke a truth
of ihoiKjld — (respecting thought) when he said, 'I am God.' " —
" That which once existed in Intellect as pure Law," he tells us,
has now taken a body as Nature." But as he does not believe that
nature has a Body in our sense, but is an Apparition, this is only a
round-about way of intbrming us that he thinks Intellect God — and
as he allows of no reality but our own thoughts — the ideas springing
from us — it next follows that God and man are interchangeable
terms, and, that each means the other ; as, moreover, 3Ian is ever
developing, so must God be ; and thus we have for God, nothing but

^ w

the flow of human thought as it .streams on — we have God daily
growing under our eyes!

It may well startle U8 to hear a m:in in (his day of th(> world thus
seek toannihilate God and put man in his plaec, hut it is a ecntral
doctrine oF Mr. Emerson, that "that which siiews (lod out of me,
makes nic a wart and a wen." So that outside nian there is no
God. ''So much of nature," f*ays in', "as man is ignorant of, so
much of his own mind does he not yet iws.se.ss.' JJut nature is only a
phantasm shining round the one Kiality — the Absolute— the Divine,
which shews itself through it. So that, as nature is only our own
mind, and God is nature — there is no God apart from Human
Thought. Of what value is the talk about not wearing the cast otf
garments of other men's faith, when Mr. Emerson presents himself
thus in the precise costume of Hegel.

But to serve only one master would bo more than could be hoped,
when the reins are thrown on the neck of speculation. It is the
banc of all who turn their backs on the Presence of the Lord, which
shines through the system of The Truth, to find no rest tlicnceforth
for ever. German speculation has gradually brought a confusion into
all the departments of moral truth it has invaded, only to be equalled
by that of Hindooisni, the tangled skein of whose mythology no one
would essay to unravel. Mr. Emerson is no exception to this law.
Germany will not do without the addition of India. With a credu-
lity which, as Mr. Monckton Milnessaid of Harriet 3Iartineau, will
believe anything provided it be not in the Bible, he sits at the feet of
pundits when he openly despises prophets, and lauds the oracles of
Benares, when he scoffs at those of Mount Zion. The doctrine of
transmigration seems to find favour with him. As the Brahmin be-
lieves that he has existed in other forms on earth before the present
life, and, unless specially pleasing to Brahma, will have still further
migrations hereafter, so Mr. Emerson speaks of the "Deity sending
each soul into nature, to perform one more turn through the cir-
cle of beings" — language which a Hindoo would think very ortho-
dox and pious. " The soul," says he, " having been often born, or
as the Hindoos say, ' travelling the path of existence through thou-

u God daily

c world thus
is a central
(1 out of me,

1 thoro is no
iiorant of, so
uro is only a
-tlio Divine,
nly our own
rum Human
the c;ist off
Mjts himself

Id be hoped,
1. It is the
Lord, which
thenceforth
nfusion into
) be equalled
•logy no one
to this law.
ith a credu-
tineau, will
t the feet of

2 oracles of
doctrine of
Brahmin be-
the present
itill further
lity sending
agh the cir-

very ortho-
:en born, or
rough thou-

■1

lands of births,' having beheld the things which are here, those which
are in heaven, and those which are beneath, there is nothing of which
she has r ' 'gained the knowlodiro; no wonder that slio is able to re-
collect, in regard to anything, what she formerly knew." This is the
quintessence of the Brahmin (loctrinoof Transmigration: the repe-
tition in this late century of the world of the misty guess borrowed
from India, of Socrates, groping after the Truth, amidst the gross
darkness of his day — li'JOO years ago — his long vanished doctrine of
Reminiscence. So much for getting a new religion at the hands
of Mr. Emerson.

In the doctrine of immortality Mr. Emerson has no steadfast be-
lief Here and there we find a faint protest by his better nature
against the monstrous tenets of his creed ; but the general tenor of
his writings holds out nothing better to us after death, if we be not
sent into the world again in some other body, than absorption into
Nature, that is Annihilation.

There is something very sad in the following confession of darkness
and ignorance in which, after all, his Divine Rank as "part of God"
leaves him on the great question of our future fate — " I cannot tell
if these wonderful qualities which house to-day in this mortal frame,
shall ever re-as.semble in equal activity in a similar frame, or whether
they have before had a natural history like that of this body you see
before you; bnt this one thing I know, that these qualities did not
now begin to exist, cannot be sick with my sickness, nor buried in
any grave ; but that they circulate through the Universe," — that is,
are absorbed into the great ocean of Being. Thus, in one page he
doubts the sentiments of the other, and confesses himself in ignor-
ance on the question which, in its various relations, is alone wortb
asking by us hero. Compared with this, how grand is the dream of
Socrates when he saw a beautiful and majestic woman, clad in white
garments, approaching him as he lay in prison and about to die, and
calling to him and saying, " Socrates, three days hence you will reach
fertile Phthia !" But especially, compared to this, how unspeakably
grand, the serene composure with which Christianity teaches us to
anticipate the tomb, and how touching and joyous to our innermost

heart of hearts, the triumph with which it invests the last passages
of life — a triumph oiiibocricd in the chaunt of St. Paul when the
radiance of the Kternal Uili^, as his voyage was elosiiip, glittered
from afar — and he hreakti out incnntrolliihly. " O Death, where is thy
Sting? Grave where is thv Vietory ? the sting of <leath is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law ; hut. thanks he to God, who givcth us
the Victory, throneh our Lord desus Christ !"

Mr. Emerson's general opiiiiitii. wht^i f'»r a limo he shakes off his
misgivings, seems to be that we will hereafter he absorbed into the
one soul of all thintrs, as the Hralitnln hopi^s to be absorbed in Hruhma.
It is involved in iiis devotion to lletrel that he should think so.
'* The individual," he tells us. '• is a-ieending out of his limits into a
Catholic existence." We are. it would seem, but as wavi's which rise
from the deep fur a moment, to sink and lose tliemsrlves in it the next.
" Death is but th" return of the indivi<lua1 to tlie infinite, " and man
is annihilated, though the Deity will eternally live.

Mr. Emerson has no such doctrine in his creed as that of the free-
dom of the Hunnin will, that urcat iruth of our nature, which involves
our accountability and di'jnifies us with the characteristics of intelli-
gent beings. Since, in his opinion, to use his own words — " the
human race is God in distribution," there can be no l^owcr from
without to influence us either for good or evil, and, as we act
according to the necessity of our constitution, and its laws are fixed,
and since we have no personality, but are only waves of the Universal
Light, we move on without power of control and without responsi-
bility. " Let man learn," says he, "that he is here, not to work,
but to be worked upon." " The Spiritualist," he tells us. "cannot
bring himself to believe either in divine Providence or in the
immortality of the soul." Thus does this ghastly Gospel extin-
guish hope. For immortality we are to have annihilation, for
moral freedom, as necessary to responsibility, we arc to have only
the irresponsible working of unintelligent machines; and for Provi-
dence we are to have Fate, which "grows over us like grass," — that
is, as the grass grows over the unresisting and helpless dead. Is this
the new Evangel ! A world without immortality, and crushed under

nflt passages
il when the
ip, K'ittercd
wlicrc is thy
\i in sin, and
lo giveth us

;ik<'s off his
'd into the
in liruhma.
1 think so.
niits into a
s which rise
it the next.
, ' and man

of* the free-

ch involves

s of'intelli-

)rds— " the

owor from

as we act

are fixed,

Universal

t responsi-

t to work,

"cannot

or in the

lel extin-

;ition, for

lave only

or Provi-

— that

Is this

ed under

the wheels of inexorable destiny I It reminds us of the agonies of
ftlio old Roman epitaphs, when hrok' n lienrts and crushed hopes
cried out into the darkness of the old Piv^nn sky, in sad hi^lplcKS be-
Wailings at cruel death and relentless doom. Mr. Emerson must
excuse us for pror«rrin;j; the revelation of a God who is also u Father,
and a hope which bathos the future in glory.

With free will, Mr. Emerson, ncces.sarily, and no less pointedly,
discards everything like the doctrine of the dilTerent (jualities of
actions. To do right, or to do wrong, niakea no difference in the
result. Indeed, there is no puch thing as wrong in his opinion.
"Ethics," he tells us, "degrade nature," as docs also "religion."
" The less wc Imve to do with our sins," s:ivs he. '* the better." *
'•Evil is good in the makinc;. '^ * The Divine effort is never re-
laxed; the carrion in the sun will convert itself tograssand flowers ;
and man, though in brothels, or gaols, or on gibbets, is on his way
to all that is good and true." We are told that " Nature " — that is,
God, the Divine Existence, — for Nature, in so far as it strikes the
eye, is only an Apparition to Mr. Rnierson — "is /in S<nvt. *'^= She
comes eating and drinking and sinning. Her darlings, the great,
the strong, the beautiful, are not children of our law, do not come out
of the Sunday School, nor weigh their food, nor punctually keep the
commandments." "Thecntertainmentofthe proposition of depravity."
he tells us, " is the last profligacy and profanation." Now, when wc
strip all this of its high sounding verbi'ige, to what does it amount ?
"Ethics," that is, a system of moral principles, "degrade nature."
Henceforth, therefore, no virtue should be taught, no duty insisted
on, no reasons for either should be assigned. Man is self luminous,
like the fixed stais, and gives but receives no light. Our duties, to
man or our neighbour, are to be left hereafter to the influence of our
individual "moral sentiment." Cannib.ilsand philosophers, alike, are
to look within for their articles of belief, and codes of morals. The
prospects of a millenium must be bright indeed if mankind adopt
such a doctrine. That "evil is good in the making," I wholly deny.
Thomson was right in speaking of God as "from scemivf/ evil still
educing good, and better still, in infinite progression." But to say
that evil and good should be different names for the seme thing —

thftt wronp cftn turn riKht hy prowtli — is Minply t'> uftrr an outrnpe
on all our moral sensibilities. Is it a truth that " man, thouj;h in
brothels, or prnols, or on j:ih})ets, \h on his way to all that is piod and
true?" Then morality i^< of no «c«'onnt, lieellti(>n^n^'^s is asjrood an
virtue ; theft, and all other erimes that till piols, as pK)d as theiroppo-
sites, and it is as well lor a man to elose u life of infamy l»y a crime
which sends him to die by the lialtiT, as to fall hefore the L'nat lleaper
likt a shock of corn fully ripe, after a career adorne<| by every public
and private excellence ! IJut howi'vcr this may shock the instinctive
Bcntimcnts of the nuissof hunjanity, Mr. Emerson not only preaches
it in his own words but entbrccs it by a quotation from his favourite
Indian divinity, Vishnu, — " I am the same to all mankind. '1 here
is not one who is worthy of my love or hatred. They who serve mo
with adoration, I am in tlunn and they in me. If one whose ways
arc altogether evil, serve me alone, ho is as re-ipoctublo as the just
man ; he is altojrethcr well employed ; he soon becometh of a virtu-
ous spirit, and obtaineth eternal happiness." Simple minded people
may find it hard to conceive how tlie service of any Divine licin;;
can be compatible with '"ways which arc wholly evil." In all ages
and countries it has been thought that virtue was pkat^ing to the
gods, and vice the reverse, but what kind of service can possibly re-
main where there is no virtue, but where a man's ways are thus irho/ft/
till? The affections can have no part in it, for they are .sold to
wickedness; the mere outward form remains. Kltht r, then, crime is
as much the service of Mr. Emerson's God as virtue, or he dignifies
mere genuflexions and postures by that name. If the former, he
outrages the universal sentiment of humanity : if the latter, he dig-
nifies the stuffed skin of worship with living honours, and his lofty
speech is an eulogy on mummery. Such a confusion of right and
wrong, such a premium on crime and discouragement of virtue, if
Mr. Emerson were followed would dissolve society. Where would
we be if the restraints of the world-wide doctrine that virtue is itself
blessed and leads to blessedness, and that vice is accursed and leads
to ruin, were abolished? That they are, is the doctrine of
Mr. Emerson ; that they are the opposite poles of moral being,
is the teaching of Christianity. He has made his choice, I

r nn outrage
I, tliou^'h in
t is j^dodund
is iisgood as*
H tlieiroppo-
} hy a crime
<rfat Kt'.ipcr
every [uihlie
p instinctive
nly ftroaclies
[lis favourite
nd. '1 here
ho servo uio
whose ways
! an the just

oi'a virtu-
JuK'd people
vine Hein;:

In all a^es
^ini^ to tiie
lossibly re-
lius u'hnllt/
are sold to
en, crime is
le dij.Miifies

i'urmer, lie
(T, ho di^'-
I his lofty

riuht and
{' virtue, if
icro would
ue is itself
and leads
ctrine of
ral being,
choice, I

kave made mine and am willing to abide by it, hero and hereafter.

As might bo expected in one who preaches the divinity of man,
And that there is no freedom of the hi'itan will, and nn immortality,
Mr. Emerson is especially olfoiiil'd by tlie so called fanaticism of
those who rise to enthusiasm in the contemplation of the truths of
Christianity. Like and unlike arc, however, often linked by subtle
tics. He lays down rules lor tlie elevation of the religious affections
which, I fe.jr, are far less sober tli.iii the frames he .'jomuch dislikes.
His God is himself, seen in tho multiform shapes of nature, from
which, by the way, it is only one step to get to the fetish and tho
idol. Of eours(^ worship is required, but what it is it would be hard
to gather from Mr. Kmerson's books. We arc to let our hearts throb,
with the throbbing luiart of nature — wc arc to commune with the
spirit of the stars, and woods, and fields, but what that means wc are
not precisely informed. One passage alone seems clear enough to
quote. " To lead a heavenly life, one is to listen with insatiable
ears to the voieo which speaks to us from behind, till he rises to an
* ccstatical state,' and becomes careless (»f his food and of his house,
and is the fool of ideas." Or he is " to go and be dumb, and si'
with his hands on his iiinuth, a long austere Pythagorean lustrum."
Christianity tells us to do (Muist's will if wo would know his doc-
trine, but Mr Emerson substitutcvs the dreaming of the mystic for
this healthful njedicine of action. To get so ecstatic, it is not said
with what, as to become careless of our food, and of our house, that
is, of our duties, and to be the fool of ideas, and to sit dumb, with
our hands on our mouths, is .surely little better than a rendering into
English of the rule of tho Bhagavad Gita — the favourite book of the
Hindoos, which Mr. Emerson loftily eulogises — that the devotee
who " can sit for days looking at the point of his nose and thinking
of nothing," has arrived at the pinnacle of religious perfection.

When there is nothing definite in a creed, but only vague gene-
ralities, impalpable metaphysics, and oracular bursts, emerging from
darkness and sinking into it again before the close of a paragraph,
it is like trying to catch the flicker on the wall, to follow and grasp
its parts. Ossian fighting in a cloud with ghosts, had not a task
more hopeless. That there is no system in Pantheism, that there

! I

is no relation of parts, uo conslstLMicy, thatitis not founded on faots,
that it is not sclenco bas-.d on induction from I'acts, and that it cannot
bs proved to be a revelation, is a sufficient refutation of its claims.
Its tendencies, personal and relative, add their weight to its con-
demnation.

It might be expected that Mr. Emerson wholly rejects anything
like the positive morals of the Bible. He declaiin.s not only against
Christianity and the Bible, but Churclies and Sabbatii-schools, and
benevolent associations are only ibod for a jneer. Prayer, is to him,
supremely ridiculous. " Tiie dull pray," says lie " Ueniu.ses,"' that
is, those especially tilled with the Divine J^pirit, '" are light mockers."
Anything like an inculcation of the virtues which the Bible imposes
as the standard of Christian manhood, is not to be found in his
writings. Like the Brahmin who holds that tlie devotee who neg-
lects all temples, creeds, holy ])laees, oblations and oflerings to the
Gods, and just lifts a thought (u iiraliuia, or meditates on Om, is holier
than the laborious pilgrim who toils from afar to pay the duties of
his faith, Mr. Emerson tolls us that he leads a heavenly life who
falls into reveries in the contemplation of the landscape, while no
such estimate is accorded where poetic sensibility is deficient, though
every day may bo adorned by unostentatious acts of practical
godliness.

From the theory that all things are one and the same, mere
phenomena of the one thinking principle, i\Ir. Emerson deduces re-
sults in natural science which are startling enough, and merit quo-
tation as a means ofjudging how far one who is so grievously wrong
in minor details is trustworthy in the higher regions v\' truth. We
are gravely informed that the reason why natural philo.sophers
know about the substances on which they bestow their study is that
tiioy are identical v:itli. ihrm. '• Animated chlorine knows of
chlorine, and animated zinc knows of zinc. 1'heir (juality makes
his career, and he can variously publish their virtues, hccause they
mmpose him." A man who can put in print such jargon as this
must, surely, illustrate Addi.son's theory that only a thin membrane
in the brain, .sometimes well nigh invisible, decides whether one bo a
fool or a philosopher.

«l

ded on faots,

lat it cannot

f its claims.

to its con-

ts unything
^nlj against
schools, and
!r, is to him,
iuses," that
it mockers."
bie imposes
and in his
e who neg-
ings to the
Im, is holier
le duties of
ily life who
, while no
t?nt, though
1' practical

a me, mere
leduces re-
iierit quo-
isly wrong

uth. Wc
lilosophers
idy is that

knows of
lity makes
r<iuse tliet/

on as this
membrane
r one be a

Mr Emerson adds to his doctrine of the development of all things
ftom the universal soul, as phantasmal manifestations of itself, the
more material doctrine of the "Vestiges of Creation," that a transmuta-
tion of species is gradually raising the lowest form to the highest.
Lamarck and Do Maillet have found a new disciple in Mr. Emerson.
But we all know the baselessness of this theory. Exploded as it is,
Mr. Emerson brings it forward as corroborative of his system. —
Whether his unfairness or knowledge be to blame, I leave to each
to determine. The Nebular Hypothesis is, in the same manner, pressed
by him into his services. "All things," he tells us, "are perfecting.
The nebula tends to be a ring, a comet, a globe, and parent of new
stars." But Lord Kosse's telescope dissipated this theory long ago,
so that, as it is one of the grand facts by which Mr. Emerson supports
his scheme of nature, the value of the whole may be fairly judged
from the unsoundness of this part of the foundation.

It is a characteristic of the class to which Mr. Emerson belongs,
to resort to tricks of languajje and to bold assertion, without regard to
correctness, to bolster their cause. To smooth their way, the vene-
rable phraseology of revelation is still retained, while it is made to
speak an entirely opposite sense to that which it usually bears. The
unwary reader is thrown off his guard by finding the words of Sc-'ip-
ture often preserved, and it is only when he remembers the context
that he starts at the snare. With a similar aim, no statement is too
reckless, no lightly thrown off insinuation too baseless, to be withheld,
if the one darling object can be furthered, of lowering the prestige
and authority of Christianity. One example from many will suffice.

In his lecture on Plato, he ventures the statement, that the Phaedo
supersedes the necessity of Christianity, since " Calvinism is in it,
Christianity is in it." His sketch of Plato and his works is based,
as appears from Mr. Emerson's chance admission, on the Translation
published in J3ohn's Library, a source which saves much labour, but
is not fitted to enhance his claim to discourse on the " American
Scholar," which forms the theme of one of his preljctions. Follow-
ing his example, any one may, at once, sec how utterly unfounded is
the assertion. Christianity is not in the Phaedo, but, at best, there
is a dim glimpse of the great truth of our immortality seen painfully

and faintly, as when one strains to,distini::uish an object in the brown
tAviiight. But assertion is potent, and, made thus recklessly and
authoritatively, might pass unchallengod by most. Is it consistent
with the philosophic character to try to underrate a religion he dis-
likes, by alFecting to believe that its revelations were anticipated,
when to read the authority he quotes, is to sec the disproof of the
insinuation ?

One of the most uniform characteristics of minds of a high class,
is their depth of reverential feeling and a certain solemnity of thought
in the presence of great Truths. There is a subdued sadness run-
ning like slow distant music through real genius. Shakspere tells us

that

" All our joys most pure and I10I7,

Sport iu the sli:ido\v oau;jlit t'roiu MoliinrliDly :"

Mr. Carlyle, though a Pantheist, like iMr. Emerson, has that great-
heartedness and the true poet's eye that sees into the depths of things,
but ills American copyist does not move a muscle, where Iw
fetches a sigh. In the Pantheistic confession of faith, published by
John Sterling, as that of Mr. Carlyle, and accepted by him, there is
a deep and earnest .sadness, such as a loving soul could not fail to
shew, in looking at a world where " Evil, Grief, Horror. >hame.
Follies, Errors, and Frailties, of all kinds, press on the eye and heart,"
especially when no faith in Providence, or Redemption, or Im-
mDi-tality, r^lievc^ the shade. But Mr. Emerson dwells so wholly
on the superficial as never to pierce to the real sad grandeur beneath.
" As shallow streams run dimpling all the way," he wears an unbroken
simper, sees nothing but the holiday dress of the world, and has a
Heaven no higher than that of the Greeks, who thought that Olym-
pus almost touched it. Even the idea of God, so glorious and awful
to any reverential mind, is not lofty enough with him to keep him
from gross familiarity. He speaks of '• God's grand politeness" — as
if his God were altogether on a level with himself Contrast this
with Jonathan Edwards, with his almost angelic intellect, risin<'. in
spite of his unimaginative cast, into the sweetest poetry, when he
tells us, in his Book on the Affections, how he used to be so filled
with the sense of the Divine Majesty and Glory, that he would sit and

■MM

in the brown
cklossly and
It consistent
iirion lie dis-
anticipntcd,
proof of the

Ji hii^h class,

y of thought

kidncss run-

pere tells us

that great-
is of things,
, where he
ublished by
lini, there is

not fail to
or. >hame,
and heart,"
on, or Iin-
s so wholly
iir beneath.
1 unbroken

and has a
that Olym-

and awful

keep him
oness" — as
itrast this

rising, in
, when he
e so filled
uldsitand

. jjing them in a low voice to himself in the fields. Or take Milton's
Hymn put into the mouth of our great parent, Adam — which Burke's
|on died in repeating — or take any of all the utterances of lofty souls
when gazing on the Majesty of the Almighty, and the contrast is
complete. Mr. Emerson's creed quenches his imagination, and
poisons his heart. With noiliiug nobler than man and nothing
grander than our checkered and momentary life, he is chained to
■ the earth, and has only a ghastly smile where Faith glows like a
seraph. The same bad taste and inability to conceive any grand
Ideal, marks his writings throughout. Jesus is a ' /t<?jvy,' in his
vocabulary, and " wc cloy of Him as of all such; if we get too much
of Him, llr hi'romi'i-^ <i hnrr (it ('t^fy Even the goodness and purity,
the infinite love and gentleness, which won the eulogy of Rousseau,
wake no momentary enthusiasm in slow speaking, stony Mr. Emer-
son. Listen to the respectful mention he makes of what is most sacred
to most of English speaking men. " The Universe," he tells us,
*' has three ciiildren, which rc-appear under different names in every
system of human thought, whether they be called Cause, Operation
and Effect ; or more poetically, Jove, Neptune, Pluto ; or, theologi-
cally, the Father, the Spirit and the Son." Another sprig of deadly
night-ohade from his rhetorical bouquets is as follows — " 3Ieantime
there are not wanting gleams of a better light, — occasional exan)plcs
of the action of man upon nature with his entire force, with reason as
well as understanding. Such examples are the traditions of miracles in
the earliest anti<|uity of all nations, the history of Jesus Christ; the
achievements of a principle, as in political and religious revolutions,
and in the abolition of the Slave Trade ; the miracles of Swcden-
borg, Hohenlohe, and the Shakers ; many obscure and yet contested
facts, now arranged under the name of Animal Magnetism; prayer,
elocjuence, self-healing, and the wisdom of Children ?" How admirable
the candour, how delicate the propriety, how modest, how humble,
to class together Jesus Christ, Prince Hohenlohe, Anne Lee, and
the Spirit Rappers ! The perversion of intellect, not to speak of
heart, which could venture on such a farrago, is only equalled by the
Unmeaning rant it is meant to sustain.

Having heard from the pen of its own Apostle these stjitements of

its doctrines, what shall we say of Pantheism sh a scheme of religious
philosophy? Can we accept it as true, when tried at the bar of
philosophy itself? Most assuredly we cannot. The same processes
of thought by which Mr. Emerson reaches the belief that He him-
self exists, carry us on to what he rejects, the idea of a p;reat First
Cause. Pantheism is the first step in an argument, with the rest
a-wanting, and stands useless as a broken arch. Does it satisfy the
demands of the imagination in things of religion--those demands which
are pictures reflected from the heart on the brain ? Assuredly not.
" It is a stream without a spring, a tree without a root, a shadow
projected by no substance, a sound without a voice, a drama without
an author, a pervading thought without a thinking mind, a (Tnivcrse
without a God." Do its doctrines meet any better fate when tried
by the standard to which they appeal, " the moral . 'sentiment " of the
race? The testimony in each of us to tlio prevalence of law, the
obligation of right, the consequences of wrong, the perpetual govern-
ment of an invisible God, the need of redemption, and the inexpres-
sible grandeur and fitness oi' the nvro/ed future, frown down the
monstrous untruthfulness of the theology and morals Mr. Emerson
seeks to advance.

As Mr. Emerson's views have been given in his own language, if
they have failed to be undorstood, the fault must be with himself
Such as they are, they arc strewn over his writings, where they lie
imbedded in a fair breadth of reading, though unecjual and frag-
mentary, — a fertility of expression, often energetic and striking —
pleasing turns of fancy, and a cold but frequent admiration of the
beautiful in nature, and, at the same time, with platitudes often offered
for wisdom — the cuttlefish policy of ejecting darkness where there
is difficulty — huge self complacency everywhere radiant — swelling
sentences that need only to be pricked to collapse — and a great dis-
play of what is sought to be passed off as philosophy but is simply so
much fustian. Continually speaking of what he calls mysteries, it is
not to be supposed that he can himself very clearly comprehend or
set them in words. His pages always remind me of a blotted water-
colour sketch — a bit of the landscape here, and a fraction of a
figure elsewhere, but only a parti-coloured blur for the rest.

.;Vi

""■"■lii

e of religious
at the bar of
inie processes
lat He hitn-
i p:reat First
vith the rest
t satisfy the
namls which
^nredly not.
)t, a shadow
una without
, a Universe
when tried
lont " of the

of law, the
ual f^'overn-
c inexpres-

down the
, Emerson

ni,'uage, if
;h himself,
re they lie

and f rag-
striking —
ion of the
en offered
lore there
—swelling

rcat dis-
simply so

ries, it is
ohend or
id water-
on of a

Ts it desirable or not that this philosophy be accepted as better
than (Miristiiinity, or should wo still cleave to the old? At the risk
of ropctitlon, lot us recapitulate briefly the cliaracteristics of both.
If, tlicn. W(! turn to tho scope of their teaching, they differ at once.
31 r. KnitTSDM and his .'■chool do not preach to tho mass, but ratlior
affoct to (lospiso their rudeness and their blunt ignorance which ro-
([uiros proof as a condition of belief. Culture, with him, is to bring
about tho reign of the good and true. It is to (|uicken the sensibili-
ties, and lit I'or that intuitive insight which perceives the highest
truths by a glance, and by those who do not pos.soss it, he does not
hope to be understood. (Christianity addresses itself to man as
a whole, and claims liis acceptance by the strength of its proofs.
Vhllosophy never raised either a nation or a tribe: Christianity
has clothed the naked savage, given his language form and system,
exchanged his war-dub for a spade, set his child to school, and led
himself from ferocity and degradation to a life of gentleness, honour
and love. Mr. I'^merson's God is a vast dreamy abstraction, un-
known — incaj)able of definition — a mere apotheosis of collective man,
for he tells us that '"Man is (lod in distribution" — with no bond of
sympathy with His creatures so as to direct their will, or form tlicir
character, or attract their love, ('hristianity discloses a Father in
tlu> Heavens, the Great Archetype of all Fatherhood — with open
hand, and benignant eye, and loving voice, and a care which is over
all our ways. Mr. Emerson never thinks of directing us to his con-
ception of (loil, for comfort, or hope, or confidence in trial : Chris-
tianity tells us that Jehovah is the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land, the Father of mercies and tho God of all consolation. And, in-
deed, in the craving of the soul in all countries after a Personal God
— a craving so intense that even in India, the native home of ]^ln-
theism, Kajah Uammohun Hoy declared that Polytheism, whidi gives
every man a Per.«omd God of his own, was a deep and sincere belief —
and in tho perfect countcu-part to every want of the .spirit presented in
tho llovelation of Jehovah, lie a sufficient refutation of I*antheism,
and vindication of the Scriptures. Voltaire's saying is right — ''AV
fh'iu ii\ ri^f,,if j„ts, i7/>nii/rin'f /' in rr,if, .'/■." Pantheism tells us that
in sounding tho depths of one man's thoughts, we sound the depths

2«

of the Universe — that if we know ourselvo.s. wo know all the secrets
of Beinjj;, but our instinctive sense rec(iils from the assertion, t'hris
tianity, on the other hand, chords witli our innate ennvietion in ask
inir. instead, wht) can, by searchinir, tind out (lod . who can find out
the Almighty to perfection ? Mr. Knicrsou s tlu'ory is oppo.sed
throughout to the luoral seutinuMit of the race. The one ceaseless
hum of his theology is. that man is all to hiinsflf. Law. Lord,
Saviour, God, the Universe, and thus at a swi'cp h»' destroys all the
relations we would bear to a Personal (iiui. lie preaches Fate — Chris-
tianitv whispers Providence. lie abolishes all moral government,
confounds the qualities of actions, obliterates tlu* phra.seol(»gy of right
and wrong, obedience and sin, from the vocabulary — dismisses all re
sponsibility from human acts, since they are inevitable I'rom the laws
of our constitution, and since man, having no .separtiti- personality, can
be under no sanctions of individual obligatitin. Tlu! best ami the worst
in his eyes are one and the saim;. The deceived and the deceiver are
alike divine. We recoil from such a shocking thought. Christianit) .
on the other hand, speaks the convictitui of the heart, in its high
morality, its deiuund for holines.s as the cotnlition of seeing ( Jod. .\nd
it has the respon.se of our bo.soms in warning the sinner from the evil
of his ways, and in hanging up a deathless er(»wn bei'ore him who
seeks after right^^ousne.ss. Pantheism scotl'sat the idea of mediation.
Humanity, by the lire on ten thousand altars, craves it, and Cliri.s-
tianity offers it. Pantheism otters no code, no rules for our guid-
ance towards (r(jd and our neighbour, condemns the practical, honours
rhap.sodies, vagaries, and impulses; (;r if it preaches work, in.spircs it
with no living principle to direct it. Christianity is sober and prac-
tical, and turns to whatever can alleviate our sorrows, or elevate and
t)lessus, while her precepts embrace the whole circle of human rela-
tion.ship. Mr, Kmerson has no future to which to invite us. or, by the
jirospect of which, to cheer us. Ab.sorption, as when a rain drop falls
on the ocean — is the fate of all alike. (.Christianity speaks to the
innermost soul of the race in opening the gates of immortality and
letting the light from beyond stream down on our footsteps. There
is no better test of a system than its fitness to our need when a spiri-
tual power alone can sustain us. In life we may dream our

t ■

MMM

tlio soorets
ion. Chris-
'tion in ask
can find out
is opposed
>no oea.si'le.s.s
haw. liord,
roys all the
ato — CliriH-
iovt'i'iirnoiit,
oj.'^y ol'ri^lil
iisst>s all re
oiu till' laws
iiiiality, can
id the worst
leeoiver are
hristianit).
M its hii^ii
(if*d. And
i»ni tile evil
hint who
iiu'diation.
md (Miris-
our uiiid-
1, honours
ins])ires it
and prae-
ovate and
man rola-
or. by the
li'op falls
vs to the
tality and
'IMiere
n a spiri-
|i"eam our

, I

theories, but death is the experiment that proves their worth. If
any one wish to see Mr. Emerson's philosophy in the hour of trial,
let him read the last letter of John Sterlin^j to Mr. Carlyle, who had
led liim from his early faith to the dreams of J^antheism. " Cer-
tainty," he tells UH, *' ho has none, and has nothin*^ for it but to keep
shut the lid of those secrets, with all the iron weiuhts in his power. "
But as Mr. Carlyle's Pantheism is much milder than Mr. Emerson's,
even this dreary letter would not bo dark enou<>h for one of his disciples
in the hour ol' death. Contrast with this agonizini!; uncertainty,
with the poor human bravery that tries to keep down the lid of the
future, the triumph of having death swallowed up in victory, and
all tears wiped off from all faces. ('Onipare its darkness and un
speakable sadness with the Christian vision of the future to Bunyan,
tinctured by no philosophy, with liis bad spellinir, his life in jail, and
his homespun trust in the word of (lod. Uemember the le<>ond he
saw ^littcrint^' over the gate of the ('elestial ( 'ity. '• lilcssed are they
that do his commandments, that they may have riuht to the Tree of
Life, and may enter in through the gates into the City." Listen
to his sight of its glories — '* Now just as the gates were opened to
let in the men, I looked in after them, and, behold, the City i^hone
like the 8un, the streets also were paved with gold ; and in them
walked many men, with crowns on their heads, palms in their hand.s
and golden harps to sing praises withal." To shoot out into Inti-
nUe darkness, and keep as brave a heart as may be, as its unknown
possibilities approach, is all that ^[r. Emerson's creed gives to soften
a dying pillow. Christianity sheds on that of a dying saint the
splendours of an inheritance incorruptible, undcfiled, and that fadeth
not away, tills his soul with the fall of immortal music, and
makes dissolution only a death-like sleep, a gentle wafting to im-
mortal life. Which of the two speaks most truly to our wants
and our longings ? Let us pay our regards to that which adds
another world to this, and weaves roses and amaranths for our brows
when we reach it.

It is a striking enforcement of humility to tind modern philosophy
fail so utterly in its efforts to make a Religion for itself It would
be well for 3Ir. Emerson, could he remember and receive theconclu-

<*,

I (•

s»inn of one whom lie profossos to ro<»poft nhovo mnst. mid who
.soarchotl into Tnitli with :im tMnu'stncss rrt»ni whit-h our nio<l('ni
Kaith-iunlviTs iniLiht, takr ;i li'sson — I iiumh StH'rato>\ who siiins uj)
in his Apology the o.\pi.'rii'nO(' ol'his lifo. in tho (K'daration that Apollo
hail tauirht him this ono thinu'. that human wisilom was worth liltu-
or nothiu:^. IJi'ttor than tlic drivim of <i;^»nius. or the intuitions of
pure ro IS )n, bettor thia tlui wi^rhl without a (rod, without a conscionro,
without iniiaortality, is the trust ot' tho wriest hilj" or sufkliu'^-, in
whom (rod his perfoetod prii-'; iioM-r thaa tlic lolVu'st (hnlication
of man, i^randcr thin tliat h'> should 1)0 di:i;niiiiMl with tin; most
souuflin;:; titles, is the prayer of the public in, " (lod be merciful to n»c
a sinner.'' I sot up au'ainst all philosophers of Mr. Kmerson's sr'ionl,
tho plotur.; of (yowpn-'s Ou.tau;\:r, ami loavo you to say whether she
or they bo the briL'hter mirror oftho IIii:;hcst Trnlli : —

" Von ('otta;^or. who woavo.-: at her own door.
Pill'-iVH anil t)o1i1)ins all Ih.t little store,
Conlciil though ukmh, iluiI cheerful, it' not yny
Shuliliiijjf litT tlireiuls abn\, the livelong day,
Just oiirns a scanty pltlanco, and, at ni^dir.
Lies down sernre, lior hcnrt anl ;. )ckot li;^ht;
SiiP, lor her hnnilde sphere l)y nature lit,
Has little understanding', and no \Tit,
Kcceives no praise, hut (thouj,di her lot la- .-ludi,
Toilsome and indi;!;i;nt) .she renders iiiMi-li :
Just kiio\v.<, iirid knows no more, her i'lMi' (rui',
.V truth the l)rilliant Kreuohiuau n-'ver kiM'-c
.Vnd in that eharter reads wilu sparkliu;; t'ye.s,
lIiT title to a treasure in the skies.

Oh happy peasant ! (>!i uiih i|i;iy h ird:
His the mere tinsid, hers the ri'di rew ir ! ;
lie, praised, perhufts, for a;:;es yet to come,
Siie, never hearil of !ialf .i mile liouj 'loun' •
He, lost in errors his Viiiu 'le o I i>r. tei -),
She, :^Afi} in the .simplicity ot hei.-'."

Knulkiirr'a Ciljr HU'aml'rcts, OG Yuiigu SlrCLl, Turuulu.

St. nnd who
• •ur nindcni
wlio Slims up
>n tlii'.t Ajvillo
i ;vorth liitK.
iiitiutioiis ol'
aoonscioiic'o,
sut^kliiiu', 111
I iIi'ilicatioM

til tllO lllDSt

crciriil to iiio
'.•^on'.s sv 'lool,
whether she

'K
%