UNIVERSITY OF CA RIVERSIDE, LIBRARY 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
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 RIVERSIDE
 
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 NOAH PORTER 
 
 A MEMORIAL BY FRIENDS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 GEORGE S. MERRIAM 
 
 ■ ^ » 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1893
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Ancestry and Youth. By Miss Sarah Porter 
 Boy Life. By Professor Sanmel Porter . 
 Student at Yale. By Rev. W. W. Andrews 
 Tutorship and Divinity School 
 Marriage 
 
 New Milford Pastorate 
 Springfield Pastorate 
 Professor at Yale 
 President Woolsey 
 Personal Influence 
 Reminiscences of Pupils 
 As A Teacher 
 Course of Thought 
 Study at Berlin . 
 Family Life . 
 Theological Opinions. By Professor George P. Fisher 
 As a Theological Teacher. By Rev. Edward A 
 Smith ........ 
 
 1 
 5 
 9 
 30 
 35 
 37 
 57 
 58 
 61 
 62 
 68 
 75 
 85 
 94 
 98 
 102 
 
 107
 
 iv CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Reminiscences of the Lecture-Room . . . Ill 
 
 Editor of Webster's Dictionary .... 116 
 
 Friendships with Heretics 120 
 
 Public Controversies 125 
 
 President of Yale. B)/ President Franklin Carter . 131 
 
 Vacations in the Woods. Bi/ Dean Sage . . . 153 
 
 In the Adirondacks. By Rev. J. H. Tivichell . . 157 
 
 Retirement from the Presidency .... 166 
 As a Teacher of Philosophy. By Professor J. Her- 
 
 shey Sneatli ........ 169 
 
 In Review 174 
 
 Correspondence 179 
 
 Crowning Years 189 
 
 The Farewell 192 
 
 Dr. Porter as a Philosopher. By Professor George 
 
 M. Duncan 197 
 
 Dr. Porter's Theory of Morals. By Dr. Rikizo 
 
 Nakashima ......... 253 
 
 Bibliography. By J. Swnner Smith .... 291
 
 NOAH PORTER
 
 NOAH POKTER 
 
 Noah Porter's boyhood was passed in Farmington, 
 Connecticut, under influences peculiar to early New 
 Eni^land and inherited in his family through 
 
 ^ ./ o ylficestry and 
 
 several generations. He was of the fifth gen- Youtk. By 
 eration from Eobert Porter, one of the eighty ^'" Sarak 
 proprietors who settled Parmington in 1640, 
 himself the son of a Puritan minister in England, 
 who, on account of his non-conformity, had been ejected 
 from the Established Church. Four successive gen- 
 erations were born on the Farmington homestead of 
 Eobert Porter, and three of its owners had died there, 
 all having lived to an advanced age. They were farm- 
 ers of moderate means. God-fearing, upright, respected 
 men. Noah Porter bore the name of his grandfather and 
 his father. The first of the name was distinguished 
 for his intelligent knowledge and love of the Bible, 
 gained, he said on inquiry, in his meditations as he 
 followed his plough. His whole life, with the exception 
 of a short time of service in the Ticonderoga campaign 
 in the Eevolutionary War, was passed in Farmington. 
 His two older sons, Edward and Eobert, — the sons of his 
 
 1
 
 2 NOAH PORTER 
 
 first marriage, — were botli graduates of Yale College, 
 and the elder, Edward, was in the early years of his 
 manhood a Congregational minister, until forced by 
 weak health to withdraw from the pulpit. Deacon Noah 
 Porter intended to retain his youngest son, Noah, the 
 only son of his second marriage, at home with himself, 
 and accordingly changed his residence, in a way that 
 throws interesting light on his character. In the begin- 
 ning of the present century Farmington had become the 
 center of a wide and busy trade, and with rapidly 
 increasing wealth old restraints in morals and manners 
 were thrown oif. Deacon Porter was not willing to 
 expose his son to the influences around him in the 
 village, and removed his family from the old homestead 
 to a farm a mile or two distant. But as his son, in 
 growing older, showed aptitude for study, and a suscep- 
 tible religious nature, by the advice of his pastor his 
 plans were changed, and the son entered Yale with the 
 definite purpose of serving in the Christian ministry. 
 After his college course and his course of theological 
 study under President Dwight were completed, it was 
 the wish of Dr. Dwight that he should remain at Yale 
 as tutor ; but the beloved pastor of the Farmington church 
 had very recently died, and the youthful parishioner 
 accepted the call of the Farmington church as successor 
 in the pastorate. Thus he returned to be the companion 
 of the old age of his father, and lived for sixty years the 
 beloved pastor of the Farmington church and people. 
 He married, in 1808, Miss Mehetabel (better known as 
 " Hetty ") Meigs of Middletown, Connecticut, and Noah,
 
 ANCESTRY AND YOUTH 3 
 
 born December 14, 1811, was their second son and sec- 
 ond child. The life in the boy's father's household was 
 simple but not narrow. The children knew that the 
 lives of their father and mother were controlled by the 
 Divine Will and Avere elevated by heavenly communion, 
 and that their dearest wish and aim was that their chil- 
 dren should share in this life. The parents gladly 
 sought and cherished for their children whatever might 
 widen thought and knowledge, and the children early 
 knew that life must be earnest, progressive, not worldly 
 in motive or in plan. From early boyhood, Noah Porter, 
 Junior, showed the traits that marked his mature years, 
 — the eager, quick intelligence, the interest in men and 
 nature, and in books as bringing him into acquaintance 
 with men and nature. When nine years old, he had 
 begun his study of Latin and other branches taught by 
 Yale graduates in the Farmington Academy, then re- 
 cently established. His few companions were his brother 
 Samuel and four or five congenially minded boys of his 
 neighborhood ; and all parts of Farmington — the moun- 
 tain, the river, the meadows — became their familiar 
 haunts. In the blacksmith's, the carpenter's, and other 
 working shops near his father's house, he was welcome, 
 where he watched the ways of working with quick intel- 
 ligence. In early boyhood as a helper in the home 
 garden he gained that love of gardening which made it 
 to the end of his life a pastime to him, and in the same 
 way came his love of domestic animals. He sometimes 
 said that he had had an important part of his education 
 in going to and from the pasture — a mile away from his 
 home — with the cows.
 
 4 NOAH PORTER 
 
 In his early childhood children's books were few, but 
 books on various subjects were early a delight to him. 
 The village library furnished many which his father's 
 library did not contain — various travels, the Waverley 
 novels, and for science the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. 
 The Library meetings held once every month were an 
 informal village club, where, with Governor John Tread- 
 well, Hon. Timothy Pitkin and Edward Hooker as 
 leaders, national, state, village and farm matters were 
 discussed, while he and other boys were attentive 
 listeners. At his father's fireside he heard the talk of 
 these same men on morals and manners, religious truth 
 and benevolent enterprises. Clerical friends of his father 
 were also frequent visitors, and their not infrequent 
 conversation on theological subjects made him familiar 
 with and interested in these matters. Thus he grew — 
 studying his Latin and Greek and mathematics in the 
 academy under the genial care of Mr. Simeon Hart ; 
 never away from home for study with the exception of 
 one summer in Winsted, uuder Dr. Hart's care and one 
 winter in Amherst, Massachusetts, in the family of his 
 uncle and aunt. President and Mrs. Heman Humphrey 
 — Mrs. Humphrey being his father's only sister. 
 
 He entered Yale College in his sixteenth year, the 
 smallest boy in his class, so that he was familiarly known 
 as " little Noah Porter." He at once was ranked among 
 the best scholars of his class, and he very early formed 
 ties of intimate, inspiring friendship that endured for 
 joy and strength until death interrupted earthly com- 
 munion.
 
 BOY LIFE 6 
 
 After entering college he never again lived continu- 
 ously in Farmington, but it never ceased to be to him as 
 home. He was, to the end of his life, keenly awake to 
 its interests, and his ready help on all occasions of com- 
 mon interest — as the second centennial celebration of 
 the settling of the town and the centennial of the dedica- 
 tion of the meeting-house — showed how true was his 
 heart to his birthplace — the home of his ancestors. 
 
 My brother Noah was nearly two years younger than 
 I ; and till I entered college in 1825, we were together 
 in the home and shared together in most ^^j,^^^ ^y 
 things of the home life. When a child, he Pro/. Samuel 
 seemed to be of a delicate constitution, ner- '"''^'^" 
 vous, and wanting in muscular vigor. Even as late as 
 his Sophomore year in college, 1829, he was undersized 
 and round-shouldered. After that time I did not meet 
 him till near the end of his Senior year, and was then 
 greatly surprised to see how he had shot up, — tall, 
 erect, and elastic in movement. From that time on till 
 his later years he was physically vigorous, with a fair 
 amount of muscular strength, reinforced and made the 
 most of by an unusual share of nervous energy. 
 
 In his boyhood he took his share in the various 
 " chores " which we boys had to do about the house and 
 
 1 It should be said that both this contribution and the preceding one 
 were intended by the writers only as notes for the editor's use, but I 
 have thought the facts could be most effectively given in the simplicity 
 of the original statements. — Editou.
 
 6 NOAH PORTER 
 
 the barn, — chopping, splitting, sawing, piling, and bring- 
 ing in wood ; feeding cows, horse, pigs, and chickens ; 
 driving the cows to and from the pasture field ; besides 
 work in the garden ; and one summer we two boys did 
 all the work of planting and cultivating and gathering a 
 two-acre corn-crop. He also spent one summer at work 
 on a farm — at what time I do not certainly remember 
 — so that there was hardly any kind of farm- work of 
 which he did not get some experience. It was the plan 
 of our father to give each of his boys the benefit he be- 
 lieved they would gain in a single summer spent in this 
 way. In after life he took great interest in the culture of 
 his garden, and the care and skill he bestowed upon his 
 grape-vines and pear-trees were in favorable seasons re- 
 warded, to his great satisfaction, by an abundant variety 
 of choice fruit. 
 
 The difference in our ages kept us apart in our studies at 
 school. But in the summers of 1823 and '24 we took up 
 the study of botany and pursued it together with a good 
 deal of zeal and industry. We ransacked every locality 
 to find specimens for examination and preservation, — get- 
 ting up one morning before dawn to go with a friend deep 
 into a swamp back of the meadow to find the side-saddle 
 flower (Sarracenia purpurea). The first year we had 
 no book except Eaton's Manual, with its purely tech- 
 nical and dry descriptions. But, learning that a new 
 and enlarged edition of Bigelow's Florida Bostoniensis 
 was to come out in the spring of 1824, we two boys 
 saved up from, our pocket money and gradually accu- 
 mulated the sum, $1.75, required for its purchase, and
 
 BOY LIFE 7 
 
 were greatly delighted with its full and familiar descrip- 
 tions. We gathered and preserved about five hundred 
 specimens in a neatly prepared herbarium, which is, I 
 believe, still in existence. We also made a small col- 
 lection of minerals, and of arrow-heads and other relics 
 from the old Indian burial-ground ; and we diligently 
 searched the broken trap-rock for specimens of quartz- 
 crystals and phrenite. One of our joint undertakings 
 was the carrying on of book-binding operations upon 
 some loose pamphlets and numbers of the Missionary 
 Herald, for which we had first to make our own tools 
 and apparatus, copied from what we had seen in a book- 
 binder's shop of the time. We obtained the screws 
 for the clamp from an old spinning-wheel which had 
 not long previously fallen into disuse and was stored 
 away as lumber in the garret. In all these things we 
 worked together harmoniously and with equal zeal and 
 diligence, though my brother's enterprise and ingenuity 
 contributed largely, if not mainly, to such success as we 
 attained. We had a great longing for a work-bench 
 and tools for working in wood ; all that we had were a 
 " shave " or drawing-knife, a saw, axe, and an auger of 
 quite primitive fashion. 
 
 Owing probably in the main to the physical constitu- 
 tion and condition above alluded to, my brother was in 
 his early days subject to occasional outbreaks of passion, 
 on being disappointed or crossed or hurt in any way. 
 This was in his childhood regarded as one of his faults.^ 
 
 iNo manifestations of this trait are remembered by Dr. Porter's 
 sisters.
 
 8 NOAH PORTER 
 
 If any tendency in that way continued to inhere in sub- 
 sequent years, it was kept under such control as not to 
 be apparent as a trait in his character. He was also 
 originally of a timid disposition. This appeared in 
 after life only as a prudent cautiousness, which was well 
 tempered by a hopeful, sanguine vein. This combination 
 was such as to make him enterprising and progressive, 
 and at the same time conservative and safe. 
 
 Both of us, as boys, were opposed to innovations of 
 fashion ; and we stoutly resisted the adoption of the 
 sibilant sound of tu and du, as in nature, verdure, etc., 
 then coming into vogue or recently introduced in Con- 
 necticut by means of Walker's Dictionary. 
 
 In his boyhood, as ever after, he was of a genial, com- 
 panionable, sympathetic nature, and he was in close and 
 intimate friendship with two or three boys of his own 
 age, who were all of exceptionally fine character. Harry 
 Wadsworth, with Avhom he had the closest companion- 
 ship, was a boy of a somewhat romantic turn, which made 
 him fond of personating knights and heroes of olden 
 time, of which in some cases he may have got the idea 
 from the poems of Sir Walter Scott. We had in the 
 village library the most part of the popular literature of 
 the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nine- 
 teenth. But the book that most of all interested us as 
 boys was Riley's Narrative, a harrowing tale of shipwreck 
 on the coast of Africa, and perils and suffering in pass- 
 ing over the desert as captives in the hands of Arabs or 
 Moors. 
 
 Among the leading traits in the character of my
 
 STUDENT AT YALE 9 
 
 brother was an extreme tender-heartedness, though never 
 ostentatiously exhibited and known only to his quite 
 intimate acquaintances. It was not only for those of his 
 own family and kindred, but for any one in suffering 
 and distress and for brute animals as well. 
 
 My first acquaintance with President Porter was on 
 my entering college in the autumn of 1828, when I 
 became a member of the Sophomore class 
 which he had joined in its Freshman year. yaU By 
 We were both natives of Connecticut, and Rev. vv. w. 
 sons of Congregational ministers, and were " '^^^' 
 naturally drawn to each other. Being members of the 
 same class division, and of the same college society 
 (the Linonian), we were thrown together a good deal, 
 and the acquaintance thus formed gradually ripened 
 into a close and affectionate and lifelong friendship. 
 
 I was almost two years older than he, and had had a 
 somewhat more diversified experience, and I became to 
 him a sort of elder brother, to whom he came for sympa- 
 thy and free and genial intercourse. He was one of our 
 youngest men, but was distinguished even then for ac- 
 curacy of scholarship and clearness and precision of 
 thought and utterance. At that time he excelled in 
 mathematics, for which his logical acumen specially 
 fitted him. 
 
 The time of our academic course almost immediately 
 preceded those fierce and bitter discussions of the slavery 
 question which had the effect of greatly diminishing the
 
 10 NOAH PORTER 
 
 number of Southern students in Northern colleges. Our 
 class had members from most of the states below Mason 
 and Dixon's line ; from Virginia and the Carolinas, from 
 Georgia and Florida, from Louisiana, Mississippi and Ala- 
 bama; as well as from all the Middle States and New 
 England. This mingling of men from all parts of the 
 Union in the hearty social intercourse and scholastic 
 pursuits of college life had the effect of softening sec- 
 tional prejudices, and of binding us together by ties 
 which in many cases proved stronger than the strifes 
 of war. This combination of diverse elements in college 
 society tended to produce breadth of character and cath- 
 olicity of spirit, and was good for both North and South. 
 
 It was a time everywhere of intellectual activity and 
 of social and political agitation, by which we, as students 
 young and enthusiastic, could not but be stirred. In 
 Europe the reaction towards despotism from the excesses 
 of the first French Eevolution, which had been over- 
 whelmingly strong for some years after the final defeat 
 of the first Napoleon, was beginning to give way. We 
 saw during our collegiate career the liberation of Greece 
 secured, the Bourbon dynasty in France overthrown, and 
 that rising tide against old restrictions in England, cul- 
 minating soon afterwards in the Reform Bill, which 
 many looked upon as a fundamental change in the policy 
 of the kingdom. 
 
 A new spirit was in the air. It was eminently a time 
 of hope and sanguine expectation. Faith in our own 
 national institutions and destiny had not then been 
 shaken by the growth of corruption nor by civil strife.
 
 STUDENT AT YALE 11 
 
 Eadicalism had scarcely begun to show its dissolving and 
 destructive spirit; and for the evils that were seen and 
 felt, abundant and adequate remedies were believed to 
 be within reach. We were dreaming of great possibili- 
 ties in the future, and this without the subversion of 
 the old Christianity, or the overthrow of the old social 
 structure. 
 
 The poetry of Byron was then in the height of its 
 popularity ; Scott was still pouring forth his fascinating 
 stories as in an endless stream; Macaulay and Carlyle 
 were just entering on their brilliant careers as reviewers 
 and essayists ; Wordsworth was rising into reputation as 
 the poet of nature and man, admirable for the calm wis- 
 dom, not without flights of lofty imagination, with which 
 he portrayed their various aspects, and drew from them 
 purest lessons of natural religion; and Coleridge was 
 coming to be recognized, not only as a poet of creative 
 power and weird beauty and splendor, but as the great 
 Christian philosopher of his time. 
 
 In the midst of this quickening of intellectual and 
 spiritual life, it was our good fortune to have for our in- 
 structors the best representatives of the New England 
 of their day, who had been trained themselves vinder the 
 sober and conservative influences of the old regime and 
 had no sympathy with the radical and revolutionary 
 spirit which was even then beginning to show itself. 
 President Day was ruling and teaching with his unsur- 
 passed sobriety of judgment, and calm, clear intellect; 
 Professor Silliman, Senior, was lecturing with unaftected 
 elegance and giving all possible attractiveness to chem-
 
 12 NOAH PORTER 
 
 istry, mineralogy and geology ; Professor Kingsley, the 
 acutest of critics and the most thorough of scholars, was 
 disciplining us in accurate scholarship, and inspiring us 
 with an abhorrence of shams ; Professor Goodrich, over- 
 flowing with enthusiasm, was training us in rhetoric and 
 oratory and setting before us the great model of elo- 
 quence in Demosthenes De Corona; Professor Olmstead, 
 whose zeal never flagged, was our teacher in mathe- 
 matics and astronomy ; and Professor Pitch, the college 
 pastor and preacher, was in turn perplexing us by his 
 metaphysical subtleties and thrilling us through and 
 through by his matchless pathos. 
 
 The class was not distinguished for its attainments in 
 natural science, although we had such accomplished 
 teachers. The foremost men gave themselves to classical 
 studies, but especially to metaphysics and moral phi- 
 losophy, and were more interested in those studies 
 which used to be called the humanities, as dealing with 
 man, than in those having to do with the outward, mate- 
 rial creation — the sphere which is below him and over 
 which he is to bear rule. 
 
 In this " the child was father to the man," The sub- 
 sequent history of the class shows that not in physics, 
 nor mechanics, nor the arts, have their greatest successes 
 been won, but in logic and philosophy, in theology and 
 politics. Out of a class of eighty-one, thirty -two or three 
 have been clergymen, of whom two are bishops in the 
 Protestant Episcopal church ; three have been professors 
 in colleges and theological schools, two have been for- 
 eign missionaries, two governors of states, two members
 
 STUDENT AT YALE 13 
 
 of Congress, one of the House of Representatives, the 
 other of the Senate, three have been ministers from our 
 government to foreign countries, one a major-general in 
 the late Civil War; one a Secretary of State, sixteen 
 have been lawyers, eight physicians, two teachers of the 
 deaf and dumb, and others private teachers, editors, 
 bankers and merchants. 
 
 The moral and religious atmosphere of the college was 
 wholesome. The spirit of the instructors was reverent, 
 the old Christian faith was held with unshaken stead- 
 fastness, God was honored by daily morning and evening 
 prayers in the chapel and by two services for preaching 
 on Sundays ; and at these all the students were expected 
 to be present, liberty being given to" those whose parents 
 desired it, to attend the Episcopal church. No doubt, 
 many felt these never-ceasing services to be a burden, 
 especially the six o'clock service on cold wintry morn- 
 ings ; and the evening service at five often interrupted 
 their walks and games ; but there was in it all a devout 
 recognition of God and a subordination of ease and pleas- 
 ure to his worship, which could not fail of drawing 
 down his blessing on the college and of being a moral 
 and spiritual help to the students. I need not say that 
 Mr. Porter was one of the most punctual in his attend- 
 ance. 
 
 The pastoral oversight of the students was interfered 
 with by the peculiar temperament of the college pastor. 
 A man of great intellectual power and of deep spiritual 
 emotions. Professor Fitch was precluded from much per- 
 sonal intercourse even with the members of the college
 
 14 NOAH PORTER 
 
 church by his extreme diffidence. He could scarcely 
 speak at all extemporaneously, and it was almost painful 
 to hear him attempt to give an unwritten notice, which 
 he always did with stammering lips. The pulpit was 
 his throne, from which he wielded a sceptre of peculiar 
 and in some respects unrivaled power. The rule then 
 was for the college pastor (who was also professor of 
 didactic theology) to give on Sunday mornings a course 
 of lectures on systematic divinity occupying four years, 
 so that each class might have the benefit of the entire 
 course. Being a profound metaphysician, he often led 
 us into depths of abstract speculation which most of us 
 were unable to sound, especially in the early years of 
 our college life. But this was often atoned for by his 
 afternoon services, which were generally on more prac- 
 tical subjects, and sometimes full of heart-breaking ten- 
 derness. I remember one in our Sophomore year on 
 " College Dissipation," which moved many to tears and 
 made our wildest and boldest to quail. 
 
 The lack of pastoral care through this mental infirmity 
 of Professor Fitch, was in part supplied, especially in the 
 great revival of 1831, by the loving labors of Professor 
 Goodrich. The years 1830 and 1831 were remarkable 
 in many countries for religious and sj)iritual as well as 
 political movements. It was in the beginning of our 
 Senior year that the college felt the power of the new 
 life which was then stirring England and Scotland as 
 well as our own land. Our class was greatly moved. 
 The Christian men belonging to it were stirred to most 
 earnest labors and prayers in behalf of their classmates,
 
 STUDENT AT YALE 15 
 
 and the preaching of Professor Fitch became more 
 powerful and practical. He was aided in the pulpit by 
 Rev. Nathaniel W. Taylor, and occasionally by President 
 Day, one of whose counsels to young believers made a 
 strong impression at the time. "Make your religion 
 the foundation of your hope, and not your hope the 
 foundation of your religion " — most true, as he meant 
 it, though it is also true that our religion begins by 
 hoping in the mercy of God. During this season of 
 great religious activity and emotion, Professor Goodrich 
 labored with fervent zeal and spiritual enthusiasm, gath- 
 ering the students to his room for personal conversation, 
 and holding familiar meetings for the guidance of the 
 inquiring. 
 
 As a fruit of this mighty religious movement, a large 
 number of the class were brought to make a public pro- 
 fession of the Christian faith, and to become communi- 
 cants at the Table of the Lord. Many of these had 
 been received into the Christian fold in infancy and 
 childhood, and had been under religious training and 
 influences ; and the effect of this outpouring of the 
 Spirit upon them was to quicken and fructify the seed 
 sown long before, and watered with prayers and tears. 
 As a member of one of the best of the Christian families 
 of New England, Mr. Porter had had such a training, 
 and his blossoming and fruit-bearing in his college life 
 were the proper results of all the influences by which 
 his childhood and early youth had been encompassed. 
 
 Amongst the intellectual helps which we found, apart 
 from the regular course of instruction, were the literary
 
 16 NOAH PORTER 
 
 societies, of -wliicli there were three, — the Linonian (of 
 which Mr. Porter was a member) , the Brothers in Unity, 
 and the Calliopean ; the last (which has long been ex- 
 tinct) consisting chiefly of students from the South and 
 from the great cities of the Middle States. At this time 
 all these were in the height of their prosperity, and all 
 the students without exception, I believe, were gathered 
 into one or other of them. It was just before the forma- 
 tion of the secret societies which have since played so 
 important a part in college life, and ultimately weakened 
 the influence of the older brotherhoods, by forming nar- 
 rower circles into which the most vigorous intellectual 
 life of the college is drawn off. However useful these 
 smaller fraternities may be in cultivating more intimate 
 friendships, and furnishing intellectual luxuries of eso- 
 teric discussion, they cannot supply the place of the larger 
 societies, which were arenas of earnest debate and schools 
 of eloquence where we were trained to grapple with 
 the great questions of the day, and were kept in touch 
 with the movements of the political and intellectual 
 worlds. The audiences were larger, and made up of 
 greater diversities of character and differences of age, 
 and so more like the popular assemblies of real life. A 
 living interest was given to abstract principles, and we 
 seemed to pass from the groves of the Academy to the 
 stirring discussions of the Forum. 
 
 It was in the later years of our college career that Mr. 
 Porter began to take an active part in our society debates, 
 from which his boyish diffidence kept him back for a time, 
 but for which his quick perception and ready utterance
 
 STUDENT AT YALE 17 
 
 eminently qualified him. With increase of confidence 
 in himself and growing ripeness of intellect, he became 
 an excellent delaater; and had his theater been the bar 
 or the Senate-chamber, he would have stood in the front 
 rank for logical acumen and power of clear presentation. 
 
 Another potent source of influence upon his intellect- 
 ual and spiritual development was the literature of the 
 time, and especially the writings of Coleridge, whose 
 Aids to Reflection was republished during our college 
 course, through the influence of President Marsh of Bur- 
 lington University. It was, I think, towards the close 
 of our Junior year, that I bought the first copy of this 
 book which was sold in New Haven. I had read several 
 years before his Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and think- 
 ing that anything written by the author of such a 
 poem must be worthy of attention, I hastened to get it, 
 and it soon became the text book of a little circle in 
 which Porter and Atwater (afterward professor of logic 
 and moral philosophy at Nassau Hall) were conspicuous 
 for their enthusiasm. 
 
 It was a book for thoughtful study, not for hasty 
 and superficial reading, and we soon came to value and 
 admire it for the insight it gave us into the deep, under- 
 lying principles on which Christian philosophy must 
 rest, and which furnish the key to the structure and 
 history of humanity. It is scarcely too much to say 
 that it wrought in us a great intellectual and spiritual 
 revolution. It taught iis the art of thinking, or of re- 
 ferring facts to principles, and of looking below the 
 phenomena of the moment or the age to the imperish-
 
 18 NOAH PORTER 
 
 able truths which give them their meaning and value. 
 We learned from Coleridge what it is which distinguishes 
 man, made in God's image, from the inferior animals, 
 viz., the Reason by which we are capable of knowing 
 Him and having communion with Him, in distinction 
 from the Understanding, the faculty of adapting means 
 to ends for the uses of this present life. He taught us 
 the nature and place of ideas, or central and formative 
 principles, in contrast with fleeting opinions without 
 depth or life ; the one " the master light of all our see- 
 ing " ; the other the insubstantial shadows which chase 
 each other over the plain and leave no trace behind them. 
 Corresponding to this fundamental distinction, essential 
 to the right apprehension of humanity, we learned from 
 him also the distinction between the Imagination, the 
 creative power which organizes into unity the materials 
 furnished by the soul within and the outer world of the 
 senses, and gives to them new forms and breathes into 
 them a new life ; and the Fancy, which creates nothing, 
 but illustrates by combinations, beautiful or grotesque, 
 which have in them no root of truth. 
 
 We found in his writings, also, a sure antidote to 
 pantheism and materialism, in their teachings about God, 
 living, personal and triune, in his relations to the crea- 
 tion brought forth by Him and filled with symbols of 
 spiritual truth, but never to be identified with Him. 
 Nor did he find in nature or in man any substitute for 
 Divine Eevelation by his Word and Spirit, but held up 
 the Bible as the inexhaustible storehouse of truth con- 
 cerning God, and the inspired record of the work of
 
 STUDENT AT YALE 19 
 
 redemption through the incarnation, death and resur- 
 rection of his only-begotten Son. While affirming the 
 moral freedom of man as the ground of his responsibility, 
 he refused to make him the self-sufficient worker-out of 
 his own salvation, but insisted on the helps and succors 
 of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 He was, in short, a Christian philosopher, who used 
 his marvelous power of philosophic insight as the ally 
 of the Christian faith, by showing its harmony with 
 those facts and principles which Revelation presupposes. 
 And although often in error in the interpretation of 
 Scripture (to which he seemed sometimes to bring a 
 mind too full of his own thoughts to be a docile learner 
 or passive recipient), he taught us, more than any other 
 man, the laios by which it is to be interpreted, and gave 
 us a key to the opening of its mysteries. We saw under 
 his guidance that the Bible was an organic whole, which 
 had had a living growth from the seed planted in the 
 Garden in the first promise, to the glorious fruitage in 
 the new heavens and the new earth ; and that the whole 
 sacred history was prophetic, events and persons being 
 at once fulfillments and prophecies. It became to us a 
 living Book, every part of which had relations to the 
 whole, and could never lose its use and power till the 
 complete accomplishment of the Divine purpose center- 
 ing in the Incarnate Son. 
 
 The same truths of the organic and the symbolic, 
 Coleridge applied to the ordinances of God appointed 
 for man, — the family, the state and the church. He 
 taught us to see in these a divine authority and symbols
 
 20 NO All PORTER 
 
 of heavenly truths ; representations on the earth of 
 super-sensible mysteries, by which our life is linked 
 with the unseen. This gave to them a sacredness and 
 stability which effectually guarded us against the radi- 
 calism which was then beginning to dash itself against 
 the old foundations of Christian society. 
 
 I have dwelt longer on the character of Coleridge's 
 writings than might seem suitable to this brief sketch, 
 because of the strong influence exerted by them on Mr. 
 Porter during the later years of his college life. As I 
 have already said, the time was one of transition. We 
 were entering on a new era. New moral and spiritual 
 forces were coming into play ; the old principles on 
 which society had rested were beginning to be assailed ; 
 and a humanitarian movement was being inaugurated, in 
 which man, not God, was to have the foremost place. 
 Coleridge had seen the temporary triumph of such prin- 
 ciples in the French Revolution, and in early youth had 
 sympathized with them, as did many other noble spirits, 
 hoping for a brighter day for the oppressed nations. He 
 was eminently fitted, thereiv;re, when recovered from 
 this youthful glamour by the frightful excesses of that 
 national uprising, to point out its fundamental errors, 
 and to guard young men against all like evil fascinations. 
 This he did by vindicating the essential dignity of man 
 as growing out of his relations to God — a dignity low- 
 ered but not destroyed by his fall ; and the divine char- 
 acter and permanence of the institutions which are for 
 the moulding and defense of humanity. And Mr. Porter 
 and his fellow students in this inner school ever ac-
 
 STUDENT AT YALE 21 
 
 knowledged their obligations to their great teacher in 
 thus early implanting in them the imperishable principle 
 of a sound conservatism. 
 
 But Coleridge was a poet as well as a philosopher. 
 He was the noblest example in our time of the union of 
 deepest insight into spiritual philosophy with the imag- 
 inative power of clothing his intuitions in forms of sur- 
 passing beauty. His marvelous felicities of language, 
 fit vehicle both for the weird splendor and the touching 
 tenderness of his creations, had a great influence upon 
 us all, especially Mr. Porter, and here was thus supplied 
 to him what had been lacking — the awakening of the 
 imaginative faculty. Intellectual clearness, precision of 
 statement, accuracy of reasoning — all these he had had 
 in large degree, but they began now to be quickened and 
 elevated by the buddings of another power. The skele- 
 ton began to clothe itself with flesh, and dry metaphysics 
 to put on the bloom of life. 
 
 In respect both to thought and expression, Mr. 
 Porter was greatly profited by the study of Coleridge. 
 In facility and felicity of utterance he grew rapidly in 
 our Junior and Senior years. I do not remember a more 
 striking growth and transformation, intellectual and 
 spiritual, than took place in him from the beginning of 
 our Sophomore year, when I first knew him, to the time 
 of our graduation. The sprightly boy had developed 
 into the strength of manhood. The features of his sub- 
 sequent character began to be clearly seen. Intellectu- 
 ally, he was of great accuracy and quickness in his 
 mental movements, able to grapple with any problems,
 
 22 NOAH PORTER 
 
 metaphysical or philosophical; a most acute reasoner, 
 and a master of an exact and perspicuous and ofttimes 
 glowing style. Morally, he was of great simplicity of 
 character, of a most genial disposition, broad in his 
 sympathies, steadfast in his friendships, and of spotless 
 purity of life. Spiritually, he was reverent, believing, of 
 a catholic spirit which could see and appreciate goodness 
 and truth beyond the limits of sect or party, while hold- 
 ing steadfastly the great realities of the Christian faith. 
 Such was Noah Porter at the close of our college 
 course. 
 
 I have said little, for there was not much to say, 
 about our physical training. College athletics were 
 then in feeblest embryo. We had a poorly furnished 
 gymnasium, not much resorted to, if I remember 
 rightly ; a little base-ball, without the modern refine- 
 ments and complications ; an occasional game of foot- 
 ball, but no rowing as an art for intercollegiate competi- 
 tion. Our exercise was chiefly walking. East Rock and 
 West Rock, West Haven and Hampden, Saltonstall Lake 
 and Oyster Point, and in the summer East Haven with 
 its delightful Morris Cove, were our chief objective 
 points, and as we generally went by twos and threes, we 
 added to the physical exercise the refreshment of in- 
 tellectual converse. 
 
 After we left college, we were both engaged in teach- 
 ing for the next two years, after which he became tutor, 
 and I entered on the Congregational ministry. In 1834 
 I was ordained pastor of the church in Kent, Litchfield 
 County, Connecticut, and in 1836 he was ordained to the
 
 STUDENT AT TALE 23 
 
 same office in New Milf ord, a large and wealthy township 
 in the same county. Our parishes bordered on each other, 
 and for seven years our intercourse was frequent and 
 most affectionate. For a part of the time, we preached 
 for each other the lecture preparatory to the Communion, 
 he coming upon the Thursday before and I returning 
 with him the next day. We exchanged pulpits at other 
 times also, and assisted each other in week-day services 
 in seasons of religious awakening. 
 
 His preaching was marked by clearness of thought 
 and accuracy of language, and often by great directness 
 and force as addressed to the conscience. I have heard 
 him at evening meetings, when unhampered by manu- 
 script, and in touch with the strong religious feeling of 
 the hour, speak with very great power and effect. But, 
 as a rule, it was addressed to the understanding, rather 
 than to the emotions, and was didactic rather than 
 rhetorical. His pastoral ministry was a helpful stage 
 in his spiritual history, for it took him out of the region 
 of abstract philosophical speculations and brought him 
 into contact with spiritual realities. This secured for 
 him an interpenetration of life and thought. He was 
 saved from being a mere speculative theologian on the 
 one hand, and a mere religious exhorter on the other. 
 
 He had large sympathies and unusual power of adapt- 
 ing himself to all conditions of human life and of enter- 
 ing into its trials and joys and sorrows. His simplicity 
 was perfect, showing itself in the utter absence of osten- 
 tation, arrogance, and self-conceit, and in a most attrac- 
 tive childlikeness of spirit. He thus won the love of
 
 24 NOAH PORTER 
 
 men in a remarkable degree, while he commanded their 
 respect by his talents and his faithfulness. 
 
 Of his history after leaving New Milford, others will 
 more fitly speak. Our intercourse was, of course, less 
 frequent, but it was never interrupted, save as distance 
 separated us. We met almost year by year, as long as 
 we lived; and no differences in our spiritual judgments 
 ever weakened the strength and warmth of our friend- 
 ship. The void in my heart which his death has made 
 will never be filled in this life, and I look forward with 
 joyful hope to the renewing of these ties, when all shall 
 be made new at the coming and in the Kingdom of our 
 common Lord and Saviour. 
 
 Eeverting to our college days, I may mention some 
 members of our class who were then and afterward his 
 friends. Among these was Rev. Lyman H. Atwater, 
 professor of logic and political science in Nassau Hall, 
 New Jersey (and also of moral philosophy before the 
 accession of Dr. McCosh to the i)residency), a man of 
 great intellectual vigor, who discussed, as editor of the 
 Princeton Review, the religious and moral questions of 
 the day with signal ability, a stanch defender of the old 
 Calvinistic faith, who, although wholly of New England 
 training, threw himself heart and soul into the cause of 
 the Presbyterian Church. He was one of the most inti- 
 mate and valued friends of Mr. Porter, who was called on 
 to pronounce his funeral address. 
 
 If less distinguished in scholastic studies, yet with 
 larger elements of popularity, was Thomas M. Clark, 
 now Bishop of the diocese of Rhode Island, who as a
 
 STUDENT AT YALE 25 
 
 preacher is master of a winning and persuasive elo- 
 quence, as a churchman is broad in his sympathies, and 
 as a man overflows with genial pleasantry and humor. 
 
 Next to him, the name of William Ingraham Kip 
 comes into mind, who died recently. Bishop of the dio- 
 cese of California, eminent in college for his elegant 
 manners and as a belles-lettres scholar, who afterwards 
 had the advantage of foreign travel, the fruits of which 
 are seen in his writings on Rome and the catacombs. 
 
 In another field of labor. Dr. Peter Parker has 
 achieved an almost world-wide reputation. He joined 
 the class in the very last year of its course, and was, I 
 believe, its oldest member. He was too late to be dis- 
 tinguished as a scholar, but he was greatly honored and 
 beloved for his wise and faithful labors in the great re- 
 vival of 1831. To qualify himself for greater usefulness 
 as a missionary, he attended the anatomical lectures of 
 Dr. Knight, while pursuing his theological studies. He 
 chose China for his field, and there his great steadiness 
 of hand and firmness of nerve under (as he firmly 
 believed and devoutly acknowledged) the special bene- 
 diction of God, gave him remarkable success in the 
 most difficult operations upon the eye and in removing 
 cancers, so that he was called upon to practice in the 
 highest circles of the empire, and in the families of dis- 
 tinguished foreigners. He rendered valuable assistance 
 to our government as an interpreter, and for a short time 
 was our minister plenipotentiary to the Celestial king- 
 dom. The last years of his life were spent in honorable 
 retirement from public duties in the city of Washington,
 
 26 NOAH PORTER 
 
 where, possessed of an ample fortune and surrounded by 
 a large circle of friends, lie took an active part in the 
 benevolent enterprises of the day. 
 
 Another missionary was George Champion, a man of 
 burning zeal and self-sacrificing spirit, who, born to the 
 inheritance of wealth, relinquished his worldly prospects 
 to carry the gospel to Africa. He met with an early 
 death. 
 
 Foremost as a scholar was EdAvard Winthrop, the vale- 
 dictorian of his class, an indefatigable student and accu- 
 rate scholar, a man of guileless simplicity, and a most 
 earnest and zealous preacher in the Episcopal Church. 
 He was at one time professor of sacred literature in the 
 Episcopal seminary at Louisville, Kentucky. The fail- 
 ure of his voice interrupted his pulpit labors for a time, 
 and so impaired their efficiency as to withhold him from 
 the more prominent and laborious posts in the later 
 years of his life. 
 
 With him I may name as co-presbyters, James H. 
 Fowler, the faithful and beloved rector of the Church of 
 the Epiphany in Philadelphia till his death ; Dr. Edward 
 Ingersoll, an intimate associate of Mr. Porter's in their 
 college days, whose pastoral work during his long life 
 Avas chiefly in Buffalo, iSTew York ; Hugh T. Harrison of 
 Ellicott Mills, Maryland ; and P. I. Babbitt, whose later 
 years were spent in Georgia. 
 
 Amongst those who have fulfilled ministries in the 
 Presbyterian and Congregational churches, and many of 
 whom were very dear friends of Mr. Porter, I may name 
 Dr. John G. Atterbury, long of New Albany, Indiana, a
 
 STUDENT AT YALE 27 
 
 brother beloved, of excellent gifts and admirable spirit; 
 Elisha C. Jones, for thirty-five years pastor in Southing- 
 ton, Connecticut, of highest esteem throughout all the 
 state for his wisdom and sound-mindedness ; Dr. Beach 
 Jones, a native of South Carolina, who fulfilled a long 
 pastorate in Bridgton, JSTew Jersey, with ever-growing 
 influence till its interruption by the war; Keith Legare, 
 also of South Carolina, whose flourishing seminary at 
 Orangeburg was destroyed, and his property swept away, 
 in Sherman's march, but who bore the loss with great 
 sweetness of spirit, and gave himself afterwards to the 
 most self-sacrificing labors for the poor and ignorant 
 classes of the South; John C. Hart, an unassuming, 
 genuine man, whose labors in northern Ohio have called 
 forth much commendation for sound instruction and pas- 
 toral fidelity ; Seagrove W. Magill, a native of Georgia, 
 but for many years a pastor in Waterbury, Connecticut 
 (as also at two different periods in Cornwall, Vermont), 
 a man of noble presence and great warmth and largeness 
 of heart ; Dr. Dwight M. Seward, who still survives with 
 almost undiminished strength, after a laborious life as a 
 pastor; Alexander J. Sessions (recently called to his 
 rest), a man with a high ideal and great tenderness of 
 affection, who bore the disappointments and sorrows of 
 his later years with true Christian resignation ; Milo N. 
 Miles, a missionary and pastor at the West ; William B. 
 Lewis, and many others, whom I have no room to speak 
 of, who have been faithful ministers of Christ. Of the 
 more than thirty who have been ordained in his service, 
 I have not heard of one who has dishonored it.
 
 28 NOAH PORTER 
 
 In other professions and callings there have been not 
 a few of the class who have risen to distinction, or who 
 gave early promise of eminence ; as Trusten Polk, Gov- 
 ernor of Missouri, and United States Senator, a truly 
 religious man and zealous member of the Methodist 
 church ; John Milton Clapp, a native of Ohio, but for 
 many years editor of the Charleston Mercury, the great 
 organ of the States-Rights party of the South, an accom- 
 plished scholar, a great wit, and a most brilliant writer 
 (one of Mr. Porter's most intimate friends); David 
 Francis Bacon, brother of Dr. Leonard Bacon, one of 
 the free lances in literature, who established and carried 
 on pro Marte a monthly called The Knights of the Round 
 Table in our Senior year, and who was the first to intro- 
 duce, so far as I know, or at least to make prominent 
 the form of newspaper correspondence now so popular, 
 in a series of powerful letters from Washington to 
 the Neio York American, then edited by Charles King, 
 afterwards president of Columbia College ; James H. 
 Adams of South Carolina, prominent in the politics of 
 his native state, of which he was at one time governor, 
 and which he represented as commissioner at Washing- 
 ton just before the outbreak of the Civil War ; Albert 
 Khett (Smith) of the same state, Avho, though he did 
 not graduate with us because of a quarrel with a fellow 
 student just at the end of his collegiate course, was in 
 some respects the foremost man of the class, an excellent 
 classical scholar, and a brilliant debater, who entered 
 with all the Southern impetuosity and fire into the excit- 
 ing discussions of the day, and but for his premature
 
 STUDENT AT TALE 29 
 
 death, would have stood easily in the front rank of the 
 statesmen of the South ; Newton D. Strong, brother of 
 Judge William Strong of the United States Supreme 
 Court, whose brilliant career as a lawyer was sadly inter- 
 rupted ; General Alpheus S. Williams, the one military 
 hero of the class, having fought in two wars, our minis- 
 ter to San Salvador and a representative of his adopted 
 state, Michigan, in our national Congress ; Luzerne Ray, 
 for many years one of the teachers in the Deaf and 
 Dumb Asylum at Hartford, Connecticut, and the only 
 man amongst us who was poetically gifted; Ninian E. 
 Gray of Kentucky, of high reputation in his own state 
 for his sound judgment and spotless integrity as a 
 lawyer; William Hemphill Jones, Secretary of State 
 for Delaware, and for many years holding a respon- 
 sible post in the Controller's office at Washington ; Dr. 
 William H. Stokes, an eminent physician in Baltimore, 
 where he had charge of a hospital for the insane ; and 
 others equally worthy of mention, but over whose names 
 I must not linger. 
 
 But there is one whom I must not pass by, for he is 
 an exception to the general fact that natural science has 
 not been popular with the class ; the Eev. L. L. Lang- 
 stroth, one of the most keen and successful observers of 
 the habits of bees, about which he has written a work 
 of standard authority, as he has also constructed a hive 
 with an admirable shell. A man of true genius, but 
 hindered in his career as a pastor and preacher by ill 
 health, he has found a solace in these pursuits by which 
 he has also rendered a great service to the world. I
 
 30 NOAH POUTER 
 
 would also speak of Dr. Ephraim Saunders, a Presbyte- 
 rian minister, who gave himself with great — I may say 
 enormous — enthusiasm to the work of education in 
 West Philadelphia ; and of RoUin Sanford, a very dear 
 friend of Mr. Porter's, at first a lawyer, and afterwards 
 a merchant in New York, a man of great nobility of 
 character, who in spite of the cares of business kept up 
 his college attachments to the end; and of James H. 
 Sanford, long on the editorial staff of the Journal of 
 Commerce, one of the few survivors of the class, and now 
 enjoying a vigorous old age in intellectual diversions in 
 the bosom of his family. 
 
 Following Mr. Porter's collegiate course came two 
 
 years of teaching in the New Haven Grammar School, 
 
 and then for two years a tutorship in the 
 
 and^Dilinity collegc Combined with study in the Divinity 
 
 School. By School. Of this early teaching we have no 
 
 the Editor. 
 
 special records, but we know that then, as 
 always afterward, he made life-long friends of some 
 of his pupils. He writes to his brother soon after 
 the beginning of his tutorship: "Three hours a day 
 in recitation, with all the incidentals, teaches one the 
 importance of saving and fixing his mind during the 
 merest fragments of time. This I have not learned to 
 do yet very perfectly, though with the necessity I make 
 my will and practice to fall in to some extent. The 
 situation thus far has proved a very pleasant and 
 profitable one to me, with fewer difficulties and embar-
 
 TUTORSHIP AND DIVINITY SCHOOL 31 
 
 rassments than I had anticipated. Tlie only way to 
 succeed seems to be to keep right on without asking 
 yourself or others as to the results. This is a kind of 
 action which you know is not altogether natural to me, 
 so that a little practice will be an advantage." 
 
 In the Divinity School, the conspicuous feature was 
 the teaching of Dr. IST. W. Taylor, who a few years 
 before had exchanged the pastorate of the Center Church 
 for the chair of Systematic Theology. He was an 
 impressive and inspiring teacher, and a leader in the 
 theological controversies of his day. "A magnificent 
 man, every inch of him ! " — so one of his early pupils 
 describes him now, — " a man of noble presence, with the 
 keenest and tenderest eye I ever saw. He was not exact 
 in his history, but in logic he was great. When his 
 lecture was over, he would draw out his tobacco-box, 
 refresh himself from the contents, and say, 'Now, young 
 gentlemen, I'll h.ea,r you,' — and the give-and-take which 
 followed, between him and his students, was the best 
 hour of the day." 
 
 The Unitarian controversy, which was then at its 
 height in Massachusetts, hardly extended to Connecti- 
 cut. Lyman Beecher had been called from his Litchfield 
 pulpit to Boston, to withstand the assault against the 
 central position of Orthodoxy, and turn the defense into 
 a valiant counter-attack. New Haven was the center of 
 a different contest, in which an essential modification of 
 the traditional creed was debated. The question con- 
 cerned the relations of the human race to their progeni- 
 tor, Adam, and the main position to which Dr. Taylor,
 
 32 NOAH PORTER 
 
 Dr. Fitch, and their allies advanced was that while man 
 is a sufferer in consequence of Adam's sin, he does not 
 share the guilt of it. This was an important change of 
 conception, and was stoutly opposed by theological con- 
 servatives, headed by Dr. Tyler. The battle between 
 " Taylorites " and " Tylerites " extended to the Presby- 
 terian Church under the names of " New School " and 
 "Old School," until, in complication with the slavery 
 issue, it split that church in twain. In the more elastic 
 fabric of Congregationalism, the new views soon passed 
 from toleration to ascendancy. 
 
 The substantial element in the controversy was as 
 stated above. Every human being was still sure to sin, 
 and to incur a just penalty of eternal damnation, unless 
 God should, in gratuitous mercy, deliver him — but he 
 was no longer liable for a sin committed ages before his 
 birth. But the discussion valiantly attacked the old 
 problem of the reconciliation of divine sovereignty and 
 human responsibility — and ran into subtleties, distinc- 
 tions, definitions, which to-day are as antiquated as the 
 logic-chopping of the Greek sophists. It was almost 
 the last effort of the scholastic theology of New England, 
 and the popular interest ebbed utterly and finally while 
 the disputants were still talking. Outside of certain 
 ecclesiastical coteries, human wit can no longer fathom 
 those discussions, nor human patience follow them. 
 
 In the seminary young Porter showed himself a solid 
 and excellent student. Among his earliest published 
 writings, it is said, were some articles in defense of Dr. 
 Taylor's views. But he sometimes questioned or di-
 
 TUTORSHIP AND DIVINITY SCHOOL 33 
 
 verged from them, as is shown by a letter from his 
 father, in which Dr. Taylor is defended against some 
 criticisms of the yonng man. Evidently, too, the son 
 had felt one of the moods which come perhaps to all 
 earnest young students for the ministry — a dissatisfac- 
 tion with the scholastic methods so remote from the 
 spirit and ways of the actual pastorate, — for the father 
 warmly vindicates the seminary plan of instruction 
 against that which had until recently prevailed in New 
 England, in which the student entered the family of a 
 working minister and learned the practice together with 
 the theory. The new method, so the father tells the 
 son, opens far wider ranges of knowledge and more scien- 
 tific approach to truth. 
 
 A letter at this time to his brother Samuel (December 
 2, 1833) shows Noah already deeply engaged in the 
 studies which were to be the ground of his ultimate life- 
 work. Theology, even in its ardent and polemical forms, 
 could not detain his mind from quests into the more 
 fundamental problems — the nature of the mind and 
 especially of its moral laws. " I have just finished Dr. 
 A. Smith in my progress in Morals, having taken all in 
 my way whom Mackintosh enumerates except Cudworth. 
 I have been a good deal disappointed, I must own, to 
 find so little accuracy and definite and distinct statement, 
 and yet there are many advantages in following through 
 the first springing of a science to its present advance- 
 ment. For you have, as it were, to some extent in the 
 different authors, beginning at the lowest, the various 
 forms and degrees of indistinctness with which any idea
 
 34 NOAH PORTER 
 
 presents itself to your own mind. I am hardly a whit 
 nearer an opinion myself with all the materials before 
 me, but still I have the satisfaction to know that all 
 these are in a more available form, and much future in- 
 quiry and reference will be rendered needless." He has 
 just got hold of an English book on the Principles of the 
 Kantian Philosophy, which he sends to his brother to 
 read and then pass on to Horace Bushnell. (" Mr. Bush- 
 nell did nobly when he was here a Sabbath or two since. 
 He bids fair, as it seems to me, to be one of the first 
 preachers in the state, though he probably might be 
 more intelligible with advantage to himself and his 
 hearers.") As to Kant's ideas : " If the Practical Rea- 
 son is a true account of moral distinctions, it is a great 
 and wonderful discovery. I have given up all idea of 
 finding anything drawn out in an accurate form in Plato, 
 though I am richly rewarded for what little I read. This 
 age appears to be of all others that of method and 
 analysis, — I must give it that credit, — and unless the 
 Platonisers etc. can make out their case on that ground 
 they must give it up — which I am far from thinking 
 they cannot do." This passage gives the key-note of his 
 intellectual life-work, — the pursuit of philosophic truth 
 in the scientific spirit; patient, studious, open-minded, 
 and accepting no theory however brilliant except on 
 clear and definite evidence. 
 
 Meantime he was often a visitor in the family of Dr. 
 Taylor. The house on the southwest corner of Temple 
 and Wall streets was the scene of a very bright intel- 
 lectual and social life. Thither used to come Dr. Tay-
 
 MARRIAGE 35 
 
 lor's ministerial brethren-iu-arms, and hold high counsel 
 and debate. Foremost among them and his chief ally 
 was Lyman Beecher, rough, genial, full of power. Arm- 
 in-arm they would walk the rooms for hours, often deep 
 into the night, in the glow of discussions which were to 
 work out deeper interpretations of the divine mysteries, 
 and fashion more effective weapons for the salvation of 
 the world. Another guest was Albert Barnes, leader of 
 the Presbyterian liberals. Another was Dr. Samuel H. 
 Cox, who to his distinction in the pulpit added elegance 
 of manners, fertility and aptness in quotation, especially 
 of poetry, and social powers that made him a favorite of 
 the ladies. 
 
 The children of the house were a son and four 
 daughters, of whom three became Mrs. Buckingham, 
 Mrs. Eobeson, and Mrs. Hatch. The oldest daughter, 
 Mary, inherited something of her father's mental power, 
 together with energy of character and a vivacious, buoy- 
 ant spirit. She threw herself eagerly into study, learned 
 Greek, and with her friend Martha Day, — the daughter 
 of President Day, and the most intellectual woman of 
 the circle — explored Hebrew under the guidance of Pro- 
 fessor Gibbs. At the age of twelve, when her father in 
 taking his professorship joined the College Church, she 
 chose to stay in the Center Church as her old home. Her 
 fine voice was always heard in its choir, and she took 
 active part in its various good works. She was full of 
 "antic spirits" and youthful pranks, while grave men 
 found their minds quickened by ''the fresh bubbling 
 spring of her thoughts." In the fine old university
 
 36 NOAH PORTER 
 
 town there was always society of the best, and the house 
 where " the Taylor girls " were as great an attraction as 
 their brilliant father, was visited by a host of guests, 
 many of them marked by social elegance as well as intel- 
 lectual culture. To the sisters came suitors in plenty, 
 and Mary had her full share. Her preference was some- 
 how won by a theological student, a young man of slight 
 figure and plain features, shy in his bearing and some- 
 what rustic in manners. But the woman's eye and ear 
 divined beneath this exterior the fine intelligence, the 
 large affection, the latent power and promise. The wise 
 friends of both saw that their natures were well mated. 
 His sister, Miss Sarah Porter, had been an intimate 
 friend of Mary Taylor, and gladly recognized that their 
 characters supplemented each other. She told her 
 brother, " You are habitually rather sad — she is cheer- 
 ful and light-hearted. You are perhaps too little in- 
 clined to be an active character — she will make you 
 one." 
 
 They were married on the 13th of April, 1836. He 
 was to go directly from the Seminary to the pastorate of 
 the church in New Milford, Connecticut. The wedding 
 was in the morning, and around the bride were groixped 
 her three sisters, each with her future husband. Then, 
 in the pleasant, simple fashion of the old days, the young 
 couple rode off together in a buggy, for a leisurely 
 journey to their new home. 
 
 A few words may here be given to that marriage rela- 
 tion which was so vital a part of the personal history of 
 half a century. The sister's prophecy was more than
 
 NEW MILFOBD PASTORATE 37 
 
 made good. The wife was the husband's constant com- 
 panion, support, and counsellor. Her buoyant spirit was 
 one of the influences — together with his own fidelity, 
 open-heartedness, and constant growth of heart and mind 
 — through which his early tendency to sadness (which 
 only the sister's keen eye seems to have noted) gradu- 
 ally gave place to a deep and diffusive good cheer. Her 
 courage fortified his. In literary work she was his help- 
 ful critic, and her more fastidious and exact taste helped 
 to counteract a certain carelessness of style. While she 
 heartily merged herself in his affairs, she did not fail 
 of pursuits and interests peculiar to herself, nor did he 
 fall into that unconscious selfish monopoly of her person- 
 ality to which husbands are prone. To his future story, 
 as it is here to be outlined, there should be supplied a 
 background of constant sympathy, support, and impulse, 
 from the partner of his life. 
 
 The pastorate of the New Milford church — from 
 April 27, 1836, to December 31, 1843,— is the only 
 period of Dr. Porter's life for which we can draw the his- 
 tory from his own pen. On the fiftieth anniversary of 
 his installation, in the last year of his college presidency, 
 he preached a commemorative sermon in his old church. 
 It is a graphic illustrative chapter of the religious his- 
 tory of New England, and largely discloses the speaker's 
 own traits in the formative period of his early manhood. 
 
 "Fifty years ago the town of New Milford was almost 
 wholly devoted to agriculture. A few inconsiderable 
 mills and small manufactories were scattered here and 
 there along its streams, but scarcely any of them had
 
 38 NOAH PORTEB 
 
 any permanent life. The village was an inland market 
 town, with considerable trade which was shared by five 
 or six parties, who furnished merchandise of every kind 
 largely in exchange for produce to the active and enter- 
 prising farmers who were scattered along these valleys 
 and spread over these hillsides. Grain and pork, dairy 
 products and beef, were the principal staples, which were 
 produced in large quantities. Tobacco as yet was 
 scarcely raised. The milk trade with New York was 
 impossible. Modern farm machinery was unknown. 
 The produce and supplies were transported in wagons, 
 regular lines of which went to and fro and rendered 
 many services to individuals and families through their 
 trusty drivers. The farmers were unusually enterpris- 
 ing and prosperous, as they easily might be, considering 
 the excellence of the soil, the energy of the community 
 and their active communication with distant markets. 
 The raising and selling of stock was no inconsiderable 
 element in their business, and this usually sharpens the 
 wits and breeds courage and self-reliance. 
 
 " The village itself was in some respects in a stagnant 
 and neglected condition. The principal street, which 
 was nearly all that it could show, was disfigured by an 
 irregular gully, which was at the mercy of every winter 
 torrent and summer shower. Along either side of it 
 there were many stately maples and here and there an 
 elm, but the broad open space between the two road- 
 ways was rough and treeless, and now and then a free 
 pasture for geese and swine. The old cemetery was 
 worse than a common field, for it was crowded with neg-
 
 NEW MILFORD PASTORATE 39 
 
 lected mounds, and overgrown with tangled briars, in 
 which there was nothing inviting except the hallowed 
 memories of the dead. At the head of the street stood 
 the old dilapidated Town House, unpainted of course, 
 the lower rooms of which were appropriated to the 
 village school, while the upper story gave free play to 
 the winds and scanty hospitality to such wandering 
 preachers and lecturers as the churches would not wel- 
 come. Notwithstanding the easy-going and indifferent 
 aspect of some of these externals, the village could show 
 some stately specimens of the best New England archi- 
 tecture, which were the abode of generous hospitality 
 and scenes of gay and friendly hilarity. The natural 
 surroundings of the village proclaimed their own beauty 
 and need no description or praise from me. The swell- 
 ing hills to the east to which you are lifted so suddenly 
 and from the summits of which you gain so splendid a 
 view to the west, with its dim outline of the distant 
 Catskills, the enchanting view from the Town Hill, so 
 varied and picturesque, the inviting drives along the 
 multitudinous valleys, spoke their own praises fifty 
 years ago as loudly as they do at present. 
 
 " As a field for ministerial labor the parish had cer- 
 tain peculiarities of its own. In territorial extent it 
 was the largest in the state. Not only was the territory 
 of the parish inconveniently large, but it was broken up 
 into separate neighborhoods, which were more or less 
 isolated from one another. The conformation of the 
 country made this necessary, broken up as it was by 
 high ridges, often rising into rough mountain-like ridges.
 
 40 NOAH PORTER 
 
 and indented by sharply cut valleys, steep and deep. 
 Hence a singular variety of fertile plains, protected 
 slopes, sheltered nooks, the chosen sites of inviting 
 neighborhoods, each in a sense shut up to itself and 
 building up its own separate social life, and more or less 
 loosely or closely connected with the larger community. 
 I was accustomed to compute that fully a hundred fami- 
 lies of the parish resided more than three miles from 
 the church, and as many must climb some three hundred 
 or four hundred feet to reach their homes. 
 
 "When this scattered condition of the parish came 
 home to me as an actual fact in my first rounds of 
 visitation, I was almost overwhelmed with dismay. It 
 would be impossible, as it seemed, for me even to gain 
 any personal knowledge of the people, and it would be 
 impossible for me to find or awaken any common church 
 life. Moreover, when I learned that the pastor might 
 be expected to spend a day or a night with a single 
 family in a distant neighborhood, it seemed that there 
 would not be days enough in the year for even a part of 
 his social duties. These anticipated difficulties were 
 never all overcome. It cost a great deal of time to 
 make the necessary rounds of pastoral duty. To visit 
 the whole people even briefly and infrequently, to attend 
 upon the sick, to comfort the afflicted, to officiate at 
 weddings, to lead the sad and slow procession of death 
 for miles and miles in driving wet and sultry heat and 
 pinching cold involved no little fatigue and some ex- 
 posure, and cost much time. But some of these expe- 
 riences brought ample oompeusations- Many of the
 
 NEW MILFOEB PASTORATE 41 
 
 drives along the valleys and over the hills found their 
 exciting reward. I remember more than one winter 
 night when coming over Second Hill I discerned by 
 moonlight the Catskills, or emerged into Maryland from 
 the long, dark, houseless valley, of nearly four miles to 
 the north, experiencing thrills of excitement which I 
 shall never forget. So too, when after many a late and 
 lonely drive, I arrived safely home with wife and dog to 
 welcome me, I have felt the force of the lines : — 
 
 " ' I'll go and come, nor fear to die, 
 Till from on high Thou call me home.' 
 
 "... I have spoken of the forebodings Avhich I felt 
 from the size of the parish and its broken surface and 
 its separate neighborhoods. Some of these disappeared 
 altogether before actual trial. I discovered that an in- 
 tense social and Christian life and a vigorous church 
 feeling were altogether consistent with these apparent 
 disadvantages, nay, might even be furthered by some of 
 them. I learned to understand and believe in the saying 
 that is current in the Lake country of England, ' where 
 houses are far, neighbors are near ' ; that there may be 
 more Christian sympathy and kindness between house- 
 holds that dwell miles apart, and a closer and warmer 
 neighborly feeling, than between some whose very prox- 
 imity becomes the occasion of jealousy and strife. I 
 found that one of the most saintly of our members lived 
 on the top of Candlewood Mountain, helpless from paraly- 
 sis, and yet seeming to know more and care more than 
 any besides for the spiritual welfare of scores who were
 
 42 NOAH PORTER 
 
 scattered over the entire parish and lived miles and miles 
 away from her home over the hill. I found that in 
 seasons of religious interest, not a few of our chosen 
 brethren would of a cold winter night go and return from 
 Gaylord's Bridge to Second Hill. Above all, I found 
 that the Divine Spirit would at such a time seem to 
 brood over the entire country, and search out single souls 
 in the loneliest pastures or the most secluded valleys, and 
 bring them into the fellowship of the gospel by soften- 
 ing them to penitence and prayer. I found, moreover, 
 that the most of the members of the church who resided 
 at a distance relied on the season for social prayer dur- 
 ing the interval between the Sunday services as an im- 
 portant element in their common religious life. Sunday 
 was an especially important day to the entire community, 
 not merely because it brought together so many families 
 for common worship, but because it brought them from 
 points so distant to see each other's faces, to exchange 
 greetings as they gathered in knots or visited from pew to 
 pew during the short interval between the services. The 
 village itself, if the day was fine, was full of animation, 
 a gathering place of the clans, representing the strength 
 and hope of the town. Long lines of vehicles with 
 strong and impatient horses lined the street near each of 
 the two houses of worship. It was before the days of 
 horse-sheds, the erection of which was urged by the 
 youthful pastor as a prime necessity for the humane as 
 well as the religious observance of the Lord's day, but 
 which was not accomplished till the need of them be- 
 came imperative.
 
 NEW MILFORD PASTORATE 43 
 
 "Within this house, if the day was bright, was ex- 
 hibited a scene that could not be matched in many New 
 England country towns. The sittings were not bought 
 and sold as now, but assigned with the utmost circum- 
 spection and care, especially as the expenses of the 
 parish were defrayed after the old-fashioned way by a 
 tax upon the property as represented in the grand list. 
 Few congregations were more imposing and dignified 
 whether in city or country, made up as this was of not a 
 few dignified gentlemen and stately dames of the old 
 school. Strong men of the soil were here ; sinewy, horse- 
 taming young men and healthy matrons and blooming 
 maidens; and not a few well-dressed and decent repre- 
 sentatives of one race that had once been sole owners of 
 the soil and of another race that had been enslaved upon 
 it. I seem to see that grand congregation here as they 
 so often presented themselves to my eyes, and as they 
 always reappear when I enter this house. On my right 
 that foremost man of the town, singular for dignity, 
 knowledge and childlike sweetness, Hon. David S. 
 Boardman, and with him now and then, when his in- 
 firmities would allow, his brother Homer, of rare dignity 
 and loveliness combined ; and near them both Mr. Itha- 
 mar Canfield, the wealthy magnate of the village ; and 
 near him three sisters, faithful to the house of God and 
 benefactors of the poor, of whom one kept fresh the 
 heart of a girl for more than a century of years. From 
 these I readily pass in my thoughts to the Gaylords, all 
 self-reliant, courteous and strong, and from them to the 
 brothers Hine, abundant in enterprise and intelligence.
 
 44 NOAH PORTER 
 
 Near tliem sat Deacon Gerardus Eoberts, my noble 
 friend, eloquent in spirit, fervent in prayer, abundant in 
 good works, whose son I baptized with an honored name, 
 William Jay, given of chivalrous feeling by his father, 
 and which he honored by a scholar's life and a scholar's 
 self-sacrifice. Directly in front of me was Deacon Mer- 
 win, that sturdy, quiet gentleman, who never missed a 
 Sunday, from the top of Candlewood Mountain, and near 
 him his neighbor whom the spirit of God strangely 
 brought to our fellowship and to an office in the church. 
 I cannot omit Deacon Stillwell, who was a singular com- 
 pound of simplicity and shrewdness, whose pathetic end 
 brings tears to our eyes. He reminds us of our neighbor. 
 Deacon Green, whose sturdy faith and goodness we lost 
 too soon. Least of all should we forget Deacon Whittle- 
 sey, who bore this church ever upon his heart, nor Mr. 
 Eli Mygatt, nor Mr. Abel Hine, each a strong man in his 
 way, true and trustworthy pillars of the church. I can- 
 not forget my stanch and loving friend, Mr. Henry 
 Merwin, nor his neighbors in the beautiful valley in 
 which they lived. Many, very many more than these 
 whom I have named, seem now to fill their seats, as they 
 filled them in other times, during the nearly seven years 
 of my ministry in this house. The attendance at public 
 worship was as regular as could be expected, considering 
 the distances which many must travel and the situation 
 of many of the families. If the weather was even 
 moderately favorable, even in the height of summer or 
 winter, at the appointed hour you would see scores of 
 vehicles file slowly from all directions, their occupants
 
 NEW MILFOED PASTORATE 45 
 
 wearing grave yet cheerful looks and ready to exchange 
 their hearty greetings with their fellow worshipers and 
 briefly to whisper any exciting intelligence of friend or 
 family or neighborhood, near or very far away. Within 
 the house there was intelligent attention and courteous 
 discourse and Christian sympathy. If the coming to- 
 gether was somewhat constrained and formal, the part- 
 ing was more free and exciting. It was almost like the 
 movement of a regiment, with the excitement of the 
 horses that had been meditating on what their stables 
 had in store for them, and the freshened exhilaration 
 of the young men and maidens whom they carried home 
 to manifold domestic labors and cares. The vehicles 
 were quickly loaded, hearty good-byes were exchanged, 
 here and there an excited colt plunged and reared, and 
 sooner than one would think it possible the street was 
 left in its Sabbath stillness. 
 
 "The short interval between the services was given 
 to brief interchanges of social courtesy, to the Sunday- 
 school, which was well sustained, and to the meeting 
 of prayer, which brought scores of families together in 
 Christian sympathy and social worship. It was this 
 gathering, supplemented by that on the week-day, which 
 united the members of the church together in social 
 acquaintance and sympathy, furnishing quick indications 
 to the pastor and to the whole body of the tone of Chris- 
 tian feeling. Thus it became the medium through which 
 the Divine Spirit moved from heart to heart, even over 
 this widespread territory. 
 
 "These seasons of quickened religious feeling were
 
 46 NOAH PORTER 
 
 not infrequent. Very early in his ministry, the pastor 
 was gratified to learn that a company of young girls in 
 the village were specially thoughtful in respect to the 
 greatest of all interests, all of whom were subsequently 
 admitted to the fellowship of the church. One of these 
 died five or six years afterward in love and peace. Con- 
 spicuous among them was one who will long be remem- 
 bered as a spiritual leader and as a blessing and power 
 in this village and this church. The earnestness and 
 simplicity of the beginning of her religious life, the 
 growth and strength of her religious convictions, the 
 attraction of her wit and wisdom combined, the sweet- 
 ness and strength of her mature womanhood, the long 
 trial by which she was dismissed from her earthly life 
 and disciplined for another, all combine to hold her in 
 the memory of some who hear me. 
 
 " In the year 1838, the second year of my ministry, 
 a very general interest in religious things affected the 
 entire population of the town and the vicinity, and re- 
 sulted in large accessions to the membership of these 
 and the other churches. It began in the Methodist so- 
 ciety on the Plains, but rapidly extended through the 
 town and brought into our communion very many of the 
 young and the old, and very many from the village, 
 some of whom had for years been not far from the 
 Kingdom of God. It was in this movement that the 
 social capacities of the church were developed and 
 tested, and that the zeal and gifts of the more active 
 members were conspicuous. Meetings were held by the 
 pastor almost every day in some part of the parish, and
 
 NEW MILFOED PASTORATE 47 
 
 the account for one eight days, including two Sundays, 
 gave thirteen services and nearly one hundred miles 
 traveled in extreme cold. But it was an easy task to do 
 this when every one was eager to be present and ready 
 to listen. Subsequently there were other occasional spe- 
 cial awakenings, but none that would compare with this. 
 The intense interest that was felt by very many of the 
 members of the church, their readiness to labor and 
 speak, demonstrated and strengthened the vitality and 
 power of their religious convictions. It was a living 
 and wholesome example of the greatness of the responsi- 
 bilities which rest upon the lay members of every church, 
 a truth which is now generally recognized and enforced. 
 A large proportion of this strength and capacity was 
 found in a single neighborhood, at Gaylord's Bridge, and 
 partly for the reason that it was so far from the center 
 and in a measure cut off from a constant enjoyment of 
 the regular services of the church, and thereby its 
 people were thrown upon their own resources, being 
 compelled to rely upon themselves, they became a body 
 of earnest and active workers in the Kingdom of God. 
 What would seem to be a disaster and a disadvantage to 
 the neighborhood and to the church, became an eminent 
 blessing to both. 
 
 "This is a brief sketch of the outward spiritual mani- 
 festations of your servant's life during the six and one 
 half years in which he was your pastor. I would fain 
 hope that inwardly not a few who heard me became 
 stronger in their conceptions of Christian truth, the 
 Christian temper and the Christian life, that they be-
 
 48 NOAH PORTER 
 
 came better men and women in the true sense of these 
 terms, and consequently better in their families, their 
 neighborhoods, better in life and in death and in the 
 invisible kingdom of God. Whether I always judged 
 wisely or not, I am not prepared to say, but that I en- 
 deavored to adapt my instructions to your condition and 
 needs as I understood them, I can confidently affirm. I 
 did not preach elaborate sermons for my own intellec- 
 tual improvement or literary enjoyment, nor doctrinal 
 sermons for my philosophical discipline or speculative 
 ingenuity or controversial skill, but I sought to preach 
 practical sermons, that my hearers might more wisely 
 believe the facts and truths of the gospel, and practice 
 them more willingly and intelligently in their lives. In 
 these respects my hearers manifested their approval by 
 their friendly support and co-operation. Their contribu- 
 tions to every Christian enterprise at home and abroad 
 were increased from year to year and were more and 
 more willing and enlightened. Most of the movements 
 for moral reformation were cordially accepted and zeal- 
 ously furthered. The temperance cause in all its sepa- 
 rate phases was earnestly preached and with a good 
 degree of success. It was urged more or less distinctly 
 from the pulpit and recognized as germane altogether to 
 the minister's appropriate work. The anti-slavery move- 
 ment, in the technical doctrines by which it was first 
 distinguished, was met by a divided sentiment, but was 
 happily prevented from dividing the church, by being 
 recognized as one of the questions in respect to which 
 good men might hold opposite opinions, and yet not only
 
 NEW MILFOED PASTORATE 49 
 
 might but should tolerate one another. Whether this 
 position was correct or not, it certainly saved the com- 
 munity from useless strife and bitter agitation. When 
 the time came for united Christian action and heroic 
 self-sacrifice, the Christian community was emphatically 
 one. 
 
 "During the early years of my ministry and a few 
 years previous, the Congregational churches and minis- 
 ters of Connecticut were agitated and more or less 
 divided by an earnest if not bitter theological contro- 
 versy. In June, 1837, the year after I was installed, 
 the annual meeting of the General Association of Con- 
 necticut was held in this house. It brought, as it were, 
 upon the very altar of our worship, the glowing coals of 
 a not always hallowed strife. A few weeks before, the 
 Presbyterian Assembly of the United States had been 
 violently rent asunder by the secession of a very large 
 fragment, and the smouldering embers of excited sym- 
 pathizers with both sides among the clergy of Connecti- 
 cut were kindled into flame. To the most of my people 
 it was a revelation and a surprise. I very well remem- 
 ber how a considerable knot of my most substantial 
 church members gathered upon the steps of the church, 
 after listening to addresses which called in question the 
 orthodoxy of some whom they had reverenced as the 
 most devoted servants of Christ, to ask me for some 
 reasonable explanation of those divisions and heated 
 assaults. For several years this controversy continued, 
 till it was displaced by discussions of other topics and 
 gave way to a better understanding of the truth and
 
 60 NOAH PORTER 
 
 duties of tlie gospel. This controversy never entered 
 this church, or, so far as I am aware, was recognized in 
 my preaching. While I did not hesitate to bear my 
 part in it in theological papers and in public discussions, 
 I studiously kept it out of the pulpit, not from timidity, 
 but from principle ; not because I did not hold definite 
 theological opinions, but because I believed that tolera- 
 tion of theological differences was a supreme duty ; and 
 most of all because it seemed a sin against the gospel 
 itself, to occupy the thoughts and interest the feelings 
 of my hearers with questionings concerning the meta- 
 physics of theology, when the living truths in which 
 all Christians agree needed to be made more real and 
 the duties to which they are indifferent needed to be 
 enforced upon their lives. Hence, though I was emi- 
 nently philosophical and theological in my habits and 
 tastes, I carefully abstained from philosophy and theol- 
 ogy as such in my preaching. This was fortunate for 
 myself and perhaps for the people. For as I lived 
 among them, I was more and more convinced that while 
 they very distinctly held to the great truths of the 
 Christian faith, they were indisposed to theological dis- 
 cussion and controversy, either in respect to church 
 order, or church rites, or church creeds, it being assumed 
 these were Christian. I found that the great majority 
 of the church and congregation had long before my time 
 come to what I regarded as very practical and Christian 
 views in respect to Christian unity and Christian fellow- 
 ship. I found that these views were deeply inwrought 
 into their minds and were held with no little tenacity,
 
 NEW MILFOBB PASTORATE 51 
 
 that consequently their attitude towards other Christian 
 denominations was eminently kindly and charitable, — in 
 short, that they held what in these days would be called 
 very advanced ground in respect to the duty of Christian 
 toleration and the sin and waste of sectarian assumption 
 on the one hand, and sectarian antagonism on the other. 
 This church being the original or mother church of the 
 town, it was eminently fortunate and proper that it 
 should invite all to its fellowship in the most charitable 
 and tolerant spirit, and maintain the most generous atti- 
 tude towards other communities than its own, co-oper- 
 ating Avith their members and ministers in all Christian 
 works and forgetting for the time everything except 
 their common fellowship in the gospel. The things in 
 which they agreed being so much more numerous and 
 important than those in Avhich they differed, it was no 
 more -than Christian that the old First church, which 
 might with no assumption regard herself as the original 
 vine of which all others were the branches, should con- 
 tinue to extend to them sympathy and care after they 
 had assumed a separate life." 
 
 Then follows a sketch of the church's history, which 
 might almost serve for an epitome of the second century 
 of the New England churches. Established along with 
 the town in 1716, the church early found some of its 
 younger and more earnest members attracted to Quaker- 
 ism, and a Society of Friends was established. "At 
 times," says Dr. Porter, "this Society was flourishing 
 and proved a blessing to the Christian life of the town, 
 even to these days. Not a few of you will confess to
 
 62 NOAH POBTEB 
 
 have gained lessons of spirituality and peace from many 
 a meek and placid face which has crossed your path, 
 and which were learned in the little meeting-house on 
 the Plains. Now and then during my ministry two or 
 three elders would hold a meeting in the old Town 
 House of a Sunday afternoon, and I well recollect hear- 
 ing Deacon Roberts say, that he had rarely heard a more 
 moving and effective plea for the. inner Christian life 
 than he heard from a Friend at one of these meetings. 
 It happened during my ministry that the distinguished 
 English philanthropist, Joseph John Gurney, came this 
 way on a preaching and visiting tour among the scat- 
 tered Friends. An appointment had been made for him 
 at the Town House. So soon as I heard of it, I resolved 
 to invite him into this church. It was thought a little 
 strange by Deacon Whittlesey and other pillars of our 
 church, but no one objected. Our princely guest went 
 into the pulpit without hesitation, introduced and man- 
 aged the season for silent prayer with perfect grace, 
 gave to the crowded house a moving discourse, and left 
 his blessing with us, as of the spirit of the living God. 
 Doubtless in early years, in like fashion, the rise and 
 growth of that little body of seekers after God and 
 their constant presence has been always a blessing in 
 this prosperous and wealthy and worldly community, 
 silently testifying as it has done of the blessedness and 
 the peace of the Christian life. It certainly has enlarged 
 the charity of many narrow souls, and widened their con- 
 ception of the unity and the comprehensiveness of the 
 Kingdom of God."
 
 NEW MILFOED PASTORATE 53 
 
 Within a few years after the Quaker secession, con- 
 tinues Dr. Porter, came the establishment of an Episco- 
 pal Church, at first upon hostile terms with the earlier 
 organization, but gradually winning recognition and con- 
 tributing special elements to the religious life of the 
 community. A third separation soon followed, of those 
 whose zeal was kindled in the " Great Awakening " and 
 who were impatient of the moderate and conservative 
 ways of the mother church. These " Strict Congrega- 
 tionalists" developed a type of their own, marked by 
 special fervor of devotion, and after sixty years were 
 peaceably reabsorbed. A dark time came at the begin- 
 ning of this century, when the pastor of the old church, 
 — a brilliant and fascinating man — became a Jeffer- 
 sonian in politics, "when to be a Jeffersonian in Con- 
 necticut was esteemed almost equivalent to being a 
 blasphemer " ; led the young people by engaging paths 
 into social liberality and then into covert infidelity; 
 and finally went into politics and the West, leaving 
 the church almost devoid of spiritual life, and nearly 
 swept away by the general torrent of worldliness and 
 sin. Then, under the faithful yet gentle guidance of 
 another pastor, came twenty years of gradual recupera- 
 tion. "As a result of this somewhat peculiar history, 
 as I have already intimated, this church has been less 
 sectarian in spirit, less severe in its technical statements 
 a.nd conceptions of doctrine, than many churches which 
 have had a different history. Possibly, it may be said 
 that hitherto it had been less earnest in its religious life, 
 less spiritual, less abundant in Christian work. It would
 
 54 NOAH POBTEB 
 
 be difficult to convince me that this was true, as I re- 
 member it when I met scores and hundreds of praying 
 and active souls who seemed to seek first the kingdom 
 of God, and were loving and generous in their tempers 
 and kept themselves unspotted from the world." 
 
 One of his old parishioners, Hon. A. B. Mygatt, 
 writes very warmly of Dr. Porter's services, and the 
 love in which he was always held by his people. " The 
 church and congregation were large — as large and 
 flourishing as they have ever been at any time in their 
 history. He was young, active, and sympathetic — 
 familiar, agreeable and accessible to all in the com- 
 munity — and greatly interested for the improvement 
 of his people, especially for the young. As a result, 
 he secured the love and respect of all classes. Widely 
 scattered though his congregation were, he found time 
 to visit all his people, and to become familiar with 
 them. He was fond of a good horse, and withal a good 
 horseman. In his pastoral rides, he must have known 
 the geography of New Milford perfectly, and his per- 
 sonal acquaintance was larger than that of any one else. 
 During his pastorate the church and society greatly 
 prospered. Never in an equal period of time have 
 there been so large and important additions to them." 
 
 Perhaps the most striking characteristic of Dr. Porter 
 — or, rather, the best measure of the breadth of his 
 nature — was that he was equally distinguished in 
 abstract thought and in social relations. After the 
 intellectual training of college and seminary, and the 
 wakening of a keen hunger for further knowledge, he
 
 NEW MILFOBD PASTORATE 66 
 
 found himself at New Milford summoned to practical 
 and active duty sufficient to task every faculty. He 
 obeyed the call, and the words which tell of his 
 unresting social activities and the exclusion of specu- 
 lative thought from his sermons give not a hint of the 
 sacrifice of taste and desire which must sometimes have 
 been keenly felt. 
 
 In one respect, the influence of this pastoral experi- 
 ence on his later life should be noted. He was always 
 and above all the stanch defender of Christianity 
 as he understood it — Christianity in a very broad and 
 comprehensive sense, but always as based on the divine 
 Christ and a supernatural revelation, and expressed 
 through the church. Now, the Christianity which in 
 his early years he saw embodied in institutions and in 
 lives could hardly be better exemplified than in the 
 picture he has given of the New Milford church. The 
 ministry of his father in Farmington was indeed of a 
 similar type. But his own first pastorate, in the fourth 
 decade of this century, fell in a time which saw the con- 
 summate flowering of the old New England civilization. 
 The roughness and harshness of the early centuries had 
 largely passed away. The new sense of nationality, the 
 felt possibilities of the coming America, the opening 
 opportunities of a continent, had quickened the whole 
 life of the people. Dissolution of the old religious 
 order had hardly begun. The crude assaults of Thomas 
 Paine had failed to shake the deep foundations of Chris- 
 tianity in the hearts of a serious people. The brilliant 
 philosophies of the eighteenth century, the gospel of
 
 66 NOAH PORTER 
 
 science and of democracy, had offered no satisfactory- 
 substitute for the religion which promised to man a 
 communion with God, a salvation from sin, and an 
 eternal blessedness. The church had wakened along 
 with the nation ; foreign missions, temperance, the 
 evangelization of the West, had given work to its 
 hands and warmth to its heart. The only conspicuous 
 heresies were the intensely ethical and intellectual 
 Unitarianism, which could hardly make itself felt 
 beyond the shores of Massachusetts Bay, and the more 
 democratic Universalist secession. Whatever there was 
 of deep inward disintegration of the old creed among 
 the mass of the people, as yet found little voice or mani- 
 festation. The severance of the Connecticut churches 
 from state support had roused them to a new energy. 
 And meantime the old rural life of New England was 
 fairest just before it began to wither. The fatal drain 
 of the best population to the West and to the cities had 
 scarcely begun to show its ravages. The pictures of 
 such towns as Litchfield in Lyman Beecher's biography, 
 and Northampton in Mrs. Lesley's Memories of my 
 Mother, and New Milford in Dr. Porter's sermon, show 
 a rich, various, and fine-flavored rural life, such as is 
 perhaps unmatched in the world's history, and such as 
 can scarcely now be found in New England. And in 
 these communities the church was the natural center, — 
 the meeting-ground for social intercourse, the chief 
 stimulant to thought, and for many a soul the source 
 of moral energy and spiritual joy. 
 
 These were the surroundings, these the influences, and
 
 SPRINGFIELD PASTORATE 57 
 
 this the work, in which the essential faith and creed 
 which had come to Noah Porter by inheritance, and been 
 assimilated in his early years, were now wrought and 
 welded into his constitution, and irrevocably fixed as the 
 ruling principles of his character and philosophy. 
 
 The pressure of pastoral duties, and the physical de- 
 mands of his immense parish, developed his manly 
 energies to the full, but they probably overtaxed his 
 strength, and at last were more than he could meet save 
 at too great a cost. So he accepted a call to the Second 
 Congregational Church, in Springfield, Massachusetts. 
 
 Of this church he was the first pastor. The sleepy old 
 river town was quickening into new life, upon the advent 
 of the railroad and telegraph, and with the growth of 
 population the First Church had so increased in size that 
 there came about a friendly division and the organization 
 of a new society, under the lead of such men as R. A. 
 Chapman — afterward chief-justice of the state — Henry 
 and James Brewer, and George and Charles Merriam. 
 Mr. Porter was installed on the 12th of January, 1843, 
 and remained for three and a half years. His wisdom 
 and tact were of especial service in guiding the relations 
 of the young church with the mother organization, and 
 impressing a temper of harmony and catholicity which 
 was never lost. Friendships were made between him 
 and his parishioners, some of which were of great and 
 life-long influence upon them and him. The social 
 conditions, which were essentially those of village life, 
 were less tasking than at New Milford, and while he 
 fully discharged all the duties of his ofiice, this period
 
 58 NOAH PORTER 
 
 was probably one of less exacting work than what pre- 
 ceded and followed. It may have allowed some quiet 
 accumulation of strength, required after the strenuous 
 toil that was past, and in preparation for the many 
 crowded years that were to follow. It also gave oppor- 
 tunity, which must have been most welcome, for the 
 studies that had been almost croAvded out of his first 
 pastorate. He took up French and German in earnest, 
 under the teaching of a Polish refugee whom he had 
 befriended when in great need. He sent many commis- 
 sions to his brother in New York for the purchase and 
 exchange of books on theology and philosophy, especially 
 the latter — perhaps with some foresight of the new 
 work that was soon to open to him. 
 
 It was here that his first great sorrow befell — the 
 death of his only son, a child of four years. " It was 
 the first time I ever saw my father shed tears," said one 
 of his daughters, " and I hardly ever saw that again 
 until my mother died." 
 
 Mr. Porter was thirty-two years old when in 1846 he 
 accepted an appointment as Clark Professor of Moral 
 Philosophy and Metaphysics in Yale College, and entered 
 upon what proved to be the main business of his life. 
 He was the first occupant of the chair, and it was estab- 
 lished with the purpose that he should fill it. He made 
 his home at first in a house on Whitney Avenue, just 
 north of Trumbull, and in a year or two moved across 
 to Hillhouse Avenue, where the little family — husband,
 
 PROFESSOR AT YALE 69 
 
 wife, and three daughters — made its permanent nest. 
 It was an ideal scholar's home — comfortable, modest, 
 quiet ; upon a broad avenue lined with noble elms ; half 
 a mile from the college buildings, whence the bell sent its 
 early summons to the daily routine ; surrounded by a 
 garden, in which he delighted to work among his fruit 
 trees and vegetables and flowers. 
 
 No consecutive history of his professorship will be 
 here attempted. Later, the presidency will be treated 
 with some definiteness of outline by a competent hand. 
 But I shall attempt only to characterize in general terms 
 and with brief illustration his work as a professor. Let 
 it be remembered that this long period covered great 
 changes in every field. When Mr. Porter left Spring- 
 field for New Haven, the railroad by which he traveled 
 was a novelty of only a year or two. Then and for long 
 after the college was housed in the row of old brick 
 barracks which is now near its demolition. By a custom 
 of time immemorial, students and faculty were called to 
 prayers at a very early hour, which in winter came be- 
 fore daylight, and a recitation intervened before break- 
 fast could be taken ; while the day was religiously closed 
 with prayers — an arrangement which lasted for a dozen 
 years longer. The college for a time drew many mem- 
 bers from the South ; roughness and turbulence some- 
 times prevailed, and occasionally there was open rebellion 
 against some obnoxious ordinance — rebellions to which 
 the firm hand of President Woolsey soon put a final 
 stop. 
 
 The early situation is well illustrated by a writer in
 
 60 NOAH PORTER 
 
 tlie Hartford Courant, at the time of Dr. Porter's death 
 " It was a significant fact that he and President Wool- 
 sey entered upon their jDOsitions almost together, and the 
 intimate friendship which bound them together had im- 
 portant results upon the college. It seems strange to 
 be reminded that Dr. Porter was the first professor of 
 philosophy and ethics at Yale, and that there was no 
 provision for instruction in history and political science 
 until President Woolsey took upon himself those sub- 
 jects. The college had been hitherto really nothing but 
 an academy, with three or four permanent teachers and 
 several tutors. Fortunately those permanent teachers 
 were men of power, who had a high sense of the mission 
 and work of Yale, and who each in his own way im- 
 pressed his work upon the minds and characters of the 
 students. It is sufficient proof of this statement to men- 
 tion the names of [Presidents] Dwight and Day, and 
 [Professors] Kingsley, Olmsted, Silliman, and Goodrich, 
 " But there had been little definiteness in the curric- 
 ulum, and little vigor in the intellectual discipline, until 
 the administration of Woolsey. Senior year in particular 
 was a time of great leisure, devoted in part to prepara- 
 tion for the Commencement, in part to the anticipation 
 by private reading of professional study, in part to the 
 preparation for the weekly meetings of the great public 
 debating societies — Linonia and Brothers in Unity. 
 A tremendous innovation of President Woolsey's admin- 
 istration was the introduction of an afternoon recitation 
 (previously the Seniors had had no college work after 
 dinner,) and Professor Porter had the afternoon lesson
 
 PRESIDENT WOOLSEY 61 
 
 which was in philosophy, while President Woolsey gave 
 his morning lesson in history. Thus the moulding of 
 the Senior classes was mainly the work of these two 
 men, and so it continued to be until President Woolsey 
 retired." 
 
 These paragraphs suggest a rich chapter yet to be 
 written in the history of Yale. I shall not undertake 
 that chapter, and even in characterizing Professor Por- 
 ter's own work, so great and many-sided, I feel a diffi- 
 dence that impels me to venture hardly more than a 
 statement of personal impressions. I Avas a student in 
 the college, 1860^, and tutor 1866-8. Scarcely any 
 feature of the college life was more significant than what 
 the Courant writer has well described as the moulding 
 of the Senior classes by Woolsey and Porter. The two 
 men supplemented each other with singular felicity. It 
 might be said that Woolsey represented Authority, while 
 Porter was an embodiment of Friendliness. Woolsey 
 inspired a respect which was almost awe. He seldom 
 had occasion to assert his authority, — his mere presence 
 was a curb on the most audacious. That frail and slen- 
 der form, — the noble features cast as in some antique 
 mould, and worn by studious toil and austere conscience, 
 — the piercing black eye, — the voice, somewhat thin 
 yet firm, — all made a great impression on the young 
 imagination. When, as rarely happened, that voice 
 spoke a word of personal reproof, or the eye gave a 
 lightning flash, the culprit wished the earth would 
 open and swallow him. His sway was mild, but there 
 was a sense of volcanic fire not far below the surface.
 
 62 NOAH PORTEB 
 
 His influence was far beyond that of strict discipline. 
 All felt an austere loftiness of character. There was in 
 him a rare simplicity and modesty — in his religious ex- 
 pressions one recognized a deep humility — yet in some 
 way his personality conveyed a peculiar weight and im- 
 pressiveness. If we had analyzed the effect he produced 
 on us, I think we should have attributed it partly to the 
 quality of scrupulous sincerity in his teaching. One of 
 our class expressed the common feeling: "When Prex 
 says, ' I would not speak too confidently,, but after a good 
 deal of research my impression is that the historical facts 
 of the case were so-and-so ' — you may be surer of those 
 facts than if most men had sworn to them." Whatever 
 the analysis of his character, its beneficent effect Avas 
 inestimable. We came into Senior year a good deal 
 tinctured with that curious cynicism to which college 
 students are liable — a result perhaps of a stimulation of 
 the intellect in advance of the affections and the conduct 
 of life. We needed hardly any lesson so much as rev- 
 erence, and nothing gave us that lesson more effectually 
 than the feeling which Theodore Woolsey inspired. His 
 religious teachings from the pulpit were listened to with 
 respect, and doubtless were serviceable, but his type of 
 religion was too grave, too deeply penetrated with the 
 old Puritan sense of sin, to come close home to the feel- 
 ings of us youngsters. His character lent authority to 
 his creed, but it would have amazed the humble man to 
 know how much his character in itself stamped our lives 
 in their plastic state. 
 
 But he always seemed essentially a recluse. He had
 
 PERSONAL INFLUENCE 63 
 
 some intimate friendships, as with Professor Porter — 
 the two men were like brothers, in life as well as in 
 work — but to students he was remote and inaccessible. 
 We should no more have thought of seeking a familiar 
 conversation with him than with West Rock, while as 
 for voluntarily confessing a peccadillo, or seeking help in 
 a scrape — it was inconceivable. 
 
 But Professor Porter was every student's friend. That 
 rigid barrier which divides — or divided — students from 
 teachers seemed hardly to exist for him and his pupils. 
 I quote Dr. Munger's testimony : " He introduced what 
 may be termed the modern spirit into the relations of 
 the faculty to the students. It was through and in him 
 that the old-time stiffness and dignity and distance were 
 broken down, and the students were admitted into human 
 and friendly relations to their instructors. There was 
 kindness and fidelity enough under the old regime, but 
 no close contact, no interchange or mutuality, and no 
 man-to-man friendliness. Dr. Porter's good sense and 
 modern spirit broke through all this, and led him to put 
 himself in friendly relations to the students, with all 
 the traditional dignity and stiffness and distance left 
 out, or exchanged for a hearty and natural greeting, a 
 ready smile, and a certain indefinable air of comradeship. 
 It made him the most popular instructor of his day, and 
 one of the most useful. If the lessons in the Human 
 Intellect were not learned as well as they might have , 
 been, those in the human heart were not missed, and as 
 between the two the latter must have the precedence." 
 
 In that " indefinable air of comradeship " lay the Md-
 
 64 NOAH PORTER 
 
 ing of Ms power. Many a Yale instructor, not wanting 
 in ''good sense and modern spirit," tried to make his 
 pupils feel at ease and at home with him, and tried in 
 vain. Some impalpable atmosphere kept them aloof. 
 It was probably a result wrought by the traditional rela- 
 tions of a purely authoritative government.^ At every 
 point where the student met his teachers in their official 
 capacity his acts were noted and registered. Every 
 absence, every defect in conduct or study, brought a 
 specific penalty. Every excellence received its award. 
 From first to last it was government and education by 
 marks. The sense of surveillance and exact responsi- 
 bility which this system generated formed in the stu- 
 dent's mind an attitude which could not be dispelled at 
 will or upon friendly approach of an instructor in some 
 unofficial moment. It is partly to break down this hard 
 relation, so destructive of finer personal influence, that 
 collegiate methods have in late years been modified. If 
 Dr. Porter was little favorable to changes of method, it 
 was largely because the old methods had never isolated 
 or imprisoned him. His geniality was all-pervasive and 
 irresistible. Its roots lay in the friendliest humanity, 
 and a simplicity which was not only indifferent to grades 
 of rank and station but almost unconscious of them. He 
 met his students on a level because he felt on a level 
 with them. It was the genius of comradeship. 
 
 1 There were many instances of personal kindness from instructors 
 to students, and some members of the Faculty were notable for 
 their friendliness. Such a one was Professor Thomas A. Thacher, 
 whose hospitable home gave welcome to many a student, and whom 
 not a few remember as a father confessor at need and a genial and 
 helpful guide.
 
 PERSONAL INFLUENCE 65 
 
 A disposition like this, acting nnder a system which 
 was essentially anthoritative, could not fail of incon- 
 gruous results in some respects. As Dr. Hunger inti- 
 mates, the lessons were not always as well learned as 
 under severer pedagogues. But if mildness was not 
 always effectual in the class-room, at all other points of 
 contact — and they were many — Dr. Porter met his 
 pupils only to win and help them. Good scholar or 
 poor, earnest or frivolous, every one found kind listen- 
 ing and cordial response. A friend once met at his door 
 a student going out from an interview which his own 
 fault had occasioned, — and the Professor said with a 
 twinkle in his eye, " I like to meet a bad fellow now and 
 then ! " He never sermonized, never seemed to be " try- 
 ing to do you good." His manner was like an elder 
 brother's. I remember in my Junior year falling in 
 with him while walking out Prospect Street — it was 
 then " Tutor's Lane." He invited me to join him, and 
 for two hours we walked and talked — about books, the 
 scenery, whatever topic came uppermost, almost as freely 
 as I would have talked with one of my college chums. 
 I recall nothing that was said, but I know that a quiet 
 uplift was given by that conversation. It is a rare gift 
 in a man to be able to talk with a boy — and a college 
 Junior is two-thirds a boy — and that gift he had in 
 perfection. 
 
 He had an entire simplicity of manner. Any approach 
 to ceremony seemed to irk him. The last touch of old- 
 time form which survived in college usage was that at 
 the conclusion of prayers and of Sunday service the presi-
 
 66 NOAH PORTER 
 
 dent walked down the center aisle while the Seniors on 
 both sides bowed low to him. If the president happened 
 to be absent, the professors went in the order of seniority, 
 and the first of them received the salute. In my day 
 
 the senior place fell to Professor •, an eminent and 
 
 estimable man, but stiff and inaccessible, while Professor 
 Porter walked second. The Seniors always remained 
 
 rigidly erect while Professor passed by — and I 
 
 believe the good absent-minded man was never aware of 
 it — but when Professor Porter followed they bowed 
 deferentially low. I can see now the genial smile which 
 this highly irregular proceeding always brought to his 
 face! 
 
 His mildness sometimes failed to hush the restlessness 
 of youth, and his class-room was not always a model of 
 quiet, but the most reckless student was never inten- 
 tionally discourteous to him. When he was leaving the 
 presidency he said " No young man has ever treated me 
 with disrespect." 
 
 All manner of confidences came to him, and he gave 
 advice to countless young men, often at critical points. 
 Many of my own class consulted him as to the choice of 
 a profession. Of his wisdom in such matters, the writer 
 in the Hartford Courant before quoted says : " It seems 
 to me that in such crises President Porter was un- 
 equalled as an adviser. Never have I known a man 
 who had such power in seeing the real situation. He 
 seemed to divine its essential features in advance of the 
 description which the one who sought his advice would 
 give, and then his counsel would commend itself to him
 
 PERSONAL INFLUENCE 67 
 
 who had asked it as the inevitable course to take. It 
 would not have been safe for a man of less wisdom to 
 give such positive advice as he was ready to give. But 
 I have never known any one who consulted him fail to 
 follow his advice, or to regret having followed it. One 
 highly characteristic peculiarity of his was the desire to 
 economize effort. He estimated obstacles and difficulties 
 at their true strength, and he would never ignore or defy 
 them. So in his own life he wasted no strength in at- 
 tempting the impossible, and those who sought his advice 
 were ever sure to avoid what was Quixotic." 
 
 His friendly relations with his pupils were often con- 
 tinued throughout their after lives. He seemed never to 
 forget any one. In his forty-five years as professor and 
 president, he must have had more than four thousand 
 students under his personal instruction, and the fidelity 
 with which he remembered their personal traits and the 
 promptness with which he came into true touch when he 
 met them again in later years, was extraordinary if con- 
 sidered only as an achievement of memory. And co-ex- 
 tensive with his memory was his sympathy. The kind 
 of help he gave may be instanced by one letter in his 
 later years from an old pupil, who had just finished a 
 piece of literary labor. 
 
 " I have wanted especially to tell you the pleasure it 
 gives me that this work, so full of interest and satisfac- 
 tion, came to me through you. For to you I owed my 
 
 acquaintance with Mr. . And this was no accident, 
 
 but an instance of that wide, sympathetic interest by 
 which you have always been giving vital impulses, and
 
 68 NOAH POUTER 
 
 bringing openings, opportunities, friendships, to others. 
 I have a most grateful sense of how many times your 
 friendly hand has helped me at turning-points — some- 
 times at critical ones. You had more to do than any 
 one else in deciding the course of my education; you 
 threw opportunities in my way ; indeed, living so much 
 apart from men as I have always done, I hardly know 
 how the early openings of work could ever have been 
 found without your good word for me. That I did not 
 
 enter the army, that I went to as private tutor, 
 
 that I was offered a place in newspaper work far be- 
 yond any reasonable expectations, — these were only a 
 part of the occasions when your influence was strong, 
 sometimes decisive." 
 
 One who owed much to his counsel says : " He never 
 was in the least degree rufded or cooled when I did not 
 follow his advice. In our many years of acquaintance, 
 it repeatedly happened that we diverged on points of 
 theory and practice. When I declined the path he rec- 
 ommended and chose another — sometimes in matters 
 that to him were of deep interest — he remained just as 
 friendly, just as cordial." 
 
 By immemorial custom, one-half of the Senior class, 
 in alphabetical order, was assigned respectively to Presi- 
 dent Woolsey and Professor Porter as its "division 
 officer." They were to keep the record of the " marks " 
 of each student in their division, to give or refuse 
 " excuses," and administer such petty discipline as did 
 not come before the Faculty as a body. So if Brown 
 was absent from morning prayers, or Jones was reported
 
 PERSONAL INFLUENCE 69 
 
 by a watchful tutor for going to sleep in church time, 
 the fact was duly chronicled by a record of the pre- 
 scribed number of marks in the division officer's register. 
 If the decease of Smith's grandmother required his 
 absence from college duties, the division officer must 
 decide how many days the bereavement required for its 
 indulgence. To such cares did time-honored usage as- 
 sign two of the foremost scholars in America ! Woolsey 
 administered the office with justice and precision ; Por- 
 ter with the most good-natured and easy-going laxity. 
 One incident of the whole system was a general preva- 
 lence of evasion and often of direct falsehood among the 
 students. Keither Woolsey nor Porter stooped to very 
 close scrutiny of the petitions and excuses offered them, 
 but the awe in which Woolsey was held deterred from 
 such flimsy and reckless pretexts as were presented to 
 his amiable colleague. As Porter granted dispensations 
 to a group of petitioners, one could sometimes recognize 
 in his expression a look of mild contempt, which silently 
 said, "I know some of you are cheating — the worse 
 for you." Manly straightforwardness was greeted with 
 something like joyful surprise. I venture to repeat a 
 story told me by an old Yale man in one of the classes 
 "before the war." 
 
 "In the days when the great event of the opening 
 college year was a hot fight between Linonia and the 
 Brothers for a majority of the Freshman class, I was 
 campaign president of Linonia. I was in President 
 Porter's division, and my first meeting with him was 
 when he sent for me and said, 'Mr. H., I find your
 
 70 NOAH PORTER 
 
 marks amount to seventy, and you know that forty-eight 
 require dismissal from college.' I answered him, 'Pro- 
 fessor Porter, of course you know all about the societies, 
 and I suppose the Faculty want some sort of equality 
 kept up between them. Now for some years Linonia 
 has been badly worsted, and is getting way behind. I 
 am doing my very best to win the victory, and have been 
 obliged to neglect my other work.' He smiled and said, 
 ' Well, we will wipe off the marks and take a fresh start.' 
 In a few days he summoned me again: 'Mr. H., you are 
 reported as always absent from prayers, recitations, 
 everything.' I told him, 'Professor Porter, the battle 
 is desperate ! It really demands the whole of my time. 
 You know my college standing has always been good, 
 and when this emergency is past I shall not fail in my 
 duties.' He seemed half-amused, half-pleased, and dis- 
 missed me without reprimand or warning. When the 
 campaign was over, I did my work and regained my old 
 rank. 
 
 " Well, two years after came the war, and I was in the 
 Confederate service through the whole of it. When the 
 war ended, I came North — a stranger in a strange land. 
 In New York one day, on Wall Street, I met Professor 
 Porter — and he almost put his arms round me! His 
 greeting was such as warmed me all through, and we 
 had a little of the friendliest talk. I did not see him 
 again for seven years, and then we met at Mount Desert 
 in a party going up Newport Mountain. When we 
 reached the summit the party scattered, and he drew me 
 oif to sit with him on the rocks. He said, ' I want to
 
 BEMINISCENCES OF PUPILS 71 
 
 talk with you about several things — about yourself. I 
 have never forgotten our first meeting. The frank way 
 you met me, and the tone you took, was rare in my 
 experience with students.' And he treated nie like an 
 old friend." 
 
 If a hundred graduates of Yale could give each his 
 personal reminiscences of Dr. Porter, it would be per- 
 haps his fittest biography. It must suffice in this place 
 to add one more such reminiscence. The speaker was a 
 student under his presidency, and all that has here been 
 said of his personal relations with students applies as 
 much to the presidency as to the professorship — as 
 President Carter's account of the later period will show. 
 
 " I loved him," said this man, " better than any one 
 but my wife and children. He was like a father to me. 
 My home friends were strict Congregationalists. In my 
 Sophomore year at Yale I felt drawn to the Episcopal 
 Church, and especially to St. Paul's. I told President 
 Porter, and he encouraged me in going there. After six 
 months I wanted to be confirmed, and I found him most 
 sympathetic as to this. When the day came, he short- 
 ened the service in the chapel, went down to St. Paul's, 
 and took his place in the chancel with Bishop Williams. 
 I was never more touched than by his doing that. 
 
 "All our class were fond of him. He made them 
 ashamed to take any advantage. When a fellow got up 
 to recite and didn't know anything, Porter would help 
 him out. He would make the questions easier and easier 
 until the man had to give the right answer ! 
 
 "He always entered into all the particulars of your
 
 72 NOAH PORTER 
 
 affairs. When he visited me on my country place, I 
 found he knew all about farming. When I was clearing 
 out the trees I invited him to come out and play Mr. 
 Gladstone, — so one wet day I fitted him out with an 
 old slouch hat, heavy coat and boots, and we went out 
 and chopped all the morning. 
 
 " In his many letters to me, there was never a hint of 
 wanting money for the college, nor did he ever introduce 
 a man to me who wanted money, — he was not willing 
 that money should sully our friendship. As president 
 he was not a good beggar — he did not like that business. 
 And in his letters at his busiest times he never wrote of 
 being tired, nor in conversation did he ever speak of it. 
 
 " He was god-father to my son, and every year on his 
 birthday he sent him a present. Never in twelve years 
 did he forget it. His last present, just before his death, 
 was a big Webster's Dictionary, and it became the boy's 
 chief treasure." 
 
 An early pupil and life-long friend of Dr. Porter, Pro- 
 fessor Jacob Cooper, has contributed his impressions and 
 reminiscences, of which the following passages relate to 
 him especially in the capacity of a college instructor. 
 
 "There was no occasion for him to reprove in the 
 class-room. The instructor was so artless, so confiding, 
 so full of sweetness and light, that no student, however 
 boyish and full of mischief, could think of giving any 
 annoyance. For all instinctively felt that he lived for 
 their welfare ; that no thought of himself was enter- 
 tained ; and therefore no roguish freak could be looked 
 upon as a personal indignity. There was no constraint
 
 REMINISCENCES OF PUPILS 73 
 
 between teacher and pupil. The professorial chair was 
 not held as a vantage ground save to do good to the 
 learner. Hence there was the most perfect freedom in 
 the class-room, in the home of the teacher which was 
 open as the day to all who wished to enter, and in all 
 public intercourse. He was the minister for the service 
 of every one ; both friend and instructor so blended that 
 the two relations could not be distinguished. It is hard 
 to say, in referring to him as a Professor, which feeling 
 predominates ; whether love for the friend, respect for 
 the noble simplicity of his character, or admiration for 
 his ability and culture. For these were united in such 
 a happy combination that his pupils must ever feel a 
 new inspiration for all that is true and good when they 
 think of him as their teacher. 
 
 " His government of young men whether as professor 
 in his own lecture room or president of the whole uni- 
 versity, was by the law of kindness. His nature was 
 wholly averse to harsh methods, and he employed no 
 punishment as discipline while professor. His manner 
 was so genial, his desire for the well-being of his pupils 
 so hearty, his mastery of the subjects taught so thorough, 
 that there was really no call for animadversion save in 
 rare instances. Even in these cases he thought it better 
 not to notice offences than to interrupt the progress of 
 his work with those who wished to learn. For the tur- 
 moil occasioned in the current of university life is poorly 
 compensated by the punishment of an offender. The 
 great body of students desire to do their duty; they 
 know the authors of all mischief done, and if they can-
 
 74 NOAU PORTER 
 
 not correct the evils by the esjrrit cle corps of a healthy- 
 college sentiment, the infliction of punishment will 
 surely not be successful. 
 
 " It is true that among a large body of strong charac- 
 ters, such as college students are, and at a period when 
 their passions are hot and the sense of mischief at its 
 highest, offenses must come, and therefore the power of 
 the instructor must be felt occasionally to be du.ly re- 
 spected by the unruly. While President, Dr. Porter did 
 not shrink from the infliction of punishment when his 
 colleagues deemed it necessary. There will always be 
 some professor in any faculty who is not able to stand 
 alone, and for the protection of such the students must 
 be taught that there is reserve power somewhere which 
 can be applied. For his own protection President Porter 
 never found it necessary to punish. In fact his aims 
 and methods rendered punitive discipline well nigh 
 useless. This temper he always retained ; and though 
 for the sake of others he did not refuse to punish, yet 
 the discipline of the whole university was strongly 
 marked with his well-known disposition." 
 
 The general feeling of his pupils is fitly spoken in 
 verses written just after his death by Robert Cameron 
 Rogers. 
 
 Alike all loved him : careful student, drone, 
 Scapegrace or steady man ; all knew 
 
 His mild reproof was for their help alone, 
 And his reproofs were few. 
 
 No man remembers him to have his heart 
 
 Tingle with some keen unf orgotten smart.
 
 AS A TEACHER 75 
 
 No gift of comeliness had he, scant grace 
 
 Of bearing, little pride of mien — 
 He had the rugged old-time Roundhead face, 
 
 Severe and yet serene. 
 But through those keen and steadfast eyes of blue 
 The soul shone, fearless, modest, strong and true. 
 
 And when at times he smiled, one always thought 
 
 Of early, rare New England springs — 
 Of sudden fleeting April sunbeams caught 
 
 Amid some farm, that clings 
 Rock-sown, ill-paying him who strives to till, 
 Along the slope of a New England hill. 
 
 He sought the truth ; the vision of his mind, 
 
 Discerning, clear, he would not dim 
 With half-true compromise ; he cast behind 
 
 All that rang false to him, — 
 His search is ended now, his labor done, 
 His requiescat well and fully won. 
 
 The college elms are sleeping ; winter still 
 Broods in the sap ; but soon their veins 
 
 Under the waxing April suns will thrill. 
 And soon come April rains ; 
 
 And they will wake, and bow themselves, and wait 
 
 For sight of one for whom they wake too late. 
 
 We have still to speak of Professor Porter in the 
 special function of the teacher. For this work he had 
 some of the chief qualifications in a high degree, — per- 
 fect familiarity with the subjects taught, the power to 
 enter sympathetically into the learner's mind, and an in- 
 terest both in the subject and the pupil that never 
 flagged. And yet his success in teaching mental and
 
 76 NOAH PORTER 
 
 moral philosophy to the undergraduate students could 
 hardly be called eminent. To appreciate the reason we 
 must look at the system under which he taught. 
 
 As I am writing these pages, I have happened upon a 
 passage in Edward Everett Hale's reminiscences of his 
 college days at Harvard. " The greater part of the in- 
 struction given in the four years when I was in Cam- 
 bridge was by recitation. Each section was of about 
 twenty persons, seldom more, and you had a regular 
 lesson assigned, in which you were expected to recite, 
 precisely as a boy is at school. You were seldom called 
 upon alphabetically ; generally the teacher took you by 
 surprise, for fear you should have been reading up in 
 advance the sentences which were to come to you." 
 
 This description applies almost word for word to the 
 method of instruction generally employed at Yale 
 through the administration of President Woolsey, and, 
 with somewhat wider exceptions, the succeeding admin- 
 istration of President Porter. The sections were larger 
 than Dr. Hale mentions — in Freshman year at Yale 
 there used to be from twenty-five to forty students in a 
 division, and in Senior year some fifty or sixty. The 
 time for each recitation was one hour, and the instructor 
 generally aimed to call up about one-half of the men 
 every day, marking each on a numerical scale according 
 to the success of his recitation. 
 
 Dr. Hale's comment on the system is this : " I should 
 say that nine-tenths of the time which we spent with 
 the teachers was spent in this way ; as nearly profitless 
 as any exercise can be, unless the teacher tries to give
 
 AS A TEACHER 77 
 
 interest to it. It merely exposes a person who has 
 learned the lesson to the annoyance of sitting for an 
 hour to hear the blunders of those who have not. If 
 you have not learned the lesson, it is true that it is a 
 way of learning it; but it is a very poor way, and I 
 should not suppose that people would make a system for 
 the benefit of those who do not study." 
 
 But from my own experience of six years as student 
 and tutor at Yale I should somewhat modify this esti- 
 mate. Dr. Hale intimates that the student's time in 
 recitation was nearly wasted "unless the teacher tried 
 to give interest to it." But, in my judgment, any effort 
 of the unhappy teacher in this direction was almost 
 foredoomed to failure. The conditions of time alone 
 were well-nigh fatal to him. He was expected within 
 an hour at farthest to examine say twenty men in suc- 
 cession, estimate the merit shown by each, and mark 
 him accordingly. What time was left for the giving of 
 any instruction ? Giving instruction did not seem to be 
 contemplated in the plan. The rationale of it was that 
 the student was to get his instruction from the book 
 before coming to the class-room, and his attendance in 
 the class-room was chiefly that a college officer might 
 find out whether he had done his work. Whatever the 
 theory, whatever the origin of the system, that certainly 
 was its working. And to this purpose was devoted 
 almost the whole time spent by the student with his 
 instructors — usually about three hours of each day. 
 
 To the almost necessary failure of the teacher to give 
 either instruction or stimulus, the principal exceptions
 
 78 NOAH PORTER 
 
 were of two kinds. A teacher with an extraordinary- 
 power in the swift and economic use of time, might edge 
 into the interstices of the hour a certain amount of 
 tersely given information. Professor James Hadley 
 was notably skillful in this way. Or, by a certain driv- 
 ing force, — the impact of a forceful, authoritative per- 
 sonality — the teacher might pervade the class-room 
 with a kind of vital energy, that compelled the attention 
 and in a degree roused the minds of the young men 
 before him. This was true of President Woolsey. I 
 remember one man among my own instructors who re- 
 markably combined these two resources, — Tutor Wil- 
 liam Hutcheson, afterward principal of the Free Acad- 
 emy at NorAvich. In that man there was a kind of 
 leonine energy that kept us all on the qui vive while we 
 were in his presence. The vigor of his tones, the 
 promptness with which his questions were put, the 
 speed with which a blunderer was dismissed, — an inde- 
 finable but all-pervading stress and glow — acted like a 
 strong tonic while he taught us, and was indirectly felt 
 when we prepared for our lessons for him. Besides this, 
 out of the ardor of his own interest and by the swift- 
 ness with which he utilized every moment, he poured 
 upon us information in grammar, history and rhetoric, 
 and actually wakened in us a sympathetic enthusiasm 
 for the patriotism and eloquence of Demosthenes. His 
 teaching was as fine a triumph of individual power over 
 a cramping system as I ever witnessed. 
 
 Among our teachers there was no lack of men whose 
 illustrious scholarship was matched by their fidelity
 
 AS A TEACHER 79 
 
 in the drudgery of the class-room. We coukl hardly 
 fail to catch something of fine influence from such men 
 as Dana and Hadley and Thacher and Newton. But 
 the system of daily examinations was not framed to let 
 their minds impart to ours of their richness and inspira- 
 tion; it set them as catechisers to find out how much 
 we already knew — or how little. And the motive and 
 main-spring of the whole business was the desire, on the 
 poor scholar's part, to keep clear of a " flunk " or 
 " fizzle " and avoid the danger-line below which lay a 
 " condition " or dismissal, and with the good scholar to 
 make a "rush" and keep up his high rank.^ 
 
 1 If I may speak from my own experience in a Yale tutorship (1866- 
 68) , I began with the assumption of an interest on the students' part 
 in tlie subject-matter before us (the orations of Demosthenes), and on 
 my part the office of a sympathetic guide. A very few days taught me 
 that this idea was wholly imijracticable under existing conditions. 
 The necessary business of examining and marking allowed no time for 
 it, and the attitude of the students' minds, — intent on personal success 
 or failure as to marks, — was wholly unfavorable to it. I speedily real- 
 ized that the work set me was not to lead, but to drive. It was essen- 
 tially a system of compulsion, and it must be allowed that it was in 
 a way effective for the many who needed compulsion. Backed as it 
 was by suspension or dismissal for failure to reach a certain standard, 
 it held to their work a great many who were willing to shirk, and did 
 them good in spite of themselves. But when I could crowd in, by 
 shortening the recitation, a tifteen-minute lecture on Greek history, 
 I found in my listeners the liveliest interest. It was not the subject, 
 but the method, that made dull task-work of the regular hour. I was 
 deeply interested, on a recent visit to Yale, to find how some of Dr. 
 Porter's pupils (and warmest admirers) were modifying his methods 
 of undergraduate instruction. For the daily examination still deemed 
 essential, they provided by asking certain questions to receive written 
 answers in the first quarter-hour ; and the remaining time was given 
 to oral teaching, with questions and answers exchanged in a free, con- 
 versational way. These men had grafted Dr. Porter's method with his
 
 80 NOAH POBTEB 
 
 It was under this system that most of Professor 
 Porter's teaching to undergraduates was given. We 
 learned psychology and logic — if we could — from Sir 
 William Hamilton's text-books, and Professor Porter 
 examined us to find how much we knew. There was no 
 time for him to teach us anything. There was no 
 chance in the recitation-hour for one of us to ask a 
 question. His amiability in helping each individual 
 blunderer to escape a disgraceful failure prolonged the 
 time thus spent, and consumed the scanty margin 
 possible under an economy like Hadley's for conveying 
 instruction. A scene rises before my memory which 
 epitomizes the whole thing : — on his feet to recite 
 stands the one man in the class with a clear genius for 
 metaphysics, Alfred Walker; Porter asks a question 
 which wakens real thought, and Walker stands in 
 negligent attitude with absorbed look, actually tJiinJcing 
 out as best he may the reason and truth of the matter — 
 not to give an answer that will pass muster, but to see 
 into the question for its own sake. A sort of amused 
 smile hovers on the faces of the class at such a waste of 
 time and interruption of business ! Five seconds or so 
 is the maximum pause that can be allowed, and Walker 
 must make some perfunctory response or speedily give 
 place to some one else. 
 
 In the case of psychology, the novelty and abstruse- 
 graduate classes (described in this book by Professor Sneath) upon the 
 old undergraduate system. This is but a single illustration of the 
 advance in the methods of the University, which it is beyond the prov- 
 ince of this volume to enlarge upon. To a considerable extent the old 
 system still survives.
 
 AS A TEACHER 81 
 
 ness of the subject especially called for free exposition 
 on the part of our teacher — and no one could have 
 given the explanations we needed better than Dr. 
 Porter, if he had had the chance. I remember how long 
 such technical words as concejjt floated in my mind with 
 only the vaguest significance attached. Many important 
 propositions conveyed to us stumbling beginners about 
 as much sense, to borrow Mill's illustration, as that 
 " Humpty Dumpty is Abracadabra." As the work went 
 on the diligent ones did get at least a glimmering notion 
 of what it was all about, and there were some, no doubt, 
 who acquired a fair general knowledge of the Hamil- 
 tonian psychology and formal logic. Probably when 
 " The Human Intellect " became the text-book, more and 
 clearer knowledge was imparted. But the radical vice 
 of the system always remained. There was a partial 
 escape from it in the lectures which constituted a part, 
 though the smaller part, of Professor Porter's under- 
 graduate teaching. These were instructive and sugges- 
 tive. Perhaps the chief drawback was that there was 
 no opportunity to ask questions. 
 
 The old plan of recitations belonged essentially to the 
 system of compulsion and authority, and worked best 
 when administered in an authoritative and energetic 
 way, by men like Woolsey and Hutcheson. It did not 
 accord with Porter's mildness of disposition and temper- 
 ament, which admirably fitted him to lead, but not to 
 drive. In preparation and in recitation his students 
 were apt to be lazy. Covert helps in the recitation-room 
 were used with great freedom. Dr. McCosh was present
 
 82 NOAH POBTER 
 
 on one of these occasions, and afterward said in amaze- 
 ment, " Why, Dr. Porter, half the men had their books 
 open behind the seats ! " — " Oh well," was the answer, 
 "I am glad to get them to ojien their books on any 
 terms ! " 
 
 Since the above was written, I have received a fine 
 estimate of Dr. Porter's undergraduate teaching at a 
 later time and from his own text-book, by Rev. Charles 
 0. Day. " We had his attention in the first year of the 
 presidency, 1871-2. We used the shorter form of his 
 work, Tlie Elements of Intellectual Science, and we 
 were, I believe, the first class to use the book. Natur- 
 ally he was preoccupied with his new presidential duties, 
 and in spite of the eclat of the new book I do not think 
 that even we found him at his best. Nor can I give any 
 other judgment than your own in regard to the ordinary 
 class-work. I do not remember that we were there 
 either very definitely trained or inspired in psychologi- 
 cal study for ourselves. The same was true in ethics, 
 where we used Hojakins's The Law of Love and Love as 
 a Law. The examinations were less searching than sym- 
 pathetic, and the president generally bore the brunt of 
 them himself. His leading questions often permitted 
 the student to answer in simple positives and negatives. 
 He was too kindly to humiliate any man, and if a fellow 
 was utterly at sea it appeared in the President's fatherly 
 judgment more of his misfortune than his fault. And 
 yet every man loved him, and gained really very much 
 psychological self-respect from him, and would repeat 
 his phrases, and I have no doubt imbibed a good deal of
 
 AS A TEACHER 83 
 
 psychological and philosophical spirit, if less of definite 
 knowledge ; and at least learned to turn the thought 
 inward, and to believe in the soul, and especially to be 
 sure of and to sedulously guard the divinely implanted 
 and eternal intuitions of Cause, Order, and Right. One 
 became a better thinker, steadily and surely, under 
 President Porter, even if he could not very glibly or 
 systematically unfold the contents of the soul. I am 
 not sure even but that for the common average mind 
 this was the best discipline that could have been given 
 in our times." 
 
 What a teacher he was under different conditions will 
 appear when we come to speak of him with his graduate 
 classes in theology and philosophy. As to the under- 
 graduate system here described — in the college at large 
 and in his own department — there must always, I think, 
 be some wonder that Dr. Porter should have been con- 
 tent to retain it, and never have favored any radical 
 change. It was part of a general system which as a 
 whole he heartily believed in and supported against 
 modern innovation. To discuss his conservatism in edu- 
 cational methods would open too large a field for this 
 place. But I venture to make one suggestion. The 
 conservative position, in education as in any other 
 province, may of course be defended on the ground that 
 it is essentially the right position. But Dr. Porter's 
 conservatism admits in part of a more personal explana- 
 tion. He was so vastly and variously active, under 
 established methods, that the economy of vital force 
 hardly admitted that lavish expenditure which a radical
 
 84 NOAH PORTER 
 
 change of method or principle exacts. For a sober and 
 thoughtful man, any change of foundations — any great 
 modification of established channels of thought and 
 action — is originated or even accepted only at heavy 
 cost of brain-po^ver. And for this special form of service 
 we are hardly to look to the man whose brain-power is 
 constantly and lavishly sj)ent in the administration of 
 things under existing systems. 
 
 We have spoken of Dr. Porter under various aspects 
 as a collegiate Teacher. The other great activity of his 
 life was as a Thinker. Special results of his thought, 
 especially as a philosopher, will be presented later, 
 showing the ripe outcome of his later life. But it is 
 appropriate here to take a comprehensive glance at the 
 main outlines of his thought, in relation to the world- 
 debates of his time. 
 
 The reader has seen how deeply the beliefs of Chris- 
 tianity mingled with his inheritance, with the best influ- 
 ences of the community, with the groundwork of his 
 character and his practical activities. In the years of 
 his early manhood, the great intellectual interest of New 
 England was a debate between two interpretations of 
 Christianity. The slowly ripening dissent from Calvin- 
 ism at last reached in Channing and his associates to a 
 denial of the Atonement and the Deity of Christ, — 
 doctrines which had hitherto been held as central in 
 Protestant no less than in Catholic Christianity. Scarcely 
 had the new opinions crystallized in the Unitarian body,
 
 COURSE OF THOUGHT 85 
 
 when a bolder departure was made by Emerson. He re- 
 nounced the supernatural sanctions of Christianity, while 
 he affirmed with extraordinary force and persuasiveness 
 the moral order of the universe and the spiritual nature 
 of man. He found eager followers, and soon Theodore 
 Parker preached similar ideas in a more aggressive spirit. 
 Emerson was "an iconoclast without a hammer, who 
 took down our idols so tenderly that it seemed like an 
 act of worship," but Parker wielded the weapon of Thor. 
 Both men met the most strenuous opposition not only 
 from the Orthodox but from the conservative Unitarians. 
 
 Meantime the older form of faith had rallied its forces 
 with such vigor that the ecclesiastical secession was held 
 down to a very small minority. Thomas Jefferson in 
 his later years wrote to a friend that he expected to see 
 the entire rising generation of young men in America 
 become Unitarians. In fact only the smallest fraction of 
 them were drawn to the Unitarian name or organization. 
 But Orthodoxy, thus triumphant over its external foe, 
 was itself divided again and again into opposite parties. 
 Now Taylor and Barnes, now Bushnell, and now Beecher, 
 led the succeeding waves of innovation. Thus the re- 
 ligious debate was manifold, with a great cleavage line 
 between Unitarianism and Orthodoxy, and each of these 
 camps divided between opposing parties. 
 
 A few centuries earlier, such differences would have 
 resulted in an attempt by each party to burn the mem- 
 bers of the other at the stake. In the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century, in America, the external result was 
 only the organization of a new sect, and while the two
 
 86 NOAH PORTER 
 
 parties called each other hard names in print they were 
 very good friends in private. A few years later, and the 
 new differences did not even generate new sects — they 
 were tolerated within the same organization. Old and 
 New School Presbyterians reunited ; Orthodox Congre- 
 gationalism never divided, after the first secession ; and 
 in the Unitarian body the Kadical lion and Conservative 
 lamb lay down together. 
 
 It was the spectacle of such diversities which occa- 
 sioned the Frenchman's characterization of America, as 
 a country with a hundred religions and only one gravy. 
 But a century of free debate, in a nation whose founda- 
 tions had been laid by the Puritan and Quaker, produced 
 a remarkable result. The disputants found themselves 
 more and more in harmony. The Orthodox learned 
 from the Unitarian a more fearless trust in reason. The 
 Unitarian learned to better appreciate the depths of ex- 
 perience and of revelation which were expressed under 
 the Orthodox phraseology. The Supernaturalist began 
 to see that the Transcendentalist was perhaps expressing 
 his own creed " writ large," and the Transcendentalist 
 was glad to aid his vision, which now soared and now 
 faltered, by the soberer teaching, of science and history 
 and institutions. And meanw:hile the atmosphere of 
 terror which for many centuries had begirt the explorer 
 of religious truth, and associated "free thinking" with 
 perdition, was swiftly vanishing from the minds of men. 
 
 As we look back from our present standpoint to the 
 debates of half a century ago, we see Dr. Porter a 
 champion of the Orthodox faith against its impugners.
 
 COURSE OF THOUGHT 87 
 
 But that he was a man of the new day was shown partly 
 by his refusal to carry controversial theology into the 
 pulpit. Times were already changing from those days so 
 graphically described by Mrs. Stowe in The Minister''s 
 Wooing, when neighboring ministers battled points of 
 divinity in the pulpit, and their parishioners discussed 
 them during the week. The change was forwarded by 
 men like Dr. Porter, who in the pulpit used truth mainly 
 in its practical and spiritual application. But no man 
 was readier than he for the arena of debate afforded by 
 the press. His part in those discussions cannot be better 
 described than in the language of the Boston Herald at 
 the time of his death. 
 
 " He made his first mark as a thinker in his comments 
 upon the new literary epoch which began with the pub- 
 lication of Emerson's Nature, with the issuing of the 
 Dial, with the appearance of Dr. Brownson's Revieio, 
 and with the full presentation of Mr. Parker's religious 
 opinions. He brought a friendly suit against all these 
 writers, and made himself conspicuously known as their 
 ablest antagonist, through the columns of the Neio Eng- 
 lander, which was established as the rival of the Christian 
 Examiner, in order to furnish a channel for the new 
 thought which was seeking to find expression in regard 
 to New England Orthodoxy, but which did not indorse 
 the views of the Boston liberals. Forty years ago the 
 Unitarian and the Orthodox people were in sharp con- 
 flict, and during this period Dr. Porter was a strong man 
 on the conservative side, striking hard blows at the weak 
 points in the liberal ranks, and yet welcoming the freer
 
 88 NOAH PORTER 
 
 thought as the necessary complement of his own position. 
 For many years nearly every number of the iVet« Eng- 
 lander had a trenchant article from him on the new 
 phases of the great controversy. He never took advan- 
 tage of his antagonist, but hit from the shoulder, and 
 his arguments were often acknowledged as an enlarge- 
 ment of the range of the discussion. He was on good 
 terms with the men whom he met in these written 
 debates, and he established a reputation for fairness 
 and frankness which has entered as a permanent tradi- 
 tion into the spirit of those times. He fought hard for 
 the old faith, but he was too broad-minded a man to 
 cling to it as a permanent expression of truth. When 
 Dr. Bushnell was proscribed for holding views not in 
 harmony with the Congregational faith, he defended 
 Dr. Bushnell though he did not agree with him, and 
 had great weight in making the Congregational Church 
 broad enough to hold him. . . . But it was to Boston 
 and to its group of liberal men that his thought was 
 oftenest turned in sympathetic admiration and yet with 
 critical reserve. If one will consult the New Englander 
 for this period, he will find that Emerson had no more 
 discriminating admirer, that Theodore Parker had no 
 manlier antagonist, and that Mr. Hedge and his asso- 
 ciates in the Christian Examiner found in him a foeman 
 worthy of their steel. He was always great in these 
 discussions by his magnanimity, by his readiness to 
 concede large and generous things to others, by his 
 ability to put himself in the other man's place. When 
 the truth was at stake he had no reserves, but he always
 
 COURSE OF THOUGHT 89 
 
 thought and wrote like a gentleman. In the galaxy of 
 the great New Englanders of our time he holds by right 
 a foremost place, and among the critics of liberal thought 
 no conservative has surpassed him in acuteuess or in 
 suggestive power." 
 
 Yet theology was not the most characteristic field of 
 Dr. Porter's thought. In that department the great 
 truths seemed to him given by revelation and amply 
 proved by experience. Those truths were to be defended, 
 inculcated, applied; they were in some degree to re- 
 ceive new and larger interpretations, — but it was not 
 this ground that gave most room and invitation for 
 original exploration. That call, for him, drew to the 
 mysterious region of the mind's own nature. What is 
 this self, that feels and thinks and acts ? What is 
 knowledge ? On what basis at last do our beliefs rest ? 
 How does the mind apprehend reality outside of itself ? 
 How does it apprehend that Supreme Reality which it 
 would fain regard as its source and home ? What is the 
 constitution, what are the laws, of man's inner world ? 
 
 These questions may be said to underlie all theology, 
 all philosophy, and all science. Yet few men have the 
 taste and the capacity to cope directly with these prob- 
 lems. He was one of the few. The general character 
 and results of his thinking will be given on later pages, 
 by two of his pupils and followers. A few words may 
 be given it here. Following with great ardor the paths of 
 this abstruse quest — a quest which to the non-metaphysi- 
 cal mind often seems to increase in uncertainty and per- 
 plexity just in proportion as the most fundamental issues
 
 90 NOAH PORTER 
 
 are at stake, — yet Dr. Porter never appeared to others 
 to be troubled by even a touch of that fundamental 
 skepticism which has lent such a tragic element to the 
 intellectual story of our time. If he ever encountered 
 that Apollyon, the fight was hidden from all the world, 
 and only the cheerful confidence of the victor was seen. 
 While his mind was keenly inquisitive, its essential fiber 
 was affirmative. By inheritance, habit, and character, 
 the life of activity, goodness, and faith was so strong 
 that the negative force of doubt had little chance with 
 him. His philosophical inquiry was inspired by a most 
 human and Yankee desire to knoiv, — a natural and 
 wholesome curiosity, finding scope at first in the actual 
 world as it lies open to sense, and then in the deeper 
 world of spiritual reality. 
 
 Comparing him again with men of his earlier time, we 
 note an early divergence from the first teacher who 
 fully woke him — Coleridge, and from the philosophy 
 which was common to Coleridge, Wordsworth, Emerson, 
 and the Transcendentalists. In all these, expressed or 
 assumed, is the idea of more direct access of the mind 
 to truth than is afforded by the logical or analytical or 
 scientific faculty. It is, in the language of the German 
 idealists, the Reason — the direct vision of the soul — 
 as distinct from the Understanding, the inferior faculty 
 whose processes can be clearly explained and logically 
 defended. This idea is often employed with great fruit- 
 fulness and power by a master of thought aud feeling. 
 It accords with the poetical treatment of life. But 
 statements which do not profess to be verifiable under
 
 COURSE OF THOUGHT 91 
 
 cross-examination, and whose sanction is only the sponta- 
 neous assent of certain minds, while other and equally 
 intelligent minds find no authority in them — such propo- 
 sitions and such a way of thought are wholly unsatisfac- 
 tory to men of logical and scientific type. Of this type 
 was Dr. Porter. This trait is clearly shown in the early 
 letter to his brother (page 33), in his dissatisfaction 
 with the vagueness of the Platonists, and his query as 
 to Kant's Practical Reason, — a query which ended in 
 rejection. So, he drew aloof on the one side from the 
 intuitional philosophy of Coleridge and Emerson. But 
 on the other side he was still more unsympathetic toward 
 that unsparing analysis and dissection which at last cuts 
 away all foundations as unproved, and lands one in the 
 gulf of skepticism. Between this Scylla and Charybdis — 
 between the poet's faith and the skeptic's denial — he held 
 the middle ground. He was one of those philosophers 
 who subject the mind to an analysis not only fearless but 
 as far as possible definite and exact, and find in it a real 
 knowledge, under laws capable of some precision of 
 statement. Of this philosophy a leading branch has 
 been that known as the Scotch school, and with that 
 school Dr. Porter was in a large degree in sympathy. 
 
 But a deeper characteristic than the name of any 
 school conveys was his desire to know and appreciate all 
 the facts bearing upon his subject. In this, the best 
 sense of the word, he was a scientific philosopher. He 
 remained to his latest day a student, not merely in that 
 he continued to read, but in that he kept his mind always 
 open to new light, and ready to modify its earlier conclu-
 
 92 NOAH PORTER 
 
 sions. After seven years in his professorship, he sought 
 the home of philosophic thought, Germany, and devoted 
 a winter in Berlin to most assiduous study. He came 
 into personal contact with the leading minds. He con- 
 versed with the aged Schelling and with Humboldt. 
 He steeped himself in the atmosphere of the philosophic 
 schools, and came in touch with their best spirits and 
 methods. Out of the provincialism of New England he 
 passed to become a citizen of the intellectual world. The 
 controversies of Mill and Hamilton and Mansel had no 
 closer observer than he. When in later years the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh crowned him with the doctorate, 
 she greeted him as a long-time and familiar friend. He 
 was welcomed in Oxford halls, as the peer of the ripest 
 thinkers. 
 
 Eor his conception of the laws of mind and of morals, 
 as it was finally moulded, the reader must turn to Pro- 
 fessor Duncan's and Dr. Nakashima's papers. From 
 these may best be gathered how clear and firm was his 
 belief in the spiritual element in man, — the element 
 that thinks and feels and chooses — as a reality, solid, 
 imique, and active ; mysterious, but in a sufficient sense 
 intelligible. His philosophy was thus in sympathy with 
 his theology, and afforded a basis for it. To the mate- 
 rialist view of the universe he was opposed as a philoso- 
 pher no less than as a Christian. The agnostic view 
 he combated on purely intellectual grounds, as well as 
 from the position of supernaturalism. And it was this 
 great contest — the maintenance of a spiritual interpre- 
 tation of man and the universe — to which much of the
 
 COUBSE OF THOUGHT 93 
 
 best energy of his later years was given. It was to him 
 a hearted cause. All he loved best was more deeply at 
 stake by far than in the earlier controversy with Uni- 
 tarians and Transcendentalists. They and he, foes in a 
 way, were yet children of one mother and disciples at 
 heart of one faith. But as the theater had broadened 
 from New England to the world, so the issue had deep- 
 ened to a question of any living relation between man 
 and God, and any hope beyond the grave. As he threw 
 himself into this debate, the weapons he wielded had 
 been forged in deep brooding and long study, far from 
 polemic heats, in the free and lonely fields of ''divine 
 Philosophy." 
 
 To those who knew him on both the meditative and 
 the social sides of his nature, the marvel was how he 
 could combine such opposite activities. Nothing so 
 absorbs and abstracts the whole man as concentrated 
 thought on these abstrusest themes. Such a thinker, in 
 the words of William Smith, "like the celebrated trav- 
 eler whose ambition it was to detect the source of the 
 Nile, leaves behind him the broad stream with its fertile 
 and populous border whereon temple and city have been 
 built — he bends his devoted course to where the river 
 of life grows more and more narrow, more and more 
 silent as he proceeds — and at length stands alone, in 
 brief and troubled rapture over a discovery which may 
 still be dubious and in which no one participates.'' 
 
 Yet from such explorations where the mind "goes 
 sounding on its dim and perilous way," this thinker con- 
 stantly came back at a moment's call to the friendliest
 
 94 NOAH PORTER 
 
 touch with the warm human world. If you wanted the 
 most sympathetic and receptive listener for your every- 
 day affairs or your gravest personal problems — you 
 found him in this philosopher. 
 
 An epoch in his mental development was the winter 
 of study in Berlin. In the spring of 1853 he went to 
 Europe, with Mrs. Porter and a party of friends, and 
 spent six months in English and Continental travel. 
 His companions were struck by the quickness and in- 
 sight with which he found out whatever was best worth 
 knowing in the places and people they visited. In the 
 autumn Mrs. Porter returned to her children, and he set- 
 tled down for a winter of work in the University. His 
 diary records an unbroken succession of crowded days, — 
 lectures, private study, more lectures, visits exchanged 
 with professors and their families, and still more lect- 
 ures ! Sometimes a slight attack of illness is mentioned, 
 but instantly he is on his feet again and hard at work. 
 He had at the outset a very imperfect knowledge of Ger- 
 man as spoken, and even of the written language in the 
 technicalities of philosophy. So at first he had to shape 
 his tools while he was using them. His education was 
 not confined to the class-room. He visited concerts, 
 operas, theaters, military reviews, political assemblies; 
 he describes in one letter the proceedings of a beer- 
 drinking club of theological students ; he filled his lungs 
 with the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the German capi- 
 tal. The letters make frequent mention of kindly inter-
 
 STUDY AT BERLIN 95 
 
 course "with the men of science and letters in homes of 
 plain living and high thinking. There is the story of 
 Christmas eve at Professor Trendlenberg's, with the 
 Christmas tree, and the presents from the children to the 
 American who had already made himself their friend. 
 There are full reports of his conversations with Schell- 
 ing, whom he especially admired, and with Humboldt. 
 He made acquaintance with Carl Eitter. He writes to 
 his wife : " It is quite impossible to understand or de- 
 scribe the cordiality and kindness with which I am treated 
 by everybody here. They are very lovely and warm- 
 hearted, and make you feel that jon are most welcome." 
 Dr. Jacob Cooper was his fellow-student at this time, 
 and he writes : " He mingled with the brilliant throng 
 of professors and students, adapting himself to every age 
 and stage of culture. He was both admired and loved 
 in that assemblage which composed the most intellectual 
 as well as elegant coterie of literature at that time in the 
 world. His kindness to young men in the University 
 and their fondness for him were as marked as when he 
 lectured to his own students at Yale, while his reputa- 
 tion as a thinker insured for him the most deferential 
 treatment from those professors at whose feet he sat as a 
 learner." 
 
 From certain letters to his wife during this period, we 
 get a glimpse of one aspect which was very rarely dis- 
 closed. A life that bears itself so strongly and steadily 
 as his, sometimes prompts in weaker mortals the question, 
 — is there always a peace within to match the unshaken 
 bearing, or are there times of conflict ? It is almost by
 
 96 NOAH PORTER 
 
 reading between the lines that we see that the clouds 
 sometimes pressed heavily upon him. In part they were 
 the clouds that most sorely try the human spirit — the 
 suffering and danger of the beloved. While Mrs. Porter 
 was with her husband in Europe, she had symptoms of 
 trouble which skilled physicians interpreted as showing 
 a chronic affection of the stomach, — the beginning, as 
 the result proved, of infirmity that was to be life-long, 
 and grow into confirmed invalidism. Her early letters 
 after her return told of a grievous trouble, — the young- 
 est daughter, Sarah, a peculiarly bright and lovable girl, 
 was attacked by illness that threatened a slow and sure 
 decline. The tidings fell upon him far distant from wife, 
 children and friends, and just when the difficulties of his 
 immediate task seemed more than he could overcome. 
 But of this last he writes no word ; and for the deeper 
 anxiety he only takes firmer hold, for himself and his 
 own, on the rock that abides when all else is shaken. 
 
 " But I think I am submissive and resigned to the will 
 of Providence. In that finest of all passages, so far as 
 Christian philosophy is concerned, Romans viii. 14-28, 
 properly interpreted [' As many as are led by the Spirit 
 of God they are the sons of God. . . . And we know 
 that all things work together for good to them that love 
 God'], as also II. Corinthians v. 1-10 [*We know that 
 if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we 
 have a building of God, an house not made with hands, 
 eternal in the heavens '] — I find the Christian phi- 
 losophy of life, though it is difficult for me to make it 
 real. I want my children and my wife (who are nearly
 
 STUDY AT BERLIN 97 
 
 all whom I expect to influence, and, with the exception 
 of my parents and brothers and sisters, all whose con- 
 stant affection and sympathy I hope to enjoy) to be thor- 
 oughly imbued with this view of life. These principles 
 have always been at the bottom of my want of sympathy 
 with rich and ambitious people — and not my envy or 
 ill-nature. It makes little difference with me what such 
 people think of me. I ought to teach them something, 
 and so ought my family. I am bound to do it — not in 
 the way of a godly exhortation, to be followed by dash- 
 ing or heartless display, but by a loving, charitable, self- 
 respecting temper, that sees its own faults and is willing 
 to ' please not itself.' I hope you find the •' peace that 
 passeth understanding,' and that this you will seek for 
 in this our affliction, and that Sarah will be led by you 
 in the preparation which God will give her for a better 
 and happier lot than this." 
 
 Only when the home prospect has brightened, and when 
 he has fought his own battle to victory, does he acknowl- 
 edge what his personal discouragements had been. 
 
 "For the first two months, the strangeness and loneli- 
 ness, and my ignorance of the language, and the effort to 
 hear and write and study, and the dark days and the cold 
 weather, were all against me. I was much tried by the 
 news about Sarah. But since I have got better news, 
 and the days are longer and brighter, and I understand 
 easily and speak more freely, it is far more agreeable. 
 My health has been very steadily improving, for no dis- 
 cernible reason that I can see except that I feel more 
 sure that I can master the tough metaphysics. One great
 
 98 NOAH PORTER 
 
 secret, perhaps the great secret, of my depression and 
 consequent ill-health, has been the consciousness that I 
 could not readily and easily and perhaps never could come 
 up to the expectation of the public and my friends in 
 this respect. I was not and knew I was not sufficiently 
 masterof the language and especially of the philosophical 
 dialect. No Englishman has done it yet who has written 
 on the subject, and it is only as one lives among the 
 people and hears the dialect as a living thing that it can 
 be attained. The whole matter clears itself up more 
 and more, and I only want time here to do the business 
 up to my entire satisfaction. Much will be expected of 
 me, but I fear I shall disappoint you all if you hurry me 
 home before I am ready." 
 
 He returned home in the spring of 1854, somewhat 
 earlier than he thought was wise for the purpose he had 
 in view, — for the college authorities were eager for his 
 presence, and did not appreciate as he did the importance 
 of the foundation he was laying. He came back to his 
 college work, and to the home which gave to all his work 
 both sympathy and rest. He often came into the house 
 a tired man, glad to be still and drink in complete repose 
 for the brief space allowed him. But it was a compan- 
 ioned repose that did him most good. Always the first 
 question when he passed the door was, " Where's your 
 mother ? " — unless, as most frequently, the wife was oc- 
 cupying her familiar chair or sofa in the sitting-room. 
 With lier and the daughters he shared all his interests, 
 and to that little circle many a personal and professional 
 secret was safely confided. He always had a great many
 
 FAMILY LIFE 99 
 
 visitors, for his house Avas hospitably open not only to 
 private friends but to many guests of the college. How 
 well he could put himself in touch with a child's inter- 
 ests, and bring his own experience to a child's help, is 
 shown by a letter to his oldest daughter on her fourteenth 
 birthday. 
 
 "You have made a very good beginning in all your 
 studies, and have overcome most of the little negligences 
 into which girls are apt to fall. I do not wish you to 
 worry at all about little mistakes and errors. When I 
 was in college, I used to mark every little mistake that 
 I made. I do not mean every error in which I was 
 caught, — I was not caught very often, for there were 
 forty of us to recite and I did not recite oftener than 
 every other time. But I was accustomed to follow the 
 passages which my classmates read, and if they or the 
 instructor read in such a way as to show me I was in 
 the wrong, I made a little mark on the edge of the page, 
 and then counted them up, and if I had made one or two, 
 and especially if I had made five or six, I could almost 
 cry, though I was seventeen or eighteen years old. When 
 I studied algebra I cried because there were some things 
 I could not understand, and more than once too. I tell 
 you these things because I wish you to know that I 
 used to make mistakes and get discouraged, as I suppose 
 you do. It is not worth while to feel very bad, because 
 we can try again. You are a little apt to feel bad, but I 
 don't believe you are any more so than I was at your age. 
 lam glad to hear that riding does you so much good, and 
 I hope you will take an interest in the gymnastic appara-
 
 100 NOAH POBTER 
 
 tus when it is put up. Your difficulties that cause these 
 uneasy feelings can be very much counteracted if you will 
 use cold water every day in the morning and rub your- 
 self very dry, and then make all sorts of motions with 
 your arms to get yourself wide-awake and in a glow. So 
 when you feel nervous and wretched, — if you will breathe 
 a good many times as Mr. Russell tells you how to do, 
 and especially with your arms make such motions as 
 these [pictures] you will throw off the bad feelings. 
 There is not a day when I do not have some most awful 
 feelings that I cannot account for, and they are all owing 
 to dyspepsia, and I have to fight against them very hard. 
 That is the way we all must do. I have no doubt that 
 you will get over these troubles by and by, if you play 
 enough and do not get too tired. You must sleep 
 enough, too. . . . You will think I have written you a 
 very sober letter, but you will be quite sure that I love 
 you none the less and wish you were here very much 
 indeed." 
 
 This allusion to his uncomfortable physical sensations 
 reveals what nothing in his bearing or words suggested 
 to those outside of his family — and what was never 
 allowed to be a burden on them, — that he was a fre- 
 quent sufferer from dyspepsia and its kindred ills. It 
 was largely due, no doubt, to his constant overwork. 
 Besides his regular teaching, his petty duties as " divi- 
 sion officer," his full share of the general management 
 and care of the college, and his constant study of new 
 authors and new lines of thought in his own depart- 
 ment, — besides these strictly professional engagements,
 
 FA3IILY LIFE 101 
 
 he was always in the habit of preaching frequently ; he 
 gave courses of lectures, sometimes to student audiences, 
 as at Andover, sometimes of a popular character, as at 
 Cincinnati ; he wrote voluminously for the press, as is 
 shown by the bibliography attached to this volume, — 
 and even this does not include many of his ephemeral 
 productions ; and, like others of the busiest of mankind 
 in their own vocations, he was continually appealed to 
 for all kinds of service by friends and strangers, and 
 continually made generous response. Yet on all this he 
 somehow throve. He was more or less plagued by dys- 
 pepsia, and had many an hour of extreme fatigue ; but he 
 grew stronger as the years went on ; the dyspepsia grad- 
 ually disappeared ; he was, said those nearest him, most 
 buoyant and cheerful in the last twenty years of his life. 
 The turning from one kind of work to another seemed 
 to bring freshness with it. Mother Earth gave him of 
 her vigor as he busied himself with his trees and flowers 
 and vegetables, and took long walks in the charming 
 country that surrounds his home. In vacations he 
 gave himself up wholly and heartily to outdoor life. 
 He had a quick sense of humor, which was always drop- 
 ping oil on the joints of the machine. And he was 
 blessed with a temperament that extraordinarily com- 
 bined ease with efficiency. There are men who can 
 never cut off the draft from their boilers when the work 
 is done, but waste their fuel in useless blaze. But his 
 system seemed to generate exactly the force necessary 
 for the occasion, and then leave him healthily relaxed 
 and at rest.
 
 102 NOAH PORTER 
 
 His liome life did not escape the clouds wliose rising 
 has been noted. His wife was gradually shut off from 
 most of her activities. The housekeeping passed into 
 the hands of the eldest daughter. The wife could no 
 longer accompany her husband on his foreign journeys or 
 even on the summer outings. But nothing quenched 
 her active spirit, nor was she wholly cut off even from 
 benevolent work outside of the home. She remained 
 her husband's companion and support until near the 
 end of his life. But the daughter Sarah slowly failed 
 until her death in 1860. To the last she was not 
 only brave, but full of good cheer ; quick in wit and 
 prompt in suggestion, always hopeful, in small domes- 
 tic emergencies as well as in grave affairs. Beloved 
 in life, more intensely beloved after death, — it is such 
 lives, such experiences, that feed the deepest springs 
 of human faith and hojie. 
 
 Certain activities of Dr. Porter may be here spoken 
 of before passing from the period of his professorship 
 to that of the presidency. Especially notable was his 
 occupancy of the chair of Systematic Theology in the 
 Divinity School, after the death of Dr. Taylor in 1858. 
 The general character of his theology has already been 
 indicated, yet justice may best be done to so many-sided 
 a thinker as Dr. Porter by giving interpretations of him 
 from men of different standpoints. In the following 
 pages he is characterized as a theologian by his col-
 
 THEOLOGICAL OPINIONS 103 
 
 league, Professor Fisher, and afterward as a teacher by 
 two of his pupils in the Divinity School. 
 
 In his early days, when he left college and was pur- 
 suing his studies for the ministry, the " New Haven 
 Controversy " was at its height. Apart from 
 his own natural tendencies, the circumstances "^ '^•^"^°' 
 
 ' opinions. 
 
 in which he was placed were such as would By Professor 
 naturally excite in him a warm interest in the ^^"'^^ ■^• 
 
 -' . Fisher. 
 
 memorable debate. His father was a wise, 
 moderate, judicious man, not likely to partake of po- 
 lemical heat, yet openly sympathetic, and not inactive 
 in his sympathy, with the liberal side, of which Dr. 
 Taylor, Dr. Fitch and Dr. Goodrich were the most 
 noted leaders. Dr. Taylor was then in the full vigor 
 of his powers, and in the habit, especially in connec- 
 tion with religious revivals, of preaching with extraor- 
 dinary power and eloquence to the college students. 
 Dr. Porter could not fail to be impressed by his ad- 
 dresses. Moreover, his intimacy with the family of 
 Dr. Taylor, whose daughter he married, brought him 
 into close personal intercourse with this stimulating 
 teacher. After becoming a minister, Dr. Porter wrote 
 occasionally, in that early period, in behalf of the New 
 Haven doctrines, and of the mitigated form of Calvinism 
 which brought upon the New Haven divines so large an 
 amount of odium. He continued to sympathize with this 
 type of metaphysical and theological thought, and when 
 it, or its honored defenders, were assailed, he stood ready 
 to come forward in their defense. One of the obnoxious 
 points in Dr. Taylor's system was his ethical theory.
 
 104 NOAU PORTER 
 
 This theory was warmly espoused by Dr. Porter and was 
 maintained long after he assumed the Chair of Philosophy 
 at Yale. In later years, Dr. Porter modified this theory, 
 or at least the phraseology in which it was expressed, 
 giving it a form not so entirely at variance with the 
 opposite, intuitive theory of morals. Although his own 
 culture and his ways of thinking widened and took on 
 new aspects with the advance of time, yet he kept up a 
 certain sense of loyalty — which was made up in part of 
 personal feeling — to the theological creed of his revered 
 father-in-law. Yet there came to be really a very broad 
 difference in the way in which religious truth and the 
 philosophy of religion were apprehended by him. The 
 signs and beginnings of what may be styled a broader 
 view — certainly a very different view of things — ap- 
 peared even when he was a young theological student. 
 With a few of his fellow-students, he plunged into the 
 study of the writings of Coleridge, which were intro- 
 duced at that time to the American public by President 
 Marsh of the University of Vermont. To a young man, 
 brought up in a New England parsonage, and trained in 
 the New England school of theology, there were opened 
 altogether fresh fields of thought and speculation. He 
 was confronted with new problems, and with solutions 
 of problems which were novel and surprising. The result 
 was a marvelous intellectual quickening. The effect of 
 this early study of Coleridge was life-long in its duration. 
 It was not so much in the way of moulding his opinions 
 as of lending stimulus to his thoughts and direction to 
 his reading. Then Dr. Porter's study in philosophy not
 
 THEOLOGICAL OPINIONS 105 
 
 only made him familiar with Hamilton and the later 
 phases of Scottish metaphysics, but also introduced him 
 to a close acquaintance with the modern Continental 
 schools, as well as with the masters in this department in 
 past ages. His mind was remarkably versatile. He was 
 ever curious to find out whatever light, or promise of 
 light, might be afforded by new publications, come from 
 where they might. If he was something of an eclectic, 
 he was not this in any sense that implies a lack of 
 virility. 
 
 He was keenly critical. No man was quicker to dis- 
 cern the weak points in the harness of a disputant. As 
 a consequence of his intercourse with books and men, 
 and of his own reasonings and reflections, he grew to be 
 a widely tolerant thinker, not unwilling to bring into 
 relations of friendship with himself men very diverse in 
 their opinions and external affiliations. He could under- 
 stand them, and could lend his sympathy up to a certain 
 measure to Catholic and Protestant, mystic and ration- 
 alist. Yet the home of his heart continued to be in the 
 old New England Congregationalism in which he was 
 nurtured, but from which, as far as he himself was con- 
 cerned, he had eliminated everything that was narrow 
 and forbidding. 
 
 As a polemic, Dr. Porter was energetic and adroit, and 
 sometimes, it might be thought, unsparing. He would 
 make no terms with the representatives of positivist, 
 materialistic or agnostic philosophy. He wrote many 
 pages and preached not a few discourses in opposition 
 to the popular expounders of tenets of this class. In
 
 106 NOAH PORTER 
 
 referring to them and in reviewing their writings, he 
 fell instinctively into a sharply antagonistic tone and 
 into a strain of argumentation which seemed to some 
 to betoken a preconceived purpose to give no quarter. 
 It was to topics relating to the foundations of religious 
 faith that Dr. Porter in the latter decades of his life 
 turned with most satisfaction. He wrote much in vin- 
 dication of the principles of Theism. But his faith in 
 the essential truths of Christian revelation, and his 
 appreciation of their importance, were not in the least 
 diminished. 
 
 Through all his life, Dr. Porter was hospitable to new 
 ideas. He never drew down the curtains to shut out 
 the incoming of new light. He never became petrified 
 in his tliinking, as is the case with too many from the 
 effect of advancing years. To the last he showed no 
 sign of mental indolence. He turned his thoughts in 
 the same active, versatile fashion to subjects of interest 
 and importance. He had at command in public and in 
 private conversation the same vigor in speech and the 
 same store of apt and racy epithets in characterizing 
 persons and things. Were it my object to depict the 
 intellectual and moral traits of President Porter or to 
 describe his social qualities, which in some respects were 
 remarkably engaging, I should have much more to say. 
 But all this will be fitly done by others. He was cer- 
 tainly a very able man, and he was possessed of winning 
 qualities which were fitted to draw to him general 
 esteem.
 
 AS A THEOLOGICAL TEACHER 107 
 
 The Theological Seminary had in the year 1858 reached 
 a condition of almost total collapse. Those men who had 
 formerly made the New Haven School of ^^ a 
 Theology at once famous and formidable had Theological 
 passed away, almost within the same year, b r -' 
 The school itself had for a long time been Edward A. 
 slowly decaying. Its funds were scanty. ^""^^■ 
 Public interest in that entire range of subjects about 
 which dispute was once high had died out. The pro- 
 fessors had for some years been personally infirm, and 
 the number of students had dropped almost to zero. At 
 this point of lowest water, a turn in the tide was given 
 by a vote of the corporation, appointing Mr. Timothy 
 Dwight to be Assistant Professor of Sacred Literature, 
 and Professor Noah Porter to take Dr. Taylor's place 
 in teaching Systematic Theology. This appointment Dr. 
 Porter declined, in so far that he did not give up the 
 position he was then holding in the academical depart- 
 ment ; but accepted in so far as to undertake the task 
 of giving instruction in doctrinal theology until other 
 supply for the chair should be obtained. This period 
 lasted from 1858 to 1866, and Professor Porter during 
 this time did duty in both departments. 
 
 These lectures in theology were given for a while in 
 his own private room, the number of students being so 
 small as to make this possible and convenient. After- 
 ward a room in the southwest corner on the ground floor 
 of Old Divinity College was set apart for these, and, I 
 believe, for all the other exercises which the seminary 
 then had to offer. This building was the northernmost
 
 108 NOAH PORTER 
 
 member of the old brick row, and was taken away about 
 twenty-five years ago. 
 
 The theological lectures which Dr. Porter thus de- 
 livered added possibly little to his general reputation, 
 especially as they were gi.ven in the presence of small 
 companies of students ; but the work done by him in 
 this department was as truly noteworthy and character- 
 istic as that done in any other field of his public activity. 
 
 One of the striking features of these lectures was 
 an occasional display of the extraordinary acuteness of 
 mind of which Dr. Porter was possessed. Sometimes, in 
 answer to an imaginary objector, or sometimes in reply 
 to a question from his class, he would step aside from 
 the ordinary routine of his lecture, and execute before 
 their eyes a beautiful piece of philosophic dissection. 
 Certain clear definitions were swiftly drawn, and sharp 
 distinction made, until the nerves and fibers of the sub- 
 ject lay separate and open for the leisurely inspection of 
 the class. By reason also of this quality of mind, he 
 was able, better than almost any one else, to recognize 
 the tangle into which the thoughts of a pupil had 
 chanced to fall, with deft fingers to undo the knot, and 
 set the thought at liberty. His excellence in this part 
 of an instructor's work was eminent. 
 
 Some of his pupils of those days could testify also to 
 an inspiration into which he would occasionally rise ; a 
 kind of calm, beautiful enthusiasm for truth, into some 
 new view of which he had, in discourse with others, sud- 
 denly found himself carried. His fancy then awoke ; 
 his vision widened to take in great continental lines of
 
 AS A THEOLOGICAL TEACHER 109 
 
 thought; his mind formed new combinations of truth, 
 and Avords of felicitous glowing statement then fell from 
 his lips. There are those who would say that the powers 
 of Dr. Porter's mind seemed to them to have had fullest 
 exhibition in these smaller conferences, where the for- 
 mality of the large lecture room was wanting, and his 
 mind lay open to that kind of stimulating contact with 
 other minds which could best awaken the genius within 
 him. 
 
 Closely akin to this was the remarkable suggestiveness 
 which characterized his teaching. Some of those who 
 once formed a group of pupils around him, can recall at 
 this day certain significant seed-like statements, which, 
 falling into the mind" of a listener, have borne fruit in 
 all his subsequent thinking. It was perhaps some gen- 
 eral principle, casually stated by him, which yet found 
 lodgement in the memory, and has been found capable of 
 fresh application in manifold ways ever since. There 
 are doubtless many whose entire subsequent life of 
 thought, whose attitude toward the various religious and 
 philosophical questions of these later days, would be 
 found of the same nature as that which they had learned 
 to assume during the days of their intercourse with him. 
 Possibly few of his individual sayings may have remained 
 in their memories, but the habits of thinking and the 
 general carriage of mind to which he helped them were 
 such as they find themselves maintaining in the forma- 
 tion of their opinions now. 
 
 That attitude of mind was eminently that which may 
 be called a modern one. While Dr. Porter's own relig-
 
 110 NOAH PORTER 
 
 ious opinions were to a large degree conservative, and 
 in no important way divergent from those generally held 
 by Christian men of that time, his whole bearing, as he 
 approached religious truth, was that of the latter quarter 
 of this century, and was marked with what may be called, 
 in the true sense, the inductive or scientific spirit; it 
 being remembered that the scientific spirit, really such, 
 is one which takes all facts spiritual as well as earthly 
 into its cognizance. 
 
 That way of thinking was marked, moreover, by a cer- 
 tain intellectual modesty or reserve in the handling of 
 sacred things which stood in contrast to the assumption 
 of positive and exact knowledge with which the earlier 
 generation had felt able to speak regarding them. Dr. 
 Porter's pupils were not told, in so many words, that 
 older methods were set aside, but there was none the 
 less a change in the atmosphere. The definite arrange- 
 ment of events attending the second coming of the Lord, 
 the relative position of the last judgment in relation to 
 it, the older chart-making in eschatological regions, had no 
 place with him. His pupils learned to tolerate the vast, 
 unexplored spaces of darkness with which things eternal 
 are begirt. They learned a certain reticence of speech 
 and thought regarding the inner nature of the God- 
 head, the atonement, and the mysteries of the divine 
 life embodied in human life, which reticence was not of 
 the earlier day, but of this. While there were some who 
 expected Dr. Porter to assume the mantle and renew the 
 battles which that noble old warrior, Dr. Taylor, had 
 relinquished; while some looked for the reiteration of
 
 EEMINISCENCES OF THE LECTUEE-BOOM 111 
 
 the distinctive New Haven doctrines and almost the 
 repetition of Dr. Taylor's very lectures, Dr. Porter 
 became, without any announcement of changed methods, 
 a prophet of another day. He had breathed the air of 
 to-morrow, and none who listened to him with intelli- 
 gent sympathy failed to see a different quality of light 
 falling on objects around, or to acquire a different way of 
 walking among them. 
 
 We hardly knew at the time, but can understand 
 better now, how long the step was, from the older, more 
 dogmatic attitude of former days, to the humbler reserve 
 and the patient possessing of the soul in the presence of 
 the great things of God, toward which our intercourse 
 with this broad-minded, reverent seeker after truth was 
 always leading us. 
 
 This portion of Dr. Porter's career in which he held 
 the place of theological teacher may be less widely 
 known, but the effects of it may be considered to have 
 been as characteristic of him, as important and far-reach- 
 ing, as any part of his most valuable public life. 
 
 Heartily concurring in this estimate of Mr. Smith's, 
 I add some recollections of my own. I was in the 
 Junior class in the Seminary in 1865-6. Dr. 
 Porter's lectures belonged properly to the cesoftheLec- 
 Middle year, but they were attended also ture-Room. 
 by the Juniors. The two classes mustered '?',./'^ 
 
 '' Editor. 
 
 scarcely a dozen. He was a most interesting 
 
 and inspiring teacher. He awoke our minds, opened
 
 112 NOAH POBTER 
 
 new and large fields of thought, drew out from us our 
 own impressions and questionings, understood, sympa- 
 thized, suggested, and never coerced. He won us to the 
 general line of his own convictions, but yet more strongly 
 he drew us to think for ourselves. The subjects he laid 
 open became so interesting that we could not help but 
 push on, whether we took his path or another. It was 
 inevitable that one should think, and important that one 
 should think rightly — but no atmosphere of terror for- 
 bade in any direction our free inquiry. 
 
 He made some use of notes, but his habitual address 
 to us was speaking rather than reading. He spoke with 
 ease, fluency, and animation. It was under these con- 
 ditions, I think, that he expressed himself most effec- 
 tively and felicitously. As a pulpit or platform speaker, 
 he suffered from some w^ant of fire, some deficiency of 
 dynamic force. He was interesting, but he was rarely 
 eloquent. Oratory demands passion, and passion had 
 small place in his temperament. A similar defect is felt 
 in his writings. But in a conversation he was admi- 
 rable, and in these lectures, to a little group of sympa- 
 thetic listeners, his almost conversational tone — with 
 its basis of genuineness, spontaneity, and mutuality — 
 rose with the inspiration of the theme to a higher key 
 and wider range, and met perfectly the needs of the 
 occasion. 
 
 Having finished his exposition for the day, he would 
 say, '* Now have you any questions or remarks ? " And 
 there wou.ld follow a many-sided dialogue, often the 
 richest part of the lecture. He then seemed less an
 
 BEMINISCENCUS OF THE LECTUBE-BOOM. 113 
 
 instructor tliau a fellow-learner. He would catch the 
 pupil's half-articulate thought, give it full expression, 
 answer the difficulty if he could, or leave it unanswered, 
 with some pregnant suggestion or side-thought. His 
 method was quite different from that of another eminent 
 theological professor, who dealt with his students like 
 a fencing-master with his pupils, — flashing his steel 
 against theirs, training them in combat, but never letting 
 himself be beaten. That was by no means Dr. Porter's 
 way. 
 
 In his writings he was often polemical, but in these 
 lectures there was little of polemic. The controversy 
 between New School and Old, in which Dr. Taylor had 
 been a champion, still lingered on the stage ; New Haven 
 and Princeton still battled, but somewhat drowsily, and 
 for Dr. Porter it was a by-gone issue. The more funda- 
 mental controversy as to miracles had not reached its 
 height, and Spencer's philosophy had not become the 
 conspicuous antagonist against which Dr. Porter placed 
 himself in later years. The most interesting recent 
 event to American theologians was the appearance of 
 Horace Bushnell's The Vicarious Sacrijice, — full of 
 deep thought and noble spirituality, and hardly less 
 than an epoch-making book. Dr. Porter gave large 
 attention to it. He encouraged us to read it, and brought 
 Us within the influence of its lofty and persuasive spirit, 
 while he argued against its main theory as inadequate. 
 For the time at least he held us from going over to Dr. 
 Bushnell's view. But when he passed on to offer a 
 positive theory of the Atonement, he was less satisfying.
 
 114 NOAH PORTER 
 
 At the vital point — just what does the Atonement sig- 
 nify ? — he used the phrase, "Here the argument labors" 
 — and from that labor he showed us no very clear out- 
 come. There was perhaps truth in the comment, some- 
 times made, that he was stronger in criticism than in 
 construction. 
 
 Dr. Porter dealt at such length with the subject of the 
 Atonement, that the close of the year drew on and only 
 the very briefest time remained for the whole subject of 
 Eschatology — "the last things," the millenium, the judg- 
 ment, the final awards. Perhaps he was not unwilling 
 to dwell lightly on those mysteries of the future in which 
 the older generation of divines found their chief concern. 
 His treatment of them folloAved the visual Orthodox lines. 
 I engaged him in a private conversation on a subject 
 which pressed upon my own mind, — that of endless 
 punishment as the penalty of earthly sin. Among other 
 things I put a series of individual cases : " Suppose a 
 man born so and so, circumstanced so and so, acting thus 
 and thus, — how can it be just that he should be sub- 
 jected to everlasting punishment ? " As to each case I 
 was promptly met : " Such a man would doubtless not 
 incur the penalty." In short, he maintained that there 
 was everlasting punishment, while he allowed exemption 
 so wide that practically almost every one would escape ! 
 It suggests to me now his own system of college discipline 
 — a rigid code with a very mild enforcement. 
 
 The main stress of his thought was always thrown on 
 the large and fruitful aspects of his theme. And if at 
 any point his intellectual lines cramped his heart he was
 
 BEMINISCENCES OF THE LECTURE-ROOM. 115 
 
 not afraid to step over them. There was in our class a 
 student whose only ability displayed itself in a certain 
 clumsy skill in making logic-traps. He once pushed 
 Dr. Porter with a Socratic series of questions : — '' Belief 
 in Christ is necessary to salvation ? Certainly, for any 
 to whom knowledge of Christ has been given ? " and so 
 on, and finally, "How are we to regard the spiritual 
 prospects of a man like Ralph Waldo Emerson ? " The 
 logic of the implication was as strong as the conclusion 
 was ugly. Dr. Porter did not hesitate. " The Scripture 
 tells us," he said, " that in every nation he that feareth 
 God and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him. I 
 suppose that holds good even in Concord, Massachu- 
 setts ! " The twinkle that lit up his face was answered 
 by a laugh from the whole class — and the session ended. 
 He was nominally a teacher of " systematic theology," 
 but that phrase is not appropriate to his characteristic 
 teaching. He did not impart a complete and symmetrical 
 set of opinions on the supreme themes. He wakened an 
 interest in those themes, gave freely his own best per- 
 ceptions, and started the hearer on his own way. To 
 some it might appear that he did not always carry his 
 logic to its fair conclusions, from a latent apprehension 
 of weakening the moral foundations. " I think," writes 
 one of his pupils, " he held the more tenaciously to cer- 
 tain doctrinal and authoritative elements, because there 
 was not included in his rich and many-sided intellect 
 that fervid and daring temper which prompts the human 
 spirit to trust its own wings with no support save the 
 all-embracing ether." But certainly his teaching went
 
 116 NOAH POETER 
 
 to make truth-loving, thoughtful and fearless men, for 
 there blended in him the spirit of love and the spirit of 
 truth. He exercised on his pupils that emancipating 
 power which belongs to the active and eager intellect, 
 exercising itself in a world which yields infinite gratifi- 
 cation to its quest, and beckons it constantly to ampler 
 research. One of the sayings preserved of Dr. Taylor 
 was, " Go with the truth, if it takes you over Niagara ! " 
 In a less impassioned tone, but with a noble serenity, 
 Dr. Porter steadilj^ influenced his pupils to seek fearlessly 
 and earnestly the realities of the soul. His lecture-room 
 might well have been inscribed : " The truth shall make 
 you free." 
 
 The sum total of Dr. Porter's literary production, so 
 far as it can now be gathered, is shown in the Bibli- 
 ography at the end of this volume. As the fruit of a 
 life which was full of other activities, it is amazing, 
 One is reminded of old Cotton Mather and his myriad 
 literary progeny. No attempt will here be made to 
 criticise and scarcely even to characterize the mass of 
 these writings. They speak for themselves. So far as 
 they deal with philosophy and theology, their trend and 
 spirit has been sufficiently indicated. Next perhaps to 
 these themes in prominence is general literary criticism, 
 and obituaries ; — the latter forming a most interesting 
 portrait-gallery of eminent men of his generation, espe- 
 cially of notabilities in Yale College and in New England 
 Congregationalism. Some of his productions, while not
 
 EDITOR OF WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY 117 
 
 likely to attract wide public notice, opened deep mines 
 of learning. Such was his contribution to Ueberweg's 
 History of Philosophy — a brief sketch of philosophy in 
 Great Britain and America, which condenses great erudi- 
 tion into a compact and available form. But one liter- 
 ary labor deserves especial mention, lying as it does in a 
 field apart from most of his characteristic activities — 
 the editing of Webster's Dictionary. 
 
 When Dr. Webster's original work was first pruned 
 and amended in the edition of 1847, Dr. Porter contrib- 
 uted to the Appendix a table of Scriptural proper names. 
 When later a thorough and radical revision was under- 
 taken, he at first gave various incidental helps. He ren- 
 dered a very important service when in Berlin, through 
 the acquaintance he acquired with German philologists, 
 by engaging Dr. C. A. F. Mahn to furnish an entirely 
 new set of etymologies for the entire vocabulary, — thus 
 securing great excellence for the new book at the point 
 where Noah Webster had been weakest. The general 
 supervision of the editing had been taken by Professor 
 Chauncey A. Goodrich, with a corps of assistants which 
 included Professors William D. Whitney and Daniel C. 
 Gilman. While the work was still in an early stage, 
 the death of Professor Goodrich left it without a head. 
 Professor Goodrich had already received valuable assist- 
 ance from Dr. Porter in his admirable table of synonyms ; 
 and had earnestly solicited him, as familiar with the his- 
 tory and the principles of the entire work, to take the 
 main charge of it. This he had declined to do, but now 
 the request was pressed upon him by the publishers, who
 
 118 NOAH PORTER 
 
 were his personal friends, and by the family of Dr. 
 Webster. The publishers wrote: "It needs a head — a 
 guiding, deciding man — one understood to be a sort of 
 umpire, who will give unity to the whole and proportion 
 to the structure. It wants, for this, something beyond 
 what you have encouraged us to hope you could give it 
 — a constant supervision of the whole. To do this 
 would involve the necessity of giving probably all the 
 time you could devote to mental occupation beyond the 
 appropriate duties of your own single professorship — 
 perhaps two or three hours per day; — the proper care of 
 your health and the duties of your own chair being in 
 addition to this all you could wisely do, and precluding 
 the use of your pen and tongue in other ways, or very 
 nearly so. We should like to make you a pecuniary 
 proposition of this sort, if you will entertain it on such 
 a basis, to cover say two years. All the other gentlemen 
 engaged, we think we may say, earnestly desire this." 
 
 With great diffidence and reluctance, — " as being for- 
 eign to his special studies, and incompatible with very 
 pressing occupations" — the service was at last under- 
 taken. He proved admirably competent for it. It grew 
 immensely upon his hands. The work of making a great 
 dictionary is vast. It was essentially a new book that 
 was built upon Noah Webster's foundation, though incor- 
 porating much of the old structure. Dr. Porter's share 
 soon grew beyond the limits originally marked out. 
 He was too valuable to be used sparingly. His fund of 
 general information, his intelligence as to the sources of 
 knowledge, his wise judgment of the fitness of men for
 
 EDITOR OF WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY 119 
 
 various branches of the work, his mental acuteness 
 trained by metaphysics and serviceable for the niceties 
 of language, his swiftness in decision — and, not least, 
 his equal appreciation of literary and business condi- 
 tions, qualifying him to mediate between the publisher's 
 necessities of time and space and the scholar's fastidi- 
 ousness and slowness of execution, — these qualities 
 brought him into constant requisition. In addition to 
 the general supervision at first proposed, the copy of the 
 entire book passed under his critical eye, page by page 
 and line by line. Then again all the proof of its many 
 hundred pages was read by him. Instead of two years, 
 the time stretched to nearly four, for the book was not 
 ready for publication until 1864. When it appeared, it 
 was accepted by the literary and general public as a 
 great work of scholarship, and renewed and confirmed 
 the authority which had attached to the name of 
 Webster. 
 
 Dr. Porter's connection with the book did not end 
 here. He remained till the end of his life the official 
 and salaried editor of Webster's Dictionary. To him 
 were referred the points of special amendment and gen- 
 eral revision which were constantly arising. For the 
 successive supplements to the book, his advice and aid 
 were largely used. When in 1880 another radical re- 
 vision was tindertaken — which after ten years of prepa- 
 ration appeared as the " International Webster " — he 
 held a place of supervision very much like that at first 
 suggested for the earlier work. The principles of revis- 
 ion and construction had in that period been so thoroughly
 
 120 NOAH PORTER 
 
 worked out under his guidance, that they could be ap- 
 plied to the new work. The number of office workers 
 was now much larger, the systematization of labor more 
 perfect, and the close personal oversight he had given 
 before was no longer needed. But he drew the general 
 lines, infused his large wisdom into the conduct of the 
 enterprise, and was umpire upon delicate points of detail. 
 His relation to the dictionary was never a perfunctory 
 one, but even when not directly engaged upon it his mind 
 habitually turned to it with lively interest. 
 
 The publishers' suggestion, that he should confine 
 himself to one professorship and refrain from outside 
 occupation, was quite wasted. Two professorships, a 
 dictionary, and abundant incidentals — that was the pro- 
 gram as it worked itself out for four years. And they 
 were the tremendous years of the Civil War, in whose 
 anxieties and excitements he took his share, with all the 
 earnest and thoughtful men of the country. Yale Col- 
 lege gave freely of her sons, and her chiefs were all of 
 one mind and heart. 
 
 Four years after the dictionary, in 1868, appeared 
 The Human Intellect, the chief literary production of his 
 life. 
 
 The Bibliography shows how as the years advanced 
 he grew even more deeply engaged in the warfare for the 
 defense of the faith. His reviews, essays, books, show 
 him more and more a champion in the lists. But from 
 first to last his personal relations with those he thus 
 combated or criticised were characteristic of the man.
 
 FBIENDSniPS WITH HERETICS 121 
 
 In 1844 appeared a book by Theodore Parker, A Dis- 
 course of Matters Pertaining to Religion. It widened the 
 growing breach between him and conservatives even of 
 the Unitarian name, and thereafter his hand was against 
 every man and every man's against him. The Neio Eng- 
 lander gave a review of the book, anonymous as was then 
 its fashion, controverting much in Parker's position, but 
 so generous and appreciative that Parker wrote to the 
 editor, sending his hearty thanks to his unknown critic. 
 This critic was Dr. Porter, who replied to the letter, and 
 there grew up a correspondence and a cordial friendship. 
 Porter, applying to Parker a quotation from Sidney Smith, 
 had written that he "might as well wear a turban as a hat." 
 Not long a^ter Porter went to visit the heresiarch in his 
 Koxbury home, and on his arrival was sent to find him 
 in his orchard. Parker turned from his pruning to greet 
 his expected guest, and, uncovering as he held out his 
 hand, said, " You see, Mr. Porter, I do wear a hat after 
 all!" 
 
 Many letters passed between them. Sometimes they 
 wrote of books that one had and the other wanted to see ; 
 sometimes of lectures one or the other was giving ; and 
 sometimes they discussed theology, though seldom at 
 length. Parker's letters show no anxiety to win his 
 correspondent to his views. In Porter's there is appar- 
 ent — though shown rarely and not obtrusively — an 
 affectionate solicitude that his friend might come to 
 share his sentiment toward Christ. In Dr. Porter's 
 library is a copy of a later edition of the Discourse, and 
 bound in with its pages a letter from the author, recall-
 
 122 NOAH PORTER 
 
 ing the " kind and genial critique " which had led to their 
 acquaintance. Parker's last letter — July 15, 1859, — is 
 feebly written in pencil. He writes : " It is not likely I 
 shall see you again for a long time, if indeed I ever do. 
 I lie on my bed all day, expectant of what shall come, 
 but intending as soon as able to sail off for the West 
 Indies, tho' I think it is the other Insulm Beatoe which I 
 am bound for. But whichever it may be, I do not like to 
 leave New England without a word to you. ... It gives 
 me great pleasure to notice the uniform respect and ven- 
 eration in which your students hold you, and to hear 
 them speak of the quickening impulse which you give 
 them toward a high, free and noble life. Colleges are 
 dull places at the best, and the professors sometimes 
 become as dead as any tooth in the brass wheels of the 
 public clock, and like that only keep the college to mean 
 time. It does my heart good to learn that you keep a 
 live soul in the dull routine of a college, and not only 
 instruct but also inspire your scholars. But I must not 
 write more, save to thank you again for the unusual fair- 
 ness of your treatment of me. Remember me kindly to 
 your wife — I wish her health were better. And think 
 as charitably as you can of yours thankfully and sincerely, 
 Theodore Parker." 
 
 Whenever in his literary criticism Dr. Porter refers to 
 George Eliot, his admiration for her genius and protest 
 against her agnostic views are touched with a special 
 note as of personal sympathy and regard. The key is 
 given in an anecdote of his first visit to Europe, told in 
 an article in the Christian Union, at the time of her
 
 FBIENDSHIPS WITH HERETICS 123 
 
 death. He relates that in 1853 he passed several days 
 in the London lodging-house where Miss Marian Evans 
 was living. " She was spoken of as perhaps the most 
 learned and cultured lady in the kingdom, and was 
 then acting as principal critic and editor of the West- 
 minster Review. She was known at that time as the 
 laborious translator of Strauss's Life of Christ pub' 
 lished seven years before. At that time she was thirty- 
 three years old, with plain but interesting features, of a 
 little above medium size, of a very quiet and almost 
 timid bearing, most noticeable for her singularly refined 
 voice, her clear thoughts, her choice yet by no means 
 stilted diction, and above all for her fervid yet unaf- 
 fected sensibility. She was free and affable with the 
 family and guests, but unmistakably wore the air of a 
 person preoccupied with many engagements, and living 
 apart in her own world of elevated thoughts and intense 
 feeling. The writer remembers once being greatly 
 moved at seeing her, after having come late to the 
 breakfast table and being left almost alone, give way to 
 a mood of abstraction during which the tears flowed in 
 streams over her strong yet gentle face. It was delight- 
 ful to hear her converse, and yet I recall little or noth- 
 ing of a long conversation with her as once we sat 
 opposite one another at the table and were left to our- 
 selves. These are all the recollections the writer has of 
 this gifted woman." 
 
 Among his Neio Englander reviews in 1859 is one 
 of Thorndale. The book charmed him not only by 
 its intellectual beauty but by the passion for truth which
 
 124 NOAH PORTEB 
 
 marks it, while its dissent from supernatural Christianity, 
 and the lack of absolute assurance in its theistic ten- 
 dency, could not fail to draw from him a warm vindica- 
 tion of his own positive faith. The author — the most 
 modest and retiring of men — wrote to his critic, far 
 more gratified by his sympathy than chilled by his dis- 
 sent. A friendly correspondence was maintained at 
 intervals for many years, and when William Smith died 
 his widow continued to exchange letters with Dr. Porter. 
 It was perhaps owing more to him than to any one else 
 — to him, and her desire to portray for those like him 
 the friend they had never seen — that she wrote and 
 finally published the Memoir of her husband. And it 
 was through his introduction of her to another unseen 
 American friend that the acquaintance began which led 
 to the writing of The Story of William and Lucy Smith. 
 
 If anything could call out the full vigor of Dr. Porter's 
 polemic, it was such utterances as Professor Tyndall was 
 wont to give on theological subjects. In response to such 
 a criticism of his, Tyndall wrote (February 16, 1878) : 
 " Your article from the I^ew Englander reached me duly, 
 and was read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested by 
 me. It is, as it could not fail to be, the production of a 
 gentleman — very different in this respect from other 
 utterances directed to a similar end nearer home. It is 
 severe — but its severity does not lessen the respect — or 
 if you will allow me to say it, the affection I have felt 
 for you ever since I had the pleasure of meeting you at 
 Yale." 
 
 The polemic and eirenic elements were mixed in him
 
 PUBLIC CONTROVERSIES 125 
 
 in a curious yet quite intelligible way. Intellectually 
 he was apt to be at his best under the stimulus of 
 a challenge — a question or perhaps a contradiction. 
 This was often noticed, and was illustrated in the Club 
 of which he was a member, where gentlemen of the 
 college and the city used to meet for friendly discussion. 
 When Dr. Leonard Bacon — a natural debater and a 
 leader of men, whose powers were cramped in the pulpit 
 and would have shown to advantage on the floor of the 
 Senate — would traverse the easy-flowing current of talk 
 with a sharp assertion or question, Dr. Porter would 
 rouse into a different man, and become on the instant a 
 strong and dexterous champion. 
 
 But, while he often used the methods of the critic and 
 controversialist in the pursuit of truth, he was by temper 
 averse to personal hostilities, and he abhorred the waste 
 of energy and sacrifice of results involved in needless war 
 of any sort. He especially disliked what may be called 
 family quarrels, — feuds dividing the community or 
 church or state. He has told how in his New Milford 
 pastorate he aimed successfully to prevent the slavery 
 issue from dividing the church into adverse factions. In 
 his early politics he was an anti-slavery Whig, but when 
 the Republican party arose he gave it his vote and 
 support, and, while rarely taking active part in politics, 
 remained a Republican in his sympathies to the last. 
 The same temper which held him back not only from the 
 abolitionists but from the free-soilers kept him away 
 from the mugwumps. Aggressive revolt was not his ele- 
 ment.
 
 126 NOAH PORTER 
 
 He was a true American in his aversion to fighting 
 unless for an ample reason — and equally an American 
 in his readiness to fight to the end when he saw a good 
 reason. And thus he took active part in some great 
 public controversies. Among his latest writings were 
 two papers called out by the refusal of the Prudential 
 Committee of the American Board to send out as 
 missionaries young men who did not meet certain 
 doctrinal tests in a manner satisfactory to the commit- 
 tee. These papers — on the cases of Mr. Hume and Mr. 
 Noyes — are models of broad, calm and persuasive 
 presentation. They are based on principles deeper than 
 the special points of theology involved in the contro- 
 versy. " We New Englanders rejoice in our religious 
 enterprise and our practical zeal, and glory in their 
 results as achieved at home and abroad, but we should 
 never forget that the courage and enterprise which have 
 been shown in all the forms of practical and theological 
 thinking have had quite as much to do with these 
 results as the money which we have expended and the 
 lives which we have sacrificed in the missionary field." 
 It is no exaggeration to say that the argument and the 
 spirit of these papers are irresistible — for that their view 
 is sure to prevail at no distant time is the safest of 
 prophecies. 
 
 The substantial question in this case is whether the 
 same liberty of opinion shall be allowed to the foreign 
 missionaries as to the home ministers of the Congre- 
 gational body. The earlier question was as to what 
 liberty of opinion the home minister might exercise, as
 
 PUBLIC CONTROVERSIES 127 
 
 to the possibilities of the hereafter. At the turning- 
 point of that question, it was Dr. Porter who gave the 
 decisive leadership. On the Sunday after his death, Dr. 
 Hunger told the story to his ISTew Haven congregation : 
 
 " It is due to hini and to his powerful advocacy that 
 I stand in this pulpit to-day — an advocacy not based 
 on personal and friendly considerations, though he was 
 prompt enough to respond to such motives, but on princi- 
 ples that underlie and cover all ecclesiastical procedure 
 and all theological judgments, namely, toleration, breadth, 
 and personal faith and character as outweighing dog- 
 matic belief. Twice has he stood to me in this peculiar 
 relation of defending through me the new order of 
 thought and the broader and more discriminating toler- 
 ance that are now seeking for expression. The North 
 Adams council, which installed me in 1877, followed im- 
 mediately the Indian Orchard council, whose decision 
 threw the Congregational churches into a ferment which 
 has hardly yet wholly ceased, a decision that refused 
 ordination to a young minister on the score of his un- 
 willingness to pronounce dogmatically on the fate of 
 the heathen who had never heard of the gospel.^ The 
 
 iThe precise ground on which the council refused to instal the pastor 
 called by the Indian Orchard church (who had previously been the min- 
 ister of the Farniiugtou church over which Dr. Porter's father was so 
 long settled) was this : that under examination he avowed his disbelief 
 in an eternity of conscious misery for any soul. To the Indian Orchard 
 council Dr. Porter was invited, but he was not present. He was apt to 
 deprecate the raising of such issues, and to avoid participation if pos- 
 sible. But whenever a conflict became unavoidable he " enlisted for 
 the war." The same degree of Congregational liberty which was vin- 
 dicated in Dr. Manger's case at North Adams was asserted with equal
 
 128 NOAH PORTEB 
 
 decision at North Adams reversed this decision and as- 
 serted a still broader tolerance on the subject, and served, 
 so far as decisions of councils can, to establish a prece- 
 dent that has gradually come to prevail. Small credit 
 was due to the candidate who had only personal fortunes 
 at stake, but immense credit is due to President Porter, 
 whose influence carried the council and made its action 
 nearly unanimous ; and not only credit for rendering a 
 great service to the Congregational churches of New Eng- 
 land, but praise for taking a stand which exposed him 
 to criticism as the head of a university — criticism which 
 he did not escape. The same thing was repeated at the 
 installation here in 1885, when a virulent opposition 
 growing out of the same questions was met and quelled 
 by the same powerful voice, and with a certain lofty 
 chivalry of which the man was largely capable. When 
 it was urged that the installation of the candidate by a 
 council of which the president of the University was the 
 moderator would be injurious to the institution, he re- 
 plied : " If it be a question between the welfare of the 
 college and the performance of duty, let the duty be done 
 and let the college suffer." Again his influence went out 
 through this council, tending to enlarge the bonds of 
 our Congregational liberty, and to secure that toleration 
 which has come so slowly into the American churches. 
 
 " While I feel a depth of gratitude to him that I can- 
 not express, it is overborne by my admiration for his 
 
 emphasis the next year at the settlement of Dr. James M. Whiton at 
 Newark, N. J. ; and of this later council also Dr. Porter was Moderator. 
 — Editor.
 
 PUBLIC CONTROVERSIES 129 
 
 courage — displayed in the highest form in which it 
 is called into exercise at the present day — namely, the 
 courage of the head of a great university in standing by 
 his convictions when his interests pointed in another 
 direction." 
 
 A year or two before his election to the presidency, 
 Dr. Porter wrote for the New Englander four articles 
 which were republished in a volume as The American 
 Colleges and the American Ptiblic. In this he laid 
 down the principles of collegiate education as he held 
 them. It was a vigorous assertion of the conservative 
 position, as against the radical changes which were in the 
 air as possible and perhaps desirable. The book, followed 
 as it was by the choice of Dr. Porter to the presidency, 
 set Yale as the avowed champion of conservatism, just as 
 Harvard under President Eliot was becoming the cham- 
 pion of the progressive party. Dr. Porter drew as his 
 main lines the maintenance of Greek and Latin as the 
 basis of a liberal education ; the relegation of education 
 centering in natural science to special schools ; a fixed 
 curriculum with very few optionals ; enforced attendance 
 on all college exercises ; the marking system ; a kind of 
 paternal attitude of the faculty toward the students ; 
 and the essentially religious character of the college. 
 Improvement in detail he welcomed. He heartily fa- 
 vored the teaching of the classics in a more literary 
 spirit, and more attention to French and German. But 
 for the traditional system in its essentials, he spoke 
 out in rincjing tones. Energetic against the so-called
 
 130 NOAH PORTER 
 
 reformers, sarcastic toward "the NeAv Education," lie 
 was fairly scornful when he faced the self-constituted 
 judges of the academic Olympus, — the popular news- 
 papers, the penny-a-liners, the " practical " men who set 
 themselves up to controvert the wisdom of the ages. 
 Toward "The Public" that was criticising "The Col- 
 leges," he used not an atom of the deference to which 
 Demos is accustomed. Judge indeed ! Demos found 
 himself well-nigh arraigned as a culprit. Not for such 
 as he would Yale swerve from the good old ways that 
 the fathers trod ! 
 
 The spirit of innovation was abroad, and "young 
 Yale " was beginning to assert itself against the oldsters. 
 Such a bugle-note of defiance might have shaken the 
 popularity of any other professor with the younger 
 graduates, even though the authorities had stood by him. 
 But for many years Dr. Porter had held a place in the 
 hearts of all Yale men whence he could not be dislodged 
 by any differences of opinion. As it became apparent that 
 Woolsey must soon have a successor, the general feeling 
 was well voiced by some verses at a local alumni gather- 
 ing. Cordial praise is given to the " faithful, genial- 
 witted Dwight," to "stout, heroic Thacher," and to "the 
 admirable Hadley." 
 
 " Long may the three wear Honor's bays. 
 And never need to court her, 
 We'll give them three times three of praise, 
 And give our votes to Porter ! 
 
 " The gentle soul, the robust brain, 
 The mien that never varies,
 
 PRESIDENT OF YALE 131 
 
 Grand Porter of the master train 
 Towers primus inter pares. 
 
 " Nor aught shall dark the starry mark 
 Of Woolsey's ruling spirit, 
 Or swerve our academic Ark 
 When Noah's hand shall steer it ! " 
 
 It was thus lie entered upon the presidency in 1871, at 
 the age of sixty — strong in the affection of graduates and 
 students, possessing the full confidence and approval of 
 the Corporation, richly equipped by learning and expe- 
 rience ; — but, having spent more than the strength of 
 an ordinary lifetime, versed in scholarly and social rather 
 than in administrative service, and having to encounter a 
 spirit of innovation to which his convictions were opposed, 
 and which was to strengthen with every year. How did 
 he meet the ordeal ? Let President Carter tell that 
 story. 
 
 It is becoming more and more the custom to estimate 
 the standing of a college by the number of its professors 
 and students, and its resources in money and 
 books and cabinets and buildings. These are .fT ^'L 
 
 ° Yale. By 
 
 indeed necessary, and in the modern competi- President 
 tion it is certain that they command talent, p^'^"^^"'- 
 
 Carter. 
 
 and are a large element in the prosperity of 
 any institution of learning. But at the time of Presi- 
 dent Porter's inauguration the productive funds of the 
 academical department of Yale College (excluding funds 
 afterwards treated as university funds and moneys 
 already given for special buildings not yet erected)
 
 132 NOAH PORTER 
 
 did not amount to $700,000, and the total capital (ex- 
 clusive of unproductive real estate) belonging to all 
 departments combined did not exceed $1,250,000. The 
 number of students registered in the catalogue of 
 1870-71 was in the academical department five hun- 
 dred and twenty-two, and in the whole college seven 
 hundred and fifty-five. In comparison with the great 
 resources of certain institutions, and one or two of 
 them not very old, Yale College was meagrely endowed. 
 Several had longer lists of students. But no institution 
 in the country could exhibit during President Woolsey's 
 administration, in all that a true college or university 
 stands for, larger results than this college. Among the 
 sixty-five professors and teachers on the catalogue the 
 last year of his presidency, were men known wherever 
 learning is honored for their accomplishments and dis- 
 coveries. Among her students high ideals in scholarship 
 and letters were pursued. By her graduates great ser- 
 vices in political and professional life and in large 
 business enterprises were performed for men. Her sons 
 from nearly every ]S"orthern state fought with bravery 
 and distinction for the preservation of the Union, and 
 many scarcely less distinguished were in the Southern 
 armies. She moved on from year to year not with 
 pomp or show of brilliancy, but with a calmness and 
 beneficence in which her most intelligent friends re- 
 joiced greatly. 
 
 There were those who clamored for more parade. 
 Alumni assembled with loyalty to the old home listened 
 sometimes to cries for more display and style, or for
 
 PRESIDENT OF YALE 133 
 
 more variety of instruction and a more " cosmic philos- 
 ophy." While to some graduates of Yale it seemed a 
 waste that members of foreign societies were employed in 
 teaching Freshmen, others did not seem to be aware that 
 any of her professors were members of foreign societies. 
 Her professors were ''too modest," or "too narrow- 
 minded," or " too young," or " top conservative." Her 
 trustees were Connecticut ministers, whose vitality was 
 exhausted by keeping a few sheep in the wilderness, or 
 Connecticut senators, whose services to their constituents 
 were hardly to be compared with Burke's. There was no 
 Longfellow, no Lowell, in her faculty. It was hardly 
 appreciated by the grumblers that there was a Porter, a 
 Dana, a Hadley, and a Whitney on her roll of teachers. 
 Because of this commotion, and because the aspirations 
 of Yale's best friends were not gratified by that rapid 
 increase of funds which the high standing of the college 
 made necessary if that relative standing was to be main- 
 tained, some thought when Dr. Porter was inaugurated 
 that the college was passing through an acute crisis, and 
 that it had already lost and might still further lose 
 public esteem. Undoubtedly some of the discussion 
 common in the immediately preceding years tended to 
 produce a crisis, but the currents of inherited and accu- 
 mulating power, the influences that self-denying presi- 
 dents and professors had initiated, were to the eye of 
 faith resources of incalculable promise. 
 
 Endowed largely with this faith. President Porter 
 began his work as administrator in 1871, and his fifteen 
 years of guidance were years of steady advancement.
 
 134 NO All PORTER 
 
 They were years of transition and of much perplexity ; 
 years in which materialism and agnosticism in our coun- 
 try put on here and there a bold front and challenged 
 everything traditional; but they were years of con- 
 stantly increasing prosperity and expansion for Yale 
 College. It has been thought by some that if President 
 Porter had conducted the affairs of the college during 
 Dr. Woolsey's period of office, and Dr. Woolsey had 
 met the more trying questions, the issue would have 
 been still better. This may be doubted. If Dr. Woolsey 
 was more positive and sharp in dealing with refractory 
 individuals, he was not more aggressive in his hostility 
 to the anti-Christian theories. If Dr. Porter met indi- 
 viduals with gentleness, his public utterances gave no 
 uncertain sound, and his criticisms of the philosophical 
 positions of Spencer, Tyndall and others were recognized 
 by all as incisive and effective. Yale College did service 
 for all Christian schools of learning in our country 
 through these discussions by President Porter, for which 
 gratitude may well be cherished. The more pronounced 
 Christian attitude of some of these schools is the direct 
 result of his unflinching loyalty to truth and his acute 
 discrimination as expressed in these papers. 
 
 This work was done when small duties were increas- 
 ing in number for him with each new movement. The 
 increase in small duties and the multiplication of details 
 that marked his presidency, no president who preceded 
 him could have met with anything like the same patience 
 and success. When I first entered the Yale faculty in 
 1873 and began to attend the weekly meetings of the
 
 PRESIDENT OF YALE 135 
 
 academical teachers, I was impressed with the grasp 
 which President Porter had upon the details of the 
 college activities. I had small conception then of the 
 multitude of cares that pressed on him, but the clearness 
 with which the relations and facts of the college life were 
 present in his mind was a constant surprise to me. The 
 complexities of the greater college after my life in a 
 simpler institution were a little bewildering, perhaps, 
 but it was plain to me that the man at the head under- 
 stood perfectly the minutice of the system. He had, it 
 is true, been professor of philosophy in the academical 
 department of the college twenty-five years before he 
 became president. When I took my seat in the faculty- 
 room in 1873 he had already had two years of experience 
 as president. He had been active during his professor- 
 ship in increasing in every way the good influence and 
 the fame of Yale. He had preached in many Congrega- 
 tional churches in Connecticut, and had always, if I may 
 say so, carried the college with him. He had studied the 
 questions relating to the New England (and that is the 
 American) college, with great thoroughness, as is plainly 
 shown in the papers published in the Neiu Englander in 
 1869. I knew all this well, and yet I was not prepared 
 for the knowledge which he had of relations and 
 details. 
 
 It was not long before I discovered that, great as was 
 his mastery of the machinery of the college, it was 
 accompanied by a deep personal interest in all who were 
 connected with this machinery either as professors or 
 students. Naturally the students, as tlie body brought
 
 136 NOAII PORTER 
 
 together for the purposes of training, were the first ele- 
 ment in his thought. But it was not that he looked at 
 them as a great whole to be disciplined and improved, 
 but he seemed to carry individuals in his mind and to 
 act upon the principle that the progress attained must 
 be progress by individuals. Every professor was esti- 
 mated of value to the college more distinctly as he con- 
 tributed to this result ; and this result was to be sought 
 in the largest way, not merely with reference to the 
 performance of intellectual tasks, but also with the evi- 
 dent aim of development in moral character. Personal 
 influence by teachers on the undergraduate was in his 
 mind of the first importance. He saw the tendency in 
 the professors of the modern college, as it grows large, 
 to limit their efforts for their pupils to the class-room, 
 and he wholly deprecated it. The concentration, of the 
 specialist on the problems of his narrow sphere seemed 
 to him to threaten danger to the full moral enlargement 
 of the students. His loyalty to Christ as a divine Mas- 
 ter re-enforced by all its movement this interest in 
 personal growth, and he clung with invincible tenacity 
 to what seemed to him likely to promote Christian char- 
 acter in his pupils. 
 
 There was something almost humorous in his interest 
 in the sons and brothers of those who had been in college 
 with or under him. To have had personal relations with 
 a man seemed to President Porter to give to this man 
 and his friends and relatives a permanent claim on his 
 kindly regard. I sometimes thought this kindly feeling 
 was the overmastering element in his nature. It made
 
 PRESIDENT OF YALE 187 
 
 it hard for him to say " No/' and brought him occasion- 
 ally into a place where two seas met. The exercise of 
 authority as such was, I think, disagreeable to him. The 
 exercise of kindness was his delight. His face, con- 
 sidered in its separate features plain, was nevertheless 
 by reason of intelligence and kindliness often beautiful, 
 irradiated with "sweetness and light." The students felt 
 the power of this goodness, and though he was at the 
 head of a college whose discipline was just and impartial 
 and severe, a college which by its general discipline and 
 authority taught a large number of young men most 
 thorough lessons in obedience, the students never identi- 
 fied him with anything that even seemed harsh. He 
 was as a man the favorite and the ideal of the college. 
 The bow made to the president by each of the seniors in 
 accordance with the ancient custom of the college, as 
 he passes down from the conduct of morning prayers 
 through the central aisle of the chapel, was, on the part 
 of many, expressive of genuine reverence for him. 
 
 The multitude of cares that came daily upon him 
 never seemed to disturb his equanimity or to lessen his 
 sweetness. Teaching nearly every day in the college 
 year ; sometimes lecturing to the entire Senior class and 
 sometimes examining them on his own profound text- 
 book. The Human Intellect; for many years pastor of 
 the college church ; carrying always in his mind the 
 details of the academical department, and cherishing the 
 interests of the whole University, he was liable at any 
 moment to applications for advice or assistance from 
 students or from any member of the various faculties.
 
 138 NOAH PORTER 
 
 These were the regular, the daily, the almost constant 
 interruptions. But so complex an institution, composed 
 of such various elements, was certain to develop at times 
 serious frictions or even collisions, and to demand the 
 concentration for adjustment of all his powers. It was 
 perhaps too lofty an ambition that kept him loyal to 
 the old idea that the president of the New England col- 
 lege should not merely look after the ongoing of all the 
 parts of the whole, but that he should know and teach 
 every student in the Senior year of the classical course, 
 
 — should exhibit the highest attainment in scholarship, 
 
 — should have a personal solicitude for every pupil, — 
 and should always be ready for any interruption and 
 exigency. That was once possible in Yale College. From 
 the beginning of Dr. Porter's presidency it was becoming 
 impossible, as the college was rapidly expanding; and 
 the success which he had in the exercise of all these 
 activities, when the thought and strength required for 
 each had become so large, seems now, as I look back, 
 even more surprising than his knowledge of the details 
 of the history and movement of the great organism. 
 
 The social duties required of the president of a univer- 
 sity were not the least element in the demands made 
 upon Dr. Porter's time and thought. From the very 
 beginniug of his management he felt keenly and met 
 fully all these obligations. The delicate health of Mrs. 
 Porter might have excused in some measure his family 
 from the claims which the highest ideal in this respect 
 involves. It did not cause the slightest diminution in 
 fidelity to these claims. Indeed one might think that
 
 PRESIDENT OF TALE 139 
 
 he and his accomplished daughters, fearing lest some 
 one should imagine that the watch and care given to 
 the invalid at home would lessen the attention given 
 to others, went in public entertainment beyond what the 
 ideal required. On the evening of his inauguration, he 
 opened his house, one might say, to the entire city. Year 
 after year three or four receptions were given to the 
 combined Senior classes of the different departments, to 
 each of which all the officers of the college and many of 
 the townspeople were invited. Through these evenings 
 Mrs. Porter sat receiving with loving friendliness all 
 who came, and re-enforcing in a touching way the loyalty 
 of her husband to his great trust. It takes but a moment 
 of reflection to discern that such receptions to which 
 many came without any social experience are not a 
 pastime. During the latter part of his presidency two 
 Freshman receptions were added to the requirement. 
 It was a favorite thought of President Porter that if the 
 Freshmen could be won to earnestness and manliness, 
 the whole college would have a higher tone and ulti- 
 mately be transformed. These receptions were a special 
 contribution, small in results, to the attainment of this 
 end, but they involved a self-denial and effort of no 
 trifling significance on his part, and it should not be 
 forgotten were added to a life already overburdened. 
 
 The coming of distinguished gentlemen to New Haven, 
 an unending procession, meant for him and his family 
 unceasing hospitality. Among the Englishmen whom 
 they received and entertained, and dismissed with de- 
 lightful remembrances of a New England home and
 
 140 NOAH PORTER 
 
 of the simplicity and high thinking of the college, were 
 Dr. Payne Smith, the dean of Canterbury, Canon Farrar, 
 Lord Coleridge, the historians Froude and Freeman, 
 Matthew Arnold, Kev. Dr. Dale of Birmingham, Pro- 
 fessor Calderwood of Edinburgh, and Professor Free- 
 mantle. Many others hardly less distinguished, and a 
 host of the pupils whom he had taught while professor, 
 came to him and, I will not say exacted, but accepted, 
 his companionship and guidance in visiting the new 
 buildings and acquisitions of the college. I remember 
 distinctly once when in attendance on an examination 
 in Alumni Hall seeing him escort the Brazilian emperor, 
 Dom Pedro, around the room to inspect the portraits 
 and his repeating the names of several of the men 
 represented to the great interest of the visitor. 
 
 When President Hayes visited the college at Com- 
 mencement in 1880, he was the guest of President 
 Porter. At the dinner of the graduates, he revealed a 
 secret which had been well kept, which the modesty of 
 Dr. Porter would never have disclosed, viz. : that he had 
 offered the position of minister to England to the beloved 
 president of Yale. Mr. Hayes's graceful allusion to this 
 episode in President Porter's life deserves preservation. 
 He said: "There is another point to which I wish to 
 allude, and yet it is not a point, for it has length and 
 breadth and thickness. There is an old saying, 'you 
 can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him 
 drink.' Knowing the desire of the American people 
 that their representative to the nation to which we so 
 largely trace our lineage should be a man reared up to
 
 PRESIDENT OF YALE 141 
 
 the full stature of a mental and moral manhood, and 
 wishing to select the best type of American character, 
 in that emergency again I turned to Yale and found just 
 the man. I reversed the old adage in this case, for I 
 brought the water to the horse, but President Porter 
 would not drink. And he was altogether right in refus- 
 ing to accept the position tendered to him." 
 
 Great enjoyment came to President Porter in this 
 intercourse with distinguished visitors. But it cost 
 time and thought and strength, and in any fair recogni- 
 tion of his career as president a good deal of emphasis 
 should be laid upon his fidelity and success in the dis- 
 charge of social duties. When this element of work 
 is considered as an addition to the teaching, the man- 
 agement, the interruptions and necessary adjustments, 
 the public addresses, the claims of a great constituency 
 asking for his presence at various points, and the study 
 issuing in an ever-enlarging scholarship, — we must not 
 withhold even from this lesser labor large praise. 
 
 Undoubtedly an important element contributing to 
 his success as an administrator in all these relations was 
 the quality of kindness already mentioned. His genuine 
 personal interest kept him in nearly every case from 
 looking at the disagreeable side of the attrition, and 
 concentrated his attention on the problem of securing 
 to each applicant if possible the advantage sought. 
 Whatever any officer thought was essential to his use- 
 fulness, Dr. Porter was anxious to provide. He saw the 
 peculiarities of men, and, though often amused at them, 
 recognized the necessity of making allowance for these
 
 142 NOAH PORTER 
 
 peculiarities. He met with quick response every good 
 quality. He saw so much good in men and was so 
 desirous that that good should have full scope, that it 
 may safely be assumed that the constant demands on 
 his time and assistance were met with much greater ease 
 and exhausted him far less, than if his kindness and love 
 for men had been a superficial thing. It was not super- 
 ficial, but controlled and quickened the depths of his 
 nature. 
 
 Another great help in meeting the avalanche of duties 
 that weekly rolled in upon him was his profound interest 
 in different branches of stvidy. President Porter was a 
 genuine New Englander and a good deal of a Puritan, 
 but in no sense a narrow man. Culture had broadened 
 and enriched his mind, and this culture while mostly 
 on the human side was derived from thorough studies 
 in various lines. His love for the ancient classics, his 
 passion for New England history, were not less marked 
 features of his scholarship than his mastery of philos- 
 ophy and theology. No one that ever heard him talk, 
 when his mind moved freely on any of these subjects, 
 could help being impressed with the extent and accuracy 
 of his knowledge. He had familiarity also with other 
 modern literatures than English, and a profound interest 
 in everything that affected the Chiirch of Christ. He 
 loved poetry and art, and was always enlarging his 
 knowledge of their fields. Erom many branches of 
 learning he had drawn such inspiration and power that 
 each of them was an unfailing source of delight. A 
 more arid nature, or a nature equally potential that had
 
 PRESIDENT OF YALE 143 
 
 not been opened out deeply in such a variety of direc- 
 tions, would have much more easily tired under the storm 
 and stress of his life. But, alive to all movements on 
 these different sides of scholarship, there came often 
 from some direction a quickening influence, under which 
 the wearisome annoyance of routine or complaint or 
 conflict was completely forgotten, and he drank fresh 
 draughts from the springs which he had learned to love 
 and to visit in his youth. 
 
 Behind both his genial kindness and his varied scholar- 
 ship there was a large original power of endurance. He 
 had the tenacity of purpose and the power of resistance 
 that belonged with the toughest fiber of New England 
 stock. He was a good walker and climber, and younger 
 and athletic men sometimes found, after his hair was 
 gray and he began to look old, that if they were going 
 to march with him they would have to inure themselves 
 to the soldier's training. He could endure hardness. 
 This power of endurance was of immense service in his 
 official life. In cases where no friendliness to the appel- 
 lants, however ardent, could alleviate the asperity of one, 
 or the insistence of another, or in those long stretches of 
 routine which enter into a college president's life, or in 
 the anxious search for resources to meet the demands 
 for the expanding organism, he was compelled to rest 
 back on that solid granite of his nature which was usu- 
 ally hidden under his sweetness and culture. This en- 
 during power, re-enforced and permeated by goodness 
 and a genuine love of learning, carried him through what 
 would easily have overwhelmed a less solid combination
 
 144 NOAH PORTER 
 
 of qualities. This combination took up just that percent- 
 age of oxygen that makes the steel impenetrable. 
 
 It would be a grave omission not to speak further of 
 his faith as inspiring him with earnestness for his work 
 and with cheerfulness and courage as to the issue. He 
 was an optimist, if I ever knew one. He had a large 
 trust in human nature, and confidence in the ultimate 
 ascendancy of reason, in hours when reason was trampled 
 on by bigotry or theological bitterness ; a firm belief 
 that if history teaches anything it teaches that truth is 
 to have dominion. His optimism went so far as to lead 
 him sometimes to believe that influences which to most 
 seemed destructive were really conservative and helpful. 
 It was not easy for him to conceive that any conditions 
 with which he had to deal were, I will not say, wholly 
 bad, but other than fairly good. In every crisis he saw 
 signs for hope, and out of every disaster he expected 
 good to come. It was often hard for others to see on 
 what his confidence was resting, but after observation 
 for a considerable period of time, the conviction came to 
 the observer that such a faith was far wiser than appre- 
 hension or alarm. His trust in God was veiled by the 
 serene friendliness of his daily walk. He met with 
 disappointments. The very scope of his kindness and 
 the fullness of his confidence in men prevented him some- 
 times from seeing the full force of an untoward tide, and 
 led him now and then into positions where he was left 
 very much alone to oppose an evil or remedy a wrong. 
 It is pathetic to remember that this loneliness was occa- 
 sionally the price he paid for trusting men. Loneliness
 
 PBESIDENT OF YALE 145 
 
 is so much more naturally the penalty for distrust that 
 we may regard it coming to him as in a sense an imper- 
 ishable honor. It is not probable that its origin made it 
 any the less hard to bear. The rugged endurance with 
 which nature endowed him, and his faith, then carried 
 him on. 
 
 The intellectual productiveness of the man was con- 
 stant. This volume contains a list of his published 
 writings. He who wishes to know what President Porter 
 did for the world, beyond all that he did for the college, 
 during those fifteen years, should consult that list. At 
 least a hundred and twenty separate productions, includ- 
 ing ordinary newspaper articles ; sermons historical, 
 obituary, and commemorative ; essays educational, philo- 
 sophical and theological ; reports ; lectures ; new books 
 like the luminous discussion on Berkeley, or the volume 
 on moral science ; new editions of previous publications, 
 not to omit one thoroughly revised edition of Webster's 
 Dictionary, on which he may be said to have been 
 always working when not called to something else ; these 
 various and thorough and thoroughly instructive writings 
 were produced in hours snatched from the absorbing, in- 
 cessant attention that the college required. 
 
 The fifteen baccalaureate sermons preached to the 
 classes graduated during his presidency were afterwards 
 published in a volume. They are perhaps the best ex- 
 pression of the harmony of President Porter's thought 
 and life. They teach how his profound love of learning 
 and his philosophical insight were blended in a supreme 
 reverence for the divine Christ. They touch the thought
 
 146 NOAH POBTEB 
 
 of the age in its most vital centers, and touch it only to 
 quicken and clarify it with the Master's presence and 
 power. The barrenness and desolation of negations ; the 
 immense value to the scholar of faith in Christ ; the in- 
 effable charm that Christian living adds to refined cul- 
 ture ; the greater force of Christian character when 
 expanded by education; the answers of the Master to 
 the claims of the whole nature ; — I do not know where 
 these themes are set forth more persuasively than in the 
 pages of this book. For the average student at the time 
 of graduation the sermons seemed to savor of philo- 
 sophical discussion. But many a thoughtful graduate 
 has learned a few years later to find in these sermons 
 his true idea of his president. These pregnant sen- 
 tences came from the depth of that rich and richly culti- 
 vated nature, and were the passionate but reasonable 
 utterances of a life made blessed by service to one whose 
 he was and whom he served. Elsewhere I have ex- 
 pressed my fear that the new conditions of education are 
 likely to lead in all our colleges to the substitution of a 
 distinguished stranger for the president in this final, 
 formal, religious word of the college to the graduating 
 class. There will be compensations for this loss in the 
 greater executive efficiency of the coming layman as 
 president. But when such a man as Noah Porter is at 
 the head of a college, the baccalaureate sermon means 
 far more coming from the president than from any 
 stranger. In the modern emphasis on equipments and 
 facilities it may be worth while to remember that there 
 were certain features in the old and simpler college that
 
 PRESIDENT OF YALE 147 
 
 neither money nor science can secure ; that there were 
 personal relations and personal and Christian inspira- 
 tions of incalculable worth, of which the baccalaureate 
 sermon in some cases may be regarded as the truest 
 utterance. 
 
 These sermons are good reading for any man, but for 
 those who knew and loved Noah Porter they bring back 
 in a vivid way the benignant presence and Christian 
 scholarship of the man. 
 
 The perfect mental training of President Porter some- 
 times appeared in a striking way. For instance, in a 
 debate, for one side of which he was the only spokesman 
 and in which his mind was roused to unusual energy, 
 the mental movement seemed sometimes to be perfectly 
 indiiferent to everything around him. In such a state 
 of energy he would talk with fluency and apparent 
 coherence, but it was quite impossible for the ordinary 
 hearer to follow him or understand the significance of 
 his discourse. It seemed to me on the rare occasions 
 when I noticed this phenomenon that the German meta- 
 physics which he had so profoundly mastered came up 
 from the latent consciousness and assumed control ; that 
 his mind was finding expression for swift and subtle 
 processes in metaphysical forms. As a mathematician 
 could not be followed if he applied some advanced 
 method of solution to an ordinary question, so in these 
 crises of debate the metaphysical forms of statement 
 eluded the unversed listener. Something analogous to 
 this I noticed once or twice when he was preaching with 
 not very full notes. In the pulpit it lasted only a
 
 148 NOAH PORTER 
 
 moment or two, but in debate the period was longer. 
 Illustrations of writers whose style has been Germanized 
 are not rare, but I think I never met with any other 
 speaker in whom this complete transformation of style 
 in earnest debate came out as a sort of upheaval of the 
 deeper stratum and then subsided again beneath a per- 
 fectly intelligible flow of discourse. By some it was 
 regarded as voluntary, as deliberate talking against time. 
 I should say it was wholly the quickened and exalted 
 action of a highly trained mind, chiefly at home in the 
 study and solution of metaphysical questions. 
 
 President Porter could not be other than conservative. 
 Not that he did not welcome new movements or hope for 
 improvement in methods. But by the whole equipment 
 of his nature and training he clung to the main traditions 
 which had given New England such power, and especially 
 to the college system, at once the outgrowth and the 
 inspiration of this power. He could not admit that 
 other studies than the familiar ones, and greater liberty 
 of selection for the student, would be better even in 
 the changed conditions. The voyages of discovery which 
 have been so large an element in the educational world 
 for thirty years had no great promise for him. They 
 were no proof that the old methods were not the most 
 wholesome, but rather a proof that they had not been 
 wholly and sagaciously followed. In the discussion over 
 the relative value of the classics and sciences, and the 
 still more violent conflict over elective studies, he was 
 always in the front rank — cheerfully, bravely fighting 
 for those methods and that system to which he owed his
 
 PRESIDENT OF YALE 149 
 
 own culture. The example of the man, his own breadth 
 and power and skill in these conflicts, was one of the 
 most impressive arguments for the old that could be 
 advanced. 
 
 The advertising of educational advantages, the pub- 
 licity sought for men and equipments, the competition 
 between great foundations, the consj^icuous exhibition 
 in the newspapers of the cheaper, more material features 
 of colleges, all these were utterly repugnant to his deepest 
 feeling. It will not be forgotten with what eagerness 
 he sprang to his feet in one of the latest alumni meetings 
 of his presidency, to protest against the proposed change 
 of the word college in the name of the great institution 
 for which he was spending all his force to university. 
 Yale College was dear to him as the apple of his eye. It 
 was already a university. To that it had been constantly 
 expanding during every year of his presidency. Its 
 great professional schools, its scientific and art schools, 
 its enlarging libraries, its crowded museums, — these 
 gave it a vastly different position from what it had 
 when he became professor in 1846. But the change pro- 
 posed seemed to him to partake of the pretentiousness 
 in educational matters which he disliked. It did not 
 symbolize, he thought, the modesty and the genuineness 
 of the scholarly spirit. It was, he feared, an outgrowth 
 of materialistic tendencies. No one can refuse to pay 
 him honor for that protest. It was the expression of 
 his loyalty to all that is solid and true and simple and 
 quiet in academic life. It may easily be granted that 
 his objections did not represent a full appreciation of
 
 150 NOAH PORTER 
 
 the changed conditions, changes which he perhaps more 
 than any other had helped to bring about. For it must 
 not be forgotten that the growth of Yale College during 
 his presidency, and the more signal expansion of its 
 resources since, rest back on the self-denial and scholarly 
 devotion of a group of professors who under President 
 Woolsey worked with a rare harmony and unity for the 
 advancement of sound learning and Christian faith in 
 the college. Of that group he was one, and he could 
 not in the later days of his presidency quite realize the 
 greatness which he had so largely helped to develop. 
 Nothing was farther from his thought than any self- 
 laudation or any desire to claim credit for achievements. 
 The college was certainly greater than its name, but the 
 name Yale College probably represented to him every- 
 thing that was dear in education and in faith. It was 
 his desire to do his duty as president of Yale College. 
 How well he did that duty the record of the achievements 
 of his administration shows. 
 
 As has already been stated, the last annual catalogue 
 previous to President Porter's inauguration showed a 
 total of hve hundred and twenty-two students in the 
 academical department, and of seven hundred and fifty- 
 five in the entire college, including the professional and 
 other schools. The catalogue of 1885-86, the final year 
 of his administration, showed a total of five hundred and 
 sixty-three in the academical department, and of one 
 thousand and sixty-three in the entire college. The 
 number of professors and teachers of all grades had risen 
 during the period from seventy-two to one hundred and
 
 PRESIDENT OF YALE 151 
 
 fourteen. The aggregate funds of the whole institution 
 were augmented from about a million and a quarter ex- 
 clusive of unproductive real estate to nearly a million 
 and three-quarters. The enlargement in buildings during 
 the administration was even more striking. The North 
 Sheffield Hall costing about $80,000, the West Divinity 
 valued at $160,000, the Battell Chapel representing an 
 outlay of $200,000, the first wing of the Peabody Museum, 
 erected from funds previously given at a cost of $175,000, 
 the Sloane Physical Laboratory, the Kent Chemical Labo- 
 ratory, Lawrence Hall, the building for the Young Men's 
 Christian Association known as Dwight Hall, — these 
 are the larger and more important constructions of the 
 period. But changes in old buildings, and in sewerage 
 and steam heating, with reconstructions of various kinds 
 necessary to the healthful growth of a great institution, 
 must have carried the amount expended in material im- 
 provements independent of library enlargement, to nearly 
 if not quite $1,000,000. In the catalogue of 1871 the 
 library is said to contain sixty thousand volumes besides 
 the twenty-seven thousand belonging to the two once 
 famous literary societies. The catalogue of 1886 gives 
 the total number of volumes accessible to students in the 
 various libraries as one hundred and sixty thousand. 
 
 Dr. Porter had when professor been active in solicit- 
 ing money for the expansion of the college. Some large 
 donations which occurred during the earlier period may 
 in part at least be referred to the personal attachment of 
 the giver to him. It is not probable that he often asked 
 persons for contributions during his presidency. Some
 
 152 NOAH PORTER 
 
 times a playful allusion may have been made to the 
 needs of the college, but he was in the first j)lace too 
 intensely occupied to give much time to the beggar's 
 function. Then possibly the feeling had deepened in 
 his mind that a college doing the great work that Yale 
 had been doing, and with the great constituency that 
 Yale had, was sure to be appreciated and sustained; 
 sure, if her wants were understood, to receive ample 
 endowment. In his reports and public utterances he 
 stated these wants plainly, and trusted that the neces- 
 sary resources would come, — if not in his time, then 
 later. The free devotion in this country by men of 
 wealth of their possessions to institutions of learning 
 began in his day. It has become much more note- 
 worthy since. But the multiplication of new institu- 
 tions, and the magnificent endowment of some of them 
 which in the rapidly diminishing distances of our 
 country seems less necessary than once, — if not 
 checked, is likely to keep many of the older colleges, 
 colleges that by the heroic services of their graduates 
 to the nation have earned a lasting title to gratitude, 
 if not actually poor, at least in a constant struggle for 
 enlargement. In a sense Yale College, when under 
 President Porter's guidance was in such a struggle. 
 But when I recall his sound and varied learning, his 
 personal kindness, his lofty Christian character, and 
 his remarkable vitality, all devoted to the progress of 
 the college ; when I recall the company of illustrious 
 and self-denying professors of the academical school ♦ 
 who gave their time and thought to the training of the
 
 VACATIONS IN THE WOODS 153 
 
 young men, and remember the impartial justice of their 
 decisions and the unfaltering obedience required of 
 every pupil ; when I think of the many highly-trained 
 minds that came under their instruction, in the Junior 
 and Senior years, and know that what was true of the 
 classical department was true also of the Sheffield school 
 and of the theological school and elsewhere, — I am led 
 to question if even during that struggle any college in 
 America was reaching nobler results, or whether any 
 college as a whole has had a more golden period than 
 Yale had under Dr. Porter. Collisions and frictions 
 which were not unknown fade from memory ; restric- 
 tions and embarrassments were glorified by the spirit in 
 which they were overcome ; the worth of the things 
 unseen and eternal was set before young men with sin- 
 gular clearness, and the guide and inspiration of all the 
 unified activities was the beloved president. It was not 
 too much to say of him that he wrought well, 
 
 "And wrought 
 All kind of service with a noble ease 
 That graced the lowliest act in doing it." 
 
 To those whose only knowledge of Dr. Porter was in 
 connection with his administration of Yale University 
 a large portion of his character and traits 
 
 . Vacations in 
 
 were unrevealed. He appeared as a man of ^;^^ woods. 
 learning, of ability in affairs, and sound con- By Dean 
 servative judgment on general questions, a '^^"' 
 philosopher in the literal and scholarly senses, a man
 
 154 NOAH PORTEB 
 
 of the most winning and gracious manner, the flower of 
 New England civilization. 
 
 But there was another side to Dr. Porter, perhaps not 
 so impressive but more charming, and that was shown to 
 those who knew him in his seasons of relaxation, when 
 his years seemed to slip from him, new sensations and 
 dormant tastes asserted themselves, and, with no loss of 
 dignity, he became a companion for those a score or two 
 years his junior, ready to share all their amusements 
 and join them in any manly exploits. A good woodsman, 
 an untiring walker and oarsman, always cheerful under 
 the most untoward circumstances, he possessed to an 
 unusual degree the qualities of boldness, hardihood, and 
 enterprise, which under other conditions would have 
 made him foremost among the pioneers who with axe 
 and rifle have conquered this continent. I was fortunate 
 enough to see a good deal of Dr. Porter in the Adiron- 
 dacks, and for a number of years passed weeks with him 
 either in camp on the Upper Ausable Pond, or in taking 
 the various walking trips, sometimes of considerable 
 duration, from Keene Valley. 
 
 There are no conditions under which a man could show 
 his amiable and lovely qualities to greater advantage than 
 under the stress of fatigue and discomfort that attended 
 mountain climbing and camping as they were practiced 
 in the Adirondacks in Dr. Porter's day. Trails were bad 
 and the last idea of the guides was to improve them. 
 Blankets, waterproofs and provisions had to be carried 
 on the backs of those making the expeditions, this duty 
 not being confined to the guides, but every one packing
 
 VACATIONS IN THE WOODS 155 
 
 his own share. The nights were not passed in anything 
 better than a bark lean-to, and even the permanent camps 
 on the Upper Ausable were made of unchinked logs with 
 one side entirely open and uniformly leaky roofs. With 
 all its hardships and annoyances no man ever enjoyed 
 this rude life more than the Doctor, or gave more pleas- 
 ure to those with him. His good-nature was unfailing, 
 and though past the prime of life he always wanted to 
 do more than his share of the various labors that daily 
 presented themselves. His quiet but exquisite humor, 
 and the peculiar twinkle of his eyes when delivering 
 himself of it, were charming to all about the camp, in- 
 cluding the guides and children, who soon came to know 
 the sign and apj)reciate what followed it. 
 
 Of children we had in camp each summer half a dozen 
 or more of all ages and sizes, and some of them were not 
 devoid of many of the imperfections of youth. They all 
 united however in admiration and love for Dr. Porter, 
 who daily devoted hours to their entertainment and in- 
 struction. The welfare of every member of the party 
 was continually on his mind, and he delighted in produc- 
 ing from his knapsack unexpectedly some comfit or pill 
 or bolus, that would tickle the palates or assuage some 
 ill, real or imagined, of his companions. 
 
 His enjoyment of nature was keen and untiring, and 
 nobody knew as well as he the many places on the upper 
 pond from which to get the best views of the rare 
 scenery which surrounds it. Daily would he go out in 
 a boat, sometimes alone, sometimes taking one or two 
 with him, for the sole purpose of looking again at the
 
 156 NOAH PORTER 
 
 "■ Gothics " or " Sawtooth," his favorite mountains, with 
 just as lively interest as if he had not seen them a 
 thousand times before, and on his return he would tell 
 of some new impression he had gained, or of some new 
 beauties he had discovered. 
 
 He was not fond of fishing, but many a morning he 
 has risen at chilly daybreak to row with me up to the 
 " Spring hole " on the inlet a mile and a half distant, 
 where, for a few moments before its waters were touched 
 by the rising sun, large trout infrequently took the fly, 
 as they also did between sundown and dark. These 
 trout were so wary that the least splash of an oar in 
 going over the spring hole to its upper end, whence the 
 cast was made, destroyed the chance of any rising for 
 the short fishable period available, and the doctor en- 
 joyed immensely the proof of his clever handling of the 
 boat which the hooking of a trout afforded. One even- 
 ing it began raining when we were half way up to the 
 spring hole, but he declined to turn back as I wished, 
 and felt amply repaid for a thorough soaking and the 
 savage attacks of the midges by seeing me take three 
 very fine trout. 
 
 The different ways in which he showed his capacity 
 for enjoying the pleasures of others, which of them- 
 selves were not interesting to him, and his sympathy 
 with everything human, were the features of his char- 
 acter which won the love of all who really knew him. 
 
 It was very interesting to watch, as I have had sev- 
 eral chances of doing, the progress of his acquaintance 
 with Yale lower-class men who met him, unofficially.
 
 IN THE ABIRONDACKS 157 
 
 for the first time. One evening two such called where 
 we were staying in Keene Valley, and in the full flow of 
 conversation, mostly carried on by them, Dr. Porter en- 
 tered. The boys were presented to him and fell at once 
 into a state of silent awe and embarrassment alike ludi- 
 crous and painful. The doctor with the greatest kind- 
 ness and tact devoted himself to putting them at ease, 
 and it was curious and pleasant to watch the change in 
 an hour from the original attitude of the young fellows 
 to that of enthusiastic regard which animated them 
 when they departed. 
 
 The anecdote with which I will close was told me by 
 the doctor himself, who enjoyed the recollection of it 
 immensely. One September when at Saratoga attending 
 the Social Science Convention, he was strolling along the 
 street and came upon two college professors, one of them 
 from Yale, and joining them walked a short distance, 
 until one said, "Doctor, it is beer we want and not 
 Porter ! " Of course the hint was sufficient, and the 
 professors were allowed to seek their convivial haunt 
 without the company of the president of Yale. 
 
 Among my treasured memorabilia is the photograph 
 of a group of which President Porter is the central 
 figure. The date of the picture is 1875; the 
 
 , 1 T 1 1 • ^" the Adi- 
 
 scene, a camp on the Upper Ausable, loveliest rondacks. 
 of the Adirondack lakes. The party of fif- By Rev. y. 
 teen that appear with him in it is composed ' '^'''^ " • 
 of men, women, young children and guides — all his
 
 158 NOAH PORTER 
 
 friends. He stands forward in tlie midst, dressed for 
 the woods, flannel-shirted, without a coat, holding a gun 
 sportively put into his hand by one of us while the 
 camera was being adjusted, the amused smile with 
 which he had permitted such an absurd misrepresen- 
 tation of his taste and practice still lingering on his 
 scholarly, benignant face.^ 
 
 This picture I value as a relic of the man because it is 
 a vivid reminder of the circumstances in which I gained 
 my most intimate knowledge of him, and with which 
 the recollections of him that I love most to dwell upon 
 are identified. 
 
 More than thirty-five years I was acquainted with him, 
 and in various relations. First as a student under his 
 instruction at Yale, he being my division officer in Senior 
 year; then as a frequent visitor to the old college 
 where I hardly ever failed to meet him ; then as pastor 
 in Hartford of a family of his near kindred whom he 
 often came there to see, at whose house, and sometimes 
 at my own, I had many and many a talk with him, as 
 also occasionally at his father's house in Farmington. 
 For the twelve years from 1874 to the end of his presi- 
 dency I was a Fellow of Yale College, in which office, 
 through the widening of the field of our association 
 
 1 His career as a sportsman was brief. Wlieii he was a boy, lie once 
 shot at a bird and brought it down. The sight of the pretty creature 
 killed by him was enough. He never again sought his own pleasure in 
 the death of a living thing. The trait reminds one of Walter Scott — 
 to whose character there was no small resemblance in Dr. Porter — who 
 owned that early in life the look in the eyes of a dying black-cock he 
 had shot cured him of all taste for such sport. — Editor.
 
 IN THE ABIRONDACKS 159 
 
 and the large measure of confidential intercourse it in- 
 volved, I had a peculiarly favorable opportunity of 
 noting the traits of his mind and character. 
 
 But, as I have intimated, it is the impressions of him 
 obtained in the vacations which for a series of summers 
 it was my happy fortune to share with him at Keene 
 Valley in the Adirondack Mountains, that survive clear- 
 est in my thoughts. In such intervals of release from 
 the pressure of life's tasks and cares it was natural that 
 his most distinctively personal qualities should come out 
 in freest play and expression, as they did ; and not alone 
 the social and moral but the intellectual as well. Though 
 he was unharnessed from formal work, his thoughtful 
 habit was not suspended. His mind was in full busy 
 movement, and it would often transpire that he was 
 revolving his own special subjects as a philosopher. 
 With one of the summers I speak of is associated his 
 meditative perusal, at odd times, under the shade, of 
 Die Natur, a thick, paper-covered German volume, then 
 recently published. I remember while on a walk with 
 him one day to Chapel Pond our happening upon Pro- 
 fessor William James of Harvard University, and how 
 quickly, as by Common impulse, the two fell into psycho- 
 physical discourse. Never were those familiar with 
 him more struck with his intellectual vigor, breadth and 
 accomplishments, his candor and fairness, his singular 
 intellectual tolerance and hospitality, than in his talk 
 while following a wilderness trail, or resting from a 
 mountain climb, or in evening conferences around the 
 camp-fire.
 
 160 NOAH POUTER 
 
 His rich learning was eminently accessible to him, and 
 in shape to communicate. One Sunday we who were 
 lodging in the same house with him, discouraged by the 
 weather from church-going, made bold to ask him, as we 
 were sitting together in the common room, to enlighten 
 our ignorance regarding Immanuel Kant ; and were re- 
 warded with an hour's impromptu lecture, delivered from 
 his chair, conversational in style, easy-flowing, kicid and 
 exceedingly interesting, which was in effect an outline 
 sketch of the history of modern philosophy. 
 
 The predominant impressions, however, that one de- 
 rived from being with him in his summer outings were 
 of his human companionableness, and of his wonderful 
 love of nature, — the keenness of his sympathy with it 
 in all aspects and moods. A friend who knew him long 
 and well is accustomed to say that what to her above 
 anything beside in her experience illustrates the depth 
 of the feeling of beauty in the material world we are 
 capable of, is the manner in which, many years ago, she 
 saw him affected by a sunset of remarkable splendor. 
 
 One reason why the photograph I have referred to is 
 of particular significance to me, is that it suggests an 
 occasion on which I witnessed a similar manifestation. 
 When our camping party on the Upper Ausable Lake in 
 that year (1875) broke up, — the most returning directly 
 to Keene Valley, — he took two of us with him, and two 
 guides, and we set out on an excursion of about twenty 
 miles, over Mount Tahawus, down the Opalescent River, 
 by Lake Henderson, out through famed Indian Pass to 
 North Elba, — one of the wildest, most romantic routes
 
 IN THE ADIRONDACKS 161 
 
 in the Adirondack region. Dr. Porter was at this time 
 in his sixty-fourth year, but not many young men 
 could make such a trip at better speed or with more ease 
 than he. It was late in the afternoon when we reached 
 the colossal flat boulder called Summit Rock, at the top 
 of Indian Pass. The bark shelter where we had planned 
 to spend the night was a mile further on, but we paused 
 to take breath after the stiff ascent and to survey the 
 scene; — the towering cliff of Wallface on one side, the 
 huge bulk of Mclntire on the other, and the far, wide 
 prospect to the southward. It was a glorious trans- 
 parent day, and we lingered, reluctant to turn away 
 from such enchantments. Suddenly, ere we were aware, 
 the sun dropped behind the crest of the range to the 
 west of Lake Henderson, and the scene changed. Long, 
 slanting shafts of radiance burst between the peaks and 
 streamed miles and miles across the bosom of the forest 
 basin beneath. It was magnificent beyond words. But 
 the shadows were now fast gathering in the Pass, and 
 after looking a few minutes more, warned that the light 
 would soon be gone, we seized our knapsacks to move 
 on, — all but Dr. Porter. He was like a man in a trance, 
 gazing immovably with all his eyes on the vision. 
 " Come, Doctor ! " we said, " we must be off, and we 
 have no time to lose ! " To which, after a little he 
 answered — but without turning — " Let's stay here." 
 That meant venturing the chances of the weather under 
 the open sky, and there were questions of water and 
 fuel. But the guides, who were always eager to take 
 trouble for him, undertook to manage, and we threw our
 
 162 NOAH PORTER 
 
 knapsacks down again. While supper was preparing, 
 the Doctor stood and watched the view till it faded into 
 twilight. All the evening he talked about it in a quiet, 
 subdued, half-absent tone, as if he was still seeing it. 
 Then he rolled himself in his blanket and slept like an 
 infant. He was up in the morning at early dawn, and 
 returning to his point of outlook was again for an hour 
 absorbed in the pageant of the sunrise. So he completed 
 his feast royal. When we resumed our journey his 
 marked elation of spirit denoted that what he had beheld 
 was to him the subject of an unusual congratulation. 
 That night in Indian Pass, to us who were in his 
 company, had shown great sights, but very evidently, as 
 we could but understand, not so great as to him. Such 
 things, as Coleridge says, 
 
 "Receive 
 Their finer influence from the life within." 
 
 At other times that come back to me I saw him in like 
 degree transported with scenes of wild sublimity and 
 beauty, and recognized that his joy in them was to me 
 unapproachable. 
 
 But the more common things were full of charm to 
 him. To what has been termed "the poetry of nature's 
 ordinary appearances " he had a most delicate sensibilj^. 
 He reveled in the woods ; in their multitudinous forms 
 of life, animate and inanimate; in their sounds and 
 silences. 
 
 As I have remarked, his pedestrian powers, in the 
 period of his summerings in the Adirondacks, were ex- 
 traordinary for one of his age. Year after year he
 
 IN THE ADIRONDACKS 163 
 
 explored the wilclerness into which Keene Valley pro- 
 jects, with an ever fresh ardor. One of his luxuries was 
 to conduct a party of friends to see some attraction, — 
 view, or rock, or cascade, or tree — which he had discov- 
 ered. With what zest and youthful exhilaration would 
 he lead such an expedition ! Not an angler himself, he 
 would follow another who was fishing a mountain brook, 
 all day long, occupied with the endless succession of 
 objects of interest and delight that his progress would 
 bring in his way. A mountain lake afforded him inex- 
 haustible resources of enjoyment. No boy was fonder 
 of a boat than he. It was impossible for those with him 
 even for a short time not to perceive the alert eye he 
 had to whatever was on any account observable, and the 
 relish with which he examined it. 
 
 His love for the scenes from which he drank so sweet 
 refreshment and amid which he tasted so many rehned 
 pleasures, constantly increased. He once told me of 
 hearing his life-long and dear friend Horace Bushnell 
 say of a certain landscape to be seen from a hill in his 
 native Connecticut town of New Preston, that, although 
 he had looked on it uncounted times from his boyhood to 
 his old age, it had been never twice the same to him, but 
 al\^ays new ; that it had disclosed on his every return to 
 it features of loveliness not before discerned ; and that 
 he could not doubt there was more in it than he had 
 ever yet seen, waiting to be unveiled. "That," said 
 Dr. Porter, with feeling, "was, in its province, the 
 mark of a great mind and of a great man." It was an 
 unconscious self-description. Year by year the wilder-
 
 164 NOAH PORTER 
 
 ness places he frequented opened a deeper soul of beauty 
 to him, and inspired him with a stronger affection. 
 
 He was, without effort, the equal comrade of whomso- 
 ever he was thrown in with, old or young, wise or simple, 
 man or woman. Our boys had no treat more welcome or 
 more enjoyed than to go off for a day's tramp with him. 
 Those resorting to the mountains for rest and health, 
 who met him there as strangers, knowing him only by 
 public reputation, were surprised at the ease they imme- 
 diately found in his society. His genial nature expanded 
 in the atmosphere of seclusion amid wild surroundings. 
 Every party going with him into the woods felt the 
 spiritual sunshine of it. He made the camp seem like a 
 home. The guides all loved him and coveted his service, 
 thinking more of his company than of his wages. The 
 Keene Valley folks came to look eagerly for his annual 
 appearance among them. It was a sight to see them 
 shaking hands with him after church the first Sunday. 
 
 I have heard Melville Trumbull, the guide who was 
 most with him in the woods, and whom I name in accord- 
 ance with what I am sure would be Dr. Porter's wish, 
 relate the manner of his farewell to the Upper Ausable 
 Lake, already mentioned, his favorite haunt, on which 
 he had spent many a happy week, with which, one might 
 say, he was on terms of the tenderest living sympathy. 
 It was in the course of the vacation which his conscious- 
 ness of declining strength had warned him would prob- 
 ably be his last in the Adirondacks. He had gone with 
 Trumbull to the lake to pass two or three days there in 
 camp and have one more look at a place so dear. The
 
 IN THE ADIRONDACKS 165 
 
 morning he was to return to the Valley, when everything 
 was made ready to start, he bade Trumbull leave the 
 luggage where it was for a while and row him out into 
 the lake. Midway between the shores he caused the 
 boat to stop. A long time he sat there, turning this way 
 and that, bending his eyes earnestly, steadfastly, but 
 without speaking, on the views around, — the Gothic 
 Eange, the cone of Haystack, the encircling forest. 
 Then he directed the guide to take him near and along 
 the shore. As they moved slowly on, by one and an- 
 other familiar spot, Trumbull saw that the Doctor's eyes 
 were filled with tears, and perceived that it was a leave- 
 taking. "I never in my life had anything make me feel 
 so bad," he said in telling the story. So they passed 
 round the circuit of the lake, the silence between them 
 hardly broken by a word, the Doctor parting with all as 
 one would part with a friend he might never see again, 
 the guide stealing furtive glances of sympathy at him. 
 
 When, four or five years after he began coming there, 
 it was by some one proposed that a neighboring great 
 mountain, called, from the original settlement of the 
 Valley, a century or more, West Mountain, should be 
 changed in name to Mount Porter, —the whole commu- 
 nity, of natives and visitors alike, with one consent 
 approved and adopted the proposal. The new name 
 went into general use forthwith. Mount Porter it is 
 now on the map, and will be forever, —a memorial of 
 one who, while he was of distinguished rank among the 
 intellectual leaders of his time, was the most large- 
 hearted and pure-hearted and brotherly of men.
 
 166 NOAH PORTER 
 
 It was a very tired man who laid down the presidency 
 
 of Yale College in the summer of 1886. Dr. Carter has 
 
 shown how heavy was the work of his ad- 
 
 e iremen ministration, and how stoutly he carried it. 
 
 from the ' •' 
 
 Presidency. There Were circumstances in the situation 
 By the which increased his difficulties. The inevi- 
 
 Editor. 
 
 table change from a college into a university 
 — in fact if not yet in name — brought many prob- 
 lems which could not be judged alike by all members of 
 the Faculty. The doubtful question, how far the stu- 
 dents were to be controlled with a sort of paternal care 
 as to their studies and their opinions, and how far they 
 were to be encouraged in intellectual independence, was 
 often coming up in one phase and another. President 
 Porter's fidelity to Christian doctrine as fundamental to 
 sound education sometimes occasioned divergences of 
 opinion. On such subjects as the employment of Herbert 
 Spencer's text-books questions arose which were not easy 
 of settlement. To a nature at once as earnest and as 
 friendly as his, such differences among colleagues and 
 friends were not the least of the difficulties to be met. 
 
 But, whatever the strain of work, he was skillful in 
 fitting himself to the harness. Those nearest him said 
 he showed less of nervous tension after taking the presi- 
 dency than before. He was proficient in the great 
 double art — to manage the nerves and to master them. 
 But his prudence yielded once to the enthusiasm of study 
 and achievement. In the long vacation of 1885, he 
 worked assiduously at his book on Kant's Ethics. There 
 was no external reason for his doing so ; his family tried
 
 RETIREMENT FROM THE PRESIDENCY 167 
 
 to persuade him to take his usual complete out-door rest; 
 — but the spell of the great theme and the great thinker 
 was on him, and he drove at the book until it was fin- 
 ished. It was soon after his return to college in the 
 autumn that he gave to the Corporation his resignation. 
 He was in his seventy-fifth year, he said, and should 
 soon be disqualified for the place, — to some he might 
 already seem so, — and he thought it wise to retire. 
 Only his family, — glad that he should at last begin to 
 spare himself, — shared in his decision or knew of it 
 beforehand. He told even Dr. Woolsey only as he was 
 on his way to the Corporation meeting. For the remain- 
 der of the year he was active in every direction, bringing 
 up the work of his administration to the greatest possible 
 completeness; writing for the New Englander ; making 
 addresses — among them an elaborate lecture on Evolu- 
 tion, and his New Milford semi-centennial ; with an eye 
 always on the revision of the Dictionary ; his hospitable 
 door always open, his attention ready for every friend 
 or casual visitor. For the first time, he began to show 
 the face and bearing of an over-worked man. 
 
 Then, when Commencement and President Dvvight's 
 inauguration were over, and he was out of harness at 
 last, he turned to rest and play as heartily as ever did 
 a school-boy let loose. He sailed at once for England 
 with his eldest daughter. By the end of the voyage his 
 freshness had begun to return. Then came a delightful 
 round of excursions and visits. A week was spent at 
 Cambridge and another at Oxford. At each place he 
 was welcomed to the choicest University society. At
 
 168 NOAH PORTEE 
 
 Balliol College, besides his meetings with the Dons, a 
 special party was made for him with undergraduate 
 students as the principal guests. In London a dinner- 
 party was given in his honor by Mr. Hutton of the 
 Spectator — a writer with whose convictions he was in 
 especial sympathy. Another dinner-party was given by 
 United States Minister Phelps, his friend and formerly 
 his colleague at Yale, with Mr. Browning, Sir James 
 Paget, Sir Kichard Webster and James Eussell Lowell 
 among the guests. At Edinburgh he received from the 
 University the degree of Doctor of Laws. He came 
 home in the autumn, rested and refreshed, — but not 
 with the old vigor. 
 
 In resigning the presidency, he had retained the Clark 
 professorship. From this he never retired, but he gradu- 
 ally lessened his work, and in the last year kept only the 
 small classes in the post-graduate department. This de- 
 partment was almost a creation of his presidency. Por 
 many years before that there had been a number of resi- 
 dent graduate students, to many of whom he had given 
 more or less of direction. But the establishment and 
 development of an elaborate system of post-graduate in- 
 struction was especially congenial to him, and among 
 the teachers who laboriously and generously co-operated 
 to this end he was the leading spirit. His own teaching 
 of philosophy in this department was his latest service 
 to the college. No work of his was more characteristic 
 than this, and we have a portrayal of it from one whom 
 he not only taught but initiated as teacher with and after 
 himself.
 
 AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY 169 
 
 In writing of Dr. Porter as a teacher of Philosophy I 
 write of him simply as a teacher of graduate students, 
 for it was only in this capacity that it was my ^^ ^ 
 privilege to study under him. As a teacher Teacher of 
 of advanced students he was undoubtedly J'^ 1^ J' 
 successful. This will be conceded by a large Hershey 
 majority of those who had the good fortune ^"^<^^''- 
 to be in his classes. He had the power to awaken a 
 genuine interest in his subject, to inspire the student to 
 earnest endeavor, to explain lucidly the nature of the 
 difficult problems of philosophy, to point out their real 
 bearing on the vital interests of life, and to lead the 
 student into a cautious, candid and thoughtful considera- 
 tion of philosophical questions, and the various answers 
 to them which philosophical literature affords. In en- 
 deavoring to account for Dr. Porter's success as a teacher 
 several points must be noted, as follows : — 
 
 1. His personality. He was a strong, well-balanced, 
 highly endowed and highly cultivated man, with a rich, 
 forceful and attractive personality. Nature had done 
 much for him, education more. He was strong intel- 
 lectually, but not at the expense of his emotional nature ; 
 for he was also strong in feeling, which colored and 
 warmed his whole intellectual life. But feeling never 
 clouded his intellect, nor biassed his judgment. He was 
 a man of profound sympathy and generous impulses but 
 these were under rational control. He was strong also 
 in will. An intensely active, and in many respects an 
 exceedingly practical man, he took an interest in the 
 material aspects of life, and would easily have succeeded
 
 170 NOAH PORTER 
 
 as "a man of affairs." Tlie ethical will was powerful in 
 him, and his supreme choice seemed to be the complete 
 rationalization and moralization of life. In short, so 
 happy was he in his endowments and so harmoniously 
 were his powers developed, that in him Socrates' remark- 
 able prayer seemed to be realized : " Give me beauty in 
 the inward soul, and may the outward and inward man 
 be at one." ^ It was this happy and harmonious develop- 
 ment of the whole man that attracted the student at 
 once and counted as a potent factor in Dr. Porter's suc- 
 cess as a teacher. 
 
 2. His equipment. He was thoroughly familiar with 
 his subject. His knowledge of the facts, principles, 
 problems, theories, and literature of his subject was 
 really remarkable. He not only thought profoundly on 
 psychological, ethical, and philosophical themes, but was 
 familiar with what nearly every other philosopher had 
 thought concerning them. The student got the benefits 
 of his broad scholarship, for he always had his material 
 at command. He was a constantly growing man. Ros- 
 enkranz, in his Philosophy of Education, says there are 
 three stages in the '' didactic process " : — af)prenticeship, 
 journeymanship, mastership. The master is the teacher. 
 But " the master is complete only in relation to the jour- 
 neyman and apprentice; to them he is superior. But, 
 on the other hand, in relation to the infinity of the 
 problems of his art and science, he is by no means com- 
 plete ; to himself he must appear as one who begins ever 
 anew, one who is ever striving, one to whom a new prob- 
 1 Phsedrus, p. 585. (Jowett's trans.)
 
 AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY 171 
 
 lem ever rises from every achieved result. He caunot 
 discharge himself from work, he must never desire to 
 rest on his laurels. He is the truest master whose fin- 
 ished performances only force him on to never-resting 
 progress." ^ This description fits Dr. Porter's case. He 
 was at the same time teacher and pupil in the sense 
 indicated above. He was a constant student, and was 
 acquainted with the latest utterances on philosophical 
 subjects. Nor did this desire to be familiar with the 
 last word that had been written diminish in his old age. 
 It was my privilege to be intimately associated with him 
 as student and assistant instructor during the last four 
 years of his life, and one thing that impressed me deeply 
 was his great interest in everything new in the depart- 
 ment of philosophy. He wanted to read and discuss the 
 latest books. So profoundly interested in his subject 
 was he, that even down to the last months of his life, 
 when the body was scarcely able to obey the behests of 
 the spirit, he would greet me with the question as to 
 what was new in the philosophical world. For him 
 there was no dead-line beyond which there was no prog- 
 ress. Not even the infirmities of age constituted a valid 
 excuse for an abatement of work and interest. Progress 
 was the law which governed him. The advantages to 
 the student of coming under the instruction of such a 
 teacher are of course apparent. What the master had 
 was given to the pupil ; and not only of his goods, but of 
 his spirit did the pupil receive, for such a spirit could 
 not fail to powerfully influence a thoughtful mind. 
 1 P. 107 (ed. by W. T. Harris, N. Y., 1891).
 
 172 NOAH PORTER 
 
 It might be mentioned here that Dr. Porter's means 
 for knowing the latest word on philosophical subjects 
 were exceptional. His reputation as a scholar was not 
 confined to this country. He was widely known in 
 Great Britain and Germany. This brought to him from 
 their authors a large number of books immediately after 
 their publication. Especially was this so in regard to 
 monographs. He was constantly receiving those books 
 which treated exhaustively of special problems in Psy- 
 chology, Ethics, and Philosophy. He would call his 
 pupils' attention to these works and give them the benefit 
 of their contents. 
 
 3. His method. His method of teaching was to have 
 no method — at least no formal pedagogical method. 
 His students would meet him in his room, and the hour 
 would be spent in discussing the points of the lesson in 
 the most informal manner. The student soon learned 
 that Dr. Porter was at his best when questioned ; — that 
 the best results of the hour could be attained by " draw- 
 ing him out," as the phrase went. In response to in- 
 telligent questioning he would not only unfold his own 
 mature thought on a subject, but familiarize the student 
 with the opinions of others concerning it. He was thor- 
 oughly at home in discussion. He was a keen critic, an 
 able debater, a lucid expositor, ready and felicitous in 
 illustration, and quick in apprehending another's posi- 
 tion. These powers made him not only a delightful but 
 an exceedingly helpful instructor. If he had any promi- 
 nent fault as a teacher it was in assuming more knowl- 
 edge on the part of the student than the latter really
 
 AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY 173 
 
 possessed. This fault undoubtedly grew out of his own 
 familiarity with the questions under discussion. 
 
 4. His spirit as a philosophical thinker. He undoubt- 
 edly had the spirit of the true philosopher. Profoundly 
 in earnest, the problems of philosophy were vastly more 
 than intellectual puzzles to him. He clearly perceived 
 their deep significance for human life and destiny, and 
 he approached their consideration with a serious and 
 reverent mind. Cautious, he did not pronounce hastily 
 on a question, knowing the largeness and many-sidedness 
 of truth. He was free from the dogmatism that too 
 often characterizes the philosophic mind, and especially 
 that of the school of philosophy with which he was iden- 
 tified. Candid, he looked on all sides of a question, 
 desiring above all things to know the truth. He had, 
 indeed, a system of his own, but this did not close his 
 mental vision to the merits of other systems, or to the 
 vulnerable points of his own. Tolerant, he favored the 
 largest liberty of opinion, believing that speculative 
 thought was an evolution truthwards. If anything, he 
 was intolerant of intolerance. He criticised indeed, but 
 he never abused. It was the sober, dignified, rational 
 criticism of a cultivated mind and truth-loving spirit. 
 
 Such in brief were the qualities which distinguished 
 Dr. Porter as a teacher of advanced students in philos- 
 ophy. They are qualities which could not fail to render 
 him eminently successful in his teaching. It only re- 
 mains to say, that his students not only profoundly 
 respected and lionored him, but loved him. In him 
 " the true, the beautiful and the good " were realized to
 
 174 NOAH PORTER 
 
 such an extent that his influence not only affected the 
 intellectual life of his students, but their aesthetic, 
 ethical and religious life as well. Both as a man and as 
 a teacher he was a positive force in the development and 
 sanctification of human nature as a whole. 
 
 I cannot refrain from mentioning that in sending me 
 the above paper Professor Sneath expresses an apprehen- 
 In Review. ^^^^ ^®^^ ^^ ^^7 appear like fulsome eulogy, 
 By tke but even with that apprehension in mind he 
 
 has found himself unable to moderate his 
 praise of Dr. Porter's philosophical teaching. Professor 
 Duncan, another of his pupils who is now teaching 
 philosophy at Yale, in sending the paper on " Dr. Porter 
 as a Philosopher," writes : " It is simply impossible to 
 do anything like justice to the subject in so few pages " ; 
 and adds that to pay its closing tribute to Dr. Porter 
 is his sufficient reward for the work. And I venture 
 to quote from the letter which accompanies the paper 
 on the Theory of Morals, by Dr. Nakashima, — another 
 pupil and friend of Dr. Porter, to whom he bequeathed 
 his philosophical library, and who is now a professor in 
 the University of Tokyo. He writes : '' I have tried to 
 say what Dr. Porter would like to hear from me if I 
 were to read the paper to him in his study. No man so 
 disliked anything that appeared like flattery or display. 
 He was sincere through and through, and liked sincerity 
 above many other virtues. Some may think I have been 
 too moderate in my paper, as I have restrained very
 
 IN REVIEW 176 
 
 much my feeling in writing it, but I think Dr. Porter will 
 like it better on that account. I have written it all 
 before his picture, with the feeling that I am writing it 
 all before him and he knows it all." 
 
 With a like impulse to sincerity, and fear to " o'erstep 
 the modesty of nature," let a final word be said as to the 
 philosophy epitomized in these two papers. Before the 
 chart here laid down of man's intellectual and moral 
 nature, some feeling will undoubtedly rise in the non-pro- 
 fessional reader that whatever the interest and merit of 
 the survey it leaves great tracts unexplored and great 
 questions unsettled. No one would have conceded this 
 more heartily than its author. No one would more em- 
 phatically say that he was only one of a line of explorers 
 in what yet remains largely an undiscovered country. 
 The modern study of man's inner world is in its infancy. 
 It is less than three centuries since that study was fairly 
 begun. And of its earlier pursuit, we may say that the 
 philosophical quest begun in the ancient world by Plato 
 and Aristotle was in effect almost suspended for fifteen 
 hundred years. For that time the world was to receive 
 an immense discipline in practical ethics before it was 
 qualified to go on with its inquiry. In that period, 
 in science and philosophy little was gained and much 
 was forgotten ; but mankind was schooled, though often 
 under strange and mixed influences, in purity and tender- 
 ness and holiness. When the ecclesiastical rule which 
 had become a tyranny was broken down, — when thought 
 again was free, — it was a new and finer race of men who 
 took up again the question, "What is truth?" The
 
 176 NOAH PORTER 
 
 modern philosophy of the outer world began with Bacon. 
 Contemporaneously, the philosophy of the inner world 
 began with Descartes. The two lines of thought have 
 gone on side by side, but the conspicuous triumph has 
 been in the knowledge of external nature — the easier, 
 more obvious field, and the more inviting in material 
 reward. In our knowledge of Mind we are still perhaps 
 where we were in knowledge of Matter before " God said, 
 * Let there be light,' and Newton was." 
 
 So, the discoveries hitherto of our moral and mental 
 philosophers must be estimated as essays in a work 
 which is still in its infancy. If we call such books as 
 Dr. Porter's " maps of the human mind," the fair analogy 
 is with the maps that were made of the New World in 
 the early stages of its discovery. Mr. Fiske, in his Dis- 
 covery of America, has set forth in a fascinating way 
 how slow and long was that process. The story is illus- 
 trated in a series of maps, — the early ones fantastically 
 unlike the reality — then, after a decade or two, an out- 
 line corrected in certain points, thanks to some bold 
 captain's voyage — and so, centuries after Columbus, 
 there came to be at last a true map of the American 
 continent. Yet it was those early charts, full of faults 
 and guess-work, that helped Columbus and all the line 
 of heroes to do their work. And such help is given to 
 all seekers in thought's mysterious realm by map-makers 
 like Noah Porter. Deep meditation, wide research, pure 
 love of truth, have wrought stepping-stones for those 
 who shall scale further heights. 
 
 A final word may also here be said as to his essential
 
 IN REVIEW 177 
 
 service to Yale. The most general criticism upon his 
 administration as president would perhaps be that he 
 was unduly tenacious of the old order. Without dis- 
 cussing the questions which this suggests, it may per- 
 haps be assumed that in the large view it is desirable 
 that radical changes should be tested lirst in one univer- 
 sity, and that it is not only natural but wholesome that 
 of the two great New England colleges the one should 
 adopt the conservative and the other the progressive 
 attitude, until the experimental stage is past. Of 
 President Porter's disinclination to change, I have sug- 
 gested a partial reason, — that the special energy needed 
 for a reformer can scarcely be expected of a man whose 
 energies are claimed in a hundred other directions. A 
 further reason has been given by Dr. Carter, — in that 
 optimism, and disposition to see good in the present, 
 which makes change seem unnecessary. With this there 
 blent a loving and loyal attachment to old memories and 
 associations. It was just such a disposition as made 
 Walter Scott a conservative to the end of his life. 
 
 But, deeper than special questions of method. Dr. 
 Porter was essentially progressive along the great lines. 
 In melting away the old barrier of formality between 
 instructors and students, he did a vast service. All 
 scholarships tended to become more free, generous and 
 comprehensive under his inspiration. He was conser- 
 vative of the best virtues of the older time, — its sim- 
 plicity, its self-help, its exaltation of things of the spirit 
 above material wealth. The good fellowship of students 
 with each other, the es23rit de corps of the college, the
 
 178 NOAH POBTER 
 
 spirit that creates a free-masonry between Yale men 
 wherever they meet, were strengthened by the whole 
 force of his personality. His example should be a 
 caution against tendencies which mar the grand present 
 and promise of the college. To him its tutelar divinities 
 were Character and Intellect, and the place of Muscle and 
 Money was as servants only. A Yale Senior was lately 
 asked, " Who is ex officio the greatest man in college ? " 
 
 — " The captain of the foot-ball team," was the prompt 
 reply. — " Of course, and who has second honors ? " — 
 " Second, but at a good remove, come the captains of the 
 crew and of the base-ball team." — " And who is next ? " — 
 " There isn't any next ! " And it was not a Harvard but 
 a Yale man who offered one explanation of his college's 
 supremacy in athletics : " You see at Y&,le the athletic 
 interest is supreme, while at Harvard it divides attention 
 with scholarship and literature and various other affairs 
 
 — so of course we beat them in our specialty," 
 
 But that is only one side of the story. The old Yale 
 man, returning to his Alma Mater, finds in some ways 
 an ampler and better life than of old. He finds less 
 sowing of the seeds of dyspepsia and nervous exhaustion, 
 a better regard for the corpus sanum as well as the ineyis 
 sana. He may recognize that to the playing of foot-ball 
 go mental and moral qualities of no mean order — the 
 soldier's virtues, although with some of the brutality 
 of war. He will find, among other things. President 
 Porter's old pupils carrying on his work, in a spirit es- 
 sentially his, while they have partly borrowed the free 
 methods of his graduate instruction. And, along with
 
 COBBESPONDENCE 179 
 
 much of more costly living, and some suggestions of the 
 wealth-worship which infects American society, he will 
 find still that democratic spirit which has been the glory 
 of Yale, and abundant illustration of the scholar's gospel 
 of plain living and high thinking. 
 
 That phrase has especially recurred to me as I sat in 
 Dr. Porter's home study, which seemed full of the pres- 
 ence of the man. It is very simple in furnishing, with 
 a Franklin stove, ample book-cases, a fine octagonal 
 study-table inherited from Dr. Taylor, statuettes of 
 Kant and Lessing, and engraved portraits of Coleridge, 
 Burns, Schiller, and Sir William Hamilton. We may 
 glance at some of the letters which came to him here, — 
 choosing, without regard to dates, such as show some- 
 thing of his relations with people. 
 
 Here is one from an army chaplain in the midst of the 
 war. " For almost twenty years past I have been your 
 debtor for an article in the Bibliotheca Sacra for January 
 1845, on 'The Youth of the Scholar.'" He and his 
 young wife as they read it together had resolved that 
 the scholar's opportunities, denied to them in their strug- 
 gling youth in the wilds of Maine, should be given to their 
 children. And now their oldest boy has reached his 
 Senior year in Yale ; he writes that Professor Porter is 
 a "deep man," and the metaphysics are almost too much 
 for him ; for more than three years the army service has 
 kept father and son apart ; — will not Dr. Porter have 
 a fatherly eye to the young man in his difi&culties, and 
 be his friend ? 
 
 Here is a message which an old pupil sends from
 
 180 NOAH PORTER 
 
 Japan. " You may remember that during my Ereshman 
 year the Faculty thought it good to discipline me (rather 
 severely I have always believed) for showing a natural 
 though boyish displeasure at a most unendurably tedious 
 sermon preached one day in the college chapel. The 
 punishment did me a vast deal of good, however, but 
 the circumstance for gratitude lay in a few kind words 
 spoken by you to me when, in great trouble because of 
 the sentence of the Faculty, I called upon you to bespeak 
 a little mercy. As I left your house you placed your 
 hand upon my head and said, ' It is these hard things 
 that develop in us all true character.' Your words were 
 often made the occasion of a joke, but they were never 
 regarded by me in any other light than in that of the 
 motive that dictated them ; and very many times, both 
 during my college course and since then, have I been 
 grateful for them and for the kindness which prompted 
 them. They gave me a glimpse of yourself which could 
 not have been gained in ten years of recitation-room 
 association. They were a revelation of that which alone 
 can help men — sympathy." 
 
 Edward R. Sill — that man of fine genius and aspira- 
 tion — writes from California : " I don't know how dis- 
 tinct a recollection you have of me — Sill of '61 — but 
 you may recollect that I was indebted to you for some 
 good advice (besides other good things) — having been 
 a beggar for which before is my only claim on you for 
 more now." The case is described, with delicate sympa- 
 thy and discrimination, of a young woman struggling to 
 get an education. Now where in the East shall she go ?
 
 CORRESPONDENCE 181 
 
 Is Mouut Holyoke the best place ? " It does grieve me, 
 in heathendom here, to find a young soul reaching out in 
 a groping and forlorn manner after some indistinct ideal 
 of an education, loving truth, and loving to rise, on their 
 poor clipped and hampered stubs of wings, — trying to 
 find out what it is all about, this earth and the heavens 
 over it — and no one to brush away a single cobweb. 
 ... I know of no one else whose opinion I could be 
 certain was valuable and reliable. And then too (as you 
 have probably had annoying experience) we the boys 
 always look back with a sort of filial feeling toward 
 some of you our teachers, as persons whom we have 
 a right to saddle our perplexities and ignorances upon 
 for all the rest of our lives." 
 
 A professor in the Washington and Lee University 
 writes him a very grateful letter. Disinclined though he 
 was to beg for his own college. Dr. Porter had taken 
 pains in behalf of its struggling Southern sister, to open 
 communication in its favor with a wealthy man. "Not 
 only do I feel very grateful for this proof of your liberal 
 and generous spirit, but General Lee and several of our 
 Faculty to whom I read your letter desire to express 
 through me their sense of the obligation." He will take 
 to himself a portion of the credit for Dr. Porter's aid : 
 " I am determined to believe that your friendliness is 
 that sequel that the doer of a good turn always feels like 
 adding to his work. You have perhaps felt, 'Here is 
 a man whose morals I helped to form, though I did not 
 fix his politics ; let me give him and his a little material 
 aid.' "
 
 182 NOAH PORTER 
 
 From tlie beginning of President Hayes's adminis- 
 tration onward, many letters bear the headings of the 
 Washington departments. Besides official communica- 
 tions — election and re-election as regent of the Smith- 
 sonian, appointment as visitor to West Point, report as 
 president of the board of visitors, and so on — there are 
 more intimate matters. The personal relations with 
 President Hayes and his family became very cordial. 
 With Secretary Evarts there was the continuance of 
 a friendship dating from college days. There are 
 glimpses of the inner political history of the time. " It 
 may be necessary," writes Mr. Evarts in 1877, " to at- 
 tempt more intimate relations between the people and 
 the president over the heads of the politicians. The 
 dangers that beset the maintenance of government are 
 but little appreciated." Secretary Windom replies very 
 warmly to congratulations on taking the Treasury port- 
 folio under President Garfield, recalling their "delight- 
 ful and too brief intercourse at West Point." From 
 Francis Wharton there are cordial letters, — one touch- 
 ing the journeys to alumni meetings. " I used to look 
 with humble admiration not merely at your books and at 
 your teaching, but at your journeys on educational er- 
 rands, exhibiting as you used to do, after travelling which 
 would fatigue anybody else, not only tact, shrewdness, 
 strong sense, and mental power, but buoyant and fresh 
 good-humor, as if you had just got up out of a sound 
 sleep, had just finished a cheering breakfast, and had 
 nothing in the world before you to give you a moment's 
 care."
 
 CORRESPONDENCE 183 
 
 Here are glimpses of vacation days. " I have reserved 
 a small space covered with trees for your benefit. I 
 shall have a sharp axe all ready. Do come and help me 
 out of a very difficult problem — how to enlarge a garden 
 and at the same time not to cut down any trees." A big 
 round childish hand tells him a child's news from a home 
 where he is expected, — how " there are a great many 
 bull-heads up in our pond now, and we go up there fish- 
 ing for them ; " about the school examination, the fishing, 
 the huckleberrying, and how " Papa has got a new dog 
 which an Englishman gave him named Venus." Papa 
 adds a postscrijDt : " I fervently tnist you may be at 
 Keene with us, as, confidentially, besides the great en- 
 joyment I get out of being near you, I am always made 
 — I am sorry to say, temporarily — a better man by the 
 contact with the life I love as much as I respect. I hope 
 I may be a near witness this year of one or more of your 
 pedestrianfeats, though about all I could expect would be 
 to stand at the foot of the mountains and at the brink of 
 the raging torrents, and look admiringly on as you skip 
 up the ones and dash through the others." And again : 
 " I hope you are benefited by the week of entire mental 
 quiescence my company afforded you. You may be sure 
 I esteemed the privilege of a few days of your company 
 quite as highly as though I had been able to wrestle with 
 you on the most abstruse philosophical topics, and prove 
 every position of yours regarding the doctrines of Kant 
 and Hegel absolutely false." 
 
 Horace Bushnell writes him on taking the presidency : 
 " I hope you will give all due attention to the possible
 
 184 NOAH PORTEB 
 
 new departure. Something may be gained for culture, I 
 have no doubt, by the scientific studies, and there is a 
 work to be filled here for the apologetic defenses of re- 
 ligion that may be of immense service, provided the 
 science is duly sobered by modesty. At the same time 
 I am free to say that there is nothing so fruitful in the 
 real culture of mind as the practical drill of language and 
 linguistic criticism. Would that every human soul could 
 know how much and what there is for it in language." 
 
 Francis Lieber sends him one of his books, hoping it 
 may be of interest to him as philosopher and as citizen 
 of the great Republic. " Even to the lexicographer it 
 will have some interest. I eschew all unnecessary new 
 words, but I insist vipon it that a living language is not 
 only a language spoken by living people, but itself a 
 living, therefore changing, expanding thing. Whenever 
 I have to name a distinct idea, I do not hesitate to make 
 a new word if I can do it. You may remember my word 
 jural in my Political Ethics. It is now used in England 
 and here. . . . We allow only the naturalists to make 
 new words, as if they alone had to express new ideas. 
 Nothing is so odious as a reckless Jacobin in language, 
 nothing more pedantic than the man who imagines that 
 Dr. Johnson has shut the prison door on language, and 
 as it were, robbed me of my tongue.'^ 
 
 Mark Hopkins thanks him for inscribing to him his 
 book on Kant ; " for so inscribing it, and also for a better 
 understanding of Kant than I ever expected to have. 
 When I was elected as Professor, I bought a poor trans- 
 lation of Kant, but soon gave it up in despair, and have
 
 CORRESPONDENCE 185 
 
 not attempted him since. How you liave had the patience 
 to follow him in all his doublings and inconsistencies I 
 do not understand, and can only thank you for the light 
 that your doing so throws on the general theory of 
 morals. The movement is slow, but I cannot but think 
 it is toward a general agreement on these vexed questions 
 that will ultimately be reached." 
 
 Dr. Bellows writes him — date uncertain, but before 
 the use of envelopes — "I am satisfied that it is impos- 
 sible for a man to understand that form of religion 
 which he has not received into his own heart. You 
 think you understand "our Christianity, but you do not. 
 I suppose I am equally ignorant of your Calvinism, 
 though I understand the Calvinism of the books. If we 
 could live with each other a few weeks we should find 
 out that we each had a way of holding his particular 
 views which included all that was very true or very 
 valuable in the other's. Thank you heartily for all your 
 good and earnest words and all your catholic and friendly 
 spirit. When will you make me a visit ? " 
 
 Long after, in 1877, Dr. Bellows writes him in full 
 sympathy with his criticism on Tyndall. " It seems to 
 me quite unanswerable, and I should think would give 
 pause, if anything could, to the precipitate and pre- 
 sumptuous current of these materialists, who are so 
 regardless of the mud in the stream on which they are 
 carrying off the spiritual hopes and trusts of humanity. 
 It is plain to me that religious and Christian men are 
 capable of doing a far more complete justice to the 
 physicists than the ablest and best of them can do to the
 
 186 NOAH PORTER 
 
 ideas and faitli of Cliristian believers. Tliere is a fearful 
 narrowing of the philosophic and spiritual instincts and 
 perceptions produced by looking at things through the 
 microscope. ... I heard with sympathy and interest 
 your speech at the Pilgrim dinner. I should be sorry to 
 believe that anything you claimed for Yale was not 
 substantially true of Cambridge, in the value set upon 
 the tendency of all studies to produce upright and Chris- 
 tian character. Yet unquestionably there is a danger in 
 all our colleges lest the scientific should be divorced 
 from the philosophic spirit." 
 
 Eufus Ellis invites his " dear friend " — in that old- 
 fashioned chirography which was so deliciously like the 
 man — to the 250th anniversary of the First Church of 
 Boston — an invitation which was gladly accepted. "We 
 expect to hear from descendants of Winthrop and Cotton 
 — E,. C. Winthrop and Phillips Brooks — my brother 
 and others, and we want to hear from you as from Pres- 
 ident Eliot. You know y" old relations between New 
 Haven and Boston, Davenport and y*" rest, and then 
 yours is, with Harvard, y*" New England college. So you 
 must come." 
 
 In the days when the "Autocrat" tilted valiantly 
 against Orthodoxy, no one was readier to break a lance 
 with him than Dr. Porter. They exchanged greetings 
 at a later time, and Dr. Holmes's letter (December 13, 
 1879) is too good to abridge. 
 
 " This letter is written on Sunday, but you will take it 
 for granted, in the exercise of Christian charity, that it 
 was written after ' sundown.'
 
 CORRESPONDENCE 187 
 
 " I must thank you for your very pleasant and kindly 
 letter to our friends who gave us all a breakfast on the 
 3d. I should hardly have felt happy without a letter 
 from my father's college, with the memories and tra- 
 ditions of which I was familiar from my earliest years. 
 The portrait of President Stiles hung over the mantel- 
 piece of my father's study. The profile of Governor 
 Yale was on the cover of the snuff-box from which my 
 father took his Maccaboy — helping the Lorillards out 
 of pinching obscurity, if not poverty, into coach-driving 
 opulence and horse-racing celebrity. 
 
 " I thank you for giving me a good character with my 
 Orthodox friends, who will be glad to learn that I am so 
 much of a Calvinist. In one point, however, Calvin was 
 far too lax for me. You remember that John Knox 
 found him playing skittles on Sunday — a thing which I 
 am too much of a Puritan to do — not that my belief 
 goes against it, but my Sabbatical prejudices do. 
 
 " In the matter of predestination I come nearer the old 
 reformer and vivi-cremationist, only there are certain 
 corollaries which I should deduce from my partial ac- 
 ceptance of the doctrine — for it is only partial as at 
 present advised - — which would have made me a candi- 
 date for the kind oifices of the Genevan turnspit. 
 
 " I began this letter with the simple design of 
 thanking you for your pleasant words about me, but I 
 find it is getting vivacious, and I must remember that 
 this is (or was) according to our New England me- 
 tonymy, 'the Sabbath,' and sign myself, with proper 
 sobriety, with much respect and esteem, 
 
 " Yours very truly, 0. W. Holmes."
 
 188 NOAH PORTER 
 
 In tlie huge piles of old letters that filled Dr. Porter's 
 drawers and pigeon-holes are many from friends across 
 the sea. There are long letters in 'German from 
 Niebuhr's daughter, Madame Rathgen, and discussions 
 of German theology from Dr. Hellferich. Dr. Henry 
 Allon writes often and at length of English church and 
 state. There are long and interesting letters from Dr. 
 James Frazier. Matthew Arnold, Edward Ereeman, Pro- 
 fessor Calderwood, Thomas Hughes, are among the corre- 
 spondents, — it is impossible to name them all. Allusions 
 are constant to the hospitality of Dr. Porter's home. 
 James Anthony Eroude writes : " Among my many 
 agreeable reminiscences of America, none equal my 
 impressions of New Haven and of the goodness which 
 you all showed me there." A bishop-elect — a man of 
 apostolic spirit — writes freely of the feelings with 
 which he approaches the office. " I am to be conse- 
 crated on March 25th. You will have received this 
 letter before then : think of me on that day when you 
 are on your knees." 
 
 Not least in interest are some letters from friends 
 he never saw. Here is one from Lucy Smith, with a 
 message to another old acquaintance : " As we go down 
 the hill we require for ourselves so little, and the mere 
 words ' Well, and not forgetting,' from another traveler 
 give us a sense of satisfaction. How insatiate the 
 young heart is ! All things beautiful in their season, 
 and all ordered — I must believe — by an Infinite Power 
 of which we can never think so justly as under the idea 
 of Love.''
 
 CROWNING TEARS 189 
 
 The revered and beloved Thomas Erskine of Linlathen 
 writes in reply to a letter sent during Dr. Porter's second 
 visit to England (with Mr. Henry Farnam) in 1866 : " I 
 am now an old man, seventy-eight years of age, and 
 becoming blind of a cataract so that I cannot read. 
 ... It is now forty-five years since that little book 
 to which you refer was published, and what a change 
 has come over the world of thought as well as over 
 the outward aspect of things during that period! It 
 becomes daily more and more evident that truth is no 
 longer to be held on authority, but on its own discerned 
 truthfulness. ... I should like to know whether the 
 belief that God's purpose of educating men will con- 
 tinue beyond this life until its accomplishment in all 
 cases, is gaining ground with you. I believe that the 
 righteous Father must eternally seek the righteousness 
 of his children — and therefore that He will seek them 
 diligently until He find them," 
 
 In his later years Dr. Porter's friendships if not warmer 
 were perhaps somewhat more free and full in expression. 
 He was not a demonstrative man, as to his deeper feel- 
 ings, — rather, perhaiDS, one of those natures in whom 
 deepened feeling hushes expression. Said one lady who 
 knew him long: "I was always sure of his friendship, 
 and charmed by his society, but outwardly he was cool — 
 his hand clasp was limp. But in later years, in his greet- 
 ing and in little signs I felt a cordial nearness." With 
 the senior publisher of Webster's Dictionary he had for 
 many years a friendship full of mutual services and 
 mutual enjoyment, but it was only when he felt that his
 
 190 NOAH PORTER 
 
 old friend was nearing the end that he spoke out freely 
 of the deepest and dearest things, so that he left behind 
 him a radiant face, — "I wouldn't have missed that talk 
 with Mr. Porter for all I'm worth ! It was so elevating, 
 so satisfying ! If I never see him again, I have had the 
 best." 
 
 In his bearing there was great simplicity — the same 
 with high and low. When he received his degree at the 
 University of Edinburgh, an observer noted the peculiar 
 ease of his manner, — gracious, composed, half-smiling. 
 Plain people and little children were attracted to him. 
 Coming home from college one day, he suddenly broke 
 into a laugh. " On my way to chapel," he said, " I be- 
 came conscious of some one at my side, and looking down 
 I saw a ragged little Irish boy trotting along beside me. 
 It was raining, and he had taken shelter under my um- 
 brella. He went with me as far as the college, — he said 
 nothing, and I said nothing, but we were very good 
 company ! " 
 
 In these later and more leisurely years, his service to 
 the local community was especially apparent. At an 
 earlier time, amid the cares of the presidency, he was 
 one of the prime movers in the noble enterprise of mak- 
 ing a public park of East Rock. He was active in the 
 work of the society for the prevention of crime. He went 
 repeatedly before the judiciary committee of the legisla- 
 ture, to support laws which were needed, and labored 
 successfully with others to secure the refusal of licenses 
 to unfit applicants. His place in the community was 
 described by Dr. Hunger in his memorial sermon.
 
 CROWNING TEARS 191 
 
 "Chiefly, however, I speak of Dr. Porter because he 
 was our first citizen. The foremost man in such a com- 
 munity as ours is not always the man who chances to 
 hold the highest office. The leading American citizen is 
 a man of character, of wisdom, of intelligence and culti- 
 vation. He must have those large and commanding 
 qualities that win respect and confidence; and if he 
 happens to occupy an exalted position and to have a 
 name in wider circles, as did our friend, then we turn to 
 him with that loyalty and homage which citizens of a 
 free country may render to one of their number. Presi- 
 dent Porter lived in this city forty-six years. Though 
 holding no public office, he let the full influence of his 
 name and character and thought and effort be felt on all 
 occasions when the public interests seemed to demand it. 
 He had the traditional New England conception of citi- 
 zenship." 
 
 He had also the true New England appreciation of the 
 right place and use of material wealth. He fairly meas- 
 ured its value when he was advising young men as to 
 their life-work. For himself he declined without hesi- 
 tation offers of large payment for work which would 
 withdraw him from his chosen field. But he took excel- 
 lent care of his property. He was thrifty, a good man- 
 ager and wise investor, and commanded the respect of 
 business men in their own field. 
 
 He was a type of the late flowering of the old New 
 England stock. The roots of that stock were fidelity to 
 the highest known law, and trust in a divine guidance ; 
 and its two-fold stem was a firm grip on the material
 
 192 NOAH PORTER 
 
 world side by side with a searching inquiry into the un- 
 seen. For two centuries it grew under harsh and nar- 
 row conditions, like a pine-tree resting on a granite 
 bowlder. Then the plant threw out its blossoms — in- 
 tellectual freedom, love of beauty, and sympathy wide 
 as the race. 
 
 The tranquil, busy, happy years of his retirement were 
 not to go on to the end without shock. His wife's inva- 
 lidism had scarcely lessened the support she gave him. 
 She was indomitable, and would never yield to her 
 malady. Always she appeared at breakfast with the 
 others, — " Your father will never get up unless I do ! " 
 — and always she kept her place at the head of the table. 
 Her husband used to tell her she was made of india-rub- 
 ber. She had always added to his courage. She encour- 
 aged him to extempore speaking, as to which he was at 
 first diffident, but became so proficient that he habitually 
 " thought on his feet," and the listener often could not 
 tell whether he was using notes. He always showed her 
 the proof of his literary articles, and availed himself of 
 her taste in their revision. Her nature never lost its 
 buoyancy and confidence. She was strong in her con- 
 victions, and ardent in politics. A natural nurse, when 
 the New Haven Training School for Nurses was estab- 
 lished she became its president, and held the place for 
 ten years until her death. No matter how feeble, she 
 would go out to attend the meetings of the managers, 
 and she would have the nurses visit her in squads to 
 receive instructions.
 
 CEOWNING YEARS 193 
 
 But strength gave way at last. There was gradual 
 failure for a year, then a ten-weeks' illness, and on the 
 14th of April, 1888, she died. For her husband it was 
 the beginning of the end. He was never the same man 
 again. In the following summer he made another jour- 
 ney to England with his two daughters — but in that 
 resource no longer lay restorative power. 
 
 But he still bore himself stoutly, and the only change 
 apparent was the loss of physical strength. There was 
 no sudden failure, but a gradual loss of nervous power, 
 especially affecting his hands and his throat. His fine 
 and sonorous voice became very weak, and for the last 
 year or two he could only make himself heard with 
 difficulty. A general slowness of movement gave an 
 impression of decrepitude. 
 
 But he went right on in his accustomed ways. He 
 continued his teaching, his writing, and all his accus- 
 tomed interests. His Adirondack haunts had been 
 exchanged for the quiet scenery of Norfolk, Connecticut. 
 Gradually his home walks were shortened and at last 
 given up. He had kept an Adirondack boat on the 
 Whitneyville pond, and it had given him one of his 
 favorite recreations. " It is too much for me," he said 
 to his daughters, " and there is Mr, Ladd " — his suc- 
 cessor in the Clark professorship — " he needs exercise, 
 he has two boys, and they will all enjoy it, — I have 
 given it to him." So with his daughter he made a last 
 visit to Whitneyville, walked laboriously to the boat, 
 and gave careful directions for its complete repair for its 
 new owner.
 
 194 NOAH PORTER 
 
 When in these years one met him the impression at 
 first sight perhaps roused pity, which quickly gave way 
 when the old spirit shone out unabated in his looks and 
 talk. At home he never made complaint, beyond express- 
 ing regret at his inability to put on his overcoat. That 
 sometimes kept him from making visits, or detained him 
 in his college room after he wanted to leave. 
 
 His sympathy was as quick and perfect as ever. As 
 of old, when you knocked at his door, and, bidden to 
 enter, found him amid books and papers — you were met 
 at once by cordial inquiry about yourself, your affairs, 
 your family; he was interested to hear about each 
 friend; he was pleased to know what you were doing, 
 and fruitful in wise suggestion ; — he made you for the 
 hour an egotist, and you were not a bit ashamed that you 
 had been. 
 
 The failure of his voice at last made teaching very 
 difficult, and his friends sometimes urged him to desist. 
 " But what can I do ? " he would answer. " My hands 
 will not let me write, and I cannot read all day just for 
 amusement, — I must go on teaching." The list of his 
 writings virtually ends two years before his death. The 
 mind was as active as ever, but the hand could no longer 
 guide the pen. So, one pleasure after another was cut 
 off, and the round of activities steadily narrowed. Early 
 friends had gone. " There is not a name on the college 
 catalogue that was there when I became professor," 
 he said. The wife was no longer by his side. Yet he 
 bore himself steadily, cheerfully, to the end. Says Dr. 
 Hunger : " Some months before his death he took a drive
 
 THE FAREWELL 195 
 
 to East Rock, with myself, my wife, and his daughter. 
 He couhl hardly speak above a whisper, but he was as 
 full of fresh interest and pleasure as any young girl, — 
 pleased with the fine horses, the loveliness of the 
 scenery, and whatever offered. Existence seemed a joy 
 to him." 
 
 On the afternoon of his eightieth birthday he held an 
 examination of one of his classes. Early in 1892 he was 
 confined to his bed. Eor eight weeks he lay quiet and 
 passive, suffering little, seldom rousing to speak, and 
 then on his wonted subjects and in choice phrase. His 
 mind only wandered once, and then, the day before the 
 end, waking suddenly, he said " Go call your mother — 
 wake her up — I want to consult with her." That was 
 the old familiar want. On the 4th of March, 1892, he 
 quietly passed away. His face was beautiful in its last 
 repose. Upon it the years had written the story of 
 power, benignity and wisdom, and in death it wore a 
 look of youth. 
 
 In the college chapel fresh young voices sang hymns 
 not of sorrow but of triumph. President Dwight spoke 
 just and tender words. In the cemetery, between the 
 college and the home of his love, the body was laid to 
 rest. 
 
 At the Alumni meeting in the summer, among other 
 tributes was an address by ex-Governor Chamberlain, in 
 which he said : " I saw him last in his own house, for 
 a few moments, in 1889. The shrewd wit, the ample 
 wisdom, the calm philosophy, the eager, broad outlook, 
 all were there undimmed; but above these qualities
 
 196 NOAH POUTER 
 
 shone clear the faith in Divine things which had always 
 guided him. As I took my leave, he asked if I had read 
 a little poem then freshly published, — Tennyson's Cross- 
 ing the Bar. Without an allusion, save possibly in the 
 tones of his voice, to their application to himself, he 
 softly and slowly and with exquisite cadence repeated 
 the last two verses : 
 
 "Twilight, and evening bell, 
 And after that the dark ! 
 And may there be no sadness of farewell 
 When I embark ; 
 
 " For though from out our bourne of Time and Place 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 When I have crossed the bar."
 
 NOAH PORTER. 
 
 [From a photograph taken in 1866.]
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 197 
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 (Including an Outline of his System.) 
 By Professor George M. Duncan. 
 
 President Porter's labors were not confined to any- 
 single part of the wide field of philosophy. He was 
 a philosophical critic, just in his appreciation yet un- 
 sparing in his criticism ; a philosophical controversialist, 
 delighting in attack and in defense ; an historian of 
 philosophy, judicial in his estimates of men and their 
 work and keen in following the influence of a philo- 
 sophical doctrine ; a psychologist of high rank, making a 
 patient and scientific study of the intricate problems of 
 man's inner being ; a moralist, seeking in the nature of 
 man as a spiritual being the foundations of an ethical 
 system which would be secure against speculative attacks 
 and exempt from practical weakness ; a philosophical 
 essayist, writing on popular themes with an eye to their 
 deeper significance and on philosophical themes with a 
 full consciousness of their practical bearings ; a meta- 
 physician, never losing sight of the supremest questions ; 
 and, finally, a teacher of philosophy in all its branches, a 
 master in all, speaking always from abundant knowledge 
 and after mature thought and in a spirit of transparent 
 honesty. We shall try to indicate to the non-philo- 
 sophical readers of this volume some of the more im-
 
 198 NOAH PORTER 
 
 portant conclusions reached by President Porter as a 
 philosopher. Pliilosophy was the chosen subject of his 
 life-long and fruitful labor, but anything like a detailed 
 treatment and critical estimate of his work in this de- 
 partment is precluded by the space at command and the 
 aim of this volume. 
 
 Descartes, at the beginning of the modern period in 
 philosophy, wrote : " Let a man propose to himself, 
 as a problem, the investigation of all the truths 
 that the human mind is capable of knowing," — the 
 explanation of the totality of things, the universe in 
 which he is and of which he forms a part, — "a prob- 
 lem which, in my opinion, all those who are in earnest 
 in their desire to attain wisdom, ought, at least once in 
 their lives, to propose to themselves; he will find that 
 the first thing to be known is intelligence itself," — the 
 mind or knowing subject, — " since upon this depends 
 the knowledge of all other things and not vice versa. 
 . . . There is here no question more important to 
 be settled than to know what human knoioledge is, and 
 how far it extends, two things which we combine in one 
 and the same question, which must first of all be 
 methodically investigated. This is a question which a 
 man must examine once in his life, if he has the least 
 love for truth ; since its investigation comprehends the 
 whole of method, and, as it were, the organon of knowl- 
 edge. Nothing appears to me more absurd than boldly 
 to argue concerning the mysteries of nature, the influ- 
 ence of the stars, the secrets of the future, without once 
 having raised the question whether the human mind is
 
 PBESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 199 
 
 competent to these things." ^ Locke, in the first chapter 
 of his great Essay, and Kant, in the introduction of the 
 Critique of Pure Reason, reaffirm this position laid down 
 by Descartes. The post-Kantian philosophical schools 
 of Germany ignored this — the problem of Knowing — 
 and devoted their energies to the vain attempt to deal 
 with the problem of Being on a speculative and not on a 
 psychological basis ; — with what results, the history of 
 philosophy tells us. 
 
 The position of Descartes, Locke and Kant, President 
 Porter regards as of the utmost importance. A scientific 
 study of the mind, he insists, is the only proper intro- 
 duction to the profound questions concerning the origin 
 and destiny of man, the metaphysics of nature, and the 
 existence and nature of the Absolute. Turn to whatever 
 subject you will, you are led back to questions concern- 
 ing the knowing subject, the nature, the reach and the cer- 
 tainty of the knowiyig act. "No maxim," he writes, 
 " deserves to be recorded by the student of philosophy 
 in letters more clear and bright than this : ' The man 
 who seeks to enter the temj^le of Philosophy by any 
 other approach than the vestibule of psychology, can 
 never penetrate into its inner sanctuary.' " ^ 
 
 President Porter's contribution to psychology is con- 
 tained mainly in his truly monumental work, The Hu- 
 man Intellect; a work incomparably superior to any 
 treatise on psychology in English existing at the time 
 when it appeared. It rendered an inestimable service 
 
 1 CEuvres, ed. Cousin, tome ii, pp. 243, 245. 
 
 2 The Human Intellect, p. 60.
 
 200 NOAH PORTER 
 
 in placing, for the first time, within the reach of the 
 English student the means of thoroughly acquainting 
 himself with the stores of German learning, speculative 
 and scientific, on the themes of which it treats. When 
 the work was written German speculative philosophy, 
 although imperfectly known, was beginning to exert a 
 powerful influence on English and American philosophi- 
 cal and theological thought ; the Associational philoso- 
 phy and psychology, as represented by the writings of 
 J. S. Mill and Alexander Bain, was at the height of its 
 power in Great Britain ; the psychology of the Hamil- 
 tonian school was taught in most of our colleges, and 
 Hamilton's metaphysical views, especially in their appli- 
 cation to theology, were creating heated controversy ; 
 the theory of evolution had been applied to the phenom- 
 ena of mind by Mr. Spencer ; the importance of phys- 
 iological inquiry to the exposition of mind had been 
 emphasized by Carpenter, Maudsley and others ; the 
 schools of Herbart and Beneke, in Germany, had pro- 
 duced many valuable treatises on the mind, which, popu- 
 larized by Morrell and others, were beginning to exert 
 an influence in England; Lotze, Fechner, and Wundt, 
 following Weber, were laying the foundations of phys- 
 iological and experimental psychology. President Por- 
 ter's work presents and critically examines the results 
 of these and all previous labors in the field of psychol- 
 ogy. It is a thesaurus of its subject, containing in 
 outline the results of the best thinking which had been 
 done in all ages about the human mind. It was very 
 truly said to be, on the whole, the one book in existence
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 201 
 
 from wliich, read singly, the student could get a clear 
 idea of psychology as a science, both in a systematic 
 form and in its history, and the position and tendencies 
 of each philosophical school with relation to it. One 
 feature of the work deserves especial notice — its scien- 
 tific, as distinguished from a philosophical or speculative, 
 character. This is especially marked in the discussion 
 of such subjects as the relation of the soul to the body ; 
 the phenomena of sleep, dreams and hypnotism; and 
 the problem of sense-perception, in treating which the 
 latest researches of Weber, Lotze and Wundt are pre- 
 sented. 
 
 President Porter treats psychology as an inductive 
 science, entirely independent of metaphysical theories 
 and methods. " He who attempts," he says, " to con- 
 struct psychology by the aid and under the direction of 
 a metaphysical system, contradicts the order by which 
 both psychology and philosophy are developed and 
 acquired." ^ He severely censures Hegel and other 
 metaphysicians for doing this, and insists that the study 
 of metaphysics should follow after the study of the 
 mind, inasmuch as it is in the analysis of the power to 
 know, that we are supposed first to discover what it is 
 to know, and especially what are the objects and rela- 
 tions which are essential to science; in other words, 
 what conceptions and relations are philosophically valid 
 as axioms and postulates of scientific knowledge. On 
 the other hand, he rejects entirely the notion of reaching 
 mental science by extending the methods and laws of 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 60.
 
 202 NOAH PORTER 
 
 material science. ""Consciousness," he declares, "is the 
 source from which the materials with which psychology- 
 has to do are directly derived, and it is the facts of 
 consciousness which psychology primarily and almost 
 exclusively seeks to arrange in a scientific method, and 
 to explain by scientific principles. But, indirectly, sense- 
 perception comes to the aid and support of consciousness, 
 as physiology furnishes that knowledge of the functions 
 and states of the body which prepare the objects of the 
 sense-perceptions, and are the essential conditions of 
 the development and the activity of the soul. The facts 
 of this class are attested by the senses and interpreted 
 by induction, and are in all respects subject to the laws 
 and methods of the other sciences of matter. Both these 
 classes of facts must be considered in conjunction, must 
 be observed with attention, must be analyzed into their 
 ultimate elements, must be compared, classed, and inter- 
 preted according to the methods which are common to 
 it and the other inductive sciences." ^ To make, how- 
 ever, that which, as source and as instrument, is subsidi- 
 ary, usurp the place of that which is chief, as many of 
 the " modern," " experimental," and forsooth " only sci- 
 entific " psychologists do, he declares could but impede 
 the advancement of, if indeed it did not subvert, the 
 true and strictly scientific study of the mind. While 
 enthusiastic in welcoming and liberal in appreciating all 
 the help that physiological and experimental investiga- 
 tions could render psychology, and while friendly toward 
 the so-called physiological and experimental psychology 
 1 The Huinan Intellect, p. 52.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 203 
 
 wlien kept within its proper sphere, he felt that great 
 harm was likely to result from extending the methods 
 and laws and analogies of the material sciences to 
 psychical phenomena. " We insist," he writes, " that 
 psychology should be studied with a constant reference 
 to physiology." ^ But he denies altogether that there is 
 such a correspondence between vital and mental activity, 
 that the laws of the one will help us to throw light upon 
 the laws of the other. On the contrary, he asserts that 
 the consideration of the differences between the two is of 
 prime importance, and that the study of the laws of life 
 are of chief value to the psychologist as they draw his 
 attention to, and bring out in more striking relief, the 
 peculiar and essential differences of the mental activities. 
 " Indeed, we apprehend," he writes, " that true science 
 is as really promoted by the discovery of differences, as 
 it is by the establishment of resemblances, whether of 
 fact or of law. We think, moreover, that in confirma- 
 tion of this principle, it could readily be shown from the 
 history of psychology itself, that its slow beginning at 
 the first, and its tardy progress, were owing most of all 
 to the unsound analogies which it borrowed from the 
 current physiology. Its slow advances since are, we 
 think, to be ascribed to the persistent purpose of its 
 devotees to depend on material, and in their turn vital 
 analogies for illustration and proof, which has excluded 
 the rational impulse and desire to do full justice to its 
 own independent and self-sufficing phenomena and laws. 
 
 1 TJie Principles of Mental Philosophy, Am. Presb. & Theol. Rev., 
 S., vol. 2, p. 280.
 
 204 NOAH PORTER 
 
 . . . The more nearly the two sciences are allied, the 
 more imperative is the necessity that the alliance does 
 not become so intimate as to be entangling and hurtful." ^ 
 The writer well remembers some weighty words on this 
 subject to which President Porter gave utterance in a 
 conversation in Paris, shortly after he resigned the 
 presidency. He substantially anticipated the recent 
 declaration of Mr. James Ward : " If physiological psy- 
 chology is to be kept within limits, it must be preceded 
 by a psychology that is not physiological, one in which 
 the fundamental conceptions of the science are sys- 
 tematically and independently ascertained. What, for 
 example, have religious feelings or the free-will contro- 
 versy or metaphysical hypotheses concerning the essence 
 of the soul to do with physiology?" "It is fearfully 
 hard to define what we mean by Subject, Object, Presen- 
 tation, Feeling, Judgment, Belief, Memory, Volition; 
 but till these and cognate conceptions are clear and dis- 
 tinct, psychology must be at a standstill, let psycho- 
 physics advance as much as it may." ^ 
 
 The central problem for Dr. Porter was the problem of 
 knowledge — its origin, nature, extent, validity. Does 
 all knowledge come from experience — inner and outer 
 sense — ; or must we add another source, viz., the consti- 
 tution of the knowing subject ? Does knowledge begin 
 with simple ideas as its elements, as Locke claimed ; or is 
 the simple idea the product of analysis ? Does the mind 
 begin with an undifferentiated object, a complex awaiting 
 
 1 Ibid. 
 
 2 Mind, S., i, p. 537, and ii., p, 56.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 205 
 
 analysis ; or with elements awaiting union ? Is the 
 primitive act of knowledge to be represented by the 
 judgment ; or is it expressed by the term ? Is knowl- 
 edge from the start, in all its forms and essentially, a 
 product of the mind's own activity ; or something im- 
 ported into the mind ? Are we cognizant of phenomena 
 only ; or of realities, powers, things in themselves ? Is 
 all knowledge only of relations ; or is it also of things 
 related, beings in relations ? What is the nature of 
 memory ? What is the agent in the revival of our ideas, 
 and according to what laws are they associated ? What 
 is the nature and ground of the inductive process ? Are 
 the ultimate forms of thought merely subjective ? Is 
 knowledge trustworthy and valid ? Is real certainty 
 possible ? Such questions are fundamental ; upon the 
 answers to them will depend our metaphysics of nature 
 and our metaphysics of mind, and to them empirical psy- 
 chology inevitably leads. Materialism, pantheism, ideal- 
 ism, in fact all systems, must stand or fall according to 
 the answers they give to these central questions concern- 
 ing knowledge. President Porter clearly perceived this 
 and his scientific studies in psychology were all directed 
 toward the solution of these questions, and the answers 
 which these scientific studies gave him were the touch- 
 stone by which he tested all systems philosophical and 
 theological. With him, then, the problem of knowing 
 was first and fundamental. 
 
 Having laboriously thought out his answers analyti- 
 cally, in presenting them he uses the synthetic method 
 and boldly asks, " What is it to know ? " In answering
 
 206 NOAH PORTER 
 
 this question he affirms that knoivledge is an activity of 
 the mind; that in knowing, the soul is active. He never 
 tires of reiterating and emphasizing this position. Locke 
 taught that "the mind is wholly passive in the reception 
 of all its simple ideas, the elements of all knowledge" ; 
 and he compared it to "white paper devoid of any char- 
 ters," "an empty cabinet," and "a dark room." This 
 fatal tendency to regard the mind in knowing as passive, 
 took exclusive possession of Locke's successors, Hume 
 and Hartley, and through them it passed on to both the 
 Mills. " They never ceased to regard and treat the 
 human soul as in all its processes entirely passive, — 
 alike in its reception of its impressions from without 
 and in the revival of these impressions from within by 
 memory and imagination, as eminently in those interpre- 
 tations of truth which are gained by generalization and 
 reasoning. Through the Mills it has been fixed more 
 firmly than ever in the unconscious and the acknowledged 
 methods of many able and influential schools of the 
 present generation." ^ Especially prevalent is this con- 
 ception among the " new psychologists " of to-day. Such 
 dogmas as that all the higher processes of the intellect 
 are capable of being resolved into the so-called associa- 
 tion of ideas ; and, again, that the law of necessity holds 
 good of the phenomena of spirit as truly as of the phe- 
 nomena of matter, are also fruits of this doctrine. Against 
 all this President Porter insists that to knoio is an opera- 
 tion of the soul in which it is pre-eminently active. "In 
 
 1 John Stuart Mill as a Philosopher, iu Science and Sentiment, pp. 
 130, 131.
 
 PRESIDENT POBTEB AS A PHILOSOPHER 207 
 
 knowing, we are not so mucli recipients as actors. We 
 do not merely submit to the impressions which are made 
 upon the senses or the mind from without. Nor are we 
 the passive subjects of the mechanical operations of ideas 
 already acquired, as they come and go by an independent 
 force and movement of their own, as they intrude, break 
 upon or elude the memory and fancy in seeming caprice 
 or wantonness. We do not generalize, reason, or believe, 
 according as certain relations do or do not choose to sug- 
 gest themselves. But in all states of knowledge the soul 
 itself energizes or acts, in the ways or methods which are 
 provided for by its original endowments." ^ One of the 
 most important chapters in The Human Intellect is the 
 one in which he traces the activity of the soul in sense- 
 perception, where its activity is most likely to be over- 
 looked or denied. 
 
 In considering further the nature of knowledge, Presi- 
 dent Porter affirms that knowledge does not begin with 
 the simple idea, but that the simple idea is the result of 
 analysis. Locke declared that the u)dt of consciousfiess is 
 the simple idea ; that although the qualities of things 
 exist in the things themselves so united and blended that 
 there is no separation among them, " yet it is plain that 
 the ideas they produce in the mind enter by themselves 
 simple and unmixed.'^ ^ Our mental history then becomes 
 the history of the formation of complex ideas out of these 
 "constituent elements of mind," by ''fusion," "associa- 
 tion " or " indissoluble connection " ; and the main busi- 
 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. Gl. 
 
 2 Locke, Essay C, Human Understanding, Bk. 2, ch. 2, sec. 1.
 
 208 NOAH PORTER 
 
 ness of tlie psychologist consists in analyzing these 
 compounds into their original elements and formulating 
 the laws of coalescence in accordance with which they 
 are formed. We begin with a plurality of elements and 
 end with unity ; the elements are sensations or simple 
 ideas ; the unities arrived at are the compounds or aggre- 
 gates. President Porter regards this account as a com- 
 plete inversion of the truth. " The mind," he writes, 
 " does not find itself in possession of its materials, it 
 knows not how, — as ' the contents of the mind,' as im- 
 pressions or ideas, nor even as relations, — and then pro- 
 ceed to compound them into knowledge ; but it finds 
 things or entities in combination, or related together, 
 and proceeds subsequently to decompose them into ideas, 
 and to express these ideas in language. ... So it is of 
 all experiences or mental activities ; they are known to 
 exist, and not only are known to exist, but to exist in 
 relations to one another. They are necessarily and uni- 
 formly given in combination.''^^ The question is this, Must 
 the mind exercise the act of knowledge in gaining what 
 are called its contents, i.e., its elementary states, whether 
 these are impressions, ideas or relations ; or must it first 
 possess these elements before it proceeds to unite them 
 in an act of knowledge ? " This question," writes Dr. 
 Porter, "we afiirm to be the most important question 
 which could possibly be proposed for an answer," "the 
 cardinal question in all philosophy." ^ He would agree, 
 
 1 Huxley's Exposition of Hume's Philosophy, rep. in Science and 
 Sentiment, p. 306. 
 
 2 Rid., pp. 304, 305.
 
 PBESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 209 
 
 therefore, with James Martineau when he declares that 
 "experience proceeds and intellect is trained, not by 
 Association, but by Dissociation, not by reduction of 
 pluralities of impression to one, but by the opening out 
 of one into many ; and a true psychological history must 
 expound itself in analytic rather than in synthetic terms. 
 Precisely those ideas — of Substance, of Mind, of Cause, 
 of Space — which this system [of Locke and the Asso- 
 ciationists] treats as infinitely complex, the last result 
 of myriads of confluent elements, are in truth residuary 
 simplicities of consciousness, whose stability [analysis, 
 discrimination, and] the eddies and currents of phenom- 
 enal experience have left undisturbed." ^ 
 
 So far, then, from the simple idea being the unit of 
 consciousness, President Porter affirms that the judg- 
 ment is the unit — all knoioledge begins in a judgment. 
 He once said to the writer, " It is a vital truth in the 
 theory of knowledge that the mind begins with a j^tdg- 
 ment and afterwards by analysis reaches the simple con- 
 cept ; " and he referred approvingly to the statement of 
 Reid that instead of saying that knowledge is got by 
 putting together and comparing the simple apprehensions, 
 we ought rather to say that the simple apprehension is 
 performed by resolving and analyzing a natural and 
 original judgment. "Simple apprehension, therefore, 
 though it be the simplest, is not the first operation of 
 the understanding ; and, instead of saying that the more 
 complex operations of the mind are formed by compound- 
 ing simple apprehensions, we ought rather to say, that 
 1 Essmjs, Philosophical and Theological, First Series, p. 273.
 
 210 NOAH PORTER 
 
 simple apprehensions are got by analyzing more complex 
 notions."^ This position, that the mind begins with 
 propositions which are subsequently analyzed, into sub- 
 ject, predicate, and copula, is often insisted on in The 
 Human Intellect. " The proposition is the proper expres- 
 sion for all acts of knowledge. All knowledge implies 
 the apprehension of some relation, and is therefore an 
 act of judgment."^ President Porter distinguishes, with 
 Mansel, between these psychological judgments and logi- 
 cal judgments. 
 
 In knowing. President Porter declares, we are cognitive 
 of reality : knowledge is certainty of being. This is a 
 position which he regards as overthrowing a host of 
 errors. Phenomenalism is the term which may be ap- 
 plied to much of the speculative and scientific thinking 
 of the century, having been popularized by Kant. This 
 doctrine in brief is as follows : " When we face the sense- 
 world, we do not discern things or realities, but only 
 phenomena, as sights, feels, and smells, etc. So in the 
 spirit world we are conscious only of sensations, imagi- 
 nations, and thoughts, but not of ourselves as seeing, 
 hearing, remembering, or imagining. What men are 
 accustomed to conceive as realities by eminence, i.e., the 
 realities of the material world, and mayhap in the view 
 of some, the realities of spirit — these are only phenom- 
 ena as contrasted with things in themselves, i.e., solid 
 realities. These things in themselves, Dinge an sick, 
 remain ever beyond our reach, ever eluding our grasp. 
 
 1 Reid's Works, Hamilton's ed., vol. i, p. 376 ; cf. p. 106. 
 
 2 The Human Intellect, p. 505 ; cf. pp. Go, 92, 430, 501, etc.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 211 
 
 We come nearest to these when we seem to be conscious 
 of our own ego or self, but even then we find that what 
 we seize is but an illusion — an illusion of thought or a 
 figure of speech. However imposing and complicated 
 these may seem to be, they are only phenomena, suggest- 
 ing, it may be, the noumena, the things which can never 
 be reached." ^ In opposition to Kant, Hamilton, Spencer 
 and the whole school of phenomenalists and relativists, 
 who assert this view, President Porter teaches that 
 knowledge and being are correlatives : subjectively 
 viewed, to know involves certainty ; objectively, it re- 
 quires reality. The thinking agent, he declares, is 
 known to and by itself as a thing in itself, i.e., a potent 
 and permanent and identical reality, and, indeed, that it 
 must be so known in order that any contrast should even 
 be suspected by the mind between a thing in itself and 
 its manifestations or phenomena. In a masterly passage 
 he contends that over against Kant's jealous and violent 
 efforts to deny the knowableness of the soul as an agent 
 with a definite nature of its own, he would set the whole 
 argument of the Critique itself, from beginning to end, 
 so far as it defends and expounds transcendental ideal- 
 ism. " We contend," he writes, " that its doctrines of the 
 forms of sense, and of the categories of the understand- 
 ing, and the ideas of the reason, are, from beginning to 
 end, a series of psychological conclusions or assumptions 
 in respect to the nature of the soul as a thing in itself. 
 They not only imply and assert that the soul has an 
 essential nature, but that this essential nature is know- 
 1 Kant's Ethics, pp. 20, 21.
 
 212 NOAH PORTER 
 
 able by man. They not only in fact, but by profession, 
 penetrate beneath its phenomena, and find there a nature 
 or constitution capable of moulding the universe of sense 
 and matter by subjective forms, categories, and ideas. 
 They propose to show that all the knowledge which man 
 can attain is only phenomenal, and this by an analysis 
 into the nature of the soul itself. They find, beneath the 
 forms, the categories, and the ideas, the soul with a 
 nature which compels it to mould and connect and sys- 
 tematize and interpret the phenomena of the inner and 
 outer universe by the relations and into the products 
 which its own constitution requires. This is the logic 
 of the entire treatise, etc."^ President Porter insists 
 likewise on the reality of the not-self, and its knowable- 
 ness by man as a thing in itself. Even if the senses are 
 only receptive, they suppose reality in the matter which 
 acts upon them. The receptivity of the senses supposes 
 an agent which lies beyond and without, from the causa- 
 tive activity of which the recipient can never escape. 
 To say that we are not sensitive to all the capacities of 
 these agents, is to confess that we are finite. If we 
 must know any of them completely in order that we may 
 know anything at all, then Ave can know nothing of any- 
 thing, whether material or spiritual. 
 
 President Porter claims, in opposition not only to 
 Hume and the Lockean school, but in opposition also to 
 Reid, Stewart and Hamilton, that we have an immediate 
 knowledge of the self; that is, we cannot know the states 
 or ideas — the phenomena — of the ego apart from the 
 
 1 The Kantian Centennial, rep. in Science and Sentiment, p. 435.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 213 
 
 ego manifested in them. This position, which is a justi- 
 fication of that just presented as well as a consequence 
 of it, is one of great significance. "For my part," Hume 
 declared, "when I enter most intimately into what I 
 call myself I always stumble on some particular percep- 
 tion or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or 
 hatred, pain or pleasure. I can never catch myself at 
 any time without a perception, and never can observe 
 anything but the perception."^ "We are conscious," 
 writes Stewart in a similar strain, " of sensation, thought, 
 desire, volition, but we are not conscious of the existence 
 of the mind itself."^ The natural consequence of this 
 denial of immediate knowledge of the self is such state- 
 ments as Hume's, that " the mind is but a collection of 
 perceptions or ideas," and J. S. Mill's that " my mind is 
 a thread of consciousness," a " series of feelings with a 
 background of possible feelings." The latest results 
 of such a denial are the assertions that psychological 
 analysis consists in seeking the " constituent elements 
 of mind," and that for scientific psychology "the final 
 word is: the thoughts themselves are the thinkers." 
 President Porter's view is as follows: "Of the ego itself 
 we are directly conscious. Not only are we conscious of 
 the varying states and conditions, but we know them to 
 be our own states, i.e., each individual observer knows 
 his changing individual states to belong to his individual 
 self, or to himself, the individual. The states we know 
 as varying and transitory. The self we know as un- 
 
 1 Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Green and Grose ed., p. 534. 
 
 2 Stewart, Phil. Essays, p. 1, es. 1.
 
 214 NOAH PORTER 
 
 changed and permanent. It is of the very nature and 
 essence of a psychical state to be the act or experience 
 of an individual ego. We are not first conscious of the 
 state or operation, and then forced to look around for a 
 something to which it is to be referred, or to which it 
 may belong. A mental state which is not produced or 
 felt by an individual self, is as inconceivable as a tri- 
 angle without three angles, or a square without four 
 sides. This relation of the act to the self is not inferred, 
 but is directly known. The fact of memory proves this 
 beyond dispute."^ For how could memory be possible, 
 if the first act or state, now recalled, was not known, 
 when it occurred, to belong to the same ego which now 
 recalls it? That is, to know an experience as mine, I 
 must obtain the knowledge in the act of experience 
 itself. Later than that, is too late. If I do not know a 
 state as mine, I cannot refer it to the self; and if I do 
 know it as mine, I have a knowledge which is superior 
 to that obtained by any process of reference.^ The fun- 
 damental fact of experience, therefore, for President 
 Porter, is not sensations and thoughts exist, but I feel, 
 I think. Here he seizes clearly the Cartesian position 
 that not in thought as a product but in thought as an 
 activity, i.e., in the psychical activities or feeling, per- 
 ceiving, willing, we know the actor or agent — the /. 
 The ethical bearing of the denial of immediate knowl- 
 edge of the self, did not escape President Porter's notice. 
 " If in consciousness," he writes, " we are only aware of 
 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 95. 
 
 2 C/. Calderwood, Handbook of Mar. Phil., 13 ed., p. 106.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 215 
 
 the presence of psychical states, and cannot know their 
 relations to one another or to the agent which originates 
 them, then it is impossible that we can be conscious of 
 any exercise of the power of cJioice.'^ ^ " Many philoso- 
 phers hold," writes Professor James, "that the reflective 
 consciousness of the self is essential to the cognitive 
 function of thought. They hold that a thought, in order 
 to know a thing at all, must expressly distinguish 
 between the thing and its own self. This is a perfectly 
 wanton assumption, and not the faintest shadow of rea- 
 son exists for supposing it true."^ President Porter's 
 position is not open to this charge; for he carefully 
 distinguishes between conceptual self-knowledge and 
 self -consciousness, between natural self-consciousness or 
 self-experience and reflective self-consciousness giving us 
 the philosoj)hical and generalized concept of the self. 
 " When we assert," he writes, "■ that the soul is con- 
 scious of itself, the actor, as truly as of its states or acts, 
 we by no means assert that it makes the ego an object of 
 attention or reflective thought, or that it gains a scientific 
 knowledge of its states or of its powers."* The distinc- 
 tion here made between the natural or spontaneous, and 
 the reflective or philosophical consciousness, President 
 Porter regards as of great importance. A self-experience 
 or natural and spontaneous self-consciousness is at the 
 basis of and is presupposed in our reflective knowledge 
 about the self. 
 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 582. 
 
 2 James, The Principles of Psychology, i, p. 274. 
 
 3 The Human Intellect, p. 96 ; cf. p. iii.
 
 216 NOAH PORTER 
 
 To the knowledge of the external and extended world 
 — the problem of perception — President Porter devotes 
 one-fifth of the entire Human Intellect. When, the book 
 appeared, his discussion of this perplexing question was 
 the most elaborate to be found in the whole range of 
 English philosophy. He manifests a thorough knowl- 
 edge of the history of the problem — the views of early 
 thinkers, — and a like familiarity with the recent British 
 speculations of Hamilton, on the one hand, and of Mill, 
 Bain, Spencer and the empiricists generally, on the 
 other; as well as a thorough acquaintance with the 
 latest inquiries of Miiller, Weber, Lotze and Wundt in 
 Germany. Besides this command of what had been done 
 by others, he shows a clear discernment of the nature of 
 the problem. His discussion throughout evinces marked 
 ability both speculative and scientific. 
 
 To the unsophisticated mind nothing is so clearly 
 known as matter or the world of extended things. We 
 see and taste and handle them, and they are revealed to 
 us in their inner and real natures ; there is surely no 
 mystery here. Nevertheless, the mind no sooner begins 
 to reflect than this view, the view of " that common igno- 
 rance which passes by the name of common sense," is 
 undermined. We soon realize that things are not as 
 they seem. Hallucinations, illusions, dreams, bring this 
 home to the reflecting mind. Again, a very little reflec- 
 tive knowledge suffices to convince all men of the sub- 
 jectivity of the so-called secondary qualities of matter, 
 such as heat, color and the like. Then appear thinkers 
 such as Bishop Berkeley and insist that the same reason-
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PUILOSOPHER 217 
 
 ing which proves the subjectivity of the secoudary qual- 
 ities, proves the same of the primary qualities, such as 
 extension and impenetrability. And thus our most cer- 
 tainly known and most real world, that of the senses, 
 seems to slip away from us. President Porter clearly 
 recognizes and forcibly states the important truth that 
 our doctrine on this subject will be largely determined 
 by our fundamental conceptions as to the nature of the 
 act of knowledge as such and our view of the knowing 
 subject. We have a real knowledge of the knowing 
 subject, the substantial ego ; furthermore, our earliest 
 knowledge is an experiencing or a " knowing that " 
 rather than a reflective " knowing about " ; the primum 
 cognitum too is an undiscriminated somewhat, awaiting 
 analysis. Bearing these things in mind we are prepared 
 to advance. 
 
 The problem of perception, or of our knowledge of 
 material things, may be stated in two ways. The first 
 form of the problem is this : What is the object imme- 
 diately known in sense-perception ? This is the form in 
 which the problem is handled by the older psychologists. 
 The other form is this : Our present developed and ma- 
 ture consciousness concerning the objective world is a 
 consciousness of a world of extra-mental, extended, dis- 
 criminated, located and measured objects, — how have 
 we come by this consciousness, how much of it is ac- 
 quired and how much is original ? This form of the 
 problem concerns the knoiviiig rather than the object 
 knoivn, and is the form in which the problem is ap- 
 proached by psychologists of to-day. President Porter
 
 218 NOAH PORTER 
 
 treats both forms of the problem ; the second particularly 
 under the caption, "The development of sense-percep- 
 tion." 
 
 To the first or older form of the problem, viz., What 
 is the object immediately known in perception? various 
 answers have been given. It has been said that the 
 object immediately known is not the material object, 
 as common sense supposes, but only its representative 
 image, idea, species, or resemblance ; and this was con- 
 ceived as something distinct from both the mind and the 
 material object. The material object and the mind are, 
 it was said, separated by the whole diameter of being. 
 But like alone can know like, therefore the mind cannot 
 know matter immediately but only through its repre- 
 sentative image. From the representative image which 
 stands between the mind and the object and is immedi- 
 ately known, the mind infers the material object. It 
 was the legitimacy of this inference which Bishop Berke- 
 ley called in question. The philosopher Reid did for 
 this absurd theory what Locke did for the extreme form 
 of the doctrine of innate knowledge. Hamilton, after 
 Reid had slain the giant, literally hacked the corpse to 
 pieces. President Porter merely presents the results of 
 past discussion on this theory and confines himself to 
 the more recent views. 
 
 The second answer, the one which Dr. Porter accepts, 
 is that known as immediate perception or natural real- 
 ism. It affirms that there is no representative idea 
 between the mind and the material object but that the 
 mind immediately by an inexplicable act of its own knows
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 219 
 
 the object. "But," it is objected, "does the mind imme- 
 diately perceive the distant sun or even yonder tree ? 
 Do not the errors of sense and the like prove that this 
 is not so ? What, then, is the object immediately per- 
 ceived ? " To this, the answer was made, by some natural 
 realists, that the mind directly knows the sensorium or 
 body, objects in immediate contact with the body, and 
 some objects at a distance ; by others, that the mind 
 immediately knows the sensorium and objects in imme- 
 diate contact with it, but not objects at a distance. 
 President Porter's answer is that the only object 
 immediately known is the body, or, more strictly, the 
 sensorium. " What the soul directly perceives — i.e., 
 distinguishes from itself — is its own sensitive organism, 
 so far as it is excited to sensation. This is that which 
 it knows to be not itself, even though it knows that in 
 sensation it is intimately connected with it." ^ " But 
 what ! " it may be objected, " when I grasp a pebble or an 
 ivory ball, or a stick, is all that I perceive as external 
 to myself simply the sensorium excited by the object 
 grasped ? Is this the non-ego which I perceive, and this 
 only ? " We reply, that this is the only non-ego which 
 we perceive by direct and original perception. But do we 
 not perceive also the object which produces these sensa- 
 tions ? Do we not directly perceive the svirface of 
 the pebble, the ball, or the stick ? Not by immediate 
 perception. If we did, it would involve the inference 
 that we have " immediate perception of two non-egos 
 — the sensorium excited, and the object exciting the 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 132.
 
 220 NOAH PORTER 
 
 sensorium. This is possible, but it must be shown to 
 be necessary. We prefer the theory that externality 
 in the second sense — i.e., the distinction of the not-body 
 from the body — is discerned not by an original, but by 
 an acquired perception, as will be explained in its place. "^ 
 But we should carefully notice that this immediate and 
 original knowledge of the extra-mental and extended in 
 the form of the excited sensorium, is more properly a 
 " knowing that " than a " knowing about," perception and 
 not apperception, a knowing that is still needing reflec- 
 tive analysis. 
 
 Now, on the confession of all, most of our knowledge 
 of the extended is acquired or inferential. Nine-tenths 
 of our so-calle4 direct perceptions are, as J. S. Mill puts 
 it, not direct perceptions at all but inferences. If then 
 we can explain how the mind, granting it, to start with, an 
 immediate knoivledge of the body as extended, hence of 
 matter in three dimensions and space, comes by or gains 
 a knowledge of the extra-bodily world, i.e., the world of 
 objects in contact with the organism and at a distance 
 from it. President Porter's view is by far the most 
 philosophical and is established. It is the most tenable 
 of the forms of immediate perception ; and is expounded 
 with great clearness and ably defended. 
 
 A third answer to the problem, in its first form, is 
 that called the subtler form of the representative theory 
 and it might well be called the subjectivist theory, in 
 that it teaches that we know directly only our subjective 
 states or modifications. Inverting the doctrine just de- 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 151.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 221 
 
 scribed that perception is the apprehension of a real 
 external and extended object, it describes the act of 
 perception as an ejection, reference or eccentric projec- 
 tion out of the mind of a sensation, or complex of sensa- 
 tions, carrying with it a cluster of faint representations 
 of other past sensations, the whole being "integrated," 
 " fused," or " solidified " in the form of an object. The 
 tendency of this view is to mate of perception a complex 
 process or a congeries of acts. The theory is held by 
 psychologists who differ greatly ; by Kantians and intu- 
 itionalists, on the one hand, and by extreme empiricists, 
 on the other; the difference being mainly due to a more 
 or less rich endowment or original constitution ascribed to 
 the knowing subject. The intuitionalists regard "sj)ace" 
 as a "mental form," and the space characteristic as an 
 element added by the mind to the original non-sj^atial 
 sensations ; while the empiricists affirm that extension 
 is itself generated by or out of the sensations as non- 
 spatial and merely temporal experiences. The following 
 is a concise statement of this theory from an intuition- 
 alist: "Sensations are produced in us, and associate 
 according to certain laws. The mind next reacts upon 
 these by classifying and distinguishing them, and finally 
 'objectifies' them under the forms of space and time, 
 of cause and effect, and of substance and attribute. Our 
 objectified representations constitute for us the external 
 world. To perceive the outer world we must construct 
 it in thought. The mind can never grasp the object 
 other than through the conception ; and the object exists 
 for the mind only through the conception. Hence our
 
 222 NOAH PORTER 
 
 knowledge of the outer world arises only as we form 
 certain conceptions and objectify tlieir contents in inde- 
 pendent existence." ^ 
 
 " All these and every other theory of the sort," writes 
 President Porter, in speaking of earlier statements of 
 this sort, " have one common weakness — that they re- 
 quire us, by some arrangement or series of combinations 
 of sensations purely subjective, to account for or develop 
 an objective, i.e., an external non-ego. But it is obvious 
 that it is not the greater or less positiveness of a subjec- 
 tive sensation, nor any change in the order of such sensa- 
 tions which will elicit a non-ego, if it be not immediately 
 discerned by the mind itself." '^ " In sense-perception," 
 he declares, ''the intellect must know something more 
 than effects, (viz., the specific sensations, as of touch, 
 sight, etc.), for which it assumes an unknown cause, viz., 
 the producer of these felt effects. . . . The process of 
 inferring them [the external objects] as unknown causes 
 of known effects, or as ' possibilities of sensation,' is too 
 awkward to be received, and is beyond the capacities of 
 the infant mind. They must be known by direct knowl- 
 edge as beings jyroducivg sensations if the mind, when it 
 compares the one agent with the other in indirect or 
 reflex knowledge and applies to both the category of 
 causation, is to be assured that there are two beings 
 whose causative attributes it may determine. In sense- 
 perception, the mind apprehends matter or material being. 
 In touch, the mind does more than experience hardness 
 
 1 B. P. Bowne, Introd. to FKycholorjical Theory, p. 258. 
 
 2 The Human Intellect, p. 151.
 
 PRESIDENT POETER AS A PHILOSOPHER 223 
 
 which is intensified into a painful sensation by pressure ; 
 it does more than experience the muscular sensations 
 which attend the use of the locomotive or muscular 
 power ; it knows matter as being, just as truly as it 
 knows the ego as being. ... If we did not know them 
 both to be, we should not seek to assign tlieir respective 
 attributes to each. We should not seek to separate the 
 agency of each in the effects in which both are coeffi- 
 cients. We say, then, without reserve, that the mind in 
 sense-perception, knows matter or material being as truly 
 and as directly as in consciousness it knows the ego, or 
 mental being." ^ 
 
 The second form of the problem of perception we have 
 said concerns our consciousness of the world of objects 
 — from what beginnings, in what order, and by what 
 steps have we come by our present consciousness of a 
 world of clearly discriminated, tri-dimensionally ex- 
 tended, extra-mental objects, objects with their relative 
 sizes noted and they themselves definitely located in the 
 midst of surrounding extents of which the world con- 
 sists? By the confession of all psychologists much of 
 this is acquired, is not in the original primitive percep- 
 tive consciousness. The problem is. How much of this 
 is original and underived, and how much is acquired? 
 There are here two most important questions. The one 
 is. Is our original perceptive consciousness of the objec- 
 tive sort or do we begin with a purely subjective con- 
 sciousness? The other is. In what order and by what 
 steps do we pass from the primitive consciousness, 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 636.
 
 224 NOAH PORTER 
 
 whatever it be, to our present consciousness of a world 
 of distinctly discriminated objects ? We are liere to 
 analyze our perceptive states and processes until we 
 reach their simplest elements, those which our subtlest 
 and ultimate analysis can distinguish, but cannot divide ; 
 then we are to trace the development of perception. 
 President Porter's position is that the primitive percep- 
 tive act is a simple immediate cognition of the external 
 and extended; that is, that our earliest, most primitive 
 and least developed consciousness is of the objective sort; 
 that analyze as we may, we can never get back to a 
 inirely subjective consciousness, and that out of a purely 
 subjective consciousness, if posited, we never could get 
 our present objective consciousness. " No number of 
 sensations," he writes, "can, by the circumstance that 
 they are experienced together, evolve any relation of 
 extension, unless they give extension when experienced 
 alone. No addition of zeros will make a unit ; no mul- 
 tiplication of breadthless lines will give breadth ; no expe- 
 rience of a number of extensionless sensations will suggest 
 extension.''' ^ He insists that synthesis and combination 
 cannot account for everything. There must be original 
 elements with which to begin ; and there must also be 
 capacities or powers of original knowledge, beyond or 
 behind which we cannot go in our analysis. " Otherwise 
 the problem would be — given the power to know noth- 
 ing by original activity, show how everything can be 
 known by the simple force of combination or substitu- 
 tion, with nothing to combine or substitute." To this 
 1 The Human Intellect, pp. 14S-9.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 225 
 
 extent, he claims, the advocates of the associational and 
 evolution psychology are continually driven in their 
 efforts to explain by a single law our knowledge and 
 beliefs — our knowledge of time, space, of the laws of 
 matter and of spirit, of the very principles of induction, 
 and of all necessary truths, even the very powers and 
 passions of the soul. They would generate " inseparable 
 associations " ; but from ivhat, they do not so satisfacto- 
 rily show. 
 
 Having then, to start with, a real agent, the active 
 self, with innate powers and capacities of its own, and 
 having also an original consciousness of the objective sort, 
 i.e., an immediate knowledge of the external and the ex- 
 tended in the form of our own sensorium as affected in 
 sensation, — President Porter proceeds to show that all our 
 perceptive knowledge of anything beyond this, is the 
 result of processes of observation and induction, carried 
 on in our earliest years, and gradually advancing from 
 the smallest conceivable minimum of distinct knowledge 
 in an infant's consciousness, through discriminations of 
 constantly increasing power and extent, to the distinct 
 cognition of the visible realities which surround us. 
 The complex process by which this vast structure of 
 knowledge is built up upon its obscure and hidden 
 foundation, is traced with the keenest analysis and the 
 most patient thought, till the completed result stands 
 fully before us. This account of the development of per- 
 ception is one of the most valuable parts of The Human 
 Intellect. On the whole. Dr. Porter's account of sense- 
 perception is, as we have said, the most extended and
 
 226 NOAH PORTER 
 
 thorough and, withal, the most sober which English 
 philosophy then contained. 
 
 Passing now to representative knowledge, President 
 Porter teaches that the representative object or image is 
 sxd generis and can best be understood by means of the 
 act which gives it birth. This act, he holds, is in no case 
 an act of comparison, i.e., an act of discerning resem- 
 blance between the image and its original. The image 
 in no literal sense can be said to be like its original. It 
 is the mental equivalent of the original ; is, therefore, a 
 subject-object; is intellectual even where the original is 
 a feeling or a volition ; is always individual and transient 
 
 — its esse is percipi. We have not space to follow the 
 exhaustive discussions of the forms of representation — 
 memory, imagination, phantasy (including sleep, dreams, 
 hypnotism and insanity). 
 
 The problem of the association of ideas, as would be ex- 
 pected from one writing when the associational psychol- 
 ogy and philosophy was in the ascendant, received from 
 President Porter careful treatment. The significance of 
 the problem is patent. The view we take of association 
 will affect our views of all the higher activities of mind 
 
 — memory, imagination, generalization, reasoning. Our 
 views also of fundamental ideas and ultimate truths, e.g., 
 the law of causation, the axioms of mathematics, the ideas 
 of space, substance, cause ; and our views even of the nature 
 of the mind itself, will turn on the position taken as to the 
 nature of association. The principle of association, rec- 
 ognized in English philosophy first by Hobbes and Locke ; 
 regarded later by Hume as playing a role in the mental
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 227 
 
 sphere comparable to that of the law of gravitation in 
 the physical ; was made by Hartley and James Mill to 
 explain all the cardinal notions and operations of the 
 mind. Not only all our intellectual pleasures and pains 
 but all the phenomena of memory, imagination, volition, 
 reasoning and every other mental affection and operation, 
 were explained as different modes or cases of association. 
 With Hartley and James Mill the Associationist school 
 takes its rise, insisting that ''nothing is requisite to 
 make any man whatever he is, but a sentient principle 
 with this single law," The influence of the school 
 reached its height in J. S. Mill and Bain and in the 
 modification given to the doctrine by Spencer. President 
 Porter, in his discussion of the problem, carefully dis- 
 tinguishes between the associating agent and the laws, 
 emphasizing the former and insisting that no theory of 
 association can answer the requirements of psychological 
 science that fails to recognize the active spiritual ego 
 as the agent. He criticises the physiological theories, 
 which would find in the neural processes the " force that 
 runs the train," as inadequate, and he exposes the absurd- 
 ities of the Herbartian and kindred theories which hypos- 
 tasize the ideas or relations and make out of them 
 entities with dynamic characteristics. He insists that 
 the associating agent is not the brain, nor any attractive 
 force residing in the ideas or their relations, but that it 
 is the spiritual ego. The laws of association he holds 
 can all be reduced to the one law, that the mind tends to 
 act again more readily in a maimer or form tvhicli is simi- 
 lar to any in which it has acted before, in any defined exer-
 
 228 NOATl PORTER 
 
 tion of its energy. He insists that the higher phenomena 
 of mind cannot be explained as the effects of association, 
 declaring rather that intelligence, logical thinking, gradu- 
 ally undergoes dissolution by the increasing dominance of 
 unrestricted association — as is seen in the cases of the 
 daydreamer and the insane. For the higher functions of 
 the intellect, then, — not to mention memory, voluntary 
 reproduction and imagination — the train of association 
 must come under the control of the rational will. 
 
 President Porter's discussion of the elaborative or 
 thought activities, especially conception and induction, 
 are most suggestive and able. His treatment of the 
 concept or general notion still remains after a quarter of 
 a century the most thorough to be found in any sys- 
 tematic treatise on psychology in English. 
 
 The problem of necessary truth or the ^' intuitions ^^ 
 received from Dr. Porter extended discussion. It con- 
 cerns our fundamental ideas and ultimate principles, 
 e.g., cause, substance, time, space, the axioms of mathematics, 
 the primary laws of thought, the laio of causation, etc. 
 " Philosophers," writes Dr. Porter, " are generally agreed 
 that there are certain conceptions or ideas that deserve 
 to be called elementary or original conceptions, — certain 
 relations that are properly designated as fundamental, 
 and certain propositions that take that place in our 
 knowledge which is commonly assigned to first or neces- 
 sary truths." ^ But they are far from being agreed as 
 to their psychological origin, or subjective necessity, and 
 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 500.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 229 
 
 hence their relation to experience ; and as to their valid- 
 ity or trustworthiness. 
 
 We take first the question of origin. Dismissing as 
 needing no refutation, the crude theory of innate knotvl- 
 edge — in the sense of characters stamped upon the 
 mind at its creation, or truths consciously in the mind 
 at birth and independent of experience in being evoked, 
 — there remain three views which President Porter dis- 
 cusses. The first is the associational or inductive 
 theory, e.g., as advocated by Mill. This holds that there 
 is nothing in these ideas or beliefs which compels us to 
 distinguish them generically from others, but that, like 
 all other truths, they are the result of experience. But 
 as they are at the basis of and are the warrant for all 
 the others they are themselves explained as inductions 
 by simple enumeration from past uncontradicted experi- 
 ence, i.e., the results of inseparable association. Take, 
 for example, the law of causation and the relations of 
 time and space, which give mathematical truths and 
 relations — Whence are these ultimate beliefs, upon 
 which all our scientific conclusions rest, derived ? To 
 this Mr. Mill has no other reply than that these all are 
 the products of induction, even though they are the 
 conditions of induction, and all of them come from 
 inseparable associations. To this. Dr. Porter objects, 
 How, then, can I trust them, supposing I have not yet 
 learned to associate these things together; or what if 
 they should be differently connected in other minds ? 
 To this Mill, he asserts, would be compelled by his phi- 
 losophy to reply, " The last is supposable ; and the conse-
 
 230 NOAH PORTER 
 
 quence would be, that those minds would have different 
 beliefs concerning the laws of nature, and even concern- 
 ing the fixedness of any laws, or the relations of number 
 and magnitude. It is supposable, that, to the inhabi- 
 tants of another planet, their inseparable associations 
 should be so strangely mixed and re-adjusted, that they 
 should multiply three and four into eleven, and should 
 conceive that to issue ten per cent dividends signifies to 
 steal the capital ten times over." To the question. How 
 do we know in our reasonings, say, about the sun, that 
 the law of causation, which Mill says is the fundamental 
 principle or axiom of inductive reasoning, prevails in 
 the sun at all. Mill himself furnishes this answer : " In 
 distant parts of the stellar regions, where the phenomena 
 may be entirely unlike those with which we are ac- 
 quainted, it would be folly to affirm confidently that this 
 general law of causation prevails any more than those 
 special ones which we found to hold universally on our 
 planet. The uniformity in the succession of events, 
 otherwise called 'the law of causation,' must not be 
 received as a law of the universe, but of that portion of 
 it only which is within the range of our sure observa- 
 tion, with a reasonable degree of extension to adjacent 
 cases. To extend it farther is to make a supposition 
 without evidence, etc." ^ " Mill's very slender basis for 
 inductive reasoning," President Porter remarks, "would 
 seem to be as suitable to confirm the doubter concerning 
 some new discovery in physics as the writings of Colenso 
 to strengthen faith in the Pentateuch, or of Strauss and 
 1 J. S. Mill, System of Logic, Bk. 3, ch. 21, sec. 5.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 231 
 
 Baur to lead to confidence in the gospel history. But 
 the defects in Mill's philosophy of induction are neces- 
 sary consequences of his defective and uncertain science 
 of man's power to knoiv.''' ^ 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer has tried to improve upon this 
 "experience hypothesis" of the origin of our funda- 
 mental ideas and axioms by his Evolution theory. 
 "Those who contend," he writes, "that knowledge re- 
 sults wholly from the experience of the individual, ignor- 
 ing as they do the mental evolution which accompanies 
 the autogenous development of the nervous system, fall 
 into an error as great as if they were to ascribe all bodily 
 growth and structure to exercise, forgetting the innate 
 tendency to assume the adult form." '^ Mr. Spencer's own 
 view — the evolution theory of the " intuitions " — is 
 that the human brain is an organized register of infi- 
 nitely-numerous experiences received during the evolu- 
 tion of life, or rather, during the evolution of that series 
 of organisms through which the human organism has 
 been reached. The effects of the most uniform and fre- 
 quent of these experiences have been successively be- 
 queathed, principal and interest; and have slowly 
 mounted to that high intelligence which lies latent in 
 the brain of the infant — which the infant in after life 
 exercises and perhaps strengthens or further complicates 
 — and which, with minute additions, it bequeaths to 
 future generations. This theory President Porter has, 
 
 1 The Science of Nature vs. The Science of Mem, vep. in Science and 
 Sentiment, p. 59. 
 
 2 Spencer, PrincixAes of Psychology, vol. i, p. 469.
 
 232 NOAH PORTEB 
 
 in a number of places, subjected to a critical examina- 
 tion, notably in his brilliant essay on Physiological Meta- 
 physics, which received extended notice in Germany. 
 We quote a few extracts. He describes the theory thus : 
 "■ Let it now be supposed that certain relations, as of 
 causation or time and space, both in their specialized and 
 more general forms, should often be repeated, and that 
 the molecular condition of the brain should be gradually 
 adjusted. By the law of heredity, the tendencies to 
 these adjustments must pass over into the brains of the 
 succeeding generation. By constant exercise, these ad- 
 justments would be so fixed as invariably to recur when 
 their appropriate conditions should require, attended by 
 their accompanying psychical experience, till at last, as 
 the result of the accumulated energy of these recurring 
 and inherited experiences, it has become absolutely 
 necessary to the intellectual activity of the human race, 
 as we find it, to think under them as accepted categories 
 of scientific knowledge." ^ In criticising the theory, 
 Dr. Porter insists that even though we should allow 
 its principal assumptions to pass unquestioned, we do 
 not find that it explains why so few of these relations 
 should originally present themselves so frequently as 
 to thrust aside many others ; e.g., why the relations of 
 time and space or causation should gain any advantage 
 by their frequency, were there not some original neces- 
 sity which determined them to be frequently and even 
 uniformly present to the discerning mind. ''But, if any 
 
 1 Physiological Metaphijsics, rep. in Science and Sentiment, pp. 244, 
 245.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PniLOSOPUER 233 
 
 such necessity for their frequent occurrence be admitted, 
 then it mvist have existed before the intermediate action 
 of the physiological agencies which are introduced to ex- 
 plain the permanence and the universality of the cate- 
 gories which have thus become the intellectual outfit of 
 the race. Then, again, heredity, while it transmits with 
 strength and certainty, also transmits with tendencies to 
 variation ; and the environment which receives the trans- 
 mitted legacy of the past also fixes it after some discern- 
 ible change. But this is contrary to the theory which 
 holds the categories to be axiomatic and permanent. If, 
 on the other hand, we suppose the theory to be true, the 
 consequences must be fatal to the authority of science it- 
 self We see not why, under the operation of the physi- 
 ological agencies supposed, new categories must not come 
 into existence, which may displace or perhaps contradict 
 those already recognized — nor indeed, why any conceiv- 
 able species of so-called relations may not come into 
 being; nor why, under the operation of the inevitable 
 tendency to change, the entire structure of axiomatic 
 relations which are now accepted should not be out- 
 grown ; nor why, in short, science itself, as we know it, 
 with its space and time, its number and magnitude, its 
 causation and its adaptation, should not finally be dis- 
 sipated into intellectual or material star-dust. . . . One 
 category or axiom is fundamental to the theory which 
 seems especially endangered ; and that is, the assumption 
 of the law of evolution itself as necessarily permanent." ^ 
 Rejecting the associational and evolution theories of 
 1 Ibid., pp. 245, 246 ; cf. p. 34.
 
 234 NOAH PORTER 
 
 the origin of necessary truth, President Porter presents 
 his own view. He finds that the mind is a real agent 
 and not a mere sum of mental states ; as a real being it 
 has a nature of its own and its evolution consists not 
 in adventitious accretions from without but in the un- 
 folding of its latent capacities and powers. These it re- 
 veals gradually. When aroused to activity the soul 
 in consequence of its nature develops certain forms of 
 activity from which certain principles may be abstracted. 
 These are, however, in no sense imported into the mind 
 from ivithout; they are expressions of the mind's own 
 nature. Man, that is, is by his very nature a rational 
 being endowed with norms and in possession of principles 
 of reason regulating all his thinking and constituting 
 him able to distinguish between the true and the false. 
 The mind itself, intellectus ipse, is, as Leibnitz declared, 
 given, and as it develops it comes to recognize certain 
 ideas, e.g., time, space, cause, substance ; and certain 
 truths, e.g., the axioms of mathematics and the law of 
 causation. " They are not perceived by sense-perception, 
 nor felt by consciousness ; they are neither reproduced 
 in memory, nor represented or created by the phantasy ; 
 they are not generalized by the power to classify and 
 name ; they are neither proved by deduction, nor 
 inferred by induction. They are developed and brought 
 into view in connection with these processes, and are 
 assumed in them all." ' That is, they are not given by 
 experience but are evoked by it; experience is their 
 revealer, not their producer; their occasion, not their 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 499.
 
 PRESIDENT POETER AS A PHILOSOPHER 235 
 
 cause. Their criteria are universality, necessity, and 
 logical independence and originality. 
 
 The second great problem concerning these " rational 
 intuitions " relates to their validity. Having vindicated 
 their a priori origin and subjective necessity, as against 
 the experience philosophy of his day, Kant himself 
 raised another inquiry : Are these a priori and sub- 
 jectively necessary categories true and objectively valid, 
 hence worthy of confidence, or do they simply arise from 
 the constitution of the human intellect — a change in which 
 might involve a change in them and in the knowledge 
 which is built upon them ? To this question Kant 
 makes the following reply : These assumptions have for 
 man a regulative force, but perhaps only a relative truth 
 and validity. That is, while man must act in his 
 intellectual processes under the belief that these prin- 
 ciples are primary and universal, and thus admit them 
 as giving law to his own intellect, and as grounding and 
 explaining all his knowledge, he is not authorized 
 thereby to assume that they hold good as principles of 
 things themselves or as laws of minds which may be 
 supposed to be constituted differently from those of 
 human beings. We cannot imagine intellectual processes 
 that do not run back into these relations and principles, 
 nor can we conceive of any knowledge which is not held 
 together by these relations, but we have no rational 
 ground for denying that both are possible.^ The final 
 result, therefore, for Kant of the critical examination of 
 man's power to know is — philosophical scepticism. 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 522.
 
 236 NO All POBTER 
 
 President Porter's treatment of this point furnishes 
 an excellent illustration of his powers of analysis, and 
 we, therefore, quote one discussion of it almost entire : 
 " (1) Whatever maybe the probability or reasonableness 
 of this suggestion, it is in no sense a psychological fact. It 
 is purely a philosophical thesis, to be urged and defended 
 on speculative grounds, but which cannot in any sense be 
 said to be given by the analysis of the workings of the 
 souls of other possible races or kinds of beings, or of the 
 products which they have evolved. 
 
 " (2) This metaphysical suggestion or thesis is un- 
 supported by any grounds of analogy or probability. The 
 facts which suggested the analysis are the known changes 
 in the objects of sense-perception, which are connected 
 with known changes in the organism of the percipient 
 or in the medium by which the percipient apprehends. 
 These changes are most conspicuous in vision. An ob- 
 ject seen through a colored lens, be it red or green or 
 blue, is seen to be red or green or blue. In like manner, 
 the color of objects is, to a limited extent, affected by 
 changes in the physical condition of the eye. Upon 
 analogies derived from these facts, Kant justifies himself 
 in asserting that there may or might exist created or 
 finite minds which know objects without the relations of 
 time, space, substance, casuality, or design. To this it is 
 enough to reply that the facts from which these sugges- 
 tions are derived are phenomena of the corporal organism 
 — while the acts and objects to which they are applied 
 by way of analogy j^ertain to the pure intellect. . . . But 
 to these thought or intellectual relations no such con-
 
 PBESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 237 
 
 ditions are required. Certainly the objects are not known 
 to change with any conditions. So far as these rehxtions 
 are applied to material beings it makes no difference what 
 the objects are. Many are equally applicable to spiritual 
 beings, and their phenomena, products, and trustworthi- 
 ness cannot be weakened or set aside by analogies de- 
 rived from material beings and phenomena. All positive 
 ground for finding or applying any analogies of the kind 
 utterly fail. 
 
 " (3) The suggestion of Kant is inconsisteyit ivitli, and 
 overthroivn by, the reach and necessary nse of some of these 
 very relations which are brought into distrust. It is open 
 to the charge of being an intellectual felo de se. For 
 example, all the positive ground for the suggestion, 
 founded upon analogy which we have shown to be invalid 
 because irrelevant, rests upon one of the first truths 
 themselves, one of these very original relations, which 
 Kant subjects to metaphysical doubt, as to whether it 
 may not be merely contingent upon the human constitu- 
 tion. We cannot but observe that the question which 
 he raises is, whether knowledge by these relations is a 
 subjective process, and the relations themselves as an 
 objective fact, may not be and probably is, an effect of 
 which the human constitution is a cause. We notice also 
 that the reason by which he supports his suggestion is, 
 that we are justified in so interpreting — which we have 
 shown is misinterpreting — certain signs or indications 
 furnished by analogous phenomena. In this argument 
 it will be obvious to all our readers who accept the 
 analysis which we have given of induction, that the as-
 
 238 NOAH PORTER 
 
 sumptions which he contends are only regulative are used 
 and applied by him as though they were real. He cer- 
 tainly applies with entire confidence, the relations of 
 cause and effect as necessarily and really pertinent to the 
 constitution of man as viewed by all beings, and wholly 
 omits to notice that he has already suggested that these 
 relations as necessarily employed in human thinking, are 
 merely contingent upon the operation of that thinking, 
 and may not belong to the constitution of the soul as 
 viewed or known by any .other being, whether creature 
 or creator. This is not all. Not only are they used as 
 though they were real, but they are used as real in order 
 to prove that they are only regulative. He reasons thus : 
 Upon the validity of the principles to which I must con- 
 form as the laws of my human thinking do I conclude 
 that it is more than probable that they are true of human 
 thinking only. That is, in the very argument that they 
 need apply only to the processes and objects of human 
 thinking he applies them to both processes and objects 
 of thinking which are not human. How convincing and 
 consistent such reasoning is it is easy to see." ^ 
 
 The attempt has been made by many thinkers, pre- 
 eminently by Kant himself and by Lotze, to rest our 
 confidence in these fundamental assumptions of the 
 human intellect on ethical grounds. In essential agree- 
 ment with this is the position of Hamilton, and closely 
 allied to it the position of Jacobi and Schleiermacher. 
 To all such attempts to seek a refuge from intellectual 
 difficulties in faith, moral imperatives, and the like, Presi- 
 1 The Human Intellect, pp. 522, 523; c/. Kant's Ethics, passim.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 239 
 
 dent Porter was the uncompromising opponent. To his 
 thinking they were thoroughly unsound and sooner or 
 later would be seen to undermine the very faith which 
 was supposed to support them. "If the mind," he 
 writes, " be as limited in the range and authority of its 
 knowledge as Kant has written a long book to persuade 
 us is true, then we can know only the relations of p7^e- 
 nomena, in every form or method of reasoning, the prac- 
 tical and speculative alike." ^ For to assume that there 
 are two kinds of evidence, which have no common 
 foundation and which require a different or an irrecon- 
 cilable logic, the so-called logic of the intellect and the 
 logic of the conscience, is to accept a fundamental logic 
 which will be found to be irreconcilable with either 
 science or faith. He insists that all ethical and spiritual 
 convictions stand on definite and discernible speculative 
 foundations. "Faith, or belief, may exclude definite 
 knowledge, reasoned knowledge, etc., but it cannot ex- 
 clude some kind of intellectual apprehension." The 
 analysis of all higher human knowledge shows that it 
 must involve an a priori element, called the uncon- 
 ditioned. And yet of this a priori element, the specula- 
 tive reason, these thinkers would have us believe, does 
 not and cannot afiirm objective reality. "But why does 
 it not ? Does it not in fact? Why does not the analysis 
 which shows the unconditioned to be subjectively neces- 
 sary in order to the completion and trustworthiness of 
 human knowledge, and particularly of human science -^ — 
 why does not this very analysis involve and justify the 
 1 Kant's Ethics, p. 109.
 
 240 NOAH PORTER 
 
 belief that this, being unconditioned, is also an objective 
 fact ? " 1 
 
 President Porter's view of the great question of causa- 
 tion and the principle of cause might readily be surmised 
 from his philosophy as thus far presented. " The most 
 complete knowledge, we may say the only complete 
 knowledge, which we have of power or efficiency, is 
 gained through or by means of the active energy of our 
 own spirit." ^ That is, the soul knows itself to be the 
 actor or originator of its active states. " In this con- 
 scious exercise of its own active energy it has its first 
 knowledge and individual exemplification of the causal 
 energy in general. It has a direct knowledge of the 
 terms or objects concerned, viz. the agent and the 
 result."^ In contrast with this knowledge of our own 
 personal causality, the mind's belief of the acting of 
 other causes external to itself, whether of S2nrit upon 
 matter, of matter upon spirit, or of matter upon matter, 
 is incomplete and secondary. As for the principle, 
 "Every event has a cause," this is an intuition of the 
 mind. Dr. Porter's discussion of causation in The 
 Human Intellect is an admirable example of his power to 
 condense both the views of others and his own with 
 clearness and without becoming too abstract or dry ; and 
 also of his critical ability, — his criticisms of Hume, 
 Mill, and Hamilton being lucid and strong. 
 
 One of the distinguishing features of Dr. Porter's 
 
 1 Kant's Ethics, p. 109. 
 
 2 The Human Intellect, p. 601. 
 3IZ)Jd.,p. 584.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 241 
 
 philosophy is the view he takes of design and the princi- 
 ple of finality (teleology). "The point which we assert 
 and defend," he writes, " is that this relation is believed 
 a priori to pervade all existence, and must be assumed 
 as the ground of the scientific explanation of the facts 
 and phenomena of the universe." ^ It lies, that is to say, 
 at the ground of all our knowledge as a necessary rela- 
 tion of tilings, and a first j^rinciple or axiom of thought, — 
 in other words, the principle of adaptation ranks with 
 the principle of efficient causation as a necessary and 
 a priori truth. It is not then through effects in nature 
 actually produced that we infer design, but, bringing the 
 principle as a priori with us to the examination of 
 nature, we infer specific designs, e.g., that this effect 
 was produced for this specific end, that for that end, and 
 so on. The principles of efficient and of final cause 
 stand, therefore, upon the same footing. The question 
 regarding them is not at all whether men can discover 
 particular causes and particular ends with infallible cer- 
 tainty, but whether they intuitively believe there are 
 causes for every event and ends to which all beings and 
 agents are adapted, and for which they are designed. 
 The reasonings of the student of nature. President Por- 
 ter asserts, rest upon the assumption that there are; 
 that in the universe objectively considered, there is an 
 intelligent and wise adaptation of powers and laws to 
 rational ends, and that the same is true of the relation 
 of the universe to the knowing mind. That is to say, 
 the entire superstructure of the Inductive Philosophy 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 594.
 
 242 NOAH PORTER 
 
 rests upon the principle of teleology of design as mucli 
 as it does upon the principle of eificieut cause. Psycho- 
 logically, as is the case with efficient causation, this 
 relation is derived from conscious experience. Instead 
 then of the principle of final cause being in conflict with 
 the principle of efiicient cause, Dr. Porter claims that it 
 is absolutely required to warrant the extension of the 
 relations of efficient causes observed within a limited 
 sphere, throughout those regions of which observation 
 and testimony can give only an uncertain and incomplete 
 report. He goes farther and declares that it is only by 
 relations of orderly design that we can explain or vin- 
 dicate that belief in the permanence of the material 
 structure — the indestructibility of the elements of the 
 cosmos — as to its forms of being and their constituents 
 which is received as an axiom in all physical or induc- 
 tive philosophy. That this permanence or indestructi- 
 bility is not essential or necessary, that it cannot be 
 viewed as of itself an axiom, appears from the broader 
 and deeper axioms into which it ■ may be resolved, and 
 on which it rests. The indestructibility of the elements 
 has its rational ground in the fact that design reigns in 
 the universe. This principle, finally, offers us, accord- 
 ing to President Porter, a criterion of truth and a rule 
 of certitude: "When skepticism suggests that every 
 principle may be questioned, and every observation of 
 fact may be mistaken; that the objective creation may 
 be a shifting phantasmagoria, and the subjective mind 
 but a lying glass of opinion; then the thought of the 
 inconceivable non-adaptation of such a universe to any
 
 PBE8IDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 243 
 
 rational end even of knowledge, restores our confidence 
 in the testimony of the senses, the experiences of con- 
 sciousness, and the inductions of reason. We try all 
 these by one another, and by the tests which experience 
 and science have discovered, but we trust them at last, 
 when they conspire to ends that are worthy of rational 
 order in a universe adapted to be known by a being who 
 is manifestly designed to know, and to confide in his 
 knowledge when properly tried and proved." ^ 
 
 Regarding the Infinite, Unconditioned or Absolute, 
 President Porter teaches that we know both that it is 
 and what it is. These concepts and the entities which 
 they represent are not merely negative conceptions, nor 
 are they the products of what is called negative thinking. 
 " It does not follow, because a concept is designated by 
 a negative term, that it is not positively conceived ; or, 
 because an object is called by such a name, that it is not 
 really known. If we see a bat, and say of it. It is not a 
 bird, or. It is not a beast, or if the Sandwich Islanders, 
 for lack of name, had called the ox a not-hog, the use of 
 a negative appellation would not necessarily authorize 
 the inference of a want of definite conceptions or posi- 
 tive knowledge. So, when we gather together the entire 
 sphere of finite being, and, stretching our thought be- 
 yond, apprehend something which is unlike it and con- 
 trasted with it by being not finite, not conditioned, and not 
 dependent ; we do not confess that we cannot conceive it 
 or that we do not know it as something positive and real 
 because we emphasize this single relation of contrast by 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 609.
 
 244 NOAH PORTER 
 
 the use of such negative terms as the infinite, the uncon- 
 ditioned, and the absolute {i.e., the not finitely related)." ^ 
 Again, the absolute and unconditioned, is not necessarily, 
 as a concept or as a being, exclusive of all relations, i.e., 
 it is not unrelated, or the unrelated. It excludes only a 
 certain class of relations, viz., those of dependent being or 
 origination. The truly absolute and infinite is that which 
 is not dependent on any other being for its existence or 
 its activity. It is no part of its perfectioo, that it should 
 not be distinguished in thought from that which it is not 
 in fact ; nor that it should not be compared with objects 
 not itself, under the various relations of likeness, differ- 
 ence, production, and design, but simply that it should 
 not hold certain special relations to all such objects, viz., 
 the relations of dependence. !N"or, again, is the absolute 
 and infinite the sum of all actual and conceivable being. 
 Indeed, the unconditioned and infinite cannot pertain to 
 the relations of quantity. Quantity is, in its essential 
 nature, measurable and definite. The space and time 
 which make extension and duration, which are measur- 
 able, possible, are not themselves quantities, but the 
 conditions of quantity ; they are not subject to its rela- 
 tions, but render the relations possible. 
 
 In opposition to Kant, who teaches that we cannot 
 know the infinite and absolute because our faculties of 
 knowing both the finite and the infinite have merely a 
 subjective necessity and validity, and therefore we can- 
 not trust their results as objectively valid ; in opposition 
 to Hamilton, who teaches that we find ourselves impotent 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 652.
 
 PBESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 245 
 
 to know tliem, in consequence of the contradictions which 
 the attempt involves ; and in opposition to Spencer, who 
 teaches that though we know that the absolute is, we 
 cannot know ivhat it is ; President Porter teaches that 
 the absolute and the infinite is Jcnoicable hy a finite mind: 
 not only can such a mind know that it is, but it can know 
 what it is. In opposition to those who, like Hamilton, 
 Schleiermacher and Jacobi, teach that we reach the 
 absolute by faith or feeling and not by knowledge, 
 Dr. Porter insists that it is impossible to conceive of an 
 act of faith or belief which does not include the element 
 of knowledge. 
 
 Although insisting then that the infinite and absolute 
 can be known, he yet affirms that it cannot be known by 
 the imagination. "It is true, indeed, that, if we can 
 know ivhat the absolute is, we can form some notion of 
 it, and this we can do only by means of some relation 
 which it holds to the finite. It is true, also, that every 
 relation, however general, can be imagined or illustrated 
 by some finite object in which it is exemplified. In 
 other words, the infinite, to be known as a what, must be 
 known in some points of likeness to the finite ; but the 
 likeness may be so very general, and the unlikenesses or 
 differences so numerous and striking, that the attempt 
 to image the one by the other will fail to produce the 
 advantages which commonly accrue from the process, 
 while the finite image will suggest so many misleading 
 and bewildering associations, as to embarrass and confuse 
 the mind." ^ The antinomies of Kant, the essential con- 
 1 The Human Intellect, p. 657.
 
 246 NOAH PORTER 
 
 tradictions of Hamilton, are due, he declares, to a failure 
 to hold fast to this distinction between imaging and un- 
 picturable coriceiving. Thus, for example, in the alleged 
 antinomy involved in the propositions the loorld is in time 
 and space and is neither finite nor infinite; the contradic- 
 tion lies between a fact or image borrowed from percep- 
 tion and experience and an %inpicturdble a priori necessity, 
 — a confounding of the extended ,in space, which can be 
 imagined, with space ^Yse?/' which cannot. 
 
 Furthermore the absolute and unconditioned, though 
 kiiowable, is not a notion that is the product of reason- 
 ing, inductive or deductive. It cannot be inferred by 
 induction, because it is assumed in the very process of 
 induction, as its necessary condition ; i.e., induction has 
 no meaning and no validity, unless we assume that the 
 universe is constituted in such a way as to presuppose 
 an absolute and unconditioned origination of its forces 
 and laws. Nor can it be deduced by syllogistic reason- 
 ing, because all deduction rests either on the previous 
 process of induction, or on the intuitions of time and 
 space which involve the infinite and absolute. 
 
 "We next afl&rm positively," writes Dr. Porter, "that 
 the absolute is and can be known as the correlate which 
 must be necessarily assumed to explain and account for 
 the finite universe. If the absolute is necessary to 
 explain the finite, then it holds some relations to it. If 
 it is its correlate, it must be connected with it by some 
 relations. What these relations are, it is not needful to 
 inquire. All that we need here to urge is, that it is so 
 far from being true, because it is absolute, that it is not
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 247 
 
 related, that, on the contrary, it cannot be the absolute 
 without being known or related. We cannot know that 
 it is, without knowing, to a certain degree, what it is." ^ 
 Even Spencer's "indefinite consciousness" that the infi- 
 nite is, must involve some knowledge of its relations, some 
 knowledge of what it is. " If, then, we must accept a self- 
 existent absolute, if we know that it is, and can know in 
 a degree ivhat it is, the inquiry returns. What absolute 
 must we assume, and on what grounds do we assume 
 that it is ? To this we reply : — The absolute is a thinking 
 agent. The universe is a thought as well as a thing. As 
 fraught with design, it reveals thought as well as force. 
 The thought inchides the origination of the forces and 
 their laws, as well as the combination and use of them. 
 These thoughts must include the whole universe ; it fol- 
 lows then that the nniverse is controlled by a single 
 thought, or the thought of an individual thinker. If 
 gravitation everywhere prevails, and gravitation is a 
 thought as well as a thing, then the universe, so far as it 
 depends on and is affected by gravitation, is a single 
 thought. But a thought implies a thinking agency, and 
 if the universe is a single thought, it was thought by one 
 thinking agency. That this thinking person should be 
 self-existent, is no greater mystery than a self-existent 
 thing. 
 
 "We assume that this absolute exists, in order that 
 thought and science may be possible. We do not demon- 
 strate his being by deduction, because we must believe it 
 in order to reason deductively ; we do not infer it by 
 1 The Htmicui Intellect, p. Co9.
 
 248 NOAH PORTER 
 
 induction, because induction supposes it; but we show 
 that every man who believes in either, or in both, must 
 assume it, or give up his confidence in both these pro- 
 cesses and their results. We do not demonstrate that God 
 exists, but that every man must assume that He is. 
 We analyze the several processes of Tcnoidedge into their 
 underlying assumptions, and we find that the assumption 
 zvhich underlies them all is a self-existent intelligence, tvho 
 not only can he known by man, but must be known by man 
 in order that man may know anything besides." ^ 
 
 Did space allow we would like to touch upon some 
 other phases of Dr. Porter's philosophy, especially his 
 views of man's moral nature and of evolution. For a 
 discussion by a thoroughly competent hand of President 
 Porter's work as a moralist, the reader is referred to Dr. 
 Nakashima's contribution to this volume. We conclude 
 with a few remarks of a more personal natu.re regarding 
 President Porter and the general character and spirit of 
 his thinking. 
 
 The spirit in which Dr. Porter did all his thinking 
 was eminently honest and fearless. He was a sincere 
 searcher after truth, with no prejudices to sustain which 
 feared investigation. He quotes approvingly and makes 
 his own the words of the late James Clerk Maxwell, 
 " Now my great plan ... is a plan of Search and Re- 
 covery, or Revision and Correction, or Inquisition and 
 Execution, etc. The rule of the plan is to let nothing 
 1 The Human Intellect, pp. 661, 662.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPHER 249 
 
 be willfully left unexamined. Nothing is to be holy 
 ground consecrated to stationary faith, whether positive 
 or negative. ... I assert the Right of Trespass on any 
 plot of Holy Ground which any man has set apart to 
 the power of darkness."^ This was the spirit in which 
 President Porter did all his thinking, on theological as 
 well as on philosophical themes. " Theology," he de- 
 clared, "must be free as no other science is free. It 
 must be independent; free to modify its old opinions 
 and accept the new. . . . Hence, we must manfully 
 eliminate from our scholastic creeds all that has been 
 displaced by the progress of Christian or scientific truth. 
 Every such creed must stand or fall by itself; whether 
 it be the Westminster Confession, or the Thirty -Nine Arti- 
 cles, or the decrees of the Council of Trent, they must 
 be modified by any truth that proves itself to be true." ^ 
 
 He was thoroughly fair and chivalrous in his treat- 
 ment of opposing thinkers and systems. Delighting in 
 close combat with what he believed to be error, and 
 unsparing in exposing the weakness of an opponent's 
 position, indulging often in stinging sarcasm, he yet 
 was uniformly fair in statement of facts, and charitable 
 in interpreting motives; never answering argument by 
 declamation but always by fair argument. "Every dis- 
 cussion of a scientific question," he once wrote, " should 
 be characterized by the scientific spirit. We care not 
 how merciless be the criticism, if it be just, nor how 
 
 1 Keview of Life of Maxicell. 
 
 2 Address before the American Congress of Churches, Hartford, May 
 13, 1885.
 
 250 NOAH PORTER 
 
 piquant the satire, nor how glowing the rhetoric, if 
 these all carry and enforce that conviction which comes 
 from a keen analysis of things that differ and a quick 
 discernment of likenesses that unite. But no unfair 
 fetch or unjust criticism, or any species of under or 
 overstatement, can possibly be other than injurious to 
 the best of causes when given to the hands of the bold- 
 est of its advocates." ^ 
 
 Again, all his philosophical writing was from abun- 
 dant knowledge. He was no "maker of books," but 
 wrote only when he had something to say and because 
 he had something to say. He was probably the most 
 widely read philosophical thinker which this country 
 has produced. His erudition was the result of a 
 wide and accurate acquaintance with original sources. 
 Among his manuscripts are voluminous notes on special 
 topics showing a remarkable range of investigation; 
 many note-books also which contain detailed analyses 
 and criticisms of the master-pieces of philosophy — 
 among them the more important of the writings of 
 Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Locke, Berkeley, 
 Hume, etc. This wide and accurate acquaintance with 
 the literature of philosophy has left its impress on 
 every page of The Human Intellect. " I am amazed," 
 wrote Professor Boweu of Harvard College to him on 
 the appearance of that work, " at the amount of learn- 
 ing and patient thought which you have embodied in it 
 in a very succinct form. You have dug deeply into the 
 mine of post-Kantian German philosophy." " I do not 
 1 Article in Neio York Independent, October 11, 1877.
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER AS A PHILOSOPnER 251 
 
 know," wrote Professor Fraser of Edinburgh, " any Eng- 
 lish work in which so much vahiable thought and in- 
 formation is condensed on these subjects." 
 
 Another characteristic of Dr. Porter's thinking was 
 its originality. Surely there is originality implied even 
 in presenting so much heterogeneous matter as he had 
 to treat in The Human Intellect, in a consistent form; 
 in recognizing the fundamental ; in co-ordinating, with 
 such balance and judiciousness, part with part ; and in 
 detecting the consistency or inconsistency of the conclu- 
 sions or assumptions of so many thinkers with the foun- 
 dations of truth. But, furthermore, Dr. Porter was an 
 independent thinker ; he thought his own way through 
 all the problems he handled, and the results whether 
 they agreed or not with the conclusions of others were 
 his own. He manifested powers of keen introspective 
 observation and analysis and equally great dialectical 
 skill. On the one hand he had an eye for facts, a habit 
 of referring to the actual experience of daily life, a 
 distrust of merely verbal formulas, a sense in short of 
 reality ; on the other hand, he manifests great analytic 
 skill and profound reflection, exposing the inadequacy 
 of the premises on which the theories of opposing schools 
 rest and the fallacy of the conclusions to which they 
 lead. 
 
 Sobriety, too, was a marked characteristic of all Dr. 
 Porter's thinking and writing. His tone is calm, dis- 
 criminating, judicial. There is self-restraint and bal- 
 ance. He is neither carried away by novelty nor blind 
 to new light. Discussing a great multitude of topics he
 
 252 NOAH PORTER 
 
 is never lost among details. Exhibiting an unsurpassed 
 familiarity with the results of previous labors, from the 
 earliest times down, on the subjects of which he treats, 
 yet nothing is introduced for display. The modesty of 
 the true scholar is as marked as the learning and the 
 profundity. 
 
 Finally, President Porter's thinking is imbued through- 
 out with a profound reverence for the Christian truth 
 and the Christian life. His Christianity was no merely 
 inherited belief; on the contrary, it was the result of 
 thorough study and rested on profound conviction. His 
 recognition of Christian truth was in no sense perfunc- 
 tory : his faith was not an appendage to his philosophy 
 but its life-giving center. 
 
 President Porter's writings are in no sense ephemeral 
 productions ; they will live long to interest, enlighten 
 and quicken. The generations of his countrymen will 
 turn with renewed interest to them and this interest 
 will find its justification, to use his own words of an- 
 other great thinker, "in the clearness and comprehen- 
 siveness with which he appreciates the great problems 
 of philosophical inquiry, and the acuteness and judicious- 
 ness with which he states and answers the questions 
 which must be forever renewed by man, and, above all, 
 in the thorough and honest love of truth by which he 
 was animated."
 
 DR. POBTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 253 
 
 DE. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS. 
 By Professor Eikizo Nakasiiima. 
 
 The object of this paper is to present a brief state- 
 ment of tlie main points of Dr. Porter's theory of 
 morals. Such a summary statement of his teachings on 
 morals will serve better than any exposition and recom- 
 mendation of mine not only for the right understanding 
 of his scientific position in ethical speculation, but also 
 for the proper recognition and due appreciation of the 
 service which he has rendered in the promotion of the 
 scientific spirit in the study of morals, and of valuable 
 contributions which he has made to the science of duty. 
 My exposition consists largely of quotations from his 
 Elements of Moral Science. 
 
 The first question that presents itself in this attempt 
 to set forth Dr. Porter's theory of morals is : What is 
 his definition of Moral Science ? Moral Science has 
 been variously defined ever since Socrates and Plato 
 began its scientific study, and yet there is no universally 
 accepted definition of it. It has been defined by some 
 as ''the science of conduct." It has been sometimes 
 defined as " the science of ends — the science which 
 teaches man the end for which he was made, why he 
 should attain that end, and how to attain it." Still 
 again it has been defined by some as "the science of
 
 254 NOAR POBTEB 
 
 duty — that science which teaches men their duty and 
 the reasons of it." The last is the definition of moral 
 science adopted by Dr. Porter. He conceives it to be 
 " the science which defines, regulates and enforces duty." 
 "As a science, Moral Science proposes to give the result 
 of careful observation, subtle and exhaustive analysis, 
 clear and complete definitions, verified inductions, logi- 
 cal deductions, in the form of a consistent, articulated, 
 and finished system." An advantage of this definition 
 is its exactness ; it also clearly marks off the field of 
 Moral Science from that of the Science of Eights. 
 
 Now Dr. Porter states that this science of duty does 
 not create duty, but assumes its reality; presupposes 
 a popular knowledge of duty. " Duty is a subject-matter 
 which all men acknowledge and believe in, and of which 
 all men think more or less." 
 
 Moral Science like other sciences has a practical appli- 
 cation. He says : " The results of its scientific knowl- 
 edge can be applied to the direcjbion of human conduct 
 and the improvement of human character, to the well- 
 being of the individual and the community, in almost 
 every conceivable variety of circumstances." "Moral 
 Science ... is justly esteemed one of the most 
 important of studies, for the simple reason that ques- 
 tions of duty j)resent themselves to all men, in all cir- 
 cumstances, and the consequences of correctly answering 
 these questions are of the utmost practical importance." 
 
 Having defined Moral Science as the Science of Duty, 
 Dr. Porter raises the question, What is Duty? "Duty 
 in the concrete," says he, " is an action, or collection of
 
 DR. POBTER'S TUEOEY OF MORALS 255 
 
 actions, which ought to be done: in the abstract, it is 
 the quality or relation which is common to and distin- 
 guishes such actions." In these definitions of duty the 
 term action, of course, is not limited to corporeal or ex- 
 ternal actions, but it includes the inner activities also. 
 Nor is the term confined to single and transient states ; 
 it is also applied to the relatively permanent states which 
 constitute a man's character, disposition and habits. 
 
 In this conception of the science of morals Dr. Porter 
 apparently aimed to harmonize the two opposing tenden- 
 cies in the current ethical speculation and to avoid the 
 prevalent error of one-sidedness. On the one hand, 
 Moral Science is conceived to be a pure science of the 
 ideal, while, on the other, it is regarded as the science 
 of the actual. Dr. Porter says : " Moral Science treats 
 of actions as they oiigJit to be. But it founds its ideal 
 rules and proposes its ideal aims upon a solid basis of 
 fact." " Hence, though ideal in its aims and rules, it is 
 founded on fact and observation. It investigates the 
 moral constitution of man, and, so far, is an inductive 
 science." 
 
 But one may properly ask here, on what grounds duty, 
 of which Moral Science treats, is a reality and not a fic- 
 tion ? Dr. Porter mentions the two reasons for assum- 
 ing that the subject-matter of Moral Science — Duty — is 
 a reality : 
 
 (1) "Duty is universally believed to be a reality." 
 
 (2) " The conception of duty is not only universally 
 and tenaciously held, but it is esteemed of the highest 
 rank and supreme importance." "Even if the concep-
 
 256 NOAH PORTER 
 
 tion of duty is supposed to be unreal, while yet it is so 
 universally received and confided in, it is the more im- 
 portant that it should be carefully scrutinized, in order 
 that its groundlessness may be satisfactorily exposed, 
 and the speculative and practical errors which have been 
 caused by faith in its truth and sacredness may be effect- 
 ually dispelled and shunned." 
 
 Assuming on these grounds, that duty is a reality, 
 and is worthy of scientific examination. Dr. Porter pro- 
 ceeds to discuss the question of the methodology of 
 moral science. He says : " The analytical method gives 
 the divisions of moral science : " 
 
 (1) " Ethics, or classified rules of practice." 
 
 (2) " Moral science proper," which raises the com- 
 prehensive question : " What are the fundamental prin- 
 ciples in respect to human action from which all special 
 and subordinate rules are derived ? " 
 
 "Moral science again admits a two-fold division — 
 into the x>sycliological and the 2-)hilosopliical. The one 
 distinguishes and defines the psychical capacities which 
 are the foundation of moral activity and the moral rela- 
 tions : the other defines and arranges the conceptions, 
 and justifies and adjusts the principles, which are re- 
 quired for the conclusions and laws of moral science." 
 
 Of these, the psychological prepares the way for the 
 philosophical. The question arises : " What are the 
 endowments which are essential to moral activity, and 
 what are the circumstances which are the conditions of 
 moral responsibility ? To ascertain these facts of human 
 nature, to distinguish them carefully, to trace their his-
 
 DR. PORTER'S THEORY OF 2I0RALS 257 
 
 tory and origination, to show their mutual relations and 
 their place in what we may call the moral experiences of 
 man, are the necessary prerequisites of Moral Science." 
 "Prominent among these psychological inquiries are 
 those which relate to the nature and the theory of 
 conscience." 
 
 But Moral Science does not rest on psychology alone : 
 it also supposes and becomes a philosophy. " To science 
 of any kind, certain axioms or fundamental principles are 
 necessary prerequisites." "This is especially true of 
 any scientific knowledge of man, and pre-eminently of 
 his moral constitution." "It forces us to inquire whether 
 the so-called moral axioms and intuitions stand by them- 
 selves, as an independent group, co-ordinate with those 
 of the pure intellect, or whether they are resolved into 
 those intuitions which are common to all the scientific 
 judgments, and are fundamental to every form of 
 science." 
 
 If the reverse order, viz. the synthetic method, is 
 adopted, moral science gives the following divisions : 
 
 (1) Moral science proper, including the psychology of 
 ethics. 
 
 (2) Ethics, classified rules of conduct or behavior. 
 Dr. Porter follows this synthetic method in his Elements 
 of Moral Science. 
 
 The question concerning the method of moral science 
 is one of the much disputed questions at present. It is 
 disputed whether the investigation of morality should 
 be scientific or philosophical ; whether the study of 
 morals is to be considered a philosophical discipline or
 
 258 NOAH PORTER 
 
 to be made a science ; whether metaphysics must pre- 
 cede moral science or vice versa. Most of the English 
 moralists consider it to be a science, while most of the 
 German philosophers treat it as a philosophical disci- 
 pline. Dr. Porter, like most of the English moralists, 
 and- the more recent German writers on morals, considers 
 the theory of morals to be a science, which ought to 
 be treated like any other science. 
 
 Having briefly stated Dr. Porter's definition of moral 
 science and its methods of study, we now proceed to 
 present his theory of morals. 
 
 Assuming that moral relations or qualities pertain 
 only to moral persons and to their actions or character, 
 their dispositions, thoughts, feelings, and words, Dr. 
 Porter at the outset, raises the fundamental psychologi- 
 cal inquiry of Moral Science: "What is a moral person? 
 What are the capacities and faculties which constitute 
 such a person ? What endowments qualify him for 
 moral activity and its responsibilities ? " Dr. Porter 
 says : " Some conceive these endowments to be special, 
 and additional to those by which the other functions of 
 human nature are performed. They represent to them- 
 selves and others certain so-called moral endowments, as 
 superadded to the intellect, sensibility, and will, with the 
 other recognized human powers, like a separate attach- 
 ment or gearing to a machine, or as special organs in a 
 plant or animal. To this special nature they assign the 
 moral experiences as separate and quasi-independent 
 functions, even though these may be conceived to inter-
 
 DB. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 259 
 
 act with the inferior powers by some unexplained con- 
 nection whenever man acts morally. In effect they 
 assume or imply that man might be a completely fur- 
 nished human being, and yet be incapable of moral 
 judgments and feelings, and consequently conceive that 
 the endowments which make him moral might be alter- 
 nately attached or withdrawn, suspended or brought 
 into action, leaving him essentially a man, whether with 
 or without them. Some make this moral faculty to be 
 the originator of special ideas, which they name the 
 'moral reason,' as an inlet or discerner of moral relations 
 or conceptions. Others conceive it as a special sensibil- 
 ity called the ' moral sense,' originating certain feelings 
 from or by which these relations are intellectualized. 
 Others deny that there is any special moral faculty or 
 faculties, but hold that man's moral nature designates 
 the whole of man's conscious psychical endowments 
 when applied to a special subject-matter and employed 
 in special modes of activity. They contend that man's 
 moral personality is an essential consequence of his com- 
 plete and developed manhood, and that the two cannot 
 be conceived as separable." 
 
 Now this last is the doctrine of Dr. Porter. He main- 
 tains that the consciousness of all men attests so much 
 as this — '•' that the powers of feeling, will and intellect 
 are concerned in all the moral phenomena." " Whether 
 any other faculty is required to account for these phe- 
 nomena, and the relations and feelings which they 
 involve, will appear from a thorough psychological 
 analysis of the phenomena themselves." Dr. Porter
 
 260 NOAH FOBTER 
 
 begins the investigation of ethical psychology with the 
 study of the sensibility. 
 
 The Sensibility is the capacity in man for feelings 
 and desires. " An act or state of the sensibilities," he 
 distinguishes from an act of the intellect by the follow- 
 ing features : 
 
 (1) "It is purely subjective, being wholly confined 
 to the soul which experiences it. In an intellectual act, 
 the man always apprehends an object." 
 
 (2) " The act of feeling is dependent on an act of 
 intellect for the object which excites it." 
 
 (3) " The third characteristic of an emotional experi- 
 ence is that it is uniformly either pleasurable or pain- 
 ful." He mentions the fact that "the appellations for 
 the capacity of feeling and its various acts and states 
 are few and indefinite " and this fact he considers to be 
 " a natural consequence of the comparative little atten- 
 tion which this class of psychical phenomena has 
 received from the psychologist." 
 
 One of the much disputed and long discussed points 
 in moral psychology is the question concerning the 
 object of desire. Some maintain that the object of 
 desire is always pleasure, while others deny the truth 
 of this statement and assert that we desire objects them- 
 selves. Dr. Porter has his own independent theory on 
 this question of moral psychology. He believes that 
 " two elements are distinguishable in every exercise of 
 the sensibility — the emotion proper, and its attendant 
 desire. The law is universal. Every feeling, whether 
 pleasurable or painful, is no sooner experienced than it
 
 DE. PORTEB'S THEORY OF MORALS 261 
 
 awakens a desire that tlie pleasure may be continued or 
 the pain may terminate." " Speaking more exactly, 
 as the experience has two elements, each of these 
 elements has its corresponding object or condition set 
 over against itself as its exciting occasion or cause. 
 The object of the feeling proper is that agent, be it a 
 thing or be it a thought, imagination or memory, which 
 is capable of exciting the sensibility to a pleasurable or 
 painful affection," "The object of the desire that 
 springs out of the feeling, experienced or thought of, is 
 the feeling itself, whether pleasurable or painful, and 
 whether the desire is an appetence or aversion.- This 
 object is purely subjective, but it is the primary object 
 on which the desire directly terminates. Its secondary 
 or mediate object is its occasion or cause." "Inasmuch 
 as we do not often have occasion to distingu.ish betAveen 
 the two elements of the subjective experience, it is not 
 surprising that the primary and secondary objects of 
 desire should not always be distinguished, and are 
 frequently interchanged with one another in thought 
 and language." 
 
 Dr. Porter answers several possible objections to his 
 theory of sensibility. The first objection is that we are 
 not conscious of referring to subjective good. " Let this 
 be admitted. The fact that we do not consciously 
 recognize every element or relation of our psychical 
 activities by no means proves that we do not apprehend 
 them in fact." 
 
 The second objection is that the object is prominent 
 before the mind. This is in a sense true. But the
 
 262 NOAH PORTER 
 
 reason is that the object must be before the mind in 
 order to excite desire. 
 
 The third objection is that the instinctive desires do 
 not follow this rule. This may be truly said, but an 
 instinctive impulse is not properly a desire. " Instinc- 
 tive desires " is an ambiguous phrase. 
 
 The fourth objection is " that this law of desire does 
 not hold of the benevolent or disinterested affections, as 
 of pity or love." " As natural and passive emotions, 
 they are disinterested, unselfish, altruistic," and without 
 moral quality ; but as involving or leaping into desires, 
 they obey the law of desire which we have explained. 
 
 But it should be remembered that " the desire as such 
 is neither selfish nor unselfish until it becomes volun- 
 tary, whatever be its object ; " that the desire of 
 happiness is not co-ordinate with any of the special 
 affections or desires. " No man ever desired happiness 
 in the general or the abstract." " The desire of 
 happiness, so called, is simply the common characteristic 
 of several special impulses towards special objects. The 
 subjective satisfaction which all of these objects impart, 
 and which is common to them all, is generalized as 
 happiness." " The desire of happiness is called a 
 rational desire, because rational persons are alone 
 capable of forming the concept of happiness, or can 
 compare and discriminate between different kinds af 
 good, or propose the activities or objects which termi- 
 nate in one or other, or can judge between the acts and 
 objects which result in these differing subjective states, 
 or reflect upon their own agency in procuring, or failing
 
 DR. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 263 
 
 to procure, these results to themselves or others." " In 
 man this desire becomes an ennobling and elevating 
 impulse to the actions, the habits and character. It has 
 of itself no moral quality ; although it gives intellectual 
 dignity to the character, the aim, and the achievements." 
 " Though man alone can form the concept of happiness, 
 yet he never proposes happiness to himself as an object 
 of desire." 
 
 " The sensibilities and their attendant desires are dis- 
 tinguished as simple or original, and complex or derived. 
 The simple are those which are capable of being excited 
 alone, under their appropriate conditions." " On the 
 other hand, a complex of distinguishable objects may 
 aAvaken a complex of blended and yet distinguishable 
 emotions." Com})lex emotions are also said to be 
 mingled when they are opposite in character, some 
 being pleasing and others displeasing. 
 
 '* The feelings and accompanying desires are again dis- 
 tinguished as primary or original and secondary or arti- 
 ficial." " The first are supposed to be inherent in the 
 constitution of every human being, and therefore to be 
 essential to human nature. The second are the products 
 of circumstances." 
 
 " The sensibilities and their attendant desires differ 
 in respect to the quality or the kind of good, and re- 
 spectively of the evil, which they condition or impart." 
 " That our experiences of sensitive good and evil differ 
 in intensity or degree is conceded by all. The uncon- 
 scious testimony of human language, and the ready 
 assent of the human race, seem to coincide in respect to
 
 264 NOAH PORTER 
 
 this point; but that the gratification of the different 
 sensibilities also differs in kind, when compared, so that 
 one would be pronounced naturally better than another, 
 irrespectively of any moral relations, is by no means 
 universally conceded by philosophers." "It must be 
 said, however, that though it is by no means easy to 
 fix upon the firmer divisions of a scale according to 
 which the different sensibilities of the same general 
 class are ranked, it will be generally conceded that 
 bodily pleasures are inferior to the intellectual, social, 
 and sympathetic, and that, when two of these species of 
 satisfaction are brought into competition, one is dis- 
 cerned to be a higher and better good than the other. 
 This difference in quality accounts for the different 
 appellations which are applied to the gratifications of 
 the several susceptibilities of our nature. The terms, 
 ' pleasure,' ' happiness ' and ' blessedness,' all of which 
 are in actual and constant use, suggest and signify a dif- 
 ferent natural value in the sensations and emotions." 
 
 In the analysis of the sensibilities into feelings and 
 desires, we observe that the sensibilities, as feelings, are 
 simply passive. Hence they act under certain condi- 
 tions. In other words, " the soul, in its capacities to 
 feel, is simply passive under the stimulus of its exciting 
 conditions. Its power to avoid or control feeling lies in 
 another power than the capacity for simple feeling." 
 This is (a) achieved by fixing the attention on other 
 objects, and yielding the soul to their power ; (b) " the 
 capacity for the strength or energy of any feeling is in- 
 creased by repetition ; the sensibilities have an active as
 
 DR. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 265 
 
 well as a passive side. Wliile feeling, as feeling, is only 
 passive, desire is active or act-impelling." Hence activ- 
 ity is not limited to the will as some maintain. 
 
 The sensibilities may be divided as natural and volun- 
 tary. This introduces a new question : Is there such a 
 power as will ? The question is a psychological one 
 and must be settled by the methods appropriate to psy- 
 chology. 
 
 General evidence that man has such a power may be 
 found in the following facts : 
 
 (1) "The distinction between desire and will is recog- 
 nized in all languages." 
 
 (2) The one often conflicts with the other, conscious- 
 ness being the witness. " Consciousness attests not 
 merely to the presence of one desire prevailing against 
 and over another, as a psychical experience or effect, but 
 also to a desire attended to, energized, and caused to ine- 
 vail, by the soid''s own activity." 
 
 (3) Self-respect and self -approbation and the moral 
 emotions generally suppose this power. 
 
 (4) Civil government proceeds upon it. 
 
 (5) Men in the intercourse of society thus dis- 
 tinguish. 
 
 (6) Religion recognizes it. 
 
 " These general considerations establish the truth that 
 the power of choosing is possessed by man. Man knows 
 that he is endowed with will as truly, and by evidence 
 similar to that by which he knows that he is endowed 
 with intellect and sensibility." 
 
 Before we proceed further with the Will, a few words
 
 266 NO An PORTEB 
 
 may be inserted here in regard to Dr. Porter's theory of 
 the Sensibility. Here no one can fail to note the irenic 
 tendency of his theory. He seems to aim at the recon- 
 ciliation of the Intuitional, on the one hand, and the 
 Hedonistic school on the other. 
 
 The former school maintains that the sensibility seeks 
 things and not pleasure, while the latter school holds 
 that the sensibility always strives after pleasure. Dr. 
 Porter reconciles these opposing views by recognizing 
 two elements in every exercise of the sensibility — the 
 emotion proper and its attendant desire. The first is 
 directed toward that agent, be it a thing or be it a 
 thought, which is capable of exciting the sensibility to a 
 pleasurable or painful affection. The second is directed 
 toward the feeling itself, whether pleasurable or painful. 
 He must have had in his mind this perplexing question 
 of the sensibility, among many others, when he wrote in 
 the preface of the book that " both the opinions and the 
 grounds of them are the fruit of more or less reading and 
 reflection ; and none of them have been inconsiderately 
 adopted." His object evidently is to do justice to both 
 schools on this disputed question as on many others. 
 
 Eesuming the question of the Will, first of all he 
 raises the inquiry : What is the Will ? 
 
 "This question," says he, "can be answered more 
 satisfactorily by first defining what it is not." 
 
 (a) " It is not simply a power to do as we desire, or 
 as we will or please." 
 
 (h) It is not a power to choose without a motive. 
 We cannot choose without a motive.
 
 DR. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 267 
 
 (c) ''Nor is it essential that there be no motive to 
 the contrary. There not only may but there must be a 
 motive to the contrary — to choose is also to reject. 
 
 (d) Nor is it the power to choose to choose, nor a 
 power to choose to act. 
 
 He now proceeds to define, in a positive form, the 
 power in its conditions, its exercise, and its results. 
 
 (a) In its conditions : there must be at least two 
 objects (be they thoughts, things, or persons) appre- 
 hended — exciting two emotions and desires. 
 
 (b) In the act : under these conditions, the will 
 chooses as the intellect and sensibility exercise their 
 functions, their objects being given. " The act of choos- 
 ing is an act sui generis.^^ "The reasons why conscious- 
 ness does not testify more explicitly to the act are 
 because it is instantaneous in its nature, and it is less 
 frequently performed, at least with special energy and 
 conscious effort." 
 
 " (c) The result or effect of the act — of this conscious- 
 ness gives a report distinct and vivid : 
 
 (1) The effects within the soul — "the act of choos- 
 ing brings the man into, and leaves him in, a state of 
 choice." "This involves a new condition of thought 
 and feeling." " If the choice is permanent, and involves 
 many special activities of thinking, it becomes a per- 
 manent underlying force, which forms the intellectual 
 habits, moulds the associative power, rules the memory, 
 elevates the imagination, and inspires the higher func- 
 tions of thought and reasoning." "The emotions un- 
 dergo changes still more obvious." " By the very nature
 
 268 NOAH POBTEB 
 
 aucl as the effect of choice, certain natural sensibilities 
 and desires are allowed and stimulated and others are 
 disallowed and repressed." 
 
 (2) The effects on the actions — " the will does not 
 directly impel to action, but it regulates the actions by 
 deciding which impulse shall prevail." " It also acts like 
 an elastic coil, impelling them to their work with certain 
 and constant energy." "The effects of choice may be 
 more satisfactorily illustrated by two classes of exam- 
 ples. The one class is those choices that are speedily 
 executed; e.g. an individual object chosen, as to take a 
 fruit. The other class is those choices that are longer 
 in execution; a more comprehensive object, as wealth or 
 science. This last involves a permanent state of choice." 
 
 Now the object chosen may be ideal excellence ; such 
 a state of choice becomes the most important element 
 of character. If the ideal involves moral relations, the 
 state of choice constitutes moral character. "Such 
 choices may rarely or never be repeated." "But the 
 activity which originates the voluntary and responsible 
 in character may be repeated again and again, and as the 
 result, the character itself m&,y be reversed, weakened or 
 made more energetic." " Though a permanent purpose 
 may possibly be renounced and reversed, the tendencies 
 toAvards its perpetuation are many and strong." " The 
 underlying and permanent purposes are the proper and 
 conscious objects of moral approval and disapproval. 
 Not that the special acts and emotions which obey them 
 are indifferent, for they never can be. Morally, how- 
 ever, they are of consequence only so far as they renew
 
 DB. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 269 
 
 and manifest the prevailing purpose within." " The 
 supreme moral purpose is that alone for which man is 
 eminently responsible. In every other activity apart 
 from this highest relation, he is xinder the law of neces- 
 sity. In this relation, and what it affects, and in this 
 alone, is he free." 
 
 *'In judging of the effect of an act of choosing, we 
 distinguish between what nature does for us and what 
 we do by our own volition — between the sensibilities as 
 natural and as voluntary, (a) In simple desires — pity 
 in a miser and in a benevolent man illustrates this dis- 
 tinction, (b) In character — Man might have a charac- 
 ter, even without moral endowments or moral liberty, and 
 simply because he happens to possess certain individual 
 or characteristic features of intellect and sensibility." 
 " But in these natural and necessary constituents of char- 
 acter, and in all the growth and changes through which 
 they are developed, there is constantly present the vol- 
 untary element, which is always active, and constantly 
 formative and controlling." 
 
 " As character is used in the two senses of natural and 
 moral, so is disposition ; it may be formed and fixed by 
 nature under the law of creation, hereditary, or devel- 
 opment ; or it may be moulded, wholly or in part, by the 
 soul's voluntary energy. Morally conceived, it is the 
 latter and this only." 
 
 "It is important here to observe and repeat, that 
 moral qualities, in the strictest sense, are ultimately 
 affirmed of the activities of the will and of these alone. 
 The will being the center, so to speak, of personal char-
 
 270 NOAH POBTER 
 
 acter and the ground of responsibility, affects all the 
 other inward and outward activities of the man." " The 
 character is right or wrong, inasmuch as it is its supreme 
 voluntary activity, its controlling principle or motive." 
 " The intellectual judgments, opinions, and habits, also, 
 are tried by ethical standards, and pronounced to be 
 morally right or wrong so far as these are supposed to 
 be influenced directly or remotely by the voluntary pur- 
 pose of the man. Last of all, the external actions, so far 
 as they are under the control of the will, and are the 
 manifestations and products of good or evil volitions, are 
 judged to be morally good or bad, and are so called." 
 
 Now the above statement of Dr. Porter's theory of the 
 Will shows clearly where he stands in regard to the ques- 
 tion of " free will." His doctrine is a via media between 
 what is known now as Absolute Indeterminism and Abso- 
 lute Determinism. The former doctrine attributes abso- 
 lute spontaneity to the will, while the latter regards the 
 will as absolutely necessitated in its activity. Dr. Porter's 
 theory is what is known now as Relative Indeterminism. 
 It holds that the activity of the will is not conditionless, 
 and at the same time that the will has its own peculiar 
 mode of activity in choosing its objects ; that the act of 
 choosing, being an act of preference, supposes that two 
 objects are present, or within reach and possible notice. 
 In this theory of the will Dr. Porter's characteristic 
 candor and acumen cannot fail to be noticed. Nothing 
 is so easy as to be an extremist ; but truth is rarely 
 found in extreme notions. Nothing is so difficult as
 
 DR. PORTEB'S THEORY OF MORALS 271 
 
 to be many-sided and judicious, but truth is often placed 
 where it is difficult to attain. 
 
 Now passing to Dr. Porter's theory of the Intellect, 
 and its functions in the moral activities and experiences, 
 we find him noting the fact, " that the intellect is more 
 or less active in the moral experiences is universally 
 recognized." " What is the nature and what are the 
 conditions and what are the results of this activity ? " 
 These are questions in regard to which much difference of 
 opinion prevails, and sharp controversies are still kept 
 alive. These questions concerning the functions of the 
 intellect are two-fold, — viz., psychological and meta- 
 physical, — the one involving the other. 
 
 What then are the functions of the intellect in the 
 moral activities and experiences ? The functions which 
 the intellect performs in the moral activities and expe- 
 riences are the discovering of the norm or standard of 
 duty in the natural capacities of man, and the imposing 
 it as a law for the voluntary activities. Morality is the 
 necessary product of " two conspicuous human endow- 
 ments — the reflective intellect and the voluntary im- 
 pulses or affections." " So soon as the reflective intellect 
 conceives • of any ideal whatever for aspiration or con- 
 trol — so soon as it recognizes such an ideal, it necessa- 
 rily imposes it as a law for the voluntary activities. 
 This ideal, thus recognized and imposed, becomes a 
 moral law ; in other words, so soon as the intellect re- 
 flects upon the several sensibilities which are subject to 
 the control of the will, as compared with one another,
 
 272 NOAH PORTEB 
 
 it must find a standard of ideal desirableness or worth 
 for its springs of action. So soon as it proposes to itself 
 the question, How are they to be applied or controlled 
 by the Will ? the reflecting man imposes this ideal upon 
 the choosing man as a law of voluntary action ; i. e., of 
 conduct and character. So far, also, as the reflecting 
 or self-conscious man finds in the relative excellence of 
 these springs of action, or in their effects, an indication 
 of the ends or purposes to which man's capacities for 
 action are adopted, so far does he find in this constitu- 
 tion of his being an additional force of law, compelling 
 his rational approval, and requiring his voluntary con- 
 sent." 
 
 "According to this theory, the moral relations, so far 
 as they are rational or intellectual, are not original cate- 
 gories, but are the necessary result of a special applica- 
 tion of the categories of adaptation or design. It also 
 follows that the sentiments of self-approbation, obliga- 
 tion, and merit, are also special applications of the 
 commonly recognized human sensibilities, as affected 
 by man's free and personal activity when reviewed by 
 man's conscious or reflective judgment. It follows, that 
 the moral nature and the moral faculty are but the other 
 names for the human faculties when employed upon 
 a special subject-matter, and in a peculiar manner. The 
 products of this natural mode of activity are moral ideas 
 and moral emotions. It is held, further, that these 
 products, so far as they are generalized concepts, can 
 be explained by their genesis, can be analyzed into their 
 constituents, and defined by them. Moreover, they can
 
 DR. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 273 
 
 be recognized as holding important relations with the 
 other laws and forces of the universe, and so take their 
 place in the general theory of matter and spirit." 
 
 " Upon this theory, also, the moral sentiments can be 
 fully justified as being not only the most powerful, but 
 the most rational, emotions which man experiences, and 
 thus vindicate their acknowledged right to be supreme 
 in their authority over man and in the counsels and laws 
 of the Supreme Reason." 
 
 The theory above expounded is supported by the fol- 
 lowing considerations : 
 
 (1) Moral qualities and relations are affirmed only of 
 spiritual beings and their voluntary acts. Hence " bodily 
 activities alone are neither right nor wrong." "Acts 
 of pure cognition are by themselves neither right nor 
 wrong." "Acts of emotion as such, i. e., considered apart 
 from the will, have no moral quality." 
 
 (2) " That the volitions may be judged to be morally 
 right or wrong, they must be measured or tried by 
 some standard. The standard by which they are tried 
 is the natural capacities of the agent." "Every man, 
 so far as he reflects upon his several desires and imjjulses, 
 knows his nature and capacities, knows their comparative 
 excellence, in the natural good which their exercise in- 
 volves." " So soon as he compares these emotions, he 
 judges the one to be better, naturally better, than the 
 other, even before he has allowed or repressed either 
 by his will. So far as he compares and reflects upon 
 what he is capable of in the better of these impulses, he 
 must form a standard of ideal good. The standard he
 
 274 NOAH PORTER 
 
 must in some sense desire to make real by conforming 
 to it his will." " He cannot do otherwise as a rational 
 being. Thus, by combining freedom with self-conscious- 
 ness, man becomes a law to himself by the necessity of 
 his own being. The reflecting man must necessarily 
 become the law-giver to the choosing man." 
 
 (3) " He also finds the end or design for which he 
 exists in the constitution and capacities of his being 
 which we have noticed. So soon as the question is sug- 
 gested to his thoughts, 'For what do I exist, and how 
 can I fulfill the end of my being?' he cannot but answer, 
 *In choosing the highest object, or obeying the best im- 
 pulses which my nature provides for or makes possible. ' " 
 " So soon as the purpose or end for which anything exists 
 is discerned as supreme, it is at once accepted as the right- 
 ful or reasonable law of its acting, whether this acting 
 is necessary or free. Pre-eminently is this true of a free 
 and reflecting being, who knows the end of his living 
 self by a direct and conscious insight into the nature and 
 degree of the good which he can propose to himself as 
 the law of his active energy. The authority of such a 
 law is resistless, springing out of his very nature, and 
 discerned by his reason, beyond which there is no 
 appeal." 
 
 (4) "The processes analyzed give the essential ele- 
 ments of the conception of moral good, and enable us to 
 define it as follows : Moral good is the voluntary choice 
 of the highest natural good possible to man, as known to 
 himself and by himself, and interpreted as the end of 
 his existence and activities."
 
 DR. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 275 
 
 (5) " The processes described can be performed at a 
 very early age." " Whatever view may be taken of the 
 nature of the standard, all agree that the child must 
 regard its own activities with discriminating self-inspec- 
 tion in order to compare and judge them by a moral rule. 
 But, if the child is capable of this self-inspection in order 
 to a2y2)ly the rule, it may use the same self-inspection, to 
 discover the rule in its own natural capacities for higher 
 and lower good. The fact that the child is capable of 
 this self-inspection is evident from the method employed 
 by parents and teachers to awaken children to the appre- 
 hension of the import of moral distinctions." "This 
 process of self-judgment may begin with the ehild's rudi- 
 mentary life, and be matured and trained with the de- 
 velopment of its powers." '^As the child's conceptions 
 of the possibilities of his nature enlarge, just so rapidly 
 does the standard of moral goodness rise." "The law 
 proposed by self-reflecting reason is indeed an ideal 
 laiv. It presents what is possible, not what is actually 
 achieved. The inner law-giver imagines what he might 
 be, before he affirms what he is." 
 
 "Thus far have we confined our attention almost 
 exclusively to man's relations to himself ; i.e., to the 
 workings of his nature, were we to suppose that he 
 existed alone. Such a view limits very narrowly the 
 range of man's duties, as, indeed, of his experiences and 
 knowledge of every kind. In order to expand this 
 range, he must know that his fellows are moral beings 
 like himself, under the same moral law, and designed 
 for the same perfection. How does he know this ? We
 
 276 NOAH PORTER 
 
 answer, The same indications whicli show his fellows to 
 be human prove them to be moral also. If my fellow 
 men are like me in being men, they are like me in being 
 subject to the same rule of voluntary action, in propos- 
 ing to themselves the same ends, and judging of them- 
 selves by the same standards. They exist for the same 
 ends with myself, — the voluntary realization of the 
 same perfection. They together constitute a social 
 whole in the adaptations of their nature to a moral 
 organism, under the economy of reason and of God. If 
 this is so, the well-being of each is not only compatible 
 with, but is conducive to the well-being of all others. 
 If the voluntary recognition of the good of my fellow 
 man is the noblest use of my own nature, then the 
 reciprocal return of benevolence from him to me blesses 
 him as well as myself. If I believe in an orderly or 
 rationally constituted system or society of beings like 
 myself, as I must in order to have any reasoned or 
 scientific knowledge of them at all, I must believe that 
 the best good of each is conducive to and compatible 
 with the best good of all together, and that, whenever I 
 sacrifice for the whole, I must achieve my highest good, 
 not only in the inward experiences of benevolence, but 
 in the external and corporeal acts to which these impel, 
 and to their results in the economy of the universe. To 
 desire my own well-being is necessary and right, because 
 I thereby secure the end for which I exist. To sacrifice 
 my private and separate good when it is in conflict with 
 the good of others is also right, because my highest good 
 in an orderly universe of moral beings can never conflict
 
 DR. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 277 
 
 with the well-being of the commonwealth ; and this is a 
 still higher good and nobler end." 
 
 " If the relations of man to nature, as well as to his 
 fellows, may be interpreted in their possibilities and 
 their ends, we reasonably assume that moral ends are 
 supreme over both nature and man. If we raise our 
 thoughts still higher, and recognize each individual, as 
 also society and nature, as the work of a personal 
 creator, for the manifestation and fulfillment of definite 
 and consistent purposes in a coherent and rational 
 universe, we shall accept the conclusion that the moral 
 ends are not only supreme, but that they express the 
 will and law of God." 
 
 The conditions of the intellectual functions in the 
 moral experience are man's powers and capacities of 
 feeling, with which he is furnished by his natural con- 
 stitution. This was implied in the statement that moral 
 good is the voluntary choice of the highest natural good 
 possible to man, etc. 
 
 Mestdts of Reflection. The question here is. How does 
 the discernment or development of moral relations by 
 the processes described above, necessarily involve and 
 account for those sentiments and emotions which are 
 universally recognized as moral ? But what are those 
 sentiments and emotions universally recognized as 
 moral ? They are three in number, viz. : 
 
 (1) Self-approbation or disapprobation; 
 
 (2) The sense of obligation ; 
 
 (3) Merit or demerit.
 
 278 NOAH PORTER 
 
 (1) Self-approbation and disapprobation are peculiar 
 emotions. Their uniqueness is due to their origin. 
 " Both these affections of self-favor or disfavor to him- 
 self must in their nature and experience be unique, both 
 as they are personal affections " in distinction from im- 
 personal affections, '' and as the person is at once the 
 giver and receiver of the love or hatred." 
 
 (2) The feeling of obligation comes next in order. 
 This feeling is always felt towards a person, and im- 
 ports a future activity, — an activity as yet not chosen 
 or executed. The feeling is unique, as the moral law is 
 not arbitrary law but a law imposed upon us by our in- 
 most nature. " The recognition of an activity as one for 
 which our nature is fitted, involves an authority still 
 higher than the respect paid to any mere force stronger 
 than ourselves, because it commends itself to our rever- 
 ence for rational order. It is not our caprice that im- 
 poses this authority, not our voluntary will, nor any 
 single impulse or desire, but our nature as a whole, in 
 the mutual adaptation of all its impulses, and their har- 
 monious working with the forces of the universe. It is 
 not a mere blind force, or combination of forces, but an 
 adjustment that is rational in its adaptation and working 
 for the highest ends known or conceived by us. There 
 is no authority more majestic than that of self-convic- 
 tion concerning our capacities as revealing our destined 
 functions, when enforced by self-approbation or self- 
 reproach." The feeling here spoken of is not limited to 
 our fellow men but is lifted up to God. '' The human 
 mind first understands by obligation some constraint
 
 BE. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 279 
 
 imposed by the command of another." But the external 
 simply symbolizes and suggests the internal. " Very 
 soon the two are blended together ; and the one practi- 
 cally supplements the other, which it symbolizes and 
 enforces to the advantage and strengthening of both." 
 
 (3) The third is Merit or Demerit. " They suppose 
 and imply the existence of a community of moral beings. 
 It is of his fellow men or his creator that a man is said 
 or conceded to deserve good or ill. The merit or demerit 
 of purposes and action is their capacity to elicit or com- 
 mand from others such feelings of approval or disap- 
 proval as the bestowers themselves shall approve or 
 disapprove." 
 
 " Hitherto we have been concerned with the feelings 
 and purposes." But morality cannot be limited to the 
 intentions alone. '^ It gives law to the actions also, 
 passing judgment upon the doings as truly as upon the 
 affections and purposes." " We mean by the actions all 
 corporeal activities whatever ; " " these actions are of 
 consequence, for the following reasons : they execute the 
 purposes, they manifest or express them, they strengthen 
 them, they make them habitual and spontaneous." 
 
 " The terms Right and Wrong are primarily applied 
 only to the voluntary purposes, and to these alone." 
 " But they are also applied to diverse subject-matter." 
 " This variety of application, however, involves neither 
 inconsistency nor contradiction of thought." 
 
 " We distinguish between the act and intention more 
 exactly and effectually, by availing ourselves of the terms
 
 280 NOAH PORTER 
 
 absolute and relative rightness." " Absolute riglitness 
 is a lightness which is absolute, or perfect ; relative 
 rightness, on the other hand, is affirmed with respect to 
 the intention only, or to the external action only." 
 
 " In what sense is morality external and immutable ? 
 This is interchangeable with the question whether moral 
 beings, one or more, shall continue to exist ? " " Moral- 
 ity must always signify a fixed relationship between the 
 relations and acts of a moral being and his capacities. 
 We affirm with confidence, that, whenever and wherever 
 a moral person exists, his moral activities must have 
 constant and unalterable relations to these capacities." 
 Moreover "the so-called ethical emotions must also be 
 uniform in their character, and follow the ethical judg- 
 ments in the experience of all moral beings." 
 
 " That the judgments of men concerning the right and 
 wrong of particular actions are very largely the products 
 of their circumstances and their education, is too obvious 
 to admit of question." " That their moral emotions are 
 similarly influenced, seems equally obvious." We see 
 this fact in that development of the moral judgments and 
 feelings which is determined by the general laws of psy- 
 chological growth. 
 
 (1) Ethical growth of the individual. The child 
 early learns the lessons of self-control in learning that 
 those objects which satisfy his longings cannot be ob- 
 tained without effort and that one desire cannot be grati- 
 fied without foregoing another. He also learns soon that 
 others are stronger than himself, — lessons of subjection 
 to others. Then gradually he begins to distinguish be-
 
 BR. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 281 
 
 tween responsibility to others and to one's self. After 
 this he gradually begins to look within and discovers the 
 moral standard within his own soul. " Man reaches the 
 final stage in the development of his moral consciousness 
 when he distinctly recognizes the truth that he is a law 
 to himself; that, in his natural capacities, he finds the 
 aim and standard for his voluntary activities, and that 
 according to their compliance with this law, or their fail- 
 ure, he must approve or condemn himself." " These steps 
 however are not independent of social instruction and 
 social influences." 
 
 (2) Social influences as helps or hindrances in morals. 
 " The most conspicuous of social influences in the devel- 
 opment of the moral judgments and feelings are educa- 
 tion, public sentiment, civil government, and religion." 
 "These operate (a) in presenting additional motives 
 besides those of conscience alone; {b) in addressing 
 these motives to our regard for the favor and disfavor 
 of others." They do not create moral judgments and 
 feelings ; but they aid the reflective faculty by instruc- 
 tion, and by exciting to reflection. " They present new 
 hopes and fears, with or against those of conscience." 
 
 The last chapter in the analysis of man's moral nature 
 is on the Conscience. Here Dr. Porter teaches that (a) 
 Conscience should not be used as an appellation for a 
 separate or special moral faculty, for the reason that there 
 is no such faculty. (&) "The conscience is very fre- 
 quently used to designate the entire moral constitution 
 or nature of man, whatever this is conceived to be."
 
 282 NOAH PORTER 
 
 "But the Will, being tlie capacity for moral choices, 
 is never included under the Conscience except in the 
 loosest and vaguest use of the appellation." " The will 
 furnishes the object-matter about which the conscience 
 judges and feels." " Conscience, therefore, is limited to 
 the intellect and sensibility when employed upon a special 
 subject-matter." That is, Conscience is the intellect and 
 sensibility in those judgments {of intellect) and emotions 
 {of sensibility) which have to do ivith acts and states of the 
 will. " The term conscience has still another more popu- 
 lar and figurative application. It is not limited to these 
 functions which we have named. It also designates the 
 results of these operations in the special judgments or 
 conclusions which are reached in regard to matters of 
 duty, and the special feelings which follow." 
 
 Having shown that conscience as a power includes the 
 two elements of intellect and feeling, Dr. Porter observes : 
 
 (1) "That as an intellectual power it is subject to the 
 conditions and laws of the intellect as employed upon 
 various kinds of subject-matter." How far is it infalli- 
 ble and how far fallible ? " In respect to certain rela- 
 tions and questions of duty, it is infallible, while in 
 respect to others it is fallible." " It follows, that con- 
 science as the intellect is the subject of various degrees 
 of certainty in its judgments." 
 
 (2) "Conscience, as Sensibility, follows the laws of 
 the emotions. The feelings invariably follow the judg- 
 ments whether they are right or wrong." 
 
 (3) " Conscience, both as intellect and sensibility, can 
 be cultivated and developed." " This is evident from the
 
 BE. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 283 
 
 fact that intellect and sensibility are capable of develop- 
 ment and culture." 
 
 (4) "As conscience can be cultivated and enlightened, 
 so it can be abused and darkened." But it cannot be 
 destroyed. 
 
 (5) " The question is often asked, whether a man is 
 always right in obeying his conscience ? " " If the ques- 
 tion means, does a man always do that which is relatively 
 right when he obeys his conscience, the answer is, ' By 
 no means.' " " But if the question is ' Does a man err if 
 he follows the judgment or command of his conscience 
 as to what should be the controlling purpose of his will ? ' 
 the answer is, ' He cannot possibly be in the wrong in 
 respect to such a judgment or such an act.' " 
 
 (6) " Is a man ever justified in acting against his con- 
 science ? " " If this question means, Would a man ever 
 perform a right action outwardly, should he act in a 
 manner diverse from that prescribed by his conscience ? 
 we answer, Unfrequently he would." " But if the ques- 
 tion means. Is a man ever morally justified in disobeying 
 his conscience ? we answer unhesitatingly : No." " Be- 
 sides the mistaken there is the perverted or dishonest 
 conscience." 
 
 (7) " Is it ever best not to reason ? " It is sometimes 
 said " It is better to trust the feelings than arguments. 
 In questions of duty it is wiser and safer to follow the 
 impulses of sentiment, rather than the conclusions of 
 logic." " If a man cannot master the relations involved 
 in a question of duty, so as to reason clearly and wisely, 
 it were better to rest in a decision without attempting
 
 284 NOAH PORTER 
 
 to construct an argument." " Tliis rule is no more true 
 and wise in morals, however, than it is in other depart- 
 ments of intellectual activity." "To trust the feelings 
 alone in disputed or perplexed questions of duty, is un- 
 sound in theory, and unsafe if not fanatical, in practice. 
 The feelings are always impulsive and blind." " On the 
 other hand, the disciplined conscience has gained by its 
 manifold inductions a species of tact which is akin to 
 intuition. The sensitiveness of its ethical emotions has 
 been matured to a corresponding delicacy." 
 
 It may be of interest to quote in this connection a few 
 sentences which show what was Dr. Porter's view of 
 the relation of Moral Science to Theism and Christian- 
 ity. He says : " The fact cannot escape the thoughtful 
 reader, that end, and adaptation, and design, and even 
 God, are assumed as categories of thought in our expla- 
 nation of the nature of moral relations as originally 
 developed and reflectively formulated in and to the 
 human mind. The same is equally obvious in the ex- 
 planation given of the corresponding emotions, particu- 
 larly that of obligation." " Should it be said, If this 
 is granted or assumed, then the interpretation and dis- 
 covery of the moral law must involve the distinct recog- 
 nition of God as giving it reality and authority, we reply, 
 This is no more true in ethics than it is in physics. It 
 does not follow, however, that the moral categories must 
 be analyzed and applied with a distinct apprehension 
 of their complete import in order to their control over 
 the intellect and feelings. If a man goes so far as to 
 know his inmost nature, he can understand the reality
 
 DE. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 285 
 
 and the authority of the moral law which his own nature 
 reveals, whether or not he recognizes ' a power not him- 
 self ' behind it. It does not follow, that because the 
 recognition of design or of a purpose involving authority 
 or law, involves faith in the living God, when all its 
 implications are 'evolved,' that therefore ethics must 
 necessarily imply the distinct and constant recognition 
 of a theology. And yet it may be true that a reflective 
 analysis of our faith in the moral order of the universe 
 may show that it logically implies faith in God, as truly 
 as our faith in its natural order implied faith in a divine 
 Architect." 
 
 "Moral Science is not superfluous, but is the more 
 necessary for those who accept a supernatural revelation 
 of duty. It may be said or thought, that whenever the 
 principles or rules of duty are fixed and declared by 
 authority, whether human or divine, the necessity of 
 any scientific study of either is superseded." " To this 
 it may be replied, that the so-called principles of duty 
 which are revealed to man are not principles in the sci- 
 entific sense, but are usually practical maxims or com- 
 prehensive directions which respect the feelings or 
 conduct. Even these, however, imply an underlying 
 philosophy of facts and relations. To develop and state 
 these philosophical truths is the special function of moral 
 science, and is as much needed with respect to revealed 
 as to natural ethics, and perhaps more." 
 
 "The study of moral science is favorable to faith in 
 the Christian revelation. The most decisive evidence of 
 the truth and authority of this revelation is furnished by
 
 286 NOAH POBTER 
 
 its moral import, and its adaptation to the moral nature 
 and necessities of man. To feel the force of this argu- 
 ment, and even to understand its import, one must first 
 do justice to the fact on Avhich it rests, i.e. to the moral 
 nature and wants of man, on the one hand, as furnishing 
 the occasion for a revelation ; and to the moral import 
 of Christianity, on the other, as adapted to these wants. 
 The study of moral science holds the attention to both 
 these data, or terms of argument, in such a way as to 
 lead us to believe in the reality, and appreciate the sig- 
 nificance of both. So far as it is favorable to belief in 
 duty and to an intelligent and reflective appreciation of 
 its importance, so far must it prepare the mind to judge 
 justly and to measure practically the adaptation to man's 
 needs of a revelation, the most decisive argument for 
 which is, that it could never have originated in the 
 invention or aspiration or fancies of man alone." 
 
 In conclusion it may not be needless to state once 
 more the characteristic features of Dr. Porter's ethical 
 theory. The most characteristic feature of his theory of 
 morals is the truth that man's moral experience and 
 activities involve his threefold powers, — the powers of 
 sensibility, will, and intellect. If any of these powers 
 is wanting in man, there will be no moral phenomena in 
 the world. Moral relations and qualities are not origi- 
 nated by a special sensibility called the " moral sense " ; 
 nor are they produced by a special kind of intellect 
 called the " moral reason " ; nor are they the creation of 
 a faculty called the " practical reason " which presents 
 to the will an authoritative judgment technically called
 
 DR. POUTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 287 
 
 the "categorical imperative." They are products of the 
 threefold functions of the human mind. It is held 
 by some that man has certain original moral powers 
 superadded to the intellect, sensibility and will. From 
 these special endowments arise man's moral experiences 
 as separate and quasi-independent functions. In other 
 words, some hold or imply that man might be a complete 
 man and yet be incapable of moral judgments and feel- 
 ings. Dr. Porter in opposition to all ethical theories of 
 this class, maintains that man's moral nature is his en- 
 tire psychical endowments applied to a special subject- 
 matter, and employed in a special mode of activity. He 
 denies that there is any special moral faculty or facul- 
 ties. This is the feature that distinguishes Dr. Porter's 
 theory of morals from what is known as Intuitionism, 
 and also from what is commonly designated the moral 
 sense theory. His theory is also opposed to and distin- 
 guished from the school that attempts to explain the 
 origin of man's moral nature as resulting from his physi- 
 cal environment, or as grounded on the mere will of a 
 superior being or beings; in short, he rejects what is 
 known as " Heteronomic theories " in moral science. 
 Dr. Porter affirms against them that man's moral nature 
 is nothing but his human nature. Hence a man cannot 
 be a man without being moral. His nature reveals to 
 him his law ; hence he is autonomous. No external 
 force or power can make him moral if he were not 
 moral by his nature. Moral law is a spontaneous 
 growth of his entire nature. Such, in short, is Dr. 
 Porter's theory concerning the origin of moral law.
 
 288 NOAH PORTER 
 
 Now about the test or criterion of right and wrong. 
 He rejected the doctrine of the intuitional school that 
 an act is good because it is right, and maintained that it 
 is right because it is good. But on the other hand he 
 did not approve the doctrine of the Hedonistic school 
 that right is always known by " the greatest happiness 
 of the greatest number." He insists upon the distinc- 
 tion between natural good and moral good. Moral good 
 rests on natural good; there can be no moral good 
 without natural good. He recognizes also a difference 
 of quality in pleasures as higher and lower. He believes 
 we ought, therefore, to seek the noblest happiness and 
 not the greatest happiness ; whenever and wherever a 
 higher and a lower pleasure conflict, we should prefer 
 the higher one. Hence Dr. Porter agrees with the 
 Hedonists in making good the basis of morals, but differs 
 from them in recognizing qualitative differences in goods 
 in addition to their quantitative differences. 
 
 To what school then does Dr. Porter's theory of 
 morals belong ? It may not be greatly unjust if it is 
 classed with those known as " Rational Eudemonism." 
 Hence his theory belongs iso the same type as that 
 of Aristotle among the Greek moralists and as that of 
 Janet in more recent times. This general position of 
 Dr. Porter in ethics reveals the two most characteristic 
 features of his mind — candor and comprehensiveness, 
 the same traits which mai-k the writings of Aristotle. 
 Dr. Porter recognized both truth and error in all 
 conflicting schools of morals, and he was ready to accept 
 truths wherever found. What the science of morals
 
 BB. PORTER'S THEORY OF MORALS 289 
 
 urgently needs to-day is Dr. Porter's type of mind, not 
 ashamed to conserve whatever is true and best in the 
 thought of the past, not afraid to welcome new truths 
 which our daily growing sciences bring to light. For 
 the progress of moral science is not a mere change from 
 one theory to another, but is according to the law of 
 comprehension and enlargement, that preserves the 
 elements of truth in all the theories of the past and adds 
 to them new ones continually. We have much in ethics 
 yet to learn from Plato and Aristotle, as we have from 
 Darwin and Spencer. Ethical truth is no exclusive 
 monopoly of any school or party. 
 
 The writer of this brief statement of Dr. Porter's 
 theory of morals has endeavored to present in the 
 shortest compass the main points of his theory, but it is 
 feared that complete justice has not been done to the 
 subject. It is hoped, however, that this brief paper will 
 awaken an interest in those who have not yet examined 
 his treatise on morals, to learn directly from his book, 
 and a renewed interest in those who had the privilege 
 of his instruction, to take up his treatise again with a 
 grateful recollection of the author and learn more fully 
 those lessons which he taught them in the days that are 
 gone. If they do this, the writer is sure that they will 
 be impressed with his simple, clear and terse style and 
 his comprehensive, judicious and penetrating thoughts. 
 In these features of his writing, no pupil of Dr. Porter 
 would fail to see his noble character and large person- 
 ality. For a man's style reveals his character and a 
 man's thought reflects the personality behind it.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DR. PORTER. 
 
 By J. Sumner Smith. 
 
 The titles of books written or edited by President Porter are printed 
 in capitals. 
 
 1834 The Character and Writings of Edmund Burke, [anon.] 
 
 Quart. Christ. Sj^ec, vol. 6, pp. 226-250. 
 On Moral Science, as a branch of Academical educa.tion. 
 ibid., pp. 561-580. 
 
 1835 Wardlaw's Christian Ethics. [anon. ; in part by Pres. 
 
 Porter.] Ibid., vol. 7, pp. 392-421. 
 
 1836 Wordsworth and his Poetry, [anon.] Ibid., vol. 8, pp. 127- 
 
 151. 
 
 1838 Who are the True Conservatives ? [anon.] Ibid., vol. 10, 
 
 pp. 601-637. 
 
 1839 RevievF of Bacon's Historical Discourses. Amer. Bibl. 
 
 Bepos., (2), vol. 2, pp. 217-243. 
 
 1840 The Characteristics of English Literature. Ibid., vol. 4, 
 
 pp. 329-352. 
 
 1841 A Historical Discourse, delivered by request, before the citi- 
 
 zens of Farmington, November 4, 1840, in commemoration 
 of the original settlement of the ancient tovrn, in 1640. 
 Hartford, 8°, 99 pp. 
 
 1842 Transcendentalism. Amer. Bibl. Bepos., (2), vol. 8, pp. 195- 
 
 218. 
 
 1843 Congregationalism in Nev? England, [anon.] N. Englander, 
 
 vol. 1, pp. 568-579. 
 
 291
 
 292 NOAH POETER 
 
 1844 Theodore Parker, [anon.] Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 371-396. 
 Episcopalianism in Massachusetts, [anon.] Ibid., pp. 619- 
 
 623. 
 Theodore Parker and Liberal Christianity, [anon.] Ibid., pp. 
 528-559. Same, issued separately. New Haven, 8*^, 33 pp. 
 
 1845 Bishop Southgate and Episcopal Missions, [anon.] Ibid., 
 
 vol. 3, pp. 244-272. 
 Theodore Parker and the Boston Association, [anon.] Ibid., 
 
 pp. 450-468. 
 The Paternal Character of God. Amer. Pulpit, vol. 1, pp. 
 
 77-88. [Unfinished at this point.] 
 
 1846 The Necessity and Means of Improving the Common Schools 
 
 of Connecticut, (prize essay.) Hartford, 8°, 23 pp. 
 The Youth of the Scholar. Bibl. Sac, vol. 3, pp. 95-121. 
 The Autobiography of a Rationalist ; or. Life, &c., of Rev. 
 
 J. Blanco White, [anon.] N. Encjlander, vol. 4, pp. 238- 
 
 265. 
 Hopkins' Lectures before the Lowell Institute, [anon.] Ibid., 
 
 vol. 4, pp. 401-410. 
 
 1847 Coleridge and his American Disciples. Bibl. Sac, vol. 4, 
 
 pp. 117-171. 
 
 Prognostic of American Literature. Bibl. Bepos., (3), vol. 3, 
 pp. 604-524. 
 
 Dr. Thomas Arnold, [anon.] N. Encjlander, vol. 5, pp. 364- 
 387. 
 
 The New Theological Controversy, [anon.] Ibid., vol. 5, pp. 
 613-614. 
 
 An American Dictionary of the English Language. [Web- 
 ster's, reviewed, anon.] Literary World, vol. 2, pp. 451- 
 454. 
 
 1848 Tables of Scripture Names, Greek and Latin Proper Names, 
 
 and Modern Geographical Names, designed to exhibit the 
 pronunciation of each ; with rules, etc. ; prepared for 
 Webster's larger Dictionary of the English language, under 
 the direction of N. Porter. Springfield, Mass., 4°, pp. 
 1283-1367. 
 Bushnell on Christian nurture, [anon.] N. Englander, 
 vol. 6, pp. 121-147. Same, issued separately. 27 pp.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DR. PORTER 293 
 
 1848 A Plea for Libraries, with especial reference to the wants of 
 
 western institutions. Bibl. Repos., (3), vol. 4, pp. 166-18G. 
 A Plea for Libraries. A letter addressed to a friend in behalf 
 
 of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Tlieo- 
 
 logical Education at the West. New York, 8°, 32 pp. 
 Recent Works in Metaphysical Science. Bibl. Sac, vol. 5, 
 
 pp. 102-117. 
 The New Edition of Webster's Dictionary. Aiiier. Rev., vol. 
 
 7, pp. 301-306. 
 Common Schools in Rhode Island, [anon.] N. Amer. Rev., 
 
 vol. 67, pp. 240-256. 
 
 1849 RecentEnglish Works on Logic and Metaphysics. Bibl. Sac, 
 
 vol. 6, pp. 596-602. 
 Morell's Philosophy of Religion, [anon.] N. Englander, 
 vol. 7, pp. 566-593. 
 
 1850 Sketch of Remarks addressed to the Committee on Education, 
 
 in Boston, February 2d and 4th, 1850, on the resolution 
 referred to them, by the General Court of Massachusetts, 
 to introduce an English dictionary into each of the public 
 schools of the commonwealth. 8°, 14 pp. Same. 8°, 
 22 pp. 
 
 Allston's Lectures, [anon.] N. Englander, vol. 8, pp. 445- 
 452. 
 
 Bartol's Discourses, [anon.] 76u7., pp. 434-445. 
 
 The Conflict of Laws. N. Y. Observer, Nov. 30, Dec. 7, 
 pp. 190, 194. 
 
 1851 (& 1852) The Educational Systems of the Puritans and 
 
 Jesuits Compared. A premium essay, written for "The 
 Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological 
 Education at the West." New York, 12°, 95 pp. 
 Anon, articles in the N. Y. Observer, vol. 29 : Look Forward ; 
 The True Issue ; The Atrocious Doctrine ; pp. 10, 14, Jan. 9. 
 The Atrocious Doctrine, p. 22, Jan. 16. Easily Besetting 
 Sins ; Cardinal Wiseman ; pp. 25, 26, Jan. 23. Our Duty 
 to the State, p. 34, Jan. 30. Dr. Bacon on the Fugitive- 
 slave Law, p. QQ, Feb. 27. The N. Y. Independent, p. 86, 
 Mar. 13. Dr. Bacon's Letter Again, p. 93, Mar. 20. United 
 States Constitution, p. 118, Apr. 10.
 
 294 NOAH PORTER 
 
 1851 Reforms in Collegiate Education, [anon.] If. Englander, 
 
 vol. 9, pp. 110-144. 
 Recent "Works upon Logic, [anon.] Bibl. Sac, vol. 8, pp. 
 
 650-652. 
 James H. Perkins, [anon.] N. Englander, vol. 9, pp. 
 
 359-372. 
 Noah Webster, [anon.] Internal. Mo. Mag., vol. 4, pp. 
 
 12-16. 
 Memoirs of William Wordsworth, [anon.] N. Englander, 
 
 vol. 9, pp. 583-616. 
 
 1852 Litchfield County Celebration, [anon.] Ibid., vol. 10, pp. 
 
 76-89. 
 
 1853 The New Infidelity, [anon.] Ihid., vol. 11, pp. 277-295. 
 
 A Sermon occasioned by the death of John Pitkin Norton, 
 Professor of Analytical and Agricultural Chemistry in Yale 
 College. Preached in Farmington, Conn., September, 1852. 
 [In: Memorials of John Pitkin Norton. Albany, 8°,] pp. 
 9-29. 
 
 1855 Recent Works on Psychology, [anon.] N. Englander, vol. 
 
 13, pp. 129-144. 
 Philosophical Grammar, or the Laws of Thought as Applied 
 to Syntax by Dr. Karl Ferdinand Becker. Bibl. Sac, vol. 
 12, pp. 661-723. 
 
 1856 Emerson's English Traits, [anon.] N. Englander, vol. 14, 
 
 pp. 573-592. 
 
 1857 The American Student in Germany, [anon.] Ibid., vol. 15, 
 
 pp. 574-602. Same, issued separately. 30 pp. 
 
 1858 Ellis on the Unitarian Controversy, [anon.] Ibid., vol. 16, 
 
 pp. 511-539. 
 
 1859 Introduction, [to : Essays, Lectures, etc., upon Select Topics 
 
 in Revealed Theology. By Nathaniel W. Taylor. New 
 
 York, 8°,] pp. iii-iv. 
 Introduction, [to : Lectures on the Moral Government of God. 
 
 By Nathaniel W. Taylor. New York, 2 vols. 8°,] pp. 
 
 iii-viii. 
 Nature and the Supernatural. iV. Englander, vol. 17, pp. 
 
 224-258. 
 The Atlantic Monthly, and the Professor at the Breakfast 
 
 Table, [anon.] Ibid., pp. 771-775.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DR. PORTER 295 
 
 1859 Thorndale ; or, the Conflict of Opinions. Ibid, pp. 652-686. 
 
 1860 The Princeton Review on Dr. Taylor, and the Edwardean 
 
 Tlieology. [anon.] Ibid., vol. 18, pp. 726-773. 
 
 1861 Ralph Waldo Emerson on the Conduct of Life, [anon.] 
 
 Ibid., vol. 19, pp. 496-508. 
 
 1863 English Lexicography. Bibl. Sac, vol. 20, pp. 78-123. 
 
 In Memoriam. [In appendix to : Discourse commemora- 
 tive of Rev. AVilliam A. Earned. By Theodore D. Woolsey. 
 Delivered Feb. 7, 1862. New Haven, 8°,] pp. 33-39. 
 
 1864 A New Work by the Author of Thorndale. N. Englander, 
 
 vol. 23, pp. 159-168. 
 
 Autobiography of Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher. Ibid., pp. 
 354-358. 
 
 Charles Beecher's New Theory of the Work of the Redeemer. 
 Ibid., pp. 369-371. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer's New Work, [anon.] Round Table, 
 vol. 1, pp. 277-279. 
 
 The Principles of Mental Philosophy. Amer. Presb. and 
 Theol. Rev., new series, vol. 2, pp. 276—303. 
 
 Weiss' Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker. iV. 
 Englander, vol. 23, pp. 359-368. 
 
 Mr. Marsh's New Volume, [anon.] Bound Table, vol. 1, 
 pp. 324-325. 
 
 Freedom of Mind in Willing, [anon.] Atlantic Mo., vol. 14, 
 pp. 778-781. 
 
 An American Dictionary of the English Language. 
 By Noah Webster, LL.D. Thoroughly revised, and gi'eatly 
 enlarged and improved, by Chauncey A. Goodrich . . . 
 and Noah Porter. Springfield, Mass., 4°, Ixxi + 1768 pp. ; 
 2nd ed., 1876. New edition, with supplement, 1879. With 
 an appendix of useful tables. To which is added a supple- 
 ment of nearly five thousand new words, with their defini- 
 tions, etc. Also, a new pronouncing biographical dictionary. 
 Ixxi -I- 1851 pp. 
 
 1865 Lyman Beecher and Martin Luther. Hours at Home, vol. 1, 
 
 pp. 59-62. 
 Importance of the Pastoral Office. N. Englander, vol. 24, pp. 
 570-583.
 
 296 NOAH PORTER 
 
 1865 Lives of Cicero : the Old and the New. Hours at Home, vol. 
 
 1, pp. 346-352. 
 John Stuart Mill on Sir William Hamilton. Bound Table, 
 
 vol. 2, pp. 3-4. 
 Matthew Arnold. Ibid., pp. 19-20. 
 
 1866 A New Philosophical Light, [anon.] Nation, vol. 2, pp. 
 
 439-440. 
 Keview of Dr. Bushnell on The Vicarious Sacrifice. N. 
 
 Englander, vol. 25, pp. 228-282. 
 Professor Silliman's Memoirs, [anon.] Nation, vol. 2, pp. 
 
 629-630. 
 Augustus Russell Street. Morn. Jour, and Cour., New 
 
 Haven, June 13. 
 Augustus Russell Street. Yale Courant, June 27. 
 Proude's History of England. Hours at Home, vol. 3, pp. 
 
 426-432. 
 
 1867 Memorial Sketch, [in : In Memoriam. Professor John Addi- 
 
 son Porter, Cambridge, 8°,] pp. 3-32. 
 United States Sanitary Commission. N. Englander, vol. 26, 
 
 pp. 70-87. 
 The United States since the War. Brit. Quat. Bev., vol. 45, 
 
 pp. 178-214. 
 
 1868 The Human Intellect : with an Introduction upon Psychol- 
 
 ogy and the Soul. New York, 8°, xxvii + 673 pp. Same, 
 London, 1872. Reissued about thirty times without mate- 
 rial change. 
 Books and reading ; or. What books shall I read, and how 
 shall I read them? i. Hours at Home, vol. 8, pp. 101- 
 108. 
 
 1869 Ditto, ii-iv. Ibid., vol. 8, pp. 293-300, 398-408, 497-505. 
 Ditto, v-viii. Ibid., vol. 9, pp. 42-50, 101-111, 336-345, 
 
 544-554. 
 
 Ditto, ix. Ibid., vol. 10, pp. 79-91. 
 
 The late Mr. [John Treadwell] Norton. Hearth and Home, 
 vol. 1, p. 451. Same, issued separately, revised. 4°, 2 pp. 
 
 The American Colleges and the American public. N. Eng- 
 lander, vol. 28, pp. 69-113, 319-360, 489-517, 748-782. 
 
 1870 The American Colleges and the American Public.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DR. PORTER 297 
 
 New Haven, 12°, 285 pp. New [2ncl] ed., 1878. With After- 
 thoughts on College and School Education. New York, 12°, 
 408 pp. 
 
 The Argument for Christianity, Complex and Cumulative. 
 [In : Boston lectures, 1870. Christianity and scepticism, 
 Boston, 12°,] pp. 3-40-406. 
 
 Books and Reading, x-xii. Hours at Home, vol. 10, pp. 258- 
 268, 358-367, 498-510. 
 
 The New Criticism, N. Englandcr, vol. 29, pp. 295-316. 
 
 1871 Henry Farnam. [In : Sketches of Men of Progress. By 
 
 James Barton and other writers. Embellished with por- 
 traits. N. Y. and Hartford Publ. Co., Cincinnati, 4°,] pp. 
 501-508. 
 
 Books and Reading ; or. What Books shall I read, and how 
 shall I read them ? New York, 8°, viii + 378 pp. ; 4th ed., 
 1875, with index. 8°, viii -|- 394 pp. ; 5th ed., 1881. With 
 an Appendix containing a Select Catalogue of Books, ix -|- 
 434 pp. 
 
 The Elements of Intellectual Science. A Manual for 
 Schools and Colleges. Abridged from The Human Intel- 
 lect. N. Y., 1871, 8°, xiv-f-565pp. Same, with imprint : 
 London, 1872. Repeatedly reprinted without material 
 change. 
 
 Inaugural Address. [In : Addresses at the Inauguration of 
 Professor Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D., as President of Yale 
 College, Wednesday, October 11, 1871. New York, 8°,] 
 pp. 25-65. 
 
 Obituary Notice, from the N. H. Palladium of March 24, 1871. 
 [In : In Memoriam, Mary Lucas Hillhouse. New Haven, 
 12°,] pp. 17-23. 
 
 The Sciences of Nature versus the Science of Man. 
 A Plea for the Science of Man. New York, 12°, 98 pp. 
 
 1872 Science and Humanity ; or, A Plea for the Superiority of 
 
 Spirit over Matter. London, 8°. 
 Christianity as History, Doctrine, and Life. From the Boston 
 
 Lectures for 1870. Boston, 12°, pp. 340-406. 
 In Memoriam. A discourse delivered at the funeral of Rev. 
 
 Elisha Cowles Jones, in Southington, Conn., March 12th, 
 
 1872. Hartford, 12°, 28 pp. + portrait.
 
 298 NOAH PORTER 
 
 1872 Introduction, [to: Half-hours with Modern Scientists. (1), 
 
 2d edition. New Haven, 12°,] pp. v-xi. 
 The Late Professor Hadley. N. H. Daily Palladiunt,, Nov. 15. 
 
 1873 In Memoriam. — Professor James Hadley. JV. Englander, 
 
 vol. 32, pp. 35-55. 
 
 Matthew Arnold's Literature and Dogma. Christ. Union, 
 vol. 7, pp. 501-502, June 25 ; vol. 8, pp. 61-62. 
 
 Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge. Ibid., vol. 8, pp. 
 242-43. 
 
 An Historical Discourse delivered at the Celebration of the One 
 Hundredth Anniversary of the Erection of the Congrega- 
 tional Church in Farmington, Conn. Oct. 16, 1872. Hart- 
 ford, 8°, 75 pp. 
 
 John Stuart Mill's Autobiography. N. Y. Times, Nov. 4, 
 p. 2, col. 1-4. 
 
 1874 Philosophy in Great Britain and America : a supplementary 
 
 sketch. (Being Appendix I, to the 2nd vol. of : History of 
 
 Philosophy by Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg. New York, 8°,) pp. 
 
 349-460. 
 A New Philosophy. [G. H. Lewes's.] Springfield Daily 
 
 Republican, Feb. 3. Berkeley's Principles of Human 
 
 Knowledge. l7idependent,'Feh.5,p.9. The Autobiography 
 
 of an Atheist, [anon.] Scrib. Mo., vol. 7, pp. 600-611. 
 John Stuart Mill. Internat. Rev., vol. 1, pp. 385-406. 
 Baccalaureate Sermon, Yale College, 1874. (A discourse 
 
 delivered in the Chapel of Yale College, June 21, 1874.) 
 
 New Haven, 8°, 26 pp. 
 Modern Literature in its Relation to Christianity. Montreal 
 
 Daily Witness, Evangelical Alliance Extra, pp. 82-86, Oct. 
 The Scottish Philosophy. [McCosh's.] Independent, Nov. 
 
 19, p. 8. 
 The Anticipation of Death. "A Verified Experiment." 
 
 Christ-Union, vol. 10, p. 409. Same, [in : Apphia Thacher 
 
 (died in New Haven, August 23, 1874.) New Haven,] 12°, 
 
 pp. 15-21. 
 Mr. Mill's Last Essays. JV. Y. Times, Dec. 12, p. 6, col. 1-4. 
 
 1875 A Discourse commemorative of the Life and Character of the 
 
 late Joseph Eldridge, D.D., delivered in Norfolk, Conn.,
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DR. PORTER 299 
 
 Tuesday, May 25th, 1875, at the request of the North Asso- 
 ciation and Consociation of Litchfield County. Hartford, 
 8°, 20 pp. 
 
 The Methods of Ethics. By Henry Sidgwick. N. Y. Times, 
 Mar. 14, p. 10, col. 2-3. 
 
 A Pastorate of Forty Years. [Rev. Joseph Eldridge's.] 
 Christ. Union, April 28. 
 
 John Stuart Mill as a Religious Philosopher. Internat. Eev., 
 vol. 2, pp. 540-562. 
 
 Science and Sentiment. (Address at the 31st annual meet- 
 ing of the Mass. Teacliers' Assoc.) "Printed in full" in: 
 Boston Daily Advertiser, Dec. 29. 
 
 1876 Yale College. Two Sermons : I. On leaving the Old Chapel. 
 
 II. On entering the New. New Haven, 8°, 49 pp. 
 Memoir of the Hon. AVilliam A. Buckingham, LL.D. Histor. 
 
 and Geneal. Beg., vol. 30, pp. 9-15. 
 The Demonstration of Development. Independent, Sept. 28, 
 
 p. 16. 
 
 1877 John Stuart Mill, [and] John Stuart Mill as a Religious Phi- 
 
 losopher. Atlas essays. No. 2, New York, pp. 226-270. 
 Miracles and Prophecies which show the Bible Divine. [In : 
 
 God's Word Man's Light and Guide : a Course of Lectures 
 
 on the Bible, before the N. Y. Sunday School Assoc, by Drs. 
 
 Taylor, Briggs, etc. Amer. Tract. Soc, 12°,] pp. 169-199. 
 Rev. Noah Porter, D.D. : the pastorate of Noah Porter, D.D., 
 
 in Farmington, 1806-1866. [In : Papers of the General 
 
 Conference of the Congregational Churches in Connecticut, 
 
 1877. Hartford, 8°,] pp. 12-19. 
 Horace Bushnell. A Memorial Sermon preached in the 
 
 Chapel of Yale College, Sunday, March 26th, 1876. N. 
 
 Englander, vol. 36, pp. 152-109. Same, issued separately, 
 
 18 pp. 
 Mr. Cook's Lectures. A few criticisms. Independent, Oct. 
 
 11, pp. 5-6 ; Dec. 20, pp. 2-4. 
 A Modern Reformer. [Rev. J. M. Campbell.] Ibid., Nov. 
 
 15, pp. 1-2. 
 
 1878 The Pastorate of Noah Porter, D.D., in Farmington, 1800- 
 
 1866. Religious Herald, Hartford, Jan. 17, pp. 1-2.
 
 800 NOAH PORTER 
 
 1878 Professoi'Tyndall's Last Deliverance. N. EngIander,Yo\.S7, 
 
 pp. 35-57. Same, issued separately, same paging. 
 The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment. [A discussion by:] 
 
 I. Rev. N. Porter ; II. Rev. O. B. Frothingham ; III. Rev. 
 
 T. S. Preston ; IV. Rev. H. W. Bellows ; V. Rev. W. R. 
 
 Williams ; VI. Rev. T. J. Sawyer ; VII. Rev. N. Porter. 
 
 N. Amer. Rev., vol. 126, pp. 323-358. 
 Joseph Cook's "Transcendentalism," and "Orthodoxy." 
 
 [anon.] Scrib. Mo., vol. 15, pp. 894-895. 
 Physiological Metai3hysics ; or. The Apotheosis of Science by 
 
 Suicide. A philosophical meditation. Princeton Rev., 
 
 54th year, pp. 916-944. Same, issued separately, same 
 
 paging. 
 Prof. Newcomb's address. By Another Country Reader. 
 
 Independent, Dec. 12, pp. 1-2. 
 
 1879 Providence and Professor Newcomb. Ibid., Jan. 9, pp. 1-2 
 
 Jan. 16, pp. 4-5. 
 
 Contributions to : Yale College : a Sketch of its History 
 Edited by William L. Kingsley. New York. 2 vols., 4° 
 viz: Mental and Moral Science in Yale College, vol. 1 
 pp. 387-391. Preachers and Theologians among Yale Grad 
 uates, vol. 1, pp. 415-419. Farnam College, vol. 1, pp, 
 490-492. Edward Claudius Herrick, vol. 1, pp. 498-501 
 Additional Notices Respecting Instruction and Discipline 
 vol. 2, pp. 503-508. 
 
 On Science and Man, with special reference to Prof. Tyndall's 
 Late Address. [At Birmingham, Oct. 1877.] Kansas City 
 Rev., vol. 2, pp. 604-610. [Reprinted from the N. Y. 
 World oi Dec. i, 1878.] 
 
 Force, Law, and Design — a Philosophical Study for Non- 
 philosophical Readers. Princeton Rev., 55th year, pp. 463- 
 488. Same, issued separately, same paging. 
 
 Law and Design in Nature. JV. Amer. Rev., vol. 128, pp. 
 543-548. 
 
 Address. Modern Teaching : its Opportunities and its Perils. 
 22nd ann. repH Columbia Institution for the Deaf and 
 Dumb. Washington, 8°, pp. 5-13. 
 
 Modern Education : its Opportunities and its Perils. N. Enfj-
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DR. PORTER 301 
 
 lander, vol. 38, pp. 766-784. Same, issued separately, 
 same paging. 
 Professor Huxley's Exposition of Hume's Philosophy. 
 Princeton Bev., 55th year, pp. 421-450. 
 
 1880 Introductory Essay. [In: The Fundamental Concepts of 
 
 Philosophic Thought. By Rudolph Eucken. New York, 
 12°,] pp. iii-vii. 
 
 Science and Man : being Critical Remarks upon Prof. Tyn- 
 dall's Presidential Address, delivered before the Birmingham 
 and Midland Institute. Jour. Trans. Victoria Institute, 
 vol. 13, pp. 79-108, London. [Read by Proxy before the 
 Institute, Dec. 2, 1878.] Same, issued separately : Science 
 and Man ; to which is added the discussion thereon. Lon- 
 don, 8°, 30 pp. 
 
 Scottish Philosophy. McClintock and Strong'' s Cycl., vol. 9, 
 pp. 457-459. 
 
 Thoughts on Congregationalism — its Past and its Future. 
 N. Englander, vol. 39, pp. 96-123. Same, issued sepa- 
 rately, same paging. 
 
 The Bible for Learners. N. Y. Evening Post, Feb. 7. 
 
 The Christian College. An Address delivered at Wellesley 
 College, May 27th, 1880, at the laying of the corner-stone 
 of Stone Hall. Boston, sq. 12°, 31 pp. + pi. 
 
 The Newest Atheism. Princeton Rev., 56th year, pp. 359- 
 392. Same, issued separately, same paging. 
 
 Herbert Spencer's Theory of Sociology: a Critical Essay. 
 Ibid., pp. 268-296. 
 
 Report presented by the President to the Fellows of Yale 
 College at their annual meeting, October. [New Haven,] 
 8°, 25 pp. 
 
 The Brain as an Organ of the Mind. [Bastian's.] Indepen- 
 dent, Dec. 30, pp. 9-10. 
 
 1881 Agnosticism : a Doctrine of Despair. A Baccalaureate Ser- 
 
 mon, June 27, 1880. JST. Y. Amer. Tract Soc, 16°, 36 pp. 
 Reprint : Present Day Tracts, No. 8. London, Rel. Tract 
 Soc, cr. 8°, 32 pp. 
 George Eliot. Personal Recollections with Comments. Christ. 
 Union, Jan. 26.
 
 302 NOAH PORTER 
 
 1881 Reminiscences of Thomas Carlyle. Advance, May 12. 
 Professor David Paige Smith: a Memorial Discourse deliv- 
 ered in Battell Chapel, Yale College, June 27, 1881. [New 
 Haven,] 8°, 24 pp. + portrait. Same. JV. Englander, vol. 
 40, pp. 551-570. 
 
 Progress and Changes in Yale College in the last Fifteen 
 
 Years. A report submitted by the President to the Society 
 
 of the Alumni, June 28. [New Haven,] 8°, 11 pp. 
 Report of the President to the Fellows of Yale College, at 
 
 their Annual Meeting, October 31. [New Haven,] 8°, 
 
 15 pp. 
 What we mean by Christian Philosophy. A lecture delivered 
 
 before the Summer School of Christian Philosophy, l3th 
 
 July, [originally in Cincinnati, 1877.] Christ. Philos. 
 
 Quart., Oct., 16 pp., and Christ. Thourjht Mo., No. 2, pp. 
 
 33-48. 
 The Character of President Garfield. Independent, Oct. 6, 
 
 pp. 1-2. 
 The Late Dr. J. G. Holland. Ibid., Nov. 10, pp. 3-4. 
 The Kantian Centennial. Princeton Rev., 57th year, pp. 
 
 394-424. 
 
 1882 Evangeline : the place, the story and the poem. 
 
 With nineteen original illustrations by Frank Dicksee, 
 A.R.A. New York, London and Paris, fol., 32 pp. + 19 pi. 
 
 Science and Sentiment ; with other papers, chiefly philo- 
 sophical. New York, 12°, 506 pp. 
 
 The Late Dr. Bacon. Independent, Jan. 12. 
 
 The High School. The Argument for and against. Congre- 
 gationalist. Mar. 15. 
 
 The Fortieth Anniversary of the South Congregational Church 
 of Springfield, Sunday, March 26. Sermon, by Rev. Noah 
 Portei', D.D., LL.D., first pastor. Historical discourse, by 
 Rev. S. G. Buckingham, D.D., present pastor. Appendix. 
 Springfield, Mass., 8°, 91 pp. + 2 portraits + 2 pi. 
 
 The Collapse of Faith. I. Princeton Rev., 58th year, pp. 164- 
 184. XL Ibid., pp. 339-360. 
 
 Joseph Earl Sheffield. X. H. Evening Register, Feb. 16, p. 1. 
 
 A Discourse commemorative of the Life and Character of Mr.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DR. PORTER 303 
 
 Joseph Earl Sheffield, delivered at the Battell Chapel, June 
 26. New Haven, 8°, 35 pp. 
 The Science of Ethics. By Leslie Stephen. N. Y. Daily 
 Tribune, July 14, p. 6, col. 1-3. 
 
 1883 Christianity as History, Doctrine and Life. Ibid., No. 19, cr. 
 
 8°, 64 pp. Translated into Spanish, 1889 : Revista Cris- 
 
 tiana, aiio decimo. No. 217, 15 de Enero, and fig. nos. 
 Life of James Clerk Maxwell. Independent, Jan, 25, pp. 
 
 10-11. 
 Address, [in : Addresses delivered at the funeral of Lyman 
 
 Hotchkiss Atwater, D.D., LL.D., in the First Presbyterian 
 
 Church, Princeton, N. J., Tuesday, February 20. New 
 
 York, 8°,] pp. 5-27. 
 Dr. Atwater. Princeton Press, Feb. 24. 
 Leslie Stephen's Science of Ethics. N. Y. Evening Post, 
 
 Apr. 28. 
 The New England Meeting-house. N. Englander, vol. 42, 
 
 pp. 303-338. Same issued separately. 38 pp. 
 A College Fetich. Princeton Rev., 59th year, pp. 105-128. 
 An article printed in The Palladium, Oct. 8, 1883, [in : 
 
 Henry Farnam. A memorial volume, 8°,] pp. 120-130. 
 A Notable Work. Man a Creative First Cause, by Rowland 
 
 G. Hazard. N. H. Daily Palladium, Nov. 17, p. 2, col. 2. 
 Introduction, [to : Logic and Life. With other sermons. 
 
 By H. S. Holland. New York, 12°.] 
 
 1884 Addresses at the unveiling of the Joseph Henry statue, at 
 
 Washington, D.C., April 19, 1883, by Chief Justice Waite 
 
 . . . and Noah Porter. From the Smithsonian Report for 
 
 1883. Washington, 8°, 27 pp. 
 The Christian Ministry as a Profession and a Sacred Calling. 
 
 A few thoughts for students in our Colleges, and their 
 
 friends. Andover Rev., vol. 1, pp. 345-363. 
 Professor Samuel Wells Williams, LL.D. Missionary Herald, 
 
 vol. 80, pp. 130-135. 
 Shedd's edition of Coleridge's works. Independent, May 29, 
 
 pp. 10-11. 
 Greek and a Liberal Education. Princeton Rev., 60th year, 
 
 pp. 195-218.
 
 304 NOAH PORTER 
 
 1885 The Elements of Moral Science, Theoretical and Prac- 
 
 tical. New York (and London), 8°, xxv + 574 pp. 
 Many times reprinted without material change. Later 
 issues contain a revised index, increased by one page. 
 
 Introduction, [to: Metaphysicians, Psychologists, Moralists, 
 being Book 4 of : Hundred Greatest Men, edited by Wallace 
 Wood, New York, 8°,] pp. 195-198. 
 
 The Two-hundredth Birthday of Bishop George Berkeley : a 
 Discourse given at Yale College on the 12th of March, 1885. 
 New York, 8°, vii + 84 pp. -f pi. 
 
 A Criticism from Yale of the Last Harvard Educational Move 
 — Greek and the Bachelor's Degree, [anon.] N. Eng. and 
 Yale Rev., vol. 44, pp. 424-435. Same, issued separately, 
 same paging. 
 
 An Address [In : Memorial Addresses at the Unveiling of the 
 Bronze Statue of Professor Benjamin Silliman, at Yale Col- 
 lege, June 24, 1884. New Haven,] pp. 13-14. 
 
 The Charter of Yale College : the New Interpretations and 
 Proposed Changes. iV. England and Yale Rev., vol. 44, pp. 
 861-874. Same, issued separately, same paging. 
 
 1886 Farmington. [In vol. 2, of : The Memorial History of Hart- 
 
 ford County, Conn. By J. Hammond Trumbull. Boston, 
 8°,] pp. 163-198. 
 
 Kant's Ethics. A Critical Exposition. Chicago, 16°, xv 
 [xviii] -I- 249 pp. 
 
 Evolution. A Lecture read before the Nineteenth Century 
 Club, in the City of New York, May 25, 1886, New York, 
 8°, 33 pp. 
 
 In Memoriam. [Prof. T. A. Thacher.] An Address deliv- 
 ered in the chapel of Yale College, Sunday, April 18, 1886. 
 N. Eng. and Yale Rev., vol. 45, pp. 441-458. Same issued 
 separately, with title : Professor Thomas A. Thacher. In 
 Memoriam. 20 pp. 
 
 The Ideal Scholar. lY. Eng. and Yale Rev., vol. 45, pp. 
 537-559. 
 
 The late Professor James T. Hyde and his New Catechism. 
 Ibid., pp. 640-647. Same, issued separately, with title : In 
 Memoriam. The late Professor James T. Hyde. 10 pp.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BR. PORTER 305 
 
 1886 Letter to a Boy on entering College. From the Yonth's Com- 
 
 panion. Kentucky Wesleyan, vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 1-2. 
 Dr. George B. Farnam. N. H. Morn. News, Dec. 23. 
 
 1887 The Ideal Scholar. [In: Lectures delivered before the Stu- 
 
 dents of Phillips Exeter Academy, 1885-86. Boston, 1887, 
 8°,] pp. 145-179. 
 
 An Open Letter. To the Prudential Committee of the Ameri- 
 can Board. N. Eng. and Yale Rev., vol. 46, pp. 168-176. 
 Same from Ibid. : The American Board and Ecclesiastical 
 Councils. By Prof. Samuel Harris, D.D., Yale University. 
 An Open Letter to the Prudential Committee of the Ameri- 
 can Board. By Rev. Noah Porter, D.D., Yale University, 
 8°, 29 pp. 
 
 Physiological Ethics. New Princeton Rev., vol. 3, pp. 306- 
 328. 
 
 Marginalia Locke-n-ns.. N. Eng. and Yale Rev., vol. 47, pp. 
 33-49. Same, issued separately, same paging. 
 
 Memorial Sketch. [In : In Memoriam : Henry Coit Kings- 
 ley. New Haven, 8°,] pp. 5-15. 
 
 In Memoriam, Henry C. Kingsley, Treasurer of Yale Col- 
 lege 1862-1886. N. Eng. and Yale Rev., vol. 47, pp. 
 222-226. 
 
 1888 Fifteen Years in the Chapel of Yale College, 1871- 
 
 1886. New York, 8°, 413 pp. 
 Hutton's Essays. N. Eng. and Yale Rev., vol. 48, pp. 140- 
 
 142. 
 Darwin's Theory of Knowledge vs. his Theory of Evolution. 
 
 Ibid., pp. 205-208. 
 In Memoriam. George Bronson Farnam. Yale University, 
 
 April. [New Haven,] 8°, 15 pp. 
 James Martineau's Study of Religion. New Eng. and Yale 
 
 Rev., vol. 48, pp. 302-306. 
 The American Board and the Late Boston Council. Ibid., vol. 
 
 49, pp. 398-406. Same, issued separately, same paging. 
 
 1889 The Late Professor Green of Oxford — the "Doctor Grey" 
 
 of Robert Elsmere. N. Eng. and Yale Rev., vol. 50, pp. 
 1-16. 
 Simeon Baldwin Chittenden. Ibid., vol. 51, pp. 45-47.
 
 306 NOAH PORTER 
 
 1889 Mr. George S. Merriam's St07'y of William and Lucy 
 
 Smith. N. Eng. and Yale Rev., vol. 52, pp. .32-38. 
 
 The Unknown God. [C. L. Brace's.] Ibid., pp. 385-886. 
 
 Epitome of the Synthetic Philosophy. [F. H. Collins's.] 
 Ibid., pp. 463-464. 
 
 Reminiscences. [In: Henry Noble Day.] 8°, pp. 16-23. 
 [These are the last words prepared for the press by Presi- 
 dent Porter.] 
 
 1890 Webster's International Dictionary of the English 
 
 Language. Being the Authentic Edition of Webster's 
 Unabridged Dictionary. Comprising the Issues of 1804, 
 1879, and 1884. Now thoroughly revised and enlarged 
 under the Supervision of Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D., of Yale 
 University. Springfield, Mass., 4°, 2118 pp. 
 
 1891 [A Tribute to Dr. Wharton, in:] Francis ^Vharton. A Me- 
 
 moir. Philadelphia, 8°, pp. 250-252. 
 
 Xortoool) ^rrss : 
 
 J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith. 
 
 Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
 
 THE WORKS OF 
 
 NOAH PORTER, DD., LL.D., 
 
 Ex-President of Yale College. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF INTELLECTUAL SCIENCE. A Manual 
 
 for Schools and Colleges. One Vok, Svo, $3.00 
 
 This work is an abridgment of the author''s " Human In- 
 tellect," and contains all the matter necessary for use in the 
 class-room. The author has retained all the leading positions 
 of the original work, with many of the illustrations, occasionally 
 condensing the language, and not infrequently changing the 
 order and method of the argument. In order to meet the wants 
 of schools, as well as of colleges, some of the matter which is 
 less adapted to beginners has been printed in smaller type, and 
 may be reserved for review or omitted altogether. The work 
 has been introduced as a text-book in Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, 
 Bowdoin, Oberlin, Bates, Hamilton, Vassar, and Smith Colleges ; 
 Wesleyan, Ohio, Lehigh, Vanderbilt, DePauw, and Wooster 
 Universities, and many other colleges, academies, normal and 
 high schools. 
 
 The New York World. — "The abridgment is very well done, the state- 
 ments being terse and perspicuous." 
 
 TJie New York Tribune. — " Presents the leading facts of intellectual 
 science, from the author's point of view, with clearness and vigor." 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF MORAL SCIENCE. Theoretical and 
 Practical. One Vol., Svo ^S-oo 
 
 This treatise is intended primarily for the" use of college and 
 university students, and is prepared with reference to the class- 
 room. 
 
 I
 
 NOAH PORTER'S WORKS 
 
 It is in two parts. The first treats with great fulness " The 
 Theory of Duty" and unfolds comprehensively the psychology 
 of the moral powers and the nature of the moral relations, and 
 discusses the different theories and definitions that have been 
 put forward by the leading authorities of ancient and modern 
 times. In the consideration of the principal ethical authorities, 
 the New Testament has its fitting rank assigned to it, and while 
 the work may be considered in other respects the most complete 
 and scholarly treatise available for students, it is probably unique 
 in the prominence it gives to the theoretic import and value of 
 the Christian ethics, considered in its claims to human excellence 
 and human authority. 
 
 The second division, " The Practice of Duty or Ethics^'' takes 
 up the different classes of duties with a view to the practical 
 application of the principles of moral science to the questions 
 arising in every department of human activity. This part is 
 unusually interesting, and is marked by sagacious and clear 
 discrimination, united with a luminous and forcible presentation 
 of the claims of duty in accordance with the highest standards 
 of conduct in all the relations of life. 
 
 AUTHORITATIVE INDORSEMENTS AND PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 The British Quarterly Review. — " All students of ethics will be thankful 
 to receive this contribution to the science from a veteran worker and soldier 
 in this field of controversy. Dr. Porter's manuals, as well as his more abun- 
 dant exposition of intellectual philosophy, deservedly take high rank among 
 the defences of the most fundamental principles of spiritual religion. . . . 
 His classification of duties is excellent and comprehensive. His eloquent 
 pages will be a delightful reminiscence of his lecture-room to hundreds of 
 his pupils in all parts of the world. It would be difiicult to name any 
 volume, on this multifarious theme, which covers so much material, and 
 scarcely one where spiritual philosophy, theistic intuition, and true liberty 
 are blended with so encyclopaedic an analysis of personal, social, and 
 Christian ethics." 
 
 The Independent. — "There is no other text-book so well suited to the 
 requirements of most of our institutions of learning, and its author may 
 
 2
 
 NOAH PORTER'S WORKS 
 
 reasonably rejoice in the prospect of the diffusion of the truths that he has 
 so long maintained among generations of young men that he cannot hope 
 to influence personally." 
 
 THE HUMAN INTELLECT. With an Introduction upon Psy- 
 chology and the Human Soul. One Vol., 8vo, .... ^S-oo 
 
 The North American Review. — " This copious, well-digested treatise will 
 challenge the attention of students of philosophy on both sides of the ocean. 
 Discerning readers will appreciate the acute and vigorous tone of the discus- 
 sions, the familiarity with the course of speculation that is everywhere mani- 
 fest, and the obvious anxiety of the author to treat in a fair and manly spirit 
 the theories and arguments which he seeks to controvert." 
 
 The Princeton Review. — " After a careful examination of this truly great 
 work, we are ready to pronounce it the most complete and exhaustive ex- 
 hibition of the cognitive faculties of the human soul to be found in our 
 language, and, so far as we know, in any language." 
 
 The British Quarterly Review. — " President Porter's work, the result of 
 thirty years' professional labor, is not only the most important philosophical 
 work that has appeared in our language since Sir William Hamilton's, but 
 its form as a manual makes it invaluable to students." 
 
 BOOKS AND READING ; or, What Books Shall I Read, and 
 How Shall I Read Them? An Enlarged and Revised Edition. 
 One Vol., crown 8vo, with a complete Index, $2.00 
 
 The New York Observer.— "One of the ablest and most sensible and 
 instructive volumes which a lover of books can read." 
 
 The Christian Intelligencer. — "T'n^ work cannot be too highly recom- 
 mended to young men who wish to make the wisest and most profitable 
 employment of their time." 
 
 SCIENCE AND SENTIMENT. Papers Chiefly Philosophical. 
 One Vol., 8vo, ^2.50 
 
 The New York Exafniner.— " The reviewer does not often have the 
 pleasure of commending to intelligent readers a volume so delightful as this 
 of President Porter. We know of no living writer better qualified to deal 
 with the correlations of the scientific, philosophical, and religious questions 
 that are of paramount interest and importance in the discussions of the 
 time." 
 
 3
 
 NOAH PORTER'S WORKS 
 
 FIFTEEN YEARS IN THE CHAPEL OF YALE COLLEGE. 
 1871-1886. With Portrait. Crown 8vo, $2.50 
 
 The Ckristiatt Utiion. — "Fifteen of these sermons are Baccalaureate 
 sermons delivered to the successive graduating classes during the term of 
 Dr. Porter's presidency of Yale. They seem to us to possess the character- 
 istic of the inspired and the inspiring. Everywhere strong, everywhere 
 luminous, everywhere brave, they are words from a great and earnest soul 
 whose face is bare to eternal realities, shining with a light as from the 
 Mount of God." 
 
 The Coitgregationalist. — " They are all notable for learning, wisdom, 
 spiritual fervor, and practical adaptation to the actual needs of thoughtful 
 minds. Not only those who listened to them, but hundreds of others, will 
 welcome and enjoy them." 
 
 THE TWO HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY OF BISHOP GEORGE 
 BERKELEY. A Discourse Given at Yale College, i2tli of 
 March, 1885. Small quarto, net, ^2.00 
 
 %* Limited edition, of five hundred copies, printed by DeVinne, on 
 Holland paper. With an Artotype of the painting, by Longbert, of Dean 
 Berkeley and his friends. 
 
 [Extract /rotn Pre/ace.^ 
 
 "The memory of Berkeley will always be fresh and fragrant with all 
 generous and thoughtful souls. The facts are not without interest, that 
 Berkeley's name is connected with one of the most interesting and delight- 
 ful points of land that looks out upon the stormy Atlantic towards the "still- 
 vexed Bermoothes," where he hoped to locate his college, and has also 
 been attached to the beautiful site of the University of California, which 
 commands the golden gate that opens into the great Pacific. 
 
 " Not only has his own prophecy been fulfilled, — 'Westward the course 
 of Empire takes its way," — but his name has also gone westward to hallow 
 and inspire all those enterprises of education and religion such as he desired 
 to initiate, which distinguish and glorify that greater kingdom of God, which 
 sooner or later shall encircle ' the round world,' and bless all those who 
 dwell therein." 
 
 *j(f* The above books for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or 
 express charges paid, upon receipt of the price by the publishers, 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 
 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 
 4
 
 AA 001149120 6
 
 n^- A-w:3-«^-u^: 
 
 
 
 Date 
 
 Due 
 
 
 APR :^ 
 
 1971 
 
 
 
 APR 
 
 3 1973 X 
 
 
 
 JUN ] 
 
 . 6 13/J 
 
 
 
 «i iibi 
 
 9 1 Hf\r 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ brary Bureau Cat. No. 1137
 
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