Ethics of Literature 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN A. KERSEY 
 
 "Of bunmii life the time is a point, eiiid the siibstniice is in a flux, and 
 the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putre- 
 faction, and the soul in a -whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a 
 thing devoid of judgment. * * * PVhat then is that which is able to con- 
 duct a man? One thing and only one, philosophy." — Antoninus. 
 
 "rJtiid no man knows dhtinctly anything, 
 And no man ever will." — Xenophanes. 
 
 MARION, IND. 
 
 E. L. GoLDTHWAiT & Co., Printers and Binders 
 
 1894 
 
Copyright by Author, 1894. 
 

 "Pythagoras, who often teaches 
 Precepts of magic, and with speeches 
 Of long high-sounding diction draws 
 From gaping crowds a vain applause." 
 
 — Tinwii's Silli. 
 
 ^500154 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 To the candid and energetic Thinker who would not stultify 
 himself for an unintelligible faith, independent without insolence, 
 incredulous without irreverence, who prefers his judgment (con- 
 science?) to fashionable fancies and fanatacisms, and who loathes 
 the gilded rot with which an exclusive regime regales a reading 
 world, the following pages are respectfully inscribed. 
 
A VOICE FROM NEW JERSEY. 
 
 The applause of the thoughtless multitude is not always a safe criterion of 
 the value of any production of human genius, whether in the field of industry, 
 art or science, and, least of all, perhaps, in that of literature. The works of 
 hundreds of authors which, in their day, were lauded to the skies and pro- 
 nounced immortal — yet dropped out of existence as completely as if they had 
 never aroused the ephemeral' applause of confused enthusiasm — furnish a melan- 
 choly illustration of the trustworthiness of contempory ciiticism. Wide pub- 
 licity does not establish intrinsic worth, and the rebuke of one wise man, if 
 sincere, outweighs the frantic approval often thousand fools. 
 
 But while all error, prejudice and false sentiment is doomed, eo ipso, to be 
 superseded by the recognition of truth as soon as the torch of enlightenment is 
 carried far enough by the foremost minds of the age, yet- some illusions are 
 deliberately retained and fostered beyond their legitimate scope, for reasons 
 which cannot well be expressed here in few words. 
 
 The exaggerated praise which is still bestowed upon authors who have 
 produced little of intrinsic merit, or who have been put into the shade by those 
 whom the world has but tardily deigned to recognize, must always depressingly 
 affect minds that are capable of adding to this world's store of wisdom, and 
 who fain would expedite the course of general advancement. 
 
 There are certain authors whose works, nowadays, are practically never 
 read, yet whom everybody deems it his duty to eulogize inordinately. Tradi- 
 tional veneration, misapplied hero-worship and erroneous education are mainly 
 responsible for this. We are taught from infancy to look upon certain writers, 
 poets, philosophers, etc., as paragons, and never to question their genius, or 
 subject their productions to a closer analysis, with a view of determining their 
 real caliber. Ignoring a great mind is bad enough, but placmg a poor one on a 
 pedestal, bestowing unmerited praise upon mediocrity, and setting up a false 
 standard of excellence, are infmitely worse. 
 
 A careful perusal of Mr. John A. Kersey's "Ethics of Literature'' has brought 
 me to the conclusion that the hour has come at last when the cobwebs of ec- 
 static eulogy, absurd glorification and general hoodwinking, which have gath- 
 ered around some of the literary idols of the last three generations, are about to 
 be swept away, once and forever. Let those who cannot bear the truth stand 
 aside! 
 
 There will be a great howl raised against these essays by those who are 
 linked to inherited notions by all the ties of interest, prejudice and conceit, but 
 Mr. Kersey wields a formidable scimitar, and i am proud to excercise the privi- 
 lege of recording my opinion that the "Ethics of Literature" will live, and of 
 congratulating this bold and brilliant champion of the cause of truth. 
 
 Heinrich Hensoldt. 
 
 Paterson, New Jersey. 
 
A GRATUITOUS OPINION. 
 
 A gratuitous opinion is usually worth just what it costs. So it may be with 
 this, but even a hasty glance at the manuscript of the Ethics of Literatuie reveals 
 some things, which it may not be out of place to mention, and recalls some 
 others which it may not be amiss to note. 
 
 Many a sentence has fallen from the lips of obscurity which coming from 
 celebrity would be valued as a grain of gold. Many an adage is accepted be- 
 cause of its age. Many a proverb has been accepted because of the must and 
 the mould which years have given it. Many a book has been bought and read 
 and admired because of the name on the title page. This book may neither be 
 bought nor read nor admired, but there are grains of gold in it, nevertheless. It 
 has neither the must nor the mould of age, nor has it the glamour of a great 
 name to recommend it, but there is much in it that is worth attention. 
 
 He who buys a book because the literary popes have recommended it, will 
 wait for holy sanction before he buys or reads this. He whose digestive appar- 
 atus has been weakened by prescribed diet to a degree that requires gruel as 
 food for thought, will wait for a prescription before he touches this, but he who 
 chews, digests and assimilates for himself needs but to glance at the table of 
 contents to find some things that he wants. 
 
 The author of this book has been reading. More tlian that, he has been 
 thinking. He has been in search, not for what somebody else says, or thinks, 
 but for what is. He has read "not to contradict nor to believe, but to weigh 
 and consider." It is clear that long ago he had reached that rare condition of 
 mind in which one can be himself. He has read for himself and thought for 
 himself. His work is therefore original. 
 
 Dullness swallows dogma because it is dogma. Acumen rejects it from 
 sheer inability to accept it, hence there is much in this book to stamp the 
 author with the brand of heresy in the estimation of the literary authorities. It 
 is none the worse for that. To many it will be the better. 
 
 The value of a production is less in what the author thinks than in the de- 
 gree to which he sets the reader to thinking. In this book there are both tonic 
 and stimulus. He who reads it will thereafter think none the less for himself. 
 Let him read carefully, and he will be all the more himself. The work is not 
 only original, but it appeals to the individuality of the reader. 
 
 No man is ever free from the bias of preconception, but the author of this 
 book has had neither creed to support nor creed to destroy. He is neither 
 Protestant nor Catholic, neither deist nor atheist. He is neither religious nor 
 anti-religious bigot. He has sought the truth. 
 
 It is not unlikely that he will be crucified by the critics, for to-day as well as 
 century and a half ago, there are those who "have still an itching to deride." 
 
 W. H. Sanders. 
 
 Marion, Ind. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 If men were so concerned to have as they are disposed to 
 affect wisdom, it would not be so rare; and the flood of learned 
 jargon with which the world is deluged would not he so over- 
 whelming. The results of their misguided energies, while less 
 voluminous, might be more edifying to their readers, and possi- 
 bly more gratifying to the ambitious writers. At all events the 
 world would not suffer from an abatement of the prevalent 
 ardor for authorship. My library, selected from time to time, 
 and with a view to literary utility, contains many eubullitions, 
 instances of the inability of the wise to suppress the divine 
 afflatus. From the times of the Socratic Ph^do and the Eucli- 
 dian Phoenix on down through the cycles to those of the Anal- 
 ogy and the Age of Reason, and to the present, there have been 
 few wilful violations of the edict against concealing light under 
 a bushel. In view of the universally inherent communicative- 
 ness of the learned the admonition were quite superfluous; they 
 seldom deserve censure for knowing more than they are willing 
 to impart to or inflict upon their fellows. 
 
 Were true wisdom commensurate with or if it pervaded 
 the mass of what is written, one of average capacity would 
 grapple but feebly with its immensity, and the meagre allotment 
 of three score and ten would scarcely suffice to invoice the vari- 
 ous and voluminous effluvia. But wisdom and learning are 
 not convertible terms. Great learning may be evinced in the 
 ethereal imagery of the Poet, in the recondite reasoning of the 
 rationalist, and in the carping cavil of the critic, without aug- 
 menting or e.xalting wisdom. As numerous and various as 
 are the subjects of the countless contributions to the immeas- 
 urable mass, slight acumen will suffice to detect the invariable 
 object of their authors. Myriad memorials are left to remind 
 an ungrateful world of its obligations to the illustrious dead. 
 Some seem destined to abide with time and thought. It is dif- 
 
8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ficult to conceive why some should endure to stigmatize liter- 
 ature and the memory of their authors. Many of stupid self- 
 conceit are buried in oblivion ere their authors escape to the 
 tomb, and many others should be. 
 
 A ramble through this field and a view of some of the labor- 
 ers and their works may not be amiss in one whose life has 
 been a contemplation of and devotion to it. A candid inquiry 
 into their various merits may work no more ill than slightly to 
 increase the mass, the bulk of which embarrasses more than it 
 edifies the votary to progress, engenders thought as variegated 
 as the features and complexions of men, and hinders rather than 
 promotes the march of intellect. The paradoxical position that 
 one properly niay write to show that too much is already writ- 
 ten is confidently assumed. The manner in which it is main- 
 tained and its success are matters for the discernment of the 
 reader. One ought not to bespeak charity for such a work as 
 is here proposed. Yet such a plea might be prompted if not 
 excused by a due appreciation of the magnitude of the under- 
 taking. If self-conceit blinds some writers to their own folly, it 
 may sustain others against a humiliating consciousness of infer- 
 iority. Were my position consistent with justification by pre- 
 cedent, it might be observed that one is not far from fashion 
 merely in the fact that his own overweening assurance is the 
 only assurance he has that he will not meet merited mortifi- 
 cation. 
 
 The boldness of the undertaking will dwindle to diffidence 
 when compared with the effrontery of savants, prescribing the 
 plans and portraying the purposes of Providence. Under their 
 auspices and with a servile sycophancy Religion is found catch- 
 ing at the hem of the garment of Science. Its apologists (not 
 its promoters) assume the authority to enunciate a divine 
 (moral .^) philosophy, to vouch for the veracity of divine verity, 
 and to defend Omnipotence against Impotence, whose assaults 
 derive their chief importance from the concern of pedantic fan- 
 atics. 
 
 1 propose to inquire what some great literary luminaries 
 have done, and to show in some instances what were better 
 left undone, for the enlightenment of Mankind. And in this 
 
PREFACE. 9 
 
 retrospect we will observe the acknowledged Titans engaged 
 in Herculean labors to establish truths which, in the nature of 
 things and of mind, are either self-evident or unprovable. We 
 will observe minds which have given the world some of the 
 most superb thought, grouping the rarest gems in clusters with 
 the veriest peter-funk. We will behold exhibitions of power out 
 of all proportion with principle, in many instances entirely with- 
 out it, — but occasionally we will be refreshed with an instance in 
 which the renown of the author is not the soul of his effort, and 
 his profit is not its stimulus. 
 
 He who intelligently and conscientiously writes for the bet- 
 terment of Mankind, deserves the abiding respect and gratitude 
 of the race. He who writes to assert himself, or for his own 
 profit, deserves undisturbed oblivion, and to 'Till his belly with 
 the husks that the swine did eat," He who writes to foster 
 fanaticism, sanction superstition, or vindicate vice, especially in 
 its priestly robes, deserves notice only for the purpose of exe- 
 cration. As they pass in review a superficial glance might in 
 some instances betray the beholder into undeserved and ill- 
 advised condemnation, or, commendation. A close examin- 
 ation, a careful consideration, and candid conclusion are due to 
 the subject, to its writer, and to the reader. And they will dis- 
 close that if utility were recognized as an element in the law 
 of literature, thousands of groaning shelves would be relieved 
 of their burdens by bonfires throughout the length and breadth 
 of the civilized world. There should be no statutes of limita- 
 tion in literature. Titles should not be acquired by prescrip- 
 tion. Quackery, imposture, and frivolity, should not be made 
 venerable with mere age. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 
 
 Butler's Argument Presented to the Queen — Erroneously Termed an Analogy — 
 Analogy Would have Suggested Non-resistance— Cause had Flourished Under 
 Opposilion — Inconsistency of Attacks Upon, and Defence of Religion 
 — Religion Necessarily Unreasonable— Spiritual Existence can Neither be 
 Proved nor Disproved — Unaccountable Mystery in Physical Phenomena — 
 The Spiritual Inlinitely more Mysterious — Man, more than Animated Physical 
 Substance — Changed Condition of Substance in Physical Death — Desire for 
 Esteem after Death, Based on Idea of Future Existence — Spiritual Phenomena 
 Infinitely more Abstruse than Physical — Religious Fanaticism Unduly 
 Opposes Skepticism — Sanction of Religion, Necessarily a Future Existence- 
 Analogy must be Continuous — Its Continuity Ruins its Argument — Analogy 
 Between Physical and Spiritual Existence implies eternally Recurring Integ- 
 rations and Diffusions of Soul-substance — Injustice of Punishment — Irrever- 
 ence of Apologetics — Results, the only Reasonable Argument for or 
 Against a Religious System. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 religion's OBSEQ.UIOUS HOMAGE TO SCIENCE. 
 
 Prefatory Apologies for Theological Discussion Imply its Impropriety — Natural 
 Law in Spiritual World, Based on Analogy Between the Two Spheres 
 — Religion Derives no New Credential from Philosophy — Paul Placed it 
 Above Science — Kant's Idea of Socratic Method — Unfair Methods of Fanat- 
 ics, Requiring Disproof— Nicodemus Put Upon His Own Faith — Analogy 
 Posits Beginning and End of Eternity — Truculence of Theology to Science 
 — Heredity Illustrates Absurdity of Analogy — Periods and Progress Irrecon- 
 cilable With Eternal Spiritual Existence — Inanimate Spirit-Substance Re- 
 quisite to Analogy— Biogenesis Implies Beginning and Ending of Life of 
 Almighty — Apologetics Implies Insufficiency of Divine Authority — Spencer- 
 Religion to Be Such, Must Be an Absolute Mystery — Law of Death — Na- 
 ture Squaring Her Account With Sin — Man and the Lily — Heredity and 
 Environment — Impropriety and Irreverence in Alleged Religious Philosophy. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 EPIC APOLOGETICS. 
 Paradise Lost, the Grandest of all Metrical Apologetics — Its Purpose to Assert 
 and Justify Eternal Providence — Admits Uncertainty of Existence and Jus- 
 
12 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 tice of the Almighty — Atheist Supposed — Argument Would Confuse More 
 Than Convince Him — Incongruity Obscured by Grandeur, Extravagance, 
 Metaphor, Etc — Occasion and Object of Creation — Imply Free-will and 
 Fatalism — Fall of Man, Bad Economy — Providence Responsible — Philoso- 
 phy of Poem Overrated — Meant to Immortalize Poet — Skepticism Over- 
 rated — Miracle, Prophecy, and Revelation, as Authoritative for One System 
 as Another — Audacity of Theological Reasoning — Question Personal to 
 Each Individual— Neither Freedom Nor Fatalism Can be Made to Appear 
 Reasonable— Gibbon's Tribute to Christianity. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 Prologue to Essay On Man Assumes Marvelous Wisdom of Poet — Dissimula- 
 tion as to Integrity of Purpose — Providential Plan a Confusion— Vindication 
 Necessarily illogical — To Reason About Providence From what we Know 
 is to Reason From Nothing — Necessity of Man to System a Groundless As- 
 sumption — Coherency of System— Freedom and Fatalism irreconcilable — 
 If Whatever is is Right Man's Errors are Right — The Ways of Providence 
 Must be Known Before They Can be Vindicated — All Knowlege is Acquir- 
 ed — Conditions Must be Unknown — Poetry May Flourish in Metaphysics 
 — Taine's strictures on the Poet — Foul Blots on the Poetry of the Essay — 
 Indefinite Purpose and Ambition of the Poet. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 POETICAL PARASITISM. 
 Metropolis of Seventeenth Century Literature — Dominated by a Pensioner of 
 Royalty — Paid Panegyric — Loathsome character of Subjects Praised — 
 Malevolent Satire of Those in Disfavor with Royalty — Catholicism Ridi- 
 culed in the Absalom and Achitophel — The "Chief Justice's Western 
 Campaign'' — Protestantism Ridiculed in the "Hind and Panther" — Kings's 
 Southeastern Campaign — Egotism of the Laureate — Cause of His Popu- 
 larity. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PHILOSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY, AND EGOTISM. 
 Literary Heterogeneity — Books Should go Upon Their Own Merit, and Not 
 Upon the Prestige of Their Writers— Style Best Suited to Writer May be 
 Disgusting to the Reader — Folly of Philosophizing in Terms of Buffoonery 
 — Sentiment of the Sartor Resartus Deserves Decent Expression — Author 
 Impersonated in Teufelsdrockh — Art of Printing Disbands Armies and 
 Cashiers Senates — Defiance of Politico-Religious Oppression — Cringing to 
 Royalty — indifference to the Marvellous — Coarse Vulgarity of Allusion — 
 Instance of Similarity to Kant's View of the Cosmology— Nature Not an 
 Aggregate But a Whole— Persistence of Force — Smithy-fire— Matter Exists 
 Spiritually, to Body-forth Ideas — Infancy of Teufelsdrockh— Unprecedented 
 
CONTENTS. 13 
 
 Egotism of Philosopher — Stricture on European Educational System — Great 
 Ability Squandered in Eccentricity and Buffoonery — The French Revolu- 
 tion, (A History — Norse Jarl — ^John Sterling — Mother Goose in Men's 
 Clothes — Spring Poetry — Witty Criticism of English Biography — Undue 
 Importance Given a Mountebank — Important Historical Fact and Deep 
 Philosoph) Rendered Ridiculous. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. 
 
 Translators Should Translate and not Paraphrase — Historians Should Narrate 
 and not Philosophize — Equivalence of Thought Psychologically Possible — 
 Equivalence of Expression Philologically Possible — Literary Economy — 
 Recriminations of Translators and Editors — Modern Reader's Assurance 
 that He gets the Meaning of the Ancient Writer — Provisional Validity of 
 Lucretius' Philosophy — Economy of Nature in Time and Space — Religion 
 and Superstition — Parallel Between Invocations of Lucretius and Milton — 
 Disagreement Among Translators — Improvised Data of Philosophy — Its 
 Weakness for Parallels — Primordial Atom Impossible — Annihilation and 
 Diminuition Impossible — Self Propulsion Impossible — Nature Only Another 
 Name for the Almighty — Freedom Attributed to Irregularity of Voluntary 
 Atomical Motion — Mediaeval Papacy Attempts to Enslave Thought — Mor- 
 tality and Immortality Conclusively Proved by Reasoning of Lucretius and 
 Socrates — Insuperable Antinomy — Disgusting Allusions of Philosophers — 
 Literary Toadyism. 
 
 CHAPTER Vlll. 
 
 nature's poet. 
 
 Treasures Among Trash — Symmetry of The Ages — The Poets Medium Between 
 Optimism and Cynicism — Civilization a Constant Rhythmical Growth 
 — Good and Evil Necessarily Relative — Poetry of Nature an Effusion of the 
 Soul and not a Product of Genius — Personal Merit an Absurdity — Constitu- 
 tion and Environment — Integration and Diffusion — Mechanical Cause of 
 Feeling and Emotion — Contemptible Spirit that Seeks Consolation for 111 
 in the Reflection that Others also Suffer — Attention an Effort — Universal 
 Weakness for Flattery — Philosophy Works over the Old More than it De- 
 velops the New — Celestial and Terrestrial Paternity of Man — The Coolest 
 Deductions of Physics as Extravagant as the Wildest Flights ot Poetry — 
 Hymn to Death. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. • 
 
 obscurity AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 
 
 Criticism vs. Production — Culture the only legitimate Purpose of Literature — 
 Its Purports not Generally Understood — The Masses Affect a Taste lor that 
 Which they cannot Comprehend — Pedantry Displays Writer's Resources 
 Without Promoting Reader's Intellectual Attainment — Obligations of 
 
14 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Writers — Scene of the Table Round — Legendary Origin of Arthur — Excali- 
 bur the Cross-Hilted Sword — Poetry's Weakness for Similitudes — Gareth's 
 inspiration — His Mother's Dissimulation — His Exploits — ^Geraint Casually 
 Meets the Queen — Insulted by Dwarf of Stranger Knight — Traces the Ver- 
 min to their Earth — Entertained by Yniol — In Love with Enid — Overcomes 
 Edyrn — Marries Enid — ^Jealousy and Brutality — Absurdity of Plot and De- 
 nouement — Merlin and Vivien — Romance Overdone — Lancelot and Elaine- 
 Over-virtuous Rake — The Holy Grail — Ambrosius and Percivale — The 
 Blunting and Glancing and Shooting of Love — The Nun's Vision — Lance- 
 lot's Bastard Galahad— The Siege Perilous — Second Death of Merlin — 
 Descent of the Grail — The King Fighting on the Frontier While his Knights 
 Revel at the Table Round — Arthur's Return — The Order Disperse in Quest 
 of the Grail — Enoch's Translation Out-done — Percivale Meets a Widow 
 who had been His first Love — Invited to Marry — Pelleas and Ettare — Her 
 Insolence to the Queen — His Persistent Suit— Gawain's Intervention and 
 Perfidy — Pelleas' Magnanimity — Repairs to the Cloister — Rushes There- 
 from, Rides Down a Crippled Beggar, Attacks Lancelot, is Overthrown, 
 Follows Him to Arthur's Hall, and Insults Lancelot and the Queen — 
 Modred Appears— The Last Tournament— Tristram and Dagonet Philoso- 
 phize — Nestling's Rubies, Prize at Tournament — Awarded to Tristrarji — 
 His Amour with Isolt — Mark's Way — Insipidity of Denouement— Guine- 
 vere — Modred Hounds Her Trying to Learn Facts that Everyone Knew — 
 His Hatred to Lancelot — The Queen's Flight to the Sanctuary— Madness of 
 Farewells with Lancelot— Her last Interview with Arthur— Passing of 
 Arthur — Battle in Lyonesse — Chancel and Cross in Heathen Wilderness— 
 Fl.iborated Disposition of Excalibur — High-toned Twaddle— Beauty of The 
 Enoch Arden— Unphilosophic Philosophy of the In Memoriam. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 
 Plain English Amply Sufficient Medium for Expression of all Ideas— Impertin- 
 ency (jt Apologetics — Bishop Blougram's Apology a Learned Vagary — Its 
 Merit with Readers is the Prestige of its Author— Aristocratic Blackguard- 
 ism—Worldly Priest-craft— Money Makes the Spiritual Mare Go— The 
 Skeptic's Ideal too lofty to be realized— Ocean Voyage of a Life— Faith Ab- 
 solute Fixed and Final an Impossibility— Religion Based in Selfishness- 
 Faith Valid Because it Must be So— Cowardice and Dissimulation of Apol- 
 ogetics—Believer Under Surveillance of the World in his Service ol the 
 Lord— Belief not Within Personal Control— Creation Declares Instead of 
 Conceals the Creator. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 
 Elaboration of Preludes to Literary Productions— Indefinite Impulse to Write— 
 
CONTENTS. I S 
 
 Verifying Inspiration in Reason — Philosophy Rises no Higher than Proba- 
 bility — Pleasure in Being Duped — The Reverence Due to Man — Economy 
 of the Process by which Destiny is Reached — Destiny of Man Hanging 
 Upon Individuals — Individuals Mere Instrumentalities — The Most Myster- 
 ious the Most Easily Discernible — Man's Weakness Due to his Mistrust 
 — If Evidence Divine were Credible to Man he Would Trust — Constitution, 
 Environment, Duty, and Destiny — Self-restraint, an Unreasonable Re- 
 quirement — Defying the Reason whose Sanction was to be Obtained — 
 Reason cannot Live in the Altitudes to which the hnagination Soars. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION, AND METAPHOR. 
 Extent and Variety of Literary Domain — Individuality of Persons in their Books 
 — Eccentricity taken for Genius — -Philosophy More than Classification — Lit- 
 eratures do not Spring Up — Change the Deepest of all Subjects of Thought 
 — Literature Chief Product of Mind — Taine's Imaginary Revolution, Intel- 
 lectual and Literary — Misuse of Truisms — Unreasonable Account ot Rise of 
 Various Religions — Taine's Compliment to American Intellectuality — His 
 Proposition that Religion is a Human Product — Sources of his Source — 
 Tacit Rage of Scandinavians Still Survives in Sombreness of English La- 
 borer—Puritan Disposition an Outgrowth of Scandinavian Rage — The 
 New Tongue — -Pagan Renaissance, its Civilization — Christianity Connected 
 the Literature of the Time before the Fall of the Roman Empire with that 
 of the Middle Ages — Generalization Resorted to to Avoid Contradiction- -The 
 Philosophic Historian's Nightmare, Change — The Deathly Poetic Spirit — 
 Definitely ascertained Psychology of a People Impossible — Imagination of 
 a Feudal Hero — Intellectual Servitude — Physical Force the Basis of Thought 
 — Imitation and Invention in Nature — Ecclesiastical Oppression — Monothe- 
 ism vs. Polytheism — Methods and Philosophies Arising from Spirit of the 
 Age — r<elation Between the Theatre and Literature — Poetry and Painting 
 as Arts Older than History — Products of Ages — The Derivation of Religions 
 the Strongest Argument Against Them — No Religion can be Reasonable — 
 Scope of the Religious hnagination — Paradise Lost more Tragic than Epic— 
 Taine's Metaphorical Criticism of Milton's Metaphor — Loathsome Classics, 
 Temple, Waller, Wycnerly and Others — French and English War of 179; 
 Not a Conflict of Literatures — The Spectator, its Decline — Dean Swift a 
 Monstrosity — German Language never Facilitated Philosophic Thought^ — 
 Periodicity of Change in Thought and Literature — -Accounting for Literary 
 Freaks — No Age calls Forth any Specific Quality of Literature — Obligations 
 of Literary Integrity. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 
 Genius Drawing Upon Mystery — Question, Existence and Justice of Almighty — 
 
1 6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Division of Knowledge, a Triori and a Posteriori — Purpose of Knowledge 
 a Priori Impossible — Copernicus, Kant's Parallel — Proving Actuality of 
 Objects Assumed by Reference to Faculty of Assumption — All Knowledge 
 Necessarily Empirical — Analysis of Fourteen of Kant's Postulates — Analysis 
 of Eight More of his Postulates — Space and Time not mere Forms of Intu- 
 ition, but Objects of Thought— Representations of Space Must be Obtained 
 From Relations of External Phenomena — Primitive Cognition Wholly Im- 
 possible — Consciousness Must be Evoked — No Knowledge Without Con- 
 sciousness — All Knowledge Derived — Time is of Objective Validity without 
 Regard to Phenomena Other than Itself— Things are, Regardless of Our 
 Cognitions of Them — Outward Objects are More than Mere Representa- 
 tions — Appearances must be of Things Appearing — Substance must have 
 Form and Form must be of Substance — Abstraction of our Subjective 
 Nature Abolishes Thought, even the Thought Necessary to the Abstraction 
 — Things Known Only by their Relations — Thing as a Thing in Itself, Un- 
 thinkable^Relations of Things the Bulk of Knowledge — Philosophy De- 
 generates into Apologetics. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 
 But one Logic — No Cognition without Content— Conception has no a priori 
 Relation to Object — No Universal Criterion of Truth — Understanding not 
 Distinct from Sensibility — No Representation of Undetermined Object — 
 Judgment Necessarily Composite — Negative Content of Predicate an Ab- 
 surdity — No Logical Extent of Judgment Beyond Content of the Cognition 
 • — No Difference Between Internal Necessity and External Cause — Principles 
 of Philosophy not Expressed in Alternatives — Mind (Soul) a Physical Con- 
 dition — Modality of judgments must Add to their Value — No Distinction 
 Between the Tiue and the Necessary— False Judgment Cannot be Basis of 
 Cognition of Truth— Sensibility has Nothing Primitively and Derives Noth- 
 ing Except Empirically, Hence no Sensibility a priori — No Spontaneity 
 of Thought — Synthesis must be a posteriori and not a priori. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 
 Conception of Cause has no a priori Basis in the Understanding — Necessity 
 as Basis of a priori Knowledge, Insufficient — Necessity Itself Known only 
 Empirically — t^ prior i-\sm Inverts Order of all Supposable Cognition — 
 Intuition is some Form of Apprehension of Phenomena — Sensation the 
 Basis of all Intelligence — Content of Representation — Capacity to Have, is 
 not Form of, Intuition — No act of Understanding can be Unconsciously 
 Done — No Purely Spontaneous Activity of Subject — Intuition is not an Un- 
 decomposable Mental Act — Unity (as distinguished from union) in any 
 Element of Thought is Unthinkable — Apperception is Empirical — Difficul- 
 ties of the Critique — Cheap Criticisms. 
 
CONTENTS. 1 7 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 
 
 Press-notices of Publications — Interpretation of Philosophies — No Division of 
 Parties in Knowledge — No Fundamental Principles — Absolute Certainty, 
 Unthink3ble — Consciousness Necessarily Empirical — Propositions must 
 Contain Subject, Copula, and Predicate — Predicating a thing of Itself is no 
 Proposition — There can be no Consciousness without Self-consciousness — 
 Activity and Passivity to be Reciprocal, must Determine each Other — 
 Fichte's Example of Interchangeable Propositions is mere Difterence in the 
 Form of one Proposition— The Validity of Memory — The Past an Actuality 
 — Memory is not Purely of the Mind — Religion incompatible with Reason — 
 Philosophy's Limit of Infinity. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 
 Motives mean Nothing without Their Sanctions, and Sanctions are Based in 
 Personal Interest — Man can be Operated on Only by Hope and Pear, like 
 the Brute; the Difference is merely in Degree — Moral Action Implies Per- 
 sonal Accountability — Reason Incompatible with Morality and Religion — 
 Intellectual and Moral Powers are but one Power — All Intelligence Acquired, 
 and Moulded by an inherited Frame-work of Thought — Unless Man can, 
 Independently of his Antecedents and Environment, Determine his own 
 Constitution and Education, he cannot be Accountable — Reason cannot be 
 Invoked to Verify Something not Understood — Apologetics Posits a Mys- 
 tery as the Basis of Religion, and then Seeks to Verify ihe Religion in Rea- 
 son — Conscience a Refined Selfishness, Provincial and Conventional — Con- 
 science is a Growth, a Sanctimonious Selfishness — The Christian Redemp- 
 tion, an Exhibition of Pure Selfishness — Belief beyond Control. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF FALvST. 
 The Tragedy Sixty Years in Incubation — The Philosophy Takes all Purpose Out 
 of Religion— Nothing can be Thought as Self Limited — Duality of Man's 
 Nature, as Incomprehensible as the Trinality of God's Nature^Parallel 
 Between Faust and Job, Both were mere Chattels — Satan Imposed on in 
 Both Transactions — Divine Jugglery — No Possible Occasion for More than 
 One Compact in the Tragedy — Faust's Sudden Transition from Philosopher 
 to Rake — No Duty without Freedom — Von Ihering's View ot Shylock's 
 Claim — Dissimulation is Dishonest in any Cause — ^Justice Required Faust to 
 Refuse Salvation — Abstract Principles Cannot be Personified in Tragedy. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 COMPARATIVE APOLOGETICS. 
 Comparison of Christianity and Buddhism Implies Belief in Both — Validity In- 
 
1 8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 correctly Based on Popularity — Superiority of Buddhism Implied in the 
 Argument — Both Systems Based on Idea of Universal Brotherhood of Man 
 — The Divine Economy Exhibited in Each System — But one True Re.igion 
 Possible — Incongruity of Principles Maintained as Essential to Each System 
 — Apologetics Puts the Almighty in the Wrong — False-worship an Impossi- 
 bility — Absurdity of Illustration of Moral Principles in Physical Phenomena 
 — No one ever Knew What he Believed in as a Religion — Theology Cannot 
 be Presented in Philosophic Foim. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 LITERARY SL'FISM. 
 History's Repetition — Conglomeration of /.-;»(sin Emerson's Alleged Philosophy — 
 Mind Cannot Rise Above the Mortal Condition — Either Election or Univer- 
 sal Salvation Cancels Duty — Final Absorption in the Divine Implies Prior 
 Emanation From the Divine — Election Forbids Either Acceptance or Rejec- 
 tion of Divine Mercy — Optimistic View of Damnation — Absorption in the 
 Divme Extinguishes Individuality, and Hence Cancels Interest and Duty — 
 Divine Creation of Man Unthinkable— A Philosophic Religion Could Not 
 be Believed — Nature of Man an Arbitrary Decree of God, if He has Decreed 
 Anything as to Man — Truth Cannot be Illogical. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SUBSTANCE OF THE UNSUBSTANTIAL. 
 Unification of Opinion Unattainable — More Confusion than Conviction Results 
 From Philosophy —Reasoning Adds Nothing to Knowledge— Knowledge 
 Cannot be Less than Certainty — First Conscious Experiences are not 
 Knowledge — Experiences Must be Accumulated and Co-ordinated, to Con- 
 stitute Knowledge — No Original Sense Perceptions — No Knowledge Orig- 
 al so as to be Distinguishable from Acquired Knowledge — No Sound Phil- 
 osophy can Consist of or be Based on Assumption— Affections Cannot be 
 Perceived- as Extended— Mind not Substance — The Mental Cannot be Di- 
 vorced from the Physical — Incipient Sensibility a Degree of Intelligence — 
 No Knowledge Starts in Thought — Science Cannot Precede its Data — 
 Mind is not Simply thought Conscious of Itself —If each thought Involves 
 its Own Contradictory it Cancels Itself — Memory is Duration of Thought 
 and is Necessary to Thought Itself — Impressions the Basis and Content of 
 all Intelligence — I'he Real is Real Independent of Sensation — Cogilo eri:^o 
 sum absurd — -No one Ever Had the Idea of God as the Absolutely Perfect 
 Being — Truth is Invariable — Belief is Involuntary and Must be Caused — 
 Accountability for Belief is Unintelligible. 
 
 CHAPTER XXn. 
 
 PIOUS FRAUD IN LITERATURE. 
 The Hebrew Exodus not Demanded by any Racial Characteristic — Bad Economy 
 
CONTENTS. 19 
 
 Of the Movement— The Egyptian the Most Ancient Civilization — The 
 Stronger Side the Better Side— Success the Measure and Proof of Merit — 
 Moral Law said to Inhere in the Nature of Things, and Execute Itself 
 Throi^gh the Instrumentality of Men — Then Christianity is an Imposture, 
 and Duty an Absurdity — Without Sin There Can be no Purpose in Religion — 
 Religion Should Cut the Acquaintance of Science and Reason — Original Sin 
 is the Bedrock of Calvinism — Cowardice of Apologetics — Burning of Servetus 
 — The Choice of the Almighty — If He Exercises Choice He Cannot be 
 Almighty — Religious Systems Compete for Favor of Man — Parallels Be- 
 tween Various Systems — Whatever Begins in Time Must Run the Usual 
 Course and End in Time — The Facts of History Cannot be Marshalled to 
 the Establishment of any Comprehensible System. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 No Definite Stages in Evolution — No Eras in Evolution — Force Persistent, and 
 Evolution Continuous — Apparent Antinomy in Doctrine of Evolution — 
 Science Never had a Clear Message as to Future Evolution of Society — ■ 
 Experience the only Index to the Future — No New Forces, But Only 
 Change in Mode of Their Expression — Regularity of Stereotyped Cries of 
 Alarm — Sentimental Sympathy for Malcontents — The advent of Demos — 
 Property and Contract Vital to Society — Permanent Type and Ultimate 
 Reginie, Absurd- — Equilibration Unsupposable — Matter and Motion Essen- 
 tial to Each Other — Mind a Condition or Affection of Matter — Civilization a 
 Mere Expression of Intellectuality — Hiatus Between Workers and idlers — 
 Function of Religion in Evolution of Society. 
 
CORRECTIONS. 
 
 Page 
 
 12 
 
 Page 
 
 22. 
 
 Page 
 
 29. 
 
 Page 
 
 255- 
 
 Page 
 
 257. 
 
 Page 
 
 421. 
 
 Page 
 
 456 
 
 Page 
 
 458. 
 
 Page 
 
 402 
 
 Page 
 
 555- 
 
 Title of Chap. 4, Poetical instead of Political. 
 
 Line 8, circulation to life instead of circulation of life. 
 
 Line 29, state or habit instead o( state of habit. 
 
 Line 35, inscriptions instead of inscription. 
 
 Line i, deals with physical instead of deals physical. 
 
 Line 1 1, and down instead of or down. 
 
 Line 35, of religious instead of or religious. 
 
 Quotation begins with words, four hundred millions. 
 
 Line 5, not so as instead of not as so. 
 
 Line 28, psychological instead of philosophical. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 
 
 Butler's Argument Presented to the Queen — Erroneously Termed an Analogy — 
 Analogy Would have Suggested Non-resistance— Cause had Flourished Under 
 Opposition — Inconsistency of Attacks Upon, and Defence of Religion 
 — Religion Necessarily Unreasonable— Spiritual Existence can Neither be 
 Proved nor Disproved — Unaccountable Mystery in Physical Phenomena — 
 The Spiritual Infinitely more Mysterious — Man, more than Animated Physical 
 Substance — Changed Condition of Substance in Physical Death — Desire for 
 Esteem after Death, Based on Idea of Future Existence — Spiritual Phenomena 
 Infinitely more Abstruse than Physical — Religious Fanaticism Unduly 
 Opposes Skepticism — Sanction of Religion, Necessarily a Future Existence — 
 Analogy must be Continuous — Its Continuity Ruins its Argument — Analogy 
 Between Physical and Spiritual Existence implies eternally Recurring Integ- 
 rations and Diffusions of Soul-substance — Injustice of Punishment — Irrever- 
 ence of Apologetics — Results, the only Reasonable Argument for or 
 Against a Religious System. 
 
 A little more than a ceiiturv and a half ago one of the great- 
 est and most scholarly ecclesiastics of his time presented to his 
 royal patroness a volume, intended as a refutation of the blatant 
 contumely of the revilers of religion, natural and revealed. The 
 apparent more than the real plausibility of their objections was 
 supposed to be so poisonous and corrupting to the general tone 
 of thought, as to threaten the very existence of a religious sys- 
 tem. He seemed to have forgotten, or to have overlooked the 
 fact, that for more than seventeen centuries his favorite faith 
 had flourished and spread as no other was ever known to do, 
 and with a regularity only interrupted by occasional violence. 
 He could have reflected that such interruption of the regularity 
 of its growth often consisted largely of the fact that by virtue 
 of its opposition its influence was increased, its cause promoted, 
 and its spread accelerated, in almost exact ratio with the malig- 
 nity of the measures meant for its suppression. Strangely 
 enough his work was denominated an Analogy. 
 
 In view of the tact that the system had made the greatest 
 strides in its unparalleled progress under unresisted persecution 
 of a physical type, analogy might have suggested non-resis- 
 tance when opposition took form in gibes and sneers. These 
 
22 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 derived their chief importance and rose to their greatest dignity 
 in the fact that learned zealots were alarmed at them, when 
 they should not have condescended to notice them. The lash. 
 the halter, the axe, and the stake had only invigorated the sys- 
 tem they were intended to destroy. There would seem then 
 to be but little occasion tor alarm when the assaults were made 
 in the mere empty ravings of the egotist, who was unable to 
 explain or even conceive of the necessity of circulation of life. 
 Controversial defense against such attacks cannot logically be 
 justified on the ground that their reasoning was of a kind likely 
 to prevail with intelligent judgment. That would be to admit 
 the validity, if not the force of such reasoning. 
 
 Indiscriminate and unresisted torture and frequent massacre, 
 sanctioned by legal authority, had only served to promote the 
 cause against which they were levelled; and few enthusiasts 
 had so far forgotten themselves or their faith, as to resist or 
 resent them, but with more zeal than discretion the fanatics 
 had frequently courted the King of Terrors. But when the 
 attacks consist of windy words, ebullitions of and appeals to 
 personal vanity, intended more to immortalize the name of an 
 egotist who imagined himself a genius, than to demoralize the 
 faith of a Christian people; then the spunky soldier of the Cross 
 arms himself with a goose-quill and goes forth to battle, fight- 
 ing more valiantly for literary fame than to vanquish Apolyon, 
 or to preserve the town of Mansoul from infernal captivity. 
 
 These wordy wars have been characterized by peculiari- 
 ties of tactics and by novelty of expedients, the parallels to 
 which are not to be found in any other controversial set-to of 
 which history informs us. The reviler who could not even 
 imagine why it is necessary- that his life-blood be periodically 
 pumped through his lungs, and atmospherically disinfected, 
 arrogantly sets himself up as a rational disputant and arbiter of 
 the infinitely finer, more complex, and abstruse propositions 
 involved in the prevailing faiths and doctrines ; and offers his 
 learned explanations of the alleged workings of the unknown 
 and uncognizable mystery of the system and dispensation of 
 divine Providence. His explanations failing to explain, he not 
 only reasons but declares that the system and its doctrines are 
 
PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 2) 
 
 a Stupendous fraud. The zealot on the other hand, because he 
 cannot understand or account either for the system or its alleged 
 workings, violently contends for their validity, and, which is 
 not onlv unworthy his cause, but palpably unfair in all debate, 
 he dares the champion of unbelief to prove a negative, — to 
 prove that prophecy was not uttered and that miracle was not 
 done. Gigantic minds, helpless to explain or even conceive of 
 the minutest movement in their own workings, are thus en- 
 gaged in settling the questions of boundary and jurisdiction 
 between the Creator and his creature; or. rather, in determining 
 the propriety of the creature allowing his Creator a place in 
 space, a limited authority, and even existence. The reviler, 
 unless he were exceedingly immodest could be silenced with 
 one simple question, — "Who gave vou the reasoning faculty, 
 by the abuse of which vou are attempting to belittle, — you 
 know not what ?" But more properly in accord with the 
 dignity of Divinity ; and more analogically, in view of the cir- 
 cumstances under which the cause had made its most remark- 
 able progress, he should not be noticed at all. 
 
 Zeal, however, is not discretion. Fanaticism is not policy. 
 Derision is not argument. Reasoning which is plainly fallaci- 
 ous deserves no answer. To attempt to answer or refute any 
 alleged argument or assertion is to admit its plausibility; so far 
 at least as that if not disposed of, intelligent judgment may be 
 convinced by it. If an attack upon a doctrine or a system 
 should be philosophically made, by one of whom it is known 
 or reasonably to be supposed that he knows some fact or thing 
 inimical to the doctrine or system assailed, defense might be- 
 come advisable. But to resist or resent an assault, made by 
 one of whom it must be known that he cannot know any fact 
 or thing necessarily inimical to the doctrine or system assailed, 
 is to dignify the assailant with undeserved attention, and give 
 his attack the only importance it can have; it is to fall into the 
 very snare set for unwary belicose loquacity, — and generally 
 results, as it should, in an exhibition of the empty egotism of 
 both the contending parties. 
 
 A modern editor of the volume in question has introduced 
 it to the western world in terms as commendatory as can be 
 
24 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 formulated in the English language. He proclaims its alleged 
 metaphysical invulnerabilitv. and illogicallv declares that of 
 the system of which the volume is supposed to be the strong- 
 est bulwark, but which in case of invulnerabilitv could need 
 no defence. He invites controversv in a manner which, to a 
 profound reasonei'. would make him appear at least eccentric. 
 He defiantlv dares unbelief to prove a negative, when it is plainly 
 apparent that neither partv could reallv know anv thing affect- 
 ing the question further than it is to be inferred from the rise, 
 progress, prevalence, and effect of the svstem assailed. Why 
 an apologist assuming the airs and proportions of a rationalis- 
 tic disputant should place the cause he appears to atfect so 
 deeply, at such disadvantage, and ask for a suspension of the 
 invariable rules of all debate and of all evidence, by reciuiring 
 the plaintiff to anticipate the defence, set aside miracle and 
 prove that prophecy was not uttered, involves the consider- 
 ation of a system of controversial tactics that logical dispu- 
 tants are not likely to be prepared for. 
 
 if one proposes to champion a cause, or to vindicate a 
 doctrine by reasoning, he should be able and readv to proceed 
 fairly and squarelv in the debate. If he assumes as true cer- 
 tain alleged facts out of the usual order, and incapable of proof 
 by usual methods, and immaterial in themselves to the valid- 
 ity of his doctrine in its essence, he has not vanquished a 
 harmless foe by daring him to the senseless and impossible 
 attempt to disprove them. If the attack upon a prevailing 
 faith or doctrine deserves anv resistance or notice whatever, it 
 is extremely illogical and impolitic to offer the defence in an 
 attempt to show the validity of the doctrine or system assailed, 
 unless it can be palpably demonstrated. To begin with as- 
 sumptions and then reason elaborately and infer from them, is 
 to take a wide range in discourse and then finally rest on the 
 same quicksand from which one starts. 
 
 In such case there can be but one course likely to be suc- 
 cessfully taken and at the same time ivorthy the cause de- 
 fended. Suppose, as was the case which is said to have in- 
 spired or provoked the volume in question, a general attack 
 is made upon the prevailing religion. If history is true we 
 
PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 2^ 
 
 know of one fact which ahnost demonstrates the validity of 
 the religion. That fact is its effect wherever the religion pre- 
 vails. Both pa.rties are equally well acquainted with that fact, 
 and neither of them can possibly know any other fact militat- 
 ing either for or against it. In case of such an attack upon 
 such a system, its adherents should not be disturbed by, nor 
 appear to notice it. Omnipotence is in no danger, — but if the 
 zealot feels that he must do something for the help of the Lord 
 he should not stand on the defensive, he should attack the 
 assailant. He should, and if he is a rationalist he could, show 
 the utter fallacy of the argument of the assailant. If the faith 
 is based on anvthing supernatural or miraculous, which it must 
 be if it is divine, so far at least, it certainly cannot be defended 
 in reason. It cannot be supernatural, miraculous, nor divine, 
 if it is merelv reasonable; such as might be accounted for by 
 the human understanding reasoning from some known sub- 
 stantive fact. If it had been reasonable merely its Founder 
 * would scarcely have performed anv miracle to inspii'e fiith in 
 it or in Him when here teaching and establishing it. He 
 would have declared the doctrine and given the reasons for its 
 validity. The verv fact that miracles were performed, if they 
 were, is the best of I'easons for holding that reason was insuf- 
 ficient to authenticate it. in other words, that it is not reason- 
 able, it is no answer to object to the authenticity of those 
 miracles said to have been performed bv the Founder and his 
 followers eighteen centuries ago, as if they were the only ones, 
 and that the validitv of the svstem depends upon the truth of 
 the disputed account of their performance. They may have 
 been the most palpable and demonstrative outwardly ; but 
 thev appear to have been followed by a standing, coiitinuous 
 miracle, consisting in part of the growth and prevalence of the 
 system, notwithstanding the follv and fanaticism of its pro- 
 mulgators; and in part of its effect wherever it prevails. So, 
 as above stated, if history is true, both parties know the same 
 and the onlv substantive fact, which in the coldest reason 
 seems to almost demonstrate the divinity of the doctrine. 
 
 Now It is assailed by some on the ground that it is not 
 reasonable. Then it is defended by its apologists on the 
 
2(> ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ground that it is miraculous, but the defence is vitiated in an 
 attempt to show that it is also reasonable. These two defences 
 are incompatible with each other, so that so far as such argument 
 is concerned the assailant has the advantage. But as above 
 stated the defender could attack and show the fallacy of the 
 reviler's argument. There is the above named standing mir- 
 acle to start from, the facts and circumstances of which must 
 be equally well known by both parties, and. waiving the ver- 
 acity of the disputed account of the earlier ones the zealot 
 should ask the scotfer to account for this with his reason. At 
 that point reasoning controversy would stop. The truth is. it 
 is the glory of the system that it does not have to be reason- 
 able to be divine. It is above and beyond reason. Its apolo- 
 gists belittle it when they attempt to make it appear reason- 
 able. To be reasonable it must be within the comprehension 
 of reasonable creatures, man must be capable of comprehend- 
 ing it. It is arrogance, verging closely to blasphemy, for any 
 mortal man to claim that he can comprehend it. 
 
 It is cowardly catering to the imperious impotence of un- 
 belief to obsequiously seek the opportunity to reason with it, 
 and attempt to convince its judgment in order to obtain its 
 approval, or to get rid of its objections. The most that can be 
 said against it is that one does not comprehend, and hence 
 will not believe it. The rest that is said against it is mainly 
 scoff and sneer. If that is sufficient not merely to cause doubt, 
 but to produce active disbelief, there is a great deal of that 
 which passes for useful knowledge which is without founda- 
 tion and invalid. Examples are obvious. In a certain familiar 
 science it is established that a certain set of ducts conveys the 
 life-blood from the heart to everv part of the body ; that 
 another set conveys it back again to the heart; that friction, 
 elastic compression and gravitation, are all overcome by some 
 vital power in transmitting it both ways. What is that 
 power ? By whom and how is it generated and maintained } 
 Why is it that a pin-scratch will stop the wondrous working 
 of that power and send a soul to eternity in an instant } On 
 the same principle as that upon which the scoffer denies the 
 existence of his Maker, and with the same propriety, he might 
 
PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 27 
 
 against his own actual knowledge to the contrary say that no 
 such power exists, or that immediate death would not neces- 
 sarily result from lacerating the heart. No man knows any- 
 thing about that power, nor how nor why so insignificant a 
 thing as a pin-scratch should utterly and instantly destroy it. 
 
 A great deal of the noblest and most important wisdom 
 with which the world is blest, and much of the learning with 
 which it is cursed, are obtained by visual inspection of parch- 
 ment and paper upon which certain characters were inscribed 
 ages ago. Vv'hich serve as the conduit through which the 
 thought of antiquity is transmitted to us. By beholding cer- 
 tain parcels of such material we can see Sardanapalus doting 
 over his Myrrha. the just indignation of Salamenes. and hear 
 the Greek Slave protest with her royal lover against the reck- 
 less indulgence of his lust which consigned them hand in hand 
 to the pyre, composed of one of the noblest edifices of antiqu- 
 ity. By beholding another we may see the greatest philoso- 
 pher the world has known, lift the fatal cup to his lips, and 
 hear him mildly reprove his friends for weeping at so trifling 
 an affair as his death. When some savant succeeds in reason- 
 ing his Maker out of existence he should then explain these 
 phenomena, or else proceed with his reasoning to show that 
 they are not. 
 
 We are continuously in contact with, and perception of 
 phenomena of a material type, which cannot be accounted for. 
 No one can tell why a bud swells and bursts, and expands 
 into and forms a leaf. If it is caused by a combination of the 
 influences or effects of a certain temperature with moisture, 
 and the chemical properties of the soil from which it springs, 
 what produces or causes such combination ? If this is motion, 
 which is supposed to vitalize and maintain all organic exis- 
 tence, what produces or causes such motion } Why is it that 
 a clot of blood as large as a pea, lodged on some of the con- 
 volutions of the brain will totally destroy some of the mental 
 powers } These subjects are tangible, physical, and may be 
 apprehended by means of the senses. If their various condi- 
 tions at the various stages and under the various circumstances 
 of their existence cannot be accounted for, when we have the 
 
28 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 facts consisting of the condition, stage, and circumstance, 
 palpably before us to reason from, how can we account for, or 
 know anything about the conditions of the spirit, the exis- 
 tence of which at any stage and under any circumstances, is 
 less, if at all palpable to any of our senses ? 
 
 The brain may be chemically analyzed and reduced to its 
 ultimate material components, but no one will claim that it is 
 then understood. It is universally recognized as the throne of 
 the kingdom of Mind, but no one will claim to know how it 
 is tenanted. The peculiarity of its substance and construction 
 seems to render it more appropriately adapted to the office 
 of thought than any other organ, but portions of the same, or 
 a precisely similar substance permeate every part of the body; 
 yet no one will attempt to explain why all thought is evolved 
 in the brain. One in the prime of his mental manhood may 
 give utterence to a beautitlil. a grand, a sublime thought, the 
 production or deduction of the brain. A bodkin may pierce 
 his heart, and he is not a man. There would be no physical 
 change in the constituent elements of the brain, but in a mo- 
 ment after it is found to be pure animal substance, having un- 
 dergone no change except having ceased to act as it ceased to 
 be properly acted upon. It cannot thereafter conceive a thought. 
 Something, perhaps not a physical substance, but something 
 has departed from it. Perhaps it departed because the cessa- 
 tion of the inlluence of the heart's action rendered it untenant- 
 able by such occupant, — the being which was there a moment 
 ago. reasoning that there is no God because it could not com- 
 prehend Him. and that its own departure from its tenement of 
 cellular tissue and gray matter terminates its existence, if 
 that occupant which has so departed is a power, condition, or 
 capacity, it may still be as substantial as any one ought to 
 claim that a soul can be, and there is but little in a name. Un- 
 less we know something about that occupant or thing which 
 has so departed, we are not justified in saying that it does- not 
 thereafter exist at all, merely because we no longer find it occu- 
 pying the particular substance which we know it lately occu- 
 pied. We knew too little about it when in personal contact 
 with it to conjecture what became of it in its departure. Some 
 
PHILOSOPHICS APOLOGETICS. 2q 
 
 of the thought it evolved and gave to the world may still exist, 
 retained in some one's memory, or perhaps chronicled in some 
 scoffer's philosophy. Such existence mav not be veiy sub- 
 stantial, yet it mav be sutl^icientlv materialistic to imply the 
 continuous existence of the late occupant of the defunct brain. 
 
 Unless one knows something definite of a subject his argu- 
 ment relating thereto ought not to alarm anv one. No one can 
 possibly know what it is, or is not. or that nothing is beyond 
 the grave, more certainly than he can know what is, or is not, 
 or that nothing is beyond the limit to which vision has reached 
 in space. Out to a certain limit in space it is demonstrated 
 that certain celestial systems exist. By analogv we may rea- 
 sonably presume that other similar ones exist beyond, and be- 
 yond, until the imagination staggers at the inconceivable vast. 
 Down to a certain point in human existence it is demonstrated 
 that the person is more than a mere animated aggregation of 
 substance. The animated substance itself does not perish, it 
 does not go out of existence, it merely changes place, form and 
 condition; and this it is constantly doing even while it com- 
 poses the substantive part of the person. The othei'. the more, 
 may be a mere impersonal abstraction, and still it is morally 
 certain to exist beyond physical life in the memory of those 
 who knew it in life. 
 
 it is rational, at least it is almost universal, to desire to be 
 remembered with esteem after death. There would be no 
 basis for such desire if death was absolutely the end of the per- 
 son's existence. Such desire is in the nature of a state or a 
 habit of mind. Then mind would seem to be more than a mere 
 impersonal abstraction, more than a mere state of habit. 
 
 What is said here, and perhaps all that can be said, may not 
 prove the existence of the soul after physical death, or the claim 
 to superiority or validity of any religious system. But I think 
 it is shown that no one can know anything so inimical to the 
 claims of such systems as to justify him in calling them fraudu- 
 lent, where the most that is known of them is such as the 
 world must recognize as the benign result of the prevalence of 
 Christianity. The prevalence of that system bred and fostered 
 the civilization which made the intellectual attainment possible. 
 
^O ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 bv means of which the scoffer is enabled to make an egregious 
 ass of himself in I'eviling the very system to which he owes 
 whatever attainment he has. 
 
 1 think it follows that when such system is attacked in a 
 course of reasoning, its adherents should not become its de- 
 fenders. They might point to its workings and effects and ask 
 the scoffer to account for them, or they might ask him to ex- 
 plain and account for physical and mental phenomena such as 
 I have mentioned. Let him e.xplain the power, or whatever it 
 may be. that electrifies the millions of nerve cells and Ilbres, 
 and how it is that intelligence is instantaneously transmitted 
 from the remotest peripheral frontier, to the central ofhce in the 
 optic thalamus, and is thence instantaneously distributed over 
 thousands of lines of communication to incite and direct organic 
 action. Science has discovered the facts, let reason account for 
 them, or else permit their great Author to exist. 
 
 But unfortunately unbelief has not monopolized egotism. 
 There are those in the faith who are afflicted with an itch for 
 fame that cannot be allayed by rubbing the back against a 
 tombstone. They seem to fancy they know something, and that 
 they are forbidden to bury their talent in the earth. Their self- 
 conceit is not to be gratified by an easy victory, such as 1 have 
 shown can be achieved by calling on the scoffer for his data, 
 or asking him to account for certain well known phenomena. 
 The importance of his assault is first magnified so he may be 
 considered a Ibe worthy the defender's steel, and the validity of 
 his reasoning is so far admitted as to justify the zealot in enter- 
 ing the arena with him. They then lash and thrust each other 
 unmercifully, and the world is editled with an exhibition of 
 personal prowess in a contest which settles nothing beyond its 
 own futility. The zealots vanity (ambition?) will be more 
 gratefully gratified in a display of his own wisdom than in 
 demonstrating that his opponent has none, or has not sut^icient 
 to overthrow the system assailed. 
 
 In the volume in question the reviler's attack is given its 
 chief importance in the beginning of the book, it is said, 
 "Strange difficulties have been raised by some concerning per- 
 sonal identity, or the sameness of living agents, implied in the 
 
PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 3 I 
 
 notion of our existing now and hereafter, or in anv two suc- 
 cessive moments; * * -^^ '''■/■ 
 
 The objection is admitted to be a difticuUv, and a vcrv 
 deeply learned and labored volume is written to get rid of it. 
 So far as the individual is personally concerned, there woLild 
 seem to be but one object in attempting to show that such 
 personal identity does not continue alter the physical death. 
 That would be to enfranchise the mind, to relieve it of what a 
 so-called atheism seems to regard a slavish subjection to an im- 
 agined superior power, enforced bv fear of ill in an imaginary 
 future. If atheism should establish that there is no such con- 
 tinuous personal identity, it would rationally follow that there 
 could be no present responsibility for future consequences; and 
 hence, so far as the individual is concerned, no system of relig- 
 ion based on the idea of such continuous existence could be 
 valid, it could have no efficacious sanction. So both parties 
 base Christianity on the basest of human motives, — selfishness. 
 The scoffer's object then seems to be to establish that the doc- 
 trine of Christianity is absurd because he does not find it in 
 accord with what he regards the reasonable deductions to be 
 made from his observations of physical phenomena. More 
 accurately, he ridicules it because he cannot understand it. 
 
 The zealot then attempts to establish the validity of the 
 doctrine of Christianity by reasoning from what he terms the 
 analogy of Nature. It is clear that there can be but one fair 
 way to reason from such supposed analogy. That is to take 
 the whole "constitution and course of nature" so far as it relates 
 to the example cited in drawing the analogy, and then analog- 
 ically trace the inferences and deductions to their final results. 
 To do this one must know all about nature so far as it relates 
 to the example cited, he must know that what he hypothecates 
 or postulates therein must be as he hypothecates or postulates 
 it. Otherwise his starting point is mere quick-sand. To insist 
 on the continuance of personal identity and existence after 
 physical death because of any supposed analogy thereto in 
 nature, one must suppose the subsequent existence and con- 
 tinuance to be analogous to that which we see in physical life. 
 
^2 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 and upon which we base the analogy. Analogy argues noth- 
 ing (much less it proves) further than it extends and applies. 
 
 The Apologist says. "'From our being born into the present 
 world in the helpless imperfect state of infancy, and having 
 arrived from thence to mature age, we find it to be a general 
 law of nature in our own species, that the same creatures, the 
 same individuals, should exist in different degrees of life and 
 perception, with capacities of action, of enjoyment, and suffer- 
 ing, in one period of their being, greatly different from those 
 appointed to them in another period of it. * * * ^ But 
 the states of life in which we existed formerly, in the womb 
 and in our infancy, are almost as different from our present, in 
 mature age, as it is possible to conceive any two states or de- 
 grees of life can be. Therefore, that we are to exist hereafter 
 in a state as different (suppose) from our present, as this is from 
 our former, is but according to the analogy of nature; accord- 
 ing to a natural order or appointment, of the very same kind 
 with what we have already experienced." 
 
 Let us test the validity of this so-called analogy. Because 
 we may have had a physical existence for three score and ten 
 years, shall we assume therefrom that we shall have a spiritual 
 existence throughout eternity } If existence after death and 
 throughout eternity is to be proved by analogy with nature, 
 the present existence should, analogically, be shown to be the 
 sequel to an existence prior and analogous to it, and so back- 
 ward to the earliest dawn of eternity. The future existence 
 caimot be analogous to the present existence unless the present 
 is successive to a prior one. If the survival by the living agent 
 of this tluxation. or the continuance therein ol the personal 
 identity argues a future existence to all eternity, it must with 
 the same propriety and tbrce argue a prior existence /ro/// all 
 eternity. That which is never to cease, cannot be imagined to 
 have had a beginning. It is impossible to imagine that any- 
 thing in lime has its parallel in eternity. 
 
 The apologist says. "Vv'e cannot argue from the reason of 
 the thing, that death is the destruction ofliving agents, because 
 we know not at all what death is in itself: but only some of its 
 effects, such as the dissolution of flesh, skin, and bones: and 
 
PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 33 
 
 these effects do in no wise appear to imply the destruction of a 
 living agent.'" By a parity of reasoning birth, the organization 
 of the flesh, skin and bones into the individual existence does 
 not imply the creation of the living agent. But if such birth, 
 organization, does not imply the creation or bringing into being 
 of the living agent, it is diftkult to conceive how or when it 
 originates. If it does imply the creation or bringing into being 
 of the living agent, then a new soul is created for each and 
 every embryo that reaches the period of gestation at which 
 there is foetal life, and a puerperal accident may land it in 
 eternity with the sins of its guilty progenitors on its head. 
 The organization of the foetus by the coition of the parents 
 must be the creation of the soul, or at least birth must be the 
 production of the soul. Otherwise the soul must have always 
 existed, and, as it goes from the childish prattle and utter irre- 
 sponsibility of infancy in the course of an ordinary lifetime, to 
 the wicked purpose and fatal accountability of mature manhood, 
 it must have been in a very extreme state of un-organization 
 and irresponsibility a few cycles back in eternity. I do not 
 pretend to say what may or may not be. I am not attempting 
 to prescribe or limit Omnipotent Power. I am speaking of 
 reasoning from Analogy. If it appears in such reasoning that 
 the living agent is not atfected by, but continues to exist after 
 the physical death, it ought also to appear that it was not 
 affected by, but had existed before the physical birth. Other- 
 wise the analogy is imperfect and unfair and the reasoning 
 therefrom is necessarily fallacious. 
 
 As above shown the apologist says that the survival by the 
 individual of the several changes of life is analogy sufficient 
 from which to infer the continuance after death of the same 
 living agent, in form and condition as different from the pres- 
 ent, as the mature is different from the embryonic state. If 
 that is correct, it is also sufficient from which to infer the indi- 
 vidual existence prior to birth of the same living agent, in form 
 and condition as different from any of them as they can be from 
 each other. If it is to exist after physical death to all eternity, 
 it must have existed before physical birth from all eternity. 
 Analogy furnishes as much and as valid argument for one of 
 
34 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 these existences as for the other, and no other anological argu- 
 ment can be valid. The analogical apologist then is committed 
 to the Oriental doctrine of transmigration, which he probably 
 did not contemplate when he started out to authenticate the 
 doctrine of Christianity by reasoning from its supposed "anal- 
 ogy to the constitution and course of nature." it would seem 
 much safer to relv on the disputed account of the miraculous 
 foundation of the Faith, than to attempt to verify its claims to 
 genuineness by reasoning from any such supposed analogy. 
 
 inferences backward are as legitimate and reasonable as in- 
 ferences forward, especially when all the space and time in 
 which their conclusions are posited are (or relate to affairs) out- 
 side the sphere and period occupied by the facts reasoned from, 
 the facts on which we base the analogv. The apologist him- 
 self says. "Thus in the daily course of natural providence. God 
 operates in the very same manner as in the dispensations of 
 Christianity; making one thing subservient to another; this to 
 somewhat farther; and so on. through a progressive series of 
 means, which extend both backivard and forward, beyond our 
 utmost view." But without this unintended concession, lam 
 confident that no profound and fair rationalist will object to 
 what I have said about fairness and validity in analogical reas- 
 oning. The analogy must be taken entire and not in parts, 
 and must be traced whichever wav it leads to its necessary 
 logical results. If when thus dealt with it proves too much, it 
 is as bad as if when traced in the most favorable direction it 
 fails to prove enough. 
 
 The apologist says. 'That which makes the question con- 
 cerning a future life to be of so great importance to us. is our 
 capacity of happiness and misery. And that which makes the 
 consideration of it to be of so great importance to us. is the 
 supposition of our happiness and misery hereafter, depending 
 upon our actions here." 
 
 He proceeds therefrom to write a chapter to show the sup- 
 posed validity of his proposition, that happiness and misery 
 after death depend upon the conduct in life. He adduces 
 alleged analogies in nature, such as dissipation and disease, 
 depravity and degradation, profligacy and penury, and numer- 
 
PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 35 
 
 OLis Others, each in contrast with its respective antithesis. 
 While I think the analogies and the arguments therefrom are 
 not fair, because sufficient attention is not given to personal 
 constitution and environment, yet 1 shall not wholly reject them 
 until they are duly considered. Neither shall 1 deny that future 
 happiness and misery are dependent upon present conduct. 
 But ifthe analogies were fair the reasoning is unfoir, or rather it 
 establishes nothing because it is incomplete. Traced to its 
 necessary analogical results, if future happiness and misery de- 
 pend upon the conduct in this life, and if misery after physical 
 death is the due reward of bad conduct in this life, then the 
 miseries of this life must be the due reward of bad conduct in 
 an existence prior to it. It matters not that we fancy we can 
 attribute present miseries to causes arising in this life. Analog- 
 ically, we may as well hold that bad conduct in a prior exis- 
 tence entailed our present misery through the instrumentality, 
 or as an apparent result of, the causes to which we attribute 
 them, which causes are themselves miseries, and may be like- 
 wise superinduced, as to hold that it should entail it directly, 
 and without the agency of such bad conduct in this life ; or, 
 that bad conduct in this life will entail misery directly or indi- 
 rectly in a future life. 
 
 Now, there is a cardinal principle of morals which I believe 
 no rationalist ever did, or ever will dispute. It is that punish- 
 ment not understood, and the reasons for which are to the suf- 
 ferer unknown, is unjust. Yet the apologist argues that the 
 miseries of the future life are the deserved punishment of bad 
 conduct in this life. Unless we know the wickedness of which 
 we were guilty in the life prior to the present life, and for which 
 we suffer present pain, the punishment is unjust. Analogical- 
 ly, we have no reason to believe we will in the future life know 
 any more about the reason for its torments, than we now know 
 about the bad conduct of the life prior to the present life which 
 entailed our present miseries. In either case we may know we 
 suffer without knowing that we are punished in retributive 
 justice. So with the child which dies from an inherited dis- 
 ease, — regarded as a punishment for bad conduct, it is not only 
 unjust, it is barbarous and absurd. 
 
^6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Thus it appears that while the system defended needs no 
 support, it can derive none from any sound and legitimate rea- 
 soning from any supposed "analogy to the constitution and 
 course of nature." Certainly it has derived none from the great 
 bulwark erected for its defence in the volume in question. 
 
 While there is quite a good deal of the devotional and e.x- 
 hortative parts of the work which appears to be written in a 
 true Christian spirit, yet I believe that nothing can be much 
 more irreverent and deleterious to Christianity itself, than a 
 complacent affectation of an easy familiarity with the ways of 
 Infinite Wisdom. They are hopelessly and eternally beyond 
 the possibility of human comprehension. It cannot tend other- 
 wise than to belittle the system and doctrine of Christianity, to 
 attempt to reconcile egotistical unbelief by dragging the doc- 
 trine from the zenith of its divinity to the level of a human un<- 
 derstanding. 'if they hear not Moses and the prophets, 
 neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." 
 If eighteen centuries of almost uninterrupted, unprecedented, 
 and otherwise unaccountable progress in civilization, and moral 
 and intellectual attainment, argue nothing to self-conceited 
 philosophy, it certainly cannot be convinced by argument from 
 alleged analogies which do not hold good, but which, traced to 
 their necessary logical results end in palpable absurdity. 
 
 As above indicated, history conclusively establishes the 
 fact that ever since the foundation of Christianity there has been 
 a phenomenal improvement in the mental, moral, and intel- 
 lectual phases of human life wherever the light of that system 
 has shone. Where it has not shone there has been no such 
 result. There is no analogy to this in nature, and it cannot be 
 e.xplained or intelligibly accounted for by any process of reason- 
 ing from any known fact or supposable analogy. Such a sys- 
 tem in such case cannot need any apologist's defence. It 
 asserts itself, and if it is genuine it manifests its own genuine- 
 ness. If it affords man the opportunity to escape impending 
 and perhaps merited damnation, or. if it supplies him with 
 facilities for. or impetus to a higher and nobler existence, its 
 advocates ought not to enter into a heated debate with those 
 who fancy themselves its opponents, to convince them of its 
 
PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGETICS. 37 
 
 merit or validity on the ground of any supposed analogy between 
 it and something else in which we see more of ill than of good. 
 If a remedy has cured a disease or produced a good result, no 
 argument is necessary to show that it was adapted to the 
 case. If it has been tried for eighteen centuries and has not 
 cured the disease nor produced a good result, no argument can 
 show that it is adapted to the case. 
 
 Such light and beneficence, if any, as have come from 
 Providence to man, have been imparted to him as a matter of 
 grace and condescension. There is no logic in the story of 
 Jacob's wrestle with the Angel. The Angel could have thrown 
 him every fall, and if he intended to bless him he could not 
 logically have provoked his evil passions by tantalizing him to 
 impatience and strife. 1 cannot believe that Omnipotence has 
 ever authorized, or will ever countenance any truckling in its 
 behalf, or any disparaging comparisons to be made by its advo- 
 cates. While they might appropriately urge mankind to see 
 their own interests and "flee the wrath to come," 1 am confi- 
 dent that they usurp the authority to contend with impotent 
 Egotism for the validity Of Christianity and the existence of its 
 Founder. The most of such instances are the frantic efforts of 
 a counter egotism to assert itself rather than well advised argu- 
 ments for divine authority. They are especially censurable 
 where, as in the volume under consideration, the analogies and 
 arguments are so palpably fallacious as to tend to the discredit 
 of the system advocated, if it were susceptible to injury at 
 human hands. If the cause needs defence at all, it is against 
 the effects of the impotent and incoherent ravings of its zealots. 
 
 Among the last, and probably the most sincere expressions 
 of one of the greatest minds of modern times was this, "I die 
 adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, but 
 detesting superstition." His life was a devotion to human 
 liberty, personal, intellectual, and moral. When such a char- 
 acter is assailed by the great galaxy of frenzied fanatics, and the 
 cause which he has not impugned is defended in an elaborate 
 process of unsound reasoning, from unreal and illegitimate 
 analogy, it would seem that the superstition waslhe object of 
 deepest solicitude, next after the name and fame of the apologist. 
 
38 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, 
 
 Note. — In passing from a consideration of the philosophy 
 of Butler's Analogy to that of Drummond's Natural Law in the 
 Spiritual World, the transition is much greater in point of time 
 than in respect of the subject matter of the discussion. It will 
 be observed that Bishop Butler argues that his religion may be 
 valid because it cannot be demonstrated that the Spiritual exis- 
 tence bears no resemblance in any respect to the Physical. He 
 labors to show that the mind may suppose an analogy between 
 the two existences. Drummond carries the argument still 
 further, even into assertion that the Physical is a working model 
 of the Spiritual; and attempts to avert the consequences of the 
 use of analogy by intensifying the analogy itself into identity. 
 Their arguments, however, as arguments, are so nearly identi- 
 cal that their logical results will be found to be the same. They 
 are equally intent on making the Spiritual respectable by reason 
 of a supposed kinship or resemblance to the Physical. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 religion's obsequious homage to science. 
 
 Prefatory Apologies for Theological Discussion imply its Impropriety — Natural 
 Law in Spiritual World, Based on Analogy Between the Two Spheres 
 — Religion Derives no New Credential from Philosophy — Paul Placed it 
 Above Science — Kant's Idea of Socratic Method — Unfair Methods of Fanat- 
 ics, Requiring Disproof — Nicodemus Put Upon His Own Faith — Analogy 
 Posits Beginning and End of Eternity — Truculence of Theology to Science 
 — Heredity Illustrates Absurdity of Analogy — Periods and Progress Irrecon- 
 cilable With Eternal Spiritual Existence — Inanimate Spirit-Substance Re- 
 quisite to Analogy — Biogenesis Implies Beginning and Ending of Life of 
 Almighty — Apologetics Implies Insufficiency of Divine Authority — Spencer, 
 Religion to Be Such, Must Be an Absolute Mystery — Law of Death — Na- 
 ture Squaring Her Account With Sin — Man and the Lily — Heredity and 
 Environment — Impropriety and Irreverence in Alleged Religious Philosophy. 
 
 To apologize for having inflicted upon the reading world 
 an addition to its multitude of books, implies a consciousness 
 that for some reason it should not have been done. In most 
 preludes to modern ebullitions of genius, such apologies are so 
 blended with aimless eloquence in the platitudes announcing, 
 or rather disguising the purpose, that they are barely discerni- 
 ble. Still, they are frequently deducible from the learned vag- 
 aries and glittering generalities with which such prologues 
 are embellished. There are few authors who. bent on airing 
 themselves on some point at issue between different schools of 
 thought, desire to be understood as maintaining that such sub- 
 ject ought not to be regarded as open to discussion, especially 
 when introducing to the reader an elaborate work in support 
 of a party to the controversy. To do so is to condemn the 
 purpose of the work. Such self-imposed and merited condem- 
 nation is not obviated by a mere change in name of the under- 
 taking, from that of others which may have disappointed the 
 hopes of the zealous. 
 
 To attempt to maintain the validity of any religious system, 
 by improvising and discussing such a subject as Natural Law 
 In The Spiritual World, is an attempt to maintain such validity 
 on the ground of a supposed analogy between the two spheres. 
 
40 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 The remark in a preface to such an undertaking that Science 
 and Religion never should have been contrasted, and that "the 
 critics have rightly discovered that, in most cases where 
 Science is either pitted against Religion or fused with it, there 
 is some fatal misconception to begin with as to the scope and 
 province of either, '" is a reflection upon the apologist's prede- 
 cessors in that field. At the same time it places his own un- 
 dertaking at a disadvantage not to be obviated by merely claim- 
 ing "that the fact of the subject matter being law, — places 
 it on a somewhat different footing." 
 
 To attempt to "identify the natural laws, or any of them in 
 the Spiritual Sphere," is to insist upon an analogy between the 
 two spheres. Natural Laws are the manifestation of the con- 
 stitution and course of nature, or thev are nothing. To main- 
 tain that "the laws of nature are simply statements of the order- 
 ly condition of things in nature, what is found in nature by a 
 sufficient number o{ competent observers," implies a purpose to 
 argue the supposed analogy. To follow such declaration with 
 the assertion that, "What these laws are in themselves is not 
 agreed, that they have any absolute existence even is far from 
 certain," reflects somewhat unfavorably upon the competency 
 of the observers who are said to have discovered them. Such 
 self-inflicted blows are not to be parried after they are received, 
 nor is their effect to be meliorated by any process of irrelevant 
 abstraction, nor by comparison with such distinctions as are 
 supposed to obtain between latitude and its parallels, and grav- 
 ity and gravitation. Having made natural law appear as un- 
 substantial as words can express, and having almost denied its 
 existence, the apologist says, "if the analogies of natural law 
 can be extended to the Spiritual World, that whole region at 
 once falls within the domain of Science and secures a basis as 
 well as an illumination in the constitution and course of nature." 
 He proposes to authenticate what the Almighty has left in 
 doubt, and to illumine what He has left obscure, by tracing in 
 the Spiritual Sphere the laws whose "existence even is far from 
 certain." 
 
 There is but little logic in the attempt to remove one doubt 
 by the expression of another, or in attempting to trace a sys- 
 
religion's obsequious homage to science. 41 
 
 tern of laws whose very "existence is far from certain," into a 
 Sphere concerning which nothing definite can be imagined. 
 The assertion that '7/ the analogies of natural law can be ex- 
 tended to the Spiritual World, that whole region at once falls 
 within the domain of Science," is the statement of a monstrous 
 //. and involves the reduction of the absolute to the relative. It 
 also involves the proposition to construct a science of law, for 
 a System which cannot be conceived of as subject to any law 
 of which the mind can conceive. The words Spiritual World 
 mean the intniite spiritual existence of the beings who migrate 
 from the natural world to and inhabit it. To be infinite it can 
 have neither beginning nor ending. To have either it must 
 have both; it must be subject to vicissitude and time, and be 
 finite. If Spiritual does not imply eternal, it cannot imply or be 
 more than physical ; nor different from physical, unless it be 
 attribute or condition of physical. If it is infinite it must be 
 absolute, and cannot be relative. If it is absolute it cannot be 
 conceived of as subject to any law of which the mind can con- 
 ceive. In its utmost the mind can only conceive of things as 
 relative. It can no more conceive of the infinite and absolute 
 as subject to any law of which it can conceive, than it can con- 
 ceive of a limit beyond which space cannot extend, or a time 
 beyond which eternity cannot endure. 
 
 The assertions that if natural law can be traced in the 
 Spiritual World it would offer Religion a new credential, and 
 that the effect of the introduction of law among the scattered 
 phenomena of nature has simply been to make science, to trans- 
 form knowledge inta eternal truth, and that the same crystaliz- 
 ing touch is needed in religion, stigmatize religion in a manner 
 and to a degree which is not divinely authorized. To argue 
 that the phenomena of the Spiritual World are scattered, from 
 the fact that the religious opinions of mankind are in a state of 
 flux, to assert that the one thing thinking men are waiting for 
 is the introduction of law among the phenomena of the Spiritual 
 world, and that on their part this is a reasonable demand, are only 
 equalled in truculence by the proposition to offer such men a 
 truly scientific theology. "Because Thou hast hid these things 
 from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
 
42 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 babes,"" thinking men may wait too long if they will have none 
 but a truly scientific theology. The wayfaring man if he were 
 a fool might err in the truly scientific theology, as egregiously 
 as the apologist, who. determined not to be out-done by Christ 
 in the reconciliation of God to him. now proposes to reconcile 
 Science to Christ, or at least to propitiate it in his favor. Christ 
 may regard it a complimentary exhibition of the spirit of reci- 
 procity, or possibly a favor, to be tendered a proposition to 
 swap zior/{ on terms involving an engagement to offer think- 
 ing men a truly scientific theologv. But Paul would seem to 
 have misconceived his mission when he said he was sent to 
 preach the gospel ; not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of 
 Christ be made of none effect. 
 
 it was never at Paul's instance that Religion fawned at the 
 feet of Philosophv. or sought a new credential in any supposed 
 analogy to nature, or courted a comparison with the things of 
 this world. He said, "we speak the wisdom of God in a 
 mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained l^efore 
 the world unto our glory. * * * Which things also we speak, 
 not in the words which man"s wisdom teacheth. but which the 
 Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual."" 
 When the pupil of Gamaliel was called, and found the faith 
 ridiculed by the prevailing wisdom, he made no attempt to 
 give it a new credential by tracing natural law in the Spiritual 
 World. It might have been difficult to find in nature an anal- 
 ogy to the incarnation, the cross, the transfiguration, or the 
 ascension, if Science is more important to Christianity than 
 these, it is still a radical religious reform that goes from the 
 justification of man by faith to the justification of God by 
 analogy. 
 
 The analogy is alternately argued and assumed throughout 
 the course of the treatise. The herculean efforts to disguise or 
 mask the purpose to urge it in the usual vein of apologetics, 
 under layers of learning relating to 'several of the subjects of 
 natural law, and by tracing such law in the Spiritual World on 
 the authority of discoveries made in chemical and microscopical 
 analysis in modern Biology, fail as signally as the effort to 
 establish the divine authority of the Creator, on the empirical 
 
religion's obsequious homage to science. 43 
 
 knowledge of the creature. All the prefatory disavowals of 
 such purpose that can be written, together with all the nom de 
 plumes by which such work can be called, cannot, in the light 
 of the foregoing extracts, and the frequent comparisons in the 
 body of the work, successfully conceal its real purpose. In one 
 place the apologist says, "the position we have been led to 
 take up, is not that the Spiritual laws are analogous to the 
 natural laws, but that they are the same laws. It is not a 
 question of analogy but of identity — Analogous phenom- 
 ena are not the fruit of parallel laws, but of the same laws — 
 laws which at one end, as it were, may be dealing with matter, 
 at the other end with spirit." Then after a great deal of cir- 
 cumlocution and artistic evasion, the apologist seems to have 
 wearied with the effort to get rid of the odium which he seems 
 to think attaches to that which properly should have been the 
 title of his book, and says, "as there will be some inconven- 
 ience, however, in dispensing with the word analogy, we shall 
 continue occasionally to use it." 
 
 The proposition that the same laws deal at one end with 
 matter and at the other end with Spirit, is exceedingly vision- 
 ary. If they are the same laws they must have the same or 
 similar effects. But we are not told what species of Spirit it is 
 which, according to natural law, preys upon and devours 
 another species. Nor are we told that the apologist selects and 
 extends only certain ones of the natural laws into the Spiritual 
 World. Nor, if he does so, by what standard he makes the 
 selection. If analogous phenomena are necessarily the fruit of 
 the same laws, the same laws necessarily produce analogous 
 phenomena. This involves eternally recurring procreations, 
 births, growths, diseases, deaths, decays, and additional and 
 eternally recurring future Spiritual Worlds. It is by a law of 
 nature that man is begotten and born, grows for a time, halts 
 a while, and finally dies. If that natural law extends into the 
 Spiritual World and produces analogous phenomena, it would 
 be interesting to conjecture the number of ghostlets which the 
 spirit departing from the body here will beget there, before it 
 yields up its more attenuated evanescence to another and more 
 unsubstantial Spiritual World. If we attempt to trace natural 
 
44 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 law in the Spiritual World on scientific biological principles, so 
 as to be prepared to offer thinking men a truly scientitlc theo- 
 logy, we must take it with its indispensable concomitants and 
 consequences, its births, growths, diseases, deaths, decavs. and 
 successive existences. Future existence must be a fruit of 
 natural law. if such law deals at one end with matter and at 
 the other end with spirit, it must have its analogy in the 
 future or spiritual world, in still further existences, if it is not 
 a fruit of natural law, such law does not extend into the Spirit- 
 ual World. 
 
 The apologist says, "Science deals with known facts; and 
 accepting certain known facts in the Spiritual World we pro- 
 ceed to arrange them, to discover their laws, to inquire if they 
 can be stated in the terms of the rest of our knowledge." But 
 he names no known fact in the Spiritual World which is so ac- 
 cepted, or which as a phenomenon is the fruit of natural law in 
 the Spiritual World, nor does he state how any such fact could 
 be known. He had just stated that it is not agreed what 
 natural laws are, and that it is far from certain that they exist. 
 But he seems to be proof against discomfiture. He boldly de- 
 clares that "Nature is not a mere image or emblem of the 
 Spiritual. In the Spiritual World the same wheels revolve — 
 but without the iron. The same figures flit across the stage, 
 the same processes of growth go on, the same functions are dis- 
 charged, the same Biological laws prevail — only with a different 
 quality of Bios." And again that "Biogenesis is the law for all 
 life, and for all kinds of life, and the particular substance with 
 which it is associated is as different to Biogenesis as it is to 
 gravitation. * * * The conclusion finally is, that from the 
 nature of law in general, and from the scope of the principle of 
 continuity in particular, the laws of the natural life must be those 
 of the spiritual life." 
 
 If the work in question has a foundation, this is its chief 
 corner stone. Whatever is said herein against the validity of 
 the argument, is said upon the hvpothesis that the apologist 
 meant to maintain these propositions. That the same figures 
 flit across the stage in the Spiritual as in the physical sphere, 
 implies that no others do, and that those leave that stage. 
 
RELIGION S OBSEQL'IOL'S HOMAGE TO SCIENCE. 45 
 
 That the same processes ot growth go on implies the same or 
 similar causes for the growth, the same or similar beginning, 
 duration, results, and termination of it. Accordingly a twenty- 
 one year old spirit would be full grown, because by virtue of 
 the natural law which extends into the Spiritual World it could 
 not grow any more. It might become more corpulent, but it 
 would not grow taller. Should it escape contagion, and not 
 catch cold or be crossed in love, it might live to a green old 
 age, and dandle its grandchildren on its knees in the late even- 
 ing of a well spent spiritual life. That the natural is a working 
 model of the Spiritual World, implies that the workings of the 
 one are duplicated, or that analogous ones are done in the other. 
 That the same functions are discharged, the same biological 
 laws prevail, implies that the inhabitants of the Sphere Spiritual 
 beget, multiply, grow, die. decay, and yield up other and still 
 more vapory evanescences of themselves, to other and still more 
 ethereal Spiritual Worlds. Bv no other means could the same 
 functions be discharged, and the same biological laws prevail. 
 And when the same figures flit across the stage, they may leave 
 it for some other stage, or they mav merely retire to the green- 
 room. 
 
 Now if the doctrine is apparent, it may be interesting to 
 know the occasion of the great undertaking, to inquire if it 
 justifies the tugging of the Old Ship of Zion in the wake of the 
 dredge-boat of Science. The apologist says, "What then has 
 Science done to make Theologv tremble ? It is its method. 
 It is its system. It is its reign of law. It is its harmony and 
 continuitv. The attack is not specific. No one point is assail- 
 ed. It is the whole system which when compared with the 
 other and weighed in /ts balance is found wanting. An eve 
 which has looked upon the first cannot look upon this. To do 
 that and rest in the contemplation, it has first to uncentury 
 itself 
 
 So Science is leaving the Lord in the lurch. In their rivalry 
 for the favor and approval of man science is too much for Re- 
 ligion. For Religion to have a shadow of hope, the doctrine of 
 Christ and his Apostles must be remodeled. St. Paul's methods 
 must be abandoned, and religion must be taught "in terms of 
 
46 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the rest of our knowledge," even if the cross of Christ be made 
 of none effect. Religion must be made a truly scientific theol- 
 ogy, for v/hich purpose knoivn facts in the Spiritual World 
 must be learnedly surmised, stated in the terms of the rest of 
 our knowledge, and shown to be analogous to facts which 
 science denominates the fruit of natural law, which, forsooth, 
 at one end operates on matter, and at the other end on spirit. 
 
 But a difficulty appears. We are not told who it is that has 
 authorized the weighing of Christ's religion in the balance of 
 Science. We think that this religion has wrought the greatest 
 civilization, intellectual attainment, and best system of morals 
 ever known. It is in the balance of Science that the apologist 
 says it is weighed when it is found wanting. Had he given 
 the authority for its submission to such test, and if it were suffi- 
 cient, his argument might have been more cogent. If on the 
 other hand there is no authority therefor, his argument is not 
 only gratuitous supererogation, — it is an impiously arrogant 
 affectation of familiarity with the Almighty, an egotistical 
 assumption of authoritv, and a childish display of wordy wis- 
 dom, which lacks little of blasphemy. I find no author to 
 whom the apologist refers with more frequency and apparent 
 approval than St. Paul, who, as above shown must have been 
 in error if the apologist is right. This leaves nothing to be said 
 on that part of the subject, further than to recall attention to the 
 foregoing extracts from the Epistles. The c]uestion thus resolves 
 itself into one of authority between the Apostle and the apolo- 
 gist. 
 
 The greatest modern metaphysician, speaking of his favorite 
 science has said, "it will confer an inestimable benefit on mor- 
 ality and religion by showing that all objections urged against 
 them, may be silenced forever by the Socratic method, that is 
 to say, by proving the ignorance of the objector." But egotis- 
 tic zeal is seldom satisfied until it proves its own ignorance. 
 In the case under consideration this is proved by the apologisfs 
 alarm for religion at the method, the system, the reign of law, 
 the harmony and continuity of Science. The proof is strength- 
 ened in his effort to trace these characteristics in the Spiritual 
 World. Having painted a vivid verbal picture of a world of 
 
religion's obseql'Ious homage to science. 47 
 
 chance the apologist says, "Now this is no more than a real 
 picture of what the world would be without law, or the uni- 
 verse without continuity. * * * As the Natural Laws are 
 continuous throughout the universe of matter and space, so will 
 they be continuous throughout the universe of spirit. * * * 
 Those who denv it must furnish the disproof." This supposes 
 a strange rule of evidence, one that no person on trial for his 
 life would wish to see signalized for its continuity. Litigants 
 are required to furnish the proof, but never in the first instance, 
 the disproof. \v\\a\v^ a prima facie case must be first made, 
 and it is never made by disproof. Had the apologist shown an 
 analogy between the physical and Spiritual Worlds sufficient to 
 raise the presumption that the natural law of the former prevails 
 throughout the latter, he might with more propriety have called 
 for the disproof. But both spheres must be known in order to 
 know that there is any analogy between them. It would be 
 ridiculous in any one to claim to know even the physical sphere. 
 If either of the spheres is unknown no analogy between them 
 can be shown. Until such analogy is shown there is not even 
 a suspicion to be removed by either proof or disproof 
 
 He says his •'argument is based upon a principle which is 
 now acknowledged to be universal. "' But if the principle is 
 not universally so acknowledged, or invulnerably established, 
 it may be more in the nature of an assumption than a principle. 
 One may as well assume the whole matter in controversy, as 
 10 assume the basis of his argument. The principle of continu- 
 ity in natural law throughout the physical sphere may be uni- 
 versally acknowledged to be universal, but to show that it pre- 
 vails in the Spiritual Sphere by reason of such laws extending 
 to the Spiritual Sphere, a knowledge of that sphere and an 
 analogy between it and the physical sphere are requisite. If 
 continuity of such law remains continuous the individual exis- 
 tences will be as nearlv analogously duplicated in all respects, 
 as the spiritual, wliich is supposed to be omnipotent, is capable 
 of duplicating the physical. Those who in this world die the 
 youngest, will there flit across the stage the quickest. This is 
 natural law here, and continuity, to be continuous, must con- 
 tinue it the same way or analogously there. St. Paul was not 
 
48 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 aware of this principle of continuity when he thought he was 
 declaring to the Corinthians a mystery; that "we shall all be 
 changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 
 trump." 
 
 Insisting that the eiui of natural law which deals with spirit 
 is not supplemented by purely spiritual laws, the apologist says, 
 "But if the objection is pressed that it is contrary to the anal- 
 ogy, and unreasonable in itself, that there should not be new 
 laws for this higher sphere, the reply is obvious. Let these 
 laws be produced. If the spiritual nature, in inception, growth, 
 and development, does not follow natural principles, let the 
 true principles be stated and explained." This might be dffi- 
 cult to do, but if the spiritual nature does follow natural princi- 
 ples in inception, growth, and development, it must, under the 
 principle of continuity, also follow them in decline, disease, 
 death, decay, and the yielding up of another and correspond- 
 ingly more spiritiielle spirit, to another and correspondingly 
 more ethereal spiritual world. Modesty may decline the chal- 
 lenge to produce the purely spiritual laws with which the 
 spiritual end of the natural laws are supplemented in the Spirit- 
 ual World. But it may with as much propriety offer to pro- 
 duce them, as to reason that they extend there, when their 
 very existence "is far from certain. 
 
 When Nicodemus had his memorable interview with the 
 Son he was put upon his own responsibility and faith, and 
 there is no authentic precedent for anything like a solution of 
 the apologist's problem. He was told that "the wind bloweth 
 where it listeth. and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst 
 not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth ; so is every one 
 that is born of the spirit. "" St. Paul said "And my speech and 
 my preaching was not with enticing v/ords of man's wisdom, 
 but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, that your faith 
 should not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of 
 God. '^' * * even so the things of God knoweth no man, but 
 the spirit of God." But the "wisdom of God in a mystery" 
 had not then been tested on principles of reversion to Type, 
 nor had it been subjected to chemical and microscopical tests. 
 The ignorance or reserve of Christ and St. Paul was com pen- 
 
religion's obsequious homage to science. 49 
 
 sated for by miracle. — it is now proposed to give them a new 
 credential in the results of recent research in the domain of 
 Biology. 
 
 Arguing the principle of continuity the apologist says, "With 
 the gradual aggregation of mass the energy of the universe has 
 been slowly disappearing, and this loss of energy must go on 
 until none remains. There is, therefore, a point in time when 
 the energy of the universe must come to an end; and that 
 which has its end in time cannot be infinite, it must also have 
 had a beginning in time." If we trace this natural law from 
 the end which deals with matter to the end which deals with 
 spirit, the beginning and end of Eternity are unequivocally 
 posited. If nature is a working model of the spiritual it must 
 of course work in like manner with the spiritual, and the spirit- 
 ual has had a beginning, and is destined to lose all its energy 
 and come to an end. In other words, eternity is not eternal. 
 If, as the apologist says, "the origin in time of the visible uni- 
 verse is implied from known facts with regard to the dissipa- 
 tion of energy;" if there is a point in time when the universe 
 must come to an end; and if all this is the necessary result of 
 natural law, one end of which deals with spirit; and if the 
 natural is a working model of the spiritual, and hence 
 works in the same manner. Eternity must have begun in time, 
 and must come to an end in time. Perhaps the Lord may 
 then be brought in line with science. 
 
 The apologist says that "for two hundred years the scien- 
 tific world has been rent with discussion upon the origin of 
 life;" that one school maintains that it is spontaneously gener- 
 ated from matter, the other that it must come from pre-exis- 
 tent life; and that "it is now recognized on every hand that 
 life can only come from the touch of life." And further that 
 "for more than two hundred years a similar discussion has 
 dragged its length through the religious world. Two great 
 schools have also defended exactly opposite views — one that 
 the spiritual life in man can come only from pre-existent life, 
 the other that it can spontaneously generate itself." The 
 doctrine of Biogenesis having triumphed over that of spontan- 
 eous generation in the physical sphere,' the apologist proposes 
 
so ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 to trail Elijah's chariot of fire at the tail gate of the Ox-wain of 
 science, and give religion a new credential by bringing the 
 Lord in line with the punctilious intelligence of His creatures, 
 which seems now to have discovered a parallel for His wis- 
 dom, and to have solved His mystery by certain manipulations 
 of matter in an hermetically sealed tube. The effort to solve 
 this question, as it is supposed to relate to spiritual life, im- 
 plies that it is important; to insist on its solution in accord 
 with the doctrines of physical Biogenesis, is to insist on an 
 analogy between the physical and spiritual spheres. And 
 both are degrading to and unworthy the cause. They involve 
 many manifest absurdities, one of which occurs in considering 
 the subject with relation to heredity. Heredity is unquestion- 
 ably a natural law. If one end of it extends into the spiritual 
 sphere, the apologist ought to inform us what particular breed 
 of spirits it is, from which the stiff-necked spirit of man inher- 
 its its obstancy. Unless man is endowed with a spirit which 
 is inclined to evil, there can be no occasion for any religion. 
 If man is endowed with a spirit so inclined, and if the natural 
 law of Biogenesis operates at one end on spirit, then the per- 
 verse spirit of man must inherit its evil propensities from the 
 Celestial progenitor who dallies with the matron spirHiielle at 
 the time of the inception of the spiritual nature. He says this 
 inception, together with the growth and development of the 
 spiritual nature, follows natural principles. One of the apolo- 
 gist's fovorite authors, from whom he quotes with great confi- 
 dence has said, "Understood in its entirety, the law is, that 
 each plant or animal produces others of like kind with itself 
 * * * The circumstance that the tendency to repetition is, in 
 a slight degree qualified by the tendency to variation (which 
 as we shall hereafter see, is but an indirect result of the ten- 
 dency to repetition) leads some to doubt whether heredity is 
 unlimited. A careful weighing of the evidence, however, and 
 a due allowance for the influences by which the minuter mani- 
 festations of heredity are obscured will remove the grounds for 
 this skepticism." If the apologist should trace this law, as to 
 which there is said to be no ground for skepticism, from the 
 end which deals with matter to the end which deals with 
 
religion's OBSEaUIOUS HOMAGE TO SCIENCE. 5 1 
 
 spirit, and then identify the begetters of the great generation 
 of vipers, he would give his argument a new credential, equal 
 to that which he proposes for religion. 
 
 Without specifically defining the danger of the heresy the 
 apologist says. "If the doctrine of spontaneous generation of 
 spiritual life can be met on scientific grounds, it will mean the 
 removal of the most serious enemy Christianity has to deal 
 with, and especially within its own border, at the present day," 
 In view of the manner in which he proceeds to overthrow the 
 heresy, and the sentiment manifest in the above extracts from 
 his work, it is apparent that he regards the doctrine of spon- 
 taneous spiritual generation deleterious to Christianity, because 
 it is not parallel with the doctrine of generation of physical life. 
 He does not show what difference it could make, which of the 
 two doctrines, or, whether either of them prevails. If the 
 Founder of Christianity changed water into wine in an open 
 vessel, it could be of no consequence to his religion what were 
 the results of Bastian's and Huxley's experiments with hay in- 
 fusions in hermetically sealed tubes. If the One called back 
 from the grave in Bethany the corpse that had been buried 
 four days, it would matter little to his religion whether we 
 might or might not reasonably "expect a hay infusion to be- 
 come gradually more and more living until in the course of the 
 process it reached vitality." If modern investigators should 
 claim for their discoveries a spiritual significance, and enforce 
 the claim by the performance of such miracles as rising from 
 the tomb, restoring sight, life, and health in others, and then 
 going bodily to Glory, it might become important to harmon- 
 ize the Christian religion with the doctrines deducible -from 
 their experiments. But the doctrines of the Apostles, especial- 
 ly St. Paul, would have to be abandoned, as too primitive for 
 the progressive and scientific theology. 
 
 The idea of progress is itself destructive of the validity of 
 any claim for analogy between the spiritual and physical 
 spheres. Progress implies advancement from rudeness toward 
 refinement. It is practicable to think this of physical phenom- 
 ena in a physical sphere which begins and ends ; but it is im- 
 practicable to think it of spiritual phenomena in a spiritual 
 
52 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 sphere which neither begins nor ends. The germs in the hay in- 
 fusion may show signs of life, and finally develope life. But 
 they soon die and decompose, thereby perhaps generating suc- 
 cessive germs to repeat the manifestation, and possibly attain 
 to a higher organization and degree or iile. Man progresses 
 through various stages, from an embryo in the womb, to a 
 foul mass of corruption in the tomb. Life and manners have 
 progressed from a naked barbarism in the cave to an adorned 
 civilization in the mansion. These are phvsical phenomena in 
 time, traceable from their causes to their effects in time. The 
 mind cannot conceive of parallel or analogous phenomena in 
 spiritual existence in eternitv. produced bv parallel or analog- 
 ous causes, beginning at some point or period in eternity, 
 operating analogously for a while until a certain stage of pro- 
 gress is reached and then ending. It cannot think such thing 
 as a point, or period, or sVdg-e of progress in eternitv. Inter- 
 mediate points, periods, and stages of progress imply begin- 
 ning, and ending, and final results. And nothing in the eter- 
 nal sphere can be thought as beginning, being, and ending in 
 a manner analogous to any thing in the temporal sphere. 
 
 Analogy, to be analogous, should harmonize and find its 
 counterparts or parallels in all supposable conditions. To in- 
 sist on the principle of continuity for any purpose, is to avow 
 the necessitv of continuity in the alleged analogy. If the con- 
 tinuity of the alleged analogy is once broken, there is no more 
 of an analogy than if there had never been even a coincidence 
 or resemblance among the data of the two systems or states 
 being compared. It is now claimed that all physical motion, 
 including all life, vegetal as well as animal, is the result of 
 the persistence of force which is very learnedly traced back 
 through the phvsical processes and phenomena in which it 
 manifests itself to the radiation of light and heat from the sun. 
 If this is correct the sun is the generator or creator of all physi- 
 cal life. One of the apologist's favorite authors, in a chapter 
 entitled the transformation and equivalence of forces has pre- 
 sented this doctrine very forciblv. But in generating physical 
 life, the intluences of the sun must be brought to bear upon 
 inanimate physical substance. It is impossible to imagine a 
 
religion's obsequious homage to science. 5^ 
 
 not-living spiritual substance to be animated by the Giver, 
 Generator, or Creator of all spiritual life. So there is no anal- 
 ogy here. It is impossible to imagine that the Giver, Gener- 
 ator or Creator of all spiritual life is constantly losing his 
 energv so as to imply that there is a point in eternity at which 
 all spiritual life must cease. So there is no analogy here. The 
 apologist savs there is '"a point in time when the energy of the 
 universe must come to an end," and he very positively declares 
 the natural law by virtue of which he says it must come to an 
 end. He also insists on the continuity of natural law in the 
 spiritual sphere. If he succeeds in establishing the supposed 
 analogv between the two spheres, and in tracing natural law 
 into the spiritual sphere, and in establishing the principle of 
 continuity there, he necessarily terminates eternity. 
 
 Science is supposed to demonstrate that there is neither in- 
 crease nor diminution of matter, and that the processes which 
 appear to be such are integration and diffusion. The continu- 
 ous tangible existence of the bulk of all matter composing the 
 bodies of all animal and vegetal existences that have been in 
 time, would have materiallv enlarged the mass of tangible mat- 
 ter. If all the bodies that have apparently grown from germs 
 (which were next to nothing) were actual additions to the 
 volume of matter, the mass would now be many times larger 
 than it is, and every cycle would perceptibly increase its vol- 
 ume. The mind cannot conceive such supposed increase as 
 coming from nothing, which it n.iust do to be actual increase. 
 It can, however, conceive the integration and diffusion, which, 
 superficially observed may appear to be increase and diminu- 
 tion, but actual increase and diminution of matter cannot be 
 thought. If natural law extends into the spiritual world, and 
 the principle of continuity prevails, this, or an analogous inte- 
 gration and diffusion, is there going on; and the tenuous com- 
 ponents of the spiritual beings there existing, are integrated 
 and diffused in their successive births, growths, deaths, and 
 decays; while the ultimate quantity of that which in the spirit- 
 ual sphere is equivalent or analogous to matter in the physical 
 sphere, remains intact. 
 
 If the existence of all the solid and tluid portions of matter 
 
54 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 in their tangible forms, is due to the motion generated by the 
 diffusion of light and heat from the sun, and if the result of 
 such process must be the rediffusion of all such tangible mat- 
 ter, and the final dissipation of the sun's heat, substance, and 
 force, then all material existence in any form or condition of 
 which the mind can conceive must cease, or at least revert to 
 the intangible element from which, by virtue of the primary 
 force it was integrated into and became tangible matter. If, 
 under the principle of continuity, force is, and remains persis- 
 tent notwithstanding the destruction of the sun, masses of 
 tangible matter may be again integrated from such intangible 
 element. While the process may be of incalculable duration, 
 yet the fact that it is a process which science insists is actually 
 going on, renders physical existence unfit for analogy with 
 anything the mind can conceive of as spiritual existence. 
 Such an analogy traced to its necessary logical results, ends in 
 such an absurdity as innumerable endless eternities in succes- 
 sion. 
 
 The apologist frequently cites the authority of the Founder 
 of Christianity and his chief apostle, and thereby vouches for 
 their credit. But he inconsistently admits, or rather asserts, 
 'their insufficiency in proposing to fortify them by harmonizing 
 their doctrine with the wisdom of this world. He certainly 
 has no precedent therefor in either their teaching or example. 
 One of them expressly refused the Pharisees and Sadducees a 
 sign, and the other said he was sent to "preach the gospel, 
 not with the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be made 
 of none effect. * * * Now we have received, not the spirit 
 of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might 
 know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which 
 things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom 
 teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing 
 spiritual things with spiritual." He is here forbidden to trail 
 the banner of the cross in the dust of science. The only logi- 
 cal theory of the vindication of one doctrine by virtue of its 
 analogy to another, implies that the doctrine being vindicated 
 is of inferior authority. If this is so, its authors are no author- 
 ity for anything further than what it may be in and of itself, 
 
religion's obsequious homage to science. 55 
 
 and regardless of its validity. They cannot properly be cited 
 in an attempt to vindicate their doctrine by virtue of an alleged 
 analogy which they have repudiated. 
 
 If Christ and St. Paul are authority for anything it is for the 
 validity of their religion in and of itself and upon its own merit. 
 According to them it is the religion of the cross and the resur- 
 rection, or it is nothing. No analogy for these can be found in 
 nature, and they cannot be accounted for, or compared with 
 anything ever discovered by man within the range of scientific 
 investigation. All the learned vagaries, elaborate and nicely 
 rounded periods, scientific and mystified allusions, and reckless 
 assumptions, that can be wrought in language, cannot obviate 
 the apparently trifling difficulty which the apologist himself 
 creates, but which breaks the back of his laboriously learned 
 effort, — that is. his apparent confidence in authority which his 
 very apology implies is not authentic. If he is under contract 
 to furnish thinking men a truly scientific theology, he should 
 not go to Christ or St. Paul for any of the material out of which 
 to construct it. He should not cite them as authority when 
 the fact that he regards a vindication necessary, implies their 
 insufficiency. He should not cite them to establish an analogy 
 which they have repudiated. If there is a religion of the cross 
 and the resurrection, it need not trem>ble at the frown or the 
 sneer of any rationalist or chemical analysist. Egotistic zealots 
 with more learning than wisdom need not rush to the rescue 
 of such religion from the clutches of the germ microscopically 
 detected in a hay infusion. 
 
 The apologist quotes frequently from the writings of a phil- 
 osopher whose credit with the thinking world seems to be 
 pretty well established. He has said sufficient, if he is author- 
 itative, in one brief paragraph to show, not only that religion 
 need not tremble at the method, the system, the reign of law, 
 or the harmony and continuity of science ; but that any attempt 
 to harmonize it with anything knowable in nature is impossible 
 and illogical, as well as belittling to the religion. He says, 
 "Not only is the omnipresence of something which passes com- 
 prehension, that most abstract belief which is common to all 
 religions, which becomes the more distinct in proportion as 
 
56 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 they develope, and which remains after their discordant ele- 
 ments have been mutually cancelled ; but it is that belief which 
 the most unsparing criticism of each leaves unquestionable — or 
 rather makes ever clearer. It has nothing to fear from the most 
 inexorable logic ; but on the contrary is a belief which the most 
 inexorable logic shows to be more profoundly true than any 
 religion supposes. For every religion, setting out though it 
 does with the tacit assertion of a mystery, forthwith proceeds 
 to give some solution of this mystery; and so asserts that it is 
 not a mystery passing human comprehension. But an exam- 
 ination of the solutions they severally propound, shows them 
 to be uniformly invalid. The analvsis of every possible hypo- 
 thesis proves, not simplv that no hypothesis is sufhcient. but 
 that no sufficient hopothesis is even thinkable. And thus the 
 mystery which all religions recognize, turns out to be a far 
 more transcendent mvstery than any of them suspect — not a 
 relative but an absolute mystery." These are the words of an 
 author sufficiently modest and sincere to admit that there is a 
 limit to the capacity of the human mind. 
 
 I am not contending for either spontaneous generation or 
 biogenesis in any kind of life. But 1 insist that no hypothesis 
 is thinkable in which either doctrine can be of any consequence 
 to the Christian religion. The alleged natural law, "that all 
 life is the gift of life," when projected into the spiritual world 
 is absurdly illogical. If all spiritual life is the gift of spiritual 
 life, the Almighty has himself been begotten. On the author- 
 ity of a microscopical examination of a hay infusion in an 
 hermetically sealed tube, the apologist says this law is victor- 
 iously established in the phvsical world. To trace it in the 
 spiritual world is the object of his collossal labor. If the spirit- 
 ual life of the Almightv was not given to him, then all spiritual 
 life is not the gift of spiritual life, and the alleged analogy is not 
 analogous. The apologist's author whom 1 last above quoted 
 says, the mystery, which all religions recognize is not a rela- 
 tive, but an absolute mystery. If it is not relative it can have 
 no analogy in any thing knowable or thinkable. Everything 
 knowable or thinkable, can be known and thought only in 
 
RELIGION S OBSEC^yiOUS HOMAGE TO SCIENCE. S7 
 
 relation. If it is absolute no law of which the mind can con- 
 ceive can extend to or affect it. 
 
 Speaking of degeneration, and tracing an alleged analogy 
 between the physical and spiritual types of it the apologist says, 
 "The bible view is that man is conceived in sin. and shapen in 
 iniquity. And experience teJls him that he will shape himself 
 into further sin and ever deepening iniquity without the smallest 
 effort, without in the least intending it. and in the most natural 
 way in the world if he simply let his life run." If this is done 
 without his intending it, and in the most natural way in the 
 world, it must be the /r//// of some natural law. it must be 
 natural tor man to go that way. he must be going in conform- 
 ity with natural law as he does so. in other words, without 
 doing violence to natural law. he soon finds himself in further 
 sin and ever deepening iniquity, without in the least intending 
 it, and in the most natural way in the world, if he simply let 
 his life run. This is as absurd as the doctrine of original sin 
 and damnation to infants. A creature subject to natural law, 
 endowed with certain natural propensities, environed in a man- 
 ner arranged /or and not by him. without intending himself or 
 any one else any wrong, or in fact intending anything, shapes 
 himself into further sin and ever deepening iniquity. If the 
 result of this is just retribution for wrong he has not done nor 
 intended it is very unfortunate for man that he is born. It 
 might interest him to know whose sin he is conceived in. 
 whose iniquity it is he is shapen in. and who made it so natural 
 for him to shape himself into further sin and ever deepening 
 iniquity. 
 
 The apologist says, "Apart even from the law of degener- 
 ation, apart from reversion to type, there is in every living or- 
 ganism a law of death. * * * -This law which is true for the 
 whole plant world, is also valid for the animal and for man. 
 Air is not life, but corruption — so literally corruption that the 
 only wav to keep out corruption when life has ebbed, is to 
 keep out air." He does not show, however, that life would be 
 prolonged, or that corruption would be kept out by keeping 
 out air before life has ebbed. His analogy to this in spiritual 
 life is interesting. It is that the "Spiritual life in like manner, 
 
58 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 is the sum total of the functions which resist sin. The soul's 
 atmosphere is the daily trial, circumstance, and temptation of 
 the world. And as it is life alone which gives the plant pow- 
 er to utilize the elements, and as, without it, they utilize (de- 
 stroy ?) it, so it is the spiritual life alone which gives the soul 
 power to utilize temptation and trial, and without it they de- 
 stroy the soul." Unless air is not necessary to physical life, 
 and unless the soul's atmosphere (trial and temptation) is nec- 
 essary to spiritual life, this analogy is not very analogous. In 
 view of the fact that the soul's atmosphere, trial and tempta- 
 tion, would destroy the soul if it were not for spiritual life, and 
 that they are active working opponents of each other, it is 
 difficult to conceive how such atmosphere can be as essential 
 to spiritual life as air is to physical life. But the assumption 
 and analogy are both false and frivolous. To maintain that air 
 is corrupting because it facilitates the decomposition of matter 
 when life has ebbed is too childish to be found in anything but 
 a fervent ebullition of fanaticism. The alleged parallel is be- 
 tween physical and spiritual life. That which is indispensable 
 to either cannot be destructive of it. If the soul's atmosphere 
 is as necessary to its life as air is to the physical life, the soul 
 ought to be kept pretty constantly exposed to trial and tempta- 
 tion. The nitrogen and oxygen of the physical air have their 
 counterparts in the trial and temptation of the soul's atmosphere. 
 The Almighty blew the former compound into man's nostrils, 
 whereby he became a living soul. For the sake of the analogy 
 the Devil blew the latter compound into the soul's nostrils, 
 whereby it became a dying spirit. To trace any of these 
 alleged analogies to their legitimate results, leads to palpable 
 absurdity. Take for instance the vindication of divine wrath 
 and its visitations. The apologist says, "'We have looked 
 around the wards of a hospital, a prison, or a madhouse, and 
 seen there nature at work squaring her accounts with sin." 
 He had seen in some hospital a sufferer who had been accident- 
 ally exposed to some contagion, or caught in some explosion 
 or railroad disaster; or who had inherited consumption or scro- 
 fula from some ancestor; he had seen in some prison persons 
 who had dared to have and express political and religious con- 
 
RELIGIONS OBSEaUIOUS HOMAGE TO SCIENCE. 59 
 
 victions, or avenge the ruin of a near relative ; and in a mad- 
 house he had seen some poor lunatic driven to his deplorable 
 condition by misfortune in business or love, or by disease, or 
 by disgrace in his family ; or who had inherited the malady. 
 If divine punishment is uniform, inevitable, and only in just 
 retribution for actual wrong, it has a remarkable parallel here. 
 Had the apologist lived a little earlier he might have seen hosts 
 of men, women and children butchered by legal authority 
 for adhering to what they seemed to regard a religion, for 
 which he now tries to find a parallel in nature. He says, "And 
 we knew as we looked that if no Judge sat upon the throne in 
 heaven at all there was a judgment there, where an inexorable 
 nature was crying aloud for justice, and carrying out her heavy 
 sentences for violated laws." A poor creature driven by neces- 
 sity to his daily toil, is sun-struck in the busy thoroughfare of 
 some great city. He is hurriedly loaded into a patrol wagon 
 and delivered to the authorities at some hospital, and Nature 
 cries aloud for justice and carries out her heavy sentences for 
 violated laws. 
 
 Perhaps one of the most grotesque similes in all this alleged 
 analogy is in the chapter devoted to the subject of growth. It 
 opens with the text, "Consider the lilies of the field how they 
 grow." If spiritual growth is the result of, and only to be 
 attained by, the constant spiritual effort he had been thereto- 
 fore urging, it would have injured this particular illustration to 
 have quoted the residue of the sentence from which the above 
 was taken : — "They toil not, neither do they spin." Speaking 
 of the Savior he says, "He made the lilies and He made me — 
 both on the same broad principle. * * * He points to this 
 companion-phenomena to teach us how to live a free and 
 natural life, a life which God will unfold for us, without our 
 anxiety, <-\s He unfolds the tlower. " If the doctrine of this 
 chapter is true, it is pretty hard on that of the one next preced- 
 ing it, where we are asked, "if we neglect the soul, how shall 
 it escape the natural retrograde movement, the relapse into 
 barrenness and death ?" If the Almighty will unfold our spirit- 
 ual life for us, without our anxiety, as he unfolds the flower, 
 we need not be alarmed on account of our neglect. The 
 
6o ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 learned vagaries with which this chapter is replete are finally 
 summed up in the proposition that '"the problem of the Chris- 
 tian life tinallv is simplified to this — Man has but to preserve 
 the right attitude, to abide in Christ, to be in position, that 
 is all." If there were anv analogv between man and the lily in 
 anv respect, and man should once establish his abode in 
 Christ, or be in position, he need not be alarmed about pre- 
 serving the right attitude. The lily does not preserve its atti- 
 tude. Were there such analogy man need not concern him- 
 self about obtaining the abode or being placed in position in 
 the first instance. He would have about as much to do with 
 it and be about as responsible for it as the lilv. If there is no 
 such analogy it would seem supremely silly, to so learnedly 
 elaborate such an allusion in an alleged scientific parallel be- 
 tween the physical and the spiritual. 
 
 The chapter on death covering thirty pages, contains two 
 brief sentences which, if true and traced to their necessary log- 
 ical results, show the utter absurdity of the entire undertaking. 
 They are, "Of course what death is depends upon what life is. 
 
 * * * Its (life's) mysterious Cjuality evades us; and we have 
 to be content with outward characteristics and accompani- 
 ments, leaving the thing itself an unsolved riddle." And yet 
 the apologist proposes to trace M^ alleged parallel between this 
 unsolved riddle and the alleged spiritual Hie. Constantly in 
 contact with and observation of the life whose mysterious equal- 
 ity evades us. that which remains an unsolved riddle in spite 
 of ail the experience that has been had with it. and ail the 
 learned speculation that has been had upon it, and yet devot- 
 ing more than four hundred pages of learned guess-work to an 
 idle effort to trace an alleged analogy between it and the 
 alleged spiritual life, the life beyond the Styx! 
 
 In the chapter on environment the apologist says. "We are 
 dealing therefore with universal law. * * * These two. 
 Heredity and Environment, are the' master influences of the 
 organic world. These have made all of us what we are. 
 
 * * * In the spiritual world, also, the subtle influences which 
 form and transform the soul, are Heredity and Environment." 
 Here the entire argument and all excuse for making it are 
 
religion's obsequious homage to science. 6 1 
 
 argued away. Man. physical and spiritual, is made what he 
 is by two intluences. the (irst of which he can bv no possibility 
 avert, and it is suft^kient to prevent him from averting the 
 second. The sillv simile of the gizzard of the grain-fed pigeon 
 may serve to show the apologist's acquaintance with natural 
 history, but the individual responsibility he has urged so sedul- 
 ously would seem to render man an inappropriate subject of 
 such a comparison. If heredity and envii"onment make us what 
 we are. we havc nothing to do with it. The apologist says 
 that while we cannot escape heredity, we may change or make 
 our own environment. But if heredity is the univei'sal law he 
 says it is. the environment we change to or make will be ac- 
 cording to such heredity. If we cannot escape heredity we 
 must inherit just what is transmitted to us, even if it is an un- 
 controllable tendency to evil and a perverse predilection to in- 
 jurious environment. 
 
 One may with propriety attempt to vindicate a system or 
 doctrine of known inferiority, or of doubtful authenticity, by 
 showing its analogy to another of known superiority or certain 
 authenticity. The true and the only logical theory of vindica- 
 tion by analogy involves the idea that the subject of the at- 
 tempted vindication is of authenticity inferior to that of the one 
 by comparison with which it is to be vindicated. The book 
 called Natural Law In The Spiritual World is an exhibition of 
 irrational and illogical irreverence of its author to the Almighty. 
 It exhibits him as affecting an easy familiarity with the Being, 
 of any one of whose attributes man is utterly helpless to conceive. 
 One may think of goodness, greatness, wisdom, and power; 
 but no one can think either of them as infinite and absolute; 
 without limit and without relation. Until that shall be intelli- 
 gently done, the tracing of natural law in the spiritual world 
 will be at least premature. But while the apologist is so pert 
 with his Maker he goes to the opposite extreme with Science. 
 He obsequiously proposes to furnish thinking men a truly scien- 
 tific theology. He attempts to justify them in rejecting an un- 
 scientific theology, and urges the reformation of the religion to 
 suit the fastidious tastes of the learned in this world's wisdom. 
 He says that "an eye which has looked upon that cannot look 
 
62 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 upon this. To do so and rest in the contemplation it has first 
 to uncentury itself." He seems to regard this a very precocious 
 and imperious century. The Lord should uncrown himself 
 in its presence. Calvary and Gethsemane are not in it. If 
 Sampson carried away the gate of Gaza, the microscopically 
 discovered germ in a hay infusion has carried away the gate of 
 Zion; it has rendered "the cross of Christ of none effect." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 EPIC APOLOGETICS. 
 Paradise Lost, the Grandest of all Metrical Apologetics — Its Purpose to Assert 
 and Justify Eternal Providence — Admits Unceitainty of Existence and Jus- 
 tice of the Almighty — Atheist Supposed — -Argument Would Confuse More 
 Than Convince Him — Incongruity Obscured by Grandeur, Extravagance, 
 Metaphor, Etc — Occasion and Object of Creation — Imply Free-will and 
 Fatalism — Fall of Man, Bad Economy — Providence Responsible — Philoso- 
 phy of Poem Overrated — Meant to Immo-talize Poet — Skepticism Over- 
 rated — Miracle, Prophecy, and Revelation, as Authoritative fur One System 
 as Another — Audacity of Theological Reasoning — Question Personal to 
 Each Individual —Neither Freedom Nor Fatalism Can be Made to Appear 
 Reasonable — Gibbon's Tribute to Christianity. 
 
 Early in the period in which some have placed the so-called 
 Christian Renaissance the blind Bard of Albion who has sung 
 the grandest of all metrical apologetics, invoked the heavenly 
 Muse to aid his adventurous song in pursuit of things thereto- 
 fore unattempted in prose or rhyme; that he might assert eter- 
 nal Providence, and justify the ways of God to men. Such an 
 avowal of such a purpose is sufficient to put a reader to think- 
 ing. The manner in which the purpose is prosecuted, and 
 said to be executed, may suggest the thought which will result 
 in a correct estimate of the proposed assertion and justification. 
 
 If we can conceive that eternal Providence has not already 
 sufficiently asserted itself, possibly we may then imagine that 
 some inspired enthusiast might assert it, and justify the ways 
 of the Almighty to men. But the questions occur: — what is 
 any one of those ways.^ and — by what standard are they to be jus- 
 tified ? If they are to be justified in reason, the effort is a fore- 
 gone failure at its inception. The further questions occur: — 
 Does any rational creature really doubt either the existence or 
 justice of the Almighty ? When and where has man existed 
 without worship ? What was ever argued in isolated cases of 
 irreverence ? Why should a learned zealot dignify the inco- 
 herent scoffer with undeserved attention ? Why is one of the 
 greatest Epopees devoted to and disfigured by a chimerical 
 scheme in nature ? Why in such scheme is man, for whom it 
 
64 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 is wrought, predisposed to his own ruin ? Whv was he cre- 
 ated with evil propensities, and menaced with his Creator's 
 wrath if he yields to them ? Whv were the objects of his 
 dangerous desires placed temptinglv in his wav ? It it was to 
 fix him with responsibilitv for his own inevitable ruin, is there 
 a human mind in which the conception of his free-agencv can 
 be clearlv arranged ? If the fall was pre-determined does man 
 elect, or is he not destined to his part in the performance ? Is* 
 not the idea of man's creation entirely incompatible with the 
 idea of his free-agencv ? If he was created, he must have been 
 created bv his Creator. If he was created by his Creator, he 
 must have been created as his (jeator created him. Learned 
 vagaries, glittering generalities, and ethereal flights may please 
 a fancy, but they elude rather than answer such inquiries. 
 
 To try the validity of the proposed assertion and justifica- 
 tion, as addressed to the human understanding, an intelligent 
 atheist may be supposed. Then suppose Raphael should say 
 to him : — 
 
 "To ask or search 1 blame thee not, tor heaven 
 Is as the book of God before thee set, 
 Wherein to read his wonderous works, and learn 
 The seasons, hours, or days, or months, or years — " 
 
 and then rebukt- his inciuisitiveness with the admonition to 
 
 "Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid;" 
 would his skeptical nature content itself in Adam's response 
 
 "That not to know at large of things remote 
 From use, obscure and subtle, but to knovV 
 That which before us lies in daily life 
 Is the prime wisdom?"' 
 
 Or would it not rather prompt the petulant protest of Eve, that 
 
 " * * good unknown sure is not had, or had 
 And yet unknown, is not had at all ?" 
 
 Is not the philosophic (?) speculation of the proposed assertion 
 and justification itself interdicted in the sentiment of the angelic 
 behests ? 
 
 Then suppose the intelligent atheist whose judgment is to 
 be convinced is further admonished to — 
 
EPIC APOLOGETICS. 65 
 
 "Accuse not nature; she hath done her part, 
 
 Do thou but thine, and be not diffident of wisdom — " 
 
 would not the incoherency of the admonitions confuse instead 
 of convince ? One might be expected to lose sight of the in- 
 coherency in the maze of metaphor and allegory in which it is 
 involved ; but if he is to be not diffident of wisdom, and is to 
 solicit not his thoughts with matters hid, it might be interest- 
 ing to him to know whose wisdom he is to confide in, and 
 how he is to distinguish it from folly, if that which before us 
 lies in daily life is the prime wisdom, the atheist might think 
 that the inscrutable ways of God to men are of minor import- 
 ance. He may have no right to accuse nature, because she 
 may have done her part, but it is difficult for him to regard it 
 very well done if she created him with all his evil tendencies 
 and placed him where he would be morally certain to yield to 
 them. 
 
 There may be instances in which it is unfair to excerpt dis- 
 tinct passages for the purpose of showing inconsistency in the 
 propositions of a doctrine; but when such parts plainly present 
 the ideas upon which the doctrine is based it is not unfair. If 
 the system evolved in the rhapsody is without system, and if 
 the incongruity of its propositions is obscured by weird words, 
 one may with sufficient propriety analyze the fustian, and if he 
 discerns its sacred foibles he should disclose them. The halo 
 of sanctity that shrouds gross absurdity should be removed. 
 The righteousness of no cause can justify either the perpetra- 
 tion of fraud or resort to sophistry. 
 
 If it was meant that the multitude should only hear and be 
 horrified by the thunders from Sinai's summit, and that a 
 peculiarly gifted one should hold the key to interpretation, mir- 
 acle is said to have supplied the want of reason in enforcing 
 the meteoric monitions. But here the effect of the absence of 
 both reason and miracle is aggravated by inconsistency in the 
 propositions. As if discord and debility could be conceived of 
 as pervading infinite harmony and power, the celestial Emis- 
 sary declares that the creation of the world and of man was 
 solely to retrieve a loss sustained by the Almighty by means of 
 an intestine war in His own realms. 
 
66 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 "Know then, that after Lucifer from heaven 
 (So call him, brighter once amidst the host 
 Of angels, than that star the stars among) 
 Fell with his flaming legions through the deep 
 Into his place, and the great Son returned 
 Victorious with his saints, the Omnipotent 
 Eternal Father from his throne beheld 
 Their multitude, and to his Son thus spake: 
 * * * heaven yet populous retains 
 Number sufficient to possess her realms 
 Though wide, and this high temple to frequent 
 With ministeries due and solemn rites; 
 But lest his heart exalt him in the harm 
 Already done, to have dispeopled heaven. 
 My damage fondly deemed, I can repair 
 That detriment, if such it be to lose 
 Self lost; and in a moment will create 
 Another world, out of one man a race 
 Of men innumerable, there to dwell. 
 Not here; till by degrees o( merit raised 
 They open to themselves the way 
 Up hither; Under long obedience tried." 
 
 If these are the occasion and object of the creation of the 
 world and of man, they are an exhibition of petty resentment 
 and envy on the part of the Creator, who, lest Lucifer"s heart 
 exalt him in the harm already done, would undertake so much, 
 and involve so many in hopeless ruin, merely to neutralize the 
 exultation of His vanquished Rival. It might be irrelevant, 
 possibly irreverent, to inquire what Lucifer could exult over. 
 It is obvious that man would have just such merit as his Crea- 
 tor would endow him with; and it is impossible to imagine a 
 limit to that with .which He could have endowed him. He 
 could have so endowed him as to have insured that he would 
 open to himself the way up hither, and to have been proof 
 against all the wiles of wickedness. It is evident that it would 
 not repair the detriment resulting from the defection of Lucifer 
 and his hosts, to create out of one man a race of men innumer- 
 able to be decoyed to damnation. Fate can not be thought 
 consonant with the free agency implied in the proposition that 
 man by degrees of merit raised should open to himself the way 
 up hither. The will of the Almighty is fate, and fate is the 
 
EPIC APOLOGETICS. 67 
 
 will of the Almighty. If this is correct there is no free agency, 
 and there can be no intelligent idea of obedience or duty. The 
 Almighty declares, 
 
 "Though 1, unciiCLimscribed myself, retire, 
 And put not forth my goodness, which is free 
 To act or not; necessity and chance 
 Approach not me, and what I will is fate." 
 
 It is strange that a Being of infinite goodness wisdom and 
 power would place the Cherubim with flaming swords to 
 guard paradise, and still allow the destroyer to enter and effect 
 the ruin in His sight. 
 
 "Meanwhile the heinous and despiteful act 
 
 Of Satan done in Paradise, and how 
 
 He in the serpent had perverted Eve, 
 
 Her husband she, to taste the fatal fruit, 
 
 Was known in heaven; for what can 'scape the eye 
 
 Of God all-seeing, or deceive His heart 
 
 Omniscient ?" 
 
 If man was created sufficient to have stood though free to 
 fall, endowed with intelligence and reason, and warned of his 
 danger, he need not have been guarded at all. If he was 
 nevertheless to be guarded by the invincible forces of heaven, 
 against a foe so lately vanciuished, it ought to have been more 
 effectively done. If it was already known that he would fall a 
 prey to the Destroyer and drag down to damnation countless 
 millions of his "faithless progeny," it was a senseless display 
 of insincere solicitude to have the celestial sentries doing 
 guard duty in the purlieus of paradise. 
 
 "Assembled angels and ye powers returned 
 From unsuccessful charge, be not dismayed, 
 Nor troubled at these tidings from the earth 
 Which your sincerest care could not prevent; 
 Foretold so lately what would come to pass, 
 When first the Tempter crossed the gulf from hell 
 I told you then he should prevail, and speed 
 On his bad errand." 
 
 It was a Strange principle of economy upon which the 
 world was peopled and damned twice, to save Enoch in the 
 first instance and Noah in the second. 
 
68 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 "But he, the seventh from thee, whom thou beheldest 
 
 The ©nly righteous in a world perverse, 
 
 ***** Him the most high 
 
 Rapt in balmy clouds with winged steeds 
 
 Did as thou sawest, receive to walk with God. 
 
 ************* 
 
 The one just man alive; by His command 
 
 Shall build a wsnderous ark, as thou beheldest. 
 
 To »ave himself and household from amidst 
 
 A world devote to universal wrack." 
 
 The creature was by his Creator endowed with just such 
 propensities as would tend him to ruin, which was not only 
 foreknown and foretold, but was foreordained. The decoy to 
 destruction was placed temptingly in his way, and he was so 
 constituted as to be morally certain to yield to the temptation. 
 With the feigned solicitude of infinite wisdom he was admon- 
 ished of danger, and guarded against the Tempter by the same 
 Power which had already ordained that he should fall, and 
 foretold that the Tempter would speed on his bad errand. 
 Man was by his Creator armed with just such resolution as 
 Would be easily overcome, and the infinite power of his Crea- 
 tor was helpless to protect him from the toils of a Fiend by the 
 same power endowed with just sufficient art to overcome. 
 Countless millions of his fliithless progeny are involuntarily 
 thrust into being, each personally accountable for the wicked 
 weakness of the creature who had no voice or choice as to his 
 existence, or in the determination of either his endowment of 
 environment. And when he fell, as it was from all eternity 
 ordained that he should, he dragged all mankind down with 
 him, victims ofthe Fiend by heaven empowered to work the 
 veiy destruction by heaven so deplored. Satan's power for 
 evil is said to have been given him by the infinitely wise and 
 good and benevolent Creator of Man. 
 
 "Satan, 1 know thy strength, thou knowest mine, 
 Neither our own, but given; what folly then, 
 To boast what arms can do; since thine no more 
 Than heaven permits, nor mine, ^ ^ * ." 
 
 Interjections in the nature of undertone disavowals of re- 
 sponsibility for foreknown and foreordained results, argue noth- 
 
EPIC APOLOGETICS. 69 
 
 ing. If it was known from all eternity that man, when creat- 
 ed, would fall, then he was created solely that he might fall; 
 if not, his creation was an exhibition of shortsightedness on 
 the part of his Creator. If the fall was foreknown it comes 
 with a bad grace to attempt to shift the responsibility to the 
 creature, who was not only just what he was made, but was 
 also after a great show of protection, purposely exposed to the 
 fiend by the same power purposely empowered and ordained 
 to effect the ruin. 
 
 "Whose fault : 
 
 Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me 
 All he could have : I made him just and right, 
 Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. 
 
 They therefore as to right belonged, 
 
 So were created, nor justly can accuse 
 
 Their Maker, or their making or their fate, 
 
 As if predestination overruled 
 
 Their will, disposed by absolute decree 
 
 Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed 
 
 Their own revolt, not I, if I foreknew 
 
 Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault 
 
 Which had no less proved certain unforeknown." 
 
 That man is at fault in his fall implies free-agency. That 
 his fall was foreknown, and had no less proved certain unfore- 
 known, implies predestination. The effort is to compound a 
 mixture of freedom and fatalism, and they will not mix. There 
 is no affinity between them. If man was made fust and right 
 and sufficient to have stood, he would never have fallen, no 
 matter how free to do so. The fiict that he fell is conclusive 
 proof that he was not made just and right. If he were made 
 sufficient to have stood, he fell from his own choice, and if he 
 was made just and right such could not have been his choice. 
 No one deliberately choosing that which he knows to be in- 
 finitely the worse for himself — besides entailing eternal damna- 
 tion on countless millions of "his faithless progeny" — can be 
 either just or right. It is absurd to say that they themselves 
 decreed their own revolt, when even their will is made for 
 
70 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 them, disposed by absolute decree, and their fall foreknown by 
 the Power which created them and gave them their will. 
 
 in human affairs personal safety is a fundamental principle. 
 If a man should place a deadly agency in the way of a child, 
 he would not be regarded a powerful, wise, and beneficient 
 person. It would not avail him in case of injury to say that 
 the child was forewarned, nor that it meddled from its own 
 caprice. Had he previously inculcated in the child a propens- 
 ity to meddle, and then while pretending to protect it, should 
 cause or permit it to be tempted to its destruction, he could 
 not shift the responsibility to the child by saying it was fore- 
 warned. The disparity between the Almighty and the strong- 
 est imaginable man, is infinitely greater than that between 
 such man and the weakest imaginable child. It is impossible 
 to think of the Almighty as a being of limited power. It is 
 impossible to think that he created man without constituting 
 him just as he is constituted, and with the tendencies to what- 
 ever changes he has made or suffered. The Power which 
 created man gave him the very propensities to evil with which 
 he is cursed, and endowed him with just sufficient firmness to 
 yield, and placed him where he was certain to be tempted. 
 We can not believe that part of this is done by one Power and 
 the residue by another. We cannot believe that these rival 
 Powers are of equal force; indeed we know they cannot be of 
 equal force if either is infinite, any more than two solid bodies 
 can occupy precisely the same space at precisely the same 
 time. If the Creator is infinitely powerful the Destroyer cannot 
 be, and Raphael declares that the Creator hurled the Destroyer 
 from heaven to hell. Then the part which he took in the ruin 
 of man could have been prevented, and the ruin was by the 
 permission, or rather the purpose of the Creator, who, lest it 
 should fail of consummation, constituted man so that he would 
 hearken to the Devil's glossing lies — and so would fall, he and 
 his faithless progeny. 
 
 Man cannot conceive that he is accountable for inborn pro- 
 pensities; and he cannot escape hereditary disease, any more 
 than the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard his spots. 
 
 It is said that Lucifer himself was "brighter once amidst the 
 
EPIC APOLOGETICS. 7 1 
 
 host of angels, than that star the stars among." He must then 
 have been holy and perfect. We are not informed who tempted 
 him, nor that he was tempted. If, without being beguiled he 
 fell from perfect holiness in highest heaven to grossest guilt in 
 lowest hell, merely to exercise the free-will with which he was 
 endowed, it would seem that free-will was a dangerous quality 
 with which to endow the creature newly created for the pur- 
 pose of repairing the detriment occasioned by his defection. If 
 that was the purpose of man's creation the peril of his position 
 should not have been increased by the addition of propensities 
 to evil, and the placing of the objects of his dangerous desires 
 temptingly in his way. and then causing him to be beset with 
 a Fiend whom it was already known he would not resist. The 
 mind cannot comprehend the beneficence that creates of one, 
 millions of millions of souls, and exposes them all in the one to 
 the toils of a Tempter, well knowing that man would "hearken 
 to his glossing lies, and so will fall, he and his faithless pro- 
 geny," and that the Tempter would "speed on his bad errand." 
 
 This great assertion and justification, has received the tribute 
 of amazed admiration for more than two hundred years. But 
 it implies infinitely less effrontery in one to candidly examine it, 
 than for its author to transcend human thought in a poetical 
 process of reasoning, predicating the existence and justice of the 
 Almighty on improvised principles hopelessly inapplicable in 
 any known or supposable phase of human affairs. There is 
 nothing in it tending to elucidate any vexed question, or to re- 
 solve any doubt. The capacity essential to read and compre- 
 hend it, is sufficient to detect its fallacies and incongruities when 
 once it is duly appreciated. It is then discerned that it neither 
 asserts eternal providence, nor justifies the way of God to men. 
 
 No rational being has ever really doubted either the existence 
 or justice of the Almighty, nor can such one account for His 
 being, or comprehend His justice. There is no logic in atheism. 
 If it were possible for a rational creature to so doubt, he could 
 not be convinced by irrational argument or extravagant asser- 
 tion. A mind capable of the thought expressed in the alleged 
 assertion and justification, probably might have estimated its 
 effect on other minds. If so, its purpose was not to assert 
 
72 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 eternal Providence nor justify the ways of God to discerning mert. 
 It was written for some other purpose. There is no passion 
 stronger than ambition. Nothing more gratefully gratifies this 
 than fame. No fame is so enviable as that for mental attain- 
 ment. In no province in mental attainment is superiority so 
 enviably famous as in poetry. The real purpose of the Paradise 
 Lost becomes apparent. If not, the reader can find in a biog- 
 raphy of its author, that he had declared he would write a poem 
 which would perpetuate his memory while language and liter- 
 ature shall last. Perhaps it may. But it argues very little for 
 the intelligence of a race that such memory is so perpetuated on 
 account of the philosophy of the poem. Many beautiful things 
 therein are beautifully said, but when candidly tested on prin- 
 ciples of universal application its alleged system is no system, 
 its ostensible object has no basis. 
 
 The tendency to skepticism is intensified by vehement op- 
 position. It assumes proportions as it is dignified by contro- 
 versial attention. Obvious truths may be made debatable to 
 some minds by the use of circuitous and importunate argument 
 in their support. To seriously urge any proposition implies in- 
 telligence on the part of the auditor, and plausibility in the con- 
 verse of the proposition urged ; and upon the theory that only 
 desperate causes require extreme measures, intense fervor and 
 grotesque metaphor discredit the apologist and his cause in ad- 
 vance. The assertion and justification are a challenge to debate 
 upon the validity of principles which admit of no debate, simply 
 because they are beyond the possibility of human comprehen- 
 sion. The judgment of discerning men is not to be convinced 
 by the expression, how grandly or learnedly soever, of pro- 
 positions irreconcilable with the essential results of their obser- 
 vation and experience, and repugnant to their instincts. 
 
 But the effort is not addressed to such judgment. It is a 
 magnificent mausoleum to the memory of a man of letters, in 
 which he has immortalized himself in really disparaging the 
 cause he has assumed to advocate. It smacks somewhat of 
 assurance in one helpless to conceive of the principle of vitality 
 which animates the minutest insect, to attempt to assert eternal 
 Providence and justify the ways of God to men. If palpable 
 
EPiC APOLOGETICS. 73 
 
 phenomena are hopelessly inscrutable, if the bursting of a bud 
 cannot be intelligibly traced up to first principles, it would be 
 a desperate undertaking to attempt to ascertain and declare the 
 relations existing between man and his Maker. Unless it can 
 be done successfully and incontrovertibly, there is no utility in 
 the attempt. Such affected familiarity with the inscrutable 
 wisdom of divine Power tends more to debase the mind with 
 irreverence, than to ennoble it with respect for the Power 
 which it must believe exists somewhere and in some way, 
 yet, which it must also realize is forever beyond its compre- 
 hension. 
 
 When, in the thunderstorm, the untutored savage prostrates 
 himself upon and kisses the bosom of his mother earth, ex- 
 claiming the Great Spirit is angry, he manifests a reverential 
 awe. it may be mingled with a base and servile fear, but it 
 has the merit of sincerity, and is devoid of arrogant f^imiliarity 
 with that which he cannot conceive of Yet there is as much 
 philosophy in his ejaculation as in all the dogmatical apologetics 
 ever written. No one is known to be divinely authorized to 
 measure the devotion and prescribe the ritual by which the 
 savage is to propitiate the Almighty and appease his wrath at 
 the offence of ancestors, done five or six thousand years ago, 
 and of which he has not even a tradition. If something within 
 prompts him to adoration, and if in simplicity and awe he sin- 
 cerely adores, it is worse than unprofitable that a deeply laid 
 scheme of Providence be learnedly elaborated, and based upon 
 assumptions which shock the sense of justice, and strain credu- 
 lity with a violence only equalled by the amazement with 
 which one beholds the weird extravagance in which it is as- 
 serted. If it were objected that his devotion is blind and his 
 tenets unintelligible, the objector can only offer his own con- 
 victions, if he has any, in their stead. Unless he proposes 
 something superior in point of sincerity, and more intelligible 
 to the savage in reasonableness of doctrine, he certainly confers 
 no favor upon him by disturbing him in his primitive faith. 
 Beauty of expression, epithet, nicely rounded periods, and fault- 
 less measure, may be used in the expression of any one doc- 
 
74 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 trine, as well as any other. Metaphor, allegory, and analogy, 
 are just as appropriate in Fetichism as in Christianity. 
 
 The scheme conceived in the alleged assertion and justifica- 
 tion will not bear investigation according to any criteria avail- 
 able to the human mind. The doctrine, though educed and 
 proclaimed in thought ever so sublime, and language ever so 
 grand, reasons around in a mist of confusion, and comes back 
 to the assumptions from which it started : and they are so gro- 
 tesquely absurd as to provoke the derision of every one who 
 candidly considers them. Revelation is invoked, but we are 
 not informed whv anvone instead of any other person was 
 selected as the Spokesman of the Almighty; nor upon what 
 authority, other than that of the Spokesman himself, we are to 
 rely for the fact that he was so selected. TlTe crudely impro- 
 vised principles of an alleged theology, which are themselves 
 repugnant to every one's sense of justice and all practical utility, 
 are not validated in Revelation which is itself not only more 
 repugnant to natural justice and utility, but depends for its 
 authenticity upon the ipse dixit of the alleged medium through 
 which divine Power is said to have expressed itself. 
 
 Miracle and prophecy are also invoked. But so far as 
 human cognition is concerned the existence of each and every 
 atom of matter is miraculous: the loss and subsequent recovery 
 by the Egyptian King Pheron of his sight was miraculous; the 
 delivery of the French by a country girl in 1428 was miracul- 
 ous; and the dream of Cyrus that he saw the eldest son of 
 Hystaspes with wings overspreading Europe and Asia was pro- 
 phetic. But we know of no creed that has been founded or doc- 
 trine that is authenticated on such data. We are credibly in- 
 formed in recent history, that in the year 1682 one of the most 
 licentious rakes who ever dominated and debased a government, 
 performed the rite of laying on hands to cure scrofula eight 
 thousand five hundred times, and that the ablest men of his 
 time solemnly professed their faith in his miraculous power, and 
 their belief that any failure was due solely to a want of faith on 
 the part of the afflicted. 
 
 We are not informed what it is which distinguishes these 
 phenomena from the events, visions, and prophecy recorded in 
 
EPIC APOLOGETICS. 75 
 
 Holy Writ; and to the popular mind there is more difference in 
 the media by which they are respectively commemorated, than 
 there is in the phenomena themselves. That they cannot be 
 understood ought not to deter a thrifty zealot from utilizing 
 one kind as v^ell a,s another in promulgating some fanciful 
 faith, if eternal Providence is in need of human assertion and 
 justification, if its credit is on the decline, here are some unused 
 phenomena inscrutable, from vyhich something might be 
 proved if some great genius should go into the appropriate 
 ecstasy, and evolve the scheme to which, or to some part of 
 which, they might be made to appear apposite. 
 
 Instead of assuming to help Heaven out of a supposed dif- 
 ficulty, it were better, at least it were in better taste, to candid- 
 ly admit that eternal Providence is eternally too much for our 
 comprehension. The inward monitor that approves virtue and 
 eschews vice, according to the generally accepted standards of 
 right and wrong, is probably the most efficient promoter of 
 civilization and its essential concomitant — good life. Fear for 
 personal safety may emphasize the zeal with which the good 
 {?) are sedulously laboring to make the world better. But 
 when poetry becomes philosophical and attempts in Eolean 
 strains to tell us all about how and why the Almighty has done 
 thus and so. it finds itself involved in interminable discord. 
 When evil is shunned because it is abhorred ; when good is 
 done for its own sake ; the conduct will be more acceptable to 
 Him to whom we instinctively ascribe every perfection, than 
 when it is exacted under the intimidation of frightful ghost 
 stories and the menaces of divine wrath. Self-respect is not 
 necessarily self-conceit. Yet, to avoid the imputation of pusil- 
 lanimity in the creature submitting under the denunciation of 
 damnation, the Creator condescends to confer upon the creature 
 he has created and cursed, the privilege of transforming the 
 curse into a blessing, on terms which it was already known 
 the creature would reject; and negotiating with him as with a 
 responsible equal, the terms upon which divine wrath might be 
 changed to divine love. An infinitely wise and powerful Cre- 
 ator, creates a creature in a certain manner, knowing from all 
 eternity that such creature will provoke Him to wrath and be 
 
76 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 damned for his temerity; and the world is flooded with learned 
 nonsense on the purpose and plan of the Creator in such cre- 
 ation. 
 
 The observation and experience of man teach that something 
 within admonishes and ever hath admonished that he is the 
 creature of some Power infinitely above him, and beyond the 
 possibility of his comprehension, it is audacious and absurd 
 to speak of the Power in terms of affected familiarity, when the 
 mind staggers at the thought of any one of its attributes. No 
 human mind ever existed that could conceive of omnipresence, 
 nor of the immensitv of the space occupied by the Omnipresent. 
 The mind which is inadequate to such a thought certainly has 
 no business with the purposes or plans, of the divine Architect, 
 who, by analogy may be supposed to be infinitely more super- 
 ior to the work of his hands, than the Sculptor to the lifeless 
 marble. 
 
 The difference between Polytheism and Monotheism, indeed 
 between any of the isms, is of little importance when environ- 
 ment and educational prejudices are considered. The test of 
 character is sincerity, and the object of religion is rectitude. 
 Individual salvation and damnation as results of merit and de- 
 merit cannot be woven into any system or scheme of which 
 the mind can conceive; and if either is to any extent a matter 
 of grace or of wrath, the whole subject is at Sea, and no argu- 
 ment of any kind can be intelligibly applied to it. it would 
 be a singular sort of grace that damns a world to create the 
 occasion to save here and there an individual out of its perish- 
 ing multitude. 
 
 In the domain of physical phenomena we think we see a 
 perfect system. Nothing appears to depend upon a capricious 
 favor or grace — nothing appears to go slipshod here. The 
 tides and the seasons, growths and decays, recur with appar- 
 ently unvarying, almost monotonous regularity ; and gravita- 
 tion still tends its subjects toward the great centers. Matter is 
 still within the jurisdiction and control of its Great Author, 
 who from all eternity hath kept, and to all eternity will keep 
 the rotations of the Systems in accord with the Music of the 
 Spheres. 
 
EPIC APOLOGETICS. 77 
 
 Neither Mind nor Matter can be understood by any human 
 mind. But, if they are distinct entities, it seems that Mind 
 would be of at least equal, if not of greater importance to the 
 Creator of both. When Lucifer, the Lord's whilom lieutenant, 
 was hurled from Heaven to Hell and had sworn eternal ven- 
 geance, he might have interfered in some way with the order 
 pervading the material universe. Man was not yet created, 
 and the Rebel has evinced no such magnanimity as to raise the 
 suspicion that he would slight an opportunity for revenge. 
 He may have waited for a more favorable, and, to his diaboli- 
 cal instincts, a more agreeable opportunity; knowing perhaps 
 that man with mind was to be created for the glory of the 
 Creator and to repair the detriment of his. defection, and that 
 ninety-nine of every hundred were to become his victims. If 
 so, he must have regarded the Lord a very obliging enemy. 
 Or, his power may not have been so effective against the ma- 
 terial universe as against the contemplated town of Mansoul, 
 to be erected and garrisoned against him by the same Power 
 which had "hurled him through the deep into his place." 
 Mind, the soul of Man, created for the glory of the Creator, the 
 last, the greatest and dearest of all His works, and yet the only 
 one made vulnerable to the attacks of the recalcitrant rebel! 
 The Power that created the human mind in the beginning ap- 
 pears to have directed its trend for futurity. It may not be 
 absolutely enslaved, but if it works in accordance with a plan 
 devised for it before its creation, all the poetical philosophy that 
 can possibly be written, can never give color to the idea of indi- 
 vidual responsibility and duty. And the ways of such Provi- 
 dence to man cannot be justified in reason, because they can- 
 not be understood. 
 
 Fanatics frequently accuse of atheism, those whose manli- 
 ness spurns the solicitous authority of their superstitions. One 
 of the greatest historians, and one who is frequently charged 
 with atheism, has paid to Christianity, one of the highest tri- 
 butes it ever received in either history or philosophy. Coming 
 from such source it alTirms more in one brief paragraph than is 
 argued in the three hundred pages of rhapsody under consid- 
 eration. He says, "A candid but rational inquiry into the pro- 
 
78 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 gress and establishment of Christianity mav be considered as a 
 very essential part of the history of the Roman Empire. While 
 that great body was invaded by open violence, or undermined 
 by slow decay, a pure and humble religion gently insinuated 
 itself into the minds of men, grew up in silence and obscurity, 
 derived new vigor from opposition, and finally erected the 
 triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins of the Capitol." 
 
 A parish priest of the EstablisJied Church has edited the 
 philosophical history written by this great master of thought 
 and language, and he petulantly complains that, "Christianity 
 alone receives no embellishment from the magic of Gibbon's 
 language ; his imagination is dead to its moral dignity ; it is 
 kept down by a g.eneral tone of jealous disparagement, or 
 neutralized by a painfully elaborated exposition of its darker 
 and degenerate periods." It may be presumed that the priest 
 was acquainted with the history or he would not have assumed 
 to edit it. in such case the malignity of his stricture is not 
 mitigated or excused by its veracity. The historian was no 
 enthusiast, and it seems not to have occurred to him that he 
 might ingratiate himself in divine favor either by suppressing 
 the truth, or by positively lying. His logic may have restrain- 
 ed him from a futile attempt to embellish that which, if it is 
 what it purports to be, is above and beyond embellishment. 
 If he noted the faults of professed Christians, his logic may have 
 rejected the idea that real Christians have faults, if, however, 
 they have faults, forming factors in history, his candor may have 
 forbidden him to whitewash or disguise them, even in the in- 
 terest of Christianity. Perhaps he thought so holy a cause 
 would not countenance even its own advancement by the per- 
 petration of a pious fraud, if his imagination was dead to the 
 moral dignity of Christianity, he may not have regarded Chris- 
 tianity so much a matter of imagination as the philosophy of 
 some of its apologists would make it appear. 
 
 in spite of its exhibition of ill nature, the stricture is a com- 
 pliment to the candor of the historian, the main objection to 
 whom is, he would tell the truth. If he kept Christianity 
 down "by a general tone of jealous disparagement," his method 
 was at least a strange one. He says, "Our curiosity is natur- 
 
EPIC APOLOGETICS. 79 
 
 ally prompted to inquire by what means the Christian faith ob- 
 tained so remarkable a victory over the established religions of 
 the earth. To this inquiry an obvious but satisfactory answer 
 may be returned ; that it was owing to the convincing evidence 
 of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling providence of its great 
 Author." And yet the enthusiast says, "the divine origin of 
 the religion is dexterously eluded, or speciouslv conceded." 
 it is true he did not attempt to justify or palliate the canting 
 hypocrisy and fanaticism which, in the guise of Christianity at 
 times became the scourge and reproach of mankind; nor did 
 he attempt to justify the doctrine of the system on crudely im- 
 provised principles which were incompatible with universal ex- 
 perience and observation, and repugnant to the universal sense 
 of justice and idea of utility. He mav have thought he found 
 it an established self-evident fact. He left it just where, and 
 just as he found it; and for the good of the cause and of man- 
 kind, it were better its zealots and apologists had followed his 
 example. 
 
 In the estimation of the fervid enthusiast, the man whose 
 manliness spurns fanaticism and superstition is a skeptic, an 
 intldel, an atheist. If the doctrines of the apologists had to be 
 accepted as the philosophy of Christanitv, atheism would keep 
 pace with the manliness and intelligence of the race. In the 
 Paradise Lost one thing is achieved. The fame of the Bard, if 
 not of the Philosopher, is fixed. How badly it is marred, and 
 how unsightly the poetry is made by fanatical and fallacious 
 philosophizing, are questions depending in some measure upon 
 the development of candid discrimination and manly indpen- 
 dence in both relitrion and literature. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Prologue to Essay On Man Assumes Marvelous Wisdom of Poet — Dissimula- 
 tion as to integrity of Purpose — Providential Plan a Confusion — Vindication 
 Necessarily Illogical — To Reason About Providence From what we Know 
 is to Reason From Nothing — Necessity of Man to System a Groundless As- 
 sumption — Coherency of System — Freedom and Fatalism Irreconcilable — 
 If Whatever Is is Right Man's Errors are Right — The Ways of Providence 
 Must be Known Before They Can be Vindicated — All Knowlege is Acquir- 
 ed — Conditions Must be Unknown — Poetry May Flourish in Metaphysics 
 — Taine's strictures on the Poet — Foul Blots on the Poetry of the Essay — 
 Indefniite Purpose and Ambition of the Poet. 
 
 In 1752 one of the greatest Poets who ever attempted to 
 promulgate a poetical philosophy awoke his St. John to 
 
 " « * * leave all meaner things 
 
 To low ambition and the pride of Kings. 
 
 Let us (since life can little more supply 
 
 Than just look about us and to die) 
 
 Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man; 
 
 A mighty maze: but not without a plan; 
 
 A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot, 
 
 Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit. 
 
 Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; 
 But vindicate the ways of God to man." 
 
 This is a distinct declaration of a purpose to treat philo- 
 sophically of the relations supposed to exist between man and 
 his Maker, including his moral attributes and characteristics, 
 his appropriate place and sphere in nature, and the divine pur- 
 pose in his creation and environment. The announcement, 
 with an assurance truly admirable, claims for the philosopher a 
 kind and degree of wisdom which is marvellous, infinitely 
 transcending all our reasonable expectations of a mere man. 
 It is also prefaced by what is meant as a voucher for all the 
 knowledge necessary to enable him to advise his fellow mortals, 
 and even his Maker, of the plan and purpose of Providence, so 
 far as it concerns mankind. He says— "Having proposed to 
 write some pieces on human life and manners, such as (to use 
 
DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 8 I 
 
 my Lord Bacon's expression) come home to men's business and 
 bosoms, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with consider- 
 ing man in the abstract, his nature and state ; since to prove 
 any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine 
 the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is 
 necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed 
 in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being." If 
 he knew all this, and he was pledged to the proposition that he 
 did, he was eminently qualified to teach the doctrine and im- 
 part the information. As he was further pledged to be candid 
 where he could, the manner in which he has dealt with the 
 subject, and the actual result of his reasoning, will disclose 
 what if anything he really knew about it. 
 
 It is an elementary principle in moral philosophy that there 
 can be no duty where there is no choice. In such case the per- 
 formance whatever it may be is done, if not automatically, yet, 
 in fulfillment or discharge of a function, and not as a duty. 
 Choice, to rise to the dignity of the name, must be an option to 
 do or forbear; it must be absolute, not only unfettered, but un- 
 prejudiced by any natural bent for which the individual is not 
 directly and wholly responsible. The tact that the vindication 
 is written is equivalent to a declaration of the free-agency of 
 man, that he is possessed of a discerning and choosing mind 
 which is to be convinced by appropriate reasoning, and that he 
 is to be held liable for failure in duty and not in function. 
 
 The above exordium is a bad start for a treatise assuming 
 the airs and proportions of a doctrine in morals, or statement of 
 a scheme in nature, or of the purpose of Providence, or of the 
 relation in which man is placed. The first requisite in such an 
 undertaking is consistency, without which it will itself become 
 
 "A wilJ where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot." 
 
 Without descending to captious objections on account of 
 mere verbal inaccuracies, such as appear in the above prefatory 
 promise, there is sufficient ground for valid objection to the 
 substance of the general statement of the dilemma as couched 
 in various parts of the poem. Weeds and fiowers (evil and 
 good) are not likely to shoot promiscuously in any well arrang- 
 
82 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ed plan of tl-ie Almighty, nor can such plan be a wild, if the 
 scene of man is planned at all it is very badly planned, if it is a 
 garden tempting with forbidden fruit, unless man is absolutely 
 free from fate and wholly responsible for all the consequences 
 of his inherited and inherent qualities and propensities. He 
 cannot understand why he should be tempted unless it is to in- 
 sure his ruin. If it is to test his fortitude, he cannot under- 
 stand that it is really his fortitude ; he does not know what he 
 ever had to do or say in the acquisition thereof, or of his sus- 
 ceptibility to temptation. He finds himself endowed and en- 
 vironed by some power which has never deigned to consult 
 him, and if he had been consulted, he cannot understand how 
 he would have been called upon to exercise any other than the 
 faculties with which he is so endowed, to express the choice to 
 which such faculties and his native tendencies incline him. He 
 cannot understand how he is to be improved by anything like 
 moral instruction, unless he is able to accept or reject the doc- 
 trine according to his own judgment and of his own choice, 
 in the formation of such judgment and exercise of such choice, 
 he cannot understand that he is actuated^by any other than the 
 faculties and propensities with which he is endowed by the 
 Power which has made and environed him. 
 
 Proceeding as the above quotations authorize one to do, to 
 examine the vindication on the hypothesis that its author knew 
 (or claimed he knew) and understood' man's sphere in nature, 
 his relation to his Maker, and the proper end and purpose of 
 his being, one v/iil bepuzzled at the dissimulation of design 
 apparent in the last couplet of the above quoted exordium; "be 
 candid where we can, but vindicate the ways of God to man." 
 A fond father once started his hopeful son out into the world 
 with the admonition to make money, "make it honestly if you 
 can, but make money." A devout worshipper would not like to 
 think that his God wants a vindication on such terms, or at all 
 events. To say the couplet was written to round out a period 
 or phrase, or to fill a measure, is no co.mpliment to one of the 
 greatest poets. There is little of the pure jingle in anything 
 from his pen. He seldom sacrificed sense to sound. The 
 couplet contains a faithful expression of an unfaithful purpose— 
 
DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 8^ 
 
 a determination to accomplish his end, candidly if he could, 
 but to accomplish it. If he knew all he assumed to know, 
 there was no occasion for verbal or mental reservation as to 
 the rectitude and philosophic integrity of the proposed argu- 
 ment. Having announced his ability and intent to vindicate 
 the ways of God to man, he proceeds therewith,, leaving us 
 v/ith but little assurance of sincerity in the reasoning to be em- 
 ployed, and when // is tested, the announcement will appear to 
 be the most striking exhibition of his candor. 
 
 That the Almighty should be vindicated implies that he 
 owes his creatures an apology or explanation. If he does, and 
 if it is properly made in the vindication in question, it is done 
 somewhat in the spirit and manner of the rustic who said : "If 
 I have done anything to be sorry for, I am glad of it." But if 
 infinite power and wisdom were brought by the Almighty to 
 his work in the creation of man, .who was made in his own 
 image and endowed with reason and some wisdom, it is diffi- 
 cult to imagine M/hy he was not gifted with sufficient to know 
 that the ways of the Almighty were right and could need no 
 vindication. Man would naturally suppose that the work of 
 infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, is necessarily perfect. 
 If that work was in part the creation of man, in which he finds 
 much that is evil, his reasonable expectations are disappointed, 
 and the entire subject is at sea. There is then no available 
 starting point from which he can proceed to reason out to an 
 intelligible and satisfactory conclusion concerning it. 
 
 Unless the work of the Almighty is imperfect; left unfinish- 
 ed, to be completed by an individual specimen of the work 
 itself, it is decidedly arrogant for man to oiter to take it up 
 v/here He leaves it and iuiish it for Him. In the prologue or 
 introduction to the vindication, where its object is stated, its 
 course outlined, and its character foreshadowed, the philoso- 
 pher is involved in a labyrinth of inconsistency of postulation, 
 and insincerity of design so far as concerns the attaining of his 
 object. And when the argument is reached the first postulate 
 (which is interrogatively put) is another assumption of all the 
 knowledge necessary to enable the cognoscente, by the use of 
 the usual processes of ratiocination, to make clear and intelligi- 
 
84 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ble to the average mind, the whole system, scheme, and pur- 
 pose of Providence — so there is neither occasion nor excuse for 
 dissimulation in stating the purpose, or confusion in stating the 
 dilemma. 
 
 "Say first, of God above, or man below, 
 
 What can we reason, but from what we know? 
 
 Of man, what see we but his station here 
 
 From which to reason or to which refer ? 
 
 Thro' World's unnumbered tho' the God be known, 
 
 'Tis ours to trace Him only in our own. 
 
 ********* 
 Of systems possible, if 'tis confest 
 That wisdom infinite must form the best, 
 Where all must full or not coherent be, 
 And all that rises, rise in due degree; 
 Then in the scale of reasoning life "tis plain. 
 There must be somewhere such a rank as man; 
 And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) 
 Is only this, if God has placed him wrong ? 
 Respecting man, whatever wrong we call, 
 May, must be right, as relative to all." 
 
 If the doctrine of the last couplet is true, there can be no 
 question as to whether God has placed man wrong. If it is 
 not true, the basis goes from under the entire argument. If 
 the only question is, whether God has placed man wrong, 
 there can be no other to argue. If whatever respecting man 
 we call wrong, must as relative to all be right, he cannot be 
 placed wrong, and there is no question whatever to argue. 
 There is however a very bold assertion, and perhaps it is the 
 purpose of the piece to fortify and sustain it by reasoning; and 
 it appears to be the philosopher's idea that such reasoning 
 
 '< * * * must full or not coherent be." 
 
 Unless the reasoning is both full and coherent, this is a 
 singular dilemma to get into at the beginning of a learned and 
 elaborate philosophical discussion. What is it which makes it 
 plain that there must be somewhere such a rank as man } is 
 it because all that rises must rise in due degree '? What is due 
 degree ? What is next to man in the descending scale } What 
 is next above him } How many degrees from man to the 
 Almighty ? How many from man to the mollusk ? Unless 
 
DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 85 
 
 the degrees are known, how may it be known whether they 
 are due ? If all must full or not coherent be, what is the nec- 
 essary consequence of the extinction of the myriads of species 
 whose fossil foot prints on the shores and shelves of time, are 
 the only (yet conclusive) evidence of their having sometime 
 occupied a place (degree) in the system ? To what other 
 species or degree is man necessary ? How is he necessary to 
 the system, or to any part of it ? Is it that the system may be 
 full, coherent, and rise in due degree from the mollusk to the 
 Maker ? Is not the system still coherent, notwithstanding the 
 known extinction of many species having once occupied as 
 many places or degrees ? It cannot still be full. What and 
 how many species in the ascending scale, between man and 
 his Maker have become extinct ? Does not the rule work both 
 ways ? Are we to argue that none have, simply because we 
 find none of their fossil ? Have we found all there is to be 
 known ? How do we know the present existence of the in- 
 termediate degrees in the ascending scale ? Are we to reason 
 that there are such, because from what we know, there are in- 
 termediate degrees in the descending scale.? If so, we may 
 plausibly proceed and reason from what we know of the ex- 
 tinction of several species in the one, that some species in the 
 other scale have also become extinct. 
 
 This would be tracing Him only in our own, and reasoning 
 from what we know, with as much plausibility as to reason 
 and infer the existence of the Almighty himself from anything 
 we know. 
 
 It seems to be a stolid sort of philosophy, that extracts com- 
 fort or consolation from the dispensation that endows man with 
 an insatiable curiosity, and then mysteriously veils from him 
 the sight of the object of his deepest solicitude. It requires as 
 much ingenuity in reasoning to show that this is really prefer- 
 able, as it would to ascertain (if it can be done by reasoning) 
 what it is that is kindly kept from his eager eyes. 
 
 "Oh blindness to the future ! Kindly given, 
 That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven; 
 Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 
 A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, 
 
86 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, 
 
 And now a bubble burst, and now a world." 
 
 If we can reason of God and man only from what we know, 
 it seems a difficult undertaking to attempt to show of the 
 former that He is no more concerned in the fall of a hero than 
 of a sparrow, in the ruin of a system than of an atom, or in 
 the bursting of a world than of a bubble. To carry conviction 
 such assertion should be enforced by the statement of some 
 fact known and reasoned from; and the philosopher interroga- 
 tively predicates his reasoning on what he knows. If it is ours 
 to trace Him only in our own world, we can. know nothing of 
 the Almighty. How are we to know anything of Him ? Not 
 from any palpable demonstration certainly. All alleged mani- 
 festations of everything divine, have ever been, and in all prob- 
 ability will ever be, interpreted as variously as the several 
 faiths and creeds of their several beholders. If we are to reason 
 upon the subject of the concern or indifference of the Almighty 
 in regard to such catastrophes only from what we know, it is 
 clear that unless we know He is in some measure affected as 
 man, we are to reason from nothing. Unless the philosopher 
 knew He was so affected, the vindication becomes a contra- 
 diction of the very postulate upon which the argument is 
 based. What affection or characteristic in any creature do we 
 know of, from which to reason that such indifference is attri- 
 butable to the Almighty .^ If it is ours to trace Him only in 
 our own, how are we to know that in all, or any, of His attri- 
 butes He is to be characterized by divine perfection and good- 
 ness ? Do we not in our own, see more of evil than good ? 
 How are we to know that, as relative to all, this not only may, 
 but must be right ? If, as an eminent psychologist has said, 
 " * * * as we can only prove by means of premises we 
 must at length come to premises which cannot be proven, and 
 which must be assumed as being either primitive cognitions or 
 primitive faiths;" and if the necessary sequence to such premise 
 is the doctrine reasoned out and deduced therefrom, why not 
 assume the whole matter in controversy at the beginning ? If 
 the entire structure is based on assumptions, either of primitive 
 cognition or of primitive faith, what is the doctrine itself but 
 
DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 87 
 
 assumption ? Philosophical apologists tell us we must have 
 faith — in what ? Why in this instance, in the Being we are 
 only to trace in our own world; and then the philosopher pro- 
 ceeds to portray Him in all respects as unlike any thing we 
 know of, as light is unlike darkness. Where is the evidence 
 which convinces the judgment .^ Whence the information by 
 which we know the fiicts ? We are. only to reason from what 
 we know; now on that, or any kindred subject what do we 
 know ? and hov/ ? We know in some instances what we 
 regard reasonable and right; but do we know zvhy we so 
 regard it ? Is it within any instinct or feeling we know of,, for 
 it to be a matter of indifference whether a bubble or a world 
 burst ? We /;nozc it is not. If it is ours to trace Him only in 
 our own, how can we attribute such indifference to Him ? 
 For all we know He may be so indifferent, but are we not 
 reasoning against, instead of from what we know, to argue 
 that He is ? Could such things be viewed with equal eye 
 (concern) by any intelligent and reasonable being ? Or is the 
 God whose ways to man are being-vindicated, an unreasonable 
 Being ? What do we know, or what can we trace in our own, 
 from which to reason that He is ? To argue that He beholds 
 such catastrophes with equal eye, is to argue that He is not in 
 any manner affected by, or concerned in them. 
 
 Concern is a comparative or relative quantity or affection, 
 and to be capable of it one must necessarily be susceptible to 
 the deeper or more intense concern in the greater, than in the 
 lesser catastrophe. This is unquestionably the experience and 
 observation of all (we call) reasonable creatures, and the phil- 
 osopher says it is ours to trace Him only in our own, and to 
 reason only from what we knozv. If concern is not character- 
 ized by susceptibility to various degrees of intensity, then all 
 reasoning is idle, and there remains not even a poor apology 
 for the vindication. 
 
 What reason have we to suppose that blindness to the 
 future was kiiuily given } That otherwise each would not fill 
 the circle marked by Heaven .? Is not the vindication itself a 
 protest against the propriety of such a dispensation } If such 
 blindness is kindly given, is it not ingratitude to be prying in- 
 
88 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 to the future, and neutralizing the effects of such kindness by 
 telling mankind what one sees there ? Does not the vindica- 
 tion involve a prophetic forecast of human destiny ? 
 
 "So man, who here seems principal alone, 
 Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown. 
 Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal; 
 * * * * -X- * -K- * * * 
 
 The soul uneasy and confined, from home, 
 Rests and expatiates in a life to come. 
 *•»**** *** * 
 
 If to be perfect in a certain sphere 
 
 What matter, soon or late, or here or there ? 
 
 ********** 
 
 Submit. — In this, or any other sphere, 
 Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear." 
 
 This is an incongruous commingling of the elements of 
 prophecy and declaration ; prophetic of everything except ulti- 
 mate bliss, and certainty of that, no matter what the denoue- 
 ment. If the future state or condition is itself problematical, 
 how can its happiness be a certainty ?" 
 
 " * * X nothing stands alone; 
 
 The chain holds on, and where it ends unknown." 
 
 Is it to be reasoned out to a moral certainty from anything 
 we know ? Is it the necessary result of the progress of man- 
 kind .'' If man was originally perfect and happy, his progress 
 seems to have been the other way. Perhaps different influ- 
 ences are at work now. But what are they ? When did they 
 begin ? At what period has the ratio of wretchedness to bliss, 
 present or prospective, been greater than it is now ? What 
 has reduced it ? Was it the 
 
 " * w * Christian's thirst for gold ?" 
 
 To be philosophical a treatise should contain a doctrine, 
 and have a purpose which could be discerned in its perusal. 
 There should be an end in view, an object to be accomplished 
 by its teaching. It should proceed upon a definite, distinct, 
 and an intelligible theory, and consistently adhere to it. How 
 is it with the vindication in question ? What is its object ? 
 How are we to ascertain it ? It is broadly asserted to be, to 
 
DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 89 
 
 vindicate the ways of God to man. But the name or avowed 
 purpose has little, if anything, to do with determining the 
 character of or classifying a pleading. This must be ascer- 
 tained from its substance; it must be determined from its gen- 
 eral scope and tenor. 
 
 In vindicating the ways of God to man, so as to convince 
 the judgment of persons not assuming the infinite wisdom 
 essential to know and understand the ways themselves, what 
 should be first done ? Should they not first be made known 
 and understood ? Would not a mere statement of them, if one 
 were sufficiently wise and candid to make it correctly, be their 
 complete vindication ? If man is reasonable and capable of 
 correct judgment, and, if the Almighty is infinitely powerful, 
 wise, and good, it certainly would be. If man is not reason- 
 able and capable of correct judgment it is waste of time trying 
 to convince him of anything, or to vindicate anything to him. 
 If God is infinitely powerful He can do just as He desires. If 
 He is infinitely wise He need make no mistakes. If He is in- 
 finitely good He will not do anything wrong. Then a mere 
 statement of His ways to man, if understood, would be their 
 vindication. Man cannot understand their vindication more 
 readily or more easily than he can understand the ways them- 
 selves. If he cannot comprehend and understand the ways, 
 he cannot know when they are vindicated in argument or 
 philosophy. And no one knows what they are, or understands 
 them. Many different views or theories as to what they are 
 prevail to-day. Where such several views and theories con- 
 flict, which are right and which are wrong ? How is this 
 question to be settled ? Is it to be done by reasoning ? If so, 
 from what are we to reason ? If we are to reason only from 
 what we know, what is it we know, from which to deduce 
 the correctness of any one of such theories, and the necessary 
 fallacy of all others ? 
 
 We know only what we learn, not what we assume; and 
 the phrase "primitive cognition" means nothing. In the 
 nature of things there can be no such cognition. Whatever is 
 cognized (known) must be first learned. We learn in being 
 taught. We are taught by others, and by our own experience 
 
go ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 and observation. Reason may aid in the assimilation, but its 
 office is not until a fact is cognized. And even then what 
 assurance have we that reason is so enlightened as to make the 
 proper deduction ? If, as McCosh has said, something must be 
 assumed before the process of reasoning is in order, what are 
 the criteria by Vv'hich to ascertain the validity of the assump- 
 tion ? Unless that is known, how are we to know that the 
 reasoning adopted is germain to the assumption ? Unless this 
 is all known, what right have we to urge the validity of the 
 result.? To illustrate, we assume something; for instance that 
 "whatever is, is right." We then proceed by reasoning to 
 erect thereon a magnificent Pile, for instance, an Essay on Man. 
 But unfortunately in building it we use material that is 
 incompatible with the assumption, for instance, the ideas that 
 the "scene of man" is 
 
 "A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot, 
 Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit;" and that 
 'Mn pride, in reasoning pride our error lies;" 
 
 and either the assumption or the idea is wrong because they 
 conjlict. 
 
 We flatter our vanity that we may increase our knowledge, 
 and perhaps wisdom, by means of our own reasoning. But if 
 of the Almighty we are only to reason from what we know, 
 we are only to reason from what we have learned, and not 
 from what we assume, nor from what we may fancy we have 
 reasoned into our quantum, of knowledge or wisdom. We are 
 not to spin out the reasoning process to any such unreasonable 
 length. The facts, the things known and so reasoned from, 
 might not be very reliable. Their validity would depend upon 
 that of some prior assumption, and the course of reasoning by 
 which they were educed; and so backward ad infinitiun. So 
 if we are to reason only from what we know, it must not be 
 from anything we assume, nor from what we may fancy we 
 know by means of any inference, guess, or process of reason- 
 ing. An eminent psychologist has said, " * * * ]f we have 
 not knowledge in the premises, we are not entitled to put it 
 into the conclusion." 
 
 We do not know that the course of nature includes, or in 
 
DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 9 I 
 
 any manner or to any extent consists of, or affects, or relates to, 
 the ways of God to man. We may very reasonably believe 
 that it does; but according to the philosopher we must knoiv, 
 not assume it, before- we start therefrom to vindicate those ways 
 in a process of reasoning. That which we believe to be evil, 
 we cannot at the same time know to be good. As relative to 
 all it may be right, but unless we know and understand the 
 relation, we cannot know it is so. The philosopher says these 
 ways are right, that "whatever is, is right." To be right, a 
 way must be good. It cannot be right and be evil. If the 
 Creator had created and continued His creature in His alleged 
 primitive perfect condition, it would have been better than 
 that which we now know him to be in. 
 
 An infinitely powerful, wise, and good Creator could have 
 made man perpetually exempt from all tendency to and liabil- 
 ity on account of disease and death and- sin. If He could not, 
 there must have been a limit either to His power or to His 
 wisdom. If He could and would not, there must have been a 
 limit to His goodness — to man at least. Whatever is may be 
 right, but we do not know that it is. We are only to reason 
 from what we know ; and we know nothing from which to 
 reason that it is right, and that the Creator in His inhnite good- 
 ness to His creature, created him, a million to one, to suffer all 
 the accursed consequences of disease, and death, and damna- 
 tion. But the philosopher says, 
 
 "Submit: — In this, or any other sphere 
 Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear." 
 
 This may be correct, but observation leads us to believe 
 that man could eiufitie more blessing than we generally see 
 imposed upon him. If he could not he is not responsible for 
 the meagerness of his capacity. Some Power made and 
 equipped him, and blessed him with fatal tendencies, with a 
 mind whose prime propensity is to reason and rebel, and if he 
 is not capable of, or susceptible to, greater bliss than he actu- 
 ally enjoys, his capacity is thrust upon him by the same Power 
 that made and environed him. If, as relative to all, whatever 
 in man we call wrong must be right, then it must be the pecu- 
 liar relation of man to all that makes these ways right. What 
 
92 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 is that relation ? and what is its peculiarity ? Unless one can 
 explain this he is overreaching himself to attempt to vindicate 
 the ways so made right. If it were objected that if man were 
 created as an infinitely powerful, wise, and good Creator cotild 
 have made him, there would be no free agency, still we know 
 nothing from which to reason and infer the necessity, or even 
 propriety, of free agency. It is certainly not essential to, nor 
 compatible with, the fatalism couched in the following: — 
 
 "As man, perhaps the moment of his breath, 
 
 Received the lurking principle of death; 
 
 The young disease that must subdue at length, 
 
 Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength, 
 
 So cast and mingled with his very frame. 
 
 The minds disease, its ruling passion came. 
 
 ********** 
 
 Nature its mother, habit is its nurse, 
 
 Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse." 
 
 histead of being a free agent, man is born with the fatal 
 disease of mind which must subdue at length, cast and mingled 
 with his very frame ; and to aggravate the case, he is endowed 
 with the very qualifications, wit, spirit, faculties, which make 
 it worse. How is he armed against the consequences of these 
 fatal gifts ? Unless that shall be shown, what becomes of free 
 agency } Unless there is free agency and absolute freedom 
 of choice, there is no propriety in any effort at moral instruc- 
 tion. The vindication thus appears to be an effort to promul- 
 gate two irreconcilable doctrines, free agency and fatalism. 
 
 "In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies, 
 All quit their spheres, and rush into the skies. 
 
 ****7r***** 
 
 And spite of pride, in erring reasoning's spite, 
 One truth is clear, whatever is, is right." 
 
 The first of these couplets implies free agency. There can 
 be no blameworthy error where there is no choice whether one 
 will quit his sphere and soar in the forbidden realms above 
 him. Yet the fatalism unqualifiedly and unequivocally denounc- 
 ed in the last couplet, ought to be sufficient to relieve man of 
 'all liability to censure for the error of reasoning pride which 
 is mentioned in the first one. If reasoning pride is not natural 
 
DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. Q ^ 
 
 to man, it would be interesting to know how he is endowed 
 with it. It is said to be the mind's disease, its ruling passion, 
 the lurking principle of death, which he receives the moment of 
 his breath, cast and mingled with his very frame. If it is 
 natural to him, it is part of the general order, to wish to invert 
 the laws of which is to sin against the eternal cause. If it is 
 part of such general order it cannot be man's error. If it came 
 the moment of his breath, and is natural to him, and part of 
 the general order, then he who suppresses it in order to 
 submit, 
 
 " * * * inverts the laws 
 
 Of order, sins against the eternal Cause." 
 
 If it is the mind's disease, its ruling passion, cast and 
 mingled with his very frame, and came the moment of his 
 breath, it is natural. If respecting man whatever we call 
 wrong must as relative to all be right, and if whatever is is 
 right, then this very reasoning pride is right, and therein our 
 error does not lie. 
 
 If there fiuist be somewhere such a rank as man, if man is 
 born as perfect as he ought, if the general order since the 
 whole began is kept in nature and is kept in man, if man is 
 born with a ruinous ruling passion, of which Nature is the 
 mother and habit the nurse, and with wit, spirit, faculties, 
 which make it worse; then there can be no such free agency 
 as to warrant any attempt at moral instruction, or any censure 
 for the alleged error in reasoning pride. If to reason right is to 
 submit, the reasoning of the vindication is itself rebellion. It 
 reasons against the ruling passion which it shows to be a part 
 of the general order. 
 
 If to reason right is to submit, we are cursed in the gift of 
 the reasoning faculties and propensities. Then man is not as 
 perfect as he ought. If these faculties and propensities are 
 natural and part of the general order, and if we must suppress 
 them in order to submit, then in their suppression we rebel 
 against and subvert the laws of this general order, and submis- 
 sion itself becomes rebellion. 
 
 We should not pretend to comprehend the ways of God to 
 man, nor to know that all that is, is right. It may be, but we 
 
94 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 find nothing in nature that may be kiiozvn from which to reason 
 that it is. ''hi the midst of life we are in death." In our 
 boasted civilization we are in crime that would disgrace bar- 
 barism. Blood may not flow so profusely, but the shrinkage 
 in that respect is compensated by wickedness of more heinous, 
 corrupt, and cowardly types. Indeed this seems to be the 
 general order, and if it is kept in nature and is kept in man. if 
 plagues and earthquakes break not Heaven's design, nor the 
 butcheries of a Borgia or a Cataline, if all subsists by elemental 
 strife, and passions are the elements of life, it requires a remark- 
 able philosophical acumen to educe the blessing to man, to 
 realize that he's as perfect as he ought, or to understand how 
 or why all that is. is right. A person obliged to reason only 
 from what he knows, should never attempt to reach such a 
 conclusion ; if he were proceeding to reason it out from some- 
 thing assumed, he should assume the whole matter at once; 
 which, so far as valid reasoning is concerned, is just what the 
 philosopher has done in the vindication in question— his poetry, 
 figures, metaphor, allegory, and assumption, forming no factor 
 in right reasoning. When we confess that, 
 
 "The chain holds on, and where it ends unknown," 
 
 we confess away the whole case. If the end is unknown, we 
 certainly cannot know its condition. If we are to reason only 
 from what we know, and if what we know consists of ninety- 
 nine parts of wretchedness and wickedness to one of imagined 
 happiness and goodness, it seems more like assertion than 
 argument to declare that man is, 
 
 " * * * hi this or any other sphere, 
 Secure to be as blest as he can bear." 
 
 If the object of the reasoning in the vindication is to authen- 
 ticate the divinity of Christianity, it is no" only a miserable fail- 
 ure in a philosophical point of view; it is a sacrilegious sneer at 
 the greatest of all miracles, the fact that unlearned peasants and 
 fisherman evolved the scheme of a r.^iiofiDn, that makes the 
 greatest conquests and most rapid anJi ex ensive progress in 
 localities where flourish the most refined civilization and the 
 highest order of intelligence. 
 
DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 05 
 
 I come now to a more agreeable part of the present under- 
 taking. If any one should say that I have sneered at the phil- 
 osopjier it shall not be said that 1 am disrespectful to the poet. 
 A memorialist of his has said that he was "aware that the 
 metaphysical was but an indifferent field in which to expect 
 the flowers of poetry to flourish. " But I can agree with iiim in 
 this with respect to the Essay on Man, if at all, only on the 
 hypothesis that in its composition the reasoning is so hopeless- 
 ly at fault, the poet was not in the field of metaphysics. The 
 same memoralist has said, "it is doubtful, indeed we may add 
 more than doubtful, if Pope ever had any definite system of 
 philosophy." 
 
 1 am obliged to agree with him in this. If the poet ever 
 had any such system he must have forgotten it before, or con- 
 structed it after, he composed the vindication, as no trace of it 
 is to be found therein. But the memorialist is wrong in saying 
 that "the metaphysical is but an indifferent field in which to 
 expect the flowers of poetry to flourish." No matter how 
 faulty or unsound the reasoning ma.y be, the poet, in the com- 
 position of the Essay was in the field of metaphysics. It is no 
 more essential to that, that the assumptions, postulates, and 
 reasoning should be faultless, than that they should be so in an 
 argument to a court or jury, to render it forensic. 
 
 If the poet has balked or frustrated his main object, and 
 marred the symmetry of the vindication by unwarranted assump- 
 tion, by monstrous hypotheses and illogical dedu:tion, it only 
 a.rgues the unsoundness of his philosophy, or perhaps that he 
 had no definite system thereof; and not that if he had had such 
 system, he could not have adorned it as profusely and beauti- 
 fully as he has done the Essay. And to say that it is not beau- 
 tiful, grand, sublime, is simply to assert the ignorance and 
 coarseness of the caviler. 
 
 Indeed many of his postal. itioiis, assumptions, and deduc- 
 tions, interrogatively as well a«s affirmatively put, are metaphys- 
 ically perfect, and peerless in poetry — such for instance as 
 these : — 
 
96 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 "Born but to die, and reasoning but to err; 
 
 *7<-* ******* 
 
 Great lord of all things, yet a prey to. all, 
 Sole Judge of truth, in endless error hurled, 
 The glory, jest, and riddle of the world. 
 
 * * * •:;• * ***** 
 
 Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, 
 Describe c fix one movement of his mind ? 
 Who saw its fires here rise and there descend, 
 Explain his own beginning, or his end ?" 
 
 "Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays. 
 Those painted clouds that beautify our days; 
 Each want of happiness by hope supplied 
 And eacii vacuity of sense by pride; 
 These build as last as knowledge can destroy; 
 in folly's cup still laughs the bubble, joy; 
 One prospect lost, another still we gain; 
 And not a vanity is given in vain." 
 
 "Man cares for all * * * * 
 ********** 
 Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast, 
 And, til! he ends the being, makes it blest. 
 Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain. 
 Than fjvorcd man by touch ethereal slain. 
 The creature had his feast of life before; 
 Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er." 
 
 "God, in the nature of each being, founds 
 Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds; 
 But as he framed the whole the whole to bless. 
 On mutual wants built mutual happiness." 
 
 "Learn each small people's genius, policies, 
 
 The ant's republic, and the realm of bees; 
 
 ****** * * * * 
 
 In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw, 
 
 Entangle justice in her net of law, 
 
 And right, too rigid, harden into wrong, 
 
 Still for the strong too weak, the we.ik too strong 
 
 "For modes of faith let graceless zeal ts fight; 
 His can't be wrong whose lite is in the right; 
 in faith and hope the word will disagree, 
 But all mankind's concern is charity; 
 All must be false that thwart this one gr^at end; 
 And all of God, that bless mankind or mend." 
 
DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 97 
 
 "Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; 
 Bliss is the same in subject or in king, 
 in who obtain defence, or who defend, 
 in him who is, or him who finds a friend; 
 Heaven breathes thro' every member of the whole 
 One common blessing, as one common soul." 
 
 "Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave, 
 Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. 
 Who noble ends by noble" means obtains, 
 Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains. 
 Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed 
 Like Socrates, that man is great indeed."" 
 
 "If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined. 
 The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind; 
 Or, ravished with the whistling of a name, 
 See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame. 
 
 * .>t ******* * 
 In each how guilt and greatness equal ran. 
 And all that raised the hero, sunk the man; 
 
 * * * * * * •"- * * * 
 The whole amount of that enormous fame, 
 
 A tale, that blends their glory with their shame." 
 
 "The broadest mirth unfeeling folly wears. 
 Less pleasing far than virtue's very tears."" 
 
 The sense of these selections could not be prosaically ex- 
 pressed in anything near the same or equivalent terms. No 
 linguistic artist living can paint in prose a picture of Bacon and 
 Cromwell, exhibiting the ethical tints of the above in twenty 
 times its space. Its equal cannot be painted in prose. When 
 its equal shall be done, it will be poetical regardless of rhythm, 
 rhvme. and measure. 
 
 To say that the flowers of poetry may not be expected to 
 nourish in the field of metaphysics, is to say that the finest 
 style IS inappropriate in a discussion of the loftiest theme. If 
 metaphysics is a science of mind or intelligence, it is difficult 
 to imagine a more supernal atmosphere for the spirit of poetry 
 to breathe in. 
 
 It was certainly the burden of the bulk of the thought ex- 
 pressed in the great Essav. That the assumptions are false, 
 and the argument fallacious, detracts nothing from the merit, 
 
98 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the beauty, and the grandeur of some parts of the poetry, 
 which have seldom been equalled. 
 
 Still, the piece is blotted over with some coarse compari- 
 sons and irrelevant allusions. Of pride, the ruling passion, no 
 one would have expected the poet to say, 
 
 "Reason itself but gives it edge and power; 
 
 As Heaven's blest beam turns vinegar more sour.'^ 
 
 Perhaps this is one of the ornaments with which Taine says 
 the poet's style is burdened. This author speaking of the poet 
 says, "when he had written a work, he kept it at least two 
 years in his desk. From time to time he read and corrected it; 
 took counsel of his friends, fhen of his enemies;" and it is pre- 
 sumably upon the advice of the latter that he left the above 
 ornament in the Essay. 
 
 in justifying the relative physical constitution of man and 
 things, how insignificant, as compared with accompanying 
 passages, is his reason for the coarseness of the human vision. 
 
 "Why has not man a microscopic eye? 
 For this plain reason, man is not a flj'.'^ 
 
 And recurring to pride, the nightmare of the vindication; 
 
 "She but removes weak passions for the strong; 
 So, when small humors gather to a gout. 
 The doctor fancies he has driven them out." 
 
 And, showing the mutual dependence of all creatures upon 
 each other, the relative advantage and disadvantage of their 
 several situations, and the subordination and servitude in man's 
 supremacy; 
 
 "The hog that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call, 
 Lives on the labors of this lord of all." 
 
 The porcine pungency of this couplet is perhaps intended to 
 intensify the severity of the rebuke to pride, but compared with 
 other passages in the poem, the couplet seems more like a 
 grunt of the swine than an ornament to poetic style. 
 
 As a "speaking picture," it is remarkable, with what celer- 
 ity the Essay occasionally goes from the sublime to the ridicu- 
 lous and frivolous, sometimes making the decent in one breath 
 
DIVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 99 
 
 "Superior beings, when of late they saw 
 A mortal man unfold all nature's law, 
 Admired such wisdom in a human shape, 
 And showed a Newton as we sbo-w a)i ape." 
 
 ■'Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow, 
 The rest is all but leather or prunella." 
 
 Such samples sound slightly, if at all. like the "concrete 
 and artistic expression of the human mind in emotional and 
 rhythmical language." They seem more like the frenzy of a 
 dazed or wearied mind which might be supposed to have over- 
 taxed its energy and resources in accompanying flights, the 
 altitude of which has been reached by few. if anv other writ- 
 ers. What could be more pertinent or philosophical, than the 
 above allusion to .Aurelius and Socrates ? Who has ever so 
 powerfully put three paradoxes in three so short and consecu- 
 tive lines as these. 
 
 "Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all, 
 Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled, 
 The glory, jest, and riddle of the world ?" 
 
 Poetic beauty is not marred by power and grandeur. It is 
 not necessarily effeminate sweetness of expression. Magnifi- 
 cence, grandeur, and splendor are beauty. The Apollo Belvi- 
 dere is more beautiful than the Eros, or Cupid.. 
 
 It is said, ''his great cause for writing was literary vanity; 
 he wished to be admired, and nothing more; — Pope has no 
 dash, no naturalness or manliness, he has no more ideas than 
 passions ; at least such ideas as a man feels it necessary to write, 
 and in connection with which we lose thought of words. * * * 
 In reality, he did not write because he thought, but he thought 
 in order to write; manuscript and the noise it makes in the 
 world, when printed, was his idol ; if he wrote verses, it was 
 merely for the sake of doing so." The memorialist closes the 
 paragraph from which the above is quoted, with a compro- 
 mising compliment to the poet, which, taken in' the connec- 
 tion in which it is found, suggests that he himself was not 
 writing because he had thought, unless he had thought both 
 favorably and unfavorably of his subject. If instead of "literary 
 vanity" the caviler had used the term ambition, he would have 
 been nearer the truth, and would have shown more of the dis- 
 
lOO ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 cernment and candor, to say nothing of charity, that charac- 
 terize the great man, than of the envy and cynicism that mark 
 the midget. But consistency is a jewel with which many of 
 them frequently fail to adorn themselves. This same memor- 
 ialist further says of the same poet, "A great writer is a man 
 who, having passions, knows his dictionary and grammar; 
 Pope thoroughly knew his dictionary and his grammar, but 
 stopped there.'" In other words, he had no passions. Less 
 than ten pages before this, he said the poet "had no more ideas 
 than passions, at least such ideas as a man feels it necessary 
 to write, and in connection with which we lose thought of 
 words." The mathematical result is that the poet was barren 
 of such ideas as his critic thought proper for poetical suprem- 
 acy. But according to his formula, (passions, dictionary and 
 grammar) ideas would be a superfluity. In view of the critic's 
 assertion that "we trouble ourselves no more about adornment, 
 but about truth," it is difficult to conceive why he directed his 
 fusilade of invective against the poetrv of the poet, and never 
 noticed the philosophy of the philosopher. 
 
 It may be as Taine says; Pope may not have written be- 
 cause he had thought ; he may have thought solely to write. 
 His doctrines cannot be concatenated into a doctrine. But his 
 poetry is conclusive evidence of ambition, and does not raise a 
 suspicion of vanity. If he wrote from personal vanity why 
 was it, as the critic says, that "when he had written a work 
 he kept it at least two years in his desk." correcting it from 
 time to time, and consulting both friends and enemies about it } 
 
 As discordant as the Essay is, the evident intent of its auth- 
 or was, to so vindicate the ways of God to man, as to eclipse 
 all the apologists who had preceded him, and left the deleter- 
 ious influence of their alleged reasonings to stigmatize their 
 cause; and as his vaulting ambition could not brook the society 
 of the limited capacities that could occupy themselves in the 
 advocacy of a prescribed faith or sectarianism, he attempted to 
 comprehend all nature, and found himself 
 
 "Placed on this isthmus of a middle state," 
 
 and so impotent and dazed, as to be utterly unable to 
 "Describe or fix one movement of his mind." 
 
blVINE DISPENSATION VINDICATED IN POETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 10 1 
 
 If he was vain, it is not so apparent in the way he wrote, 
 or in his motive, as his ambition is in his selection of a subject. 
 To attempt to justify what it is impossible to understand, or 
 even to know anything of. may be vanity; but if it is, it is of 
 a kind that verges verv near if not into ambition. Whoever 
 attempts such a task must (logically and reasonably) admit the 
 debatability of his hypothesis, and all the poetry of all the poets, 
 and all the reasoning they have mangled in meter, is insufficient 
 to restore the apologist, in the estimation of candid judgment, 
 to the position he must lose by such an admission. The nec- 
 essary legitimate tendency of all apologetics, poetical or other, 
 (if they are allowed to have any effect) is to arouse suspicion; 
 and in cool practical reasoning minds, something more than 
 poetry is necessary to convince the judgment. There is no 
 definite philosophy, nothing but poetry, in the vindication; and 
 while there are hideous blots on the poetry, it is in the main, 
 one of the grandest, most sublime and beautiful poems in the 
 English language. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 POETICAL PARASITISM. 
 
 Metropolis of Seventeenth Century Literature — Dominated by a Pensioner of 
 Royalty — Paid Panegyric — Loathsome character of Subjects Praised — 
 Malevolent Satire of Those in Disfavor with Royalty — Catholicism Ridi- 
 culed in the Absalom and Achitophel — The "Chief Justice's Western 
 Campaign" — Protestantism Ridiculed in the "Hind and Panther" — Kings's 
 Southeastern Campaign — Egotism of the Laureate — Cause of His Popu- 
 larity. 
 
 At the time of the Restoration there was between Covent 
 Garden and Bow Street in London, a place called Will's Coffee- 
 House, which was noted as a resort of the elite in politics and 
 literature. Its habitues were classified in castes, grades, and de- 
 grees, varying in consequential airs as well as literary authority- 
 Politics embraced church affairs, and ecclesiastical polity was a 
 matter of as much concern and as learned discussion as divine 
 right, the coronal succession, or the relation of the several 
 estates of the realm. It was the Hub of the literary universe, 
 in the metropolis of civilization ; where wit learning and 
 genius were supposed to be concentered, and where they cer- 
 tainly were well represented. Here the Magnate swayed the 
 sceptre as imperiously as his royal patron and prototype in the 
 sphere of his dominion. "To bow to the Laureate and hear 
 his opinion * * * was thought a privilege. A pinch from 
 his snuff-box was an honor sufficient to turn the head of a 
 young enthusiast." 
 
 If talent could afford to aftllliate with candor this was cer- 
 tainly the place where, above all others, they might reasonably 
 have been expected to consort. The Autocrat of this domain 
 might be expected to embody all that was excellent in letters, 
 if not in philosophy. But the literary lick-spittle frisked about 
 and fawned upon his literary Lord, with the same servility as 
 that with which he in turn courted the favor of the Sovereign of a 
 more substantial kingdom. At the time mentioned the realm 
 of Letters was dominated by a phenomenal genius, whose 
 guerdon was not only a support, but the wherewith to gratify 
 
POETICAL PARASITISM. IO3 
 
 an exquisite relish for princely dissipation. His stipend of two 
 hundred pounds per annum was from the fund wrung by 
 divine right from the toil of the millions, the hewers of wood 
 and carriers of water. It was the price for which he sung the 
 praises of the hereditary oppressors of a people, and he earned 
 it by toadying to royalty in strains inspired by the quid pro quo, 
 rather than by a sincere respect for the objects of his prodigal 
 homage. This is apparent in several flicts, one of which was 
 his change of fliith when political power passed from Protest- 
 antism to Catholicism in 1685. Another one is the disgusting 
 tlattery with which — for five hundred guineas — he sung the 
 Countess whom he had never seen in such strains as these : — 
 
 "A second Eve, but by no crime accurst, 
 As beauteous, not as brittle as the first. 
 Had she been first, still Paradise had been 
 And death had found no entrance by her sin." 
 
 In his Annus Mirabilis, predicting a golden era, and attribut- 
 ing it to the energy, valor, and virtue, of as indolent, cowardly, 
 and licentious a rake as was ever by fortuity of birth the scourge 
 and reproach of a nation, he said: — 
 
 "Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go, 
 And view the ocean leaning on the sky; 
 From thence our rolling neighbors we shall know, 
 And on the lunar world securely pry. 
 This 1 foretell from your auspicious care, 
 Who great in search of God and nature grow, 
 Who best your wise Creator's praise declare, 
 Since best to praise His works is best to know." 
 
 This search of God and nature, in which the King grew 
 great, may have been going on when, in February 1685, some 
 of his decent subjects repaired to Whitehall to pay him their 
 respects, and found him surrounded with gamblers, and toying 
 with courtezans whose lecheries were the disgrace of their sev- 
 eral countries. It may have been when he was receiving a 
 paramour by the back-stairway conducted thither and intro- 
 duced into the royal bed-chamber by Chiffinch, the official 
 pimp. Possibly it was when he was transforming a scrofu- 
 lous quaker into a healthy and sound churchman, by laying on 
 
104 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the same hands that had dallied with the most notorious and 
 libidinous strumpets that had ever profaned their sex. Per- 
 haps it was when he procured some ruffians to mutilate the 
 person of a country member, who. in discharge of his political 
 duty had disapproved of the profligacy which squandered on 
 favorites and concubines, the money wrung from his subjects 
 by an oppressive tax, under color of providing for the safetv of 
 the realm. At all events, the greatest genius of the age pre- 
 dicts a senseless something in his Country's impending rela- 
 tions with the man in the moon, because a prurient caricature 
 on Kings grows great in search of God and nature. 
 
 Adulation is erected into an art, and extravagance is com- 
 monplace with the stipendiary wheedler. The Astrea Reddux. 
 on the return of his sacred majestv in 1660. is so full of tlunk- 
 eyism that the beauty of many of the most beautiful passages 
 in poetry is obscured and rendered disgusting in the use that is 
 made of them. It would certainly disgust a prince not infatu- 
 ated with inordinate self-conceit. In the light of historical 
 truth concerning the character it apotheosizes, one can have 
 no respect for the integrity of the inspired parasite. He could 
 not have been ignorant of the vices of his idol. No truly great 
 and consciencious man would so eulogize a dissembling volup- 
 tuary who had sanctioned the execution of obscure priests for 
 performing the rites enjoined by their faith. 
 
 In the Threnodia Augustalis we are shown how beautifully 
 and majestically a monarch can die, but not how the one in 
 question did die, although the bard says; — 
 
 "The same assurance all his words did grace; 
 The same majestic mildness held its place; 
 Nor lost the monarch in his dying face.'' 
 
 But history has his majesty's soul snatched from perdition 
 at the eleventh hour, by the dexterous daring of his paramour, 
 who "could not enter his room without giving scandal." She 
 caused the French Ambassador to have a priest brought up the 
 same back-stairway (to the royal bed-chamber) which she had 
 so often climbed, but not on such an errand as that of the 
 Portuguese ecclesiastic. 
 
 Adulation of royalty was not the only point in which 
 
POETtCAl. PARASITISM. I05 
 
 the poet excelled. Virulent invective was another ready 
 resource. Paid panegyric kept his soul and body together, 
 but vilification immortalized him. Having long inveighed 
 against fickleness in faith, in the post-meridan of his day he 
 gave the lie to his long life, renounced the doctrine of the pa- 
 trons of his former prosperity, and cringed to a new regime 
 with more obsequiousness than to the first. Of the Rev. Sam- 
 uel Johnson he says: 
 
 "Let Hebron, nay let Hell produce a man 
 So made for mischief as Ben-)ochanan. 
 
 * "- -.r * 
 
 Inspired by want was made a factious tool; 
 They got a villain, and we lost a fool." 
 
 This alleged villain and fool is not famed for truckling to 
 pelf or power. Something had sustained him under the inflic- 
 tion of three hundred and seventeen lashes at the tail of a cart 
 from New Gate to Tyburn. It may have been character. He 
 had earned the honor by urging the soldiery to defend — not 
 the mass — the Bible. Magna Charta, and the Petition of Right. 
 He had preferred his conscience and personal integrity to royal 
 favor. His traducer however could portray his own apostasy 
 in milder terms — in the contrite colors of conversion. 
 "My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires; 
 My manhood, long misled by wandering tires, 
 Followed false lights, and, when their glimpse was gone, 
 My pride struck out new sparkles of its o'wn." 
 
 The force of this compunction overtook the professional 
 calumniator only after he had sinned and sneered away his 
 thoughtless youth of more than half a century in the faith which 
 he thenceforth (for ^200 per annum) denounced heretical. 
 At the age of fifty years, and when he supposed his King was 
 a Hebrew, he had allied thejebusites with the Devil. But his 
 Patron on his death-bed had declared himself a Jebusite and the 
 Successor was already an avowed one. 
 
 Perhaps he had not the magnanimity to forgive and forget 
 the insolent invective of the mercenary muse against thejebu- 
 sites and the Devil, exhibited in the Absalom and Achitophel; 
 subsequent events leave no other explanation of the sus-pension 
 of his pension. 
 
lo6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 The ancient and unscrupulous slave of royalty, who had 
 lived so long by pandering to might and mammon, found him- 
 self in a dilemma. The new regime was openly Jebusitic. 
 Royal favor was the aliment to which his system was so ad- 
 dicted that without it life were but a protracted fast, in de- 
 fault of the annual ^200 a precarious subsistence was for a 
 time eked out by catering to the foul frailties of the pit, and 
 by the adulation of aristocracy. But the tlesh pots had to be 
 recovered. Their new dispensers had lately been classed with 
 the Devil in the bitterest terms of the maligner, whose vocabul- 
 ary consisted mainly of opprobrium. Royal favor was still to 
 be had, and at the old price; payable however in a different 
 specie. The price was the manliness of the famishing bard ; 
 the specie, was to give the lie to more than fifty years of his 
 own life. To remove all doubt of genuineness in the purchase, 
 he proposed to make good his late asseveration that renegadoes 
 ne'er turn by halves. He ridiculed the faith in vindication of 
 which, while he supposed his former patron adhered to it, he 
 had immortalized himself in one of the greatest satires ever 
 written. So far Papacy had trained with the Devil, and for the 
 smiles and the ducats of the new potentate, he then proposed 
 to train with Papacy. He forsook his former faith and declar- 
 ed that, 
 
 "Her faults and virtues lie so mixed that she, 
 Nor wholly stands condemned nor wholly free." 
 
 Having declared himself a Jebusite his pension was restored, 
 the arrearages paid up, and he enlisted in the service of the 
 Milk-White Hind, immortal and unchanged and so lately allied 
 with the Devil. If there were no prior negotiations for the 
 thirty pieces of silver the promptness of their payment indicates 
 a due appreciation of the obligation of an implied contract. 
 Judas Iscariot had the urbanity to betray with a kiss, and the 
 sense of propriety to hang himself. We are not informed that 
 he hounded the victim of his perfidy with contumely and 
 insult. The high priest of English literature of the seventeenth 
 century was of a different mould. He had already sung : — 
 "For renegadoes, who ne'er turn by halves. 
 Are bound in conscience to be double knaves.'' 
 
POETICAL PARASITISM. IO7 
 
 Had "He chose the apostate for his proper theme" he might, 
 "With proper pains" have "made the picture true" 
 
 "And from retlection took the rogue he drew." 
 
 Discreetly bidding for the favor of the successor, on the 
 death of his first patron, he exclaimed : — 
 
 ''A warlike prince ascends the regal state. 
 
 Heroes in Heaven's peculiar mould are cast, 
 They and their poets are not formed in haste. 
 
 In all the changes of his doubtful state, 
 His truth like Heaven's, was kept inviolate. 
 For him to promise is to make it fate." 
 
 The brazen assurance in the proposition that heroes and 
 their poets are not formed in haste is so difficult to distinguish 
 from effrontery, as to suggest a more particular notice of the 
 inordinate egotism which is only equalled by the extravagance 
 of the flattery, and the vituperation of the censure. 
 
 "To make quick way I'll leap o'er heavy blocks 
 
 Shun rotten Uzza as 1 would the pox; 
 
 And hasten Og and Doeg to rehearse, 
 
 Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse ; 
 
 Who, bf my muse, to all succeeding times 
 
 Shall live in spite of their own dogg'rel rhymes." 
 
 These lines occur in a satire in a part which is said to have 
 been written by another. But the piece is said to have been 
 corrected throughout by the bard himself, and an exquisite 
 sense of his own importance is clearly discernible in the 
 twenty-six consecutive lines, which assure us of the justice and 
 mildness of his reproof, and that: — 
 
 "With wonder late posterity shall dwell 
 On Absalom and false Achitophel." 
 
 It contains four distinct declarations that, 
 
 "While Judah's throne and Zion's rock stand fast. 
 The song of Asaph and the fame shall last." 
 
 The egotism with which he alludes to himself, is only 
 equalled in the contempt with which he consents to immortal- 
 ize Og and Doeg. To incur the frown of the prince, entails 
 
io8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the Otherwise unprovoked ridicule, and insult of the profes- 
 sional traducer. On as slight a provocation he goes to a ' 
 greater opposite extreme in magnifying the merit of his master, 
 who in the ordinary course of nature becomes a father. 
 Language, and license are levied to their limit for strains in 
 which to greet the auspicious prodigy. 
 
 "Hail son of prayers by holy violence 
 Dragged down from heaven; but long be banished thence 
 And late to thy paternal skies retire; 
 To mend our crimes whole ages would require. 
 To change the inveterate habit of our sins, 
 And fmish what thy god-like sire begins. 
 * * * * 
 
 Now view at home a second Constantine; 
 (The former too was of the British line) 
 Has not his healing balm your breaches closed 
 Whose exile many sought, and few opposed ?'" 
 
 This is pretty evenly divided between the god-like sire and 
 the son of prayers. If poetic license were absolute immunity 
 from the restraints of veracity and the obligation of good faith, 
 there might be some excuse for but no justification of the im- 
 moderate fustian. The god-like sire and warlike prince whose 
 healing balm your breaches closed, and who, for him to prom- 
 ise is to make it fate, had begged the pardon of a foreign am- • 
 bassador for daring to convoke his own Parliament without 
 the consent of a foreign King. His own country whose 
 breaches he had closed refused him the sinews of war neces- 
 sary to maintain the national honor abroad, under a just appre- 
 hension that it would be used to render more odious and intol- 
 erable the oppression at home. He received from the foreign 
 King at one time more than a hundred thousand pounds with 
 which to corrupt members of his own Parliament against his 
 own country, and to the interest of the implacable enemy of his 
 own people. He exalted to one of the highest positions in his 
 government a sot, who was guilty of more judicial murder and 
 barbarity than any ten men who had ever disgraced the ermine, 
 the hero of the bloody assizes, whose name has become the 
 synonym for every thing vile, coarse, and brutal in a tyrant; 
 and rewarded him with preferment and distinction in exact 
 
POETICAL PARASITISM. lOq 
 
 ratio with the enormity and frequency of his judicial butcheries. 
 This favorite of the god-like sire had frequently sent popish 
 priests to the gallows, with the grateful assurance that they 
 should be cut down alive, and witness the burning of their 
 own bowels, and he gained his prestige with this warlike 
 prince by affecting a respect tor the same faith for the profes- 
 sion of which he had already sent hundreds to their death. 
 He browbeat juries into verdicts of guilty, and sentenced to 
 the stake, the axe, and the halter more than three hundred 
 victims on one circuit, and drove a thriving trade in pardons, 
 receiving fifteen thousand pounds for the life of one man against 
 whom not even a shadow of a case could be made. And the 
 warlike prince and god-like sire jocularly dubbed this cyclone 
 of terror and death his (]hief Justice's western campaign. 
 When this beast with the blood of hundreds of his fellow crea- 
 tures on his hands, slackened in the work of unparalleled bar- 
 barity and judicial violence, he received a sharp reprimand 
 from the god-like sire for his timidity ; and to retain favor he 
 assured his patron that he should have no further occasion to 
 censure him for such weaknesses as honor or humanity. 
 
 There is a peculiarly grim humor in the appellation war- 
 like prince when applied to a King who offered to violate obli- 
 gations to which the faith of his country was pledged, and to 
 join in political intrigue against a nation friendly and in alliance 
 with his own, if a neighboring monarch would engage to pro- 
 tect him against his own subjects. The phaidit becomes pas- 
 quinade. Seen in the light of historical truth the Britannia 
 Rediviva, is a more stinging satire ot the bard's Idol, than is 
 the Absalom and Achitophel of the malcontents it so severely 
 lampoons. The warlike prince probably was not so war- 
 like when he was being hustled from a hoy in the Thames by 
 Kentish fishermen and prevented fi'om escaping from his own 
 subjects to his foreign master to whom he had persistently be- 
 trayed his country. This southeastern campaign of his. was a 
 very suitable sequel to the western campaign of his chief jus- 
 tice, but it does not appear that he ever referred to it so 
 facetiously. 
 
 The character of the prince so extravagantly eulogized and 
 
1 lO ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 exhibited for the admiration of posterity, is seen to be one 
 deserving of universal execration. He was a king and a cow- 
 ard, a tyrant and a traitor, a monarch and a miscreant, who 
 never hampered himself or prejudiced a project bv anything 
 partaking of the nature of sincerity or good faith. His paid 
 panegyrist worshipped him, looked up to and adored him, 
 and, for a cash consideration, broke out in extravagant praise 
 of the prince who abandoned his own subjects to anarchy and 
 flung the last badge of governmental authority to the waves. 
 
 By what right is the respect of an enlightened posterity 
 claimed for the poem, the poet, or the prince ? Can a trace of 
 sincerity be detected in any of them } When the motive oi 
 the muse is so manifestly mercenary one cannot repress the 
 disgust naturally provoked at the sight of fawning tlunkeyism. 
 That pretty things have been prettily said is far from sufficient to 
 entitle extravagant effusions of unmerited eulogy to a place in 
 the classics. If there is a feature in any of it more prominent 
 than its loathsome lickspittleism, it is the rancor of its insolence 
 to whoever is mentioned from whom no favor was to be hoped. 
 The elements of character which command the respect of dis- 
 criminating men. are courage, integrity, sincerity, consistency, 
 and charity. Has the sneering sycophant left a line in which 
 there lurks even a suspicion of any of these ? 
 
 Should a world gape at the grandeur of a mind that has 
 spent itself in cringing to authority and jeering indiscriminately 
 at all opposition } Why should satire and eulogy be exempt 
 from the obligations of veracity and moderation, more than any 
 other style } At what period in its history did the Milk-White 
 Hind so conduct itself as to justify the asseveration that: — 
 
 "Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood, 
 Extended o'er the Caledonian Wood, 
 Their native walk; icbose vocjI blood arose 
 And cn'i'd for pardon on their perjured foes." 
 
 Was it when the defender of the fiiith sent Jeffries with the 
 olive branch into the western counties just after the battle of 
 Sedgemoor } Was it when in violation of a safe conduct Huss 
 and Jerome were burned at the stake t Was it when the infant 
 born of a woman in torture was thrown back into the tlames 
 
POETICAL PARASITISM, I I I 
 
 (in Guernsey) to perish with its heretical mother ? Was it 
 when Philpot, Ferrar, Ridley, Latimer, Hunter, Haukes. and 
 numerous others of both sexes were burned alive for the 
 sake of their convictions ? 
 
 A memorialist of this bard in speaking of his satire has 
 said: "There must be an appearance of candor on the part of 
 the poet, and just so much merit allowed, even to the object 
 of the censure, as to make the picture natural." 
 
 This candor and allowance of merit are perhaps manifested 
 in the Medal in an allusion to the Earl of Shaftsburv : — 
 
 "Bartering his vena! wit for sums of gold 
 
 He casts himself into the saint-like mould; 
 
 Groaned, sighed, and prayed, while godliness was gain, 
 
 The loudest bagpipe in the squeaking train.'' 
 
 The bard himself says: "The true end of satire is the 
 amendment of vice by correction. And he who writes hon- 
 estly is no more an enemy to the offender, than the physician 
 to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to an invet- 
 erate disease." The word honestly would seem to render the 
 proposition quite irrelevant. Upon a careful examination, a 
 trace of honesty is not discernible in anything from his pen. 
 Apothegms, truisms, proverbs, ever so correct in themselves, 
 may delude the unwary when deftly applied in some connec- 
 tions ; but when properly scrutinized they may also disclose 
 the deeper culpability of the fraud so affecting the air of sin- 
 cerity. Whatever may be the true end of satire, its end seems 
 here to have been to indulge and countenance vice. If pal- 
 pable exaggeration and falsification are vices, if flattering and 
 encouraging personal vanity are vices, if inculcating contempt, 
 rancor, and cruelty, and palliating the foulest of crimes are 
 vices, then the proposition is irrelevant. 
 
 It is seldom we observe a character without some redeem- 
 ing trait; some feature to mitigate the offensiveness of its more 
 revolting features. If the tree is to be judged by its fruit the 
 discovery of the mitigating feature in this instance will be 
 difficult. Aside from the falsification, flattery, and rancor, 
 which characterize the works under consideration, there is 
 probably but one other mark rising to the dignity of a trait oi 
 
112 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 character to be detected in them. That is the self-conceit of 
 their author. No reallv great man ever boasted of his own 
 greatness. Such a boast is a sure sign of contemptible.egotism 
 and littleness. 
 
 When one page of his writings contains four distinct and 
 positive declarations that his song and fi^me shall forever last, 
 there is an exhibition of the very vanity that ought to insure 
 their early oblivion. 
 
 It is true he has said manv good things, and has well said 
 many bad things: and that he was a master of meter, and a 
 ruler in rhapsody, and rhyme. His reign in the domain of 
 seventeenth century literature was a tit counterpart to the reign 
 of his two royal patrons in their realm. History has branded 
 them all with duplicity, with cringing and contemptible servil- 
 ity, with cowardice and cruelty, in short with infamy. 
 Why he or they should be canonized in politics or literature is 
 a problem, the solution of which may be left to some one ambi- 
 tious to account for the caprices of fashion. 
 
 That such an author has a conspicuous place in the history 
 of literature, or in the memory of a learned posterity, is not a 
 very gratifying reflection on the state of literary ethics. While 
 merit should be emulated and duly honored, its just reward 
 does not require a premium on servility, aspersion, or mendac- 
 ity. The question occurs; to what may we attribute the vic- 
 ious taste that not only tolerates but approves of such a loath- 
 some libel on letters ? How is it engendered, or corrupted to 
 such a state as to relish such rot ? 
 
 It argues a deplorable dearth of manliness, that such slush 
 is a recognized component in accepted belles-lettres: and no 
 one could advisedly say that the author's character gave it a 
 credential. The statement of the cause of its popularity, would 
 scarcely be taken as a compliment to the prevailing integrity 
 and independence. The poet was a protege of the prince. 
 In his court at the coffee house he was surrounded with a mis- 
 cellaneous company, who eagerly evinced their devotion to 
 the prince by obsequious admiration of the paid panegyrist. 
 They vied with each other for his casual attentions, and caught 
 at his sayings with an avidity, bora of a superstitious reverence 
 
POETICAL PARASITISM. 1 13 
 
 (if not for the man) for the consideration in which he appeared 
 to be held by royalty. His position not only enabled him 
 to prescribe the tone and attributes of the lore of the age, but 
 his influence perniciously affected the habit of thought, and 
 wrought mind to see nothing but excellence in anything from 
 his pen. 
 
 That the mind capable of some of the thought which he has 
 given the world, should also be capable of the vilification upon 
 the one hand, and the sickening adulation on the other, that 
 disfigures his self-erected monument and mars his memory; 
 and that the world should read with rapture and applaud to 
 the echo, are not very gratifying reflections to those who would 
 look into antiquity with reverence, or at the present in pride. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PHILOSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY, AND EGOTISM. 
 
 Literary Heterogeneity — Books Should go Upon Their Own Merit, and Not 
 Upon the Prestige of Their Writers — -Style Best Suited to Writer May be 
 Disgusting to the Reader — Folly of Philosophizing in Terms of Buffoonery 
 — Sentiment of the Sartor Resartus Deserves Decent Expression — Author 
 Impersonated in Teufelsdrockh — Art of Printing Disbands Armies and 
 Cashiers Senates — Defiance of Politico-Religious Oppression — Cringing to 
 Royalty — Indifference to the Marvellous — Coarse Vulgarity of Allusion — 
 Instance of Similarity to Kant's Viev^ of the Cosmology — Nature Not an 
 Aggregate But a Whole — Persistence of Force — Smithy-fire — Matter Rxists 
 Spiritually, to Body forth Ideas — Infancy of Teufelsdrockh — Unprecedented 
 Egotism of Philosopher — Stricture on European Educational System — Great 
 Ability Squandered in Eccentricity and Buffoonery — The French Revolu- 
 tion, tyf History — Norse Jarl — ^John Sterling — Mother Goose in Men's 
 Clothes— Spring Poetry — Witty Criticism of English Biography — Undue 
 Importance Given a Mountebank — Important Historical Fact and Deep 
 Philosophj Rendered Ridiculous. 
 
 To review an omnivorous Reviewer, Essayist, Philosopher. 
 Novelist, Biographer, and Historian; one whose writings run 
 riot through ten thousand pages of rhapsodical rant, may be an 
 ungrateful, but it cannot be a trifling undertaking. When an 
 Author becomes a iiterarv Nomad, recognizes no boundary to 
 any department of the Realm, assumes to know it all and 
 attempts to tell it all, on all subjects, he may so bury the good 
 he knows beneath his heterogeneous Pile, that the labor of ex- 
 tracting the treasure from the trash is an unprofitable one. The 
 versatilitv and volubility of a Pedant, as exempiitled in the 
 range of his writings, have deterred some having use for their 
 time, from a minute review of even the philosophy of the pon- 
 derous mass. 
 
 As in certain lines of judicatorv. there are some leading 
 cases regarded as exponents of a particular doctrine; so in liter- 
 ature, no matter how wide a range the writer may take, there 
 may be found among his works, some particular product 
 which may properly pass for the key-note of this philosophy. 
 if he has one, and of the writer, whether he has a philosophy 
 or not. 
 
PHILOSOPHIC FUME. MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. II 5 
 
 In such a case a judicious selection from his literary cornu- 
 copia, and a candid consideration of the specimens chosen, 
 mav result in a just estimate of the literary worth of such writer. 
 
 Perhaps one of the most grievous, certainly one of the most 
 prevalent, faults with the authors is they will write. It should 
 be an inviolable rule in the Hthics of Literature, that no one 
 should demand the attention of the reading world unless the 
 matter he may have foi' exhibition is worthy its attention; and 
 it is of no less importance that the matter be exhibited, if at all, 
 upon its own merit; and not upon the prestige of its author, 
 nor with the display of gorgeous tinsel in which it is too fre- 
 quently embellished, — to distortion. Eccentricity, dogmatism, 
 and vastidity are no symptoms of genius, and while they may 
 sometimes unfortunately obscure merit, at other times and 
 more unfortunately disguise demerit; they generally imply an 
 overweening estimate of the importance of their employer. 
 One who has inflicted upon the world ten thousand pages, 
 nearly every one of which evinces deep learning, and many of 
 which proclaim the profound philosophy of their writer, might 
 have contributed materially and beneficially to Literature, had 
 his egotism and wordiness been kept in due subordination; 
 had he kept himself less prominent in his productions ; and 
 curbed them within reasonable limits. 
 
 In one of his essays the writer, some of whose works are 
 now to be considered, declared that "the grand point is to 
 have a meaning, a genuine, deep, and noble one; the proper 
 form for embodying this, the form best suited to the subject 
 and to the author will gather round it almost of its own 
 accord." 
 
 One objection to this is the assertion that the form attend- 
 ing the utterances of sincerity will be best suited to their author, 
 leaving their reader to the chance of edification according as 
 the form may or may not distort the truth ; render it clear or 
 unintelligible; engage or weary and disgust the reader. The 
 form best suited to the subject and the author, the subject be- 
 ing in the authors hands, is necessarily the form best suited to 
 the author; and this may so obscure the genuine deep and 
 noble meaning with which his soul is aflame, as to puzzle 
 
Il6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the reader to determine whether the author sports with grand- 
 iloquence in the expression of platitude, or dresses sublimity 
 in homespun. There are many methods of showing great 
 learning, without exhibiting very profound wisdom ; and wis- 
 dom itself may be so smothered in learning, allusion and meta- 
 phor as to render a volume of jargon (in thought as well as 
 language) as worthless as it mav be unintelligible; when, by 
 the use of an appropriate medium, the author's meaning might 
 have been expressed in an instructive and agreeable form. 
 
 While there may be no insuperable objection to the use of 
 allegory, the Sartor Resartus is in name and form, a striking 
 instance of its abuse; and the fact, which is undeniable, that its 
 author had a meaning, only intensities the disgust with which 
 one turns from the nauseating rant in which a weighty and a 
 serious subject is philosophically discussed, and at the same 
 time grotesquely caricatured. Though Locke was probably 
 unwarranted in saying, the manner of doing is of more conse- 
 quence than the thing done; he was warranted in common 
 observation in saying upon that depends the satisfaction or dis- 
 gust with which it is received, it is a mistake to attempt to 
 philosophize in unphilosophical terms; and caricature in word- 
 painting is a fouler blemish than when done in the correlative 
 art. When one in the use of such style, shows a capacity for 
 something meritorious in an appropriate one, he cancels the 
 claim of indifference to the fate of his own fame, and could 
 scarcely be considered sincere in admonishing the reader to 
 keep his mind "directed rather to the Book itself than to the 
 Editor of the Book." The doctrine is not nearly so conspicu- 
 ous as its writer. 
 
 The philosophy of the rant under consideration is one of 
 the deepest of its time; and if it were not nick-named and 
 travestied beyond the bounds of pardonable buffoonery ; were 
 its doctrine taught in tranquil and temperate terms it would be 
 difficult to estimate the obligation of Literature to its author. 
 The description of the last banquet with Teufelsdrockh. (Devil's- 
 dirt) the mythical genius of the rhapsody, where he, amid vol- 
 umes of vile tobacco smoke and the fumes of Dutch beer, 
 "with low soul stirring tone, and the look truly of an angel. 
 
PHILOSOI-'HIC KUME, MYSTICISM. ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. II7 
 
 though whether of a white or of a black one might be dubious, 
 proposed this toast: The cause of the poor in Heaven's name 
 
 and "s."" is an allegorical declaration of a philosophic 
 
 ruffian or buffoon, that in the struggle where Wealth and 
 Power oppress Poverty and Weakness, his sympathy is with 
 the oppressed. The approval with which the toast is received 
 is a pregnant hint that the wise are of the same benevolent 
 bent. 
 
 The sentiment is commendable — deserves better than to be 
 mangled in such brutality as espousing the cause of the poor 
 in the name of Heaven and Hell; or representing the mythical 
 exponent of the idea as probably an angel of darkness ; and 
 when it is observed that over the shoulders of the myth, the 
 Philosopher is inordinately complimenting himself, one is so 
 disgusted with the egotism as to be scarcely able to concede to 
 the doctrine its actual merit, in a frenzy of fulsome flattery he 
 says. "And vet, thou brave Teufelsdrockh, who could tell 
 what lurked in thee ? Under those thick locks of thine, so 
 long and lank, overlapping roofwise the gravest face we ever 
 in this world saw, there dwelt a most busy brain. * * * The 
 secrets of man's life were laid open to thee; thou sawest into 
 the mvsteries of the Universe farther than another; thou hadst 
 in petto thv remarkable Volume on Clothes. Nay, was there 
 not in that clear logically-founded Transcendentalism of thine; 
 still more in thy meek, silent, deep seated Sanscullotism, com- 
 bined with true princely Courtesv of inward nature, the visible 
 rudiments of such speculation .^ ^ni great men are too often 
 unknown, or worse, misknown. " 
 
 A philosopher assuming to philosophize in the roaring 
 blackguardism of the piece in question, deserves the former 
 fate, to be unknown; and if, as in the case in hand, he really is 
 a Philosopher, he may expect the latter, to be misknown. 
 Why should the mvthical genius of the philosophy be called 
 Devil's-dirt } What was the remarkable volume on Clothes 
 and who was the wonderfully profound and gifted Teufels- 
 drockh, other than the (Tailor patched) Sartor Resartus and its 
 author ? And why should he obliquely call attention to him- 
 
Il8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 self by directing it ostensibly to the philosophy which deserves 
 better than to be slimed over in such rot ? 
 
 Few have had a deeper and truer insight into the nature of 
 things in general; or held sounder opinions upon most of the 
 debatable propositions in Moral Science; or could more forcibly 
 declare a doctrine; or more vividly present and illustrate an 
 idea, a condition, or situation, than this blatant and eccentric 
 egotist. There is nothing in the Hnglish language superior to 
 his night scene in a city, covering about two pages in the 
 chapter called Reminiscences. It is a terribly true representa- 
 tion of the subject, done with a pencil of living tlame. dipped, 
 in all the colors in all their vividness that dim and darken and 
 brighten human existence. But it is blemished by the disgust- 
 ing daubs of his irrepressible egotism and caricature. 
 
 In the chapter lampooned with the appellation "The World 
 in Clothes," the Pedant with his ventriloquous goose-quill has 
 the mythical Magian of Weisnichtwo descanting upon Appear- 
 ances, Evolution, and Progress; thundering into the ears of the 
 Then and its Future volumes of the voice of incoherent wisdom 
 in less than one page; and in terms which burn their impress 
 indelibly into the understanding and memory. That "the first 
 spiritual want of a barbarous man is Decoration." is somewhat 
 enigimatical. if it has any significance. But that "the heaven- 
 inspired melodious Singer; loftiest Serene-Highness; nay. thy 
 own amber-locked snow-and-rose-bloom Maiden. * * * has 
 descended like thyself, from that same hair-mantled, flint- 
 hurling. Aboriginal Anthropophagus;" that "not Mankind only, 
 but all that Mankind does or beholds, is in continual growth, 
 re-genesis and self-perfecting vitality;' that "he who first 
 shortened the labor of copyists by device of Moveable Types 
 was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering most Kings and 
 Senates, and creating a whole new Democratic world;" that 
 "the first ground handful of Nitre, Sulphur, and Charcoal drove 
 Monk Sch wart's pestle through the ceiling" and the last will 
 "Achieve the final undisputed prostration of Force under 
 Thought, of Animal courage under Spiritual;" and that the 
 descendent of the Man-eating Monster "collects apparently by 
 lot, six hundred and fifty-eight miscellaneous individuals, and 
 
PHILOSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. I 1 9 
 
 says to them, make this nation toil for us, bleed for us, hunger 
 "and sorrow, and sin for us, and they do it;" are a motley 
 medley of masterpieces. They are a true pen-picture of pro- 
 gress and evolution, blurred all over with the self-conceit and 
 eccentricity of the artist. Such a depiction of the transition 
 from "the maker of the first wooden-dibble," to the masterly 
 manipulator of mechanics and men, is at once a profound ser- 
 mon in philosophv. and an unparalleled panorama of human 
 history. To the discerning reader the last quoted passage por- 
 trays the entire British politico-economic and social system. 
 
 One chapter under the silly sobriquet of "Aprons" appears 
 to be devoted to some branch of the general subject, but the 
 allusion is so vague and rambling that it is difficult to decide 
 what philosophical significance it has. The opening paragraph, 
 pregnant with notable historical fact, suggests a formerly pre- 
 vailing spirit of integrity and defiance of politico-religious op- 
 pression, in the mention of the woman "who threatened 
 Sovereign Majesty that she would catch her husband's head in 
 her Apron, rather than he should lie and be a bishop." That 
 the Landgravine, who on her husband's death was by his 
 brother deprived of her regal state, and afterwards, being offer- 
 ed restitution refused it and obstinately devoted her life to 
 religious charity, is hopelessly unintelligible in the connection 
 in which it is found ; unless it is intended as an instance of the 
 Pedants familiaritv with the data of history. It makes no point 
 and points no moral in the general philosophy. 
 
 Another chapter, entitled "Miscellaneous-Historical," is 
 sufficiently miscellaneous to deserve that part of its title and 
 render it unintelligible as anything, unless it is a sneer at a fan- 
 tastic fashion in personal attire. The allusion by the way of 
 comparison to the fancy of Teniers the Flemish painter, and 
 Callot the French engraver, may be relevant illustrations of the 
 implied extravagance of such fiishion. A contemptible cring- 
 ing to royalty is well illustrated in the mention of Raleigh 
 spreading his mantle to protect the feet of the (virgin ?) Queen 
 from the mud, but its import as localized was probably never 
 known to any one but its author. The mention of the trifles 
 which fortuitously immortalize some men, smacks somewhat 
 
I20 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 of a rebuke to such an ambition as that which seems to have 
 inspired it. Taken synthetically, the chapter is an object les- 
 son in the art of humility; but its precepts are to be gleaned 
 from a mass of garish verbiage which seems to have served its 
 main purpose if it relieved its writer, unless it was chiefly 
 intended to weary and disgust its reader. 
 
 In the next chapter, entitled 'The World Out of Clothes," 
 there mav be found buried at the usual depth, beneath the 
 usually rotten rubbish, some verv significant suggestions, inter- 
 rogatively and assertivelv put. For instance, "which of your 
 Philosophical Systems is other than a dream-theorem; a net- 
 quotient, contldentlv given out. where divisor and dividend 
 are both unknown } * * * have not all nations conceived 
 their God as Omnipresent and Eternal; as existing in a univer- 
 sal Here, an everlasting Now .- * * * thus let but a rising of 
 the Sun, let but a creation of the World happen twice, and it 
 ceases to be marvellous, to be noteworthy, or noticeable." 
 
 Then follows a chapter called '"Adamitism," and after it 
 one called "Pure Reason," in both of which the purpose seems 
 to be to show that the great difference among men, as to the 
 part thev plav and the attention they receive in the world, is 
 due to circumstances more than to themselves. 
 
 The argument is svmbolized in the farcical fantasy of 
 Clothes. In the former chapter he inquires, "Was not every 
 soul, or rather every body, of these Guardians of our Liberties, 
 naked, or nearly so last night; a forked Radish with head fan- 
 tastically carved.^" In the latter he inquires, "Are we Opos- 
 sums; have we natural pouches like the Kangaroo ':' Or how, 
 without clothes, could we possess the master-organ, soul's 
 seat, and true pineal-gland of the body social; I mean a purse.^" 
 
 And in the latter chapter, as though culling the works of 
 the alleged Teufelsdrockh he says, "Much also we shall omit 
 about confusion of Ranks, and Joan and My Lady, and how it 
 would be everywhere Hail-fellow well met, and Chaos were 
 come again; all which to any one that has once fairly pictured 
 out the grand mother-idea, Society in a state of Nakedness, will 
 spontaneously suggest itself." And such rot as this has place 
 in what passes current as a philosophical dissertation on the 
 
PHILOSOPHIC FUMK. MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. 12 1 
 
 State of the Social Fabric: and a writer of a history of English 
 Literature, assuming the airs of a Critic, ranks the genius of 
 this raving Riddler with that of such men as Macaulay; and 
 even gives the advantage in the comparison to the Literary 
 Lunatic, of whom it is doubtful if he knew what he meant, or 
 that he meant anything intelligible to himself or to anv one 
 else, by what he has said in several of the above extracts. 
 
 The sickening fustian is followed by some immoderate self- 
 praise, administered obliquely and as an encomium of the alleged 
 Teufelsdrockh, and leads to the expression of some ideas 
 deserving a better garb than that in which they are arrayed. 
 He says, "The grand unparalleled pecularity of Teufelsdrockh 
 is, that with all this Decendentalism. he combines a Transcen- 
 dentalism, no less superlative: whereby if on the one hand he 
 degrades man below most animals, except those jacketed 
 Gouda Cows, he, on the other, exalts him beyond the visible 
 Heavens, almost to an equality with the Gods, 'To the eye of 
 vulgar Logic," says he, 'what is man .^ An omnivorous Biped 
 that wears Breeches. To the eye of Pure Reason what is he ? 
 A soul, a spirit, and divine Apparition.' "' 
 
 Then follow some paragraphs, the sentiment of which if 
 put in moderate terms would redeem the chapter, and tend to 
 entitle it to its appellation of Pure Reason : but which as usual 
 is bespattered with the mire and the muck of a mind which 
 employs the most outlandish vehicle of expression when its 
 thought is the most sublime and philosophical. The real 
 sentiment pervading those paragraphs, put in rational and tem- 
 perate terms would be one of the most stinging rebukes ever 
 administered to the upstart audacity of Skepticism, it prob- 
 ably was Kant's inspiration when he wrote. "The World 
 around us opens before "our view so magnificent a spectacle of 
 order,' variety, beauty, and conformity to ends, that whether 
 we pursue our observations into the infinity of space in the one 
 direction, or into its illimitable division in the other, whether 
 we regard the world in its greatest or in its least manifesta- 
 tions, * * * even after we have attained to the highest sum- 
 mit of knowledge which our weak minds can reach, we find 
 that language in the presence of wonders so inconceivable has 
 
122 ETHICS OF IJTKRATURE. 
 
 lost its force, and number its power to reckon, nay, evert 
 thought fails to conceive adequately, and our conception of the 
 vv'hole dissolves into astonishment without the power of ex- 
 pression — all the more eloquent that it is dumb." 
 
 But there is nothing besides the sentiment, certainly noth- 
 ing in the expression, to indicate that the Philosopher obtain- 
 ed his cue from the Critique. It is indeed deplorable that such 
 sentiment and philosophy as those paragraphs contain should 
 be made ridiculous and disgusting by the use of such loathsome 
 similizing as, "Doth not thy cow calve, doth not thy bull gen- 
 der ?" In all the phenomena in Nature a Philosopher might 
 have found something for illustration, more in keeping with 
 the gravity of his subject; something that would be at least 
 decent on paper. But he seems to think there is in Literature 
 a principle, analogous to poetic license, by which he might 
 with impunity be coarse, vulgar, and vile, provided he were 
 sufficiently arrogant and learned. 
 
 The eleventh chapter, entitled "Prospective" and covering 
 eight pages, closes the first book of this remarkable Work. In 
 the second paragraph the Philosopher surpasses himself in the 
 art with which he blends self-praise (put as usual, obliquely 
 and with a string to it) with a proposition suggesting, if not 
 containing, more sound philosophy than many noted authors 
 have embodied in their life-work. "Our Professor, like other 
 Mystics, whether delirious or inspired, gives an Editor enough 
 to do. Hver higher and dizzier are the heights he leads us to; 
 more piercing, all-comprehending, all-confounding are his 
 views and glances. For example, this of Nature being not an 
 ^.Aggregate, but a Whole. " 
 
 The doctrine of the Persistence of Force is anticipated and 
 graphically, though of course grotesquely, epitomized or rather 
 foreshadowed in some of the fragments of fustian with which 
 this chapter abounds. For example, " * * * Thou fool, 
 that smithv-fire was (primarily) kindled at the Sun; is ^Qd by 
 air that circulates from before Noah's Deluge, from beyond the 
 Dogstar; therein with iron-force, and coal-force, and the far 
 stranger Force of Man. are cunning infinities and battles and 
 
mil.OSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. 12^ 
 
 victories of Force brouij;ht about; it is a little ganglion, or 
 nervous center, in the great vital system of Immensity." 
 
 Here the Philosopher seems to lose his equipoise and relapse 
 into his characteristic fume about Clothes: and the rage of the 
 residue of the chapter, in which freciuent flashes indicate mo- 
 mentary recurrences of lucid intervals, is. that "All visible 
 things are Emblems." and that "Matter exists only spiritually, 
 and to represent some Idea, and body it forih." And he bodies 
 forth the burden of the balance of the book in the mazy meta- 
 phor that " * * * in this one pregnant subject of Clothes, 
 rightly understood, is included all that men have thought, 
 dreamed, done and been; the whole External Universe and 
 what it holds is but Clothing; and the essence of all Science 
 lies in the Philosophy of Clothes." 
 
 ■ It were tedious and unprofitable to trace the tangled and 
 mangled thread of this chapter further; but if its actual doc- 
 trine — what it is, as the Philosopher says at bottom, were put 
 m any other form than his despicable drivel, its purport might 
 be a matter of intelligent speculation. If its title, '•Prospec- 
 tive," signifies anything relating to its import, perhaps the 
 reader may deduce its signillcation from such inquiries as, 
 "Had Teufelsdrockh also a father and a mother.'' did he, at one 
 time, wear drivel-bibs, and live on spoon-meat.''" or this. 
 " * * * what is Man himself, and his whole terrestrial life, 
 but an Emblem; a Clothing or visible Garment for that divine 
 Me of his, cast hither like a light particle, down from Heaven ?" 
 or this " * * * examine Language; what, if you except 
 some few primitive elements (of natural sound) what is it all 
 but Metaphors, recognized as such, or no longer recognized ; 
 still fluid and florid or now solid-grown and colorless ?" 
 
 The second book, opens with a chapter called Genesis, 
 which seems to be intended as a revision of a biography of the 
 Mythical German Philosopher, and is essentially romantic 
 throughout; some scenes reflecting credit on the Artist; and 
 some morals are pungently pointed. There is a pretty picture 
 of the evening of the life, in domestic felicity, of an ancient 
 battle-scarred Prussian Grenadier; blended with a depiction, of 
 more questionable merit, of a mysterious stranger suddenly 
 
124 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 yet ceremoniouslv entering his lowly cot, depositing a silk cov- 
 ered package, hastily admonishing the dumb-founded inmates 
 to care for it, and as suddenly and forever disappearing. Of 
 course the package contained the ■•red-infant" Teufelsdrockh, 
 and the perplexity of the aged pair soon subsided into a reso- 
 lution to nurse the involuntary intruder "though with spoon- 
 meat, into whiteness, and if possible into manhood."' Later 
 the Mvth bewails the wickedness and of course the woe of the 
 unnatural parent who thus cast him upon the charity of the 
 aged strangers, saying, "Beset by Misfortune thou doubtless 
 hast been, or indeed by the worst figure of Misfortune, by 
 Misconduct. Often have 1 fancied how in thy hard life-battle, 
 thou wert shot at. and slung at. wounded, hand-fettered, ham- 
 strung, brow-beaten and bedeviled, by the Time-spirit in thy- 
 self and others, till the good soul first given thee was seared 
 into grim rage." 
 
 The infant's development was marvelous. •'Infinite was 
 his progress; thus in some fifteen months he could perform the 
 miracle ol" speech ! To breed a fresh Soul, is it not like brood- 
 ing a fresh (celestial) Egg; wherein as yet all is formless; 
 powerless; yet by degrees organic elements and fibers shoot 
 through the watery albumen; and out of vague Sensation, 
 grows Thought, grows Fantasy and Force, and we have 
 Philosophies. Dynasties, nay Poetries, and Religions I" 
 
 The next chapter entitled "Idyllic." purports to sketch the 
 village life of the youthful Philosopher, and teaches some ex- 
 cellent moral lessons, disfigured of course by the ranting style 
 of expression. For instance, "Obedience is our universal duty 
 and destiny; wherein whoso will not bend must break; too 
 early and too thoroughly we cannot be trained to know that 
 Would, in this world of ours, is as mere zero to Should, and 
 for the most part as the smallest of fractions to Shall. " 
 
 But in the next chapter, entitled "Pedagogy," there is an 
 exhibition of the most stupendous self-conceit ever put upon 
 paper, the Philosopher himself affecting amazement at the un- 
 fathomable depth of the enigmatical philosophy of Clothes and 
 the transcendent genius of its Founder or exponent, character- 
 izing him ''A dangerous difficult temper for the modern Eu- 
 
PHILOSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM. ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. I2S 
 
 ropean." Then comes a protracted growl (of thirteen pages) 
 at the Educational and Economic Systems of the Mother of Civ- 
 ilization ; and even the Continental Universities are likened to 
 square enclosures in Crim Tartary with eleven hundred strip- 
 lings turned loose in them, and "certain persons under the 
 title of Professors, being stationed at the gates to declare aloud 
 that it was a University, and exact considerable admission 
 fees." After showing when and how Gullibilitv may be utiliz- 
 ed, he personifies the English Growing Hopes in one Heir 
 Toiighgitt v^'\\o "had a fair talent, unspeakablv ill-cultivated: 
 and. bating his total ignorance, for he knew nothing except 
 Boxing and a little Grammar, showed less of that aristocratic 
 impassivity, and silent furv. than for most part belongs to 
 Travellers of his nation." And the chapter closes in a severely 
 satirical allusion to "the now obsolete sentiment of Friendship." 
 A translator of the writings of Antoninus has said. "When 
 a man writes anything, we may fairlv try to find out all that 
 his words must mean, even it the result is that they mean 
 what he did not mean; and if v*'e find this contradiction, it is 
 not our fault, but his misfortune." He might appropriately have 
 added, "and the misfortune of the victims whose curiosity 
 prompts them to read the rot. whose patience is taxed in its 
 perusal, whose expectations are disappointed in the result, and 
 whose sense of propriety is shocked at the sight of a philoso- 
 pher making a tool of himself:" and if he were translating the 
 Sartor Resartus. there is reason to believe he would have done 
 so. Who is most deeply concerned in the results of a literary 
 undertaking ? If it is merely the means of the writer's subsis- 
 tence, or of his acquisition of wealth or fame, his failure may 
 be his misfortune: but if it purports to be a bona fide effort to 
 promote intellectual progress, his failure, where he might have 
 succeeded, is his fault, and the reader's misfortune. 
 
 Any one containing within himself in so eminent a degree 
 as Carlyle the elements of success, "sins against the eternal 
 cause" when he disfigures his philosophic dissertations in the 
 turgid tumult of a self-conceited crank. If he was unwilling to 
 conform to the established usage of the realm, or even repub- 
 lic, and would only pay in his tithe with his trash, a dignified 
 
126 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 self-respect on the part of the literary public would require it to 
 decline his offering. That he was a profound philosopher is 
 apparent in the above extracts from his Sartor Resartus. In 
 one of his Latter Day Pamphlets, entitled Jesuitism, he says, 
 "Do vou ask why misery abounds among us ? I bid you look 
 into the notion we have formed for ourselves of this Universe, 
 and of our duties and destinies there. If it is a true notion, we 
 shall sti'enuously reduce it to practice. — for who dare or can 
 contradict his fii/tl/. whatever it may be. in the Hternal Fact 
 that is around him ? — and thereby blessings and success will 
 attend us in said Universe, or Eternal Fact we live amidst : 
 of that surely there is no doubt. All I'evelations and intima- 
 tions, heavenly and earthly, assure us of that: only a Philoso- 
 phy of Tiedlam could throw a doubt upon that. Blessings and 
 success, most sui'ely. if our notion of this Universe, and our 
 battle jn it be a true one; not curses and futilities, except it be 
 not true. For battle, in any case. 1 think we shall not want: 
 harsh wounds, and the heat of the day we shall have to stand : 
 but it will be a noble godlike and human battle, not an ignoble 
 devil-like and brutal one: and our wounds, and sore toils 
 (what we in our impatience call miseries), will themselves be 
 blessed to us." 
 
 To those doubting the possibility oi'a Philosophy of ''Bedlam, 
 1 would suggest a perusal of the epileptic delirium which he 
 has taken the piecaution to label "The French Revolution, c-^ 
 History." While every page (and there are eight hundred and 
 eighty-two of them) is pi"egnant with historical lact, or with 
 such allusion thereto as shows the writer's familiarity, there- 
 with, yet without the label no one would suspect that the pre- 
 paration was intended as a History. Not an average of one 
 entire expression in it in ten. either of fact or doctrine is' put 
 in the temperate terms of a philosopher or historian: and yet it 
 is full of both philosophy and history. 
 
 It may be considered that in order to justify the attention 
 given him. I made the assertion that he had "a meaning, a 
 genuine, deep and noble one:" and that assertion may be con- 
 sidered as devolving on me the duty of stating what that mean- 
 ing was. To my mind it was duplex: he had two meanings: 
 
PHILOSOPHIC FUME. MYSTICISM. ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. 1 27 
 
 one dominant, the other servient; the latter being the "genuine 
 deep and noble one;" subservient to the former which was not 
 so noble; the gratilication of an irrepressible ambition to be 
 seen heard and felt in Literature — which he has realized. 
 
 To the question, what has he done for Literature } it may 
 be answered, Mountains of paper, floods of Ink. and vast phys- 
 ical force have been expended in placing the massive monu- 
 ment to his mvsticism and buffoonery before a wondering 
 world. E.xtracts from some of the leading pei"iodicals of his 
 time indicate that he had set the Literati all agog by the dark 
 and dubious allusion of his burlesc^ue and rant; and that he had 
 them seriously guessing as to the actuality of some of his ab- 
 surdly improvised characters and incidents. On some occas- 
 ions when he seems to have tried to be rational and serious, 
 and to regulate his stvle of expression, the irrepressible would 
 break out in another form, distorting the direct statement of 
 historical fact. Speaking of an ancient Norse Jarl. King 
 Sverrir. he says. ■"His Birkebeins and he had certainly a talent 
 for campaigning which has hardly ever been equalled. They 
 fought like devils against any odds of number; and befoi'e bat- 
 tle they have been known to march six days together without 
 food, except, perhaps, the inner bark of tiees. and in such 
 clothing and shoeing as mere birch-bark." If such a teat were 
 physically possible, he is entitled to some credit for the moder- 
 ation with which he adinits that it ""has hardly ever been 
 equalled." And for the purpose of invoking confidence in the 
 statement, he need not have conceded the propriety of disting- 
 uishing between the inner and outer bark of the trees. If the 
 Jarl had had an army of Dr. Tanners, he might have made such 
 a march in a desert country; and perhaps he could have sub- 
 sisted them on such food as the inner (or outer) barPi of the 
 Dogs of War. 
 
 In one of his biographies, covering two hundred and fifty 
 seven pages, the world is apprised of the fact that the father of 
 his hero owned a cow which "had calved." and that "young 
 John, still in petticoats, was permitted to go, holding by his 
 father's hand, and look at the newly arrived calf; a mystery 
 which he surveyed with open intent eyes, and the silent exer- 
 
i:j8 ethics of literature. 
 
 cise of all the scientific faculties he had ; verv strange mystery 
 indeed, this new arrival, and fresh denizen of our Universe; 
 'Wull't eat a bodv .''' said John in his first practical Scotch, 
 inquiring into the tendencies this mystery might have to fall 
 upon a little fellow and consume him as provision." 
 
 Prosy old Mother Goose in men's clothes. This biography 
 which is composed la.pgely of letters from the hero to the bio- 
 grapher, contains one in which the hero informs the biographer 
 that his ■ "little Charlotte desires me to tell you that she has new 
 shoes for her Doll, which she will show you when you come."" 
 In another the hero very elaborately hesitates between encom- 
 ium and stricture on the Sartor Resartus: or rather, indulges 
 immoderat-ely in both; but closes with the courteous confession 
 that he had not done justice to his "own sense of the genius 
 and moral energy of the book."' 
 
 If the reader wonders who was the hero of the biography 
 he will still wonder after hearing his name. From the biog- 
 raphy however it may be learned that his name was John 
 Sterling, that he was prepared for. but losing his health tailed 
 in the ministry; that he moved about for a time seeking 
 health, and writing letters to his friends, including his biogra- 
 pher: that he also wrote Spring Poetry, the following among 
 other specimens of which his biographer has. unfortunately for 
 his Hero"s fame, given to the World. 
 
 "But Anne, at last her mute devotions o"er, 
 Perceived the fact she had forgot before 
 Of her too shocking nudity; and shame 
 Flushed from her heart o'er all the snowy frame; 
 And struck from top to toe with burning dread, 
 She blew the light out and escaped to bed." 
 
 How refreshing it seems to turn from such sickening slime 
 to some of the finest flashes of humor, blended with serio- 
 comic yet boiia-fide criticism of the then prevalent rage for 
 biography; which are the more ironical that they appear in 
 some of his own biographical notices. In a hybrid or cross 
 between an obituary notice and a biographical sketch of one 
 Jean Paul Frederick Richter he says. "Dr. Johnson, it is said, 
 when he first heard of Boswell's intention to write a life of him. 
 
PHILOSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. 1 29 
 
 announced with decision enough, that, if he thought Boswell 
 really meant to ivn'te his life, he would prevent it by taking 
 Boswell's. That great authors should actually employ this 
 preventive against bad biographies is a thing we would by no 
 means recommend; but the truth is, that, as rich as we are in 
 biography, a well zvriiten life is aliuosf as rare as a icell spent 
 life." * * * "Except by name, Jean Paul Frederick Richter 
 is little known outside of Germany. The only thing connected 
 with him, we think, that has reached this country, is his say- 
 ing, imported by Madam DeStael, and thankfully pocketed by 
 most newspaper critics: 'Providence has given to the French 
 the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, to the 
 Germans that of the — air.' Of this last element, indeed, his 
 own genius might easily seem to have been a denizen." 
 
 An adventurer called Count Cagliostro, whose stock in trade 
 was effrontery and tact, and whose occupation was imposture, 
 is immortalized in seventy pages of the most vituperative, ex- 
 travagant, and enigmatical denunciation conceivable. The 
 biographer narrates his birth as follows, " * * * Know, 
 then, that in the year 1743, in the citv of Palermo, in Sicily, the 
 family of Signor Pietro Balsamo a shop-keeper, were exhilar- 
 ated by the birth of a Boy. Such occurrences have now 
 become so frequent that miraculous as they are, they occasion 
 little astonishment: — old Balsamo for a space, indeed, laid 
 down his ell-wands and unjust balances: but for the rest, met 
 the event with equanimity. Of the possetings, junketings, 
 gossipings, and other ceremonial rejoicings, transacted accord- 
 ing to the custom of the country, for welcome to a new-comer, 
 not the faintest tradition has survived; enough, that the small 
 new-comer, hitherto a mere ethnic or heathen, is in a few days 
 made a Christian of, or as we vulgarly say, christened; by the 
 name of Guiseppe. A fat. red. globular kind of fellow, not 
 under nine pounds avoirdupoise, the bold imagination can 
 figure him to be ; if not proofs, there are indications that suffi- 
 ciently betoken as much. Of his teething and swaddling ad- 
 ventures, of his scaldings. squallings, pukings, and purgings, 
 the strictest search into history can discover nothing; not so 
 
130 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 much as the epoch when he passed out of long clothes stands 
 noted in the Fasti of Sicily." 
 
 The course of the New-comer is then traced in terms egreg- 
 iously enigmatical, and embellished with frequent "Flights" of 
 fantastic philosophising on all sorts of subjects, not even 
 remotely germain to the biography, until he is found in the 
 heat of life's battle. "Beppo then, like a Noah's raven, is out 
 upon that watery waste of dissolute, beduped, distracted Eu- 
 ropean Life, to see if there is any carrion there. One unguided 
 little raven, in the wide-weltering Mother of Dead-Dogs: — will 
 he not come to harm ; will he not be snapped up. drowned, 
 starved, and washed to the Devil there } No fear of him — for 
 a time. His eye (or scientific judgment) it is true, as yet takes 
 in only a small section of it; but then his scent (instinct of 
 genius) is prodigious; several endowments, forgery and others, 
 he has unfolded into talents: the two sources of all quack-talent, 
 Cunning and Impudence are his in richest measure." 
 
 It seems strange that one assuming the airs and proportions 
 of a High Priest in Literature, a connoisseur in Criticism, a 
 modeller or moulder of taste, a historian of the French Revolu- 
 tion, of Cromwell and Frederick the Great, could have the time 
 or the inclination to trace a vagrant Qtiack through a half cen- 
 tury of cozenage and adventure and hide and seek with the 
 Police all over Europe. But the consequence of his subject, its 
 importance to the reader, as well as the manner in which he 
 dealt with it, seemed to be of little concern to him. It was his 
 business to zt'r//^, and the World's duty to read: and having 
 once obtained recognition he kept the floor until he had shown 
 Mankind how one with the rarest gifts, with almost super- 
 human energy, with an apparently inexhaustible fund of histor- 
 ical fiict, with inflnite versatility, with the deepest and sound- 
 est philosophical acumen, with absolute mastery of language, 
 and marvelous copiousness of thought, could squander the 
 whole in a disgusting serio-comic exhibition of himself. 
 
 The facts he has perpetuated are abundant and importani, 
 the philosophy he has promulgated is deep and true: but both 
 are to be extracted from a mazy mass of unique obscurity, 
 enigma and riddle; the key to which in most instances is the 
 
PHILOSOPHIC FUME, MYSTICISM, ECCENTRICITY AND EGOTISM. I31 
 
 fantastic self-assertion of its writer. To the question what has 
 he done for Literature ? it may be fairly answered, he has taken 
 his place and asserted himself therein, in attitude and ejacula- 
 tion, at once the contortionist and clown of a Literary Circus. 
 But I have too far and too tediously traced this traducer and 
 encomiast of human character. Further detail were unprofit- 
 able, and, I need not add. unpalatable. But 1 think I have 
 shown that all 1 have claimed for him as a really profound phil- 
 osopher is but a moderate estimate of him in that respect, and 
 that all that 1 have denounced him for in the way of eccentric 
 egotism and blatant black-guardism is but a charitable char- 
 acterization of him in that respect. In the same strain he pur- 
 sues the same vein throughout the great mass of his collossal 
 works, and seems to be in the Zenith of his glory when "body- 
 ing forth" some idea superbly sublime, in terms grotesquely 
 ridiculous. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. 
 
 Translators Should Translate and not Paraphrase — Historians Should Narrate 
 and not Philosophize — Equivalence of Thought Psychologically Possible — 
 Equivalence of Expression Philologically Possible— Literary Economy — • 
 Recriminations of Translators and Editors — Modern Reader's Assurance 
 that He gets the Meaning of the Ancient Writer — Provisional Validity of 
 Lucretius' Philosophy — Economy of Nature in Time and Space^ — Religion 
 and Superstition — Parallel Between Invocations of Lucretius and Milton — 
 Disagreement Among Translators — Improvised Data of Philcsophy — Its 
 Weakness for Parallels — Primordial Atom Impossible — Annihilation and 
 Diminution Impossible — Self-Propulsion Impossible — Nature Only Another 
 Name for the Almighty — Freedom Attributed to Irregularity of Voluntary 
 Atomical Motion — Mediaeval Papacy's Attempt to Enslave Thought — Mor- 
 tality and Immortality Conclusively Proved by Reasoning of Lucretius and 
 Socrates — Insuperable Antinomy — Disgusting Allusions of Philosophers — 
 Literary Toadyism. 
 
 A translator of an ancient poetical philosophy, in some 
 remarks on the life and poem of his author, has attributed the 
 error in biography and history to the fact that "the learned con- 
 jecture, and the less learned aftlrm ;" the result of which would 
 seem to be that the unlearned might forever remain so. 
 
 He might with sufficient propriety have included translation 
 in the same stricture, as his own declarations in the same 
 remarks sufficiently disclose its errors and their causes. In 
 history, biography, and translation, the object ought to be a 
 faithful and accurate rendition of the truth; the true office of 
 the historian is to narrate the facts relating to his subject; and 
 that of the translator is to translate a writing from one language 
 into another. 
 
 If the historian, instead of or in addition to narrating the 
 facts, makes what he may deem learned deductions therefrom, 
 or elaborately philosophizes thereon, he may display his own 
 genius to a world, which might be more edified in knowing 
 what was and is, that in knowing what a profuse pedant may 
 think of it. If the translator, instead of rendering what is said 
 in one language into its actual equivalent in another, para- 
 phrases, amplifies, or abridges it, he may show his reader 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. 1^5 
 
 what he in his scholastic wisdom thinks his author ought to 
 have said, without letting him very deeply into the secret of 
 what he actually has said. 
 
 It is within the principles of psychology that there may be 
 actual equivalence of thought among all the cultured races; it is 
 also within the principles of philology that any thought ex- 
 pressible in any language may be rendered in terms exactly 
 equivalent in the language of any cukured race. Language is 
 commensurate with thought, and universally adequate to its 
 office ; and its office is not, as some cynic has said, to conceal 
 or disguise thought. 
 
 In most translations in vogue there are, in the introductory 
 parts and in marginal notes, many severe strictures upon the 
 rendition in other translations of what are said to be important 
 parts of the original. The great majority of persons desiring 
 to know the content of writings in languages different from 
 their mother tongue, cannot afford to acquire the use of such 
 language; and to obtain such knowledge they must rely upon 
 the translators, who frequently, and with contemptible pedan- 
 try, transcribe lengthy and perhaps important passages of the 
 alleged original text into the alleged translation. 
 
 It cannot be very gratifying to the reader to find the trans- 
 lators disputing about the correctness of each other's renditions 
 of what they call important parts of the original, and accusing 
 each other of paraphrasing, amplifying, abridging, misunder- 
 standing and corrupting it. Such behavior will convince him 
 that there is dishonesty or inefficiency about it somewhere, and 
 without a knowledge of the original, in which case a transla- 
 tion were superfluous, he becomes a disappointed and disgust- 
 ed spectator of a reproachful wrangle among the learned, with 
 no means of knowing, and with but little reason to believe, 
 that he gets the actual equivalent of the original from any of 
 them. 
 
 Judging from the past this may be destined to be a mere 
 fruitless complaint, but no candid reader will say it is an unjust 
 one. Very few have taken the pains, or contented themselves, 
 to make methodical statements or records of the facts forming 
 the body of their alleged histories, and if they are candid in their 
 
134 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 mutual criticisms still fewer have given the actual equivalent of 
 the writings they have assumed to translate. Those sufticiently 
 learned and who have assumed the duties of either office gen- 
 erally write as though they imagine they were too learned, and 
 instead of furnishing their readers with the actual substance and 
 leaving them to their own inferences, they generally make of 
 their work an occasion to display their own genius and philo- 
 sophical acumen, and relegate the historical fact they record, 
 and the actual product of the author they translate to a com- 
 parative obscurity. 
 
 Many histories cover one and the same period, relate to the 
 same general subjects, and record identical facts which come from 
 the same sources. If thev agree in substance, some are neces- 
 sarily superfluous and could well be dispensed with; if they 
 disagree, some are worse than superfluous and should not have 
 been written. Agreement here relates to narration of sub- 
 stantive fact — all in excess of which is neither biography nor 
 history, but is the learned superfluity which goes current as 
 philosophy. If it is justifiable as philosophy, and is merely to 
 be based on and illustrated bv the historical fact chronicled in 
 the same connection, then the philosophy is the real occasion 
 for so augmenting the volume of literature, and no more fact 
 should be chronicled in such connection than will suffice for the 
 necessary data and illustration : and the work should sail under 
 its true colors, it should avow itself a philosophy and not a 
 history. 
 
 In vindication of this complaint as to the rendition by some 
 persons of the writings of others, 1 quote from one of the trans- 
 lators of Lucretius. After naming numerous editions of the 
 alleged original text he says, "But all other editions were 
 thrown into the shade by those of Lambinus of which the first 
 appeared in 1^63, the second in 156s. and the third in i S70. 
 Of all editors and expounders of Lucretius, Lambinus still de- 
 serves to stand at the head. He is accused by Wakefield of 
 iiiconsulta temerilas, injudicious rashness, in intruding his own 
 conjectures into the text; and by Eichstadt, of having had too 
 high an opinion of his own judgment and ability; but though 
 there may be some grounds for such accusations, his character 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I35 
 
 as an editor is still of the highest order. He brought to his 
 work a powerful mind, and, knowing that Lucretius always 
 intended to write sense, he took upon himself to put sense, 
 perhaps at times too arbitrarily, into verses which had been 
 left meaningless by transcribers." 
 
 So an edtior whose character as such is of the highest order 
 has put sense into passages of the original text, "perhaps at 
 times too arbitrarily." If the transcribers had left such pass- 
 ages meaningless, it may have been because they found them 
 so. They may have been too conscientious to put sense into 
 them. As transcribers it was their office to make literal copies 
 of the original, and the law presumes they did their duty; and 
 but for the strictures above mentioned, and the vicarious con- 
 fession above quoted; it would presume that the editors and 
 translators have done theirs. 
 
 The translator in question mentions sixteen editions of the 
 alleged original, all of which he says are in many respects cor- 
 rupted and unfaithful; and eight English translations, and says 
 they are all more or less inaccurate, and accuses one translator 
 of inserting five of his own lines between the tenth and six- 
 teenth lines of the first book. If his charges are true, some of 
 the matter he has translated may not be that of his alleged 
 author; how much, is a matter of mere conjecture. In such 
 case the reader can have but little assurance that he gets a 
 single thought of Lucretius' from the alleged literal translation 
 following such damaging declarations. As above indicated, he 
 must take it on trust from the translator, who in turn appears 
 to have taken it on distrust from the transcribers and editors ; 
 and to have accused every editor and all other translators of 
 inaccuracy, even the editor whose character as such is of the 
 highest order. 
 
 In some instances there may be good reason to believe that 
 the modern reader of the ancient classic gets substantially the 
 content of the original, among the best of which reasons may 
 be the evidence inherent in the body of the composition itself. 
 Perhaps the most convincing evidence of the validity of the 
 claim that the writings of the Bible are of divine inspiration, is 
 that to be found in the writings themselves. While it might 
 
1^6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 SO far as we know be possible that they are not, and probable 
 that in successive transcriptions editions and translations they 
 may have lost some of their pristine puritv. and mav have been 
 more or less corrupted, yet taken entire, they are so far out of 
 the usual course of the literature of any age, that it is more dif- 
 ficult to believe they are a mere human invention, than to be- 
 lieve they are what they purport to be. Notwithstanding 
 the great number of persons who appear to have written them, 
 the ages intervening, the vastlv different stages or degrees of 
 civilization prevailing, and different circumstances under which 
 they are said to have been written, they might, so far as their 
 own characteristics as a literary composition are concerned, all 
 be attributed to one and the same pen. So it may be with some 
 of the philosophy of the sages of antiquity, but not conspicu- 
 ously so with that now attributed to the poet Lucretius. It 
 bears no internal indication that it was not composed by manv, 
 but rather the contrary. 
 
 The qualitative, relative, or provisional validitv of some of 
 his reasoning, is made more problematical than it otherwise 
 need be, by a dispute among his translators as to the proper 
 rendition of the word religione. Some contend that it is relig- 
 ion, others that it is superstition. The provisional validitv of 
 his reasoning is that with reference to the data then available, 
 the stage of science prevalent when he wrote. By subsequent 
 investigation many of his ideas are exploded, which, as to the 
 data then available may have been rationally legitimate deduc- 
 tions. When he objected to universal centripetal gravitation, 
 and insisted on absolute vacuums, the earth had not been cir- 
 cumnavigated, and the telescope had not explored our part of 
 the sidereal system and located its center in the Sun. 
 
 But apart from such considerations, and on his own hypo- 
 theses as to the data then available, the validity of his reason- 
 ing is in some measure to be estimated according as he meant 
 either religion or superstition by the term Religione] his philos- 
 ophy appearing to have been written to overthrow whichever 
 it was he meant. His translator says, " * * * neither Epic- 
 urus nor Lucretius attacked the belief in the gods, and in pun- 
 ishment after death, as a Superstition, but as a Religion. It is 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I )'] 
 
 a Superstition to us, but it was a religion to men of those days." 
 And he insists that by the term Religioiie, Lucretius meant 
 religion, and that he did not believe in divine intervention in 
 human affairs; but he names four other translators who he says 
 all "concur in rendering this word by Superstition." If that 
 which may be a superstition to one may be a religion to an- 
 other, it can have no invariable validitv of character itself, but 
 must be to this one and that one just whatever their respective 
 mental moulds may make of it. Otherwise the difference be- 
 tween religion and superstition is unintelligible, or rather we 
 cannot intelligibly conceive an actual ditference in kind between 
 them. 
 
 So it will appear that the provisional validity of the reason- 
 ing in the philosophy of one who is said to be one of the great- 
 est philosophers of antiquity, depends in some measure upon 
 his meaning by the use of one word, about which there is 
 among the learned an irreconcilable dispute, and among both 
 learned and unlearned, little if any certainty that he used it at 
 all; his greatest editor having taken "upon himself to put sense, 
 perhaps at times too arbitrarily into verses which had been left 
 meaningless by transcribers." 
 
 No reasoning can be valid, on any supposable hypothesis, 
 which attempts to account for Nature or any of its phenomena 
 otherwise than as the manifestation of a Power (call it divine 
 or otherwise) which is hopelessly and forever beyond the com- 
 prehension of the human mind. Modern metaphvsic manifests 
 this, or the whole system is worse than idle. If we know any- 
 thing of nature, we know that nothing therein of which we 
 can conceive is entirely without purpose. That some of the 
 purposes of some of its phenomena may not appear to us to be 
 good, may be due to our inability to discern them, and even if 
 some of them are known to be essentiallv evil, they are still the 
 purposes of the existence of the matter or phenomena in nature 
 manifesting them. 
 
 We know that time and space are, and that they are tor 
 some purpose, that they comprehend all phenomena of which 
 we can conceive, whereby one of their purposes is known, and 
 known to be so far fulfilled. We know that there is no such 
 
138 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 thing as absolute waste, destruction, or annihilation of any 
 thing oC which we can conceive, tangible or intangible, cor- 
 poreal or incorporeal, within the economic system of nature; at 
 least that the mind cannot conceive such absolute waste, de- 
 struction, or annihilation. We know that all tangible phe- 
 nomena of which we can conceive as being, can occupy only 
 so small a portion of space that the proportion of their volume 
 as we can conceive it, to that of the immensity of space, is so 
 small that no comparative relation or proportion between them 
 or in their extent can be imagined. We know then that there 
 is an inconceivably vast extent of space unoccupied by any 
 phenomena of which we can conceive; at least that the mind 
 cannot conceive of matter and its phenomena as occupying all 
 Space, nor, comparativelv speaking, anv considerable portion 
 of it. 
 
 From what we know of the economy ol' nature, we have no 
 right to assume that the apparently unoccupied portion of the 
 extent of space is really unoccupied and without a purpose. 
 What occupies or pervades it, and what is its purpose ? is it 
 not occupied and pervaded by the Ubiquitous Spirit of its di- 
 vine Architect, the Originator of the purpose everywhere mani- 
 fest in all we know of in nature ? And does He not occupy 
 and pervade it to execute such purpose, and such other in- 
 scrutable will as He mav have ? Reasoning from what we 
 know, must we not answer in the afhrmative .'' Does not such 
 a belief lie at the very base of any possibly true religion ? If so, 
 and if Lucretius used the term 1{eIii{ione in the sense of religion 
 as now understood, the reasoning in his philosophy (as trans- 
 lated by Watson) is necessarily fallacious even on his own 
 hypothesis, considering the data reasoned from and the end 
 reasoned to; while if he meant superstition and superstition is 
 essentially different from religion, some part of it may have 
 been valid, as relative to the data available in his time. When 
 it is remembered that he wrote more than nineteen hundred 
 years ago, when polytheistic image worship was the religion 
 of State, the learned consulted the haruspices and sibylline 
 leaves, and the most important affairs turned upon the omens 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE, 1^9 
 
 of entrails and tlights of birds, the wisdom of some of his pos- 
 tulates and deductions (if they are his) is truly wonderful. 
 
 Assuming, as I believe some parts of the philosophy justify 
 me in doing, that bv the term Religione. if he used it. Lucretius 
 meant superstition in a sense essentially different from religion, 
 his purpose appears to have been to emancipate the Roman 
 mind from a base thralldom to that superstition, and thereby 
 promote rather than oppose what he may have regarded relig- 
 ion. According to one of his translators he exclaims, 
 
 "O wretched mortals— race perverse and blind. 
 Through what dread dark, what perilous pursuits, 
 Pass ye this round of being, know ye not 
 Of all ye toil for nature Nothing asks, 
 But for the body freedom from disease 
 And sweet, unanxious quiet, for the mind ?" 
 
 He seems to have been religious, as he understood religion. 
 According to the literal translation in question he begins his 
 philosophy by invoking "Bountiful Venus, mother of the race 
 of Aeneas, delight of gods and men, who, beneath the gliding 
 constellations of heaven, tillest the ship-bearing sea and the 
 fruit-producing earth ; since by thy influence every kind of liv- 
 ing creature is conceived, and springing forth hails the light of 
 the sun. * * * Since thou alone dost govern all things in 
 nature, neither does anything without thee spring into the 
 ethereal realms of light, nor anything become gladsome or 
 lovely; 1 desire thee to be my associate in this my song, which 
 1 am essaying to compose on the nature of things, for the in- 
 struction of my friend Memmius, whom thou, O goddess, hast 
 willed at all times to excel, graced with every gift." This 
 recalls Milton's invocation of the 
 
 " * * * heavenly muse, that on the secret top 
 
 Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire 
 
 That Shepherd who first taught the chosen seed 
 
 in the beginning how the heavens and earth 
 
 Rose out of chaos; or, if Zion hill 
 
 Delight the more, and Siloa's brook that llowed 
 
 Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence 
 
 Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, 
 
 That with no middle flight intends to soar 
 
i40 EtHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues 
 Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. 
 And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer 
 Before ail temples the upright heart and pure. 
 Instruct me, for thou knowesl; thou from the first 
 Was present, and, with mighty wings outspread, 
 Dove-like sat'st brooding o'er the vast abyss 
 And madst it pregnant." 
 
 The main difference between the two invocations is in that 
 of the heathen being full of animation, while that of the Chris- 
 tian is full of stately gloom, the difference in the names by 
 which thev knew their Deities being of but little consequence. 
 But 1 am at a loss for some means of harmonizing the chief 
 postulate of Lucretius' invocation, with that of the one hundred 
 and tiftv-ninth line of the first book of his philosophy, that "all 
 things are done without the agency of the gods." According 
 to the invocation it would seem that very little if anything was 
 done without the influence of a goddess; but it may have been 
 at one of these points that some of his editors or translators 
 have taken upon themselves to put sense into his verses. It is 
 scarcely reasonable to suppose that one who in his time, place, 
 and circumstances, was capable of some of the thought in the 
 philosophy attributed to him, would run recklessly into such 
 palpable contradiction; or would, in the beginning of such a 
 work, invoke the association of that which, by the very invo- 
 cation he must recognize as a divine Superintendent of terrestrial 
 atfairs, unless he believed in such divine superintendence; and 
 such belief would in most minds constitute a religion. It would 
 be a religion to us, and we must suppose it was a religion to 
 him. Unless he had such belief, and his philosophy (not that 
 of those who have put sense into his verses) consistently har- 
 monized with it, the philosophy was a self-destructive contra- 
 diction. If he had such belief, and has not frequently stultified 
 himself, he has been terribly mangled by the butchers through 
 whose ingenuity and scholasticism his alleged philosophy has 
 been preserved and transmitted to us. 
 
 In view of the fact that those of the learned who have con- 
 cerned themselves most with it cannot agree as to some points 
 vital to its validity as a process of reasoning, and that some of 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I4I 
 
 them have taken upon themselves to put sense, presumably 
 their own, into his verses; and in view of the irreconcilable con- 
 tradiction between various parts of it. the profound wisdom of 
 some of the propositions and the grotesque absurdity of others, 
 the student of what is called Lucretius' Philosophy as now ren- 
 dered in the English language, can have no means of knowing 
 whether he reads Lucretius, or him and a half dozen of his am- 
 bitious and scholarly mutilators. 
 
 There is probablv no more groundless proposition pro- 
 pounded in any philosophy, than the attempt to attribute free- 
 dom of action in animated nature to an alleged deviation from 
 a straight line in atomical motion, which deviation is onlv 
 claimed to be infinitesimal ; and is assumed because it cannot 
 be proved to be absolutely direct on account of the im percept- 
 ibility of the atoms and their motion, and contrary to the anal- 
 ogy of the perceptible motion of perceptible matter. One 
 translator has him sav " * * * if all motion is connected and 
 dependent, and a new movement perpetually arises from a 
 former one in a certain order, and. if the primary elements do 
 not produce anv commencement of motion bv deviating from 
 the straight line to break the laws of fate, so that cause mav 
 not follow cause in infinite succession, whence comes this 
 freedom of will to all animals in the world ? Whence 1 say is 
 this freedom of action wrested from the fates, bv means of 
 which we go wheresoever inclination leads each of us ? whence 
 is it that we ourselves turn aside and alter our motions, not at 
 any fixed part of space, but just as our mind has prompted us ? 
 For doubtless, in such matters his own will gives a com- 
 mencement of action to every man ; and hence motions are dif- 
 fused throughout the limbs." "For Weight forbids that all 
 effects be produced by strokes, and as if bv external force; but 
 the circumstance that our mind itself is not influenced bv 
 external necessity in performing every action, and is not, as if 
 under subjection, compelled only to bear and suffer, this cir- 
 cumstance the slight declination of the primordial atoms causes 
 though it takes place neither in any determinate part of space, 
 nor at any determinate time." 
 
 Another translator puts the proposition in the first of these 
 
142 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 two quotations thus, "Whence is our liberty of action ? Ask 
 of the atoms themselves; if their motion be invariably direct, 
 there arises from this motion a chain of fate and necessity; if 
 there be collision, (supposing collision to take place with per- 
 fectly direct motion) there arises from it the same necessity. 
 To declension from the right line onlv, therefoie, can liberty of 
 action be attributable." Another renders it thus, 
 
 "Had all one motion uniform, the new 
 The anterior copying, if throughout 
 Primordial seeds declined not, rousing hence 
 Fresh springs of action, potent to subvert 
 The bonds of fate, and break the rigid chain 
 Of cause on cause eternal, — whence, resolve, 
 Flows through the world this freedom of the mind ? 
 This power to act, though fate the deed forbid. 
 Urged by the will alone? The freeborn mind 
 Acts, or forbears, spontaneous; these the will, 
 Doubtless, alone determines, and, at once, 
 Flies the fleet motion through the assenting frame." 
 
 That the data is improvised upon the tlimsv foundation of 
 mere absence of disproof is apparent. And the absurdity of the 
 theory of deviation is manifest when it is "acknowledged that 
 atoms decline a little from the straight course, though it need 
 not be admitted that they decline more than the least possible 
 space; lest we should seem to imagine oblique motions, and 
 truth should refute the supposition. For this we see to be 
 obvious and manifest, that heavy bodies, as far as depends on 
 themselves, cannot, when thev fall from above, advance obli- 
 quely; a fact which you yourself may see. But who is there 
 that can see that atoms do not all turn themselves, even in the 
 least, from the straight direction of their course r" 
 
 If they should •"tui'n themselves even in the least from the 
 straight direction of their course.'' their motion would certainly 
 be so far oblique, "and truth should refute the supposition." 
 If primordial atoms are universally inanimate, if their animation 
 only results from their combination, they cannot "all turn 
 themselves even in the least from the straight direction of their 
 course." If they are inanimate, and are impelled by an extran- 
 eous lorce, so far as they are themselves concerned their motion 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. 1 43 
 
 is a necessity, and the direction of their motion is as much a 
 necessity as the motion itself. And so far as human cognition 
 or valid reasoning is concerned, force and necessity may reach 
 their goal as well by a devious as by a direct course. 
 
 Perhaps one of the worst drawbacks from philosophy is its 
 weakness for parallels, in its eagerness to discover which it 
 resorts to all sorts of visionarv and absurd assumptions. 
 To suppose anv relation or at^lnitv between mind and primor- 
 dial atoms of inanimate matter requires a severe sti'ain of mind; 
 and without such relation or affinity, any supposable direction 
 of the motion of such atoms, however impelled, cannot be con- 
 ceived to have any possible effect or influence on the action or 
 condition of mind, so far as freedom is concerned. 
 
 Another illustration is that by which the difference in their 
 sizes, and the greater penetrative powers of some atoms is 
 proved: >• * * * light passes through horn, but water is re- 
 pelled bv it. Why ? unless the atoms of light are less than 
 those of which the genial liquid of water consists." Another 
 translatoi' puts it metrically thus. 
 
 "Light the clear glass pervades, while Ivmph recoils; 
 Whtnce springs this difference, but that subtler seeds 
 Rear the bright sunbeam than the fountain form ?" 
 
 II, instead of horn or glass felt were used in the illustration 
 it would have yielded more moisture than light, notwithstand- 
 ing the difference in size of the atoms and subtletv of the 
 seeds. If primordial atoms are the e.xtreme points that "cer- 
 tainly exist without parts, and consist of the least possible 
 natural substance,"' of pure solidity, "endowed with an eternal, 
 simple, and indissoluble existence from which nature allows 
 nothing to be broken off." they are ultimate units, incapable of 
 further division. It would seem then that there could not be 
 such a difference in their sizes that some could while others 
 could not pass thi'ough any particular substance. It is impos- 
 sible to imagine a difference in the size of things, without im- 
 agining some larger than others, which cannot be if all are the 
 least possible and of pure solidity. One must also imagine the 
 possibility of the larger being reduced by division to the size or 
 the smaller. These are inexorable requirements of thought, or 
 
144 ■ ETHICS OF LITERATURE.' 
 
 which there can be no evasion, fi'om which there is no escape. 
 
 That the "primordial atoms are therefore of pure solidity, 
 which, composed of the smallest points, closely cohere," means 
 nothing. It is a self-destructive proposition. There can be no 
 cohesion in an absolute and indissoluble unit. There must be 
 parts to cohere. If atoms are composed of the smallest points, 
 which are without parts, thev are without magnitude, thev 
 have no dimension, neither length, breadth, nor thickness; and 
 can impart none to anything into the composition of which 
 they enter. Neither can thev be of pure soliditv. because thev 
 cannot be or constitute substance. Nothing but substance can 
 be imagined to have soliditv. and substance must have dimen- 
 sion, length, breadth, and thickness, which it cannot derive 
 from atoms if they are mere points, without parts and without 
 dimension. No indivisible dimension can be imagined, infini- 
 tude is as palpable in the direction of the minute as in the di- 
 rection of the vast, if the alleged atoms are the least possible 
 points, without parts, thev are necessarily without dimension, 
 and no number of them can constitute anv c^uantitv of sub- 
 stance. It is not admissible to speak of quantity of such atoms, 
 because without dimension quantitv cannot be imagined any 
 more than we can imagine dimension without parts. 
 
 The primordial atoms of Lucretius' philosophv. indissolu- 
 ble and without parts, are nothing, thev never physically exist- 
 ed. So his two chief postulates, that nothing is ever produced 
 from nothing, and that all substance is produced from such 
 atoms, are contradictory. He was requiring too much of his 
 friend Memmius when he told him he "must be prevailed upon 
 to acknowledge that there are bodies which exist having no 
 parts, and consist of the least possible substance : and since 
 they are so, since they are indivisible and undiminishable. you 
 must also concede that they are eternal." The word least is 
 ruinous to this proposition. Least cannot be predicated of any 
 substance except with relation to its dimension in comparison 
 with that of some other substance, and indivisible dimension 
 cannot be imagined. The proposition however contains one 
 legitimate supposition. If anything is undiminishable it must 
 be eternal. If it is undiminishable it cannot be annihilated; it 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. 1 45 
 
 cannot begin to go out of existence. But it need not be indi- 
 visible to be eternal, for division cannot be imagined as dimin- 
 ution. It is mere separation of parts, change of form, condi- 
 tion, and place. 
 
 Annihilation, which cannot be thought at all is more palp- 
 ably unthinkable without supposing diminution, whether the 
 annihilation is attempted to be thought as instantaneous, or as 
 being ages in doing. Nothing can occur in time without occu- 
 pying some portion of time; nothing can be supposed to occur 
 at an absolute point between two several portions of time, and 
 without itself occupying some portion of it, because time is 
 continuous and is not interrupted in its course; and whatever 
 occurs therein must have some duration, be some time in doing. 
 It is said to be demonstrated that musical sounds may be pro- 
 duced by vibrations numbering four thousand in a second of 
 time; but they must each have some duration or the entire 
 number would not occupy a full second. If it were impossible 
 to demonstrate that there could be more than four thousand 
 vibrations in a second of time it would not follow that more 
 are impossible. If it were impossible to demonstrate that the 
 alleged primordial atom was reducible in dimension, or divisi- 
 ble, it would not follow that it was irreducible or indivisible. 
 All that is argued in either case is the inability of the human 
 capacity. Annihilation of substance, then, which cannot be 
 thought at all, becomes, if possible, more palpably unthinkable 
 without some duration, without occupying some time, during 
 which diminution must be supposed to proceed, in order that 
 at the end of which annihilation might be supposed to result, 
 if it were supposable at all. Then whatever cannot be dimin- 
 ished must be eternal, because it cannot be annihilated. But 
 it does not follow that anything (substance) must be indivisible 
 in order to be eternal. 1 think 1 have shown that no substance 
 can be, or be supposed, indivisible, and hence divisibility and 
 indvisibility are no factors in considering the question of the 
 eternity of atoms of any substance. 
 
 I said above that division cannot be imagined as diminu- 
 tion, that it is mere separation of parts, change of form, condi- 
 tion, and place. A moment's reflection, or one illustration is 
 
146 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 sufficient to demonstrate this. As it proceeds in the physical 
 world, simply the process of disintegration, it, and the coun- 
 teracting and concurrent process of integration combine to form 
 the tlnal process by which the indestructibility of tangible mat- 
 ter, and hence the life of the Universe, is said to be maintained. 
 Then so far from being inimical to the eternity of atoms or of 
 substance generally, it is essential to it. If division meant di- 
 minution, evaporation would soon terminate all aquatic exis- 
 tence, and the mineral particles extracted by the growth of 
 vegetation from the earth, and diffused by its consumption and 
 decay in impalpable gases, would long since have sent its soil 
 into nonentity. 
 
 I doubt if any philosopher has ever more forcibly propound- 
 ed the doctrine of persistence of force and eternal integration of 
 matter, forming a plurality, or rather an infinity of sidereal sys- 
 tems and habitable worlds ; but there are two serious objections 
 to it, in that it ignores disintegration, and claims that the inan- 
 imate atoms of matter are self-propellent. The difficulty of the 
 absence of disintegration is supposed to be obviated by the 
 supposition of an infinite number of atoms. But as 1 have 
 above shown that the necessary result of his own doctrine is 
 that his atoms cannot constitute substance in any quantity, the 
 proposition is not aided by such supposition. An infinite 
 number of nothings cannot constitute a something, and disin- 
 tegration remains a necessity if integration is to continue. Be- 
 sides both integration and disintegration are so palpably physi- 
 cal facts, that it is not a little surprising that such a reasoner 
 would attempt to account for the continuity of integration on 
 the hypothesis of an inexhaustible number of atoms to draw 
 from, even if he allowed them to have dimension so that they 
 could by combination constitute quantity of substance. He is 
 translated as saying, "But by no means can it be thought pro- 
 bable, when space lies open in every quarter, and when semin- 
 al atoms, of incomputable number and unfathomable sum, 
 driven about by everlasting motion, fly through the void in 
 infinite ways, that this one globe of earth, and this one heaven, 
 have been alone produced ; and that these innumerable partic- 
 les of matter do nothing beyond our sphere ; especially when 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I47 
 
 this world was made by merely natural causes, and the atoms 
 of things, jostling about of their own accord in infinite modes, 
 often brought together confusedly, ineffectually, and to no pur- 
 pose, at length successfully coalesced ; — at least such of them 
 as, thrown together suddenly, became in succession the begin- 
 nings of great things, of the earth, the sea, the heaven, and the 
 race of animals. For which reason it is irresistibly incumbent 
 on you to admit, that there are other combinations of matter in 
 other places, such as is this world, which the ether holds in its 
 vast embrace." 
 
 A few pages thereafter he speaks of disintegration as work- 
 ing the ultimate destruction of matter, but not as a process con- 
 current with and reciprocal to integration, which it must be, if 
 the indestructibility of tangible matter is to be maintained. 
 
 About three hundred years before his time another philoso- 
 pher, in his last colloquy had said, "See now O Cebes that we 
 have not agreed on these things improperly, as it appears to 
 me; for if one class of things were not constantly given back in 
 the place of another, revolving as it were, in a circle, but gen- 
 eration were direct from one thing alone into its opposite, and 
 did not turn round again to the other, or retrace its course, do 
 you not know that all things would at length have the same 
 form, be in the same state, and cease to be produced } * * * 
 And if all things were mingled together, but never separated, 
 that doctrine of Anaxagoras would soon be verified, 'all things 
 •would be together.'" 
 
 By how much is the present doctrine of evolution, the per- 
 sistence of force, integration and reciprocal disintegration of 
 matter in advance of that of twenty-two centuries ago } Ver- 
 ily it seems "there is no new thing under the sun." Three 
 hundred years after Socrates drank the hemlock, Lucretius is 
 represented as reasoning that integration will perpetually pre- 
 vail, forming numberless sidereal systems of habitable worlds, 
 drawing the supply from an inexhaustible fund of primordial 
 inanimate atoms, without parts or dimensions (nothings), in- 
 animate yet self-propellent, and yet that disintegration will out- 
 strip such process and eventually annihilate all matter. A 
 motley medley of contradiction ; no less palpably a contradic- 
 
148 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 tion to itself, than to his aphorism that "nature resolves each 
 thing into its own constituent elements, and does not reduce 
 anything to nothing." 
 
 A metrical translator has him likening the life of the Uni- 
 verse to that of an animal, saying, 
 
 " » * * This the ceaseless course 
 
 Of things ceated. But those chief, with speed, 
 
 Waste into nought that boast a bulk immense; 
 
 Since wider, here, the surface whence, each hour, 
 
 Flies off the light effluvium, nor with ease 
 
 Winds the fresh food through all the mighty mass. 
 
 By ceaseless strife exhausted, and a store 
 
 Asking far ampler than the store received. 
 
 And from without by blows tumultuous urged; 
 
 Blows that, resistless, from what e'er adjoins, 
 
 Ply their full vigor till the victim yields. 
 
 Thus shall the world's wide walls hereafter sink 
 
 In boundless ruins; thus, though yet sustained 
 
 By food appropriate, and preserved entire. 
 
 For not forever will her powers digest 
 
 The due recruit, nor Nature's hand supply." 
 
 It would seem that if "nature resolves each thing into its 
 own constituent elements," matter, on being disintegrated 
 would be resolved back into the primordial atoms of things, 
 which, if they were the same constituent elements would again 
 jostle about of their own accord, if they had previously done 
 so, and repeat the process with the same, or with analogous 
 results. If they are the same constituent elements, they would 
 probablv be of the same nature (as originally) and have the 
 same power and propensity to jostle about, and re-combine 
 instead of "waste into nought." 
 
 How easily a link may be omitted, and how fatal the omis- 
 sions to the force and effect of a chain of sand, or of— wind. 
 
 Ridiculing the idea of the ubiquitv and omnipotence of any 
 God, he is represented by a metrical translator as saying, 
 
 " * * * 3I1 Nature shines at once, 
 
 Free m her acts, no tryant to control, • 
 
 Self-potent, and uninfluenced by the gods. 
 
 For, O ye powers divine, whose tranquil lives 
 
 Flow free from care, with ceaseless sunshine blest, — 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I49 
 
 Who the vast whole could guide, midst all your ranks ? 
 
 Who grasp the reins that curb th' Entire of things? 
 
 Turn the broad heavens, and pour, through countless worlds, 
 
 Th' ethereal fire that feeds their vital throngs ? 
 
 Felt every moment, felt in every place. 
 
 Who from the low'ring clouds the lightening dart, 
 
 And roll the clamorous thunder, olt in twain 
 
 Rending the concave ? or, full deep retired, 
 
 Who point in secret the mysterious shaft 
 
 That, while the guilty triumphs, prostrates stern 
 
 The fairest forms of innocence and worth ?" 
 
 When duly considered the apparently troublesome inquiries 
 assume "something more in the nature of a dissent from the 
 generally accepted use of words, than a denial of the actuality 
 of an omnipotent and omnipresent Power or Being. If "all 
 Nature shines at once, free in her acts, no tyrant to control, 
 self-potent," then Nature must be an omnipotent and omni- 
 present Power or Being; and the dispute assumes proportions 
 too vast to be justified on the ground of alleged impropriety in 
 the use of a mere name. By "ye powers divine" he may have 
 meant the members of the celestial cabinet, senate, or synod, 
 the Micheal, Raphael, Abdiel, Uriel. Uzziel, etc., who figured 
 so conspicuously in the armed armistice, and final capitulation 
 of Eden to the powers of Darkness, then but recently expelled 
 from "the precincts of light." 
 
 If Nature is "self-potent and uninfluenced by the gods," it 
 must be superior to them ; it must be the Supreme Being which 
 some assume to know by the name of God, denominated by 
 the philosopher Nature; and the identity is in no sense and to 
 no extent dependent on the recognition of a parallel or equiva- 
 lent for his suppositive subordinate gods. I believe he no- 
 where positively ascribes an equivalent for their alleged tran- 
 quility of life and unconcern in human affairs to Nature itself; 
 but on the contrary rather holds that nature by immutable fiat 
 orders and controls all existence whatever; which with the ex- 
 ception of the unimportant difference in name, and the then 
 prevalent recognition of the intermediaries called gods, is almost 
 equivalent to the main tenet of the most dogmatic theology of 
 to-day. 
 
150 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, 
 
 While doubting, or rather disputing, that there was any 
 god among all their ranks who could "grasp the entire of 
 things turn the broad heavens and pour through countless 
 worlds the ethereal fire that feeds their vital throngs," he was 
 recognizing that there was some Power which could and did 
 do it, and he called that Power Nature, and held it to be "unin- 
 fluenced by the gods." One can almost see here a parallel for 
 the Protestant protest that the Almighty is not propitiated by 
 the Catholic invocation of saints. 
 
 But the last of the above quoted inquiries is not so easily 
 disposed of. 
 
 "For O ye powers divine. * * * 
 
 * * * midst all your ranks 
 
 Who point in secret the mysterious shaft 
 
 That, while the guilty triumphs, prostrates stern 
 
 The fairest forms of innocence and worth ?" 
 
 It would seem that some Power does so point the myster- 
 ious shaft, and that the philosopher was duly appreciative of 
 the fact. His query is, who of the gods it is, implying that 
 while it is done, it is not done by any of them, and that he at- 
 tributes it to Nature, who shines at once free in her acts, self- 
 potent and uninfluenced by the gods. But Nature as above 
 shown is only his appellation for the Supreme Being or Power. 
 The most troublesome part of this inquiry is its covert impu- 
 tation of injustice and bad economy in the course of the Power, 
 Being, or Nature which so prostrates the fairest forms of inno- 
 cence and worth while guilt triumphs. Here the mind is forced 
 to a halt. One assumes to know all about Nature, attributes 
 an alleged freedom of human will and action to an imagined 
 deviation from a direct line in the motion of alleged self-moving 
 primordial atoms of inanimate matter. We might reasonably 
 expect him to go on and explain the principle of justice and 
 economy on which that same Nature prostrates the fairest forms 
 of innocence and worth while guilt triumphs. The mind was 
 never harassed with another so important and perplexing a 
 problem. Why should innocence and worth suffer while guilt 
 triumphs ? It is vastly more important to benighted mortals to 
 know this than to be informed that their own freedom of action 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I5I 
 
 is due to a fancied circuity of direction in tine motion of self- 
 propelled primordial atoms of inanimate matter. 
 
 The philosopher finds an alleged freedom of mind and 
 action in animated nature, and attributes it to an alleged pro- 
 miscuous voluntary motion in alleged primordial atoms of in- 
 animate matter. Mankind could be no more than curious to 
 know this. He finds an alleged system of economy and justice 
 in Nature under which innocence and worth suffer while guilt 
 triumphs, and attributes this to — nothing. Mankind could be 
 no less than deeply concerned to know this. One of these 
 propositions is no more inscrutable than the other, for both are 
 absolutely so. The data from which to reason out one of them 
 is as available as that from which to reason out the other, for 
 there is absolutely none for either of them. And the reasoning 
 by which the imagined solution of the first problem is reached, 
 is shown to be in many instances fallacious, and in some in- 
 stances self-destructive. While this may have been reason 
 sufficient for not attempting a solution of the latter and more 
 important problem, it clearly is not the reason it was not at- 
 tempted. A careful examination of the whole work results in 
 the disclosure of nothing indicating that the problem itself ever 
 occurred to the philosopher. 1 doubt, however, that any one 
 ever lived, having capacity sufficient to distinguish between 
 good and ill, or to conceive of them, who has not wondered 
 and longed to know the reason why innocence and worth 
 should suffer while guilt triumphs. Fervid zealots and owl- 
 wise optimists gravely declare that it is the holy will of an All- 
 wise and benevolent Creator, who wisely and benevolently 
 orders all things for the weal of the elect ; and then they tax 
 their mental resources beyond endurance to show how and 
 why the direst curses are the dearest blessings. And yet they 
 affect a condescending pity for the wicked, idolatrous, benight- 
 ed Brahmin who practically applies such doctrine by self- 
 torture. 
 
 The problem remains as hopelessly insolvable as ever, yet 
 no more so than others upon which lives have been spent 
 (wasted.?) in many instances in unintelligible speculation; but 
 which are to-day as far from a solution as ever. The impor- 
 
154 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 away at once. * * * It is produced together with the body, 
 and grows up together with it, and both, as I have shown, 
 overcome by age, decay in concert." The third argument is, 
 that "the mind in disease of the body, often wanders distract- 
 ed ; for it loses its faculties, and utters senseless words. * * * 
 Wherefore you must necessarily admit that the mind is also 
 dissolved, since the contagion of disease penetrates it. For 
 pain and disease are each the fabricator of death. * * * 
 The sixth argument is that "the mind may be healed, like a 
 sick body, and wrought upon by means of medicine;" but the 
 remainder of this one is not without its faults ; for instance that 
 division and transposition are incompatible with continual ex- 
 istence. The sixteenth argument is, " * * * if the nature of 
 the soul exists imperishable, and is infused into men at their 
 birth, why are we unable to remember the period of our exis- 
 tence previously spent by us, nor retain any traces of past 
 transactions? For if the power of mind is so exceedingly 
 changed, that all remembrance of past things has departed 
 from it, that change, as 1 think, is not far removed from death 
 itself." 
 
 Indeed there seems to be no possible confutation of such 
 argument; unless it consists in a denial of the postulate that 
 mind and soul are identical, are but two names for one thing. 
 If mind is soul, and has its periods of helpless infancy, of buoy- 
 ant youth, of robust manhood, of vigorous middle age, of senile 
 decline ; may it not have begun with the physical birth ; may it 
 not decline and end with the physical decay and death ? When 
 and where hag it ever been known to exist apart from a physi- 
 cal existence ? If it is at all affected by disease, may it not be 
 utterly destroyed by it ? If it is at all affected by the decrepitude 
 of old age, may it not be entirely exhausted by it ? If it is af- 
 fected sympathetically by affections of the body, and is never 
 known to exist apart from body, does not this imply a relation- 
 ship too intimate and too gross, to be maintained by anything 
 which could be conceived of as capable of a separate, independ- 
 ent, ethereal existence ? 
 
 I am not assuming to argue either the mortality or immor- 
 tality of the soul. I am merely considering the validity of the 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. I 55 
 
 reasoning in the philosophy attributed to Lucretius. As argu- 
 ments the above quotations are simply unanswerable, if mind 
 is soul, and if the immortality of the soul is a question, the 
 solution of which is to be reached through any process of reason- 
 ing, it would seem that Lucretius had almost put an end to the 
 debate. If the result should be the overthrow of traditions, 
 faiths, and hopes, which have appeared to bless while they have 
 merely deluded, it may be due to the irrepressible tendencies of 
 the very subject of the discussion ; whose prime propensity is 
 to reason, even when admonished that reasoning is rebellion. 
 One can have no more control of the trend of his thought than 
 he could have of its determining whether it will act at all. The 
 sum of the intelligence which prevails to-day is the result of the 
 voluntary, unrestrained, independent thought of those who 
 have dared to think; and no restraint, guidance, or control of it 
 can be imposed or urged with even a simulation of justice. It 
 may be enlightened, educated, cultured ; but any, the least 
 check or curb proposed to it is an attack upon the manliness 
 of the man, an inexcusable invasion of the inalienable inherit- 
 ance of every individual ever born; and is no more justifiable in 
 behalf of any one creed or faith than in behalf of any other. 
 Medii^eval Papacy attempted its control, restraint, suppression, 
 and extinction; and her anathemas resounding through all time 
 remain an ever enduring reminder of her bigoted superstition 
 and stupidity. If speculation leads to. or results in, the dem- 
 olition of fanciful faiths and fabrics, the thinker is still by nature 
 endowed (or cursed ?) with the facultv and propensity. But 
 there seems to be no necessity for such result, if a faith and a 
 religion prevail because it is actually demonstrated that they 
 actually benefit their adherents, that they are an actual blessing 
 to the race; the fact is no less a fact merely because the faith 
 and religion are neither reasonable nor logical. Whatever is 
 either reasonable or logical must be so merely from a human 
 standpoint; and the human mind to be itself reasonable and 
 logical, to be even candid with itself, must admit that there 
 are some things which it can never comprehend; that there is 
 no way by which it can determine and demonstrate whether 
 the soul is mortal or immortal, and that any effort to do so, 
 
1 s6 • ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 even in argument ever so reasonable and logical, and over- 
 whelmingly unanswerable, is itself utterly unreasonable and 
 illogical. Soul may be substance, or it may not be substance ; 
 it may be mortal, or it may not be mortal. The question may 
 constantly obtrude upon each and every mind among all the 
 millions of millions of minds existing and to exist, it is not and 
 never will become a legitimate subject of any human reasoning 
 or logic. 
 
 A greater proportion of the great thinkers may now believe in 
 the immortality of the soul than have ever before so believed; 
 the question, so for as reasoning is concerned, is no less an 
 open one. The great thinkers have ever been in the minority. 
 Among a hundred minds of equal capacity, of similar constitu- 
 tion and culture, ninety-nine may have reasoned themselves 
 into a belief in the soul's immortality, while one with just as 
 much (and no more) plausibility has reasoned itself into the be- 
 lief in its mortality. But popularity is no factor in the account. 
 So far as reasoning is concerned, plausibility is the test, and it 
 is not affected by number. Popularity varies, and if it were a 
 factor in the controversy, the soul might at some stages of be- 
 lief be mortal while at others it is immortal. The question pre- 
 sents an insuperable antinomv, which fact alone conclusively 
 demonstrates that the question is not a legitimate subject of 
 human reasoning. 
 
 So that, as unanswerable as the above quoted arguments 
 may be, they are merely. an unreasonable application, an illegit- 
 imate use, of the most eminently reasonable arguments. 
 Equally cogent and unanswerable is the reasoning of the great- 
 est Greek for the immortality of the soul, in the following quo- 
 tation from his last dialogue. Its data consist of no assump- 
 tion, are absolutely valid in every respect, and as a process of 
 reasoning it is in all respects strictly legitimate, and every in- 
 ference is natural and necessary. 
 
 "Observe then, said he, what I wish to prove. It is this — 
 that it appears not only that these contraries do not admit each 
 other, but even such things as are not contraries to each other, 
 and yet always possess contraries, do not appear to admit that 
 idea which is contrary to the idea that exist in themselves, but, 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. IS? 
 
 when it approaches, perish or depart. Shall we not allow that 
 the number three would first perish, and sutfer anything what- 
 ever, rather than endure, while it is still three, to become even.^ 
 Most certainly, said Cebes. And yet, said he, the number 
 two is not contrary to three. Surely not. Not only, then do 
 ideas that are contrary never allow the approach of each other, 
 but some other things also do not allow the approach of con- 
 traries. You say very truly, he replied. Do you wish then, he 
 said, that, if we are able, we shall define what these things iwe? 
 Certainly. Would they not, then, Cebes, he said, be such 
 things as, whatever they occupy, compel that thing not only 
 to retain its own idea, but also that of something which is al- 
 ways a contrary ? How do you mean ? As we just now said. 
 For you know, surely, that whatever thing the idea of the three 
 occupies must of necessity not only be three, but also odd ? 
 Certainly. To such a thing then, we assert, that the idea con- 
 trary to that form which constitutes this can never come. It 
 cannot. But does the odd make it so ? Yes. And is the contrary 
 to this the idea of even .^ Yes. The idea of even, then, will 
 never come to the three ? No, surely. Three, then, has no 
 part in even ? None whatever. The number three is uneven.^ 
 Yes. What, therefore. 1 said should be defined — namely, what 
 things they are which, though not contrary to some particular 
 thing, yet do not admit of the contrary itself; as in the present 
 instance the number three, though not contrary to the even, 
 does not any the more admit it, for it always brings other par- 
 ticulars. Consider, then, whether you would thus define, not 
 only that a contrary does not admit a contrary, but also that 
 which brings with it a contrary to that which it approaches 
 will never admit the contrary to that which it brings with it. 
 But call it to mind again, for it will not be useless to hear it 
 often repeated. Five will not admit the idea of the even, nor 
 ten, its double, that of the odd. This double, then though it is 
 itself contrary to something else, yet will not admit the idea of 
 the odd; nor will half as much again, nor other things of the 
 kind, such as the half and the third part, admit the idea of the 
 whole, if you follow me, and you agree with me it is so. I 
 certainly agree with you, he said, and follow you. 
 
158 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 "Tell me again, then, he said, from the beginning; and do 
 not answer me in terms in which 1 put the question, but in 
 different ones, imitating my example. For 1 say this because, 
 besides that safe mode of answering which I mentioned at first, 
 from what has now been said, I see another no less accurate 
 one. For if you should ask me what that is which, if it be in 
 the body, will cause it to be hot. 1 should not give you that 
 safe but unlearned answer, that it is heat, but one more ele- 
 gant, from what we have just now said, that it is fire; nor, if 
 you should ask me what that is which, if it be in the body, will 
 cause it to be diseased, should I say that it is disease, but fever; 
 nor if you should ask me what that is which, if it be in num- 
 ber, will cause it to be odd, should I say that it is unevenness, 
 but unity; and so with other things. But consider whether 
 you sufficiently understand what I mean. Perfectly so, he 
 replied. Answer me, then, he said, what that is which, when 
 it is in the body, the body will be alive. Soul, he replied. Is 
 not this then, always the case ? How should it not be.^ said 
 he. Does the soul, then, always bring life to whatever it occu- 
 pies ? It does indeed, he replied. Whether, then, is there 
 any thing contrary to life or not ? There is. he replied. What ? 
 Death. The soul, then, will never admit the contrary of that 
 which it brings with it, as has been already allowed ? Most 
 •assuredly, replied Cebes. What, then? How do we denom- 
 inate that which does not admit the idea of the even ? Un- 
 even, he replied. And that which does not admit the just, nor 
 the musical ? Unmusical, he said, and unjust. Be it so. But 
 what do we call that which does not admit death ? Immortal, 
 he replied. Therefore, does not the soul admit death ? No. 
 Is the soul. then, immortal.^ Immortal." 
 
 1 said that "the question presents an insuperable antinomy, 
 which fact alone conclusively demonstrates that the question is 
 not a legitimate subject of human reasoning." 1 have now 
 shown two examples, one from each of two diametrically op- 
 posite arguments of the question, one conclusively establishes 
 the soul's mortality, the other conclusively establishes its im- 
 mortalitv. The data in both instances are unquestionable, the 
 reasoning in both are strictly legitimate and absolutely unans- 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. 1^9 
 
 werable. The result amply justifies the assertion that the ques- 
 tion is not a legitimate subject of human reasoning. Still it is 
 forever persistently presenting itself to every human mind; even 
 those who claim they know the soul is immortal, are constant- 
 ly fortifying themselves with arguments that it is so. The 
 question is the bed-rock of all religion, and there is no possible 
 solution of it. it can be met only by faith; egotists may sneer- 
 ingly say, by credulity, by superstition. 
 
 The difficulty is not to be obviated by any possible purifica- 
 tion of the reason itself; at least by any purification of it by 
 human agency or means. A criticism of the processes, specu- 
 lations and deductions of the human reason, mav serve to vin- 
 dicate some such processes, speculations and deductions that 
 may be legitimate, and expose the fallacy of others which may 
 be illegitimate; but they must relate to subjects within the pos- 
 sible comprehension of the human mind. The capacity of the 
 human mind cannot be amplified by any human agency, how- 
 ever much the mind may be developed, cultured and skilled by 
 such agency. It may be taught to philosophize and speculate 
 and refine on all sorts of subjects, and may convince itself and 
 others that it has finally reached ultimate truth ; but when it 
 reaches ultimate truth so as to preclude the possibility of a di- 
 rectly contrary conclusion of the same question being establish- 
 ed by argument equally as legitimate as that by which it was 
 established, it will be where its subject was of a physical, and 
 not of a spiritual nature. The question which has been con- 
 stantly discussed by the greatest of minds for many thousands 
 of years, and is still as far as ever from being settled, is practi- 
 cally beyond the possibility of settlement by human minds. 
 If every person living believed in either the mortality or immor- 
 tality of the soul, such belief might properly be called a univer- 
 sal faith, but it could not be properly called a universal know- 
 ledge. Indeed it could not be knowledge, nor could it contain 
 any element of knowledge; and if it should be based on the 
 results of any process of reasoning it would be groundless, be- 
 cause the exact contrary could be established by reasoning 
 equally as valid and unanswerable. 
 
 I do not pretend to deny that Lucretius formulated and 
 
l6o ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 wrote each and every proposition in the philosophy attributed 
 to him; but I think 1 have shown that those of the learned by 
 whom it has been passed down to us, and served up for us, 
 have rendered the supposition extremely problematical. 1 shall 
 now show that some of them have rendered it (the philosophy) 
 exceedingly unsavory, it will not be necessary or even profit- 
 able to trace each of the main tenets or lines of thought sever- 
 ally to their necessary results, so I shall close with a brief sur- 
 vey of the fourth book, which is preeminently the psychologi- 
 cal part of the philosophy. 
 
 One or two instances of its self-contradiction, and inconsis- 
 tency with other parts of the work, may tend to justify the sus- 
 picion already hinted, that the work is not even substantially 
 the production of any one pen, but rather that of several pens. 
 
 It will be remembered that in speaking of light he says, it 
 consists of atoms which are much more minute than those of 
 which "the genial liquid of water consists;" that they are so 
 minute that they "pass through horn while water is repelled 
 by it;"' that "Light the clear glass pervades, while lymph 
 recoils." 
 
 As in all other efforts at psychological elucidations, images 
 are here important factors; and he supposes them to consist or 
 to be composed of thin coats, or layers of the substance of the 
 object of vision, flying off the outer part of the objects and be- 
 ing impelled by an inherent force, with inexpressible velocity, 
 and by coming in contact with the visual subject, producing 
 images. He says, "But when objects which are bright have 
 stood in the way, as, above all, a looking-glass, neither of 
 these effects happens, for neither can images pass through it 
 like a garment, nor be divided into parts before the smoothe 
 surface has succeeded in securing its entireness." But on the 
 very next page he says, " * * * they can easily penetrate any 
 substance whatsoever, and, as it were. How through the inter- 
 vening body of air. " 
 
 It is somewhat difficult to believe that the same man who 
 wrote the foregoing argument that the soul (mind) is mortal, 
 also wrote the silly swash about images, from which the above 
 is quoted; to say nothing of the obscenity and rot in which 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. l6l 
 
 some of the objects of vision (images) are disgustingly depicted 
 in the latter part of the book. Speaking of this feature one 
 translator says, "A serious and attentive reader of this truly 
 learned, as well as poetical discourse, whether male or female, 
 cannot possibly, 1 think, peruse it without the acquisition of 
 some degree of useful knowledge; and even the medical pro- 
 fessor himself cannot but be astonished at the copiousness of 
 his research, and the accuracy that accompanies much of his 
 reasoning." Another has said, "There is here no impurity of 
 language, nothing that may not be mentioned with propriety. 
 If anything shall appear objectionable, such appearance is to be 
 attributed not to the fault of the poet, but to that of the reader." 
 This may partake somewhat of the nature of a question of 
 taste, but let us see one sample of that which does appear there; 
 let us see if it is not impurity of language, and worse, of 
 thought. 
 
 "Yet pot forever do the softer sex 
 
 Feign joys they feel not, as with close embrace 
 
 Breast joined to breast, their paramours they clasp, 
 
 And print the humid kisses on their lips. 
 
 Oft from their hearts engage they, urged amain 
 
 By mutual hopes to run the race of love. 
 
 Thus nature prompts; by mutual hopes alone, 
 
 By bliss assured, birds, beasts, and grazing herds, 
 
 The task essay; nor would the female else 
 
 E'er bear the burden of the vigorous male, 
 
 By mutual joys propelled. Hast thou not seen, 
 
 Hence tempted, how in mutual bonds they strive 
 
 Worked oft to madness ? how the race canine 
 
 Stain with their vagrant loves the public streets, 
 
 Diversely dragging, and the chain obscene 
 
 Tugging to loose, while yet each effort fails ? 
 
 Toils they would ne'er essay if unassured 
 
 Of mutual bliss, and cheated to the yoke." 
 
 So this vivid vision of "the female bearing the burden of 
 the vigorous male,'" of the canine copulation in the street and 
 the struggle to disconnect, contains "no impropriety of lang- 
 uage, nothing that may not be mentioned with propriety." 
 The mere appearance of impropriety is attributable to the fault 
 of the reader. If this is true, there could be but little if any 
 
1 62 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 occasion for such a vigorous defense of it. If there is really no 
 impropriety in it, it is strange that the translators ever thought 
 to defend it. They had better have been engaged in an effort 
 to cultivate the taste, the sense of propriety of the reader up to 
 that aesthetical pitch, at which he might duly appreciate the 
 delectable morsel. As the majority of them were Doctors of 
 Divinity and Masters of Arts they were probably equal to the 
 undertaking, and if so, they are at least in that particular de- 
 linquent in the discharge of their duty. Is it not remarkable 
 how a D. D. or a L. L. D. or an M. A. or an F. R. S. can make 
 things go in Literature ? How they make us relish the rankest 
 rot, the vilest venom, and the absurdest asininity ? 
 
 Lucretius may have regaled the fastidious aesthetes of Roman 
 Letters of the Julian epoch with such putresence, or he may 
 not have done so. If his translators have "put 5^«5^, perhaps 
 at times too arbitrarily, into verses which had been left mean- 
 ingless by transcribers," it is reasonably certain that no bones 
 have been broken in an effort to put decency into the verses 
 last quoted. They may have had more sense than decency, 
 but a reading posterity need not groan under the burden of its 
 obligation to them for their suggestions of propriety in the use 
 of language, nor for their formula for purity of thought. Philo- 
 sophic speculation is somewhat short of data for its illustrations 
 when it is compelled to resort to such things as the carnal 
 coition of dogs. 
 
 One of the erudite translators says, "1 have observed that 
 my author addresses himself only to high and cultivated intel- 
 lect. The remark applies here with peculiar force. Lucretius 
 was too much a man of sense, too well acquainted with human 
 feelings, not to know that the higher order of minds are little 
 liable to seduction from the gross exposures of nature; and only 
 to such minds is his poem addressed." 
 
 While minds worthy of the name may not be seduced by 
 such exhibitions, it would seem to be a singular sort of "high 
 and cultivated intellect," that would not be disgusted by them. 
 Yet such seems to be the sentiment of some of the learnedly 
 arrogant priests, who assume to fix the standard of excellence 
 and prescribe the intellectual pabulum of a reading world. So 
 
 I 
 
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN ATTIRE. 1 63 
 
 long as a truckling canaille is subservient to a lordly aristoc- 
 racy in literature, so long will it impose its peter-funk on its 
 confiding clientage, and continue to deprave taste to the stand- 
 ard essential to a market for its wares. When the reading 
 masses grow out of the slovenly habit of perfunctorily reading 
 through the volumes they peruse, and adopt a habit of energet- 
 ically, systematically, and critically thinking through them, 
 there will begin to prevail a manliness in taste that will spurn 
 the imperious authority of the learned autocracy that thrives 
 more by means of the want of discrimination among its read- 
 ing tributaries, than by virtue of its own intrinsic ability and 
 wisdom. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 nature's poet. 
 
 Treasures Among Trash— Symmetry of The Ages — The Poets Medium Between 
 Optimism and Cynicism— Civilization a Constant Rhythmical Growth 
 — Good and Evil Necessarily Relative — Poetry of Nature an Effusion of the 
 Soul and not a Product of Genius — Personal Merit an Absurdity — Constitu- 
 tion and Environment — Integration and Diffusion — Mechanical Cause of 
 Feeling and Emotion — Contemptible Spirit that Seeks Consolation for III 
 in the Reflection that Others also Suffer— Attention an Effort — Universal 
 Weakness for Flattery — Philosophy Works over the Old More than it De- 
 velops the New — Celestial and Terrestrial Paternity of Man — The Coolest 
 Deductions of Physics as Extravagant as the Wildest Flights ot Poetry — 
 Hymn to Death. 
 
 The chief concern of the rambler in the realm of Literature 
 being the discovery of the true and the beautiful, it is grateful- 
 ly refreshing to pause in contemplation of such achievements 
 as the Ages, the Thanatopsis, and the Flood of Years; and 
 other masterpieces of the unassuming Bard who has uncon- 
 sciously adorned, dignified, and meliorated Republican Letters. 
 These three pieces, occupying less than sixteen pages, come as 
 near as any literary production to comprehending all compre- 
 hensible nature; and exhibiting it in its truest and most beauti- 
 ful aspects. The Ages, in thirty-five short stanzas is at once a 
 profound sermon in philosophy, a vivid panorama in history, 
 and a majestic march of the Muse. The man who could write 
 either of them was a prodigy. He who did write them was a 
 benefactor. No one can read either of them thoughtfully with- 
 out appreciable intellectual profit. 
 
 I have remarked that prolixity may sometimes obscure 
 merit, and at other times disguise demerit. An instance of 
 the former may be seen in a poem called Sea Dreams, written 
 by a monarchical Laureate who bore the Bays for forty years, 
 where he says : — 
 
 " * * * he that wrongs his friend 
 Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about 
 A silent court of justice in his breast." 
 
 If among the thirty-five stanzas of The Ages there is not one 
 
nature's poet. 165 
 
 that could be dispensed with without disfiguring the symmetry 
 of the poem, it may be regarded a compactly built structure. 
 In the first six stanzas the reader is introduced upon a mighty 
 and majestic scene of constancy in change, nature's variable 
 stability ; and assured that : — 
 
 " * * * Eternal Love doth keep, 
 
 In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the deep." 
 
 In the seventh stanza a sincere solicitude for the destiny of 
 mankind is expressed in the inquiry which cannot be made in 
 any other terms so well as in those of the poet himself. 
 
 "Will then the merciful One, who stamped our race 
 
 With his own image, and who gave them sway 
 
 O'er earth, and the glad dwellers on her face. 
 
 Now that OLir swarming nations far away 
 
 Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks the day 
 
 Forget the ancient care that taught and nursed 
 
 His latest offspring ? will he quench the ray 
 
 Infused by his own forming smile at first, 
 
 And leave a work so fair all blighted and accursed ?" 
 
 It is the business of the balance of the poem to answer these 
 inquiries, to compose this concern, and to assure human hope; 
 not in improvised commonplaces without meaning, or sus- 
 ceptible of many meanings; not in vague and glittering gener- 
 alities, the refuge of all optimism ; nor by the graceless attempt 
 to mould mind to imagine a senseless solution of insolvable 
 mystery, or affect an air of fancied security in a situation of 
 possible, or rather probable peril. 
 
 The answer and assurance are given in the next stanza ; 
 the twenty-seven following it are but an elaboration and a 
 metaphysical vindication of them; the rationally legitimate de- 
 ductions of enlightened reason from the inflexible facts of his- 
 tory, compendiously summarized, and arrayed in all the beauty 
 and grandeur of the most imaginative and prophetic poetry. 
 
 "Oh, no, a thousand cheerful omens give 
 Hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh. 
 He who has tamed the elements, shall not live 
 The slave of his own passions; he whose eye 
 Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky, 
 And in the abyss of brightness dares to span 
 
1 66 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high, 
 
 In God's magnificent works his will shall scan 
 
 And love and peace shall make their paradise with man." 
 
 Evolution, the development of soul or culture of character, 
 is finely, yet forcibly posited, and upon it is confidently based 
 the hope of one of the most sincere lovers of mankind, one of 
 the greatest representatives of the good in human nature, for 
 the ultimate destiny of the race. .He justifies the hope, so far 
 as reasoning is capable of demonstration, in the universal retro- 
 spect then taken. If from the prehistoric (or even later) bar- 
 barism, in which : — 
 
 "Then waited not the murderer for the night, 
 But smote his brother down in the bright day," 
 
 to the civilization now prevalent, the transition was not abrupt, 
 but was almost imperceptibly gradual, was the occasionally in- 
 terrupted yet almost constant growth of good; the logical im- 
 plication is the continuous diminution of what is now denomin- 
 ated evil. The Prophetic Muse that could comprehend the past 
 in its magnitude, might with as much reason as sentiment, 
 forecast ever increasing felicity as the necessary logical result of 
 the process of evolution, the progress of which we have no 
 reason to believe will ever be suspended, because we cannot 
 even imagine a time when it was not going on. This does 
 not necessarily imply the continuous concurrent existence of 
 absolute evil in order that there may be a ground for the pro- 
 gress to be going from to the good, for neither absolute evil 
 nor absolute good is a supposable quantity. Neither evil nor 
 good can be supposed except as relative, in which case both 
 may continuously prevail (or exist) while there is a continuous 
 diminution of the one and concurrent increase of the other. 
 
 The "rhythm being manifested in all forms of movement," 
 is aptly illustrated in the poet's exhibition of tropical tyranny 
 driving virtue from the eastern nations by reducing them to 
 slavery; of its flight to the vales of glorious Greece, where 
 Liberty awoke and flourished for a time, until from prosperity 
 it relapsed into a disdainful arrogance and oppression and 
 Greece went down beneath the weight of her own infamy ; a 
 view of a similar process in Rome, the result of similar causes; 
 
nature's poet. 167 
 
 all interrupting, or rather diversifying and rendering rhythmical 
 the constant course of human progress, now cuhninating in the 
 greatest known liberty to man in a then unknown world; the 
 influences of which are being reflected upon the same shores 
 from which it was so expelled. The illustration is perhaps the 
 most concise and comprehensive view of human progress ever 
 presented, and the most inspiriting prospect ever rationally con- 
 templated by man; who may now realize that: — 
 
 "Here the free spirit of mankind, at length, 
 Throws its last fetters off. * * * * 
 ***** And we may trace 
 Afar, the brightening glory of its flight. 
 Till the receding rays are lost to human sight." 
 
 This is not the groundless extravagance of a zealot, nor the 
 ebullient fervor of an enthusiast; but the legitimately logical 
 deductions of a philosopher from the sternest phase of facts; a 
 purely poetical picture of prospect, verified by common obser- 
 vation and experience, past and present. To know as we do, 
 that man in his present state, man as we now know him, has 
 evolved from man in a former far inferior state, yet without 
 being able to even approximate the degree or extent of such 
 inferiority; to know that the course of such evolution is still 
 constant though varying, or rhythmical rather; fairly implies 
 that it will continue, if from no other cause, from the mere per- 
 sistence of force until it reaches results, the grandeur of which 
 may be as impossible to predict as the lowliness of his former 
 state may be impossible to conceive. That 
 
 ''*■** we may trace 
 
 Afar, the brightening glory of its flight 
 
 Till the receding rays are lost to human sight." 
 
 is a Strictly legitimate corollary from the opposite view, the re- 
 flection on that part of the process of development now accom- 
 plished. We may retrace the course of progress, to a great ex- 
 tent; but we cannot even in thought come to its source. We 
 may prognosticate the course of progress to a great extent, but 
 we cannot even in thought come to its end. Its "receding 
 rays are lost to human sight." That the further development 
 of man will forever follow and continuously conduce to his 
 
1 68 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 happiness, is implied in the fact that his previous development 
 has forever followed, and has continuously so conduced. That 
 it will be occasionally interrupted and diversified by seasons 
 and scenes of retrograde tending to his unhappiness, is implied 
 in the fact that it has been occasionally interrupted and diversi- 
 fied by such seasons and scenes with such results. They are 
 exhibitions of "the rhythm being manifested in all forms of 
 movement." 
 
 That on the whole the results, so flir as they can be mentally 
 aggregated, will be the increased and ever increasing felicity of 
 the race, is at once a legitimate deduction of the most inexor- 
 able logic, and one of the most gratifying contemplations that 
 ever thrilled the heart of a poet. Human happiness cannot be 
 more, and it is not likely to be less, than human goodness; 
 and he who inculcates goodness augments happiness. The 
 great priests of Nature who infuse into the minds of men 
 rationally true ideas of their place and destiny in Nature, who 
 cheer them with hope for the future legitimately deduced from 
 or based on the known facts of the past, add to human happi- 
 ness by facilitating intelligent human goodness. The master 
 who takes up a subject of the deepest concern to every indi- 
 vidual living, and treats it philosophically yet poetically, ex- 
 haustively, yet without tedium ; who enlightens while he en- 
 tertains and frequently enraptures, and then quits when he is 
 done, is a real benefactor of mankind. It does not imply that 
 the poet failed to duly appreciate the gravity or sublimity of 
 his subject, that he did not treat it in a nasal twang of endless 
 rhyme, and obscure it by his own prominence in the poem. 
 
 While it may not be likely that litigation will ever cease or 
 even decrease merely because it is the policy of the law that 
 there be an end of litigation, it may be equally as improbable 
 that verbosity will ever cease or even decrease merely because 
 it is the policy of literature that there be an end of words ; that 
 is, of words without ideas, or words unnecessary for the ex- 
 pression of ideas. But here we have an illustrious example of 
 an author whose writings plainly show that in what he wrote 
 he was actuated by such policy. Rhythmical rhyme and 
 metrical melody are merely incidental to the expression of the 
 
nature's poet. 169 
 
 thought. No great campaign is deliberately planned and map- 
 ped out to cover any particular or prescribed scope, area, or 
 extent of territory with couplets, strophes, and flights. But a 
 doctrine, a deep and true one appears to have been completely 
 organized in the mind of a philosopher, and when he proceeds 
 to give it (not himself) expression, the figures and ideas array 
 themselves in proper order, and march to the music of one of 
 the greatest Psalmists that ever praised his Maker in singing 
 the grandeur of his works. 
 
 Temperament, which is a factor in environment, is undoubt- 
 edly as fortuitous to the individual as any of the elements, or 
 agencies which figure in his fate. The Poet certainly was not 
 a captious pessimist, yet he cannot properly be regarded a 
 credulous optimist. He may not have been blameworthy for 
 his inability to recognize good in every thing, and he may have 
 been entitled to little credit for his ability to fail to see evil in 
 some things. He was so constituted and informed that to him 
 the fabulous golden age was 
 
 "A boundless sea of blood, and the wild air 
 Moans with the crimsoned surges that entomb 
 Cities and bannered armies. * * * " 
 
 Yet he was of such a temperament and constitution and so in- 
 formed that he could 
 
 "See crimes, that feared not once the eye of day 
 Rooted from men, without a name or place." 
 "Thus error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven; 
 They fade, they lly — but Truth survives their flight; 
 Earth has no shades to quench that beam of heaven." 
 
 He seems to have seen the world progressing with variable 
 constancy from evil to good, while there yet remained, and 
 will ever remain, evil to be extirpated and good to be attained 
 to. There can never be such thing as either good or evil with- 
 out the other although they are direct opposites of each other, 
 and one constantly increases at the expense of the other and as 
 it decreases. Both are infinite, yet in the one case, more is 
 being constantly added to its infinity, while in the other, that 
 which is infinite is being forever diminished and still remains 
 infinite, and must forever continue in order to give the contrast 
 
170 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 by which the good is to be known as really good. The mart 
 who is so constituted that he can behold the worst side of 
 nature, or see life and character in their worst forms, without 
 himself becoming a misanthrope; who can see a rhythmically 
 constant development of what is good in nature; see life and 
 character ever becoming better until there is no comparison 
 between their present and their former states, without himself 
 becoming an enthusiast, must be of a peculiarly equable seren- 
 ity. He who can exhibit all this to his fellow man, show him 
 all its evils and all its blessings, and neither weary nor disgust 
 his reader; keep the beholder's attention constantly riveted upon 
 the scene he paints, and never exhibit himself in the transac- 
 tion is certainly one of the artists of nature. 
 
 He it is who makes the impression that modifies the char- 
 acter of his thoughtful reader, that leaves him better than he 
 finds him. That the human mind is susceptible to impressions 
 is our only assurance of culture; and this susceptibility must 
 have characterized the very one by whom the culture is to be 
 promoted, or he could never have acquired the capacity there- 
 for. Such susceptibility to impressions, which can be neither 
 more nor less than a phase of the temperament, or one of its 
 incidents, is an accident to the individual. He is neither blame- 
 worthy nor praiseworthy for having it in any degree; no more 
 so than for his physical constitution, or any of his native ten- 
 dencies. It may be objected that the result of this reason- 
 ing, if it rises to the dignity of such name, might be the 
 obliteration of all distinction between the evil and the good 
 every where prevailing, or supposed to be prevailing. 
 
 it does not necessarily follow. Disquisition on all subjects, 
 in order to reach results, must conform to law. All questions 
 must have two sides. Without probabilities and differences 
 between them, there can be no question. Where there is no 
 question there must be absolute certainty. Certainty cannot 
 be an appropriate subject of disquisition but of assertion or 
 declaration. Disquisition implies doubt and difference, and in 
 most cases the apparent reasonableness of contradictory ideas. 
 It is the office of disquisition by reasoning to remove such 
 doubt and adjust or settle such difference ; and when it is done, 
 
nature's poet. 171 
 
 there results an augmentation of knowledge, in which there 
 may be as near an approach to certainty as the mind is capable 
 of. But the process must be strictly legitimate, or the result is 
 likely to be wrong, in which case there can result no trust- 
 worthy knowledge, but mere delusion. Susceptibility to im- 
 pressions being the basis of all culture, and being purely fortu- 
 itous to the individual, the result of his intellectual development 
 depends upon the manner in which he is impressed by the 
 factors constituting his environment. Man is born with his 
 tendencies and his susceptibilities, their modification, from 
 whatever source it may come, is his education, his culture. 
 Those who assume to teach proceed necessarily upon the 
 theory of their subjects being so susceptible, and that they have 
 themselves been properly impressed by the factors which have 
 constituted their environment and are thereby adapted to the 
 office, and possessed of the means necessary to accomplish the 
 improvement which should be the prime object of all literary 
 effort. The means themselves may be ever so various, but it 
 is characteristic of the soul that its pabulum is more gratefully 
 relished and more assimilable when duly seasoned with that 
 which entertains, than when taken in the stern and tedious 
 form of unpolished and unadorned philosophy. 
 
 To the charge of unnecessary digression 1 would suggest 
 that one take the philosophy of the poem in question, and no 
 deeper or truer one was ever written, and clothe it in terms 
 purely philosophical and prosaic, and then compare it with 
 The Ages, and it will appear that 1 have kept within close 
 range of the main point in this dissertation, which is to show 
 the superiority- and grandeur of the truly Republican intellect of 
 the man whose works 1 would exhibit in their true character, 
 to those who seem to have recognized in them merely some 
 comparatively pleasing poetry. The language may afford some 
 specimens of finer and perhaps more poetical poetry, but such 
 philosophy as he teaches seldom finds expression in such terms 
 as he uses. They are adapted to the improvement of the mind 
 which is capable of appreciating them, because the thought 
 they convey is adorned in a garb well suited to it, and which 
 makes it decidedly fascinating; the thought insinuating itself 
 
172 ETHICS OF LITERAtURE. 
 
 into the mind, while // regales itself at an exhibition of the 
 beauties of poetry. The matter is not merely palatable, it is 
 delectable; and to read it without being fiivorably impressed, 
 implies either a diminutive capacity or perverse obstinacy in 
 the reader. 
 
 The poet has written for the edification of the reader, the 
 artist has painted for the entertainment of the spectator; and 
 each stroke of the pen and pencil is an eloquent appeal to the 
 better instincts of man. No ostentatious humility, no perplex- 
 ing mysticism, no imperious mannerism, exhibits the author or 
 the artist with such personal prominence as to divert attention 
 from the subject. The place and destiny of man was his sub- 
 ject, and his heart was tilled with it. While he wrote for the 
 race he was essentially American and instinctively Republican 
 in his literary proclivities, the result of his environment and its 
 impressions upon him, and which to him were fortuitous. 
 His conception of typical man was unavoidably imbued with 
 the idea he had unavoidably conceived of the typical American ; 
 and no travel study and observation could ever eradicate or 
 neutralize it. And it is all the better for literature and for man 
 that they could not. That he happened to be born west in- 
 stead of east of the Atlantic, that his surroundings were such 
 as to conduce to his being imbued with republican instead of 
 monarchical sentiments, that he was susceptible to the im- 
 pressions which made or moulded his character to what his 
 works clearly show that it was, that he had the native ability 
 constituting the raw material of which such a character could 
 be constituted, or from which it could and did evolve, were 
 matters for which he was in no way responsible, and to which 
 neither merit nor demerit can be ascribed. 
 
 Snarling cynicism may ask, "then upon what account is he 
 entitled to be praised ?" The answer is obvious. Upon none 
 whatever. "Why should he be praised ?" Again the answer 
 is obvious. For his own sake he should not be. He did not 
 write for praise. He happened to be in touch with the prevail- 
 ing sentiment of his age and country, and happening to be so 
 inclined, he utilized his fortuitous gifts for the betterment of 
 man. Those capable of appreciating him and his influence, 
 
nature's poet. 173 
 
 come nearer favoring and honoring themselves than him, when 
 they manifest such capacity and appreciation in their attempts 
 to accord him the meed of his merit. 
 
 In simplicity and grandeur the meditation on the subject of 
 death, which is in reality a great sermon upon the subject of 
 life, is probably the most remarkable exhibition of the power 
 of human weakness ever made in so small a compass. The 
 very substance which soon must go: — 
 
 "To mix forever with the elements, 
 
 To be a brother to the insensible rock 
 
 And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 
 
 Turns with his share, and treads upon," 
 
 in two brief pages takes a broad and comprehensive view of the 
 great, the grand, the awful, yet the common destiny of man. 
 Life is exhibited as merely a temporary suspension of death, and 
 as only in and amidst death. Its very breath is a combination of 
 exhalations from the decaying substances which were once 
 animated in the same manner, and inspired by the same spirit 
 which inspires the poet to sing this dreadful dirge of destiny. 
 The substance of the same mind which gives to the world this, 
 the truest and most highly wrought of all views of the end, or 
 rather metamorphosis of earthly existence, realizes that "the 
 oak shall send its roots abroad and pierce" its mould and 
 extract therefrom the substance that will one day in another 
 state, form the gibbet from which the culprit may be launched 
 into eternity, and encase and entomb all that is inortal ot future 
 emulators of the example of the poet. The zenith of his civili- 
 zation is a quasi cannibalism where the living of to-day feast 
 and fatten on the substance of the dead of yesterday ; on the 
 vegetation and animal flesh extracted therefrom, which in turn 
 has in nature's great chemical laboratory itself extracted the 
 substance of its growth from the decaying bodies of nature's 
 earlier poets and priests who have sung her praises and preach- 
 ed her precepts to primeval man. 
 
 " * * * * As the long train 
 
 Of ages glide away, the sons of men, 
 
 The youth in lifes green spring, and he who goes 
 
 In the full strength of years, matron and maid, 
 
174 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man — 
 
 Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, 
 
 By those who in their turn shall follow them." 
 
 Though separated in the volume by more than three hund- 
 red pages, the Thanatopsis and The Flood Of Years seem to 
 be so essentially alike that they might well be taken for merely 
 separate parts of one and the same poem. They both so pict- 
 ure the great pageant of Nature, that the momentary flash of 
 an individual existence becomes so insignificant, that one 
 almost loses consciousness of his ov^n existence in contempla- 
 tion of the awful grandeur of the whole as there presented. 
 
 " * * * * How the rushing waves 
 
 Bear all before them. On their foremost edge 
 
 And there alone, is Life. The present there 
 
 Tosses and foams, and fills the air with roar 
 
 Of mingled noises. There are they who toil, 
 
 And they who strive, and they who feast, and they 
 
 Who hurry to and fro. * * * 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 I look, and the quick tears are in my eyes. 
 
 For I behold in every one of these 
 
 A blighted hope, a separate history 
 
 Of human sorrows, tel.ing of dear ties 
 
 Suddenly broken, dreams of happiness 
 
 Dissolved in air. * * * » 
 
 In view of such scenes as these it is difficult to conceive 
 how one of the greatest known physicists could say that "all 
 our feelings and emotions from the lowest sensation to the high- 
 est tcsthetic consciousness, have a mechanical cause." This 
 may be true, but if the vivid views of Life and Death in the Flood 
 Of Years are aesthetic consciousnesss. it would seem to require 
 a remarkable abasement of them or of such consciousness, or 
 else a remarkable exaltation of mechanics, to render it possible 
 for there to be between them any thing in common. If hope, 
 despair, envy, emulation, pride, humiliation, courage, fear, 
 grief, joy, and the like are feelings or emotions, and if they are 
 within the range of sensation and aesthetic consciousness, it 
 would seem that the Savant of Sound was putting it strong in 
 saying that all our feelings and emotions have a mechanical 
 
nature's poet. 175 
 
 cause. Bryant had feeling and emotion and gave it beautiful 
 expression when he wrote, 
 
 "Sadly 1 turn and look before, where yet 
 The Flood must pass, and 1 behold a mist 
 Where swarm dissolving forms, the brood of Hope." 
 
 He seems to have seen the great cavalcade of humanity troop- 
 ing to the trump of the threnode of all life, and the thrills of his 
 heart reverberating throughout The Flood Of Years could not 
 very appropriately be attributed to a mechanical cause. In 
 contemplation of the awful destiny awaiting all life, in retro- 
 spection of 
 
 "The silent ocean of the Past, a waste 
 Of waters weltering over graves," 
 
 the emotion, feeling, sensation, or forsooth, the aesthetic con- 
 sciousness which burst forth in the flame of poetic fire in the 
 light of which The Flood Of Years is so vividly painted, seems 
 to be a very tine product indeed to owe its existence to a 
 mechanical cause. 
 
 But an unnecessary and unprofitable dispute about cause 
 may become a mere play upon words; while the actual dis- 
 cernment and due appreciation of excellence may be thereby 
 obstructed or possibly prevented. And what is merit ? Is it 
 the condition, state, or quality of deserving approval ? And 
 what are the qualities which entitle one to approval ? Is not 
 the most important one sincerity ? Is there an expression of 
 thought in all Bryant's poems which is delinquent in that 
 respect.^ Is there a dearth of deep and true philosophy in the 
 three poems especially noticed ? And do they not imply their 
 author's acquaintance with the wisdom of the physicists and 
 geognosts, in which scoffers and wiseacres see the utter demo- 
 lition of the basis for the hope that buoyed his spirit, and with 
 which he sought to exalt the spirit of his fellowmen ? Opti- 
 mistic sophistry may engage in the charitable enterprise of 
 attempting to convince mankind that all things in nature are 
 ordered by Omniscient Wisdom and Benignant Benevolence 
 for the greatest good of all and of each; but it has never yet 
 logically and effectually reasoned the pain out of punishment. 
 
176 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the damage out of disease, or the dread out of the contempla- 
 tion of death. It may sometimes offer a pseudo-consolation in 
 the reflection that misery might have been more miserable, and 
 in the malignantly grateful assurance that others have suffered, 
 and others still must suffer perhaps more intenselv than the 
 dupe of such sickening solace. 
 
 Philosophy has a different office. Time was when it even 
 affected to plume itself with a stoical indifference to all passion 
 and a supremacy over all affection. But true philosophy finds 
 in the order and economy of nature an abundance of distress, 
 which stubbornly refuses to be talked into delight. It finds in 
 man a susceptibility to this distress, in its countless forms 
 and conditions, which stubbornly refuses to be talked into in- 
 sensibility thereto. It also finds in nature an abundance of the 
 raw material for the production of enjoyment; and in man the 
 appropriate predilection and capacity to utilize and realize upon 
 it when properly prompted. Nature's priests who happen to 
 strike the right vein in their sacerdotals, or who do strike it 
 whether fortuitously or purposely, they whose life works are 
 intelligent effort at the betterment of man, being intelligent 
 endeavor to bring him into more cordial harmony with the in- 
 flexible facts and fiat of nature, are the real, and should be the 
 properly accredited missionaries to our mundane mirk; and 
 there resounds not to the trump of such fiime, a nobler name 
 than that of the author of The Flood Of Years. Were the pre- 
 dilection and capacity of man so unyielding as the two former 
 qualities or quantities with which philosophy must deal, the 
 distress, and man's susceptibility thereto, all effort at meliora- 
 tion would be idle. In modulating them to the tune of man's 
 necessary existence and environment, philosophy performs the 
 highest and holiest function of its oflice. The apparent apathy 
 of the subject of its solicitude renders it politic for philosophy 
 to utilize another characteristic of the subject of its concern; 
 the prevailing penchant for entertainment at exhibitions of the 
 mysterious and the poetical. By this means it arrests and 
 holds the attention, without which it can impart little benefit. 
 
 Sustained attention is the result of effort, either of the one 
 by whom it is given, or of the one by whom it is evoked. 
 
nature's poet. 177 
 
 There is less difference in the respective totals of what is actu- 
 ally known by the several savants assuming the miter and 
 ephod in literature, all of them knowing next to nothing, than 
 there is in their several capacities to profitably impart that 
 which they think they know. The human mind is almost 
 universally endowed with a weakness for flattery, which de- 
 lights in the quasi compliment of being required to figure out 
 for itself the result of a proposition when it is barely hinted in 
 something purporting to be propounded more as an entertain- 
 ment of the recipient or pastime of the proponent, than as an 
 actual discipline to the one or dogma of the other. The author 
 who assumes that his readers know some things, and then 
 makes his allusions accordingly, sufficiently obscure to excite 
 curiosity and reflection, yet not so obscure as to defeat or dis- 
 courage speculation, does more by such method than is possi- 
 ble by any other to promote genuine manly independent 
 thought, and hence the highest order of intellectual develop- 
 ment. 
 
 If intellectual development is the object of book-writing, no 
 measure could be so effective as to put men to thinking. Some 
 authors, and most writers (for there is a marked distinction 
 between them) seem to want to do even the thinking for their 
 readers. When one's writings become more conspicuous for 
 their compass than for their substance, he becomes more emi- 
 nently a writer than an author; and while it might be asking 
 too much to require him to hold his tongue (or his pen) until 
 he is prepared to make known something theretofore unknown, 
 yet authorship ought to imply some originality. And this orig- 
 inality ought to pervade more than the mere form. Still many 
 of the wisest saws the most gravely put, are old and hackney- 
 ed truisms remoddled and rehashed for the edification of a 
 reading rabble which is expected to see merit and originality 
 in something, the substance of which they may have always 
 known, merely because some word monger has tricked it out 
 in new colors. 
 
 If suggestion is one of the most potent factors in literature, 
 potent for the promotion of the progress which all candid per- 
 sons must admit to be the noblest aim of its votaries, our late 
 
178 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Laureate has couched more in the same compass than any 
 known poet; and he has more effectively suggested than any 
 known author. It would not be in good taste to extend the 
 comparison to the mere writer. He points you to nature. He 
 does not attempt to see it for you, but if you read his poems 
 as they deserve to be read, he enables you to see it for yourself. 
 At the risk of tedium to the reader I make another quota- 
 tion, and this time from the poem entitled "Earth," which 
 occurs to me as a fitting factor in this humble effort to exhibit 
 in their true light, the works of one of the greatest men that 
 ever adorned the noblest of all callings. 
 
 "Earth Uplifts a general cry for guilt and wrong, 
 And heaven is listening. The forgotten graves 
 Of the heartbroken utter forth their plaint. 
 The dust of her who loved and was betrayed, 
 And him who died neglected in his age; 
 The sepulchres of those who for mankind 
 Labored, and earned the recompense of scorn; 
 Ashes of maityrs for the truth, and bones 
 Of those who, in the strife for liberty. 
 Were beaten down, their corses given to dogs, 
 Their names to infamy, all fnid a voice. 
 *•)(■** * * * 
 
 What then shall cleanse thy bosom, gentle Earth, 
 From all its painful memories of guilt ? 
 The whelming flood, or the renewing fire, 
 Or the slow change of time ? — that so, at last, 
 The horrid tale of perjury and strife 
 Murder and spoil, which men call history, 
 May seem a fable." 
 
 Having made this quotation, and casually turning the leaves 
 of the volume, I am impressed with a sense of the impropriety 
 of directing special attention to any one, instead of to any other 
 of the poems, and the selection seems more a chance than a 
 choice, for if excellence is sought it cannot be missed in open- 
 ing the volume at random. 1 believe that history has never 
 been defined with more accuracy, nor perhaps with more 
 melancholy, than as "the horrid tale of perjury and strife, mur- 
 der and spoil;" and that few persons have manifested so fine a 
 sense of justice as to imagine that Earth herself should "Uplift 
 
 i 
 
nature's poet. 179 
 
 a general cry for guilt and wrong;" or a more profound appre- 
 ciation of providential punition than that which inspired the 
 note that "heaven is listening." 
 
 But to be as prosaical, even as cold-blooded as physics or 
 metaphysics dare be: — suppose number were adequate to the 
 calculation of the aggregate bulk of the once living bodies 
 which have sprung from and returned to the earth ; suppose 
 "all our feelings and emotions, from the lowest sensation to 
 the highest aesthetic consciousness have a mechanical cause," 
 then why should not Earth uplift a general cry for guilt and 
 wrong ? Has not every atom of its superficial substance at 
 some time figured in the formation of animated existence in 
 some form ? When biologists inform us that life and death are 
 mere stages of a chemical process, a form of integration and 
 diffusion of matter, the substance of which comes ultimately 
 from the earth, generated therefrom by the influence of light 
 and heat from the sun, they declare the existence of such rela- 
 tion between man, and his Mother Earth and Solar Sire, as 
 justifies the poet in giving vent to his mechanically caused 
 emotion, indulging his mechanically caused fancy and mechan- 
 ically imagining the existence of such a mechanically caused 
 sympathy as would prompt the earth to "Uplift a general cry 
 for guilt and wrong," and such a mechanically caused solicitude 
 on the part of the solar side of the parentage, as would insure 
 that "heaven is listening." 
 
 If the sun impregns the earth, fructifies it with the life which 
 does and suffers the guilt and wrong, if "heaven's blest beam" 
 generates and maintains the motion which takes form in the 
 human life which is in great measure itself feeling and emotion, 
 then heaven may well be supposed to be solicitously listening 
 to the earth's general cry for guilt and wrong, and perhaps all 
 feelings and emotions may as well be supposed to have a 
 mechanical cause. 
 
 At his advent upon this scene, the weight of the average 
 individual is generally sufficient to tip the beam at nine pounds; 
 and if he maintains his individuality for the average period, it 
 may reach the average of about one hundred and forty-nine 
 pounds. To say nothing at present about where the first nine 
 
l80 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 pounds come from, suppose we inquire whence the additional 
 one hundred and forty pounds ? The question is generally 
 brushed aside with the worse than no answer that "he grows." 
 We know the medium through which the first nine pounds 
 come, the parentage, which we know to be from that very 
 fact, devotedly attached to and solicitous for the new individual. 
 But they are only the medium through which is transmitted 
 about one-seventeenth of the final form and substance of the 
 subject of their love and solicitude, and are not in any sense 
 the creators or origin of it, or of any part of it. The medium 
 through which is transmitted the additional one hundred and 
 forty pounds may not be very discernible, but the additional 
 one hundred and forty pounds is not in the individual until it 
 comes to him. and it cannot come to him without coming from 
 some where, and through or by means of some medium. This 
 where and this medium have about sixteen times as much in 
 the individual as the known parentage has, which parentage is 
 only a medium through which the first seventeenth part was 
 introduced, took form, not existence, because it existed before 
 in some other where and in some other /or;;/. 
 
 We see and know the love and solicitude of the medium 
 we recognize for the individual thev introduce, not produce; 
 and we recognize therein the most beautiful aspect or feature 
 of human existence. We see that love and know that solici- 
 tude to continue for years after all the product which was in- 
 troduced by that medium has disappeared from the individual, 
 and even after several septennial changes have substituted en- 
 tirely different substance in the individual from that which con- 
 stituted him when he first took form and was introduced as an 
 individual upon the scene; after the atoms of indestructible yet 
 ever changing matter which once formed a Cain or an Iscariot 
 have entered into the composition of a Brooks or a Bryant. 
 
 There is in the earth and its gasses a source from which all 
 this substance comes to form the individual, and in nature a 
 medium, apart from the apparent parentage of the first seven- 
 teenth, through which sixteen seventeenths of it is transmuted 
 into him. If physics posits this much, and it certainly does, 
 why may not poetry imagine that love and solicitude of the 
 
NATURES POEt. l8l 
 
 same quality pervade the bosom of the Mother Earth and the 
 Celestial Sire for their offspring ? Does not the poet in doing 
 so, logically follow the physicist ? Indeed, is not the physicist 
 himself the first and most fanciful poet ? As wildly as the 
 poet may soar, his imagination must pierce heaven in its flight 
 if it is to keep pace with the speculations of the staid and mat- 
 ter of fact physicist who attributes all results, even feelings, and 
 emotions, to a mechanical cause. Take the soberest and most 
 profound advocate of the doctrine of biogenesis, and trace his 
 dogmas to their necessary logical results; and if they are true, 
 they justify the most visionary and chimerical whims of the 
 muse. His cardinal point is that life can only come from pre- 
 existent life, and abiogenesis is an absurdity with which he has 
 no patience. With him, evolution, the complex chemical pro- 
 cess which Force is performing in nature's boundless laboratory, 
 is a mere affiliation of atoms or units of substance according to 
 their chemical affinities, into organisms, temporarily existing 
 and possessing characters composed of the sum total of the 
 tendencies of each atom or unit of substance entering into the 
 organism, as modified by the agglomeration and environment. 
 Some of these organisms, among which is man, when once 
 organized, display a characteristic which the philosophy of 
 biogenesis denominates heredity, and upon which its advocates 
 confidently base much of their argument for the doctrine. The 
 same philosophy also traces these organisms, including man, 
 to their elements in the earth and its gaseous envelopment, and 
 attributes all feeling and emotion to mechanical causes; and 
 teaches that evolution is itself rhythmically followed by disso- 
 lution, and that the formative atoms or units of substance are 
 repeatedly redistributed to their elemental spheres in the earth 
 and its gaseous envelopment. 
 
 Mechanical causes are necessarily manifestations of force 
 upon the subject which it causes to have the feeling and 
 emotion. Of what is that subject composed so as to be sus- 
 ceptible to the mechanical cause exerted or procured by force ? 
 Physicists say it is composed of atoms of air (or its gaseous 
 components) which has rushed in tornadoes, and been breathed 
 by itself irf millions of millions of organisms from time unthink- 
 
182 ETHlCS OF LITERAtUfie. 
 
 able; and of earth (or its components) the entire substance of 
 the surflice oi which has often arisen, walked upon itself, done 
 deeds of daring, committed all kinds of crime, and hid itself 
 again in its own bosom; and of water (or its components) 
 which has often drenched and drank and drowned itself — and if 
 they are correct in this and other of their deductions or declar- 
 ations, each atom or unit of substance must all along have 
 possessed the peculiar tendency which in such combination 
 contributes to mould the character of the individual organism 
 into the composition of which it happens to enter. 
 
 If the atoms had not such tendencies as contributed in com- 
 bination to mould the character of the organism in which they 
 combine, there could be no such thing as heredity of char- 
 acter or characteristic in organisms related to preceding and 
 succeeding each other. Every atom of the substance compos- 
 ing the individual organism of man is gone therefrom, and 
 others substituted in their stead during the first seven years of 
 its existence as an individual, and changes no less complete 
 take place during each and every succeeding seven years of 
 such existence. So that while those atoms which constitute 
 the first seventeenth part of the ultimate individual organism, 
 may have been tinctured with traits of character by the medium 
 through which they have combined to form such individual 
 organism, and by which it is introduced in such form, yet that 
 medium clearly cannot impart any of its traits of character to 
 the atoms subsequently accruing, and being substituted for 
 those; it cannot impress its characteristics on an organism, the 
 constituent atoms of which have not come in contact with it. 
 And within seven years from its introduction upon the scene 
 as such, the individual organism contains not an atom of the 
 substance of which it was composed when being introduced 
 by such medium, not an atom that is known to have ever 
 come in contact with such medium, but is constituted of other 
 and distinct atoms. 
 
 These septennial changes which biologists call periods of 
 the process of waste and repair, are said to complete themselves 
 every seven years. If the quality or tendency constituting 
 heredity of character or characteristic is not in the primary 
 
NAtURE^S POET. 185 
 
 atoms themselves, independent of the medium by or through 
 which the individual organism is introduced upon the scene; 
 and if such quality or tendency is imparted to such atoms by 
 such medium, to be by them imparted to such atoms as sub- 
 sequently combine with them and take their place in the indi- 
 vidual organism and constitute its growth, there may result 
 inextricable confusion in the final formation of the character to 
 be produced by such combination and inherited from such 
 medium. The waste will carry ott those atoms which would 
 tend to produce or maintain certain characteristics imparted to 
 the individual organism by the medium of its introduction; 
 while the repair is supplying others to be tinctured with traits 
 by remaining atoms of very different qualities or tendencies. 
 All the moral courage, mental capacity, gentleness, or trait of 
 any kind which the individual organism may inherit from the 
 medium of its introduction, may entirely disappear from it 
 during the first seven years of its individual existence and 
 heredity may fail to permanently entail any ancestral charac- 
 teristic, unless it be the tendency to change. 
 
 Perhaps there are persons to whom this may appear chim- 
 erical ; but it is a legitimate and logical deduction from the 
 tenets of the prevailing philosophy, or I am seriously at fault in 
 my law and in my logic; or 1 fail to apprehend in their true 
 inwardness, the doctrines of the prevailing philosophy. And 
 some one who has not attentively read, may inquire what 
 business the apparent digression can have in such a disserta- 
 tion on the philosophy of Bryant's poetry ; and if the inquiry 
 shall be thoughtfully and seriously made, 1 will at least have 
 put the inquirer to thinking; which will of itself save a literary 
 effort from being a total failure. 
 
 While 1 should not do that for the doing of which 1 have 
 already expressed a general censure, that is, offer to do the 
 reader's thinking for him, perhaps I ought to make more mani- 
 fest, the purpose of the digression. 1 have proceeded in this 
 chapter to consider the philosophy of the writings of Nature's 
 Poet. 1 have said but little of the poetry merely as such, 
 because, while 1 esteem it highly, yet in nearly all his pieces 
 the philosophy so overshadows the poetry that they become 
 
1 84 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 poetical philosophy, rather than philosophic poetry. My pur- 
 pose latterly has been to trace some of the tenets of physics to 
 such results as to show that the philosophy, in what some may 
 regard the mere vagaries of an unrestrained and delirious im- 
 agination, is equally as conservative and rational as that of the 
 avowed physicist, who affects a condescending commiseration 
 for the weaklings who cannot, or at least who do not. attribute 
 all feelings and emotions to a mechanical cause. 
 
 No philosophical speculation can result in establishing a 
 belief more rationally justifiable than that reasoned out in the 
 poem entitled "The Prairies," although the piece seems to be 
 little more than a bare allusion to a race whose existence and 
 extinction in a very remote antic^uity are implied in the mounds : 
 
 "That overlook the rivers, or that rise 
 
 ill the dim forest crowded with old oaks." 
 
 It is one of the instances in which the author puts his reader to 
 thinking, and when the propositions implied in the poem are 
 carefully thought out, and considered in the light of prevalent 
 philosophy, they are found to be far more philosophical than 
 poetical; but no more suggestive of really profitable specula- 
 tion than the inquiry: — 
 
 When we descend to dust again, 
 Where will the final dwelling be 
 Of thought, and all its memories then ?" 
 
 In Other words, what becomes of the soul ?" And the answer 
 is to be gathered from the expressions of faith and of hope in 
 which almost all his psalms are deeply intonated. 
 
 I am at this point constrained to offer an apology for, or 
 rather a vindication of, my apparent departure from the theme 
 and thread of my discourse, to ramble amid the maze of meta- 
 physics. On another occasion I have said that notliing is 
 known absolutely, but that whatever is known is known only 
 in relation. Merit is only known as such in contrast with 
 demerit; good is good only in contrast with evil; sense is sense 
 only in contrast with nonsense. That which has asserted and 
 justly established its claim to respect and confidence, thereby 
 becomes a standard by which the merit of other attempts of a 
 
Nature's poet. 185 
 
 kindred type may be tested. The greatest philosopher the 
 world ever knew delivered some of the finest discourses phil- 
 osophy ever produced, on the most sublime subject philosophy 
 ever considered, in discussing a subject unfit to be named in 
 modern literature. And he does not appear to have en- 
 gaged in the discussion of the unnameable subject seeking an 
 occasion to deliver the particular discourse, but to have deliver- 
 ed it in order to maintain his argument and position in the 
 discussion. 
 
 I have not descanted in metaphysics solely for the purpose 
 of asserting what some may regard my chimerical views, but 
 to vindicate my claim that Bryant was essentially a greater 
 philosopher than poet. This can be done only by testing the 
 philosophy of his poetry by the established standards, or by 
 the necessary logical results of its legitimate deductions. And 
 when they are traced to their logical results, and are found to 
 involve ideas and suppositions which would stagger the ex- 
 travagance of a poet, he may justly be regarded the more con- 
 servative and rational of the two classes of philosophers. When 
 he asked the question, (substantially) what becomes of the 
 soul ? he voiced the universal cry that rings forth from the 
 aching void in every human heart that ever pulsed ; the irre- 
 pressible and insolvable problem that has perplexed every 
 mind that ever meditated ; and which was never more ration- 
 ally responded to than in his piece entitled "The Two Graves." 
 The response there given is in keeping with the description of 
 the nature of the soul itself, given by the greatest of all souls 
 twenty-two centuries ago, when he said, "For every body 
 which is moved from without is soulless; but that which is 
 moved from within possesses a soul, since this is the very 
 nature of the soul. But if this be the case, that there is noth- 
 ing which moves itself except soul, soul must necessarily be 
 both uncreate and immortal." 
 
 But neither of these philosophers has expressed anything 
 more than his faltering faith on this subject. Neither of them 
 knew, nor has any one else known, that he or they were 
 nearer the truth than the doctrinaire of any other conceivable 
 theory. Still they have both, and so have others, cultivated 
 
1 86 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the general intellect and promoted mental attainment by de- 
 voting their lives to the consideration of subjects palpably and 
 hopelessly beyond the power of all human minds to compre- 
 hend. They both strive to get back to first principles, but no 
 mind can ever get back of them. 
 
 But if as Socrates has said, the nature of the soul is the 
 spiritual embodiment of motion; if it is moved within and of 
 itself and not by means of anything from without; then has 
 the poet well sung, and the philosopher better said : — 
 
 " 'Tis said that when life is ended here, 
 
 The spirit is borne to a distant sphere; 
 
 That it visits its earthly home no more. 
 
 Nor looks on the haunts it loved before.' 
 
 But why should the bodiless soul be sent 
 
 Far off, to a long, long banishment ? 
 
 Talk not of the light and the living green. 
 
 It will pine for the dear familiar scene; 
 
 It will yearn, in that strange bright world, to behold 
 
 The rock and the streani it knew of old. 
 
 'Tis a cruel creed, believe it not. 
 
 Death to the good is a milder lot. 
 
 They a'e here, — they are here, — that harmless pair, 
 
 In the yellow sunshine and llowing air, 
 
 In the light cloud-shadows that slowly pass. 
 
 In the sounds that rise from the murmuring grass. 
 
 They sit where their humble cottage stood. 
 
 They walk by the waving edge of the wood, 
 
 And lost to the long accustomed flow 
 
 Of the brook that wets the rock below, 
 
 Patient, and peaceful, and passionless 
 
 As seasons on seasons swiftly press, 
 
 They watch, and wait, and linger around. 
 
 Till the day when their bodies shall leave the ground." 
 
 But as beautifully as this begins and proceeds, the last 
 couplet is a blur upon poetry; and it is an unaccountable de- 
 parture from the principles of philosophy implied in the Than- 
 antopsis. I have shown that there he was in line with the 
 physicists who teach that when the bodies of the aged pair 
 would leave the ground, they would go as impalpable gases, 
 the atoms of which, in nature's inscrutable chemistry, would 
 agglomerate in other forms of life, vegetal, then animal, and 
 
Nature's poet. 187 
 
 again return for a time to the earth, at once the universal 
 sepulchre and nursery of all life. 
 
 But the offence is rare, and is redeemed in many of his 
 musings; notably in the Hymn to Death, of which he says: — 
 
 " * * * I will teach the world 
 
 To thank thee. Who are thine accusers ? — Who ? 
 
 The living — they who never felt thy power, 
 
 And know thee not. The curses of the wretch, 
 
 Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy hand 
 
 Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come, 
 
 Are writ among thy praises. But the good — 
 
 Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace 
 
 Upbraid the gentle violence that took off 
 
 His fetters, and unbarred his prison-cell ? 
 
 Raise then the hymn to Death. Deliverer ! 
 
 God hath annointed thee to free the oppressed 
 
 And crush the oppressor. * * * * 
 
 * * * * * * *.* 
 
 ***** Thou dost avenge. 
 In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know 
 No otherllriend." 
 
 It is quite beyond my purpose to attempt to exhibit all the 
 excellencies, poetical and philosophical, in Bryant's poetry, 
 which would require an exhibition of nearly all his poetry. 
 But if there is not a cruel satire (which can scarcely be imputed 
 to him) there seems to be at least a ghastly philosophy in the 
 attempt to derive consolation from the ravages of the grim de- 
 stroyer; yet he appears to have done so without in any degree 
 degrading or departing from the spirit of manliness and mag- 
 nanimity constantly pervading his works. He shows death 
 with its icy claws dealing a double blow, the most vindictive 
 vengeance, and the mildest mercy in one stroke. 
 
 i< * * * ^Q^ Jqjj^ jI^q^j interpose 
 
 Only to lay the sufferer asleep, 
 
 Where he who made him wretched troubles not 
 
 His rest — thou dost strike down his tyrant too." 
 
 But human weakness asserts its puny strength in the de- 
 delight with which he beholds the wreaking of vengeance: — 
 
 "Oh, there is joy when hands that held the scourge 
 Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold." 
 
l88 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 But this is very natural, and Bryant was pre-eminently 
 nature's poet. 
 
 I have said that the wise themselves know next to noth- 
 ing. What is wisdom ? Are its definitions more than mere 
 synonyms ? Does it not partake more of the character of a 
 condition or qualitative, than of a quantity or substantive ? Is 
 not the state or condition of being conversant with and appre- 
 ciative of nature, as nearly a correct definition, and even de- 
 scription of wisdom in the abstract as can be given ? If so, 
 was not Bryant a remarkably wise man ? Now in all that he 
 has written, what single fact has he made known ? Has he in 
 anything done more than give to the world the impressions 
 made upon himself by the phenomena in nature, the constitu- 
 ent factors of his environment ? If so, what is it ? More than 
 thirty centuries before he wrote, the Prince of complainers is 
 reputed to have said, "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is 
 wisdom ; and to depart from evil is understanding." And all 
 the learned jargon with which the world has since been con- 
 tinuously deluged, has not advanced the standard an iota. 
 
 Still, a great deal that is written is not in vain; prominent 
 amid which are the works of this philosophic Poet. If he has 
 not actually produced and given to the world something there- 
 tofore unknown, perhaps it is because "there is no new thing 
 under the sun;" but he certainly suggests very suggestively, 
 and if his works are attentively read the reader will be put 
 seriously to thinking. The result must necessarily be left with 
 him, but if he is properly susceptible to impressions, and will 
 put himself in Bryant's way, he will be properly impressed, 
 and royally entertained. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 
 Criticism vs. Production — Culture the only legitimate Purpose of Literature — 
 its Purport not Generally Understood — The Masses Affect a Taste tor that 
 Which they cannot Comprehend — Pedantry Displays Writer's Resources 
 Without Promoting Reader's Intellectual Attainment — Obligations of 
 Writers — Scene of the Table Round — Legendary Origm of Arthur — Excali- 
 bur the Cross-Hilted Sword — Poetry's Weakness for Similitudes — Gareth's 
 Inspiration — His Mother's Dissimulation — His Exploits — -Geraint Casually 
 Meets the Queen — Insulted by Dwarf of Stranger Knight — Traces the Ver- 
 min to their Earth— Entertained by Yniol — in Love with Enid — Overcomes 
 Edyrn— Marries Enid — Jealousy and Brutality — Absurdity of Plot and De- 
 nouement — Merlin and Vivien — Romance Overdone — Lancelot and Elaine- 
 Over-virtuous Rake — The Holy Grail — Ambrosius and Percivale — The 
 Blunting and Glancing and Shooting of Love — The Nun's Vision — Lance- 
 lot's Bastard Galahad — The Siege Perilous — Second Death of Metlin — 
 Descent of the Gr.iil — -The King Fighting on the Frontier While his Knights 
 Revel at the Table Round— Arthur's Return — The Order Disperses in Quest 
 of the Grail — Enoch's Translation Out-done — Percivale Meets a Widow 
 who had been His first Love — Invited to Marry — Pelleas and Ettarre — Her 
 insolence to the Queen — His Persistent Suit — -Gawain's Intervention and 
 Perfidy — Pelleas' Magnanimity — -Repairs to the Cloister — Rushes There- 
 from, Rides Down a Crippled Beggar, Attacks Lancelot, is Overthrown, 
 Follows Him to Arthur's Hall, and Insults Lancelot and the Queen — 
 Modred Appears— The Last Tournament — Tristram and Dagonet Philoso- 
 phize — Nestling's Rubies, Prize at Tournament — Awarded to Tristram — 
 His Amour with Isolt — Mark's Way — Insipidity of Denouement — Guine- 
 vere — Modred Hounds Her Trying to Learn Facts that Everyone Knew — 
 His Hatred to Lancelot — The Queen's Flight to the Sanctuary — Madness of 
 Farewells with Lancelot — Her last Interview with Arthur — Passing of 
 Arthur — Battle in Lyonesse— Chancel and Cross in Heathen Wilderne5s — ■ 
 Elaborated Disposition of Excalibur— High-toned Twaddle— Beauty of The 
 Enoch Arden— Unphilosophic Philosophy of the In Memoriam. 
 
 It is SO much easier to detect error than to produce that 
 which is meritorious, that vain ambition and low capacity are 
 prone to seek distinction in disparaging that which they can- 
 not comprehend. The most intelligent and candid criticism 
 may be mistaken for the cynical sneer of inferiority, depending 
 upon the relative prestige of the Reviewer and his subject. 
 Hence the Reviewer must bring to his undertaking an author- 
 
igO ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 itative title, or come prepared to demonstrate the validity and 
 force of his strictures. In the one case opinion is all he need 
 express, and no reason for it is required; while in the other 
 demonstration is requisite, and opinion without conclusive arg- 
 ument will bring its presumptuous possessor into contempt. 
 
 The prime purpose in Literature is culture, and the Re- 
 viewer undertakes to distinguish matter likely to promote it, 
 from that which has not such tendency. As a motive or ex- 
 cuse for thrusting one's self into prominence, the mere enter- 
 tainment of the reader is little better than the profit of the writer; 
 and is too frequently expected to inure to the writer's profit 
 and prominence in quickening a market. When writers have 
 once attained to prominence it is too frequently observable that 
 their energies relax, that they thereafter merely write, appear- 
 ing to expect plebeian readers to read and imagine they are en- 
 tertained — that they will not dare to see plain obtuseness where 
 by fashion's flat they are bid to behold inscrutable genius or 
 covert wit, — and as to culture — that they do not grasp the 
 most irksome and obscure enigma implies its defect, which 
 genius and wit are too busy (displaying themselves) to repair. 
 
 In Literature the masses are mere followers, and popularity 
 is the intensified echo of the casual commend of the leaders. 
 The psuedo-Republic of Letters is an arrogant Oligarchy, and 
 the smile or frown of its Lords is the life or the death of the 
 untitled aspirant to distinction and usefulness. The run which 
 some trash has cannot otherwise be explained. Much of it is 
 read by many who never suspect its purport, the purport of 
 much of it is never apprehended by its writers, and much of 
 it is without purport; but it passes muster by the capricious 
 favor of upper-tendom, or the prestige of its writers, and a 
 servile serfdom responds in plaudits and patronage.as unintel- 
 ligible as the learned obscurity itself, an affected taste for in- 
 stead of a due appreciation of which is the popular mark of 
 culture. 
 
 The writers of the Idylls, the Apology, and the Excursion, 
 may have known what they meant in those monuments to 
 their memory, but they have successfully concealed it from the 
 great masses of their readers ; still, most readers are unwilling 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. I9I 
 
 to confess a coarseness that could not relish reading them. In 
 other words and plainer, they glory in their shame, affect an 
 exquisite taste for that which they cannot taste, and are most 
 supremely happy when most superbly hoaxed. 
 
 There are few worse drawbacks from the usefulness of the 
 exhibitions of the genius of the great than the profuse pedantry 
 pervading them, showing that they were intended more to 
 display their writer's resources than to augment the wisdom 
 or promote the culture of their readers ; and strange as it may 
 seem, the more obscure and eccentric they are, the more they 
 are revered by the amazed masses mistaking exuberant verbi- 
 age for copious thought. A common event or an idle and 
 absurd legend may become a great epic, it may be made unin- 
 telligibly profound by artistic distortion of idiom, iteration may 
 become plenary inspiration, the moral may be even more ob- 
 scure than the matter, interspersion of trite philosophy may seta 
 world wondering at the wisdom of the oracle who darkly tells 
 it that which it already clearly knew. 
 
 It can make no difference what style one affects in assum- 
 ing literary proportions, so f^ir as concerns his obligations to 
 mankind. He impliedly undertakes to give to the world some- 
 thing in consideration of the honor he expects it to give him; 
 and while the relation is not necessarily one of mere traffic, yet 
 obligations are mutual and reciprocal. The world profits by 
 the existence of genius only when it is properly exerted, until 
 when it owes nothing to the casual custodian (and perhaps 
 abuser) of the talent. An author assumes to teach, and his 
 work should be a thing divine, it may endure and wield an in- 
 fluence. It is inexcusably frivolous, no matter how pompous- 
 ly or solemnly it may be done, to go to the palpably unreal for 
 subject matter unless it is more entertaining than the real, 
 which it cannot be except to a perverted taste; and when it is 
 considered, as it should be, that an author ought to have a 
 fact to make known, a doctrine to declare, or an idea to ex- 
 press, worth his reader's attention, it is worse than idle to take 
 their time and toil with that which can no more than display 
 the genius of the writer, unless it be to further vitiate the taste 
 of the reader. 
 
192 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Mindful of and actuated by such considerations, and realiz- 
 ing that success lies only in actual demonstration, less than 
 which means the contempt of an arrogant regime for that 
 which (if it deigns to notice it) it will denounce an upstart 
 audacity, 1 approach my subject; not attempting to take any 
 one from the pedestal upon which Fame may have set and 
 enshrined him, but candidly to inquire by what right and for 
 what reason it has done so. 
 
 About fifteen centuries ago the speck which has long sway- 
 ed the scepter of civilization was a dark, dank, and dismal 
 domain of forest, fen, and ferocity; the gloom of which was 
 but slightly relieved in occasionally organized rapine. A 
 fecund Fancy, to inspire us with veneration for the chivalrous 
 magnanimity of a half naked barbarism, creates characters 
 whose improvised characteristics are as hopelessly out of joint 
 with the times of which it speaks, as its depictions thereof are 
 discordant with the times /// which it speaks. 
 
 Distance lending enchantment to the view in time as in 
 space, an object obscurely seen against an ambiguous back- 
 ground with which it confusedly blends, takes its form for the 
 ob.server from his fancy. Vision, mental or optic, is seldom 
 content with indistinct images; and where no definite outline 
 individualizes its subjects, more effort is required to suppress 
 the effort to complete them, than to delude the vision with 
 Fancy's conceited complement of them. The remoteness of 
 the scene may make it difficult to furnish that which is super- 
 added to the subject from kindred or congruous matter in space 
 or in time, and when it is finally decked out in Fancy's capri- 
 cious colors it may be more a caricature than a plausible pres- 
 entation of it. Legend may have created or preserved the 
 name and fame of some hero, alleged to have lived at some 
 time and place, which may be well known to have been an 
 age and region of beastly barbarism. Reason suggests that if 
 he lived and was famous, it was for conspicuous success or 
 excess in that which most distinctively characterized his time 
 and place. 
 
 While history does not deny, it very cautiously concedes, 
 that Arthur (Artus) may have been chief of the Silures; but it 
 
 J 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. I95 
 
 positively affirms that they were a tribe of barbarians who had 
 not meliorated the ferocity of forest life in South Wales in the 
 fifth century, and records an abundance of fact irreconcilable 
 with his having acquired the celebrity which ancient legend 
 and modern poetry accord him, for such traits and deeds as 
 such legend and poetry attribute to him. 
 
 While it is physically possible that after the times of Caesar, 
 Strabo, and Tacitus, and before those of Llymarch, Myrdhin, 
 and Thalliesin, these savages may have become so enlightened 
 as to make cheese, it does not appear that they had made 
 parchment of the skins in which they were clad and inscribed 
 thereon in their war paint any authentic record of such pro- 
 gress. The absence from history of such information implies 
 that at the time of "The Coming of Arthur" they were still 
 clad in skins, dyed with woad, and that forests were their 
 cities, with logs and mud for castles, in which they feasted on 
 flesh and milk. Some modern conservative and candid chron- 
 iclers of historical fact allude to the martial myth in terms more 
 rational than poetical, and one of them concludes that: "The 
 events of his life are less interesting than the singular revolu- 
 tions of his fame;" from which the natural inference is that 
 what we know of Arthur mainly consists in what we don't 
 know. Waiving the significance of the fact that very few of 
 the names of either persons or places immortalized in the 
 poem are mentioned in any credible history, and conceding 
 that they may have existed and been known as there named ; 
 it remains to inquire if the plan, the plot, and the performance 
 of the piece called The Idylls of the King, are not more strain- 
 ed, unnatural, and glaringly preposterous than the narrative is 
 improbable. 
 
 According to the most authentic information available 
 Arthur must have come from some forest fastness in South 
 Wales, where the more refractory of the vanquished aborigines 
 from accessible parts of the Island had sought relief from the 
 restraints of Roman rule. A chief of a tribe of savages, clad in 
 skins and war paint, fed on flesh and milk, too ignorant to 
 make cheese, living in mud and log huts in the forest, is not 
 likely to be actuated by such magnanimity as to go disinterest- 
 
194 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 edly to the relief of another such chief of another such tribe, 
 when they are so Httle acquainted that the ancestry of the one 
 is a hidden mystery to the other. The mind recoils from the 
 proof of the liberator's ancestry, made to the liberated by in- 
 cantations, before he would consent to a family alliance with 
 his benefector. It is even more unnatural that the "fairest of 
 all flesh" should stand by the castle wall to watch him pass, in 
 a country where the wolves stole and devoured children, and 
 in default of brood of their own lent their tierce teat to human 
 sucklings. Had there been castle walls on the Tiber when the 
 wolf suckled the founder of the Eternal City, the shades of 
 Romulus and Remus might be alarmed for their laurels. 
 
 The description of Arthur's coronation, graphically given to 
 King Leodogran by "Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Beli- 
 cent," where among other prodigies she saw the Lady of the 
 Lake give him his huge cross hilted sword wherebv to drive 
 the heathen, is no more discordant with the idolarty and human 
 immolation practiced in his own tribe, than the allusion in the 
 preceding stanza to the cross and those around it and the cruci- 
 fied is with the fright of the missionaries sent there by the Pope 
 near a century later. Excalibur seems to have had too many 
 miraculous origins; at another time Arthur wrenched it from a 
 stone floating in a lake. 
 
 It is no less unnatural or absurd, that when King Leodo- 
 gran had diplomatically hesitated sufficiently to assert his royal 
 dignity, and was by the childish recital of grotesque manifesta- 
 tions of the supernatural convinced of his deliverer's dignity, 
 and had sent him the fairest of all flesh on earth (as he had all 
 along intended to do) that the royal nuptials should be solem- 
 nized by so distinguished an ecclesiastic as "Dubric the high 
 saint, chief of the church in Britain," when it is remembered 
 that Christianity was first introduced there more than a century 
 later, and the King of the most civilized of the British States 
 would only hear the missionary in open air, for fear of sorcery 
 in case he should submit to hear him in an enclosure. 
 
 Still worse is the allusion to the final rupture with Rome, 
 precipitated by the impolite and impolitic avarice of Arthur's 
 imperial and imperious wedding guests from "the slowly fad- 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 1 95 
 
 ing Mistress of the world." Arthur himself did not beam with 
 the delight which usually thrills a bridegroom, but seems to 
 have refused the tribute with more defiance than decorum. 
 Leodogran had just "groaned for the Roman legions here 
 again, and Caesar's Eagles;" and the groans of the Britons 
 were unheeded, although they were emphasized with an offer 
 of the very tribute now so gruffly refused. 
 
 The coming of Arthur is entirely too heroic for the time and 
 place in which he came. 
 
 I have objected to philosophy's weakness for parallels, 
 which is itself paralleled in poetry's weakness for similitudes. 
 Gareth was inspired to his valorous deeds by a very prosaical 
 circumstance, one which would have had but little significance 
 for a person unaware that he was destined the hero of some 
 idyll, it is as reasonable to suppose that the denizen of the 
 forest of the fifth century expected to be lionized in the poetry 
 of the nineteenth, as to suppose that he was spurred to his 
 errantry by the incident which is said to have fired him with its 
 chili. Standing near a mountain stream swollen with cold 
 snow he is said to have : — 
 
 "Stared at the spate. A slender shafted Pine 
 Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled away." 
 
 That he "stared at the spate," is a poetical way to say that 
 he beheld the river flood. At all events it is said that way in 
 a very fashionable and aristocratic poem. "The last tall son of 
 Lot and Belicent" seeing the sapling whirled away in the catar- 
 act, was impressed with a sense of a senseless stream swollen 
 with cold snow, .consciously doing the Maker's will, (con- 
 forming to the law of gravitation) while he, having sense and 
 wit, and teeming with hot blood, lingered in vascillating obedi- 
 ence in his good mother's hall. The capacity to catch on was 
 wonderfully developed. He was a very susceptible youth, and 
 the rebuke was too much for him. The sapling's fall and 
 flight in the flood suggested some false knight or evil king 
 going down before his lance, if lance were to his use, and he 
 swelled with ambition and burned with an indefinite thirst for 
 the gore of some fifise knight or evil king. And he proposed 
 
196 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 to slake this indefinite thirst as soon as he could disengage 
 himself from his mother's apron strings. After a prolonged 
 puerile parley with his mother, begging that he might go to 
 glory, she finally consented that he might "follow the Christ, 
 the King, live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King;" 
 but only on a condition such as mothers seldom impose on 
 their ambitious fledgelings. He surprised her, and marred the 
 picture of princely pride softened with filial love so laboriously 
 wrought ; and exposed his mother's dissimulation, her pretense 
 that the condition was meant to test his love instead of pre- 
 vent his going. He accepted her terms and agreed for "a 
 twelve-month and a day, to serve with scullions and with 
 kitchen knaves." 
 
 Readers of romance may spoil its effect in their eagerness 
 to anticipate its denouement; or they may discover it were 
 waste of time to read up to it. Where time and attention are 
 to be discreetly invested, a glance at the conclusion may show 
 the folly of tracing the thread through the tangle to the event. 
 The reader of Gareth and Lynette who toils through more than 
 thirty pages of distorted idiom stiltedly displaying a rapid suc- 
 cession of factitious predicaments to see it peter out in a tame 
 conjecture as to the fate of its hero, is poorly compensated for 
 such disappointment in the amusement it may have been to 
 trace the devious turbulence of the knight in his errantry. While 
 minor matters are minutely attended to, that which is of most 
 importance to its hero, and of greatest interest to the reader, is 
 brushed aside with scarcely a surmise as to its issue. The in- 
 ference is, that having flashed from Arthur's kitchen to Lyon- 
 ors, castle, having walked lengthwise (following Christ) over 
 three invincible foes, having burst Death's bubble and shown 
 Lynette and Lyonors that "after all their foolish fears and hor- 
 rors it was only proven a blooming boy," the Meteor married 
 one of them. The colors and trappings of the chargers, the 
 arms and attire of their riders, the places of the several en- 
 counters, the preliminaries thereto and the precipitations there- 
 of, the blows struck in each, by whom, and their effect, and 
 many more matters are carefully noted, and the reader is left 
 to guess which of the heroines the hero married. 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 1 97 
 
 The Qiieen having overslept (dreaming of her lecherous 
 lover Lancelot) came late to a chase, and Geraint casually came 
 to where she and her maid were waiting to witness the sport. 
 While engaged in familiar banter resembling the refined repar- 
 tee of the nineteenth century more than the coarse jest of the 
 fifth, they noticed a strange knight lady and dwarf passing. 
 True to the instincts of her sex the Qiieen burned with a curi- 
 osity to know who the knight was and sent her maid to inquire 
 of the dwarf He resented the intrusion — striking the maid 
 with his whip. Except the usual short sword he wore, Ger- 
 aint was unarmed, but he valiantly approached the formidable 
 dwarf and demanded his master's name. The dwarf gave him 
 a similar though more severe hint to attend to his own busi- 
 ness, striking him in the face with his whip, making the blood 
 fly. Geraint's magnanimity saved the dwarf, and he returned 
 to the queen proposing to avenge the insult done her in her 
 maid's person, and to track the vermin to their earths. It is 
 strange that he did not think of avenging the insult done the 
 Qiieen in her maid's person until he received a lash of the same 
 whip. If the dwarf had politely told him his master's name 
 it might have spoiled a story. But Geraint then started on an 
 expidition of knight-errantry to kill the stranger for his dwarf's 
 rudeness, the Qiieen bid him God-speed and promised to dress 
 his bride (when found) like the sun. So far as the poem is 
 concerned the chase is abandoned, indicating that it was had 
 solely to bring these characters upon the scene, and give Ger- 
 aint the occasion to display his daring, and his devotion to the 
 Queen. He followed the stranger and his retinue for twelve 
 hours, until the vermin reached their earths. 
 
 His next quest was a night's lodging, and arms with which 
 to fight the foe who was unaware of his existence, and whose 
 dwarf had shown his own (not his master's) bad temper. He 
 found every one busy preparing for a tourney to be held next 
 day. He finally found a ruined castle occupied by Yniol, his 
 wife, and daughter Enid. Coincidence is the soul of romance, 
 and Yniol had been deprived of his earldom by the same ver- 
 min whom Geraint was pursuing (Edyrn, the son ofNudd) 
 because he had refused him Enid in marriage. Yniol kept 
 
198 ETHICS OF LITER AtURfe. 
 
 Geraint over night and armed him next morning for the fray 
 with Edyrn who had not yet learned of his existence, to say 
 nothing of his grievance. The town gathered at the lists to see 
 Edyrn's mistress as usual at his command take an undisputed 
 prize and were dumbfounded to hear Geraint crv "forbear, 
 there is a worthier."' But i do not understand the bustle and 
 hurry in the preparation of arms the day before if there was no 
 contest expected. If it was a foregone fact that Edyrn would 
 take the prize without a fight, and the town had gathered as 
 usual to see his mistress go through the accustomed perfunc- 
 tory ceremony of receiving it, there could have been but little 
 occasion for the hurry in preparation of arms which Geraint 
 found on his arrival at the town, tracing the vermin to their 
 earths. However, to the general consternation, Edyrn was 
 forced to fight. Our hero of course overthrew him, placed his 
 foot on his breast, extorted his name and his promise to apolo- 
 gize to the Queen for his dwarfs rudeness (which he probably 
 learned of at this time) and his promise to restore his wronged 
 uncle Yniol all his possessions. He then married Enid, but 
 not until he had humiliated her by forcing her to go to Arthur's 
 court in her old clothes to be by the Queen clothed "for her 
 bridals like the sun." 
 
 The honey-moon was spent at the Table Round, but some 
 scan. mag. being bruited about, involving the Queen's fair 
 fame, Geraint, although he discredited it, became alarmed lest 
 Enid incur a taint, and he took her and hied him to his own 
 marches. Arriving there and revelling in the requital of his 
 love to the neglect of public affairs, he soon became the object 
 of opprobrium which Enid noticed before he did. She was 
 hanging over him one morning before he awoke, deploring the 
 bad state of his affairs, soliloquizing, and blaming herself with 
 his reproach, and he awoke to catch disjointedly the last few 
 words of her monologue, — "Oh me, I fear that I am no true 
 wife." Coupling this fragment with her occasional sadness, 
 her tears then moistening his bosom, the chivalrous knight 
 who had scorned the scandal of the court jumped at the chim- 
 erical conclusion that his own Enid was "Weeping for some 
 gay knight in Arthur hall." This is very vague and indefinite 
 
Obscurity and profusion as indications of genius. 1 99 
 
 jealousy, and it flames on a very slight provocation. Truant 
 wives seldom weep on the bosoms of their injured husbands. 
 
 It were idle to trace them through all the terrible tests to 
 which he then put her love, fidelity, and endurance; but he 
 made for the frontier, driving her before him in the same 
 "foded silk" in which he had mortified her when she first ap- 
 peared in Arthur's court; and giving her peremptory orders to 
 hold her tongue, showing his childish tyranny and how little 
 he knew of woman. Meeting many marauders on the way, 
 she, to warn him of danger, repeatedly violated his repeatedly 
 renewed order, and he after repeatedly bequeathing her to the 
 better man in case of his fall, closed successively and success- 
 fully with each band and vanquished them. Lest he become 
 too invincible for the hero of an Idyll he managed to receive a 
 secret wound from the effect of which he fainted, after killing 
 the one who had wounded him, and he was carried to the 
 hall of a border ruffian chief who conveniently came along on 
 one of his occasional forays. There he was laid out for dead 
 and the ruffian having returned from his expedition attempted 
 the supposed widow in the presence of the supposed corpse. 
 Failing in entreaty and burly blandishment he resorted to force, 
 and Enid's cries of pain aroused her apparently lifeless lord 
 who was only playing dead to test her fealty, and he rushed 
 from his cooling board and struck off his host's head. He then 
 took her up behind him on his charger (which had discreetly 
 called for them at this juncture) and started to return. Meeting 
 Edyrn whom he had so lately conquered and converted, he 
 conducted them to the camp of Arthur who was then march- 
 ing to suppress the same "huge earl ofDoorm" whose headless 
 trunk Geraint had just left weltering in its gore. And Enid 
 was restored in the confidence of her chivalrous lord. 
 
 Such is the substance of the story tediously told through 
 more than thirty pages of deformed declamation which a liter- 
 ary aristocracy says in poetry. Jack the giant killer was tame 
 in comparison with Geraint. But Geraint is immortalized in 
 the poetry of one who was in law, if not in fact, a poet; while 
 the Mother Goose of the Teutonic and Indo-European nursery 
 was a mere rhymester. The late Laureate was a factor in the 
 
200 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. , 
 
 political constitution of the government of a country arrogating 
 to itself the proud distinction of being the centrifugal center 
 and source of civilization, from whence, if not all, yet our most 
 luminous literary light radiates. He was armed with poetic 
 license, and mailed in legal laureatic license; and whenever and 
 whatever and however he deigned to write, the applause of 
 the literary snobs was promptly re-echoed in the applause of 
 the literary serfs; and a fawning constituency at Fashion's fiat 
 affects a delight in that which it is authoritatively informed is 
 genius. 
 
 With all its magic, majesty, and honor, Arthur's hall seems 
 to have been a hot-bed of vice, corruption, and court intrigue; 
 his most trusted knight being the defiler of his Queen. But so 
 long as he purposely blinded himself to their guilt, it was very 
 unknightly for his hangers-on to be dinning it in his ears. 
 But there is nothing too preposterous for the infatuated artist. 
 
 Vivien, the harlot, haunted this hall, plying its inmates as 
 she had opportunity. The King in one of his strolls, trying to 
 walk off or walk down his vexation at a rumor rife about the 
 Queen and Lancelot, was met by this adventuress who would 
 "fain have wrought upon his cloudy mood," but he virtuously 
 ignored her "fluttered adoration and dark sweet hints, had 
 gazed upon her blankly and gone by;" and had she grappled 
 with him, he would have "left his garment with her and fied 
 and gat him out." Unfortunately as well as ungentlemanly, 
 "the most famous man of all those times had watched, and 
 had not held his peace." Sage Merlin, the old tattler, told it 
 at the Table Round, and "it made the laughter of one afternoon 
 that Vivien should attempt the blameless King." 
 
 She resented the ridicule by attempting (and accomplishing) 
 Merlin himself, and they are the immortal hero and heroine of 
 one of these Idyllic roundels. Despising yet dallying with her, 
 her petulant persistence made him melancholy, he left the 
 court, gained the beach, stepped into a convenient boat, "and 
 Vivien followed, but he marked her not." He was very deep- 
 ly absorbed, but "she took the helm and he the sail." The 
 romantic is too easily, and hence too frequently, overdone. 
 If the Sage left the court for the wild woods of Broceliande to 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENtUS. 201 
 
 escape the immodest importunities of his erratic inamorata, he 
 was not very sage in sailing in a craft with her at the hehn. 
 The most famous man of all those times, who had built 
 Arthur's hall for him and was his chief counsellor, ought not 
 to have been chased from the hall to the wilderness by a 
 strumpet who was the butt of ridicule at the court. 
 
 The persistence of woman when she sets her head is well 
 portrayed, and notwithstanding its deformities, — that nearly 
 all its occasions and situations are strained and unnatural, the 
 piece contains some poetry and philosophy, but instead of 
 rounding out to a conclusion in keeping therewith, it merely 
 flattens out. Vivien talked the sage almost to death, he yield- 
 ed and told her his charm, fell asleep, and she wrought his 
 ruin with woven paces and with waving hands, "and in the 
 hollow oak he lay as dead, and lost to life and use and name 
 and fame." 
 
 An indispensable requisite to poetry is harmony, and a phil- 
 osophic heroic is within the rule. Harmony in sound and in 
 measure is no more essential to music, than harmony in senti- 
 ment and its expression is to poetry. 
 
 It appears that two persons were known to have been 
 brothers, were known to have fought with and killed each 
 other in "a glen, grey boulder, and black tarn;" one of them 
 was known to have been a king, yet their names are unknown. 
 Before Arthur was crowned he was roving the trackless realms 
 of Lyonesse, and found the slain king's crown "of diamonds, 
 one in front and four aside." After he was crowned he de- 
 voted these nine diamonds to the purpose of prizes to be tilted 
 for by his knights, one at each annual tourney thereafter for 
 nine years, expecting in that time to learn thereby who was 
 the mightiest, and that the knights would become so inured to 
 arms and deeds of valor that they could drive the heathen. 
 In eight of these annual tourneys Lancelot had won the prize, 
 and expecting of course to win them all, he had hoarded them 
 for a present to the Queen, and had kept his purpose a secret 
 even from her. If the tilts proved anything it was probably 
 established by this time that he was the mightiest. The ninth 
 tourney was proclaimed and the Queen was too illto attend, 
 
202 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 though the King desired her to do so, lest she "miss the great 
 deeds of Lancelot and his prowess in the lists. As Lancelot 
 stood with the King by the bedside of their joint mistress, she 
 "lifted her eyes and they dwelt longingly on Lancelot." He 
 misinterpreted the language of her languid look as importing a 
 wish that he would remain with her, and he feigned that "an 
 ancient wound was hardly whole, and let him from the saddle. 
 And the King glanced first at him, and then at her, and went 
 his way." The King was one of those obliging husbands 
 who knew when he Was not wanted at his Queen's' bedside; 
 and he was above intruding on the privacy of the princely 
 lovers, even if one of them was his wife. Left to themselves 
 the Queen and Lancelot engaged in a lover's quarrel, she rated 
 him for his stupidity in misunderstanding her languid look, and 
 urged him to go to the lists to prevent the scandal which his 
 staying with her might provoke. He retorted her former defi- 
 ance of public opinion, and reminded her that the knights often 
 toast them as lovers while the king listens smiling. The chief 
 of all the knights, the champion soldier of the Cross, the most 
 illustrious of the chivalry which is to drive the heathen, had for 
 eight years maintained a lecherous liaison with the adulterous 
 Queen of the most Christian King; had cuckolded this King 
 who is sung in the same song for superhuman sagacity and 
 force of character, and yet as conniving at his Queen's crime. 
 If the entire fabric is mere fabrication, if fancy is unrestrained 
 and the poet is not limited by the existence or non-existence 
 of any f^ict, if he first makes his matter and then moulds it at 
 will into the form of his poem which has nothing else to 
 recommend it, it should be at least consistent with itself and its 
 pretensions — the principal character it lionizes should not be 
 painted the pander of his own wife's shame — he should not be 
 exhibited as a contemptible cuckold cognizant of his own and 
 his wife's infamy. 
 
 If Lancelot was the paramour of the wife of the King to 
 whom he owed and had sworn unswerving loyalty, undis- 
 sembling truth, and untiring devotion, if he betrayed the most 
 sacred of all trusts to gratify his lust, is it likely that his respect 
 for the unwritten code of hospitality, his regard for the court- 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 20^ 
 
 esy and confidence of the Lord of Astolat, or the sanctity of his 
 relations with the Queen, kept him from the person of Elaine 
 when she had snatched him from the grave, nursed him to life, 
 and cast herself at his feet ? There is, however, one point in 
 the picture which is true to nature. It is the Queen's jealous 
 rage when informed that Lancelot fought in this tourney, wear- 
 ing on his helmet "'a red sleeve broidered with pearls," the 
 favor of an unknown rival of her's for his favor. 
 
 In the purity and proof of his love for and fidelity to the 
 Queen, Lancelot spurned the Lily of Astolat and she died of a 
 broken heart. Pursuant to her last wish her corpse was taken 
 to Arthur's hall with her last letter in her lifeless left hand. 
 The letter was opened and read by the King in the presence of 
 the Queen and the assembled knights, and it vindicated Lance- 
 lot's faithfulness to his royal concubine. In her jealous rage 
 the Qiieen had just thrown away (in a convenient river) Lance- 
 lot's princely present of the nine diamonds for which he had 
 been fighting for nine years, but on hearing the King read the 
 Lily's letter and seeing her late rival consigned to the tomb, 
 she begged Lancelot's pardon, he forgave her, and the happy 
 King convulsively clasped him to his bosom exclaiming, 
 Lancelot ! my Lancelot ! So the lifeless Lily whose love he had 
 spurned, and the cuckold King whose honor he had stained, 
 restored relations between their respective wrongers. 
 
 And this is fashionable, refined, aristocratic, poetic romance. 
 Having become inured to the preposterous, one may be sur- 
 prised and perhaps disappointed that the poet does not paint 
 the Queen in a tit of jealous rage with the King for calling her 
 Lancelot his Lancelot, for his froward familiarity with the per- 
 son of her courtly lover when he "approached him and with 
 full affection flung one arm about his neck," — where her arms 
 belonged. A sillier, shallower, more extravagant, preposterous, 
 or unnatural story is seldom told ; perhaps never in more in- 
 harmonious, tedious, and turgid tropes. 
 
 Percivale having doffed the casque and donned the cowl, 
 was interviewed by an ancient inmate of the monastry near a 
 century before Christianity was introduced into the Island. 
 "While mere chronological slips may not be a positive blemish 
 
204 EtHlCS OF LlTERAtURE. 
 
 to pure romance, yet it is unpardonable in romance, ever so 
 finely rendered, to grovel in the palpably preposterous. 
 Language cannot be set to expression sufficiently fine to justify 
 the absolutely absurd. Lullabies may be solemnly sung to the 
 senile, but they are entirely out of place among the classics, 
 unless they propound a moral, which should not be buried 
 beneath a mountain of mystic obscurity. 
 
 Ambrosius had seen "the world old yew-tree darkening 
 half the cloisters," had "seen this yew-tree smoke spring after 
 spring for half a hundred years;" during all which time he had 
 never known "the world without, nor ever strayed beyond 
 the pale." This is an elaborate, and possibly a poetic way to 
 say that he had been immured in the monastery for fifty years 
 and was unacquainted with the world. Yet at a glance he 
 had perceived that Percivale was "one of those who eat in 
 Arthur's hall," and he asked what drove him from the Table 
 Round, — if it was "earthly passion crost." Percivale promptly 
 disclaimed all such passion, and told him it was the sweet vis- 
 ion of the holy grail. The aged monk who had spent fifty 
 years in religious exercises, meditations, speculations, and dis- 
 sipations, asked the recent roisterer from the Table Round 
 what he meant by the term holv grail, and the answer was an 
 object lesson in theology. He was informed that Arimathean 
 Joseph brought from Aromat to Glastonbury the very cup in 
 which Christ drank at the Last Supper. The monk seemed to 
 know all about Joseph's expedition, his obtaining a land grant 
 from a local Lord, and building "with wattles from the marsh 
 a little lonely church;" but was utterly ignorant of the miracle- 
 working cup, the sight or the touch of which was the end of all 
 ill. He who can intelligently imagine all this, and has master- 
 ed the art of hysterology. may be equipped for the discharge 
 of the duties of the office of Laureate to a literary snobdom. 
 
 The novitiate informed the ancient that his sister (a nun) 
 had seen the cup; that her human love being rudely blunted 
 hwd glanced and slwt only to holy things; that the court 
 scandal beat across the iron grating of the cell, and she 
 "prayed and fasted all the more," until "the sun shone, and 
 the wind blew thro' her." And these are some of the figures 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 20<y 
 
 of poetical expression which an overweening aristocracy ad- 
 ministers to its patients as poetry. The nun's description of 
 her vision of the holy grail, is, however, beautifully poetic; but 
 it contains no blimtiiig nor shooting nor glancing oi\o\Q, nor 
 beating of scandal across an iron grate: and it exhibits no 
 female form so attenuate that the sun would shine or the wind 
 would blow thro' it. 
 
 Percivale spoke of the nun's vision "to all men," and he 
 and many of them fasted to the uttermost, expectant of the 
 wonder. Among them was one Galahad, a beautiful youth, 
 of doubtful derivation, and of whom rumor reported he was a 
 bastard son of Lancelot ; but Percivale doubted this because of 
 Lancelot's singular continency. The nun decorated this boy 
 with a sword belt plaited of her own hair, and containing a 
 representation of the grail in a moon-beam down which it slid 
 to her cell in her vision; and she infused in him her own pure 
 passion. The stanza stating this is one of the most beautiful 
 in the language, and were it not for the idiom it could not be 
 said to have anything in common with the one next following it. 
 Percivale informed the antique of the year of miracle, of Mer- 
 lin's transit from time to eternity by inadvertently sitting in a 
 chair of his own make, and where self-destruction is mitigated 
 if not justified in Galehad's attempt to follow Merlin by sitting 
 in the same chair, — The Siege Perilous. It should, or rather it 
 should not, be remembered that Merlin had already met his 
 doom in the hollow oak in the wild woods of Broceliande, 
 when "overtalked and overworn" he had yielded to the licenti- 
 ous and lissom Vivien, — or, this may be an instance of the im- 
 pudence of a malapert memory. The recollection of the scene in 
 the hollow oak takes the color out of this picture of Merlin's 
 taking off. Galahad was disappointed. He found he could 
 not get to Heaven bv simply sitting down in a chair, but it 
 caused "a cracking and a riving of the roofs, and rending, and 
 a blast, and overhead thunder, and * * * a beam of light 
 seven times more clear than day;" and brought the grail down 
 this beam, and those of the knights who did not see it, being 
 all of them but Galahad, sware a vow because they had not 
 
206 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 seen it, to ride a twelve month and a day in quest of it, and 
 Galahad, although he had seen it, sware the same vow. 
 
 Early this same day a maiden who had been wronged by 
 some ruffians, came and complained to the King, and he went 
 "to smoke the scandalous hive of those wild bees that made 
 such honey in his realm." And this is said to be poetry. But 
 it is strange that Arthur's hall should be depopulated of its 
 knights by means -of their being there swearing their vows, 
 while he was away smoking the scandalous hive of those 
 wild bees. He had informed his imperial wedding guests from 
 Rome when they demanded the ancient tribute that these had 
 sworn to fight his wars and worship him their king. 
 
 Such situations and suppositions are not only strained, un- 
 reasonable and unnatural, they are absurd. While it may well 
 be regarded irrelevant to object to romance for the reason that 
 its assertions are not true in point of fact; yet there should be 
 some measure of reasonableness, naturalness, and plausibility 
 in its situations. If they are utterly and glaringly foolish, the 
 blemish is not cured, though it may be obscured, by fanciful 
 flights. If a moral is intelligibly pointed as is intended in most 
 fable, there may be some mitigation if not justification of the 
 wildest vagaries supposable; but the moral should be clear, it 
 should plainly appear as the objective point of the poem. 
 
 There are few more beautiful descriptions than that of 
 Arthur's hall, crowned with his statue, and lighted with win- 
 dows blazoning his wars, wlTere "all the light that falls upon 
 the board streams through the twelve great battles of our 
 King." But it is disfigured in the conclusion with childish 
 mysticism as to the one blank window, — thereafter to be 
 blazoned with a scenic representation of the results of his 
 martial exploits. 
 
 Arthur's inquiry on his return of the cause of the tumult he 
 found in the hall, his learning of his knights severally that they 
 had all sworn the vow, his protest against and final consent to 
 their going and the consequent dissolution of the order, all 
 hover between the petulant and the pathetic, and result in 
 arranging a final farewell fete "when the sun brake next from 
 underground." The description of Camelot, "built by old 
 
OBSCL'RITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 207 
 
 Kings age after age," through the streets of which the knights 
 departed in the holy quest when "the next day broke from 
 underground," of the grief of "the Qiieen who rode by Lance- 
 lot," shrieking "this madness has come on us for our sins," of 
 the knights passing "the weirdly sculptured gate where 
 Arthur's wars were rendered mystically," and where they 
 "thence departed, every one his way," is the fume of a mad- 
 der madness than that which the Queen so bewailed. 
 
 When the knights departed, every one his way, Percivale 
 was very confident that he "should light upon the holy grail," 
 but his buoyancy was brief. The Kirtg was not inspirited 
 with the madness, and his forebodings recurring to Percivale, 
 "came like a driving gloom across his mind," and every evil 
 deed he ever did awoke and cried "this quest is not for thee." 
 He soon found himself "in a land of sand and thorns," and his 
 disappointments, toils, and tribulations, were perhaps as severe 
 and exasperating as those of the reader of his. "A holy hermit 
 in a hermitage" explained his reverses in a want of true humil- 
 ity, and admonished him that to succeed, to save himself, he 
 must lose himself as Galahad, who then suddenly appeared in 
 silver armor, and informed him, not only that he had seen the 
 grail, but that it was his pillar of cloud by day and of tire by 
 night. Galahad invited Percivale to accompany him, promis- 
 ing that at his translation to the Spiritual City, about to occur, 
 he too should see the grail. Then after Enoch was eclipsed 
 Percivale saw a vision which discounts the Dreamer of Patmos, 
 and he then informed Ambrosius, that of his. return to the 
 hermitage, "no memory in me lives;" probably meaning that 
 he knew not how he got there. 
 
 He is hard indeed who cannot sympathize with Percivale in 
 the terrible test to which his constancy was put in meeting her 
 who had been his youth's love, the only one who had ever 
 made his heart leap, although they had "never kissed a kiss," 
 nor "vowed a vow." He found her a wealthy widowed Lady 
 of a State; she cast her possessions, her power, and her self at 
 his feet, and her subjects supplicated him to marry her and 
 rule them, — to become their Arthur. If she had a Lancelot, 
 one could easily understand his rejection of the doubtful honor; 
 
208 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 but he declined it, and his vow burning within him he fled, 
 hating himself and the holy quest until he met Galahad, after 
 which he "cared not for her, nor anything upon earth." 
 Ambrosius indicated the color if not the warmth of his blood 
 in reply to the naration of this episode. 
 
 Bors met his kinsman Lancelot in the quest, "mad and 
 maddening what he rode," shouting "stay me not, 1 have been 
 the sluggard and I ride apace, for now there is a lion in the 
 way." The froth of this lunacy is followed by Bors" willing- 
 ness to forego success in favor of Lancelot; and Percivale's ad- 
 venture and imprisonment with a pagan tribe, his miraculous 
 escape, and his vision of the grail; the return of the knights 
 from the quest to the hall, their greetings, the rehearsal of their 
 adventures in a medley of miracle and extravagance and 
 absurdity, in which Gawain is made a scapegoat for the only 
 sensible sayings heard there, and received a rebuke from the 
 King in a set speech in which he benignantly blessed his be- 
 trayer, exalted his fury to the fiery prophecy of old time, and 
 concluded in terms which Percivale admitted he could not un- 
 derstand. 
 
 Of the readers of the Holy Grail candor requires a similar 
 admission, not confined to its conclusion. What is its central 
 thought ? How is it to promote the edification of mankind ? 
 Hume has regretted the strange liberties the poets take with 
 the truth. Is it the most unwarranted and objectionable liberty 
 they take ? When they give vent to a feverish fancy, rove at 
 random amid objects bearing no resemblance or affinity to each 
 other, and many of which are their own chimerical creations, 
 suppose situations, characters, characteristics, and purposes, 
 preposterous in themselves, and not only needless, but inimical 
 to the plausibility of their alleged plot, and then present the 
 whole in a distorted, harsh, and labored expression, they may 
 indicate their genius and the wealth of their resources, but they 
 certainly do not contribute materially to the intellectual devel- 
 opment which should be the object of every stroke of their 
 pens. 
 
 Literary coxcombs may display their superficial pretensions 
 in affecting a profound respect for the weight and the worth 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 20C) 
 
 and the wisdom of the froth and the fume which has neither 
 substance nor form; but if called on for a point in which it is 
 really meritorious, while they may be shocked at the audacity 
 or ignorance of the inquiry, they can no more than answer, it 
 is fashionable, if further pressed their refuge is in the unap- 
 proachable dignity of the aristocratic regime. 
 
 To replete his depleted ranks, the King called the callow to 
 come and be the knighted, and young Pelleas set out for Caer- 
 lon. Resting and dreaming in an enchanted grove, Ettarre 
 with her train of damsels-errant and three knights, having lost 
 their way, casually came upon and awoke him, and he became 
 their pilot-star to guide them to Arthur's hall. Ettarre discover- 
 ed that he was smitten with her beauty, and she begn to 
 zcork him. Arrived at the hall he was knighted, became at 
 once a favorite with the King, Queen, and all except his fickle 
 tlance, won and gave her the prize, and she spurned him — not 
 the prize. The Qiieen remonstrated with her for her perfidy, 
 and was rebuked in an insolent allusion to her own relations 
 with Lancelot. The persistent Pelleas pursued the erratic 
 Ettare to her castle; the gate being shut in his face he perched 
 himself outside and beseiged her. She sent her three knights 
 to drive him away, he downed them, and then suffered them 
 to bind him, and they took him inside a prisoner, where he 
 plead with his idol, she mocked him and caused him to be 
 thrust out. He resumed the siege, maintained it a week, she 
 again sent the three knights to slay him, or, failing in that, to 
 give him her order to be again bound and brought in a pris- 
 oner. They assaulted him, Gawain casually came by and 
 offered to assist him, he rejected the offer, again overthrew the 
 three knights, again suffered them to bind and take him inside 
 the castle a captive. This time he spurned her, saying "1 had 
 liefer you were worthy of my love than to be loved again of 
 you — farewell; vex not yourself; ye will not see me more." 
 He was again thrust out, Gawain met and unbound him and 
 they left. 
 
 An idea struck Gawain. He saw his way to the heart of 
 this damsel-errant in making her believe he had killed her 
 troublesome lover. He borrowed Pelleas' horse, and his arms, 
 
2IO ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 except the prize sword he won when he won the golden circ- 
 let for Ettarre, promised on the honor of the Table Round to 
 return to her castle and woo and win the damsel-errant for 
 him, to magnify him to her incessantly for three days. There 
 is a difficulty here. How Pelleas was to profit by this pro- 
 ceeding is not apparent. Gawain was to gain access to Ettarre 
 only by convincing her that he had killed him, of which fact 
 the borrowed horse and armor was to be the proof. Pelleas 
 roamed aimlessly around for three days, on the third night he 
 gave way to his impulses and went to the castle, found the 
 entrance open and unguarded, entered, investigated, found his 
 emissary in bed with his idol, shrunk back in horror, with- 
 drew, hesitated, returned to kill his betrayers, faltered, with- 
 drew, hesitated, returned again to slay them, faltered, "and 
 groaning laid the naked sword athwart their naked throats, 
 and there left it, and them sleeping; and she lay, the circlet of 
 the tourney round her brow, and the sword of the tourney 
 across her throat." He left her finally and forever, cursing the 
 perfidy of mankind. She awoke to find the prize sword of 
 her rejected lover across her throat, railed on her foul bed- 
 fellow for having lied about the killing of Pelleas who might 
 have slain them both in their sin and shame, and her "fickle 
 fancy turned to Pelleas as the one true knight on earth," too 
 late however, "and through her love, her life wasted and 
 pined, desiring him in vain." Another difficulty appears. 
 The entrance to the castle and to Ettarre's bed-chamber being 
 left open and unguarded at so critical a moment. Pelleas came 
 to the cloister where Percivale was cowled, slept, and dreamed 
 that Gawain burned Arthur's hall, awoke to grasp the form of 
 some one near, and was surprised to see Percivale who further 
 disabused his mind of the delusion that honor dwelt among 
 men, with one shining exception in Arthur. 
 
 Crazed with disappointment and disgust he rushed from 
 the cloister, mounted his charger, rode down and trampled a 
 crippled medicant, met and fought with and was over thrown 
 by Lancelot, followed him to Arthur's hall, gave him and the 
 Queen some significant sauce, "she quailed; and he, hissing 'I 
 have no sword,' sprang from the door into the dark. The 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 2 I I 
 
 Queen looked hard upon her lover, he on her; and each fore- 
 saw the dolorous day to be; and all talk died, as in a grove all 
 song beneath the shadow of some bird of prey ; then a long 
 silence came upon the hall, and Modred thought 'the time is 
 hard at hand.' " 
 
 All this to introduce the arch-fiend Modred upon the scene. 
 Pelleas and Ettarre are heard of no more, and their adventure 
 has no connection with or relation to anything like a general 
 scheme (if there is such a thing) of the story. There is but 
 one situation in this piece which is consistent with any other, 
 and that is that when Pelleas hissed that he had no sword, he 
 had lent one to Gawain, and laid the other athwart the naked 
 throats of his betrayers, and even this is inconsistent with his 
 encounter with Lancelot who was too chivalrous to fight an 
 unarmed knight. There is but one way to read such poetry 
 with satisfaction, — that is to read it with one's eyes closed. 
 
 In the last Tournament a new character is introduced, Tris- 
 tram, whose nest-hiding with Isolt is something in the nature 
 of a pocket edition of Lancelot's liaison with the Qtieen. Tris- 
 tram was engaged in a childish controversy with Dagonet, the 
 King's fool, in which there is a futile attempt to philosophize 
 in terms of buffoonery. In an apparent digression it appears 
 that Lancelot and the King had rescued a child from an eagle's 
 nest, that it wore a necklace of rubies, that they gave the child 
 to the Queen who received it coldly at first, that she grew to 
 love it, named it Nestling, reared it, it died, and the Queen 
 gave the rubies to the King to be used as a tourney prize. And 
 the tourney being immediately proclaimed implies that the 
 prize occasioned it, as the factitious facts seems to have occas- 
 ioned the piece. On receiving the rubies the King evinced 
 some surprise that she had never worn the diamonds presented 
 her by Lancelot, she soothed him with a white lie about losing 
 them, and predicted rosier luck for the rubies because they 
 came from the neck of an innocent babe instead of the skeleton 
 of a royal red-handed fratricide. A churl seems to have been 
 mutilated by some ruffians defying the King's authority, he 
 ordered him to be royally entertained until healed, organized 
 an expedition of his new knights against the outlaws, and left 
 
212 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Lancelot to preside at the hall and arbitrate the ensuing tourna- 
 ment in his absence, saying that he would not care to tilt 
 merely to win and return the rubies to the Queen ; as though 
 it was foregone that if he should tilt he would win, and if he 
 should win he would give the prize to the Queen. Tristram 
 entered and cleared the lists, and Lancelot gave him the prize. 
 After some general murmuring about the general degeneracy 
 of the times the assembly adjourned to the evening banquet, 
 proposing by their splendor and vivacity there to comfort the 
 eyes of the Qjieen and Lancelot. The King could kill time as 
 best he might in the bivouac. The next morning Tristram 
 met Dagonet and they renewed their philosophic farce, in 
 which the fool showed that Arthur was himself a fool, the 
 King of fools, especially for expecting to make men of beasts 
 by means of the vain vows of the order of the Table Round. 
 
 The remainder of the rhapsody relates to an amour of Tris- 
 tram and his back-woods mistress Isolt, the wife of Mark, the 
 cuckold King of Tintagil in Lyonesse. He presented her the 
 rubies he had just won, demanded and was served with meat 
 and wine, and promised to love her "to the death, and out 
 beyond into the dream to come." Having feasted and being 
 in the act of embracing her, the injured and irate husband sud- 
 denly shrieked "Mark's way, and clove him through the brain." 
 The heathen King of the forest showed a higher appreciation 
 of his domestic duties, than his illustrious Christian compeer of 
 the Table Round. 
 
 But as usual with these pieces, the last tournament flattens 
 out, collapses, expires from sheer exhaustion. The scene sud- 
 denly shifts from Mark's den to Arthur's hall, where, when the 
 King returned he found his truant Qtieen had fled with his 
 chief knight, and "about his feet a voice clung sobbing till he 
 questioned it, 'what art thou Y and the voice about his feet 
 sent up an answer sobbing. '1 am thy fool, and I shall never 
 make thee smile again.' " The piece is replete with incident 
 and episode among or between which there is no natural or 
 necessary connection, relation, or affinity. There are some 
 beautifully poetic expressions, and occasional wise saws in 
 philosophy, of which an instance is Tristram's estimate of the 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 21) 
 
 efficacy of the oaths of love and knighthood. "The vow that 
 binds too strictly snaps itself — my knighthood taught me this 
 — ay, being snapt we run more counter to the soul thereof 
 than we had never sworn." 
 
 The Queen fled the Court, — took sanctuary in a convent at 
 Almesbury and sat in her cell with "a little maid, a novice." 
 Modred had sought to ruin the King, "and all his aims were 
 sharpened by a strong hate for Lancelot." He had hounded 
 the Queen with his "narrow foxy f^ice, heart-hiding smile, and 
 grey persistent eye;" had couched in tall grass growing upon 
 the garden wall, and the very one he hoped to detect in devil- 
 ment had caught him spying, and thrown him from his perch 
 into the dirt. "Ever after the small violence rankled in him and 
 ruffled all his heart, as the sharp wind that ruffles all day long 
 a bitter little pool about a stone on the bare coast." Contem- 
 plate this comparison, — is it not more puerile than poetical or 
 pertinent ? Lancelot related this escapade to the Queen who 
 at first rather enjoyed it, but on reflection she sighed, foresee- 
 ing that the "subtle beast would track her guilt until he found 
 and hers would be forevermore a name of scorn." From what 
 had gone before it would seem that her guilt was already 
 found, that hers was already become a name of scorn. Lance- 
 lot had told her that the knights often toast them as lovers 
 while the King listens smiling; Vivien had encountered the 
 King in a stroll perplexed with some rumor rife about the 
 Queen and Lancelot, "and would fain have wrought upon his 
 cloudy mood;" Ettarre, from a remote province (having been 
 lost on her way to the hall) had openly reproached the Queen 
 with her relations with Lancelot ; the Father of the Lily maid 
 of Astolat had told her, "Daughter I know not what you call 
 the highest ; but this 1 know, for all the people know it. He 
 loves the Queen, and in open shame; and she returns his love 
 in open shame;" and if notorious prostitution means a name of 
 scorn, -she had already earned and acquired it, and her appre- 
 hensions come rather late. But her shame became her night- 
 mare, and she resolved to break with Lancelot. For this pur- 
 pose they took the superfluous and silly precaution to steal an 
 interview for their "madness of farewells" in her bed-chamber, 
 
2i4 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 when the King was away ; as though he had not been for 
 years conniving at their treasonable trysts ; as though he had 
 not "glanced first at him, and then at her, and gone his way;" 
 as though he had not "listened smiling" while the knights 
 toasted them as lovers. "And Modred brought his creatures 
 to the basement of the tower for testimony," to prove the best 
 authenticated and most widely known fact in the history of 
 the subject matter of the Idylls. But they were finally trapped 
 and exposed by Modred, in that which every one knew they 
 were doing, and had come to regard a part of the policy of the 
 Powers that be; and Lancelot's grand finale is to hurl the in- 
 sidious spy headlong to the earth. The Queen and Lancelot 
 left the hall and went together to "the divided way, there 
 kissed, and parted weeping; for he past, love loyal to the least 
 wish of the Queen, back to his own land ; but she to Almes- 
 bury." 
 
 From this point to its close Guinevere is the prettiest and 
 most pathetic poem I know of. If such qualities should be re- 
 garded an incongruous combination, the intelligent skeptic 
 should thoughtfully read it. Let him behold the garrulous lit- 
 tle babbler with her innocent prattle piercing the prurient Queen 
 to the heart; behold the Queen writhing in the agony of a 
 burning sense of her supremacy and shame, artlessly intensifi- 
 ed by the child, who, "like many another babbler hurt whom 
 she would soothe;" behold the Queen finally irritated to a pet- 
 ty resentment against the innocence which unconsciously flays 
 her alive with, — "this is all woman's grief, that she is woman, 
 whose disloyal life hath wrought confusion at the Table 
 Round;" — if not convinced of the beauty, power, and pathos 
 of the part mentioned, he should attend the King in his last 
 interview with her who should have blest, but had cursed his 
 life, her own, and their common country. Eulogy were idle, 
 description futile. Is it possible that the' fabricator of the false, 
 flimsy, preposterous positions ; the supposer of the absurd situ- 
 ations and sentiments, which blur the beauty of a charming 
 romance, also distilled the quintessence offender invective lov- 
 ing reproach, and crushing hope, which Arthur showered on 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 215 
 
 Guinevere, standing over the prostrate prostitute in her cell at 
 Aimesbury ? 
 
 There is an awful grandeur in some of the sentiment per- 
 vading the Passing of Arthur, notably in the expressions attri- 
 buted to the expiring (or passing) monarch. But it is belittled 
 with incongruity and frivolty. The last battle was fought in 
 "the trackless realms of Lyonesse," which, according to the 
 Idylls was a region of unregenerate heathenism. Yet when 
 the opposing armies had utterly exterminated each other, so 
 that none were left to tell the tale but the traitor Modred of the 
 one side, and Arthur and bold Bedivere of the other, Arthur 
 attacked Modred, despatched him, received a fatal wound, and 
 was borne by Bedivere "to a chapel nigh the field, a broken 
 chancel with a broken cross;" a strange structure indeed for 
 such a place. When Arthur realized his time was come, there 
 remained an indispensable duty to be done; the culmination of 
 a Kingly career, its crowning consummation, to throw away a 
 sword in the mere. Bold Bedivere, the King's last living friend, 
 was commissioned to commit Excalibur to the wave. Falter- 
 ingly faithful, his cupidity prevented the performance of this 
 penultimate precept of his liege, until the third time he was ' 
 driven to do it, and then the expiring (or passing) monarch 
 whom he had just borne to the broken chancel, threatened to 
 rise and slay him with his hands should he return again with- 
 out having done it. 
 
 The silly things they said to each other while Arthur kept • 
 Bedivere going to and fro between the chapel and the mere, 
 recall the rhapsody of the Giant's muse; — "Fe, fo, fi, fum; I 
 smell the flesh of an Englishmun; Dead or alive I must have 
 some." With slight syntactical change, this triplet might 
 pass for an extract from the Idylls. Such is the twaddle with 
 which a learned literary lord regales a reading, if not a think- 
 ing world. And if we expect to have any credit with the elite, 
 we must not only admit, we must insist that it is immense. 
 
 In striking contrast with the aimless delirium of the Idylls 
 are some of the other propositions of their author. Notwith- 
 standing its labored expression, I doubt that there ever was a 
 truer or more beautiful picture of constancy, integrity, and virtue 
 
2l6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 in humble life than in the story of Enoch Arden. Its situations 
 and sentiment are sufficiently supposable, natural, and har- 
 monious ; yet they are as striking as those with which the 
 Idylls are so foully blemished. To get its real purport one can 
 well afford the labor imposed by its idiomatic eccentricities; 
 although he will be impressed with the manifest impropriety 
 of obscuring the substance with oddity in expression. The 
 pathetic power of the poet is attested in that the perusal of 
 Enoch Arden has moistened more eyes and sweetly saddened 
 more hearts than anything else in the language. 
 
 In the one hundred and thirty-one successive sobs for the 
 death of his friend, the Laureate reached the very zenith of 
 poetic supremacy, and dignified his main subject in the choice 
 of language. There is a tedious monotony in the reiterations 
 of gloomy glamour in which the deathly dirge is moaned, and 
 a manifest, and manifestly futile, effort to relieve the irksome 
 absence of variety with interspersion of philosophic platitude. 
 He has attempted to philosophize as well as poetize; and the 
 throes are so convulsive and hysterical; the allusion to and 
 treatment of them are so vague and obscure, that it is impossi- 
 ble to perceive what doctrine he meant to inculcate. There 
 seems to be but one connecting idea by which the one hund- 
 red and thirty-one stanzas or any number of them may be said 
 to be connected with, or related to each other; that is the cor- 
 roding grief of their writer. That he had, or imagined he had, 
 something to teach in the fugitive philosophy, is argued in 
 that he would not have re-stated his mere sorrow so often, and 
 in so many forms so little variant from each other, in one and 
 the same poem. The sorrow that bowed and buoyed him 
 murmurs in one unbroken stream of dulcet despair through the 
 entire poem ; but the philosophy in which he meant to mani- 
 fest his intellectual power is fragmentary, intermittent, and its 
 relevancy in most instances and connections is not apparent. 
 It appears however to be summed up in the latter half of the 
 last period of the poem, which period contains eleven verses of 
 four lines each. 
 
 "A soul shall draw from out the vast 
 And strike his being into bounds, 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 2 1 7 
 
 And, moved thro' life of lower phase, 
 Result in man, be born and think, 
 And act and love, a closer link 
 Betwixt us and the crowning race 
 Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 
 On knowledge; under whose command 
 Is Earth and Earth's and m their hand 
 Is Nature like an open book; 
 No longer half akin to brute, 
 For all we thought and loved and did 
 And hoped, and suffered, is but seed 
 Of what in them is flower and fruit; 
 Whereof the man that with me trod 
 This planet, was a noble type 
 Appearing ere the times were ripe, 
 That friend of mine who lives in God, 
 That God, which ever lives and loves, 
 One God, one law, one element. 
 And one far of! divine event. 
 To which the whole creation moves." 
 
 This latter half of the last period of the poem, summarizes 
 its philosophy in what appears to be a universal unitarianism, 
 or perhaps more properly a pantheism ; and by it the piece 
 rounds out to a majestic finish, poetically. But if we suppose 
 "one God, one law, one element, and one far off divine event, 
 to which the whole creation moves," it is difficult to conceive 
 how a soul could "draw from out the vast and strike its being 
 into bounds, and moved through life of lower phase, result in 
 man, be born and think, and act and love, a closer link, 
 betwixt us and the crowning race that, eye to eye, shall look 
 on knowledge," 
 
 I know of but one reliable test of the validity of purely spec- 
 ulative discussion, — and that is logic. Logically, the propos- 
 ition is self-destructive, The words "divine event" are ruin- 
 ous to it. They posit a period to progress, its final consum- 
 mation, which is utterly impossible of thought. But progress 
 must terminate if "the whole creation moves" to "one far off 
 divine event." They imply that the whole creation moves to 
 one far off result, necessarily the termination of its movement, 
 which cannot be thought. These majestic moans mean more 
 
2l8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 than the mere grief of their writer, or the fulsome adulation of 
 his departed friend. One of their patent purposes is a 
 grandiose exhibition of their writer's mastery of language. 
 Another is, or seems to be, to give vent to occasional philo- 
 sophic afflatus. 
 
 The fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth stanzas allude to an alleged 
 duality of God and Nature, which does not harmonize very 
 well with the one God, one Law, and one element. They 
 also allude to an alleged antagonism between God and Nature ; 
 to an apparent indifference of Nature for individuals and solici- 
 tude for Types; to Nature's real indifference for Types; they 
 attribute the human tendency to desire eternal existence, to 
 "What we have the likest God within the soul;" they find 
 cause for the shaking of faith in the observable fact that of fifty 
 seeds Nature "often brings but one to bear;" and after declar- 
 ing that the necessary deduction from all this is, that life is "a 
 monster then, a dream, a discord," they attempt to pin a hope- 
 less faith to that which is "behind the veil, behind the veil." 
 The necessary deduction from all observable data forbids hope 
 beyond earthly existence; but hope is inspired again by a blind 
 and unintelligible faith in the inscrutable cause of the tendency 
 to desire the future existence. The argument then is, that all 
 observable phenomena imply the mortality of the soul; that 
 man shall "be blown about the desert dust, or sealed within 
 the iron hills," and when in his longing he cries for a "voice 
 to soothe and bless," the answer is "behind the veil, behind 
 the veil." And even the longing itself is attributed to that in 
 man which is "the likest God;" in other words a kind of godly 
 selfishness. 
 
 This seems very* much like trying to reason out and estab- 
 lish the validity of a faith, after having conceded that every 
 conceivable cause for its existence has failed; except it be per- 
 haps, the innate longing for the fruition of the hope. The be- 
 lief then in the future existence is based entirely upon "the 
 wish, that of the living whole no life may fail beyond the 
 grave," being derived "from what we have the likest God 
 within the soul." The pointer quality in which we most 
 resemble our Maker, then, is our selfishness. 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 219 
 
 The poetic philosopher says that, considering Nature's 
 secret meaning in her deeds, he falters where he firmly trod 
 "Upon the great world's altar stairs that slope through dark- 
 ness up to God." The expression is beautifully poetic, — indeed 
 it is grand, sublime. But one must hurry past and not stop to 
 consider it. If he trod firmly before considering the secret 
 meaning of Nature in her deeds, and after could only "stretch 
 lame hands of faith and grope, and gather dust and chaff, and 
 call, to what he feels is Lord of all, and faintly trust the larger 
 hope,'" it would seem that his curiosity had gotten him into 
 trouble. Bv his investigations he had learned that which he 
 did not want to know. To have been content in ignorance 
 then were the prime wisdom. Still the universal propensity 
 to speculate and investigate remains, and is developed in and 
 manifested most markedly by those whose doctrines would 
 seem to favor its suppression or restraint, as being in itself sub- 
 versive of human weal. 
 
 The Laureate's purpose seems to have been to make a noise 
 in the world, to attract attention; and owing to his personal 
 prestige and the contemptible servility of the literary masses; 
 as much as, perhaps more than, the undeniable fact that he 
 has written some of the finest poetry known, he has been un- 
 deservedly successful. It matters not how unpretentious one 
 may. be in his general deportment, if he is able to give to Liter- 
 ature an Enoch Arden or a Locksley Hall, — that he inflicts on it 
 an In Memoriam or an Idylls Of The King, is due to his over- 
 weening personal importance in Literature. One capable of 
 producing either of the former two poems, would certainly 
 know that neither of the latter two had much if anything to 
 recommend it, besides the name of its writer. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 
 
 Plain English Amply Sufficient Medium for Expression of all ideas — Impertin- 
 ency of Apologetics — Bishop Blougram's Apology a Learned Vagary^— Its 
 Merit with Readers is the Prestige of its Author — Aristocratic Blackguard- 
 ism — Worldly Priest-craft — Money Makes the Spiritual Mare Go — The 
 Skeptic's Ideal too lofty to be realized — Ocean Voyage of a Life — Faith Ab- 
 solute Fixed and Final an Impossibility — ^Religion Based in Selfishness — • 
 Faith Valid Because it Must be So — Cowardice and Dissimulation of Apol- 
 ogetics — Believer Under Surveillance of the World in his Service ot the 
 Lord — Belief not Within Personal Control — Creation Declares Instead of 
 Conceals the Creator. 
 
 The names of some writers are become household words 
 among persons who vie with each other in extolling whatever 
 bears the impress of the seal of aristocratic approval, — no mat- 
 ter what it may be, nor whether it is understood, except that 
 the less it is understood the more extravagantly it is likely to 
 be extolled. The accidental pet of literary fashion may be a 
 master of Greek, and of Sanskrit, and of Semitic hieroglyph, 
 and he may be disturbed with a vague and indefinable uneasi- 
 ness which he imagines is some kind of inspiration. If he puts 
 anything, or even a quantity of nothing upon paper, the ap- 
 proval of the great will set the teeth of the gaping, grovelling 
 imitators on edge, to display their acumen — affecting an ap- 
 preciative amazement at the power of the prodigy who pro- 
 ceeds under the sanction of princely patronage. He may, or 
 he may not, have an idea ; it irks him not. if he has, it is the 
 boast of the English language that it can supply him the most 
 superb garb in which to clothe it, and the most explicit medium 
 in which to express it. Should it be one by the possession of 
 which mankind would be benefited, it were his plain duty to 
 express it, otherwise, it were his plain duty to suppress it. 
 If it deserves to be suppressed, it were needless to write a 
 book in which to do so ; while if it deserves expression, some 
 writing may be requisite. 1 recall some writings which really 
 appear to have been written to suppress their author's idea, in 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 22 1 
 
 which they are supremely successful, as no intelligible idea is 
 deducible therefrom. The duty to express includes the duty 
 to express clearly, intelligibly, and comprehensibly; less than 
 which cannot fairly be called expression, but rather suppres- 
 sion, concealment, or disguise. That which cannot be clearly, 
 intelligibly, and comprehensibly expressed in the English lang- 
 uage, is not an idea. He who has an idea deserving expres- 
 sion, and suppresses, conceals, or disguises it in a tedious 
 tangle of scholarly obscurity, offends in exact ratio with the art 
 and ingenuity manifest in his periphrase. He places Literature 
 under no legitimate debt of gratitude by exhibiting his skill at 
 confusion. The world owes him nothing for the privilege to 
 guess at the meaning of his learned enigma, or artistic ab- 
 strusity. 
 
 Apologetics is an im pertinency — from the concession it im- 
 pliedly makes of the plausibility of the opposites of its own 
 propositions. If such opposites have no plausibility there can 
 be no occasion for the argument. Apologetics strengthens its 
 imaginary opponent by useless, senseless, but necessarily im- 
 plied admissions; or worse, it weakens itself thereby in creat- 
 ing or supposing the occasion for argument; and in addition to 
 the disadvantage it thus gratuitously incurs, it generally pro- 
 ceeds so irregularly and illogically that its controversies become 
 learned squabbles, elucidating nothing, and settling less; of 
 which result Bishop Blougram's Apology is an illustrious 
 example. 
 
 I have carefully studied that learned vagary, and if it means 
 anything, 1 think I have discerned it; but before succeeding or 
 imagining 1 had succeeded, had it not been for the popularity 
 and prestige of its writer, I would have dismissed it in disgust, 
 as an unmeaning jumble of words. It were hazardous to so 
 declare of the masterpiece of a writer whose name gilds the 
 back of a volume in nearly every library of literary pretensions 
 within the range of the English language; so instead of making 
 the assertion, I proceed to inquire if it would be justified. 
 
 In view of the sanctity of its subject, the divine dignity of 
 its chief character, and the aristocratic pretensions of its writer, 
 a sensitive sense of propriety may be shocked at the frivolous 
 
222 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 irreverence with which such expressions as twiddlings, Giga- 
 dibs, body gets its sop, the deuce knows zvhat, try the cooler jug, 
 and nigh onto the imminent sneeze, are intermingled with such 
 as The Way, the Truth, the Life, What thinii ye of Christ? 
 ■^nd there's one great form of Christian faith. Still the cir- 
 cumstances supposed to have attended their supposed utter- 
 ance, are eminently in keeping with the maudlin mix, and the 
 frequency of the recurrence to the wine, the glass, the jug, and 
 the bald-headed decanter, might suggest even the hiccough. 
 
 A magazine correspondent was wined and dined by His 
 Holiness, and the claret seems to have been more potent to 
 loosen the Bishop's tongue, than to burnish his wit. He in- 
 sisted that his guest despised him, but was willing to divert 
 the disgust from himself to his priestly profession, and finally 
 that it might be assuaged to a respectful deprecation of the 
 ecclesiastical dignity, as an object unworthy a laudable and 
 lofty ambition. An analysis of this position shows the ruin- 
 ous disadvantage at which the poet places the Priest in the be- 
 ginning of an argument which is had solely that he may 
 triumph. 
 
 Argument necessarily implies discernment in the auditor 
 addressed, and to insist that he despises a profession is to assert 
 the plausibility of his reason lor so doing. To say that he does 
 so without reason, is to denounce him devoid of discernment, 
 impervious to reason, and hence unworthy the argumentative 
 attention. But having created and cancelled the occasion for 
 argument, the Priest proceeds to vindicate his choice of the 
 church, as suited to the most lively life, and the realization of 
 the highest and most commendable ambition. His improvised 
 opponent is only heard from vicariously and through the Priest 
 himself, who appears to restate the skeptic's arguments and 
 objections, and then proceed in reply. 
 
 Primarily, priest-craft is pecuniarily profitable, — the "hot 
 long ceremonies of the church cost a little, but they pay the 
 price;" money makes the spiritual as well as the secular mare 
 go. He had promised his skeptical guest that if he "would 
 watch a dinner out," the^ would see "truth that peeps over the 
 glass' edge when dinner's done and body gets its sop." When 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 22} 
 
 the clamors of hunger should be silenced with sop, truth would 
 dawn, — peep over the edge of a wine-glass. The spiritual 
 significance of the proposition is not apparent; but to the Poet 
 there may have been a mysterious edification in imagining the 
 Lord's lieutenant urging His cause and enforcing His precepts 
 from a sordid cupidity, and deriving inspiration from an 
 abdominal plethora, stimulated by the contents of a jug, a 
 wine-glass, or a bald-headed decanter, — truth peeping over 
 the glass' edge when body gets its sop. 
 
 The Priest, defining his skeptical guest's position, said, 
 "whatever more or less I boast of my ideal realized, is noth- 
 ing in the balance when opposed to your ideal, your grand 
 simple life, of which you will not realize one jot. " 
 
 The natural inference is that if his guest was not to realize 
 one jot of his ideal, the grand simple life, it must have been 
 because it was unattainable. This could not be very encour- 
 aging to the ambitious and hopeful votary to human improve- 
 ment. The advantage he claimed for his own ideal was its 
 practicability, its attainability ; but the factors most important 
 to both positions are ignored. The Priest's problem "is not to 
 fancy what were fair in life provided it could be, but, finding 
 first what may be, then find how to make it fair up to our 
 means." In other words, adjust and adapt one's self to the in- 
 superable fact one lives amidst. If by the argument it is in- 
 tended to furnish a formula for felicity, its own primal propo- 
 sition destroys it. If mere content, the control, regulation, and 
 suppression of desire is life's acme, the problem may be well 
 stated; and with persons of certain temperament, suitably dis- 
 ciplined and environed, it may be realized. But it is not a 
 mere play upon words to say that it is niany removes from 
 content to happiness; that both are mere relative and compara- 
 tive quantities ; and no possible standard for either of them can 
 be even imagined. Constitution, temperament, and purpose, 
 as varied, intensified, and modified, by educational prejudice 
 and environment, had fortuitously formed for the Priest his 
 ideal which he claimed could be realized. Equivalent factors 
 and influences operating perhaps ditterently on a man of dif- 
 
224 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ferent mould, had formed for his guest his ideal, of which the 
 Priest assured him he would not realize one jot. 
 
 Nothing is clearer than that there could be no absolute or 
 actual reality in either of them ; but that they each existed if at 
 all, in and for themselves respectively; and not otherwise nor 
 for persons of different mould. Neither of them could be 
 either praiseworthy or blameworthy for his ideal of life; nor in 
 any way responsible for it, any more than for life itself, or the 
 predicament in which he finds himself placed in life. The in- 
 dividual life may be happy, it may be merely content, it may 
 be wretched. In either case much is due to the constitution 
 and temperament of the individual. These may be modifiable 
 by education, possibly in some measure by self-education ; but 
 the individual is no more responsible for them in their original 
 type or character than for the color of his hair. Nor is he 
 wholly accountable for the intluences brought to bear on them, 
 accomplishing their modification. 
 
 His ideal of life, and the intensity with which he yearns to 
 realize it, are matters with which he has little if any more to do 
 than to have and suffer them. If his ideal is whimsical it 
 may be due to his inherent exuberance or enthusiasm of spirit. 
 His susceptibility to impressions admitting the kind offices of 
 adversity, reality's stern rebukes of his ideality may bring him 
 to a comparatively rational sense of life's possibilities and pro- 
 prieties; but these are his education. And even its effect upon 
 him depends in great measure upon his innate equalities, his 
 native constitution and temperament. 
 
 So the Priest's postulate, that the true ideal, — by which if he 
 meant anything to the purpose he must have meant one uni- 
 versally true, — is "no abstract intellectual plan of life c^uite irre- 
 spective of life's plainest laws, but one a man, who is a man 
 and nothing more, may lead within a world which is Rome or 
 London, and not Fools-paradise," may have been eminently 
 true and fitting for him, and egregiously false for his skeptical 
 guest. Nothing could be more foreign to my purpose than to 
 oppose an objection to educational proselytism, which is in 
 very truth the soul of all the progress, such as it is, that intel- 
 lect has made. But egotistic dogmatism, which too generally 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 22^ 
 
 prejudices proselytism, deserves the frown of every liberal 
 minded advocate of human rights and promoter of progress. 
 There is no man but is a man, and nothing more. His ideal of 
 human life is necessarily a man's ideal of the life of man. The 
 world may be Rome, London, or some other place to men of 
 some minds, and quite a different place, perhaps a Fools-para- 
 dise, to men of other minds; depending in great measure upon 
 the constitution and temperament of the man, as modified by 
 influences and circumstances over which he has no control. 
 
 The Priest's senseless simile of a six months ocean voyage 
 of a life is no more a fit illustration in regard to life's proprieties 
 and possibilities, than in point of uniformity of duration. All 
 on board on the supposed ocean voyage embark at once, 
 and when the voyage is ended they all land simultaneously. 
 There may be entire uniformity in equipment, accommodation 
 and privation. But life with its pleasures, pains, proprieties, 
 and possibilities, is as ample as space; and as variant as the 
 features of men, of which no two were ever known to be alike. 
 No two persons have ever sailed life's voyage in the same craft; 
 no agent's nor captain's mandate can limit a passenger thereon 
 to "six feet square." Some opinionated egotists, among 
 whom was the Poet's Priest, have attempted to do so, but 
 their voices are drowned in the rush and the roar of the flood 
 that sweeps them headlong to oblivion, leaving them the pre- 
 carious possibility of a momentary remembrance, in the breath 
 of the Poet who faintly echoes the helpless mandate of despair 
 to those about him. 
 
 The Priest proposes a faith, absolute, flxed, and flnal. 
 The proposition is a palpable solecism. It cannot appropriate- 
 ly be said "I absolutely and peremptorily believe." Belief is 
 only the counter term of doubt. Faith is only the opposite of 
 infidelity. Neither can be imagined without the other. Belief 
 is a mere state of mind, which cannot be imagined except in 
 contrast with unbelief. No faith, no belief, no state of mind, 
 can be conceived of as absolute, fixed, or final. Faith and 
 belief are the results of the operations of evidence upon the 
 mind. The mind must be susceptible to its impressions before 
 evidence can produce the result. As long as mind continues. 
 
226 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 it is Still susceptible to impressions. Stronger evidence, of a 
 kind contrary to that which produced the faith, may remove, 
 or at least disturb it; and that which may be disturbed may be 
 entirely removed and supplanted by its contrary. 
 
 To say that there is no stronger evidence than that which 
 has produced a certain f^iith, would be in line with the egotis- 
 tic assertion of apologetics, generally; but it would not be very 
 philosophical. It would be equivalent to saying there remains 
 nothing more to be learned. If there is more yet to be learned, 
 when it shall be learned, it may shake many of our idols from 
 their pedestals. It may confirm some prevalent faith ; depend- 
 ing largely on what shall be learned. To be absolute, a thing 
 must be complete within and of itself, unconditionally and 
 without relation to anything else. Faith cannot be so, because 
 it cannot be even imagined e.xcept in contrast with unbelief. 
 To be fixed a thing must be immovable. Faith cannot be so, 
 because it is produced by evidence more or less convincing; 
 and on the same principle, stronger contradictory evidence, 
 which for aught we know, may exist, and may yet be discov- 
 ered, would disturb and might remove the faith. And to say 
 that faith or any other state of mind is final, is to say that mind 
 has ceased its activity; that progress has ended by having cul- 
 minated in perfection, or at least, in its utmost possible attain- 
 ment. 
 
 If the world has existed for countless ages, all of which 
 have been characterized by some kind and degree of progress, 
 and many ages preceded the production of the proof upon 
 which any prestyit faith is based, it is more dogmatical than 
 philosophical to say that any faith can be final. Other faiths 
 have prevailed before the discovery of the evidence upon which 
 any present faith is based. Unless human nature has material- 
 ly changed, those antique faiths were based upon evidence 
 sufficiently convincing to establish and maintain them for a 
 time. There appears to be no reason to believe that human 
 nature has undergone so great a change as to justify the asser- 
 tion that such faiths prevailed without some evidence of their 
 validity. Whatever faith did prevail before the discovery of 
 the evidence upon which any subsequently prevailing faith was 
 
 J 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 227 
 
 established, must have been valid to those among whom it 
 did prevail — otherwise it could not have been a faith. And 
 even the Christian taith of nineteen centuries ago, (which was 
 but yesterday in time) is not valid in its entirety with all pro- 
 fessed Christians of to-day. it has become a coat of many 
 colors. The necessary result is, that if progress is to progress, 
 there can be no such thing as an absolute tlxed and final faith. 
 
 For the sake of the argument however, the Priest throws 
 overboard his dogmas, magnanimously meets his guest upon 
 his own ground, assumes that they are both unbelievers, and 
 proposes to establish the validity of the faith in a fair and bona 
 fide argument for the validity of the unbelief. His primary 
 and prime concern, is for some means by which the unbelief 
 may be turned to account. "Where's the gain .^ How can 
 we guard our unbelief, and make it bear fruit for us ?" The 
 bed-rock of his religion then is selfishness, personal interest. 
 If unbelief is a less profitable resource than faith, it is invalid. 
 The test of their respective claims to validity is their respective 
 capacity to contribute to the advantage of their adherents; and 
 the Priest would not believe even in his unbelief, unless he 
 could utilize it to his personal profit. 
 
 Then in the presence of and contemplating "this scene of 
 man" he says, "we look on helplessly, there the old mis'giv- 
 ings, crooked questions are, this good God — what he could do, 
 if he would, would, if he could — then must have done long 
 since. If so, when, where, and how .^ Some way must be, — • 
 once feel about, and soon or late you hit some sense, in which 
 it might be, after all. Why not the Way, the Truth, the Life .^" 
 This recalls the backwoods-man's argument that his hound 
 was a good hunter, — because he was worthless otherwise. 
 The sum of the argument is that the faith is valid because of 
 necessity it must be so. This is in line with the general argu- 
 ment of apologetics, and if the faith has no more validity than 
 such argument, its adherents may reasonably be expected to 
 be a "little flock, despised few." Assuming the attitude of an 
 unbeliever, and then assuming the existence, the power, and 
 the goodness of "this good God," is assuming both sides of 
 the controversy ; and the reasonable result of the reasoning can 
 
228 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 be little if anything more than "the grand Perhaps." An un- 
 believer cannot admit, much less assert the existence, power, 
 and goodness of "this good God;" to do so he becomes a be- 
 liever, he has faith the validity of v/hich the Priest proposes to 
 prove from the premise of unbelief. 
 
 The Priest, professing to argue from the unbeliever's pre- 
 mise, says "all we have gained then by our unbelief, is a life 
 of doubt diversified by faith, for one of faith diversified by 
 doubt. * * * 1 know the special kind of life 1 like, what 
 suits the most my idiosyncrasy, brings out the best of me and 
 bears me fruit, in power, peace, pleasantness, and length of 
 days. 1 find that positive belief does this, for me, and unbe- 
 lief no whit of this." it is difficult to understand how posi- 
 tive belief, "conclusive and exclusive in its terms," can be di- 
 versified by doubt; or how a candid argument from the pre- 
 mise of unbelief, can turn in favor of belief on considerations of 
 personal profit, such as power, peace, pleasantness, and length 
 of days; or how a special kind of life, or an idiosvncrasy can 
 be an apt illustration in arguing a question whose application 
 is to be universal. If the faith is a positive and not a negative 
 quantity, the fact that it and its special kind of life were suited 
 to the Priest's idiosyncrasy, is almost a conclusive argument 
 agarnst the validity of the faith for mankind in general, it 
 might be well suited to his personal peculiarities (amounting 
 to idiosyncrasy) and have no validity whatever for persons of 
 a different mould, and of different previous condition. And 
 the generality of mankind must be of a different mould from 
 him, or his would not be an idiosyncrasv. 
 
 Amid the maze of metaphor the Priest occasionallv makes a 
 palpable hit, conspicuous among which is his allusion to the 
 determination of unbelief to be unhappy on life's voyage unless 
 on its own peculiar ideal of the proprieties and possibilities of 
 life's voyage. Determined to be happv in its own way or not 
 at all, when disgruntled unbelief finds itself cramped to "six 
 feet square" and obliged to dispense v/ith its imagined con- 
 veniences, it stubbornly refuses the comfort which it might 
 have, if it would gracefully conform to the inevitable; it egotis- 
 tically prefers its opinion, its "artist-nature," to content, com- 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 22(^ 
 
 fort, or happiness measured by any other standard. But he is 
 then simply reasoning in a circle, and comes back to a primary 
 question, — What is, or what makes happiness ? It may be 
 one thing to one man; and quite a different thing to another 
 man. 
 
 From his peculiar constitution and temperament, his inher- 
 ent characteristics and idiosyncrasies, the unbeliever may be 
 happier, or nearer happy, or more content, maintaining his 
 ideal, than in attempting to utilize the resources available for 
 the happiness, content, or comfort of the believer. Perhaps 
 proving his artist-nature may be more agreeable to him than 
 all the cabin-comforts of the voyage enjoyed by the believer. 
 This is purely a question of taste, and taste is as variant as any 
 other characteristic of man. 
 
 in addition to the truckling servility which is fundamental 
 to all apologetics, the Priest exhibits a cowardly courage in his 
 faith, and a dissembling honesty in his constancy. He says, 
 "If once we choose belief, on all accounts we can't be too de- 
 cisive in our faith, conclusive and exclusive in its terms, to 
 suit the world which gives us the good things. In every man's 
 career are certain points whereon he dare not be indifferent; 
 the world detects him clearly if he dare, as baffled at the game 
 and losing life." If this means anything it is a proposition to 
 serve both God and Mammon, not daring to be indifferent on 
 certain points in one's career for fear of being detected by the 
 world. Interest, personal profit, cupidity, inspire a sublime 
 sort of faith, to be sustained by the hope of, and rewarded by 
 receiving, the good things which the world gives; and a pious 
 fraud is to be perpetrated upon the world, lest it withhold the 
 good things. 
 
 The believer would seem to be in a very delicate position, — 
 being under the surveillance of the world in his service of the 
 Lord. But the proposition is worse than senseless. Man can- 
 not choose either belief or unbelief. If that which he calls his 
 faith is such from mere choice it cannot be belief; really it can- 
 not be faith. Man cannot avoid being born; he cannot avoid 
 being born with certain predilections; he cannot avoid being 
 constituted as he is constitued. If he were not susceptible to 
 
230 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 impressions he would not be a man. If he could determine for 
 himself how he would be affected by impressions, or how he 
 would be impressed, he would not be a man, such a man as 
 was ever yet known. If he could determine for himself to what 
 influences he should be exposed, he would be more than a 
 man. Belief is a state of mind, caused by the operation of 
 something external thereto upon the mind. Man has nothing 
 whatever to do with the nature of his mind. He cannot, in 
 this world at least, avoid being exposed to the influences of ex- 
 ternal agencies, nor can he, without being able to change the 
 nature of his mind, determine how his mind shall be affected 
 by such influences. They may force him to believe or disbe- 
 lieve, utterly regardless of choice — and there can be no choos- 
 ing belief. The Priest happening to be born in "one great form 
 of Christian faith," which as he grew up was given him to 
 teach, "as best and readiest means of living by," and "proved 
 the most pronounced moreover, fixed, precise, and absolute 
 form of faith in the whole world — accordingly the most potent 
 of all forms for working on the world;" and his tact to let ex- 
 ternal forces work on him ; had exalted him above his fellows 
 in the world and made his life "an ease, a joy, and pride." It 
 would be difficult to imagine a baser motive for advocating a 
 doctrine, or a more convincing argument against the validity of 
 a faith. Happening to be born in this great form of Christian 
 faith, he divests himself of all possible claim of merit by adopt- 
 ing and teaching it from motives of sordid interest. If the faith 
 had made him what he was, or if by its means he was enabled 
 to make himself what he was, nothing could be more deleter- 
 ious to the general welfare than the prevalence of such faith. 
 A more grovelling appetite seldom incites men to physical 
 action, to say nothing of inspiring the exercise of faith; a more 
 despicably self-complacent egotism is seldom if ever combined 
 with so contemptible a servility to public opinion; and if such 
 a faith is "the most potent of all forms for working on the 
 world," it is the most stupenduous of all frauds, and bodes no 
 good to mankind. 
 
 The Priest chiefly censures his skeptical guest for his sesthe- 
 tical ideal of life ; and boasts for himself a more practical ideal ; 
 
 J 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 23 1 
 
 that he takes life as he finds it; that he utilizes life for all it is 
 worth in personal comfort and the gratification of temporal de- 
 sires; and argues that the more economically he husbands his 
 resources for, and the more scrupulously he complies with the 
 conditions of physical welfare in the present, — the more he is 
 assured of being in line with the conditions of spiritual welfare 
 in the future. But in no one expression of thought does he 
 rise above a beggarly desire, or sensual appetite, nor appear to 
 be actuated by a motive above an absorbing self-interest. The 
 advocacy of good for its own sake is not hinted at, unless it is 
 denounced in rejecting his skeptical guest's ideal, "the grand 
 simple life;" of which not one jot should be realized. Slavish 
 fear and sordid interest are the body and soul of the apology. 
 If they dignify and ennoble a life, embellish a character, or 
 justify a faith, the apology may have a meaning lurking some- 
 where amid the labyrinths of its scholarly obscurity; otherwise 
 it is an unmeaning jumble of words. 
 
 in apologetics it is generally claimed that creation is meant 
 to manifest the Creator. But the Priest makes a new depart- 
 ure, saying it is "meant to hide him all it can," that "under a 
 vertical sun, the exposed brain and lidless eye and disem pris- 
 oned heart less certainly would wither up at once, than mind 
 confronted with the truth of Him." 
 
 If this be true, the Lord has very elaborately and conspicu- 
 ously concealed Himself. If mind confronted by the truth of 
 Him would so certainlv wither up at once, it should cease its 
 speculations concerning Him, because in some of its specula- 
 tions it has compassed some very vast truths; and it may ulti- 
 mately (if there comes an ultimate) be confronted with the 
 truth of Him. 
 
 Here then is a predicament. The universal aim of Apolo- 
 getics is to confront mind with the truth (knowledge) of the 
 Creator, "whom to know aright is life eternal." It never pre- 
 tends to have any other aim, and no other object is legitimately 
 possible. If that would be destructive to mind, if mind con- 
 fronted with the truth of him would so certainlv wither up at 
 once, then the only possibly legitimate office of apologetics is 
 an illegitimate office, unless the destruction of mind is a legiti- 
 
2^2 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 mate purpose. Professing to work for the weal of man. striv- 
 ing to bring iiim into closer relations with his Maker, in more 
 harmonious accord with Him; to a higher conception of Him; 
 to a clearer understanding and knowledge of Him ; and yet de- 
 claring such knowledge ruinous, — that mind confronted there- 
 with would wither up at once. The expression is utterly with- 
 out meaning; it is a senseless figure of speech. 
 
 The predicament is even worse than this. Creation is man- 
 ifestly the work of the Creator, it cannot be creation unless 
 created by a Creator. No one can know that he is in creation 
 without in some measure contemplating creation; and the con- 
 templation of creation as creation, necessarily suggests, in some 
 measure shows, the Creator. All phenomena, from the faint 
 glimmer of the glow-worm to the vivid flash of fork lighten- 
 ing, from the soft sigh of the zephyr to the terrible roar of the 
 tempest; from the dullest physical sensation to the trickling of 
 philosophy from the point of a pen, send forth a voice ; in short 
 from all conceivable phenomena, in, of, or incident to creation, 
 there comes a voice declaring the Creator. That voice comes 
 to man, who is by the Creator so constituted in and as a part 
 of creation that he cannot possibly reject or mistake it. 
 
 Then "the blessed evil" is not meant to hide the Creator all 
 it can, but to declare Him ; more clearly perhaps to some men 
 than others, but no minds have yet withered up from being 
 "confronted with the truth of Him." Perhaps no mind has yet 
 been confronted with the whole truth of Him; and possibly no 
 mind is capable of taking or enduring it if it were confronted 
 with the whole truth of Him. But a significant indication of 
 the infinite possibilities of the human mind is its utter helpless- 
 ness to define or estimate its own capacity. No mind ever 
 knew so much that it could not take more. If it is impossible 
 for a mind to ascertain the limit of its own capacity, how can 
 it know, and with what propriety can it say, that being con- 
 fronted with the whole truth of the Creator would cause it to 
 wither up at once. 
 
 It were idle to even glance at his minor musings, in an 
 attempt to ascertain one's real merit as a poet. And if he has 
 assumed the airs and proportions of a philosopher, it is not 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 2^} 
 
 likely that his philosophical masterpiece has been intentionally 
 rendered in interior poetry. Whatever else may be intended 
 in the obscurity from which the above examined propositions 
 are taken, it is certain that they cannot be interpreted and un- 
 derstood otherwise than as 1 have presented them; unless 
 language is better calculated to conceal and disguise, than to 
 express thought. Having candidly examined the philosophy 
 with the results above given, it were sufficient to say of the 
 poetry, that it is very evenly matched with the philosophy. It 
 would not mend matters to say that the conclusion of the 
 apology indicates that the Priest had been toying with his 
 guest, not believing nor intending for him to believe what he 
 said ; no more than to say he did not understand or expect his 
 guest to understand it. Either subterfuge would only render 
 the outrage on literature the more revolting. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 
 
 Elaboration of Preludes to Literary Productions — indefinite Impulse to Write — 
 Verifying Inspiration in Reason — Philosopliy Rises no Higher than Proba- 
 bility — Pleasure in Being Duped — The Reverence Due to Man — Economy 
 of the Process by which Destiny is Reached — Destiny of iMan Hanging 
 Upon Individuals — Individuals Mere Instrumentalities — The Most Myster- 
 ious the Most Easily Discernible — Man's Weakness Due to his Mistrust 
 — If Evidence Divine were Credible to Man he Would Trust — Constitution, 
 Environment, Duty, and Destmy — Self-restraint, an Unreasonable Re- 
 quirement — Defying the Reason whose Sanction was to be Obtained — 
 Reason cannot Live in the Altitudes to which the Imagination Soars. 
 
 It seems there would he a logical propriety and fitness in 
 leading up to and through a literary product in such manner, 
 and by such gradations, as to render the consummation an in- 
 telligible and natural result of the process. A direct exhibition 
 of the gist of a matter may surprise one, agreeably or other- 
 wise, but the ultimate effect is not likely to be so beneficial as 
 where it is regularly unfolded and developed as the necessary 
 sequence of valid premises intelligibly proposed. This of 
 course is upon the hypothesis that there be a comprehensible 
 gist of the matter susceptible of being so proposed. But even 
 then such considerations would not justify amplifying the in- 
 troductory or prefatory parts into proportions more elaborate 
 than those of the performance proper. 
 
 Where there is no definite gist of the matter, and the per- 
 formance purports to be poetico-philosophical, consisting of 
 two parts of nearly equal dimension which are themselves 
 subdivided into several parts, it matters not how natural their 
 succession, nor how fascinating any of the parts may appear, 
 if each is in itself incomplete, and the whole does not present a 
 definite and intelligible philosophy, it can be but little if any 
 more than mere vagary; brilliant, perhaps in some of its flashes, 
 profound, possibly in some of its propositions; but still, as a 
 whole, mere vagary. 
 
 If an apologetic excursionist preludes his excursion in four- 
 teen acts, and then performs the excursion itself in nine, he 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 2}^ 
 
 will have introduced himself with ceremony sufficiently elabo- 
 rate for the performance of the principal part of the piece. 
 Then if in presenting the excursion itself, he takes the specta- 
 tor through a variety of scenes, beautiful, touching, and inspir- 
 ing, and finally leaves him just where he found him — while 
 the spectator may have been royally entertained, he will not 
 have been benefited philosophically — ^he may be more annoyed 
 with disappointment in the result than pleased with the enter- 
 tainment of the excursion. 
 
 It appears that in performing the Prelude and Excursion the 
 impulse "to construct a literary work that might live" was 
 much stronger than the Poet's sense of necessity or propriety 
 of treating any particular subject in any particular manner. 
 After naming numerous themes he had considered, and from 
 among which he was unable to select a subject suitable for his 
 contemplated v/ork that might live, he says: — ■ 
 
 "My last and favorite aspiration mounts 
 With yearning towards some philosophic song 
 Of truth that cherishes our daily life; 
 With meditations passionate from deep 
 Recesses in man's heart, immortal verse 
 Thoughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre; 
 But from this awful burthen 1 full soon 
 Take refuge and beguile myself with trust 
 That mellower years will bring a riper mind 
 And clearer insight. Thus my days are past 
 In contradiction; with no skill to part 
 Vague longing, haply bred by want of power, 
 From paramount impulse not to be withstood." 
 
 This has at least the merit of candor. And while the pieces 
 contain some consummate poetry, one would infer from the 
 above quotation that the poetry was the product of impulse 
 rather than that of inspiration, that the poet was oppressed 
 with a vague longing for some subject to adorn with the flow- 
 ers of poetry, and with an irresistible impulse to write, and 
 that he lacked the skill to part the longing from the impulse, 
 if the result of his effort philosophically considered is the cor- 
 rect criterion, he was not happy in his choice of a subject. 
 The impulse and the last and favorite aspiration forced him to 
 
236 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 adopt a theme, his treatment of which has badly blemished 
 some very pretty pastorals. And ethically considered the poet 
 has placed himself at a serious disadvantage. No matter what 
 his impulses and aspirations may be, he has no right to be 
 heard unless he has something to say, which he cannot have 
 without knowing what it is, or at least what it concerns. An 
 irresistible impulse to write something that might live, unat- 
 tended with any idea of what it should be or concern, is simply 
 a malignant type of the itch for fame. Having no definite and 
 intelligible idea of some specific subject his treatment of which 
 would be beneficial to mankind, he was under no obligation to 
 goad his genius to any extraordinary exertions. If one yields 
 to a blind impulse to write, harries himself in the selection of a 
 subject, and finally chooses one merely because he thinks that 
 by its treatment he will be most likely to immortalize himself, 
 he is not actuated by a disinterested sense of duty, and acquires 
 no valid claim to the gratitude of mankind. His motives are 
 essentially selfish ; and while he may master the art of poetic 
 ornamentation, a man capable of such motives is not likely to 
 be of calibre sufficient for the construction of a philosophy. 
 Then if he spends five years writing a Prelude to show the de- 
 velopement of his own mind, states particularly how he was 
 impressed with the sight of every object he had seen, and the 
 sound of every noise he had heard from the dawn of his mem- 
 ory, and concludes by announcing himself a Prophet of Nature, 
 and promising to "speak a lasting inspiration, sanctified by 
 reason, blest by faith," his superficial reader may be prepared 
 to expect the Quintessence of a Life-philosophy. The one 
 who reads between the lines and to the bottom of things, will 
 not be so sanguine. 
 
 There is no more objection to the finest style and most 
 beautiful form of expression in philosophy, than in any other 
 department of letters. But one could scarcely claim to have 
 fulfilled an engagement to speak a lasting inspiration sanctified 
 by reason and blest by faith, by having merely described some 
 pastoral scenes, some rural life, some rustic manners, some 
 common-place anecdotes, and rehearsed some unphilosophic 
 colloquy; no matter how beautiful the poetry in which it may 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 237 
 
 all be rendered. And the reader of the work of such preten- 
 sions as are necessarily implied in such promise, ought not to 
 allow himself to be blinded to a total absence of philosophy by 
 the beauty and profusion of its poetry. Nor should he oyer- 
 look the palpable contradiction in the promise itself If the 
 lasting inspiration is, as it purports to be, of something divine, 
 it may be blest by faith, but it can never be sanctified by rea- 
 son. Religion and Reason will mix no more than fire and frost. 
 
 Reason can aspire to or affect an equality with Religion (or 
 with divine wisdom) with about the same propriety as that 
 with which man can aspire to or affect an equality with his 
 Maker. Much less can reason sanctify or verify a product of 
 divine inspiration. Reason is the peculiar attribute of man, as 
 instinct is that of the brute, and as divine wisdom (if it is) is 
 tnatofthe Almighty. Those who have composed what zve 
 call holy writ, under what they call divine inspiration, have 
 never sought to have any of their lasting inspiration sanctified 
 or verified by reason; but on the contrary they expressly dis- 
 claim all reliance upon the wisdom of this world. Generally 
 they say "thus saith the Lord;" and if they are correct in this, 
 their lasting inspiration is sufficiently sanctified and verified 
 without recourse to reason. Indeed it would be extremely 
 illogical for the higher to appeal to the lower for sanctiflcation 
 or verification, in anything being propounded. Unless the 
 human mind approaches nearer to an equality with the infinite 
 wisdom of the Almighty, than the sensory capacity of brutes 
 approaches to an equality with the human mind, there could 
 be no more propriety in attempting to sanctify or verify a last- 
 •ing inspiration by human reason, than there could be in at- 
 tempting to verify a human philosophy by brute instinct. We 
 certainly have no right to assume that the distance from man 
 to brute is greater than that from man to his Maker. 
 
 No human philosophy has ever risen above probability. 
 New ones are constantly appearing, supplanting older ones, 
 because of their supposed nearer approach to probability. 
 Philosophy is simply the mind's deduction (by reasoning) from 
 the data of observable phenomena, of whatever kind. Reason 
 has performed the highest possible function of its office, when 
 
238 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 it has produced a philosophy approaching as nearly as may be 
 to the probable; and it will be likely to overreach itself when- 
 ever it offers to sanctify, verify, or vouch for the validity of any 
 divine inspiration. No human philosophy has ever yet ap- 
 peared, but a better one was possible, and generally soon there- 
 after made its appearance. They are mile-stones in the march 
 of Intellect, marking its progress, — toward what ? Toward 
 Certainty ? Perhaps not, but certainly toward greater proba- 
 bility. This progress began with the first linking of one 
 thought with another in the earliest cognitions of primeval 
 man. it will continue as long as the organs of thought remain 
 constituted as they now are. Reason has never done anything 
 better or greater than to construct a system of philosophy, 
 except it were to construct another of a higher degree of proba- 
 bility. It must show a greater capacity than that, a capacity 
 that cannot be exceeded, before it can with propriety offer to 
 sanctify or verify a lasting inspiration. The greatest known 
 works of reason are its philosophies, which have been con- 
 stantly improving (changing) ever since the dawn of history. 
 This implies a corresponding improvement (development, 
 change) of the reason itself The reason of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury might sanctity an inspiration, which (the changed) the 
 better developed reason of the twentieth century would be 
 obliged to reject. 
 
 Some of the matter of the lasting inspiration will scarcely 
 ever be sanctified or verified by enlightened reason. The Poet 
 takes a singular solace in the fact that in early life, while 
 receiving the impressions that moulded his ultimate opinion of 
 mankind, he had been gratefully imposed upon. He aptly ■ 
 illustrates the cynical saw that all happiness consists in being 
 well deceived; and, thanking the Almighty for the delusion, 
 he says, — 
 
 "From the restraint of overwat:hful eyes 
 Preserved, I moved about, year after year, 
 Happy, and now most thankful that my walk 
 Was guarded from too early intercourse 
 With the deformities of crowded life. 
 And those ensuing laughters and contempts 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 239 
 
 Self pleasing, which, if we would wish to think 
 With due reverence ol earth's rightful lord, 
 Here placed to be the inheritor of heaven, 
 Will not permit us." 
 
 What reverence is due earth's rightful lord, the inheritor of 
 heaven ? And how is it known to be his due ? Is it by ignor- 
 ance of the facts relating to him? The Excursionist seems to 
 think that in order "to think with due reverence of earth's right- 
 ful lord," we must not know too much about him. If "the 
 proper study of mankind is man," he must be so studied as to 
 learn as little as possible of him. What reasonable indication 
 is there that earth's rightful lord is the inheritor of heaven } 
 That he is, is an essential proposition in the lasting inspiration, 
 which the Poet assures us'shall be sanctified by reason. If it is 
 true, that the more we know of man, the less the reverence 
 with which we can think of him, it would not be very reason- 
 able that he should be the inheritor of heaven, unless heaven 
 is a very different heritage from what the apologists generally 
 seem to regard it. Reason refuses to even ratifv, much less 
 sanctify, that part of the lasting inspiration. 
 
 Due reverence is manifestly that reverence to which one 
 may be entitled ; either more or less than which would not be 
 due reverence. Earth's rightful lord is entitled to reverence, if 
 at all, in exact ratio with his virtue. If to know him better 
 requires us to think of him with less reverence, it must be 
 because by knowing him better, we find him less virtuous. 
 We can still think of him with all the reverence to which we 
 find him entitled, which is due reverence, even if it be none 
 whatever. This we can do much more intelligently and 
 reasonably than we can think of him with reverence without 
 knowing him, or with knowing only the best side of him. So 
 that reason, instead of sanctifying, or even ratifying, that part 
 of the lasting inspiration which inspires a blind reverence for 
 earth's rightful lord, necessarily repudiates it. Reason refuses 
 to sanctify or verify that part of the lasting inspiration by which 
 we are informed that earth's rightful lord is here placed to be 
 the inheritor of heaven. When .he is first placed here he may 
 be universally fit to inherit heaven ; but he is not here long until 
 
240 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 nine out of ten of him are almost unfit to inherit or inhabit 
 earth. Reason would scarcely sanctify such economy as this. 
 If he is placed here to inherit heaven, why not place him in 
 heaven in the start ? He is placed here, and he does not place 
 himself here. Orthodoxy sends such an overwhelming major- 
 ity of him to perdition ; that it would seem that such was the 
 purpose of his being here placed. If man is intended to be an 
 inheritor of heaven, reason would neither sanctify the taking of 
 the circuitous and dangerous route by which Orthodoxy claims 
 he must reach there, nor the sending of so great a majority of 
 him to the other place. Apologetics is universally an attempt 
 to verify a religious doctrine by some kind of appeal to reason, 
 and it universally and necessarily fails. Man may have been 
 here placed to be the inheritor of heaven. He cannot kiio-d' 
 anything about it. The doctrine that he is here placed for such 
 purpose, cannot be sanctified by reason, until reason is itself 
 reconstructed. Reason would take a short cut to results, and 
 place man in heaven at first, or at least would not place him 
 where so vast a majority must fail to reach heaven. Apologet- 
 ics supposes that man is placed here by a Being of infinite wis- 
 dom and irresistible power, of infinite love for the creature He 
 has so placed here, and that His purpose was and is that man 
 shall inherit heaven. Infinite and irresistible power cannot be 
 matched or withstood by any other power. Infinite love 
 loves through all time and eternity, and the purpose of such a 
 Being cannot be thwarted by any other being. A being of 
 such power and love, if He had such purpose and was infinitely 
 wise, would not inculcate in man, the object of His love, the 
 tendencies that cause him to thwart such purpose. Reason at 
 once proclaims the invalidity of any appeal to herself to verify 
 anv religious tenet. If man is placed here by such a Being for 
 such a purpose, apologetics is at least idle, because the purpose 
 of such a Being as is supposed so to have placed man here, 
 will certainly be fulfilled to the very uttermost. It is absurd to 
 suppose that any other power would be permitted to contra- 
 vene such purpose. It is absurd to suppose that a Being of 
 infinite wisdom, power, and love, would create a creature He 
 loved with such love, and which he created that it might in- 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 24 I 
 
 herit heaven, and then allow him to fail of the purpose. Rea- 
 son at once proclaims, that if man was the creature of such 
 Power or Being when created, endowed, and environed, he 
 remains the creature of such Power or Being; and that he can- 
 not of himself, nor of any other being, have any tendency de- 
 leterious to the purpose of his Creator in his creation. On the 
 hypothesis that apologetics is not idle (or worse) reason can 
 never sanction or verify the proposition that man is here placed 
 by the Almighty, to be the inheritor of heaven. If he is so 
 placed by such a Being for such a purpose, the officious aid ot 
 apologetics is not essential to the consummation of the purpose. 
 While the poet was preparing himself for his great under- 
 taking, he spent some time in France. Witnessing the disor- 
 der of her revolution, and noticing how the multitude was 
 occasionally wrought, and how it appeared to be swayed by 
 individual power he says : — 
 
 "I resolved 
 
 How much the destiny of man had still 
 
 Hung upon single persons." 
 
 This with the tifty-two lines next following it, would be a 
 beautiful sermon in philosophy if it were sound. Indeed it is 
 beautiful to read if one does not linger and look too closely. 
 But it assumes philosophic airs, and its philosophic import is 
 not so apparent as its poetic ornamentation. So one must 
 linger if he expects to get the philosophy, and when he shall 
 have done so he will find he has not gotten the philosophy 
 simply because there is none in it. When and in what sense 
 has the destiny of man ever hung upon single persons ? The 
 inhabitants of the Dutch fiat who were saved by the boy that 
 held the Ocean at bay with his hand in the incipient leak in the 
 dyke; the garrison who were saved by the young gunner 
 spreading his coat and throwing himself over the open powder 
 barrel; the passengers and crew who walked down the plank 
 while Bledsoe burned to death holding the boat to the shore; 
 would all have been lost but for the heroism of the otherwise 
 unknown individuals who threw themselves into the breach. 
 But one would scarcely expect a philosopher, constructing a 
 
242 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. . 
 
 system of moral philosophy, lo cite such instances as illustra- 
 tions of the destiny of Man hanging upon individuals. It is 
 very difficult to conceive in what sense he meant that the 
 destiny of Man had so hung; but in what purports to be a 
 moral philosophy the inference is that the destiny of Man moral 
 and intellectual would be intended. Instances of such hanging 
 are very rare. Indeed there would seem to be no such thing 
 supposable as a destiny of moral and intellectual Man in dis- 
 cernible outline so as to be recognizable as such. While there 
 is much in common among men, yet as moral and intellectual 
 beings, there is too much individuality among them for them 
 to be appropriately summed up in a mass, aggregation, or 
 whole, and denominated Man. If the philosopher speaks of 
 Man moral and intellectual, he speaks of that which appears to 
 be more a condition, quality, or state, than an entity in and of 
 itself. Man of to-day is identical with, or a reproduction of, 
 Man of the earliest known antiquity, except morally and intel- 
 lectually ; and however different they may be, the difference is 
 only in condition, quality and state. The infinitude of variety 
 is, however, apparent, when one reflects that of all the millions 
 of minds which have been no two were ever known to be 
 alike. They approach most nearly to a resemblance in the very 
 fact of their difference, — in the persistence of their individuality. 
 The destinies of men moral and intellectual have hung upon 
 Man, as constituting or affecting their several environments. 
 The individual born into the world with the usual blank tablet 
 called a brain, and a voltaic battery called a heart, will crystal- 
 ize according as he lands and lodges on the Tigris or on the 
 Thames, in Pekin or in Paris. The impressions upon the tab- 
 let, and the elements charging the battery, are matters over 
 which he has no control ; but according to his native constitu- 
 tion and temperament (also matters over which he has no con- 
 trol) they make him individually the man moral and intellectual 
 which he becomes; and while the agencies are in many in- 
 stances the same or precisely alike, the results of their opera- 
 tions never are, because the subjects to be affected by them are 
 never precisely alike. The destiny of the individual is much 
 more dependent upon Man among whom his lines are cast, 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 243 
 
 than the destiny of Man can ever J3e upon the individual. 
 Were it retorted that individuals have flashed like meteors 
 athwart a midnight cloud, lighted up the storm and wrought 
 revolutions, the answer is obvious. They have done no such 
 thing. Occasionally they have voiced a common prayer or a 
 prevalent but theretofore suppressed sentiment, about to break 
 out in expression from mere accretion of force. Occasionally 
 by keen foresight, but more often by main strength and awk- 
 wardness (assurance and accident) they have anticipated the 
 course of a gathering storm, and have found themselves wafted 
 to unexpected success and enduring fame on the crest of the 
 foremost waves of an irresistible tide of public opinion. In 
 such case the destiny of the individual has hung upon Man; 
 but I think history furnishes no instance of the destiny of Man 
 having hung upon the individual, — that is the destiny of Man 
 moral and intellectual. 
 
 Individuals are often the recognized instruments of a force in 
 the achievement of ends, but the force is not theirs; it is seldom 
 if ever under their control or even guidance. It appears to 
 emanate from the masses of Man whose destiny is being 
 shaped or affected by the manifestation of the force. What 
 could Luther have done with the (for centuries) settled con- 
 victions of continental Catholicism, if the great masses had not 
 already become disgusted with, and incensed against the 
 putrid priesthood and infallable imposture of mediaeval Papacy ? 
 
 The philosopher seems to have observed ''that there was, 
 transcendent to all local patrimony, one nature, as there is one 
 sun in heaven." What is local patrimony? Possibly it is 
 inherited tendency, sentiment, or characteristic, as modified by 
 the influences of location and environment. Patrimony implies 
 inheritance, and local would seem to modify it in some meas- 
 ure with relation to place. The phrase may mean much, but 
 it is very obscure. If it means inherited quality as modified by 
 place and environment, which is as probable as any construc- 
 tion that can be made, there may be one nature transcendent 
 to all local patrimony, "'as there is one sun in heaven." The 
 parallel and philosophical significance are not apparent. The 
 one nature is mentioned in terms so exclusive as to imply that 
 
244 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 there is but one, and if this is true the phrase "all local patri- 
 mony, implying many and different patrimonies, becomes a 
 contradiction. Patrimony must be an effect or result of nature, 
 and if nature is transcendent, locality cannot so affect an inher- 
 ited quality, what ever it may be, as to make patrimonies of 
 patrimony. If the nature mentioned is the existing system and 
 established order and course of things, the connection of cause 
 and effect, it may well be regarded as transcendent to all else; 
 but in such case there could be but little if any variety in patri- 
 mony. It is impossible to imagine a difference in the princi- 
 ples and effects of gravitation as due to a difference in local- 
 ity. The workings of a far subtler force in nature, indeed an 
 unnamable force, would be proportionately more difficult to 
 apprehend; so much so that if there are degrees of impossibil- 
 ity, it would be by so much the more impossible to imagine a 
 difference in patrimony. Perhaps the philosopher meant, and 
 was consoling himself with the reflection, that transcendent to 
 all provincial and acquired tendency to evil, there is an ulti- 
 mate principle and universal sense of justice, curbing excess 
 before it becomes universally and finally fatal. But that would 
 imply a very great stolidity of temperament, or a dense and 
 obtuse optimism for a poet. 
 
 He seems further to have observed, "that objects, even as 
 they are great, thereby do come within the reach of humblest 
 eyes." It would not be very complimentary to one assuming 
 his dignity and proportions, to suppose that he intended such 
 a proposition to be taken literally; that he meant merely to 
 state the optical truism that larger objects are more easily visi- 
 ble than smaller ones. Such a statement so intended would 
 scarcely be found in such connection in such philosophy. No 
 matter how eiToneous the proposition may be, the character of 
 the work and the connection in which the words are found, 
 force one to the conclusion that they were intended as a figur- 
 ative assertion, that mysteries in nature are by their own great- 
 ness, made more easily solvable, — that in proportion with their 
 own profundity they are more and more easily discernible. 
 Any other construction supposes the philosopher puerilely 
 prattling. The only construction consistent with the dignity 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 245 
 
 of the philosopher and his undertaking, with the gravity of the 
 subject, and with the drift of the paragraph in which the clause 
 is found, seems to be the one which I have supposed ; and so 
 understood the proposition is essentially erroneous. The 
 humblest vision (capacity) could comprehend all nature, time, 
 space, and the purposes and plans of Providence (the pro- 
 pounder of all mystery) if by their greatness objects were 
 brought within the reach of humblest eyes. Indeed there 
 would then be no mvstery; but the more mysterious, the 
 plainer would all things appear. There are but two horns to 
 this dilemma, — take one, and the philosopher is a puerile prat- 
 tler, — take the other, and he is a fallacious philosopher. Other- 
 wise his meaning is hopelessly hidden. 
 
 He seems further to have observed "that Man is only weak 
 through his mistrust and want of hope where evidence divine 
 proclaims to him that hope should be most sure." Weakness 
 is merely a relative or comparative quality or quantity, it is 
 the essential antithesis of strength, and neither of them can be 
 supposed except in relation to or contrast or comparison with 
 the other. Hope would have to make Man infinitely and abso- 
 lutely strong to remove all his weakness, and no such thing as 
 infinite and absolute strength can be imagined. No degree of 
 either weakness or strength can be imagined as the utmost. 
 It cannot be true that man is only weak through his mistrust 
 and want of hope, because all the strength which they could 
 give him, and all the weakness that they could remove from 
 him, would leave him still weak. Worse than this, Man can 
 neither trust nor hope, without some measure of doubt and 
 anxiety. Perhaps one of the worst weaknesses of philosophy 
 is the absoluteness with which it declares its dogmas, — such 
 for instance as that evidence divine proclaims to Man that hope 
 should be most sure. What is this evidence divine ? and how 
 is it communicated or proclaimed to man ? Assertion is one 
 thing, — philosophic reasoning is quite another. If that which 
 is knozcii to be evidence divine should proclaim to Man that 
 hope should be most sure where he mistrusts and despairs, 
 and thereby only makes himself weak, he would believe it; he 
 would trust and hope, and thereby become strong. If such 
 
246 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 evidence, though not known to be divine, so proclaims to 
 Man, and he does not so believe it as to trust and hope and 
 thereby become strong, it must be because it does not recom- 
 mend itself to him as such evidence, or as being in itself very 
 convincing. If it is evidence divine, and if its proclamation to 
 Man is for the purpose of inspiring him with trust and hope 
 and thereby making him strong, it should be presented or pro- 
 claimed in its convincing form so as to have the desired effect. 
 If Man even then should remain weak, evidence divine is only 
 wasting itself proclaiming anything whatever to him. Man 
 universally prefers strength to weakness. If any one does not 
 so choose it must be because the same Power which authenti- 
 cates the evidence divine, also made him in such manner that 
 he does not so choose. If evidence divine does so proclaim to 
 Man, it is apparent that the proclamation does not quite reach 
 him in the authoritative tones of divine Power. That it fails of 
 such effect may be due to Man's peculiar make-up, but Divine 
 Power ought certainly to know of this (if it caused it) and it is 
 difficult to conceive of the principle of economy upon which it 
 so idly proclaims anything to him. In short, the same power 
 from which the evidence divine emanates, made and moulded 
 Man to whom it proclaims that hope should be most sure. So 
 if it goes unheeded, and Man through mistrust and want of 
 hope remams weak, it is because the divine Power in making 
 and moulding Man operated in one direction and to one pur- 
 pose, and in enunciating the evidence divine It operates in an 
 opposite direction and to a contrary purpose. There is no way 
 to evade this conclusion, — there is nothing in it to indicate the 
 existence of such thing as divine constancy. 
 
 The philosopher seems further to have observed, "that a 
 spirit strong in hope and trained to noble aspirations, a spirit 
 thoroughly faithful to itself, is for Society's unreasoning herd 
 a domineering instinct, serves at once for way and guide, a 
 fluent receptacle that gathers up each petty straggling rill and 
 vein of water, glad to be rolled on in safe obedience." This is 
 very figurative, — but how is the spirit to be made strong in 
 hope ? We have just seen how and why it could not reason- 
 ably be expected to be made so by the proclamations of evi- 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFLISION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 247 
 
 dence divine. No other agency for tiie production of such 
 strength has been (so far) proposed. Such a spirit may be 
 trained to noble aspirations, but what agency is responsible for 
 such training ? It must be constituted in a certain manner 
 before it can so train itself. Such a spirit so trained may be 
 thoroughly faithful to itself, ;ind it may be a domineering in- 
 stinct for Society's unreasoning herd, and straggling rills (per- 
 sons of meagre capacity and uncertain character) may gladly 
 commit themselves to its authoritative care "to be rolled on in 
 safe obedience."' But where is the element of duty in this 
 precept ? If moral philosophy does not propound a duty, what 
 is its office ? The only supposable object of the last quoted 
 observation is to impose the duty of being strong in hope, 
 trained to noble aspirations, and thoroughly faithful to one's 
 self, in order to be a desirable domineering instinct for Society's 
 unreasoning herd. Suppose that the philosopher himself, with 
 all his gifts, had happened to be of a different temperament 
 from that of which his works imply that he was; suppose that 
 by reason of circumstances over which he had no control, he 
 had been habituated to scenes different from those with which 
 his works imply that he was familiar; what then would have 
 been his duty ? What is duty ? And what is its basis ? Reas- 
 onably, duty is neither more nor less than obligation; and its 
 basis is neither more nor less than capacity and occasion. 
 Capacity and occasion are in no sense and to no extent within 
 the control of the individual. If he is so environed that he 
 might be made strong in hope, and be trained to noble aspira- 
 ations, and is neither, it must be because he is so constituted 
 as not to be, or not to desire to be either. And unless he is 
 morally responsible for both constitution and environment, he 
 is under no moral obligation or duty with respect to either his 
 strength in hope or the nobleness of his aspirations. That 
 those so strong, trained, and faithful to themselves, become 
 such domineering instincts for Society's unreasoning herd, may 
 be a fact in the natural history of moral philosophy. But rea- 
 son will never sanctify the proposition that it has any reason- 
 able significance, so far as concerns the imposition of a duty on 
 the student of moral philosophy. 
 
248 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 The philosopher seems further to have observed, "that a 
 mind, whose rest is where it ought to be, in self-restraint, in 
 circumspection and simplicity, falls rarely in entire discomfiture 
 below its aim, or meets with, from without, a treachery that 
 foils it or defeats." Reason will not sanctify the proposition 
 that a mind ought to rest in self-restraint. Such a doctrine, 
 consistently adhered to (and in simplicity) might have saved 
 the reading world a great deal of perplexity about the actual 
 philosophic import of the Prelude and Excursion them- 
 selves. They do not imply that the philosopher's mind had 
 rested very quietly in self-restraint and simplicity. But precept 
 and practice are not always nor often found hand in hand. The 
 proposition that mind ought to rest in self-restraint, is a direct 
 attack upon the wisdom of the policy, pursuant to which mind 
 was created and endued with its tendencies. Its tendency to 
 speculation is a gift of Nature, or of the Power which created 
 it. When man finds himself possessed of mind, he finds it 
 endued with its natural tendencies. On the same principle 
 that one questions the propriety of a natural tendency of the 
 mind, he may question the propriety of man's being possessed 
 of mind at all. Most products of Nature are supposed to have 
 been produced for some purpose, and the Architect of mind 
 ought reasonably to be supposed to have known His business. 
 The tendency of mind is probably as much a product of Nature, 
 or of the Architect of mind, as the mind itself can be. If He 
 knew His business and built the mind in a certain fashion, and 
 endued it with certain tendencies, for proper purposes, the 
 restraint of such tendencies would seem to imply a disapproval 
 of His work. If we admit that His wisdom exceeds ours, then 
 we ought reasonably to admit that the tendencies of the mind 
 were wisely bestowed (or inflicted) upon ir, and if we do this 
 we cannot very reasonably propose to impose any restraint 
 upon them. As the last quoted observation is essentially figur- 
 ative, I am not unwarranted in assuming that by the term rest 
 the philosopher meant happiness. The transition from rest of 
 mind to happiness is generally regarded so slight as scarcely 
 requires any assumption in so construing the term. The 
 question then arises, is happiness a positive, or is it a negative 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 24Q 
 
 quantity ? If it is a positive quantity it could scarcely be pro- 
 moted by restraint of natural tendencies. Even if it is a nega- 
 tive it could scarcely be so promoted, because restraint itself 
 necessarily implies actual discomfort, — forced quiet. 
 
 1 have now examined the several propositions forming the 
 basis of the philosophy of the Prelude and Excursion, the "last- 
 ing inspiration" which was to be sanctified by reason; and I 
 think 1 have shown that reason not only fails to sanctify them, 
 but that it sternlv repudiates each of them. There are many 
 more in the work equally as erroneous and unreasonable, but 
 they are generally found in what, to the attentive reader, will 
 appear to be mere elaborations of these. One, which is in- 
 terrogatively put, may be of interest. It is, "Can you ques- 
 tion that the soul inherits an allegiance, not by choice to be 
 cast off, upon an oath proposed by each new upstart notion ?" 
 The question occurs, — how long must a notion prevail to cease 
 to be a new upstart notion ? How long had the notion of this 
 iron-clad allegiance itself prevailed ? Whence was it derived, 
 and how is it authenticated ? Was not the notion of Christi- 
 anity itself a new upstart notion just a short time ago ? If the 
 soul inherits an allegiance not to be cast off, wherein consists 
 its freedom .^ If it has no choice or freedom, whence comes 
 the idea of its duty ? If it inherits the allegiance, it certainly 
 does not voluntarily assume it. If it has and exercises no 
 choice, but knows it must observe the allegiance or suffer, its 
 service is essentially slavish and selfish, — disinterested love and 
 manly duty have no part in it. That the observance of the 
 allegiance is urged on such grounds implies that the allegiance 
 would not be observed but lor the intimidation. The result of 
 the lasting inspiration is, that the soul is driven by fear to 
 observe an inherited allegiance, that it is informed it must do 
 or die, and more than two hundred pages are painted in poetic 
 pigment, that such inspiration may appear to be sanctified by 
 reason. If there can be any means devised, by which religion 
 may be more debased, the apologists may be relied upon to 
 devise them. They are generally affected with an impulse to 
 write something that they hope may live, and they would un- 
 
250 • ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 dertake it, if they knew that thereby the cause which they 
 assume to advocate must die. 
 
 A memorialist of the poet has said, he "proposed to adapt 
 to poetry the ordinary language of conversation, such as is 
 spoken in the middle and lower classes, and to replace studied 
 phrase and a lofty vocabulary by natural tones and plebeian 
 words." If this is true I must say that the middle and lower 
 classes were well up in the art of conversation. The poet gen- 
 erally soared pretty high for this ; but whether high or low, his 
 poetry is generally very poetic, it is the philosophy which he 
 promised in his learned and laborious strain, with which I 
 have concerned myself, — his effort to speak a lasting inspir- 
 ation sanctified by reason ; in other words his apologetics. 
 Having rambled at such range, and having devoted so much 
 space and time to such purpose, it is not a little surprising to 
 find him on the same Excursion, defying the very reason 
 whose sanction of his lasting inspiration he had promised to 
 obtain. Planting himself firmly upon that which he occasion- 
 ally called an absolute faith he says, "Here then we rest, not 
 fearing for our creed, the worst that human reason can achieve 
 to unsettle and perplex it." if reason would sanctify the last- 
 ing inspiration, it certainly ought not to unsettle and perplex it. 
 How difficult it seems for obscurity and profusion to consis- 
 tently adhere to a purpose; and how seldom they have that 
 which they know to be a purpose. 
 
 Deriving delight from distress, perceiving purpose in per- 
 adventure, he says: — "One adequate support for the calamities 
 of mortal life exists — one only; an assured belief that the proces- 
 sion of our fate, how e'er sad or disturbed, is ordered by a 
 Being of infinite benevolence and power, whose everlasting 
 purposes embrace all accidents, converting them to good." 
 This may be true. There may be no other adequate support 
 for the ills of life, than an assured belief that fate is ordered by 
 such a Being, whose purposes embrace all accidents, convert- 
 ing them to good. With infinite Power all things may be 
 possible; and there may be nothing impossible. Infinite 
 Power cannot be conceived of as inadequate to this ; nor can it 
 be conceived of as adequate to it; nor can it be conceived of at 
 
OBSCURITY AND PROFUSION AS INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 2=,l 
 
 all. The atmosphere is too rare to support the flight of even 
 an imagination at such an altitude ; and reason cannot live in it. 
 Reason is amazed at the idea of accident being of purpose, and 
 that a Being of infinite benevolence and power would order ill, 
 merely to convert it into good. Reasonably, infinite Power 
 could produce the good in the first instance, and would not be 
 limited to ill for the raw material out of which to make it. 
 Reasonably, infinite benevolence ivould produce the good in 
 the first instance if it could do so, without resort to such raw 
 material. Some one must suffer from the ill which is so 
 ordered, and this implies a limit, either to the benevolence or 
 the power of the Being who orders it; and reason would sug- 
 gest some substitute for the ill, or some other pastime for the 
 Power which orders it and works it up into good. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION, AND METAPHOR. 
 
 Extent and Variety of Literary Domain — Individuality of Persons in their Books 
 — Eccentricity taken for Genius — Philosophy More than Classification — Lit- 
 eratures do not Spring Up — Change the Deepest of all Subjects of Thought 
 — Literature Chief Product of Mind — Taine's Imaginary Revolution, Intel- 
 lectual and Literary — Misuse of Truisms — Unreasonable Account of Rise of 
 Various Religions — Taine's Compliment to American Intellectuality — His 
 Proposition that Religion is a Human Product — Sources of his Source- 
 Tacit Rage of Scandinavians Still Survives in Sombreness of English La- 
 borer — Puritan Disposition an Outgrowth of Scandinavian Rage — The 
 New Tongue — Pagan Renaissance, its Civilization — Christianity Connected 
 the Literature of the Time before the Fall of the Roman Empire with that 
 of the Middle Ages — Generalization Resorted to to Avoid Contradiction- -The 
 Philosophic Historian's Nightmare, Change — The Deathly Poetic Spirit — 
 Definitely ascertained Psychology of a People Impossible — Imagination of 
 a Feudal Hero — Intellectual Servitude — Physical Force the Basis of Thought 
 — Imitation and Invention in Nature — Ecclesiastical Oppression — Monothe- 
 ism vs. Polytheism — Methods and Philosophies Arising from Spirit of the 
 Age — Relation Between the Theatre and Literature — Poetry and Painting 
 as Arts Older than History — Products of Ages — The Derivation of Religions 
 the Strongest Argument Against Them — No Religion can be Reasonable — 
 Scope of the Religious Imagination — Paradise Lost more Tragic than Epic — 
 Taine's Metaphorical Criticism of Milton's Metaphor — Loathsome Classics, 
 Temple, Waller, Wycherly and Others — French and English War of 1793 
 Not a Conflict of Literatures — The Spectator, its Decline — Dean Swift a 
 Monstrosity — German Language never Facilitated Philosophic Thought — 
 Periodicity of Change in Thought and Literature — Accounting for Literary 
 Freaks — No Age calls Forth any Specific Quality of Literature — Obligations 
 of Literary Integrity. 
 
 The domain of literature is so vast and various that the most 
 comprehensive view of it that one can obtain in the course of a 
 life time, can be but little more, comparatively speaking, than 
 a mere glimpse. The names of the writers whose works are 
 in vogue, would themselves fill volumes, to better purpose 
 than many of them are filled with their fluent tlatulence. To 
 discuss the ethics of literature one must cite many examples of 
 the expression and thought of those whose records of fact and 
 fancy constitute the mass we call literature. But if he attempts 
 to examine minutely many literary productions, he may find 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 2^} 
 
 his work assuming unwieldly proportions, and becoming too 
 profuse to be systematic or useful. It would seem more like 
 discussing individual merit than literature to select certain 
 writers and their works for the ground work of such a treatise. 
 And yet, writings are not so classified, nor capable of classifi- 
 cation, as to justify the grouping of them in such manner as to 
 do justice to the subject by anything like a general considera- 
 tion of any considerable number of them. The individuality of 
 men is more marked in their b^oks than in their persons. As 
 they only resemble each other in being men, so these only 
 resemble each other in being books. Hence the reviewer can 
 only assert what he conceives in reason, philosophy, and mani- 
 fest utility, ought to be the moral law of literature, and then 
 test the merit of such works of recognized authenticity and im- 
 portance as his time and resources may enable him to examine, 
 by such standard. 
 
 Such allusion as he makes should be sufficiently full to be 
 fair, or his own observations will be entitled to no credit, and 
 he should not assume to authoritatively approve or disapprove 
 of anything in literature, unless he is moved by an intelligent 
 conscientious conviction of the rectitude and propriety of his 
 judgment. But having once reached that which he regards a 
 just judgment of the merit of a literary production, no consid- 
 erations of popularity, prestige, or fashion, should be allowed 
 any influence in determining him as to his duty. 
 
 The bona fide reviewer cannot profitably pause to notice 
 the triflers who can do but little mischief beyond causing some 
 waste of time, — he will find enough to do attending to those 
 of graver aspect, those affecting serious airs, and who seem to 
 have convinced themselves and to be bent on convincing others 
 that they are especially charged with the improvement of the 
 human mind. One of the most unaccountable humors to be 
 encountered in such investigation is in that, the more peculiar 
 and eccentric the writer's methods, the more profoundly he and 
 his readers generally appear to be impressed with the idea of 
 his especial fitness for the office. I have already examined 
 some works of this kind, which appear to be standard in liter- 
 ature; not merely popular with a reading rabble, but recogniz- 
 
254 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ed as superior among the learned, and mainly for what tliey 
 seem to regard their philosophy. 
 
 While particularity may verge to unprofitable profusion, the 
 opposite extreme is even more objectionable. Philosophy is 
 more than mere classification, and generalization is the stale 
 fraud in the practice of which the superficially informed affect 
 many of their owl-wise airs, than which nothing can be more 
 contemptible. At the risk of tedium I have chosen to consider 
 particularly such subordinate ^ppics as have occurred to me in 
 the discussion, in connection with the subjects which have sug- 
 gested them, believing that by such means only, in such in- 
 vestigations, definite results, specific and intelligible conclus- 
 ions can be reached. 
 
 A writer who has casually glanced over a past period, who 
 has an abbreviated chronology of its more important events 
 and the names of its more conspicuous characters, may adjust 
 himself to that which he fancies is the correct tune of its 
 changes, and give to the world that which he fancies is a phil- 
 osophy of the literature and history of the period. To call it a 
 history of the literature of a country makes it no more such a 
 history, and no less an attempted philosophy — if nine tenths 
 of it is devoted to discussion of the ficts stated in the remain- 
 ing one tenth, and they are drawn promiscuously from all 
 countries and irregularly from all ages. By skillful classifica- 
 tion and generalization one may show an extensive acquaint- 
 ance with historical fact; but when he comes to construct a 
 philosophy of such fact he will discover, at least he should dis- 
 cover, that coexistence is not correlation and that sequence is 
 not consequence. 
 
 No one was ever justified in saying that at any definite point 
 in time "the thinking public and the human mind changed, 
 and whilst these changes took place a new literature sprang 
 up." Caesar's Commentaries and Gallic War remind one too 
 vividly of Grant's Memoirs; the Agamemnon and Choephorae 
 are too suggestive of Hamlet, for a critical reader to accept and 
 swallow so sudden a change. Tautology is a ready resource 
 both in bulk making and in bookmaking, but if the philosophic 
 historian meant one thing or entity by the term thinking public, 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 2^y 
 
 and another thing or entity by the term hitman mind in the 
 connection in which he has used them, he might have con- 
 ferred a benefit, at least a favor, on his readers by making it 
 manifest. The human mind wrought and reasoned in the same 
 way and with the same kind of results, when it was register- 
 ing its ravings on Chaldean clay, as while it is pulsing them 
 from continent to continent in currents of electricity. 
 
 Change is one of the deepest subjects of intelligent consider- 
 ation in all cosmology. Yet in simultaneous events wiseacres 
 see an immediate and necessary relation; in successive events 
 they see how the prior necessarily produce the posterior; and 
 attributing general results to specific causes is their favorite 
 vocation. They appear to ignore the fact that causes are 
 themselves results of prior causes which in turn are them- 
 selves results of causes still prior. From the complacent assur- 
 ance with which they speak of causes one might suppose they 
 had discovered absolutely original and independent cause. All 
 life, growth, and development, are change; the most durable 
 existence itself is change; and there is no stability. That 
 which is generally regarded stability is merely slow change. 
 The atoms of stone in the base of the pyramids will sometime 
 be wanting to their place, if for no other reason, because they 
 were not always there. Geology implies that their place will 
 itself sometime be wanting, because it was not always there. 
 Looking back as far as fact and fancy can carry us we are con- 
 tinuously confronted with a scene of constant change; and if 
 there is any feature of the Cosmos which presents any appear- 
 ance of stability of nature it is mind; — it is the very one which 
 the learned seem generally to regard the most mutable of them 
 all. The fact that we have any intelligence, however meager 
 and hov/ever derived, of the mind of remote antiquity, implies 
 great stability of the nature of mind. Otherwise no mental 
 fact of such antiquity could be the subject matter of a present 
 cognition, or of a present legitimate deduction. The cunei- 
 form inscription on the Sarcophagi of Nineveh could have no 
 meaning for minds in nature different from those of the ones 
 who made them. 
 
 A military campaign may change the political map of a dis- 
 
2<y6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 trict; the Cross may supplant the Joss, or the Crescent may 
 supplant the Cross; but the dura mater will continue to contain 
 the usual quantity of the usual quality of vesicular and tubular 
 neurine, which will continue liable to be affected as formerly 
 by similar agencies. Unless the course of Nature should sud- 
 denly change, which is not likely to occur, the similar agencies 
 are liable to operate, producing similar states of mind, or giving 
 the same kind of mind the occasion to demonstrate that it is of 
 the same kind as the former, that is of the same nature; though 
 possibly modified for better or worse, depending upon the 
 kind of influences to which it may have been exposed. No 
 matter what follows, nor how different the result from what 
 reasonably might have been and perhaps was generally expect- 
 ed; nor how different from any ever before known to have 
 resulted from similar causes; the literary savant at once pro- 
 ceeds to explain how and why it could not have been other- 
 wise, but in the nature of things must have been so — to formu- 
 late a philosophy of the focts. 
 
 Literature is the chief of the products of the mind; it is the 
 mind's continuously culminating culmination; its never ending 
 end. They are growths, developments, progressions, and so 
 far are themselves subject to change. But they have never been 
 very spasmodic in their action in this respect. The progress of 
 the growth and development of mind, can be marked off in 
 periods or stages, with about the same degree of propriety as 
 that with which one could make a map of morality, with lati- 
 tudes, longitudes, altitudes, and coast and isothermal lines. 
 With about the same degree of propriety one may attempt to 
 periodize progress in intellectual and literary attainment, in 
 definite terminals, and attribute shades of difference in form of 
 expression and habit of thought in the alleged different periods, 
 to specific physical causes. That which can go from its own 
 center into the depths of space in less time than can be told 
 would seem to be of a nature rather difficult to be limited spec- 
 ifically by physical agencies. While mind is of great stability 
 of nature, and is doubtless subject to .some mysterious limita- 
 tion in nature; yet no manifestations have ever justified the be- 
 lief that it or its great product can be appropriately philosophiz- 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 2^7 
 
 ed upon after the manner in which // deals physical phenomena. 
 Yet the learned have done so, or have attempted to do so, and 
 Literature has its renaissances, its classic ages, its restorations, 
 revolutions, histories, and philosophies; and one of its most 
 sc'holarly and elaborate expositors, in presenting his contribu- 
 tion to the world's wisdom, declares his intention "to write 
 the history of a literature, and to seek in it for the psychology 
 of a people." 
 
 He says, "History has been transformed, within a hundred 
 years in Germany, within sixty years in France, and that by 
 the study of their literatures. It was perceived that a literary 
 work is not a mere individual play of imagination, the isolated 
 caprice of an excited brain, but a transcript of contemporarv 
 manners, a manifestation of a certain kind of mind, it was 
 concluded that we might recover from the monuments of liter- 
 ature, a knowledge of the manner in which men thought and 
 felt centuries ago. The attempt was made and it succeeded. 
 Pondering on these modes of feeling and thought, men decided 
 that they were facts of the highest kind. They saw that these 
 facts bore reference to the most important occurences, that they 
 explained and were explained by them, that it was necessary 
 thenceforth to give them a rank, and a most important rank in 
 history. This rank they have received, and from that moment 
 history has undergone a complete change; in its subject mat- 
 ter, its system, its machinery, the appreciation of laws and 
 causes, it is this change such as it is and must be that we 
 shall endeavor to exhibit." 
 
 The purpose of the philosophic historian was to write a 
 philosophic history of a recent radical revolution, intellectual 
 and literary, in an enterprise of such proportions, pretensions, 
 and promise, the writer may be supposed to have meant speci- 
 fically the necessary import of every utterance he has made — he 
 has the burden as well as the benefit of the presumption of 
 good faith. Then it was meant by some of the above quoted 
 declarations that strange discoveries in literature were recently 
 made, in consequence of which the histories mentioned were 
 completely changed, and necessarily in a certain manner. 
 Without at present inquiring into the actual truth of the matter. 
 
258 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 it appears that if the change was such as it was known it must 
 be, it would scarcely have been regarded so important as to 
 become the chief corner stone of such an edifice as a philosoph- 
 ic history of English Literature, if the change was such as it 
 must be, it must have been just such as it was; it could not 
 avoid being, nor could it have been otherwise ; but in the 
 nature of things was inevitable, and inevitably 50. This could 
 only be known to be so, by having long been observed to in- 
 variably fall out so under like circumstances ; in which case the 
 change and the circumstances producing it, or similar ones, 
 must have been matters with which the observers were famil- 
 iar. Both, then, would be mere commonplace, and in the 
 change there could be no more of interest to chronicle, than in 
 the circumstances producing it. 
 
 Those mentioned as the causes of the change, the philo- 
 sophic history of which is so introduced, and it is fair to pre- 
 sume that they are the only or the most important ones, are the 
 discoveries, — that a literary work is not a mere individual play 
 of imagination ; and the manner in which men thought and felt 
 centuries ago; and the giving such thought and feeling import- 
 ant rank as facts in history. The philosophic historian says 
 these things occurred and produced the change in Germany 
 within the last century, and in France within the last sixty 
 years. It is astonishing that these countries should be so far in 
 the rear of the procession. More than two thousand years 
 before then the "father of history" at Thurii, the home of his 
 late adoption, had told the world how Candaules, King 01 
 Sardis, had thought, felt, and behaved ; how vain he was of 
 his Queen's tine physique; how he exposed her person to one 
 of his personal attendants and got himself killed for his folly; 
 how the Queen would not endure that her husband and 
 another to whom he had so exposed her should both live; how 
 Gyges shrank from the senseless and shameful affair until the 
 King coerced him to see her; how discreetly the Queen com- 
 posed and disposed herself when she saw she was exposed 
 until she could compass her design; how Gyges shrank in 
 horror from her alternative, to die, — or kill the King and take 
 her; how she made it imperative, and "having given him a 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 2S9 
 
 dagger, concealed him behind the same door" behind which 
 the King had so recently concealed him to expose her person 
 to him. This is a veiy vivid representation of the way men 
 thought and felt centuries ago. And Herodotus is full of them. 
 Paris — having abducted Helen — is driven by adverse winds into 
 the Canopic mouth of the Nile; in his adversity his followers 
 fall away from him as rats leave a sinking ship, and accuse him 
 to Governor Thonis, who reports to King Proteus at Memphis 
 that "a stranger of Trojan race has arrived after having com- 
 mitted a nefarious deed in Greece; for having beguiled the wife 
 of his own host, he has brought her with him, and very great 
 treasure, having been driven by winds to this land. Whether, 
 then, shall we allow him to depart unmolested or shall we 
 seize what he has brought with him ?" King Proteus prompt- 
 ly responds, "seize this man, whoever he may be, that 1 
 may know what he will say for himself" Paris and Helen are 
 sent to the Court at Memphis, Paris is questioned by the King, 
 accounts for himself but prevaricates as to Helen and the stolen 
 treasure; his disaffected retainers accuse and convict him. 
 Hear the just judgment of the heathen King, giving Paris three 
 days in which to get out of the Kingdom, and detaining the 
 truant wife and stolen treasure for their rightful lord and owner. 
 Then hear the historian of twenty-two centuries ago criticise a 
 historical epic of a then ancient antiquity — "Homer appears to 
 me to have heard this relation ; but it is not equally suited to epic 
 poetry as the other which he has made use of, wherefore he 
 has rejected it, though he has plainly shown th;it he was 
 acquainted with this account also." More than twenty-two 
 centuries ago, within a few hundred miles of Germany and 
 France, Herodotus clearly saw and showed how men thought 
 and felt four centuries before his time; not only this, — his criti- 
 cism of poetry would do credit to the literature of the nine- 
 teenth century, showing why the greatest epic poet rejected a 
 well authenticated lact in the construction of the greatest epic 
 poem. 
 
 So this process, seeing how men thought and felt centuries 
 ago, and giving to such thought and feeling important rank in 
 history, seems to have been going on as long as the centuries 
 
26o ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 have been going on, at least those that appear in history. If 
 the recent discovery of such thought and feeling, and the 
 receuilv giving them important rank as facts in history, were 
 the only cause for its complete change which the philosophic 
 historian proposed to exhibit, the change was spontaneous, or 
 it had never occurred. If entire want of cause is absence of 
 effect, there was no such recent change, and the basis goes 
 from under the palatial pile; either this, or the locus of the 
 history so changed had long been benighted. 
 
 To give credence to groundless assertion and weight to 
 frivolity, writers frequently blend therewith some palpable truth 
 and proverbial philosophy. The philosophic historian has said, 
 "It is better to have an imperfect knowledge than none at all; 
 and there is no other means of acquainting ourselves approxi- 
 mately with the events of other days, than to 5^6' approximately 
 the men of other davs. This is the first step in history ; it was 
 made in Europe at the revival of imagination, toward the close 
 of the last century, by Lessing and Walter Scott ; a little later 
 in France, by Chataubriand, Augustin Thierry, Michelet and 
 others. And now for tbe second step." The progress of 
 history then is by steps. Suppose we step back a few centu- 
 ies, say just nineteen, and hear Virgil recite to Augustus and 
 Octavia his panegyric on Marcellus. and hear the Emperor beg 
 him to desist, and see Octavia faint away at hearing the tribute 
 to the memory of her son. 
 
 "No youth shall equal hopes of glory give 
 No youth afford so great a cause to grieve." 
 
 Did not Virgil see approximately men of other days, when he 
 exhibited the anguish of Dido at Aeneas' perfidious departure 
 from Carthage more than ten centuries before his time } Does 
 Walter Scott take us farther back of his own time } Does he 
 show us more clearly how men thought and felt } Does he 
 give such thought and feeling more important rank as facts in 
 history } Does he see approximately men of other days to a 
 better historical advantage } Are his poetry and fiction of 
 greater historical consequence than those of Virgil } 
 
 In presenting a history of English Literature or indeed any 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 26 1 
 
 philosophy to a reading world, and placing it where it may 
 fall into the hands of some of the thinkers, if a reason for pre- 
 senting it should be essential, it is no less essential that the 
 reason be philosophically sound and sufficient. If it should be 
 stated at all it should be so stated as to bear the most severe 
 scrutiny. Wholesale and sweeping expressions which may 
 mean any thing or nothing, may either soothe or fatigue the 
 cursory reader out of the specific attention necessary to sift 
 them for their substance, and he may not ascertain whether 
 they justify the importance the historian gives his work. Many 
 of the great literary productions appear to have been presented 
 to the world with the idea that the causes alleged for their 
 being presented would not be scrutinized by their readers. 
 And it is fair to presume that the work itself is not likely to rise 
 much superior to the philosophic reasons alleged for its per- 
 formance. In the case under consideration it is said, as already 
 quoted, "it was concluded that we might recover from the 
 monuments of literature, a knowledge of the manner in which 
 men thought and felt centuries ago. The attempt was made 
 and it succeeded." 
 
 This is the base of a very aristocratic and authoritative phil- 
 osophic history of literature; a work affecting all the airs of 
 criticism, and proposing to find a psychology of a people as 
 exhibited in their literature. When was it concluded that such 
 a knowledge could be so obtained ? When was it attempted, 
 and when accomplished ? When were the thought and feeling 
 of centuries ago given their important rank in history.? Ac- 
 cording to the philosophic historian these had caused a recent 
 transformation of history; had caused it to undergo "complete 
 change; in its subject matter, its system, its machinery, the ap- 
 preciation of laws and causes." 1 have shown some instances 
 in which the process seems to have been going on more than 
 two thousand years ago, within a few hundred miles of the 
 countries whose histories the philosophic historian says were 
 so recently and radically revolutionized by such cause. Such 
 assertions, closely examined, do not appear to have been writ- 
 ten to import anything in^ particular; nor any tangible, avail- 
 able, or clearly comprehensible thing in general. They are 
 
262 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 vague and general statements of nothing — to the purpose. 
 While data for the specific refutation of their essential import 
 (if they have such) are not so readily available or self-suggestive 
 but that they may seem safe to a casual observer, yet, such 
 high-sounding, harmless appearing generalizations are not so 
 perfunctorily passed over by the thinker. Ifa writer introduces 
 a work of such importance as a history of English Literature 
 and psychology of a people, with the assertion of certain recent 
 discoveries and consequent complete changes in intellect and 
 history as the basis of the work, the thinker, supposing things 
 to be intended as they are expressed, and that nothing of such 
 apparent importance is idly said, seeks at once for its purport 
 and purpose. If these are not apparent or easily discernible, 
 this only intensifies his zeal in the int]uiry. And if his investi- 
 gations result as is found unavoidable in the present instance 
 he cannot have a very tavorable opinion of his author. If he 
 proceeds nevertheless to peruse the philosophic history, it will 
 be with a prejudice imbibed by means of too careful attention 
 to the emptv and aimless assertion of its writer. 
 
 What is the subject matter of history, that it was not before 
 the alleged discoveries ? What is its system, its machinery, its 
 appreciation of laws and causes, that they were not before ? It 
 is simply impossible to apply any of those assertions of complete 
 change to any tangible, available, or conceivable fact in, or 
 phase of history ; while passages written many centuries apart 
 imply that no such change had taken place. Observe two such 
 passages, written nineteen hundred years apart, both translated 
 from foreign languages into the English and distinguish them by 
 means of some great change that has occurred to history in 
 consequence of the discoveries mentioned. — " All men, without 
 distinction, are allured by immediate advantages ; great minds 
 alone are excited by distant good. So long as wisdom in its 
 projects calculates upon wisdom, or relies upon its own 
 strength, it forms none but chimerical schemes, and runs a risk 
 of making itself the laughter of the v/orld ; but it is certain of 
 success, and may reckon upon aid and admiration when it finds 
 a place in its intellectual plans for barbarism, rapacity, and 
 superstition, and can render the selfish purposes of mankind the 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GFNERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 26^ 
 
 executors of its purposes." And again, — " In every state, they 
 that are poor, envy those that are of a better class, and endeavor 
 to exalt the f^ictious ; they dislike the established condition of 
 things, and long for something new ; they are discontented 
 with their own circumstances, and desire a general alteration ; 
 they can support themselves amid tumult and sedition, with- 
 out anxiety, since poverty does not easily suffer loss." 
 
 1 now quote one sentence from the philosophic history under 
 consideration. "If, for instance, it were admitted that a reli- 
 gion is a metaphysical poem, accompanied by belief; and re- 
 marking at the same time that there are certain epochs, races, 
 and circumstances in which belief, the poetical and metaphysi- 
 cal faculty, show themselves with an unwonted vigor; if we 
 consider that Christianity and Buddhism were produced at 
 periods of high philosophical conceptions, and amid such mis- 
 eries as raised up the fanatics of Cevennes; if we recognize, on 
 the other hand, that primitive religions are born at the awaken- 
 ing of human reason, during the richest blossoming of human 
 imagination, at a time of the fairest artlessness and the greatest 
 credulity; if we consider also that Mohammedanism appeared 
 with the dawning of poetic prose, and the conception of national 
 unity, amongst a people destitute of science, at a period of sud- 
 den development of intellect, — we might then conclude that a 
 religion is born, declines, is reformed and transformed accord- 
 ing as circumstances confirm and combine with more or less 
 exactitude and force its three generative instincts ; and we should 
 understand why it is endemic in India, amidst imaginative, 
 philosophic, eminently fanatic brains, why it blossomed forth 
 so strangely and grandly in the middle ages, amidst an oppres- 
 sive organization, new tongues and literatures; why it was 
 aioused in the sixteenth century with a new character and 
 heroic enthusiasm, and universal regeneration, and during the 
 awakening of the German races; why it breaks out into eccen- 
 tric sects amid the coarse American democracy, and under the 
 bureaucratic Russian despotism ; why, in short, it is spread, at 
 the present day, over Europe in such different dimensions and 
 such various characteristics, according to the difference of race 
 and civilization." 
 
264 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 This is perhaps one of the longest sentences to be found in any 
 philosophic history. But the longer the period the more room 
 for error, and in the above there is scarcely standing room. In 
 what sense and how can a religion be regarded a metaphysical 
 poem ? If a religion is really a religion, validated by the 
 divinity of its origin or sanction, without which it is a mere 
 superstition, it certainly cannot be in any sense, nor to any ex- 
 tent, metaphysical. It instantly destroys all the sanctity of a 
 religion to make it appear reasonable, or metaphysical. It at 
 least removes all its divine authenticity and supernatural sanc- 
 tion. No human mind has ever existed that could excogitate a 
 valid reason why it should worship, love, or fear, anything to 
 sense and perception intangible. Such minds may worship, 
 love, and fear some imagined thing to sense and perception in- 
 tangible, but they can give no reason therefor. The supposed 
 thing intangible which is to be worshipped, loved, and feared, 
 must first be created by the imagination of the worshiper, or it 
 must have been previously created and presented to him by the 
 imagination of others. If it is not created by any imagination, 
 it cannot be in its essence intangible to sense and perception. 
 The Almighty himself, be He ever so far beyond the scope of 
 our senses and perceptions may have existed from all eternity, 
 He may exist without having ever begun to exist; and it might 
 seem irreverent to say that His worshippers first create Him of 
 their imaginations, or that He is created and presented to them 
 by other imaginations. But what else is done .^ He is never 
 directly exhibited or declared to any of his worshippers; and all 
 the indirect exhibitions and declarations of Him amount to noth- 
 ing to Man, further than they are responded to in his belief. 
 Hence He is not presented to any of his worshippers otherwise 
 than as the product of an imagination ; sense and perception 
 not being exercised in the mind's response to the exhibition or 
 declaration. Then /or the worshipper, the God he worships, is 
 necessarily a Creation of imagination. It may be of his own 
 imagination, or of his own prompted and assisted by that of 
 others. 
 
 Take the three religions named in the last quotation, and 
 what is it which the adherents of either of them worship, love, 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 26^ 
 
 or fear ? It is vigorously maintained for their several founders, 
 that they were each respectively and especially commissioned 
 from on high to establish and promulgate the one only true reli- 
 gion ; and that all others are spurious. In each of them the 
 Almighty is necessarily a Creation of imagination to every 
 worshipper to whose sense and perception He is not manifest, 
 either in person, or by means of phenomena necessarily and 
 positively proving His existence and reality to the mind. AH 
 religions rising to the dignity of the name, enforce the worship, 
 love, and fear by man, of something to his sense and percep- 
 tion intangible; and hence to the mind of such worshipper, 
 purely imaginary. The higher the grade of civilization and 
 mental attainment of the worshippers, the more exquisitely their 
 imaginations may work, and the finer the product which they 
 may produce for their worship. The God of nineteenth century 
 Christianty is a very different Being to the Christian imagination, 
 from the God of their Semitic ancestors ; the God that directed 
 the butchery of babes, and that the priesthood should keep the 
 smell of burning fiesh constantly ascending to Heaven to ap- 
 pease his righteous wrath. Yet they are both, to their wor- 
 shippers, neither more nor less than the creations of their imagi- 
 nations, or of others' imaginations that have imagined Him for 
 them, and presented Him to them, When Jepthah buried the 
 blade in the bosom of his daughter, was he serving the God of 
 nineteenth century Christianity .^ A religion may be a poem 
 accompanied by belief, but it can never be a metaphysical poem ; 
 if metaphysics is properly defined as "the science conversant 
 about all inferences of unknown being from its known mani- 
 festations." 
 
 It would be unprofitable to examine and analyze each of the 
 errors in the quotation ; so after cordially expressing the thanks 
 of Americans for the compliment to their coarseness, couched 
 in the penultimate clause of the period; I shall see if the philo- 
 sophic historian has not himself knocked all the philosophy, 
 latent and patent, out of the several declarations of the period. 
 
 His next words are, "And so for every kind oi human pro- 
 duction — for literature, music, the fine arts, philosophy, science, 
 the state, industries, and the rest. Each of these has for its 
 
266 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 direct cause a moral disposition, or a combination of moral dis- 
 positions; the cause given, they appear; the cause withdrawn, 
 they vanish ; the weakness or intensity of the cause measures 
 their weakness or intensity. They are bound up with their 
 causes, as a physical phenomenon with its condition, as dew 
 with the fall of the variable temperature, as dilitation with 
 heat." 
 
 So religion is a human production, directly caused by a 
 moral disposition or combination of moral dispositions. It is 
 intense or weak according as the moral disposition causing it is 
 intense or weak. It is divested of everything supernatural and 
 divine, and people make it for themselves just as they make 
 their literature, their tine arts, their philosophy and science; 
 their state and industries. This would throw the Lord almost 
 out of employment, unless He may participate in the prepara- 
 tion of the raw material — the moral disposition. 
 
 if religion has such relation to literature as to make it an 
 important subject of consideration in such history, he who 
 classes it with music, art, and industry, is eminently unqualified 
 for the duties of a philosophic historian of literature. If it has 
 no such relation, then there is a waste of force, space, and time, 
 in the learned ignorance exhibited in the generalizations in which 
 it is so classified, if religion is a mere human production, 
 directly caused by a moral disposition, and bound up with such 
 cause as a physical phenomenon with its condition, Omnipo- 
 tence can have but little to do with it. It may then be, that 
 "whatever developes credulity side by side with a poetic con- 
 ception of the world, engenders religion." But what is it that 
 developes credulity, the disposition to believe on slight evidence? 
 The philosophic historian has just remarked that Christianity 
 and Buddhism were produced at periods of high philosophical 
 conceptions, amid such miseries as raised up the fanatics of the 
 Cevennes." Is it possible that high philosophical conceptions 
 develope credulity.^ Does misery develope a poetical conception 
 of the world.^ And are these the agencies that engendered, are 
 they the moral dispositions which caused the Christian religion.^ 
 it may be a well grounded philosophic truism, that nothing ever 
 happens without cause. But it is equally true that a great deal 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 267 
 
 happens without comprehensible cause; without cause that man 
 can comprehend. 
 
 In the philosophic history under consideration, the first book 
 is entitled The Source, and its first chapter is entitled The 
 Saxons. The first second and third sectionsof this chapter are 
 devoted to an exhibition of the bloody and beastly barbarism, 
 (variegated with occasionally improvised scenes of superhuman 
 sagacity, heroism, and fortitude) out of which has evolved or 
 grown one of the most refined and elegant civilizations that has 
 yet appeared. The data for the representation come almost ex- 
 clusively from the Norse, Scandinavian, and Saxon legend. The 
 Fafnismal Edda, The Niebeiungen Lied, The Lay of Atli, The 
 Edda of S^emund, etc., are the archives from which it is prin- 
 cipally obtained. And 1 confess my disappointment at seeing 
 no allusion to Ossian. There is occasional reference to Tacitus, 
 Turner, Lingard, and others of their kind, but not for the pur- 
 pose of proving the abnormally heroic traits of character of our 
 rude and nude ancestors. That they courageously courted 
 and joyfully suffered death, "that there is no fear of pain, no 
 care for life ; that they count it as dross when the idea has seized 
 upon them," is learned from the legendary lore that brands itself 
 with its own falsity, by the enormous extravagance in which it 
 narrates even that which might be true. For instance — "Hogni 
 laughed when to his heart they cut the living crest-crasher; no 
 lament uttered he." 
 
 Having by such means embellished such characters with 
 such traits, it then becomes the office of the philosophic his- 
 torian, the doctrinaire of moral dispositions as specific causes 
 for general results, to trace the vestiges of such traits in the gen- 
 eral character of their descendants. He says, "Carlyle has well 
 said that in the sombre obstinacy of an English laborer still sur- 
 vives the tacit rage of the Scandinavian warrior. Strife for 
 strife's sake — such is their pleasure. With what sadness, mad- 
 ness, destruction, such a disposition breaks its bonds, we shall 
 see in Shakespeare and Byron ; with what vigor and purpose it 
 can limit and employ itself when possessed by moral ideas, we 
 shall see in the case of the Puritans." 
 
 Carlyle could as well have said that in the habitual shrink- 
 
268 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ing from obscene exposures, the modesty of Shem and Japheth 
 still survives. They went backwards to cover their drunken 
 father's nakedness, and their descendants to-day instinctively 
 shrink from such scenes. He could equally as well have said 
 that in the universal covetousness and cupidity of the Jews, the 
 insatiable greed of Jacob still survives. He swindled his host, 
 his employer, his protector and father-in-law out of his proper- 
 ty, and his descendants are to-day grasping all that they can get 
 their hands on. 
 
 If the vigor and purpose of the Puritan disposition is an out- 
 growth, modification, or transformation of the tacit rage of the 
 Scandinavian warrior, to what warlike trait of what warlike 
 people shall we trace the resolute martyr spirit of the Hugue- 
 nots ? the suave smile and ostentatious humility of the Quak- 
 ers ? or the blind bigotry and superstitious reverence for eccles- 
 iastical authority of the Catholics ? 
 
 The philosophic historian adopts Carlyle's saying, "with 
 what sadness, madness, destruction, such a disposition (the 
 tacit rage of the Scandinavian warrior) breaks its bonds, we 
 shall see in Shakespeare and Byron." Wh^U is there from 
 Shakespeare to indicate that he was ever possessed of or domi- 
 nated by such a disposition ? Byron has raved with some sad- 
 ness, madness, and possibly with some destruction, but I find 
 nothing to indicate that Shakespeare ever broke the bonds of 
 any tacit rage, or that any such disposition ever broke its bonds 
 in him. 
 
 He gives occasional exhibitions of the outbreak of passion, but 
 many of them antedate the tacit rage of the Scandinavian war- 
 rior, and none of them indicate any more relation to such rage 
 than to any other specimen of ill nature or bad temper from 
 antiquity. 
 
 There is little else in the three chapters of the first book de- 
 serving attention. There is an abundance of historical fact,- — 
 indeed they constitute a beautiful historical panorama. But the 
 occasional philosophic generalization will not bear scrutiny. 
 For instance, the doubtful compliment to Christianity in the as- 
 sertion, made after having described the Saxons as a race of 
 dull, heavy, coarse, ferocious, and imaginative gluttons, — that 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 269 
 
 "a race so constituted was predisposed to Christianity, by its 
 gloom, its aversion to sensual and reckless living, its inclination 
 for the serious and the sublime." One would scarcely expect 
 a dull, heavy, coarse, and ferocious race of gluttons to be very 
 imaginative, or very much inclined to the serious and sublime, 
 or very averse to sensual and reckless living. 
 
 Who is the author, or rather inventor, of the question — 
 What's in a name ? Why did the philosophic historian call 
 the third chapter of his first book The New Tongue ? In its 
 beginning he says, "throughout the long impotence of Norman 
 literature, which was content to copy, and of Saxon literature 
 which bore no fruit, a definite language was nevertheless 
 formed." This is the beginning and the end of all there is in 
 the chapter, which even hints at a New Tongue, its more 
 than twenty pages are devoted to an examination of Chaucer's 
 writings, and there are frequent allusions to and comparisons 
 with his continental contemporaries, and a wealth of metaphor, 
 generalization, and tlorid figure. 
 
 Speaking of what he calls the pagan renaissance the philo- 
 sophic historian says, "for seventeen centuries a deep and sad 
 thought had weighed upon the spirit of man, first to overwhelm 
 it, then to exalt and to weaken it, never losing its hold 
 throughout this long space of time. It was the idea of the 
 weakness and decay of the human race. Greek corruption, 
 Roman oppression, and the dissolution of the ancient world, 
 had given rise to it; it, in its turn, had produced a stoical resig- 
 nation, an epicurean indifference, Alexandrian mysticism, and 
 the Christian hope in the kingdom of God. 'The world is evil 
 and lost, let us escape by insensibility, amazement, ecstacy.' 
 Thus spoke the philosophers; and religion coming after, an- 
 nounced, that the end was near; T^repare, for the kingdom of 
 God is at hand.' For a thousand years universal ruin inces- 
 santly drove still deeper into their hearts this gloomy thought; 
 and when man in the feudal state raised himself, by sheer force 
 of courage and muscles, from the depths of final imbecility and 
 general misery, he discovered his thought and his work fetter- 
 ed by the crushing idea, which, forbidding a life of nature and 
 
270 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 worldly hopes, erected into ideals the obedience of the monk 
 and the dreams of fanatics." 
 
 The whole of the period here spoken of could not apply to 
 England, for it had only been known to civilization for a little 
 more than half of it. It necessarily takes us back and relates to 
 the Greek and Roman civilizations, prevalent in nearly all the 
 countries bordering upon the Mediteranean, and which have 
 l^revailed there so long and so nearly constant, as to constitute 
 what might appropriately be called a Mediteranean civilization. 
 Those which were the Egyptian and Phoenician as distinguish- 
 ed from the Greek and Roman, are mere memories of a 
 remote past; and the Mongolian or Mussulman has not obliter- 
 ated the Greek and Roman, and probably never will do so. 
 Wherever either of these civilizations has prevailed there has 
 been a literature, and these long drawn, high-sounding, gener- 
 alizations are very misleading. The idea of the weakness and 
 decay of the human race constantly weighing upon the spirit of 
 man for seventeen centuries would have paralyzed the facial 
 muscle bevond the possibility of a smile forever after. It would 
 be very interesting to know what originated and so universally 
 promulgated the gloomy idea, as well as when it obtained un- 
 iversal sway over the spirit of man, and how it suppressed 
 literature. 
 
 Another historian, with more apparent reasonableness, and 
 certainly with more perspicuity has said, "the final settlement 
 of barbarous nations in Gaul Spain and Italy consummated the 
 ruin of literature. Their first irruptions were uniformly attend- 
 ed with devastation; and if some of the Gothic kings, after their 
 establishment, proved humane and civilized sovereigns, yet the 
 nation gloried in its original rudeness, and viewed with no un- 
 reasonable disdain arts which had neither preserved their culti- 
 vators from corruption nor raised them from servitude. , * * 
 Scarcely one of the barbarians, so long as they continued un- 
 confused with the native inhabitants, acquired the slightest 
 tincture of letters; and the praise of equal ignorance was soon 
 aspired to and attained by the entire mass of the Roman laity. 
 * * * Latin was so changed, it is said by a writer of Charle- 
 magne's age, that scarcely any part of it was popularly known. 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION, AND METAPHOR. 27 1 
 
 * * * When Latin had thus ceased to be a living language, 
 the whole treasury of knowledge was locked up from the eyes 
 of the people. The few who might have imbibed a taste for 
 literature, if books had been accessible to them, were reduced 
 to abandon pursuits that could only be cultivated through a 
 kind of education not easily within their reach. Schools, con- 
 fined to cathedrals and monasteries, and exclusively designed 
 for the purposes of religion, afforded no encouragement or op- 
 portunities to the laity. The worst effect was that the newly 
 formed languages were hardly made use of in writing. Latin 
 being still preserved in all legal instruments and public corres- 
 pondence, the very use of letters, as well as of books was for- 
 gotten. * * * jf j^ |3g demanded by what cause it happen- 
 ed that a few sparks of ancient learning survived throughout 
 this long winter, we can only ascribe their preservation to the 
 establishment of Christianity. Religion alone made a bridge, 
 as it were, across the chaos, and has linked the two periods of 
 ancient and modern civilization." 
 
 It will scarcely be contended that there was not in the times 
 of Terrence, Tacitus, Cicero, Seneca, Sallust, and hosts of 
 others that could be named, a literature equal to the civilization 
 then prevailing, and that it did not extend far down into the 
 seventeen centuries named by the philosophic historian. It 
 cannot successfully be contended that it was in any manner 
 affected by the prevalence of any sad thought of the weakness 
 and decay of the human race. The literature was stamped out 
 of existence for a time by the barbarous hordes who overran the 
 civilized world, and overwhelmed its civilization. And as 
 these barbarians gradually adopted the manners of their new 
 subjects, civilization revived, not suddenly, but it revived, and 
 and literature revived with it. 
 
 Literary developement was retarded more by a want of 
 mechanical facilities for its promotion, especially from the 
 seventh to the twelfth century, during which time papyrus 
 could not be obtained, than it has been at any time within 
 seventeen centuries by any thing like a gloom of the human 
 mind. There is nothing in the history of any period, to indi- 
 cate a more general prevalence of sad thought than is indicated 
 
272 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 in the history of any other period. We cannot get back to a 
 time when games, amusements, and witticisms were not as 
 prevalent and popular, proportionately, as they have ever 
 been. The inundation of northern barbarism into, and its 
 temporary suppression of civilization, had a mechanical effect 
 on literature; similar to that of the burning of the Alexandrian 
 library. And all the learned nonsense about a universal gloom 
 prevailing for seventeen centuries that can be imagined, tells 
 nothing of the fate or philosophy of Literature. 
 
 Speaking of this so-called pagan renaissance, the philosoph- 
 ic historian, after giving a glowing account of the grotesquely 
 gorgeous extravagance in personal attire and in architecture 
 says, "Folly it may have been, but poetry likewise. There 
 was something more than puppyism in this mascjuerade of 
 splendid costume. The overflow of inner sentiment found this 
 issue, as also in drama and poetry." Such things seriously 
 said by a philosopher, are supposed to have some significance. 
 In this instance, what is it ? What inner sentiment was it, the 
 overflow of which found issue in extravagant architectural orn- 
 amentation ? Was it akin to that, the overflow of which found 
 issue in the gold decorations of the temple of the Sun at Cuzco? 
 or in the embellishment of the cathedral at Cologne ? or the 
 residence of Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon ? or any fashionable 
 private residence of the tenth century at Venice or Nuremburg ? 
 Is it likelv that this extravagant architectural ornamentation had 
 a literary significance in England during the Elizabethan era, 
 and had no such significance in other countries and ages where 
 this has been so completely eclipsed ? If not, what literary 
 significance has it had in the other places named .^ In short 
 what business can such allusion have in a philosophic history 
 of any literature ? Some savages decorate their persons to 
 deformity. Others, equally, but no less degraded, decorate 
 themselves very little. Paris may be the mistress of fashion, 
 but in literature and philosophy, how does it compare with 
 Berlin or Boston ? 
 
 Generalization is the filmy subterfuge frequently resorted to 
 in order to avoid contradiction. Yet when analyzed the fraud 
 is easily detected, and contradiction itself may be discovered. 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 273 
 
 It is SO dangerous an expedient that it is really surprising that 
 any one of great learning should ever resort to it. In the philo- 
 sophic historian's description of, or rather dissertation upon, 
 what he calls the pagan renaissance, he attributes an alleged 
 revival of spirits to an alleged re-establishment, or perhaps in- 
 troduction, of paganism in England about the close of what he 
 calls the middle age. He says, "After the terrible night of the 
 middle age, and the dolorous legends of spirits and the damned, 
 it was a delight to see again Olympus shining upon us from 
 Greece; its heroic and beautiful deities once more ravishing the 
 hearts of men ; they raised and instructed this young world by 
 speaking to it the language of passion and genius; and this age 
 of strong deeds, free sensuality, bold invention, had only to 
 follow its own bent, in order to discover in them its masters 
 and the eternal promoters of liberty and beauty." 
 
 Within two pages of this figurative flight, and speaking of 
 the same period he says, "A disenchantment, a sad or bitter 
 dreaminess, an innate consciousness of the vanity of human 
 things, are never lacking in this country and in this race; the 
 inhabitants support life with difficulty, and know how to speak 
 of death. Surrey's finest verses bear witness thus soon to his 
 serious bent, this instinctive and grave philosophy." 
 
 It is difficult to conceive how a writer could be more dis- 
 cordant, or more inconsistent with himself In the first of 
 these passages he has English Intellect shaking off the sad 
 thought of human weakness and decay which had crushed it 
 for seventeen centuries, English hearts were being ravished by 
 the heroic and beautiful Olympic deities from Greece, and they 
 were raising and instructing this young world in the language 
 of passion and genius ; and this age ot free sensuality, bold in- 
 vention, had only to follow its own bent in order to discover 
 in them (strong deeds, free sensuality, and bold invention; or, 
 the heroic and beautiful Olympic deities from Greece }) its 
 masters and the eternal promoters of liberty and beauty. 
 
 In the second of these passages he has this same English 
 Intellect of the same period, indeed at all times, sternly disen- 
 chanted, bowed by a sad or bitter dreaminess, an innate con- 
 sciousness of the vanity of human things; supporting life with 
 
274 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 difficulty, speaking flimiliarly of death; and the finest verses oi 
 its principal poet bearing witness to his serious bent, this in- 
 stinctive and grave philosophy. 
 
 Philosophers are supposed to mean what they say. in their 
 philosophies. We have no right to assume that the philo- 
 sophic historian meant less than he has said in these two pass- 
 ages. And it cannot be assumed that they were intended to 
 apply to different periods, because they are plainly applied to 
 one period. Yet they flatly contradict each other, and neither 
 of them means anything to the purpose in a philosophic history 
 of a literature. If the mind of man had been constantly bowed 
 beneath the sad thought of human weakness and decay for 
 seventeen centuries, it would show great elasticity if that period 
 should be immediately followed by an age of strong deeds, 
 free sensuality, bold invention, which had only to follow its 
 own bent in order to discover in the heroic and beautiful 
 Olympic deities from Greece, or in its own free sensuality and 
 bold invention, its masters and the eternal promoters of liberty 
 and beauty. And by the way, which was it, the heroic and 
 beautiful Olympic deities from Greece, or the free sensuality 
 and bold invention of the age, that were the masters of the age 
 and the eternal promoters of liberty and beauty ? And how 
 could either, or any, or all of them be the eternal promoters of 
 liberty and beautv ? If the heroic and beautiful Olympic deities 
 from Greece raised and instructed this young world by speaking 
 to it the language of passion, they took a strange course to 
 elevate the human mind. If the elevation resulted in produc- 
 ing an age of free sensuality, it was a strange sort of intellect- 
 ual elevation. 
 
 It seems to have been the nightmare of the philosophic his- 
 torian of English Literature, that there was radical change in 
 man, especially in the mind of man, about the close of the 
 alleged middle age. In most instances where he has said any- 
 thing specific and intended to sustain any philosophic propos- 
 ition, it either asserts, or implies the actuality of such change. 
 "Often, after reading the poets of this age, I have looked for 
 some time at the contemporary prints telling myself that man, 
 in mind and body, was not then such as we see him to-day. 
 
 J 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 275 
 
 We also have our passions, but we are no longer strong 
 enough to bear them. They unsettle us; we are no longer 
 poets without suffering from it. Alfred de Musset, Heine, 
 Edgar Poe, Burns, Byron, Shelley, Cowper, how many shall I 
 instance ? Disgust, mental and bodily degradation, disease, 
 impotence, madness, suicide, at best a permanent hallucination 
 or feverish raving, — these are nowadays the ordinary issues of 
 the poetic temperament. The passion of the brain gnaws our 
 vitals, dries up the blood, eats into the marrow, shakes us like 
 a tempest, and the human frame, such as civilization has made 
 us, is not substantial enough long to resist it. They who have 
 been more roughly trained, who are more inured to the in- 
 clemencies of climate, more hardened by bodily exercises, more 
 firm against danger, endure and live." 
 
 This passage condemns itself for untruthfulness, and folly. It 
 is absurd to rank Byron, Shelley, and Poe, with Cowper and 
 Burns, in any respect. Except that they were men and wrote 
 poetry, there is nothing in common between any two of them.- 
 Shelley and Poe are the only ones among them who can be 
 regarded the untimely victims of a murderous Muse. Cowper's 
 Task, and the Olney Hymns would scarcely restrict him to the 
 rank of the author of the Raven and The Poetic Principle. If 
 men's writings were reliable indications of their feelings, and 
 in many places the philosophic historian says they are, there 
 have been few persons more serenely happy than Cowper, and 
 as he lived to the mature age of sixty-eight years, and five 
 months he cannot be regarded a very early victim of the rav- 
 ages of the poetic temperament. He has himself said, "Dejec- 
 tion of spirits, which may have prevented many a man from 
 becoming an author, made me one. 1 find constant employ- 
 ment necessary, and therefore take care to be constantly em- 
 ployed. When 1 can find no other occupation, 1 think; and 
 when 1 think, 1 am very apt to do it in rhyme." He had been 
 crossed in love, and while this did not suddenly do so, there is 
 good reason to believe that it eventually made him melancholy; 
 and this melancholy, according to his own words, intensified 
 his poetic temperament, instead of his poetic temperament find- 
 ing issue in it. If one will write history it costs so little to get 
 
276 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, 
 
 the truth that he is inexcusable if he even hints that which is 
 really untrue. To say that the poetic temperament fmds issue 
 in disgust, mental and bodily degradation, madness, disease, im- 
 potence, suicide, and a permanent hallucination or feverish 
 raving, because some poets have shown symptoms of such mala- 
 dies, is fairly equivalent to saying that the kingly tempera- 
 ment finds issue in epilepsy or apoplexy because Julius Caesar 
 and Charles the Second had fits. 
 
 It is equally as absurd to say that we are no longer strong 
 enough to bear our passions. It busied the deadly poetic 
 temperament seventy-five years to get Longfellow, seventy- 
 three years to get Whitman, sixty-one years to get Coleridge, 
 sixty-one years to get Willis, eighty-five years to get Whittier, 
 eighty-four years to get Tennyson, sixty-nine years to get 
 Southey, seventy-three years to get Wordsworth, eighty-four 
 years aided by a physical accident to get Bryant; and it has 
 been after Oliver Wendell Holmes for eighty-three years and he 
 still lives.* Then think of Pope, — the deformity, the enormity, 
 the inspired invalid, whose fifty-six years were one round of 
 wretchedness, one long protracted disease. It would be equal- 
 ly as philosophic to say that his poetic temperament caused 
 him to be born hunch-backed as to say that it had hastened 
 his death. It is true that Shelley and Poe had stormy passions 
 and weird imagination, and that they both died young. But 
 one was accidentally drowned, and the other, after a terrible 
 debauch, was drugged in his drinks. Keats died at the early 
 age of twenty-five, and his writings betoken strong passion 
 and ethereal imagination. But there is no reason to believe 
 that he was physically inadequate to bear all the mental throes 
 which his writings imply that he was rent with. The truth is, 
 men's writings are not very reliable indexes to their feelings. 
 Cowper wrote his most humorous pieces, when he was most 
 dejected and cast down with his final malady — despondency. 
 James Montgomery wrote his finest flashes of wit and humor 
 during and describing his own imprisonment. 
 
 Suppose we take the philosophic historian's proposition for 
 all that he appears to intend by it — that the writings of certain 
 *Dr. Holmes died while this work was in press. 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 277 
 
 persons at certain periods, imply the existence and prevalence 
 of certain frames or forms or kinds of mind ; and we are then 
 not advanced an iota in the direction of any definite psycholog- 
 ical result. It is fashionable to seem to know and to have a 
 good deal to say about Shakespeare; and he is one of the most 
 conspicuous figures in the philosophic history of English Liter- 
 ature. But the philosophic historian would find it troublesome 
 to establish that his writings imply the existence and preval- 
 ence of any particular frame or form or kind of mind in Shake- 
 peare's era. With the exception ot the unaccountable 
 anachronism relating to Aristotle, the general sentiment of the 
 Troilus and Cressida is as well adapted to the Trojan era, as 
 that of Euripides' Andromache; or, as that of Aristophanes' 
 Frogs is to the alleged decline of Greek tragedy. There is no 
 keener wit in any thing written, than that in the interview be- 
 tween Falstaff and the Chief Justice in the second scene in the 
 first act in King Henry Fourth, part two. But as literature is 
 already deluged with dissertations on the writings of Shakes- 
 peare, it must suffice here to say, that they do not imply the 
 existence or prevalence at any particular time of any particular 
 frame, or form, or kind of mind. But that like the writings of 
 many others, contemporaneous and earlier and later, they do 
 imply the existence and prevalence of many frames and forms 
 and kinds of mind at all times to which they relate. Any 
 observer in crowded life may notice reproductions of many of 
 his characters almost daily. Of course he has painted them 
 more vividly than we could ever have conceived them without 
 having read him ; but that is simply because his power to por- 
 tray is so far above our power to perceive. The dark destruc- 
 tive rage of jealously was never so terribly exhibited as in 
 Othello; graceless and gratuitous diabolism was never so cow- 
 ardly and cruel as in lago. No one can define the character of 
 Falstaff. It smacks somewhat of assurance to attempt to 
 define any of Shakespeare's important characters or eulogize 
 his representations of them. 
 
 It would be idle to trace the course of the alleged history of 
 English Literature further, to ascertain if its philosophic writer 
 discovered in it the psychology of a people. In the very nature 
 
278 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 of mind there can be no such thing as a defined and ascertain- 
 ed psychology of a people; and all efforts to find such thing in 
 or deduce it from the literature of a people, must result in 
 groundless, aimless, and senseless generalization; in which 
 there can be nothing tangible, definite, or reliable. Having 
 examined the basis of the undertaking, and discovered that 
 every thing therein which rises to the importance of statement 
 of literary fact, or of deduction from such fact, is mere gen- 
 eralization which will not bear analysis, it were a needless 
 expenditure of time and toil to give the work an exhaustive 
 study. No structure erected on such a basis can have any 
 solidity. Anecdotes in the lives of authors (asof other persons) 
 may be interesting or amusing as facts. But they have no 
 more significance in a literature, or in a psychology to be 
 found in or deduced from a literature, than the fact that Benja- 
 min Franklin was munching a bread-crust in front of her 
 father's house when he saw and fell in love with Deborah 
 Read, had in developing the scientific manipulation of electricity. 
 I have read the Lives of the Philosophers of Diogenes Laertius 
 with great interest, and am frequently amused with its anec- 
 dotes; but such things signify nothing or next to nothing in a 
 philosophic history of a literature, and they certainly can have 
 no meaning for any thing which in the very nature of things 
 cannot itself be. Nevertheless, 1 have carefully studied the 
 alleged history, and am constrained to say that it proceeds 
 very much as it is now shown to have begun, in arbitrary 
 classification, in indefinite and unmeaning generalization, and 
 in very figurative metaphor; the monotonous repetition of 
 which is diversified as hitherto by frequent groundless state- 
 ment, untenable deduction, and occasional contradiction. In 
 reply to the assertion that the thinking public and the human 
 mind had changed in consequence of certain alleged discoveries 
 in intellect and literature, it may be sufficient to suggest to the 
 learned reader a comparison of Juvenal's Satires with the letters 
 of Junius, and of the sentiment of the Satires of Horace with 
 that of Burns' Holy Willie's Prayer, and the paintings of 
 Hogarth, and the caricatures of Nast. 
 
 Exalting the ethereal imagery of Spenser, as exemplified in 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION, AND METAPHOR. 279 
 
 The Faery Queen, almost above the conception of mortal minds, 
 the philosophic historian says, "What world could furnish 
 materials to so elevated a fancy ? One only, that of chivalry; 
 for none is so far from the actual." The Faery Queen, Spenser's 
 masterpiece, was written in the times of Raleigh, Sidney, and 
 Leicester, which may have been pre-eminently an age of chi- 
 valry, as we are informed that Raleigh spread his cloak in the 
 mud for his royal mistress — at least Leicester's mistress and the 
 judicial murderess of her more royal cousin — to walk upon. 
 More than three hundred years thereafter Keats wrote the En- 
 dymion. It will scarcely be claimed that this was an age of 
 chivalry; as Washington, Wayne, Paul Jones, Francis Marion, 
 and Andrew Jackson had given mankind some very convincing 
 argument that the world of chivalry was indeed very far from 
 the actual. But something seems to have furnished material to 
 Keats' fancy in 1817 as exemplified in the Endymion; and 
 later to Willis' fancy as exemplified in his Parrhasius; and to 
 Shelley's fancy as exemplified in The Revolt of Islam. If any of 
 these are not so elevated as that of Spenser, I must confess my 
 ignorance of the signification of the term elevation. Different 
 fancies, or the fancies of different poets, may be nearer the 
 same dizzy height than of the same diny kind or quality. If 
 extravagance is fancy, then Gulliver's Travels and Baron Mun- 
 chausen's Campaigns indicate a more loftily elevated fancy than 
 that of the poets. I am not objecting to the altitude of Spen- 
 ser's fancy as exemplified in the Faery Queen, nor to the 
 exalted merit of the poem itself But I insist that no chivalry, 
 nor any thought of such thing was requisite to furnish material 
 to his fancy, nor to that of any other poet or person. The 
 assertion of the philosophic historian is an empty, aimless, 
 high-sounding generalization without meaning. 
 
 In speaking of what he seems to regard the exaggerated 
 imagination of a feudal hero, and attributing it to some occult 
 influence of the feudal system, the philosophic historian gives 
 us a specimen of his own no less exaggerated, as well as figur- 
 ative and unmeaning metaphor. Of the feudal hero he says, 
 "For want of useful employment and an accepted rule, his 
 brain had labored on an unreasoning and impossible track, and 
 
280 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the urgency of his wearisomeness had increased beyond meas- 
 ure his craving for excitement. Under this stimulus his poetry 
 had become a world of imagery. Insensibly strange concep- 
 tions had grown and multiplied in his brains, one over the 
 other like ivy woven around a tree, and the original trunk had 
 disappeared beneath their rank growth and obstruction. The 
 delicate fancies of the old Welsh poets, the grand ruins of the 
 German epics, the marvellous splendors of the conquered east, 
 all the recollections which four centuries of adventure had 
 scattered among the minds of men had become gathered into 
 one great dream; and giants, dwarfs, monsters, the whole 
 medley of imaginary creatures, of superhuman exploits and 
 splendid follies, were grouped around an unique conception, 
 exalted and sublin-'e love, like courtiers prostrated at the feet of 
 their king." 
 
 This is bravely done, but what is meant by it ? It seems 
 to imply that until the feudal hero was stimulated by his weari- 
 someness into the craving for excitement, his poetry had been 
 something other than a world of imagery. We are not told 
 what it was, nor indeed what kind of poetry there could be 
 outside the world of imagery. If imagery is abstracted from 
 poetry, or if poetry is constructed without imagery, it is not 
 likely to be very poetical. It may jingle and rhyme, it may 
 proceed with a stately and a measured tread, but it will not be 
 poetry. I know of no sillier simile than that in which the 
 philosophic historian as above quoted says, that "giants, 
 dwarfs, monsters, the whole medley of imaginary creatures, of 
 superhuman exploits and splendid follies, were grouped around 
 an unique conception, exalted and sublime love, like courtiers 
 prostrate at the feet of their King." It requires a more fantasti- 
 cal fancy than poetry can utilize, to imagine the giants, etc., 
 grouping themselves around an unique conception, exalted and 
 sublime love, like courtiers prostrate at the feet of their King. 
 The idea is too figurative to be really an idea, it is an unintelli- 
 gible and meaningless figure of speech, too airy even for a re- 
 spectable chimera. Of course one can perfunctorily read the 
 passage, and by hastening on to something else and forgetting 
 what it says, he can avoid the chagrin and disappointment 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 28 1 
 
 usually incident to a discovery of the insipid emptiness of 
 high-sounding and superbly wrought literary phrase. But I 
 do not understand that books, or any part of them, are written 
 for sound and figure; and especially those assuming the dignity 
 of philosophic history and criticism. It takes time and toil to 
 write them, and on principles of economy no more should be 
 written than is necessary to clearly express intelligible ideas de- 
 serving their readers' attention. It takes time, toil, and atten- 
 tion to study them, and on principles of economy no more 
 should be WTitten and presented for the employment of the 
 reader's energies than is necessary to clearly impart to him the 
 'idea intended for, and calculated to promote, his edification in 
 some way. A book that is not so intended and calculated, is 
 a graceless imposition upon the tolerance of a reading world; 
 and the more superbly it is wrought the baser the imposture 
 on the credulity of the great masses of readers who habitually 
 adopt the thought of their authors where they comprehend it, 
 and imagine that all they do not comprehend is too profound 
 for their comprehension. 
 
 Incredulity may itself become grotesquely absurd, still the 
 true way to read is to' read skeptically — at least thoughtfully. 
 Intellectual slavery is more degrading than physical, and the 
 reader should do his own thinking, especially when his author 
 propounds some apparently deep proposition in philosophy, or 
 makes some startling announcement of alleged literary fact, or 
 when he blends and confuses the two as in the following: — 
 "That which had struck men on escaping from ecclesiastical 
 oppression and monkish asceticism was the pagan idea of a life 
 true to nature, and freely developed. They had found nature 
 buried behind scholasticism, and they had expressed it in poems 
 and paintings; in Italy by superb healthy corporeality, in 
 England by vehement and unconventional spirituality, with 
 such divination of its laws, instincts and forms, that we might 
 extract from their theatre and their pictures a complete theory 
 of soul and body. When enthusiasm is past, curiosity be- 
 gins. The sentiment of beauty gives way to the need of truth. 
 The theory contained in works of imagination frees itself. The 
 gaze continues fixed on nature, not to admire now, but to un- 
 
2S2 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 derstand. From painting we pass to anatomy, from the drama 
 to moral phiiosopiiy, from grand poetical divinations to great 
 scientific views; the second continues the first, and the same 
 mind displays itself in both; for what art had represented, and 
 science proceeds to observe, are living things, with their com- 
 plex and complete structure, set in motion by their internal 
 forces, with no supernatural intervention. Artists and savants, 
 all set out, without knowing it themselves, from the same 
 master conception, to-wit, that nature subsists of herself that 
 every existence has in its own womb the source of its action, 
 that the causes of events are the innate laws of things; an all 
 powerful idea, from which was to issue the modern civilization, 
 and which, at the time 1 write of, produced in England and 
 Italy, as betore in Greece, genuine sciences, side by side with a 
 complete art; after da Vinci and Michael Angelo, the school of 
 anatomists, mathematicians, naturalists, ending with Galileo; 
 after Spenser, Ben Johnson, and Shakespeare, the school of 
 thinkers who surround Bacon and lead up to Harvey. We 
 have not far to look for this school. In the interregnum of 
 Christianity the dominating bent of mind belongs to it. It was 
 paganism which reigned in Elizabeths court, not only in letters, 
 but in doctrine, — a paganism of the north, always serious, 
 generally sombre, but which was based, like that of the south, 
 on natural forces." 
 
 To examine the most startling proposition first, I must 
 begin with the one that "the gaze continues fixed on nature, 
 not to admire now, but to understand." This is a serious 
 declaration of a philosophic historian, one that is essential to 
 the validity and intelligibility of his philosophic history ; because 
 he has made it without qualification as a part of the basis of a 
 part of his argument. No mind ever beheld nature to under- 
 stand, and not admire it. No mind ever beheld nature to 
 understand it. Did any human mind ever behold nature at all ? 
 If the gaze was fixed on nature to understand it. nature must 
 have been beheld by the mind so gazing upon it, and no mind 
 has ever come any nearer to beholding nature, than the naked 
 eye has come to beholding the remotest celestial systems. We 
 may know that blood is red, and that it is composed of a color- 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 283 
 
 less transparent fluid with countless corpuscles floating in it. 
 But to behold nature here to understand it, we must know 
 why this is so instead of some other way. We may know that 
 a drop of blood is globular; but to behold nature here to un- 
 derstand it we must know why it is so instead of oblong, 
 irregular, or square. We may know that a drop of blood may 
 be at one time in the heart, and at another time in some other 
 part of the body. But to behold nature here to understand it 
 we must know why it so migrates, and what force impels it 
 throughout its peregrinations. We may know that in less time 
 than can be computed a thought may go back to a very remote 
 antiquity, and out to an incalculable distance in space; but to 
 behold nature here to understand it we must know how it 
 does this, and what force impels its flight. No one can imag- 
 ine why gravitation tends all substance on or near the earth 
 toward its center. Life may be traced back through the vari- 
 ous conditions of substance, in its various combinations and 
 subject to the various influences working upon it, to the radi- 
 ation of light and heat from the sun. But nature is not beheld 
 here to be understood. We have a bare glimpse of it. The 
 question immediately suggests itself— where did the sun 
 obtain its light and heat ? Worse and more — why should its 
 light and heat have such influence or effect on substance in 
 some combinations and conditions, and an entirely different in- 
 fluence or effect on substance in other combinations and con- 
 ditions ? Scientifically, the buzz of a gnat, the hum of a bee, 
 the prayer and praise of the worshipper, the phillipics of the 
 fanatic, the tick of a watch, the roar of a cataract, the explos- 
 ion of a mine, are all traceable to the sun's irradiation of light 
 and heat, its effect on the substance subjected to their com- 
 bined force. Can a priest pray without the exertion of physi- 
 cal force ? He cannot even think without some exertion of the 
 brain, and this is physical exertion because a certain measure 
 of it produces fatigue, more of it disturbs the repose of the 
 nerves — and they are phvsical substance — enough of it can be 
 and frequently is done to produce prostration, impair, and 
 some times ruin the physical health. 
 
 The brain would not operate so as to formulate the heart's 
 
2^4 etHlCS OF LITERAtURe. 
 
 supplications, or dart its own thoughts to remote distance in 
 space or time, or excogitate its senseless philosophical dog- 
 mas, unless it were invigorated by the nutrition derived from 
 the blood circulating through it. There would be no blood so 
 circulating and furnishing such nutrition unless the appropriate 
 organs therefor extract it from the food furnished them through 
 the stomach. There is no food but is mediately or immediate- 
 ly derived from vegetation, and there is no vegetation but is 
 produced by the agency of the sun's light and heat. The force 
 which the sun generates then is mechanical, because all its 
 visible effects are mechanical — the sighs and groans and 
 meditations, hopes and fears and loves and hatreds of the 
 religious enthusiast; even the philosophic deductions of the 
 philosophic historian of English Literature, and my own objec- 
 tions thereto are all ultimately mechanical — at least they are 
 mechanically caused or derived. When science has discovered 
 this, it has caught a faint glimpse of nature. It cannot intelligi- 
 bly imagine any thing like a reason why it is so, nor why it 
 were not so well or even better some other way, or — not at 
 all. Nothing could be sillier than to say that "the gaze con- 
 tinues fixed on nature, not to admire now, but to understand." 
 The first proposition is that at some time men escaped from 
 ecclesiastical and monkish thralldom, and were struck with the 
 pagan idea of a life true to nature and freely developed ; that 
 they found nature buried behind scholasticism, that they ex- 
 pressed it (nature) in poems and paintings "with such divina- 
 tion of its laws, instincts and forms, that we might extract from 
 their theatre and pictures a complete theory of soul and body." 
 It is reasonably fair to presume that by the complete theory 
 here spoken of a complete intelligible theory is meant, one 
 that a human mind could conceive and express in intelligible 
 form so that other human minds might grasp it. The material 
 from which it was to be extracted would seem rather meagre 
 for such a product. Expressions in poetry and drama and paint- 
 ing, may imitate nature as far as nature is seen by the artist 
 making the expressions. So far as they are content to copy 
 what they have seen in nature, they may safely attempt to 
 represent nature. But when they go beyond that to invention. 
 
 1 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 28^ 
 
 they tread unknown and dangerous ground, and may deviate 
 from nature as for as guess-work can go. If an artist has a 
 complete and intelligible conception of body and soul he 
 may express it in his poem, his painting, or his drama. No artist 
 or poet ever had such a conception. The aggregate of all the 
 conceptions ever had of body and soul, which were severally 
 true as far as they went, would not constitute a complete 
 theory of body and soul. A complete theory of body and soul, 
 without regard to its being true, is not a human possibility. 
 No man ever lived who could imagine how they were related, 
 or how he could conceive them to be related. Many persons 
 may have had vague and indefinite ideas of their being related, 
 but no one has yet definitely and intelligibly, even to himself, 
 thought out and fixed in his own mind such a thing as a com- 
 prehensible relation between body and soul. No human mind 
 can do so. The relation of body and soul, if it exists, is a very 
 important factor in the complete theory of body and soul. If 
 there is no such relation, then body and soul cannot together 
 be the subject, nor separately be the subjects, of any thing like 
 a complete theory; although taken separately they each might 
 be the subject of some confusedly imagined theory. 
 
 The first proposition in the above quoted declaration sug- 
 gests another question — when did men escape from ecclesiasti- 
 cal oppression ? Waiving the falsity of the imputation that 
 during the Elizabethan era a paganism of any kind prevailed in 
 her court, even in intellectual irreverence, in literary licentious- 
 ness, or in any thing else; and for the sake of the investigation 
 admitting that such paganism then prevailed, there was still no 
 escape from ecclesiastical oppression. Paganism is necessarily 
 religion, religion is necessarily restraint, and restraint is neces- 
 sarily oppression. If there is such a thing as entire absence of 
 restraint and oppression, it must be in entire absence of relig- 
 ion, pagan and all others. Absolute freedom can only consist 
 in absolute atheism— in the abolition of the word ought, in the 
 cancellation of obligation, in the demolition of duty, in the ex- 
 tirpation of all sense of duty and obligation. So long as a 
 vestige of such sense remains, the individual is bound, 
 restrained, and (ecclesiastically) oppressed with it. And as no 
 
286 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 mind ever existed absolutely clear of such sense, atheism is 
 not a human possibility. 
 
 Another question suggests itself — who were the men that 
 had escaped from monkish asceticism ? Is it possible that by 
 the word men as used in that connection the philosophic his- 
 torian meant the one in the hundred that fasted, prayed, 
 counted his beads, or sanctimoniously sighed for the sins of his 
 fellows; instead of the ninety-nine including the indifferent, 
 the preoccupied, the conservative, as well as those who 
 revelled and rioted in the fancied felicities of their existence ? 
 Was there no laughter in those days ? Were there no May- 
 poles ? The philosophic historian himself quotes the answer 
 from the Life of Richard Baxter. Was no beer brewed ? 
 Were there no Donnybrook fairs ? Were there no Darbies 
 and Joans ? Were there no gaming, duelling, seducing, de- 
 baucheries, or any of the other accomplishments, pastimes, 
 or graces of a Christian civilization ? 
 
 Another question presents itself — In what respect and how 
 can the pagan idea of life be truer to nature than that of any 
 other form of religion ? Paganism is polytheism, and involves 
 belief in a plurality of Gods. If this is more natural to the 
 human mind in the abstract, or merely as a human mind, than 
 monotheism, then the pagan idea of life may be truer to nature 
 than that of any other religion, or. than that of irreligion or 
 atheism. Otherwise it cannot be. This suggests the further 
 question, — which is the most natural to the human mind 
 merely as such, and without any prejudices, if such a mind can 
 be supposed, polytheism, or monotheism ? I leave atheism 
 out of the account, as being impossible to the human mind. 
 If the question is legitimately within the range of human specu- 
 lation at all, it is purely metaphysical; and cannot, nor can 
 anything in it, be met with anything like demonstration from 
 any phenomena apprehensible to the senses. As a subject of 
 metaphysical speculation, the polytheistic idea is a contradic- 
 tion, it is self-destructive. It necessarily involves an impossi- 
 ble division of infinite power among a number of infinitely 
 powerful Beings ; as no one would be so absurd as to suppose 
 a God with less than infinite power. If there are more than 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 287 
 
 one God, the power of one is necessarily limited by the power 
 of another, and the moment a limit to the power is supposed, 
 the idea of God goes glimmering. Then the fundamental idea 
 of paganism is utterly destructive of itself, it will not bear even 
 a slight alalysis, and it would not be very judicious to accept 
 its derivative as the true idea of human life. For aught we 
 huoiv there may be Gods as numerous as the sands of the sea, 
 and they may each be infinitely powerful. But we do know 
 that the human mind is unable to conceive the possibility of 
 more than one Being of infinite power, and hence, that in such 
 condition of the human mind, the polytheistic idea is unnatural 
 to it. If the very bedrock of paganism is itself unnatural to the 
 human mind, then the pagan idea of life cannot be very natural 
 to it. 
 
 Were it answered that countless millions have been pagans, 
 imbued with the polytheistic idea which lies at the base of 
 paganism, it argues nothing in favor of the naturalness of the 
 polytheistic idea. No one ever believed in paganism, or in 
 any other ism, until the belief was instilled into his mind. 
 This process was to him an education of some sort and in 
 some measure, and thereby and to such extent prejudiced his 
 mind. And even such minds so prejudiced could not believe 
 in the existence of more than one God (Beings of infinite 
 power) after critically trying to think the possibility of their 
 being, because as above shown, he would have found it im- 
 possible to think such possibility, and hence impossible to so 
 believe. That which is impossible of thought cannot be natural 
 to the mind; although by artificial means it may have been 
 caused to obtain in many, or in all minds. If by the inexor- 
 able laws of thought the idea must vanish from the mind the 
 very moment the mind attempts to establish it there by its own 
 natural processes of reasoning, then the idea cannot be natural 
 to the mind, no matter how extensively it may have obtained 
 before such attempt was made, or where it has not been made. 
 
 One among the most remarkable propositions 1 have found 
 in philosophy is this of the philosophic historian in his historic 
 dissertation on the alleged pagan renaissance, that "Methods 
 and philosophies, as well as literatures and religions, arise from 
 
288 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the spirit of the age ; and this spirit of the age makes them 
 potent or powerless. One state of public intelligence excludes 
 a certain kind of literature ; another, a certain scientific concep- 
 tion." These postulates cannot be the results of deliberate 
 rational thought on the subjects to which they relate; yet they 
 are cardinal to the general argument, which must then be un- 
 sound if these are fallacious. If the propositions are true, then 
 methods, philosophies, literatures, and religions, are mere 
 manifestations of the spirit of the age from which they so 
 arise, and no argument of the question can rise above a mere 
 play upon words. Where the terms used are themselves 
 essentially vague and elastic, and are not rendered more pre- 
 cise by the connection and manner in which they are used, it 
 may be difficult to trace some apparently profound philosophic 
 propositions to a definite philosophic position. But 1 think it 
 may properly be assumed that by the term spirit of the age as 
 used in the above quotation, the most generally and popularly 
 prevailing opinions, predilections, and prejudices of mankind, 
 relating to subjects of the most general concern are meant. 
 To say that such spirit produces philosophies or religions, or 
 that they arise from such spirit, is a direct contradiction of the 
 facts as they are well known to have occurred. If Galileo 
 founded a philosophy on the exposed errors and ruins of pre- 
 vious philosophies, his certainly did not arise from the spirit of 
 the age which strove to extinguish his, and did suppress him. 
 If his had arisen from the spirit of the age, it would simply 
 have voiced the sentiment of the age, very slight argument 
 would have established it, and it would have lionized him; 
 whereas, during the age very few accepted it although it was 
 enforced by unanswerable argument, and it not only wrought 
 his ostracism, but his imprisonment. In this instance philos- 
 ophy did not arise from the spirit of the age. Did the Chris- 
 tian religion arise from the spirit of the age which crucified its 
 founder, and persecuted its few despised adherents } Did 
 Mohammedanism arise from the spirit of the age when its 
 founder was obliged to flee his country to save his life, and 
 could only muster one thousand armed adherents after six 
 years promulgation of his religion ? Would it not be more 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 289 
 
 accurate historically, and more rational philosophically, to say 
 that philosophies and religions modify the spirit of the age, 
 than to say that they arise from it ? 
 
 Professing to trace the connection or relation between the 
 Theatre and Literature in England in the sixteenth century, the 
 philosophic historian says of the English mind, "It sees inthe 
 hero not only the hero, but the individual, with his manner of 
 walking, drinking, swearing, blowing his nose; with the tone 
 of his voice, whether he is thin or ht, and thus plunges to the 
 bottom of things with every look, as by a miner's deep shaft. 
 * * * Such a conception, by the multitude of details which 
 it combines, and by the depth of the vistas which it embraces, 
 is a half-vision which shakes the whole soul. What its works 
 are about to show is, with what energy, what disdain of con- 
 trivance, what vehemence of truth, it dares to coin and ham- 
 mer the human medal ; with what liberty it is able to repro- 
 duce in full prominence worn out characters, and the extreme 
 flights of virgin nature." This is in the chapter called The 
 Theatre in the book entitled the Renaissance, which chapter is 
 devoted to a depiction of the scenes enacted on the British 
 stage in the sixteenth century, and the manner in which they 
 were received, as indications of a transitional stage of the 
 British mind. There are murders, poisonings, punishments, 
 intrigues, ambitions, loves, jealousies, hopes, fears; and indeed 
 all that goes to make up the variety of life, real and fanciful, as ex- 
 hibited or reproduced in drama. Its significance in English 
 literature, so far as it is exhibited in connection with a doctrine 
 based on, or a claim of, any alleged change in the human mind 
 is not apparent. More than two thousand years before then 
 similar scenes, exhibiting similar characters, actuated by simi- 
 lar motives and subject to similar passions, and expressing 
 themselves in a similar manner, with as great variety of emo- 
 tion were to be seen on the Greek Stage, in the Prometheus 
 Chained, The Furies, Hecuba, Electra, The Ecclesiazusae, 
 Lysistrata, The Wasps, and numerous others. If a coarse and 
 cruel barbarity and a libidinous licentiousness on the stage are 
 trustworthy indexes to the human mind, it is not to be con- 
 gratulated on its progress or attairfment. To this day no play 
 
290 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 is complete without its villain, and few of them are more popu- 
 lar than Dr. Jekyl an4 Mr. Hyde; and if there is any better 
 drawing card than a French duel with rapiers, it is either a 
 fistic mill by big neck pugilists, or a troupe of brazen-faced 
 strumpets in tights. It appears that taste and performance in 
 theatricals cannot have much literary significance, notwith- 
 standing the English mind of the sixteenth century is said to 
 have plunged "to the bottom of things with every look as by a 
 miner's deep shaft," and seen its hero individually "with his 
 manner of walking, drinking, swearing, blowing his nose." 
 It seems the philosophic historian had almost blown his own 
 nose in or upon his philosophy. 
 
 At the beginning of a chapter of eighteen pages, describing 
 or rather descanting upon the dramatical works of Ben Jonson, 
 the philosophic historian says, "When a new civilization 
 brings a new art to light, there are about a dozen men of talent 
 who partly express the general idea, surrounding one or two 
 men of genius who express it thoroughly." He then proceeds 
 to group a number of names which, so far as concerns their 
 importance in literature and art, may as well have been Smith 
 or Jones, around such names as Calderon, de Vega, Rubens, 
 Jonson, and Shakespeare. It may be proper in describing, de- 
 fining, portraying, or in treating of the literary works of an 
 individual, and estimating their character as well as their im- 
 portance in and relation to literature, to philosophize upon the 
 essential characteristics of both, in order to make the import- 
 ance and relation of the particular to the general subject more 
 apparent. But this certainly does not justify the imputation 
 that there are new civilizations bringing new arts to light, the 
 general ideas of^which can be thoroughly expressed by one or 
 two men of genius, who are surrounded by about a dozen men 
 of talent who can only partly express them. There is not and 
 never was a new civilization. History discovers the existence 
 of no such thing at any time. It records the facts and circum- 
 stances attending and in some instances causing the modifica- 
 tion of a civilization, but no new civilization has yet been, and 
 in the very nature of things none can be. Human progress 
 from primitive barbarism toward civilization never went in 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 29 1 
 
 leaps or bounds, and the civilization of the sixteenth or any 
 other century, however much it may have surpassed that of 
 any previous century was not new, but had evolved from the 
 prior one by a process so slow as to be actually imperceptible 
 to any but the critical observers. And even their demarcations of 
 its alleged periods and stages and transitions are generally more 
 fanciful than real. The more closelv and critically one observes 
 human progress, the more firmly he will be convinced that 
 change in civilization is mere modification. Even the colo- 
 nists or conquerors or missionaries who change the civilization 
 of a barbarous country, do not create a new civilization ; at 
 most they only e.xtend one already existing. And what must 
 be thought of the literary discrimination of a philosophic his- 
 torian who names Lopez de Vega as one of the few men of 
 genius who could express thoroughly the alleged new art, 
 brought to light by the alleged new civilization } What does 
 he mean by the term express it tJwroughly ? If he means ex- 
 press it profusely, or interminably, he is not far wrong; for 
 Lopez de Vega's "dramas on which his popularity mainly 
 rested, number not less than eighteen hundred." Comment 
 were idle. 
 
 And what new arts are brought to light by any civilization ? 
 From the artists, the men of talent and genius named by the 
 philosophic historian, it is to be inferred that he was alluding 
 especially to poetry and paintin-g. Neither of these is a new 
 art. Neither history nor tradition can refer us to a time when 
 either of them was not practiced as an art. If they are both 
 known to have existed as arts as long as we are informed that 
 civilization has itself existed, neither of them can correctly be 
 called a new art, A translator of the tragedies of Aeschylus 
 has said, "There is no reason to suppose that Phrynichus 
 materially advanced the art, or structure of tragedy, beyond 
 the point at which it was left by Thespis. On this simple 
 basis, and with these imperfect materials, Aeschylus conceived 
 and framed the regular drama — such in the main, as it is found 
 in the works of the greatest poets, who have acquired in this 
 career the highest reputation." In other words, and perhaps 
 more accurately, Aeschylus had improved or advanced the art 
 
292 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 as it was left by Phrynichus, who had not materially improved 
 or advanced it as left by Thespis. But without some evidence 
 that Thespis had discovered or invented it, there is as much 
 reason to believe that some one had preceded him therein, as 
 that he had preceded Phrynichus. The f^ict that it has advanc- 
 ed or improved almost constantly ever since the times of Thes- 
 pis, perhaps less rapidly at some times than at others, possibly 
 at some times retrogressing instead of progressing, and thus 
 displaying the rhythm which Spencer says attends all forms of 
 movement, is a very forcible argument that when Thespis 
 practiced the art it was in a state of progression ; that as an art 
 it was never brought to light by any civilization ; but that like 
 civilization itself, it is a growth, a developement, expanding, 
 unfolding, and refining like all other human performances, by 
 a process of evolution. And so of painting, which "speaks 
 alike to all nations and all ages," its existence as an art dates 
 from the dawn of light upon human sight, and the capacity 
 to distinguish and manipulate colors. To say that at any time 
 these were new to England would be parallel to saying that at 
 one time the Spanish type of civilization was new to Central 
 America and the West India Isles. 
 
 The philosophic historian, after mentioning some of the 
 alleged attributes of Shakespeare says, "that this great age 
 alone could have cradled such a child." With equal propriety 
 one might say that no other than the first century could have 
 produced an Adam ; that none but the Mosaic period could 
 have produced the author of the book of Job; that none but the 
 tenth century B. C. could have produced a Solomon; that none 
 but the ninth century B. C. could have produced a Homer; 
 that none but the seventeenth century A. D. could have pro- 
 duced a Titus Gates ; and finally, that to the nineteenth century 
 alone was reserved the glory of producing its Jack the Ripper. 
 When any kind or quality of genius manifests itself in a marked 
 degree, philosophers, as is their unphilosophical wont, learned- 
 ly attribute the phenomenon to some occult infiuence inherent 
 in the age or clime where it appears. We have no knowledge 
 of any age that has not produced, or at least had its great men. 
 Thousands of them have been brought to the front and afforded 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 293 
 
 the means of manifesting their greatness by mere occasion ; 
 while thousands by nature equally as great and gifted, have 
 lived in obscurity and gone to oblivion, for mere want of 
 occasion. In a loose and rambling way, and too profusely 
 stated to be fully quoted here, the philosophic historian urges 
 that Shakespeare's own character, emotions, passions, instincts, 
 and nature, were such as he has painted those ot the personnel of 
 his plays.. Quoted fragmentarily, but fairly, he says, "Hamlet, 
 it will be said, is half-mad; this explains the vehemence of his 
 expressions. The truth is that Hamlet, here, is Shakespeare. 
 * * * These characters are all of the same family. Good or 
 bad, gross or delicate, witty or stupid, Shakespeare gives them 
 all the same kind of spirit which is his own. * * * 7he 
 mechanical imagination produces Shakespeare's fool characters; 
 a quick venturesome dazzling, unquiet imagination, produces 
 his men of wit. * * * Falstaff has the passions of an ani- 
 mal, and the imagination of a man of wit. There is no char- 
 acter which better exemplifies the fire and immorality of 
 Shakespeare. * * * The reason is, that his morals are 
 those of pure nature, and Shakespeare's mind is congenial with 
 his own. * * * The impassioned imagination of Shake- 
 speare has left its trace in all the creatures whom it has called 
 forth. * * * How much more visible this impassioned 
 and unfettered genius of Shakespeare in the great characters 
 which sustain the whole weight of the drama; the startling 
 imagination, the furious velocity of the manifold and exuberant 
 ideas, passion let loose, rushing upon death and crime, hallu- 
 cinations, madness, all the ravages of delirium bursting through 
 will and reason ; such are the forces and ravings which engen- 
 der them." The necessary inference is that in portraying his 
 stage characters, 
 
 "With little pains he made the picture true, 
 And from reflection took the rogue he drew." 
 
 Whoever will attentively read the chapter of the philosophic 
 historian of English Literature which is devoted exclusively to 
 Shakespeare will find himself in a furious flying cyclone of 
 empty, aimless, contradictory, grandiloquent, metaphor, and 
 generalization. At its beginning its author says, "I am about 
 
294 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, 
 
 to describe an extraordinary species of mind." Having care- 
 fully examined its thirty-four pages, and finding nothing therein 
 which resembles a description of any mind, 1 am forced to the 
 opinion that whoever grasps and assimilates what is there said 
 of Shakespeare, will doubt that he really had any mind. Such 
 a mental medley is seldom exhibited for the contemplation of 
 the thoughtful reader. No psychological principle is deducible 
 from the study, and no such principle can be applied to it as a 
 whole. The truth is the entire chapter is not an entirety. It 
 is a chaotic torrent of turgescence, without form and void. To 
 maintain that such a writer as Shakespeare has passions and in- 
 stincts and characteristics, corresponding and parallel with 
 those he personifies in the personnel of his plays, is to ignore 
 ail possibly legitimate principles of psychology, and implies a 
 more feverish furor in the imagination of the proponent, than 
 in that of the subject of such proposition. Many of Shake- 
 speare's personages were real men and women, and in his 
 plays they are represented in their historically true characters, 
 though in some instances, perhaps more intensely. They are 
 generally as real to his representations of them, as he is him- 
 self to the philosophic historians representation of him. If the 
 philosophic historian is exemplifying a principle of psychology 
 in saying that "the impassioned imagination of Shakespeare 
 has left its trace in all the creatures whom it has called forth," 
 and if many of them are called forth from the reality, the same 
 psychological principle would imply that the philosophic his- 
 torian was just such a personage as he has attempted to repre- 
 sent Shakespeare as being. Shakespeare in presenting a per- 
 sonage in his drama or upon the stage was simply describing 
 his or her character; or rather by a sort of jugglery with his 
 reader's or the spectator's imagination, was procuring the per- 
 sonage to exhibit the character to the reader or spectator — 
 causing it to describe its character for itself If psychology im- 
 plies that in such description he has imparted his own charac- 
 teristics to the characters so described, or as formulating such • 
 characters from his own characteristics, then on the same 
 psychological principle, the philosophic historian, in his con- 
 fused cartoon of Shakespeare, has simply exhibited the ramb- 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 295 
 
 ling extravagance of his own impetuous imagination. If such 
 alleged psychological principle holds good, the poet who pre- 
 sents a thief as a personage in his play would steal; and the 
 more vividly he represents the character of the thief, the more 
 closely he should be watched. It thus appears to be much 
 easier to assume the existence of an alleged principle of psych- 
 ology, than to conform to it; and also that the rapid, rushing, 
 roaring inundation of figure, metaphor, allusion, classification 
 and generalization called the history of English Literature, in 
 which we are promised the psychology of a people, and which 
 assumes all the airs and dignity of a profoundly philo- 
 sophic criticism, overthrows its own author's claims to 
 reliability and authenticity as a philosopher, if we apply to it 
 the very principles of psychology upon which he bases his 
 own psychological deductions. 
 
 Following the chapter on Shakespeare, is one called the 
 Christian Renaissance, which is very entertaining and instruc- 
 tive in a historical point of view ; and as quarrelsome as I am, 
 I find but little in it that 1 regard really objectionable. Of 
 course its style is very figurative and tlorid, but it is not there- 
 by blemished so badly as some others already examined. 
 There are however a few propositions that seem to deserve at- 
 tention on account of their fallacy as philosophic propositions. 
 It is said that "For fourteen days Luther was in such a condi- 
 tion that he could neither drink, eat, nor sleep." Day and 
 night "his eyes were fixed on a text of Saint Paul, he saw the 
 Judge, and his inevitable hand. Such is the tragedy which is 
 enacted in all Protestant souls, — the eternal tragedy of con- 
 science; and its issue is a new religion." Philosophically con- 
 sidered, the strongest possible argument for irreligion and 
 against all religion, is the derivation of new religions; and the 
 force of the argument is intensified in the alleged fact that the 
 new religion is the issue of such ecstasy as Luther must have 
 been in to perform the wonderful feat with which he is so 
 credited. While different religions may repress vice and pro- 
 mote virtue in various degrees, one cannot philosophically con- 
 ceive more than one entirely true and reliable soul saving relig- 
 ion, unless there is more than one God to whose grace a ser- 
 
 k 
 
296 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 vice in the religion is to bring its votary. After an apostasy, 
 either of long or short duration, or before having ever had any 
 religion whatever (if such a state were possible) a person or a 
 people might be returned or brought to the true religion. But 
 if a neio religion issues from a frenzy it cannot be the true 
 religion unless all others are false, or there be more than one 
 God to serve by the religious life. Still the supposed new 
 religion might be more potent than some others to curb actual 
 wi'ckedness. But that would not be the orthodox soul saving 
 and soul damning religion intended in the passage being ex- 
 amined. To say that orthodox religions may vary according 
 to the states and conditions of various peoples and the different 
 stages of their civilizations, is begging the question. It implies 
 a limit to the power of the Almighty to have adapted all His 
 creatures to His one true religion, and exhibits Him as adapting 
 Himself and His service to the various and uncertain caprices of 
 His creatures. 
 
 Having descanted at great length upon the religious frenzy 
 that had prompted fanatics to encounter or rather to court 
 martyrdom, and buoyed their spirits while their bodies were 
 burned by bigoted brutes, the philosophic historian says, "One 
 detail is still needed to complete this manly religion — human 
 reason." Without resorting to what might be regarded capti- 
 ous objections to such terminology as manly religion, it is clear 
 that all religions of which we have any information have lacked 
 this same detail, and that nothing which the human mind can 
 conceive of as a religion can possibly have or partake of human 
 reason. This is demonstrated in the argument in chapters one 
 and two, which is strengthened in some measure in the argu- 
 ment in chapter seven, that the question of the mortality or im- 
 mortality of the soul presents an insuperable antinomy. The 
 immortality of the soul is essentially vital to all imaginable 
 religion. In the last mentioned chapter it is demonstrated that 
 the soul's mortality is conclusively shown in the reasoning of 
 Lucretius; and that its immortality is conclusively shown in 
 the reasoning of Socrates ; that diametrically opposite sides of 
 the same question are conclusively and unanswerably estab- 
 lished by strictly legitimate reasoning from unquestionable and 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 2C)'] 
 
 sound hypotheses. If the soul is mortal there can be no divine 
 sanction for anything which the mind can conceive of as a relig- 
 ion. If man's real interest in his conduct and its consequences 
 ends with death, it cannot possibly enforce anything partaking 
 of the nature of duty ; the sanction can rise no higher than a 
 mere economy. Religion to the human mind, means much 
 more than this. It means eternal salvation and happiness to 
 the individual, or eternal perdition and wretchedness. If the 
 question which is essentially fundamental and vital to religion, 
 can be solved and settled both ways, contrarily, by strictly 
 legitimate reasoning from unquestionable hypotheses, then it 
 is not a legitimate subject of human reasoning; and cannot in 
 any sense, nor to any extent depend upon or partake of it. 
 Human reason being foreign and utterly inadmissible to the 
 question of the soul's mortality or immortality which is the 
 essential basis of religion, it cannot be an essential detail, nor 
 indeed any detail in the leligion; so if the alleged manly relig- 
 ion had not lacked the alleged detail — human reason — it could 
 not have been a religion. 
 
 In paying tribute to an ecclesiastic, Jeremy Taylor, and at- 
 tributing to him some measure of importance in the alleged 
 Christian renaissance, the philosophic historian says : "In the 
 preacher, as well as in the poet, as well as in all the cavaliers 
 and all the artists of the time, the imagination is so full, that it 
 reaches the real even to its filth, and the ideal as for -as heaven. 
 How could true religious sentiment thus accommodate itself to 
 such a frank and worldly gait } This, however, is what it has 
 done; and more — the latter has generated the former." This 
 passage deserves examination, because it is philosophically 
 sound, or it is an idle figure of speech. In the former case it 
 should be understood so as to be utilized to the augmentation of 
 of the reader's knowledge, and perhaps, wisdom. In the latter 
 case it should be understood, so that its meaning, or rather its 
 unmeaning, may be rejected by the reader as so much senseless 
 sound. To say that the imagination of the persons named is 
 so full that it reaches the filth of the real, as well as the heaven 
 of the ideal, seems like an effort to palliate, if not justify, the 
 obscenity of thought and expression which constitutes such 
 
298 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 filth. If there was no such obscenity, there could be no occa- 
 sion for saying that such imagination reached such tilth. The 
 filth of the real was necessarily obscenity of thought and ex- 
 pression in dealing with the real, or, it had no literary signi- 
 ficance whatever. The object seems to be to mitigate its offen- 
 siveness by attributing it to the exuberant imaginations of those 
 who indulge in it. On the same principle we might mitigate 
 murder on account of the extreme cruelty of the slayer; or 
 theft, on account of the extreme cupidity of the thief; or sexual 
 debauchery, on account of the inordinate lust of the roue. The 
 copiousness of such imagination, not only seems to be the 
 "frank and worldly gait" to which the "true religious senti- 
 ment" had accommodated itself, it is said to have generated the 
 true religious sentiment. This is a correct analysis of the 
 passage in question, if it has any literary significance. So 
 analyzed and understood, and no other analysis or understand- 
 ing seems to be admissible, the passage cannot be regarded very 
 ornamental to the literary form, or elevating to the alleged phil- 
 osophy, of the history. Religionists and apologists are not 
 likely to be very grateful for the patronizing assurance that the 
 "true religious sentiment" is generated by "a frank and v/orldly 
 gait," consisting largely of the Ji/th of the real, which, to have 
 any literary significance must be obscenity of thought and ex- 
 pression in dealing with the real. If the true religious senti- 
 ment consists of an abiding faith in, and a controlling sense of 
 duty to, the Almighty; believing Him to be an infinitely wise, 
 great, and good Spirit; it is difficult, or rather psychologically 
 impossible to conceive how it could be generated by any "frank 
 and worldly gait;" much less by one consistfng of an imagina- 
 tion so full as to reach the filth of the real — the obscene in 
 thought and expression. The passage then seems to be full 
 of — nothing; and there is no escape from the necessity of re- 
 jecting it as so much senseless sound. 
 
 The last chapter in the second book, the Renaissance, is 
 devoted to an examination of the poetry of John Milton. As I 
 have already, in chapter three, considered the philosophy of his 
 Paradise Lost, which, so far as literature is concerned, is nearly 
 if not quite all there is of Milton, it might seem superfluous to 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 299 
 
 pause to consider what may be said of him by the philosophic 
 historian of English Literature. The chapter opens, however, 
 with a sort of exordium containing what appears to be intended 
 as a sort of definition or description of the mind of its hero. 
 But when it shall be read, no matter how thoughtfully or care- 
 fully, the reader will find that he knows less than before about 
 the kind of mind or literary character about to be considered. 
 His (Milton's), is said to be "a mighty and superb mind, pre- 
 pared by logic and enthusiasm for eloquence and the epic style. 
 * * * Vast knowledge, close logic and grand passions; 
 these were his marks. His mind was lucid, his imagination 
 limited. He was incapable of 'bating one jot of heart or hope,' 
 or of being transformed. He conceived the loftiest of ideal 
 beauties, but he conceived only one. He was not born for the 
 drama, but for the ode. He does not create souls, but con- 
 structs arguments, and experiences emotions." The following 
 observations may assume in some measure the appearance of a 
 contention for a certain significance of words, but 1 think they 
 will appear to be justified. Those who have examined the 
 Paradise Lost will readily observe that all it lacks of being dra- 
 matic, is simply a colloquial stage arrangement, distinction and 
 adjustment of the several parts purporting to belong to the 
 several actors and characters appearing in it; and that it is 
 nothing *if not tragic. That the portions of it which might 
 properly be called narration, as they appear in the poem, as well 
 as those which appear to be intended as philosophy, are stated 
 in a style sutficiently grand to be appropriately called epic ; yet 
 nearly all those parts, or their substance and purport, would be 
 easily inferred from, or implied in, the dramatic recitation and 
 acting by the several characters who appear, of their respective 
 parts. Of course the whole would then constitute an argument 
 based on a narration which it includes, yet, very few authors 
 really intend to write anything in which there is neither narra- 
 tion nor argument. It will also be observed that in such argu- 
 ment both sides of a very momentous, indeed an insolvable and 
 almost incomprehensible question, are argued. The question 
 of divine justice, if it is a question, "passes human compre- 
 hension." But in Paradise Lost, as in all apologetics, the affir- 
 
^00 ETHfCS OF LITER AtURE. 
 
 mative of the question is victoriously maintained, so far as the 
 negative therein argued is concerned. It is victorious because 
 the poet, not the philosopher, who wrote the poem, not the 
 philosophy, intended that it should be so; and he has made his 
 improvised characters representing the opposition, so present 
 their cause, as that in comparison with the affirmative, the nega- 
 tive argument appears to be the weaker. I believe however 
 that in chapter three I have shown that in point of philosophi- 
 cal argument, that for the affirmative is no less ignominious a 
 failure. But as a poem, and without regard to philosophy, all 
 candid judges must agree that it is superb. It is beyond com- 
 pare, the greatest work of its author, and if the tree is known by 
 its fruit, it conclusively shows that the philosophic historian was 
 mistaken in saying that Milton "was not born for the drama, 
 but for the ode." There are very few passages in the Paradise 
 Lost but would be very ill-suited to the ode, and very few but 
 are well suited to what is popularly styled heavy tragedy; that 
 is, passages purporting to come from his improvised characters. 
 And as above stated, nearly all else therein would be implied in a 
 dramatic recitation and acting by such characters of their respec- 
 tive parts. To some this may seem like taking too much pains 
 to show a mistake of a writer. But properly considered, the 
 ethics of literature require it. The author of a philosophic his- 
 tory of literature owes it to his own ftime as a philosopher, and 
 much more to his readers' edification as students of literary his- 
 tory and its philosophy, if there is such philosophy, to be accurate 
 in his statements concerning one of the most conspicuous char- 
 acters in literature. And in this instance he has not been 
 accurate. 
 
 I have found fault with the philosophic historian for excess- 
 ive use, or rather abuse, of metaphor. It is amusing to notice 
 his remarks on Milton's penchant for the same frailty. He 
 quotes from the Reformation in England as follows, "What 
 greater debasement can there be to royal dignity, whose tower- 
 ing and steadfast height rests upon the unmovable foundations 
 of justice, and heroic virtue, than to chain it in a dependence 
 of subsisting, or ruining, to the painted battlements and gaudy 
 rottenness of prelatry, which want but one puff of the kings to 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION, AND METAPHOR. 3OI 
 
 blow them down like a pasteboard house built of court-cards." 
 This is Milton's, of which the philosophic historian says, 
 "Metaphors thus sustained receive a singular breadth, pomp, 
 and majesty. They are spread forth without clashing together, 
 like the wide folds of a scarlet cloak, bathed in light and 
 fringed with gold." Which of these passages is the more meta- 
 phorical ? Which the more extravagant or excessive as meta- 
 phor ? 1 am reminded of the two Jews, one of whom was trying 
 to teach the other to say things. It seemed impossible for the 
 immigrant to get it any better than dings. The old resident 
 became impatient and stormed at him with an oath, "why 
 can't you say i7'/;;os.^ To criticise a writer's use of metaphor, 
 and do it in metaphor which likens that being reviewed, to 
 "the wide folds of a scarlet cloak, bathed in light and fringed 
 with gold," may be quite the thing. — it provokes a smile. 
 But see the rush and hear the roar of this torrent, flowing 
 against the stream. Having quoted several passages from 
 Milton's prayers, the philosophic historian says, "This song of 
 supplication and joy is an outpouring of splendors, and if we 
 search all literature, we will hardly find a poet equal to this 
 writer of prose. Is he truly a prose writer ? Entangled dialec- 
 tics, a heavy and awkward mind, fanatical and ferocious rustic- 
 ity, an epic grandeur of sustained and superabundant images, 
 the blast and recklessness of implacable and all-powerful pas- 
 sions, the sublimity of religious and lyric exaltation; we do 
 not recognize in these features a man born to explain, persuade, 
 and prove. The scholasticism and coarseness of the time have 
 blunted or rusted his logic. Imagination and enthusiasm car- 
 ried him away and 'enchained him in metaphor." Milton's 
 metaphor moves the philosophic historian's bile, and still, the 
 greater part of the substance of his ov/n philosophic history is 
 metaphor; 1 may metaphorically add, maintained somewhat in 
 the manner of a running fire. Just a few pages before he has 
 Milton severely logical, and constantly constructing arguments; 
 here he is not "born to explain, persuade and prove." 
 
 So far 1 have been concerned with the first and second 
 books of the philosophic history of English Literature, The 
 Source and The Renaissance. Doubtless I have omitted much 
 
302 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 in both of them, to which attention could have been as profit- 
 ably directed as to some of its matter which I have considered. 
 The work is wordy, and the expression rapid. Its seven 
 hundred and sixteen two column pages in minion, would make 
 more than twelve hundred such pages in small pica. The 
 philosophic historian descants upon the literary work of Sir 
 William Temple, to which and to whom he iittributes a potent 
 influence upon the literature and thought of the alleged classic 
 age. He quotes extensively from Temple's Essay upon the 
 Ancient and Modern Learning, his classification of some of the 
 remotely ancient sages and their works, and says, "Fine 
 rhetoric truly; it is sad that a passage so aptly termed should 
 cover so many stupidities. All this appeared very triumphant; 
 and the universal applause with which this fine oratorical bom- 
 bast was greeted demonstrates the taste and the culture, the 
 hollowness and the politeness, ol the elegant world of which 
 Temple was the marvel, and which like Temple, loved only 
 the varnish of truth." This is immediately followed by the 
 fourth section of the chapter, beginning thus, "Such were the 
 ornate and polished manners which gradually pierce through 
 debauchery and assume the ascendant. Gradually the current 
 grows clearer, and marks out its course, like a stream, which, 
 forcibly entering a new bed, moves with difficulty at first 
 through a heap of mud. then pushes forward its still.murky wat- 
 ers which are purified little by little." Having ridiculed Milton's 
 metaphor in metaphor which puts Milton's to shame, he now 
 ridicules Temple's oratorical bombast in bombast in comparison 
 with which Temple's is tame. His reflection on the literary 
 taste which had greeted Temple with applause, is even more 
 applicable to that which makes his own philosophic history a 
 literary commodity, or even possibility. The alleged stupidities 
 which he regrets that Temple's fine rhetoric covers, were in 
 Temple's time generally accepted as historical truths. One of 
 thern was (his contending for) the authenticity of Aesop's 
 Fables and The Letters of Phalaris ; the former of which the 
 philosophic historian calls a dull Byzantine compilation, and 
 the latter a wretched sophistical forgery. Assertion is not 
 argument. 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 3O3 
 
 I doubt that there is anything really more unphilosophical, 
 in all the tenets of the philosophic history of English Literature 
 than the proposition that the rot expressing the foibles and cap- 
 rices of a few poetasters, were true indexes to the general tone 
 of thought. Adverting to the rhymes of one Edmund Waller, 
 and having quoted some verses in which the rhymester likens 
 his Amoret to something good to eat and drink, the philosophic 
 historian says, "The English background crops up here and 
 elsewhere ; for example the beautiful Sacharissa, having ceased 
 to be beautiful, asked Waller if he would again write verses for 
 her : 'Yes, madame.' he answered 'when you are once more as 
 young and handsome as you were.'" And this alleged poet is 
 said to have been "celebrated as one of the refiners of English 
 poetry." If he refined it, it must have been decidedly coarse in its 
 crude state. Specimens from his pen selected by the philosophic 
 historian from the rhymester's effusions to the lady (?) he was 
 courting and hoped to marry, may, on account of their being 
 so selected and so effused, fairly be presumed to be among his 
 best. That the reader may have some idea of the quality of 
 the crude article, 1 here give the specimens of the refined Eng- 
 lish poetry, so selected by the philosophic historian. 
 
 "Amoret, as sweet as good, 
 As the most delicious food, 
 Which but tasted does impart 
 Life and gladness to the heart." 
 
 The same substance otherwise labelled, seems to have had 
 an exhilarating or an intoxicating effect on the brain. 
 
 "Sacharissa's beauty's wine, 
 Which to madness doth incline, 
 Such a liquor as no brain 
 That is mortal can sustain." 
 
 Let the scholastic reader try to imagine the quality of the 
 poetry of which this is a refinement. The intellectuality of the 
 period could not be more scandalized than by establishing that 
 such rot was its fair representative or exponent. Was it really 
 English in Waller to give his goddess who tasted so good, the 
 ungallant, not to say uncivil answer, that he would again write 
 verses for her when she should again be young and handsome.^ 
 
304 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 The philosophic historian says that there is one of the points at 
 which "the English background crops up." This brutal answer, 
 and one or two more instances of Waller's coarse wit, being 
 the bulk of what history has preserved concerning him, would 
 indicate that it was so unusual as to be noteworthy in history, 
 and hence not very generally English, not an example of the 
 English back-ground. What a wretched state of morals must 
 have prevailed if the characters in the plays of Wycherly, Con- 
 greve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, and Sheridan, really represented a 
 common sentiment. On the same principle with which the 
 philosophic historian considered Shakespeare's character, what 
 licentious, libidinous, lying rakes these artists must have been, 
 if they have impressed their own characteristics upon the men- 
 dacious libertines and strumpets they have improvised to per- 
 form the parts expressing the various sentiments pervadingtheir 
 plays. There are two objections to the validity of any such 
 psychological deduction, or literary philosophy, either of which 
 is fiUal to it. First — No commonly prevailing sentiment, tone 
 of thought, habit, or custom, would be made the prominent 
 feature of drama, because it would not attract attention, nor 
 entertain — to do which successfully, it must be novel, or at least 
 out of the common run. While love and villainy may be in- 
 dispensable, they never appear in any two plays alike, and those 
 which entertain and succeed the best, are they in which there 
 is most that is startling — at least unusual. Second — It is psy- 
 chologically impossible for any one mind to have so many con- 
 flicting, yet predominating sentiments as to be able to construct 
 so many different characters, representing so many different 
 phases of virtue and vice, candor and dissimulation, courage 
 and cowardice, and impart to them its own sentiments and 
 characteristics, or mould them from introspection. The play- 
 wright and the dramatic genius are alike powerless to so 
 variously express their own real sentiments, because they 
 equally lack the variety. They have equal access to the com- 
 mon fund of fact and fancy, from which the real and improvised 
 characters are called forth to perform the parts assigned them. 
 And having seen or heard of or imagined them, and being 
 advised of or supposing their peculiarities, they present them in 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 305 
 
 their vividness and intensity, according to their respective capa- 
 cities to paint. It would be a strange doctrine in psychology 
 that would require a poet to thirst for gore, in order that he 
 might have, or because he did have, the capacity to vividly 
 present some tragedy in which a cruel murder was the pre- 
 dominant feature; or that would imply that he was vilely lech- 
 erous because he had vividly presented a play in which the lead- 
 ing character was a professional libertine; or that would brand 
 him with the stigma of a thief because he had propounded a 
 plot in which all the parts converge to the robbery of an heiress 
 or a miser or a bank. It would be a still stranger doctrine in 
 psychology that would impute such sentiments, characteristics, 
 and instincts of the people generally, because of the popularity 
 among them of plays in which such transactions were predomi- 
 nant features. Yet such are the necessary results of the argu- 
 ment, or rather the assertion, of the philosophic historian. It 
 is as groundless as the declaration of the alleged radical revo- 
 lution in thought and expression of which he speaks in the 
 opening of his philosophic history, as having wrought a com- 
 pfete change in history "in its subject matter, its system, its 
 machinery, the appreciation of laws and causes." 
 
 The second chapter of the third book. The Classic Age, is a 
 rambling, incongruous essay on Dryden, his writings, his 
 place in and influence upon literature. In the essay he is now 
 debased below the animal, and now exalted above all contem- 
 porary genius; now puerile and now puissant; now remorse- 
 lessly vindictive and now magnanimously charitable; now a 
 contemptible wheedler, panegyrist, and imitator, and now a 
 proud spirited and candid connoisseur; now a mere rhymester 
 writing machine poetry for pay or for presents, and now an 
 inspired minstrel setting the most profound literary, political, 
 philosophic, and e*cclesiastical controversy to the grandest 
 swells and sweetest strains of the music of poetry to adorn and 
 ennoble the art. In short the chapter describes and exhibits 
 him in all the intellectual, moral, literary, political, and philo- 
 sophic colors conceivable, and leaves the reader to infer his 
 real character from some extracts made from his writings and 
 some anecdotes of his life. There is however one very good 
 
306 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 feature of this chapter, and it may be said to characterize most 
 of the chapters of this extraordinary but misnamed book. Its 
 reader may behold an accurate, rapidly moving, really fascin- 
 ating panorama of the lives and manners, and many interesting 
 anecdotes in the lives, of those who have figured in English 
 literature with sufficient prominence to provoke the remark of 
 the philosophic historian ; the greater part of which is omitted 
 from most modern general histories. The gravest objection to 
 it is its assumption of philosophic airs, — its undertaking to 
 attribute unaccountable and general results to alleged specific 
 causes, to reduce to a supposed system or science that which 
 in the nature of things is no more subject to human measure, 
 standard, or rule, than the temperature, the clouds or the 
 winds. To be sternly philosophical, as the philosophic his- 
 torian desires to be esteemed, he cannot admit the supernatural 
 or divine inspiration of any literary production. If such pro- 
 ductions are the results of specific causes, -if they are colored 
 and materially affected by the stage of civilization in which 
 they are produced, if, as he says, they are the results of and 
 are varied by epoch, race, and clime, some one ought to dis- 
 pel the mystery that shrouds the origin of the philosophy of 
 the book of Job, of Solomon's Proverbs, of Socrates' Dialogues, 
 of Ovid's Metamorphoses. An example of the latter can not 
 be objectionable here, — nor indeed anywhere. 
 
 "What fault was in the Ox, a creature mild 
 And harmless, docile, born with patient toil 
 To lighten half the labor of the fields? — 
 Ungrateful he, and little worth to reap 
 The crop he sowed, that, from the crooked share 
 Untraced, his ploughman slew, and to the axe 
 Condemned the neck that, wore beneath his yoke, 
 For many a spring his furrows traced, and home 
 With many a harvest dragged his autumn wain. 
 Nor is this all:- — but Man must of his guilt 
 Make Heaven itself acconiplice, and believe 
 The Gods with slaughter of their creatures pleased. 
 Lo; at the altar, fairest of his Kind, — 
 And by that very fairness marked for doom, — 
 The guiltless victim stands, — bedecked for death 
 With wreath and garland. Ignorant he hears 
 
• CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 307 
 
 The muttering Priest, — feels ignorant his brows 
 White with the sprinkling of the salted meal 
 To his own labor owed, — and ignorant 
 Wonders, perchance, to see the lustral urn 
 Flash back the glimmer of the lifted Knife 
 Too soon to dim its brightness with his blood; 
 And Priests are found to teich, and men to deem 
 That in the entrails, from the tortured frame 
 Yet reeking torn, they read the best of Heaven. 
 
 ****** 
 All changes; nothing perishes." 
 
 Mere ///^// //('/' of expression may vary with change of epoch, 
 race and clime, just as provincialisms may sometimes amount 
 to difference in dialect. But thought, the bone and sinew of 
 intellect, the substance and subject matter of literature, is not 
 shown and cannot be shown to vary according to any fixed 
 or ascertainable rule, from any specific physical cause. Nor can 
 it be marked off in provinces or departments to be arbitrarily 
 limited by circumstance, occasion, epoch, race, or clime.. If 
 those who are act^uainted with the facts of history (of liter- 
 ature or anything else) should intelligently and conscientiously 
 narrate them, and keep to themselves their wordy wisdom 
 concerning the innate causes df things, the co-operation of cir- 
 cumstances, the philosophy of history, the logic of events, the 
 irony of fate, and all such things as are known, or rather 
 unknown, by names which are in themselves sententious 
 apothegms, they would render a more desirable and more val- 
 uable service than by making such history a mere vehicle in 
 which to promulgate a fancied philosophy. 
 
 The third chapter of the third book, is a succession of fusi- 
 lades of literary sky-rockets, and closes in likening the French 
 and English war of 1793 to a collision and explosion of steam 
 engines. Some vivid representations of memorable scenes in 
 English politics and parliament are presented ; and some inter- 
 esting reminiscences of Junius, Chatham, Fox, Pitt, Burke and 
 Sheridan are recalled. The French and English alleged national 
 spirits, or their alleged respective civilizations are contrasted, 
 and their alleged collision is mysteriously attributed to some 
 occult fatality, as distinguished from chance. Its relation to or 
 
308 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 effect upon English literature is not apparent. The learning 
 eloquence, sagacity, and political philosophy of the English 
 statesmen, may have borne some kind of relation to, have 
 affected, or been affected by the main subject of the philosophic 
 history; but certainly not in such manner as to justify the meta- 
 phorical enigma in which the chapter closes. Of the alleged 
 collision of the two alleged civilizations, the philosophic histor- 
 ian says, "It was not the collision of the two governments, but 
 of the two civilizations and the two doctrines. The two vast 
 machines, driven with all their momentum and velocity, met 
 face to foce, not by chance, but by fatalitv. A whole age of 
 literature and philosophy had been necessary to amass the fuel 
 which filled their sides, and laid down the rail which guided 
 their course. In this thundering clash, amid these ebullitions 
 of hissing and fiery vapor, in these red flames which licked the 
 boilers, and whirled with a rumbling noise upwards to the 
 heavens, an attentive spectator may still discover the nature 
 and accumulation of the force which caused such an outburst, 
 dislocated such iron plates, and strewed the ground with such 
 ruins." In what can the attentive spectator discover the 
 nature and accumulation of the force which caused such an 
 outburst of metaphorical enigma ? When a philosophic solu- 
 tion of a problem, literary, political, or historical, is offered with 
 apparent complacency, as if it were authoritative, as though 
 curiosity ought to be satisfied and inquiry ought to end with 
 it. the solution ought to be philosophically sound and sufficient. 
 Great writers are not supposed to occupy much time and space 
 saying nothing, or in making grandiose and apparently learned 
 declarations or bombastic speeches that mean nothing; and 
 their readers have the right to expect that they will not do so. 
 The above account of the alleged collision in the last decade of 
 the eighteenth century, of the alleged two civilizations is neither 
 philosophically sound, nor historically true. The French revo- 
 lution, which really precipitated or caused the war with Eng- 
 land of 1793, was simply the rebellion of plebeian despair against 
 tyranny and starvation. The two nations had recently fought 
 for each other's colonial possessions, were generally quarreling 
 over them, and contending for national supremacy in the polit- 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 309 
 
 ical world. Difference in literature and in literary proclivity had 
 no influence to precipitate "this thundering clash" so graphic- 
 ally attributed to it. The people of each nation then numbered 
 many millions, amongst whom very few really knew or cared 
 what the "thundering clash" was for or what had caused it. 
 Such seems to be implied in the fact that within a few years 
 thereafter, "Under the pretext of attacking England, a fleet of 
 400 ships and an army of 36,000 picked men were equipped, 
 but their destination proved, however, to be Egypt, whither the 
 directory sent Bonaparte." If the prevalence of a certain liter- 
 ary sentiment had engendered a civilization in France so antag- 
 onistic to that of the English, as that such a force could be so 
 organized to tight the English, the prejudice so engendered was 
 not very persistent. There is not much philosophy in the prop- 
 osition that a difference in literary penchant could cause such a 
 difference in civilizations, that the latter would by fatality be 
 "driven with all their momentum and velocity," and meet face 
 to tace in a thundering clash, when such a force raised in one of 
 the nations ostensibly to light the other, could be sent intact 
 to the subjugation of another distant nation, in no wise con- 
 cerned in their quarrel. 
 
 The kings and councils of the two nations of the alleged an- 
 tagonistic civilizations resolved to tight, or rather resolved that 
 the scum of the populace of the respective nations should fight, 
 — and of course they fought. More than five millions of the 
 populace of one of them had recently risen against the oppres- 
 sion of their own government, demanding bread. It had re- 
 quired no whole age of literature and philosophy to amass the 
 fuel ( hunger) that filled their sides and fired them to a frantic 
 resistance of systematic injustice. What possible effect could 
 a difference in literary proclivity among the few who availed 
 themselves of the benefits or bane of literature, have upon the 
 tax-ridden and priest-ridden and starving millions whose revolt 
 was the French Revolution ? — ^who were ready to follow even 
 their oppressors to war with England or Egyptian Mamelukes, 
 or with any people, so it brought pay and provisions ? Will 
 any one pretend that a national spirit or sentiment inspired 
 Bonaparte's tleet of 400 ships and 36,000 picked men to invade 
 
3IO ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Egypt, when they were organized ostensibly for another pur- 
 pose? The facts of the case are given in the roaring rhapsody 
 of Carlyle, which he calls a history of the French Revolution. 
 The general condition is well illustrated in some of his rural 
 scences. Atone place he says, "The Traveller, walking up 
 hill, bridle in hand, overtakes a poor woman ; the image, as 
 such commonly are, of drudgery and scarcity; looking 60 years 
 of age, though she is not yet 28. They have seven children, 
 her poor drudge and she; a farm, with one cow, which 
 helps to make the children soup; also one little horse, or garron. 
 They have rents, and quit rents. Hens to pay to this Seigneur, 
 Oatsacks to that; Kings' taxes. Statute-labor, Church-taxes, 
 taxes enough — and think the times inexpressible. She has 
 heard that some where, in some manner, some tiling is to be done 
 for the poor; " God send it soon, for the dues and taxes crush 
 us down. * * * ' It was thought,' says Young, ' the peo- 
 ple, from hunger would revolt,' and we see they have done it. 
 Desperate Lackalls, long prowling aimless, now finding hope 
 in desperation itself, everywhere form a nucleus. They ring 
 the church bell by way of tocsin ; and the parish turns out to 
 the work. Ferocity, atrocity, hunger and revenge; such work 
 as we can imagine. * * * Por long years and generations 
 it ( the oppression ) lasted, but the time came. Featherbrain, 
 whom no reasoning and pleading could touch, the glare of the 
 fire brand had to illuminate. Consider it, look at it ? The 
 widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a per- 
 fumed Seigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil de Boeuf, has an 
 alchemy whereby he will extract from her the third nettle, and 
 name it Rent and Law." What had literature, French or En- 
 glish, or any difference between the two literatures to do with 
 precipitating the great revolt, or preparing the minds of the 
 hungry hordes for it f Their minds were prepared for it by 
 bare backs and empty stomachs. The whole age of literature 
 and philosophy which the philosophic historian says " had been 
 necessary to amass the fuel which filled their sides," those of 
 the alleged two civilizations, was simply " long years and gen- 
 erations" of oppression and hunger which had been irn-neces- 
 sary, but which had brutalized the instincts of the French popu- 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. } I I 
 
 Ince, had bared their bodies, emptied their stomachs, and 
 " filled their sides " with spleen. And when they overthrew 
 the tyranny, and went from oppression to extreme Republican- 
 ism, the English government ( perhaps not quite so oppressive) 
 not the English people, dreaded the influence* of republicanism 
 in such close proximity on her own plebeian masses, and re- 
 fused to recognize the new Republic as the rightful government 
 in France. This is what authentic history says was the cause 
 of the "thundering clash" of the alleged two civilizations. 
 Then it was the collision of the two governments, if France had 
 a government when she declared war in 1793. Some examples 
 cited by the philosophic historian himself will sustain this pro- 
 position, and are incompatible with the idea that the minds of 
 a people may be so unified as to constitute a national mind or 
 sentiment. Yet such effect must be attained before the litera- 
 ture of a nation can be influential to plunge a people willingly 
 and wittingly into a war. Unless they willingly and under- 
 standingly enter into it, the fact that their masters bring it on, 
 as the examples cited by the philosophic historian show was the 
 case here, it was not the war of one civilization against another, 
 nor a collision of two doctrines ; it was the war of a few aris- 
 tocrats in authority against the possible influence and effect on 
 their own subjects, of republicanism or popular government in 
 their immediate vicinity, not positively declared by them, but 
 rendered necessary by their denial of the right of the majority 
 in the neighboring country however great, to throw off the yoke 
 of servitude and establish for themselves a more popular and 
 freer government. It matters not that the blood was spilled by 
 the masses — they knew and cared as little about the political 
 reasons why it was spilled, as they knew and cared about the 
 physiological reasons for its circulation. The same examples 
 so cited show that the literature of a people is too various 
 to be a national literature, that it is not so unified as to 
 express a national mind or sentiment. The speeches of the 
 leaders in the English Parliament, the Reflections on the 
 Revolution in France arguing the alleged cause of property 
 against brute force, and the alleged right of an aristocratic 
 landed minority to tyrannize over an overwhelming and ter- 
 
312 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ribly unlanded majority, and also that sanctimonious Eng- 
 land could not, or should not, treat with unholy France as 
 pretexts for hostilities, must have been uttered in answer to, 
 and as refutations of, opposite argument and expressions 
 of more republican sentiment. It is not likely that their 
 fiery eloquence and veheinence was unprovoked, or that 
 the expressions of republican and hence popular sentiment 
 which provoked them was considered very insignificant. Great 
 men seldom speak and write in such strains against no opposi- 
 tion. The expression of opposite sentiment was as properly 
 an ingredient in the literature of the people and nation as theirs 
 could be. in the inscrutable economy of nature, and in the un- 
 intelligible caprice of fortune, and in the mad whirl of the vor- 
 tex of national and international politics, the right does not 
 always get to the top. Nothing could be more visionary or 
 more illogical in point of abstract justice than some of these 
 expressions of alleged English sentiment. The philosophic his- 
 torian represents one of the oracles as saying, " We deny that 
 a majority has a right to make a constitution; unanimity must 
 first have conferred this right on the majority. We deny that 
 brute force is a legitimate authority, and that a populace is a 
 nation." He quotes him as saying, "A government of five 
 hundred country attorneys and obscure curates is not good for 
 twenty-four millions of men, though it were chosen by eight 
 and forty millions. As to the share of power, authority, direc- 
 tion, which each individual ought to have in the management 
 of the state, that I must denv to be amongst the direct original 
 rights of man in civil society." If the right to make a consti- 
 tution exists, it must of necessity dwell somewhere. If it does 
 not dwell with the majority, they cannot confer it upon the 
 minority. If the minority makes the constitution, it must as- 
 sume the right to do so regardless of the will of the majority, 
 and on the same principle, the smaller the minority, the greater 
 their right to make the constitution. Logically traced out, the 
 right will be found to reside in one man, and from there it will 
 be traced out of existence. If unanimity was psychologically 
 supposable it would imply that all were actually equal, than 
 which no supposition could be more absurd. If all men are 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 313 
 
 created free and equal, or, if " not equal all, yet equally free," 
 who shall determine where the right resides ? If all are not free 
 and equal, nor equally free, who shall designate the superior 
 and free ? Can that be supposed to be done with unanimity ? 
 If not, then unanimity will never place the right either with the 
 majority or minority. The right resides in the whole people, to 
 be exercised by a majority, or it does not exist and cannot be 
 be exercised at all. If a minority monopolizes the freedom and 
 exercises the right, must it not do so by means of the very 
 brute force so deprecated } Or worse, must it not circumvent 
 the majority ? Speaking of the English as a people, such doc- 
 trines never were English, and the war of 179? was not a col- 
 lision between an English and a French doctrine. The politi- 
 cal oracle is as visionary as illogical, and the philosophic his- 
 torian not to be outdone by him, attempts to palm off the poli- 
 tical chimera as an English sentiment, and give it the importance 
 of a potent factor in causing an unprecedented national upheaval 
 and a disastrous collision of the two foremost nations in mod- 
 ern Christian civilization. 
 
 The fourth chapter of this third book begins as follows: 
 " 'The great and only end of these speculations,' says Addison, 
 'is to banish vice and ignorance out of the territories of Great 
 Britain.' And he kept his word. His papers are wholly moral 
 — advices to fiimilies, reprimands to thoughtless women, a 
 sketch ot an honest man, remedies for the passions, reflections 
 on God and a future life. I hardly know, or rather I know very 
 well what success a newspaper full of sermons would have in 
 France. In England it was extraordinary, equal to that of the 
 most popular modern novelists. In the general downfall of the 
 daily and weekly newspapers, ruined by the Stamp Act, the 
 Spectator doubled its price and held its ground.' " At the foot 
 of the page where this appears, the translator says: "The sale 
 of the Spectatot was considerably diminished through its forced 
 increase of price, and it was discontinued in 17 13, the year after 
 the Stamp Act was passed." Either of these writers might 
 well have known the fact. If the circulation and popularity of 
 the Spectator was a literary fact of such consequence as to de- 
 serve a place in a philosophic history of literature, it certainly 
 
314 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ought to be accurately stated. As the philosophic history was 
 written in 1864, and translated in 1872, neither of these writers 
 is excusable for misstatement of such fiict. It was written as an 
 illustration and evidence of the alleged sombreness of the most 
 generally prevailing sentiment in England. But if the fact itself 
 were otherwise than as written, the literary philosophy based 
 upon it cannot be very sound. The alleged phenomenal popu- 
 larity of the periodical is learnedly attributed to the alleged fact 
 that "it offered to Englishmen the picture of English reason: 
 the talent and teaching were in harmony with the needs of the 
 age and country." If this were true, then the government 
 which suppressed it was not in "harmony with the needs of 
 the age and country." And as the Stamp Act could only be- 
 come a law with the consent of the Commons elected to Par- 
 liament by popular, almost universal suffrage, it must have been 
 in accord with the most generally prevailing sentiment in Eng- 
 land, or at least with the approval of those professing to voice 
 that sentiment, that the Stamp Act became a political fact, and 
 the death of the Spectator unlamented, became a literary fact. 
 If it were known to offer to Englishmen the picture of English 
 reason, if its talent and teaching were known to be in harmony 
 with the needs of the age and country, and if this were known 
 by the representatives in Parliament of the great masses of Eng- 
 lishmen, they were outrageously false to the trust reposed in 
 in them. History does not inform us of any indignation at the 
 measure outside of Grubb street. The inference is that the 
 Spectator had not offered to Englishmen a true picture of a very 
 general English reason. And in point of fact, or reason, some 
 examples of its reasoning given by _the philosophic historian, 
 would justify its suppression; if for no other reason, because of 
 their unreasonableness. For instance, — "He consoles a woman 
 who has lost her sweetheart, by showing her the misfortunes of 
 so many other people who are suffering the greatest evils at the 
 same time. * * * He rests virtue on interest rightly under- 
 stood." But in these the philosophic historian says that Addi- 
 son "falls short of philosophic life." And indeed he does. It 
 would be difficult to conceive a more despicable spirit than one 
 that so enjoys the wretchedness of others as to forget its own in 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION, AND METAPHOR. 315 
 
 contemplation of theirs. It is difficult to conceive how the 
 wretchedness of others could otherwise heal one's own. It is 
 difficult to conceive a more despicable selfishness than that of 
 one who would be virtuous for interest, either rightly or 
 wrongly understood. Such alleged virtue is a contradiction. 
 If virtue is not its own reward it is because it is incompatible 
 with the idea of reward. The really virtuous are such solely 
 for the abstract good of virtue. The moment interest is con- 
 sulted and the idea and hope of reward are entertained, selfish 
 motives prevail, calculation begins ; and if interest as understood 
 could otherwise be promoted, virtue might go — a good rid- 
 dance. It is not a very ennobling conception of the soul, to 
 fancy it figuring on the probabilities of conduct with a view to 
 its own interest of any kind. The proposition is analagous to 
 the threadbare contradictory proverb that honesty is the best 
 policy. Whoever would be honest from policy, would be dis- 
 honest were it better policy. Policy is poisonous to honesty ; 
 interest is no less poisonous to virtue. It is no answer to say 
 that genuine ultimate interest could not be better promoted 
 than by being virtuous. This would be mere assertion. No 
 human being has yet ascertained just what is his genuine ulti- 
 mate interest. Among those of generally recognized ability 
 there is great difference of opinion as to what it is. But there 
 are certain inflexible rules of thought, according to which it is 
 impossible to imagine that one would be virtuous because he 
 believes it to be to his interest; without also imagining that he 
 would be vicious if he believed // would be to his interest. So 
 the proposition that one could not better promote his genuine 
 ultimate interest than by being virtuous, besides being mere 
 assertion, involves a psychological impossibility. 
 
 In the fourth section of this chapter the philosophic histo- 
 rian, disagreeing with Addison's theology, says, "We ought 
 not to try and overdefine God ; religion is rather a matter of 
 feeling than of science; we compromise it by exacting too rig- 
 orous demonstrations, and too precise dogmas." I do not 
 remember having seen a sounder philosophical proposition than 
 this. If there is a legitimate basis for the science of psychology, 
 if the science is not a mere travesty upon bona fide reasoning, 
 
3l6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 religion certainly is rather a matter of feeling than of science, 
 and the proposition expresses "more true religion than all the 
 dogmatic theology ever written." Certainly no one would 
 maintain that a religion could be a religion devoid of candor and 
 humility. No one could maintain that a science could be a sci- 
 ence devoid of knowle^e; or that it could legitimately rest to 
 any extent on faith. It must rest on demonstration, and none 
 of its tenets or propositions not so sustained ought to be toler- 
 ated. Even psychology which is the most recondite of all sci- 
 ences, must be based on demonstration to entitle its tenets to 
 credit. As to any one subject, forming a distinct sdbject matter 
 of any science, there can be but one true science. Hence if 
 religion, or to be more accommodating, if theology is a science, 
 or a subject matter of a science, there can be but one true reli- 
 gion or theology; and its principles and their operation must be 
 uniform in all climes and in all minds. The principles of all 
 sciences which are really known to be sciences, are the same 
 the world over, or at least so far over the world as they are 
 known. They operate at the equator as at the arctic circle. 
 Gravitation, heat, light, and thought, vary in operation only as 
 they are variously affected in place. Unless the superiority of 
 one scientitk doctrine over others is demonstrable on principles 
 universally known to be sound, or irrefragable in themselves, it 
 is more dogmatic than philosophic to claim for it a superiority, 
 to say nothing of an exclusive validity or genuineness. Differ- 
 ence in religious opinion and doctrine, however minute, is still 
 difference, and necessarily implies conflict. Wherever it pre- 
 vails it necessarily implies the invalidity of one or the other of 
 the doctrines. Scientifically, if any one doctrine is true, all 
 conflicting doctrines are untrue. These differences not only 
 prevail among all religions; they characterize all subdivisions of 
 ecclesiastical society in each religion. There are no data physi- 
 sical or psychical on which any incontestable and universal 
 principle can be established that could be trusted as a test of the 
 validity of any religion, or of any one of the variant doctrines 
 of any religion. Properly speaking, there can be no science in 
 which there are not principles, according to which every ques- 
 tion that can legitimately arise therein can be satisfactorily set- 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 317 
 
 tied. Psychologically and philosophically there can be no eva- 
 sion of these propositions. Candor requires the concession or 
 their force. Humility forbids the egotistical attempt on one's 
 mere ipsi dixit to erect an alleged religious system incompat- 
 ible at any point with their operation. To do so the religion 
 would be a mere evasion, based on a palpable subterfuge. It 
 takes all the dignity and sanctity out of religion to require it to 
 account for itself on philosophic or scientific principles which 
 are within the comprehension of a mere human being. It is 
 purely a matter of faith, blind and unquestioning, and the phil- 
 osophic historian has truly said "it is the heart which sees 
 heaven." 
 
 In the account of Dean Swift he is represented as the sad- 
 dest, the maddest, the most acrimonious and malignant egotist 
 of all writers, and still, as being a great moral teacher, indeed a 
 supremely practical philosopher. His arrogance, his incisive 
 irony, and his coarse brutality are represented as being so ex- 
 travagant as to attract by means of their very absurdity. The 
 account is interesting, but the Dean's peculiarities are exagger- 
 ated, and an inexcusable blunder is made in characterizing them 
 as typically English. The truth is Swift's writings imply that 
 he was a literary monstrosity, a remarkably gifted lunatic, 
 whose frenzy seems to have been aggravated if not caused by 
 the fact that he was not esteemed so highly by those whose 
 favor he once aspired to as he thought he deserved to be. He 
 was more bitterly sarcastic than Carlyle, because he was en- 
 dowed with greater genius, and was by nature more vindic- 
 tive. They were each very cordial haters, Swift being the more 
 intense of the two, and having what he seemed to regard as 
 great grievances to resent. His influence with the masses, as 
 exhibited in his opposition to an issue of copper coinage, is 
 very illogical, except on the hypothesis that the masses were 
 very willing to be influenced against the measure, or were un- 
 able to distinguish the rabid declamation from argument. His 
 writings are entitled to no more consideration in an estimate, or 
 philosophic history of English literature, than the buffoonery 
 and blasphemy of the stews, or the ravings of the rioters or of the 
 madhouse. There is nothing essentially English in or about 
 
3l8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 them. They are scholarly, and it must be admitted, pertinent 
 expressions of irony, scorn, rancor, in which the more malign- 
 ant the hatred, the more genteel and polished the style. 
 
 It is strange that a philosophic historian of the literature of a 
 nation would, through five hundred pages of his philosophic 
 history, his literary classification, generalization and metaphor, 
 insist that there was such an entity as a national English mind, 
 indigenous to the Island and its climate, and that it was essen- 
 tially sombre and addicted to Puritanism or some gloomy 
 form of religion, and then in considering the nauseous rant of 
 Matthew Prior, and assigning it and him their place in the 
 alleged national literature and system of thought, declare that 
 "the whole armory of the skeptic was built and furnished in 
 England when the French took to it. Voltaire has only selected 
 and sharpened the arrows." The English generally claim the 
 distinction of being the pioneers in an alleged modern civiliza- 
 tion. The philosophic historian seems disposed to load them 
 with the doubtful honor of bein^ the pioneers in an alleged 
 skepticism. He seems to be also disposed to give Voltaire a 
 distinction in that behalf which he never courted. His life 
 work was a prolonged and in some measure successful protest 
 against superstition, but he was as far from skepticism as the 
 most fanatical Puritan that ever affected the nasal twang. He 
 was never more irreverent in his treatment of sacred subjects 
 than the lionized and canonized leader of the reformation, who 
 is quoted by the philosophic historian as having said, — "When 
 Jesus Christ was born, he doubtless cried and wept like other 
 children, and his mother tended him as other mothers tend their 
 children. As he grew up he was submissive to his parents, 
 and waited on them, and carried his supposed father's dinner to 
 him ; and when he came back, Mary no doubt oftefi said, 'My 
 dear little Jesus, where hast thou been?' " 
 
 Speaking of Vv'hat he seems to regard a violent revolution 
 in thought, and attributing its possibility to the fact that there 
 were certain people Inhabiting a certain part of the continent 
 of Europe who were called Germans, and that they used a cer- 
 tain language called the German, the philosophic historian says, 
 "These simple folk who smoked and warmed themselves by a 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. )\q 
 
 Stove, and seemed fit only to produce learned editions, became 
 suddenly the promoters and leaders of human thought. No 
 race has such a comprehensive mind; none is so well adapted 
 for lofty speculation. We see it in their language, so abstract, 
 that away from the Rhine it seems an unintelligible jargon. 
 And yet thanks to this language, they attained to superior 
 ideas." Is it not a little remarkable that a philosopher would 
 hold that one language could have a peculiar efficacy in enab- 
 ling its users to attain to superior ideas ? Do the Germans 
 think with the tongue and pen ? Was any idea ever conceived 
 by a German that could not be expressed in English or French ? 
 The philosophic historian says there is no exact equivalent in 
 the French language for the English word humor. Yet he 
 gives us some humorous instances of the humor of French- 
 men. One example will suffice, taken from Chapter i, of 
 Book III. "The Count de Grammont has too much wit to 
 love an orgie. * * * One day, being penniless, he fleeces 
 the Count de Cameran at play. Could Grammont, after the 
 figure he once cut, pack off like any common fellow ? By no 
 means; he is a man of feeling; he will maintain the honor of 
 France. He covers his cheating at play with a joke; in reality 
 his notions of property are not over clear. He regales Cameran 
 with Cameran's own money; * * * " | ,-e(-all another 
 example, as pithy and pungent and at the same time as decor- 
 ous as anything so nearly sarcastic could be, a kind of grim 
 humor. "Rousseau, in the pride of a poet's heart at meeting 
 an appreciative listener, read to him a poem he had just finish- 
 ed, an 'Ode to Posterity.' Voltaire expressed a doubt 'whether 
 it would reach its address.'" If there were many words in the 
 German language for which there is no exact equivalent in the 
 English, the fact would not enable the Germans to attain to 
 ideas superior to those attainable by the English. It might 
 enable them to express their ideas more elegantly, but 1 notice 
 different English translators of the writings of the same German 
 author give substantially the same interpretations of the same 
 passages in terms widely difierent. It cannot be a very sound 
 philosophic proposition that "these simple folk who smoked 
 and warmed themselves by a stove," should suddenly become 
 
320 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the promoters and leaders of human thought on account of any 
 supposed psychological magic of their language. Unless the 
 language itself was suddenly formed, or had suddenly acquired 
 its peculiar property, neither of which appears to have been the 
 case, the philosophic historian should have explained why 
 "these simple folk" had not always been the promoters and 
 leaders of human thought, — at least why they had not been 
 such while they had such language, or while it had such pecul- 
 iar property. The use of the word suddenly in this learned 
 proposition renders some such explanation essential to its phil- 
 osophy. If the Germans have suddenly become the promoters 
 and leaders of human thought, to attribute such effect, or their 
 attainment to superior ideas, to any peculiarity or property of 
 their language is sheer nonsense. 
 
 As before indicated, change seems to be the ignis fatuus of 
 the philosophic historian. It seems to float like a spectre con- 
 stantly before his mental vision. At one place he says, "Every 
 two centuries, amongst men, the proportion of images and 
 ideas, the mainspring of passions, the degree of reflection, the 
 species of inclinations, change." What could be more inter- 
 esting than to know the cause of this, especially the cause of 
 such periodicity } Has he not promised that in the history of a 
 literature he would seek for the psychology of a people } Would 
 not the psychology of a people if there were such thing and it 
 were successfully sought for and known, reveal such cause ? 
 Has the philosophic historian been successful in his promised 
 search for such psychology ? If so, why has he not given us 
 the cause of this alleged change in the proportion of images 
 and ideas, the mainspring of passions, the degree of reflection, 
 and species of inclination } — and above all, the cause of its perio- 
 dicity } So far as actual change is concerned, I have before 
 shown that the most stable existence with which we are ac- 
 quainted, is change. And that no changes so sudden or pro- 
 nounced as to be properly called periodical, occur, either in 
 history, literature, or thought, taken as an entirety. Even the 
 tortuous course of the philosophic history itself exhibits no 
 abrupt changes. True, there are in it certain arbitrary divi- 
 sions, purporting to treat severally of certain alleged periods. 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. }2l 
 
 during which certain, or rather uncertain, alleged kinds of lit- 
 erature and thought are said to have prevailed. But if these 
 arbitrary divisions were not distinctly separated from each 
 other, numbered and labeled, very few readers would observe 
 the change. They might observe the progress of the general 
 history from The Source to its Modern Authors, and that such 
 progress is not interrupted by its numberless incongruities, nor 
 by its frequent direct contradictions. But they would never 
 suspect that at any of the points of its present demarcation its 
 author had actually finished or quitted the consideration of one 
 subject, or one distinct part of the general subject, and taken 
 up another. The numbers and labels indicate breathing spells, 
 between which the section numbers indicate brief respites. 
 Having said that there was, during Walter Scott's time, an 
 English national sentiment, demanding that the Novel should 
 contribute to the "amelioration of man and society," to the 
 "glorification of virtue, and the chastizement of vice," and that 
 it should be an "instrument of inquiry, education and moral- 
 ity;" he says, "Side by side with this development there was 
 another, and with history philosophy entered into literature, in 
 order to widen and modify it. It was manifest throughout, on 
 the threshold as in the center. On the threshold it had planted 
 ^esthetic's: every poet, becoming theoretic defined before pro- 
 ducing the beautiful, laid down principles in his preface^ and 
 originated only after a preconceived system. But the ascend- 
 ency of metaphysics was much more visible yet in the middle 
 of the work than on its threshold; for not only did it prescribe 
 the form of poetry, but it furnished it v.'ith its elements." But 
 long before this, perhaps so long that he had forgotten it, he had 
 Bacon and Milton and numerous others propounding philosophy 
 and history in the literatures which he says were the essential 
 products of the moral conditions (at such times) of the race, 
 epoch, and circumstance. No moral condition at any time has 
 legitimately required any h/nd of literature. Nothing legiti- 
 mately entitled to a place in literature was ever produced solely 
 to meet any such supposed requirement, or moulded to suit it. 
 The legitimate substance of literature at all times, under all cir- 
 cumstances and moral conditions, whether in history, theology, 
 
322 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 science, or poetry, must be candid expression of intelligent and 
 intelligible thought. Thought may be in accord with the re- 
 quirements of a moral condition, but if it should not happen to 
 be so, the moment it attempts to adjust itself to it. it stuUifies 
 itself, it is no longer thought, but affectation and pretense. 
 
 Doubtless there are very few writers who have read more 
 extensively than the philosophic historian. But his history 
 plainly indicates that his reading was of much greater width 
 than depth. He has given some fairly correct estimates of the 
 literary worth of the works of some writers, and many interest- 
 ing anecdotes of them and of other historic celebrities. Had he 
 contented himself with this, his history would have possessed 
 an intrinsic worth and interest properly entitling it to a place in 
 every library in civilization. But such worth as it might thus 
 have had, is dwarfed or obscured or depreciated by the burial 
 of fact beneath great dunes of classification, generalization, and 
 metaphor, which seem to be intended for philosophy. 
 
 There are very few pages in the philosophic history on 
 which there is not an attempt to account for some freak, 
 having, or being credited with having some significance in liter- 
 ature, as a psychological necessity of the epoch, race, and circ- 
 umstances. The souls of the great and strongly impassioned 
 writers are mercilesslv anatomized; and they are made to suffer 
 from excess of the same passions, are actuated by the same 
 impulses, and guided by the same instincts which they have 
 attributed to the prominent characters they depict in their own 
 works. The attempt to account for and define human genius 
 is not only hopelessly futile ; it is audacious. The attempt to 
 trace the so-called Norman literary Sap through all the infinite 
 and infinitely obscure and complicated ramifications, changes, 
 and modifications of the stock, to all the infinitely varied results 
 in which it is said to have culminated in nearly a thousand 
 years, is not only hopelessly futile, it is absurd. A thousand 
 such attempts in the same inflated style of classification gen- 
 eralization, and metaphor in one volume, become tedious. To 
 say that Shakespere was himself the Hamlet he has so vividly 
 painted, might be sufficiently safe, if nothing was known of 
 his character and he had not painted other characters very dif- 
 
CLASSIFICATION, GENERALIZATION AND METAPHOR. 52 5 
 
 ferent from Hamlet in colors fully as strong, if he was the 
 Hamlet, why A^as he not also the Wolsey, the Macbeth, the 
 Othello, the Falstaff, theShylock, the Timon, and, forsooth, the 
 two Dromios ? . If Byron was the Corsair he was so vividly 
 painted, why was he not also the Harold, the Manfred, the Cain, 
 and the Faliero ? If it was a specific moral condition of race, 
 epoch, and circumstance that called forth the Jolly Beggars, the 
 Address to the Deil, and Holy Wiilie's Prayer, was it the same 
 moral condition that called forth the Cotter's Saturday Night ? 
 
 There can he no such thing as a philosophy without fixed 
 principles. Men may change with the varying whir! of time, 
 circumstance, and occasion; but principles never change. If 
 there is a philosophy of literature, it must be based on princi- 
 ples in themselves immutable. On such principle it cannot be 
 philosophically maintained that any specific moral condition of 
 race, epoch, and circumstance calls forth from one and the same 
 mind two forms of poetic sentiment and expression so opposite 
 to each other as those of The Jolly Beggars and The Cotter's 
 Saturday Night. If one of these was a legitimate literary re- 
 sult of a moral condition of race, epoch, and circumstance, the 
 other was not, because in sentiment they are directly opposed 
 to each other. A philosophy of literature which furnishes no 
 key to the solution of the problem as to which of them was the 
 legitimate result of the alleged moral condition, ought not to 
 affect the airs of a philosophy. If they are both legitimate in- 
 gredients of the literature of one and the same period, then no 
 such alleged moral condition ever in any manner affected the 
 form and sentiment of any literature of any period. Philoso- 
 phic principles could not be so capricious and remain principles. 
 
 Making an illustration in the argument of a psychological 
 proposition, Herbert Spencer has said, "Print upon paper 
 having been so widely instrumental in diffusing information, 
 and the knowledge of ail the highly cultivated having been 
 mainly acquired through print upon paper, there has been es- 
 tablished such an intimate association between truth and print 
 upon paper, that much of the reverence given to the one 
 gathers round the other." The illustration is capable of another 
 application. It implies the too prevalent servitude of the 
 
324 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 human mind to a slovenly habit of blindly accepting whatever 
 is printed upon paper for whatever it purports or professes to 
 be. If that habit were eradicated or overcome, if readers would 
 think as energetically as they read, there would be but little use 
 in the world for a great deal of the learned nonsense that is now 
 imposed upon it, and which passes current, without being 
 understood, as the quintessence of wisdom. 
 
 In point of literary integrity, according to the only suppos- 
 ably legitimate ethics of literature, it is equally as reprehensible 
 to assume philosophical authority and attribute general results 
 arbitrarily to specific causes, which philosophy unmistakably 
 shows are not responsible for them, as it is to assume historical 
 authority and wilfully or recklessly misstate facts. It is but one 
 remove from either of these blemishes on literary integrity, to 
 collate a great magazine of important literary and historical 
 facts, and arbitrarily classify them in heterogeneous groups, and 
 generalize on them in metaphorical terms of high-sounding 
 philosophy which may mean anything or nothing, or any one 
 thing as well as any other. The obligations of literary integrity 
 and even common veracity are violated in the one case as much 
 as the other, and we have seen that in each of these respects 
 the author of the philosophic history of English Literature is a 
 reckless offender. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 
 
 Genius Drawing Upon Mystery — Question, Existence and Justice of Almighty 
 Division of Knowledge, a Vriori and a Posteriori — Purpose of Knowledge 
 a Priori Impossible — Copernicus, Kant's Parallel — Proving Actuality of 
 Objects Assumed by Reference to Faculty of Assumption — All Knowledge 
 Necessarily Empirical — Analysis of Fourteen of Kant's Postulates — Analysis 
 of Eight More of his Postulates — Space and Time not mere Forms of Intu- 
 ition, but Objects of Thought— Representations of Space Must be Obtained 
 From Relations of External Phenomena — Primitive Cognition Wholly Im- 
 possible — Consciousness Must be Evoked— No Knowledge Without Con- 
 sciousness — All Knowledge Derived — Time is of Objective Validity without 
 Regard to Phenomena Other than Itself — Things are. Regardless of Our 
 Cognitions of Them — Outward Objects are More than Mere Representa- 
 tions — Appearances must be of Things Appearing — Substance must have 
 Form and Form must be of Substance — Abstraction of our Subjective 
 Nature Abolishes Thought, even the Thought Necessary to the Abstraction 
 — Things Known Only by their Relations — Thing as a Thing in Itself, Un- 
 thinkable — Relations of Things the Bulk of Knowledge — Philosophy De- 
 generates into Apologetics. 
 
 I know of no worthier ambition than that of Genius, appar- 
 ently conscious of its powers, in its efforts to lay the domain of 
 mystery under contribution to the general intellectual advantage 
 of the race. It is simply responsive to a universal yearning to 
 attempt to explore the unknown and unknowable realms of the 
 unsubstantial for truths with which to augment the common 
 fund of intellectual acquisition. Those whose exploits therein 
 have attracted most attention, and whose contributions have 
 done most to elevate the tone of and ennoble human thought, 
 have generally looked back over their achievements with a 
 doubtful satisfliction and a vague suspicion as to their real 
 worth. Being themselves sometimes puzzled as to the actual 
 purport of their speculations, it is little surprising that their read- 
 ing clientage disagree among themselves as to the philosophic 
 force of their philosophies, and even hesitate to accord them 
 moderate literary merit. 
 
 Genius sometimes so far overreaches itself in its inroads into 
 the domain of profound guess-work, that it might have been 
 
^26 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 better satisfied with the results, if during their attainment it had 
 proceeded as though it were conscious of its weakness. The 
 objective point in most speculative philosophy is the settlement, 
 scientifically, of problems which in the nature of the human 
 mind never can be settled to its satisfaction. 
 
 The existence of God, and if he exists, his justice, as well as 
 the immortality of the soul, are either self-evident final facts, 
 back of which there is no proof, and of which none can be 
 either required or admissible, — or they are hopelessly insolvable 
 and perpetually perplexing problems. The experience of all 
 past time very forcibly implies that they are the latter. With 
 such problems human reason can have no more business than 
 it could have in attempting to account for the origin of the ulti- 
 mate atoms of substance, or the infinitude of space. 
 
 One of the most unsightly blemishes on learned philosophic 
 speculation, is the recklessness of the assumptions on which it 
 proceeds. 
 
 in* order to dignify and enthrone Reason in unrivalled intellec- 
 tual supremacy, and enable it, or make it appear able, to solve 
 the most difficult and most persistent questions with which the 
 mind was ever harrassed, knowledge has been arbitrarily 
 divided into knowledge a priori and knowledge a posteriori. 
 The former is said to pertain exclusively to pure reason, that is, 
 reason devoid of everything empirical; the latter to be acquired 
 by experience. To justify this division the greatest modern 
 metaphysician has assumed that objects must conform to our 
 sensuous intuition of them, that is, that they must be as we 
 cognize them, (a proposition in itself illogical) — and that other- 
 wise we can have no a priori knowledge of them. 
 
 No doubt it is true that if our cognition of objects must con- 
 form to them, our knowledge of them must be knowledge a 
 posteriori, that is, empirical, because as he says the objects or 
 their representations can only reach us through the senses. 
 But if the representation of an object to the sensuous faculty 
 produces or is an image of the object, it would seem more logi- 
 cal to say that the mental image (cognition) of the object con- 
 forms to that which produces it, than to say that the object 
 must conform to the image which it produces. Logically the 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 327 
 
 shadow can not be more substantial than the substance, and it 
 ought not to assume to create or mould the substance by which 
 it is cast. Objects differently cognized by different minds 
 might become very much confuse(^ in contour and even in con- 
 struction, when beheld by many minds. 
 
 The department called knowledge a priori seems then to 
 have been made solely for the employment of the supposititious 
 faculty called pure reason, if it was not established therefor 
 by the philosopher, he has zealously labored to amplify its range 
 in order to worthily employ his favorite among the mental facul- 
 ties. He says, " it has hitherto been assumed that our cogni- 
 tion must conform to the objects ; but all attempts to ascertain 
 anything about these oh]QC\.s a priori, by means of conceptions, 
 and thus extend the range of our knowledge, have been ren- 
 dered abortive by this assumption. Let us then make the 
 experiment whether we may not be more successful in meta- 
 physics, if we assume that objects must conform to our cogni- 
 tion. This appears at all events, to accord better with the 
 possibility of our gaining the end we have in view, that is to 
 say, of arriving at the cognition of objects a priori, of determ- 
 ining something with respect to these objects before they are 
 given to us. We here propose to do just what Copernicus did 
 in attempting to explain the celestial movements. When he 
 found he could make no progress by assuming that all heavenly 
 bodies revolved round the spectator, he reversed the process, 
 and tried the experiment of assuming that the spectator revolved, 
 while the stars remained at rest. We may make the same 
 experiment with regard to intuition of objects, if the intuition 
 must conform to the nature of the objects, I do not see how we 
 can know anything of them a priori. If, on the other hand, 
 the object conforms to the nature of our faculty of intuition, I 
 can then easily conceive the possibility of such a prioriknowl- 
 edge." 
 
 Knowledge a /)r/'on' then is a possibility only on condition 
 that objects conform to the nature of our faculty of intuition, 
 if our cognitions must necessarily conform to the objects there 
 can be no a priori knowledge. This is the position. On the 
 authority of some others of the philosopher's postulates in which 
 
 i 
 
^2ii ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 he is equally as positive, and which will be considered, one 
 illustration will suffice to demonstrate either that the position is 
 untenable, or that there is no such thing as knowledge a priori. 
 There is no knowledge of anything a posteriori until an object 
 is given, that is represented to the sensuous faculty. God is 
 not so given or represented. If there is any knowledge of Him 
 whatever, it must then be knowledge a priori. If, in all 
 knowledge a priori, the object must conform to the cognition or 
 intuition, then God is purely a creature of the multitudinous 
 imagination, degraded to the uneven level of a capricious human 
 conception, and constructed on as many plans and according to 
 as many patterns as there are different types of sensuous faculty 
 or imagination. Any alleged cognition, the validity of which 
 cannot be demonstrated by some means available to the sensu- 
 ous foculty, cannot be more than mere imagination. The 
 necessary result is, that the object ( God ) is first assumed to be. 
 Then by an intricate and involved process of reasoning, the 
 assumption is assumed to be verified, or at least corroborated. 
 So far in the process nothing is represented to the sensuous 
 faculty, and until something is represented, until the object is 
 given, the alleged cognition, the a priori intuition, is necessarily 
 mere imagination. The process cannot rise to the dignity of an 
 e.xperience. The word experience -implies a process leading to 
 demonstration, with a possibility of certainty as its results. 
 
 The alleged parallel with Copernicus' experiment or assump- 
 tion is invalid. He was dealing with matter and motion, phys- 
 ical phenomena, objects which could be presented to the sensu- 
 ous faculty, and he knew them to be within the range of 
 experience (physical and mental observation) and that by such 
 means the validity of his assumption could be tested. The a 
 priorist on the other hand deals with that which he knows 
 cannot be brought within the range of experience or sensuous 
 demonstration, with that the very existence of which he has 
 first assumed, knowing that the validity of his assumption can- 
 not be tested by anything more trustworthy than the assump- 
 tion itself. He who assumes God to be, deals with spiritual 
 phenomena {?) knowing it to be beyond the range of possible 
 experience, observation, or sensuous demonstration; and that 
 
 I 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 329 
 
 the validity of his assumption cannot possibly be tested by any 
 means more reliable than the assumption itself, and that any 
 attempt to sustain it by reasoning is only an appeal to the rela- 
 tive acumen of disputants. I have already shown (Chap. 7) 
 that in the philosophies of Socrates and Lucretius, both the 
 affirmative and negative of the question of the immortality of 
 the soul are conclusively established by strictly legitimate and 
 unanswerable argument, from unquestionable data. 
 
 The proposition to arrive "at the cognition of objects a pri- 
 ori,'^ to determine "something with respect to these objects 
 before they are given to us," implies great confidence in the 
 human mind. According to the philosopher's division of 
 knowledge, if the object is given, knowledge of it is empirical, 
 it is knowledge a posteriori. It would seem that if the object 
 is assumed to be, whatever knowledge there may be of it is, or 
 might as well be, assumed at the same time, and it might pass 
 for the a priori knowledge. The objects of all a priori knowl- 
 edge must be assumed to be, and the validity of the assump- 
 tion, or even its probability, the question of the actuality of the 
 object, cannot be tested or determined by anything within the 
 range of possible experience or sensuous demonstration, because 
 the object would thereby be presented to the sensuous faculty, 
 and the knowledge of it would then be empirical — a posteriori 
 knowledge. 
 
 From this it would appear that the philosopher deals en- 
 tirely with myth and shadow, leaving fact and substance out 
 of the account. To obviate this he proposes to prove the actu- 
 ality of the objects the existence of which is so assumed, and 
 the validity of the a priori cognitions or intuitions of them, by 
 reference to the very faculty which has itself done all this as- 
 suming, And if it can restate its alleged intuitions or cogni- 
 tions substantially, but in other terms, or if it can conceive 
 something further in relation to the same objects without con- 
 tradicting the first assumptions, then the philosopher has a 
 priori knowledge. He first assumes that the objects must 
 conform to our cognitions: — that as phenomena they must be 
 as we cognize them, and that we cannot know them as they 
 are, that otherwise they have no actuality or reality for us ; 
 
330 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 that in themselves they are nothing, so far as we are concern- 
 ed. Then assuming the ^^///^ of an object, if he can conceive 
 it to be clothed with such attributes as reason icoiild suggest, 
 and which must be such as experience shows that analogous 
 objects possess when presented to the sensuous fiiculty, he has 
 a prim-i knowledge. But its inferiority to empirical knowledge 
 is inadvertently conceded in gauging the validity or propriety 
 of the attributes which reason ziotild suggest, by the standard 
 of experience in case of analogous objects presented to the 
 sensuous faculty. Reason cannot be much superior to experi- 
 ence if its a priori knowledge must be verified by the demon- 
 strations of experience, or by comparison with them. 
 
 The philosopher declares that "necessity and strict univer- 
 sality are infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empirical 
 knowledge," and, that "pure knowledge a pnori is that in 
 which no empirical element is mixed up." But a difficulty ad- 
 pears. 1 do not see how one can know the necessity and strict 
 universality of a judgment except by some kind of experience, 
 observation, or sensuous cognition. If these infallible tests are 
 themselves derived from experience, as they must be if they are 
 known, then there must be some empirical element mi.xed up 
 with the alleged a priori knowledge to which they pertain, and 
 which they are said to distinguish from knowledge a posteriori. 
 Even the apodeitic certainty, the necessity and strict universal- 
 ity of mathematical demonstration itself is known only empir- 
 ically. 
 
 if objects must conform to our cognition of them, our cog- 
 nition, or rather our imagination, is the real creator of all mate- 
 rial objects. The quantity of matter cannot be imagined to have 
 ever been either increased or decreased. The creation of an 
 object therefrom is simply arranging a portion of it in a certain 
 form. So the cognitive faculty or imagination is an active part- 
 ner with the Almighty in the creation of objects, the Almighty 
 furnishing the material, and the imagination, probably the more 
 artistic artist of the firm, working it up into objects. It would 
 not mend matters to say "there are objects which reason 
 tJdnh, and that necessarily, but which cannot be given in ex- 
 perience, or, at least, cannot be given so as reason thinks them." 
 
 I 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 33 I 
 
 If objects which reason necessarily thinks cannot be represented 
 to the sensuous faculty so as reason thinks them, it would seem 
 to be a metaphysical misfortune for which there is no remedy. 
 But 1 think objects which cannot be represented to the sensu- 
 ous faculty are more likely to be creatures of imagination than 
 of reason. I do not think we can legitimately assume the exist- 
 ence of such objects, and then excogitate an a priori knowledge 
 of them by simply viewing them from the two different sides 
 as suggested by the philosopher. If his conception is viewed 
 "o« the one hand in relation to experience as an object of the 
 senses and of the understanding, and on the other hand, in re- 
 lation to reason, isolated and transcending the limits of experi- 
 ence, as an object of mere thought," — and "if we find that, 
 when we regard things from this double point of view, the re- 
 sult is in harmony with the principle of pure reason," what 
 will we then have achieved } Unless the alleged principle of 
 pure reason is itself established, fixed firmly and forever, with 
 apodeictic certainty, and known to be necessarily 50, what 
 validity can be given a conception by the fiict that when it is so 
 viewed the result is in harmony with such principle } And 
 which is it, the sense and the understanding, or the reason and 
 mere thought, the validity of which is to be ascertained in the 
 agreement to be discovered in such comparison } If it is reason 
 and mere thought, then reason is admittedly inferior to sense, 
 and seeks to establish its own validity by attempting to show 
 its consonance with sense. If it is sense and understanding, 
 then the process is worse than idle, it is absurd; because no one 
 ever thinks of proving the validity of the palpable by attempt- 
 ing to show that it might accord with the impalpable. 
 
 If the objects, which reason necessarily thinks cannot be 
 represented to the sensuous faculty, they are not. Or, if they 
 are, they must be so impalpable as to be beyond the reach of 
 every mental faculty, except the imagination. If they are too 
 unsubstantial to be thought as material, or as related to or 
 affecting the material, the mind can never settle on any fixed 
 principle of the reason which necessarily thinks them. The 
 data of all science ought to precede the science itself But the 
 philosopher proposes to construct a science, and then improvise 
 
 L 
 
332 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 its imaginary data, instead of constructing a science on and 
 according to its data. It would be equally as philosophical and 
 feasible to attempt to show why reason necessarily thinks its 
 imaginary objects, as to attempt to construct an a priori knowl- 
 edge of such unsubstantial material. 
 
 The mind beholds many of its own operations, which to it 
 are a kind of mental phenomena. In a sense they may be said 
 to be represented to the sensuous faculty, and to be intuited ; 
 but certainly never a priori. The mind cannot know of or 
 behold any of its own actions except by experience. Intuitions 
 of them then must be aposferwrt. Apperception is necessarily 
 empirical. It would be equally as philosophical and feasible to 
 attempt to account for the mind's capacity to behold its own 
 operations, as to attempt to construct or acquire an a priori 
 knowledge of objects whose existence is only assumed, espec- 
 ially when such knowledge must be derived from or by means 
 of an alleged pure reason, operating on an alleged principle, 
 the validity of which cannot be tested by any certain, universal, 
 and palpable criterion. If the validity of the alleged "principle 
 of pure reason" depends on any accord with, or on the sanc- 
 tion of the results of empirical observation, then reason is de- 
 throned from its alleged intellectual supremacy, and becomes a 
 sort of hand-maid or hanger-on of experience, and its opera- 
 tions are valid and authentic only as they may happen to be 
 authorized or sanctioned by experience. If the validity of the 
 alleged "principle of pure reason" is referred to the reason 
 itself, then the speculator will find himself reasoning in a cir- 
 cle, ascertaining that his assumptions are sound, because in 
 reason he finds them to be sound. It is impossible to imagine 
 anything else upon which the validitv of the alleged principle 
 can be said to depend. 
 
 In the introductory section of the philosopher's dissertation 
 on Transcendental y^sthefic, there are some proposifions which 
 I think deserve especial attention. For convenient considera- 
 tion they may be quoted separately, but in their order, and 
 numbered. 
 
 I. " In whatsoever mode, or by whatsoever means, our 
 knowledge may relate to objects, it is at least quite clear, that 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 3.33 
 
 the only manner in which it immediately relates to them, is by 
 means of intuition. 
 
 2. "To this, as the indispensable ground work, all thought 
 points. 
 
 3. " But an intuition can take place only in so hr as an 
 object is given to us. 
 
 4. " The capacity for receiving impressions ( receptivity ) 
 through the mode in which we are affected by objects is called 
 sensibility. 
 
 s. "By means of sensibility, therefore, objects are given 
 to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions. 
 
 6. "By the understanding they are thought, and from it 
 arise conceptions. 
 
 7. "But all thought must directly, or indirectly, by means 
 of certain signs, relate ultimately to intuitions; consequently, 
 with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object 
 be given to us. 
 
 8. "The effect of an object upon the faculty of represen- 
 tation, so far as we are affected by said object, is sensation. 
 
 9. "That sort of intuition which relates to an object by 
 means of sensation, is called an empirical intuition. 
 
 10. "The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is 
 called a phenomenon. 
 
 11. "That in the phenomenon which corresponds to the 
 sensation, 1 term its matter. 
 
 12. "But that which etfects that the content of the phenom- 
 enon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form. 
 
 13. But that in which our sensations are merely arranged, 
 and by which they are susceptible of assuming certain form, 
 cannot be itself sensation. 
 
 14. "It is then the matter of all phenomena that is given 
 to us a poderiori. The form must lie ready a •priori for them 
 in the mind and consequently can be regarded separately from 
 all sensation." 
 
 These fourteen propositions are essential parts of the basis of 
 the Critique of Pure Reason. There must be fallacy in them if 
 there is contradiction, and there may be fallacy irrespective of 
 contradiction. The form mentioned at No. 13 and 14 may be a 
 
334 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 quantity, a quality, a tendency, or a condition; hut it must he 
 an ohject if it can be thought of, and it must be thought of if it 
 "can be regarded" at all. The word regarded as there used 
 means thought of, or it means nothing. There can be no thought 
 nor regard without an object thought of or regarded. At No. 
 
 7 it is declared that all thought must relate to sensibility, for in 
 no other way can objects be given. This irresistibly implies, if 
 it does not declare, the necessity of objects to thought. At No. 
 
 8 it is declared the effect of an object upon the faculty of repre- 
 sentation is sensation. Then this very form of a phenomenon 
 must be the matter of a phenomenon, that mentioned at No. 1 1, 
 and the philosopher errs in saying at No. 14 that it "can be 
 regarded separately from all sensation. " The form must be very 
 unsubstantial if it is too intangible to be thought of, and the 
 philosopher has effectually precluded all possibility of thought 
 without sensation. 
 
 At No. I it appears that knowledge can only relate directly 
 to an object by means of an intuition. At No. 2 it appears 
 that intuition is the indispensable groundwork of all thought. 
 At No. 3 it appears that intuition can take place only in so far 
 as an object is given. At No. 5 it appears that objects can 
 only be given by means of sensibility, and that sensibility alone 
 furnishes us with intuitions. And at No. 8 it appears that the 
 effect of objects when given is sensation. The necessary result 
 is, if the form of phenomena can be thought, it not only can 
 not "be regarded separately from all sensation,'" it can reach 
 the mind or be thought only by means of sensation. It cannot 
 lie ready a priori in the mind. 
 
 At No. 10 it is declared that a phenomenon is the undeter- 
 mined object of an empirical intuition. This is psychologically 
 impossible. An cmpiricnl inti'ition cannot be without an ob- 
 ject. Until the object is determined ic cannot be known to he 
 really an object, and as long as the object is not determined 
 tl--cre can be no intuition of it. While it may not be indispen- 
 sable that the object be correctly or thoroughly determined, the 
 intuition necessarily includes its determination, or implies its 
 pre-determination. So long as the object is undetermined the 
 substance of the supposed intuition is necessarily unknown. 
 
i 
 
 MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. ^^'^ 
 
 At No. 13 it is declared that "that in which our sensations 
 are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of 
 assuming certain form, cannot be itself sensation." This is also 
 psychologically impossible. The sensations cannot be arranged 
 nor assume certain form in the mind without some kind of 
 mental operation. There can be no mental operation of any 
 kind but originates in sensation. This is the necessary logical 
 result of the above quoted postulates of the philosopher, and 
 they are irreconcilably contradictory. 
 
 In the same section there are some further propositions de- 
 serving consideration — some of them in connection with the 
 above. They are quoted and numbered as follows : 
 
 1. "I call all representations pure, in the transcendental 
 meaning of the word, wherein there is nothing that belongs to 
 sensation. 
 
 2. "And accordingly we find existing in the mind a, pri- 
 ori, the pure form of sensuous intuition in general, in which all 
 the manifold content of the phenomenal world is arranged and 
 viewed under certain relations. 
 
 3. "This pure form of sensibility I shall call pure intuition. 
 
 4. "Thus, if I take away from our representation of a body, 
 all that the understanding thinks as belonging to it, as sub- 
 stance, force, divisibility, &c., and also whatever belongs to 
 sensation, as impenetrability, hardness, color, &c., yet there is 
 still something left us from this empirical intuition, namely ex- 
 tension and shape. 
 
 5. "These belong to pure intuition, which exists a priori 
 in the mind, as a mere form of sensibility and without any real 
 object of the senses or any sensation. 
 
 6. "In the science of transcendental aesthetic accordingly, 
 we shall first isolate sensibility or the sensuous faculty, by 
 separating from it all that is annexed to its perceptions by the 
 conceptions of the understanding, so that nothing is left but 
 empirical intuition. 
 
 7. "In the next place we shall take away from this intui- 
 tion all that belongs to sensation, so that nothing remains but 
 pure intuition, and the mere form of phenomena, which is al! 
 that the sensibility can afford a priori 
 
})6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 8. "From this investigation it will be found that there are 
 two pure forms of sensuous intuition, as principles of knowl- 
 edge a priori, namely, space and time." 
 
 It is not essential to a lucid consideration of these proposi- 
 tions that they be taken seriatim. If sensibility should be 
 isolated as proposed at No. 6, "so that nothing is left but 
 empirical intuition," then the space and time mentioned at No. 
 8 are a part of this empirical intuition. According to No. 9 
 among the above quoted fourteen propositions this empirical 
 intuition relates to an object by means of sensation. The neces- 
 sary logical result of the above quoted fourteen propositions is 
 that nothing can be thought except by means of or through 
 sensation, so if space and time can be thought, the further isola- 
 tion named at No. 7 last above quoted, would take them "away 
 from this empirical intuition," as they certainly cannot be 
 thought except by means of or through sensation, and they 
 could not then be left in the mind as pure forms of sensuous in- 
 tuition. 
 
 The proposition at No. 4 last above quoted is illegitimate, 
 and the supposition contained in it is not psychologically sup- 
 posable. If we abstract from the representation of a body all 
 that the understanding can think as belonging to it, and all 
 that belongs to sensation, there will be nothing left of it, or of 
 the empirical intuition of it. The understanding can think ex- 
 tension and shape as belonging to body, with as much facility 
 as it can think substance, force, or divisibility as belonging to 
 it, and extension and shape belong to sensation as appropriately 
 as impenetrability, hardness, or color belong to it. Indeed, 
 neither extension nor shape of body can be thought without 
 substance, and some measure of force, nor without divisibility ; 
 nor can the body itself or any property or attribute it could 
 have, be thought without sensation ; the philosopher having, 
 as above shown, based all possible thought, ultimately but 
 absolutely upon sensation. So extension and shape cannot b 
 in the mind except as intuition, and "intuition can take plac 
 only so far as objects are given to us," and "by means of sens 
 ibility therefore objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes 
 us with intuitions," So the very extension and shape which 
 
 1 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 337 
 
 are said to be left in the mind after the supposed absti action, 
 are themselves objects of intuition and are given by means of 
 sensibility. Worse than this, the supposed abstraction reverses 
 the natural order of the process by which the mind should be 
 searched. If the alleged extension and shape are in the mind 
 a priori, there ought to be some other means of ascertaining 
 their presence besides merely finding them left there after 
 everything else is cast out by the supposed abstraction. If 
 they are not otherwise nor earlier known to be there, the legi- 
 timate presumption is that they come with the residue of the 
 representation and intuition of the object, by means of the 
 sensibility. No matter how pure the intuition may be, if it 
 is an intuition at all, it must have an object, and accord- 
 ing to some of the above quoted propositions, the object 
 can only be given by means of sensibility. If extension 
 and shape possibly might be in the mind as mere forms 
 of the sensuous intuition of other objects, the supposition 
 is not psychologically supposable, and if some of the above 
 quoted propositions are true, the extension and shape certainly 
 cannot be in the mind a p-iori, "as mere forms of sensibility, 
 and without any real object of the senses or sensation." They 
 can only get there by being themselves real objects, mentally 
 tangible, and being represented to the sensuous faculty, or by 
 being accompaniments or attributes of real objects which are 
 represented to the sensuous fliculty. So if sensuous intuition is 
 either directly or ultimately due to sensation, its form, however 
 shadowy and unsubstantial it may be, cannot be in the mind 
 without being thought, — it cannot be thought without being 
 itself the matter, or substance, or object of ulterior sensuous in- 
 tuition, the object of the thought by means of, or in which, its 
 presence is detected or recognized. And according to the philo- 
 sopher's own axioms above quoted, the very thought by means 
 of, or in which the presence of the alleged form of sensuous in- 
 tuition in the mind is recognized, must come from sensation, by 
 means of or through intuition, the " indispensable ground work 
 of all thought." If the mere form of phenomena (space and 
 time) is in the mind it gets there by intuition, which "can take 
 place only so far as an object is given to us, " it is there a posteriroi 
 
3^8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 and not a priori. The severity of logic detracts nothing what- 
 ever from its justice. 
 
 Continuing with the subject of Transcendental Aesthetic, 
 the philosopher says : 
 
 1. "The representation of space cannot be borrowed from 
 the relations of external phenomena through experience; but on 
 the contrary, this external experience is itself only possible 
 through the said antecedent representation." 
 
 2. "Space then is a necessary representation a priori, 
 which serves for the foundation of all intuitions." 
 
 "Space is essentially one, and multiplicity in it, conse- 
 quently the general notion of spaces, of this or that space, 
 depends solely upon limitations. Hence it follows that an a 
 priori intuition (which is not empirical) lies at the root of all 
 conceptions of space." 
 
 4. "Space is represented as an infinite given quantity. 
 Now every conception must indeed be considered as a repre- 
 sentation which is contained in an infinite multitude of different 
 possible representations, which, therefore, comprise these under 
 itself; but no conception, as such, can be so conceived as if it 
 contained within itself an infinite multitude of representations. 
 Nevertheless, space is so conceived of, for all parts of space are 
 equally capable of being produced to infinity. Consequently, 
 the original representation of space is an intuition a priori and 
 not a conception." 
 
 To intelligibly consider these propositions a concession 
 must be made of the possibility of a palpable impossibility. 
 No human mind ever conceived of, or had any intuition of 
 space. When the mind has taken in all of it which can be 
 conceived, there is infinite space beyond. But for the present 
 purpose 1 shall proceed as though the mind could comprehend 
 or conceive space. A representation of space (not of part of it) 
 or of anything else, if within the receptive capacity of the 
 mind, produces in such mind a cognition, or an intuition ; or 
 rather its effect upon the mind's receptivity is an intuition of 
 space, or whatever it may be which is represented. It is 
 already shown to be idle to speak of such a nonentity as a 
 representation without an object represented. So the mind 
 
 < 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 339 
 
 through its sensuous faculty, which alone can receive repre- 
 sentations, conceives of or intuites space. Mind is the subject 
 which by means of the inexplicable receptivity of its sensuous 
 faculty, is capable of taking the impression, or receiving the 
 representation of the object, — in this instance, space. Space is 
 then the object which is represented to the sensuous faculty, 
 by means of which representation the intuition arises or takes 
 place in the mind — it is represented to the mind, and cognized 
 by the mind, to which nothing, however unsubstantial or in- 
 tangible can come except in the form of intuition, from sensa- 
 tion, and through the sensuous faculty. Then the original 
 representation of space is //o/ an intuition a j>i-ion, but is nec- 
 essarily an empirical intuition, or a conception a posteriori. 
 
 The very word representation destroys the philosopher's 
 argument. There can be no representation of space, original or 
 otherwise, unless space is the object represented to the mind, 
 and of which it has the intuition. It cannot be an a priori 
 intuition, because it comes by means of the representation, 
 which can only be received by means of the sensuous faculty. 
 The representation could not be so original as that the idea of 
 space could have always been in the mind, because if it were 
 always there, there could be no further representation of it to 
 the mind. Besides, there is a time to every mind when it has 
 no idea of space. "The capacity for receiving representations 
 ( receptivity ) through the mode in which we are affected by 
 objects is called sensibility." And "by means of sensibility, 
 therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with 
 intuitions." And " by the understanding they are thought, and 
 from it conceptions arise. " So instead of being in the mind a 
 'prion, as a "condition of the possibility of a phenomenon," or 
 as "the form of all phenomena, of the external sense," it is 
 itself a phenomenon, and whatever idea of it the mind has, is a 
 conception. 
 
 The proposition in the quotation number one last above, is 
 an arbitrary assumption without basis either in fact or philoso- 
 phy. Representations of space can be had in no other way 
 than in borrowing them ^'from the relations of external phe- 
 nomena through experience." As I stated above, no mind can 
 
340 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 think space — that is, space as an entirety — all space cannot he 
 thought. The only possible representations of space are neces- 
 sarily representations of parts of space. And parts of space are 
 dependent upon limitations, and representations of it can only 
 come "from the relations of external phenomena." It matters 
 not that the mind cannot stop at any conceivable limit of space, 
 but immediately thinks space further on. If the mind cannot 
 think the whole of space absolutely and finally, it can only 
 think part of it. And the fact that the instant it attempts to 
 think a limit to it, more space appears further on, is as potent 
 to prove the impossibility of thinking space, as any of the data 
 of experience can be to prove any conceivable proposition. 
 The mind has not the capacity to receive any representation of 
 space, greater than may be borrowed from the relations of ex- 
 ternal phenomena, and it is impossible to think space beyond 
 possible external phenomena. Representations of the whole of 
 space being impossible, indeed the whole of space being abso- 
 lutely unthinkable, it follows that the only possible representa- 
 tions of space must come from the relations of external phe- 
 nomena so far as they are known or thinkable. And we can- 
 not have a representation of it further than that. We can 
 imagine space beyond known external phenomena, other than 
 the space itself, but we cannot imagine it as necessarily void of 
 the external phenomena, nor can we imagine it except as in 
 relation to external phenomena, known and supposable. 
 
 At birth the mind is a blank. It certainly has no intuition 
 of space then. Many intuitions, conceptions, and ideas arise in 
 the mind long before it thinks of space, or of any of the rela- 
 tions of external phenomena in space. Its earlier exercises seem 
 to be recognitions of physical pains and comforts, and in its 
 very nature and constitution it seems to be incapable of having 
 any idea except such as are derived. It cannot have a primi- 
 tive cognition, an original idea, nor an a priori intuition. 
 
 The fact that space, or the idea of space, is conceived as 
 containing within itself an infinite multitude of representations, 
 renders it no more an intuition a priori, and no less a concep- 
 tion a /)05/^7'/or/, or an empirical intuition. Literature may be 
 conceived of as containing within itself countless works on 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 34 I 
 
 various subjects, and the idea remains a conception. There are 
 many subjects represented to the mind, and by it conceived of 
 as containing multiplicity. Substance is conceived of as con- 
 taining within itself an inconceivable number of particles, yet 
 the idea remains a conception. The understanding thinks it, 
 and the conception arises. There is no psychological principle 
 requiring that " no conception, as such, can be conceived of as 
 if it contained within itself an infinite number of representa- 
 tion." If a conception can contain multiplicity at all, and many 
 of them certainly do, where shall the line be drawn ? And by 
 what principle of psychologv shall the limit be ascertained ? 
 
 if "the receptivity or capacity of the subject necessarily an- 
 tecedes all intuitions of these objects," space is still no more an 
 intuition a prion', and no less an empirical intuition. The 
 mind was primarilv possessed of its receptivity, its capacity to 
 be affected by objects, or it could never have received and have 
 been affected by the representations of space itself There is no 
 knowledge without consciousness. Consciousness must be 
 evoked. It cannot be evoked without some kind of change in 
 the conscious subject. Change, of which the subject is con- 
 scious, is experience, and knowledge so derived is empirical 
 knowledge. A representation cannot be until it is made. No 
 matter how ideal or intangible the object may be, there must be 
 an object, and it must be represented before there can be a rep- 
 resentation. It cannot affect any faculty of the mind but the 
 sensuous faculty. "Understanding cannot intuite, and the sen- 
 suous faculty cannot think." The representation, whenever 
 and however it takes place, must in some way affect the sub- 
 ject, and this is experience. It follows that there is no such 
 thing as knowledge a prion', and that there can be no other than 
 knowledge a posteriori. Even if the mind contemplates its own 
 existence, condition, or action, past, present or future; the exist- 
 ence, condition, or action so contemplated is represented to the 
 mind. The philosopher says the mind could not take any rep- 
 resentation but for the receptivity of the sensuous faculty. The 
 existence, condition, or action, so represented must then be an 
 an object, and the mind to which it is so represented must be a 
 subject, and knowledge accruing thereby must be a knowledge 
 
342 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 a posteriori; it relates to the object by means of an empirical 
 intuition. The philosopher's definition of Transcendental Aes- 
 thetic as "'the science of all the principles of sensibility a prwH" 
 is thus shown to be a contradiction. It is proven by an analy- 
 sis of his own postulates. I have assumed nothing. 1 have 
 simply analyzed the philosopher's own declarations, and applied 
 his own principles of logic to them. He says, as hereinbefore 
 quoted, that "pure knowledge a priori is that in which no em- 
 pirical element is mixed up;" and that sensibility is our capacity 
 for receiving representations through the mode in which we are 
 affected by objects, when they are given to us. If this is true 
 the phrase sensibility a priori has no meaning whatever, and 
 the science called Transcendental Aesthetic is a Nescience. 
 
 Of time, the second one of the "two pure forms of sensu- 
 ous intuition," the philosopher says, "it is only of objective 
 validity in regard to phenomena, because these are things we 
 regard as objects of our senses. * * * y^^ cannot say 'all 
 things are in time' because in this conception of things in gen- 
 eral, we abstract and make no mention of any sort of intuition 
 of things. But this is the proper condition under which time 
 belongs to the representation of objects, if we add the condi- 
 tion to the conception, and say ' all things as phenomena, that 
 is, as objects of sensuous intuition, are in time,' then the propo- 
 sition has its sound objective validity and universality a priori." 
 It is very difficult to understand just what is meant by the decla- 
 ration that time "is only of objective validity in regard to 
 phenomena." If, by the phrase objective validity is meant vali- 
 dity as an object, it is easy to perceive 'that time can have no 
 such validity except in regard to, or as, a phenomenon. To 
 have objective validity it must be an object. All objects pre- 
 sented to the mind are phenomena. If time has objective vali- 
 dity at all, it is so far valid as an object. To be thought by the 
 understanding it must first be intuited by the sensuous fliculty. 
 The sensuous faculty cannot intuite until an object is given or 
 represented to it. Then time must have objective validity with- 
 out regard to phenomena, other than itself. 
 
 But the proposition quoted seems to involve a contradic- 
 tion. Objects of sensuous intuition are known only empiri- 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 343 
 
 cally, that is, by being presented to the sensuous faculty. If 
 pure knowledge a pn'o:-! is ne(:es-^:;';ly 'Ml". ;t in which no cirr 
 pirical element is mixed up," it would seem more accurately 
 logical to say "all things are in time," than to say "all things 
 as phenomena, that is as objects of sensuous intuition, are in 
 time. " The only possible difference between things, and things 
 as phenomena, is not a difference in the things. It depends 
 wholly upon the things having been represented to the sensu- 
 ous foculty, and having thus become phenomena. Things can- 
 not be nothings. Thing must be; the mind cannot imagine a 
 thing without imagining it as being. The mind cannot imag- 
 ine a thing as being, without imagining as being in time. If a 
 thing cannot be imagined except as being in time, it is more 
 accurate to say all things are in time, than to say all things as 
 phenomena are in time. The mind cannot imagine a thing 
 except as potentially an object of sensuous intuition. There 
 may be many things of which no sensuous intuition has been 
 had, because they may not have been represented to the sensu- 
 ous faculty. But the word thing necessarily implies that of 
 which a sensuous intuition could be had, if it should be so rep- 
 resented. That which is in itself too unsubstantial to be repre- 
 sented to the sensuous fiiculty, is, to the mind at least, nothing. 
 Then all things, including time itself, are in time, and time is of 
 objective validity without regard to phenomena, other than 
 itself, and whether the things have or have not been represented 
 to the sensuous faculty and thus become to us phenomena. 
 
 The philosopher may be correct in denying that time "ab- 
 solutely inheres in things as a condition or property." There 
 seems to be no meaning in either the assertion or denial of 
 such a proposition, and neither could render time of any less 
 objective reality or validity as to things, whether as phenomena 
 or as things in themselves. To say that time is "only of ob- 
 jective validity in regard to phenomena, because these are things 
 which we regard as]]objects of our senses," is attributing an 
 undue importance to our way of regarding things. Time is an 
 entity, or it is not an entity. It is an object, or it is not an ob- 
 ject. If it is not an entity nor object, it is nothing, or rather 
 time is not. If it is an entity or object it must be of objective 
 
344 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 validity and reality. In either case, we can neither make nor 
 unmake it, nor can we either appreciate or depreciate its objec- 
 tive validity or reality, by regarding phenomena "as objects of 
 our senses," or otherwise. The view we may take ot things is 
 not so important as all that. 
 
 Judging from the progress recently made in scientific re- 
 search, there may be a great deal in the domain of things, which 
 we have never yet regarded at all. During the decade last past 
 a great deal has been discovered which was theretofore un- 
 known, even unsuspected, and hence had not been regarded as 
 "objects of our senses." Yet during and before that time the 
 various subject matters of such discoveries were things in time, 
 and when discovered they were found standing necessarily in 
 relations of time; as having been, and as likely to be. The un- 
 discovered things, whatever they may be, in the yet unexplored 
 regions of existence are objects — potentially at least. Until 
 they shall be discovered we will not know and may not sus- 
 pect them, and to us they will not be phenomena. But to say 
 that they are not things in time until they are discovered and 
 become to us phenomena, is equivalent to saying that our dis- 
 covery of them is their creation. They cannot be either before 
 or after their discovery without being in time. If they are only 
 things in time as they happen to be discovered and thus be- 
 come phenomena, this involves the absurdity of successive cre- 
 ations of the same objects by those who may successively dis- 
 cover them, or apprehend their existence. It appears to be 
 minimizing the consequence of time, which manifestly antedates 
 and outlasts all things, which indeed encompasses all things, to 
 say that it is onlv the subjective condition of our intuition of 
 things when they are represented to the sensuous facuIt3^ It 
 will not mend matters to say that objective inliditr is validity with 
 reference to the operations of the human mind, that the term is 
 simply improvised for such special use. The mind imagines 
 manythingswhichneverbecometo.it real phenomena. But 
 it cannot imagine any thing except as in time, and as in rela- 
 tions of time, no more than it can sensuously intuite real phe- 
 nomena or objects otherwise than as in time, and in relations 
 of time. 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 345 
 
 To deny absolute reality to time is similar to saying that we 
 know only appearances, that "what we call outward objects 
 are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, 
 whose form is space, but whose real correllate, the thing in it- 
 self, is not known by means of these representations." The 
 use of the word real, is very unfortunate for such saying. How 
 is the real correllate, the thing in itself, knowfi to be real.? If it 
 is not known by means of these representations, that is, by the 
 effect which, as a phenomenon, it has upon the mind when rep- 
 resented to it, then how is it to be known to be the real correl- 
 late ? The philosopher names no other means by which it can 
 be known, and yet he calls it the real correllate, the thing in 
 itself. If the mind knows appearances, and knows them to be 
 appearances, it must know them to be appearances of the things 
 appearing. It may not be able to transport or think them out 
 of space and time, or to know or conceive of them except as 
 in relations of space and time; but if it knows that which it 
 knows to be the appearance of a thing. It must know the thing. 
 Otherwise it could not know that it, instead of some other 
 possible thing, caused the appearance which it knows. Then 
 what we call outward objects must be more than " mere repre- 
 sentations of our sensibility, whose form is space." Neither 
 our sensibility regarded as a mental faculty, nor any representa- 
 tion of our sensibility regarded as a mental effect or condition 
 or operation of mind, can have for its form space. It cannot be 
 imagined as occupying any portion of space, or as having any 
 kind of relation in or with space, without itself becoming a 
 phenomenon, an object of sensuous intuition. Representations 
 of our sensibility cannot have any form at all, if by form is meant 
 figure or contour or proportion, which would seem to be meant 
 if space is intended as the form. One may as well speak of the 
 weight or the density or the color of a pain, as of the form (in 
 space) of a mental representation. If the word form is used as 
 or for condition — implying that some idea, conception, or for- 
 sooth, some intuition of space must be in the mind as a condi- 
 tion of its receiving representations of objects, on the hypothe- 
 sis that it cannot conceive of objects except as in space, it only 
 argues the incompleteness of the philosopher's formula. It 
 
346 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 indicates that little progress has been made in the metaphysical 
 process. The mind cannot think an object except as being and 
 having form. Why not then say that form and being are them- 
 selves intuitions a priori, that they are also in the mind as mere 
 forms of sensuous intuition } As conditions of representation 
 of objects .? As such, they are not necessarily included in the 
 conception or idea of space and time, and yet they are as neces- 
 sary to the conception or intuition or idea of an object as space 
 and time can possibly be. The philosopher says we can think 
 of space and time as devoid of objects, but we cannot conceive 
 of objects except as in space and time. With equal plausibility 
 and propriety it may be said, we can conceive of time as devoid 
 of events, but we cannot conceive of events except as in time. 
 With equal plausibility and propriety it may be said we can 
 conceive of form as devoid of substance, but we cannot con- 
 ceive of substance except as having form. With equal plausi- 
 bility and propriety it may be said, we can conceive of being 
 without an object in existence, althoughjwe cannot conceive of 
 an object except as being. Yet none of these propositions has 
 any plausibility or propriety. Space cannot be conceived of as de- 
 void of objects, nor can time be conceived of as devoid of events, 
 nor can form be conceived of as devoid of substance, nor can be- 
 ing be conceived of except as it implies the existence of an object. 
 We may think parts of space as void. But to think space we 
 posit ourselves therein, and unavoidably think objects more or 
 less remote. The mind cannot divest itself of the thought of 
 objects, and think absolute vacuity. We cannot think time as 
 devoid of events. We cannot even think portions of time, ex- 
 cept as limited by events occurring in time. The mind cannot 
 divest itself of the thought of events, and think absolute inac- 
 tion. We cannot think form as devoid of substance. Even a 
 shadow must be cast upon somtthing. The mind cannot divest 
 itself of the thought of substance and think absolute nothing- 
 ness. Accordingly then, instead of the "two pure forms of 
 sensuous intuition," space and time, there would seem to be at 
 least four, if there are any, and that form and being should be 
 included in the list. This appears to be a logical necessity. 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 347 
 
 The philosopher says, "Time is nothing but the form of our 
 internal intuition. (I can indeed say 'my representations follow 
 one another, or are successive;' but this means only that we 
 are conscious of them as in succession, that is, according to the 
 form of the internal sense. Time, therefore, is not a thing in 
 itself, nor is it any objective determination pertaining to, or in- 
 herent in things.) If we take away from it the special condi- 
 tion of our sensibility, the conception of time also vanishes; 
 and it inheres not in objects themselves, but solely in the sub- 
 ject (or mind) which intuites them." If time were not a thing 
 in itself, if it has only subjective validity, and has no actuality 
 itself, if it only inheres in the mind which intuites objects, the 
 argument adduced in favor of the proposition does not even 
 tend to sustain it. What is the special condition of our sensi- 
 bility which if taken away, the conception of time vanishes.? 
 Will not the conception of any and every thing conceivable 
 vanish "if we take away from it the special condition of our 
 sensibility ?" If there is a special condition of the conception of 
 time, then time can be conceived by the mind when the sensi- 
 bility is in, or is attended by, the special condition; and it can- 
 not be conceived of in the absence of such special condition. 
 While time might be a condition of the conception of other 
 things, or, be in some sense a form of their sensuous intuition, 
 yet, so far as the mind is concerned, it is itself a phenomenon, 
 an object of which the mind, with the special condition of sen- 
 sibility, has the conception, which the philosopher says will 
 vanish if we take away the special condition. Then to the 
 mind time must have as valid objective reality as any other ob- 
 ject of which the mind can have a conception; although it 
 might in turn become the form or condition of the sensuous in- 
 tuition of other objects, or be a condition of their conception. 
 
 The philosopher himself says, "so soon as we abstract in 
 thought our own subjective nature, the object represented, 
 with the properties ascribed to it by sensuous intuition, entirely 
 disappears, because it was only this subjective nature that de- 
 termined the form of the object as a phenomenon." This is 
 fairly equivalent to saying that if we take away the mind's 
 capacity to think, it then cannot think ; or cannot then think so 
 
348 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 as it could before. If the phrase "out; own subjective nature" 
 means anything, it must mean our capacity to be affected in 
 some manner by the representation of objects to the sensuous 
 faculty. As there can be no thought without an object, and 
 as the object must be represented to the sensuous faculty before 
 there ca'n be a thought, and as the sensuous faculty must 
 intuite the object so represented before the understanding can 
 think the object, the removal of the capacity for all these pro- 
 cesses or operations which constitutes our subjective nature, 
 would certainly deprive us of the power to think the object. 
 But the proposition to "abstract in thought our own subjective 
 nature" is a palpable absurdity. Without our subjective nature, 
 there could not be a thought in which this or any other ab- 
 straction could take place. To abstract such subjective nature, 
 is to obliterate all thought, and render it thereafter impossible. 
 We certainly cannot think without being in some manner 
 affected by some kind of objects, — if our subjective nature is 
 abstracted, we cannot be so affected and the process of abstrac- 
 tion itself, which requires thought, would be impossible. Then 
 what is it that is in the mind as the special condition (its sub- 
 jective nature) whereby it has the conception of time ? What 
 is it that constitutes its special condition of the sensibility.^ 
 There must be something, if there is such special condition to 
 be taken away by the proposed abstraction. When the ana- 
 lytical chemist has reduced a composite to what he regards its 
 ultimate elements or units, what assurance has he that a further 
 analysis will not some time be made, and show that his sup- 
 posed ultimate element or unit, is itself a composite of a high 
 degree of heterogeneity ? 
 
 Further in the sam'e argument the philosopher says, "in con- 
 firmation of this theory of the ideality of the external as well as 
 internal, sense, consequently of all objects of sense, as mere 
 phenomena, we may especially remark, that all in our cognition 
 that belongs to intuition, contains nothing more than mere re- 
 lations. — The feelings of pain and pleasure, and the will which 
 are not cognitions, are excepted. — The relations, to wit, of 
 place in an intuition (extension), change of place (motion), 
 and laws according to which this change is determined (mov- 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 349 
 
 ing forces). That, however, which is present in this or that 
 place, or any operation going on, or result taking place in the 
 things themselves, with the exception of change of place, is not 
 given to us by intuition. Now by means of mere relations, a 
 thing cannot be known in itself; and it may therefore be fairly 
 concluded, that, as through the external sense nothing but 
 mere representations of relations are given to us, the said ex- 
 ternal sense in its representations can contain only the relation 
 of the object to the subject, but not the essential nature of the 
 object as a thing in itself." Several questions are suggested by 
 these propositions. Why is it that that which is present in this 
 or that place, or any operation going on, or result taking place 
 in the things themselves, with the exception of change of place, 
 is not given to us by intuition ? The philosopher has emphat- 
 ically declared that to intuition as "the necessary ground-work, 
 all thought points." Why should change of place be given us 
 by intuition, and not any other operation going on, or result 
 taking place in the things themselves ? And if these are not 
 given us by intuition, how are they given us ? If there is a con- 
 ception of any operation going on, or result taking place in the 
 things themselves, it must, according to the philosopher's dec- 
 larations hereinbefore quoted, arise from the thought of the un- 
 derstanding. According to other of his declarations also here- 
 inbefore quoted, the understanding cannot think until the 
 sensuous faculty intuites the object. So if there is any opera- 
 tion going on, or result taking place in the things themselves, 
 which is not given by intuition, it is not given at all. — it is en- 
 tirely too unreal to be thought, it cannot be the content of a 
 conception; and the philosopher says, "Thoughts without con- 
 tent are void, intuitions without conceptions, blind." 
 
 The further questions occur, — what is "the essential nature 
 of the object as a thing in itself.?" and, — is it possible for the 
 human mind to imagine an object as a thing in itself, that is, as 
 a thing without relation.^ if the phrase, tJung in itself, has any 
 meaning, it must mean thing v/ithout relation to other things. 
 It cannot be a phenomenon until it is represented to the sensuous 
 faculty, and it cannot be represented to the sensuous facultv, 
 except in relation, and the philosopher's division of things is, — 
 
 k 
 
350 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 into things as phenomenn, and things in themselves. So things 
 in themselves must be things without relations. Upon the an- 
 swer to these two questions depends the validity of this division 
 of things, and hence, the utility of the system propounded by 
 the philosopher. By whatever name his system may be called 
 it is plainly a psychology. It is devoted almost exclusively to 
 a discussion of the possibilities, properties, characteristics, capa- 
 cities, divisions, relations, and laws of thought. If its essential 
 principles are mcapable of application in the possible operations 
 of the human mind, the system can be of no utility for such 
 mind. The investigation will probably demonstrate its futility. 
 
 There is no sense, either external or internal, nor any com- 
 bination of senses, by means of which the mind can know or 
 or imagine an object except as in relation. There is no psycho- 
 logical warrant for speaking of things which cannot be known 
 or imagined, or for philosophizing upon them as they cannot 
 be known or imagined. Psychologically, there can be noth- 
 ing except in relation, and the relations, whatever they may be, 
 must determine the real nature of the things, so far as such 
 nature may be known. The nature of simple ingredients is 
 determined by their action in combination. If the mind cannot 
 imagine a thing without relation, actual or potential, it would 
 seem that relation (not particular, but necessary relation) must 
 be of the very essence and nature of the thing. Then if things 
 are known at all, it must be by means of mere relations, which 
 renders the knowing of things as things in themselves and 
 without relation, impossible; because it is these very relations 
 which constitute the real nature of the things so far as they 
 are, or can be conceived of as being, things. 
 
 Illustrations are obvious. Take the simplest possible math- 
 ematical proposition — one and one make two — what is one ? 
 It has no meaning whatever except in some kind of relation, 
 and it will be just whatever its relations make it. Again, — one 
 is contained in two twice, — what is one ? It has no meaning 
 except in its relations. Take the simplest possible chemical 
 proposition, — hydrogen and oxygen compose water, — what is 
 hydrogen? "It is generally stated that hydrogen does not 
 exist naturally in a pure and uncombined state." If this is 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 35 I 
 
 correct it would certainly be nothing naturally except in its re- 
 lations. If it were found to exist naturally in a pure and un- 
 combined state, it would still be in space, and would be in 
 necessary relations with other objects therein, if of no other 
 kind, then of position. But its real nature could not be known 
 except by knowing its action in combination with some other 
 thing. It is impossible to imagine a chemical analysis of any 
 thing into elements so elementary but that their further reduc- 
 tion may be as legitimately imagined. It is impossible to 
 imagine an atom except as in relation of some kind, and the 
 real nature of nothing can be known except by its relations. 
 So instead of the "two pure forms of sensuous intuition," 
 which the philosopher posits, space and time, there would seem 
 to be at least five, if there are any, and that in addition to the 
 /oral and being above spoken of, relation should be included in 
 the list. 
 
 It would seem to be an abuse of terms to say that "by 
 means of mere relations, a thing cannot be known in itself; and 
 it may therefore be fairly concluded, that, as through the exter- 
 nal sense nothing but mere representations of relations are given 
 us, the said external sense in its representations can contain 
 only the relation of the object to the subject, but not the essen- 
 tial nature of the object as a thing in itself." There is some 
 sense, it may not be the external sense, which seems to contain 
 more than the relation of the object to the subject — the relations 
 between and among objects seem to be known to some extent. 
 And knowledge of such relations constitutes the greater part of 
 what we know. The existence of an object or a thing neces- 
 sarily involves much more than its relations to the subject cog- 
 nizing it. To many persons (subjects) the existence of many 
 things (objects) is forever unknown. Until known they have 
 no known relation to the subject, yet if they are, they co-exist 
 with the subject in space and time, if they u'ere they and the 
 subject exist successively in space and time, supposing them to 
 be the object and subject before they become actually such by 
 means of the subjects cognition of the objects. 
 
 If the external sense cannot give us more than the relations 
 of object to subject, it can afford us but little knowledge of the 
 
352 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 nature of the object, but even this little is so much of the real 
 nature of the object. The relation which the object bears to the 
 subject must be supposed to be its necessary relation, and hence 
 necessarily a constituent factor in the composition of the quant- 
 ity or quality called the real nature of the object. The real 
 nature of the object consists in great measure of its relations, 
 actual and potential, to the other things, including the subject; 
 or at least such nature is determined by such relations, actual 
 or potential. Spectrum analysis is supposed to aid in ascer- 
 taining what are the constituent substances of the sun, by co- 
 ordinating in some measure what are supposed to be the rela- 
 tions of such supposed substances to known substances. Micro- 
 scopical analysis, chemical analysis, common observation and 
 experience, are constantly discovering new relations between 
 and among countless objects, whose relations to the subject are 
 of trifling or rather of no apparent consequence in comparison. 
 
 If psychological principles go for anything in the discussion, 
 there can be no such thing as a thing in itself, because the mind 
 is utterly unable to imagine anything except as in relation. And 
 the philosopher himself attributes supreme authority to psycho- 
 logical principles, in his worse than futile attempt to show that 
 objects must conform to our cognition, or sensous intuition of 
 them. But unfortunately for his system, he thereby asserts the 
 supremacy of that which is now shown to be hopelessly irre- 
 concilable with the fundamental postulates of his philosophy. 
 1 believe it is now demonstrated that there is no such thing 
 psychologically supposable as the alleged distinction between 
 things as phenomena and things as things in themselves — that 
 no one can know that he knows appearances, without, also 
 knowing that he knows the things of which they are the 
 appearances. 
 
 The two questions which 1 proposed, to wit, — what is the 
 essential nature of the object as a thing in itself? and, — is it 
 possible for the human mind to imagine an object as a thing in 
 itself, — without relations — are now disposed of. The first is 
 shown to be irrelevant by the necessarily negative answer to 
 the second one. The logical result is, there can be no utility 
 in that part of the Critique of Pure Reason which is thus far 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. j^3 
 
 examined, and as it is the basis of the entire fabric, it would 
 seem but illy sustained. Depending as it must, — indeed as it 
 professes to do, upon the alleged distinctions,— rof knowledge 
 as a priori and empirical, — and of things as phenomena and 
 things in. themselves, both of which are now shown to be psy- 
 chologically impossible, there cannot be much philosophic 
 merit in the work. 
 
 1 have said that the ultimate object of nearly all speculative 
 philosophy is the settlement, scientifically, of problems which 
 in the nature of the human mind never can be settled to its 
 satisfaction. Such philosophy almost uniformly degenerates, 
 apparently unconsciously, into the coarsest and most dogmatic 
 of apologetics. While it professes to be, and seems to imagine 
 it is, reasoning out its deductions, it often arbitrarily assumes 
 whatever appears necessary to their validity, creates arbitrary 
 divisions of labor for the employment of the alleged various 
 mental faculties, and arbitrary divisions or departments of 
 alleged knowledge; and after denouncing experience generally 
 as unworthy comparison with the alleged pure reason, and of no 
 reliable validity, it almost invariably endeavors to give credence 
 to its own deductions by showing their supposed consonance 
 with the results of experience. 
 
 And the Critique appears to be no exception to the general 
 rule, as one or two instances of its statement of the problems it 
 involves will suffice to show. "These unavoidable problems 
 of mere pure reason are God, Freedom (of will) and immortal- 
 ity." And again, " * * it is phiin that the hope of a fttture 
 life arises from the feeling, which exists in the breast of every 
 man, that the temporal is inadequate to meet and satisfy the 
 demands of his nature. In like manner it cannot be doubted 
 that the clear exhibition of duties in opposition to all the claims 
 of inclination, gives rise to the consciousness oi freedom, and 
 that the glorious order, beauty, and providential care, every- 
 where displayed in nature, give rise to the belief in a wise and 
 great Author of the Universe." The avowed purpose of the 
 Critique is to so purify and train the reasoning faculty, that it 
 may infallibly establish the validity of, and confirm such beliefs, 
 and solve "these unavoidable problems of mere pure reason." 
 
354 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 In reality it is an indirect, but a very learned and labored and 
 dogmatic system of apologetics. Its author says, "But above 
 all it will confer an inestimable benefit upon morality and relig- 
 ion, by showing that all objections urged against them may 
 be silenced forever by the Socratic method, that is to say, by 
 showing the ignorance of the objector." 
 
 It is difficult to harmonize the "glorious order" with "the 
 clear exhibition of duty in opposition to all claims of inclina- 
 tion.'' The order would be more glorious if duty and inclina- 
 tion were in accord instead of opposition. The clear exhibi- 
 tion of this opposition may give rise to the consciousness of 
 freedom. But this consciousness of freedom, if put to the test, 
 will be found lacking a great deal of being a knowledge 
 that one is actually free. What is freedom? Is it compatible 
 with restraint.f^ And what is duty apart from restraint ? If 
 one is free he may follow inclination without restraint. 11 
 one is conscious of freedom he must know he is free. He 
 cannot be free so long as he is restrained, whether by a 
 sense of duty or by fear. If there is opposition between 
 duty and inclination freedom is impossible. One may in such 
 case follow inclination, but not in freedom ; he can in opposi- 
 tion to duty follow it only in resistance. If the opposition be- 
 tween duty and inclination is clearly exhibited, then duty itself 
 is clearly exhibited. Then if one follows inclination he knows 
 he is defying duty and is a rebel instead of a freeman. His 
 duty cannot be clearly exhibited without its restraint is also 
 clearly exhibited. Knowledge of, or belief in, ill consequences, 
 to result from certain action, renders it impossible for one to be 
 free to take such action. His duty forbids it. His inclination 
 may prompt him to take it, but he is not free to do so. He is 
 restrained by fear or by a sense of duty. He may resist such 
 restraint, just as men defy the laws and cheat and kill each 
 other. 
 
 If "it is plain that the hope of a future life arises from the 
 feeling which exists in the breast of every man, that the tem- 
 poral is inadequate to meet and satisfy the demands of his 
 nature," and if duty has relation to happiness in the future life, 
 — it is indeed strange that there should be " the clear exhibition 
 
k 
 
 MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 355 
 
 of duty in opposition to all the claims of inclination." Suppose 
 that we examine this proposition minutely. The universality of 
 tendency seems to establish in one case the reasonableness of 
 the hope of a future life. In the other case the universality of 
 the tendency seems to be consistent with its turpitude, and to 
 be in plain opposition to duty as it relates to the fruition of the 
 hope. The hope of a future life, the inclination to live hereafter, 
 so the demands of our nature may be met and satisfied, is a 
 universal tendency. The word duty is used to imply a condi- 
 tion of the happy fruition of such hope. Can an opposite ten- 
 dency be supposed to universally prevail ? If the universality 
 of the "feeling that the temporal is inadequate to meet and 
 satisfy the demands of our nature," gives rise to the hope of a 
 future life, then the universality of any other feeling, tendency 
 or inclination, ought, on the same principle to give rise to the 
 hope, the fruition of which would gratify such feeling, tendency, 
 or inclination. 
 
 The validity of morality and religion cannot be made mani- 
 fest by the Socratic method, and no inestimable benefit can be 
 conferred upon them by showing the ignorance of the objector. 
 If they are debatable they must be sustained. If they are not 
 debatable they need no support. If their claims are to be sus- 
 tained it must be by showing their validity, and not by show- 
 ing the invalidity of objections. These may be endless, and 
 all that are offered may be shown to be invalid. But if moral- 
 ity and religion are debatable at all, their validity is not estab- 
 lished by the overthrow of certain objections against them. In 
 order that they may be benefited by the Socratic or any other 
 method, they must be confessed debatable. If the objector is 
 sincere, and no other deserves notice, he may insist that his 
 supposed ignorance is wisdom in comparison with the apolo- 
 gist's dogmatism. And he may be right. When the apolo- 
 gist appeals to pure reason, he may find the Court on both 
 sides of the case. Socrates and Lucretius both recovered spec- 
 ial verdicts, and exulted over their success. One proved that 
 the soul is immortal, the other that it is born and dies with the 
 body. Pure Reason set the seal of its approval upon each of 
 them. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 
 
 But one Logic — No Cognition without Content— Conception has no a priori 
 Relation to Object — No Universal Criterion of Truth — Understanding not 
 Distinct from Sensibility- — No Representation of Undetermined Object — 
 judgment Necessarily Composite — Negative Content of Predicate an Ab- 
 surdity — No Logical Extent of Judgment Beyond Content of the Cognition 
 — No Difference Betv^een Internal Necessity and External Cause — Principles 
 of Philosophy not Expressed in Alternatives — Mind (Soul) a Physical Con- 
 dition — Modality of Judgments must Add to their Value— No Dij-tinction 
 Between the True and the Necessary — False Judgment Cannot be Basis of 
 Cognition of Truth— Sensibility has Nothing Primitively and Derives Noth- 
 ing Except Empirically, Hence no Sensibility a priori — No Spontaneity 
 of Thought — Synthesis must be a posteriori and not a priori. 
 
 Notwithstanding the opinion expressed in the last chapter 
 concerning the utility of that part of the Critique so fltr exam- 
 ined, and which seems to be the basis of the entire fabric, and 
 although the general prevalence of such an opinion might be 
 equivalent to a repeal or a nullification of the philosopher's laws 
 of thought, it may be found both interesting and instructive to 
 continue the inquiry. 
 
 The second part of the doctrine of Elements is called Trans- 
 cendental Logic. As distinguished from Transcendental Aes- 
 thetic, the alleged science of the laws of sensibility, this is said 
 to be the science of the laws of the understanding. It cannot 
 bode very favorably for the result when discussion of such a 
 subject begins in an illogical division of it. 
 
 As in Transcendental Aesthetic knowledge is divided into 
 a priori and empirical knowledge, so in this, logic is divided 
 into logic of the general, and logic of the particular, use of the 
 understanding. The first is said to contain "the absolutely 
 necessary laws of thought, without which no use of the under- 
 standing whatever is possible." It is said that it "gives laws 
 therefore to the understanding without regard to the difference 
 of objects on which it may be employed." The second is said 
 to contain "the laws of correct thinking upon a particular class 
 of objects." If such division is logical there should be a further 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 357 
 
 division giving laws of correct thinking upon particular objects 
 in the particular classes. The occasion for the division must be 
 that the general logic does not give all the absolutely necessary 
 law^s of thought. 1 find it impossible to imagine that the ope- 
 rations of the mind are to be governed by one law or set of 
 laws when dealing with objects in general, and by another law 
 or set of laws when dealing with a particular class . of ob- 
 jects. Further classification of objects would necessitate addi- 
 tional systems of logic; logic would itself become more an in- 
 cident to the classification of objects than a law of thought. 
 
 While we may not look for a rule without an exception, we 
 inay'object to the exception being made the rule. The word 
 law is irreconcilable with difference in the mode of correct think- 
 ing, according to classification of objects. Law implies uni- 
 formity and regularity, and if one law governs thought when 
 dealing with one class of objects, and another law governs 
 thought when dealing with another class of objects, there can be 
 no general law governing thought when dealing with objects in 
 general. An insuperable objection to the division is plainly 
 apparent in the statement of the division. There can be no 
 useful division without a difference between the laws of the 
 general logic, and those of the alleged particular logic. The 
 general logic is said to give laws, those absolutely necessary, to 
 the understanding without regard to the difference of objects 
 with which it may be employed, in which case the laws of the 
 alleged particular logic would not only be superfluous, they 
 could not apply. Two solids cannot occupy the same place at 
 the same time. If the general logic contains the absolutely 
 necessary laws of thought, it contains those which can in -no 
 case of correct thought be dispensed with, and there can be no 
 correct thought upon any object but according to such laws. 
 If it is complete it will neither need nor admit being supple- 
 mented by the laws of the alleged particular logic. It it is in- . 
 complete it cannot be general. If it is to be supplemented or 
 superseded by a particular logic in any case, it must itself be 
 particular, giving laws only to a particular part of the thought, 
 or to thought only when employed with particular objects. 
 
358 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 That such processes and divisions can be dovetailed together, 
 that the jurisdictions under which they operate can be kept 
 from collision, so that the processes can proceed harmoniously 
 to intelligible results is a mystery. The very statement of the 
 order, or rather the disorder, of the combinations and processes 
 is a confusion. Take for examble the abstraction by which 
 occasion is given for the operation of the laws of the alleged 
 pure general logic as distinguished from general applied logic. 
 The philosopher says, "We abstract all the empirical conditions 
 under which the understanding is exercised; for example, the 
 influence of the senses, the play of the phantasy or imagination, 
 the laws of memory, the force of habit, of inclination, etc., con- 
 sequently also the source of prejudice, — in a word we abstract 
 all causes from which particular cognitions arise, because these 
 causes regard the understanding under certain circumstances of 
 its application, and to the knowledge of them experience is 
 required. Pure general logic has to do therefore, merely with 
 pure a priori principles, and is a canon of understanding and 
 reason, but only in respect of the formal part of their use, be 
 their content what it may, empirical, or transcendental. Gen- 
 eral logic is called applied, when it is directed to the laws of 
 the use of the understanding under the subjective empirical 
 conditions which psychology teaches us. It has therefore 
 empirical principles, although, at the same time, it is in so far 
 general, that it applies to the understanding, without regard to 
 the difference of objects." 
 
 This abstraction leaves nothing, — and this residue is divided. 
 If we abstract all empirical conditions under which the under- 
 standing is exercised, the influence of the senses, the imagina- 
 tion, memory, habit, inclination, and prejudice, and all causes 
 from which particular cognitions arise; then the understanding 
 will not be exercised at all, there will arise no cognition what- 
 ever, and the understanding will not even understand that it 
 has performed the supposed abstraction. Without the influence 
 of the senses there can be no thought, and without memory 
 thoughts cannot be connected. If the causes from which par- 
 ticular cognitions arise regard the understanding under certain 
 circumstances of its application, to a knowledge of which ex- 
 
\ 
 
 MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 359 
 
 perience is required, then the remnant of the understanding 
 remaining after the supposed abstraction, will be under the 
 certain circumstances of its application, if it is applied, and to 
 the knowledge of this experience will be required. The ab- 
 straction itself will be experience, and the supposed condition 
 of the understanding after the supposed abstraction will be an 
 object, to be known only empirically. If it is neither applied 
 nor known, it is entirely too shadowy for philosophic discus- 
 sion. There is no cognition without content. The condition 
 of the understanding after the supposed abstraction must be 
 known, or it must be unknown. If it is unknown the disqui- 
 sition is idle. If it is known, the knowledge of it is the content 
 of the particular cognition which the philosopher says regards 
 the understanding under certain circumstances of its applica- 
 tion, to the knowledge of which experience is required. Some 
 kind of observation or perception will be necessary to know it, 
 and they are experience. If all causes from which particular 
 cognitions arise were abstracted, then that particular cognition 
 would not arise, and we could know neither the condition of 
 the understanding, nor that the abstraction itself were made. 
 
 Some controversial philosophy when closely scrutinized 
 appears more like contention for signification of terms, than for 
 doctrine and the application of principles. It is not intended to 
 be understood as a wrangle over terminology, and much of it 
 does not seem to be intended to be understood at all. But the 
 critical reader of the works of some philosophers who appear to 
 be in violent opposition to each other, will see that there is little 
 if any occasion for their dissention. 
 
 In the philosophy in question, which most English-speaking 
 scholars modestly admit they do not fully comprehend, it is 
 said, "in the expectation that there may perhaps be conceptions 
 which relate a priori to objects, not as pure sensuous intuitions, 
 but merely as acts of pure thought, which are therefore concep- 
 tions, but neither of empirical nor sesthetical origin — in this 
 expectation, I say, we may form to ourselves, by anticipation, 
 the idea of a science of pure understanding and rational cogni- 
 tion, by means of which we may cogitate objects entirely apriori. 
 A science of this kind, which should determine the origin, the 
 
360 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 extent, and the objective validity of such cognitions must be 
 called transcendental logic, because it has not, like general logic, to 
 do with the laws of understanding and reason in relation to 
 empirical as well as pure rational cognitions without distinction, 
 but concerns itself with these only in an a priori relation to ob- 
 jects." 
 
 The word transcendental is used here in relation to logic in 
 a sense analogous to that in which the term a priori is in the 
 same philosophy so frequently used in relation to knowledge. 
 So far as position in the order of a mental process is concerned, 
 the function of transcendental logic is intended as analogous to 
 that of the alleged a priori cognition. But a great deal must be 
 done before there can be the function of transcendental logic, 
 and it must all be done in anticipation and with the imagina- 
 tion. In view of the palpable improbability that the expecta- 
 tion will ever materialize in intelligible psychological results, in 
 order to give scope for the operations of the rare invention — it 
 is necessary to imagine a sort of mental Utopia, where certain 
 laws of the alleged transcendental logic control the action of the 
 pure understanding, in its dealings with that which has no psy- 
 chological content. The science is supposed to "determine the 
 origin, extent, and objective validity," of cognitions which are 
 said to have no object. This is rarified air. 
 
 If conceptions are acts of pure thought, there can still be no 
 conception without an object. When thought becomes too 
 pure to have an object it ceases to be thought. There can be 
 no cognition without content. When cognition becomes too 
 airy to contain the knowledge constituting it, it ceases to be 
 cognition. There can be neither a conception nor a cognition 
 unless it is of empirical or aesthetical origin. The philosopher 
 himself says, "our nature is so constituted, that intuition with 
 us can never be other than sensuous, that is, it contains only 
 the mode in which we are affected by objects. On the other 
 hand the faculty of thinking the objects of sensuous intuition is 
 the understanding. Neither of these f^iculties has a preference 
 over the other. Without the sensuous faculty no object would 
 be given to us, and without the understanding no object would 
 be thought. Thoughts without content are void, intuitions 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. ^6x 
 
 without conceptions are blind. Hence it is as necessary for 
 the mind to make its conceptions sensuous (that is, to join tO' 
 them the object in intuition) as to make its intuitions intelligi- 
 ble (that is, to bring them under conceptions). Neither of 
 these faculties can exchange its proper functions. Understand- 
 ing cannot intuite, and the sensuous faculty cannot think. In 
 no other way than from the united operation of both, can 
 knowledge arise." So according to his own unqualified decla- 
 rations, it plainly appears, that unless the mind can, by means 
 of some of its f:Kulties, employ itself in a process or operation 
 more subtle than thought, there can be no mental domain 
 within the jurisdiction of the laws of the transcendental logic. 
 It is simply impossible to imagine that it can do so. 
 
 There is manifest contradiction and absurdity in the proposi- 
 tion to cogitate objects entirely a priori. One of the philoso- 
 pher's cardinal principles is, that objects only reach us through 
 the sensuous faculty. Another one is, that all cognition arising 
 therefrom is a posteriori cognition. Now to cogitate a thing is 
 to think the thing cogitated. To intuite a thing is to know or 
 perceive the thing intuited without deduction or reasoning, that 
 is, to know it directly. To cognize a thing is to know the thing 
 cognized. The mind cannot cogitate, intuite, nor cognize, 
 without cogitating, intuiting or cognizing something. Neither 
 cognition nor cogitation then can be possible apnon, nor in an a 
 priori relation to objects. There can be no such relation. Rela- 
 tion of any thing mental to objects must be a posteriori. The rela- 
 tion cannot be until the object is, nor indeed until it is given. In 
 delirium a mind may wildly and weirdly imagine much that is 
 unreal, both as to its imaginary objects and their imaginary re- 
 lations. But in its dealings with thought philosophy is sup- 
 posed to refer to that of rational creatures in their sober senses. 
 Psychology will be but little advanced by being taught in- 
 terms of visionary vagary ; and the alleged a priori cognition can 
 be no more than that. 
 
 Conceptions cannot have an a priori relation to objects. The 
 philosopher says, "By means of sensibility objects are given to 
 us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions; by the understand- 
 ing they are thought, and from it conceptions arise. But all 
 
362 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 thought must directly or indirectly, by means of certain signs, 
 relate ultimately to intuitions ; consequently, with us, to sensi- 
 bility, because in no other way can an object be given to us." 
 If conceptions arise from thought, and if thought must originate 
 in sensibility, the conceptions must be a posteriori. They must 
 come after the object is represented to the sensuous faculty, and 
 the intuition arises or is. The sensuous faculty must intuite be- 
 fore the understanding can think. If thoughts without content 
 are void, then they are not. To be thoughts they must be joined 
 to the object in intuition, and thus they have content. Con- 
 ceptions arising from them, come necessarily after the object in 
 intuition, and hence a posteriori. Conceptions must be before 
 they can have any relation whatever, and it is impossible for 
 them to be before the thoughts from which they arise; and 
 thoughts originate only in sensibility. So if it is the sole office 
 of the transcendental logic to determine the origin, the extent, 
 and the objective validity of conceptions which relate a priori to 
 objects, there is no practical utility in it. No such conceptions 
 are conceivable. 
 
 Nothing could be much more illogical than the proposition 
 to furnish a "universal and secure criterion of the truth of every 
 cognition." "With regard to our cognition in respect of its 
 mere form (excluding all content), it is equally manifest that 
 logic, in so far as it exhibits the universal and necessary laws of 
 the understanding, must in these very laws present us with 
 criteria of truth." And this position is equally as illogical, un- 
 philosophical, and absurd as the proposition which he de- 
 nounces. In the same paragraph he says, "these criteria, how- 
 ever, apply solely to the form of truth, that is, of thought in 
 general, and in so far they are perfectly accurate, yet not suffi- 
 cient. For although a cognition may be perfectly accurate as to 
 its logical form, that is, not self-contradictory, it is notwith- 
 standing quite possible that it may not stand in agreement with 
 its object." One simple truth is sufficient to show the utter 
 fallacy of such proposition, and to answer all the argument ad- 
 duced to sustain it. It is this, — there can be no cognition 
 which does not agree with its object. Another is, — a cognition 
 cannot be perfectly accurate as to its logical form, that is, not 
 
 I 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 363 
 
 self-contradictory, and then not stand in agreement with its 
 object. A cognition, to be such, must have an object. It must 
 relate to its object. It is nothing with an object. It is deter- 
 mined by its object, both as to form and content. It is a cog- 
 nition of the object cognized, or it is nothing. If there is no 
 content (object) there is no cognition. Its content is its form. 
 It is impossible to think without thinking something. Both 
 knowing and accurate thinking must agree with the thing 
 known and accurately thought. The supposed cognition which 
 does not so agree, is self-contradictory, for it is now clearly 
 shown that it can only be a cognition in so far as it agrees with 
 its object. It is not merely asserted, it is shown, that a cogni- 
 tion to be such must agree with its object. If it is not satisfac- 
 torily shown, I will proceed to do so on the authority of the 
 philosopher's own unqualified declarations. It is illogical, un- 
 philosophical, and absurd to say, — "with regard to our cogni- 
 tion in respect to its mere form (excluding all content). " When 
 all content is excluded there is no cognition to have form. Ac- 
 cording to the philosopher, thought is the work of the under- 
 standing, which can only be performed when the sensuous fac- 
 ulty has intuited an object. The laws of the understanding 
 cannot present us with any criteria of truth either in particular 
 or in general. The laws of the understanding (transcendental 
 logic) may prescribe certain rules for accurate thinking, but 
 truth is not to be tested by any criterion which they can afford. 
 If truth is "the accordance of the cognition with its object," it 
 can only be known when the object is presented, and the cri- 
 teria must then be afforded by the sensuous faculty (in a sum- 
 mary of the experiences, or deductions therefrom) to which the 
 object is presented. 
 
 Under the general head of Transcendental Logic the philos- 
 opher treats of what he calls the transcendental clue to the dis- 
 covery of all pure conceptions of the understanding. But 
 within the first page of the discourse he shows the impossibility 
 of suchgConceptions, and hence the superfluity of the alleged 
 clue for their discovery. He says, — "independently of sensi- 
 bility, we cannot possibly have any intuition; consequently the 
 understanding is no faculty of intuition. But besides intuition 
 
364 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 there is no other mode of cognition, except through concep- 
 tions; consequently the cognition of every, at least of every 
 human, understanding is a cognition through conceptions,— 
 not intuitive, but discursive. All intuitions, as sensuous, de- 
 pend on affections; conceptions, therefore, upon functions. By 
 the word function, 1 understand the unity of the act of arrang- 
 ing diverse representations under one common representation. 
 Conceptions, then, are based on the spontaneity of thought, as 
 sensuous intuitions are on the receptivity of impressions." But 
 a little previously he had said, "pure understanding disting- 
 uishes itself not merely from everything empirical, but also 
 completely from all sensibility." And not very far back he had 
 declared the impossibility of the understanding so distinguish- 
 ing itself, as v^^ell as the impossibility of any conception not 
 based, like sensuous intuitions, on the receptivity of impres- 
 sions, except that they are one remove further away from, in 
 advance of, or above sensibility- As quoted in the last pre- 
 ceding chapter he had said, "an intuition can take place only 
 in so far as the object is given to us. This, again, is only pos- 
 sible to man at least, on condition that the object affect the 
 mind in a certain manner. The capacity for receiving repre- 
 sentations (receptivity) through the mode in which we are 
 affected by objects, is called sensibility. By means of sensi- 
 bility, therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes 
 us with intuitions; by the understanding they are thought, and 
 from it arise conceptions. But all thought must directly, or 
 indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to intui- 
 tions; consequently, with us, to sensibility, because in no other 
 way can an object be given to us." Conceptions then arise 
 from thought. And all thought must relate to sensibility. If 
 it is the understanding which does the thinking, how is it to 
 distinguish itself "completely from all sensibility.?" Further, 
 if conceptions depend on function, and if function is "the unity 
 of the act of arranging diverse representations under one com- 
 mon representation," and if conceptions arise from the thought 
 of the understanding, then the understanding cannot distinguish 
 tself completely from all sensibility. The representations with 
 which function deals, are made only to the sensibility. The 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. ' 365 
 
 sensibility receives them by means of the receptivity of the 
 sensuous faculty. 
 
 It is irrelevant to say that "besides intuition there is no other 
 mode of cognition except through conceptions." The above 
 quoted postulates preclude the possibility of conceptions except 
 by means of, or arising from intuitions. And they are equally 
 as positive that intuition is impossibile without sensibility, 
 that is, impossible except by means of sensibility. Where 
 such declarations are positively made, and are so contradictory, 
 the reader must either misunderstand or forget what he reads on 
 one page, in order to be prepared to understand what he may 
 read upon another page of the same philosophy. 
 
 In the introduction to his discourse upon the analytic of 
 conceptions, the philosopher says, "Transcendental philosophy 
 has the advantage, and moreover the duty, of searching for its 
 conceptions according to a principle; because these conceptions 
 spring pure and unmixed out of the understanding as an abso- 
 lute unity, and therefore must be connected with each other 
 according to one conception or idea. A conception of this 
 kind, however, furnishes us with a ready prepared rule, by 
 which its proper place may be assigned to every pure concep- 
 tion of the understanding, and the completeness of the system 
 of all determined a priori, — both which would otherwise have 
 been dependent on mere choice or chance." 
 
 It would really seem more logical, though perhaps not so 
 transcendentally logical, to assign the pure conceptions of the 
 understanding to their proper places, than to assign their proper 
 places to them. Such conceptions would seem to be as trans- 
 itory and portable as place. But aside from this, which may 
 be regarded captious, 1 think 1 have shown that according to 
 the philosopher's own positive declarations, a pure conception 
 of the understanding, as he defines it, is an impossibility. He 
 says it is a conception in which there is nothing empirical. 
 Also that the understanding has been negatively defined "as a 
 non-sensuous faculty of cognition." I think I have already- 
 shown that according to his positive declarations, there can be 
 no such faculty, or at least that no faculty of the mind can have 
 a non-sensuous cognition; that he absolutely precludes the 
 
 k 
 
j66 ' ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 possibility of thought without sensation, and no one would 
 claim that there could be cognition without thought. 
 
 Later in the section last above quoted from he says, "Now 
 thought is cognition by means of conceptions. But conceptions 
 as predicates of possible judgments, relate to some representa- 
 tion of a yet undetermined object." I believe it is shown that 
 according to his own positive declarations, both 'these propos- 
 itions propose impossibilities. As quoted in the preceding chap- 
 ter he has said, "By means of sensibility, therefore, objects are 
 given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions; by the 
 understanding they are thought, and from it arise concep- 
 tions." Then thought cannot be "cognition by means of con- 
 ceptions," because conceptions themselves arise from thought, 
 or from the understanding which thinks. It would be a some- 
 what circuitous process if thought, or the understanding that 
 thinks, should first produce conceptions, and thought should 
 then be cognition by means of them. Conceptions as predi- 
 cates of possible judgments cannot relate to the representation 
 of a yet undetermined object. A mere representation is suffi- 
 ciently filmy when the object is determined. There can be no 
 representation of a yet undetermined object. A representation, 
 to be such, must be a representation of an object. So long as 
 the object is undetermined, how can the mind know that it has 
 a representation of it ? If the mind even imagines that it has a 
 representation of an object, it must also imagine the object of 
 which it so imagines itself to have such representation. The 
 object must be determined in the imagination, or the represen- 
 tation of it cannot be in the imagination. In proof of this it is 
 sufficient to ask the reader to try to imagine the representation 
 of an object, without at the same time imaging the object as 
 determined. Herbert Spencer says it is impossible to look at 
 the sun and think of green. I have tried to imagine myself 
 doing so, and found it impossible. His assertion is proved, 
 psychologically at least. If one cannot imagine the representa- 
 tion of an object without also imagining the object as determ- 
 ined, it is proved there can be no such thing as a "representa- 
 tion of a yet undetermined object." These conceptions cannot 
 "spring pure and unmixed out of the understanding as an 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. }b'J 
 
 absolute unity." The understanding is not, and cannot be im- 
 agined to be, an absolute unity. It may be the highest faculty 
 or function of the mind. But according to the philosopher's 
 own positive declarations, it is merely a relative factor, and not 
 an absolute unity. As already quoted he says, "without the 
 sensuous faculty no object would be given to us, and without 
 the understanding no object would be thought. * * * in 
 no other way than from the united operation of both, can 
 knowledge arise." If this is true the understanding not only 
 cannot be an absolute unity, it must be a mere factor or faculty 
 of essential relativity in the mental make-up, the psychological 
 organism. Substantively the understanding is nothing. If it is 
 in reality a fliculty of thought, or a foculty which thinks, or 
 even an entity which thinks, its existence is only known in its 
 thinking. Until it thinks it is not known to be. It cannot be 
 imagined as in being, except as engaged in thinking. The 
 philosopher says it cannot think unless it is furnished with an 
 object by sensuous intuition. If he is correct in this, the un- 
 derstanding must be a relative quantity or quality, dependent 
 in its existence and operations, which as above shown are but 
 one, upon the faculty of sensuous intuition. Then it certainly 
 cannot be an absolute unity. The imperativeness with which 
 he declares the understanding to be an absolute unity, is un- 
 warranted. Positiveness is not philosophy. If, however, it is 
 the alleged pure conception of the understanding which he 
 means to call an absolute unit, the result is even worse for his 
 philosophy. According to his declarations conceptions must 
 be composite, and cannot be unity. The raw material of 
 which they are composed is the intuition of the sensuous fac- 
 ulty, intuited only when an object is presented or represented. 
 This intuition is worked over by the understanding into thought 
 and conceptions. Then conceptions must be as empirical, as 
 heterogeneous, and as relative, as the thing intuited by the 
 sensuous faculty, or as the intuition of the sensuous faculty. 
 
 Of the alleged logical function of the understanding in judg- 
 ments, he says it may be brought under four heads, of which 
 each contains three momenta. They are, first, Quantity of 
 judgments, as universal, particular, and singular. Second, 
 
368 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, 
 
 Quality of judgments, as affirmative, negative, and infinitive. 
 Third, Relation of judgments, as categorical, hypothetical, and 
 disjunctive. Fourth, Modality of judgments, as problematical, 
 assertorical, and apodeictical. That in the use of judgments in 
 syllogisms, singular judgments may be treated like universal 
 ones. That because a singular judgment has no extent, its predi- 
 cate cannot refer to a part of the conception of the understanding, 
 and be excluded from the rest. That the predicate is valid for 
 the whole conception as if it were a general conception and 
 had extent, to the whole of which the predicate applied. That 
 in point of quantity the singular is to the general judgment as 
 unity to infinity; that as to their intrinsic validity, and their use 
 with reference to each other, they need not be separately 
 placed ; but that according to quantity they are entirely differ- 
 ent. 
 
 This is very obscure; but I believe I apprehend its mean- 
 ing. In what 1 have to say of it 1 shall endeavor to be strictly 
 logical. There is no logic in the distinction between singular 
 and universal judgments. The supposed universal judgment 
 is probably called so because of the universality of its applica- 
 tion. It may be of universal application and still singular, 
 numerically. If the word singular is used as the antithesis of 
 composite, no such judgment is psychologically possible. A 
 judgment must be somewhat in the nature of a conclusion 
 reached by means of or after deliberation, and it cannot be con- 
 ceived of as simple.- Deliberation is necessarily a hesitating 
 between different mental tendencies, and the conclusion (judg- 
 ment) reached is composed of the result of the consideration of 
 the matters, whatever they may be, which tend the mind this 
 way or that way. If the word judgment is used in the sense 
 of cognition, it not only necessarily tends to confusion, but is 
 even worse for the philosophy than if it were used in the com- 
 mon acceptation of the term, and as 1 have above supposed. 
 A cognition cannot be singular, that is simple, but is necessarily 
 composite. It can arise only from a mental survey of things in 
 their relations. It is psychologically impossible to think of any 
 one thing to the utter exclusion of all other things, and of all 
 relations. Suppose one to try the simplest and most direct 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 369 
 
 cognition possible, and see if it can possibly be singular in the 
 sense of simple, or as distinguished from the composite. Ap- 
 perception is probably the simplest and most direct of all pos- 
 sible cognition. By it we know that we are. But what.? and 
 where.? and how? and when.? and amongst whom.? and with 
 what.? The cognition is nothing if not composite. 
 
 The philosopher seems to base the distinction between the 
 singular and universal judgments on the alleged fact that the 
 singular has no extent. This necessarily implies that the uni- 
 versal judgment has extent, and he says the singular is to the 
 general judgment as unitv to infinity. This relation is analo- 
 gous to that sometimes supposed between the atom and the 
 universe. But it is impossible to suppose an indivisible atom, 
 or an atom without extent. If the singular judgment has no 
 extent it cannot be to the general judgment as unity to infinity, 
 because unity cannot be supposed to have no extent; and 
 worse than this, no human judgment can be supposed to corre- 
 spond with infinity. 
 
 Further of the logical function of the understanding he says 
 that in transcendental logic infinite are distinguished from 
 affirmative judgments, though they are rightly classed with 
 them in general logic. General logic abstracts all the content 
 of the predicate, though it be negative, and only considers 
 whether the predicate be affirmed or denied of the subject. 
 Transcendental logic considers the content of the negative pred- 
 icate, and inquires what the cognition gains by such affirma- 
 tion. That by the negative proposition, "The soul is not mor- 
 tal," one really affirms, places the soul in the unlimited sphere 
 of immortal beings, affirms that the soul is one of the infinite 
 multitude of things which remain when all mortal things are 
 taken away. That by such means the unlimited sphere of all 
 possible existences is so far limited that the mortal is excluded 
 from it, and the soul is placed in the remaining part of this 
 sphere. That this part remains infinite, and more may be 
 taken away from the whole sphere without augmenting or 
 affirmatively determining our conception of soul. That such 
 judgments, infinite in respect of their logical extent, are in re 
 spect of the content of their cognition, merely limitative. That 
 
370 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 hence they belong in the transcendental table of the momenta 
 of thought in judgments, because the function of the under- 
 standing exercised by them, may perhaps be of importance in 
 the field of its pure a priori cognition. 
 
 It would seem very much like an abuse of terms to speak 
 of an alleged negative content of a predicate. And indeed in 
 the example given, viz., "the soul is not mortal," the philoso- 
 pher says we really affirm. To affirm with negative proposi- 
 tions'is to obliterate all distinction between the negative and 
 affirmative and abolish all intelligible thought. If the content 
 of a predicate is negative the predicate is void. The soul is 
 not necessarily placed in the sphere of the immortal by merely 
 affirming that it is not mortal. So far as such affirmation is 
 concerned it may not he at all. Such a proposition does not 
 affirm that the soul is one of the multitude of things which re- 
 main when all mortal things are taken away. The infinite 
 sphere of possible existence cannot be limited and remain infin- 
 ite. It would require great metaphysical acumen to harmonize 
 infinity with limitation. Whenever and wherever infinity shall 
 be limited right then and there it will cease to be infinite. If 
 judgments are infinite in respect of their logical extent, they 
 can only be so by being infinite in respect of the content of 
 their cognition. The content of the cognition of judgments 
 measures their logical extent. There is nothing of a judgment 
 beyond the content of its cognition, and it can have no extent 
 ol a logical or any other kind, beyond the scope of the matter 
 to be extended. There can be no judgment and no part of a 
 judgment beyond the content of its cognition. If this is infin- 
 ite the judgment is infinite, otherwise the judgment is limited. 
 The logical extent of a judgment is nothing except as it ex- 
 tends the judgment with the content of its cognition correctly 
 in the domain of thought, and the content of its cognition is 
 necessarily the measure of its extent in such domain. If such 
 judgments are important only in the field of the understanding's 
 a priori CQ)gx\\\\ox\, they are without importance, — it is already 
 shown that there can be no such cognition. 
 
 Of the alleged logical function of thought in judgments, the 
 philosopher makes the following division according to their 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 37 I 
 
 alleged relations: "Those (a) of the predicate to the subject; 
 (b) of the principle to its consequence; (c) of the divided cogni- 
 tion and all the members of the division to each other. " He 
 proceeds to say, that hypothetical propositions contain the 
 relations to each other of two propositions. That nothing is 
 cogitated by means of such judgments except a certain conse- 
 quence, the result of the two propositions of the hypothetical 
 proposition. That a disjunctive judgment contains a relation of 
 two or more propositions, not of consequence, but of logical op- 
 position, so far as one proposition excludes the other. That it 
 contains at the same time a relation of community in so far as 
 all the propositions taken together till up the sphere of the cogni- 
 tion, — for example, the world exists either through blind chance, 
 or through internal necessity, or through an external cause. 
 
 This last and alternative proposition, the alleged disjunctive 
 judgment, is utterly senseless. If the dogmas of philosophy 
 are to be illustrated or enforced by the use of propositions, it 
 should be done by such as have some intelligible meaning, and 
 not by puerile exclamations without meaning. There is no 
 intelligible difference between internal necessity and external 
 cause. If the world exists through an external cause, it must 
 be an et^icient cause, one not to be opposed. The existence of 
 the world, then, must be a necessity, — a necessary result of 
 such cause. Internal necessity, to mean anything, must mean 
 necessity inherent in the nature of the world, that world which 
 exists through such internal necessity. To say that the world 
 exists through such necessity means nothing. It must exist 
 before, or at least as early as, it can have a nature necessitating 
 its existence. To say that the world exists through blind 
 chance argues only the blindness of the proponent of such a 
 proposition. There is too much order, uniformity, permanency, 
 and purpose apparent in its existence and progress or develop- 
 ment for the admissibility of any such proposition. 
 
 Sound philosophy never expresses itself in such alternatives. 
 The alternative itself implies that its proponent does not know 
 what he proposes. If he knows that the existence of the world 
 is due to some one of the three alleged causes, he must know 
 which of them. In such case there could be no occasion nor 
 
372 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 excuse for the alternative. If he does not know which of the 
 three alleged causes produces the existence of the world, he 
 cannot know that it is any of them which does so, unless he 
 has the infinite knowledge necessary to know that among all 
 the infinite number of supposable causes, no other than the 
 three alleged could be efficient. It is both illogical and irrele- 
 vant to speak of cause as external to the world. The word 
 world as there used means the entire material universe. It is 
 impossible to imagine any thing as external to it. Space can- 
 not be supposed to extend beyond matter, and we cannot im- 
 agine anything as external to space. As far as the vision has 
 gone in space it has found celestial systems, and nebula imply- 
 ing the presence of matter. The mind cannot go further than 
 it can, and necessarily must, posit the like. To treat the term 
 external cause as though it were meant to imply spiritual as 
 distinguished from material, would be beneath the dignity of 
 serious philosophy. The spiritual cannot be imagined as en- 
 tirely distinct from the material, but only as a condition of the 
 material. It is impossible to imagine a spirit otherwise than iis 
 in the form of some known or supposable aggregation of mat- 
 ter, and form cannot be imagined except as outline or contour 
 of something. Even a shadow is the manifestation of the con- 
 dition of matter, and of the relation of some part of substance 
 to another part during its existence. It is cast by something 
 and falls on something, and cannot itself be nothing. 
 
 If mind is soul, a spirit, the spiritual is merely a condition of 
 the material. Mind is a state or condition of nerve substance, 
 and it cannot be imagined as external to, nor as before or after, 
 the substance of which it is the state or condition. So it ap- 
 pears that the deepest, the dullest, and the dryest of all meta- 
 physics deals in the veriest visionary vagary, and that its pro- 
 foundest wisdom is the sheerest folly. 
 
 The philosopher declares that the modality of judgments is 
 a quite peculiar function that contributes nothing to the con- 
 tent of a judgment, but concerns itself only with the value of 
 the copula in relation to thought in general. That problemat- 
 ical judgments are those in which the affirmation or negation is 
 regarded as merely possible ; that in the assertorical we regard 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 373 
 
 the proposition as true, in the apodeictic we look upon it as 
 necessary. That problematical judgments may be obviously 
 false, and yet, taken problematically, be conditions of our cog- 
 nition of the truth. That the assertorical speaks of logical real- 
 ity or truth ; that the apodeictical cogitates the assertorical as 
 determined by the laws of the understanding, consequently as 
 affirming a priori, and in this manner it expresses logical neces- 
 sity. That because we judge problematically, then accept as- 
 sertoricallv our judgment as true; and then accept it as insepa- 
 rably united with the understanding, that is, as necessary and 
 apodeictical, these three functions of modality are so many 
 momenta of thought. 
 
 I do not see how the modality of judgments can concern 
 itself with the value of the copula so as to determine anything 
 concerning such value, without contributing something to the 
 content of the judgment. If the modality of judgments con- 
 cerns itself with the value of the copula, it must be for the pur- 
 pose of determining such value, or it is idle. If the copula, as 
 it is supposed to do, unites the subject and predicate ; and if 
 the modality of the judgment determines the value of the cop- 
 ula, it must add something to the content of the judgment; it 
 necessarily adds the conception of the value as so determined. 
 Subject and predicate are 'without meaning in the absence of 
 the copula. They may be the material out of which a judg- 
 ment may be constructed by the use of a proper copula. The 
 judgment will be just whatever the copula makes it, by bring- 
 ing the subject and predicate together in this or in that partic- 
 ular form. Then that which detei mines the value of such cop- 
 ula adds more to the content of the judgment than is derived 
 from any other source, and it does so by determining the value 
 of such copula. 
 
 With regard to the accuracy or verity of judgments there 
 can be no intelligible difference between the true and the neces- 
 sary. The true is necessarily true, and the mind cannot imag- 
 ine it as unnecessary. The necessary is no more true than the 
 true. It is not a higher grade of truth. Truth admits no grad- 
 uation. When an intelligible judgment is formed, and is by 
 some means known to be true, the mind cannot with the same 
 
374 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 data before it imagine it to be untrue, or otherwise than as so 
 formed. The philosopher defines truth as the agreement of the 
 cognition with its object. If this definition is exclusive there 
 can be no a priori knowledge which is true. As heretofore 
 shown, he declares that in knowledge a priori the object must 
 agree with the cognition, and not the cognition with the ob- 
 ject. The subject (mind) cognizes the object (thing.) This 
 cannot be done unless the cognition agrees with the object. 
 This agreement is necessary to the cognition, and it is neces- 
 sarily true, or it cannot be agreement. Cognition is knowing. 
 When one cognizes he knows. It is impossible to imagine one 
 knowing anything by means of cognition disagreeing with the 
 thing known. Psychologically, then, there can be no ditfer- 
 ence between the true and the necessary in judgments. Asser- 
 torical and appodeictical judgments are merely true judgments. 
 If a judgment is true it cannot be false, and hence it is neces- 
 sarily true. The distinction is without difference, and the 
 division of the modality of judgments into the three alleged 
 functions is arbitrary and idle. 
 
 An obviously false judgment cannot be a condition of our 
 cognition of truth. Really, there can be no judgment in which 
 the affirmation is merely possible. Blind guess-work is not 
 judgment. If an affirmation or negation is merely possible, it 
 is not probable, and is more in the nature of the vagary of 
 delirium than the judgment of a thinking mind. So far as we 
 know possible affirmations and negations may be innumerable. 
 That which is merely possible cannot be certain, while if our 
 cognition of truth depends upon any condition, it must be upon 
 a condition certain. Otherwise the supposed cognition will be 
 uncertain, and instead of being cognition it will be mere sur- 
 mise or conjecture, depending for its truth upon something 
 which possibly may, but which probably does not, have truth. 
 
 Of the pure conceptions of the understanding or categories 
 the philosopher says, general logic abstracts all the content of 
 cognition, expecting to receive representations from some 
 other quarter, in order by means of analysis, to convert them 
 into conceptions. That on the contrary, transcendental logic 
 has lying before it the manifold content of a priori sensibility. 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 375 
 
 which transcendental sesthetic presents to it in order to give 
 matter to the pure conceptions of the understanding, without 
 which transcendental logic would have no content, and be 
 therefore utterly void. That space and time contain an infinite 
 diversity of determinations of pure a /)r/orz intuitions, yet that 
 they are the condition of the mind's receptivity, under which 
 alone it can obtain representations of objects, and which conse- 
 quently must affect the conception of these objects. That the 
 spontaneity of thought requires that this diversity be examined 
 after a certain manner, received into the mind and connected, 
 in order afterwards to form a cognition out of it. That this 
 process is synthesis. That synthesis is pure when the diversity 
 is not given empirically, but a priori. That representations 
 must be given before there can be any analysis of them, and no 
 conceptions can arise, as to their content, analytically. That 
 synthesis of a diversity is the first requisite of a cognition; it is 
 that by which alone the elements of our cognitions are collected 
 into a certain content; it is the first step in the investigation of 
 the origin of our knowledge. That synthesis is the mere oper- 
 ation of the imagination — a blind but indispensable function of 
 the soul, without which we should have no cognition what- 
 ever. That the understanding reduces it to conceptions, by 
 means of which we attain to cognition. That pure synthesis 
 rests upon a basis of a priori synthetical unity. That numera- 
 tion is a synthesis according to conceptions, because it takes 
 place according to a common basis of unity, as the decade. 
 That by means of this conception the unity in synthesis of the 
 manifold becomes necessary. 
 
 All these assertions, if they were otherwise valid, are vitiated 
 by the use of the term a priori sensibility. Sensibility is, by 
 the philosoper himself, defined as, or declared to be, the capac- 
 ity for receiving representations through the mode in which we 
 are affected by objects. If he is correct in this there can be no a 
 priori sensibility. When a representation is received, an 
 object has been presented to the sensuous faculty. Sensibility 
 then cannot be a priori, it must be a posteriori in its opera- 
 tions, whatever they may be. So that if transcendental logic 
 has nothing lying before it but the alleged manifold content of 
 
376 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 «/)r/or/ sensibility which transcendental aesthetic presents to 
 it in order to give matter to the pure conceptions of the under- 
 standing, it can have no content and must be utterly void. 
 
 Transcendental aesthetic cannot present the alleged mani- 
 fold content of the alleged a priori sensibility to transcendental 
 logic, nor to anything else. The alleged manifold content of 
 the alleged a priori sensibility cannot be the matter of a pure 
 conception of the understanding. Such conception can have 
 no matter in any way derived from or related to any form of 
 sensibility. Sensibility has nothing primitively, and it derives 
 nothing except empirically. The philosopher says transcen- 
 dental aesthetic is the science of all the laws of sensibility 
 a priori. But 1 have just shown that sensibility a priori is 
 impossible. And further, sensibility cannot be conceived to 
 have any content until something (an object) is presented to 
 the sensuous faculty, because sensibility is, he says, the capac- 
 ity for receiving representations through the mode in which 
 we are affected by objects. Then if sensibility has a content 
 it must be the representation of an object. And this could not 
 be the matter of a pure conception of the understanding, — it 
 must be the matter of an empirical conception (intuition }), be- 
 cause it is derived through some kind of experience. The 
 philosopher declares, as hereinbefore quoted, that "pure un- 
 derstanding distinguishes itself not merely from everything em- 
 pirical, but also completely from all sensibility." And all 
 sensibility includes sensibility a pr'wii, if there is such thing. 
 If sensibility is the capacity for receiving representations of 
 objects through the mode in which we are attected by them, 
 it certainly has nothing primitively, and derives nothing except 
 empirically. 
 
 If space and time contain an infinite diversity of determina- 
 tions of intuitions, they certainly do not contain such diversity 
 of determinations of a priori intuitions. The philosopher as 
 hereinbefore quoted says, "an intuition can take place only in 
 so far as an object is given to us,"- — ^in which case a priori in- 
 tuitions are impossible. If space and time are "the condition 
 of the mind's receptivity," under which alone it can receive 
 representations of 50;;/^ objects, and which consequently must 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 377 
 
 always affect the representations of these objects; on the auth- 
 ority of the philosopher's own declarations I have shown that 
 space and time are themselves objects of sensuous intuition. 
 The philosophic truth is that thought is the development and 
 coordination of sensations. Then thought cannot be spontan- 
 eous, and there is no such thing as spontaneity of thought to 
 require any diversity of determinations "to be examined after a 
 certain manner, received into the mind and connected, in order 
 afterwards to form a cognition out of it." Thought cannot 
 proceed alone from any inherent tendency ot the mind to think. 
 An object of some kind, tangible or intangible, must be in some 
 manner presented to the sensuous faculty; or it must be, in 
 what we call memory, represented to the mind, before there 
 can be thought. When an object is presented or represented 
 it is not exclusively by means of any voluntary act of the mind 
 alone. It is fortuitous to, and originally caused by something' 
 external to the mind ; so the mind never thinks without some 
 measure of some kind of constraint. If thought were spontan- 
 eous it would not be caused by, nor originate from the effect 
 of an object upon the sensuous faculty. A purely voluntary 
 thought is unthinkable. Howeverslight the impulsion may be, 
 the presentation or representation of an object to the mind im- 
 plies thought according to the receptivity of the sensuous fiic- 
 ulty, and in exact ratio with the capacity of the mind to de- 
 velope and coordinate the sensations produced by such pre- 
 sentation or representation. 
 
 If synthesis is the examination of the diversity of determina- 
 tions of intuitions, the receiving them into the mind and con- 
 necting them, in order afterwards to form a cognition out of it; 
 if it is the process of joining different representations to each 
 other, and comprehending their diversity under one cognition, 
 it cannot be pure, if, in order that the synthesis may be pure, 
 the diversity must not be given empirically, but a priori. The 
 diversity of the determinations of intuitions cannot come to the 
 mind before the intuitions themselves, and they can only come 
 with or by means of the presentation of objects to the sensu- 
 ous faculty. Then synthesis must be empirical, and cannot be 
 a priori. 
 
378 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, 
 
 Of the same subject the philosopher further says, "The first 
 thing which must be given to us in order to the a priori cogni- 
 tion of objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition; the syn- 
 thesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the sec- 
 ond; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions 
 which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist 
 solely in the representation of this necessary synthetical unity, 
 furnish the third requisite for the cognition of an object, and 
 these conceptions are given by the understanding. The same 
 function which gives unity to the different representations in a 
 judgment, gives also unity to the mere synthesis of different 
 representations in an intuition; and this unity we call the pure 
 conception of the understanding. Thus, the same understand- 
 ing, and by the same operations, whereby in conceptions, by 
 means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a 
 judgment, introduces, by means of the synthetical unity of the 
 manifold in intuition, a transcendental content into its repre- 
 sentations, on which account they are called pure conceptions 
 of the understanding, and they apply a priori to objects, a re- 
 sult not within the power of general logic." 
 
 And 1 think it may be appropriately added, "nor within the 
 power of any logical logic whatever." The a priori cognition 
 of objects being now shown to be utterly impossible, and the 
 alleged synthesis of the diversity of the alleged pure intuition 
 being confessedly the work of the imagination, no object hav- 
 ing in any manner been given, presented, or represented, and 
 thought itself being as a necessary consequence impossible, it 
 would seem like a puerile elaboration of a groundless fancy to 
 go so minutely into a description of the functions and their 
 alleged operation in an exercise which cannot take place. 
 Supposing all these intricate and involved processes of the 
 mind to be gone through with, and no object, or no suitable 
 object, should be given, presented, or represented to the sensu- 
 ous faculty — what have we then but shadow ? And upon 
 what manner of substance is such a shadow cast ? Many pre- 
 dicables may be in the mind. It may be stored with qualities 
 and conditions to assign to and predicate of the countless objects 
 in all their diversity that may be given. But to predicate any- 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 579 
 
 thing of any object before the object is given, that is, a priori, 
 the mind must imagine such object. If such object should 
 never really be given, the process is idle. If such object should 
 really be given, the propriety of the anticipatory predication is 
 at once a question of experience, and knowledge of such pro- 
 priety or impropriety is necessarily empirical. The alleged 
 synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, is impossible a 
 priori. Supposing the content of an intuition may or may not 
 be very variously manifold, depending upon the object given, 
 and the manner and circumstances of its presentation or repre- 
 sentation, yet an object must be given before there is the intu- 
 ition. The synthetical unity of the manifold in such intuition 
 cannot be imagined to antecede the intuition itself, and what- 
 ever follows the giving of the object is a posteriori. If intuition 
 is correctly defined as direct apprehension, or cognition, or as 
 immediate knowledge, it would seem to be unity itself And 
 while it might be manifold, there could be no synthetical unity 
 of such manifold because there would be no time for synthesis 
 to take place. 
 
 It may not be amiss here to notice one of the philosopher's 
 examples of the so-called synthetical propositions. He says, 
 "A straight line between two points is the shortest, is a syn- 
 thetical proposition. For my conception of straight contains 
 no notion of quantity, but is merely qualitative. The concep- 
 tion of shortest is therefore wholly an addition, and by no anal- 
 ysis can it be extracted from our conception of a straight line. 
 Intuition must therefore here lend its aid, by means of which 
 and this only our synthesis is possible." There may be many 
 lines of various degrees of crookedness, going or extending by 
 as many various routes from one point to another point. But 
 between two points no other than a straight line is possible. The 
 moment (or the point at which) the line deviates from a 
 straight course, the part of it involved in such deviation is not 
 between the two points. If no other than a straight line be- 
 tween two points is possible, the proposition that a straight 
 line between two points is the shortest is more absurd than syn- 
 thetic. On the authority of the philosopher's own declaration 
 that necessity and strict universality are infallible tests of the 
 
380 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 accuracy of a priori cognition, and conceding, for the sake of the 
 argument, that the proposition is an appropriate one, his con- 
 ception of straight as to the supposed line between two points 
 must contain the notion of quantity. On such hypothesis it is 
 necessarily true, and strictly universal, that the straight is the 
 shortest possible line, — that any other must be greater in quan- 
 tity. The conception of shortest, then, is not wholly an addi- 
 tion, but is necessarily and universally implied and included in 
 the conception of straight as to the supposed line between two 
 points. The mind cannot think a straight line between two 
 points except as the most direct and shortest possible route 
 from one of the points to the other. The thought necessarily 
 involves the notion of quantity, — the length of the supposed 
 line. The conception of straight comes so nearly containing 
 the notion of quantity, that the conception of shortest is the 
 first one possible in any analysis of the conception of straight. 
 The very moment one begins to examine his conception of a 
 straight line between two points, other lines are necessarily 
 supposed, and' they not only are necessarily and universally 
 greater in quantity, but they are necessarily and universally 
 thought (at the moment) as greater in quantity, and the notion 
 of the lesser quantity in the straight line necessarily and uni- 
 versally appears. Of course one may think a straight line of 
 indefinite or undetermined extent without conceiving any def- 
 inite notion of quantity; but when he thinks a straight line be- 
 tween two points, that is, extending from one of the points to 
 the other, the notion of quantity is in the conception. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 
 
 Conception of Cause has no a priori Basis in the Understanding — Necessity 
 as Basis of a priori Knowledge, Insufficient — Necessity itself Known only 
 Empirically — ^ prior i-\sm Inverts Order of all Supposable Cognition — 
 Intuition is some Form of Apprehension of Phenomena — Sensation the 
 Basis of all Intelligence — Content of Representation — Capacity to Have, is 
 not Form of, Intuition — No act of Understanding can be Unconsciously 
 Done — No Purely Spontaneous Activity of Subject— Intuition is not an Un- 
 decomposable Mental Act— Unity (as distinguished from union) in any 
 Element of Thought is Unthinkable — Apperception is Empirical — Difficul- 
 ties of the Critique — Cheap Criticisms. 
 
 Speaking of the alleged deduction of the categories, the 
 Philosopher says, the conception of cause cannot arise from ex- 
 perience, but must have an a priori basis in the understand- 
 ing, or be rejected as a mere chimera. That it demands one 
 thing to be of such a nature, that another thing necessarily fol- 
 lows, according to an absolutely universal law. That to the 
 synthesis of cause and affect, there belongs a dignity utterly 
 wanting in any empirical synthesis. 
 
 It were an endless undertaking, the attempt to test the 
 validity of all the declarations of the philosopher in the Critique. 
 The selection of those most worthy controversial attention is 
 difficult. But it is not so difficult as to conceive how the con- 
 ception of cause can have an a prion basis in the understanding. 
 
 Whatever the understanding may be, whether a faculty or 
 a condition, — thought is developed and coordinated sensation. 
 The philosopher says it is the understanding which thinks, but 
 it would seem more philosophical to say that understanding is 
 developed and coordinated thought, or a result of it. Then 
 conception of cause can have no a prion basis in the under- 
 standing, because it must be itself of empirical derivation. It 
 cannot be before thought, and thought cannot precede sensa- 
 tion. So conception of cause must arise from experience. 
 
 If the synthesis of cause and effect is so dignified as to re- 
 quire something to be of such a nature, that something else 
 (specific) should follow from it necessarily, and according to 
 
)82 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 an absolutely universal law, it demands that which in the 
 nature of the human mind it is impossible to know that such 
 synthesis can have. The mind cannot know anything until it 
 acquires the knowledge. This requires experience, — the devel- 
 opment and coordination of sensation, followed by the devel- 
 opment and coordination of thought. 
 
 The Philosopher says we may "collect from phenomena a 
 law, according to which this or that usually happens, but the 
 element of necessity is not to be found in it."' 
 
 The element of necessity further than it is known empirically 
 is not to be found in anything. Without the element of neces- 
 sity empirically known, there can be no known physical law. 
 With the thought of a low temperature, congelation of sub- 
 stances appears to the mind; but Blackstone says the King of 
 Siam would not believe the Englishman who told him of ice. 
 Anyone having never observed the effects of cold would prob- 
 ably be equally as incredulous. The conception of cold as a 
 cause of the phenomenon cannot be a priori in the understand- 
 ing, nor can it have an a priori basis in the understanding. 
 Still there is nothing in all physics more necessary or universal 
 than this effect resulting from this cause. But facts must be 
 learned in some way, and when from long experience (obser- 
 vation) the result is found to be constant, the mind becomes 
 convinced of its universality and necessity. The conception of 
 such cause is empirically derived. Scientists sterilize air and 
 vegetal infusions to destroy the germs contained in them. 
 They know empirically, and not a priori, that heat destroys 
 life. Biogenesis claims to have vanquished Abiogenesis by 
 means of such experiments. Heat of a certain degree is uni- 
 versally and necessarily certain to destroy life. The conception 
 of heat as a cause of the phenomenon cannot be a priori in the 
 understanding. — nor have an a priori basis in the understand- 
 ing. Still there is nothing in all physics more universal or 
 necessary than this effect resulting from this cause. But facts 
 must be learned in some way, and when from long experience 
 (observation) the result is found to be constant, the mind be- 
 comes convinced of its universality and necessity. The con- 
 ception of the cause and its effect is an empirical synthesis. 
 
 i 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 383 
 
 The doctrine of a priori conceptions of the understanding de- 
 rives no warrant from any alleged universality and strict neces- 
 sity. Nothing can be known to be universal or necessarily so 
 until it is learned. All knowledge is derived; and the capacity 
 to acquire it, the conditions of its acquisition, the principles of 
 the sensuous and reasoning faculties on which it must be ac- 
 quired, are themselves no part of knowledge. One may as 
 well say that the essential conditions of growth and strength 
 and health are a priori growth and strength and health, as that 
 the essential conditions of cognition are a priori cognition. 
 
 The proposition that "either the object alone makes the rep- 
 resentation possible, or the representation alone makes the 
 object possible," is unwarranted. Without an object repre- 
 sented there can be no representation. Without a representa- 
 tion there can be no cognition. That we can conceive of ob- 
 jects as thus and so, and cannot conceive of them as otherwise, 
 does not make it necessary that they should be thus and so. 
 So far as we are concerned, and so far as our capacity to con- 
 ceive is concerned, objects may be of any form or nature, or 
 they may not be at all. The object alone cannot make the rep- 
 resentation possible ; there must be a sensuous faculty endowed 
 with receptivity. The representation alone cannot make the 
 object possible, any more than one's image reflected in a mirror 
 makes his existence possible. The representation itself is pos- 
 sible only when an object is presented to a sensuous faculty 
 endowed with receptivity. So the possibility of a priori rep- 
 resentation does not depend upon the representation alone 
 making the object possible ; — it is demonstrated that a priori 
 representation is already unconditionally impossible. 
 
 He says that in case representation alone makes the object 
 possible, although it does not produce the object as to its exist- 
 ence, it must nevertheless be a priori determinative in relation 
 to the object, if it is only by means of the representation that 
 we can cognize anything as an object. Representation cannot 
 be a priori determinative with regard to an object, when repre- 
 sentation is itself impossible until an object is given. An object 
 cannot be given indeterminately. It must be given determi- 
 nately or it cannot be known to be an object. 
 
384 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 : Representation is often illusory. A straight stick set per- 
 pendicularly in clear water cannot be made to appear perpen- 
 dicular below the surface. The slightest declination from the 
 perpendicular makes the stick appear to deflect at the surface. 
 The representation changes while the object remains un- 
 changed, yet in its actuality it is still represented (or perhaps 
 misrepresented) in the apparently bent form. Stars of immeas- 
 urably different distances from us appear to be the same dis- 
 tance away. The earth appears to be flat, and the sky ap- 
 pears to be a great dome resting upon it at the horizon. 
 Through the clear air objects appear to be in what we have 
 come to regard their real forms and colors. Through colored 
 and waved glass they appear to be in different forms and colors. 
 Near the horizon the heavenly bodies appear much larger than 
 when near the zenith. If objects must conform to our cogni- 
 tion, and if representation makes them possible (not as to their 
 existence, but as phenomena), then the straight stick is actu- 
 ally bent by the submersion, the heavenly bodies are all equi- 
 distant from us, the earth is flat and the sky is a dome resting 
 upon it at the horizon, the heavenly bodies are larger near the 
 horizon than near the zenith, and they cannot be at the nadir 
 at all because we can have no representation of them there; 
 objects seen through different intervening media change form 
 and color, and countless other phenomena actually are that 
 which we know they actually are not. 
 
 A priori-ism is an inversion of the natural order and sequence 
 of all supposable cognition. Instead of supposing the possibil- 
 ity of our cognition of objects as they are, it supposes the pos- 
 sibility of their existence as we cognize them. 
 
 The Philosopher says, "There are only two conditions of 
 the possibility of a cognition of objects ; firstly, Intuition, by 
 means of which the object, though only as a phenomenon, is 
 given; secondly. Conception, by means of which the object 
 which corresponds to this intuition is thought. But it is evi- 
 dent from what has been said on aesthetic, that the first con- 
 dition, under which alone objects can be intuited, must in fact 
 exist, as a formal bases for them, a priori in the mind. With 
 this formal condition of sensibility, therefore, all phenomena 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 385 
 
 necessarily correspond, because it is only through it that they 
 can be phenomena at all; that is, can be empirically intuited 
 and given. Now the question is, whether there do not exist 
 a 'priori in the mind, conceptions of understanding also, as con- 
 ditions under which alone something, if not intuited, is yet 
 thought as object. If this question be answered in the affirma- 
 tive, it follows that all empirical cognition of objects is neces- 
 sarily conformable to such conceptions, since, if they are not 
 presupposed, it is impossible that anything can be an object of 
 experience. Now all experience contains, besides the intuition 
 of the senses through which an object is given, a conception 
 also of an object that is given in intuition. Accordingly con- 
 ceptions of objects in general must lie as a priori conditions at 
 the foundation of all empirical cognition; and consequently, the 
 objective validity of the categories, as a priori conceptions, will 
 rest upon this, that experience (as far as regards the thought) 
 is possible only by their means. For in that case they apply 
 necessarily and a j>n'or' to objects of experience, because only 
 through them can an object of experience be thought." 
 
 Obscurity and profusion are the ready resources of philos- 
 ophy, or the learned jargon which passes current as philosophy. 
 But the Philosopher who relies too much upon them may cross 
 his own trail, unless he carefully remembers his prior postulates 
 when making subsequent declarations. If intuition and con- 
 ception are the two conditions of the possibility of the cogni- 
 tion of objects, it is still not necessary that all phenomena nor 
 indeed that any phenomena correspond with the intuition. The 
 proposition that intuition is the only means by which an object, 
 that is, only as a phenomenon, is given, can only amount to 
 this; that it is by means of intuition that we apprehend phe- 
 nomena, or more accurately, that our apprehension of phenom- 
 ena is intuition. But this must necessarily be empirical, and 
 not a priori intuition. The object cannot be apprehended until 
 it is given, and when it is given it becomes to us a phenom- 
 enon. The object must be either a phenomenon or a noumen- 
 on, and as noumenon, it is not given at all. But intuition does 
 not give the object, any more than the microscope gives the 
 Bacillus. It is the means by which, or the process in which, 
 
386 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the mind takes the object when it is given, just as the thermo- 
 pile is the means by which, or its use is the process in which, 
 we ascertain the temperature given by a certain degree of heat. 
 This, of course, is upon the hypothesis that intuition is itself a 
 faculty, or its use a mental instrumentality. But it is neither. 
 It is a mental process, or perhaps more accurately, it is an es- 
 sential prelude to a mental process, the whole of which is the 
 cognition of an object when it is given. Now why should an 
 object when it is given, and so becomes to us a phenomenon, 
 necessarily conform to or correspond with the intuition ? It is 
 not a phenomenon until it is given, or as the Philosopher has 
 said, until it is presented to the sensuous faculty, — what- 
 ever that may be. What was it before it was so presented ? 
 Have we any reason to believe it was different from what we 
 find it when it is presented .^ If not, if for aught we know or 
 may reasonably suppose, the object as a phenomenon is not in- 
 herently different from what it was as a noumenon, it would 
 seem more accurate to say that our intuition and cognition of 
 it conform to and correspond with it, than to say that it must 
 conform to and correspond with them. Does the fact that by 
 means of intuition we discern that an object is thus and so, 
 render it necessary for the object to be thus and so ? For 
 countless ages the Binaries have appeared to be single stars. 
 They, as objects, as phenomena, have been intuited and cog- 
 nized as such, until comparatively recent astronomical investi- 
 gation has disclosed that they were really double, revolving 
 around their common centers of gravity. Until such discovery 
 was made they had never been accurately or truly intuited or 
 cognized. The faculties of intuition and cognition were then 
 at fault. With their improvement the objects the double stars 
 are intuited and cognized as they are. Did they formerly conform 
 to or correspond with the faculties of intuition and cognition ? 
 If not then, why should we say that they do now ? Does the 
 apparently unchangeable conform to and correspond with the 
 palpably changeable ? May not the changeable be more likely 
 to be brought to conform to and correspond with the un- 
 changeable ? 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 387 
 
 To say that intuition as a condition of the possibility of the 
 cognition of objects, "must in fact exist, as a formal basis for 
 them, a pnori in the mind," can legitimately signify no more 
 than that the mind cannot take the representation of an object 
 unless it is endowed with the capacity, whatever that may be, 
 of receiving such representation. But minds have such capac- 
 ity in various degrees of proficiency. If objects, as phenomena, 
 must necessarily conform to and correspond with this faculty, 
 it ought to be of steadfast uniformity among all persons and 
 during all time. There ought to be an unvarying standard of 
 intuitive and cognitive faculty, so the moon need never be 
 taken for a green cheese, and the settling and shrinking of 
 house walls need not be taken for the tolling off of the time by 
 the death watch. 
 
 How can we suppose there can exist a priori in the mind, 
 conceptions of understanding, as conditions under which alone 
 something, if not intuited, is yet thought as object ? It is al- 
 ready shown that, according to the Philosopher's own declara- 
 tions, thought cannot precede intuition, that sensation must 
 precede both, and that neither can accomplish anything like 
 cognition without the other. If he is correct in this, it does 
 not follow "that all empirical cognition of objects is necessarily 
 conformable to such conceptions;" nor that "if they are not 
 presupposed, it is impossible that anything can be an object of 
 experience." Things are potentially objects of experience long 
 before the mind can conceive of anything. Objects of experi- 
 ence are objects of the senses. "The lowest form of vision 
 appears to be nothing beyond a sensitiveness to the proximity 
 of a body which intercepts the light." When the hydra re- 
 moves from the light to the dark side of the vessel in which it 
 is placed, it exhibits some intelligence. It seems to kno%v the 
 difference or to know that there is a difference between light 
 and darkness, and to know which is best suited to it. The 
 light and darkness are, to it, objects of experience. It has an 
 empirical cognition of them, which can scarcely be supposed 
 to conform to an a priori conception of them; — and it would be 
 equally as difficult to suppose that it had presupposed them. 
 These phenomena, light and darkness, are to the hydra objects 
 
388 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 of experience, without the necessity, or even the possibility, of 
 its having any a priori conception of them, or of objects in gen- 
 eral; and hence there can be no necessity of the experience con- 
 forming to any a priori conception, and still its movements ex- 
 hibit a degree of intelligence. 
 
 As no other time is fixed for the human mind to begin to 
 conform to the laws of psychology enacted in the Critique, it is 
 fair to presume that its allegiance to such laws is coeval with 
 its existence. The earliest manifestations of its existence are 
 generally the cries with which it greets the midwife on its 
 arrival in this wicked world. It has experience then of objects 
 of which it cannot be said to have any a priori conception. At 
 birth no mind was ever known to exhibit more intelligence 
 than is shown by the amoeba in projecting in this or that direc- 
 tion a prolongation of some part of itself and attaching it to 
 some fixed object to draw itself forward, or to some small por- 
 tion of organic matter around which it collapses, and which it 
 dissolves or absorbs for its nutriment. The labia of the infant 
 cling to the maternal nipple with perhaps less tenacity, but 
 about the same degree of intelligence as that with which the 
 tentacles of poulpe adhere to the limbs of the drowned mariner. 
 They each have experiences of objects, but it is impossible to 
 suppose that either of them has an a priori conception of ob- 
 jects in general, or indeed of any object whatever. That the 
 infant may rapidly develop a mind, while the poulpe remains 
 limited to a meagre instinct, does not invalidate the illustration. 
 Evolutionists (and even the philosopher himself) all trace mind 
 back to its alleged origin in Sensation. If they are correct in 
 this, every exhibition of sensation is an expression (pro tanto) 
 of intelligence. 
 
 The Philosopher says that the empirical derivation which 
 some philosophers attribute to the alleged pure conceptions of 
 the understanding, cannot possibly be reconciled with the fact 
 that we do possess scientific a priori cognitions, namely, those 
 of pure mathematics and general physics. This seems more 
 like assertion than philosophy. It is not apparent that we have 
 a priori cognitions of pure mathematics and general physics, 
 any more than of applied mathematics or any particular topic 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 389 
 
 that may engage thought. If mathematics is the science of 
 spatial and quantitative relations, it is a system of calculation. 
 The symbols, signs, or instrumentalities used in the process 
 render it neither more nor less mathematics. In a steeple- 
 chase, the width of the ditches and the height of the hedges are 
 calculated by the horse and not by the rider, and as they are 
 approached, the steed measures his leap so as to be under full 
 momentum and clear the obstacle, without having to divide 
 a leap so as to spring from the most advantageous point. A 
 hawk swoops down upon a barnyard, and a fowl flies for shel- 
 ter. The hawk observes this and changes its course from 
 directly toward the fowl to a point in advance of it, and veers 
 just enough to reach that point just when the fowl reaches it. 
 An elephant directed to pick up a penny lying by a wall and 
 beyond the reach of its proboscis, blew violently against the 
 wall above the penny, and the reflex atmospherical current 
 brought the penny within its reach. Here are some instances 
 of very nice calculation of time, speed, space, and their rela- 
 tions. According to the Philosopher's philosophy, these ani- 
 mals had scientific a priori cognitions of pure mathematics, or 
 a priori conceptions of pure understanding, relating to the data 
 of consciousness, which guided them respectively and uner- 
 ringly to such results. Are such exhibitions of intelligence 
 essentially different from those made by human minds in in- 
 numerable instances.f^ Is intelligence any the less intelligence 
 that it is exhibited by a quadruped or a winged biped instead 
 of a biped without wings.^ Can either of the animals in the 
 instances above named be supposed to have had an a priori con- 
 ception of any kind or of anything whatever.!^ But touch the 
 horn of a snail and observe how quickly the slimy little creature 
 shrinks back into its shell. Does it not exhibit intelligence, — a 
 discreet fear for its personal safety? Has it had an a priori con- 
 ception of danger to enable it to experience such fear.^ It acts 
 as though it really had some mind, — and doubtless it has, but 
 who would venture the assertion that it has had an a priori con- 
 ception of the pure understanding in order that it might think 
 the dangerous object from which it shrinks.'' It evidently does 
 think the dangerous object, and experience the fear of it when 
 
390 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 it shrinks from it. Now, unless we maintain that the snail is 
 capable of a jmori intuition, or a iiriori conceptions of the pure 
 understanding, we must admit that experience is possible with- 
 out any a priori conception of objects in general. If it is so in 
 any instance of intelligent action, why may it not be so in all ? 
 
 Of the deduction of the alleged pure conceptions ot the un- 
 derstanding the Philosopher says, "The manifold content in 
 our representations can be given in an intuition which is mere- 
 ly sensuous — in other words, is nothing but susceptibility; and 
 the form of this intuition can exist a priori in our faculty of rep- 
 resentation, without being anything else but the mode in which 
 the subject is affected." 
 
 This dual proposition is very obscure, and it is difficult to 
 ascertain its meaning so as to give it intelligent consideration. 
 Taking the parts in their order the question occurs, — what is it 
 that is nothing but susceptibility — the manifold content in our 
 representations — or the merely sensuous intuition ? One would 
 scarcely suppose that the capacity to have an intuition, the sus- 
 ceptibility to the effects of that which gives rise to the intuition, 
 could be the manifold content of the representation. A repre- 
 sentation being necessarily a representation of something, its 
 manifold content must be the qualities, attributes, and pecu- 
 larities, of whatever kind and nature they may be, which serve 
 to distinguish the particular thing represented from other things. 
 In a representation the mind must see the particular thing rep- 
 resented, separately or as distinguished from other things, but 
 not without relation to them. Whatever it may be that dis- 
 tinguishes the particular thing represented from other things, 
 and thereby furnishes the data of the intuition so the mind can 
 intuite the particular thing, must (together with its relations) 
 be the content of the representation by means of which the in- 
 tuition is possible. Then it must be the merely sensuous intu- 
 ition which the Philosopher means to say is nothing but sus- 
 ceptibility. 
 
 An intuition is quantitative or substantive, so far as mental 
 effects can be regarded as such, while susceptibility cannot be 
 regarded as other than qualitative, — that is, as the capacity to 
 have intuition. The latter part of the proposition, — that the 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 39 1 
 
 form of this intuition can exist a priori in our fliculty of repre- 
 sentation, without being anything else but the mode in which 
 the subject is affected, — has no legitimate psychological import. 
 
 The expression, the mode in which the subject is affected, 
 means the mode in which the subject is affected by the object, 
 if it means anything. Different objects affect the subject differ- 
 ently, and the mode in which the same object will affect the 
 subject depends upon circumstances external to the subject. 
 The difference in the mode in which objects affect the subject 
 testifies in some measure the difference in objects. Every ob- 
 ject which is in any respect different from any other object will 
 affect the subject differently from such diffeient object. Numer- 
 ically speaking, objects are infinite, — they are beyond imagin- 
 able computation. The mind cannot contain a priori one form 
 for each and every intuition it may have on the presentation of 
 every possible object to the sensuous faculty. If such form is 
 nothing else but the mode in which the subject is affected, it 
 cannot exist a priori in the faculty of representation. The 
 mode in which the subject is affected is variable, depending 
 upon the mental condition of the subject, and the circumstances 
 attending the presentation of the object. 
 
 The subject's capacity to be affected at all by an object, 
 measures the possibility of the mind's having an intuition of 
 the object, the form ot which intuition depends upon some- 
 thing external to the mind. Such capacity cannot be the form 
 of the intuition itself If the intuition varies with the various 
 objects and the circumstances attending their presentation, the 
 form of such intuition cannot exist a priori in the faculty of rep- 
 resentation, — but the subject's capacity to receive representa- 
 tions, or to be affected in any manner by any object, may be a 
 primitive and inherent quality or property of the subject. The 
 mode in which the subject is affected cannot existapwiin 
 the faculty o\ representation unless the subject must necessarily 
 be affected in but one mode under any and all possible circum- 
 stances that might attend the presentation of the object. Ob- 
 viously this could not be. An electric light which can scarcely 
 be seen at noon is dazzling at night. The surfeited appetite 
 revolts against the most palatable food, and the rarest delicacies 
 
392 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, 
 
 become nauseating. Music that charms and exhilarates for a 
 time, becomes monotonous, and finally annoying. Charity 
 and courage without unnecessary display, command our esteem 
 and admiration; exhibited with a flourish, they deserve and 
 have our contempt. The form of the intuition of these objects 
 depends upon the condition of the mind and the circumstances 
 attending their exhibition. Under some circumstances the in- 
 tuition may be of one form, while under different circumstances 
 it will be of a different form. If the form were a priori in the 
 faculty of representation the intuition were necessarily of but 
 one form, and the condition of the mind and circumstances 
 attending the presentation of the object would be without 
 influence to vary or affect the form of the intuition. This, it is 
 shown, is impossible. 
 
 Proceeding with the alleged deduction, the Philosopher says, 
 — the conjunction of a manifold in intuition never can be given 
 to us by the senses ; that it cannot therefore be contained in 
 the pure form of sensuous intuition, for it is a spontaneous act 
 of the faculty of representation. That as we must, "to dis- 
 tinguish it from sensibility entitle this faculty understanding; 
 so all conjunction — whether conscious or unconscious, be it of 
 the manifold in intuition, sensuous or non-sensuous, or of sev- 
 eral conceptions — is an act of the understanding. To this act 
 we shall give the general appellation of synthesis, thereby to 
 indicate, at the same time, that we cannot represent anything 
 as conjoined in the object without having previously conjoined 
 it ourselves. Of all mental notions, that of conjunction is the 
 only one which cannot be given through objects, but can be 
 originated only by the subject itself, because it is an act of its 
 purely spontaneous activity. * * * * That the possibility 
 of conjunction must be grounded in the very nature of this act, 
 and that it must be equally valid for all conjunction; and that 
 analysis, which appears to be its contrary, must, nevertheless, 
 always presuppose it; for where the understanding has not 
 previously conjoined, it cannot dissect or analyze, because only 
 as conjoined by it, must that which is to be analyzed have been 
 given to our faculty of representation." 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 39_^ 
 
 If the conjunction of a manifold in intuition cannot be given 
 us by the senses, but must, whether conscious or unconscious, 
 be an act of the understanding, the mind will never accomplish 
 much in the way of conjoining such manifold. What is the 
 alleged manifold in intuition ? How can the understanding 
 unconsciously conjoin such alleged manifold? Is it possible to 
 imagine an act of the understanding unconsciously done ? 
 What is understanding ? If it is the intellectual faculty, the 
 rational powers collectively conceived and designated, then 
 what are they ? What can they accomplish without thought ? 
 What can be thought unconsciously ? The manifold content 
 in intuition may be the elements composing the substance of 
 the intuition. Suppose an intuition of an incorporeal object, — 
 for instance, charity. It is sufficiently a substantive to be the 
 object of a sensuous intuition. It may be felt, — the several 
 senses are so many different modes of feeling. The manifold 
 in such intuition may be the several elements and characteris- 
 tics of an act which combine to make the act charitable. For 
 instance,^ — an enthusiast, with more zeal than wisdom in advo- 
 cating some heresy may make himself ridiculous. His hobby 
 may have attracted attention and deserved intelligent consid- 
 eration. It may be examined by some one of superior capac- 
 ity, and he may utterly demolish it. This may be done in kind, 
 considerate, and respectful terms, and the argument in which 
 it is done may even raise the mistaken bigot in the estimation 
 of all who read or hear the argument in which his heresy is 
 exploded. The reviewer may make the bigot's sincerity prom- 
 inent, and, while showing his fallacy, he may also labor to 
 show that the error is not one which was at all unlikely. The 
 manifold in intuition of charity so exhibited, consists of the 
 apparent error of the enthusiast, his deserving of rebuke, and 
 the demolition of his doctrine done by a superior without mal- 
 ice. Now these are all conjoined in this intuition. 
 
 The Philosopher says this conjunction "cannot be given 
 through objects, but can be originated only in the subject itself, 
 because it is an act of its purely spontaneous activity." There 
 is no such thing as the subject's purely spontaneous activity. 
 In order that there may be a manifold in intuition, there must 
 
394 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 be an intuition. Intuition cannot be spontaneous, — an object 
 must be presented to the sensuous faculty, and the intuition 
 must be provoked. Its manifold then must be perceived or 
 thought at the time of or after its inception. Conjunction of 
 this manifold cannot be supposed to precede the perception or 
 thought of the manifold. Wherever the conjunction takes 
 place it follows and is provoked by the presentation of the ob- 
 ject of the intuition to the sensuous faculty. As it is impossible 
 to suppose it to take place otherwise, it cannot be an act of the 
 subject's purely spontaneous activity. 
 
 Conjoining the manifold in intuition may be the work of 
 thought, but it still cannot be an act of the subject's purely 
 spontaneous activity. No mind ever performed such an act. 
 The act of conjunction is provoked, ultimately by the presenta- 
 tion or representation of the object to the sensuous faculty, 
 originating or causing the intuition ; this gives rise to thought 
 in which conjunction of the manifold takes place, so it is given 
 through objects and by the senses. 
 
 One of the most startling of the above quoted propositions 
 is the one that, "where the understanding has not previously 
 conjoined, it cannot dissect or analyze." If this were true, 
 analysis would be a useless labor. The only possibly legiti- 
 mate office of analysis is to ascertain the constituents of a com- 
 posite, and their character. If the same understanding which 
 is to analyze, has already conjoined these constituents (mani- 
 fold in intuition), it must have known what they were, and 
 their character. Otherwise the understanding could not have 
 very understanding^ conjoined them. The Philosopher bases 
 this proposition on another, viz., only as conjoined by the un- 
 derstanding, "must that which is to be analyzed have been 
 given to our faculty of representation." Here he reverses the 
 order in which his mental processes have been proceeding. 
 Hitherto representation has preceded understanding. Under- 
 standing is now in advance, conjoining the manifold in intui- 
 tion in order that the representation may be afterwards analyzed 
 by the same understanding. Of course that which is not in 
 conjunction cannot be analyzed; that, the parts of which are 
 not together, cannot be separated into its parts. But there is 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 39^5 
 
 no logic in combining merely for the sake of afterward sepa- 
 rating, — nor in the supposition that the same fiiculty can spon- 
 taneously conjoin that which it can analyze only by or after 
 presupposing its conjunction. 
 
 If there is a manifold in intuition, and if intuition is suscept- 
 ible to analysis, then Herbert Spencer's definition of intuition is 
 seriously at f^iult, He says it is an undecomposable mental 
 act, — an immediate perception for which no reason can be 
 given. The distinction then between it and understanding 
 would seem to be with scarcely a difference, unless it were in 
 degree. Understanding, regarded either as a mental faculty, 
 or as a substantive result of a mental process, is simply an 
 advanced stage of or refinement upon intuition. The great 
 concern of philosophy seems to be to prove propositions of 
 various degrees of probability and perplexity, by reference to 
 subsumed propositions which it says cannot themselves be 
 proved by any means, — the alleged fundamental principles or 
 primitive cognitions. Its authors write as though a standard of 
 mentality were established and their readers had attained to it. 
 Their illustrations generally assume that their readers are 
 acquainted with first principles and simple truths, and conse- 
 quently agree in their cognitions of them. And if intuition is 
 an undecomposable mental act, an immediate perception for 
 which no reason can be assigned, there can be no manifold in 
 intuition, and all persons knowing anything must be acquaint- 
 ed with first principles and simple truths, and conseqently must 
 agree in their cognitions of them. In such case there can be.no 
 analysis of intuition or of the representation producing or 
 accompanying it. 
 
 But intuition is not an undecomposable mental act, and it 
 can be proved. That a foot (as a measure of matter or space) 
 is more than an inch, may be known by the mechanic as well 
 and conclusively as by the mathematician. It may be known 
 to be a necessary and necessarily immediate perception of the 
 mind. It is not an undecomposable mental act from the fact 
 that it must be learned before it is known, and it can be learn- 
 ed only by a series of mental acts, including comparison and 
 calculation. It can be proved by dividing the foot into inches., 
 
396 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 or by adding together a sufficient number of inches to make 
 the foot, or by filling the measure of each with substance and 
 comparing their quantities and calculating how many of the 
 one will be required to equal the other. Apart from the meas- 
 urement of substance or space neither the inch nor the foot is 
 anything whatever, and neither is either more or less than the 
 other. Yet even then they are each the object of intuition, and 
 may be presented or represented to the sensuous faculty so as 
 to give rise to the intuition, although neither can be imagined 
 except as in space. The difference between them, as meas- 
 ures, or that there is such difference, is known intuitively, that 
 is, it is known universally, directly, and necessarily ; it is an 
 intuition. And yet the intuition is not an undecomposable 
 mental act, and may be proved. Indeed it must be proved, or 
 be susceptible of proof, in order to be an intuition ; and it can 
 only be proved by decomposition. 
 
 The manifold in this intuition, the difference, (or that there 
 is such difference) between an inch and a foot, are not con- 
 joined by the understanding, nor by any mental faculty or pro- 
 cess whatever. The manifold are already conjoined in the in- 
 tuition at the instant of its inception. The understanding does 
 not have to think them into the intuition in order that they 
 may be there. The only means by which the understanding 
 can know them to be there, is by analyzing the intuition and 
 finding it composed of or containing the alleged manifold. 
 
 The Philosopher transcends human thought when he says, 
 "The conception of conjunction includes, besides the concep- 
 tion of the manifold and of the synthesis of it, that of the unity 
 of it also." Of course there can be no conjunction where there 
 is no manifold to be conjoined, and the conception of conjunc- 
 tion necessarily includes that of such manifold and the synthesis 
 of it. But the unity of it is quite another thing. If unity is 
 oneness, the use of the term neutralizes the declaration. There 
 is quite a difference between unity and union. Synthesis (com- 
 bination) produces or results in union, but it cannot be sup- 
 posed to produce or result in unity. Unity cannot be supposed 
 to be produced or to result at all, but wherever it is supposed 
 it must be supposed to have always been. If unity is properly 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 397 
 
 affirmed of a supposed simple substance or indivisible monad 
 in the sphere of physical existence, it can have no analogous 
 application in the realm of mental activity. No mental act can 
 be undecomposable. The simplest perception of the simplest 
 object is composite. Herbert Spencer says, "Where intelli- 
 gence is but little evolved, a single sensation, as of scent, serves 
 the organism for an index of the combined attributes with 
 which such scent is connected; and similarly, in undeveloped 
 language a simple sound is used to indicate a complex idea." 
 To anyone who will consider the matter, it will clearly appear 
 that unity, as distinguished from union, in any element of 
 thought is not only impracticable, but it is entirely unthinkable. 
 
 In a foot note the Philosopher says, "Whether representa- 
 tions are in themselves identical, and consequently whether one 
 can be thought analytically by means of and through the other, 
 is a question which we need not at present consider. Our 
 consciousness of the one, when we speak of the manifold, is 
 always distinguishable from our consciousness of the other; 
 and it is only respecting the synthesis of this (possible) con- 
 sciousness that we here treat.' 
 
 But a moment's reflection shows that there can be no con- 
 sciousness of the one, entirely distinct from consciousness of 
 the other, in any manifold. E pluribus unum, the twain shall 
 be one flesh, and the Holy Triune, are expressions of absolutely 
 unintelligible nonsense. So, if the term Synthetical Unity has 
 any legitimate meaning, it is by virtue of a misuse of the term 
 unity for union or combination. 
 
 The Philosopher says, "That representation which can be 
 previously to all thought, is called intuition. All the diversity 
 or manifold content of intuition, has, therefore, a necessary 
 relation to the 1 think, in the subject in which this diversity is 
 found. But this representation, I think, is an act of spontaneity ; 
 that is to say, it cannot be regarded as belonging to pure sensi- 
 bility. I call it pure apperception, in order to distinguish it 
 from empirical, or primitive apperception, because it is a self- 
 consciousness which, whilst it gives birth to the representation 
 1 think, must necessarily be capable of accompanying all our 
 representations, It i§ in all acts of consciousness one and 
 
^i)S^ ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the same, and unaccompanied by it, no representation can 
 exist for me. The unity of this apperception I call the transcen- 
 dental unity of self-consciousness, in order to indicate the 
 possibility of a priori cognition arising from it." 
 
 If ! have already demonstrated the impossibility of a priori 
 cognition, it would seem to be scarcely profitable to discuss 
 the propriety or feasibility of the means by which. the Philoso- 
 pher claims it may be produced. But for the sake of the argu- 
 ument, if we suppose a priori cognition to be a possibility, it 
 does not follow that it can arise from the alleged unity of apper- 
 ception. Apperception is itself empirical. No one was ever 
 conscious of himself or self-conscious until he experienced his 
 existence. There cannot be, then, any such thing as transcen- 
 dental unity of apperception or of self-consciousness. Self-con- 
 sciousness is merely thinking one's self in connection with and 
 relation to his environment; and he cannot otherwise be 
 thought. This thought is merely the coordination and devel- 
 opment of the sensations one has of himself in such connection 
 and relation. These sensations are all experiences or results of 
 experiences which one has of himself in such connection and 
 relation. They may be synthetized or combined into one gen- 
 eral self-consciousness, and habit may render the process auto- 
 matic, or so nearly so that one is apparently unconscious of 
 the process. But an analysis of apperception shows that it is 
 a composite, formed from empirical sensations, experiences of 
 self in connection with and relation to environment. If this is 
 correct there is no such thing as transcendental unity of self- 
 consciousness. 
 
 I come now to a proposition of the Philosopher's which is 
 difficult to restate, but which conclusively shows that his entire 
 Critique is in reality a system of apologetics, as I have before 
 stated. It is substantially this, — some one may propose a 
 species of preformation system of pure reason, that the cate- 
 gories are neither a priori principles of cognition, nor empirical, 
 but subjective aptitudes for thought, exercised in harmony 
 with the natural laws regulating experience. His objections to 
 this are, that we cannot say where to stop in the employment 
 of- predetermined aptitudes, and the categories would lose the 
 
 i 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 399 
 
 character of necessity which is essentially involved in the very 
 conception of them. That one could not then say the effect is 
 necessarily connected with its cause, but only, that one is so 
 constituted that he can think this representation only as so con- 
 nected. That this is just what the skeptic wants. That in 
 such case, all our knowledge depending on the supposed ob- 
 jective validity of our judgment, is mere illusion. That we 
 could not dispute on that which depends on the manner in 
 which the subject is organized. 
 
 This appears to involve, or rather to be, a contradiction of 
 the entire doctrine of a joriori cognition, and the doctrine that 
 objects must conform to our cognitions of them. If the man- 
 ner in which the subject is organized is not to be depended 
 upon, if its predetermined aptitude for thought does not pro- 
 duce knowledge objectively valid, but mere illusion, there cer- 
 tainly cannot be any a priori cognition that is trustworthy. An 
 a priori cognition, if possible at all. necessarily depends for its 
 validity upon the manner in which the subject is organized. It 
 must be an entirely subjective state of consciousness, or knowl- 
 edge of an object not yet given. A cognition of a given object 
 is empirical or a posteriori. If objects must conform to our cog- 
 nitions of them, then all knowledge of objects necessarily de- 
 pends on the manner in which the subject is organized, be- 
 cause such cognitions must conform to, or be just such as can 
 be produced by the subject as organized. If there is any valid- 
 ity or sound sense in the doctrine of a priori-ism at all, it is be- 
 cause the manner in which the subject is organized renders it 
 necessary that a j^riori cognition be of such objective validity, 
 that the object itself when given must conform to it. Whether 
 one can say a jyriori that the effect is necessarily connected with 
 its cause in the object, necessarily must depend upon the man- 
 ner in which the subject is organized. The subject must be so 
 organized that it can have such a priori cognition, to which the 
 object (connection of cause and effect) must necessarily con- 
 form. 
 
 It becomes clear that in less than one page the Philosopher 
 has conceded away the entire argument of more than a hun- 
 dred pages. Metaphysics, as a subject of philosophic disquisi-- 
 
40O ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 tion, is essentially fugitive and volatile. It is difficult to lay 
 hold upon it sensibly, and intelligibly trace any thread of argu- 
 ment relating to it to final appreciable results. If one attempts 
 to construct a system of it of such proportions and character as 
 to make it available as a weapon of offense or defense against 
 a so-called skepticism, he certainly ought not to assume any- 
 thing nor assert anything that cannot be conclusively demon- 
 strated. Above all, he ought not to allow any actual contra- 
 dictions to appear in the work. The Critique of Pure Reason 
 is the crowning effort of a recognized intellectual Hercules. I 
 think it is now shown to be a shapeless, incongruous mass of 
 assumption and sophistry. The exceedingly tedious and in- 
 volved style of its expression, together with the dry and un- 
 fruitful nature of the subject itself, have perhaps prevented its 
 ever being thoroughly analyzed by any one caring to hazard an 
 opinion at variance with that of a philosopher of such eminence. 
 Those who have disagreed with him have generally misstated 
 his doctrines, and couched their own disapproval in terms that 
 commit themselves to nothing definite except their unintelligi- 
 ble objections to his philosophy. The work is too voluminous 
 to justify a complete analysis of all its propositions, and the 
 exposure of all its errors and inconsistencies. But its funda- 
 mental principles are embodied in the first one hundred pages 
 of Meiklejohn's translation, to the consideration of which this 
 and the two chapters next preceding it are devoted. 
 
 4t is really amusing to read some of the commendations as 
 well as strictures upon the doctrines of the Philosopher, written 
 by those who show in writing them that they have not grasped 
 the thought of the Philosopher. Such praises and criticisms 
 are cheap. Almost anyone may indulge in them. It is quite 
 another thing to take a deep philosophy of a world wide repu- 
 tation, and an almost universally admitted soundness, written 
 in the style of the Critique, and study out its fundamental prin- 
 ciples, and trace its essential doctrines to their necessary logical 
 results. But I believe that it is now done, and that the reader 
 of these chapters who will study the Critique in the light of 
 the exposition here given, will discover that it is a laboriously 
 learned effort to fortify apologetics generally in the stronghold 
 
MYSTIFIED METAPHYSICS. 4OI 
 
 of the very Reason from the standpoint of which an alleged 
 Skepticism has made its most formidable attacks upon Relig- 
 ion. I believe he will also discover the necessarily absolute 
 futility of all effort, either to impair or sustain any Religion by 
 any attack or defence depending for its validity upon any prin- 
 ciple of human Reason ; that all Religion is necessarily a matter 
 of faith pure and simple, and that with all their differences no 
 more or better reason can be assigned for the validity of any 
 one religion than for that of any other. I believe he will also 
 discover that all the so-called additions to our knowledge, 
 made by Reason from alleged a priori conceptions of the Un- 
 derstanding, and alleged a priori intuitions and cognitions, are 
 so much learned guess-work, based upon assumptions con- 
 flicting with all possible experience, and the validity of which 
 cannot be tried by any test of more known validity than that 
 of the assumptions themselves. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 
 Press-notices of Publications — Interpretation of Philosophies — No Division of 
 Parties in Knowledge — No Fundamental Principles — Absolute Certainty, 
 Unthinkable — Consciousness Necessarily Empirical — Propositions must 
 Contain Subject, Copula, and Predicate — Predicating a thing of Itself is no 
 Proposition — There can be no Consciousness without Self-consciousness — 
 Activity and Passivity to be Reciprocal, must Determine each Other — 
 Fichte's Example of Interchangeable Propositions is mere Difference in the 
 Form of one Proposition — The Validity of Memory — The Past an Actuality 
 — Memory is not Purely of the Mind — Religion incompatible with Reason — 
 Philosophy's Limit of Infmity. 
 
 In the preface to a Critical Exposition of Fichte's Science of 
 Knowledge it is proposed to 'i show as occasion may require 
 in what way German thought contains the natural comple- 
 ment or much needed corrective of British speculation. " Were 
 there a difference between thought and speculation, merely as 
 such, one of them, and it may not matter which, may be the 
 natural complement or much needed corrective of the other. 
 Thought may not be necessarily speculation, but speculation 
 is necessarily thought. But the objection is to the use of the 
 terminology in such manner as to imply more systematizing 
 than the nature of the subject will admit. There prevails 
 entirely too much tendency to reduce every subject of thought 
 to a science, and to systematize all mental action. 
 
 Fashionable periodicals are filled with wise saws eulogizing 
 the alleged German systems, from which it appears that the 
 editors either do not understand such systems, or that they are 
 more courteous than candid in their allusions to them. Imme- 
 diately following a list of Philosophic Classics in the above 
 mentioned Critical Exposition, is the following paragraph, 
 politely called a press notice: "These excellent books, as re- 
 markable for ability as for clearness, will do much to clear the 
 way and make the mastery of the German systems an easy 
 task." 
 
 It is remarkable that ability or clearness in a book should be 
 deemed so remarkable as to provoke so lemarkable a remark. 
 
SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 403 
 
 In literary propriety ability and clearness ought to be reason- 
 ably expected in all scientific books. No one has any right to 
 inflict upon suffering humanity an additional book, especially 
 one assuming the dignity of a philosophy, unless it is charac- 
 terized by ability and clearness as much at least as by learn- 
 ing. In such case it may not be an infliction, otherwise it 
 must be. Ability and clearness are qualities which readers 
 have a right to expect in every book thrust upon them, and 
 few others find their way to the modern library. It is a humil- 
 iating confession that such qualities are so rare as to be consid- 
 ered remarkable when detected or suspected in some pedantic 
 print. 
 
 Another book notice in the same connection is as follows : 
 "One of the most valuable literary enterprises of the day. Each 
 volume is a condensed presentation made by an author who com- 
 bines thorough philosophical study with literary talent, and who 
 has made a specialty of the philosopher whose work is inter- 
 preted." This out-Herods all patent medicine advertising, and 
 even the gay and gaudy show bill may look well to its laurels. 
 Such paragraphs come too fast and furious to be expressions of 
 the deliberate judgment of anv editor having candidly exam- 
 ined the publications puffed. It becomes apparent that much 
 that is so said of them is said upon the same principle as that 
 with which the inspired copper plate recommends some mar- 
 vellous spavin cure, and with about the same measure of intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 The latter of the above quoted book notices contains a more 
 damaging confession than the former. It is not only of the 
 utility, but of the necessity of interpretation of philosophy. 
 Upon the same principle it might well be followed by a con- 
 fession of the utility and even necessity of explication of the in- 
 terpretation. The theory seems to be that the more obscurely 
 a science or philosophy is taught or expressed, the more pro- 
 found its wisdom; the more books that are necessary to be 
 studied in order to get at the original doctrine, the more valu- 
 able the literary enterpyise. If literature is a trade, and if money 
 instead of culture is its object, there may be some weight in 
 the idea. If shelf room in the library is to be utilized upon the 
 
404 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 same principle as that upon which it is utilized in the larder, 
 then there cannot be too many editions, interpretations, and 
 explications of Philosophy ; and consequently it cannot be too 
 obscure or senseless in the original. Such seems to be the 
 theory upon which it is written. 
 
 Looking into the above named Critical Exposition, and also 
 the Science of Knowledge, of which it is said to be a condensed 
 presentation, various ideas occur to the thinking reader which 
 may not disturb the equanimity of the casual reader at all. 
 One remembers that it is said that Science is itself classified 
 knowledge. It this is accurate then a Science of knowledge is 
 a classified knowledge of knowledge. Legitimately, in a 
 science classification should be strictly scientific, when of 
 course it must be intelligible. In such case there could be no 
 occasion for its interpretation. A dictionary, or a glossary of 
 its technical terms, would unfold all its mystery. No one ever 
 knew so much, and of such an exalted type of wisdom, but 
 that he might in some language intelligibly express himself to 
 his fellows. The fact, if it is a fact, that an alleged philosophy 
 must be interpreted in order that the mastery of the system 
 may be made a comparatively easy task, is a convincing proof 
 of the worthlessness of the system, or its philosophy, or both. 
 
 Substantively considered, knowledge is what is known, and 
 what is known is knowledge. It cannot consist in any part of 
 what is assumed or guessed. The content of knowledge can- 
 not, nor can any part of it, be otherwise than as known. A 
 science of knowledge, then, must be a science of that which 
 we know. While there may be so much legitimate ela.sticity 
 in the term, that it may include the means by which, the man- 
 ner in which, and the evidence that, we know the content of 
 our knowledge; yet no such consideration can mitigate the 
 perplexity sure to arise in the mind, when it attempts to con- 
 ceive of the infinitely varied content of its knowledge, as re- 
 duced to a science, or as scientifically classified. No human 
 mind can do this. But in this, its broadest supposable scope, 
 a science of knowledge would be 'a classified knowledge of 
 that which is known (including itself) together with the means 
 and manner and proof of its being known. This would be a 
 
SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 405 
 
 perfectly round circle, everywhere equidistant from its center 
 and from its purpose, and it could never be brought nearer to 
 them. Regardless of the philosopher's real intention, which 
 no one ever knew, the manner in which he has dealt with the 
 alleged science, and the name by which he has christened his 
 alleged philosophy, commit him to the idea that his Science 
 of knowledge applies as well to the content as to the means 
 and manner and proof of knowledge. 
 
 An unfortunate confession is covertly, perhaps unintention- 
 ally, made in the opening sentence of the work. The words 
 are these, "To unite divided parties it is best to proceed from 
 some point wherein they agree." A really sagacious philoso- 
 pher would have known that parties are never divided in 
 knowledge. If agreement constitutes knowledge, or if it trans- 
 forms opinion into knowledge, such a sentence might be em- 
 inently fitting at the beginning of a discourse upon the alleged 
 science of knowledge. Divided parties may be, and frequently 
 are, united in opinion and in error. The inference from the use 
 of the sentence quoted is, that the philosopher intends that 
 when the divided parties shall be united, the science of knowl- 
 edge will be constructed, and of course understood by the par- 
 ties so uniting. 
 
 But if they agree upon one point or upon several, and dis- 
 agree upon others, there is no more psychological warrant for 
 starting from a point upon which they happen to agree, than 
 from any other, for the purpose of uniting them in a science of 
 knowledge. Such plan might be more available for the pur- 
 pose of uniting them in opinion. But the alleged German Sys- 
 tem purports to be a science of knowledge, and not a science 
 of opinion. The philosopher says, "A science has sytematic 
 form. All propositions m it are connected in one single funda- 
 mental proposition or principle, and unite with it to form a 
 whole. This is universally conceded." But universal conces- 
 sion does not constitute knowledge; nor can it be, or give 
 validity to, any principle of knowledge. It is but a stronger 
 form or type of agreement, from which knowledge may be as 
 remote as from any tenet of either of the divided parties where 
 there is disaajreement. 
 
406 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 One of the greatest difficulties with philosophy arises from 
 considerations of utility and propriety relating to its supposed 
 starting point, its supposed fundamental principle. Some seem 
 to have fancied that this difficulty was obviated by what they 
 regard agreement, general, or pehaps universal. But nothing 
 can be clearer than the untrustworthiness of such agreement. 
 Illustrations are obvious. Down to a certain stage in the devel- 
 opment of the physical sciences it was generally, perhaps uni- 
 versally, agreed that the earth was the center of the universe. 
 From that point, upon which there was such agreement, the 
 sages of antiquity started out in various directions to unite 
 divided parties, with what success is apparent in the thousand 
 theories of every debatable subject of human thought. The 
 wisdom wasted in their fond and fruitless efforts is a stupen- 
 dous monument to their zeal and energy, as well as to what 
 now appears to to have been their stupidity. Even the very 
 Prussian who is reputed to have conceived the idea of the uni- 
 verse which Science is said to have demonstrated is the correct 
 one, is said to have given the most absurd reasons imaginable 
 for its then supposed validitv. It required a long time for 
 actual physical demonstration to bring about or produce gen- 
 eral agreement on that proposition. So it appears that in Science 
 the universality with which men may agree upon any proposi- 
 tion is no valid argument for its soundness, to say nothing of 
 the soundness of any supposed fundamental principle. Speak- 
 ing psychologically, and with the strictness due to all philo- 
 sophical discussion, there is no such thing conceivable as a 
 fundamental principle. The mind cannot get back to anything 
 without being forced to base it upon or attribute it to some- 
 thing still further back. It cannot imagine anything as being 
 entirely in and of itself Even a thought, the vainest and light- 
 est thinkable, and the most original, is the product of some- 
 thing preceding it. The mind that can conceive of and formu- 
 late an intelligible idea of a fundamental principle, may be 
 expected to give us a natural history, or a histology, of the 
 formation and development of the atom, the plastid base of 
 organic existence. If it cannot reach the fundamental in phys- 
 
SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION, 4Q7 
 
 ical phenomena, it can scarcely be expected to reach it in men- 
 ial phenomena. 
 
 The philosopher makes two propositions at the base of his 
 imposing structure. First, that "Every science has one funda- 
 mental principle, which cannot be proven in it, but must be cer- 
 tain in advance of it;" and second, that "the science of knowl- 
 edge is itself a science; hence it must also have one fundamental 
 principle, which cannot be proven in it, but must be presuppos- 
 ed for its very possibility as a science." How anything which 
 is merely presupposed for the possibility of something else, can 
 be in itself absolutely certain, is not apparent. If a science can- 
 not be otherwise than as based upon such supposititious funda- 
 mental principle, there cannot be much psychological certainty 
 of its being at all. Yet, elaborating these propositions he says, 
 "This fundamental principle is absolutely certain, that is, it is 
 certain because it is certain. You cannot inquire after its ground- 
 without contradiction. * * * Jt accompanies all knowledge, 
 is contained in all knowledge, and is presupposed by all knowl- 
 edge." It is startling that anything can be so certain that an 
 inquiry after its ground would be a contradiction of anything 
 else except its assumed absolute certainty, or the assumed ab- 
 soluteness of its assumed certainty. But according to the phil- 
 osopher, the certainty, or more accurately speaking, the valid- 
 ity of the fundamental principle of the Science of knowledge 
 cannot be proven, but must be presupposed it there is to be a 
 science of knowledge. In other words the certainty which is 
 the basis of all knowledge is assumption. This can be neither 
 objectively nor subjectively valid. Too many assumptions 
 have been exploded for the discriminating mind (to say noth- 
 ing of the skeptical) to accept any mere assumption of cer- 
 tainty as the basis of any knowledge. 
 
 What men may know may depend largely upon the nature 
 of their cognitive powers; but it depends no less upon the 
 nature of the content of that which is to be known. 
 
 Man is too small and insignificant a factor in the domain of 
 substantive existence to assume to prescribe a limit to even his 
 own investigations, and condemn all inquiry after the ground 
 of an assumed fundamental principle of certainty as a contra- 
 
408 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 diction. The mere flict that the mind yearns for a fundamental 
 principle of certainty, upon which to rest its supposed knowl- 
 edge, if it ever intelligently does so, is no more or better argu- 
 ment that there is such fundamental principle, than the fact 
 that the mind shrinks from the idea of its own annihilation, is 
 that the soul is immortal. Nothing hut the existence of a ten- 
 dency is proved in either of these cases. The universal and 
 irrepressible tendency to speculation, and demand for the proof 
 of all content of all so-called knowledge, is as strong an argu- 
 ment for the reasonableness of such demand, and of the proba- 
 bility that it may be supplied, as the universal yearning for a 
 fundamental principle can be, that there is such principle. The 
 tendency to speculate is not to be suppressed or restrained by 
 the dictatorial terms of an alleged philosophy, which merely 
 assumes the existence of its fundamental principle of certainty, 
 and declares all inquiry after its ground a contradiction. The 
 universal demand for the proof or ground of the certainty of 
 an assumed fundamental principle of knowledge, or of a science, 
 is not to be silenced by merely emphasizing the assumption. 
 No inquiry was ever more natural, or indeed more reasonable, 
 than that of the child, who, on being told that God made 
 everything, then inquired who made God. 
 
 Proceeding to the establishment of the "highest fundament- 
 al principle" of the science of knowledge, the philosopher 
 resorts to a process which he calls abstracting reflection, and 
 says that therein, "we must start from some proposition which 
 everyone will admit without dispute." But I have shown the 
 futility of this in referring to the fallacy that prevailed in physi- 
 cal philosophy while mankind were agreed in the error which 
 was exploded by the assumption and speculation of Copernicus. 
 That which every one will admit without dispute may be as it 
 is admitted to be, but such admission alone, however univer- 
 sal, is no evidence that it is so. In illustration however the 
 philosopher proceeds to say, "Any fact of empirical conscious- 
 ness, admitted as such valid proposition, is taken hold of, and 
 from it we separate one of its empirical determinations after the 
 other, until onlv that remains, which can be no longer sepa- 
 rated and abstracted from. As such a proposition we take 
 
 I 
 
SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 409 
 
 this one; A is A. Every one admits this proposition, and 
 without the least hesitation. It is recognized by all as com- 
 pletely certain and evident. If any one should ask a proof of 
 its certainty, no one would enter upon such proof, but would 
 say: This proposition is absolutely (that is, without any 
 further ground) certain; and by saying this would ascribe to 
 himself the power of absolutely positing something." 
 
 If any other than empirical consciousness were possible, there 
 might be some occasion for the particularity with which the 
 philosopher specifies the empirical consciousness; and by such 
 particularity he plainly implies that there is some other kind. 
 But reflection forces the recognition of the supreme absurdity 
 of supposing any other than empirical consciousness. If there 
 can be a consciousness without some measure of sensation, or 
 some sort of experience, it would be indeed interesting to know 
 what kind it is, how it can arise, and how we became cogniz- 
 ant of it. The selection of the admitted proposition from which 
 it is proposed to "separate one of its empirical determinations 
 after the other, " is unfortunate. From the alleged proposition 
 A is A, nothing whatever can be separated and abstracted; 
 certainly no empirical determination, because it contains none. 
 While it may be "recognized by all as completely certain and 
 evident," it is not a proposition. One of the greatest absurdi- 
 ties Superstition ever attributed to Deity is the senseless excla- 
 mation, "I am that I am," and if the Lord exclaimed it He said 
 absolutely nothing. Such a combination of words has no 
 meaning whatever. All the recognition it can have as com- 
 pletely certain and evident can give it no validity, for it imports 
 nothing which can be either certain or uncertain. 
 
 Apart from psycholoo^y metaphysics has no meaning. All 
 propositions are necessarily addressed to the human mind. 
 They are the vehicles or media by which, or perhaps more ac- 
 curately speaking, the form in which intelligence of some kind 
 and in some measure is conveyed to the mind. To say that 
 man is, imports the being of a creature called man. To say 
 that man is an animal, imports the being of a creature called 
 man, and that he may also be called animal. To say that man 
 is an animal that laughs, imports the being of a creature called 
 
410 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 man, and that he may also be called animal, and that there are 
 other creatures called animals that do not laugh, and disting- 
 uishes him from them. Each of these is a proposition by 
 which intelligence is communicated from one mind to another, 
 hi each of them something is affirmed or predicated of the sub- 
 ject man. But to say that man is nfan, is to begin and end 
 with man, without having affirmed or predicated anything 
 of him. A proposition must have a subject and predicate, and 
 they must be connected by means of a copula. Less than this 
 cannot be a proposition. By means of less than this no idea 
 can be communicated from one mind to another. In some in- 
 stances one of the three parts may not be expressed, but in 
 such case it must be implied. The subject cannot be affirmed 
 or predicated of itself or of the predicate. But the predicate, 
 whatever it may be, must be affirmed or predicated of the sub- 
 ject, if the last term (man or A) in the so-called proposition^ — 
 man is man or A is A — has the same meaning as the first term 
 (man or A), if it means the same thing on one side of the copula 
 (is) as upon the other side of it, it is necessarily subject in both 
 places, and there is no predicate, and hence no meaning in the 
 so-called proposition. In order to be a predicate, the term 
 must mean something different on one side, from what it 
 means on the other side of the copula. And then, according 
 to the philosopher, the assumed absolute certainty of the pro- 
 position is gone — it may be disputed. So it is manifest that 
 the alleged proposition — A is A, not only is not a proposition 
 that is absolutely certain, but that it is not a proposition at all. 
 It is an idle exclamation without meaning. To have any psych- 
 ological validity as a proposition, the combination of words 
 must purport something which, if known to be the truth, 
 would add to the actual knowledge had without their combin- 
 ation. If such purport is not known to be the truth, it will 
 not add to the actual knowledge, but if believed it must add to 
 the volume of the content of opinion, or the combination can- 
 not be a proposition. Any combination of words without a 
 purport which, in such circumstances would have such effect, 
 is not a proposition, it expresses no idea. In a combination of 
 words in which it is said that man is man, or that A is A, there 
 
SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. _ 4II 
 
 is absolutely nothing which can be supposed to be so known 
 to be the truth as to add to the content of the knowledge had 
 without it; or which if believed to be the truth, can add to the 
 content of opinion! Science is sadly scant of data when it is 
 forced to resort to such twaddle in exemplifying or applying 
 its alleged fundamental principle, if the alleged fundamental 
 principle of the science of knowledge depends for its validity 
 upon the alleged absolute certainty of such so-called proposi- 
 tions as that A is A, it has no validity, or rather there is no 
 such fundamental principle. 
 
 In further illustration of the properties or peculiarities of the 
 so-called proposition, the Philosopher says, "In insisting on the 
 in itself certainty of the above proposition, you posit //o/that A 
 is. The proposition A is A is by no means equivalent to A is. 
 (Being when posited without a predicate is something quite 
 different from being when posited with a predicate. ) Let us 
 suppose A to signify a space inclosed within two straight lines, 
 then the proposition A is A would still be correct; although 
 the proposition A is would be f^ilse, since such a space would 
 be impossible. But you posit by that proposition : // A is then 
 A is. The question whether A is at all or not does not occur 
 in it. The content of the proposition is not regarded at all — 
 merely its tbrm. The question is not whereof you know, but 
 what you know of any given subject. The only thing posited, 
 therefore, by that proposition is the absolutely necessary con- 
 nection between the two A's." 
 
 This is a tissue of contradiction and absurdity. If A is A, 
 then A is, for it cannot be A without being. If A is A, then 
 there is but one A posited, and it is predicated of itself, which 
 is absurd. If A is A, it is necessarily one and the same A, and 
 there cannot be two A's for there to be any absolutely neces- 
 sary connection between, and the supposition of any connection 
 between // is absurd. Being when posited without a predicate 
 may be something quite different from being when posited with 
 a predicate. But when being is posited at all it cannot have a 
 predicate by being posited of itself. The proposal to let A sig- 
 nify a space enclosed within two straight lines is admittedly 
 senseless, yet it is in keeping with the residue of the argument. 
 
412 . ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 It would be as reasonable and profitable to attempt to demon- 
 strate that there could be such space as to attempt to demon- 
 strate that A is A, unless in the tirst place A is. A cannot be 
 A, nor can it be anything, nor can it be at all, without it is. 
 To say that // A is, then A is, is too silly to be said in any phi- 
 losophy. It is to say actually nothing, and make even that 
 contingent. If we say air is air, we have not proceeded a step. 
 We are exactly where we started, or rather, we have not 
 started. We have proposed nothing. We have not stated a 
 proposition. If we have posited air, we certainly have not 
 posited it with a predicate, for we have named or mentioned 
 one and the same air only. Mentioning it twice, once on each 
 side of a supposed copula (which reallv is no copula because it 
 connects nothing with air) does not make it two airs. Hence 
 it is necessarily subject on both sides of the supposed copula, 
 and the so-called proposition contains no predicate, and is not 
 a proposition. The idea of absolutely necessary connection in 
 such case is as absurd as the idea of a space enclosed by two 
 straight lines. 
 
 To say that "the question is not whereof you know, but 
 what you know of any given subject," is, if possible, still more 
 absurd. There can be no zvliat known without the icliereof of 
 which it is known. Without the whereof known, one what 
 could not be distinguished from another, and it is the whereof 
 that determines the what. Without the whereof known, no 
 what can have any meaning. One cannot know anything 
 unless he knows what it is he knows: and he cannot know 
 what it is he knows, unless he knows whereof he knows it. 
 But by such processes as the above quoted illustration and the 
 deductioiis he makes from it, the Philosopher traces out the 
 alleged original deed act, which he places at the head of his 
 alleged science of knowledge, as its highest fundamental prin- 
 ciple, and states it thus — The Ego posits originally its own 
 being. He savs the Ego is necessarily identity of subject and 
 object. He has taken a very circuitous route to the proposi- 
 tion that man is conscious of himself. 
 
 The foregoing is, I believe, a fair statement of the ground- 
 work of one of the philosophies in one of the famous German 
 
SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 4I3 
 
 Systems; one which has set the world all agog with the depth- 
 of its metaphysical wisdom, and the closeness of its alleged 
 reasoning. It has attracted a great deal of attention, and occa- 
 sioned endless and in many instances aimless speculation. It 
 has called forth a great deal of senseless commendation, and 
 has been learnedly interpreted by scholars, who, like the phi- 
 losopher they interpret, are finally forced to found all they say 
 for it on an unintelligible assumption, back of which there is 
 no proof, and which, as propounded in the alleged philosophy, 
 cannot have any meaning whatever. In the few foregoing 
 observations I think it is shown that the system is built upon a 
 bubble, and that it cannot have much reliable solidity itself 
 
 That the Ego posits itself originally, and that it limits and 
 is limited by the non-Ego, may mean more than the empty 
 proposition — I am I — or than A is A; but the human mind 
 must be worked over before it can extract much intelligence 
 from the alleged propositions in which the subject is placed on 
 each side of the copula, and the predicate is conspicuous only 
 by its absence. 
 
 If an examination of the fundamental principle of an alleged 
 philosophy discloses the fact that it is based in palpable error 
 and absurdity, it can scarcely be worth while to trace the 
 pedantic elaboration of its deductions therefrom through all the 
 ramifications they may make. 
 
 That the Ego determines itself, and is in so far active, involves 
 the further proposition that it is determined (by itself) and is in 
 so far passive, cannot signify moi'e than that man is conscious 
 of himself, as limited by that which is not himself .But upon 
 mature reflection the proposition of self-consciousness appears 
 to be a superfluous, if not an illegitimate one. It is sufficiently 
 accurate to say that man is conscious of this or that particular 
 thing. It may be appropriately said man is conscious. But 
 he cannot be conscious of anything else than himself, without 
 at the same time being self-conscious. If he is conscious at all 
 he must be self-conscious. And as he cannot be conscious at 
 all without being conscious of something external to him, as 
 he cannot possibly think himself entirely out of space and time 
 and their infinite relations, there is no such thing, strictly 
 
414 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 speaking, as self-consciousness. Consciousness necessarily 
 involves consciousness of self ^5 conscious, and consciousness 
 of self in some relation to something external to self Even 
 introspection cannot be carried on a moment without both of 
 these. 
 
 Another of the philosopher's propositions may be examined 
 with perhaps some profit, it is, "An independent activity de- 
 termines a reciprocal activity and passivity." He says the 
 formal ground of reciprocity is to be determined by an indepen- 
 dent activity. While I am not prepared to say that there 
 is no validity, psychologically speaking, in the proposi- 
 tion, I am prepared to show that what he calls the proof 
 if it is invalid both as proof, and as propositions themselves. 
 His proof is given in the form of an illustration. He says, 
 "The magnet attracts iron; iron is attracted by the mag- 
 net. These are two interchangeable propositions; that 
 is, through the one the other is posited. This is a presup- 
 posed fact, presupposed as grounded; hence, if you look to 
 the content of this reciprocal relation you do not ask W'7?o 
 posits the one proposition through the other, and how does 
 this positing occur f You assume the reciprocity as Jiaviug 
 ing occurred if you look to the content of the reciprocity; and 
 you only ask, why are these tivo propositions contained among 
 the sphere of propositions, which can be thus posited the one 
 through the other } There must be something in both which 
 makes it possible to interchange them. Hence you look up 
 this, their material content, wh'ich makes them intercJiangeable. 
 If, however, you look to the /or;// of the reciprocity, if you re- 
 flect on the occurring of the interchange, and hence abstract 
 from the propositions which are interchanged, then the ques- 
 tion no longer is, with what right are tJiese propositions inter- 
 changed "^ but simply, how is interchange effected at all } And 
 then it is discovered that there must be an intelligent being 
 outside the iron and magnet, which observing both and unit- 
 ing both in its consciousness, is compelled to give to one the 
 opposite predicate of the other; (to the one the predicate of 
 attracting, to the other the predicate of being attracted). The 
 first mode gives simply a reflection upon a phenomenon; the 
 
SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 415 
 
 second mode a reflection upon that reflection; the reflection of 
 the Philosopher upon the mode of observation." 
 
 It is not apparent how this proves that an independent 
 activity determines a reciprocal activity and passivity. To be 
 reciprocal, these ought mutually to determine each other. The 
 alleged two propositions are but one proposition. They are 
 exactly equal, and, with the Philosopher (generally) equality is 
 identity. To say that the magnet attracts iron is not only 
 equivalent to saying the iron is attracted by the magnet, it h 
 saying the iron is attracted by the magnet. They are only 
 slightly different forms of one proposition. One is not posited 
 through the other, for there is but one to be posited at all, and 
 if it were put in another form, or in many other forms, it would 
 still be but one proposition. The proposition that the magnet 
 attracts iron contains or posits all the activity and passivity 
 contained or posited in the two alleged propositions. The 
 passivity of the iron is no more expressly posited in the one 
 form of this proposition than in the other form of it. To say 
 that iron is attracted by the magnet, posits the activity of the 
 magnet as expressly as the passivity of the iron. The recipro- 
 cal activity and passivity are as well and as expressly posited 
 in the one form of this proposition as in the other, or in both 
 forms of it. They are not determined by any independent 
 activity, but by each other; although "an intelligent being 
 outside the iron and magnet" observes both and unites both in 
 its consciousness and is compelled to give to one the predicate 
 of attracting, and to the other the predicate of being attracted. 
 He does not determine anything for them or either of them, but 
 for himself he may discern their reciprocal activity and passiv- 
 ity, as they mutually determine (limit) them of and for them- 
 selves. Reciprocity cannot be determined by an agency influ- 
 ence or power not reciprocating. In the case supposed the 
 magnet actively exerts an influence over the iron ; the iron 
 passively yields to this influence. The reciprocity of the activ- 
 ity and passivity is determined by them; and it may be detected 
 by the independent activity, but certainly not determined by it. 
 
 The content of the reciprocity is, that the magnet actively 
 attracts, and the iron passively is attracted. When you look 
 
4l6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 to this content you do not assume the reciprocity as having 
 occurred or as occurring. You clearly discern and knoiv it. 
 You do not ask why these two propositions are contained 
 among the sphere of propositions which can he posited the 
 one through the other, You see the reciprocal activity and 
 passivity posited in the one proposition, no matter which of the 
 two forms it may have. 
 
 The form of the reciprocity (for the mind) is the idea or rep- 
 resentation of the activity and passivity mutually determining 
 each other, and the attraction resulting therefrom. When you 
 look to this form you do not ask how is interchange of these 
 propositions effected. All that you have observed or can dis- 
 cern of reciprocity of activity and passivity, clearly appears to 
 you in the one proposition, no matter which of the two forms 
 it may have. You see no two propositions to be interchanged. 
 
 And you cannot imagine any independent activity as de- 
 termining the reciprocal activity and passivity so manifest. 
 Their reciprocity, if properly speaking there is such a thing, is 
 determined by them. An outside agency, influence, or power, 
 might limit or determine the independent, or perhaps more ac- 
 curately speaking, the individual action and inaction of each. 
 But if there is reciprocity of activity and passivity it is due to 
 their mutual relations to each other. If the iron passively yields 
 to the active attraction of the magnet, and if this is reciprocity 
 of activity and passivity, it is difficult to conceive how an inde- 
 pendent activity can do more than merely discern the fact. 
 The reciprocity would seem to be determined by the activity 
 and passivity, whose mutual relations to and effect upon each 
 other produce it. This seems to be the necessary result of the 
 the reflection upon the phenomenon; and of the "reflection 
 upon that reflection; the reflection of the philosopher upon the 
 mode of observation." 
 
 In the Critical Exposition of Fichte's alleged Science of 
 knowledge, there are some propositions made in apparent ser- 
 iousness, which as the tenets of an alleged philosophy are in- 
 deed remarkable. After making an illustration of conscious- 
 ness worthy the author of Jack the Giant Killer, the Critical Ex- 
 positor says, "I repeat that a single moment of consciousness 
 
SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 417 
 
 is all that is directly given. We speak of the past. We do 
 this in the confidence that our memory really represents what 
 has occurred. This age professes to take nothing without ver- 
 ification. All verification depends upon the validity of mem- 
 ory. I do not mean merely upon the accuracy of memory, so 
 far as details are concerned, but on the validity of memory as 
 representing a real past in the most general sense of the word. 
 Who can verify this assumption ? Who has ever gone back 
 to see whether there be or be not a past ? I am not question- 
 ing the fact; I merely wish to make it clear that memory itself 
 is purely of the mind, and that its testimony is accepted wholly 
 on trust." 
 
 This he attempts to verify by illustrations from dreams, 
 delusions, and illusions. There is no such thing as memory 
 itself purely of the mind. Memory is either a retained and 
 continued thought; or it is a revived and reawakened 
 thought which may have lain dormant for a time. Memory is 
 thought in one of these states. There never was a thought 
 without an object which in some manner affected the thinking 
 mind. The mind has the faculty of remembering, but there 
 can be no memory unless something is remembered, and hence 
 the expression — memory itself is purely of the mind — is an 
 absurdity. Even the memory of some prior thought or state of 
 mind is not purely of the mind, because the prior thought or 
 state of mind had necessarily some relation to something 
 external to the mind, or it could not have been a thought or 
 state of mind. What is meant by a moment of consciousness 
 directly given is very problematical, but no one can imagine 
 consciousness existing for a time so brief that it may not be 
 subdivided into shorter periods. If no one has ever gone back 
 to see if there be or be not a past, a great many have come for- 
 ward out of a past into a present, and have a consciousness of 
 a present which they certainly cannot know to be a present 
 otherwise than as distinguished from a past. If this conscious- 
 ness of the present is the moment of consciousness which* is 
 directly given to us, there must have been a consciousness of 
 the past also directly given to us, because the present could not 
 be present but for the past. Even if some one had ' 'ever gone 
 
4l8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 back to see whether there be or be not a past," his trip would 
 be a fool's errand unless there was a trustworthy memory by 
 means of which, in the present moment of consciousness 
 which, forsooth, is directly given, he could remember and 
 know that he had so gone back and found a past. Without a 
 past to go back to, it is silly to speak of one's going back to see 
 anything. That the consciousness of the past is retained, or 
 restored from time to time by the memory, or in the memory, 
 does not militate against its having been, or now being, directly 
 given. The moment of consciousness which is directly given 
 is past in a moment more, and if memory is sometimes tricked 
 or deceived by delusion, it still has some validity for verifica- 
 tion, it may impair its validity so as to render it less than 
 absolutely perfect as a verifier of the history of the past, and 
 for this reason its testimony is not accepted wholly on trust. 
 We knozv that the present moment — the moment of conscious- 
 ness directly given — is consciousness of the past carried into 
 the next moment by or in the memory. We know it is 
 past before we fully realize it is present, and that it is 
 connected with the succeeding moment's consciousness in 
 the fict that it is a continuing consciousness. It may be sus- 
 pended in sleep, and it may be distorted in dream and delusion, 
 but it is continued and restored from time to time by or in the 
 memory. To say that "so far as we are concerned the effect 
 would be the same if there were no past, if only there remained 
 the mental condition that we regard as representing the past" 
 is too silly to be said in anything assuming philosophic airs. 
 If the supposition were otherwise valid, the word remain would 
 vitiate it. Nothing can be supposed to remain at all without 
 enduring, or being for or during some time. No time, and no 
 portion of time, can be conceived of as so brief as that some 
 part of it is not necessarily past time with relation to other parts 
 of it. "The mental condition that we regard as representing 
 the past," could not possibly be conceived of as having any 
 meaning for us, without a consciousness directly given us of a 
 real past. We cannot even in the weirdest and wildest imag- 
 ination, formulate a figure of anything or of nothing, without 
 at some point and in some measure likening it to something 
 
SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 4I9 
 
 actual. If memory has no validity for verification of the past, 
 no tv/o successive thoughts can be intelligently connected and 
 knowledge is absolutely impossible; indeed, the thought of it 
 is utterly incomprehensible. 
 
 Neither is memory itself purely of the mind. It cannot pos- 
 sibly be conceived of without relation to the content of the 
 knowledge retained or recalled by or in it. Without something 
 remembered there is no memory. The validity of memory is 
 further demonstrated in the impossibility of forgetting many 
 things which we would gladly consign to oblivion. To say 
 that "people often are sure they remember something that 
 never occurred, — that their mental condition is precisely what 
 it would be if the event had occurred," is only equivalent to 
 saying that the mental condition is the same in imagination as 
 in knowledge. When one thinks he is sure he remembers 
 something that never occurred, he simply imagines the thing 
 as having occurred, and there is no memory in or about the 
 mental act or .condition; beyond that necessary in formulat- 
 ing the conception. No one ever was sure he remembered 
 anything which never occurred, though many have thought 
 they were — have imagined that the thing had occurred — and 
 imagined also that they remembered it. But no act of mind, 
 not even this empty imagination itself, is possible without 
 memory. In imagination the imaginary content of the vagary 
 is co-ordinated according to, or by, a mental process which 
 memory retains or recalls from the more substantial mental 
 transactions. A philosophy which supposes or attempts to 
 suppose the invalidity of memory as representing a real past, 
 supposes or attempts to suppose the annihilation of the very 
 thought which alone renders philosophy itself possible. 
 
 In the two books under immediate consideration, Fichte's 
 Science of Knov/ledge and Everett's Critical Exposition, there is 
 a great deal of what is popularly regarded deep learning. There 
 is also a great deal of that from which the popular mind shrinks 
 in awe, as from a wisdom above its capacity to grasp. If, as 
 I think is now demonstrated, the cardinal doctrine of both, 
 their alleged fundamental principle, is utterly senseless, they 
 cannot be very trustworthy as a means or medium of mental 
 
420 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 culture. All that may possibly be said of the Ego and the non- 
 Ego, the I, the Me and the Not-Me, their positings and being 
 posited, their limits, limitings, and limitations, and their rela- 
 tions, temporal, spatial, quantitative, and qualitative, though 
 ever so well said as abstract propositions, or as propositions in 
 and of themselves; yet, as localized in and as part of an alleged 
 philosophical system which is based upon a palpable absurdity, 
 is without force, if not without meaning. 
 
 The whole is an effort ^o harness Reason in the service of 
 Religion. It is an effort at scientific Apologetics. All religion, 
 as religion, is based upon a belief in immortality. It is a mat- 
 ter of faith, pure and simple. That which sustains the bereav- 
 ed barbarian wife in immolating herself on the pyre other 
 deceased husband is as valid for her, as that which prompts 
 the European or American mother to present her offspring at 
 the baptismal font is for her. There is no reason in any of 
 them. Some enthusiasts have fancied that the reasons for 
 their faith, (as if there could be a reason for it) were being un- 
 dermined by or in the deductions of an alleged skepticism. 
 They have then assumed a fundamental principle of knowledge, 
 generally, or perhaps universally conceded or agreed to. and 
 have learnedly and elaborately reasoned around in a labyrinth 
 of incongruity, fallacy, and assumption, and have sometimes 
 reached an assumed certainty of immortality, based upon the 
 discovery that while the 1 is limited, it is forever pushing the 
 limit into infinity. Great volumes of learned jargon are written 
 to express the idea, that because the mind is forever soaring 
 higher, and universally shrinks from the thought of its own 
 annihilation, the Soul must be immortal. 
 
 The Critical Expositor says, "In this fact, Fichte finds, as 
 he repeatedly insists the basis of faith in immortality. The I 
 has this impulse to infinitude. It is conscious of an infinite 
 activity. The very term, conscious of infinite activity, as we 
 have seen, involves also the consciousness of finiteness. Thus 
 is the nature of the soul double. * * * The limit has only 
 been pushed to a little greater distance, but it is there, as real 
 and as solid as at the first. Again and again must this process 
 be repeated with the same result. This is the very nature of 
 
SCIENTIFIC CIRCUMLOCUTION. 421 
 
 the soul. It must continue the process until the end be 
 reached. But not till eternity be exhausted would it be possi- 
 ble to reach the farthest limit of infmity. The process is end- 
 less; endlessness of time must therefore be postulated. The 
 destiny of the soul is always accomplishing itself, and is, there- 
 fore, never accomplished. The I thus carries with itself the 
 pledge of its own immortality." 
 
 1 do not see how an expression could be more unphilo- 
 sophical than some of these. If the I is conscious of an infinite 
 activity, it is conscious of that which extends out into space 
 beyond the wildest flight of any human imagination, or down 
 into time beyond the possibility of any human prediction. If 
 the 1 is limited by anything external to itself, it is powerless to 
 push this again infinitely out into infinity, and if it must infin- 
 itely continue the process, it is not limited at all Nothing 
 could be more absurd than the idea of exhausting eternity and 
 reaching the flirthest limit of infinity. The terms cancel each 
 other and the words as combined have no meaning. An un- 
 accomplished destiny (that is, as a goal) cannot be thought. 
 There is a great deal of scientific circumlocution in reaching a 
 result which could have been more scientifically and simply 
 stated in the declaration that, because the I (soul or mind) 
 shrinks from the thought of its own annihilation, and continu- 
 ally aspires, it is probably immortal. And all that has been so 
 learnedly, so obscurely, so confusedly said ; and all that has 
 been so absurdly assumed, has not raised the postulated im- 
 mortality of the soul above probability. The alleged Science 
 of knowledge is in truth a science of guess-work and ground- 
 less assumption. The Critical Exposition which was to make 
 the mastery of the System an easy task, only gives its incongru- 
 ities and absurdities more prominence. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 
 Motives mean Nothing witliout Tlieir Sanctions, and Sanctions are Based in 
 Personal Interest — Man can be Operated on Only by Hope and Fear, like 
 the Brute; the Difference is merely in Degree — Moral Action Implies Per- 
 sonal Accountability — Reason Incompatible with Morality and Religion — 
 Intellectual and Moral Powers are but one Power — All Intelligence Acquired, 
 and Moulded by an inherited Frame-work of Thought — Unless Man can, 
 Independently of his Antecedents and Environment, Determine his own 
 Constitution and Education, he cannot be Accountable — Reason cannot be 
 Invoked to Verify Something not Understood — Apologetics Posits a Mys- 
 tery as the Basis of Religion, and then Seeks to Verify the Religion in Rea- 
 son — Conscience a Refmed Selllshness, Provincial and Conventional — Con- 
 science is a Growth, a Sanctimonious Selfishness — The Christian Redemp- 
 tion, an Exhibition of Pure Selfishness — Belief beyond Control. 
 
 A well known writer has said, "We can operate upon 
 brutes only -by fear of punishment, and hope of reward. We 
 can operate upon man not only in this manner, but also by an 
 appeal to his consciousness of right and wrong; and by the use 
 of such means as may improve his moral nature." Were this 
 strictly true, and if it meant enough to justify the distinction, it 
 might be a gratefully refreshing bit of information. Apart from 
 its sanction no motive means anything, or rather there is no 
 motive. The sanction, whatever it may be, is without import 
 to any one except as the motive impels or restrains the subject, 
 and both are based in the feeling or idea of interest, really in 
 selfishness. Motives and their sanctions are variable and rela- 
 tive in their essence and efficacy, according to the character 
 and capacity of the subject. It is not degrading man to the 
 level of the brute to show that the distinction in the above 
 quoted declaration is without a difference except in degree, and 
 that the statement as a whole is untrue. Man, like the brute, 
 can be operated on only by fear of punishment or hope of 
 reward. The phrase, consciousness of right and wrong, means 
 nothing so far as influencing human action is concerned, above 
 or beyond that expressed in the phrases fear of punishment and 
 hope of reward. 
 
SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 423 
 
 The highest order of so-called moral character or conscious- 
 ness of right and wrong yet developed is not devoid of, but is 
 based in the principle of selfishness which underlies all hope 
 and fear. That which Philosophers call consciousness of right 
 and wrong originates in the selfishness apparent in hope and 
 fear. It is an outgrowth of or refinement upon that very prin- 
 ciple. One reared in a refined civilization may delight in things 
 suited to the tastes which he may have acquired by reason of 
 such rearing. He may fear things calculated to disturb his 
 security against that which, from such rearing, he may regard 
 dangerous in some respect. These are variable and essentially 
 relative to the individual as constituted and educated. There is 
 a phase of what is called charity which seems to be almost dis- 
 interested, and it presents one of the most pleasing aspects of 
 human life. Some take pains to find out and relieve distress of 
 various kinds. If there is such thing as disinterested action, 
 this would seem to be an example of it. But when analyzed 
 the motive which impels them is found to be pure selfishness, 
 the hope of reward. What the reward may be, whether popu- 
 larity, happiness, a remotely possible pecuniary profit, or, for- 
 sooth, a consciousness of having done good, is of no conse- 
 quence so f^ir as the actual selfishness of the motive is con- 
 cerned. Some motives may appear more commendable than 
 others, but these are all alike traceable to the hope of reward. 
 There is a phase of what is called courage which seems to be 
 almost heroism, and it presents one of the noblest views of 
 human life. Some take pains to find out and encounter the 
 greatest dangers in enterprises sometimes good and sometimes 
 bad. They may, like Arnold Winkelried and others, go reso- 
 lutely to what appears to be certain death in a good cause; or 
 they may, like numerous ruffians have done, go just as reso- 
 lutely to certain death in a bad cause ; they may even trip lightly 
 up the steps of the gallows; but when analyzed the motives 
 which impel them are found to be purely selfish, — fear of 
 punishment in some cases, hope of reward in others. What 
 the punishment may be, whether physical pain, oppression, the 
 disgrace of cowardice or insubordination, or compunction of 
 conscience, is of no consequence so far as the actual selfishness 
 
424 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 of the motive is concerned. Tiie consciousness of right and 
 wrong is nothing except as it actuates the subject in that which 
 he believes to be in some way good or bad for himself. 
 
 This good or bad for himself may be a mere consciousness 
 of having done good or bad. And this, to use a homely ex- 
 pression, depends upon the way he is raised; it depends upon 
 what the civilization in which he was reared has done for or 
 made of him, in short upon his education. Others differently 
 constituted may have had similar educations with different 
 results. Even the same person at different times and under 
 different circumstances may exhibit different degrees of the 
 qualities called charity and courage. Similar causes do not 
 necessarily produce similar effects unless in operating under 
 similar circumstances upon similar subjects. The martyrs were 
 actuated by this same principle of selfishness, and the plainest 
 precepts of Christianity are enforced by promises and threats. 
 "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake; 
 for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." "Then shall he also say 
 unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into 
 everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Hope 
 and fear — hope of reward, and fear of punishment. These are 
 authentic declarations of the sanctions of the strongest possible 
 motives to human action, call it moral or what not. If, as the 
 Philosopher declares, a moral action is the action of an intelli- 
 gent agent capable of distinguishing between right and wrong; 
 and if, as he further declares, the results which God has con- 
 nected with actions will inevitably occur, and cannot be eluded 
 or averted any more than the sequences which follow by the 
 laws of gravitation, then the import of the above quoted 
 promise and threat as sanctions of motive to so-called moral 
 action is indeed terrible. It is the alternative of salvation or 
 damnation, whatever they may be, to the subject impelled by 
 the motive. Where such elements plainly appear in the motive 
 to any action, such action cannot be unselfish ; its motive can- 
 not be devoid of hope and fear, it cannot be the abstract good 
 of the action. Strictly speaking such action cannot be morally 
 good. 
 
SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 425 
 
 If there is such thing as moral action at all, it necessarily im- 
 plies personal accountability for action, and this necessarily 
 implies free agency. Action that is not free can have no moral 
 quality. The mind cannot conceive how any one can be either 
 praiseworthy or blameworthy for that to which he is inexorably 
 impelled. If one is accountable for his action he must be account- 
 able to a superior Being, one having power and authority over 
 him. This cannot be just unless he willingly assumes the 
 accountability, or having the power to absolve the relation he 
 willingly continues it. A slave is not accountable, he exercises 
 only his master's will. A citizen dissatisfied with the law and 
 unable to procure a reform may migrate. Man did not voluntarily 
 come into existence, nor voluntarily assume allegiance to any nat- 
 ural or so-called moral law. However dissatisfied he may be or 
 become with such law, if it really is, he can neither procure a 
 reform nor migrate beyond its sway. He has no part in its 
 making or administration. He has no voice in his own con- 
 stitution, construction, or adaptation to it. It is in force and he 
 is made subject to it. If he finds it oppressive it must be 
 because he is not suitably adapted to it. As he cannot change 
 his own nature, or procure a reform in such law, or migrate 
 beyond its sway, he cannot be free. If he could reconstruct 
 and adapt himself, he might attain to a provisional or limited 
 freedom, but he can never be free so long as he can neither 
 repeal nor amend an oppressive law, nor absolve his allegiance 
 to it by migration or otherwise. 
 
 Possibly there might still be some measure of responsibility 
 resting upon him if he can reconstruct and adapt himself so as 
 to conform to such law. Can he do this? If so, ought he.? 
 The word ought really embraces both questions, for no one 
 ought unless he can. Philosophers who claim that all phenom- 
 ena are subject to and controlled by law, will scarcely allow 
 that the construction and adaptation of man are matters of mere 
 chance. They will maintain that these are equally subject to 
 and controlled by the same law. Allowing they are correct in 
 this, man's capacities, qualities, and tendencies, are as legit- 
 imate a part of the order of nature as any other phenomena in it. 
 Man's Maker (who also made the law) is probably wiser than 
 
426 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 he. The law is hopelessly beyond man's amendment, and he 
 cannot possibly escape subjection to it. His Maker has endowed 
 him with certain capacities and cursed him with certain qual- 
 ities and tendencies. In His infinite wisdom He has made 
 these a part of the order of nature. Finding them in nature, 
 man cannot say they are not as properly a part thereof as any- 
 thing else therein. It is impossible to imagine they are the 
 work of another power, or of man upon himself. Even if they 
 were man's work upon himself, he could have wrought them 
 only by means of other capacities, qualities, and tendencies 
 previously given him ; so they are, if not directly in all cases, 
 yet ultimately the gift of the Power which created man. 
 
 Suppose the creature (man) finds, or thinks he finds, some of 
 these his peculiar gifts at variance with what he in his wisdom 
 conceives to be the law. Suppose they move him to what he 
 conceives to be violations of the supposed law. It is more 
 likely that he misconceives the law than that he knows these 
 divinely given capacities, qualities, and tendencies to be essen- 
 tially bad. Otherwise he must be wiser on these points than 
 his Maker, because He is infinitely and absolutely good, and 
 hence would not curse His creature with evil tendencies. If 
 this is incorrect, if the Maker has made man and given him 
 capacities, qualities, and tendencies essentially bad, it is equally 
 as reasonable to suppose that He has also made unjust laws for 
 his government. In reason, one of the most unjust laws that 
 can be supposed would be one which damns the creature for 
 doing that to which he is by a natural tendency inclined. In 
 reason, it is impossible to suppose a law of nature for the infrac- 
 tion of which man must suffer, and then suppose him by nature 
 disposed to violate such law, without also supposing malice 
 toward him on the part of his Maker. Man's capacities, quali- 
 ties, and tendencies, are so intimately blended together, so 
 mutually dependent upon each other, and so divinely bestowed 
 (or inflicted) upon him, that in reason it is impossible to sup- 
 pose him so free as to be accountable for any action to which 
 he may be impelled by a natural tendency. The necessary 
 consequence is that in reason no action to which man is natur- 
 
SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 427 
 
 ally inclined can be either morally right or morally wrong. 
 Reason has no part in either morality or Religion. 
 
 The Philosopher says, "Two things are necessary in order 
 to constitute any being a moral agent. They are, first, that he 
 possess an intellectual power, by which he can understand the 
 relation in which he stands to the beings by whom he is sur- 
 rounded; secondly, that he possess a moral power, by which 
 the feeling of obligation is suggested to him, as soon as the 
 relation in which he stands is understood. This is sufficient to 
 render him a moral agent." \f this is sufficient to render man 
 a moral agent, it may be interesting to inquire what this is. 
 Perhaps nothing could be more disastrous than the abolition of 
 duty. Man in his infinitely various and complex lelations can- 
 not reasonably be conceived of either as exempt from it or sub- 
 ject to it. It is merely another name for moral obligation. It 
 cannot reasonably be supposed to exceed capacity. That no 
 one ought unless he can, includes that no one ought more than 
 he can. It may also imply that every one ought all he can. 
 But the Philosopher says two powers are essential to the moral 
 obligation, the intellectual and moral powers. This distinction 
 deserves consideration. If there is a moral power by which 
 the feeling of obligation is suggested as soon as one understands 
 the relation in which he stands, it must be also an intellectual 
 power, as much so at least as that by which the relation is 
 understood. The supposed feeling of obligation is merely an 
 idea or sense or duty. Such an idea or sense (or indeed any 
 idea or sense) cannot be had or conceived without the exercise 
 of intellectual power. It is absurd to suppose, indeed one 
 cannot suppose, an idea or sense of duty, or, forsooth, the 
 alleged feeling of obligation otherwise than as a purely intel- 
 lectual actor state. If there is an intellectual power by means 
 of which one can understand the relation in which he stands to 
 the beings by whom he is surrounded, it must also be or include 
 the moral power, provided there is really a moral pov^er, by 
 which the feeling of obligation is suggested as soon as the rela- 
 tion is understood. If an idea of moral obligation arises from 
 the conception of a relation, the relation itself must be the 
 source or efficient cause of the moral obligation. It might be 
 
4^8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 suspected or perceived or partially understood without this, but 
 it cannot be a relation without giving rise to some kind of 
 moral obligation, and hence it cannot be understood without 
 the idea or sense or feeling of moral obligation is at the same 
 time suggested. The word relation, applied to intellectual 
 creatures, has no meaning apart from obligation. As, with 
 respect to man, there is no relation known or conceivable with- 
 out a corresponding obligation, it would seem that obligation 
 IS the very essence of relation. 1 think the distinction between 
 the intellectual and the so-called moral power is utterly sense- 
 less. While the intellectual power may enable one to under- 
 stand things without regard to obligation, things perhaps of 
 which no obligation can be distinctly predicated, it also enables 
 one to understand duty and obligation so f^iras they are under- 
 stood, and hence must be (or embrace) the alleged moral 
 power, it, strictly speaking, there is such power. 
 
 If the intellectual power is (or if the intellectual and moral 
 powers are) reasonably sufficient to render man a moral agent, 
 the Philosopher's case would appear to be made out, and free 
 agency would seem to be a reasonable fact, it may be a fact. 
 But I believe there is no known data from which by any logical 
 argument it can be shown to be a reasonable fact. The con- 
 ditions of moral responsibility imposed by the philosopher may 
 not be entirely impossible; but I believe that very few persons 
 have ever actually understood the relation in which they stood 
 to the beings by whom they were surrounded. It should be 
 remembered that the greater part of what he proposes as moral 
 duty arises from man's supposed relation to a Supreme Being. 
 The man who has an intellectual power by which he can 
 understand that relation is pretty well equipped intellectually. 
 A thousand theories confused and conflicting now prevail, and 
 the voice of Reason is as eloquent and persuasive in favor of 
 any one of them as in favor of any other. But however that 
 may be, while man acquires his knowledge, his capacity to 
 acquire it, in other words, his intellectual power, is not ac- 
 quired. Whatever of this he has is inherent in him. By appli- 
 cation he may enhance this power, but how he applies himself 
 thereto depends in some measure upon proclivities also inher- 
 
SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 429 
 
 ent in him, and perhaps in greater measure upon circum- 
 stances over which he has no control. For the proclivities 
 which inhere in him, as well as the circumstances under which 
 he lives and is, he may be either congratulated or pitied, but 
 certainly neither commended nor blamed. Idiocy is a defect. 
 Insanity is a disease. Bad temper implies inequable organism 
 or deranged organism. All of them are alike traceable to phys- 
 iological condition. Petrucio tells his Shrew that meat engen- 
 ders choler. "If, before experience begins, there is possessed 
 an inherited framework of thought; then the structure of that 
 framework must fix, in great part if not entirely, the manner in 
 which experiences are dealt with." 
 
 Unless there is at birth something more in the mental organ- 
 ism than a mere capacity or reciptivity, and no more was ever 
 apparent, then all the intelligence which must form the basis of 
 moral obligation is acquired. If the individual inherits a frame- 
 work of thought, the structure of which must in great part if 
 not entirely fix the manner in which experiences are dealt 
 with, that is. determine for him how intelligence shall assimi- 
 late and be digested into the knowledge by which his intellect- 
 ual power is to be enhanced, there would seem to be very lit- 
 tle of the supposed intellectual power within his power. It 
 would all or nearly all appear to be fortuitous to him. Con- 
 sidering further that during the greater part of its formative 
 process the mind is wrought upon by influences from without, 
 the intellectual power of man is, so far as he is concerned, as 
 liable to be of any one type or character as of any other. If 
 such intellectual power is the measure of moral obligation, 
 then in reason, dutv is as various and as variable as the fluctu- 
 ating opinions of men. It would be indeed troublesome to 
 classify a knowledge of it, and impossible to reduce it to a 
 science. 
 
 In the general argument for free-agency, moral obligation, 
 and personal accountability, the Philosopher says, "Before you 
 resolve upon an action, or a course of action, cultivate the habit 
 of deciding upon its moral character. Let the first question 
 always be, is this action right ? For this purpose God gave 
 you this faculty. If you do not use it you are false to yourself, 
 
430 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 and inexcusable before God. * * * If we ask this question 
 Jirsf, it can be generally decided with ease. If we wait until 
 the mind is agitated and harrassed by contending emotions, it 
 will not be easy to decide correctly." I believe this is the first 
 instance I have noticed in philosophy of the recommendation of 
 precipitancy in order to arrive at the correct decision of any 
 serious question. 1 believe that deliberation is generally more 
 in favor. If the first question should always be — is this action 
 right — then, if it must be decided by the individual by the use 
 of a faculty which God has given him therefor, he will probably 
 reach such a decision as such God-given faculty may lead him 
 to. His standard or idea of right by which he is to decide will 
 probably be such as this same God-given faculty, educationally 
 biased, may cause him to conceive to be the true one. Un- 
 less he could, independently of his antecedents and environ- 
 ment, determine for himself his entire constitution and the 
 results of his education, he could not reasonably be held 
 accountable for the correctness of his decision, even if made 
 before the mind was "harrassed by contending emotions." 
 The same God who gave him the faculty to decide has probably 
 also given him the tendency to withhold the decision until 
 the mind is harrassed by contending emotions, to which, or to 
 the objects of which, he may also have a God-given tendency. 
 Upon the relative or comparative force of these tendencies 
 depends the- question whether he will decide this quest/on 
 before the mind is so harrassed. Unless the person is account- 
 able for his constitution and education, for his natural tenden- 
 cies and their relative force, as well as for the faculty to decide 
 and its character, he cannot reasonably be held accountable for 
 the correctness with which he decides this question, nor indeed 
 for not deciding it at all. In reason, if we do 7iot use this 
 ficulty we are neither false to ourselves nor inexcusable before 
 God. 1 do not pretend to say what may or may not be. I am 
 merely considering the reasonableness of the doctrine of an 
 alleged Moral Philosophy, which is based upon an alleged free 
 agency of man. 
 
 If man is indeed free, philosophy is sadly inadequate to the 
 task of making the fact appear reasonable. It deals largely and 
 
SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 43 1 
 
 learnedly with what it calls passions. These are simply natu- 
 ral tendencies, perhaps unduly intensified or aggravated. An 
 infinitely powerful, wise, and good Creator has implanted them 
 in the nature of every individual created. We learn to regard 
 some of them good, others bad. These are mere provincial and 
 conventional ideas. We know that according to their predomi- 
 nance they impel us to this or that character of action, or 
 restrain us. Until we learn how we will regard them we do 
 not regard them at all, nor cognize them. What we learn of 
 the way in which to regard them is a matter over which we 
 have no control. It depends entirely upon the mental capacity 
 and natural tendency divinely given us, as affected by our edu- 
 cational bias, one result of our environment. No one can 
 reasonably be held accountable for these or for either of them. 
 Man is helplessly, and, so far as personal accountability is con- 
 cerned, hopelessly a creature of a Power so far above his capac- 
 ity to comprehend that he cannot even imagine the capacity 
 that could intelligently conceive of such Power. 
 
 Whoever looks within finds himself constituted thus and 
 so, and if he looks vvithout he finds himself environed thus and 
 so. Constitution and environment are the potent factors in the 
 development of whatever there is of personal character. No 
 one can determine for himself, independently of them, what 
 his character shall be; at least no one is known to have done 
 so. If the tendency to good is stronger than the tendency to 
 evil, and if circumstances are propitious, the individual may be 
 fortunate, he may develop what is considered a good charac- 
 ter. Otherwise he will not, and it may reasonably be said he 
 cannot. The strongest of his divinely given tendencies will 
 certainly sway him, and if the counter tendency is too weak to 
 resist this he cannot overcome or withstand it. It cannot 
 reasonably be said that he ought unless he can. Capacity is 
 Reason's measure of duty. Whoever intelligently looks within 
 and without himself cannot reasonably regard himself free. 
 
 The Philosopher admonishes us to "Let the question, Is this 
 right — be asked first, before imagination has set before us the 
 seductions of pleasure, or any step has been taken which should 
 pledge our consistency of character." This might require some 
 
432 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 celerity of mental movement. The imagination which can go 
 from the Pleiades to the Southern Cross in the twinkling of an 
 eye has some speed. If the action whose rectitude is to be 
 questioned is expected to be attended or followed by pleasure, 
 the thought of the pleasure characterizing and distinguishing 
 the action will necessarily be in the mind as soon as the thought 
 of the action. It will be impossible to think the action distinctly 
 from other actions without at the same time thinking the 
 pleasure by which it is characterized and distinguished. The 
 quality of the action as pleasant or painful must be thought at 
 least as early as the mind can inquire as to its so-called moral 
 character. And its character as to right and wrong will make 
 the action pleasant or painful to the person contemplating it, 
 according as he is constituted and educated. Either pain or 
 pleasure may result from actions without it being necessary 
 that the specific pain or pleasure so to result be thought when 
 the action is thought. In such cases the pain or pleasure is 
 generally contingent, or perhaps more accurately speaking, 
 remotely consequent. Where the action itself is, or is expected 
 to be, either pleasant or painful, or immediately productive of 
 pain or pleasure, such quality is generally the first feature of it 
 beheld by the mind which thinks it. No conscience can be 
 brisk enough to get in its inquiry as to the rectitude of the 
 action "before imagination has set before us the seductions of 
 pleasure." When the rectitude of the action is in question it 
 must be because in some respect it is desirable, while in some 
 other respect it is objectionable, — it or its expected consequen- 
 ces. No one can ask himself the question — is this action right 
 — without being fust moved to contemplate or think the 
 action. Should it be an action to which the seductions of 
 pleasure may incite, it will generally be found that the idea of 
 such pleasure has prompted the contemplation of it, — certainly 
 if the person has really contemplated its performance. To hold 
 otherwise is to insist that the person aimlessly contemplates 
 vapid vacuity. In teaching and promulgating moral philosophy 
 for the culture of the human mind and consequent ennobling 
 of character, the principles of psychology and the possibilities 
 of mental manipulations should not be entirely ignored. Liter- 
 
SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 433 
 
 ature abounds in exhortations to a supposed moral duty, and 
 in so-calied moral precepts, many of which seem to be calcu- 
 lated to make men better, and which if they were more gener 
 ally heeded might be conducive to human happiness. The 
 difficulty with them is the attempt that is made to enforce them 
 on the authority of Reason. They are expressions of the doc- 
 trines and demands of the various Religions. Their promulga 
 tors, in the capacities of professors of various alleged Sciences, 
 and learned literary men of leisure, no less than the avowed 
 sectarian Apologists, attempt to entorce on supposed principles 
 of Reason, doctrines which they cannot even state so intelligi- 
 bly as that they may be understood in any reasonable applica- 
 tion of them; doctrines which it is apparent from their discus- 
 sions of them, they do not themselves understand. Indeed a 
 religion once understood would be no religion. A religion 
 without a mystery is psychologically impossible. Reason can- 
 not reasonably be invoked for the verification of anything not un- 
 derstood. The genuine or supposed principles of reason can- 
 not be intelligently or reasonably invoked or applied in the 
 verification of anything which is not at the time intelligently 
 comprehensible and comprehended by the mind attempting to 
 make the application. 
 
 The idea of Apologetics is not only unreasonable; it is incon- 
 sistent with itself and hopelessly illogical. Moral Philosophy 
 (Apologetics) generally begins with the assertion of a mystery; 
 the existence of a Power to which man is said to be accounta- 
 ble for his actions. This is generally followed with the postu- 
 late of the immortality of man, his future life of bliss or woe 
 according to the account he finally renders to such Power. ,The 
 existence, nature and attributes of such Power are absolute 
 mysteries. Man's relation to such Power must also be an 
 absolute mystery, for no mind can conceive the relation existing 
 or supposed to exist between a known and an unknown quan- 
 tity. In order that there may be a relation at all there must be 
 two objects related to each other, or one of which must be 
 related to the other. The relation must depend upon the 
 nature of each of them. It must be such a relation as the 
 nature of each object renders possible between them, or possi- 
 
434 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ble for one of them to bear to the other. If the nature of one 
 of the objects is unknown we may still believe that some kind 
 of relation may exist between them, or that the one whose 
 nature we think we know bears some kind of relation to the 
 other. We may know the existence (perhaps not the nature) 
 of one of the objects, and imagine the existence of the other, 
 and then imagine a relation between them, or a relation of the 
 known object to the unknown object. This is precisely what 
 Apologetics does, and all its alleged reasoning is conducted on 
 this plan. It would be greatly incensed at such an estimate of 
 its achievements, but in view of its pretensions and arrogance 
 the estimate is a charitable one. When Apologetics has learn- 
 edly postulated the existence of the unknown Object whose 
 nature is not only unknown but inconceivable, it then posits 
 man's relation to such Object, which relation must be as 
 unknown and as inconceivable as the nature of the unknown 
 Object. It then proceeds with more learning than wisdom to 
 explain this absolute mystery in terms of an alleged knowledge 
 consisting of inferences illogically drawn from unreasonable 
 assumptions. 
 
 That there may be any reason or logic in any so-called 
 moral philosophy, and this without reference to its data or 
 processes, the free agency or free will of man is indispensable. 
 To establish this the argument should be such that the mind 
 will not necessarily revolt at it. The spiritual physician should 
 know not only the chemical qualities of his nostrum, he should 
 know something of the pathology of his patients. He should 
 know that Mind is a condition of matter, and that Will is one 
 of the phases or functions or manifestations of Mind. That 
 Will, then, is a phase or function or manifestation of the condi- 
 tion or state of the nerve substance (matter) in which Mind is 
 supposed to abide, where its acts and impressions are regis- 
 tered, and by means of or through which it asserts itself He 
 should know that a specific psychical state is the net result 
 of the effect of something external upon the internal organiza- 
 tion of nerve substance, the totality of the condition or state ot 
 which constitutes Mind; and that Will is an activity of Mind 
 arising frorn some such specific psychical state. 
 
 I 
 
SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 435 
 
 The organization of nerve substance, as to its susceptibility 
 and otherwise, is a matter over which the individual has no 
 control or influence, it mav be so organized and constituted 
 as to be in this way or that way susceptible to the external 
 which in some manner affects it. Heredity, which is the trans- 
 mission to it of the effects of ancestral experiences, by determ- 
 ining the manner of its organization also prescribes the manner 
 in which the nerve substance shall be affected by this or that 
 external; and environment determines the particular externals 
 which shall affect it. In the. production of the specific psychical 
 state which gives rise to the particular activity of the Mind 
 which is called Will, the individual is merely a spectator; how- 
 ever deeply concerned he may be, he has no part in the per- 
 formance proper. - He does not act, he is merely acted upon. 
 It cannot reasonably be said that he is free, or that he wills. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that the question here is not the 
 real truth or untruth of the postulate of free agency or free will, 
 but the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the alleged argu- 
 ments of Apologetics, the so-called moral philosophy. So far 
 as the human mind is concerned, the question of freedom or 
 fatalism need never be raised, because it can never be intelli- 
 gently decided. No human mind can possibly rise to a con- 
 ception of anything which it can imagine as an intelligible solu- 
 tion of it. Materialism, which is only a more scholastic name 
 for fatalism, or which at least includes fatalism, proceeds with 
 perfect logic from unquestionable data to the conclusion that 
 there is really no free will, Yet almost every step in this 
 process contradicts this conclusion, and this conclusion even 
 contradicts itself, in the essential implication that the mind is 
 free to choose between it and the dogma of free will. 
 
 I said above that Apologetics is not only unreasonable, but 
 also illogical. To attempt to enforce a religion or morality by 
 reasoning is to admit its need of support. It is to admit (or 
 rather to assert) that the divine authority for it may be made 
 intelligible to the mind, and thus be divested of the mystery 
 without which no mind will hold it in reverence, to say nothing 
 of religious awe. It is to place an alleged inconceivably good 
 and wise and powerful Creator in the attitude of a suitor at the 
 
436 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 feet of his admittedly evil, ignorant, and impotent creatures, 
 begging credence for a doubtful authority, which is rendered 
 more suspicious by that act. It is to claim for religion and 
 morality an affinity with Science, which affinity science does 
 not assume to deny, but modestly admits cannot exist, because 
 religion and morality, if they are valid, are infinitely above and 
 beyond the range of its research. This is not all nor the worst. 
 It is to commit the doctrinaire of the religion and morality to 
 the validity of principles which, if reasonably applied, are utterly 
 subsersive of all claim of validity in the so-called moral philoso- 
 phy. A leading scientist says, "A small difference in the pig- 
 ment of a sense, by giving that sense greater susceptibility, 
 may determine the animal's preferences, tastes, and pursuits; 
 in other words, its whole destiny. In a human being the cir- 
 cumstance of being acutely sensitive in one or two leading 
 senses, may rule the entire character — intellectual and moral. 
 The contrast between a sensuous and a reflective nature might 
 take its rise in the outworks of the sense organs, apart even from 
 the endowments of the brain. In this case the nervous system 
 would follow the cue, instead of taking the lead, of the special 
 senses. * * * The mind is completely at the mercy of the 
 bodily condition ; there is no trace of a separate, independent, 
 self-supporting spiritual agent, rising above all the fluctuations 
 of the bodily frame." What these fluctuations of the bodily 
 frame shall be or entail, is as little within our personal control 
 as the construction of our bodily frame. A slight difference in 
 the inherited pigment of a sense may render them fluctuations 
 of this or of that character, may give rise to this or that inter- 
 pretation of the phenomena encountered by the sense organs. 
 
 The same scientist further says, "When to the simple instincts 
 of organic life we add the higher instincts, including our feel- 
 ings, and their embodiment in our voluntary powers, and even 
 in our intelligence, the number is enlarged on a scale corre- 
 sponding with the acquired aptitudes; and the new theory is 
 that all these higher instincts are hereditary, or transmitted 
 experiences." And again, "the Will consists mainly in follow- 
 ing the lead of pleasure and drawing back from the touch of 
 pain." If we inherit the higher instincts, by which the ideas 
 
SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 437 
 
 of pleasure and pain are gauged, and if a small difference in 
 the inherited pigment of an inherited sense may determine our 
 preferences and tastes, reason would revolt at the idea of 
 accountability for the consequences of any act to which one 
 may be disposed by such inherited preferences and tastes. If 
 the circumstance of being acutely sensitive in one or two lead- 
 ing senses may rule the entire character, intellectual and moral, 
 there is in reason no such thing as personal accountability for 
 character, nor for the acts by which character is usually esti- 
 mated. 
 
 The moral philosopher tacitly asserts that ''conscience is a 
 growth," that it is itself a feeling, emotion, or impulse of 
 empirical origin; and not a primary principle or unerring 
 guide or monitor in morals. He says it may be corrupted, 
 abused, and stifled. And "that it is only by cultivating the 
 practical supremacy of conscience over every other impiihe 
 that you can attain to that bold, simple, manly, elevated char- 
 acter which is essential to true greatness." If, as science 
 maintains, the mind is completely at the mercy of the bodily 
 condition — if there is no trace of a separate, independent, self- 
 supporting spiritual agent, rising above all the fluctuations of 
 the bodily frame, then whatever there is of conscience must be 
 a growth, like all other mental acquisitions. It may be a highly 
 cultured sense of discrimination between right and wrong. It 
 may be a zealous advocate of the right and a devout monitor 
 against the wrong. But if morality and religion claim akin to 
 science, they must admit that this depends upon a possible 
 difference in the inherited pigment of an inherited sense, and 
 this is to admit away their whole case. That the practical su- 
 premacy of conscience over every other impusle should be culti- 
 vated in order to attain to the "bold, simple, manly elevated 
 character, which is essential to true greatness" — rather, which 
 is itself true greatness — is simply a declaration that it is one's 
 duty to do his duty. But if one is handicapped with inherited 
 senses, preferences, and tastes, reason would scarcely hold him 
 accountable if he were thereby prevented from cultivating the 
 practical supremacy of conscience over every other impulse. 
 
4^8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 The reasonable, or rather the essential deductions from some 
 of the postulates of science are to the effect that conscience is at 
 most, only a refined or sanctimonious selfishness; and that its 
 distinctions between right and wrong are provincial and con- 
 ventional. The science to which religion and morality attempt 
 to cling discovers in different communities and among different 
 individuals contradictory consciences. When the Moral Philoso- 
 pher attempts to set up a supreme or standard conscience to 
 which the local or individual conscience should conform, he 
 merely expresses the opinion .he has formed, as an essential, re- 
 sult of the inherited pigment of an inherited sense organ, which 
 may differ from that of persons of different consciences. The 
 authenticity of his standard will probably be like that of the 
 doctrine of those who have assumed to voice the alleged will 
 and wisdom of the Almighty. He may not be able to give any 
 sufficient reason why he, in preference to any other person, 
 should be empowered and entrusted to declare the supreme or 
 standard conscience; just as the inspired oracles of divine wis- 
 dom have given no reason for the divine selection of themselves 
 as the Spokesmen of the Almighty. The character and conduct 
 of some who have assumed to declare His alleged will and wis- 
 dom, imply that there was but little if any reasonable reason 
 for their being selected for so high and holy an office. If the 
 advocates of their doctrines, or of any specific conscience, at- 
 tempt by reasoning to convince mankind of the validity of such 
 doctrine, or of the superiority or supremacy of any specific con- 
 science, they necessarily appeal to the intellectual integrity of 
 their proposed proselytes. This intellectual integrity is, accord- 
 ing to the science to which religion and morality attempt to 
 cling, wholly fortuitous to the proposed proselytes, is "com- 
 pletely at the mercy of the bodily condition," is as various and 
 and variable as temperament and the differences of the pigment 
 of the senses. 
 
 I said above that the essential deductions of some of the 
 postulates of science are to the effect that conscience is at most 
 only a refined or sanctimonious selfishness. Some of the Moral 
 Philosophers are themselves committed to the validity of this 
 proposition. One of the most authoritative of them says, "the 
 
SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 439 
 
 moral faculty, considered as an active power of the mind, differs 
 essentially from all others hitherto enumerated. The least vio- 
 lation of its authority fills us with remorse. On the contrary, 
 the greater the sacrifices we make in obedience to its sugges- 
 tions, the greater are our satisfaction and triumph." Fear of 
 punishment (remorse), hope of reward (satisfaction and tri- 
 umph). The editor of Stewart's Philosophy, from which the 
 last above extract is taken, refers to Wayland's Elements, the 
 main subiectof the present chapter, in vindication of the propo- 
 sition. He also quotes the judgment of Socrates that the ' ' most 
 virtuous and just is also most happy, and the wicked and un- 
 just the most unhappy." This maybe true without necessarily 
 degrading virtue and justice to a mere means of acquiring happi- 
 ness and avoiding unhappiness. But to urge happiness as an 
 incentive to virtue and justice, and unhappiness as a deterrent 
 from vice and injustice, is certainly to appeal to man's baser in- 
 stincts, selfishness, hope of reward and fear of punishment. If 
 the supreme authority of conscience is enforced in rewards and 
 punishments, then barkening to its monitions is not virtue, but 
 policy. When Moral Philosophy teaches us that "the greater 
 the sacrifices we make in obedience to its suggestions, the greater 
 are our satisfaction and triumph," it teaches or attempts to teach 
 us to drive the best bargain possible in the disposition of our re- 
 sources. When it teaches us that "the least violation of its 
 authority fills us with remorse," it teaches or attempts to teach 
 us to shun the evil, the punishment (remorse) resulting from 
 such violation — it operates upon our fears. 
 
 Wherever either hope or fear is a factor in a purpose or a 
 motive the individual action is in reason, necessarily selfish. It 
 may not be impossible to imagine a man making a sacrifice for 
 which he knows that no adequate remunerafion of any kind is 
 possible, and strictly speaking no other can be a sacrifice, yet I 
 believe no one has ever made such sacrifice. Viewed in a rea- 
 sonable light the Christian redemption of mankind was not such 
 a sacrifice. The theory of it is that in divine justice all men 
 were eternally damned ; that one Man by a brief but bitter per- 
 secution and three days of death redeemed all men from eternal 
 death and damnation. The Redeemer immediately received 
 
440 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 His reward in promotion in Heaven, and He eternally receives 
 His eternally increasing reward in the gratitude and praises of 
 the eternally increasing hosts of the redeemed. The divine 
 justice requiring the eternal punishment of all mankind, is too 
 easily satisfied, and the reward for having satisfied it is too great, 
 for the redemption to be reasonably regarded as accomplished 
 by a sacrifice. If some one has voluntarily suffered death or 
 punishment instead of another, it has been because he felt that 
 the death or punishment of the other would be more grievous 
 to him than his own would be. 
 
 Any attempt to make either religion or morality appear rea- 
 sonable is not only illogical, it is irreverent. The highest pos- 
 sible human conception of justice cannot begin to comprehend 
 the alleged justice of the eternal damnation of all mankind, nor 
 of any of mankind, decreed before they were born for the alleged 
 guilt of their progenitors. If they were not so justly damned, 
 the mind can conceive of no reasonable occasion for their re- 
 demption in the blood of innocence. If they were so justly 
 damned the mind cannot conceive how such divine justice could 
 be satisfied with less than the full measure of pain that would 
 be endured by all mankind in outer darkness where there is 
 wailing and gnashing of teeth during all eternity. The mind 
 cannot conceive how one Man could suffer the actual equivalent 
 of all this anguish during a thirty-three years' sojourn upon 
 earth, even including three days of actual death. Unless the 
 actual suffering of the Redeemer during His earthly sojourn and 
 death, was actually equivalent to all the suffering that would 
 be endured by all mankind in damnation during all eternity, the 
 mind cannot conceive that divine justice is yet satisfied, or that 
 mankind is yei justly redeemed. 
 
 The mind cannot conceive that the eternal punishment oi 
 all mankind was demanded by divine justice, unless there was, 
 actually or potentially an ascertainable quantum or totality oi 
 the suffering to be endured by mankind in such punishment, 
 ascertainable perhaps only by divine wisdom. As the mind 
 cannot conceive that such quantum or totality of suffering was 
 actually endured or equivalented in the alleged redemption, it 
 reasonably follows that it must regard a great deal of it as not 
 
SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 441 
 
 yet endured or equivalented. So in reason divine justice is 
 not yet satisfied and mani<ind is not yet redeemed. The un- 
 endured and unequivalented suffering demanded by divine jus- 
 tice remains to be disposed of. Moral philosophers (apologists) 
 tell us that the demand tor this is cancelled in Mercy and upon 
 conditions. And here they throw every thing into confusion. 
 There is no mercy in reason, and no reason in mercy. While 
 the proportion of the actual suffering endured in the redemp- 
 tion, to that which divine justice demanded that mankind should 
 endure during eternity may be too minute for expression, yet 
 there must be such a proportion if there is a final quantum or 
 totality of each. As no suffering can be conceived to be un- 
 limited, all suffering must be conceived as limited to some 
 quantum or totality, which itself may be inexpressible, unde- 
 finable, or perhaps unthinkable definitely. Now if Reason had 
 a just demand for the endurance by all mankind of eternal suffer 
 ing in damnation, it would scarcely cancel its demand for the 
 infinitely greater portion of it, upon and in consideration of the 
 endurance by an innocent third person of the infinitely lesser 
 portion of it. 
 
 If Reason were, in mercy and upon conditions, about to 
 cancel its just demand for the endurance by mankind of the 
 infinitely greater portion of such suffering, it would in mercy 
 have cancelled its entire demand ; or at least, it would not have 
 required or permitted its demand for the endurance of the in- 
 finitely lesser portion of such suffering, to be satisfied in the 
 blood of an innocent third person. If the Redeemer is an in- 
 nocent third person, Reason revolts at the idea of His suffering 
 death to satisfy so small a portion of an entire demand, the in- 
 finitely greater residue of which is, in mercy and upon condi- 
 tions, forgiven. If He is not an innocent third person, but is a 
 part of or identical with the original Demandant Himself, Rea- 
 son would still more revolt at the idea of a Creditor paying him- 
 self in his own suffering and death so small a portion of his just 
 demand, and forgiving the infinitely greater residue. 
 
 The conditions upon which the divine demand for the en- 
 durance by mankind during eternity of the infinitely greater por- 
 tion of the suffering is forgiven, are, judging from the dogmas 
 
442 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 and data of Religion, and the doctrines of the science to whose 
 skirts religion attempts to cling, such as may reasonably be ex- 
 pected to render the forgiveness in most instances unavailing. 
 Not only is behavior prescribed, but belief in unreasonable 
 propositions is enjoined. On pain of eternal punishment man 
 must not only do as he is bid, he must believe as he is bid. If 
 there is valid authority for this, it must be divine authoritv. If 
 there is divine authority for it, it has no affinity for nor anything 
 in common with Reason. It is as far above reason as heaven 
 is above earth — as the Almighty is above man. 
 
 No one can reasonably believe that he was justly under con- 
 demnation witht)ut having voluntarilv offended. No one can 
 reasonably believe that the iniquities of the fathers are justly 
 visited upon the children. No one can reasonably believe that 
 justice demands his eternal punishment for any offence what- 
 ever. No one can reasonably believe that a just demand for 
 the eternal punishment of all men can be justly satisfied in the 
 temporary punishment of one Man. No one can reasonably 
 believe that there was any justice in the divine demand for his 
 own eternal punishment, if, by a mere change of opinion as to 
 the merit of a certain doctrine, and by affecting a devotion to its 
 Author, he can escape such punishment and secure eternal happi- 
 ness. That would be the cancellation of too great a debt, and 
 giving too great a reward to be reasonable. 
 
 If specific belief is an essential part of religious duty. Religion 
 should cut the acquaintance of science as soon as possible. 
 Science says, "the secret of certain aptitudes, — of such or such 
 a native predisposition, is naturally derived from a preponder- 
 ance of such or such a group of sensorial impressions, which 
 find in the regions of psychical activity in which they are par- 
 ticularly elaborated a soil ready prepared, which amplifies and 
 perfects them according to the richness and degree of vitality 
 of the elements placed at their disposal." Man's real belief will 
 be just such as his aptitudes — his native predisposition — enable, 
 compel, or permit him to extract from the data of his conscious 
 existence and the facts he lives amidst. The unreasonableness 
 of requiring specific belief is aggravated in the manner in which 
 the requirement is generally urged. Without sincerity there is 
 
SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY. 44 5 
 
 no real belief. A nervous system constructed on a certain plan, 
 and predisposed in a certain way by inherited instincts — trans- 
 mitted experiences — is susceptible to impressions. The indi- 
 vidual cannot from among the infinite externals choose for him- 
 self those which shall be presented to his sensuous faculty, nor 
 can he determine the impressions they shall make. "A small 
 difference in the pigment of a sense " may determine his whole 
 destiny, it "may rule the entire character — intellectual and 
 moral." An external presented to his sensuous faculty may be 
 the argument of a so-called moral philosopher, the doctrine of 
 an alleged religion. He is placed in a dilemma. He must 
 admit the validity of the science which teaches him that his 
 aptitudes and susceptibilities are inherited and hence beyond his 
 control, because the religion which is after him claims akin to 
 this very science. Yet, although he is helpless to control his 
 aptitudes and susceptibilities, and cannot determine the impres- 
 sions to be made, he must determine that the impressions made 
 by this particular external so presented, shall aggregate in a 
 belief in the validity of its doctrine. He must suppress the 
 aptitudes, instincts, and native predispositions which this very 
 religion (by clinging to the science which says so) says will 
 rule his whole destiny. By such means he is to arrive at 
 belief. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF FAUST. 
 
 The Tragedy Sixty Years in incubation — Tlie Pliilosophy Tal<es all Purpose Out 
 of Religion — Nothing can be Thought as Self- Limited — Duality of Man's 
 Nature, as Incomprehensible as the Trinality of God's Nature — Parallel 
 Between Faust and Job, Both were mere Chattels — Satan Imposed on in 
 Both Transactions — Divine Jugglery — No Possible Occasion for More than 
 One Compact in the Tragedy — Faust's Sudden Transition from Philosopher 
 to Rake — No Duty without Freedom — Von ihering's View ot Shylock's 
 Claim — Dissimulation is Dishonest in any Cause — ^Justice Required Faust to 
 Refuse Salvation — Abstract Principles Cannot be Personified in Tragedy. 
 
 The American Editor of a Tragedy reputed to be the " Liter- 
 ary masterpiece of modern times" declares that " Faust is rep- 
 resented as saved by no merit of his own, but by the interest 
 which Heaven has in every soul in which there is the possibility 
 of a heavenly life." That his Author "had the penetration to 
 see and he meant to show, that the notion implied in the old 
 popular superstition of selling one's soul to the Devil; the notion 
 that evil can obtain the entire and final possession of the soul is 
 a fallacy; that the soul is not man's to dispose of, and cannot 
 be so traded away. We are the soul's, and not the soul ours. 
 Evil is self-limited, the good in man must finally prevail. So 
 long as he strives he is not lost. Heaven will come to the aid 
 of his better nature. This is the philosophy of Faust." 
 
 If there was no doubt as to the philosophic purport of the 
 Tragedy these declarations imply a doubt and profess to remove 
 it. The Editor's name is decorated with a D. D. and he has 
 written some alleged philosophy. But instead of dispelling the 
 doubt as to the philosophy of the tragedy, he has only darkened 
 the doubt as to his own conception or it. A tragedy which 
 was sixty years in process of incubation cannot be said to have 
 been very inconsiderately dashed off. One so far (as Faust) out 
 of the usual range of tragedy, was probably intended to import 
 a moral philosophy, a mild type of religious apologetics. 
 
 If the philosophy is accurately stated by the Editor, the .M 
 
 Tragedy may be called the masterpiece of modern philosophic ^ 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF FAUST. 445 
 
 nonsense more appropriately than the literary masterpiece ot 
 modern time. 
 
 Whatever is necessarily implied in a declaration, is as legiti- 
 mately a part of it as if it were expressed. That one is saved 
 by no merit of his own, but by the interest which Heaven has 
 in every soul in which there is the possibility of a heavenly life, 
 implies that some souls have not such possibility, and that no 
 man need concern himself with his soul's salvation. Man need 
 not strive, for by no merit of his own can he be saved. His 
 soul may be devoid of the Heavenly possibility, in which case 
 he certainly need not strive. If it contains such possibility it 
 will be saved solely by the interest which Heaven has in it, and 
 strife were superfluous. 
 
 That some souls are inevitably lost, is implied in the declara- 
 tion that some are saved solely by the interest which Heaven 
 has in them, by reason of their having in them the heavenly pos- 
 sibility. If all souls contained such possibility then the heavenly 
 interest in them would render salvation absolutely certain and 
 universal, and moral philosophy, so far as promoting the safety 
 of souls is concerned, would be a superfluity. There could then 
 be no purpose in religion. Genius would be obliged to seek 
 some other outlet or occasion for its excrescences. 
 
 Should philosophy devise some means of distinguishing 
 souls in which there is, from souls in which there is not such 
 possibility, it might make a decisive, though melancholy move 
 toward the applicability of its doctrine. It could thus bring 
 itself into worse repute than it now is, because those in whose 
 souls it should find there is no such possibility would reject 
 it, while it would enervate those in whose souls it should find 
 there was such possibility. Men would shrink from the doc- 
 trine which damns them for the want of a quality which they 
 cannot supply; they are not apt to strive for that of which 
 Heaven has already assured them the realization. Until such 
 philosophy does devise some means of such distinction, it is 
 entirely without meaning to all men, and then it could have no 
 other effect than that just stated. 
 
 If the soul is not man's to dispose of he cannot possibly lose 
 it, but must submit to salvation from the interest which Heaven 
 
446 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 has in his soul if it is worth saving — he is equally helpless to 
 save it, and must submit to perdition from the absence of such 
 interest if it should be devoid of such possibility. The extent 
 of his responsibility for the presence or absence of such possi- 
 bility is not declared; but the implication is that there is no 
 such responsibility if he is not to be saved by any merit of his 
 own. Without responsibility there can be no purpose in moral 
 philosophy. That there is no responsibility is implied in the 
 declaration that the soul is not man's to dispose of and cannot 
 be traded away. If by his conduct he divests his soul of such 
 possibility, so that Heaven loses the interest in it to save it for 
 him, he disposes of his soul, trades or perhaps throws it awav. 
 If all souls once contain such possibility and are not man's to 
 dispose of, and cannot be so traded away, then none can be di- 
 vested by man of such possibility; and salvation without refer- 
 ence to man's conduct is absolutely inevitable and universal, and 
 moral philosophy is without a purpose. If some souls do while 
 others never contain such possibility, then for reasons above 
 given moral philosophy is still without a purpose, unless it can 
 distinguish between them; in which case it would, as above 
 shown, become a sort of prognosticator, ominous and incredible 
 to some, and enervating if believed by others. 
 
 If men able to do otherwise should divest their souls of such 
 possibilitv, they would lose them by demerit of their own. If 
 others able to do otherwise should maintain in their souls such 
 possibility they would save them by merit of their own. If the 
 conduct is of no effect to destroy or maintain such possibility, 
 then moral philosophy is without meaning, so far as the salva- 
 tion of the soul is concerned. If the conduct has effect to de- 
 stroy or maintain such possibility, then the salvation of the soul 
 depends upon the conduct, and man is saved by his own merit, 
 or damned by his own demerit. If with all the good one can 
 do he is still unworthy, and must plead the pangs of Another 
 who has atoned (to Himself) for him, it is still a merit to avail 
 himself of such vicarious atonement. There is some merit in 
 appreciation of and gratitude for favors; there is more in the 
 disposition to make them as available as possible for the pur- 
 poses for which they may be bestowed. If one lays down his 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF FAUST. 447 
 
 life for the salvation of all, then every one who avails himself of 
 the sacrifice cooperates pro taiito in the promotion of the gen- 
 eral cause in which the sacrifice is made. This is merit. Every 
 one who wilfully renders the sacrifice of no avail for himself 
 obstructs pro tanto the promotion of the general cause in which 
 the sacrifice is made. This is demerit. 
 
 Philosophers owe it to their readers to give the data upon 
 which they base the distinction between man and the soul. 
 They speak complacently enough of them as distinct entities, 
 of one as belonging to the other. While they disagree as to the 
 ownership, they mostly agree as to the survivorship. Demon 
 may have been a name by which Socrates meant to figuratively 
 personify his conscience. Modern investigation implies that 
 conscience is a mere physical condition mechanically caused. 
 It is said to be the reason employed about questions of right 
 and wrong, and accompanied by the sentiments of approbation 
 and condemnation. That it signifies our consciousness of hav- 
 ing acted agreeably or contrary to the dictates of a moral faculty. 
 That moral sensibility is a purely physiological synthesis of all 
 our nervous activities. That all our feelings and emotions are 
 mechanically caused. 
 
 That which from the earliest history of philosophy has con- 
 stantly admonished man what he ought and ought not, and has 
 been regarded a distinct entitv with a mysterious individuality of 
 its own, though still performing the same function in the same 
 manner, is now by Science completely divested of its demoniacal 
 dignity, and reduced to a mere physiological synthesis of our 
 nervous activities, a mere physical condition, mechanically 
 caused. If Science has wrought this ruin of the Socratic Demon 
 which was never entirely absent from any human intelligence, 
 what may we not expect if it should fairly encounter the fugitive 
 evanescence called the soul. 
 
 The definitions of soul are as dubious and unintelligible as 
 the above quoted propositions that evil is self-limited; that the 
 good in man must finally prevail; and that Heaven will come to 
 the aid of his better nature. No mind can conceive how any- 
 thing can be self-limited. Whatever is thought as limited, must 
 be thought as limited by something without and beyond itself. 
 
448 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 To be self-limited, a thing must be outside of and be3'ond itself, 
 it must be the thing adjoining and setting bounds to itself, 
 which is absurd. Self imposed limits are unthinkable. The 
 duality of man's nature is implied in the proposition that the 
 good in him must finally prevail; also in the proposition that 
 Heaven will come to the aid of his better nature. This is as 
 incomprehensible as the trinality of the nature or person of the 
 Almighty. If the good in man must finally prevail, the impli- 
 cation is that it must prevail over the bad in him. Most men 
 believing they have souls in jeopardy would be glad to be per- 
 fectly assured of this. If the good in man must finally prevail, 
 there must be a strife going on within him between the good 
 and the bad. Both then must be present within him, and if 
 the good must finally prevail, the result is predetermined and 
 the strife is worse than idle. 
 
 If Heaven will come to the aid of his better nature the impli- 
 cation is that it will aid his better in a strife with his worse 
 nature. His worse nature then must be the stronger of the two, 
 or there could be no need of the heavenly aid. If man is of this 
 dual nature it must be because Heaven has made him so. If 
 the better needs the aid of Heaven in its strife with the worse 
 nature, it must be because Heaven has made the worse the 
 stronger of the two natures. Reason would never have accused 
 Heaven of this. It were better economy had Heaven endowed 
 man solely with a good nature, or, if there could no good ex- 
 cept in contrast with a bad nature, then to have made the good 
 the stronger. But moral philosophy finds this strife raging in 
 man, and the issue is his soul's salvation or damnation, or rather 
 that of the soul to which he belongs, for " we are the soul's, 
 and not the soul ours." Man who belongs to the soul must 
 strive to save his owner, although it cannot be saved by any 
 merit of his, and although the result is already determined. The 
 duty is imposed in terms hopelessly unintelligible, and analysis 
 and investigation lead to palpable absurdity. 
 
 It is impossible to conceive of man as double. His tenden- 
 cies may be various, depending upon his physical constitution, 
 his education, and external circumstances. They may be good 
 or bad, but not indifferent. Indifference is no tendency. They 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF FAUST. 449 
 
 cannot be actively both good and bad ; so for only as one of 
 two opposite tendencies exceeds the other can there be strictly 
 a tendency. So far as they are equal thev neutralize each other. 
 The mind cannot conceive of tendencies, as such and so classi- 
 fied in man, as to constitute in him several distinct entities or 
 natures. Whatever the soul may be. the mind cannot conceive 
 of it as other or more than a condition or state. The mind can- 
 not give it substantiality because it cannot be located, nor form 
 because this implies substance. Perhaps as intelligible a defi- 
 nition as can be given is to call it by another name — mind. 
 Definition is mainly statement of synonyms. It is learnedly de- 
 fined as "the animating, separable, and surviving entity, the 
 vehicle of the individual personal existence;" and "the spiritual, 
 rational, and immortal part in man; that part which enables 
 him to think, and which renders him a subject of moral govern- 
 ment." These definitions give little or no insight into the 
 mystery of the nature of soul. We may as well recur to the 
 no-deflnition above given — mind ; and admit, as logically we 
 must, that whatever cannot be known cannot be very intelli- 
 gibly defined. We may take the ground common to Science 
 and most religions, that soul is mind, and proceed with the ex- 
 amination of the alleged philosophy of the great German itera- 
 tion of the Tragedy of Job. 
 
 The American Editor disclaims for his Author all intent " to 
 travesty or degrade that venerable poem." The main difference 
 between the two poems in one thing essential to each, is in the 
 anguish endured bv their respective subjects of the divino- 
 diabolic compacts, the ancient and modern wagers of the 
 Almighty with the Devil. Job's pain seems to have been 
 mostly physical, Faust's almost wholly moral or mental. But 
 the ruthless ravages of science have obliterated this distinction. 
 Wherever a feverish flincy erects its fantastical fret-work, 
 Science, which verily goeth about as a roaring lion, may be 
 found plying its fangs. It is touching to behold the frenzy of 
 Apologetics to show how its faith is authenticated, instead of 
 shown to be unreasonable by the cool and candid investigations 
 of science. Religion, to have any validity as such must rise 
 above reason. If all our feelings and emotions are mechanic- 
 
450 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ally caused, then the so-called moral or mental pain must be 
 mechanically caused. Possibly science itself is too sweeping 
 and comprehensive in its declaration that our feelings and 
 emotions are all mechanically caused. It were sufficient for it to 
 say that all our feelings and emotions that can be accounted for 
 are so caused. It is difficult to conceive how a mechanical 
 cause can produce an effect on any thing outside the domain 
 of physical substance. 'If science is correct in its declaration, 
 then mental and moral pain are mere physiological conditions 
 of nerve substance, because mechanical causes must operate on 
 physical su'bstance or not at all. 
 
 The important feature of each piece is the wager of Heaven 
 with Hell upon the fidelity and fortitude of a Creature, ignorant 
 of the fact that they are so deeply concerned in him. But back 
 of all compact and conventional wager is the omnipotence of 
 one of the parties against the necessarily limited capacity of the 
 other. When the Lord professed to give Mephistopheles liberty 
 to act without control. He knew just what he was doing; He 
 was, to use a homely expression, betting on a sure thing. 
 There could be no wager in it. The so-called compact had no 
 meaning. Omnipotence was able to sustain the subject of the 
 alleged wager against all the wiles of the Devil, and indeed to 
 prescribe beforehand just what and how effective such wiles 
 should be. It is impossible to imagine that the Lord and 
 Mephistopheles were both possessed of infinite power. Their 
 respective powers are supposed to have been antagonistic to 
 each other, and two such rival poweis cannot be conceived to 
 be both infinite. Then when the All-wise, inflnitelv powerful 
 and just God was professing to give Mephistopheles a carte 
 blanch. He knew just how it must result in the discomfiture of 
 the Devil, upon whom he was merely playing a trick. Reason 
 would never have accused the Lord of this. Nor would it ever 
 have expected a divine Creator of M things, with infinite wis- 
 dom, goodness and power, to have to brook the eternal and 
 infernal rivalry of one of His own creatures for the favor, duty, 
 or allegiance of another of them. 
 
 If Faust was reallv dear to the Lord, He would never have 
 entrusted him to the infinite and uncontrollable power of a Devil 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF FAUST. 45 I 
 
 bent on effecting his ruin. He meant to protect him in the 
 emergency, and if He really knew that He could do so, then He 
 never really entrusted Faust to the Devil at all ; and the alleged 
 compact or conventional wager was divine nonsense, jugglery 
 and deceit. 
 
 The third party, the subject of the alleged compact, the 
 modernized and Germanized Job, who had" Alas, Philosophy, 
 Medicine, and Jurisprudence too, and to his cost, Theology," 
 the alleged free agent, siii generis and siti juris, is, without 
 being consulted, made the subject of the solemn banter between 
 the Lord and the .Devil, and bartered to damnation at a hazard 
 upon his own God-given constancy. Reason would never 
 have expected either Job or Faust to voluntarily take the part 
 assigned him in the terrible farce, merely to vindicate an idle 
 boast of the Almighty of His creature's fortitude and faith, made 
 in ill-timed repartee with the Devil. If Faust was really free 
 he ought not to have been made an involuntary actor in such a 
 tragedy. He should have been a party to the compact by the 
 terms of which he was to be the principal sufferer, and the re- 
 sult of which was to be either his soul's salvation or damnation. 
 And had he been consulted. Reason would not have expected 
 him to join in the compact without divine assurance of salva- 
 tion, in which case, both he and the Lord would have been 
 dealing dishonestly with the Devil. If in such case there was 
 a fair deal the Devil would probably have known there was 
 nothing in it for him, and Reason would not have expected him 
 to so sedulously persist in a hopeless venture. If Faust was not 
 free he ought not to have suffered even if the Devil had won his 
 wager with the Lord, and if the Lord were just with Faust there 
 could be nothing in the alleged wager for the Devil. In any 
 possible view of the case the Lord was either deceiving the 
 Devil, or idly and unjustly exposing his faithful servant to the 
 grossest injustice. Either justice or candor on the part of the 
 Lord would have spoiled two great tragedies, but it might have 
 saved some puerile philosophy. To represent the Almighty as 
 vaunting Himself and His work to the Devil (also His work) is 
 not likely to inspire sensible men with much respect for the 
 cause in which it is done. I can almost hear the enthusiast re- 
 
452 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 tort that the Tragedy is merely symbolic, and that its personnel 
 is merely the ideal personification of principles in the divine 
 economy of nature. So much the worse for its philosophy. 
 The reviewer in examining the principles of such philosophy 
 may, for the purpose of such examination, treat these personifi- 
 cations with the same deference to their suppositious individu- 
 ality, as the philosopher has himself treated them in propounding 
 his alleged philosophy. If abstract principles of good, justice, 
 utility, and economy are personilied or ideally represented in 
 the personnel, and ideally applied in the scenes of the tragedy, 
 and ideally vindicated in its denouement, then its alleged phi- 
 losophy is propounded and symbolicallv worked out to its phi- 
 losophical results in the supposed vindication of its philosophical 
 tenets, in testing the validity of its doctrine one must treat all 
 these paraphernalia of its presentation as the Philosopher has 
 himself treated them, so far at least as concerns their puppetry 
 in the play. If the ancient Faust legend was preposterous, the 
 modern Faust philosophy is puerile. 
 ^ Passing the incongruous mix of the inferno-supernatural 
 
 with the rustico-real, the philosophic colloquy of the Doctor 
 and his companion on their morning walk, the homage done him 
 by his fellow villagers as he passed them at their Easter festiv- 
 ities, the black hound circling him in ever narrowing spiral 
 curves as he sat conversing with his companion and following 
 him home at evening, there assuming the human form divine 
 and calling the mice to gnaw the threshold which mysticallv 
 detained him, and other maudlin mysticism; we come to the 
 compact between Mephistopheles and Faust. Here the enthus- 
 iast will triumphantly exclaim Faust is free. Disgruntled with 
 himself and all nature, he voluntarily engages with the Devil to 
 depart to the Abvss, that time mav be never more for him, if 
 Mephistopheles will ever bring him to a moment of life to which 
 he would say, "linger a while, so fair thou art." But pause a 
 moment. If this were reallv Faust's compact with Hell, why 
 was Mephistopheles so recently in Heaven negotiating the same 
 wager with the Lord } One of two things is inevitable. If 
 Faust was free and this was really his compact or wager with 
 Hell, then the infmite wisdom and power of the Lord was in- 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF FAUST. 453 
 
 finite ignorance and weakness, and He was infinitely vain in 
 pretending in the prologue in Heaven to give Mephistopheles the 
 privilege to lackey the Doctor through life for the desperate 
 chance of winning him to Hell at death. If the compact with 
 the Lord was effective, there could be no possible occasion for 
 the one with Faust. He was not free either to make or refuse 
 to make it. He was a mere chattel, and for all the purposes of 
 the tragedy, he had passed as by a bill of sale, to the control of 
 Mephistopheles by virtue of the compact consummated in the 
 prologue in Heaven. Mephistopheles was to gently lead him 
 as he chose; for so long as Man on earth doth live, so long it 
 was not forbidden, "man still must err, while he doth strive." 
 So the Doctor's compact with the Devil frills far short of show- 
 ing his free agency. If he must err he is not free to do right; 
 and his alleged compact was an idle ceremony. 
 
 It is strange that a doctor whose life was a devotion to 
 celibacy and science, who was always immured in his den of 
 dust and demonology, who barely deigned to receive the 
 homage of his fellow villagers as he passed them at their Easter 
 festivities, who worshipped only at the shrines of philosophy, 
 magic, and mysticism, should so suddenly become enamored 
 of a rustic Gretchen, so insanely infatuated that he was ready 
 to damn her soul and be whisked away to Hell if he could only 
 enjov her. Notwithstanding his philosophy, medicine, juris- 
 prudence and theology, his change from the erudite eremite to 
 the lascivious rake was as sudden and extreme as that of Mephis- 
 topheles from the black hound to the travelling scholar when 
 Faust inadvertently attempted to read from the Gospel accord- 
 ing to St. John. The Editor seems to be somewhat mixed in 
 his chronology. He says that by the compact between Faust 
 and Mephistopheles, Faust was not to read from that Gospel, 
 "hence the uneasiness of the dog." But the compact was not 
 made until some time after this uneasiness. Faust's first inter- 
 view with Mephistopheles as Mephistopheles was after having 
 scolded him as a dog for barking at his reading from that Gos- 
 pel. And notwithstanding Mephistopheles has engaged to 
 attend Faust through life and do his bidding in all things, for a 
 return of the service in kind afterward (Yonder), there are few 
 
454 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 scenes where they figure in the Tragedy in which Mephisto- 
 pheles is not the master. Wl^ile doing Faust's bidding he 
 ahnost invariably determines for him what the bidding shall be. 
 
 The tragedy is full of surprises and ever varying scene and 
 sentiment. The Doctor had inherited from his sire '"of good 
 repute and sombre mind." who "loved to brood o'er nature's 
 powers," a fiery passion for knowledge. Because he could not 
 comprehend all wisdom, art being long and life short, he seems 
 to have fancied himself scorned by the great spirit, his web of 
 thought was rent, and because he fancied the Lord knew more* 
 than it was within his power to learn, his thwarted ambition 
 spurred him to the very unphilosophical determination to be 
 revenged on — himself. He proposed to still his fiery passion 
 "in depths of sensual pleasure drowned." Mephistopheles pio- 
 poses to help him get even with himself. Henceforth he spurns 
 wisdom and joy, craves excitement, "agonizing bliss, enam- 
 ored hatred, quickening vexation." Even his infernal coadju- 
 tor is more conservative and rebukes his silly resolv'e to be 
 avenged on himself, by assuring him that no mortal "digests 
 this ancient leaven," and that consummate wisdom "Doth for 
 the Deity alone subsist." 
 
 It were idle to trace the tragedy through all its scenes, to 
 point out the occasional palpable hits and covert thrust at am- 
 bitious mediocrity, or even to allude to many of its allusions 
 which can have only a provincial significance. It sufficiently 
 destroys all claim of philosophic merit in the tragedy, to show 
 that // shoivs that man is not free. Without freedom duty is 
 void. Moral philosophy, propounded either in a poem or a 
 sermon, is utterly senseless unless it tends to enforce a duty. 
 If the Lord had never negotiated with Mephistopheles at all. 
 and if the compact between the latter and Faust was the only 
 one in force, Faust was still a mere chattel. He had in good 
 faith agreed as solemnly as he could to swap work with Hell. 
 He received the full measure of the consideration for which he 
 stipulated, and was divinely prevented from performing his 
 part. 'VA^'hen the three most important characters represented 
 in the tragedy are candidly examined, it will appear that with 
 all the devilish dissimulation and polite hatred of Mephisto- 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF FAUST. 455 
 
 pheles, he came nearer doing as he had agreed than either the 
 Lord or the disgruntled Doctor. The Lord deliberately deceiv- 
 ed the Devil from the start; the Doctor, having reached a mo- 
 ment of fancied happiness, expired and was mechanically pro- 
 ceeding to perform his part of the compact. But he was inter- 
 cepted and thwarted by the Lord's Angels who justify their in- 
 terference in the claim that Faust was in bad faith with the 
 Devil. They sing, "This member of the upper spheres, We 
 rescue from the Devil, For whoso strives and perseveres, May 
 be redeemed from evil." Had Faust been free, and honest in 
 his dealings with the Devil, he would not have striven, and the 
 Lord would not have had even that flimsy pretext for interfer- 
 ing. 
 
 An Austrian, Dr. Rudolph von Ihering, declares that Shy- 
 lock was unjustly dealt with by the Venetian Court. He cer- 
 tainly shows that he was deprived of a legal demand, by the 
 chicanery of a Tribunal whose solemn judicial duty it was to 
 enforce it. In the interest of humanity and before the foot- 
 lights the end may be sometimes made to appear to justify the 
 means. Philosophy, however, is not supposed to be concern- 
 ed with exceptional emergencies, nor can it adapt itself to vary- 
 ing emotions or pathetic situations. It supposes and deals with 
 principles, and dissimulation is no less dishonest because prac- 
 ticed against a Shylock or the Devil. Apologetics drives the 
 Lord to great straits when it compels Him to resort to subter- 
 fuge. It seems really to recognize the existence and persistence 
 of two opposing principles, the good and the evil. It vainly 
 attempts to personify them in its God and Devil. It degrades 
 its God to the level of its Devil in putting its divine comedy 
 upon the boards ; and it exalts its Devil to the altitude of its 
 God in the negotiations under which the various parts are 
 assigned to the several actors; and even above its God in point 
 of sincerity of purpose in the compact. It is ruinous to permit 
 the negotiations in the first place. It brings the Lord into bad 
 repute to be trafficking with the Devil concerning so precious a 
 property as the soul of man. If the soul of man is so valuable 
 to the Lord that He would give His only begotten Son a sacri- 
 fice to redeem it from His own just wrath, He ought to make 
 
4=)6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 no terms with Hell concerning it. He certainly ought not to 
 offer to gamble it away to the Devil when He is obliged to 
 cheat him at the game or lose the soul so redeemed and 
 wagered. 
 
 Philosophy may don the majestic mantle of the Muse, or peal 
 forth in the detonations of Tragedie"s Artillery, but it is not 
 likely to do so — it seldom does so. Poetic imagery is generally 
 too sentimental for cold blooded reasoning. The affectation 
 and insincerity manifest in most tragedy are not congenial to 
 philosophy. The relations of the actors to each other and to 
 the scenes in which they figure, and the general variety, to say 
 nothing of contrariety, requisite to engage attention and provoke 
 pathos, jar with the symmetrical arrangement of data and sober 
 and sensible deductions of philosophy. Some of the beauties 
 of poetry in Faust are peerless. The grandeur of some of the 
 thought is sublime. There are occasional expressions of sound 
 philosophic doctrine. These are all badly disjointed. The 
 tragedy is a wild and weird extravaganza, which, proposing to 
 demonstrate that "mortal that perishes types the ideal," be- 
 comes entirely too reckless of the consequences of many of its 
 own unqualified postulates and primary positions to be the sym- 
 metrical embodiment or faithful expression of anything like a 
 philosophic whole. When Faust curses Mephistopheles for in- 
 stigating him to the ruin of Margaret, he should remember that 
 as a free agent he had recently contracted to be "gently 
 led" by his illustrious convoy; and in the exercise of his own 
 unbiased judgment and ^lesthetical, not to say philosophical 
 taste, had deliberately yet passionately sought the gratification 
 of his lust, the acme of his aspirations in which he seemed 
 then to think" he was too terribly near. The scene is touch- 
 ing — tragic, but utterly devoid of semblance and relation to any 
 thing philosophic. To say that notwithstanding the excesses 
 to which he had given himself there yet lurked within him a 
 vestige of the principle of justice, or a trace of goodness, or a 
 spark of morality which could be fonned to a flame or religious 
 fervor, is nothing to the purpose. If true it is so much the worse 
 for the alleged philosophy. It only shows the folly of attempt- 
 ing to personify abstract principles. Under his contract with 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF FAUST. 457 
 
 Mephlstopheles, justice required him to go straight to his own 
 perdition. He had said Mephistopheles should have him the 
 moment he found joy. He had required Mephistopheles to pro- 
 cure for him the person of the peasant girl declaring it would be 
 his joy. Still, justice forbid him to ruin Margaret to compass 
 his infernal aim. The discord is too distracting for Philosophy. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 COMPARATIVE APOLOGETICS. 
 Comparison of Christianity and Buddhism Implies' Belief in Both- — Validity in- 
 correctly Based on Popularity — Superiority of Buddhism Implied in ihe 
 Argument — Both Systems Based on Idea of Universal Brotherhood of Man 
 — The Divine Economy Exhibited in Each System — But one True Religion 
 Possible — Incongruity of Principles Maintained as Essential to Each System 
 — Apologetics Puts the Almighty in the Wrong — False-worship an impossi- 
 bility — Absurdity of Illustration of Moral Principles in Physical Phenomena 
 — No one ever Knew What he Believed in as a Religion — Theology Cannot 
 be Presented in Philosophic Form. 
 
 " God will roll up, when this world's end approacheth, 
 The broad blue spangled hangings of the sky, 
 Even as As-Sigill rolleth up his record, 
 And seals and binds it when a man doth die. 
 Then the false worshippers and what they follow, 
 Will to the pit, like stones to hell descend, 
 But true believers shall hear the Angels saying, 
 This is your day; be joyous without end." 
 
 The Author of the above quoted anathema has saici that 
 four hundred and seventy millions of our race live and die in 
 the tenets of Gautama; and the spiritual dominions of this 
 ancient teacher extend at the present time from Nepaul and 
 Ceylon over the whole Eastern Peninsula to China, Japan, 
 Thibbet, Central Asia, Siberia, and even Swedish Lapland. 
 India itself might fairly be included in this magnificent empire 
 of belief, for though the profession of Buddhism has for the 
 most part passed away from the land of its birth, the mark of 
 Gautama's sublime teaching is stamped ineffaceably upon 
 Modern Brahmanism. and the most characteristic habits and 
 convictions of the Hindus are clearly due to the benign influence 
 of Buddha's precepts. More than a third of mankind there- 
 fore owe their moral and religious ideas to this illustrious prince, 
 whose personality, though imperfectly revealed in the existing 
 sources of information, cannot but appear the highest, gentlest, 
 and most beneficent, with one exception, in the history of 
 thouffht. " 
 
 i 
 
COMPARATIVE APOLOGETICS. 4S9 
 
 The identity of the Exception need not puzzle the thoughtful 
 reader. The Founder of Christianity receives many graceful, 
 though casual and covert compliments from the scholarly, paid 
 as a matter of course in dealing ostensiblv with some other sub- 
 ject. But the philosophic Apologist ought to be on his guard; 
 and in this instance, in mr.king the exception he has made a 
 comparison very much to the disadvantage of the Founder of 
 the system in whose favor he allows the exception. True, he 
 tacitly asserts that the Founder of Christianity is the only One 
 whose personality can appear so high, gentle, and beneficent 
 as that of Buddha. This implies a belief in both, and the matter 
 of course manner in which the exception is alloA^ed also implies 
 a preference for the Founder of Christianity, although numeric- 
 ally the comparison is decidedly unfavorable to the system. 
 And as number is the Apologist's main argument for the pro- 
 visional validity of Buddhism, it would seem that the exception 
 he allows in favor of the Founder of Christianity was not in- 
 tended to be also applied to the system itself. 
 
 No one will claim that a third of mankind owe their moral 
 and religious ideas to the Founder of Christianity; and no one 
 can claim that any part of mankind is without such ideas. No 
 language or system of thought can be intelligible or of any prac- 
 tical utility without the word ought. No matter how variously 
 it may be interpreted, or how violently it may be wrested from 
 its meaning in the sophistry of isms, it still embodies all there 
 can possibly be for anv human mind in any religion. 
 
 Though like Buddhism, Christianity has passed away from 
 from the land of its birth, yet unlike Buddhism, the mark of its 
 Founder's sublime teaching is //o/ ineffaceably stamped upon the 
 modern usurper of its ancient demense; and the most character- 
 istic habits and convictions of the modern Mongrels of Palestine 
 are not clearly due to the benign intluence of the precepts of its 
 Founder. So, in'addition to its numerical supremacy. Buddhism 
 seems to have another advantage in the comparison, that of 
 more ineffaceably impressing itself upon the autochthones of its 
 birth place. Number and durability would not be relied on for 
 the validity of Buddhism unless they were regarded as of some 
 consequence in the comparison, and if they are of such conse- 
 
460 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 quence, then Buddhism is indeed a far more magnificent empire 
 of belief than Christianity. 
 
 With our characteristic bigoted zeal we may maintain that 
 our moral and religious ideas are superior to those that have en- 
 lightened many millions more than our number, from centuries 
 before the Source of ours was ever heard of; but so far from 
 settling anything besides our own complacent self-conceit, this 
 simply conducts us to a dispute as to the proper meaning and 
 application of the term superior. Unless there is some tangible 
 f^ict, back of which no mind can go, and from which the superi- 
 ority of one of the systems can by some means be demonstrated 
 to all minds, the question must forever remain a question, with 
 merely a higher degree of probability in f^wor of the system 
 which fluctuates the least, endures the most durably, and sways 
 the most minds. The Apologist who would say — sways the 
 best minds — should inform us by whose standard the test is to 
 be made. 
 
 The systems being compared both seem to be based upon 
 the idea of a universal brotherhood among men, and one divine 
 fatherhood of all men. Neither of them would restrict itself to 
 any part of the human fiimily, nor admit that it was divinely in- 
 tended for less than the entire moral vineyard. Yet neither of 
 them flourishes where it was first planted. Both are trans- 
 planted to other climes, perhaps more inhospitable; and dwarfed 
 almost beyond recognition, perhaps in more sterile soils. They 
 have produced various hybrids from indiscriminate crosses, and 
 endless variety by degeneration. Each claims it was intended 
 to bring all men to one God, and neither will allow any man to 
 approach Him except through its own portals. In twenty-five 
 centuries one of them has gathered something more than a third 
 of mankind in its folds; in nineteen centuries the other one has 
 embraced something less than a third. For some cause unin- 
 telligible to any human mind, the remaining third is still adrift 
 upon the watery waste of aimless existence, variously, vainly, 
 vegetating and vanishing. 
 
 The Apologist's comparison implies a difference between 
 these two systems, and there must be a difference or there 
 would be but one system. Difference between two systems, 
 
COMPARATIVE APOLOGETICS. 46 I 
 
 each purporting to be the only true religion of one God, neces- 
 sitates the invalidity, at least the inferiority of one of them. If 
 one of them has prevailed six centuries longer than the 
 other, and still maintains a vast numerical supremacy over it; 
 and if each retains enough of its primitive characteristics to mark 
 its origin, the comparison sounds decidedly in favor of the older 
 one. To say that race and clime were potent to promote or 
 retard the extension and intluence of either system, is to declare 
 its invalidity as a religion for a universal brotherhood of man- 
 kind; and limits the power and wisdom of its Founder. That 
 which is divinely intended for all men, is so intended by One 
 who knows and intends the supervening influences and effects 
 of race and clime. The orthodox fire and brimstone of either 
 system is probably hot enough to obliterate all memory of the 
 difference between an arctic and a tropic temperature. 
 
 If mankind is a universal brotherhood, it is strange the Cre- 
 ator did not so endow him that he not only might have had, 
 but would naturally tend to one universal belief. It is strange 
 that in shedding His light upon the gloom of man's existence. 
 He would focus its rays upon a meagre mob of incredulous and 
 ungrateful wretches who gloried in the sin of ingratitude, and 
 reviled and murdered their own greatest Benefactor. 
 
 In the history of thought the Apologist's ideal universality 
 is sadly wanting. Yet it is the essential basis of all philosophic 
 apologetics. No true religion can tolerate any other religion 
 than itself. Any variation from it throws everything into con- 
 fusion. If there is but one God, if all men are brothers and His 
 creatures, if there is one universal heaven for the saved and but 
 one hell for the damned, there can be but one true religion. 
 Whatever religion differs from it is necessarily so far another, 
 and hence untrue and invalid religion. In religious systems 
 difference is in kind, and difference in degree is inadmissible. 
 Kinds of doctrine are supposable enough, intensity of doctrine 
 means nothing. 
 
 When the philosophic Apologist portrays the beauties of 
 Buddhism, and performs his coup de maitre for Christianity in 
 casually conceding its, superiority, he simply advocates Christi- 
 anity as being one remove farther from perdition or nearer to 
 
462 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 grace than its more ancient and more popular rival. And when 
 Apologetics urges the validity of Buddhism on the grounds of 
 its greater antiquity and popularity, it concedes away all its 
 claim, on its own hypotheses, for the validity of Christianity. 
 If the fact that for so long more than a third of mankind have 
 believed in Buddhism, is a/iv argument for its validity, it must 
 be the only true religion, and its more recent and less popular 
 rival must be an imposture. 
 
 According to the Apologist, without Christianity, Buddhism 
 must save the world, or it would "to the pit. like stones to 
 hell descend." For six centuries before Christianitv appeared, 
 countless millions of this universal brotherhood were dependent 
 upon the light of Buddhism ; nineteen centuries later more than 
 a third of mankind still "daily repeat the formula — 1 take refuge 
 in Buddha." 
 
 Both these systems are driven Irom the land of their birth, 
 if the subject is legitimately within the range of philosophic 
 discussion, some learned Apologist should explain the principle 
 of divine economy upon which Brahmanism now drowns its 
 victims in the Ganges, and the mosque of Omar rears its min- 
 arets above the site of the Holy Sepulchre. 
 
 It is difficult to reconcile the reputed benevolence and mercy 
 of either system with the fact that its Founder, not only for six 
 centuries left a lost world to depend upon Buddhism, if it was 
 inferior to His other and later system; but had for countless 
 centuries theretofore left the same lost world to wag without 
 even a Buddhism. That either system began in time renders 
 it impossible to imagine that it is of divine origin, that is in any 
 other sense than as human institutions may approach the con- 
 ceptions which some minds have formed of the divine. No 
 one can imagine the commencement of the existence of matter. 
 Nor can one imagine the commencement of the organization of 
 matter into forms of life, vegetal and animal. Much less can 
 one imagine the commencement, foundation, or establishment 
 of the principles of life, either material or spiritual. If one of 
 these systems is invalid, or inferior to the other, it must neces- 
 sarily have never been otherwise, unless both are changeable; 
 and.no one can imagine the eternal principles of a divine relig- 
 
COMPARATIVE APOLOGETICS. 463 
 
 ion of the one and only God, as subject to change. The valid 
 religion must be of the one God, the Law of the one Element, 
 positive, exclusive, conclusive and eternal. Whatever begins 
 in time must end in time. If God is love and mercy to-day, 
 He must have always been love and mercy. In such case it is 
 diftkult to conceive of the awakening of His compassion for 
 fallen man, only after millions of millions had been hopelessly 
 lost for the want of one of these two systems. 
 
 The valid religion can brook no comparisons, because it 
 cannot recognize the possibility of another religion. Were 
 comparisons admissible. Buddhism might have been provision- 
 ally valid, a convenient makeshift or expedient, resorted to for 
 a time and in an emergency; while Christianity was in course 
 of preparation. But the mind cannot conceive of infinite 
 Power and Wisdom as resorting to expedients in emergencies. 
 Neither can it conceive of divine Power and Wisdom as pro- 
 mulgating new doctrines, based on new principles, at intervals 
 of a few centuries, if they are eternal. If they are not eternal, 
 they must be temporary; and the mind cannot conceive of in- 
 finite Power and Wisdom as solemnly trifling with baubles 
 that flit with the flight of time. If either of these systems is of 
 divine origin, and was inaugurated in divine mercy for the 
 salvation of an otherwise lost race, the mind cannot conceive 
 why it was not done soon enough to have saved the innumer- 
 able millions that must have perished before it was inaugurat- 
 ed. They must have perished if either of these systems was 
 necessary to their salvation. And if neither was necessary to 
 salvation mankind has been terribly badgered with needless 
 remedies. 
 
 The philosophy or rather the logic of all apologetics, puts 
 the Almighty in the wrong. If man is the creature of a Power 
 infinitely above him and beyond his power to comprehend; if 
 he was by that Power created in a certain fashion and endowed 
 or cursed with certain tendencies; if the result of yielding to 
 such tendencies was necessarily man's damnation and he was 
 not at the same time endowed with sufficient strength to 
 withstand, there was but little mercy manifest in his making. 
 If he had the necessary strength, but was evilly disposed, he 
 
464 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 obtained his disposition from the same source as his strength, 
 and there was still but little mercy manifest in his mankind, it 
 in such state millions of millions were necessarily damned, 
 and it became necessary to inaugurate a divine system by means 
 of which some might be saved, the mind cannot conceive that 
 to have been divine wisdom that could not sooner have seen 
 the necessity of the system ; nor that to have been divine power 
 that could not sooner have inaugurated it; nor that to have been 
 divine mercy that would not sooner have done so. Neither 
 can the mind conceive that to have been divine mercy that 
 limited the application and effect of such system either numeric- 
 ally or territorially. To say that all may be saved by means of 
 either system is to no purpose, for all have not yet heard of 
 either system. To say that all who have heard of either system 
 may be saved by means of it if they choose, is to no purpose, 
 for many are divinely endowed with incredulity and mental and 
 moral depravity, if any who knew of neither of these systems 
 have been saved, then neither of them was necessary to man's 
 salvation. 
 
 To hold that one of these systems is a mere improvement 
 on the other, is to hold that the divine and eternal power and 
 wisdom of the Almighty are in process of development. If He 
 is infinitely good, He gave us the best He could twenty-five 
 hundred years ago; and if Christianity is better than Buddhism, 
 it is because in the development of His power and wisdom He 
 was able to give us something better six hundred years later. 
 Then if the rhythmic continuity of Progress has not improved 
 on Christianity in Moslemism or some other ism, it may yet be 
 expected to do so. It maybe looked to for something in keep- 
 ing with the fastidious and exacting spirit of the progressive age ; 
 and in proportion with the intervals it must excel Christianity 
 far more than Christianity excels Buddhism. Instead of perm- 
 anent system based on fixed principles, we have temporary ex- 
 pedients on wheels. 
 
 There prevails a tendency to keep Christianity itself abreast 
 with the times, by working it over within itself to fit with physi- 
 cal sciences; and the deepest solicitude of Apologists is apparent 
 in their frenzy for analogies. They are rapidly remodelling Chris- 
 
COMPARATIVE APOLOGETICS. 463 
 
 tianity to supply the want of an ism to dovetail with Science, 
 and to take possession of the more enlightened minds of men. 
 
 The combination in either system of Love, Law, and Re- 
 venge, can never be made intelligible. The spiritual cannot 
 be so materialized as to present an array of consequences, 
 based upon physical principles. of cause and effect. Mercy and 
 Love have no affinity for, and indeed nothing in common with, 
 any fixed principle of physical law. The mind cannot compre- 
 hend the love that prompted the Founder of either system to 
 endure unprecedented privation for a stranger race of respons- 
 ible beings, who had deliberately estranged themselves from their 
 universal Father. They must have been responsible to be at 
 fault, and must have deliberately estranged themselves. But 
 for the intervention they were lost, or there could be no occas- 
 ion for the intervention. The mind cannot conceive the heart 
 that yearns with such love, as also burning with the hate and 
 revenge that would eternally damn the soul that could not or 
 would not accept the gratuitous intervention. If they were 
 lawfully condemned, the mind cannot conceive how the love 
 that intervenes can be lawful. Law is not for irresponsible 
 creatures, nor is it really viqlated except intentionally. It is 
 wonderous power which sustained the Founder of either sys- 
 tem in the terrible trial to which He exposed Himself, and 
 which enforces the Law by which "False worshippers and 
 what they follow, shall to the pit like stones to hell descend." 
 The mind cannot conceive what it is that the false worship- 
 pers follow, as being of such a substantive consistence as to 
 descend to hell or anywhere else. Such expressions mean 
 something or nothing. We have no more right to assume 
 that they mean nothing than their Authors have to take refuge 
 in ambiguity or metaphor. If there is something that false 
 worshippers follow, and which like them, shall to the pit 
 descend like stones to hell, a philosophy ot the religion which 
 teaches the doctrine ought to throw some light on the subject; 
 it ought to give us some idea of the personality or consistence 
 of that which the fiilse worshippers follow. 
 
 The Light of Asia and Pearls of the Faith, are said to em- 
 body a philosophy. Their Author is "of a firm conviction that 
 
466 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 a third of mankind would never have been brought to believe 
 in blank abstractions." That a third of mankind believe in the 
 delirious ravings and imprecations of an alleged religious doc- 
 trine is no argument for their validity, nor that they are not blank 
 abstractions. Almost another third of mankind believe in dif- 
 ferent doctrines, and positively reject these. The circumstance 
 argues that both are blank abstractions. And the difference 
 between descending to the pit like stones to hell, and being joy- 
 ous without end, depends upon belief. The Author of the com- 
 parative apologetics not only admits but insists that there is at 
 least a provisional validity in each of the two conflicting doc- 
 trines. "As-Sigill rolleth up his record, and seals and binds it 
 when a man doth die; " and the fate of the false worshipper is 
 fixed. The faces of true believers shall be glad and bright. If 
 these are not blank abstractions it is at least difficult to imagine 
 the psychological condition to which they can have any intelli- 
 gible meaning. 
 
 Life is no joke; and no one can deride death. The change 
 is the most serious affiiir one can contemplate. "If a man die 
 shall he live again .^" is the momentous question. It is argued 
 by almost every pen that plumes , itself in philosophic airs, and 
 immortality is either urged or assumed in almost every literary 
 expression worth naming. But the economy of the several sys- 
 tems cannot be made intelligible. Belief is indispensable and 
 fiilse worshippers are to be damned. There is consequently a 
 great waste or loss of spiritual substance, or of that which in 
 the domain of spiritual life is the counterpart of the animated 
 body in physical life. These spiritual individualities suffer dam- 
 nation, and their Creator suffers their loss, simply because they 
 are not true believers, but are false worshippers. Now, if one 
 worships at all he must worship that in which he believes. If 
 he believes in that which is false, he is blameless and ought not 
 to be damned if he sincerely believes in and worships it. The love • 
 that brings the true Light into the world for all men, is very ec- 
 centric to purposely withhold it from any. And it has been pur- 
 posely withheld from many, and for many ages from all, if either 
 of these systems is the true light. Comparatively speaking, in 
 either case it has shone upon few, and many millions who 
 
 i 
 
COMPARATIVE APOLOGETICS. 467 
 
 have seen it, have not been able to recognize it as the true 
 light. Those who never see it may be unfortunate, but those 
 who see and do not believe in it can be no more than unfortu- 
 nate. If they really disbelieve in it, it must be because they 
 cannot believe. Belief does not stand ready at the beck or the 
 bid of Mind. Men believe from necessity, and argument neces- 
 sarily presumes that no belief can be voluntary. No bare as- 
 sertion entirely devoid of reason for its belief can be intelligently 
 believed. Even the supposed reliability ot the source is often 
 the basis of belief in assertion. Actual worship implies actual 
 belief, and no one can be a false worshipper. That which one 
 worships may be false, or it may not actually be at all, but the 
 moment one is convinced of this he cannot worship it. 
 
 The mind cannot conceive of the possibility of a limit to the 
 power which endured the pain in which either of these systems 
 is said to have had its birth; nor can it conceive a limit to the 
 love that prompted the Founder of either system to undergo the 
 ordeal. The purpose seems to have been the greatest and best 
 that ever actuated any one. No one can conceive of the native 
 inherent difference among the innumerable subjects of this 
 mercy and love by reason of which any of them are better en- 
 titled to divine clemency or favor than any others of them. But 
 still we behold divine mercy and love, and infinite wisdom and 
 power, engaged in two futile efforts to save a lost world. 
 Through one Agency they have operated twenty-five hundred 
 years, and its precepts are enfoiced upon something more than 
 a third of mankind ; through another Agency they have operated 
 nineteen hundred years, and its precepts are enforced upon 
 something less than a third. The places chosen (?) for the in- 
 auguration of both systems are no longer under their several 
 influences, but they are the theatres of systems as different from 
 them as they can be from each other. 
 
 Unless we know the inherent difference among classes or 
 individuals, by virtue of which some are better entitled to di- 
 vine favor than others, we cannot comprehend the policy or 
 principle of divine economy upon which some should, while 
 others should not be saved by it. Unless we know the differ- 
 ence among classes or individuals by virtue of which one of 
 
468 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 the systems is better adapted to promote the spiritual welfare 
 of some than of others, we cannot comprehend the policy or 
 principle of divine economy upon which the energy of either 
 system is expended upon one class instead of the other, if 
 Christianity is better adapted to promote the spiritual welfare 
 of any section of mankind than Buddhism, then Buddhism is a 
 bauble. If Buddhism is better adapted to promote the spiritual 
 welfare of any section of mankind than Christianity, then Chris- 
 tianity is an imposture. If either system is of divine origin it 
 is as well adapted to any one race and clime as to any other. 
 If there is «o such essential difference among the races or in- 
 dividuals of mankind, there can be no economy in more than 
 one system. If one of the systems is valid, the other is not 
 only of no utility; it is positively mischievous. And the more 
 plausible and attractive it may appear, the more inimical it is 
 to the welfare of mankind, in keeping more persons from the 
 true system. If there is such difference among the races or in- 
 dividuals of mankind, there is no universal brotherhood, and 
 the bedrock of both systems is mere quicksand. If mankind is 
 a universal brotherhood, then every individual ought, not only 
 to be entitled and susceptible to the saving grace of the one 
 valid system ; he ought, in its divine economv to be secure of 
 final salvation by means of such grace. No other economic 
 principle can be made intelligible, and this necessitates the 
 utter invalidity of one or the other of these two systems. To 
 say of any system that all men may be saved by availing them- 
 selves of its grace, is no argument for the validity of such sys- 
 tem. No man ever made or endowed himself. Even if he 
 could compel himself to believe, his very tendency is the sum 
 of transmitted experiences and inclinations. 
 
 When forced to admit that there can be but one true relig- 
 ion, we may complacently assume that it is not Christianity 
 that is the invalid one of these two systems — but there is more 
 arrogance than reason in the assumption. The other was 
 ancient when ours was inaugurated, and near a hundred and 
 eighty millions more believe in it to-day. If ours has bred a 
 civilization that suits us better than that of the other, the other 
 has bred a civilization, or at least fosters one, that seems to 
 
COMPARATIVE APOLOGETICS. 469 
 
 suit more than a third of our race so well that they show no 
 disposition to abandon it for ours. 
 
 That both systems are intended for one race of one nature 
 is argued in the great deal of the detail in each that is common 
 to both. That either is sufficient for all men in all climes is 
 argued in the extensive prevalence of each in every variety of 
 race and clime. That neither was ever affected by any ten- 
 dency of race or clime, is argued in the claim for the divine 
 origin of each. But if they are of divine origin it is difficult to 
 understand why they should not fiourish where they were first 
 planted. The divine Wisdom and Power that devised and 
 sustains them, ought to have known the race and clime best 
 adapted to their development, if there was a difference. If they 
 are not of divine origin they are mere human contrivances 
 begun in time; and like all other human contrivances they will 
 pass away in time. There is in each ot them the same incon- 
 gruous mix of Love and Law, andof Grace and Revenge. There 
 is the same incomprehensible combination of Necessity and 
 Freedom, shrouded in impenetrable mystery, which the less it 
 is understood, the more it must be believed. 
 
 "This is enough to know, the phantasms are; 
 
 The Heavens, Earths, Worlds, and changes changing them, 
 
 A mighty whirling wheel of strife and stress 
 
 Which none can stay or stem. 
 
 * * * 
 
 * Ye who suffer, know 
 
 Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels, 
 None other holds you that ye live and die. 
 
 * Lower than hell, 
 Higher than heaven, outside the utmost stars, 
 Farther than Brahm doth dwell. 
 Before beginning and without end 
 As Space eternal, and as surety sure. 
 Is fixed a Power divine which moves to good 
 
 * * * 
 
 It will not be contemned of any one; 
 
 Who thwarts it loses, and who serves it gains; 
 
 The hidden good it pays with peace and bliss, 
 
 The hidden ill with pains. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Such moreover as of old time, loved the truth and taught it well. 
 First in faith, they shall be foremost in reward; the rest to hell." 
 
470 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 If one only knew what truth it was that should be loved 
 and well taught, he mfght be prepared to make himself first in 
 fliith and foremost in reward. But if more than one third of 
 mankind have not believed in blank abstractions or worse, 
 nearly another third of mankind have believed in blank abstrac- 
 tions, or worse; because in many respects the alleged truths of 
 these two systems are conflicting. Both systems bribe with 
 promises of reward for belief, and threaten whh hell for unbe- 
 lief; alike appealing to the baser instincts, the selfishness and 
 fear of men. That which on pain of eternal damnation must 
 be believed is shrouded in absolute mystery, and two systems, 
 each claimed to be at least provisionally valid, require us to 
 believe directly conflicting doctrines. If one is not a system of 
 blank abstractions or worse, the other must be. There is but 
 one escape from this result, and it renders both systems worth- 
 less. If each of two conflicting religious doctrines can have 
 any validity for mankind it must be because religion is itself a 
 mere subjective condition. No one can believe that he is 
 penally liable for his real belief If religion consists mainly in 
 belief, it must be a subjective condition, and any one may by 
 proper proof, and some times by artful argument, be forced to 
 believe that which he would prefer to disbelieve. 
 
 No one can possibly believe that he suffers wholly from 
 himself, nor that none other holds him that he live and die. 
 No one can conceive how he acquires susceptibility to pain, or 
 tendency to the ill which is paid in pain. While he does not 
 know the Other which holds him that he live and die; the 
 Else which compels, no one can conceive that he ever caused 
 himself to live. 
 
 No one can comprehend the law of the Power which moves 
 to good, the law which governs the "mighty whirling wheel 
 of strife and stress which none can stay or stem." One may 
 sometimes be brought to realize that peace and bliss are con- 
 sequences of good, and that pain is a consequence of ill. But 
 one must draw heavily upon his imagination to see them as 
 rewards or payments. Physical illustrations argue little or 
 nothing for the validity of any religious doctrine of reward and 
 punishment, for conduct morally good or bad. One who pur- 
 
COMPARATIVE APOLOGETICS. 47 I 
 
 posely or recklessly encounters contagion, suffers no more from 
 disease and dies no deadlier, than one who is accidentally expos- 
 ed. Some plants shrink from a strong light or a touch. The 
 tendrils of some vines reach out for adjacent support. There 
 may be very little intelligence in such action, but there is as 
 much as there is in some of the acts of man that result in dis- 
 ease and death. The quality in man, whatever it may be, by 
 virtue of which he shrinks from supposed ill, and reaches out 
 for adjacent supposed support, is imbued in him by the same 
 Power that impressed it upon the plant and the vine. It is of 
 the same kind, the difference is in degree. Results cannot pro- 
 perly be regarded rewards in either case. Man frequently 
 knows pain which he cannot believe to be the just price of ill. 
 He frequently knows ill that is never requited in the appropri- 
 ate pain. 
 
 Man knows so much of the irregularity of supposed conse- 
 quences of good and ill, that it is difficult to conceive that it is 
 governed by the laws of the Power that moves to good, or that 
 such laws very steadfastly endure. In his experience and ob- 
 servation the exception is almost as common as the rule. But 
 it is his nature to classify phenomena and coordinate experi- 
 ences. Speculating and philosophizing upon these he almos^ 
 unconsciously formulates an unintelligible faith in something 
 not distinctly comprehensible, and he never becomes fully 
 cognizant of the real gist and import of the faith. He insensibly 
 concedes its invalidity, at least its want of divine authenticity, 
 in attempting to vindicate it in a comparison. As there can be 
 but one true faith comparison is inadmissible. As the one true 
 faith must be of God comparison is degrading to it. 
 
 Analysis of their arguments will invariably show that no 
 Apologist ever knew just what it was he believed or thought 
 he believed. He may know that the "the phantasms are;" 
 and it may be "this is enough to know." Should he know 
 what they are — they are no longer phantasms — and faith is 
 abolished, or merged in actual knowledge — and the credulity 
 of the heart is lost in the actual cognition of the mind. With 
 the removal or solution of mystery the spirit of worship goes 
 glimmering. One of the most illogical acts of apologetics is its 
 
472 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 attempt to solve the very mystery that is indispensable to the 
 worship of the God whose existence it attempts to prove. 
 Demonstrate the existence of God by any means available to 
 the senses, and you can no more worship Him than you can 
 worship any other known physical phenomenon. The creat- 
 ures who have worshipped phvsical phenomena and the works 
 of their own hands, have always unintelligibly spiritualized 
 them in their relation to themselves, and treated the immediate 
 object of their adoration as symbolic only of the mysterious 
 Existence really worshipped. There is no worship apart from 
 mystery. 
 
 If the Heavens. Earths, Worlds, and changes changing them 
 are a mighty whirling wheel of strife and stress which none can 
 stay or stem, man is a comparatively insignificant quantity. 
 He may be of great consequence to himself, so much so that he 
 would not suffer from himself, nor unless some One else com- 
 pels. Yet with all his aversion thereto he actually suffers, and 
 his most perplexing phantasm is the fact, that he is especially 
 fitted for suffering by the "Power which moves to good," the 
 the Being that is all Wisdom, Grace, and Love. All his at- 
 tempts to explain this to himself are hopelessly illogical. He 
 . knows to begin with that his mind is incapable of seeing in it 
 any justice or economy. If he will think accurately, and not 
 gloze over the subject superficially, he must know that the more 
 he attempts to explain the matter to himself on any principles of 
 justice and economy with which he is acquainted, the more con- 
 fused and mystified it becomes. 
 
 The idea of right and wrong presupposes in the subject the 
 faculty of discrimination, and the power to choose between 
 right and wrong. Man, so far from being thus endowed, has 
 even his tendency to choose from the "Other" who holds him 
 that he live and die. Indeed, he has his idea of right and wrong 
 from the same Source, in the constitution and construction 
 of his nervous organism, the affections of which are his ideas. 
 And even the affections of his nervous organism which are his 
 ideas he has from the same Source, in Its placing him where he 
 will be affected thus and so, under this or that particular religi- 
 ous system. 
 
COMPARATIVE APOLOGETICS. 473 
 
 From the same Source he has his inherent desire to be seen, 
 heard, and felt, in the world; which is most gratefully gratified 
 in impressing the world with the idea that he knows some- 
 thing. From the same Source, or at least from some cause or 
 causes, the world is variously addicted to certain, or rather un- 
 certain faiths, in which it delights to be fortified. If one can 
 furnish it an argument purporting to support one of its popular 
 beliefs, and can present it in pleasing form, he need not fear that 
 the world will very closely scrutinize the validity of his argu- 
 ment. The popular mind is not so eager to have its idols shat- 
 tered. Its supreme delight is in being artistically humbugged. 
 One of the most artful processes available to Apologetics, is to 
 paint in glowing colors the beauties of a rival faith, insist on its 
 provisional validity on the ground that it is widely diffused; at 
 the same time tacitly asserting or assuming as a matter of course 
 the superiority of its own. 
 
 The casual reader of the Light of Asia may be well enter- 
 tained with a picture of an ancient Oriental suggestion of a 
 modern Occidental Faith, in some respects its prototype. He 
 may also derive from it and its companion-pieces some know- 
 ledge as interesting as any that is diffused in epic poetry. 
 
 The critical reader will see in it a futile effort to present an 
 unintelligible theology in philosophic form; an attempt to har- 
 monize freedom with fate, choice with necessity, religious duty 
 and personal accountability with helpless imbecility and pred- 
 estined automatism. He will see the wisest of all Beings en- 
 gaged in the most absurd of all doings — infinite Love, Mercy, 
 Wisdom, and Power, threatening and damning Its own creat- 
 ures for merely disbelieving that, which It has so constituted 
 them as that they cannot believe — that which, to the minds 
 with which It has endowed them, must appear preposterous. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 LITERARY SUFISM. 
 History's Repetition — Conglomeration of;s;»5in Emerson's Alleged Philosophy — 
 Mind Cannot Rise Above the Mortal Condition — -Either Election or Univer- 
 sal Salvation Cancels Duty — Final Absorption in the Divine Implies Prior 
 Emanation From the Divine — Election Forbids Either Acceptance or Rejec- 
 tion of Divine Mercy — Optimistic View of Damnation — Absorption in the 
 Divine Extinguishes Individuality, and Hence Cancels Interest and Duty- 
 Divine Creation of Man Unthinkable — A Philosophic Religion Could Not 
 be Believed — Nature of Man an Arbitrary Decree of God, if He has Decreed 
 Anything as to Man — Truth Cannot be Illogical. 
 
 Near eight hundred years ago a Persian poet is said to have 
 allegorized the Sufistic mysticism in a poem called the Mantic 
 Uttair; in which the habitual discontent of the soul is symbol- 
 ized in the ennui of the birds in their republic, and their longing 
 for a king. This must have been a crude and rude representa- 
 tion of the human weariness with irksome common-place in 
 real life, and aspiration after a more exalted ideal. Yet it ans- 
 wered the purpose so well that to the latest literary posterity, 
 the name of Ferrid-Eddin-Athar will recall an ancient Oriental 
 poetry, mysticism, and alleged philosophy. 
 
 Of the multitude of feathery pilgrims which his Lapwing 
 undertook to lead to the Caucasus to greet the Simorg, their 
 chosen king, only thirty arrived, and they immediately lost 
 their identity in the king. "They are he, and he is they. In 
 such strange fashion did the Persian poet image forth the search 
 of the human soul after God, and its absorption into the divine." 
 Thus also it seems the Persian poet expressed, as obscurely as 
 could be done, a partial pantheism ; if such quantity is suppos- 
 able. 
 
 Near eight hundred years later the same spirit intensified 
 breaks out on an opposite side of the globe, in the mysticism of 
 a rhapsodist who blends and confuses all the /s/;/5 that ever per- 
 plexed and distorted thought, in an alleged philosophy which 
 no one can name so as to indicate its kind and character. So 
 named as to indicate specifically its kind and character, its- title 
 would consist of a catalogue of all the philosophies known. 
 
 i 
 
LITERARY SUFISM. 475 
 
 The modern mystic excels his Oriental prototype in bringing 
 his entire flock, instead of an elect thirty, into identity with their 
 Simorg — at least where they may be absorbed in him. He also 
 excels him in rendering the absorption more unintelligible and 
 bewildering to the mind which attempts to extract a definite 
 thought from the learned fustian in which the incongruity is 
 spumed. He exclaims. "Ineffable is the union of God and man 
 in every act of the soul. The simplest person who in his in- 
 tegrity worships God, becomes God. * * * He has not 
 the conviction, but the sight that the best is the true, and may 
 in thought easily dismiss all particular uncertainties and fears, 
 and adjourn to the sure revelation of time the solution of his 
 private riddles. He is sure that his welfare is dear to the heart 
 of being. In the presence of law to his mind, he is overflowed 
 with a reliance so universal that it sweeps away all cherished 
 hopes and most stable projects of the mortal condition in its 
 flood. He believes that he cannot escape from his good. The 
 things that are really for thee, gravitate to thee. You are run- 
 ning to meet your friend. Let your feet run. but your mind 
 need not. If you do not find him, will you not acquiesce that 
 it is best you should not ? For there is a power, which, as it 
 IS in you, is in him also, and could therefore very well bring you 
 together, if it were for the best. * * * Let every man then 
 learn the revelation of all nature and all thought to his heart; 
 this namely: that the highest dwells within him; that the 
 sources of nature are in his mind, if the sentiment of duty is 
 there," 
 
 Hortatives that are not verbose vacuums are cheap enough. 
 Those that are mere metaphor, meaning nothing intelligible are 
 dear at any cost, or at none. If the welfare of man is dear to 
 the heart of being, then the heart of being, if it has the capacity 
 therefor, ought to promote the welflire of man. If the heart of 
 being is solicitous for the welfare of man, the term is probably 
 intended to designate the spirit of intelligent order and system 
 that seems to pervade all tangible existence, in which a weird 
 cosmotheism condescends to recognize the possibility of a God. 
 But if the welfare of man is really dear to such a Being, it is in- 
 deed strange that his welfare is so little subserved. The heart 
 
476 ETHICS OF LITERATURE, 
 
 ot being is used in the above-quoted expression of confidence, 
 as a noun substantive. It seems to be intended as the name of 
 something sufficiently substantial to be an omnipresent over- 
 ruling Power, in other words the Almighty. And the man 
 who in his integrity worships God, is sure that his welfare is 
 dear to such Being. If we consider what man must do to be- 
 come sure of this, we are appalled at the enormity of the under- 
 taking. The labors of Hercules were child's play in comparison. 
 If man inherits or contracts a disease that writhes him over the 
 brink of the grave for three score years, he must see in every 
 pain which pierces him, an expression of the solicitude of the 
 heart of being for his welfare. His mind, which is the sum of 
 impressions on his nerve organism, which impressions are 
 moulded or colored according to inherited qualities in the nerve 
 organism, must reject all its traditions and experiences, and in- 
 sist that an ache is an ease, that a pain is a pleasure, and that 
 the bitterest disappointment is the fullest fruition of the fondest 
 hope. 
 
 No man can comprehend the flood of reliance that sweeps 
 away cherished hopes and stable projects of the mortal condi- 
 tion. Certainly no one can comprehend its practical utility. 
 If spiritual philosophy avouches an alleged analogy in the 
 science of physical phenomena, it ought first to distinctly mark 
 the line dividing them. Without such boundary there is but 
 one realm, and as distinguished from each other the terms 
 spiritual and physical mean nothing. ' In such case metaphor 
 is worse than idle. 
 
 No one can conceive how he could be overflowed with a 
 flood of reliance which he would wish to have sweep away 
 his most cherished hopes and stable projects of the mortal con- 
 dition. The mind itself cannot get above the mortal condition ; 
 and it is illogical to desire to be overflowed with a reliance, the 
 flood of which must devastate the only condition to which it 
 can attain. And by the way, what kind of a figure or flourish 
 in literature is the phrase, overflow or flood of reliance ? 
 
 Analysis of the above quoted exclamations gives one of the 
 most complex conglomerations of discordant elements to be 
 found in any literary compound. If the person who worships 
 
LITERARY SUFISM. 477 
 
 God becomes God; if the goal of the soul is absorption in the 
 divine (unity), there can be no occasion for man's concern for 
 the future unless he can ''escape from his good." There is no 
 logic in the proposition that the sources of nature are in his 
 mind if the sentiment of duty is there. If one cannot escape 
 from his good, the word duty means nothing whatever to 
 him. 
 
 The rhapsodist is not dealing with the question as relating 
 to an elect few who innst reach and be absorbed in their 
 Simorg; but professedly with the duty and destiny of man, 
 collectively and individually. And yet election is implied in 
 the propositions that the things that are really for thee gravi- 
 tate to thee; and that it may be best that you fail to fmd the 
 friend you are running to seek. And still he makes each man 
 and all men integral parts of the heart of being; among whom 
 or in which there can be no election. If all are saved there is 
 no election. 
 
 In any supposable election flite cancels duty. The rhapso- 
 dist is in advance of his Persian prototype so far only as he re- 
 jects (at least impliedly) the alleged distinction or election by 
 virtue of which but a few of the multitude are finally absorbed 
 in the divine. 
 
 No reasoning can be valid that ignores the possibilities of the 
 human mind. No mind can conceive the distinction essential 
 to election. Either election or universal salvation cancels all 
 individual duty and accountability. If those to be saved are 
 elected thereto, they are already virtually saved, they "cannot 
 escape from their good." If salvation is to be universal, duty 
 and accountability are superfluous. If the soul's goal is absorp- 
 tion in the divine, it must have emanated therefrom. The 
 mind cannot conceive how the minute aggregations of cast off 
 particles from the all-pervading spirit, temporarily individual- 
 ized in human souls, can be more responsible in such isolation 
 than in their original or future absorption in the divine. That 
 the worshipper becomes the God he worships is not only a 
 very silly proposition, it is very irreverent. No one can con- 
 ceive why he should be saved while others are damned. If all 
 souls emanated from the same all-pervading Spirit, it is im- 
 
478 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 possible to imagine a difference among tiiem in merit. Election 
 and universal salvation alike forbid considerations of merit, and 
 hence of duty and accountability. If one attempts to attribute 
 difference in results to difference in merit, he should proceed to 
 account for difference in inherited capacity, tendency, and in- 
 stinct. He should also explain the moral value of the various 
 complications of environment. 
 
 If one attempts to account for the supposed need of a Savior 
 in the alleged condemnation of all men; and to account for the 
 salvation of a few by means of the intervention of the Savior, 
 he should explain why these are, while those are not saved by 
 means of the same intervention. To say that the damned reject 
 the proffered mercy is mere subterfuge. The question remains, 
 why do they reject it ? If their souls emanate from the same 
 all-pervading Spirit, it is indeed strange they would not be 
 more in accord on a proposition so vital to their interests. Elec- 
 tion forbids either acceptance or rejection of the proffered mercy. 
 If there is an ineffable union of God and any man in any act of 
 the soul, the rhapsodist should explain why, in the only economy 
 conceivable bv the human mind, the same union does not exist 
 between God and all men in all acts of their souls. If the Al- 
 mighty blew souls into mankind in blowing the breath of life 
 into Adam's nostrils, then all souls emanate from, and are parts 
 of an all-pervading Spirit. 
 
 If man has any intelligible reason to believe that he cannot 
 escape from his own good, and that the things that are really 
 for him gravitate to him, then there can be no occasion for the 
 sentiment of duty in him. so far as his soul's salvation is con- 
 cerned. He need not worry about the sources of nature, either 
 in or out of his mind; nor need he run to meet his friend, if, on 
 failure to tlnd him he must acquiesce that it is best he should fail. 
 It is a strange optimism that consoles the damned in the reflec- 
 tion that in the inscrutable wisdom of divine Providence it is 
 found best that they be damned. Such a reflection would 
 make the hangman's noose a cordial caress of the good Angel 
 of death. 
 
 If "there is a power, which, as it is in you, is in him also, 
 and could therefore bring you together if it were for the best," 
 
LITERARY SUFISM. 479 
 
 that Power must find it best that you be damned, or it will 
 certainly save you. Your only possible duty then with regard 
 to your soul, is to content yourself in hell if you are damned. 
 The rhapsodist's images symbolize man's struggle to save his 
 soul, which is already either saved or damned; and the damned 
 are counselled to take refuge in an optimism which sees divine 
 mercy in condemnation, and rejoices in the hope of happi- 
 ness in hell. 
 
 In imitation of the dogma of some physical philosophers, that 
 all substantive existences are traceable to a universal monad, and 
 are again diffused in impalpable gases, it is argued that indi- 
 vidual souls are aggregations of effluences from an all-pervading 
 Spirit; and that they are reabsorbed in the "one Element." in 
 the "far off divine event to which the whole creation moves," 
 as physical substances are disintegrated and diffused in impalp- 
 able gases. If the all-pervading Spirit is all-pervading, there 
 can be no room either in temporal or eternal space into which 
 the effluences can eftluesce and organize into individual souls. 
 We must believe that all the substance ever forming any part 
 of a tangible physical existence, has always existed and will 
 always exist : — that at the apparent destruction of any tangible 
 physical existence, its substance merely changes form, condi- 
 tion, and place; is rediffused in the impalpable element from 
 which, in "this round of being" it has integrated into and be- 
 come a tangible physical existence. If we speculate upon this 
 subject we are forced to this belief, because we find it impos- 
 sible to imagine the actual annihilation of any conceivable sub- 
 stance. 
 
 Applied to spiritual existence this principle cancels all claim 
 of utilitv in either morality or religion as a means of saving 
 souls. If the worshipper becomes the God he worships, then the 
 component of his soul, his spiritual existence, is absorbed and 
 loses its identity in the divine (Unity). If the parallel holds 
 good, if the analogy is really analogous, there is no occasion for 
 worship ; because all souls, having emanated from, are again 
 absorbed in the all-pervading Spirit; and so far as the salvation 
 of souls is concerned, religion and morality are empty names of 
 nothing. 
 
480 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 If all souls are not necessarily reabsorbed in the same all- 
 pervading Spirit from which they have so emanated, the par- 
 allel and analogy fail, and religious philosophy is forced to its 
 final resource (Sophistry) to account for the enormous waste of 
 soul-substance — a waste for which it cannot imagine a parallel 
 in physical existence. Here then is a necessary break in the 
 alleged analogy, which is ruinous to all argument based 
 upon it. And if the analogy holds good and is really 
 analogous, the consequence is still, and more speedily, ruinous 
 to such argument. The same soul-substance, absorbed in the 
 divine, the all-pervading Spirit, it will again efflux therefrom 
 and effloresce in future souls, to be damned or saved in some 
 future eternity, according to a capricious and unintelligible 
 election. The substance of the proudest and most majestic 
 Oak becomes the mould from which the future most contempti- 
 ble nettle extracts the substance of its corporeality and the 
 venom of its sting. It also decomposes into the gases that 
 again and again combine in innumerable forms of physical ex- 
 istence, and no mind can intelligently atteitipt to think it at 
 rest, or as not being in some form. And if religious philosophy 
 attempts to explain the principle of economy upon which the 
 soul-substance emanating from the all-pervading Spirit, so 
 deteriorates while individualized in human souls, as to become 
 fit only for damnation, it must look beyond the range of physi- 
 cal existence for its analogy. But it is uniformly more courage- 
 gous than clear in its convictions. 
 
 There is another feature of this idea of final absorption of the 
 soul in the divine (Unity) that is ruinous to all argument for 
 morality and religion. It obliterates individuality, and hence 
 cancels personal interest and obligation. If the individual soul 
 loses its personality and becomes absorbed in one all-pervading 
 Spirit, it is then utterly extinct as a soul, and the mind cannot 
 conceive how it can make any difference to such soul whether 
 it goes to heaven or to hell. Its individual existence ended, 
 consequences to it are iio' more. If the worshipper becomes 
 God, and the reviler becomes Devil ; there is still utter annihi- 
 lation of personal and individual being, and hence also an end to 
 the consequences of conduct and belief The idea is too vision- 
 
LITERARY SUFISM. 48 1 
 
 ary for serious consideration, yet it saddens the strains of song, 
 and darkens the gloom of mysticism. It is learnedly elaborated 
 in high-sounding phrase by writers canonized us saints and 
 revered as sages; and who, in their efforts to impress the world 
 with ideas which themselves have never adequately understood, 
 have confused thought to a kaleidoscopic and inexpressible mys- 
 ticism. Not one of them can tell, so himself can understand it, 
 what it is regarding the derivation, duty and destiny of man 
 that he really believes. 
 
 If some think they believe in the divine creation of man by 
 a Being of infinite power, wisdom, justice, and grace ; when 
 they candidly consider the work, they must admit it is not so 
 well done as such a Being could, and hence would have done 
 it. If they think they believe that such Being made man all for 
 His own glory; when they attempt to contemplate Him, they 
 cannot conceive of Him as itching for the fame among His own 
 creatures, of having saved a few of them from the fangs of 
 another of them, and delighting in the forced praises of a very 
 small minority and the voluntary execrations of a vast majority 
 ot them. They must believe that such Being made the Devil 
 (if there is one) because "all things were made by Him, and 
 without Him was not anything made that was made." They 
 must also believe that He made the darkness which compre- 
 hended not the light shining in it. If they think they 
 believe that man in his own fault, and at the instigation of the 
 Devil, incurred the just wrath of his Creator, they cannot, on 
 due consideration blame even the Devil, because the darkness 
 comprehended not the light. They cannot blame man, because 
 this Being not only made him as he was made, but also placed 
 him where he was certain to be instigated. They cannot 
 blame man for yielding to the instigation, because he was made 
 susceptible to the very wiles which the Devil was made and 
 peculiarly adapted to use. 
 
 If the religionist attempts to be philosophical, and will can-- 
 didly examine his belief, he will find that he cannot really believe 
 in it. If he does not then cut the acquaintance of philosophy, 
 he will be found taking refuge in ambiguity and such mystic- 
 isms as the absorption of individual souls in an all-pervading 
 
482 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Spirit, from which they must have emanated if such absorption 
 is their goal. Even their mvsticism cannot permit the souls to 
 come from any other source, because there can be no source 
 ")utside of or beyond the all-pervading. 
 
 When mysticism is thus brought abruptly to a stand, and 
 can neither proceed nor recede, it may veer with any fancy that 
 may casually possess itself of the aimless wayfarer. It may 
 hymn the unintelligible prayer: 
 
 "Oh may I join the choir invisible;" 
 
 but it knows not then what it desires. The remembrance of 
 minds made better by its presence would scarcely compensate 
 a soul for the annihilation necessarily supposed in its absorption 
 in the divine (one Element). The wish is itself a contradiction. 
 Selfishness in some form is the basis of every desire, and the 
 gratification of this desire is frustrated in granting it. incorpor- 
 ate the soul in the choir invisible, merge it in the all-pervading 
 Spirit, the ineffable Unity, and its individuality is extinguished; 
 it is no longer a self to have a desire gratified. The "blindness 
 to the future kindly given" renders it impossible for any one to 
 intelligently formulate a wish as to his future, the full fruition 
 of which he really believes would be ultimately gratifying to 
 him. Few, if any persons, know just what they really desire in 
 time, and none have ever looked back over their lives with 
 entire satisfaction. 
 
 The rhapsodist says, "It is not in an arbitrary decree of 
 God, but in the nature of man, that a veil shuts down on the 
 facts of to-morrow : for the soul will not have us read any 
 other cipher but that of cause and effect. By this veil, which 
 curtains events, it (the soul) instructs the children of men to live 
 in to-day." If the nature of man is not an arbitrary decree of God, 
 it would be very interesting indeed to know what it is. The 
 proposition is a palpable play upon words. If a man believes 
 that to-day has for him any relation to to-morrow, he cannot 
 believe that the curtaining of events instructs him to live in 
 to-day. If he could read the cipher of cause and effect (as the 
 soul allows) events would not be very securely curtained. 
 To-day's causes have their effects in to-morrow's facts, and if 
 
LITERARY SUFISM. 483 
 
 man could read their cipher they were not veiled. If there is 
 for man any relation between the causes of to-day and the 
 effects forming the events of to-morrow, he is not compliment- 
 ed in the proposition that he is instructed to live in to-day by 
 the curtaining of events. On the same principle it may be 
 urged that the less one knows the better he is instructed. 
 
 If the nature of man is not an arbitrary decree of God, then 
 He has rendered no arbitrary decree for man. All religious phi- 
 losophy proceeds upon the theory that God made man, and 
 that he had no assistance and took no counsel in the enterprise. 
 If it is correct in this, then the nature of man must be an arbi- 
 trary decree of God. As man can see no reason why he should 
 be of such a nature as such philosophy represents him, the de- 
 cree must always appear arbitrary if not capricious. If it is in 
 "the nature of man that a veil shuts down on the facts of to- 
 morrow" it must be also in some kind of decree of the Creator; 
 for if He made man, man's nature must be His decree. 
 
 These gems of the rhapsodist are figurative flights which may 
 mean anything or nothing, and any one thing as well as any 
 other. They are aimless, empty, inflated ravings of an egotistic 
 lunacy, intoxicated with its own self-conceit. A biographer 
 says of him — "To the arts and processes of the logician he 
 . pays no regard, evidently believing that they tend to belittle 
 rather than exalt the truth. He simply affirms what he be- 
 lieves, making his appeal at every step to the moral intuitions 
 of the reader, in the faith that the Spirit of the man is the can- 
 dle of the Lord, with a power of illumination equal to every 
 emergency." 
 
 No truth which the human mind can comprehend as a truth 
 can be illogical. • To say that Emerson affirmed what he be- 
 lieved, does not indicate his belief in a very substantial or defi- 
 nite form. In all that he has written there is very little that is 
 definitely affirmed. The above specimens from his casket fairly 
 represent the gems it contains ; and their settings are correspond- 
 ingly grotesque. If any man shall derive an available hint 
 therefrom his candle (of the Lord) must throw a strong light. 
 To rely upon the moral intuitions of the reader, expecting 
 his spirit to illuminate for himself the devious and dubious obs- 
 
484 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 curity, and to make something for himself of the nothing of the 
 philosopher or rhapsodist, is to admit the worthlessness of the 
 rant, it may mean one thing to Smith, another thing to Jones, 
 and nothing whatever to Brown ; according to their respective 
 moral intuitions, if they have them. 
 
 If it is supposed that the arts and processes of the logician 
 tend to belittle truth, it certainly cannot be supposed that vacil- 
 lating sophistry and maudlin mysticism tend to exalt it. Who- 
 ever disregards logic cannot be loyal to truth. The ground 
 which is common to both and indispensable to each is consist- 
 ency. Neither of them can be conditioned upon any so-called 
 moral intuitions of the reader. These may be as various as the 
 several tastes and temperaments of the several readers, and may 
 vary from time to time in one and the same reader. 
 
 The rhapsodist however startles us with his own consis- 
 tency, in openly rejecting all consistency. He exclaims — 
 "With consistency a great soul has simplv nothing to do. 
 He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. 
 * * * To be great is to be misunderstood." If the con- 
 verse of this last proposition — to be misunderstood is to be 
 great— were true, then the rhapsodist was truly great; that is, if 
 his mysticism really has a meaning. Think of the grovelling 
 flunkeyism which gapes in amazement at the genius so learn- 
 edly and authoritatively declaring what neither its readers nor its 
 writer ever understood — from the simple fact that it contains 
 nothing to be understood, or even misunderstood. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SUBSTANCE OF THE UNSUBSTANTIAL. 
 
 Unification of Opinion Unattainable — More Confusion than Conviction Results 
 From Philosophy — Reasoning Adds Nothing to Knowledge — Knowledge 
 Cannot be Less than Certainty — First Conscious Experiences are Not 
 Knowledge — Experiences Must be Accumulated and Coordinated, to Con- 
 stitute Knowledge — No Original Sense Perceptions — No Knowledge Orig- 
 inal so as to be Distinguishable from Acquired Knowledge — No Sound Phil- 
 osophy can Consist of or be Based on Assumption — Affections Cannot be 
 Perceived as Extended — Mmd not Substance — The Mental Cannot be Di- 
 vorced from the Physical — Incipient Sensibility a Degiee of intelligence — ■ 
 No Knowledge Starts in Thought — Science Cannot Precede its Data — 
 Mind is not Simply Thought Conscious of Itself — If each Thought Involves 
 Its Own Contradictory it Cancels Itself — Memory is Duration of Thought 
 and is Necessary to Thought Itself — Impressions the Basis and Content of 
 all Intelligence — The Real is Real Independent of Sensation — Cogito ergo 
 sum absurd — No one Ever Had the idea of God as the Absolutely Perfect 
 Being — Truth is Invariable — Belief is Involuntary and Must be Caused — 
 Accountability for Belief is Unintelligible. 
 
 Speculative disquisition generally proceeds upon the theory 
 that thought and its expression may be systematized. Philos- 
 ophers dictatorially address themselves to the human mind and 
 posit the possibility of unification of opinion. Nothing could 
 be more illogical. On reflection it must have occurred to them 
 that in presenting their doctrines, the validity of which is only 
 argued, not demonstrated, they assume the existence of the 
 very qualities or properties of mind which would render all 
 philosophy nugatory. They would have observed that their 
 own substantive knowledge is the product of experiences, many 
 of which were the experiences of others. The results of the 
 experiences of others they may have appropriated in various 
 ways, but mainly by observation. Among their observations 
 would occur the fact that of all the plausibilities ever urged 
 upon man as truth, they never knew one that could stand a 
 fair examination, or that could silence inquiry. Also that 
 among the great Galaxies of Genius enlightening the race, there 
 is such discord that more confusion than conviction results 
 from the promulgation of their doctrines. 
 
486 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 If the brain is the nervous center where consciousness and 
 power over the voluntary movements abide, and if in composi- 
 tion it averages about three fourths water, and the residue with 
 slight inequality is albumen, fat, and salts containing phos- 
 phoric acid, it might seem that whatever would make an im- 
 pression on one mind, would make a like impression on all 
 minds developed in like brains. Such seems to have been the 
 idea with which each philosopher has set out to revolutionize 
 and systematize thought — and this in the face of the fact that 
 his own substantive knowledge is had by the same means by 
 which he must know that no philosophy can be conceived of 
 as adequate to meet the demands of mind. Experience, includ- 
 ing observation, must have shown them this before they had 
 attempted the excogitation of their own respective schemes. 
 
 The Author of an alleged psychology says, "experience, 
 properly speaking, is only a repetition and collection of what 
 we have passed through, and if there be not knowledge in the 
 original experiences it cannot be had by a accumulating them. 
 As little can it be had by reasoning, except from premises 
 which contain certain knowledge of material objects; without 
 this there would be an evident illicit process, that is, we have 
 no more in the conclusion than we have in the premises." If 
 one has certain knowledge of material objects in his premises, 
 it is not apparent that he could by reasoning add to this certain 
 knowledge. But it is apparent that the term — certain know- 
 ledge — is itself an abuse of terms. Anything less than certainty 
 cannot be knowledge, and the reasoning process is idle, unless 
 it be to classify and arrange the knowledge had in the premises. 
 Its deductions are vain if the conclusion cannot have more than 
 is contained in the premises, and it certainly cannot have more 
 (substantively) if they must contain certain knowledge of 
 material objects before the conclusion can contain it. If less 
 .than certainty could be knowledge, reasoning might do more 
 than classify and arrange, and aid in assimilation; it might 
 place its deductions, its inferences, its plausibilities and its 
 learned guess-work into the conclusion, and add to the volume 
 of knowledge an indetlnite volume of uncertainty. 
 
SUBSTANCE OF THE UNSUBSTANTIAL. 487 
 
 In another connection the Professor says, "If the mind did 
 not begin with knowledge it could never reach it by any pro- 
 cess of thought. * * * If we have not knowledge in the 
 premises, we are not entitled to put it into the conclusion." 
 Yet he proceeds to put the results of his own processes of 
 thought into an alleged philosophy. If the mind must begin 
 with knowledge, no process of thought is necessary in order 
 to reach it. If the process of thought cannot reach knowledge 
 unless the mind begins with it, the process cannot create 
 knowledge, and hence cannot add to that with which the 
 mind begins. At most it can only classify, arrange, and 
 assimilate; and its deductions can never be more than mere 
 plausibilities — they are void for uncertainty. 
 
 The Professor had lived in a world, and among men. He 
 must have had experiences, repetitions and collections of what 
 he and they had passed through. Among these must have 
 been the observations that he never knew a mind to begin 
 with knowledge, that philosophy uniformly fails to unify and 
 systematize thought, and that it was never known to meet the 
 demands or silence the inquiry of mind ; even those of the mind 
 by which it was itself in any instance excogitated. Among 
 his experiences he must have had, or supposed he had such 
 knowledge, or he could not have legitimately supposed an 
 occasion for his own scheme. If among his experiences he 
 had or supposed he had such knowledge, he still could not 
 have legitimately supposed any occasion for, or utility of his own 
 scheme, because his experience must have shown the neces- 
 sity of its failure. 
 
 Having declared that if he had not knowledge in his origi- 
 nal experience it could not be reached by any process of 
 thought, it must have been the knowledge which he had in 
 such experiences, and that alone, which he was entitled to put 
 into his conclusion. His conclusion then could be no more 
 than a mere arrangement of his empirical knowledge; his phil- 
 osophy would necessarily be a classification and assimilation of 
 the knowledge contained in his original experiences, including 
 of course the knowledge of the necessary futility of all philos- 
 ophy. As his experiences must have embraced the observa- 
 
488 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 tion of the universal failure of philosophy to unify and system- 
 atize thought, and satisfy the demands and silence the inquiry 
 of mind, this must have been part of the knowledge which he 
 was entitled (obliged?) to put into his conclusion (philosophy); 
 and by it he must have known that his own conclusion would 
 necessarily be equally futile. The very basis then of his alleged 
 philosophy is self-destructive. It declares the necessity of the 
 failure of the scheme to be erected thereon. 
 
 To meet the skepticism of Hume he holds "that our first 
 conscious experience does not consist of impressions, but is a 
 knowledge of things; that we have sense perceptions which 
 are original and not derived, and that if they were not given 
 us by original endowment they could never be obtained by 
 experience, by inference, or any other process." Here it 
 should be shown that there is an essential difference between 
 impressions and a knowledge of things; and this difference 
 should be shown to be in kind and not simply in degree. It 
 supposes a marvelous precocity to hold that our first conscious 
 experience, as distinguished from impressions, is a knowledge 
 of things. It is exceedingly refined to hold that there is a dis- 
 tinctive difference between experience and impressions. No 
 impression can be had without an experience; and no experi- 
 ence can evoke consciousness without makina: an impression. 
 Our first conscious experience arises when first some object is 
 so presented to the sensuous faculty as to evoke a sensation of 
 which we are conscious; and no other sensation is supposable. 
 At that time we could not have a substantive knowledge of 
 the object so presented. None of its relations besides those of 
 space and time could then be cognized by us, and the only 
 substantive knowledge of it that we can ever have must be an 
 acquaintance with it in its relations to other objects. It cannot 
 be without such relations, and until they are cognized it is 
 nothing intelligible to us. As we can ascertain those relations 
 only by accumulating experiences, it follows that our first con- 
 scious experience cannot be a knowledge of things, but that it 
 is a mere impression. By our first conscious experience we 
 are merely impressed with an idea of the being of the thing; 
 we can know no more of it than that it is, then and there. 
 
 i 
 
SUBSTANCE OF THE UNSUBSTANTIAL. 489 
 
 While we may know that it is not of this or that i<ind, such 
 knowledge is purely negative and is not a knowledge of the 
 thing. 
 
 Things of whose existence we are ignorant may be de- 
 scribed to us, and the mind may thus be prepared to apprehend 
 them. Then when they are so presented to the sensuous 
 foculty as to evoke sensation, there may be a cognition amount- 
 ing to recognition of them. But this is more than our first con- 
 scious experience of the thing. It is that, in addition to the 
 preparation of the mind (in the description given) to utilize the 
 first conscious experience in the acquisition of a knowledge of 
 the thing. If a complicated electrical mechanism is first seen 
 by one who never knew or heard of such thing, or of electrical 
 appliances or action, he has his first conscious experience of 
 that thing in the sight of it. He may then have the negative 
 knowledge that it does not belong to this or that class of things, 
 and also the positive knowledge that it is then and there; but 
 this is not a substantive knowledge of it. 
 
 We have a conscious experience in every sensation. But 
 they must be accumulated and coordinated if we are to have 
 a knowledge of the things causing them. If our first conscious 
 experience were really a knowledge of things, it must be a very 
 meagre knowledge. It seems that it cannot be more than an 
 impression, and necessarily a vague impression. Deflniteness 
 may come with the multiplication of experiences and distinc- 
 tion between them; that is, by experiences of the thing in vari- 
 ous relations; and as these are accumulated and coordinated 
 the acquisition of a knowledge of the thing is going on. Such 
 knowledge must be the sum of our impressions, and the more 
 they are, and the better coordinated, the greater our knowl- 
 edge. Still, to be strictly logical, we must hold that we never 
 have more than impressions, which, when accumulated in 
 various amounts, and coordinated in various ways, the vari- 
 ous philosophers call by the more dignified name of knowl- 
 edge. From such data they proceed in a thousand different 
 directions to amplify the sum of this so-called knowledge, by 
 reasoning out to results as variant from each other and the 
 truth, as their delirious vagaries can be from physical demon- 
 
400 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 stration, claiming thereby to add to the sum of knowledge. 
 The difficulty which is necessarily fiital to each of their claims 
 is the fact that knowledge is not vague or uncertain; that to be 
 knowledge it must be definite and certain. 
 
 To say that we have sense perceptions that are original and 
 not acquired, means nothing intelligible to any human mind. 
 We are ourselves derived, and we cannot conceive of an im- 
 pression as more original than ourselves. Original endowment 
 is no more than inheritance of faculty and ancestral bent. If we 
 have sense perceptions they are acquired. At nativity we cer- 
 tainly have nothing of the kind; the mind is a blank — or rather 
 there is no mind. We then have a mysterious mechanism in 
 the use of which a mind may develope. All educational effort 
 is necessarily based upon the idea that the kind and quality of 
 mind that shall develope, depend largely upon the use made of 
 this mechanism. If it is not used at all, no mind can develope; 
 and there certainly cannot be any perception where there is no 
 mind. This mechanism is variously affected by contact, 
 through the sense organs, with things. This is its use. These 
 affections are sensations. Their repetition, variety, and co- 
 ordination may develope perceptions, the aggregate of which 
 may constitute or contribute to the constitution of mind. The 
 earlier shocks of pain are recoiled from mechanically, and the 
 subject perceives nothing. In profound sleep consciousness is 
 suspended, yet the subject will shrink in the part affected by 
 any thing that nettles it. If the term were admissible at all, 
 sense preceptions cannot be original, although our capacity for 
 them may be as original as ourselves. 
 
 Legitimate reasoning about bodv does not necessarily imply 
 a primitive cognition on which it proceeds. Acquired percep- 
 tions do not necessarily imply primary ones on which they 
 proceed. No mind ever started with a knowledge of body 
 occupying space, or had any knowledge whatever until it was 
 acquired. One need not always be vividly conscious of his 
 acquisition of knowledge, and this may be the basis of the 
 common exclamation — I always knew that. But this means 
 no more than that I do not remember having learned that. It 
 does not imply primitive cognition, primary perception, nor 
 
SUBSTANCE OF THE UNSUBSTANTIAL. 49 1 
 
 original knowledge. There is a time to each mind (or the 
 organism in which mind manifests itself) when it has no 
 knowledge. The idea of original knowledge is irreconcil- 
 able with the idea of acquired knowledge. We well know 
 that we acquire some knowledge; and we are unable to distin- 
 guish any of our knowledge from such in kind as we know we 
 have acquired. We could only know that we have original 
 knowledge, by knowing that we have knowledge differing 
 from any acquired knowledge, and further knowing that we 
 never acquired, but always had it. 
 
 Strictly speaking, we cannot by combining experiences and 
 reasoning from them add indefinitely to our knowledge. To 
 know that we thus add to our knowledge, we must know that 
 the reasoning process adopted is the only one legitimately 
 admissible in the particular case. Another process might 
 lead to the absurdity of a conflicting knowledge. The known 
 difference in the results of apparently plausible processes of 
 leasoning from the same facts, shows that there is no means of 
 knowing that we add to our knowledge by rea.soning from our 
 combined experiences. There are too many theories of phil- 
 osophy now in vogue, and their advocates and adherents are 
 too solicitous for them, for any mind to repose in security that 
 they contain and consist of knowledge. 
 
 Philosophy cannot consist of assumptions, nor be legiti- 
 mately based upon them. If perception is a property of mind, 
 just as gravitv is a property of matter, it should be more con- 
 stant than we know it to be. Gravity of matter is not devel- 
 oped, but is absolutely constant. If matter under different 
 circumstances manifests apparently different degrees of gravity, 
 it is because the circumstances change the condition of matter, 
 if not the matter itself. A saturated sponge will weigh exactly 
 the same that it would weigh when dry, plus the weight of the 
 fluid absorbed in saturating it. Any fuel will weigh exactly 
 the same that its debris would weigh, plus the weight of the 
 gases liberated (generated?) in its consumption. Gases are not 
 without weight, and they ascend instead of descend, simply 
 because in proportion to volume the atmosphere is heavier than 
 they are. But the gravity of matter remains constant. In its 
 
492 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 beginning, mind has little or no perception. Later, and under 
 favorable circumstances, it may have a great deal. In disease 
 it may diminish, and it may increase again on restoration to 
 health. If it is a property of the mature and healthy mind, it 
 is not as so gravity is a property of matter, it is an acquired 
 and a variable property, and not an original and constant one. 
 if the affections of the sense organs may all be perceived as 
 in a certain direction, they certainly cannot be perceived as 
 extended — otherwise than in time. To suppose their extension 
 in space is absurd. They cannot have length, breadth, or thick- 
 ness. Spatial extension implies material substance, form, 
 divisibility, and gravity. A shadow implies only that light is 
 partially excluded from a certain place. We cannot so pro- 
 perly say that a shadow extends throughout or over that place, 
 as, that light is partially excluded therefrom. If mind were act- 
 ually known to be a substance, the question immediately arises, 
 what is substance. If the affirmation that mind is substance is 
 made on the same ground as we maintain that, body is sub- 
 stance, it necessarily implies that mind is a material substance. 
 It is never known to be apart from body. It is well known 
 that it is not body, for body is frequently known to be without 
 it. Body is a solid material substance, and it is affirmed that 
 mind is a substance, on the same ground that we maintain that 
 body is a substance. The Professor then has two solid 
 material substances, occupying precisely the same place, at 
 precisely the same time. Worse than this; mind must have 
 length, breadth, thickness, divisibility, gravity, density, and 
 molecular motion. Its particles must integrate and disinte- 
 grate, as the particles of water are now in a glacier, now in a 
 stream, now in a cloud, again in some form of vegetal life, 
 and again in the brain of some philosopher, giving to his mind 
 its gravity, and perhaps its density. 
 
 In these days scarcely any one would venture upon a 
 psychology without reference to physiology and anatomy. 
 The Professor accompanies, and attempts to illustrate and en- 
 force his propositions with diagrams of the nervous organism. 
 He seems to recognize that the mental cannot be divorced from 
 the physical. If sensibility is a germ of cognition, or if it is it- 
 
SUBSTANCE OF THE LINSUBSTANTIAL. 4q} 
 
 self incipient cognition, it is still a mere quality or property oi 
 matter — the matter composing the nervous mechanism, if 
 phosphorescence is a factor in the acquisition of knowledge, 
 conducing thereto in the retention of impressions on the living 
 cells, it is still a mere quality, property, or state of matter — the 
 matter composing such cells. It is said that sensibility first ap- 
 pears in unicellular vegetal existences. That as cells are more 
 denselv grouped, sensibility becomes more distinctly evident, 
 until in man they produce those phenomena defined /// concreto 
 as the moral sense. That calorific and luminous impressions 
 affect vegetal cells, that plants catch insects, are sensitive to 
 touch, turn toward the sun, and discern points of support. 
 That every motion is preceded by sensibility. If this is true, 
 and mind is not divorced from matter, it is simply an abuse of 
 terms to say that mind is itself a substance; and absurd to say 
 that it begins its intelligent act with a knowledge of things. 
 If mind were a substance, it could be separated from other sub- 
 stance, and itself remain substance. No one can imagine a 
 mind as existing apart from some substance which he knows 
 is not mind. The very thought of mind brings with it a 
 countenance, a human figure, at least a living organism. 
 When we know that life has left such organism, we may 
 easily conceive of its substance as utterly devoid of mind, 
 while all the substance composing it is known to remain 
 intact. If the living organism weighs and measures the same 
 as the dead, the departure of mind is not the departure of 
 substance. 
 
 It is further said that by the terminal nervous expansions, 
 open to all that comes to impress them, external phenomena 
 become incarnate in us. This is the commencement of intelli- 
 gent action. The process does not start with, but it produces, 
 conscious sensibility and impressions; v\^hich are more vivid as 
 they are incorporated more and more with the organism. If 
 moral sensibility is engendered by the arrival and persistence 
 of impressions in the sensorium, mind is no more a substance 
 than feeling and color are substances. One may continue the 
 acquisition of knowledge, the developement, enlargement, and 
 expansion of his mind indefinitely; and with ordinary cranial 
 
494 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 capacity he need not worry himself about storage. In a few 
 cubic inches of space, ah'eady filled with a few ounces of ma- 
 terial substance, he will always be able to stow away all his 
 mental acquisitions; he will always have room for all the mind 
 he may develope. Should it be objected that if mind is not 
 substance there is no warrant for the expression — substantive 
 knowledge — I may say that 1 have used it only to distinguish 
 between knowing somewhat of a thing, and knowing merely 
 its being. 1 not only concede. I insist, that we have no right 
 to use the term knowledge at all, except to distinguish the 
 strength of convictions, resulting trom aggregated and coor- 
 dinated impressions. The truth is, these still remain mere im- 
 pressions, and we really know very little if anything. 
 
 From the simplest histological irritability, to the most 
 exquisite sensibility, the transition is by almost imperceptible 
 degrees, until it results in man in a manifestation of mind. 
 Some forms and measures of sensibility we know can not 
 amount to mind, but it differs from the sensiblity in man 
 which does amount to mind, only in degree, in the lowest as 
 in the highest organisms, and the intermediate, it is simply a 
 condition or state, so far as substantive material existence is 
 concerned. The more finely the subject is organized, the more 
 exquisitely it may feel and express its sensibilities; and hence 
 the more intellectual it may be. That persons in similar cir- 
 cumstances and with equal effort attain to different degrees of 
 proficiency, implies difference in the organization of their respec- 
 tive nervous mechanisms. To say that because mind has a 
 discernible potency, it must be a substance, is as absurd as to say 
 that fever and epilepsy are substances, because each of them 
 has a discernible potency. They prostrate and rack the 
 strongest men. Unless the needle is heavier arid larger when 
 magnetized than before, magnetism is not a substance, and yet 
 it has a visible potency, though like fever and epilepsy and 
 mind, it is itself invisible. 
 
 It is idle to attempt to get back to a fundamental prin- 
 ciple in philosophy; yet the founder of one of the so-called Ger- 
 man Systems maintains that all knowledge must start in thought 
 simply. But as he foils to inform us from whence thought 
 
SUBSTANCE OK THE UNSUBSTANTIAL. 493 
 
 starts, we are as far from the source of knowledge as ever. He 
 maintains that logic — the science of thought — is the first part of 
 the system of knowledge. But this is to make one science a 
 mere datum for another science; or, it is to make knowledge 
 more than a science; and the science of logic merely a primary 
 component element in the construction or formation of know- 
 ledge. The process becomes so involved and intricate that by 
 the time knowledge shall be reached the mind will have so be- 
 wildered itself that it will not know the difference between 
 knowledge and guess-work. Thought must be some part of 
 knowledge if there is knowledge. No science can precede its 
 data. The substance must be at least as early as its form. No 
 mind can intelligently conceive of a truly- scientific science as 
 containing nothing; or as being an improvised outline to be 
 filled in with after-acquired material. Before logic can be, 
 thought must be; and it cannot be without content. Logic 
 then cannot be in order until some other part of the supposed 
 knowledge shall have appeared. Thought, its derivation and 
 content must precede Logic, if the latter is the science of 
 thought. 
 
 The German further maintains that thought is transformed 
 into something outside itself in nature, the philosophy of 
 which is the second part of knowledge; and that by a kind of 
 reflection in nature thought becomes conscious of itself, thereby 
 producing mind. Then mind would be simply its own con- 
 sciousness of the thought composing it, which is absurd, if 
 the positions in the system were intelligible, they are still 
 untenable, if logic has any part in the system, it is to drive the 
 philosopher successively from each position. To say that 
 knowledge starts from thought simply, is a mere waste of 
 words which express nothing. It brings us no nearer the 
 source of knowledge. No knowledge has risen above the 
 sphere of thought, and none has approached nearer to the 
 absolute than thought. We cannot imagine a knowledge as 
 being more than a coordinated aggregation of thought — 
 verified in various processes of ratiocination, and in what some 
 dogmatists denominate demonstration. 
 
4q6 ethics of literature. 
 
 The German further maintains that every thought necessar- 
 ily involves its own contradictory, and thereby adds to its own 
 content; and that by a combination of contradictories we 
 arrive at absolute knowledge. This would be getting there 
 with celerity. It would be gratifying if the mind could mount 
 to the pinnacle of its highest aspiration of its own momentum, 
 and by simply combining the two contradictories which must 
 be present in its every thought. If every thought necessarily 
 involves its own contradictory, then the contradictory is already 
 in and a part of each thought — even the thought that the con- 
 tradictory is contradictory. Thought then cancels itself, and 
 there is nothing to combine, and no addition to be made. If 
 the conception of un-ity is not more positive than the contra- 
 dictory conception of plurality, and if either is necessarily in- 
 volved in the thought of the other, we may attempt to imag 
 ine a parallel for the result, in attempting to imagine the con- 
 sequence if two irresistible and impervious bodies, moving in 
 diametrically opposite directions should meet. To maintain 
 that thought passes outside itself in nature, and, reverberating, 
 becomes conscious of itself in mind, may mean something to 
 some minds. Possibly there are philosophers who can imagine 
 a thought passing outside itself. But it is difficult to imagine 
 what remains within, where the thought passes to, and what 
 it becomes outside itself If it continues to be thought it can- 
 not get very far outside itself and if it is not originally con- 
 scious of itself it cannot be a very vivid thought. Had the 
 German in the beginning asked himself the question — what is 
 thought ? and then set himself diligently to answer it intelligi- 
 bly before giving the world his philosophy, there would pro- 
 bably have been less learned wrangling over the purport and 
 plausibility of the Hegelian svstem. It would never have seen 
 daylight.. 
 
 Thought necessarily implies memory, and it cannot be so 
 transitory as to have no duration. Its duration is memory. 
 Memory is, or seems to be, retained or revived thought. 
 Science claims that a physical excitation is transformed into and 
 becomes an impression by means of the action of the nervous 
 plexus which may happen to be affected by the particular ex- 
 
SUBSTANCE OF THE UNSUBSTANTIAL. 497 
 
 citation. That by virtue of their phosphorescence the peripheral 
 nerve-cells retain records of the stimulations which have caused 
 them to vibrate. That the community of the peripheral and 
 central regions is such that while the peripheral region remains 
 susceptible to excitations, the central remains capable of its 
 function in the process resulting in thought; and that when the 
 peripheral plexus is anaesthetized, central perception (thought) 
 is impossible. That the anaesthetic condition of the sensitive 
 peripheral plexus prevents the registration (retention) of the 
 impressions, and hence prevents their persistence. That feeble 
 excitations make only faint impressions, and iteration is neces- 
 sary to their persistence and the consequent evolution of mem- 
 ory. That when sensorial cells are set vibrating, they are 
 sensitized, according to the character of the excitation ; and that 
 the nerve immediately concerned transmits intelligence (feel- 
 ing ?) of the excitation to the sensorium, and also of the pain or 
 pleasure characterizing it. The result is said to be thought. 
 Then thought which, when aggregated and coordi-nated con- 
 stitutes mind, is merely an immaterial, evanescent element, 
 which cannot be more than a mere affection or state of nerve 
 substance. It is so far from being itself a substance, that it is 
 only such an affection or state as the particular excitation may 
 cause the nerve substance to take on. If thought is not sub- 
 stance, then mind cannot be substance, unless mind is other or 
 more than aggregated and coordinated thought; and it cannot 
 be conceived to be other or more. Thought cannot be aggre- 
 gated and coordinated unless retained or revived during the 
 process, and it cannot evolve from the primary impressions on 
 the living cells unless such impressions persist. The substance 
 of mind then is very unsubstantial; and thought simply is not 
 the starting point of knowledge. 
 
 Impressions may be retained with their respective co-effici- 
 ents (whatever these are) which recall the pleasure or pain of 
 their original incorporation with the particular plexuses; and 
 in this experience they may become, by means of the tendencies 
 thev beget, the pivot of all intelligent action. If so they are the 
 basis and content of all intelligence, for there is no intelligence 
 but is intelligent action. When and how impressions ever 
 
498 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 become more than impressions is not apparent. It is said tiiat 
 the mental impressions we are supposed to have when think- 
 ing of an absent thing is an idea of that thing. ■ It would be 
 more accurate to say it is a retained or revived impression or 
 sensation. It is also said that the idea is thus contrasted with 
 the sensation, or feeling we have when the senses are engaged 
 directly with the thing, that the idea is the impression we have 
 in thinking of the absent thing. It is also said that the sensa- 
 tion is what constitutes the thing the reality ; while the impres- 
 sion, persisting or restored, in the absence of the thing is the 
 idea. This is learnedly and finely wrought. But its substance 
 is of more consequence than its form. Its absurdities are 
 apparent. Sensation cannot constitute anything a reality. 
 Whatever is a reality at all is such independent of sensation. 
 Its presence directly to the senses of one person may evoke in 
 him one kind of sensation, while to another it may evoke a dif- 
 ferent kind of sensation. Its presence to the senses of one may 
 be indirect or at second-hand. One may hear or read of 
 a thing of which his informant may have had a direct, 
 or, perhaps, an indirect and second-hand impression. In 
 such case he has an idea of the thing without having had a 
 sensation or impression arising from the direct engagement of 
 any of his senses with it. There may be many to whose 
 senses the thing is never present, directly or indirectly. If the 
 thing is, it is a reality although these never experience or 
 realize it. To say it is not a reality to them is simply a labori- 
 ous and elegant wav to say they are not cognizant of it. One 
 gets an idea of the thing when he gets his information of it, 
 whether the information comes at second-hand, or by direct 
 engagement of the senses v/ith the thing. If the idea is in all 
 cases necessarily the result of his impressions and sensations of 
 the thing, then the communication of information at second- 
 hand is an experience evoking a sensation and an impression of 
 the thing. The thing itself may not be at all. But by means of 
 indirect information one has the idea of it, which idea, accord- 
 ing to the above propositions is the sum of impressions, which 
 impressions cannot be without sensation. If sensation consti- 
 tutes the thing the reality, the inventive enthusiast may apprise 
 
SUBSTANCE OF THE UNSUBSTANTIAL. 499 
 
 US of things, his chimerical creations, and we must get ideas of 
 them. These ideas are sums of our impressions. Impressions 
 necessarily presuppose sensations, and sensations constitute the 
 things the realities. Space might be crowded to suffoca- 
 tion with realities so constituted. This is the necessary logical 
 result of the proposition that sensation constitutes the thing the 
 reality. 
 
 When such propositions necessarily lead to such absurdity, 
 it is strange that an alleged theology would tremble at the 
 menacing mien of an alleged skepticism which affects to regard 
 all external phenomena as having no existence apart from the 
 thinking subject. It is in keeping with the fear of such aimless 
 emptiness, to attempt to refute it in such exclamations as — "I 
 think, therefore I am." There would be more sense in such 
 ejaculations if the subject had not been before he had thought— 
 if it was known that at no time during his being he had not 
 thought. 
 
 It is said that the Apologist who based certitude on self- 
 consciousness, reasoned therefrom that whatever. could be 
 clearly and distinctly thought must be true. That among his 
 clear and distinct thoughts he recognized the idea of God as 
 the absolutely perfect Being. That this idea could not be formed 
 by us because the imperfect could not originate the perfect. 
 That hence the idea must be an inherent element of the under- 
 standing. That from the existence of the idea the being of 
 God is necessarily inferable, because no other could originate 
 in us the idea. That the result is proof of the being of God, 
 because we have the idea which no other than Him could 
 originate in us. The fatal flaw in all this, however, is the fact 
 that no one ever had the idea of God as the absolutely perfect 
 Being. Such an idea is as far above human capacity as infinity 
 is above the finite. 
 
 While Descartes appeared more than a hundred years before 
 Hume, yet it was to answer such a skepticism as that of the 
 latter that the former argued, that the Originator in us of the 
 idea of an absolutely perfect Being must be that Being; that He 
 cannot deceive; and that whatever our God-given conscious- 
 
500 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ness clearly testifies must be true. But insuperable difficulties 
 appear. We know of great diversity of supposed opinion of 
 the supposed perfect Being; and that such diversity implies 
 error. We know that it is impossible to formulate or have in 
 the mind an intelligible idea of such Being; and that we have 
 never known any two minds to have formulated or had identi- 
 cal conceptions of Him, nor indeed any complete conception of 
 Him whatever. If all psychical experience is to the effect that 
 the God-given consciousness and idea of the absolutely perfect 
 Being produce iniinite diversity and irreconcilable conflict of 
 opinion, which cannot in any instance be intelligibly formulated 
 in the mind, the certitude based on such consciousness and 
 idea cannot be very reliable. Truth admits of no variation. 
 If certitude depends upon the clearness and distinctness with 
 which we can think the supposed truths, it is as variant as the 
 capacities and caprices of the thinking subjects. If external 
 phenomena have no reality apart from the thinking subject, 
 then a great deal of that which we think we know is not yet 
 fully, real, because many thinking subjects have not yet thought 
 it. And a great deal of the same supposed truth is as various 
 in import and content as the several intellectual capacities of the 
 several of our fellows who think they know the same supposed 
 truth. The absolutely perfect Being would have a diflerent 
 form, and be of a different character for each and every indi- 
 vidual consciousness in which there was the idea which none 
 but He could originate. 
 
 It is extremely unfortunate for apologetics that it cannot 
 invoke the aid of philosophy without obliging itself to abide 
 the necessary results of the philosophic propositions it makes. 
 If it could appropriate philosophy's trite truisms without 
 their necessary logical consequences, it might make a great 
 display of the wisdom of words, without serious injury to its 
 own supposed philosophy. But the data and principles of 
 philosophy are inexorable — they go only with their logic. 
 
 It is a part of history that where religion is divorced from 
 state, apologetics actively exerts itself to enforce its supposed 
 beliefs. With this fact in view it is said that, "The applica- 
 
SUBSTANCE OF THE UNSUBSTANTIAL, SOI 
 
 tion of Strong motives of the nature of reward and punishment 
 is sufficient to cause one creed to prevail rather than another, 
 as we see in those countries and in those ages where there 
 has been no toleration of dissent from the established religion. 
 The masses of the people have been in this way so fenced in 
 from knowing any other opinions, that they have become con- 
 scientiously attached to the creed of their education." In other 
 words, and more accurately, they have been made the slaves 
 of the powers enforcing the doctrines of the church to which 
 the state was wedded. In the absence of political coercion 
 apologetics is more active in its efforts and by its sophistries to 
 make them its dupes. 
 
 Where church and state are divorced, the tables are turned, 
 and there is like to be little toleration of assent to the tenets 
 of the prevailing religions, among those who affect superior 
 intellectual attainment. The reward in popularity, and the 
 punishment in ridicule, are almost as strong motives in the in- 
 tellectually free state, as the penalties by which assent to 
 unintelligible doctrines are enforced in the religiously slave 
 state. 
 
 Where political power no longer enforces adherence (belief.^) 
 and science seems about to make it appear ridiculous, apolo- 
 getics claims akin to this same science, and, by sophistries un- 
 worthy its cause, it attempts to make religion appear philoso- 
 phic. Both labor to enforce what each seems to regard beliefs. 
 Apologetics seems to think that science regards the religious 
 believer a fool, and attempts to sanction his belief from science's 
 own premises; at the same time holding the wavering adherent 
 accountable for unbelief. If it proceeds from the premises of 
 science it necessarily admits their validitv- In such case there 
 can be no accountability for unbelief, and hence no occasion for 
 the solicitude of apologetics. 
 
 Scientifically belief is involuntary. It must be produced by 
 an efficient cause. What that cause shall be, and how it shall 
 operate, are not within the individual's control. If he has 
 innate proclivities tending him to this or that belief, he either 
 inherits or acquires them. These vary with the various results 
 of the transmitted experiences which make up his native ten- 
 
502 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 dencies, and with the tendencies acquired in his enviroment, 
 over neither of which he has any control. H' he turns this or 
 that factor in his enviroment to bad account it is because he is 
 so constituted as to do so. Accountability for belief is unintel- 
 ligible. It very unjustly requires stultification. It argues 
 nothing to say that creeds have been enforced by the sanction 
 of penal laws. Men "fenced in from knowing any other 
 opinions" cannot be said to have intelligently believed the 
 enforced creeds. And apologists are not ready to admit 
 that any other than intelligent belief can be belief. If men 
 know no other creed than the one enforced upon them, 
 it is not their belief. It is the creed of others administered to 
 •them, and acquiesced in by them. They are the truckling slaves 
 of Fashion or of some other power, blindly accepting whatever 
 Authority proposes; they are not intelligent thinkers really 
 believino^. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 PIOUS FRAUD IN LITERATURE. 
 
 The Hebrew Exodus not Demanded by any Racial Characteristic — Bad Economy 
 Ot the Movement — The Egyptian the Most Ancient Civilization — The 
 Stronger Side the Better side — Success the Measure and Proof of Merit — 
 Moral Law said to Inhere in the Nature of Things, and Execute Itself 
 Through the Instrumentality of Men — Then Christianity is an Imposture, 
 and Duty an Absurdity Without Sin There Can be no Purpose in Religion — 
 Religion Should Cut the Acquaintance of Science and Reason — Original Sin 
 is the Bedrock of Calvinism — Cowardice of Apologetics — Burning of Servetus 
 — The Choice of the Almighty — if He Exercises Choice Hhe Cannot be 
 Almighty — Religious Systems Compete for Favor of Man — Parallels Be- 
 tween Various Systems — Whatever Begins in Time Must Run the Usual 
 Course and End in Time — The Facts of History Cannot be Marshalled to 
 the Establishment of any Comprehensible System. 
 
 In speaking of the exodus of the Hebrews, a very promi- 
 nent personage in modern literature declared that "Their leader 
 had been trained in the wisdom of the Egyptians, and learnt 
 among the rocks of Sinai that it was wind and vanity. The 
 half obscured traditions of his ancestors awoke to life again, 
 and were rekindled by him in his people. They would bear 
 with lies no longer. They shook the dust of Egypt from their 
 feet, and the prate and falsehood of it from their souls, and 
 withdrew with all belonging to them into the Arabian desert, 
 that they might no longer serve cats, and dogs, and bulls, and 
 beetles, but the Eternal Spirit who had been pleased to make 
 his existence known to them." 
 
 Siippressio verj, Siiggestio falsi; and the declaration illus- 
 trates how difficult it is for religious partizanship to adhere to 
 the truth. It was made in a lecture on Calvinism in 1871 in 
 one of the oldest and most aristocratic Universities in Christ- 
 endom; where f^icts incompatible with its necessary implica- 
 tions and imputations must have been as well known as those 
 upon which the Rector based his learned libel on the most 
 venerable civilization known to history ; the civilization at the 
 light of which that of Greece obtained its torch. From data as 
 available as that v/hich he utilized he must have known that if 
 the Hebrews withdrev/ with all belonging to them, they 
 
S04 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 also took a great deal not belonging to them. That if they 
 shook the dust of Egypt from their feet, they did not shake the 
 gold of the Egyptians from their persons. That instead of 
 shaking the flilsehood of Egypt from their souls that they 
 might no longer worship animals, their leader was barely out 
 of camp on his second Sinaitic embassy till they were sacrific- 
 ing to a calf made of the gold they had lately stolen from their 
 Egyptian neighbors. And that if they would bear with lies no 
 longer, they would bear with theft, idolatry, and lascivious 
 barbarity. So a half truth becomes a whole falsehood. 
 
 If the half million men simply rose up (as the Rector re- 
 marks) and declared that they could no longer endure the" men- 
 dacity, the hypocrisy, the vile and incredible rubbish which 
 was offered to them in the sacred name of religion, it is strange 
 they so soon counter-mutinied and forsook the Eternal Spirit 
 who had been pleased to make his existence known to them, 
 and consecrated themselves to a calf of their own make. If the 
 Egyptians had offered them in the sacred name of religion, any 
 rubbish that was more vile and incredible than that, we are not 
 informed what it was. The necessary implication of the 
 Rector's remark is, that during their four hundred years subjec- 
 tion to Egvpt, and notwithstanding their leader was trained in 
 the wisdom of the Egyptians, and only learnt from the Lord 
 among the rocks of Sinai that it was wind and vanity, yet the 
 Hebrews had maintained their own ancient racial character- 
 istics and a predilection for the theology of their ancestors; and 
 that as a race they required a change from the vile and incredi- 
 ble rubbish of their masters. There can be but one motive for 
 the attempt to give the affair such color. That is to obviate 
 Reason's objection of the preposterous in a supposed divine 
 deliverance, by basing the movement upon a supposed racial 
 requirement. And even this is at cross-purpose with the logic 
 of history, for no race was ever known to remain so long the 
 slaves of their intellectual inferiors. 
 
 The apologist who attempts thus to account for the alleged 
 exodus does his cause neither service nor credit. If the move- 
 ment was in fact made, and if our information of it is authentic, 
 the cause cannot be served or credited by reasoning, and it is 
 
PIOUS FRAUDS IN LITERATURE. 505 
 
 both cowardly and impolitic to attempt to account for the 
 movement differently from the way it is already accounted for 
 in such information. The half million men gave the Eternal 
 Spirit as well as their leader too much trouble during the move- 
 ment for their revolt against the vile and incredible rubbish of 
 the Egyptians to have been the result of a generally prevailing 
 religious sentiment among them. The record of their rambles 
 is a wearisome repetition of revolts against the same Eternal 
 Spirit whose worship, the Rector declares, was with them a 
 racial requirement. The same record shows that they returned 
 to their idols too soon and too often to have been very thor- 
 oughly disgusted with the vile and incredible rubbish of the 
 Egyptians. 
 
 If their leader was trained in the wisdom of the Egyptians 
 it is not likely that the masses retained their racial characteris- 
 tics with such tenacity as to reject the rubbish which he only 
 learnt among the rocks of Sinai was wind and vanity. The 
 masses of slaves are seldom so far in advance of their leaders. 
 If a theologian or an apologist is not content with the biblical 
 account of the alleged deliverance of the Hebrews; if he desires 
 to curry favor with skeptical intelligence by basing the move- 
 ment on reasonable grounds, and still allows the plagues and 
 the Red Sea incident to remain, he should have had the east 
 wind wall up the waters again, and have counter-marched the 
 Hebrews back to the depopulated possessions of their late 
 masters. The first born of Egypt were all slain, and Pharaoh 
 with all his host v/as drowned. If Egvpt was not a land 
 flowing with milk and honey, the Hebrews would at least 
 have found things better prepared for housekeeping than thev 
 were beyond Jordan, to say nothing of the tiresome tramp 
 through the desert. If one proposes to account for an alleged 
 spiritual manifestation on physical grounds and make the 
 supernatural appear reasonable, he should attend to such detail ; 
 and not attempt to obscure incongruity by glozing over it in 
 perfunctory fashion. The thinker may wonder why the 
 masses were so devout as to dash through the Red Sea on one 
 day, and so refractory as to be murmuring against their inspired 
 leader on the next. If Canaan was in fact a better land for the 
 
S06 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 chosen than Egypt, the same miraculous Power that drowned 
 the heirs of the world's recent proveditors could (four centuries 
 before) have prevented the famine in Canaan; and there would 
 have been no occasion for the four hundred years of servitude, 
 nor for the extermination of Pharoah's hosts, nor for the butch- 
 ery ot the various ites and bites and tites v/ho were found in 
 the promised land. If reason were equipped with such power 
 it would have taken a short cut to results, and the chosen, 
 instead of being the scourge and reproach of the race would 
 have been the favorites of all nations. The apologist who 
 attempts to find reason for a miracle, or in a miracle, must 
 either dissimulate with his reader and himself, or cancel the 
 miracle; or, what is more likely, he will become involved in a 
 labyrinth of unintelligible nothings. 
 
 If Moses was trained in the wisdom of the Egyptians, and 
 learnt among the rocks of Sinai that it was wind and vanity, 
 he learnt that it was such only in comparison with the wisdom 
 which he learnt among those rocks. The wisdom of the 
 Egyptians had been the religion of civilization for thousands of 
 years. Its rites were being performed in temples when an 
 Arabian wanderer was whetting the knife to cut the throat of 
 his only legitimate son, as he lay bound upon the altar at 
 Jehovah-jireh, a mountain in the solitude of the desert. When 
 Moses returned to Egypt from his first Sinaitic embassy, (the 
 trip occasioned by some loose talk among his own people of 
 one of his own murders) and demanded the deliverance of the 
 Hebrews, it seems to have become necessary to emphasize the 
 demand in the performace of some extraordiary feats. The 
 Power that commissioned him to make the demand, also 
 hardened Pharaoh's heart so he would reject it. Reason would 
 have shrunk from such duplicity. If the Lord wanted a pre- 
 text for the punishment of Pharaoh, it would have to be found 
 without recourse to the aid of reason. But something super- 
 natural had to be done in order to convince Pharaoh of the 
 divine authority for the demand of the surrender of that which 
 for centuries had been an essential component in the body 
 politic, to one of his own slaves. It is strange that divine 
 Power would give an earnest of its own divinity in changing a 
 
PIOUS FRAUDS IN LITERATURE. 5O7 
 
 Stick into a serpent instead of some one of the numberless 
 other creatures in nature for which such Power had not 
 expressed such abhorrence. When Aaron attempted to con- 
 vince Pharaoh by changing his rod to a serpent, so far from 
 being disturbed by the manifestation, Pharaoh called in a 
 number of his own priests who immediately changed their rods 
 to serpents. So far they were even in the manifestation of the 
 same power — at least power of the same kind — that of making 
 serpents. That Aaron's serpent then swallowed theirs argues 
 nothing (philosophically) more than that his was the largest 
 and most voracious reptile; the difference in the power mani- 
 fested being merely in degree, and not in kind. If Reason 
 were about to demonstrate the divinity of Moses and Aaron's 
 authority by the exhibition of such power, it would not have 
 allowed the Egyptian Priests the ability to imitate it in any 
 respect or to any extent. Reason would have the hiatus 
 between the divine and human, to say nothing of the diabolical, 
 impassable; or at least so great that there could be no sem- 
 blance of a competition between them when it comes to con- 
 vincing men or attaining ends. If we contemplate this scene 
 or any part of it from reasonable ground, we see the Almighty 
 resorting to all sorts of subterfuges and expedients to accom- 
 plish that which, if He is almighty, He could have accom- 
 plished directly. Reason would never have attributed such 
 double-dealing to Him. 
 
 Truckling to reason the Rector robs the Deity of the glory 
 of having miraculously delivered the chosen from the fetters of 
 their oppressors, and attributes the revolt to the inherent merit 
 and manliness of the oppressed. Having run superficially 
 over several other religious revolts he says : "When men have 
 risen in arms for a false cause, the event has proved it by the 
 cause coming to nothing. The world is not so constituted 
 that courage, and strength, and endurance, and organization, 
 and success long sustained, are to be obtained in the service of 
 falsehood. If I could think that, I should lose the most con- 
 vincing reason for believing that we are governed by a moral 
 power. The moral laws of our being execute themselves 
 through the instrumentality of men; and in these great move 
 
S08 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 merits that determine the moral condition of many nations 
 through many centuries, the stronger side, it seems to me, has 
 uniform!}' been the better side, and stronger because it was 
 better." 
 
 His doctrine seems to be that nothing succeeds so well as 
 success, and that success is the measure and proof of merit. 
 I believe that principles, to rise to the dignity of the name, must 
 be inexorable in operation, and relentless in result, if we apply 
 the manifest principles of the Rector's own reasoning to theol- 
 ogy, his favorite faith becomes an imposture. If Mohammedan- 
 ism has extirpated eastern Christianity, and usurped its place in 
 the eastern and southern Mediteranean coasts for more than 
 twelve centuries, it must be the stronger, and, according to the 
 Rector, the better of these two sides. It has determined the 
 moral condition of many nations through many centuries; it 
 has vanquished an opposing side, so it must be the stronger of 
 the two; if the stronger is stronger because it is better, then the 
 Crescent will eventually relegate the Cross to a mere memory 
 of an obsolete superstition which will recur most vividly in 
 association with vague reminiscences of the stake, the axe, the 
 halter, and the dungeon. If Buddhism prevails almost as ex- 
 tensively as all other isms combined, and if it has so prevailed 
 longer than any known ism, it must be the best of all sides. 
 Courage, and strength, and endurance, and organization, and 
 success long sustained have been obtained in its service; so it 
 cannot be a falsehood. As neither history, nor tradition, nor 
 imagination, can take us back to the origin of the vile and in- 
 credible rubbish which the Egyptians offered the Hebrews in 
 the sacred name of religion, nor number the masses who had 
 from the inftincy of time accepted and enforced it as a religion, 
 it must, on the same principle, have been an infinitely good 
 side, and it could not have been a falsehood. The service of 
 cats, and dogs, and bulls, and beetles, was then the highest and 
 the holiest best of heaven ; for courage, and strength, and endur- 
 ance, and organization, and success long sustained, had been 
 obtained in such service. 
 
 The Rector assumes the airs and proportions of a logician 
 and philosopher, and confidently stakes the validity and super- 
 
PIOUS FRAUDS IN LITERATURE. 5O9 
 
 iority of his theology upon what he calls natural principles. 
 He then proceeds to urge the reasonableness and superiority of 
 his doctrine and faith, neither of which can be intelligibly 
 arranged in any human mind, from data v/hich, upon his own 
 alleged natural principles, necessarily imply its inferiority to 
 each of the three other theologies above named. His success 
 is his ruin; his own logic makes Christianity an imposture, if 
 the stronger has uniformly been the better side and stronger 
 because it was better, then the doctrinaire of free will and 
 accountability foi' belief concedes away Christianity's claim of 
 validity, when he says it degenerated with extreme rapidity in 
 the east, conduced to the enervation and decline of Rome, and 
 has, except at times of unwonted violence, maintained a dis- 
 sembling truce with fashionable vice. 
 
 If the moral laws of our being execute themselves through 
 the instrumentality of men, then men are the mere instrumen- 
 talities of the execution of such laws. To harmonize this 
 automatism with personal accountability for conduct and belief 
 is the burden of the learned sophistry of apologetics. Fanatics 
 forever seek a place in the vocabulary ot man's relative being 
 for a theological interpretation and application of the word 
 ought. So interpreted and applied, Reason cannot make 
 it dovetail with any thing therein. While we cannot effectu- 
 ally get rid of all notion of duty, it is still impossible to formu- 
 late in the mind any intelligible conception of duty or personal 
 accountability under a system where moral law executes itself 
 through the instrumentality of men. The Rector says that 
 moral law is constant and continuous, that it inheres like the 
 law of gravity in the nature of things, and that we must 
 discern and obey it at our everlasting peril. Free will and 
 personal accountability then are impossible, and the notion of 
 duty is an absurdity. Law is restraint. That we may sin, and 
 suffer inevitable ill therefor, implies no freedom. If moral law 
 imposes an inevitable ill for sin, we may not sin. If, neverthe- 
 less, we actually do sin, and suffer the inevitable ill, we either 
 rebel or we are mere instrumentalities in the execution of such 
 law. There is no freedom in either case, and instead of being 
 restrained from sin by the moral law, we are simply con- 
 
5IO ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Strained to suffer in its execution of itself through us as 
 its instrumentalities. 
 
 The notion of freedom is sometimes enforced in illustrations 
 from the execution of civil law, but the analogy is mainly con- 
 spicuous for its absence. Civil law is proverbially inconstant, 
 and it is territorially limited in application. If moral law exists 
 as claimed, man is its involuntary subject and instrumentality, 
 and he cannot get beyond its sv/ay. Illustrations in physical 
 consequences of conduct are even more inapt. To say that 
 certain acts hasten or determine the mode of pain and death, 
 is more a statement of fact than of law. But allowed as a 
 statement of law, the most indiscreet move apologists could 
 make, would be to establish that such physical law is analo- 
 gous to the alleged moral law. If such law exists and inheres 
 like the law of gravity in the nature of things, then no religion 
 can have any validity, unless it were coeval with such law. 
 In the presence of such supposed law, analogous to any known 
 physical law, all supposable religion is self-contradictorv. If 
 physical death ends the existence of the individual Ego, future 
 consequence is cancelled, and no supposable religion can have 
 any purpose. Without sin there is no conceivable occasion 
 for any religion. All religion necessarily supposes sin in the 
 present, and accountability therefor in the future existence. 
 Sin — the violation of the alleged mora! law — must cause or en- 
 tail the ill of the future, for if religion has any meaning, by its 
 means the ill of the future may be averted, the future existence 
 may be made to be good. But in physical law no conduct can 
 cause or entail either pain or death. Their time and form or 
 mode may be determined bv conduct, but they are caused and 
 entailed for each individual at birth, and bv the same Power 
 which caused the individual to be. By physical law pain and 
 death are absolutely certain from birth. To establish that it is 
 analogous to the alleged moral law, is to establish that all souls 
 are hopelessly damned. 
 
 Were religion content to stand upon the authority of divine 
 Power, and refer SkepJ;icism to miracle, grace, and scriptural 
 teachings generally, it might at least be more consistent with 
 itself. But when it attempts to claim akin to Reason, and 
 
PIOUS FRAUDS IN LITERATURE. S I I 
 
 urges an alleged moral law as inherent, like the law of gravity 
 in the nature of things, it foredooms all men to the very dam- 
 nation from which it is her ostensible office to save them ; or, 
 forsooth, such of them as are elect to avail themselves of the 
 saving grace. It overlooks the fact that saving grace is itself a 
 violation, evasion, or suspension of the alleged moral law, 
 which is said to inhere like the law of gravity in the nature 
 of things. If such law so inheres, redemption is a failure, 
 atonement a farce, and Christianity an unmeaning imposture. 
 Exposure to certain physical conditions determines inevit- 
 ably the time and mode of pain and death. So far as the 
 subject is concerned, the exposure may be designed or uninten- 
 tional : the consequence is inevitably the same. The thought 
 of law as devoid of its sanctions cannot be arranged in the 
 mind. As applied to reasonable creatures these sanctions 
 cannot be thought otherwise than as punitive. No one can 
 conceive of punishment for violated law except, for the pur- 
 poses of law at least, as due to a knowing and willing violator 
 of such law. The punishment for violation of law must be for 
 the purposes of law, for the Rector says it executes itself 
 through the instrumentality of men. Such combinations as 
 are indicated by the use of such terms as law and liberty, 
 fate and free-will, and predestination and perseverance, are 
 unintelligible. Yet zealots, professing to be philosophers have 
 butchered their brethren for daring to interpret the senseless 
 enigmas in a sense different from theirs. One of the most 
 illustrious of modern historians attempts to vindicate the 
 character of one of the infatuated bigots in question. We have 
 only to apply his own logic to his own postulates to show 
 that his success must be ruinous to the cause in which the 
 vindication is attempted. 
 
 It is amusing to observe one who affects the wisdom of a 
 philosopher, the authority of a historian, and the integrity of a 
 Christian, to say nothing of the humanity of a human, attempt- 
 ing to vindicate a brute who for Christ's sake had burned a 
 former friend for daring to differ with him in opinion concern- 
 ing a matter of which neither of them could possibly have 
 more than an opinion. If the cast of cultured thought is impor- 
 
SI2 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 tant it is alarming that such attempted vindication, served up 
 in an academic lecture could be relished by one of the most 
 aristocratically educated bodies of men in Christendom. It is 
 absurd to attempt such vindication in an argument urging duty 
 and personal accountability along with the reality, reasonable- 
 ness, validity, and continuity of an alleged moral law, based 
 upon original sin and predestination. 
 
 The bedrock of Calvinism is original sin — that all men ex- 
 isted in Adam, and hence sinned in him. The word all is 
 comprehensive, and if Calvinism is true then Christ must have 
 been a sinner. Even it He was begotten by the Holy Ghost 
 He was conceived in sin — in the llesh which had existed and 
 sinned in Adam. To be logical and not irreverent one may 
 say, the immaculate conception is a precedent of very high 
 authority for the occasional intrigues of the clergy with which 
 society is occasionally scandalized. Priesthood is not without 
 example in its venerv with the wives and the betrothed of the 
 laity. To allow that the divine begetting obviates the neces- 
 sity of Christ's being born in sin, is to allow away the whole 
 case. It necessitates, or rather constitutes, a break of the con- 
 tinuity of the alleged moral law, foists miracle into the room of 
 reason, and suspends the very necessity which must be the 
 basis of the alleged predestination. The miraculous cannot be 
 reasonable, and the reasonable cannot be miraculous. 
 
 If all men existed and sinned in Adam, still, the Almighty 
 made Adam, and hence all men. The Almighty caused all who 
 have come from Adam to sin, by causing them to exist in Adam. 
 He also made and enforces the alleged moral law, pursuant to 
 which millions of millions of Adam's "faithless progeny" yet 
 unborn are already damned. The holv may be horrified, but 
 blasphemy itself is reverence in comparison with the logical re- 
 sults of their tenets. They are the brave soldiers of the Cross 
 who lower its banner to Science, catch at the hem of her gar- 
 ment, and protest that moral law inheres — like the law of 
 gravity — in the nature of things. 
 
 Because Michael Servetus, "a wicked and an accursed 
 Spaniard" could not believe his God to be such a monster as 
 Calvinism necessarily makes Him, the hero of Froude's learned 
 
PIOUS FRAUDS IN LITERATURE. SI3 
 
 lecture instigated his arrest as he was passing peaceably through 
 Geneva, and procured him to be burned at the stake. If moral 
 law inheres as is claimed, its continuity is as reliable as any 
 feature it can have. The very term implies continuity and con- 
 sistency. The apologist who attempts to base the validity of 
 Christianity upon it, cannot concede that Christianity's greatest 
 expounder and defender of the sixteenth century, the founder 
 or reviver of one of the most formidable isms that ever rent and 
 cursed an}' system, was a mere creature of an erratic era and 
 exceptional circumstance. The miraculous power that could 
 so impregnate a virgin descendant of Adam that the offspring 
 could be born immaculate, notwithstanding all men existed 
 and sinned in Adam, was not so exhausted in the sixteenth 
 century that its principal terrestrial executor was a beast 
 from necessity of circumstance or occasion. The apolo- 
 gist must hold — if moral law inheres like the law of 
 gravity — that the burning of Servetus, done in "abhorrence 
 of all conscious mendacity, all impurity, all moral wrong 
 of every kind," is an example of Christian service worthy 
 the emulation of the intolerant bigots of the same faith to day. 
 Otherwise the promulgator of an accursed fanaticism was as 
 vile a brute as ever dishonored the race ; and the Rector who 
 declared to the licentiates of St. Andrews in 1871, that all there 
 then was in England or Scotland of a conscientious fear of do- 
 ing wrong, was a remnant of the convictions which were 
 branded by the Calvinists into the people's hearts, was a grace- 
 less impostor. If there is indeed a moral law, and if it inheres 
 as is claimed, then the champion of sixteenth century Christian- 
 itv is now realizing how hot he made it for Servetus. "For 
 with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured 
 to you again.'' If the flames of Hell are hotter than were those 
 which arose from the oak fagots on the Genevan eminence on 
 October 27th, 1553, they also have a worthier subject. 
 
 There can be no irrore reliable index to the true inv/ardness 
 of an ism than the conduct of its promulgators in enforcing it. 
 The interpretation they thereby give is its most authentic 
 exponent. While Calvinism was merely a revival of sixth 
 century Augustinianism, yet for his time, Calvin was pre- 
 
514 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 eminently the Priest of the dogma of original sin, predestina- 
 tion, and irresistible grace. If these are real and mean anything 
 intelligible to the human mind, there is no such thing as per- 
 sonal duty or accountability. Physical punishment for so- 
 called immoral conduct is worse than brutal, and incineration 
 for disbelief in such absurdity is worse than diabolical. If the 
 absolute will of the Almighty "determines the eternal destiny 
 of man," according to the mere choice of the Almighty, and if 
 those "who are thus foreordained to eternal life are led to 
 believe and live by the irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit," 
 then man is entirely irresponsible. There is more of the savage 
 ferocity which usually characterizes religious intolerance, than 
 of the severe logic for which Calvin has been unduly famed, in 
 the idea of destroying the lives of those who cannot believe the 
 hideous libel of their God. The mind which is imbued with 
 such belief, cannot imagine the Almighty as other than a 
 monster of the same kind as the ideal of such doctrine, magni- 
 fied and intensified to infinity. The difference between the 
 Calvinistic and the divine cruelty is merely in degree. In the 
 one case there may be a limit to the mischief to be done; in the 
 other, its victims are divinely assured that "the smoke of their 
 torment ascendeth up forever and ever." It would probably 
 rise pretty high during two evers. The idea of the duration of 
 the torment is about as reasonable and intelligible as any other 
 feature of the divine assurance. It is more nearly reasonable 
 than the idea of an infinitely powerful, wise, and good God 
 having a choice among His own creatures as to their salvation; 
 the creatures who have offended Him only in the exercise 
 of the fliculties which He gave them, under the circumstances 
 in which he placed them, and the offence itself being fore- 
 ordained. 
 
 If all who shall be saved are already elect, if they are pre- 
 destined and led by irresistible grace to believe and live, there 
 can be no duty or accountability resting on any individual with 
 relation to his salvation. The Almighty cannot be conceived 
 to have any such thing as a mere choice concerning anything 
 whatever. Choice implies alternatives between which the 
 choice must be made. Place your God in these straits, and He 
 
PIOUS FRAUDS IN LITERATURE. 515 
 
 is not Almighty. A greater than He has prescribed the alterna- 
 tives. Nothing could be more irreverent than the application 
 of the word must to the action prescribed by apologists for 
 their supposed Deity. To say that the alleged moral law is so 
 infinite, eternal, immutable, and universally inherent in the 
 nature of things as to control the action of the Almighty, is only 
 a confused and obscure mode of declaring that He is subject to 
 some Power greater than Himself. While the supposed moral 
 law may possibly be conceived of as a pure abstraction, no 
 mind can conceive it to have any efficacy without a Power be- 
 hind it, and if it limits or in any way restrains the action of the 
 Almighty that Power must be superior to Him, and He is not 
 almighty. Another is mightier than He. Then if He saves 
 some souls through His own mere choice, He is merely licensed 
 by His Superior to make a selection; licensed by the Power 
 which has fixed the alternatives between which He must 
 choose. Individual duty and accountability are thus removed 
 one degree further from possibility. 
 
 Those who do not believe are already damned; indeed they 
 have been damned before they have been at all. They are 
 mere clay in the hands of the divine Potter, and were by Him 
 moulded lor hell before they became even clay. "In human 
 salvation, therefore, God's will is everything, man's nothing." 
 And yet man is accountable. The champion of such doctrine 
 in the sixteenth century burned the heretic that could not 
 believe in it. His encomiast in the nineteenth century, in a 
 learned discourse upon an alleged moral law, exhibits such a 
 character for the admiration and emulation of men, and points 
 to it as authority for the dictum of duty and accountability in 
 connection with original sin, election, predestination, and irre- 
 sistible grace. 
 
 It is impossible to conceive of a human mind as entirely 
 devoid of religion. Atheism cannot be thought. Yet no 
 religion can be made to appear reasonable. It implies worship 
 in some form, and worship without mystery is impossible. 
 Mystery made reasonable is no longer mystery. If the 
 Almighty were divested of mystery He could no longer be wor- 
 shipped. If one has formulated or has in mind a creed by which 
 
5l6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 he is to believe in Him, and attempts on reasonable grounds to 
 explain to himself why he so believes, he will discover that on 
 such grounds he cannot believe. He cannot formulate or have 
 in mind an intelligible belief that will bear his own scrunity. 
 He may for a time think he believes thus and so of his God. 
 That he may so think for a time, implies that under suitable 
 circumstances he may so think for all his time. But if he 
 attempts to arrange his supposed belief substantively in his 
 mind, so he can intelligently recur to and consider it, and dis- 
 cuss intelligibly to himself and others the grounds and conse- 
 quences of the belief, he will find himself in an inextricable 
 tangle of inconsistency and absurdity. His next resort will be 
 subterfuge and sophistry, he will dissimulate with himself 
 Should he candidly pursue the investigation he will find that the 
 mystery which apologetics proposes to make reasonable is 
 an absolute mystery. He will also find that if it were not 
 an absolute mystery, and if it were made to appear reasonable, 
 there would be an end of religion. He will also find that the 
 very minds by and to which religion's mystery is to be made 
 to appear reasonable, are themselves absolute mysteries. He 
 will deem it mysterious that religious minds should attempt or 
 desire to clear away the very mystery without which there 
 could be no religion. 
 
 The different systems of religion are so many competitors 
 for the favor of mankind, who, according to the tenets of each 
 system is dependent upon divine favor for his salvation. As 
 each system professes to afford the only access to divine favor 
 by which man may be saved, it is extremely illogical for any 
 of them to become embroiled with another in a strife for human 
 favor. Yet much of the bitterest and bloodiest warfare the 
 world has witnessed has been between different organizations 
 attempting to establish their respective faiths in order to save 
 the world. That there are differences in the systems conclus- 
 ively demonstrates that all cannot be valid. That any have 
 originated and changed in time just as conclusively establishes 
 that they were invalid either before or after such change, and 
 that they must pass away in time. Whether the change was 
 effected in order that the fliith might keep pace with intellect- 
 
Pious FRAUDS IN LITERATURE. SI7 
 
 ual progress, or dovetail with a prevalent caprice, or for any otiner 
 purpose, it is equally conclusive that the system has no stabil- 
 ity ; that it is a temporary and temporizing makeshift of empiric 
 imposture, an expedient resorted to in preference to some other 
 expedient because it was supposed to be better suited to pre- 
 vailing conditions. 
 
 If sixteenth century Calvinism was not an unmitigated curse, 
 then every one who rejects it to-day deserves the fiite of Serve- 
 tus, for the alleged moral law inheres — -like the law of gravity 
 — in the nature of things; it is continuous, constant, and eter- 
 nal. If Calvinism was ever true, it is still true. If it required 
 and justified the burning ofServetus, then every one who dares 
 to disbelieve its barbarous absurdities deserves the same fote. 
 The heat of hell were inadequate to the deserved roasting of 
 the perverse heretics. Religion then ought not to yield to 
 civilization or humanity so far even as to substitute hanging for 
 burning. If the souls of disbelievers are to fry forever in 
 sulphurous flames, they may congratulate themselves that their 
 bodies may be consumed in flames not so offensive to the 
 olfactories. 
 
 So far as human reasoning is concerned. Christianity can 
 have no more validity than any other system. Through many 
 of the systems there run identical ideas, only differently cloth- 
 ed, and the difference in their garb is the main difference in 
 the several religions. Christianity comes from a system that 
 had its God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is one yet 
 three, trinality in unity, to the entire subversion of mathemat- 
 ics. He has existed, as exemplified in such of His works as 
 appear to us, from time unthinkable; but our traditions have it 
 for about six thousand years. They also say He has existed 
 from all eternity, that there never was a time when He was 
 not. But the phrase all eternity is ft contradiction. It implies 
 limitations before one and after the other of which, eternity 
 could not be. It is said that in the beginning He created the 
 heavens and the earth. If some one can conceive of a begin- 
 ning of either time or eternity such assertion may have some 
 meaning for him ; but no one has yet shown such capacity. 
 Such declaration then can have no intelligible meaning for any 
 
5t8 ethics of literature. 
 
 human mind. Our traditions place this alleged beginning at 
 about six thousand years ago. This is a long time, but it is 
 no nearer a supposable beginning of either time or eternity 
 than yesterday. And yet, if we say that all that begins in 
 time must end in time; or, if we say that all that ends in time 
 must have begun in time, we must, to be logical, admit that 
 time itself may have begun and may end. There is no logical 
 necessity for a thing to end in time from the mere fact of its having 
 begun in time; nor for a thing having begun in time from the 
 mere fact that it ends in time, unless it is the finiteness of time 
 itself, and this cannot be even imagined. 
 
 For a while the chosen people of our God were divided in- 
 to twelve tribes. But ages before they were known as the 
 chosen, or so divided, Astrology had divided the celestial 
 regions into twelve houses, each having one of the heavenly 
 bodies for its Lordlet; and a little later the temples of Athorat 
 Denderah were embellished with symbolic representations of 
 the twelve constellations. Near nineteen hundred years ago 
 the second person of the Trinity of our traditions descended to 
 earth, became tlesh, was born of a virgin, had twelve apostles, 
 and died to expiate our sins; which, so far as we are concerned, 
 were not and never would have been committed. 
 
 Another race of people, much more respectable numerically 
 than ours, also has its God, its Supreme Spirit, who is also 
 triune in His essence and being, and who also in the beginning 
 created the heavens and earth. From our standpoint we may 
 offset the numerical disparity in good looks and intelligence; 
 but they would probably admit that we only offset such 
 disparity in vanity. And they have some reason to believe 
 that we consider ourselves smarter than all other people. We 
 certainly do not live nearer the precepts of our religion than 
 they to the precepts of theirs. 'in order to create this world, 
 the Supreme Spirit produced from the right side of His body, 
 Himself as Brahman; then in order to preserve the world He 
 produced from the left side of His body Vishnu; then in order 
 to destroy the world He produced from the middle of His body 
 the eternal Siva." The second person of this Trimurti, Vishnu, 
 
PIOUS FRAUDS IN LITERATURE. 519 
 
 was the preserver of the world. The second person ot the 
 Trinity of our traditions we call the Savior. 
 
 But the laws of thought are set at defiance. How any- 
 thing eternal could be produced, and how any thing produced 
 could be eternal, surpass human conception. In its efforts to 
 make religion appear reasonable apologetics should not over- 
 look this. Even the Herod of our traditions is preceded by a 
 parallel in the Kansa of theirs. Krishna, who had twelve apos- 
 tles, was the eighth incarnation of Vishnu, the second person 
 of the Trimurti of their traditions, and as above stated the Pre- 
 server. Kansa was king (Tetrarch) of Mathura. For the des- 
 perate chance of getting Krishna he out-herods our Herod in 
 killing the children of two years and under throughout a larger 
 and more populous district. Like our Herod he was foiled, but 
 it was by means of a pious falsehood about a miscarriage in- 
 stead of a flight into Egypt. 
 
 Many centuries after Krishna the incarnation of the second 
 person of the Trinity of our traditions was again paralleled, six 
 centuries before it occurred, in the ninth incarnation of Vishnu; 
 and while Buddha's putative father was a king instead of a 
 carpenter, yet his mother was impregnated with him by the 
 Supreme Spirit while she was yet a virgin. He had twelve 
 apostles, and "promised salvation to all; He commanded His 
 disciples to preach His doctrine in all places and to all men." 
 He gave them the divine commission six centuries before the 
 second person of the Trinity of our traditions said to His apos- 
 tles, "Go ye into all nations and preach the Gospel to every 
 creature." 
 
 If the ten commandments of our traditions were not sug- 
 gested by Vishnu in some one of His prior incarnations, they 
 are very closely paralleled in the ten moral precepts of Buddha. 
 In number they exactly correspond, and in effect they are so 
 similar that the life of one who strictly observes one set, could 
 not be distinguished from the life of one who strictly observes 
 the other set of precepts. The first five of those of Buddha are 
 intended to be of universal application. They forbid murder, 
 theft, falsehood, adultery, and drunkenness. The other five 
 are more ritualistic and relate to individual regimen at vaiious 
 
520 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 stages of spiritual progress. They require abstinence from 
 food out of season, amusements, luxuriance, personal orna- 
 mentation, and greed. 
 
 The first of our ten commandments has no parallel in these 
 Buddhistic precepts, whose promulgator, so far from exhibit- 
 ing an envy or jealousy of any other God, does not seem to 
 have suspected the existence of such a rival for the adulation 
 of man ; and herein consists the only real difference between 
 these two sets of precepts. It is difficult to conceive how our 
 Lord could be a jealous God if there is none other for Him to 
 be jealous of If He is the only God the first commandment is 
 a very illogical superfluity, if not absurdity. If the chosen 
 would not believe his declaration that He was the only God, 
 they would scarcely obey His command to them to have no 
 other. If they %vouId believe such declaration there could be 
 no occasion for the restraint. If there are other Gods, and the 
 first commandment implies that there are, then the first com- 
 mandment is an exhibition of envious rivalry for the f^wor of 
 the subject commanded. It is in keeping with the persistent 
 protest of the Bible and the Koran: "God is the Lord, and be- 
 sides Him there is none other." 
 
 It is remarkable that a book purporting to be the word of 
 God should abound in asseverations of its own authenticity. It 
 is more remarkable that such a book should cite the authority 
 of another for any of its own declarations. Yet in Numbers, 
 21-14, the Lord, through His inspired vice-gerent, authen- 
 ticates one of His own utterances thus: — "Wherefore it is 
 written in the book of the wars of the Lord," etc. If we knew 
 who wrote the book of the wars of the Lord, we might form 
 some conception of its value as authority for the inspired utter- 
 ances of Moses. If he wrote the Pentateuch, the citation 
 implies that some one had preceded him with a history of the 
 exploits which it records. In such case the Pentateuch may 
 have drawn as heavily from the book of the wars of the Lord, 
 as from what the Lord spake unto Moses. If he was inspired 
 by the Lord he still seems to have deemed it advisable to cite 
 authority for the inspired utterance. Without disputing or dis- 
 paraging the authenticity ot Holy Writ, it is fair to say that it is 
 
PIOUS FRAUDS IN LITERATURE. 52 1 
 
 frequently discredited in the tllmy subterfuges resorted to 
 in order to make its declarations appear reasonable, and to 
 enforce the thousands of unintelligible creeds claimed to be 
 based upon tliem. ( The Bible contains numerous references 
 to other books, but they are generally for matter omitted from 
 the Bible, and not as authority, for its own declarations.) 
 
 Christianity has been known for less than two thousand 
 years, and it never was the creed of one-third the human race. 
 The Rector says that "Buddhism has been the creed for more 
 than two thousand years of half the human race." Hence, if 
 he is correct in the declaration that "the world is not so con- 
 stituted that ourage and strength and endurance and organ- 
 ization and success long sustained are to be obtained in the 
 service of falsehood," he is "hoist by his own petard." it 
 differs from Christianity, and it can only differ by conflicting 
 with it. If one is true the other must be false. If as he says, 
 "in those great movements which determine the moral condi- 
 tion of many nations through many centuries, the stronger side 
 has uniformly been the better side," then the stripling of Calvary 
 is a mere empiric in comparison with the gigantic old patriarch 
 of Meru. 
 
 It is idle to attempt to arrange the facts of history in a pro- 
 cession and march them to the music of the morning stars, 
 and to the establishment of a universal system governed by an 
 , alleged moral law, when the influences of such system have 
 not reached one third of the human race in two thousand years 
 of almost constant diffusion. If "Zoroaster among the hardy 
 tribes ot the Persian mountains, taught a creed which, like that 
 of the Israelites was essentially moral and extremely simple," 
 if, like Moses, "he saw behind the physical forces into the 
 deeper laws of right and wrong," it would be interesting to 
 knov/ from whence he was inspired. If the Persians were 
 properly called "the 'Puritans of the old world,"' and hated 
 idolatry "for the simple reason that they hated lies," it would 
 seem that Jewry and Christianity have not had a very secuie 
 monopoly of morality. 
 
 If Persian simplicity and morality were fatal to Babylonish 
 and Egyptian dominion. luxury, and idolatry; and if, "as 
 
522 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 events glide on Persia runs the usual course, virtue and truth 
 produced strength, strength dominion, dominion riches, riches 
 luxury, and luxury weakness and collapse;" and if all this is 
 the execution, by itself, of moral law through the instrument- 
 ality of men ; and if the moral law inheres — like the law of 
 gravity — in the nature of things, the end, and hence the futility, 
 of Christianity is posited. It affects morality, simplicity, virtue, 
 and truth. While its possession of these may be fatal to other 
 systems, it will also be fatal to Christianity. They will pro- 
 duce strength, strength dominion, dominion riches, riches lux- 
 ury, luxury weakness and collapse, and Christianity will itself 
 run the usual course. Having begun in time, it will end in 
 time; when the alleged moral law shall have again executed it- 
 self through the instrumentality of men. Otherwise Christian- 
 ity must be divorced from the alleged moral law, it must cut 
 the acquaintance of Science, and content itself to appear (as it 
 is) unreasonable. The logic of its modern apologists makes it 
 an imposture, an expedient, a system of charlatanry that must, 
 like all other temporal contrivances, run the usual course and 
 become a mere memory in the mind of the future man. 
 
 The lecture in question was intended to vindicate Calvin- 
 ism, the blood-curdling nightmare of a brutal superstition. 
 The creed is as hideous in its conception, as the cruelty of its 
 promulgator was horrible in its execution. On reading the 
 lecture one is impressed with the boundless range the Rector 
 takes among the facts whose records are the world's history. 
 He was perhaps as well versed therein as it is possible to be- 
 come in the ordinary term of life. But his easy, graceful, and 
 copious allusion go further toward showing his acquaintance 
 with history, than toward a vindication of a creed whose 
 promulgator burned a fellow creature to death in the service of 
 the Lord whose Angels sung to the shepherds — "On earth 
 peace, good will toward men." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 
 
 No Definite Stages in Evolution — No Eras in Evolution — Force Persistent, and 
 Evolution Continuous — Apparent Antinomy in Doctrine of Evolution — 
 Science Never had a Clear Message as to Future Evolution of Societ) — 
 Experience the only index to the Future — No New Forces, But Only 
 Change in Mode of Their Expression — Regularity of Stereotyped Cries of 
 Alarm — Sentimental Sympathy for Malcontents — The advent of Demos — 
 Property and Contract Vital to Society — Permanent Type and Ultimate 
 Regime, Absurd — Equilibration Unsupposable — Matter and Motion Essen- 
 tial to Each Other — Mind a Condition or Affection of Matter — Civilization a 
 Mere Expression of Intellectuality — Hiatus Between Workers and Idlers^ — - 
 Function of Religion in Evolution of Society 
 
 In an alleged philosophy of Social Evolution we are told 
 that we seem to have reached a time in which there prevails an 
 instinctive feeling that a definite stage in the evolution of 
 Western civilization is drawing to a close ; that in the depart- 
 ments of knowledge which deal with social atfairs, change, 
 transition, and uncertainty are apparent; and that Science's 
 great triumph of the nineteenth century is in the tracing of the 
 evolution of life up to human society — where it halts dumb — • 
 and as to its further evolution Science has no clear message. 
 
 History, however, informs us of no time that has presented 
 an essentially different aspect. Society, however crudely 
 organized, never saw a time it did not appear to be reaching 
 the close of as definite a stage in its evolution. Yet there 
 never was a definite stage in any evolution whatever. If this 
 seems more dogmatic than philosophic the reader can easily 
 get rid of his scruples by trying to arrange in his mind a con- 
 ception of such dellnite stage. Evolution is gradual, and 
 while the movement is rhythmic, it is constant. The Science 
 which has traced the evolution of life up to human society 
 began — where.^ The glutinous jelly which adhered to the 
 rocks ot primeval ocean came from somewhere, and if Biology 
 began with it to trace the evolution of life up to human society 
 it cannot even imagine it has begun at the beginning of such 
 evolution. If Biology begins with the alleged one prototype, 
 
S24 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 or with Spencer's and Lucretius' "ultimate units having 
 extreme mobility," it still cannot imagine it has begun at the 
 beginning of such evolution. As the alleged units cannot be 
 conceived to be indivisible or undecomposable, they must be 
 composed of something, and must have come from somewhere. 
 So Biology cannot then imagine a beginning of evolution. But 
 from its assumed starting point up to human society the 
 process is such that no definite stage in it can be conceived. 
 Life shades off from one phase to another by a process which 
 we can no more appreciate than we feel the pressure of space 
 or the tread of time. The alleged elements ; carbon, oxygen, 
 hydrogen, nitrogen, etc., by theii very mobility imply that 
 they are not, properly speaking, ultimate elements; but are 
 themselves traceable to something else, and the very process by 
 which life is traceable back to them, necessitates their derivation. 
 So a definite stage of evolution is unthinkable. When you 
 reach the confines of such supposed stage, the mind at once 
 sees more of the process adjoining and merging into the 
 supposed stage despite the arbitrary limit. Before one can fix 
 the boundary to the supposed stage in his mind, it is past, 
 as insensibly yet as certainly as the present moment is past 
 before it can be recorded. 
 
 If society is entering a new era in the evolution of its civili- 
 zation, it never saw a time it did not appear to be entering as 
 new an era. Yet there never was an era in such evolution, 
 nor in any evolution. If the manners of to-day differ from 
 those of a thousand years ago, they differ a thousandth part as 
 much from those of one year ago, and one three hundred and 
 sixty-five thousandth part as much from those of yesterday. 
 An era is a portion of time to which bounds may be set, at 
 least in the imagination. Unless we can so appreciate the 
 daily or yearly change in civilization which constitutes its 
 evolution, as to draw a line through some particular day or 
 year of its progress, and distinguish the civilization adjoining- 
 such line upon one side from that adjoining it upon the other 
 side, we need not attempt to formulate a conception of a be- 
 ginning or end of such era. Whenever the organization of 
 society began, if it ever did, it is still in progress <md must 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. S2S 
 
 continue in progress while it (society) remains. That it be- 
 comes daily, yearly, and centennially more complex and high- 
 ly wrought does not make the present a new organization ; 
 but a mere modification of the old and only one. The present 
 civilization is a product of past evolution continuously operat- 
 ing in the line of life development. That of a hundred years 
 hence will be a product of the same process carried continu- 
 ously forward to that time, and we cannot imagine its cessa- 
 tion. Force is persistent, and in one line of its continuous 
 operation it has wrought our civilization. We can not 
 imagine its suspension or its diversion from such line of opera- 
 tion. This may bring to some minds an apparent difficulty 
 with the conception of evolution itself, which difficulty, real or 
 apparent, should be disposed of Man is supposed to have 
 been physically organized exactly as we now find him for 
 many thousands of years. Hence, so far as his physical organ- 
 ization is concerned, the process of evolution would seem to 
 be accomplished or suspended. Biology claims that within 
 computable time he has reached such physical organization by 
 a process of evolution from a substance of far inferior organi- 
 zation. It traces all life, vegetal and animal, back to one alleg- 
 ed prototype, and points out the rudimentary and aborted 
 organs, which it claims imply the non-existence of distinctions 
 of sex. As mind is only known to exist in organized aggrega- 
 tions of physical substance, it cannot reasonably be supposed 
 to exist elsewhere, and it must be supposed to be a resultant 
 of such organization and the affections of such substance so 
 organized. As superior minds are found with the classes of 
 physical organization which appear to be most complex and 
 highly wrought, it would seem that the degree of physical 
 organization determines the grade of mind. Yet we are so 
 illogical as to claim that mind has been steadily marching on, 
 civilization constantly advancing, for many thousands of years, 
 while the physical organization of man is still marked with the 
 unequivocal signs of an unsexed beast of prey. So if man has 
 arrived at his present state of physical organization by a process 
 of evolution from a comparatively unorganized substance, many 
 thousands of years ago, and has remained stationary at that 
 
526 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 point, it would seem that the process of evolution of life has 
 been accomplished or suspended; or at least diverted from 
 operation in the line of physical life. It would also seem that 
 physical organization has little or no effect to determine or 
 establish the grade of mind, provided that mind has actually 
 advanced while the state of physical organization has remained 
 stationary. It would also seem that there not only may be a 
 definite stage of such evolution, but that evolution itself may 
 begin and run its course and end in time. The logical result is 
 the invalidity of the doctrine of evolution. Evolution as such 
 cannot be imagined to have ever begun ; its end is equally as 
 difficult to conceive. Suppose it to have begun in time — what 
 did it begin with ? in what condition was the substance with 
 which it begun ? What brought such substance to the condi- 
 tion it was in when evolution began ? No mind can conceive 
 of the first application of force to matter, yet if evolution began 
 in time there must have been a time when matter was not 
 affected by force. For evolution to end in time there must 
 come a time when force will no longer affect matter as it has 
 affected it in producing the phenomenon called evolution. As 
 neither of these crises can be conceived, neither the beginning 
 nor the end of evolution can be thought. Spencer and Lucretius 
 endow their alleged ultimate units with extreme mobility. If 
 matter and motion are a mere mode of expression of force, 
 which they must be if the ultimate (?) units have extreme 
 mobility, matter cannot be supposed to have ever been apart 
 from force. If the doctrine of evolution has any validity force 
 has always operated upon matter and must forever operate up- 
 on it. It is physiologically possible that, notwithstanding the 
 physical organization of man appejrs to be just what it has 
 been for many thousands of years, yet the process of his physi- 
 cal organization is still going on, in the more elaborate differ- 
 entiation of his nerve organism, and the continuous amplification 
 of its functions and possibilities. If there is any validity in the 
 doctrine of evolution of life up to civilized society, some such 
 process must be keeping pace with and be participating in the 
 development in respect to that part at least of man's physical 
 organization, because he manifests mind in exact ratio with 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. S27 
 
 the development nnd tone of his nerve organism, and civilization 
 rises and falls with the various degree of intellectuality. Indeed 
 it is a mere expression of intellectuality. The supposition of 
 this physiological possibility is aided by the physiological fact 
 that the brains of persons of greater intellect show proportion- 
 ately greater cortical surface, and more cortical substance, 
 necessitating or rather developing more convolutions in the 
 cortical periphery, and exhibit a greater proportion of vesicular 
 than tubular neurine. If the supposition of this physiological 
 possibility, corroborated by this physiological fact, is not suffi- 
 cient to obviate the above difficulty with the conception of 
 evolution, then there can be no validity in the doctrine of 
 evolution as applied to anything depending for its being and 
 development upon the intellectuality of man. And apart from 
 such intellectuality civilization is not a supposable quantity or 
 quality. Reason thus forces us logically to the belief that the 
 evolution of life up to human society is a continuous process 
 which never began and will never end in time; and that civiliza- 
 tion, its essential concomitant, is a part or resultant of such 
 process, advancing with it, but not in definite stages. 
 
 As there seems to be abundant evidence of evolution, and, 
 as evolution cannot be mentally marked off into definite stages, 
 there is no occasion for the philosopher's alarm at the change, 
 transition, and uncertainty which he says are apparent in the 
 departments of knowledge which deal with social affairs. 
 There never was a moment since men have affected a know- 
 ledge of social affairs, in which change as radical, transition as 
 imminent, and uncertainty as dubious v/ere not as apparent; 
 both in the social affairs themselves and in the so-called know- 
 ledge of them. While there is no uncertainty in knowledge, 
 yet the soi-dissaut knowledge of social affairs has not enabled 
 any one to forecast their issue with certainty. We are not 
 only blest with a "blindness to the future kindly given," we 
 interpret the past and esteem the present variously and vaguely, 
 according to personal idiosyncrasy. In one particular however 
 we are in accord with all our predecessors, and hence, in that 
 particular they must have been in accord with each other. 
 We see in our time, and they saw in their respective times, 
 
S28 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 change, transition, and uncertainty relating to affairs of the 
 same kinds. The differences by means of which the change 
 has been indeed change were, are, and will ever be, purely in 
 detail and never in essence. 
 
 Science is no more dumb as to the further evolution of life 
 than it was or should have been at any time past. If, fifty 
 years ago, one h.ad maintained that a voice could be trans- 
 mittted and distinguished through a copper wire over a dis- 
 tance of a thousand miles, while he might not have been burned 
 or beheaded, yet the same spirit, or spirit of the same kind, that 
 did burn the progressive mediiieval heretic, would have greeted 
 him with such sneers as enthusiast, lunatic, and crank. That 
 he would not have been burned or beheaded is due to the 
 same change or change of the same kind that has been appar- 
 ent in every moment of the evolution of life up to human 
 society, if science has no clear message as to the further evo- 
 lution of life, it has never had such message. When Costar 
 (or Gansfleisch .^) discovered the art of printing with movable 
 types. Science brought no clear message and no one suspected 
 that he was "disbanding hired armies and cashiering most 
 Kings and Senates, and creating a whole new democratic 
 world." When Guericke, Hawksbee, Grey and Wehler, Du- 
 fliy, Boze, Winkler, Muschenbroek, Franklin, Galvani, and 
 Coulomb were experimenting with and discovering the proper- 
 ties of electricity and manipulating its force. Science brought no 
 clear message and no one suspected that they were engender- 
 ing a "nervous system of five million miles of telegraph wire." 
 When Newcombe, Cawley, and Savery were testing their 
 crude appliances for the utilization of Steam-power, Science 
 brought no clear message and no one suspected that they were 
 drawing the ends of the world together in "an arterial sys- 
 tem of railway and steamship lines along which the currents of 
 trade and population tlow. " On none of these occasions, nor 
 indeed on any other, has Science ever had a clear message as 
 to the further evolution of life or civilization ; or of any further 
 evolution whatever. 
 
 We are told that nothing can be more out of place than 
 comparison between society of one hundred years ago and at 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 529 
 
 the present time; that we have little in common with the past; 
 and that the past may be searched in vain for any clue to the 
 solution of the problems which confront us in the future. 
 While I am not prepared to state just how much we have 
 in common with the past, it will appear that all we have that has 
 any significance as to the social problems which confront us in 
 the future, we have in common with the past. We recall no 
 moment of the past that was not marked and measured by 
 change; and the same process is whirling us through our 
 "everlasting now." We cannot point to a moment of the past 
 when transition was not imminent; we apprehensively adjust 
 ourselves to the same ever-occurring metastasis. We know of 
 no moment of the past when uncertainty as to social issues was 
 not apparent; we are constantly perplexed with the same 
 dubiety. At no time in the past could men have looked back 
 and seen a clue to 'the solution of the problems confronting 
 them in their future, more reliable than we have for the solution 
 of the problems confronting us in our future. This isf^ital to all 
 claim of validity for any philosophy which assumes that we 
 have little in common with the past, and that comparison 
 between society of a hundred years ago and to-day is out 
 of place. 
 
 The philosophy seems to be a series of lay sermons on the 
 significance of past and present fact for the future. The less 
 we have in common with the past, the less the significance of 
 such fact for the future, because the present is past and the 
 future is present before we can distinguish any of their facts. 
 The more we have in common with the past the more the 
 significance of past and present fact for the future. if the 
 future cannot be predicted by the past, and the present is too 
 brief to contain sufficient data ot sufficient significance, we are 
 without data from which to prognosticate reasonably; and the 
 alarmist has declared the invalidity of his own prophetic philo- 
 sophy of Social Evolution. But we have this very inadequacy 
 in common with every moment of the past; and in this, the 
 most perplexing feature of social life, society of a hundred years 
 ago and at the present time may well be compared, if human 
 society is a resultant of the evolution of life, the tracing 
 
530 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 of which is Science's triumph of the nineteenth century, then 
 society of a hundred years ago is as comparable with that 
 of to-day as the society of any period can be with that of 
 any other period a hundred years distant from it; because 
 evolution is constant, continuous and eternal, or there is no 
 evolution. Reason requires us either to abandon the specula- 
 tion or to proceed by the same methods and similar deductions 
 to the postulation of a degree of social organization a hundred 
 years hence, proportionately as superior to the present, as the 
 present is superior to that of a hundred years ago. We have 
 as sufficient and reliable data for such prognostication, as was 
 had in the past for the prediction of our present degree of civili- 
 zation. If our present degree of social organization was not 
 accurately predicted in the past, it was because the data of the 
 past could not be reliably interpreted in terms of our present 
 degree of social organization. We have the same inadequacy 
 of interpretable data, and the same defect of prophetic acumen 
 in common with the past, together with the same propensity 
 to forecast the future. All philosophers from Thales to Kidd 
 have preached to their ibllowers, and not to their predecessors. 
 If amongst the advanced nations the great wave of industrial 
 expansion which follows in the wake of applied science is sub- 
 merging the old landmarks of society, it has always been doing 
 exactly the same thing. The only difference is in detail and 
 method and degree. If this process is preparing for us a 
 world where experience of the past is no longer a reliable guide, 
 there is still no new cause for alarm. If experience has ever 
 been a reliable guide, the philosopher who proposes to dethrone 
 her ought to inform us when and how she forfeited her author- 
 ity. If experience never was a reliable guide there is no occa- 
 sion for the declaration that she is no longer such. If it has 
 always been our experience that the experience of one period 
 was a reliable guide in a succeeding period, it is more dogmatic 
 than philosophic to say that our experience up to date is not to 
 be trusted in the future. It is from experience of the past that 
 one must make the deductions necessary in forecasting the 
 future, and one must forecast the future in order to 'form any 
 conception as to Vv'hat may or may not be a reliable guide in it. 
 
SCIENTiriC SOCIALISM. 53 1 
 
 Such experience ought to be as efficient to guide us in the 
 future as to enable us to forecast it, and we certainly cannot 
 forecast the future Vv^ithout reference to the past. If past experi- 
 ence assures us of a new state of things, and that they must be 
 different from things past (and nothing else can so assure us) it 
 ought reasonably to be as potent to prepare us tor and guide us 
 among them, as the experience of any past time ever was to 
 prepare men for and guide them among the things of any follow- 
 ing time. Reason must resort to experience for its data, and 
 even then it raves more than it reasons. 
 
 We are told that social forces new, strange, and altogether 
 immeasurable, have been released among us ; that within a 
 hundred years nations and communities were as distant from 
 each other in time as they were at the Christian era; that since 
 then the ends of the world have been drawn together, and 
 civilized society is becoming one vast interdependent whole. 
 The term social forces is a vague one if it has any meaning at 
 all. There is no conceivable force but mechanical force, and it 
 is conceivable only by means of an exertion of mechanical force. 
 The force of an argument is as purely mechanical as that of a 
 pile-driver, but not always so forcible, if the ends of the world 
 are being drawn together (in the telegraph and transportation 
 systems) it is by an exertion of mechanical force. The hund- 
 red thousand Egyptians drawing stones for Cheops from the 
 Arabian mountain down to the Nile exerted force of the same 
 kind as that which is set in operation by the drawing of a 
 throttle valve, or pushing an electric button, or intently cogitat- 
 ing some abstruse proposition in metaphysics. Its manipula- 
 tions may proceed by different channels to different results; but 
 force is the same whether expressed in a sigh or an explosion. 
 The effect of the introduction of steam transportation and elec- 
 tric telegraphy during the last century has been more electrical 
 than the discovery of the use of moveable types was in the 
 fifteenth century, because the art of printing had served to 
 develope a condition of the system that could more sensibly 
 appreciate the shock. But the old bonds of society are not be- 
 coming loosened, and old forces are not becoming extinct, 
 and new forces are not being released among us. There never 
 
^}2 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 was any bond of society but fear, personal interest in individu- 
 al prosperity and safety ; and new methods of the manipula- 
 tion of force are not the extinction of old forces, and new forms 
 of expression of force are not the release of new forces among 
 us. 
 
 We are told that socialism has ceased being a theory and 
 become a religion ; that in the products of the times it has a 
 background as luridly effective as any which stirred the imag- 
 ination of the early Christians in the days of degenerate Rome; 
 that the immense progress of the century and the splendid 
 conquests of science have brought no corresponding gain to 
 the masses ; that the laborer has ceased to be a man as nature 
 made him, and ignorant of all else, he is occupied with some 
 small detail in the huge mill of industry; that even the skilled 
 worker holds desperately to the small niche into which he is 
 fitted, knowing that to lose it is to become part of the helpless 
 flotsam and jetsam of society, tossed to and fro on the tide of 
 poverty and distress. 
 
 As convincing as any evidence could be that evolution is 
 still proceeding in the usual manner, is the monotonous regu- 
 larity with which such stereotyped alarms as the above are 
 sounded. Scarcely an industrial or social priest or prophet 
 ever wrote but he beheld the world on the brink of ruin, inevit- 
 able unless something should be done. Ninety years ago a 
 Scotch ecclesiastic writing on the then prevalent social dis- 
 orders declared, "there is a general impression upon all spirits 
 that something must be done." It seems to be the purpose of 
 the alarmist to show that there is recent radical change for the 
 worse in the condition of the worker, to whom he says "the 
 century has been in many respects a period of progressive 
 degeneration." If we could realize the condition of the 
 workers who dug the Egyptian and Babylonish canals, 
 who connected the Euphrates with the Tigris, and turned the Nile 
 into the Red Sea; and of those who built the temples and walls 
 and pyramids and monuments which still enforce an admira- 
 tion for an almost forgotten civilization, we might be less 
 easily alarmed on account of the condition of the modern 
 worker. If we could contemplate the enormity of the temple 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM, 533 
 
 said to have been at Buto, seventy-five feet square and of the 
 same height, hewed out of one stone, covered by another stone 
 more than eighty-four feet square, and all brought by hand 
 from a quarry in a remote Arabian mountain to, and rafted 
 down the Nile, we could see no occasion for the modern 
 workers to envy those engaged in that enterprise more than 
 twenty-five hundred years ago. But we need not go back to 
 the dawn of history for nightmares of suffering endured by the 
 laborer whom nature has made a man. Eighty years ago an 
 English historian said, "a laborer at present, earning twelve 
 shillings a week, can only buy a half bushel of wheat at eightv 
 shillings the quarter; and twelve pounds of meat at seven-pence 
 per pound." His week's work would bring him $2.88; his 
 half bushel of wheat would cost him $1.13, and his twelve 
 pounds of meat would cost him $1.64, which amounts to 
 $2.77, leaving eleven cents a week for all other expense and 
 from which to make his bank deposit for a rainy day. An 
 oracle of British political economy has said that from 1327 
 to 1377 an English laborer could not buy a half peck of wheat 
 for a day's labor; and that from 1377 to 1446 he could buy 
 nearly a peck. My own grandflither in the early part of this 
 century made fence-rails in Guilford County North Carolina for 
 one peck of Indian corn per day, during the winter seasons, 
 when not employed at his trade. He reared a fomily of nine 
 children, among whom were two eminent physicians, and one 
 who has been a lawyer, a merchant, and a railroad president. 
 1 have myself done the heaviest of farm labor from twelve to 
 fourteen hours per day at wages ranging from ten to fifteen 
 dollars per month, and have known thousands of others to do 
 so. I have but little patience with the sickly sentiment which 
 sighs and groans for the wrongs (?) of malcontents who fail 
 to get something for nothing, and imagine that they ought to 
 own a block of stock in every corporation by whom they are 
 so fortunate as to be employed — at any wages. 
 
 The alarmist says that the advent of Demos is the natural re- 
 sult of a long series of concessions ; that the changes have only 
 increased the power without lessening the misery of the work- 
 ing classes; that the new battle cries are Robber Knights of 
 
534 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Capital and Unclean Brigand of the Stock-exchange; that we 
 no longer hear of the Privileged and the people, but of Idlers 
 and workers, the Usurpers and the Disinherited, the Robbers 
 and the Robbed; that Demos is no longer unwashed and illiter- 
 ate for we have universal education; and that he is no longer 
 without political power for we have universal suffrage. Such 
 declarations are very suggestive. Has Demos been disinherited 
 or robbed of poverty or ignorance or political inferiority ? If 
 not then what v/as his inheritance ? If we have universal 
 education he may, if he is so disposed, be robbed of his ignor- 
 ance ; but if he has political power he ought not to submit to 
 being robbed of anything dear to him. If his inheritance is 
 poverty he need not fear the usurpations of the brigand aristo- 
 cracy. If the alleged changes have brought him universal 
 suffrage and education they have done all that could be reason- 
 ably required. If this is the result of a long series of conces- 
 sions, the brigand aristocracy has not been very ruthless in its 
 usurpations. For such exclamations as those above stated to 
 have any philosophic significance, Demos must desire a re- 
 distribution of property. But his advocate having so unctuously 
 inveighed against robbery and usurpation, we are at a loss for 
 a principle of morality on which such a demand could be made. 
 Possibly he might be appeased for a time with a wage-scale, 
 which in addition to enabling him to dissipate in more elegant 
 fashion, would also encourage him to be more refractory in 
 future differences with his employer. It might be regarded an 
 addition to the long series of concessions, the natural result of 
 which is said to have been the advent of Demos. 
 
 If he is to receive wages some one must pay him the money 
 he earns. According to his ideal scale some one should issue 
 to him the profit of a business venture which he demands and 
 proposes to ordain is his. Pav and wages imply unrestrained 
 contractual emplovment in voluntarv service, and an agreed 
 equivalent in work for the money paid. If Demos insists on a 
 scale he would probably insist on fixing it. To do this he 
 ought to have business capacity, because his appetites are not 
 the onlv things to be considered. Present and prospective 
 demand for the wares he produces and the general tone and 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 535 
 
 pulse of commerce may be important. Unless a business ven- 
 ture can live it can afford no wages, scale or no scale. If 
 Demos is so inefficient in his own business as to make an in- 
 judicious apportionment of the pittance now paid him as 
 wages in investing in his staples (bread and beer), he exhibits 
 remarkable assurance in proposing to fix the portion of the 
 proceeds of a business venture which a brigand aristocracy 
 shall issue to him. In any of his Utopian schemes the idea of 
 property and contract has no place, and no worse misfortune 
 could befall him than the realization of his ideals. Were he 
 more judicious in the investment of his present wages, were he 
 to pay less for intoxicants and riotous living, he might have less 
 occasion to be so insanely eager to control a brigand aristoc- 
 racy's business; and he might be entitled to more consideration 
 than he usually receives in settling important questions relating 
 to such business. 
 
 If the changes spoken of have increased his power with- 
 out lessening his misery, Demos may need a guardian. He 
 may have one in the brigand aristocracy whose concessions 
 have brought him education and political power, and whose 
 conduct of the trafik which makes wages a possibility has en- 
 abled Demos to support other traffics for the absorption of his 
 wages. In exact ratio with the increase of his power Demos 
 ought to lessen his miseries for himself, if he has the requsite 
 good sense to properly exert the power. If he has not even 
 such capacity he ought not to insist on any very ultra amend- 
 ments of his own designing being made to a commercial system 
 which, not only makes his subsistence a possibility, but within 
 this century — a mere point in the evolution of life — has raised 
 him from a grovelling ignoramus burrowing in the earth, to an 
 educated elector organizing trades-unions, enforcing boycots, 
 precipitating strikes, and generally disturbing and imped- 
 ing the very enterprises which are far more necessary to his 
 subsistence than to that of the brigand aristocracy. Isolated 
 cases of violence on the part of Demos, and of oppression on 
 the part of the brigand aristocracy argue nothing for or against 
 the claims of either of them. A succession of concessions on 
 the part of the brigand aristocracy has brought to Demos a 
 
536 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 comparative immunity from former consequences of his dis- 
 turbance of the industries by means of which he was and is 
 enabled to sustain Hfe. If, as the alarmist says, "the laborer 
 has ceased to be a man as nature made him, and ignorant of all 
 else, he is occupied with some small detail in the huge mill of 
 industry;" yet, as the same alarmist says, he "is no longer un- 
 washed and illiterate for we haye universal education, and he 
 is no longer without political power for we have universal suf- 
 frage." The best regulated civil societies still require their 
 gibbets, their guillotines, and their dungeons; and the brigand 
 aristocracy is not barred. For the dungeon it has of late ex- 
 hibited a predilection amounting almost to infatuation — the 
 fiscus is well represented in the prisons. No civilized society 
 is organized for any section of its community. They are all 
 organized for their respective entire communities. The idea of 
 property and contract is vital to all supposable human society. 
 Neither property nor contract can be without the other; and 
 property means nothing where there is not unrestrained com- 
 petition in its acquisition, and security in its use. if by the reg- 
 ulations of society the brigand aristocracy is eligible to its dun- 
 geons, by the same regulations Demos is eligible to the owner- 
 ship and enjoyment of all the property he can acquire. If, 
 however, by the aid of some of his advocates and instigators he 
 should succeed in inaugurating a system based upon his chimeras 
 there would be an end of property. Property could have no 
 value without contract and competition for it, and without 
 value property is not a supposable quantity. 
 
 The alarmist says we are told that society in its present 
 state does not possess the elements of stability; that those who 
 are determined something shall be done have able leaders; that 
 the worker is learning that what he has lost as an individual 
 he has gained as a class; that the growing enslavement and 
 degradation of the workers, the development among them of 
 class feeling accompanied by combinations and organizations 
 against the common enemy, extending throughout community 
 and across national boundaries, are among the phenomena we 
 have been led to expect. That we must also look for the 
 larger capitalists to extinguish the smaller until with the accum- 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 537 
 
 ulation of wealth in the hands of a few collossal capitalists, 
 society will feel the anarchy of production intolerable, and the 
 end of a natural process of transformation must come with the 
 seizing of political control by the proletariat, and the turning of 
 the means of production into state property; when the individu- 
 al struggle for existence will disappear. He says we are told 
 all this, and a great deal more of its kind, by professional agi- 
 tators (reformers ?) and traducers of the political systems by 
 whose grace they have been permitted to outlive their useful- 
 ness. Of course he does not characterize them thus, but 
 rather as the able leaders of those who are determined some- 
 thing shall be done. His philosophy seems to be intended as a 
 learned monition to humanity that something is about to be 
 done, the character of which he seems to think is indicated in 
 the above stated stultiloquy. 
 
 Such absurdity from the pens of time-serving demagogues 
 is not surprising when it is remembered that so grave a 
 philosopher as Herbert Spencer has himself inferred and inquired 
 on some of the same points with scarcely less absurdity. He 
 has said, "Leaving, however, the question — what are likely to 
 be the proximate political changes in the most advanced 
 nations ? and inferring from the changes which civilization has 
 thus far wrought out, that at some time, more or less distant, 
 the industrial type will become permanently established, let us 
 ask — what is to be the ultimate political regime?" This is a 
 strange query to come from an evolutionist who insists on the 
 persistence of force, the indestructibility of matter, and the con- 
 tinuity and universal rhythm of motion. The unintelligible 
 dogma of equilibration is no escape from the logically necessary 
 consequences of the postulation of persistence and indestructi- 
 bility and continuity and universal rhythm as factors in evolu- 
 tion. 
 
 Equilibration is no more supposable than annihilation. 
 Even if no more is meant by the term than equipoise, or final 
 direct and uniform motion, it would wrest the earth from its 
 orbit and send it through space in a straight line ; it would 
 send the winds all in one direction and at a uniform velocity; 
 it would bring all things to exact likeness in every particular 
 
538 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 and thus make of all things but one thing; and variety would 
 become an obsolete term expressing an effete idea. The forms 
 and places of the curves in magnetic lines would cease to 
 change, and the foci of magnetic intensity would be oblit- 
 erated in the entire uniformity of such intensity throughout the 
 whole magnetic system. There would be no more variations 
 of the sun in the ecliptic, nor horary variations corresponding 
 to change of temperature from the diurnal rotation of the earth. 
 for the sun would no longer revolve in the ecliptic, but would 
 be off on an excursion through space in straight line, and the 
 earth would no longer rotate, because the force that tended to 
 turn it in one direction would be exactly equivalent to the 
 force which tended to turn it in the opposite direction. These 
 would be necessary results of equilibration if it were mere equi- 
 poise or final direct and uniform motion, and motion itself were 
 not extinct. But uniform and direct motion cannot be. No 
 missile ever went straight to the mark. While matter exists 
 motion cannot cease. Entire uniformity of motion would be 
 the extinction of motion. The equilibration of all forces would 
 be the extinction of force. So far as opposing forces are equal 
 they are neutralized, and force consists only in the excess of 
 one of them. If the energy of the universe is in truth disap- 
 pearing or being dissipated, if the heat of the sun is diminish- 
 ing daily by so much as is imparted to other bodies in space 
 each day, its substance still remains in existence in some place 
 and in some form; and it cannot be imagined as non-existent 
 or at rest. Then the disappearance or dissipation of its energy 
 cannot be the extinction of such energy. If the material bodies 
 of the universe have integrated from substance in less substant- 
 ial form, and are constantly disintegrating into such rarefied 
 substance, this implies that such rarefied substance will again 
 be integrated into material bodies. Evolution, based on the 
 persistence of force, the indestructibility of matter, the continu- 
 ity and universal rhythm of motion, necessarily implies etern- 
 ally recurring revolution, and not equilibration. 
 
 If matter cannot be at rest and motion be uniform, then 
 mind — which is a mere condition or matter — cannot be at rest 
 and its action cannot be uniform. It is entirely too much to 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 539 
 
 infer that the industrial type will at sometime become perman- 
 ently established. It is absurd to ask what will be the 
 uhimate political regime. Such things can never be while 
 there remains difference of opinion among men. And such 
 difference of opinion will ever be while there remains even 
 histological difference among them in physical organization, or 
 difference even in minutiae in the detail of their enviroment. 
 The general political pulse of any society — if such thing were 
 supposable — could not remain at one point for a moment. if 
 the variation is imperceptible, it is there going on as certainly 
 as the moment itself is there going on, for time without change 
 is unthinkable. Time can be neither computed nor conceived 
 except as extending from one event to another, and as includ- 
 ing events, and events are themselves change. But waiving 
 this — other and more serious ditrlculties appear. In order that 
 the industrial type might become permanently established all 
 other types must be extinguished, or merged into it, which 
 would itself be their extinction. Where there are no distinc- 
 tions type has no meaning, and there must be plurality of types 
 and they must differ or there can be no distinction. No type 
 can be permanently established while others remain in exist- 
 ence, because they cannot be in space and time without bear- 
 ing some kind of relation to each other. Relation is necessarily 
 some kind of influence or effect, and these are change. The 
 ideas of the. permanent establishment of the industrial type, 
 and the ultimate political regime, are among the wildest 
 vagaries ever found in philosophy. No type can ever be 
 permanently established because none ever was permanently 
 established. There can be no ultimate political regime because 
 there never was an ultimate political regime. Whatever there 
 is of type or regime must be in time, and time can only be 
 expressed in change. 
 
 But to return from Spencer to Kidd — that society in its pres- 
 ent state does not possess the elements of stability, ought not 
 to be alarming to a philosopher. No society ever possessed 
 such elements, and they cannot be imparted to or infused in 
 any society by the able leaders of those who are determined 
 something shall be done. Such leaders may inculcate and 
 
540 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 spread and intensity an unrest and incendiarism which has 
 always in some measure prevailed, and they may succeed as 
 too often happens in turning the something which they are de- 
 termined shall be done, to the detriment of their followers. 
 That they are determined something shall be done signifies lit- 
 tle or nothing to society, because, even if they were not so 
 determined, time goes right along with its changes and some- 
 thing certainly will be done. The basis of society lies too deep 
 in the evolution of life for society to be seriously affected by 
 either the action or inaction of the able leaders of those who 
 are determined something shall be done. The alleged growing 
 enslavement and degradation of the workers, (the result of the 
 long series of concessions, including universal suffrage and 
 education) and the development of a class feeling among them, 
 accompanied by combinations and organizations against the 
 common enemy, have neither deepened nor widened the chasm 
 that there was between them and the brigand aristocracy at 
 the time of the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. "Every evil 
 augury as to the effect of that measure has been falsified." It 
 was one of the long series of concessions made by the common 
 enemy, a measure in the growing enslavement and degradation 
 of the workers who have been enfranchised and afforded 
 education, as a part of their enslavement and degradation. So 
 long as the idea of property prevails the individual struggle for 
 existence cannot disappear, and the means of production can- 
 not be turned into state property. Whatever the anarchy of 
 production mav be, the means of production can never belong 
 to the state and remain property. Yet it always was so far a 
 state property that the state would seize and sell it for failure to 
 pay a tax for protection in the use and enjoyment of it. But to 
 make the means of production a state property would be the 
 annihilation of property, and the removal of all incentive to 
 individual exertion. The idea is too silly for serious consider- 
 ation. Still, something will be done, because something is 
 already done, and is, and has always been doing; but not be- 
 cause an incendiary proletariat and their able leaders are deter- 
 mined finally that something shall be done. Without the 
 individual struggle for existence the individual could not exist, 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 541 
 
 even if the means of production were made a state property. 
 The state must then struggle for its existence, and its struggle 
 is necessarily the aggregate struggles of the individuals com- 
 prising the state. Were society transformed into a vast soup- 
 house, there would still be strife between the boilers of broth 
 and the dispensers of meal-tickets. There would be the same 
 or similar degradation and enslavement of the workers, and 
 there would develope among them the same or similar class 
 feeling accompanied by combinations and organizations against 
 the same or a similar common enemy. The brigand aristo- 
 cracy would then be Lord High Stewards of the State's cuisine 
 ordering liver and onions for the pottage of a nation. Society 
 might then realize that something had been done. 
 
 Of the relation of religion to the evolution of civilization the 
 alarmist says, that no one who approaches the subject Vv'ith an 
 unbiased mind in the spirit of modern evolutionary science can, 
 for a moment, doubt that the beliefs represented must have 
 some immense utiltitarian function to pertbrm in the evolution 
 which is proceeding. I think religion is not likely to be over- 
 estimated in any philosophic consideration of the evolution 
 of civilization, or of human life. No human life was ever 
 entirely devoid of religion, and there never was a civilization in 
 which it did not appear in some form. While religion, if 
 its beliefs were uniform and hence belief instead of beliefs, 
 might be supposed to have a utilitarian function to perform in the 
 evolution now proceeding, it is difficult to conceive how 
 religious beiiels (conflicting of course to be beliefs instead of 
 belief) could have such function to perform and perform it. If 
 one religious belief has such function to perform a diiTerent and 
 hence conflicting belief could not perform such function. it is 
 scarcely less diftkult to conceive that religion if all religious 
 belief were uniform could have and perform such function. 
 Its function in such evolution cannot he stated in philosophic 
 terms; and as its beliefs vary with the varying types and 
 phases of civilization it would seem that religion and its beliefs 
 were more a product, not of civilization itself, but, of the evolu- 
 tion of civilization, than a foctor in the process of such 
 evolution. If the evolution of life is coeval with the application 
 
542 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 of force to matter, and if religion does not appear until the 
 process has produced man physically organized, nor until 
 society itself is considerably evolved, it would seem to be 
 a mere additional result of, and not a factor in, the evolution of 
 civilization — a product of the operations of the same forces 
 which have wrought out (so far) the civilization. In saying 
 that religion is not likely to be overestimated in considering the 
 evolution of life and civilization 1 have not intimated that it 
 operates in such process as a cause. It is purely a consequence; 
 and its importance in such considerations is in the fact that it is 
 a universal consequence, though its form or type varies with 
 the form or type or phase of the civilization where it prevails. 
 Christianity of to-day is as different from Christianity of one 
 hundred years ago, as our Western civilization of to-day is 
 different from our Western civilization of one hundred years 
 ago. To be a cause or factor in the evolution now proceeding, 
 religion must be a force. Whatever performs a utilitarian 
 function must necessarily be a force, or some expression of 
 force. Force is persistent, while religion varies and fluctuates 
 and rises and falls with all the caprices of temperament and fash- 
 ion, and it is even now trying to ma.ke itself appear to be a 
 science. For religion to be really a factor in the evolution of life and 
 civilization, its effects ought to appear in some form further 
 back in the course of life developement, and not be found for 
 the first only in later phases of such development. He who 
 asserts that reli2;ious beliefs have an immense utilitarian func- 
 tion to perform in the evolution now proceeding, ought to 
 know and inform his readers what that function is. They can 
 be neither gratified nor edified in being told that it has such 
 function to perform, and then be left to their infinitely various 
 imaginations as to the character of the function. 
 
 ■ We are told that "the transforming fact which the scientific 
 development of the nineteenth century has confronted us with 
 is that, as the interest of the social organism and of the indi- 
 vidual are and must remain antagonistic, and the former must 
 always be predominant, there can never be found any sanction 
 in individual reason for conduct in societies where the condi- 
 tions of progress prevail." And again that "the first great 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. S43 
 
 social lesson of these evolutionnry doctrines which have trans- 
 formed the science of the nineteenth century is, that there can- 
 not be such a sanction." And again that "the central fact 
 with which we are confronted in our progressive societies is, 
 that the interests of the social organism and those of the indi- 
 viduals comprising it at any time are actually antagonistic; 
 they never can be reconciled; thev are inherently and essent- 
 ially irreconcilable." The effect of such philosophic pettifog- 
 ging, if it were effective, would be to augment and intensify 
 the supposed discord out of which the only possible harmony 
 in the social organism must be wrought. The interest of the 
 social organism cannot be supposed to be other than the ag- 
 gregate interests of the individuals composing the social organ- 
 ism. Apart from such individuals there can be no social 
 organism. Without defining either of such interests one may 
 easily dash off his empty generalizations concerning their 
 alleged antagonism. But philosophic platitude is as vain as 
 any other in the hands of the sincere and discerning inquirer 
 after truth, if the interests of all individuals are really antag- 
 onistic to the interests of the social organism, the individuals 
 ought not to coalesce and constitute the social organism, and 
 they would not if they could prevent or avoid it. And if all 
 were so minded they could prevent and avoid it. If the indi- 
 vidual has any real interests which could not be best subserved 
 in the social organism, and by means of the social organism, 
 it would be interesting to know what they are. Society is as 
 natural, and almost as necessary, to the life of the individual, 
 as the blood which courses through his veins. Robinson 
 Crusoe would not have exchanged his man Friday for all the 
 wealth of the world, knowing that he had to remain buried 
 alive in his island solitude. Without society wealth means 
 nothing. Individual interests antagonistic to the interests of^ 
 the social organism are not a supposable quantitv, for the latter 
 are a mere aggregation of the former. If individual tendencies 
 are restrained in and by means of the social organism, individ- 
 ual interests are not even modified in or by the social organism. 
 Society based on such a contradiction could not exist, and if 
 Anarchy were given the experiment, individual interests would 
 
544 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 speedily procure its overthrow or suppression and the erection 
 of a social organism. Individual interests cannot be supposed 
 apart from and independent of all other individuals. In such 
 case he could not be supposed to have any interests whatever. 
 The moment we suppose him in contact with or in any way 
 related to or dependent upon any other individual, we suppose 
 social organism. This organism may rise through all the vari- 
 ous gradations from the mating of a pair of Chimpanzees, up 
 to a Board of Trade or Triple Alliance. But social organism 
 can never be an entity in and of itself, or apart from or inde- 
 pendent of the individuals comprising it. It can have no in- 
 terests antagonistic to theirs, for // is they. The restraint of 
 individual tendency is not antagonism of individual interest — it 
 is generally the promotion of individual interest — when it is 
 imposed by the social organism. 
 
 To say that there can be found in individual reason no sanc- 
 tion for conduct in societies where the conditions of progress 
 prevail, is very unphilosophic unless the real interests of the 
 individual can be best subserved in society where there is the 
 least progress, for we cannot suppose the individual to be en- 
 tirely 'without society. The conditions of progress must 
 prevail wherever there is progress, and wherever such condi- 
 tions do prevail there is progress. These conditions ought to 
 prevail in all society, and wherever they do not prevail societv 
 is not very well organized. In some societies progress may 
 not be very progressive, but in those where it is most progres- 
 sive there are few if any individuals who would exchange 
 places with individuals in societies where there is less progress 
 being made. Something, possibly it is not his individual rea- 
 son, prompts the individual to cling to his niche in the more 
 progressive society. And those who exchange invariably 
 transport their exalted ideas of progress to and try to impress 
 them upon the societies to which they migrate if they deem 
 them superior to those they find prevailing there. Some 
 individuals may be so depraved as to feel no interest in poster- 
 ity, and some may have and intend to have no posterity; and 
 the alarmist does not scruple to say that there is no sanction in 
 individual reason for any individual interest in posterity. Rea- 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 545 
 
 son would scarcely make us such brutes. If the individual has 
 no reasonable interest in posterity society cannot have, for 
 society is the individuals and can have no interests but theirs. 
 Here in our own land within the last thirty years more than two 
 millions of its best citizens were divided against each other in 
 a deadly duel, fighting for a political idea to be transmitted to 
 posterity, each individual knowing that many thousands must 
 fall in the conflict, the results of which to the survivors must be 
 insignificant when compared with what they each intended 
 they should be to posterity. These armies were not made up 
 of howling mobs of anarchists or ruffians seeking an outlet for 
 -a pent-up fury or thirsting for blood; but mainly of fathers 
 who were willing to give their lives to perpetuate a social organ- 
 ism based on a specific political idea, to posterity. They each 
 seemed to find in individual reason a sanction for their conduct 
 in society. Indeed such sanction is never questioned by any 
 but the chionic grumblers at prevailing conditions, and sensa- 
 tional alarmists who attempt to dignify their utterances in the 
 tones and terms of philosophy. 
 
 Vice could not be more vicious than in attempting to 
 philosophically flm the flames of anarchistic incendiarism which 
 occasionally break out to the destruction of life and property 
 and disturbance of business, and which invariably result, as 
 they should, in the strengthening and tightening of the re- 
 straints of law upon lawlessness. He is not the friend of the 
 worker who attempts to give philosophic sanction to insubordi- 
 nation, to cancel patriotism, and countenance communism by 
 arguing that individual interest in posterity is unreasonable. 
 If reason is concerned only with the immediate physical wants 
 of a beast who ought to go upon all fours instead of upright we 
 might conceive how it could refuse to sanction individual inter- 
 est in posterity, for some quadrupeds actually eat their own off- 
 spring. But it is not very ennobling to human character — the 
 reflection that the individual cannot reasonably have any inter 
 est in the welfare of posterity. Yet such is the logic of most of 
 the clamor of the malcontents. The natural cannot be regard- 
 ed unreasonable. Solicitude for offspring is natural. To 
 attempt to circumscribe such solicitude to the immediate off- 
 
546 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 spring may be the ambition of time-serving agitators who crave 
 notoriety, but it cannot be done in terms of philosophy. 
 
 " That use is not forbidden usury, 
 
 Which happies those that pay the willing loan; 
 
 That's for thyself to breed another thee, 
 
 Or ten times happier, be it ten for one; 
 
 Ten times thyself were happier than thou art, 
 
 if ten of thine ten times refigured thee; 
 
 Then, what could death do if thou should'st depart, 
 
 Leaving thee living in posterity?" 
 
 The alarmist says that the process of social development 
 which has been taking place, and which is still in progress in 
 our western civilization is not the product of the intellect, but 
 the motive force is in the altruistic feeling with which our 
 civilization has become equipped. That this altruism and the 
 deepening and softening of character which has accompanied it 
 are the direct and peculiar product of the religious system on 
 which our civilization is founded. And that to Science the 
 significance of the resulting process of evolution, in which all 
 the people are being slowly brought into the rivalry of existence 
 on equal conditions, consists in the single fact that this rivalry 
 has tended to be thereby raised to the highest degree of 
 efficiency as a cause of progress it has ever attained. Fine dis- 
 tinctions may imply a keen perception and accurate discrimina- 
 tion. They may also imply a disposition to equivocate and 
 take refuge in ambiguity and obscurity. If the above proposi- 
 tions were not made in apparent phifosophic seriousness, as 
 though they embodied cardinal principles of tlie evolution of 
 civilization, it might resemble a wrangle over terminology 
 more than philosophic discussion to examine them. But they 
 are made as though they were of grave importance, and upon 
 the supposed distinction between intellect and altruism the 
 validity of the argument is based. If the distinction is illegiti- 
 mate the argument is fallacious, and its fluent and tlorid gener- 
 alities should not be allowed to divert attention from the primary 
 consideration. If some great philosopher should (upon paper) 
 construct a magnificent cosmology based upon assumed ulti- 
 mate atoms or units of substance, his argument need not be 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 547 
 
 traced through all the tortuous ramifications it may make for 
 the purpose of testing its validity. It would be sufficient for 
 its overthrow to show, if it could be done, that the assumed 
 ultimate atoms or units of substance were impossible; when of 
 course everything depending upon them is necessarily noth- 
 ingness. If altruism is only a phase or form or expression of 
 intellectuality then there is no occasion for saying that the pro- 
 cess of social development is not a product of intellect, but of 
 altruism. As understood by the school of philosophers that 
 introduced the term, and their definition ought to be authorita- 
 tive, altruism is a regard for the feelings of others as distin- 
 guished from egoism or what is commonly called selfishness. 
 But positive or applied altruism is or embraces an expression of 
 selfishness, or what has been called ego-altruism. It seeks the 
 welfare of others because the subject prefers or desires the wel- 
 fiire of others, and finds its own happiness, which is a form of 
 realized interest, in promoting the welfare of others. No one 
 would of his own volition do or forego anything for. the 
 welfare or interest of others unless he desired the welfare or 
 interest of others. In promoting the welfare or interest of 
 others he gratifies this desire which is itself pure selfishness 
 Selfishness then may be or embrace a sentiment which is not 
 necessarily mean or malignant, but altruism without selfish- 
 ness (ego-altruism) is unthinkable. No choice, desire, or senti- 
 ment can be or be expressed without intellect. Altruism then 
 seems to be a phase or form or an expression of intellectuality, 
 because we cannot even think the welfare of others without in- 
 tellectual action ; and Vv'hen we desire their welfare or interest 
 we carry the intellectual action still further. 
 
 But the "process of social development which has been 
 taking place and which is still in progress in our Western 
 civilization is not the product of intellect;" nor has the motive 
 force behind it had its seat and origin in that fund of altruistic 
 feeling with which our civilization has been ecjuipped. Such 
 altruism as there is, is itself one of the products of the same 
 unknown and unknowable motive force which has produced 
 our Western civilization, and indeed all civilization. It is a 
 feature of civilization, or perhaps more accurately one of its 
 
548 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 accompaniments, rather than a motive force producing it. 
 The alarmist himself furnishes the data for the verification of 
 this proposition. He says that through the altruistic feeling 
 slavery was practically abolished in the fourteenth century 
 in Europe, and about thirty years ago in North America. But 
 the historical truth is that altruism never abolished slaverv in 
 either place. In the northern American States the institution 
 was found to be unprofitable, and a time was fixed at which it 
 should become unlawful. Before the time arrived however 
 nearly every slaVe worth transportation was sold and sent to 
 the southern States where the institution was considered profit- 
 able, and where there was hence less danger of it becoming 
 unlawful. Then half a century later and purely as a war 
 measure it was abolished in the southern States. The Man 
 who did it distinctly declared his purpose not to interfere, and 
 offered to leave the institution undisturbed, and even protect it 
 if the rebellious States would resume their allegiance to Federal 
 authority within a given time. Yet people are so eager for 
 idols that this Man is immortalized as a Liberator. He was 
 a great Statesman, and a great man. but his altruistic feelings 
 had nothing whatever to do with the abolition of slavery. He 
 deserves the undying gratitude aud admiration of humanity for 
 his wisdom, courage, integrity, moderation, and in truth almost 
 all the elements of greatness ; and for the part he took in pre- 
 seiving the best social organism yet organized. But if altruism 
 had actuated him in abolishing slavery he would scarcely have 
 offered to protect it if the rebellious States would resume their 
 allegiance within a few months from the date of the Emancipa- 
 tion Proclamation. 
 
 The altruistic feeling may not be a disagreeable one when 
 it does not contlict with personal interest to be altruistic. It 
 may be positively agreeable when one sees or thinks he sees 
 how it may promote his interests. But if the altruistic feeling 
 abolished slavery in Europe in the fourteenth century and in 
 America in the nineteenth, it is difficult to understand its in- 
 difference to the alleged miseries of the laborer whom the 
 alarmist now says is "no longer a man as nature made him." 
 Altruism seems to be very capricious in its compassions. The 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 549 
 
 altruistic development and deepening and softening of charac- 
 ter which are said to have accompHshed it, are not the direct 
 and peculiar product of the religious system on which our 
 civilization is said to be founded, unless the office of such sys- 
 tem was to substitute for slavery a system fraught with more 
 misery; or unless the alarmist is fighting a phantom of his own 
 contriving. If as he says, the laborer has ceased to be a man 
 as nature made him, and the Nemesis of poverty sits a hollow- 
 eyed spectre at the feast, and a new patrician class has arisen 
 with all the power but none of the character or responsi- 
 bilities of the old one ; the altruistic feeling which abolished the 
 slavery of the older (Feudal) system, was the expression of 
 more duplicity than ought to be attributed to any^ direct and 
 peculiar product of Christianity. It was a delusion and a snare. 
 If we attempt to trace our civilization to Christianity and de- 
 duce it therefrom as an essential product of such religious sys- 
 tem, we have only to contemplate the thumb-screws and wheels 
 and dungeons and halters and headblocks and stakes, which, 
 during seventeen centuries of Christianity outnumbered its 
 altars and fonts and spires and shrines, to see that while it may 
 have deepened character, it had not softened it by developing a 
 very exalted type of altruism. Within the eighteenth and 
 nineteenth centuries civilization has drawn the fangs of the 
 religious system, and character may be somewhat softened; 
 but if the alarmist is right in his cheerless picture of the condi- 
 tion of the worker, the altruism which he says is the direct 
 and peculiar product of the religious system is still a delusion 
 and a snare. If the altruistic development and deepening and 
 softening of character are indeed the direct and peculiar product 
 of the religious system, it seems to have required a long time 
 for the religious system to begin to produce. With the family 
 feud between Popery and Protestantism Truth is in no way 
 concerned. They both butchered for Christianity until muzzled 
 by Civilization in the true altruistic spirit which has had its 
 supreme expression in the life of the Founder of Christianity, 
 and which has been faintly resonant through the centuries in 
 the lives of some who have not made it their business to inform 
 or persuade men that they were wretched. 
 
550 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 There is among phenomena so much that cannot be 
 accounted for, and so little that can be intelligibly explained, 
 that he who ventures into the realms of the unreal with his 
 speculations would seem to have more courage than discretion. 
 However natural and irresistible may be the tendency to seek 
 the how and the why of all wherefore, it seems to be apparent 
 that no human mind can ever compass them. The ambitious 
 aspirations of the human mind continuously goad it to exertions 
 as far above its capacity as the final comprehension of wisdom is 
 beyond its grasp. The more difficult and abstruse and complex 
 the nature of the subject, the more it tempts to determined but 
 necessarily futile speculation. Yet such speculation which is 
 but a polite name for guess-work is the ever ready expedient of 
 the wise-acre; and it seems to be practically inexhaustible. 
 When conducted on principles of enlightened reason and in con- 
 formity with requirements of an honest logic, its deductions 
 may be entitled to respectful consideration. But when, as is 
 too generally the case, it ignores the essential conditions of 
 psychological necessity and follows its own irresponsible 
 caprices to improvised cause of effect which is itself not 
 understood, however scholastically it may proceed, it may 
 weary and confuse, or it may entertain; but it certainly can- 
 not enlighten. 
 
 Fashion is a very whimsical mistress. It is one of her capri- 
 ces that sociology is become a favorite theme of the vault- 
 ing aspirants to literary fame, each of whom has his peculiar 
 philosophy or science of sociology. These peculiar philosophies 
 and sciences are based on alleged principles and constructed of 
 improvised data as various as the temperaments of their several 
 authors. To give the world something new on the subject of 
 sociology is a favorite ambition among the learned ; and if orig- 
 inality were equivalent to wisdom they should be congratulated 
 for their achievements. They are not without their absurdities ; 
 one of the most glaring bf which is the attempt to philosophi- 
 cally attribute the evolution of our civilization to the Ch.ristian 
 religion. Another one is the attempt to credit that religion 
 with a new development of the alleged altruistic feeling as a 
 part of the process of the evolution of our civilization, lam 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 5=^1 
 
 not proposing a cause of the evolution of our civilization, nor 
 denying the cooperation of the Christian religion therein. But 
 there is no more philosophy or reason in the claim that such 
 religion caused or cooperated in such evolution than there is in 
 the claim that the crucifixion of One was necessary to appease 
 the just wrath of the Almighty with innumerable millions of 
 others. The facts to be noted will plainly show that however 
 true the claim may really be, it is utterly unreasonable; and 
 that all the parade of pedantry possible cannot make it appear 
 otherwise. The amenities of cultured life cannot rightfully 
 require or justify such stultification as is essentially perpetrated 
 in calling the coolest and most keenly calculating of all selfish- 
 ness by such misleading names as the altruistic feeling and en- 
 lightened self-interest. Candor forbids the arrogation by any 
 religion of a monopoly of the qualities which are said to have 
 engendered or developed the alleged altruism. To be reverent 
 — to be even reasonable — we must, if we regard Christianity 
 the true religion, ascribe its institution to the infinite love and 
 wisdom and power of the Almighty. If we propose to be 
 reasonable we must leave the subject — its origin nature and 
 essence — at this point. We can only ascribe its institution to 
 such love and wisdom and power in order to reasonably 
 regard it the true religion. But the subject of its origin 
 nature and essence cannot be stated in philosophic terms, nor 
 discussed in the language of reason, nor illustrated in any 
 cognizable phenomena. 
 
 If it is true as a champion of Theism declares, that no relig- 
 ious creed that man has ever devised can be made to harmonize 
 in all its features with modern ktiozvledge; and if, as he further 
 declares, all such creeds were constructed with reference to 
 theories of the universe which are now utterly and hopelessly 
 discredited, it would seem that man can never construct or de- 
 vise a reliable or trustworthy creed of any valid religion. It is 
 remarkable that learned and acute minds would not see the 
 inevitable ruin of their favorite theories which such blunders as 
 the above declarations of the Theist logically entail. A religious 
 creed devised or constructed by man must be at most his mere 
 belief concerning something about which he can have no know- 
 
55^ ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 ledge. And when it is found that such creed cannot be made 
 to harmonize in all its features with his hnou-'ledge, the invalid- 
 ity of the creed is manifest. A religious creed to have any 
 validity cannot be devised or constructed by man. It must 
 come from a higher Power. If it is constructed or devised by 
 man with reference to any theory of the universe then prevail- 
 ing, it can be no more than his merely subjective condition, 
 produced or caused by the view he takes of the prevailing the- 
 ory of the universe in its supposed relation to the imagined 
 object of his creed. If the religious creed varies with the 
 successively prevailing theories of the universe, then -every 
 change or modification of such theory must cause a change or 
 modification of such creed. These changes and modifications 
 are simply new theories and new creeds. If a religious creed 
 must be modified or changed in order to harmonize with 
 knowledge, it cannot be valid; knowledge, to be such, must be 
 true. If the term religious creed means anything to the pur- 
 pose in such discussion, it must mean a belief in the existence 
 and providence of an Almighty, and man's subordination to 
 and dependence upon him. To some it may seem better to 
 say it must mean a belief in the existence of an Almighty Provi- 
 dence, and man's dependence upon It. But aside from his 
 religious creed, however fanciful and even fantastical it may be, 
 no man has any knowledge whatever of the Being which is 
 supposed to be the object of his creed. That there is no 
 definite knowledge in or essential to his creed is manifest in the 
 fact that his creed is and will be just whatever the external 
 agencies affecting man may make of it. External agencies are 
 practically unlimited in variety, and the variety of the effect of 
 their influences is aggravated or augmented by the various and 
 varying tone and temperament and physical predilection of men. 
 The various results of the influences of external agencies affect- 
 ing the subject are their various and chimerically constructed 
 creeds, with their chimerically constructed Gods made to fit 
 the creeds; and so constructed as to be prepared to adjust 
 Themselves, Proteanly, to such variations as successive the- 
 ories of the universe may require the religious creeds to take on. 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 555 
 
 The various Gods of the various religious creeds hav- 
 ing no known existence outside the imagination of the 
 subject who constructs or affects the creed, must necessarily 
 give up even that precarious existence as successive theories of 
 the universe successively explode the chimerical creeds. But 
 human ingenuity is not to be long deprived of its idols, 
 and while it will no longer construct them with its hands out 
 of stocks and stones, it will aesthetically construct them with 
 its intellectual faculties out of the debris remaining over when 
 the same intellectual faculty has constructed a new theory of the 
 universe. And to avoid the imputation of old fogy ism, the 
 intellectual faculty has taken to constucting its Gods in such 
 manner as to tit as nearly as may be with the latest theories of 
 the universe. If the formerly prevailing and now exploded 
 theories of the universe which formed the bases of the invalid 
 and obsolete creeds are now properly discredited, it seems like 
 assuming that we are exceedingly sapient if we maintain that 
 any prevalent theory of the universe now forming the basis of 
 any prevalent creed will not itself go the same way. It 
 becomes clear that no valid creed of any valid religion can 
 depend for its validity upon any mere human theory of the 
 universe. If all theories of the universe down to date are now 
 properly discredited, then the one or ones now prevailing will 
 likewise be properly discredited. Mental progress and intel- 
 lectual attainment consist more in the ascertainment of what is 
 not, than in definitely and finally ascertaining what is. 
 Almost every achievement of the mind has involved a dis- 
 closure of some preceeding fallacy in its supposed achieve- 
 ments. The mind cannot conceive of the cessation of mental 
 progress or intellectual attainment while time continues. Time 
 was never known except as attended and measured by pro- 
 gress. Occasional apparent retrogression is only a phase of 
 the general movement the net quotient of which is progress. 
 If a prevalent Theism is devised or constructed by man with 
 reference to a prevalent theory of the universe, and this is as 
 much as its votaries can reasonably claim for it; and if it has 
 properly supplanted older creeds devised or constructed by 
 man with reference to theories of the universe which are now 
 
554 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 properly exploded by the doctrine of a now prevalent theory of 
 the universe, and if this is the legitimate work of the evolution 
 of the idea of God, then the prevalent Theism is certain to be 
 properly displaced by a religious creed hereafter to be devised 
 by man with reference to some future theory of the universe. 
 The continuous acquisition of -the so-called knowledge which 
 we dignify with the name of intellectual attainment works a 
 continuous change in the theory of the universe. Such intel- 
 lectual attainment must cease if there is ever to be a permanent 
 theory of the universe. No religious creed constructed or 
 devised by man with reference to such shifting and varying 
 theory can have any stability. Intellectual attainment cannot 
 cease, and Truth cannot fluctuate. So there can be no valid 
 religious creed devised or constructed by man with reference to 
 any theory of the universe. As the Gods of such religious 
 creeds can exist only in the imagination of man who creates 
 and is forced to abandon such creeds, the modern as well as 
 the ancient theologies would seem to consist mainly of idol 
 making and idol breaking and idol worship. If the idols of the 
 ancients were hewn out of wood and stone and propitiated in 
 blood, the idols of the modern theologies are aesthetically 
 devised and constructed bv man from the debris left over on 
 the construction of the successive theories of the universe; and 
 they are aesthetically propitiated in the stultification essential to 
 their worship; and they are aesthetically demolished in the 
 construction of new creeds with reference to new theories 
 of the Universe. 
 
 Speaking by way of comparison with the past the Theist 
 says: — "Since that morning twilight of history there has been 
 no era so strongly marked, no change so swift or so far reach- 
 ing in the conditions of human life, as that which began with 
 the great maritime discoveries of the fifteenth century and is 
 approaching its culmination to-day." From other passages 
 too wordy to be quoted here it is apparent that the Theist is, 
 or thinks he is, also an evolutionist. But evolution admits of 
 no such thing as an era, and certainly of no such thing as the 
 culmination of an eia. For the sake of harmony he has 
 attempted to express his supposed cataclysms and leaps in tiie 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 53S 
 
 more evolutionary term of strides; but evolution will come 
 more nearly to harmonizing with or admitting leaps and 
 cataclysms than eras and culmination. If we arbitrarily sup- 
 pose an era in evolution— and it must be arbitrarily supposed 
 if supposed at all — we cannot suppose its culmination in any- 
 thing supposable. We can only suppose the constant rhythmic 
 change as carrying the process forward into further develop- 
 ment of the subject matter evolving; its occasional apparent 
 retrogression being merely an expression of the rythm of the 
 movement. 
 
 If, as above stated, the subject of the origin, nature and 
 essence of religion cannot be stated in philosophic terms, nor 
 argued in the language of reason, nor illustrated in any cogniz- 
 able phenomena; yet the alleged relation of religion to our 
 civilization may be considered. And the terms of philosophy 
 and language of reason and illustrations of cognizable pheno- 
 mena may be employed in ascertaining the appropriate pro- 
 vinces of our faculties, and, in so doing, necessarily demon- 
 strating that the divine, in order to be divine, must be above 
 and beyond their range. In the presence of manifestations of 
 the divine the truly philosophic mind bows itseli in adoration 
 (worship) instead of attempting to make them appear reason- 
 able — and thus making itself appear ridiculous. The most that 
 any mind has ever accomplished in that direction was to show 
 the invalidity of former philosophies of the same subject; and 
 no one has propounded or ever will propound a valid philoso- 
 phy of it. While we may not arbitrarily set bounds to the 
 intellectual reach, we must recognize certain philosophical 
 necessities. Among these are the mind's perennial aspiration, 
 its inevitable and universal balk, its acting only in response to 
 excitation and only as it is equipped and fitted to act by agen- 
 cies beyond its control, its subjection to logic in all its candid 
 action, its inseparability from the principle of reverence, its en- 
 slavement to superstitions which it forever tries to justify in 
 reason, and its duplicity with itself in all effort to attain the 
 unattainable. Sincere introspection will disclose others. 
 
 By what may properly be called psychological necessity 
 we are forced to believe that if the Almighty is infinite in His 
 
5^6 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 attributes He has alv/ays been infinite in them; and we cannot 
 suppose them to have been augmented from the finite to the 
 infinite in any measurable portion of time. Whatever we 
 properly regard as infinite we must suppose to have always 
 been infinite, because we cannot conceive or think the progress 
 necessary to attain to infinity from finitude. The infinite love, 
 wisdom and power of the Almighty cannot be conceived of as 
 having increased since the institution of Christianity, from the 
 mind's sheer inability to think the increase of that which is 
 already infinite. But in most theologies the term infinite love, 
 is a contradiction. They generally embrace the idea of divine 
 wrath. As wrath and vengeance are contradictory to love and 
 mercy or grace, these latter must be limited by the former, 
 and hence neither the divine love nor divine wrath can be in- 
 finite. Yet we can conceive no limit to the love that would 
 institute a true religious system for the salvation of a race justly 
 under condemnation; and we can conceive no limit to the 
 wrath that would eternally damn a soul for acts to which it 
 was by nature inclined; and yet we must suppose that if the 
 two opposites coexist they mutually limit each other. The 
 unavoidable consequence is that neither the origin, nature, nor 
 essence of any true religion can be stated in philosophic terms, 
 nor discussed in the language of reason, nor illustrated in any 
 cognizable phenomena. Every possible postulation in religi- 
 ous philosophy which shall be traced to its necessary logical 
 results, will lead to a similar antinomy. St. Paul was at least 
 consistent in abstaining from the attempt to teach the hidden 
 wisdom in the enticing words of man's wisdom ; and ol^ject 
 lessons in the history of the race during the prevalence of 
 Christianity demonstrate the folly of the attempts made by 
 modern apostles. 
 
 For instance, during more than twelve centuries Christianity 
 has been the religious creed of a very respectable proportion of 
 the human race. It has been known and rejected by nearly 
 half the human race for longer than that. It has been in vogue 
 for about nineteen centuries and there are a great many mem- 
 bers of the race, for whom, if it is the true religion, it was 
 divinelv intended, who cannot be said to have known of it all. 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 557 
 
 If it is the true religion it is necessary to the salvation of man, 
 and without it man is damned. If since its institution a soul 
 has been saved without its aid, it was not necessary to the 
 salvation of that soul at least. Unless we can conceive of an 
 inherent difference in the nature of human souls, we cannot 
 conceive of the necessity of Christianity to the salvation of any 
 soul unless we maintain that since its institution no soul has 
 been saved without its aid. We cannot conceive that those 
 who received it at its institution were responsible for the loss 
 of the souls of those who died in their time without it. Of 
 course some of them were directed to go into all nations and 
 preach the gospel to every creature, but unless the death rate 
 were arrested a great many must die and be damned before the 
 gospel could reach them. To the human mind there are three 
 horns to this dilemma. The alleged divine economy was at 
 fault, or divine wrath exceeded divine love, or the religion was 
 unnecessary to the salvation of souls and was not the true 
 religion. 
 
 To say that Christianity has been the religious creed of part 
 of the race does not very definitely state their creed. It is so 
 variously interpreted and applied as to seem more properly a 
 cluster of creeds than a creed. Yet if we regard it the true and 
 definite creed, we must suppose its principles to have always 
 been exactly the same, for principles cannot be supposed to 
 change. Its tenets as held by its adherents, and its ritual as 
 administered by its priests, and its philosophies as taught by 
 its sages, were ever inconstant in essence and effect. But if 
 we attempt nevertheless to regard it the true religion we must 
 suppose it to be based upon principles, and to have an efficacy 
 for the accomplishment of the purpose of its institution. And 
 we must suppose its principles and inherent efficacy to have 
 always been what they now are and must forever be. We 
 must suppose this even while recognizing that the religion 
 was instituted in time. Otherwise we must suppose that it 
 may not be the true religion. To such psychologic straits does 
 reasoning drive the philosopher who traces the postulations 
 and dogmas of the creeds to their necessary logical results. 
 
SS8 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 It is manifestly unreasonable to suppose that a religion 
 divinely instituted and intended for the salvation of all men 
 would be in vogue for more than eighteen centuries without 
 being extended to the entire race. It is more unreasonable to 
 suppose that such a religion would be variously interpreted 
 and applied by people of the same race and differing with each 
 other only in such variations as arise from climatic causes. 
 Yet if we brook all this we are still unable to see in the religion 
 itself an active working factor in the evolution of our civiliza- 
 tion. It is ec]ually as difficult to see in it an efficient cause ofan 
 a.lleged new development of the alleged altruistic feeling. That 
 which is divinely intended for the salvation of the entire race 
 ought to reach all its beneficiaries (or victims) in less time than 
 nineteen centuries. If it is an institution of divine grace and 
 promulgated by divine love and wisdom and power, each 
 of which is infinite, it is difficult to understand why its 
 dissemination has been so restricted and so barren of results. 
 As the nervous mechanism and receptivity of each individual 
 of the race are constructed on one and the same general plan, 
 and regulated by the same psychological laws (so far as regu- 
 lated at all) the import of the divine message ought to be 
 exactly the same to all who receive it. If it is really essential 
 to the weal of the race either temporal or spiritual it is essential 
 to the weal ot each and everv individual of the race; and there 
 is criminal negligence somewhere in its being not yet pro- 
 claimed to every individual who has existed since its institu- 
 tion. If there is not such criminal negligence in such fact, then 
 the religion was never of any consequence to the race, either 
 temporal or spiritual, nor to any individual of the race. Even 
 if climatic causes have effected such racial differences among 
 the different sections of humanity as that a divine message must 
 necessarily be differently interpreted and applied among them, 
 the difficulty is not obviated. It is only removed a little way, 
 and we come to it again as certainly as we persist in the 
 attempt, logically, to fix the religion with responsibility for an 
 alleged new development of the so-called altruistic feeling, or 
 to trace our civilization to it as an eftkient cause. Indeed, if 
 religious creeds are devised and constructed by man with 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 5^9 
 
 reference to theories of the universe, then the religion itself is a 
 product of the same forces which cause the evolution of our 
 civilization; and instead of being a causative fiictor in such 
 evolution, it is a mere feature or phase of the civilization so 
 evolving; its creeds changing in substance and in form to keep 
 pace with the advancing philosophic refinement of such 
 theories of the universe. 
 
 According to the more fashionable sociologists our boasted 
 civilization has its finest expression in and among peoples of 
 Anglo-Saxon blood. This peculiar strain has been in esse in 
 all its distinctness and with all its susceptibility for more than a 
 thousand years. At least it was in vogue in as much distinct- 
 ness and with as much susceptibility as it ever had more than 
 a thousand years ago. During all this time it has been exposed 
 to the influences of Christianity, the advocates of which have 
 constantly plied the susceptible Anglo-Saxon with its precepts 
 and persuasions and premonitions. They have assured him 
 that it was instituted by divine love and wisdom and power 
 for the salvation of all men; and that the alternative was their 
 damnation. They have shown him the historical truth that one 
 of its most intellectual and hence most formidable opponents 
 was by its divine power instantaneously transformed into its 
 greatest terrestrial champion. This^ proselyte was of Jewish ex- 
 traction, and there was never in the Hebrew blood any peculiar 
 susceptibilitv to the influences of Christianity. As a race the 
 Chosen are as stiff-necked as ever, and they have maintained 
 their racial integrity for near forty centuries under circumstances 
 which would have extinguished the last vestige of racial char- 
 acteristic in any other people. As above stated, if we regard 
 Christianity the true religion, it is psychologically necessary to 
 suppose its efficacy to have always been infinite; and that its 
 transforming power has never been either finite or augmented. 
 The same voice, though in varying tones and accents, which 
 arrested the belligerent Tent-maker on his expedition to 
 Damascus, has been constantly calling from heaven to the sus- 
 ceptible Anglo-Saxon for more than a thousand years. Yet 
 according to the latest and most rechert:he science of sociology 
 
560 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 it hcis but recently succeeded in awakening in him, and produc- 
 ing a new development of, the alleged altruistic feeling. 
 
 These are some of the object lessons in the history of the race 
 during the prevalence ot Christianity, which demonstrate the 
 folly in the attempts made by modern apostles to teach the 
 hidden wisdom in the enticing words of man's wisdom. 
 
 it is not necessarily disparaging to Christianity to deny its 
 responsibility for our civilization as well as for the alleged new 
 development of the so-called altruistic feeling. If it is the true 
 religion it cannot be made more respectable or sacred by any 
 human estimate that may be placed upon it; and its discreet 
 advocates will promptly disclaim for it all proffered credit for 
 achievements which it has not achieved. A philosopher can- 
 not — perhaps a flinatic can — conceive how a plain statement of 
 historical truth can be offensive to a spirit of rectitude. Any 
 logically necessary sequence of actual fact is a truth, as well as 
 the existence of the fact itself. Philosophy consists in great 
 part of the necessary deductions from and sequences of such 
 fact. But to be philosophical such deductions and sequences 
 must be the necessary ones, logically deduced from and neces- 
 sarily following such fact. Casual coincidence and succession 
 are not in themselves sufficient for philosophic cause and effect. 
 Where the alleged cause has been present for a long time before 
 the supposed effect appears, and when the alleged cause has 
 been present for a longer time and the supposed effect never 
 distinctly appears, philosophy wastes no time in constructing 
 fanciful effect and tracing it to chimerical cause. The applica- 
 tion is obvious. If our boasted civilization really has its finest 
 expression in and among peoples of Anglo-Saxon blood, it 
 must be because of a peculiar adaptation of such blood for the 
 development of such civilization; and not because of any 
 peculiar efficacy of Christianity therefor. Yet Christianity may 
 be more conducive to the development of such civilization than 
 any of the other religions, by being merely less inimical to it. 
 But however the fact may really have been, there is good phil- 
 osophic reason in well known historic fact, for attributing the 
 superiority of our civilization to the peculiar adaptation of the 
 Anglo-Saxon blood rather than to any supposed efficacy of 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 56 I 
 
 Christianity therefor. It is known that for about eight centuries 
 our Anglo-Saxon ancestors were little better than naked bar- 
 barians, while Christianity with all its efficacy for the develop- 
 ment of civilization, was the religious creed of peoples whose 
 lineal descendants still profess it, and whom our modern 
 sociologists now declare are far behind us in the development 
 of civilization. It is historically true that Christianity has pre- 
 vailed in certain countries for near eighteen centuries, and that 
 the peoples of such countries enjoyed a more refined civilization 
 during a few centuries next before, than during at least seven- 
 teen centuries next after the institution and general prevalence 
 of Christianity among them. It is to be remarked that if 
 Christianity has transformed the "hair-mantled, flint-hurling, 
 Aboriginal Anthropophagus" of Britain into a polished pro- 
 fessor of pansophy, its effect upon the Antochthones of the 
 Mediteranean peninsulas and islands has not been so striking. 
 To claim that it is better adapted to more northern latitudes is to 
 question the economic wisdom of its Founder, who planted it 
 originally much nearer the tropics than even these islands and 
 peninsulas of the Mediteranean. 
 
 If historic truth has any philosophic significance, it would 
 seem that the intensification of the idea of property — in other 
 words, selfishness — has done more to promote and develope 
 our civilization than any religious feeling (idea ?) has done. If 
 individual security in the ownership and enjoyment of property 
 could be had without it, mankind would tolerate very few of 
 the restraints of civilization. In such case no known religion 
 would be adequate to the development of such a civilization as 
 now prevails among the modern Anglo-Saxons. We have 
 only to look back to Nineveh, Babylon, Memphis, Thebes, 
 Tyre, Carthage, and Palmyra, for the conclusive proof that 
 Commerce — -the most elegant and emphatic expression of the 
 most intense idea of property — and not religion, is the Foster- 
 Motherofall civilization. The individual selfishness that lies 
 at the base of all intelligible idea of property, and not the 
 alleged altruistic feeling of the modern Anglo-Saxon — further 
 than it is itself an expression of selfishness — is the spur to that 
 
562 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 which fashionable sociologists boast as the greatest refinement 
 of national culture. 
 
 Still, it cannot be denied, and for the purposes of philosophy 
 it may be admitted, that the type and tone of the civilization 
 prevailing in some countries more thoroughly or more nearly 
 Christian, are, according to our ideas of national culture, su- 
 perior to the type and tone of the civilization prevailing in 
 countries less thoroughly or less nearly Christian. This how- 
 ever must be taken with the equally significant fact that the 
 tropical and southern American States are as intensely religious 
 as the northern American States, and that some of the southern 
 and south eastern States of Europe are more intensely religious 
 than the British and German States ; while far inferior in point 
 of civilization. This requires the recognition of another factor 
 in the development of civilization, and one that appears to be 
 more potent than any religion can be esteemed. Climatic 
 cause would seem to be effective, if not directly, then ulti- 
 mately; in conducing to the intensification, or, it may be, to 
 the quiescence, of the idea of property by stimulating or 
 repressing the industrial tendency. But if we attempt to 
 ascribe the stronger industrial tendency of temperate and north- 
 ern latitudes to climatic cause, we are confronted with difficul- 
 ties more serious than any yet encountered. We have to 
 explain the co-existence of the huts and wigwams and mounds 
 of the Ohio and the Missouri, v/ith the Temples and Pyramids 
 and Highways of Mexico and Peru. The sinuous belt of 
 civilization that encircled the globe during the first ten or 
 . twelve centuries of the prevalence of Christianity, ran too near 
 the equator to consist very consistently with the modern philo- 
 sophy of climatic cause. If Christianity were an efficient cause 
 for the glorious effect which we proudly call our civilization, 
 it ought, philosophically, to have the same effect in all lati- 
 tudes. It purports to be the true religion of the one and only 
 God, instituted for the weal of all men. And while it may be 
 historically true, that the civilization which we regard the 
 most elegant and refined yet known, prevails only in Christian 
 countries, there is really no philosophic significance in the fact. 
 The same religion prevails in many countries which are as 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. ^6} 
 
 uncivilized as other countries in the same latitudes with them, 
 where Mohammedanism and Buddhism prevail. 
 
 Some of the fccts then may seem to imply that Christianity 
 has bred and fostered our civilization, and in another con- 
 nection 1 have urged this as a historical truth ; and as a truth 
 sufficient of itself to silence all objection to the validity of 
 Christianity. But I also urged there as I urge here, that the 
 validity ^of the system cannot be either assailed or defended 
 philosophically. The supposed superiority of our civilization 
 cannot be pliilosophically attributed to the influences of 
 Christianity, nor to it in co-operation with alleged climatic 
 causes. As many of the facts of history, and they are equally 
 significant, forbid its being so accounted for, as would admit 
 of its being so accounted for. No really valid religion can have 
 anything in common with reason or philosophy. The results 
 of the influences of Christianity are more in the nature of miracu- 
 lous manifestations, than of philosophic facts or reasonable 
 results. There is a great deal of well known historical truth 
 concerning facts, which are in themselves utterly unreasonable. 
 Their coincidence with other facts, and their sequences, may 
 sometimes suggest the ideas of correlation and consequence. 
 When their coincidence and sequence are observed, these are 
 apt to start the tongues and pens of the wiseacres, each of 
 whom has a peculiar theory of the manifestation, which he 
 proceeds to verify in philosophy, and the world is edified with 
 his elegant and elaborate folly. 
 
 In the preface to his booklet on The Idea of God as Affected 
 by Modern Kowledge, the Theist refers to a lecture he had de- 
 livered before an august assembly called the Concord School of 
 Philosophy and says, "My address was designed to introduce 
 the discussion of the question whether pantheism is the legiti- 
 mate outcome of modern knowledge. It seemed to me that 
 the object might best be attained by passing in review the 
 various modifications which the idea of God has undergone in 
 the past, and pointing out the shape in which it is likely to 
 survive the rapid growth of modern knowledge, and especially 
 the establishment of the great doctrine of evolution which is 
 fast obliging us to revise our opinions upon all subjects what- 
 
564 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 soever." No opinion needs revision until known to be erron- 
 neous, or at least until believed to be erronneous. When 
 known or believed to be erronneous it ceases to be an opinion, 
 and gives place to other opinion, or, it may be obliterated and 
 leave the mind devoid of intelligible opinion upon the subject 
 to which it related. But allowing the supposed revision of 
 opinion, and also allowing that the idea of God is opinion, it 
 would still be very severe upon Theology, and especially upon 
 Theism, if the growth of modern knowledge and the estab- 
 lishment of the doctrine of evolution require the revision of 
 such opinion. Modern knowledge must be truth in order to 
 be knowledge; and if it requires the revision of the idea of God 
 it must be because of error in such idea. Theology is or pur- 
 ports to be the idea of God. Parallel, or rather identical with this — 
 religion is the feeling of God. Theism is the phase of this idea or 
 feeling, in which God is regarded a personal Being, independent 
 of and distinct from the world, indeed the Creator of the world. 
 It is becoming fashionable to maintain that He created the world 
 through and by means of the process of evolution, the doctrine 
 of which seems to be so well established that even Theism 
 tries to conform itself to it. 
 
 The reverent religious mind delights in the notion that its 
 God is immortal and immutable. Should it detect Him ter- 
 minating or changing His existence in order to conform to 
 modern knowledge of the world He has created, it might lose 
 all respect for Him. It could scarcely worship an Almighty 
 Groveller to public opinion, however fashionable and authorita- 
 tive such opinion might seem to be. The modifications which 
 the idea of God is said to have undergone in the past, if they 
 have been undergone, were necessarily so many changes of 
 such idea. The idea after the change was different from the 
 idea before the change, and necessarily another idea. An idea 
 is a subjective condition, or a phase of a subjective condition. 
 The existence of the subject having the idea is mechanically 
 caused. The subjective condition itself and its phases are also 
 mechanically caused. The God of such subject exists (for him) 
 only in the sensation, feeling, idea, which he has of such God ; 
 namely, in his subjective condition so mechanically caused, or 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 05 
 
 some phase of such condition. If the idea of God has under- 
 gone change in the past, the Gods of those whose ideas have 
 been so changed have been relegated to non-existence, and new 
 ones have been made and substituted in their stead by the 
 growth of knowledge (of the world) which has caused such 
 change of ideas. If further revision of such ideas is reciuired 
 by the growth of modern knowledge and the doctrine of 
 evolution, then the present God or Gods must give place 
 to new ones to be constructed in later and better style 
 and conformably to such modern knowledge and evolution- 
 ary doctrine. If the existence of the subject is mechanic- 
 ally caused — and the evolutionary doctrine is that such existence 
 is a mere form of the expression of force — and if the subjective 
 condition and its phases are also mechanically caused, then 
 the idea of God is mechanically caused. The same evolution- 
 ary doctrine holds that all ideas orginate in sensation, and 
 that all sensation is mechanically caused. The variety of the 
 idea of God also implies that the idea is mechanically caused. 
 Very few persons have definitely and intelligibly expressed 
 identical ideas of God. In truth no person ever had a definite 
 and intelligible idea of Him. The indefinite and unintelligible 
 ideas of Him which have undergone change in the past, and 
 which modern knowledge and the evolutionary doctrine require 
 to be revised in the future, can never, by such means become 
 definite intelligible and true ideas of an immortal and immuta- 
 ble God. No mind can suppose either the beginning or end 
 of the acquisition or growth of knowledge, or of the process of 
 evolution. So long as these continue the idea of God, if re- 
 quired to run in their grooves, must be constantly changing in 
 order to keep itself adapted to them, if the idea of God must 
 be modified and made to conform to knowledge of the world 
 as it grows (changes), if such idea must continuously adjust 
 itself to the continuously growing (evolving) doctrine of evolu- 
 tion, then the existence of God Himself must be modified and 
 such existence must be continuously adjusting itself to the con- 
 tinuously growing, evolving, changing, of the physical world to 
 which such knowledge and evolutionary doctrine relate. The 
 alleged knowledge of the world and the doctrine of evolution, 
 
566 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 are simply sums of impressions made by the world (pheno- 
 mena) upon the minds of those who have promulgated such 
 knowledge and doctrine. They constitute the subjective con- 
 dition of those who are, or imagine they are, impressed by 
 physical phenomena in a manner which they attempt to ex- 
 press in their alleged know'edge and in their doctrine of evolution 
 They can generally account for such impressions in a pro- 
 visional manner, so as to imply that the nerve organism is 
 affected thus and so by contact, tactual, aural, visual, gusta- 
 tory, or olfactory, with physical phenomena. They may at- 
 tribute the retention of such impressions to a peculiar chemical 
 quality of or quantity in the nerve substance, namely, its 
 phosphorescence. They may attribute the coordination of such 
 impressions into thoughts, ideas, and alleged knowledge, to 
 some other peculiar quality of or quantity in the same nerve 
 substance, namely, the inherited and acquired tendency of its 
 activities. They may even attribute its activities to something. 
 Force is the final refuge of the evolutionist. As force is insepar- 
 able from matter, and as matter cannot be conceived of as 
 apart from force, they are psychologically two names for one — 
 what ? If the evolutionist should successfully attribute these 
 or this to somewhat further he might be better qualified and 
 entitled to insist on the modification of the idea of God con- 
 formably to the evolutionary doctrine. If the evolutionary 
 doctrine that ideas are the sums of impressions originating in 
 sensation, and that sensations are coordinated according to in- 
 herited and acquired aptitudes, is correct, then the idea of God 
 must be mechanically caused. A sensory organ must in some 
 manner have a sensation or impression of Him. This sensation 
 or impression must be registered and retained in the sensorium 
 by virtue of the phosphorescence of some parts of the nerve 
 substance, and it must be assimilated or coordinated into 
 thought or idea by the inherited and acquired aptitude of the 
 nerve organism of the particular subject having the idea. As 
 the mind cannot conceive of such thing as direct aural, tactual, 
 visual, gustatory, or olfactory sensation or impression of the 
 Almighty, it cannot conceive how it is to have any sensation or 
 impression of Him. The chimerical fancies which the mind 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. ^67 
 
 may have of its God, engendered in the nursery and fostered 
 by fanaticism, can never rise to the dignity of ideas. An idea 
 of God, in the sense in which we say idea of any supposable 
 physical phenomena, is a psychological impossibility. 
 
 The Theist insists on a personal God as the independent 
 Creator of the world. He denies that Pantheism is the legiti- 
 mate outcome of modern science, and disputes its claim to 
 verification, in the doctrine of evolution. He insists on tacking 
 his alleged Theism to the document containing the evolution- 
 ary doctrine, and proposes the modification of the idea of God 
 (the personal and independent Creator of the world) to con- 
 form to modern knowledge and the evolutionary doctrine. 
 He reduces the personal and independent Creator of the world 
 to subserviency to, or at best to identity with, the world which 
 He has created, and to which such modern knowledge and 
 evolutionary doctrine relate. While definite and intelligible 
 ideas of God are psychologically impossible, yet if they were 
 within human capacity, they could not logically be subordinat- 
 ed and required to conform to knowledge of the world and the 
 evolutionary doctrine, unless the world to which such knowl- 
 edge and doctrine relate, is superior to Him, or at least equal 
 to or identical with Him. In such case He could not be sup- 
 posed to be its Creator, and the Theist, by the logic of his own 
 dogmas, becomes a Pantheist. According to his own philos- 
 ophy Theism is an absurdity. He has the idea of the personal 
 God (the independent Creator of the world) dancing attendance 
 upon modern knowledge of the world and the doctrine of 
 evolution. As God exists objectively for no one, but subjec- 
 tively for each one, he subordinates such God to physical 
 phenomena by requiring the supposed idea of Him to conform 
 to a supposed knowledge of such phenomena. 
 
 Religion is a various and varying and confused and con- 
 flicting expression of the so-called idea of God. It is as various 
 and varying and confused and conflicting as the so-called 
 modern knowledge of the world and doctrine of evolution. 
 The Christian creed is merely a form of the expression of such 
 so-called idea of God ; and is itself as various and varying and 
 confused and conflicting as the so-called knowledge of the 
 
568 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 world. Yet it is more learnedly than philosophically said to be 
 an active agency in the evolution of our civilization. To be 
 such an agency it must (philosophically) be in and of itself a 
 force, and not an effect. The force of which philosophy takes 
 cognizance is constant. Various effects are merely different 
 expressions of force in different applications. If religion 
 in any form, or in the aggregate of all its forms, is a force, 
 it need not, and indeed it cannot, be varied or modified 
 or changed by means of any so-called knowledge of 
 the effect of some other supposed force. If the so-called 
 idea of God is in any way affected by the growth of 
 modern knowledge, it is a mere fleeting phantom, it is 
 merely one of the forms in which force expresses itself; and 
 it must vary as the same force differently expresses itself in the 
 change of expression which constitutes the growth of modern 
 knowledge. In no form in which such so-called idea may find 
 expression, not even in Christianity, can it be philosophically 
 regarded an active agency in the evolution of our civilization. 
 By constantly varying to keep pace with the growth of modern 
 knowledge and to tit the doctrine of evolution (which is itself 
 evolving and not established) it continuously becomes what it 
 was not, until it now resembles the religion of the Apostles 
 about as much as theirs resembled the religion of the Antedi- 
 luvian Patriarchs. One can speak of it as cause of the evolution 
 of our civilization with about as much philosophic propriety as 
 he can speak of the establishment of the doctrine of evolution, 
 or "the^oj/ toward which the process of evolution is tending." 
 Evolution is irreconcilable with the establishment of any- 
 thing, even the doctrine of evolution itself. According to the 
 doctrine of evolution the evolutionary idea itself has evolved 
 from former crude conceptions of cosmos. On its own hypo- 
 thesis it must continue evolving forever, for force is persistent. 
 No mind can think the goal toward which the process tends. 
 As place it cannot be localized, and as condition it cannot be 
 regarded permanent. Evolution necessitates matter, and mat- 
 ter cannot become extinct, and it is inseparable from force. 
 Force can only be thought as an efficient cause of effect upon 
 matter. One of these effects is the doctrine of evolution as 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 569 
 
 expressed in the philosophies to which Theology is cowardly 
 cringing. Another of these effects is civilization, for the devel- 
 opment of which Theology vainly claims credit. If religion 
 has anything in common with reason, and if the idea of God is 
 really affected by modern knowledge, another of these effects 
 is the varying state of religion as expressed in the various con- 
 fused and conflicting ideas of God. if there is a goal toward 
 which the process tends, and if it is place, the process must 
 continue until the goal shall be reached. Matter must then 
 become extinct, for if it remains in esse, force, which is persis- 
 tent, will impel it beyond the goal. If such goal is condition it 
 must be attainable, and the process must continue until the 
 goal shall be attained. Matter must then become extinct, for 
 if it remains in esse, force, which is persistent, will affect it in 
 some way, and affection is change of condition. So the mind 
 which is not prepared to extinguish matter need not concern 
 itself about the establishment of the doctrine of evolution, or 
 the existence of the goal toward which evolution tends. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 The work which I have so far been engaged in must, like 
 all other literary performances, close without being completed. 
 Nothing of a philosophical character in literature was ever 
 entirely finished. As we cannot legitimately suppose the end 
 of progress and the final attainment of perfection in wisdom or 
 in morals, it is not likely that any such literary enterprise ever 
 will so culminate. If the name by which I have called my 
 work implies an ambition disproportionate to the ability mani- 
 fest in its performance, I am still unable to find anything which 
 I can regard a more appropriate name for it than the Ethics of 
 Literature. 
 
 In Literature a great deal of sheer nonsense has been dressed 
 in the fashionable garb of learning, and sold under the protect- 
 ed proprietary trade-mark of this or that system of alleged 
 philosophy. If, in questioning the propriety of such unsyste- 
 matic literary system, the examples or specimens which 1 have 
 examined have been selected in a somewhat desultory manner, 
 I may say that in llieir several philosophies the data are not only 
 so selected, but 1 think I have shown that their several enunci- 
 ations of doctrine and principles were even more irregular. 
 
 In a brief biographical sketch of an eminent (once an immi- 
 ent) American, who has received his full shares of attention, it 
 is said, '• His writings, though marked by an ethical and spirit- 
 ual vitality of the highest order, are utterly devoid of system, 
 and pervaded by a certain mystical quality, charming to some 
 but bewildering to others. His intellectual gems are profusely 
 sown throughout his pages according to no visible or conscious 
 method, and with settings that seem quite accidental; but 
 they glow with a genuine lustre wherever found. To the arts 
 and processes of the logician he pays no regard, evidently 
 thinking that they tend to belittle, rather than exalt the truth.'" 
 
 It will be remembered that Carlyle also prated a great deal 
 about what he contemptuously called Attorney Logic, and set 
 all the rules of literary decorum at defiance, and distorted a 
 
CONCLUSION. 571 
 
 o-enuine genius in eccentric buffoonery and the snarls of a dis- 
 oTuntled literary hypochondriac. If one will take the pains to 
 set the gems which Emerson has so profusely sown through- 
 out his pages in anything like a natural order and connection, 
 or relation to each other and to any supposable train of philo- 
 sophic thought, he will find he has grouped together more 
 brilliant contradiction and incongruity than philosophy. 
 
 No truth, and hence no sound philosophy, was ever in itself 
 necessarily illogical. No truth, and hence no sound philosophy, 
 was ever more embellished, or more intelligible, by reason of a 
 disregard for method. Still, logic and method are of them- 
 selves inadequate to the construction of a philosophy. There 
 must be a substance, a subject-matter, a body animated by the 
 soul of truth. And while the mindjnay not be able to get 
 back to an elementary truth or a fundamental principle, it can 
 never legtimately supply the (supposed) desideratum by an 
 assumption. If the logical result of this is the impossibility of 
 sound philosophy, it may be observed that so far, the nearest 
 the human intellect has ever approached thereto, is in philosophy 
 cy pres, intelligible and reasonable probability. 
 
 The subject which the name of my work indicates that I 
 proposed to consider, is too vast to be exhaustively treated, and 
 too diverse and variegated to be brought symmetrically within 
 any well defined method. If 1 have been illogical, however, 1 
 think it is mainly in writing at all, when my chief complaint is 
 that too much is already written. 
 
 To the thinking reader (for whom I have written) who may 
 have attentively perused the foregoing pages, no rehearsal or 
 summary of what in my opinion should be the principles of the 
 ethics ot literature will be necessary. Particular instances have 
 been made the occasion for expressing general ideas of literary 
 propriety; and in most cases they have afforded the appropriate 
 illustrations by means of which I have sought to enforce such 
 ideas. 
 
 The names and characters of the authors whose works I 
 have examined, together with the esteem in which they seem 
 to be almost universally held in literature, may imply some- 
 thing near akin to audacity in the attempt I have made. They 
 
572 ETHICS OF LITERATURE. 
 
 are all world-famous. They appear to be securely enshrined 
 in the hearts of all literary posterity. Nothing less than the 
 result predicted in the preface could justify such an undertak- 
 ing. If, however, such result is fairly attained, no name and 
 no fame, and no considerations of any imperious and caprici- 
 ous literary fashion, should deter any manly man from frankly 
 conceding, that the prevalence of a servile and slovenly habit of 
 thought, is in some measure responsible for the aristocratic airs 
 assumed by mediocrity. 
 

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