Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON FEBRUARY 9, 1850 JULY 10, 1897 Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark ! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark ; For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar." NEW YORK: 1898 EAGLE PRESS BROOKLYN-NEW YORK NDEX. Barrett, George C 143 . Beecher, Rev. Henry Ward 135 Botta, Anne C. L 167 Bridgman, Herbert L 109 Brown, William Reynolds 115 Brownell, Eva P 123 Brownell, William C 173 / Bryce, John 178 Burrows, George B 117 Chadwick, Rev. John W 21, 136, 140, 166 Chickering, Joseph H 118 Clark, A. Inglis 129 Clews, Henry 175 Creevey, John K 114 Davidson, Thomas 145, 154 Deming, Horace E 117 Donald, Rev. E. Winchester 182 Eastman, John H 15, 127 Eggleston, Edward 79, 108 Fawcett, Edgar 169 Flagg, John H 130 Goodman, Richard, Jr. . 126 Hewett, W. T '. 125, 145 Holbrook, M. L ... 112 Hotchkiss, H. D 184 Hutton, Lawrence in Janes, Lewis G 49 Jerome, William T 180 Kaufman, Edward S 37 Logan, Walter S 108 Lowell, Sidney V 179 Ludlow, Rev. James M 109 Lydecker, Charles E 128 IV INDEX. Lyman, Rev. Albert J 135 Mathews, Albert 167 Matthews, Brander 76, 181 McClurg, A. C 146, 154 McKelway, Hon. St. Clair 29 Oakley, Henry S 153 Palmer, Courtlandt 141 Roosevelt, Theodore 184 Sandford, Elliot 185 Seelye, Rev. Julius H., D.D 137, 147, 160, 169 Shearman, Thomas G 140 Shepard, Edward M 181 Stedman, Edmund C 45 Stephen, Leslie 134 Sterne, Simon 118 Stockton, Frank R in Stoddard, F. H 113, 143 Straus, Isidor 183 Straus, Oscar S 95, 123, 163, 170 Taylor, Hon. John A 60, 174 Thompson, Charles Miner 113 Tredwell, Daniel M 156 Underwood, B. F 89, 121, 172, 174 Vilas, William P 103, 175, 177 Williams, Rev. Theodore C 164 Woods, Rev. Robert M 130 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORANDUM. DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON was born at Montpelier, Vermont, February 9th, 1850, of Massachusetts ancestry. He was the youngest son of Daniel Pierce Thompson, well known as a lawyer, judge, editor, novelist and historian ; his best known literary work being " The Green Mountain Boys." The Thompson family came from Boston and vicinity : the great-grandfather of Daniel Greenleaf Thompson having been one of the martyrs of the battle of Lexington. An own cousin of the last named was the distin- guished Count Rumford, whose name was Ben- jamin Thompson. The subject of the present sketch prepared for college in the Washington County Grammar School of his native place. He graduated with honors at Amherst College, Massachusetts, in the class of 1869. Previous to his graduation, in connection with his college duties, he served 8 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. several terms as assistant Secretary of State, of Vermont. In the Fall of 1869 he removed to New York City, where he gave private instruc- tion and studied law with George R. Thompson, his brother. In April, 1870, he accepted a posi- tion as teacher of classics in the Springfield, Massachusetts, High School, where he remained until the Summer of 1872. In July of that year he published, from the press of S. C. Griggs & Company, an elementary work, "A First Book in Latin," which met with very favorable notice all over the country. In the Autumn of 1872 he resumed the study of law in New York City, and was admitted to the bar December 13th of that year. He has been continuously in active practice of law since that date. For nearly four years he was a member of the firm of Jordan, Stiles & Thompson. After this, he formed a co-partner- ship with Simon Sterne and Oscar S. Straus, late United States Minister to Turkey, under the firm name of Sterne, Straus & Thompson; continued, subsequently, on the retirement of Mr. Straus, under the firm name of Sterne & Thompson. His present location is No. Ill Broadway, and AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 9 his firm name, Taylor & Thompson, his partner being Hon. John A. Taylor, formerly Corpora- tion Counsel of Brooklyn. During all periods since his graduation, he has been engaged in systematic literary work. It was his intention to follow up his "First Book in Latin " with a series of Latin text books, but his change of occupation prevented. In April, 1871, a paper of his on " Oratory and Vocal Culture," appeared in the Massachusetts Teach- er, of Boston. In the Summer of 1876, he pub- lished three articles in the Liberal Christian, on " Colly er and Orthodoxy," "Skepticism and Criticism; " also a sequel to these in the Fitch- burg- (Mass.) Sentinel, on "The True Basis of Church Fellowship." He also has been a frequent contributor to Mind, a quarterly review of psychology and philosophy, published in London ; to the Popu- lar Science Monthly, published in New York, and to various other journals and reviews. In 1884 he published, through the house of Longmans, Green & Company, in London, "A System of Psychology," in two volumes, 8vo, of 600 pages each. This was followed in 1886 by "The 10 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. Problem of Evil," a continuation of his psycho- logical -work into the field of Ethics. In 1888 appeared the "Religious Sentiments of the Human Mind," and in 1889 another vol- ume entitled "Social Progress." In 1892 was published ' ' Philosophy of Fiction in Literature, ' ' an essay, a volume setting forth the theory of the novel, with criticisms upon the various methods followed in this form of literary com- position. In 1893 he published "Politics in a Democracy," an essay upon present political tendencies, which has since been translated into Dutch, by Dr. D. C. Nijhoff. In January, 1894, appeared an article in the Forum upon the ques- tion of whether under increased civilization we are improving or deteriorating in morals. He has also delivered and published a number of addresses before various societies, and on vari- ous occasions, one of the last being an address delivered before the "Woman's Law Class," of the University of the City of New York, at the closing exercises, April 4th, 1894. Mr. Thompson never has held political office in New York City, although he has been identi- fied with various political movements, notably AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 11 those relating to civil service, revenue and high license reform. He served as a member of the Committee of One Hundred at the Columbian Celebration in the Fall of 1892, and has held numerous honorary offices in connection with public movements. He served two terms as Yice-President of the New York Alumni Associa- tion of Amherst College. On the death of Court- landt Palmer, in 1888, he was elected to the presidency of the Nineteenth Century Club, which position he held for two years. He is a member of the Executive Council and Secretary of the Author's Club, of New York, at the pres- ent time. He is also a member of the Century Club, Manhattan Club, Reform Club, Bar Asso- ciation, Lawyers' Club, Sons of the Revolution, the Patria Club, the New England Society, and a good many other associations for various pur- poses. He also has been accorded the non-resi- dent courtesy of the Athenseum, and two or three other clubs in London. On March 31, 1881, Mr. Thompson married Henrietta Gallup, of Cleveland, Ohio, but never has had children. 12 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. In 1894, at the twenty-fifth anniversary of his graduation, Amherst College conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. JAN. 1, 1895. AS AN AMHERST STUDENT. AS AN AMHERST STUDENT. The foregoing sketch outlines in briefest form the life-work of a classmate, honored and beloved. As the Historian of the Class of 1869 at Amherst College, it has been my privi- lege to incorporate this statement of facts in the several editions of the class history, pub- lished at our recurring anniversaries. We have rejoiced over the career of our class- mate, noting the brilliant unfolding of latent powers, the rich fulfillment of the promise of earlier days. His success achieved in profes- sional life and as a man of letters, the honors worthily bestowed upon him, have all been a matter of hearty congratulation. We now mourn deeply over a life work ended in the very prime of its vigor, in the very midst of brilliant achievment ; and far more than that, we mourn the loss of a friend for whom we learned to cherish warm affection in those years, from '65 to '69. Thompson was the youngest member of our class, but none surpassed him in securing the 16 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. best results from the college course. When, as strangers to one another, we gathered at Am- herst in the autumn of 1865, he was one of the first to be pointed out as the son of Judge Thomp- son, of Vermont, for we had all read and heart- ily enjoyed the "Green Mountain Boys." Fair haired, slender, with smooth, boyish face, he still seemed maturer than many others, and quickly made an impression upon his class- mates. Though the youngest of their number, he was already experienced in public affairs, having become familiar with legislative proceed- ings and other State business at his home in Montpelier. As a student, it was early seen that he was actuated by higher motives than a mere desire to attain " valedictory rank." Competitions for prizes had little attraction. Mental discipline and the acquisition of knowledge for future use were the ends to which he directed faithful efforts. No special studies received his chief at- tention. Classics, mathematics, natural sciences were all given their due share of time, and in all these departments of study he gave evidence of a wiselv balanced and well trained mind. AS AN AMHERST STUDENT. 17 But the studies of the Senior year under Pro- fessor Seelye proved of special interest to him and developed a bent for metaphysical subjects which largely controlled his after life and made it so prolific in articles for the leading Reviews, and in more elaborate philosophical works. Very early in his college career he was recog- nized as an expert parliamentarian, a model presiding officer, a skillful debater. When Pres- ident of one of the college literary societies, he would sometimes devote an evening to practice in parliamentary law, and none who were pres- ent will ever forget the masterly ease with which he controlled the proceedings and guided through all the mazes and tangles in which the society would become involved. He had a gift for organization, and was a natural leader. The Amherst Student, one of the pioneers in college journalism, was founded by members of the Class of '69, and Thompson was one of the first Board of Editors. College tra- ditions had little sacredness in his eyes, and here he was somewhat of an iconoclast. He cared more for the right and true than for the ancient and venerable; and in this, as in many other 18 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. ways, the college boy was father of the man. The Greek letter fraternities have always been a prominent feature and factor in college life at Amherst. Thompson here found a large field for the useful exercise of his peculiar gifts, and the Psi Upsilon fraternity, of which he was a devoted member, has been greatly indebted to him for valuable services rendered, not only dur- his college course but also in subsequent years. His name will always be a household word in the Gamma Chapter. He was, in every way, one of the marked men of the class, and none have been surprised at the distinction gained in his profession and in the literary world. Quiet, often reserved in his manner, he was most genial and cordial in his friendships. And it is the friend whom we mourn, and whose death has brought a sense of personal bereave- ment to so many. His name is the tenth to receive the star on the roll of the graduate mem- bers of our class. It marks the close of a fruit- ful and honored life. ^rrfic**' 'Sc^t^e^ AS A PHILOSOPHER. AS A PHILOSOPHER. 626 CARLTON AVENUE, BROOKLYN, October 7, 1897. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : I thank you for the privilege of adding some- thing to the public testimony to your husband's qualities of mind and heart. I am sorry that I did not know him to the end so well as I used to know him when he lived in Brooklyn. We had then a Philosophical Society, the debates of which were intellectual sparring matches for the most part, but I seem to remember that Mr. Thompson never cared to talk for victory, nor to take a side on which his opinions were not actually engaged, though he could be as witty and as humorous as any in the presentation of his thought, and those who came up against him had need to bring their sharpest steel. His wit and humor were among his best endowments and, though it was seldom my good fortune to see him in his official station as President of the Nineteenth Century Club, I can easily imagine how helpful those qualities must have been 22 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. to him in that responsible position, and what an attraction they must have added to the gatherings of the clan. I cannot forget how brill- iantly they flashed and sparkled in his address on Herbert Spencer before the Brooklyn Ethical Association, nor how splendid was his vindica" tion of Spencer's title to the leading place upon the roll of those who have been foremost in the advocacy of the doctrine of organic evolution. We have had many great examples, a Buckle and a Grote among them, of men who have pur- sued elaborate studies in connection with the duties of an engrossing business or profession, so that I shall not make the mistake of claiming for Mr. Thompson anything singular in this regard, but if there was nothing singular in the habits of his intellectual life, there was much that was remarkable. Looking at his several books, such is their character that if they had taken all his time, the result would not appear inadequate. It would have been different, if he had evolved his philosophical camel entirely from his own consciousness as the much-quoted German did his definition of the beast. In fact, he took the line of both the Englishman who hunted a camel up AS A PHILOSOPHER. 23 before defining him and the Frenchman who read-up the camel in an exhaustive manner. Nothing is more characteristic of the "Psychol- ogy" or the "Religious Sentiments" than the wide field of literature from which they drew their illustrations. To find time to read so much he must have stolen many hours, I fear, from the too little guarded treasury of sleep. And be- cause the literary illustrations of the "Psychol- ogy" and "Religious Sentiments" were so in- numerable it was not surprising that he should pass from them to a purely literary subject, "The Philosophy of Fiction," and show himself as much at home in this particular field as if it were the only one engaging his activity. The discussion in that book of Realism and Idealism in Fiction has always seemed to me the best dis- cussion we have had of a subject which has ex- ercised the ingenuity of many critics, some of them "darkening counsel by words without knowledge." The literary value of Mr. Thompson's books was not exhausted by the wealth of their cita- tion from a multitude of authors. This was secondary. The primary fact was that they had 24 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. a literary value of their own in that they were written in a style remarkable for its directness and simplicity. What is necessary in architect- ure, Emerson contended, is always beautiful. It is not otherwise with the creations of the "en- amored architect " of a good literary style. Mr. Thompson illustrated this principle. Seeking to express himself with all possible clearness he acquired a style which could not have been so admirable if he had been deliberately striving toward fine writing as the goal of his desire. The individualist in philosophy, the man who does not speak from the chair or settee (vide Holmes) of the college professor, but pursues his studies independently, is very apt to waste his strength in rediscovering what was long since discovered, and then found to be unreal. Mr. Thompson did not fall into this pit. He wrote as one conscious of great allies Spencer and Bain, the younger and the older Mill. His psy- chological opinions were variations of their themes. In general sympathy with them, he was free to break with them at any time. Slav- ish in his subserviency to them he never was. At the same time, I think it may be said AS A PHILOSOPHER. 25 that he was somewhat provincial in his indiffer- ence to German psychology, and too proudly self-sufficient in his neglect of contemporary studies, though we must remember that when Mr. Thompson wrote his book, the psycho- logical orchestra, \vhich is now making such a noble music, was tuning its instruments with more noise than harmony. No sooner have I written of Mr. Thompson's self-sufficiency, that I repent me of the evil I have done ; for certainly it was his modesty that prevented him from being what he might have been if he had trusted more completely in him- self. It was his modesty that obliged him often to content himself with being the interpreter and expositor of others; thinking, when he should have been putting forth all his strength to make his characteristic contribution to psychology more vivid and complete. Two of his ablest critics, Professors Royce and Sully the former most unfriendly gave him credit for distinct originality, and found him always most deserv- ing our attention where he was most independ- ent in his observations, and most original in his conclusions. I am tempted to regret that he 26 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. could not devote himself exclusively to philo- sophical studies, but if he had done so, we should have missed the beautiful example of a man pur- suing the duties of a laborious profession, and at the same time finding leisure for an avo- cation which would have drained the strength of many to the lees. I know well enough, my dear Madam, how imperfect these observations on your husband's work will seem to you, accustomed as you were to the living play of his intelligence for many happy years. With ampler leisure I might have written fewer and fitter words, but, if I have written anything that touches your sad heart with some fresh assurance of the honor and re- gard in which your husband's mind and charac- ter were held, I am content with that. Sincerely yours, A FUNERAL ADDRESS. A FUNERAL ADDRESS BY THE HON. ST. CLAIR MCKELWAY, JULY 12, 1897. MY FRIENDS: Only a minute or two ago, Mrs. Thompson asked me to say a few words here about our friend, in memory and in mourning of whom we are met. Such a request is, of course, an obligation. Coming as it has, neither preparation nor any degree of consideration has been possible. But that is of less account among us all than might be supposed. We are all thinking the same thing about him, though our thoughts concern themselves with many different experiences. What we are think- ing about him is that in him we each had a dear and helpful friend, and that we have him no more. The testimonies of our hearts and memories might recall very different events or occasions; but the fact of service and of sym- pathy would run through every one of them. The sense of loss and of sorrow is the same. If we just sat herein silence, our thoughts would 30 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. run together, and the words -which express those thoughts need no elaboration. We also know, all of us who truly knew him, that he would have what is said or done about him be as simple and sincere as he was himself. Realities were much to him. Appearances were not. Substance, not show, interested his mind. He went out of life in a moment, in a way which might be called dramatic, if looked at from one point of view. But he would not have any words about him or any observance wear that character. He would have his life rather than his death give the note to words concerning him. He liked to be among friends. Amongfriends he felt at home. He is surrounded by friends here. He would have no more display on account of himself, dead, than he would on account of himself, living. The simplicity, informality and genuineness of the man were qualities which befit his funeral. We all know and feel that they do. With him, before all things was truth. He seemed what he was. He said his thought. When his thought changed, he moved his life and words with it. This was, in part, because A FUNERAL ADDRESS. 31 he came from the aristocracy of American thought the true, pure and solid stock of New England. Revolutionary blood was in him, and colonial blood before that the stock of men who thought and wrought and grew right straight on. A jurist and an author, he was the son of an author and a jurist, and he ad- vanced from law into literature and from litera- ture into philosophy. He followed the expe- rience of the New England home with the drill and culture of the New England College. He followed that by attendance on the school of life in this metropolis. Here he came unto strangers, and here for more than twenty years he lived among friends. He had the friend-mak- ing qualities. He made his friends the friends of one another. He advanced from legal service to legal command. He was a persuasive advocate. He was a wise adviser. He was a careful stu- dent. He settled more interests and contentions than he disputed, and he liked to settle them more than to quarrel about them. He was the soul of honor as a practitioner. His word was the only stipulation needed. His rank at the bar was high. It was won and held 32 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. by professional and personal character in the best sense of that word. His position in literature was distinguished, and it was becoming eminent. He chose philos- ophy as his specialty. It enabled him, as an historian, to account for the past, as an ob- server, to understand the present, and as a thinker, to take outlook on the future. He never wrote a word of hardness or uncharitableness. His recognition among the thoughtful and the scholarly was assured. The judgment of foreign- ers, in a sense, is the judgment of posterity. For- eign judgment of him was very favorable. Esti- mate of him at home, as an author, steadily grew. His subjects were too broad and general, his treatment of them was too profound, for popu- larity ; but scientists, artists, scholars, teachers and statesmen were his readers. His corre- spondents and his friends and his works received not only praise but translation abroad. He pursued law and literature on parallel lines, and philosophy was the lamp that guided his feet on the road. But we all of us liked him better for what he was, did and said to us, than for anything he A FUNERAL ADDRESS. 33 was, did or said to the world. To us, the man and the friend was more than the jurist, author, orator or philosopher. He largely lived for others. His life was altruistic always, though never avowedly so. He made no claims, just as he made no pretensions. As time goes on, we may be able to tell the debt which law or authorship owes to him, but friendship is his mourner to-day and the rest can wait. We would withhold no word of sympathy from those especially stricken by his going out. They know they have our sympathy and that they will need it in the days to come. But they and we can bear away from this scene the compensation of his memory, the privilege of his fellowship, and the purpose to do unto others in our measure the things which he did unto us and for us in his fullness of measure in the time that he and we were together, in work, in pur- pose, and in service here. AS A LAWYER. AS A LAWYER. Daniel Greenleaf Thompson was junior part- ner in the firm of Sterne & Thompson when I, as a student in that office, first knew him. From the very beginning of my professional life I have thus had an opportunity of observing his considerate and kindly dealings with his associates. His broad views and cheerful disposition manifested themselves constantly in his judgment of men and their motives, and endeared him to every one with whom he came in contact. Subsequently I entered into partnership with him in the practice of law, and for ten years enjoyed the privilege of a daily association with him. During all this period, in the strain and contention of an active practice, Mr. Thompson was ever the same even- tempered judicial minded man, kindly, sympa- thetic and dispassionate with an intellectual grasp which mastered all difficulties. He aroused no bitter antagonisms and made no enemies, and this was attributable not to any lack offeree or decided convictions upon his part, but to his rare faculty of drawing out of all men the best that 38 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. was in them. His life seemed modeled on the well-known lines of James Russell Lowell : " Be noble ! and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own." His opponents always contended with him upon a high and honorable plane. As a practi- tioner, while neglecting nothing of his clients' interests, he never relied upon the technicalities of involved procedure, but sought to litigate honorably and fairly, and to impress upon his adversary and the Court the sincerity of his con- victions and the justice of his cause. His breth- ren at the bar learned to depend not merely on the letter but upon the spirit of his promise. He preferred an argument before an appellate tribu- nal upon some intricate legal problem to the forensic display of a jury trial. His hearers were invariably impressed with his deep research and the conscientiousness which left no phase of a subject untouched, no aspect of a case unillu- mined. His broad intellectual horizon and pro- found knowledge of substantive law should have AS A LAWYER. 39 earned for him an elevation to the bench. He was eminently fitted for a judicial position, and lawyers as well as litigants would speedily have learned to seek and depend upon his keen sense of justice and to prize his careful and well con- sidered opinions. Mr. Thompson's professional career began in the year 1872, when he became a student in the office of Foster & Thomson, and was admitted to the bar. In 1873, with Edward Jordan and Theodore L. Stiles, he organized the firm of Jor- dan, Stiles & Thompson, and upon the dissolu- tion of that firm in 1878, he joined the office of Sterne, Hudson & Straus, and was very shortly afterward admitted to the firm, which then became Sterne, Straus & Thompson, his part- ners being Simon Sterne and Hon. Oscar S. Straus. In 1881, upon the retirement of Mr. Straus, the firm name became Sterne & Thomp. son. In 1885 the firm of Thompson, Ackley & Kaufman was formed and continued until 1890, when Mr. Thompson entered into copartnership with Charles E. Lydecker under the firm name of Thompson & Lydecker. In 1892 Mr, Thompson 40 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. joined Mr. John A. Taylor and myself in form- ing the firm of Taylor, Thompson & Kaufman. I retired from the firm in 1894, \vhich then continued under the name of Taylor & Thomp- son up to the time of his death. During this period of twenty-five years of active practice Mr. Thompson was engaged in many important litigations and in the varied controversies of a general law practice. To this work he brought a careful and well-trained mind, conscientiously devoted to his clients' interests and studiously safeguarding them. His characteristic dignity and kindliness, united with a rare fund of humor and graceful diction, made of him a very attractive public speaker, and his thorough mastery of his subject always secured for him the interested attention and thoughtful consideration of the judges before whom he appeared. His professional forte lay in a fair and forceful presentation of the facts and an appeal to the reason of the Courts by logical and comprehensive argument. His success as a lawyer lay in his ability to survey the whole field of jurisprudence with a mind well poised, and a keen discrimination aptly appreciating the AS A LAWYER. 41 weight of well determined precedents and de- cisively defining the trend of judicial opinion bearing upon the case in hand. His brethren at the bar will cherish the mem- ory of his helpful counsel, often sought and never denied them. His colleagues, who esteemed him, and his friends, who loved him, keenly regret the early closing of his brilliant career. U^MHW^ I AN AUTHOR AND FRIEND. AN AUTHOR AND FRIEND. It so happened that during the years in which Mr. Thompson's office was within a block's distance from my own I never really knew him until he joined the Authors' Club in 1888. Notwithstanding his extreme modesty, he was not one to be there long without gain- ing prominence. His mental power, executive ability, and, above all, his delightful personal qualities, quickly made him one of the most effi- cient and best loved members. It was by natural selection that he became in time our secret ary. The Club brought me nothing better than my association and friendship with Daniel Greenleaf Thompson. Besides our committee work to- gether, we had frequent meetings and confi- dences at the Authors' and the Century. As an official, he was not only scrupulous and happy in his attention to duty, but he soon became a kind of universal solvent whenever the tradi- tionally sensitive elements of a literary fusion were intractable. His tact, consideration, good sense, kindly influence, never failed to do their perfect work. Equally strong and sympathetic, 46 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. he was a man to cling to, and one whose service could not be fully estimated "save by his loss." Thompson's philosophical writings are a monument to his powers of thought ; but it is of his sweetness, serenity, and companionship that I am now thinking and writing. When he died, so unexpectedly, I am sure that tears came to the eyes of many whose acquaintance with him was even less intimate than mine. In the lone midsummer I attended the simple funeral services in town, and it seemed only natural to find that others of his comrades had journeyed fast and far to pay a silent tribute of affection and regret. THE TEACHER OF ETHICS. THE TEACHER OF ETHICS. As all roads lead to Rome, so all philosophies in the nineteenth century lead to ethics; they are judged by their moral teaching and influence on human lives. All teachers, whether they will or no, are teachers of ethics. Many are the types of ethical theory, but the modern evolu- tionist has the consolation of perceiving that moral advancement does not depend primarily on the character of one's ethical system; the ultimate sanctions for right action lie in the nature of things, and are enforced by the practi- cal lessons of experience. Ethical relations be- tween individuals are established, in the main, by the conditions under which they dwell to- gether in association. This process of moral evolution, however, may be greatly aided or retarded by the atti- tude of the mind toward the problem of life itself. It is therefore true that ethical theories may help or hinder, through their influence on individual lives, the moral advancement of the race. To the evolutionist the end and aim of Nature is fullness of life, whether in 50 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. the field of biology or in the higher realms of sociology, ethics and individual experience. The philosophical evolutionist is therefore logi- cally an optimist, or at least a meliorist, in his attitude toward the problem of life. He must believe that life is inherently good, and not evil. Daniel Greenleaf Thompson was a philosophi- cal evolutionist. It was his rare fortune to come upon the stage of intellectual activity after the doctrine of evolution had been firmly estab- lished as a scientific fact, and to have for com- panions and friends in his intellectual work some of the ablest exponents of the doctrine. Interested from his youth in the higher prob- lems of thought, he had formulated before his graduation from college, as he tells us in the interesting preface to his essay on Social Prog- ress, a plan of life, and an outline of work, to which he consistently applied himself during the intervals of a busy, professional life in later years. To the wealth of material presented by the great masters of scientific lore, he brought a mature and independent judgment, a riper scholarship in the field of classical literature THE TEACHER OF ETHICS. 51 than is usually found in those whose bent is rather toward the conclusions of science than the conventional opinions inculcated by the uni- versity curriculum of a quarter of a century ago, and a clear and elegant diction which lent added grace and interest to the statement of his conclusions. With such native gifts, and in such an intel- lectual environment, it is hardly necessary to say that Mr. Thompson's conception of the essential nature of life, here on this earth, was optimistic. Since philosophy is largely a matter of tempera- ment, he would probably have been an opti- mist, even had he not been in touch with Spencer and Darwin and Youmans and Fiske, and the great masters of evolutionary thought. Among the philosophers of classical antiquity he sym- pathized most profoundly with the teachings of Epicurus. He was the able interpreter of the thought of that great master to our generation. He defended it against the misapprehensions and misinterpretations of unsympathetic criti- cism, both of his own and later times. He res- pected the reverence for life which underlies and inspires the teachings of Epicurus. With him, 52 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. he rejected the morbid asceticism which would seek for the highest good in the mortification of the flesh and the atrophy of the normal functions and activities of man, instead of mak- ing them by wise direction and cultivation the servants and ministers to the noblest ethical and spiritual life. In the systematic presentation of his thought, ethics was outlined by Mr. Thompson as a branch of psychology ; but psychology, in the broad view which he took of it, was co-terminus with anthropology, covering the entire range of human activities. Ethics, therefore, with him as with Mr. Spencer, was the goal of Nature's long evolutionary process the end toward which all the operations of life are tending. Since Nature has made pleasure or happiness the concomitant of the free exercise, in due adjustment and pro- portion, of every natural faculty, the strong incentive to woo man out of animalism into manhood, out of savagery toward civilization, he saw no escape from the conclusion that this result is entirely normal and justifiable a part of the divine plan. Mr. Thompson's ethical philosophy, therefore, was frankly hedonistic. THE TEACHER OF ETHICS. 53 He did not try to explain away or apologize for this attitude. With Spencer, however, he clearly understood and affirmed that the highest indi- vidual happiness is unattainable while egoistic and altruistic ends are regarded as antithetic and antagonistic. The greatest happiness of each must be sought and found in the greatest happiness of the greatest number ultimately in the highest satisfaction of all. "The nearer any individual can come to making the ethical summum bonum his supreme end, the more fully will he satisfy the requirements of this social obligation." In the final synthesis, ego- ism and altruism are unified; that line of action which conduces to the highest welfare of each is precisely the line of action which secures equity, the largest liberty and the greatest happiness of all. Finding the sanctions of morality and the basis of his ethical system in the natural order of the universe and the normal relations of man to man, Mr. Thompson ably and resolutely corn- batted the theological conception of sin. Moral evil, he held, is that and that only which results from the violation of the moral law the ignorant 54? DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. or willful departure from these normal relations. The ethical code is not written in books, or given to man by supernatural inspiration it inheres in the nature of things, and is discoverable through human experience and the normal exer- cise of faculties common to all men. Its penal- ties are not extrinsic, but intrinsic. The moral law does not depend upon the arbitrary man- dates of deity, any more than does the law of gravity. Both are equally divine; both are equally natural. The doctrine of human lapse and depravity is, therefore, not only untrue, but essentially immoral. It connotes and implies a confusion of ideas concerning the nature of right and wrong that strikes at the very foundations of the ethical life. I know not where in our lit- erature this subject has been so ably and forcibly handled, as in the section entitled "The Great Theological Superstition," in The Problem of Evil To Daniel Greenleaf Thompson, philosophy was no mere fine-spun theory about life, a dilet- tante speculation for idle moments ; it was some- thing to be practically applied in the constantly arising emergencies of daily living. The logical THE TEACHER OF ETHICS. 55 outcome of hedonistic utilitarianism in political philosophy is democratic individualism. Mr. Thompson was a consistent individualist in pol- itics. This by no means implies that he was blind to the social obligations of the individual, or to the influence of social conditions in forming individual character. "No man is great in iso- lation," he truly affirms. As his theory of the summum bonum implied the happiness of all as a condition to the highest happiness of each, so his political philosophy implied the recognition of the rights of all as a condition for securing the rights of each. This conception of right he would apply in the family as well as in the State. It implied, in his judgment, the abolition of patriarchal au- tocracy in family government, the recognition of the equal rights of the wife with the husband, and respect for the individualities of children. " Children are to be worked for as human beings having their own independent ends, which are to be respected. They are not to be considered as mere dependents, owing allegiance to their parents, and subordinate in all their activity to the purposes and pleasures of the parents ; but 56 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. their welfare, read in the light of their own self- determinations, assumes a just importance, and is of equal consequence to the weal of father or mother." For father or mother to "play the sovereign "in a family is, in his judgment, an immoral act. Though he never shirked the logical outcome of his principles, Mr. Thompson was no mere sentimental agitator for extreme opinions. His views on social and political topics were care- fully considered, and were legitimate deductions from his general philosophy of life. He had no hesitation in confessing the judgments thus ma- turely formed, though conservative in his esti- mation of the probability of their complete ac- ceptance and realization in the ordering of social institutions. From the great American sin of subservience to public opinion he was entirely free. He was entirely frank, therefore, in his de- fence of the equality of woman with man. In discussing "Woman's New Opportunity" before the Woman's Law Class of the University of the City of New York, he said: "The doctrine that woman's activity should be limited by law, or by custom, or by public opinion, in any THE TEACHER OF ETHICS. 57 way different from that of man, is born of ignor- ance and wickedness. It is an offspring of that sentiment of aggression and domination which has made the serf, the slave, and the feudatory. It is a refusal of justice. It is a denial of person- ality. It is an assertion that woman is not a human being. It is a contradiction of every foundation principle of ethics, politics and social science. It is a logical absurdity. It is a moral enormity. It is a libel upon nature. It is a blasphemy against the Author of Nature." Hail, and farewell, brave soul! A life how short, and yet how full, consecrated how con- sistently to the ideals wrought out of the thoughtful experience of a sincere mind, face to face with the facts of the universe. Few there are among us who face the grave problems of life with such clear vision and in such candid spirit. Thou hast left the world a precious legacy of honest thought. Thou hast nobly pro- tested against the prevailing pessimism in phi- losophy and fiction. Courage and good cheer are the burden of thy message to those who live after thee. Nor yet didst thou lose in the mazes of philosophical speculation thy grasp on the 58 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. immortal hope. In the excellence of the life that now is, thou sawest a prophecy of personal con- tinuance in the life hereafter. Best legacy of all, most profoundly ethical, most deeply needed, is the noble example of free, untrammeled thought wedded to frank speech, which thou hast left us. Reading anew thy noble volumes, to us who knew thee the thoughts seem vascular back of them we feel the life of an earnest and sincere person. Such thoughts do not die: they live, and through responsive minds they move the world to higher issues. ETHICAL ASSOCIATION EULOGY. ETHICAL ASSOCIATION ADDRESS BY THE HON. JOHN A. TAYLOR, SEPTEMBER 26, 1897. Death is the crowning mystery of life. Its boding shadow takes its place at the cradle and keeps its attendance constant to the grave. And yet we are never ready for its actual sum- mons. Neither time nor place seem ever fitting for its unwelcome intrusion. When, during July last, the message came to me that Daniel Greenleaf Thompson was dead, my first thought was, How short his life has been ! How fate is cheated of its promise ! I did not for the moment half appreciate the death of sweet companionship, of useful counsel, of lofty contemplation, which it implied. I did not have in mind the estimate that men must place upon his short career ; the potential power and influence which were hidden in his twenty years of incompleted life ; the swift arrest of many pro- jects ; the sudden snap of virile chords of friend- ship and tender ties of love and admiration. 62 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. And yet it is not an unmixed grief that he should have died in the plenitude of life, when his mental vision was unimpaired, when the quiver of hope was inexhausted, when his friends could point with confident expectation to the worth and usefulness of what was left undone. Surely he had long entitled himself to be regarded as an intellectual giant. He was the friend and com- peer of men of colossal thought and ripest cul- tivation. He was constituted, by the appear- ance of his "Psychology" in 1884, among the foremost thinkers in that abstruse science. For years he was the leading American psychologist, and he demonstrated, by repeated publications, that he never permitted the duties of an arduous and jealous profession to wholly close to him the gates of those delightful paths of literature and public utterance which he did so much to enrich and adorn. He was of New England origin directly, and more remotely of old England. He gained large insight into the secret springs of human nature by his service when very young as Assistant Secretary of the State of Vermont. He spent his four years of college life at Amherst, in a ETHICAL ASSOCIATION EULOGY. 63 vigilant and successful pursuit and acquisition of knowledge, and the love of learning kept him as a teacher for a time before his entrance on his serious -work of life. This was destined to be of a twofold nature. He was admitted to the New York bar in 1872, and won early recognition at the hands of his brethren of the profession and of the bench, and during his career of a full quarter of a century, as a prosecuting lawyer, he won extensive repu- tation by the publication of a series of volumes on philosophical subjects and an occasional excursion into the lighter realms of literature. At any time of the latter part of his practice he would have been regarded by his legal brethren as eminently fitted for a judicial career. But he has passed at last beyond all heed of human judgment. To those of us who knew and loved him is left the valued satisfaction of summing up his rich and fruitful life. Surely he belonged to the aristocracy of intellect. By mental equipment, by character, by tireless industry, he had achieved those things in life which lifted him far above the paths of common men, and won for him the priceless recognition 64 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. of renown. In whatever circle he moved, he illuminated it by the brilliancy of his humor and the profundity of his knowledge. To few of his contemporaries was it given to fringe the solid qualities of wisdom with so sparkling a vein of sprightly fancy. He dearly loved what may be called the humanities of life, and thor- oughly despised all human meanness. He caught the temper of his time with admirable completeness, and assailed its weaknesses with unsparing scorn and sarcasm. He was highly valued and always successful as an occasional orator. His ideas were always presented com- pletely. They were never half formed. He clothed them, too, in such attractive forms of expression as earned for them the pleased attention of his hearers . He was a man of great intellectual integrity. Scrupulously loyal to every form of obligation, he sought as his only end the truth. This led him, long before the present wide acceptance of Spencerian principles, to promptly appreciate and advocate the funda- mental doctrines of evolution. He believed in the freest scope for all human expression, hence he was among the earliest ETHICAL ASSOCIATION EULOGY. 65 members of the Nineteenth Century Club, and succeeded its founder, Courtland Palmer, as its president. He keenly relished and warmly ap- preciated the broad platform of that society, which invited to its opportunities all classes of public men and women, without regard to race, belief, or class. As president of the organiza- tion he dignified the office and helped to elevate the tone of all its functions and make it more and more a forceful element of progress in the metropolis. He was fearless in his advocacy of unpopular truth. He brought to his book on "Politics in a Democracy" the keenest power of analysis, which power was one of his strongest elements as a writer, and he did not scruple to enunciate his conclusions, although the intellectual path he followed led him far away from many men for whose opinion he entertained profound respect. He was, more than most men, tolerant of op- posing theories and views. He gave to all the freest hearing, reserving to himself the right to formulate his own creed and prescribe his own rule of action. 66 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. And he was always to be relied upon. He deserved and he received the highest confidences of men and women, and these he never betrayed. No stress of situation could ever lead him to forget the rights of others entrusted to his keep- ing. He understood thoroughly the art of help- ing others, 'and his friendship once won was never afterward witheld. He never forgot the beginnings of wisdom, nor despised the small achievements of those who were his inferiors. He opened his mind and heart with willing pa- tience to the story of human suffering, and never closed the door of his attention till he had meas- ured with judicial fairness the actual need, and portioned out to it its just amount of relief. Who that has ever basked in the radiant sun- shine of his social contact can long forget the richly welling spring of anecdote and fun which made his presence so sure a prophecy of glad and edifying conversation. I think his gift of humor was of uncommon excellence, but never did he bait the shaft of his epigram with the bitterness of scorn. Accustomed as we all are to note the quick oblivion that follows close upon the mortal ETHICAL ASSOCIATION EULOGY. 67 extinction of the most exalted human career, it cannot be without a bitter sense of the remorse- lessness of death that we surrender the too short earthly record of our friend to the oblivion of the past. We shall long indeed recall his noble form, his genial nature, his open counte- nance illuminated with the shining brilliancy of a highly cultivated mind. And the world at large will miss from out the paths of culture and refinement a strong and fertile nature, richly endowed with intellectual and philo- sophic gifts. AS A MAN OF LETTERS. AS A MAN OF LETTERS. Daniel Greenleaf Thompson inherited the right to be an author, for he was a son of the Judge Thompson -whose "Green Mountain Boys" has long been a classic of American youth. I have the impression that the son did not greatly care for this lively yarn of his father's, and per- haps he may even have underestimated the value of this unpretending historical novel, which (whatever may be its defects, and however ob- vious they are) has proved itself to possess, at least, one inestimable characteristic vitality. The son was a lawyer, like the father, but where the elder Thompson took to fiction as a relaxation, the younger found his relief in phi- losophy. The most of his literary work was done in a department of human endeavor in which the present writer is well aware that he has no qualification to act as a critic. Twice, however, Thompson brought his mind to bear on problems wherein the interest was not chiefly philosophical. In these two books he grappled resolutely with subjects quite within the range of the average educated man. The first of 72 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. these two volumes was "The Philosophy of Fic- tion in Literature. An Essay," published by Longmans, Green & Co., in the fall of 1890. The second was "Politics in a Democracy. An Es- say," issued by the same firm, in 1893. Although the themes that he thus chose to consider were, one of them literary and the other political, his manner in treating them was phil- osophical. In changing his subject, he did not change his method. He had the philosophical desire to go always to the root of the matter and to seek out first principles. He wanted to get down to bed-rock and to find out the foun- dations of current belief, both in civics and in esthetics. He wished to discover whether these foundations were solid and four-square to all the winds that blow. He was not content to accept tradition without investigation. He needed to assure himself that what he said would stand the test of his own disinterested examination. He insisted on doing his own thinking. As a writer, he had the courage of his convictions; and he never swerved aside in fear of the goal to which his own logic was carryinglihim. AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 73 He was as independent in his criticism of contemporary fiction as he was in his criti- cism of contemporary politics. Interesting and suggestive as was "Politics in a Democracy," it was not more interesting or more suggestive than the "Philosophy of Fiction in Literature." And what gave value to the one gave validity also to the other : the intellectual independence of the man. If his political speculation led him to the conclusion that in a modern democracy the Boss is inevitable, he said so frankly and gave his reasons for the faith that was in him. If his literary speculation led him to the conclusion that from certain aspects the Waverly novels were doubtfully moral, he was not afraid to say what he thought and to explain clearly why he thought so. He declared boldly that Scott was "the most successful of any writer in making homicide charming and in elevating things to the rank of demigods." He asserted as boldly that Scott's heroes, "from Richard Cceur de Lion through the list, are chiefly brutal ruffians, over whom the false splendor of the ideals of chivalry has cast a glamor" ("Philosophy of Fiction," p. 164). 74 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. These statements are wholesome and needful, and stimulating. But Thompson was too care- ful a thinker and too cautious a philosopher not to try and answer the obvious question, Why it is the Scott novels are felt to do more good than harm on the whole? At bottom Thompson's defence of the "Waverly Novels" was of the same paradoxical character that Macaulay found in Lamb's defence of the Restoration comedies. It amounts to little more than a statement of "the remoteness of the danger of anyone being corrupted by Scott's representations of character." It is to be noted that so shrewd an observer as Mr. S. L. Clemens is of opinion that these very character- istics of the "Waverly Novels," the bloodshed, the sham chivalry, the bunco-heroism abund- ant in most of them had worked immeasur- able harm in the society of our Southern States. But that Thompson should have ventured to suggest an opinion so opposed to that held sacredly by most of those who have written in our language about the masters of fiction, and should have raised the question of the real and abiding ethical effect of Scott's romanticist AS A MAN OF LETTERS. 75 fictions, this shows his independence of judg- ment. It shows that Thompson possessed what is actually the prime qualification of the man of letters he had something to say. His opinions were his own, the result of his own logical pro- cesses. Whether they might happen to be ortho- dox or heterodox, was of no concern to liim. He had no objection to row against the current of received beliefs, and he had also no unwilling- ness to float with it, if the stream was flowing toward the point he wished to reach. He was never guilty of the cheap and easy affectation of going counter to public opinion, merely to make himself conspicuous. Often he had to brace him- self to oppose the momentum of the majority ; but he never did this wantonly, freakishly, from mere lust of singularity. He was altogether above any inexpensive hypocrisy of this sort. Indeed, his sincerity was quite equal to his inde- pendence. Sometimes, so it has seemed to me, he may have relished the isolation of a philo- sophical outpost; but he had thrust himself forward to the skirmish line, not as a guerrilla, but as a pioneer, helping to clear the way for the advance of the main body. 76 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. His books are well made and well written. They have a carefully articulated skeleton, not paraded fatiguingly, rather concealed (as a de- cent skeleton should be), and yet sustaining the work and giving it strength. They are clear in diction, simple and direct, easy to read and easy to understand. Thompson strove for no tor- tured felicity of epithet, no strenuous colloca- tion of unexpected adjectives. His style was an instrument always adequate to the expres- sion of his thoughts ; and it was always to the adequate expression of his thought that he gave his chief attention when he was engaged in com- position. His books, and by his books here I mean the two volumes I have been considering, the essay on the "Philosophy of Fiction" and that on "Politics in a Democracy" are, there- fore, to be classed with the works which are of value for what they tell us, and not with the works which are of value merely for the manner of the telling. Columbia University, New York. AS KNOWN TO A FRIEND. AS KNOWN TO A FRIEND. In the autumn of 1885, traveling with some members of my family, I took the train at Lau- sanne for Villeneuve, on Lake Geneva. We found a gentleman already in the compartment he was the only occupant besides ourselves. It was growing dark, and he sat near the lamp reading a newspaper. Presumably he could not understand English, and we continued our conversation as though we were alone. After a while the little girl of our party grew weary and peevish. We had come all the way from Berne that afternoon. She was taken on the lap of an aunt and amused with the old, unfail- ing jingles of our English Mother Goose and those baby tales that have soothed generations of children from the glacial epoch to this time, for aught anybody knows. When the story- teller reached the "cunny-bunny blackberry," the gentleman opposite, who had not shown any sign of understanding English, laid down his paper it proved to be the London Times and laughed with the gentle laughter of a man 80 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. who feels the sweet memories of his childhood stealing over him in a strange land. "It is long since I heard that story," he said, apologetically, and with an accent that was not that of an habitual reader of the London Times. In a minute we had fraternized with a countryman, as lonesome Americans abroad are wont to fraternize. He and we knew the same people, and knew about one another. By the time Mr. Thompson alighted at Montreux, where he and Mrs. Thompson were sojourning, we were well acquainted, and, as ours was the next station, we had many chances to meet in the weeks that followed. Nothing could have been more pleasant to me than walking the mountain paths, among the vineyards about Montreux, with one whose knowledge was so extensive, whose mind was active on so many sides, and whose manners were so genial/ It was about two years later that I went to live in the Chelsea apartment house, in New York, and found, to my delight, that the neigh- bor almost overhead was my friend of the long walks among the Swiss vineyards. For years we lived in neighborhood, and the chance AS KNOWN TO A FRIEND. 81 acquaintance at Lausanne became a firm friend, dispensing sympathy, when I was in sorrow, and giving good counsel when I was in situa- tions of perplexity. How well I remember his kindness ! When I was in vexatious and trying circumstances, and dwelling, for weeks, alone in my rooms, he would come, frequently, and persuade me to a cheerful evening in his apart- ment. I used to wonder at the range of his reading. The last essay in philosophy he would know thoroughly, but he knew just as well the mighty stream of novels, down even to the rubbish, and, if the talk turned to national or municipal politics, no man could show more intelligent information than he did. His mind eagerly absorbed from all sources he read the papers, he seemed to know everything impor- tant in the magazines, and he extracted what- ever his friends knew. And what a range of friends he had! A member of innumerable clubs, the guest at many dinner tables, active in business and politics, he met all sorts of peo- ple, and had an amount of information on all kinds of subjects, great and small, that I have 82 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. hardly ever seen equaled. I once heard a lady describe him as a most knowing man. His mental energy seems to me, as I recall it, almost incredible. Besides his law practice and his private business, and his complicated social life, and his vast reading, he found time to be, as I have been told, distinguished for his Latin scholarship ; he wrote volumes on metaphysical subjects that attracted the attention of think- ers, and other valuable books on literary and political themes; he was for some years the active president of the Nineteenth Century Club, and for other years the most laborious and energetic secretary of the Authors Club. He served on committees, taking the labor- ing oar, and withal his perpetually active mind never showed signs of flagging, under burdens that would have killed half a dozen ordinary men. Most busy men are obliged to evade a little their early friendships, for the attentions of friendship are often a strain upon a mind al- ready overwhelmed. But Mr. Thompson was preeminently a friend. No man ever had more friends, and no man was ever more ready to AS KNOWN TO A FRIEND. 83 serve his friends. It was a matter of laughter with some of us that Mr. Thompson was always introducing some college classmate we had never before heard of. Everybody that was ever associ- ated intimately with him in the way of business or of pleasure was attracted by him, and he was hospitable to all kinds of friends, finding some- thing in common with all. Few things human were foreign to him. This friendliness often made him tolerant in his judgment of public men. He knew and liked a man on his good side, and he found it hard to be too severe on his public course. If anything could ever have persuaded him to act in a way unworthy of him it would have been this general friendliness and catholic tolerance. But he stood this test. The leaders of his party, who were his friends in a way, once arranged to have him take a seat in a State Convention. At the last moment he learned that he was to go under instructions to do what he did not think right. "I am not that kind of a man," was his answer, and he was left out of the delegation. His public and semi-public services were many. I will recur to the one I knew the 84 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. most about. Some years ago he was elected Secretary of the Authors Club. The club, under a series of unfavorable circumstances, had lost ground, to say the least. Mr. Thompson made himself felt from the first week of his secreta^- ship. He laid his hand on every weak spot. The first constitution, for which I was partly responsible, had been outgrown and had been unwisely amended. Mr. Thompson carried through a motion for a new constitution, and elaborated the instrument with the advice of his fellow-committeemen. He reduced the business of the club to a system ; he became the voluntary legal guide of the club as a corpora- tion ; he took an active part, as a member of the Library Committee, in developing and cata- loguing the library ; he secured for the archives of the association sketches of the lives of the members; he attended to such details as the better printing of the cards of invitation and the Year-book, and, without meddling with work assigned to others, he was the common reservoir for information and advice, and all this while carrying on many other activities. He had the pleasure of seeing the Authors attain AS KNOWN TO A FRIEND. 85 an unprecedented prosperity, partly through his own pervasive activity and stimulating energy. To a mind of large intelligence, rare versatil- ity, and almost incredible activity, he joined an honorable nature and a generous heart. No man in New York would be missed in so many spheres of action and social life, and by so manv friends. AS A PHILOSOPHIC THINKER. AS A PHILOSOPHIC THINKER. As a philosophic thinker, Daniel Greenleaf Thompson was clear, comprehensive and pro- found. He was eclectic in spirit, and could see truth in all systems of thought. His mind was sympathetic and reconciliative rather than com- bative and destructive, and his disposition was to find the truths in opposing conceptions and to unite them in a larger synthesis, rather than to dwell on the errors and contradictions of theories and systems. With his clearness of per- ception and large knowledge, combined with analytical ability, he was a good critic, but his mind was too constructive, too synthetic to allow him to be satisfied with mere criticism. He was an admirer, and in no small sense, a dis- ciple of Herbert Spencer, whose thought he helped to expound and whose work was highly valued by "our great philosopher." Mr. Thompson belonged to the experimental school of philosophy, but not as it was held be- fore it was modified by the conception of evolu- tion by evolution applied to the mind as well as to organic structure. In his great work on 90 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. Psychology, better known and more appreciated in England than in this country, Mr. Thomp- son, following Spencer, and adding some origi- nal reflections, shows, with admirable clearness, how what was once experimental has become a priori, how the acquisitions of centuries have become organized as aptitudes and predisposi- tion in the race. He recognized a transcendental element in mind, but he maintained that man as phenom- enally known is a product of an evolutionary process, and that the explanation of the individ- ual must be in the race, in the sequent order which culminated in man not in a supernat- ural intrusion, which created man de novo, and gave to him a nature without genetic relation- ship with ancestral life. Mr. Thompson was acosmic philosopher. His theism was all embracing in a large sense, pantheistic; for with him God was "the infinite and eternal energy from which all things proceed" the principle of activity and life immanent in all phenomena, from the movement of a pebble to the revolution of a planet, from the sensation of a worm to the genius of a Shakespeare. AS A PHILOSOPHIC THINKER. 91 Mr. Thompson was hopeful, and no pessimist. If he was not an optimist, he was a meliorist. He believed that the world is improving, and that human effort can contribute to its advance- ment. He did not regard the "bank and shoal of time" as the certain limits of the soul's exist- ence. He saw in physical phenomena indica- tions of some kind of life beyond the dissolution of the body. This with him was a hope, a faith, but he would not dogmatize on the subject. He believed that back of the material is the spirit- ual, that underlying the phenomenal is the nominal, and that the essential element in man is from everlasting to everlasting. As a philos- opher Daniel Greenleaf Thompson is most ap- preciated by those real thinkers, who knew him best. But he was a man of heart, as well as of intellect, and by those among his friends who possess both, he will be remembered, while they live, as one of the brightest and noblest of men. FRIEND, PARTNER, CLIENT. FRIEND, PARTNER, CLIENT. Daniel Greenleaf Thompson was but forty- seven years of age when he died, yet he had ac- complished more intellectual work than most men do in three score and ten. He had attained high rank in his profession, and was one of the foremost, if not the foremost authority in psy- chology in this country. His mind was decid- edly of a philosophical bent. He devoted the hours which others gave to pleasure and recrea- tion, to the study of the intricate science of psy- chology. As the result of his application and methodical labors he published in 1884 his great work, entitled " A System of Psychology," in two volumes of 600 pages each, which received the highest commendation from the savants of that science, and among others from Bain and Her- bert Spencer. This work was followed, in 1886, by another in the field of ethics, entitled the "Problem of Evil;" two years later, in 1888, appeared another thoughtful book displaying deep psychological research, entitled "Religious Sentiments of the Human Mind." In 1889 his "Social Progress" was published, and in 1892 96 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. his "Philosophy of Fiction in Literature," and finally in 1893 appeared a work from his pen of a more popular nature, yet illustrating some of his philosphical ideas, the title of which is " Politics in a Democracy." All this time he fol- lowed, without interruption, his profession, be- sides delivering various lectures before learned bodies in this city and Brooklyn, and contrib- uting thoughtful articles for magazines in this country and in Europe. His facility for literary work was great. He accomplished so much be- cause of his systematic methods and his excel- lent control of his physical and mental powers. He never appeared to be overworked or hurried. To a casual acquaintance Mr. Thompson ap- peared rather as a man who loved leisure and personal comfort, than as an industrious stu- dent. He was most methodical in all he did. He was a ready thinker, speaker, and writer. He divided up his time with system and order ; he had his regular hours for his literary work, day in and day out; then he repaired to his office work, where he gave his concentrated attention to the duties of his profession, and the evenings he devoted to the society of his FRIEND, PARTNER, CLIENT. 97 wife, his friends and to miscellaneous literary oc- cupations. His amusements were chiefly intel- lectual. For several years he was president of the Nineteenth Century Club, succeeding Court- landt Palmer, the founder of that club. He was for years, until his death, the secretary and a member of the Governing Council of the Authors Club. This position required considerable thought, work, and detail, all of which he did with that system and ease so natural to him. Annually he prepared for publication the Au- thors Club book, which contains, under the name of each member, the books he has written, with the date of publication, and has genuine bibliographical value. I first became acquainted with Mr. Thomp- son in 1876, when he entered as managing clerk the office of the law firm of which I was a mem- ber. We soon, thereafter, became associated as partners, and from that time our friendship con- tinued in close intimacy until his death. He had a wonderful charm of manner; he was kind, sincere, and considerate. I am asked to describe his general character. This it is not possible for me to do without 98 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. writing a panegyric, and this I know would be distasteful to him if living. It is the source of the greatest satisfaction and pleasure to me to have been so long and intimately associated with him. Upon my retirement from the prac- tice of the law he became my legal adviser, and in my literary work was a helpful guide and critic. He had a calm, cheerful temperament and a sympathetic heart. He took a deep in- terest in the welfare of his friends, and no as- sistance he could render them was denied, but always freely and willingly given. He had all the qualities that constitute greatness, and espe- cially those which would have fitted him to have become a judge of the highest rank. His mind was well equipped with legal principles, and his finely developed sense of right and justice, free from all narrow restraints and partisan views, marked him for a judicial career. As an advo- cate he was less well qualified than as a safe, reliable and conservative counselor, and for that reason his triumphs were of a less con- spicuous order ; they were as an advisor rather than as a trial lawyer. He was more effective before the court, or in cases of appeal, than in FRIEND, PARTNER, CLIENT. 99 jury cases; his philosophical studies inclined him to clear and logical elucidations of evidence and principles, rather than to the strife of the trial court. Like his father, the author of the " Green Mountain Boys," he had natural literary gifts, and, like him, he attained a greater reputation outside of his profession than in it, due, no doubt, to circumstances that shape the lives of us all, rather than to direction. His ami- able temperament, his kind considerateness and unselfishness, united with his admirable quali- ties of mind, not only attached many friends to him, but he had the rare quality that so few possess of attaching his friends to each other ; so that on the day when from far and near his friends assembled to pay the last respects to his remains, it was apparent that the dead they had come to mourn had left to the living a legacy of mutual esteem and friendship. LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. MADISON, Wis., January 22, 1898. DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : Though circumstances have denied me the preparation within the time fixed for the issu- ance of your memorial volume of a fitting and satisfactory expression of the respect and tenderness with which my heart treasures the image of your deceased husband, I am very grateful for the privilege your letter gives me of following the train of other friends who will worthily honor his cherished memory, and of laying, even thus hastily, my sprig of rosemary among the garlands of loving remembrance on his tomb. Back in the old Green Hills of Vermont our roots were nurtured in the same soil and like principles and lines of thought set indelibly in our characters. His father and mine, the fami- lies of both, were familiar friends in days long gone; and, though the migration hither in 1851 of my father, with his flock, for a time put distance between them, yet it so happened that 104 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. here came, also, after the interval of years, the widowed mother, a sister and a brother of Mr. Thompson, and the renewed pleasures of inter- course were thenceforward unbrokenly enjoyed until, one after another, the links of the circle disappeared through the portals of the grave. An innate consciousness of his powers, how- ever, always overruled by winning gentleness and modesty, naturally drew your husband to the great center of affairs, where, immersed in professional labors, to which he added the adornment of philosophical and literary studies, he passed his life. But the ties of family love drew him also hither from time to time, and so distance of residence failed to impair the sympa- thy of friendship which he shared, as giver and receiver, in full measure among us. In more recent years I met him elsewhere, too, and, though in the fitful hurry of these modern days of electrified life our meetings were but too short, as now sadly seen in retrospect, the beliefs, feelings, and traditions we held in com- mon united us so closely that a touch of the hand, a glance of the eye were a communion to keep our bond firm and hearts warm. LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. 105 So it is that, while I know the merits of his work and gratefully rejoice that fitter pens will record the excellence of his literary legacies and tell his high estimation, at the bar and in social life, I am thinking of him now more as the friend whose sympathy met mine at every point of contact, and would inscribe on his monu- ment rather the simple tribute of affectionate remembrance. He was, to me, singularly attractive in the gentle ways which gave his companionship a constant charm. Always appreciative, inter- esting and pleasing in conversation, both easily original and responsive in thought, it was a winsome kindness of manner that carried the flattery of esteem and regard to one's heart without open words, which made him a com- rade whom love \vould tie to. I recall, now, in vivid recollection, the delight- ful hours I passed with him when driving together, during his last visit here, in the glori- ous sunshine of a perfect day, along a winding road by the margin of our Lake Mendota, where pictures of Nature were spread in a suc- cession of beautiful views as we moved along. 106 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. The genial airs, the exquisite coloring, the delicious combinations of clouds and sunshine on earth and water in the continually changing scene affected him to a rapture of enjoyment which excited his mind to brilliant and elevated expression that told most happily the sweet- ness of his inner soul. Sweeter still be his visions now, and his ioys evermore! And may you find, dear Madame, in your contemplation of him in his manhood as he was, in visions of him in the arms of Infinite Mercy and Love, consolations for the sorrow which none may share with you. Most respectfully and kindly, LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. 107 JOSHUA'S ROCK, LAKE GEORGE, 2 July, 1897. MY DEAR FRIEND: * * * We know nothing of any details. We only know you have suffered this great loss and break-up of your life and that it came sud- denly. We know that loneliness and sorrow is your lot and our hearts go out to you. The old times of pleasant companionship come back vividly to me. I shall not any more enjoy the pleasant evenings in your apartment, discussing the last books or pictures, or talking at random of other days and other lands. I remember how you and Mr. Thompson made me at home with you when I was all alone, and how he would come to the door and smilingly say: " The madame thinks it would be better for you to come and sit with us this evening." Then, too, at other times, we all four enjoyed our evenings with you or with us. It seems a great break, now that he is gone. We fear that you will leave New York; and, at any rate, death has broken into our circle. It is hard to think of a mind so ceaselesslv active and a heart so 108 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. faithfully friendly as stilled forever. There are many -who will miss him, but, outside his own house, none, perhaps, more than we. I have not written you the ordinary letter of condolence. It is not necessary for me to tell you how much I esteem and like Mr. Thomp- son. I cannot offer you consolations ; they do not soften the severity of such a sorrow. But I can assure you of the sincere sympathy of a friend. Yours sincerely, EDWARD EGGLESTON. 58 WILLIAM ST., July 10. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : I have just heard the terrible news. You have lost the best of husbands and I the best friend I ever had. You have my deepest sym- pathy. Very sincerely yours, WALTER S. LOGAN. LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. 109 BROOKLYN, N. Y., July 13, 1897. DEAR MRS. THOMPSON: Of the many who will offer their sincere con- dolence in your sorrow, few knew Mr. Thomp- son longer, and none loved him more than I. Thirty-two years is a long time to test a friend- ship, and this grew with the years. Experience has taught me that in hours like these words are naught. I can only say he was my brother, and I could not mourn one of my own blood more. Yours sincerely, H. L. BRIDGMAN. 55 MUNN AYE., EAST ORANGE, N. J., July 12, 1897. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : Allow me, as one who greatly admired and loved your husband, to express to you my deepest sympathy in your bereavement. The world knows of his ability and public works, but it was reserved for those who met him 110 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. socially and familiarly to discover his great qualities of heart. Though my intercourse with him was limited chiefly at the Authors Club I shall always be grateful to good Provi- dence for allowing my life to touch one so noble as his. I am, my dear madame, with deepest sym- pathy, Sincerely, JAMES M. LUDLOW. CONVENT STATION, Morris County, July 15, 1897. MY DEAR HUTTON: I did not hear of Thompson's death until Monday. I was shocked and truly grieved. I did not know Thompson very well, but liked him very much, as every one did, I am sure. He seemed the very soul and moving spirit of the Authors Club, and no one could have appeared more likely to live. In my intercourse with him I found him of a most generous spirit always kind and reasonable a man I would have been glad to know better. LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. Ill I am not acquainted with Mrs. Thompson, nor do I know her address, but if you should see or communicate with her, I will ask you to assure her of my deep sympathy with her. I do not know when I have so much felt the loss of a fellow author. With kind regards to Mrs. Hutton, sincerely yours, FRANK R. STOCKTON. LEWISTON, N. Y., 19th July, 1897. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : In forwarding to you this note of Mr. Stock- ton, may I add a word of my own ? My asso- ciation with Mr. Thompson in the management of the Authors Club was so pleasant and so intimate that I feel that I have sustained a per- sonal loss, as I grieve with as well as for you. His place in the Club no man can fill, and the world is sadder without him. I beg to sub- scribe myself in sincerest sympathy, Very faithfully yours, LAWRENCE HUTTON. 112 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. 461 E. TWENTY-FIRST ST., N. Y. July 13, 1897. MY VERY DEAR FRIEND: * * * Death is and always will be sudden, and there seems to be little to console one. Time, and that only partially, works a cure. I trust you have some faith or philosophy that will give you strength and courage for the trials of your life. I know by experience how helpful they may be. Very sincerely, M. L. HOLBROOK. OXFORD, ME., July 19, 1897. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : In the presence of this calamity there is really not anything any one can say, and I shall not attempt to say anything. There is no real com- fort to be found in a case of complete loss such as this. But yet the very suddenness, absolute- ness and blankness of the event has its own sug- gestion of hope. It seems to me to indicate strongly that the separation is only a temporary one. Daniel is gone ; that is the plain fact just LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. 113 now ; but he can't be gone for an eternal stay, or even for a very long stay, or he wouldn't here have been lent in the full maturity of his powers, in haste and casualness, as it were. Anyhow, that is my philosophy, and all the con- solation I can offer. You will find him waiting just outside the door of life whenever you join him in spirit; waiting later, when you join him in reality. I cherish a little meeting on the ele- vated stairs with Daniel just a month ago last Friday a most perfect bit of a meeting and greeting. After all, my dear Mrs. Thompson, what is this life but a stairway on which we meet and which leads to a higher life beyond ? Your friend, F. H. STODDARD. CAMBRIDGE, MASS., July 12, 1897. DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : I am deeply grieved and inexpressibly shocked by the sudden death of my uncle, whom I always hoped to know better than I did, and whom I always respected highly for his great abilities, 15 114 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. and liked for his unfailing charm of manner. That he should die so young, at a time when life still held for him so many possibilities of happiness and service, seems peculiarly tragic and hard to bear. I wish to assure you of my deepest sympathy with you in your sorrow for a brilliant career cut short, and for your own personal loss as a wife. * * * I am, my dear Mrs. Thompson, with the greatest sympathy and respect, Yours, CHARLES MINOR THOMPSON. 41 WALL ST., NEW YORK, July 30. * * * Mr. Thompson was so uniformly kind and always bright and encouraging, one of the most lovable men in the whole world. Many of the friends I most depended on have gone within the last few years, and now that my family are so far away, I find I have almost no one I can go and talk with. So far as Mr. Thompson was personally concerned, he had accomplished the work of a lifetime, and in that sense his death was not premature. But all the LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. 115 more, his departure leaves grief and bereave- ment in the hearts of his friends, who hoped, in the less hurried days to come, to enjoy and de- pend upon his society and friendship. I know full well that the loss which all his friends feel is but light compared to yours. It is a fortunate thing that in such unbearable trouble and separation, we have at last a hope of reunion, and, in any event, that grief cannot endure forever, because at last even to the long- est life comes final rest. With fond and faithful remembrance of the dear friend who is gone, and sincere sympathy for you, I am, Sincerely, JOHN K. CREEVEY. MAPLECREST, WHITE PLAINS, N. Y., Aug. 1, 1897. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : I can hardly tell you how shocked I was, on the eve of sailing from Liverpool, to receive tidings of Daniel's sudden death. I cannot yet realize the fact. I am sitting on the piazza, just 116 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. where we sat and chatted only six weeks ago, and my absence being so brief, that I hardly know I have been away, makes it the more diffi- cult to grasp the stern reality of any marked changes having occurred meanwhile. I have known Dan better in late years than in college, even, and the pleasant acquaintance and cordial friendship that has ripened out of our common residence and frequent meetings in New York will always be a source of pleasure for me to recall. His attainments, literary and legal, commanded my admiration, and from all sides I shall miss him as I mourned his loss. You will hardly doubt, then, the continuous thought that I have had of you in your afflic- tion, nor the sincerity of my sympathy, which now my pen can inadequately convey. * * * WILLIAM REYNOLDS BROWN. MADISON, Wis., July 10. DEAR SISTER HENRIETTA: I cannot express to you how deeply shocked and grieved I was to learn from this morning's dispatch of the death of your husband. I think LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. 117 my dear brother must have passed away very suddenly, for if he had been dangerously sick for any length of time you would have advised me. My own grief at the loss of his sister Alma, who was my beloved wife, teaches me how great must be your sorrow. * * * With heartfelt sympathy, I am, Your brother, GEORGE D. BURROWS. NEW YORK, July 15. * * * Words are empty of meaning at such a moment. Death is pitiless; but even death cannot take away the memory of the happy years you have had together, and as time goes on this memory will prove an increasing store of comfort and consolation. I esteemed it a high privilege to feel that Mr. Thompson counted me among his friends, and I hope that you will permit me to be of any and every ser- vice to you, that one of your or his sincere friends could render. Faithfully yours, HORACE E. DEMING. 118 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. MARIENBAD, BOHEMIA, AUSTRIA, HOTEL WEIMAR, July 16, 1897. DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : It is difficult to put into words the pain and shock which the announcement of the sud- den death of your dear husband gave us all. We send you our profound sympathy in your great grief. Mr. Thompson's loss will be felt by a very large circle of friends who knew him in one relation or another. I knew him in many ways and feel his loss in all. May God comfort you. My wife and daughter extend their sincere sympathy to you. Very sincerely, SIMON STERNE. WATERVILLE, N. H., July 18, 1897. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : I presume I am indebted to your thoughtful- ness for my first knowledge of your great sor- row. The shock and surprise were too great for immediate belief in the fact. "Dan Thompson dead!" I keep repeating to myself LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. 119 with little real belief in the words I utter. I think of our long years of friendship, never broken, though of late interrupted. I think ot his ceaseless activity, his bright attainments, and his still higher ideals. I reflect upon the nobility and breadth of his comradeship, upon the beauty and content of his home life, and my heart refuses to believe him dead. Rather, he seems like the dead Hereward, "alive forever- more," alive in what he did, and yet more in what he was. I am glad that he and you are spared the experience of declining strength. Better that he should go in the fullness of his powers, his eyes undimmed and his natural force unabated, than that he should linger, the shadow of what he was. Be assured, my dear Mrs. Thompson, of my heartiest sympathy in a loss which affects you most nearly and tenderly of all the wide circle of mourners. May the consolations of God, which are neither few nor small, abound to you more and more. Mrs. Chickering unites with me in remembrance. Cordially yours, Jos. H. CHICKERING. 120 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. WILLIAMS COLLEGE, WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., July 14, 1897. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : I was greatly shocked and pained to find in a Boston paper yesterday a notice of the sudden death of Mr. Thompson. Coming so soon after the death of Mr. Brown, in Springfield, this news is another warning of the uncertainty of life. The group of friends who knew each other well in Springfield is rapidly thinning. Mr. Thompson was a man of remarkable intellect- ual powers. I respected and admired him. He was a loyal friend, ready to serve his friends regardless of inconvenience to himself. We had many happy hours together in the old days, and I still recall, vividly, the keenness of his argu- ments in any discussion. His mind was philo- sophical to a high degree, as was shown, not merely by his printed works but by his conver- sation. His death is a loss to the world. All his friends will mourn with you in your sorrow. I regret that I am so far away (Northeast Har- bor, Me.) that I cannot be present at his funeral. And the Boston paper which I saw LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. 121 yesterday, though giving a somewhat extended account of his life and work, gives no particu- lars of his death. With the deepest sympathy and regret, I remain, Yours very truly, O. M. FERNALD. 2653 EVANSTON AVENUE, CHICAGO, July 27, 1897. DEAR MRS. THOMPSON: I learned with deep sorrow some days ago of the sudden death of your husband on the 10th instant. Permit me to express to you the assur- ance of my sympathy with you in this sad be- reavement. I admired Mr. Thompson for his abili- ties and attainments, and esteemed him highly for his fine personal qualities. I shall never forget the hours which I passed with him and with you at two different times at your home in the Chelsea, and the interviews which I had with him in his office. I shall always remember with pride that of the two copies of his Psychol- ogy which were sent for review to the Boston press, one copy was sent to me. Mr. Thompson 16 122 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. lived a most useful life, and I deeply regret that his earthly career has been brought to a close when he could, had he lived, have done much more splendid work. My hope is, as was his, that death is a birth into a higher life in which are united those who lived here. Mrs. Underwood joins me in heartfelt sym- pathy and kind regards. Respecfully yours, B. F. UNDERWOOD. 42 WARREN ST., N. Y., July 26, 1897. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON: * * * I know no one outside of my imme- diate family whose loss I could feel more deeply and whom I miss more. Dan was my nearest and dearest friend, and I mourn him every day and hour. Even if sometimes a week or more passed without our meeting, he was never ab- sent from my mind or from my affections. I was more intimately and closely attached to him than to any other man, save only my two brothers. He was a friend to whom I could LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. 123 speak just as I thought or felt, we knew one an- other so well, and were so thoroughly assured of each other's loyalty and friendship. I know your grief is deep, though I can well understand no one can measure the bereave- ment of your aching heart. With sincere regards, I am, Very sincerely yours, OSCAR S. STRAUS. .BARNARD CLUB, CARNEGIE BUILDING, November 11, 1897. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : In accordance with the desire of the Commit- tee on Admissions of the Barnard Club, I inclose to you a copy of the resolutions passed by the committee, at its meeting held Monday, Novem- ber 8th. "Since our last meeting, in June, we have suf- fered a sad loss in the death of Daniel G. Thompson. To those of us who, happily, knew him well, his death is a personal sorrow to be commemorated in our hearts alone. But we, as a committee, who have known and appreciated his just, earnest, and kindly advice 124 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. and help, desire to record our testimony to the service that he has done for the committee and for the Club. We have lost a wise adviser, a scholarly associate and a true friend, and we shall never cease to regret the loss of his counsel and companionship." I am, very truly yours, EVA P. BROWNELL, Secretary of the Committee on Admissions. CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N. Y., August 13, 1897. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : I was absent from home at the time of the death of your husband. Could I have reached you I should have endeavored to do so, to have paid to him my last token of esteem. We were classmates, and only the most delightful mem- ories remain of a friendship extending over thirty years. Even in those days his future promise was evident. Everything that he did he did with apparent ease and with high excellence. I met him in Cleveland, in December, for the last time, and, although he seemed well, there was a marked change in his appearance, which led LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. 125 me to fear that his life with us was to be short. Please accept my sincere sympathy in your loss. I trust that you will retain, in intimate remembrance, through all your life, those who were so attached to your husband, of whom I was grateful to be one. Yours sincerely, W. T. HEWETT. Mrs. Daniel Greenleaf Thompson. LENOX, Mass., July 13. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : Please accept the assurance of my deep sor- row at the sudden death of your husband. Daniel and I had been intimate friends in addi- tion to being classmates at Amherst. I have always felt great regret that, since those days, our lives have been separated. I have followed, with great interest and pride, his brilliant career. I was wholly unprepared for his sud- den taking away. I trust that you were, in some measure, prepared for it. Little as I have seen of Daniel I have always had the feeling that our lives were to come together again 126 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. and I have always known that he had a decided regard and affection for me (which I more than reciprocated) and which I felt would help us to take up the old friendship again, without delay, when we did meet. Now, this companionship must be postponed but only postponed. Most sincerely yours, RICHARD GOODMAN, Jr. POTTSVILLE, Pa., July 2, 1897. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : All the members of the class of '69 at Amherst have been greatly saddened by the announce- ment of the death of your dear husband. I do not wish to intrude upon your sorrow, but per- mit me to express my warmest sympathy. He was the youngest member of our class, but from the first he was recognized as one of the ablest, and no one has been surprised at the distinction which he gained in his profession, in general literature and especially by his philosophical writings. We were members of the same Fra- ternity, and while we have not met often in LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. 127 recent years, the memories of our friendship have been among the most cherished of my college life. My father was at one time principal of the academy at Montpelier,Vt., and a friend of Judge Thompson, your husband's father. This led to our early acquaintance and friendship when we met at Amherst. But I must not trespass further upon your time. With renewed assurance of loving sym- pathy, I am, sincerely yours, JOHN H. EASTMAN. 120 BROADWAY, July 10, 1897. DEAR MRS. THOMPSON : It is with the greatest sorrow that I have learned from Mr. Hanford of the sudden death of your husband, my old associate and genial friend. Let me express my sincere condolence to you in your grief, and assure you that you have the sympathy of an exceptionally large number of friends. For the happy and cheerful tempera- ment of Mr. Thompson endeared him to all, who 128 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. came to know him. His death will cause asense of very great personal loss, and it is an added sorrow that it is only possible for one to express at such a time, deep sympathy with you in your bereavement. Sincerely yours, CHARLES E. LYDECKER. ROSEBANK, HOBART, TASMANIA, October 18, 1897. MY DEAR MRS. THOMPSON: We are in receipt of your letter to us of the 21st of August, and I cannot put into words the shock which it has given us. Only four weeks ago I posted my last letter to your dear husband, which, I presume, will be duly sent to you. I cannot think of New York without him. All my most precious memories of it are asso- ciated with him, as no part of the United States will seem the same to me again. It is a little more than seven years since I first met him, and during the whole of that time he and his books have been a part of my life to me. His books LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS. 129 will be doubly dear to me in the future, and I hope that his friends will secure the publication of whatever manuscripts he has left behind him. My wife and I fondly hoped that he and you would visit Australia, and that we should have the pleasure of making you our guests in Tas- mania. If you have a photograph of him which you can spare for us, we shall preserve it with affectionate care. My wife is writing to you, and leaving her to say whatever I have omitted, I am, with intense sympathy, very sincerely yours, A. INGLIS CLARK. HATFIELD, Mass., July 14, 1897. DEAR MRS. THOMPSON: The Standard Union has just come to me, tell- ing me of the death of my dear friend and class- mate. I write at once to assure you that I have never once lost that admiration and affection for Thompson that he won from me when we were so intimate at Amherst. I have always been deeply sensible, too, of his constant kindness 130 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. and loyalty to me. Proud as I am of what he achieved intellectually, I am sure he stood high- est of all in the qualities of his heart. With deepest sympathy for you in your bereavement, I am, Most sincerely yours, ROBERT M. WOODS. BRANDON, VT., 7/12, 1897. MRS. DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON : Accept my profound sympathy in your over- whelming bereavement. I knew and loved your lamented husband from his boyhood, when we were both officially connected with the Vermont Legislature. He was a gifted author, a gen- erous, exalted soul, and I grieve with you keenly at his untimely loss, which is a heavy be- reavement, not only to yourself but to all mankind. JOHN H. FLAGG. OPINIONS AND DISCUSSIONS. A SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY * (1884.) 22 HYDE PARK GATE, LONDON, S. W., October 16, 1897. MY DEAR SIR : I acknowledge at once the receipt of your Psychology, for I might have to wait some time if I waited till I had read it. This, I know, does not look very polite, but my meaning is very innocent. I can see at a glance that your book requires more than a cursory reading, and with an appetite. I can, therefore, only say at pres- ent that I am glad to see a work proceeding upon those lines I mean the Mill-Spencer-Bain without the Hegelian taint which has been in- flicting us here of late. I regret that I was not able to see more of you during your visit to Europe. If you should * NOTE. Much latitude has been permitted in the follow- ing extracts on account of the intrinsic interest of the discus- sions and to show the cordial and sincere relations between Mr. Thompson and his friends, whether they agreed or dis- agreed. H. G. T. 134 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. repeat it, I should be very glad to see you again, and I hope that you would, in that case, give me timely notice. Yours very truly, LESLIE STEPHEN. SOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N. Y., October 31, 1884. MY DEAR FRIEND : I was out of town when your books arrived, and after my return I was obliged to attend upon sick parishioners, etc. So that this is the first moment in which I could express my thanks to you for your courtesy and kindness in send- ing me the volumes of Philosopy of the Mind. The most hasty glance within the covers of these volumes shows that you have understood and emphasized the word with which your title opens, the word "system" "A System of Psy- chology." I have not as yet, of course, had time to read anything, but I am proud of a friend who has the intellectual hardihood to dare and the intellectual persistency to execute a work so A SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY. 135 comprehensive and formidable. The bits that I have glanced at I admire the dedication, etc. To have accomplished a work like this, my dear Mr. Thompson, certainly imparts to any man's whole life a certain inalienable dignity. I have no question that the work, when I come to read it, will fulfill to me every promise of its external appearance, and every promise, also, which I have made to me, through my pleasant ac- quaintance with its author. Yours sincerely, ALBERT J. LYMAN. BROOKLYN, N. Y., November 10, 1884. MY DEAR SIR : Your two volumes came duly to hand, and astonish me by their scope, material, and gen- eral ability. I cannot, of course, speak critic- ally of your system or its details, for I have not, in this whirlwind of politics, had the even- mindedness to perform such work. But I have tasted of almost every part, with the eifect of only exciting my appetite for more, and with 136 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. the general impression that I shall approve mostly, use the scalpel in spots, but the club nowhere. I am, truly yours, HENRY WARD BEECHER. I am of Darwin and Spencer's School of Thought but less a disciple of Mill and Bain perhaps because less acquainted with their writings. 626 CARLTON AVENUE, BROOKLYN, N. Y., October 28, 1884. MY DEAR MR. THOMPSON : I am greatly obliged to you for your hand- some book, and sincerely grateful. I should like nothing better than to put everything else aside and settle down to your exposition for a week or two, but that is quite impossible. Just now I am very busy, but before long I trust that I shall be able to get at you. I am sure of plenty of instruction when I do. I wish I could see you now and then far from the madding crowd. May I not hope to ? Yours truly, JOHN W. CHADWICK. A SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY. 137 AMHERST COLLEGE, AMHERST, Mass., November 12, 1884. MY DEAR FRIEND : I have not yet read the whole of your Psychology, which I have gratefully received from you, but I must tell you how interested I have been in the parts to which I have directed my attention. I am not surprised at your aptitude for thought, or for clear expression of your thoughts, while the candor and the love of truth, shining through all I have yet read, also reveal what I have always known you to possess. What are systems of thinking, what are doctrines of any sort, philosophical or religious, that we should prize them when the truth alone is priceless? You will probably not be surprised that the points of difference between us are not obliterated by my reading of your book, though I have often said to myself that the difference is more apparent than real, and that I could show you the deepest harmony of much that you hold most prominently with what has been all along held to be fundamental in my teaching. Will you wonder if I even think 18 138 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. I could convince you that among your own cognitions, clearly recognized as such all along in your book, there are those whose contents not only, objects known, differ from all those which sensation or reflection have given, but which are attained, subject knowing, in a way equally peculiar ? The question why you write and why you expect to convince others by your writing, would doubtless be answered by you and me in the same way, but by neither of us without involving in both the peculiar char- acteristics which Dr. Hickok ascribes to the reason. Would two thinkers ever disagree if they perfectly understood one another? I am sorry that you are unacquainted with Kant, whose Kritik certainly if judged by the lines of thought it has stimulated, the most important contribution to Psychology since Locke's "Essay" would, I cannot but think, help you. I shall be very glad to have our classes here, whom Prof. Garman now is most ably teaching, get your criticism of Hickok. If your book is in any sense the result of his thinking, it is an encouragement to keep planting the same seed. A SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY. 139 Ah, if we could only often have similar soil ! * * * Rejoicing in your work and not fearing that truth will suffer from any inquiry, I am ever and most truly yours, JULIUS H. SEEL YE. Daniel Greenleaf Thompson, Esq. NEW YORK, November 7, 1884-. * * * I have made a hasty survey of your book, although prevented from the full reading of it by the pressure of business, and can readily see that you have bestowed a great deal of research upon your subject and not only studied it very deeply, but elaborated your views with great ability. It must have absorbed a great deal of your time ; and it will, I trust, bring you an ample reward, not merely in your personal satisfaction in contributing to the elucidation of the great problems involved, but also in an enviable reputation among scientific men. I confess that my own inclinations draw me into more practical questions, and, to a large ex- tent, disqualify me from judging critically of 140 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. works like this. But I am none the less able to appreciate their real value in the development and progress of mankind. With many thanks for so kindly remembering me, I remain, Yours very truly, THOMAS G. SHEARMAN. 626 CARLTON AVENUE, BROOKLYN, N. Y., December 30, 1884. DEAR MR. THOMPSON : Inclosed find a brief notice of your book which I wrote at Mr. Foord's request. It seemed quite long in the MS., but it seems very short in print. I thought I could serve the book best by calling attention to it in a light and pleasant way. In the rush of the holidays, I could hardly do more, or expect to be read if I did. I have read a good deal in the book with sincere pleasure. You will believe that I wrote "Sidgwick" and not "Sedgwick," but I never could get a printer yet to follow me in that particular. Yours truly, JOHN W. CHAD WICK. A SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY. 141 117 EAST TWENTY-FIRST STREET, GRAMERCY PARK, N. Y., October 26, 1884. MY DEAR MR. THOMPSON ; A thousand thanks for your kindness in pre- senting me with your "System of Psychology." I want to read it far more than you want me to. It rejoices me to know that men of your en- viable brain power and brain endurance are so earnestly at work in the good cause. COURTLANDT PALMER. NORTHAMPTON, Mass., November 7, 1884. * I have read forty pages, and, to tell the truth, am a little surprised that I can truth- fully say that I shall read the whole with not only attention but with great interest. I had expected the work would be dignified and com- plete, but I had not really anticipated that its style and habit its walk and conversation, as it were, would be so attractive. Value, you know, is made in equal parts of style and stuff. I knew you had the message to speak, but I had 142 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. not anticipated such grace of utterance. But I will not say much of the book till I have fully read it. My first impression is favorable, and I predict a future for it. Yours, F. H. STODDARD. 1 E. TWENTY-EIGHTH STREET, October 25, 1884. I do not know how to thank you sufficiently for your kind courtesy in sending me a copy of your elaborate work, "A System of Psychol- ogy." You are, indeed, quite right in supposing that such a work would be received by me in a sym- pathetic spirit, and I feel flattered and honored by the thought that you would find in me an appreciative reader. As yet I have, of course, only glanced at the book, but the table of con- tents is a rare intellectual menu, and the intro- duction suggests the able and delightful treat- ment of a most attractive subject. You certainly deserve infinite credit for the labor and effort A SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY. 143 involved in such an unusually 'detailed produc- tion. How you ever found time, with your busy professional life, to accomplish such a feat, passes my comprehension. I shall, from time to time, partake of the banquet you have so gen- erously placed before me, and I hope before very long to have the pleasure of speaking to you of my enjoyment and gratefully confessing my in- struction. I am, dear sir, Faithfully yours, GEORGE C. BARRETT. Daniel G. Thompson, Esq. ORANGE, N. J M December 24, 1884. MY DEAR SIR : I am reading your book with much interest. It contains much valuable matter, some of it new to me ; but I cannot accept your point of view, which seems to me to have been hastily assumed without due analysis. I should contest in the most direct way your very first position, that "the words know and knowledge express an experience of sentient 144 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. beings." I could hardly frame a statement more faulty in logic and fact, and yet this assumption runs through and colors the whole -work. Knowledge, in the first place, is not an experience of sentient beings as such, at all. The experience of these beings as such, is sentience, sensation. It is only intelligent beings that can have knowl- edge and only as intelligent. If sentient beings as such can know, then sensation is knowledge, a position which is easily overthrown. In the second place, sentient beings as such, cannot be said to have experience properly so called at all. Experience presupposes the presentation of time, space, subject and object, and these (except, it may be, space) are not matters of sensation. Sensation feels no relations, and therefore makes no distinctions, but without distinctions there is no knowledge. This is a cardinal point and the failure to seize it completely vitiates the whole work of the English school. That school is deficient in analysis, mingles up things that are wide as the poles asunder. No wonder that it arrives at agnosticism and other strange results. The sole cause of agnosticism is bad thinking and the confusion of sensation with A SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY. 145 cognition. Don't be exasperated by my objur- gations. I am always " 1' avvocato del dia- vola;" but I am always a reasonable advocate. Cordially yours, THOMAS DAVIDSON. THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N. Y., November 16, 1884. MY DEAR THOMPSON : I watch with delight your work and wonder at your accomplishment, when I see so solid and extensive a product of your thought. Choate often said, "After all, the only immor- tality is a book." I have wished that I were nearer to you in all your studies in the past few years. My old regard for you follows you still and I hail any glimpse of you in person or in type. That amid your profession you have been able to carry on your literary studies is a mar- vel to me. Some time I hope we may clasp hands again and go over the past. W. T. HEWETT. D. G. Thompson. 146 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. CHICAGO, January 5, 1885. DEAR MR. THOMPSON : The two stately volumes have arrived and I am very much obliged to you for them. I will not of course pretend that I have already read them, but I have looked into them here and there enough to see the tremendous expanse of facts and thought they cover and to see, too, that at least in many parts I could become greatly in- terested. It is truly a magnum opus, and I congratu- late you on its completion. A. C. McCLURG. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. (1886.) AMHERST COLLEGE, AMHERST, MASS., November 11, 1887. MY DEAR THOMPSON : I have read your "Problem of Evil" carefully from beginning to end . I need not say that it has greatly interested me, for this could not be otherwise, considering its theme and its author- ship. You will not be surprised that I do not like its main drift, and will not in the least sup- pose that my dislike is occasioned by any refer- ence in it to myself. The unnamed references to myself, wherein I get glimpses of things which used to come out in our discussions together, in the recitation room and out of it, give me, as you well know, only pleasure. And yet, after all our discussions, I have failed to make you apprehend my real position, and that of those who agree generally with me. I wonder whether there would be any dispute in the world if men truly understood each other ? It seems singular that Aristotle could not under- 148 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. stand Plato, but I do not think he did ; and I wonder why I have not made myself clear to you, but I evidently have not. Hence I deeply feel that I may wholly misapprehend you in my objections to the teachings of your book, though I am sure I am right in my confidence in the purity and the uprightness of your desires and purposes. Before speaking of what seems to me the radical error of the book, may I state a few points as I jotted them down while I was read- ing it. p. 12. " Moral evil arises from the relations of sentient beings to each other." But what if there were only a solitary man upon the globe, and he should give himself up to unbridled lust, i.e., should allow himself to be dominated wholly by his bodily appetites, as they might crave for excessive gratification, would there not be in this, aside from its phy- sical consequences, a real moral evil ? p. 15. " Evil, that which causes pain." But suppose a man has undertaken to rob me, but has been foiled ? No pain has come to me, for I may not know it, and none to the THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. 149 robber, except perhaps the pain of his disap- pointment ; but is there no evil in his intention ? p. 16. " Moral evil is pain caused by human volition to cause pain." But, again, the moral evil of the isolated domination of sensual lust, what of it? Surely this is evil, but where is there any volition to cause pain thereby? p. 17. " Not all pain," etc. But what, then, do you mean by "unright- eous dispositions and choices? " Have you not slipped into your definition, by another word, the very idea which is to be defined ? p. 85. " Aim at the maximum of liberty." But what is liberty, and what its exact dis- tinction from license ? Is it not in the difference between obedience to law and lawlessness ? p. 91 . "A necessity of all social order is the preservation of security to each individual." But how gain this preservation without law? This is implied even in the next para- graph. p. 94. As bearing upon this same point, note on this page what is said about governmental education. 150 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. p. 101. You correctly state the importance of the Christian doctrine of sin. p. 109. " It is conceded by all," etc. True ; but whence these ideals ? p. 131. Does not Herbert Spencer's classifi- cation of duties clash with your view of moral evil, on page 12 ? p. 137. An entire misconception of the grounds on which laws against blasphemy are to be enforced. p. 138. In all that you are saying here, you seem to ignore the point you correctly make on p. 132, of the relation of doctrine to conduct. p. 140. But where actually are the highest developments of what you call altruistic char- acter ? Are they not through Christian motives ? p. 140, second paragraph. But you ignore the actual origin of civil liberty, vide Hegel's "Philosophic," der Geschichts, Introduction. p. 144. Would it not have been better to ask whether such a doctrine as you represent the Trinity to be could have been held so long and so earnestly by the Church, and might not this have suggested the inquiry, whether you may have misapprehended the doctrine ? THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. 151 p. 193. "In order that a proposition be true it must con- form to experience." But how about mathematical propositions, and how about belief in testimony ? p. 204. What is a struldbrug? p. 209. You repeatedly urge, as I am happy to see, that the state is the organic unity of mankind and that "the central principle of all organic life is," etc. Must you not, therefore, recognize that which is before the parts an ideal factor determining how the parts shall stand thus related ? But is there not then a reality of existence to society before the individual? vide Aristotle's "Politics," I. p. 245. " Moral evil is the choices of individuals." True, but at war with your general discus- sion. "Egoism in the individual character is the root of all moral evil." Undoubtedly, but, then, what becomes of your view of the doctrine of sin ? If you are not saying, in disgust, at this time, that I have entirely misapprehended you, as I am sure you fail to see what I have advo- cated, and are willing that I should add a word 152 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. further, let me say that the great trouble I have with your book is that you constantly seem to overlook the real elements of personality. These elements are, I take it, two, and only two, viz., self-consciousness and self-direction. Both these are necessary to personality, and neither of them could come from the imper- sonal. The gap between the personal and the non-personal still remains a chasm which no evolutionary hypothesis has been able to bridge. Note the attempts at this and the undistrib- uted middle in the syllogism, involved in them all, e.g., Mr. Spencer's. Neither the personal can come from the not-personal, nor consciousness from the unconscious, for the dictum, "ex nihilo nihil fit," forbids. Our personality must have had a personal source. The finite self-conscious- ness must rest ultimately upon the absolute self-consciousness. I can conceive of no bet- ter expression for the sound, speculative view than the Scripture statement that "God has made man in His own image." But, if this be so, then the finite personality can have a true self-direction, and is, therefore, free, and, there- fore, the question of freedom does still set itself THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. 153 before our face and look us in the eye. But in its freedom it may take what you call an ego- istic, or, as I should prefer to say, a selfish direction, or, as you term it, an altruistic, which I should prefer to call an unselfish one. But selfishness is not what you seem to con- ceive it to be all along in your discussion, e. g., p.lll. It is not simply the self-consciousness or the self-direction, or anything by which we simply predicate individuality of a being, as the sun it- self, the mountains themselves, etc. But it is the seeking of a true good, not simply for, but in the self. May I help my meaning here by a phrase which the Germans so often use and say that selfishness is not the "fiir sich seyn" but the "in sich seyn?" Now, my dear Thompson, you seem to me constantly to ignore this great point. Your whole discussion nowhere distinguishes between these two. And yet this distinction is not only important, it is all important to a discussion of the Problem of Evil. With this distinction clearly in mind, the question of sin and of God's sovereignty have a solemn meaning more 154 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. consonant with the deep seated sentiments of mankind than with the strongly uttered senti- ments of your book. By and by we shall not differ, and, till then, and ever, I am, very truly yours, JULIUS H. SEELYE. Daniel G. Thompson, Esq. ORANGE, June 8. DEAR MR. THOMPSON : I have read your book with much pleasure. * * * I cannot accept your doctrine of deter- minism at all. You are splendidly right on social questions. Cordially yours, THOMAS DAVIDSON. THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS OF THE HUMAN MIND. (1888.) 10 WEST TENTH STREET, April 4, 1888. DEAR MR. THOMPSON : * * * While I have not been able to give it a careful reading, I have looked into it suffici- ently to enable me to see what a valuable contri- bution you have made to the religious thought of the day. Your book cannot fail to impress the reader with its broad and liberal senti- ments, in which I am well convinced lies so much of the hopes of the future for independence of thought and action among mankind. Most faithfully yours, HENRY S. OAKLEY. April 2, 1888. MY DEAR MR. THOMPSON : Your "Religious Sentiments of the Human Mind" has interested me exceedingly more, if anything, than did "The Problem of Evil." Your treatment of the subject is thoughtful, 156 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. both conservative and liberal in the truest sense of those much abused words, and I find myself in agreement -with you at almost every point. I have criticised your definitions a little, but could not conscientiously " pitch in" to the book very severely. Indeed, your treatment is so fair, moderate and candid, that I do not see how those even who disagree with you can possibly take offence at your positions. Sincerely yours, LEWIS G. JANES. FLATBUSH, L. I. MY DEAR THOMPSON : I have just received your book, "The Relig- ious Sentiments," etc., for which accept my many thanks. I have read it, for which I shall probably receive yours. I read it in one session. That will excite your surprise. I believe I am nearly in sympathy with your definition of religion. The relations spoken of do not include any of the moral sentiments, which, I believe, are exclusively the relations of man to man and nothing else all of which, I believe, however, are included in your definitions. RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 157 I took great pleasure in Chapter III., but must insist that religion is egoistic and entirely selfish ; every altruistic emotion belongs to the social and moral ; therefore, religious sentiments are social factors in just so far as they are non- religious. The teachings of religion are to do good for God's sake, and for the sake of the personal soul; its great reward is in another life, to which morality makes no pretensions, nor does it in any sense give recognition to any concep- tion higher than humanity, or to any power superior to society. Morality makes the Man; Religion, the Saint. What do you mean in saying "Religion must furnish the foundation principle of Ethics? " The great mass of teachers, if I have learned the lesson aright, make morality basic to relig- ion. Is the moral sense of the dog based upon religious sentiment ? Lucretius says " Fear was the mother of Relig- ion." Hume says "Religion was evolved out of ig- norance." 158 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. I know of none more noted for religion and bad morals than David, Lot and Solomon. I might probably name a few modern exam- ples, all of whom have gone to swell the aristoc- racy of heaven. The Buddhistic Nirvana, of which you speak (on page 98), I have somewhere seen summarized as "Nothing but Nothingness; " and an author whom you delight to quote speaks of existence in the same Nihilistic mood : " A moment's halt, a momentary taste Of Being, from the Will and the Waste, And Lo ! the phantom caravan has reacht The Nothing it set out from. Oh, make haste." Were your book on review before me, I should say that in Chapter XXXIII. you have too much heaven and too little hell. The equipoise is lost. Let's restore it by expunging both. I really have no choice between the man who avoids evil to gain heaven, and he who does good to escape hell; each is equally culpable. As Burns facetiously says : " It 'a as it pleases best hissel', Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell ; 'A for thy glory." RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 159 I cannot just here forego the pleasure of a little quotation from the highly religious brother, Dr. Watts, in one of those sublime little poems on a kindred subject : " Almighty vengeance, bow it burns, How bright His fury glows; Vast magazines of plagues and Storms Lie treasured for his foes." I agree, totally, with the unexpressed senti- ment of the chapter: "That to believe such things, is coercing the intellect to eat dirt." My mood, to-night, is antagonistic, but with your last chapter, " Religious Education," my best feelings are entirely in accord. It is the most delightful chapter of this rather fascinating book. The topic is an interesting one, and it is full of new methods and thought. Thompson, I am glad you have written this book. True, I have read it but loosely; shall read it again, and if I reverse the gossipy judgments of this unwise note, will so inform you. Yours very truly, DAN M. TREDWELL. March 29, 1888. 160 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. AMHERST COLLEGE, AMHERST, Mass., March 30, 1888. MY DEAR FRIEND: I have been lately reading James Martineau's "Study of Religion," a truly notable book of affluent scholarship, both acute and profound in thought, and of a royal splendor in style, and was just purposing a letter to ask you to read it when your own book on the same theme was brought me. Let me thank you for sending it to me, while I again express the deep interest, what- ever you do, will always have for me. In look- ing it over cursorily, before giving it the careful attention it demands, I am not at all displeased perhaps, I ought not to be surprised, that you again pounce upon me. But I wonder whether I can be so far from apprehending your posi- tion, as you seem to be from approaching mine. On page 165 one finds "they " (i. e., I and those believing with me) "would not favor a fair set- ting forth of the arguments for and those against the miracles accorded in the Gospel. They would not allow Him (Jesus) to be compared with Sakya-muni, as Caesar." RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 161 Why, my dear Thompson, this is not only what we do allow, but the exact procedure which we are all the while urging should be taken. You surely have heard me do this very thing a score of times. I am doing this so often, and urge it so strongly, that I have some- times almost wondered whether the frequency of my iteration may not weaken its force. In my "Lectures to Educated Hindus," a copy of which I would gladly send you, if I have not already done so, I say, page 29, "Christianity is not only open for the examination of the world, but it challenges the closest scrutiny. Try me, it says, to all the opposing thoughts and systems of men. Examine my claims in whatever aspect and by whatever test you please," etc. So far from not favoring "a fair setting forth of the arguments for and those against miracles, this is precisely what I at- tempted to do in my Lecture on Miracles, and whether I succeeded or not, the attempt was fairly made, and I have never known its fairness criticised. If in any point I have failed to state in that Lecture, fairly and with sufficient full- ness, the arguments against miracles, I should 162 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. be most grateful to have it shown. Did I ever, my dear friend whose presence in my class- room I remember with constant joy did I ever show myself afraid of free thought? Let me quote one sentence from my Inaugural, on tak- ing the Presidency of the College, which, if I know myself, is as truly as any sentence the keynote of all my teachings. "Christian faith is not only not hostile to free thought, but it finds its normal exercise and expression in this very freedom." p. 32. You criticise also my statement about the historical accuracy of the Gospels, but surely you know that whatever may be true of "Jour- nals and Reviews," no scholar acquainted with the recent progress in Biblical criticism now doubts the general historical accuracy of the New Testament. Strauss and Renan both admit this. True, they still reject the miracu- lous element, though Strauss is obliged to ad- mit, in his "Neues Leben Jesu," that the disci- ples must have believed in the resurrection of their Lord from the dead, but they reject the miraculous, not because the historical evidence in its support is wanting, but because a RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 163 preconceived theory of theirs, about the " order of nature," discards all historical evidence that contradicts it, a procedure, I insist, worthy of neither the scholar nor the philoso- pher. Will you forgive me for so long a letter ? Our sentiments are, I am sure, akin, whatever our thoughts may be. And thus I embrace you, and am, ever, Most truly yours, JULIUS H. SEELYE. UNITED STATES LEGATION, CONSTANTINOPLE, December 15, 1888. MY DEAR THOMPSON: I congratulate you on your election as presi- dent of the Nineteenth Century Club. I don't see how the club could have done better, in view of the fact of the excellent manner you had theretofore conducted its affairs as acting presi- dent. I was very much interested by your book on the "Religious Sentiments." The last chapter is, by all odds, the ablest and most con- vincing presentation of the question, "Religion and the Schools," I have ever read, and I would 164 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. be glad to see it appear in one of our best magazines. Yours sincerely, 0. S. STRAUS. PARK AVENUE HOTEL, April 23, 1888. DEAR MR. THOMPSON : I thank you for the copy of your important work on the "Religious Sentiments." It is more affirmative than I had expected, and therefore very edifying. Yet I can't say that I attach the supreme importance you ascribe to the faith in immortality. I am always cautious in drawing on the belief too largely for ethical inspiration. Even if heaven is a fable, it is not good to be a beast or a sybarite. Righteous- ness is full of promise for the life that now is. As for myself, if I can have faith in God, L e., in the Beneficence of the Supreme Power, I am will- ing to live or die, as He shall judge best. The best people I have known, though believing in the Hereafter, never seemed to me to live with "eternity in view," but to do right, because they had pure and loving hearts. Is it not better to be worthy of immortality than to be sure of it ? RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 165 That is what I preach always, though I cher- ish and encourage the immortal hope, and ac- count it an element in the religion of the Future. Your Genesis of Trinitarianism seems to me valuable, and all your criticisms of the clergy are just. The assumption of authority is, to some extent, however, a greatness thrust upon us. The people want dogma, i. e., positive as- sertion. Even in my own emancipated sect, this want is felt. People want their preacher to be cocksure. A calm, judicial frame of mind is unfavorable to exhortation and ethical incite- ment. So I have learned to look leniently on the Pope's infallibility and all kindred preten- sions on the part of my fellow successors to the Apostles. (Am I not an Apostle? Am I not free?) As Barnum said, "people want to be humbugged," so every bishop knows that the people insist upon authoritative guidance. It takes courage for a priest to say, "ignoramus, ignorabimus," and it is certain to lower him in his disciples' eyes. Thanking you once more for the valuable essay, Yours sincerely, THEODORE C. WILLIAMS. 166 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. 626 CARLTON AVENUE, BROOKLYN, N. Y., March 27, 1888. * * * Differing with it here and there, I have found it very interesting. It could not have come more opportunely, seeing that I am through the first of Martineau's two volumes, ' ' A Study of Religion. ' ' Your definition of relig- ion is much more to my mind, and I think likely much of what follows will be so. Martineau's is a very brilliant and fascinating book. JOHN W. CHADWICK. SOCIAL PROGRESS. 25 WEST THIRTY-SEVENTH ST., Feb. 1. DEAR MR. THOMPSON: I have just finished reading " Social Progress, " with much pleasure and profit. I am glad to have you say a good word for our newspapers, which really do often transcend the limits of decency; but if it is for good, and keeps us in the straight and narrow path of right, even if that is through fear of them, it is all very well. ANNE C. L. BOTTA. MY DEAR MR. THOMPSON: * * * I have already read several chap- ters of "Social Progress " a second time, for I found it last summer in the Authors Club li- brary, and became much interested in the book. I also dipped into your other books there, and have promised myself the further pleasure of reading them more. Your thoughts seem to run a good deal in the same channel as my own, but, while I have sauntered or skipped, you 168 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. have brought a loving strength to the work, and have accomplished an immense task. I am much struck with your clearness, sincerity, earnestness, and continuity of thought. Never- theless, I cannot do you full justice, as I ought, because I am so carried away by amazement that, with the labors and exactions of profes- sional practice, you could set free your mind to roam over space and gather so much in a field so unlike the "herbless granite" of the law. I found the profession a jealous mistress, and for many years dared to look only occasionally into a book of literature, much less of meta- physics or philosophy, mental or moral or even social. I congratulate you upon a mastery of mind I never was able in my own case to possess. Sincerely yours, ALBERT MATHEWS. PHILOSOPHY OF FICTION. AMHERST COLLEGE, AMHERST, Mass., Dec. 5, 1890. MY DEAR FRIEND: I must both thank you for sending me your "Philosophy of Fiction," and congratulate you on again producing a work indicative of your literary skill and speculative force. I can easily see its attractiveness, and shall at once give it my attention. With constant affection, Most truly yours, JULIUS H. SEELYE. DANIEL G. THOMPSON, Esq. UNION CLUB, Dec. 3. MY DEAR MR. THOMPSON: I have read your thoughtful and lucid book with great pleasure, and congratulate you most sincerely on its authorship. Here and there you seem to me almost too literal and charitable but that may be only my own narrowness. As, for instance, you speak of such a novel as 170 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. ' ' Zanoni, ' ' -with a recognition of its sources of in- terest being legitimate. To my mind the mere supernatural, in fiction as in life, must wholly pass away. The good and strong poetry in cer- tain parts of " Macbeth" will, I should say, en- dure; but I can't help thinking that all the witch business must lapse into merited oblivion. All the poetry with which Dante has enshrouded it, I imagine, will not eventually save "The In- ferno," and so on, ad absurdum, you may, perhaps, declare it. But your book, with all its care and thought and study cannot be too highly praised. It is rare, indeed, to find a critic nowadays of your blended kindliness and acumen. Believe me, hoping soon to see you, always faithfully, EDGAR FAWCETT. 27 WEST SEVENTY-FOURTH ST., NEW YORK, Dec. 28, 1890. MY DEAR THOMPSON; This Sunday afternoon I spent most profit- ably in finishing the "Philosophy of Fiction in PHILOSOPHY OF FICTION. 171 Literature." I will be entirely frank in express- ing my opinion about this work, whether it be of value or not, it shall be my opinion. The book is good ; it is very good. It is naturally written, plain, direct, not stilted. It is interest- ing to three classes of persons, according to my judgment: to the constructors of Fiction, to the readers of Fiction, and to those who do not read Fiction for the latter will learn why they should read fiction, and what class of fiction they can read with greatest profit. The chapter I enjoyed the most was VI., ' ' Realism and Idealism . " It is full of suggestion and well digested thought. The chapter, "Art, Morals and Science," is equally excellent, and puts in clearly expressed language many rea- sons that fiction has suggested in vague outline to the thoughtful reader. The book deserves to be, and I feel sure it will be, used in our high institutions as a valuable text-book for that important branch of litera- ture, fiction, which occupies such a large field in the reading world. I congratulate the author of a "System of Psychology " upon the excellent practical fruits 172 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. his philosophy is bearing. Again thanking you for your very valuable "Essay," which you in- sist upon calling this book, I am, Very sincerely yours, OSCAR S. STRAUS. CHICAGO, February 23, 1891. DEAR MR. THOMPSON : I am glad that your last volume is a success from the publisher's point of view, which is often of no small importance to the author as well. I think it likely that your work from now on will be your best. The facility with which you write, and write well, on many subjects, tempts you into many fields, and the result is that your intellectual force is diffused over a large area. It has occurred to me that you may yet con- centrate your mind on some special subject as you did so many years on psychology and with your large knowledge and trained habits of thought, produce the work on which your reputation will chiefly rest. * * * I have been the last year more and more interested in the study of psychical phenomena, and more and PHILOSOPHY OF FICTION. 173 more I am constrained to the view that the en- tire phenomenal world is but symbolical of what in its essential nature is akin to mind. My in- vestigations have impressed me with the signifi- cance of what Spencer calls "the substance of mind." Perhaps you, too, have looked into the subject. If you have not, I assure you that there is a field, the exploration of which is likely to yield important results. Sincerely yours, B. F. UNDERWOOD. NEW YORK, November 28, 1890. MY DEAR THOMPSON: Let me hasten to thank you for the "Philos- ophy of Fiction." I have not had time yet to more than dip into it enough to see that I shall read it with both pleasure and profit. Sincerely yours, W. C. BROWNELL. If Sociology ever becomes a science, it will certainly have reason to complain if among its text-books there is no "Thompson on Evi- dence," I should say. 174 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. 159 S. OXFORD STREET, BROOKLYN, November 28, 1890. I am indebted to jour tidy book on Fiction for a pleasant part of my Thanksgiving day. I am much impressed with its profound discus- sion of the elements of fiction. It is readable, strong and courageous, and at times eloquent in phrase. I very much appreciate your thoughtful kindness in sending it to me. Gratefully yours, JOHN A. TAYLOR. CHICAGO, February 9, 1891. DEAR MR. THOMPSON : I enclose herewith two notices of your last work which I made, one for the Inter Ocean, one of our leading dailies, and the other for the ReHgio-Philosophical Journal. Both are inade- quate, but they will do a little to call attention to the book, perhaps, which I have read with interest and profit. Your contributions to philosophy and literature are most valuable and entitle you to first rank among American PHILOSOPHY OF FICTION. 175 thinkers and writers. Too profound to be pop- ular, your works are appreciated by the thought- ful and discriminating, and by such will be held in high estimation as they become known. B. F. UNDERWOOD. 9 WEST THIRTY-FOURTH STREET. December 26, 1890. MY DEAR MR. THOMPSON : Mrs. Clews and I desire to thank you for your kindness in sending us your very interesting book, "The Philosophy of Fiction in Litera- ture." We have both found it most interesting. Very truly yours, HENRY CLEWS. MADISON, Wis., October 24, 1891. I have read already so much of the "Philosophy of Fiction" that my obligation is due not less for the pleasure the essay gives than for the pleasure I derive from your kind remem- brance. I think none more enjoy the sweet solace of such studies, which employ and soothe the 176 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. mind, than they -who are forced to mingle and struggle with the passions that sway the ordi- nary course of affairs in our profession and in public life, and it gives me an added appreciation of your excellence to witness your success in their pursuit. With sincere regards, WILLIAM P. VILAS. POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. (1893.) U. S. SENATE CHAMBER, WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 1893. MY DEAR MR. THOMPSON : I know not how better to tell you my thanks for the compliment you have so kindly bestowed on me, than by confessing the sense of exquisite pleasure with which I learn it. It gives me joy to find my name on the dedicatory page of your interesting and useful book, so as to share some- what in the grateful esteem you win from intel- ligent readers. And I feel the delightful emo- tion, which your friendship stirs, and pride that it is so testified to every one whose eye shall fall upon it. I shall treasure it the more since it gives expression to the thought I have always, more or less, entertained on the subject, and to the hopefulness which, after all, we may justly support in the slow moving advancement of mankind in self-government and development. We need sometimes, while candidly recognizing the difficulties, the wise and just strengthening 178 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. of faith in the excellence as well as in the justice of the Democratic principle. And I am glad to derive help from your study of one of the most trying forms of our experience with the optim- istic resultant view. With cordial regard and gratitude, I am sin- cerely yours, WILLIAM T. VILAS. HOUSE OF COMMONS, Jan. 12, 1894. DEAR SIR: Permit me to thank you for the gift of your book, "Politics in a Democracy," which I am perusing with much interest. Although you purport in several chapters to state and set forth the good side of what you call Government by Syndicate, and in particular of the instance of such government furnished by Tammany Hall in New York City, you appear to me to pass, in fact, a severe and quietly incisive condemnation upon the methods and the character of that government no less than upon the apathy of the citizens who submit to it, and I confess that so far from finding in your volume anything to POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 179 lead me to withdraw or modify the view of municipal government in the United States, pre- sented in your book, your ingenious and pointed remarks seem to me to approve that view, and to confirm the conclusions at which I had ar- rived. The elections November last in New York and in the city of Brooklyn add an apt illustra- tion to your remarks on the power of the inde- pendent or mugwump vote. Again thanking you, I am, dear sir, Faithfully yours, J. BRYCE. 164 COLUMBIA HEIGHTS. MY DEAR FRIEND: I read your book with great interest, the first day I had it, reading until late in the night. I quite appreciate its sentiment, the more so from a second reading of the last two chap- ters. My mother having a complete history of Tammany Hall, equal to some three hundred and fifty printed pages, in manuscript, makes me the more interested and acquainted with the subject. Mrs. Blake has been unable to find a 180 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. publisher because her book was not an attack upon the Hall, the firm that encouraged her to write it flinching from a work that was in any way friendly to the wigwam There never has been, and never will be, another such a turnover in our lives, probably. You would have voted as we did, I know, and been hugely interested. Sincerely, SIDNEY V. LOWELL. NEW YORK, Oct. 23, 1893. MY DEAR MR. THOMPSON: Ireceived "Politics in a Democracy," and I am much obliged for the same. As soon as election is over I will bring my mind, enlightened by the experience to be acquired in the present cam- paign, to bear upon the work, and from the glance that I have taken at it, I think I shall be much interested. I fancy, however, from my slight examination, that it will not make you a leader in "The Organization." Yours faithfully, WILLIAM TRAVERS JEROME. POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 181 172 CONGRESS ST., BROOKLYN, Oct. 22, 1893. DEAR MR. THOMPSON: I thank you sincerely for "Politics in a Democ- racy." It is admirably clear and compact -with thought. You have lifted Tammany Hall into an upper ether by your philosophy -where its long stay would cause its principal members a sort of asphyxia, but the instruction and light to the rest of us are none the less. I diifer widely from you both as to the place in political growth of the Government by Syndicate, which you de- scribe so finely and truly, and also as to the particular merits and uses of Tammany Hall, your chief illustration. But you have set me a-thinking. Faithfully yours, EDWARD M. SHEPARD. 121 EAST 18TH ST., Oct. 17, 1893. DEAR THOMPSON: Thanks for your book, which I read straight through last evening with both pleasure and profit. It is a good book up to a certain point ; 24 182 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. and it will do good because it will help to clear up men's minds and make them see things as they are. Its weak spot is that you have joined to a most acute and interesting analysis of Gov- ernment by Syndicate, a defence of our specific governing syndicate. The general political spec- ulation is injured by your apology for Tam- many Hall as it now is. With much that you say about Tammany, I am in hearty agreement, but you understate the case against the pres- ent syndicate probably in righteous reaction against the Evening- Post's abuse. Yours truly, BRANDER MATTHEWS. TRINITY CHURCH IN THE CITY OF BOSTON. Oct. 18, 1893. MY DEAR DAN: Thanks for the book, which I have already read, and with sustained interest. It is the fairest, ablest and most lucid statement of the nature and result of Tammany government I have ever seen. For years I have believed in the system and tried to point out that denunciation should be leveled at men and not at the Hall, POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 183 consequently I am glad to see my view set forth with power. Boston needs a syndicate, and because she has none we are plagued with costly fires, high insurance rates, the trolley cars and a big tax. Contra, don't you think that you could re- vise the last chapter in the direction of pruning. Let Funk alone ; leave him out. But you have written a big book. Ever sincerely yours, E. WINCHESTER DONALD. GTH Av., 13TH AND 14TH STS., N. Y., Oct. 27, 1893. DEAR MR. THOMPSON : * * * I have read your book with much satisfaction. It is one of the fairest statements of Tammany's virtues and vices I have yet seen set forth, and as such is one of the best justifica- tions for Tammany's existence. Although the book treats of practical politics, the mind of the psychological student is easily discernible and adds to its charms. Very truly yours, ISIDOR STRAUS. 184 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. U. S. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION, WASHINGTON, D. C., March 3, 1894. DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON, ESQ. : My Dear Sir. I have just received a copy of your book, which I had already read, my atten- tion having been called to it by Mr. Brander Matthews. I was greatly interested in it, and there are many points which you make with which I entirely agree, although there are cer- tain others on which I should take issue. Very cordially yours, THEODORE ROOSEVELT. MUTUAL LIFE BUILDING, Nov. 2, 1893. DEAR MR. THOMPSON: I have read with very great interest your "Politics in a Democracy," and beg to thank you for your courtesy in sending me a copy, and, at the same time, to congratulate you upon the merit of the essay. It is the most thoughtful and temperate thing that I have read upon the subject. POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 185 The people of New York City, and if not those of the country at large, have been stimulated by the Evening Post, the Times, and similar news- papers, to believe that our whole system of municipal government is irredeemably bad, and all this class has received much encouragement from Mr. Bryce, who simply followed in their train. It is high time that the subject be considered by as thoughtful and less prejudiced minds, and I am very glad that the discussion has been be- gun by one so competent and fair-minded as yourself. Faithfully yours, H. D. HOTCHKISS. NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 17, 1893. MY DEAR D. G. T.: I have received a copy of your new work, en- titled "Politics in a Democracy," and after carefully reading it, hasten to acknowledge to you the pleasure I have received in its perusal. I have smiled at that crazy brained zealot who denounced the Nineteenth Centurv Club as a 186 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. "theological cock-pit," and I have laughed at the recovering blow which you have dealt him. I have guffawed over the little spank which you suggest should have been administered to the too laudatory speaker, and I have noticed, with satisfaction, what you say in regard to the Constitutional Convention to assemble next May. I think the book is opportune, written from a right standpoint, and is bound to do a great deal of good. It certainly will be the means of instructing many intelligent democrats living out of this city, and perhaps out of the State, that Tammany Hall is not composed wholly of "scalawags," pirates and blacklegs, which is now apparently the popular belief. I am, with great respect, very truly yours, ELLIOT SANDFORD. BIBLIOGRAPHY. "A First Book in Latin," 1872. "A System of Psychology," 1884. "The Problem of Evil," 1886. "Religious Sentiments of the Human Mind," 1888. "Social Progress," 1889. "Philosophy of Fiction in Literature," 1889. "Politics in a Democracy," 1893. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-Series 4939 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 001457763 9 I PLEA" DO NOT REMOVE THIS BOOK CARD EJ a i a University Research Library w ! CO ro r 3 TO r~ rn