Page images
PDF
EPUB

person who is now writing this notice, for myself; but when I am wise, this illusion vanishes like the mists of the morning, and then I know that what I thought to be myself, was only one of my manifestations, only a mode of my existence. It is I who bark in the dog, grow in the tree, and murmur in the passing brook. Think not, my brother, that thou art diverse and alien from myself; it is only while we dwell in the outward appearance that we are two; when we consider the depths of our being, we are found to be the same, for the same self, the same vital principle, animates us both. (We speak as a Transcendentalist.) I create the universe, and thou, also, my brother, createst the same; for we create not two universes but one, for we two have but one soul, there is but one creative energy, which is above, and under, and through all.

[ocr errors]

Well-but all this is no new theory, and whatever reverent disciple may have imagined that Mr. Emerson, or any "favorite of the gods," has herein shown a wonderful originality, betrays a most triumphant ignorance of what is, and what has been. Such a doctrine was well known in the East, before history began; no man can tell when it arose, it is as old as thought itself. Rich, (say the Vedas) is that universal self, whom thou worshipest as the soul." We should strive, therefore, to disentangle ourselves from the world of matter, from the bonds of time and space, that we may take our stand at once in the Oversoul,' which we are, did we but realise it. We are the Over-soul, and we come into our own native home, when we attain to our true point of view, where the whole universe is seen to be one body. Then do we know of a truth that it is we who think, love, laugh, bark, growl, run, crawl, rain, snow, &c. &c. Mr. Emerson has given a beautiful expression to this thought:

"There is no great and no small

To the soul that maketh all:
And where it cometh, all things are;
And it cometh every where.

"There is one mind," says Mr. Emerson, in his Essay on History, "common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same, and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason, is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he

may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this Universal Mind, is a party to all that hath or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.”

It may easily be seen that this amounts to an identification of man with God; yet this system is by no means Pantheistic; perhaps, indeed, we may be permitted to coin a new term, and call it Human Pantheism. Pantheism sinks man in God-makes him to be a phenomenon of the Divine existence-but this system, so far from being an absorption of humanity in God, is an absorption of God into the human soul. A pantheistic friend once explained to me the difference between his system and that of the Transcendentalists. "I hold myself," said he, "to be a leaf, blown about by the winds of change and circumstance, and holding to the extreme end of one of the branches of the tree of universal existence; but these gentlemen (referring to the Transcendentalists), think themselves to be some of the sap." But to return to the second series of essays. As we before said, we shall confine our remarks altogether to the essay on "Experience." For the sake of connection and order, we will give a detailed analysis of the essay, stating the doctrine in our own words, but giving full quotations where the subject matter is interesting, that the reader may be enabled to judge of our faithful

ness.

ILLUSION. When a man wakes up, as it were, comes to a consciousness of his own existence, and asks himself the questions of his origin and destiny, as, whence came I? where am I going? why do I exist? he almost inevitably loses himself in the outworld. [1 am endeavoring, as the reader will remember, to state the substance of the Essay on Experience.] A chain of causes has preceded our birth and actions; and the deeds of this present time will be followed by a chain of results. But who knows any thing of these chains? "We find ourselves (says Mr. Emerson) in a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none. We awake and find ourselves on a stair: there are stairs below us which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight." We appear to possess no power, no creative energy, independent of these circumstances. The soul within

seems to slumber, and we attribute all to what is without; but while we float on, half seeing, living in appearances, the soul silently and secretly performs its creative acts, so that we are astonished at the end of a day when we have done nothing, to find that real effects have been produced. We seem lost to our selves, having faith only in appearances. Where we ourselves are, all is mean; but where others are, there is beauty; for who knows but the thing which gives dignity to life may be with them while we feel that it is far from us. "It is said, all martyrdoms looked mean when they were suffered. Every ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in. Embark, and the romance quits our vessel, and hangs on every sail in the horizon. I quote another man's saying; unluckily that other withdraws himself in the same way, and quotes me." Even adversity, affliction, the death of friends, have not power to awaken us to ourselves. While our eyes are thus fixed upon the outworld, we are lost to the reality of existence; these things are not the soul, neither have they rower to move it. "In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate-no more. I cannot get it nearer If to-morrow I should be informed of the bankruptcy of my principal debtors, the loss of my property would be a great inconvenience to me, perhaps, for many years, but it would leave me as it found me-neither better nor worse."

to me.

TEMPERAMENT.-But even here we obtain a glimpse of the supremacy of the soul. Man sees only what he brings eyes to see. "We animate what we can, and see only what we animate. It depends on the mood of the man whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem." Temperament must always be taken into consideration. It is in vain that the landscape be spread out, if the beholder be of a cold nature, and regard it not. We are not the creatures of the outworld, for the outworld acts on us only according to our temperaments; and, in this, we already see some pre-eminence of ourselves over nature. And these outward things are not so outward after all as we have supposed. Politics, creeds, conventionalisms of societies, are not themselves causes trammelling us, but ill-looking accidents we have impressed upon nature. "I knew a witty physician who found theology in the biliary duct, and used to

affirm that if there was disease in the liver, the man became a Calvinist, and if that organ was sound he became a Unitarian." A protest must, however, be en1ered against the consequences which flow from this doctrine of the temperaments. Temperament is final from the point of view of nature only, but a deeper insight will transcend it. The doctrine of temperaments, taken by itself, (says Mr. Emerson,) leads to physical necessity; but there is a door into every intelligence, which is never closed, through which the Creator passes, bringing with him light and higher knowledge.

[ocr errors]

SUCCESSION. We are first deceived by the outworld, thinking it to be real, and ourselves a part of it; afterwards, when we have been undeceived by a consideration of temperament, we fall into new illusions, thinking temperament to be final. More thought will disclose to us the secret of this illusion also; it is this--each soul is constituted in a peculiar manner, subjected to moods and changes, and the soul, by its moods and changes, is the reason and ground of the temperaments, as these last are the reason and ground of outward nature. "The secret of the illusoriness is in the necessity of a succession of moods or objects." Men are constituted each in his own way; there is little that is infinite in them. The nature of each creates his temperament, the temperament of each does its part in creating outward nature. A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no lustre as you turn it in your hand, until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors. There is no adaptation or universal applicability in men, but each has his special talent; and the mastery of successful men consists in adroitly keeping themselves where and when that turn shall be oftenest to be practised. We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can, and would fain have the praise of having intended the result which ensues." If we take one man, two men, with their temperaments, natural character, or what you will, it is not enough; they cannot constitute the universal harmony. course, it needs the whole society to give the symmetry we seek. The parti-colored wheel must revolve very fast to appear white."

"Of

SURFACE. Temperament finds its reason in the character of the individual man, and outward things are as the temperament of him who perceives them.

But is this really so? Is the universe which we construct in thought, the same with that in which we have the good fortune, or the misery, to live? Nay, but who art thou, O man, that askest? No good comes from too much prying into nature; the actual, it must be confessed, is against us, and, if we have faith in it, we lose our convictions of the supremacy of the soul." Nature hates peeping, and our mothers speak her very sense when they say, Children eat your victuals, and say no more about it." We find, when we think, either a contradiction in our thoughts, or a want of harmony with ⚫ actual existence. We are therefore, of necessity, skeptics. Let us not, then, look too narrowly into philosophy and science, but live, as others, on the surface of things. "What help, indeed, from thought? Life is not dialectics." "We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well upon them." The wise man will live in the present. He knows that the appearances are at least appearances; of other things he knows little. "Five minutes to-day, are worth as much to me as five minutes in the next millenium. Let us be poised and wise in our own to-day. Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are." This "perhaps they are," is the profound sentence; we have proved them to be mere appearances, yet even the doubt presents itself-perhaps they are

real.

[ocr errors]

What shall we do amid these conflicting doubts? There is but one plan, enjoy the present, and let all these annoyances go by the board. Perhaps all is appearance, perhaps it is real, let us not look deep, but skate on the surface. Great gifts are not got by analysis. Every thing good is on the highway." Let us no longer be troubled by these high ethical questions which result in no good. Follow your own impulses and all will be well. How can a man have peace when he calls that crime which is no evil, but, on the contrary, according to nature? "Nature, as we know her, is no saint. The lights of the church, the ascetics, the Gentoos and Grahamites, she does not distinguish by any favor. She comes eating and drinking and sinning. Her darlings, the great, the strong, the beautiful, are not children of our law, do not come out of the Sunday School, nor weigh their food, nor punctually keep the commandments. If we will be strong with her strength, we

must not harbor such disconsolate consciences, borrowed too much from the consciences of other nations. We must set up the strong present tense against all rumors of wrath, past or to come." Take things as they come, live in the present, enjoy the present, and ask no questions, "In the morning I awake, and find the old world, wife, babes, and mother, Concord and Boston, the dear old spiritual world, and even the dear old devil not far off. If we take the good we find, asking no questions, we shall have heaping measures."

66

We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between these extremes is the equator of life, of thought, of spirit, of poetry-a narrow belt." Live on the surface, and ask no questions.

SURPRISE. It would, undoubtedly, be pleasant, if it were possible, to live in this world as knowing something beyond the mere surface of existence. But it is in vain that we construct our positive systems. "Presently comes a day, or is it only a half hour, with its angelwhisperings, which discomfits the conclusions of nations and of years!" Our systems never cover the right matters, always is there a gap through which the reality oozes out. "Life is a series of surprises, and would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not. God delights to isolate us every day, and hide us from the past and the future. We would look about us, and with great politeness he draws down before us an impenetrable screen of purest sky, and another behind us of purest sky. You will not remember,' he seems to say, and you will not expect."" We are not what we wish we were, we are not what we think ourselves to be. "The ardors of piety agree at last with the coldest skepticism that nothing is of us or our worksthat all is of God." The individual is always mistaken. He designed many things, and drew in other persons as coadjutors, blundered much, and something is done; all are a little advanced, but the individual is always mistaken. It turns out somewhat new, and very unlike what he promised himself."

66

REALITY.-Temperament gives us the key to Illusion. Outward nature is as it is, because our temperaments are as they are. But, again, these temperaments are a new, and a higher illusion; they result from the necessity of succession in

the moods of the soul But these moods also are finite and transient; where shall we look then for Reality? Nowhere but in the soul itself can it be found. We have described life as a flux of moods, but we must not forget there is that in us which is permanent and unchangeable. This unchanging principle is revealed to us by consciousness, and by it we are identified, now with the infinite God, now with the flesh of the body. So we may look upon ourselves from two distinct points of view; from the first, we are seen to be the absolute and unchanging God, from the second, we seem identified with perishable matter. "In our more correct writing, we give to this generalization the name of Being, and thereby confess that we have arrived as far as we can go. Suffice it for the joy of the universe, that we have not arrived at a wall, but at interminable oceans."

SUBJECT OR THE ONE." It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made, that we exist. That discovery is called the Fall of Man. Ever afterwards we suspect our instruments. We have learned that we do not see directly, but mediately, and that we have no means of correcting these colored and distorted lenses which we are, or of computing the amount of their errors. Perhaps these subject-lenses have a creative power; perhaps there are no objects. Once we lived in what we saw, now, the rapaciousness of this new power, which threatens to absorb all things, engages us. Nature, art, persons, letters, religions, objects, successively tumble in, and God is but one of its ideas. Nature and literature are subjective phenomena; every evil and every good thing is a shadow which we cast.

The great and crescent self, rooted in absolute nature, supplants all relative existence, and ruins the kingdom of mortal friendship and love.. The soul is not twin-born, but the only begotten, and though revealing itself as a child in time, child in appearance, is of a fatal and universal power, admitting no co-life. Every day, every act, betrays the ill-concealed deity. We believe in ourselves as we do not believe in others. We permit all things to ourselves, and that which we call sin in others, is experiment for us. It is an instance of our faith in ourselves, that men never speak of crime as lightly as they think: or, every man thinks a latitude safe for him

self, which is nowise to be indulged to another. The act looks very differently on the inside and on the outside; in its quality, and in its consequences. Murder in the murderer is no such ruinous thought as poets and romancers will have it; it does not unsettle him, or fright him from his ordinary notice of trifles: it is an act quite easy to be contemplated, but in its sequel it turns out to be a horrible jangle and confounding of all relations. Inevitably does the universe wear our color, and every object fall successively into the subject itself. The subject exists, the subject enlarges; all things, sooner or later, fall into place. As I am, so I see; use what language we will, we can never say any thing but what we are; Hermes, Cadmus, Columbus, Newton, Bonaparte, are the mind's ministers."

CONCLUSION." Illusion, Temperament, Succession, Surface, Surprise, Reality, Subjectiveness, these are the threads in the loom of time, these are the lords of life." First we wake up to a full conviction of the real existence of the outworld; this is Illusion.

Then we recognize that we see the outworld only according to the constitution of our natures, and find that much we considered real was a deception aris ing from our Temperament. Here com mences the emancipation of the soul from the illusions of sense, here commences the doubt whether nature outwardly exists.

After this, we find in ourselves a law of consecutive changes, which unlocks new mysteries, showing us more clearly that we create the outworld and then deceive ourselves by supposing our own creation to have an outward existence; this is Succession.

Then comes the rule of life. If these things are mere appearances, they are at least appearances, and are real to us; let us therefore live in appearances, skate on them, but never again allow ourselves to be involved in them; this is Surface.

But always, whatever rule of life we may form for ourselves, the soul intervenes; new appearances, new forms, spring up, unexpectedly to ourselves, and the rule of life is found to be futile; this is Surprise.

This intervention of the soul reveals to us the fact that we are the absolute God; this is Reality.

After this, the full truth flashes upon us, that we are not only God, but also

nature, that God and nature are but aspects of the individual soul; this is Subjectiveness.

V. Such appears to be the meaning and connection of Mr. Emerson's Essay on Experience. The other essays contain the same thoughts, the same general material, expressed in a different manner. We do not conceive it necessary to enter into any general appreciation of the system; its partial and inadequate character

is manifest, and its errors expose themselves.

We have called this system Transcendentalism; but only by a gross abuse of language. Idealism and Transcendentalism are very different from the doctrine we have been examining; and we regret that our misapplication of terms has been rendered necessary by the popular usage. We shall take occasion to speak farther of this matter in a future article.

A FRAGMENT.

"All truth is beautiful, but not all beauty

Made worship-leads the absorbed and restless soul
To blissful heights of Truth.-Pray thee, old man,
Give me God's blessing."

Mr. Tennyson, in a poem, exquisitely wrought in many of its parts, entitled the Palace of Art, has represented the final and utter loathing brought over a Soul, who, building herself a splendid structure, adorned with every thing grand and beautiful in nature, and stored with all forms of knowledge and art, had shut herself in from God and men to a solitary contemplation of these fair things, and to a still life of intellectual pride forever feeding upon itself. In the following poem, written several years since, something of the same moral is involved-that neither natural beauty in all objects of the universe, nor the highest knowledge, which is the growth and manifestation of intellectual beauty, is sufficient to satisfy an immortal mind. Yet thousands, unhappily always the brightestminded among men, have made this fatal error-lived in a sole realm of unbounded riches, and died miserably poor.

It may be added, though it can hardly be necessary-as the two poems are, in structure and conduct, so entirely different-that this piece was written before the Palace of Art was published in this country, and before the writer had ever seen it.

DARKNESS was in my heart. The shadows of many sorrows lay upon my soul. The spirits I had summoned were powerless to aid me. "Must it be so ?" I said; "shall the last of the race of Erdolph, whose years have passed in vigils and sufferings, be ever baffled thus ? What is life to me-what death? Behold! the bubbles may rise, and sink again, on the Great Sea! but ever each shapeth itself anew, and comes freshly forth, again and again, to feed upon the sunlight. EXISTENCE keepeth little account of form, or place, or years; to have been is the eternal promise of to be. If my ministers can avail me not, what do I lingering farther among these present shapes, or counting any more the little moments? But I will consult the mightiest of them all, the spirit of the waters."

So I went forth at the dead hour of night, and stood by the gray and melancholy ocean. Wild and mournful sighed the winds around, and a few trembling stars were imaged on the dark and rocking billows. "Spirit of Ocean!" I cried aloud, "where dwelleth thy power and the glory of thy presence? By my magic words and fearful spell, I bid thee conduct my spirit to thy shadowy court." So I uttered the magic words and the fearful spell above the troubled waters. A tremulous light, swayed to and fro, advanced over the deep, and a voice of strange utterance said, "follow the spirit-torch wheresoe'er it lead thee." Suddenly my burden of clay

« PreviousContinue »