The Republican journal., 1892-09-01
The Concord Writers.

given to literature a group OF writers hav
ing Conference enough to merit the name
of school. This was the great humani-
tartan movement in New England begin
ming il the Unitarianism of Claiming
Emerson was the prophet of the sect and
Concord was its Mecca. 1t was day of
seers and Orphic utterances, the air was
full of enthusiasm of humanity, and thick
with philosophic projects and plans for
the regeneration of the universe. This
foment has long since subsidized. but some
very solid matters have been precipitated;
some crystals of poetry translucent, sym
metrical, enduring
The one element which the odd and
eccentric developments of this movement
shared in common with the real philoso-
ply of transcendentalism was the reiec-
ton of authority and the appeal to the
private consciousness as the sole standard
of truth and right. Claiming Unitarians,
while denying that Christ was God, held
that he was of divine nature, was the Son
of God and had existed before he came in
to the world. While rejecting the yicari
Gus sacrifice they maintained that Christ
was aediator and intercessor, and that
his ipernatural nature was testified by
miracl For Emerson it was easy to take
the sep to the assertion that Christ was
a good and great man. divine only in the
sense that God possessed him more fully
than any other man known in history; that
it was his preaching and example that
brought salvation to men, and not any
special mediation or intercession, and that
his own words and acts, and not miracles,
are the only and the sufficient witness 20
his mission. In the view of the transcen-
dentalists Christ was as human as Bud
dha. Socrates or Confucius and the Bi BILE
was but one among the clinical Scrip
lures
The central thought of transcendental-
ism-that the soul has an immediate con-
nection with God-was pronounced by Dr..
Claiming a crude speculation. What is
called transcendentalism is idealism. The
name transcendentalism was acquired by
the nse of that term by Kant, who replied
to the sceptical philosophy of Locke which
insisted that there was nothing in the in
tellect which was not previously in the
senses. by showing that there WAS a very
important class of ideas OF imperative
forms. which did not come by experience,
but through which experience was acquir-
ed: that these were intutions of the mind
itself and he denominated them transcen-
dental forms. Idealism denies the indie
pendent existence OF matter
Transcendentalism claims for the annite
ideas Of God and soul higher assurance
of reality than for the knowledge Of the
outside world derived through the senses.
Emerson shares the noble doubt of ideal
ism. He calls the universe a shade, a
dream. He says. "In my utter impotence
totest the authenticity of the report of my
senses. to know whether the impressions
on me correspond with outlying objects,
what difference does it make. whether
$50
paints the image in the armament of the
soul? On the other hand. our evidence of
the existence of God and of our own souls
and our knowledge of right and wrong
are immediate and are independent of the
senses.
We are in direct communication with
the Over soul, the infinite Spirit. The
soul in man is the background OF our he
ing, au immensely not possessed, that can
not be possessed. From within OF from
behind a light shines through us upon
things. and makes us aware that we are
nothing bnt the light is all. Revelation is
an influx of the Divine mind into our
mind II is an ebb OF the individual riv-
lilet before the flowing surges Of the sea
ot life. In moods OF exatation and espec-
Tally in the presence of nature, this con
tact of the individual soul with the abso-
lutte is felt.
All mean egotism vanishes. am moth
ing. | see all the currents of the Jniver-
sal Being circulate through me. l am
part and particle of God. The existence
and attributes of God are not deducible
from history or from natural theology,
but are thus directly given us in conscious
ness. There is no bar or wall in the soul
where man, the effect. ceases and God, the
cause. begins We lie open ON one side to
the depths of spiritual nature, to the attri-
butes of God. Why should not we also
enjoy an original relation to the universe?
Why should not we have a poetry and
philosophy of insight and not of tradition,
and a revelation to us and not the history
of theirs? Mysticism has been defined as
the souls recognition of its identity with
nature. This thought lies plain in Schel-
ling philosophy and he illustrates it by
his famous figure of the magnet. Mind
and nature are one They are the posi-
tive and negative poles of the magnet. In
man, the absolute, that is God, becomes
conscious of himself: makes of himself. as
nature an object to himself as mind
The souls of men, said Schelling, are but
the innumerable individual eyes with
which our infinite World Spirit beholds