Charles M. Bakewell;61 and even Emerson's co-religionists have at times patronized or condoned.62 But while it would be "special pleading" and hence false pleading (on behalf of a man who would have scorned such friendly consolation with all the fervor of a Job) to deny the manifest inconsistencies of Emerson where occasionally they do occur, or bring in only the evidence of those who will testify that these inconsistencies are inconsequential and that Emerson's command of logic was not only real but of a high order, still I cannot but feel that these latter, both by the nature of their testimony and their right to judge, should have put this matter forever beyond dispute. I shall mention merely in passing some of the literary and religious writers who have borne witness to Emerson's intellectual faculties, and then pass to those whose main interest is in philosophy, since they have here, surely, most right to speak. In a delightful account of how Emerson endeavored (and all in vain) to induce him to abandon his peculiar type of verse, Walt Whitman recounts:63 "It was an argument-statement, reconnoitering, review, attack, and pressing home (like an army corps in order, artillery, cavalry, infantry) no judge's charge ever more complete or convincing." Passing over Mr. John Burroughs' obvious though generally neglected comment that certain of the essays "have more logical sequence and evolution than certain others," 64 let me refer only to the latest, as it is the best, of the statements by Emerson's more literary champions. Mr. O. W. Firkins in his recent delightfully written book devotes considerable space to a thorough-going defense of Emerson's very logic. His conclusion is: "Emerson, then, is disinclined to logic; he does not care to be delayed or bored. But the folly of critics, encouraged by a word of his own, has converted this disinclination into incapacity." 65 Mr. Firkins cites various instances of Emerson's "consecutive and logical reasoning." 61 "The Philosophy of Emerson,” Phil. R., XII, 530. I find nothing, however, in this essay which tends toward the establishment of the point in hand. 62 "He is not a logical writer," said the nothing-if-not-logical Theodore Parker, though as always the mere assertion is allowed to stand. "We must not expect a seer to be an organizer," says Bartol, "any more than . . . an astronomer an engineer. We must supplement his calling, extend his vision, and perhaps correct his view." 63 Specimen Days, p. 172. 64 Indoor Studies, p. 145. 65 Firkins' Emerson, p. 299. This book is deserving of especial praise. Even the chapter on "Emerson's Philosophy" is excellent, though less satisfactory than the rest. It is curious that Mr. Firkins, who insists so strongly upon Emerson's consecutiveness and coherence, should be more inconsecutive and incoherent than Emerson himself in this crucial chapter. If, for the sake of completeness, we were now to record the religious vote, we should find that there are abundant statements, both from friends and foes, to show that Emerson's analytical ability was fully recognized. It will be sufficient if I cite a single comment from each camp. Says Edwin D. Mead: "This rare consistency and persistency is the ever notable thing in Emerson. It is the superficial man that finds and talks of inconsistencies in Emerson." 66 And the Rev. S. Law Wilson writes: "In moments of simple insight and pure intuition a man does not employ the scholastic terms and philosophic distinctions that Emerson does. . Evidently the Seer brought down with him from his Watch-tower of Contemplation very little that he did not take up with him." 67 Emerson's method is treated with most respect by his most scholarly critics. Professor Dewey says, in writing of Emerson as the "Philosopher of Democracy," 68 "I am not acquainted with any writer, no matter how assured his position in treatises upon the history of philosophy, whose movement of thought is more compact and unified, nor one who combines more adequately diversity of intellectual attack with concentration of form and effort." Professor Münsterberg says that his sentences-those infinitely repellent particles—“are not only in harmony with each other, they are in deepest harmony with the spirit of modern philosophy." 69 Tyndall thought that "Emerson was a splendid manifestation of reason in its most comprehensive form"; and Grimm, more nearly than anyone else, has explained both how the impression of Emerson's inconsecutiveness exists, and what is the attitude of those who defend him: "At first one can detect no plan, no order, and we seek wonderingly for the hidden connection of these sentences. Soon, however, we discover the deep underlying law according to which these thoughts are evolved, and the strict sequence." 70 And what that law is, is beautifully illustrated by Horace Mann in a letter quoted by Mr. Conway: "As a man stationed in the sun would see all the planets moving around in one direction and in perfect harmony, while to an eye on the earth their motions are full of crossings and retrogressions, so he, from his central position in the spiritual world, discovers order and harmony where others can discern only confusion and irregularity." Emerson himself was as conscious of the underlying consistency of his thinking as he was of its superficial discrepancies. Immediately after the pas66 Genius and Character of Emerson, p. 236. 67 The Theology of Modern Literature, p. 105. 68 International Journal of Ethics, 1903, p. 405. 69 Harvard Psych. Studies, vol. II, p. 17. 70 Essays on Literature, p. 25. 71 Emerson at Home and Abroad, p. 149. sage I referred to above (p. 27), where he admits that he cannot use "that systematic form which is reckoned essential in treating the science of the mind," he continues: "But if one can say so without arrogance, I might suggest that he who contents himself with dotting a fragmentary curve, recording only what facts he has observed, without attempting to arrange them within one outline, follows a system also,-a system as grand as any other. . . . I confess to a little distrust of that completeness of system which metaphysicians are apt to affect" (XII, 11). It has seemed to me essential to state the case at this tiresome length because without a substantial agreement in this matter it is impossible to consider Emerson's philosophy with that fundamental respect which is essential to any sort of justice; and I have been forced to present as fairly as I could the consensus of opinion on the subject because it is not a matter for analysis or for argument. I may now only trust that anyone who may look through the statement that I am about to make of Emerson's philosophy will do so with exactly the same attitude that he would if this were an introduction to the philosophy of Schelling. 74 For it is to Schelling, of course, that Emerson is closest akin. Mr. John S. Harrison 72 throws the whole emphasis upon his reading of Plato and the Neo-Platonists, and Mr. Firkins concurs. Professor Riley says that Emerson's "knowledge of German metaphysic was slight and secondary";73 and Cabot himself said definitely this same thing. On the other hand Mr. Lockwood claims the direct influence of Schelling, and Mr. Goddard more guardedly and with more warrant speaks of the striking similarity between Emerson's thought and Coleridge's, and consequently between Emerson's and Schelling's, and shows successfully, it seems to me, that this was a more vitally stimulating if less continuous influence than that of Plato and the Neo-Platonists.75 But while Emerson was no doubt stimulated either directly by Schelling or indirectly through Coleridge, there can be no doubt that he was an original thinker, and arrived at his conclusions by very much the same methods as all other philosophers have done, however much he may have attributed a religious connotation to any new truth which he felt that he had acquired.76 His purpose was not to make a system 72 The Teachers of Emerson. New York: Sturgis and Walton, 1910. 74 Emerson as a Philosopher, pp. 6, 7. 75 Studies in New England Transcendentalism, pp. 80, 81. 76 "There can be no greater blunder," says Mr. John M. Robertson in his Modern Humanists (p. 120), "than to suppose that men who use the analytic method begin to get notions by analysing mechanically. The act of analysis is itself a reaching forward identical in character with what Emerson called the secret augury." which would stand with or supplement the systems before him, but simply to answer for himself those "obstinate questionings" with which we are all concerned in our deepest moments. It may be too much to say that Emerson would have arrived at just the same results if Schelling had not written; but a man of Emerson's open-mindedness, so free with his quotations, so eager indeed to attribute his own ideas to other men, could never have announced his "discoveries" in the hesitating, awestruck manner in which he gives them forth, if he had not thought them revealed to him in those sacred moments when he felt himself to be "part and parcel of God" (I, 16). The question of his indebtedness, therefore, seems to me to be of little moment. Here, then, is material for a system,―shall we say?—and if we can arrange it in some sort of order, that of itself may enable us to see more clearly what value it may have. So ordered and systematized it will doubtless prove unsatisfactory; but there may be some gain,-perhaps enough to compensate for the loss. But no one will claim for it finality, and Emerson least of all. In the following chapter I shall attempt a statement of Emerson's answer to the question, "What is Reality?" Then I shall proceed to his answer to the question, "How is this explanation of Reality possible?" In recognizing the inconsistencies in his answer to this second question and in putting together the suggestions of what seems to me his final theory, I trust that I am not going farther than there is warrant for in those passages which, though fragmentary and imperfect, still give us genuine suggestions of what he intended as his final word. In order to do this, it will often be necessary to translate him into the language of philosophy. But it is a thankless task to put Emerson's conceptions into the stiff terms of the metaphysicians, and I shall endeavor to keep him as much as possible in his own beautiful "original." There is danger, also, with so vague and suggestive a writer, of reading into him the ideas in one's own mind; therefore with no more comment than is needed, I shall allow him to speak for himself, and as often as what he says offers its own explanation. It shall be my attempt to think through the subject in what seems to me Emerson's own plan; but I shall attempt to arrange in some sort of logical order the various difficulties which presented themselves to his mind, and to state expressly the steps by which he seems to have arrived, sometimes unconsciously to himself, at his more significant "discoveries." In doing this I must crave some patience, especially at the outset of the following discussion, for the reiteration of much that is both obvious and as old as thought itself. NATURE, THE OVER-SOUL, AND THE INDIVIDUAL 33 CHAPTER III. THE PHILOSOPHY OF EMERSON: NATURE, THE OVER-SOUL, AND THE INDIVIDUAL. "A noble doubt perpetually suggests itself," writes Emerson in his first published work, "whether this end [Discipline] be not the Final Cause of the Universe; and whether nature outwardly exists" (I, 52). The cause of this doubt is "my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the report of my senses, to know whether the impressions they make on me correspond with outlying objects." In spite of its age and obviousness, this, as the starting point of Emerson's philosophy, is a point of view on which he always insists, and to which he never hesitates to recur. "The senses interfere everywhere, and mix their own structure with all they report of" (VI, 295). "Souls never touch their objects. Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. . There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here at least we shall find reality" (III, 52, 53). But though this is generally a matter of mood and impression, Emerson's conclusion is as sane as it is inevitable: there is no way of knowing what nature is, so, "Be it what it may, it is ideal to me so long as I cannot try the accuracy of my senses" (I, 53). But this does not affect the "stability of nature." The great reality is there, always ready for us to come to it when we will, and to interpret it and enjoy it as Nature (III, 53). Indeed it is our place to come more and more into association with Nature. In calling it "illusion" we do not affect its practical reality in the least. "We come to our own and make friends with matter, which the ambitious clatter of the schools would persuade us to despise. We can never part with it; the mind. loves its old home" (III, 165). "Whether nature enjoy a substantial existence without, or is only the apocalypse of the mind, it is alike useful and alike venerable to me" (I, 53). Then if nature is illusion and its laws are permanent, what is the reality which imposes these laws? The answer is obvious. "It is the uniform effect of culture on the human mind, not to shake our faith in the stability of particular phenomena, as of heat, water, azote; but to lead us to regard nature as phenomenon, not a substance; to attribute |
