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a great soul has simply nothing to do?" | gards as the infallible teachers of huOrder is divine: disorder is a blot, an error, manity. an absurdity. How, then, shall we esteem his wisdom, who boasts, "I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back?" Unconnectedly does this writer jerk forth his sayings; here is a perception, there a second, there a third; make the most of them! only ask not for sequence or completeness! And yet a myriad waves apart will make but one wide and desolate swamp; blend half of these in one, and a broad lake spreads forth, to mirror the azure skies, and refresh the eye with beauty.

Nevertheless, despite this vagueness and seeming boundlessness of thought, we soon learn that the philosophy of Mr. Emerson (if we may so call it) is restricted within a system's narrow limits, as well as that of his neighbors; there is no logic in his form of utterance, certainly, but by-and-by we begin to perceive that he is trading on a small stock of positive ideas, though he casts them into so many incongruous shapes, and is at so little pains to reconcile one with the other. We find that this essayist has a science, a morality, a religion of his own, and that, with all his pretensions to indefinite catholicity, he tests all things (as from the infirmity of man's nature he must needs do) by this special standard.

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Nevertheless, let it not be supposed that the errors of Emerson are those of Carlyle ; that the former is only an imitator and disciple of the latter. Emerson, though less brilliant, and perhaps less genial, certainly endowed with less descriptive or dramatic power, is the better thinker of the twain : though here, if ever, is the place to say "bad is the best!" Carlyle, however, inculcates the worship of genius; Emerson denounces all adoration save that of self: Carlyle is by nature a mental slave; and Emerson the embodiment of self-glorification. commands us to kneel in the dust before force, whether displayed for good or evil, as being in its essence divine; the other forbids us to set the most glorious actions, the most mighty works, above, or even on an equality with, our own private notions of them. Which of these creeds is more mischievous, it were difficult to say: the cant of either is disagreeable; but we should say that that of the idol-worshiper was the more odious, that of the self-idolater the more absurd. When the man, whom we know to place no faith in the bare existence of his God, echoes with rapturous and servile adulation the scriptural phrases of the Puritanic world, because emblematic to him of a real trust of some kind, which he is unable to share, we cannot but feel disgust; but we laugh outright at the comic self-sufficiency of that teacher who cries with a sober face and earnest voice, "If I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and, in course of time, all mankind-for my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun."

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The one cardinal error of Emerson is to take the unit for the mass, the individual for the universal, the ego for Deity. With all his contempt for those more sensible thinkers than himself, who have assented to a revealed scheme as truth absolute, and hold all other truths in subordination to that But should we not, perhaps, go more steadmaster-principle, he yet constantly, nay, con-ily to work, and say a few words-a very tinuously, assumes that human nature and the few, on each of the first twelve Essays in world are what he sees them to be, and can the volume before us, leaving Nature," and be nothing beyond this. He confounds rel- Addresses," and "Orations," for some fuative with absolute existence. He seems ture occasion, or rather altogether on one to fancy the stars are not, until we behold side? For, in truth, owing to the small numthem. Because to us, and for us, individu- ber (already hinted at) of Mr. Emerson's real ally, things only are as we receive them, he notions (we will not say, ideas), the careful conceives that fact and truth are dependent consideration of a single page, taken at ranupon our perceptions. He regards man as dom from his writings, would almost exhaust a constantly inspired "revealer of the abso- the theme. But let us proceed in order due. lute;" we use, in a degree, his own cant, to render ourselves acceptable to any of his deluded admirers, who may possibly be found amongst the readers of this article. He fancies that what he calls "the oversoul," or universal reason, is potentially common to all, but actually possessed only by those who are inspired; and these he re

First, then, our author discourses on "History," in which discourse his aim is to set forth his one great principle, that each man must assume his superiority to present, past, and future, subject these to his own nature, and receive or reject them without the slightest regard for authority, or apparently any external testimony whatever. And here let

us remark, how very acceptable such teaching must have been, must still be, to weak, silly, half-formed youths, and all other inferior natures, which have too much vanity to know true honest pride, and would gladly think their own small "self" the epitome, nay, the circle, of the universe. Mr. Emerson says it is so. Hear him! (let us pass over the blasphemy of his motto!) "There is one mind common to all individual men." How satisfactory! Nay, more: "He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate." Is this not sufficiently explicit? Know, then, "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 is or can be done; for this is the only and sovereign agent." Very intelligible, and very reasonable, no doubt; and, above all, conducive to modesty. But this is only "the starting;" our American warms with his theme: A man," that is, each man, "is the whole encyclopædia of facts." What a pleasing conviction! Youth behind the counter, rejoice: for thou art All, and the All is in thee. Thou hast been wont to consider thyself a learner: know that the teachers of all ages shall come and bow down themselves before thee! "The moon" is in "the turnip" at last. How intoxicating must be this draught of self-delusive nectar to the imagination of many an honest boy!

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Mr. Emerson simply puts out of question the great facts, that human perceptions of the Infinite must be finite at best, and that two of the greatest, and highest, and deepest sources of our conviction are authority and reverence. Nine-tenths of our material knowledge even we must take on trust: we cannot prove all things for ourselves. How, then, should we be entitled to conclude that our individual perceptions of moral and religious truth must be higher, and clearer, and more worthy than those of genius and of holiness? True it is, that to us, finally, our own sense of things must be the nearest and most important, though it follows not, as Mr. Emerson assumes, that things are, because we think we see them. But, then, how is this sense formed which is to be our ultimate guide? The stanchest stickler for private judgment cannot reasonably affirm, that this should not be modified by those external aids which are here so unceremoniously rejected, or, rather, seemingly forgotten. Truth, Mr. Emerson, is not dependent upon perception. The great is great, the beautiful is beautiful,

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whether you or we see it or not. We may exclude the glorious sunshine, by absolutely closing our eyes to its beams; but we cannot force the daylight to fade because we blind ourselves.

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Why should we make account of time, or of magnitude, or of form?-the soul knows them not!" Really! but the soul does know them; and if yours is ignorant, good "essayist," confined to the contemplation of your own ego, be assured that you are nothing but an isolated straw, driven to and fro by the breeze, without any fixed place in the wide world of spirits! History is, indeed, only of interest in as far as it speaks to the soul; but, if it does not speak to it, it follows not that history is barren, but more probably, that the soul is shallow, and “dead in life.”

It were endless to comment on all the selfcontradictions of this writer; but it is amusing to find one who refers all things back to the individual ego, assuming that the human mind could not devise the form of a cherub, nor of a scroll to abut a tower, until it had seen some cloud or snowdrift, suggestive of these forms. The combinations of the imagination are endless; they may, they will, find their counterparts in nature; but they need not be stolen from it, though_little minds will always conceive them so to be.

The atheism of the writer peeps out pretty broadly, where he commends the "Prometheus Bound," as emblematic of man's natural opposition to pure Theism, "his selfdefence against this untruth," "a discontent with the believed fact, that a God exists." Very pretty, Mr. Emerson; very pretty, indeed; and well-meaning young men study you with reverence, and young ladies dote upon you-poor innocents! Finally, " History shall walk incarnate in every wise and just man;" in every self-trusting philosopher, in every Emerson, in fine, or Emersonian! And, when we have once ascertained this fact, why not shut up our books, and begin to live history ourselves? After all, we are we, and all is in us. There is no resisting such arguments. We cannot wonder that simple souls should be fascinated and overpowered. But we would say to all that have thus been led astray, (and would that our voice could reach them!) return to the paths of reason, and bathe your spirits in light; learn to revere! learn to learn! Believe us, you shall not be "the less" for it.

Let us move onward. The Essay on "SelfReliance" meets us next, and this is bolder still. "To believe your own thoughts, to

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believe that what is true for you in your |
private heart is true for all men,-that is
Genius." And happily this genius, we find,
may be the lot of all, at least of every
Emersonian the fact is strongly urged upon
them throughout these Essays. Speak
your latent conviction, and it shall be the
universal sense!" But it will not do for us
to be for ever quoting these eternal strum-
mings upon one false note. Our readers
must already see, that there is a unity of
some kind in Mr. Emerson's multiplicities
and contradictions.

But a very little more need be cited here:
the precious fruits of this doctrine concern-
ing individual infallibility must be seen to be
estimated. Further on,
then, we read:
"No law can be sacred to me but that of
my own nature: good or bad are but names,
very readily transferable to that or this;
the only right is what is after my constitu-
tion, the only wrong what is against it." A
convenient doctrine, verily! We are ready
to give Mr. Emerson credit for the best pos-
sible intentions; but perhaps his admirers
will be disposed to admit, that such teaching
is not quite safe.

We find it difficult to say, how infinitely petty this self-idolatry appears to us, as manifested in its fear of all influences from without. Let us be ourselves! Let us live for whim, if we are only we! Let us not be swayed by fact or truth! Let us isolate our souls at any risk; and, then, we must be original, and, being infallible, must grow divine. And are there thousands of good people who have swallowed all this? Why do not they remember, that while they love God and man aright, nothing can deprive them of their individuality? Influenced they must indeed be, whether they like it or no, by a thousand foreign causes. They cannot grow up "all alone," and have a world to themselves! It is very hard, certainly; but God will guide us and control us, and even our fellow-creatures will sway us and form us, and in no slight degree govern us, however stern may be our resolve of independence. "Be a non-conformist!" cries Mr. Emerson: "so can you alone be great." Alas! we may protest on one or two special points; but, if we mean to live with our fellow-men, we must conform in all important particulars, or we shall find ourselves outlaws indeed.

After a strong fling on the part of our philosophic friend at "conformity and consistency," which he dooms as "ridiculous," and of which he devoutly hopes to have

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heard the last, we have much more repetition, and then some inflated pantheism or atheism,-we prefer the plainer phrase. Much is prated respecting Instinct" and "Intuition," on which it would be a pity to waste time and good paper. All things are to be wrought, not for the sake of good, absolute good, but to please the "ego." We will not waste more words on this folly. Then prayers are denounced; all prayers, at least, save action: they are "a disease of will." Man himself is God, or at least the purest embodiment of the "over-soul." Prayer, therefore, is "meanness," nay, absurdity. "It supposes'dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness." That is, it supposes man and God to be two, whereas they are only one. "Sancta simplicitas!" in people, who would stare at you grievously affronted, and would even have a right to be so, if you called them no Christians, and yet who admire this blasphemous rubbish. Ah! poor Emerson! can you believe this sad twaddle? or do you not happily vindicate here that character for inconsistency of which you are so proud? Have you really never had occasion to pray for a child, or a wife, or for yourself? If not, how very great, or (in stricter confidence) how very small your soul must be! Are you really fearful, in your vanity, to acknowledge the Almighty providence above you, of which you are the unwilling servant, nay, the slave? For

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Blindly the wicked work the will of Heaven!"

Not that we would believe you wicked; far from it! we think a human being could scarcely write with such weak audacity who realized his own theories. You must be better than you imagine for.

The life of man is a life of grace: grace created, redeemed, sustains him. Didst thou make thyself, or thy world? Are not the evidences of infinite design around thee? Tell us not of an antiquated argument, when we utter the revelation of the human heart. Individuality is essential to every particle, to every form in creation: a thing that is not individual is nothing. We may cheat ourselves with words, if we think fit; but a GOD, who could not love, who did not guide, who would not keep us if we sought him,, who did not, in fine, hear prayer, were no God at all, were nothing better than a nonentity. Either nature is divine and selfcreated, or there is One Supreme who permeates the visible universe, but to whom

that universe is but as a viewless speck in a boundless ocean of glory. And to this AllInfinite nothing can be great, nothing small; He hears, He loves the humblest child of clay. But since, in truth, the human intellect might sink in the contemplation of this amazing mystery, God has become visible in man, incarnate in the Lord Christ Jesus. This Revelation stands on a pinnacle, which all storms and tempests must assault in vain, lofty as the highest aspirations of the soul, yet broad and plain as truth. Unless we chose to believe our Lord and his Apostles (may we dare to write the word ?) impostors, and the whole sacred volume one comprehensive falsehood, (and how, feeling its holiness, its sublimity, knowing the glorious self-sacrifice of its originators, can we attain to this Voltairean audacity ?) what must remain for us? Nothing but to love, tremble, and adore!

We will not waste words on Mr. Emerson's most monstrous hypothesis, that "the Everlasting Son" proclaimed only the Godhead of all humanity when He announced his own. He must be a narrow-minded fanatic, indeed, to his own vain and silly creed, who can persist in such an error as this. But Mr. Emerson's self-sufficiency never deserts him. "Men's creeds," he says, "are a disease of the intellect." He has said it! We had better let the subject rest, or this profound teacher will annihilate our simple faith.

And now the "teacher" digresses, and descends a little to anathematize "traveling." It is, he informs us, a fool's paradise." "I seek the Vatican;" "I affect to be intoxicated," &c., "but I am not intoxicated." We can well believe it. But are we really compelled to accept your standard, friend, because " a fact perceived by you becomes of necessity one for all ages?" If so, we wish you would cultivate more pleasant perceptions, and, on mature reflection, consent to think better even of traveling.

We have some more rather clever though paradoxical talk respecting Society's never advancing, but we cannot pause to examine it it is one of those few approaches to a half truth which this writer sometimes stumbles on, perhaps against his will.

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Next, he treats of Compensation:" his reprobation of a certain clergyman and his congregation is highly comic. The doctrine complained of is, the belief of mankind that another world is needed to set right the inequalities of this. Of course, there is compensation even here: in a certain sense, and

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in a degree, the good may be said to be the happy, and the evil the unhappy on our earth; but there is such a thing as callous triumphant sensuality, or as virtuous woe. Good hearts do break sometimes; bad hearts do rejoice, after their kind, up to the very hour of their departure. Who has not seen instances in his own individual experience? We will not follow Mr. Emerson's " ments" on this head. We advance to another theme. When he tells us, then, the true doctrine of Omnipresence is, that God re-appears with all his parts in evey moss and cobweb, we can only repeat our former query, Can the man, who gives utterance to such wholesale rubbish, place any confidence in it himself? We trow not.

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In this Essay there are, however, some striking ideas, some few happy images, some self-evident, indeed, and very harmless truths, which are, nevertheless, utterances of the honest human understanding. The whole is one of those "talkifications" which make us hope that the man is better than his "philosophy."

Next, "Spiritual Laws" come on the tapis, and are discussed in the former strain: we find less and less of novel matter or treatment to record. Self-self-self-is the eternal cry, though it finds utterance in many illustrations, some happy and some unhappy. We do not altogether dislike a bold passage toward the conclusion, and, by way of fair play, we will quote it:-"Let the great soul, incarnated in some woman's form, poor and sad and single, in some Doll or Jane, go out to service, and sweep chambers and scour floors, and its effulgent day beams cannot be muffled or hid; but to sweep and scour will instantly appear supreme and beautiful actions, the top and radiance of human life, and all people will get mops and brooms, until, lo, suddenly the great soul has enshrined itself in some other form, and done some other deed, and that is now the flower and head of all living nature." There is truth in this, despite the grotesque exaggeration how it agrees with the remainder of Mr. Emerson's system rests not with us to explain. It might have been Carlyle's.

Now comes a paper on "Love," which we rather like but after an eloquent passage about lovers, which had some poetry in it, and much else that may, perhaps, by courtesy be counted "very clever," and to which we are anxious, as opponents, to give all due credit, the old troublesome notions show themselves, and suggestions are made that we shall only love for the sake of what we

1849.]

THE EMERSON MANIA.

get for self; that "our affections are but |
But we will not
tents of a night," &c.
pause for further cavils here, however just.
We quote one pleasing passage, which recalls,
as we fancy, something either in Washington
Irving, or in Bulwer's "Eugene Aram," that
book so striking and so artistic, despite its
partial immorality. "The rude village-boy
teases the girls about the school-house door;
but to-day he comes running into the entry,
and meets one fair child arranging her satchel:
he holds her books, to help her, and instantly
it seems to him as if she removed herself
from him instantly, and was a sacred precinct.
Among the throng of girls he runs rudely
enough, but one alone distances him: and
these two little neighbors, that were so close
just now, have learnt to respect each other's
personality." Oh! Mr. Emerson, if you
would more frequently condescend to observe,
and give up aspiring to teach! Be assured,
nobody listens to your philosophical twaddle
nobody, at least, who has a mind, worthy of
the name, an independent intellect such as
you admire. But let us not be too crabbed
over this paper.

The essay on "Friendship" is far more ob-
jectionable; inflated in language, and misty
in sentiment. We cannot exactly make out
what Mr. Emerson wants, whether his friends
should be friends indeed, through weal and
woe, or merely sympathizers, for he states
the case both ways, backward and forward,
twice or thrice, and we are not quite sure
where he ultimately settles. There is all the
difference in the world betwixt an alliance
founded not only on mutual esteem, but also
on mutual assurance of active and sincere
regard, and a mere literary or æsthetic sym-
pathy, which seems to be what this author
aims at as his ideal of true friendship. These
sympathies of taste or of imagination may be
very pleasant things in their way, and are so;
they are like some beautiful forest-glade
which we chance to encounter on our pil-
grimage, where we rest for the noon-tide
hour, but whence we start again with only
a momentary regret; they make no deep im-
pression on the heart. Compared with the
substance of true Friendship, they are only
shadows, however fresh and green, and
"kindly." When sympathy unites men on
higher themes than those commanding a mere
literary interest (such a theme, for instance,
as religion), where both feel themselves
working for a great good, the benefit of their
fellow-men, or the glory of God, this com-
munion of thought and feeling approaches
the nature of true friendship, and, under

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favorable circumstances, may easily ripen
But we must not
into that noble bond.
allow ourselves to be longer detained by Mr.
Emerson's transcendental speculations.
Some part of what he says on "Prudence"
seems sufficiently prudent, as far as we can
make out a definite intention, and, indeed,
there are various happy passages in this little
essay which might repay perusal. Prudence,
we may venture to remark, is little known to
Mr. Emerson, though he discourses so
Were he gifted
learnedly on the theme.
with that prudence, of which modesty seems
an essential element, he would scarcely have
perpetrated the majority of the essays before
us, and we should, therefore, not have had to
hold him up as a sad warning against the
very error he condemns (Imprudence)-

"To point his moral, and adorn his tale."
"Heroism" is, of course, another variation
of the old strain "be thyself, and therefore
all that is wonderful and perfect!" It is
chiefly remarkable for its characteristic
praises of "Beaumont and Fletcher," whose
flashy, noisy vanities and pompous boastings,
placed in the mouths of their constantly con-
temptible and wonderfully inconsistent he-
roes and heroines, have evidently far more
attraction for Mr. Emerson's fancy than the
calm, quiet, greatness of Shakspeare's men
and women, who rarely deal in these gran-
diose protestations,-characters such as the
calm Pagan "Brutus," seduced to ill, indeed,
but noble in his fall; or the cheerful Christian
hero, "Henry the Fifth," so truly great in all
things, and therefore not ashamed of kneeling
to his God, and ascribing all glory to him only.

We have some pleasant glimpses of the nature of "mob-sway" in this paper, calculated to inspire us with no little gratitude that universal suffrage is not yet established among ourselves: that the monster many are not supreme, that the sober middle classes and "gallant" upper classes retain their due influence. Now follows an essay on "the Oversoul." As may be suspected from the title, this is very transcendental; and having already dealt with its "philosophy," which is but another variation of the old weary strain, we shall leave it alone in its glory. It contains, we may observe, a vast amount of blasphemy, and is altogether extremely offensive.

The paper on "Circles" is more amusing, though this contains much of mischievous audacity also. What a pity is it that men will write on subjects of which they do not understand the very elements! Here, for instance, we are told that we "can never see

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