Westward empire

by Elias Lyman Magoon

Contempt toward mankind, doubt as to their virtues, and despondency with respect to their ultimate fortunes, recur but too often in the historians of philosophy. But it is more noble and more truthful never to despair respecting human weal, since it is only in the light of hope that we can trace a route for virtue and honor, in which an impulse may be given and a reward found for the brave, virtuous, and good. At the moment mediocrity complains of deepest gloom, genius is wont to perceive and proclaim the advent of ascending day, the fresh dawn of which rapidly develops the germs of all that is requisite to create a new world and invest it with transcendant charms. The decemvirs augmented their tyranny over Rome, until a particular event rendered the weight insupportable, and it was cast down. The British parliament despaired of rendering the nation happy under the domineering Stuarts, and the dynasty was changed. The American colonies found themselves oppressed by an arbitrary tax, and declared themselves independent. Through a similar course of opinions, the sufferers in common arrived at a stage where the existing order of things needed to be overthrown. Fresh ardor and new activities seized upon and impelled all spirits; each one was impatient under a common wrong, and ready to enter the battle for common rights. At such a crisis is manifested the maturity of a thousand remote but cumulative circumstances which bear in their bosom a salutary principle as mighty to soothe as to excite the pangs of its birth. It comes with an additional proof that the chain of national enthrallment is not unending or insufferable, but that the crimes of revolutions will decrease in proportion as their exciting cause is removed. Such was the series of struggles through which Greece bloomed in consummate beauty; such was the convulsion which conducted Rome from crude republicanism to imperial grandeur, across the field of outrageous proscriptions and civil wars; and such was the long commotion which the Europe of our day experienced in the establishment of reform: a bloody period which marked the passage from effete and oppressive institutions to the new order of things.

In the year 1800, Lucien Bonaparte remarked, "We are standing amid the grave of old and beside the cradle of new institutions." It was indeed true that the dawn of the nineteenth century beheld the world invested with a contrast the most striking and strange; night and storm, day and calm, were clearly separated. Even Asiatic immobility was broken up; and Egypt, the cradle of civilization, was rocked from side to side in the tempests of northern ambition. All the old powers of Europe were alarmed and exhausted by disorders without a parallel since the Roman empire sank in fragments beneath the crash of barbaric arms. The New World alone, happily isolated from the convulsed parent states by a wide expanse of waters, was permitted to develop in peace its primary elements of personal worth and national greatness. The sudden summons of death had just removed him who was so justly designated the "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen;" but sublimely through the universal gloom occasioned by such a bereavement, the sun of intelligence and philosophic freedom rose clear and unchangeable above the tomb of Washington.

Throughout the whole range of progressive philosophy, it will be found that there exists a constant and necessary harmony between cotemporary needs and knowledge. Each successive age produces its appropriate agents who in their own persons both resume the past and enlarge the future, by making a clearance in their sublime field, so as to reconstruct a broader and more brilliant system of ideas. The philosophy of the middle ages was distinguished for submission to authority other than that of reason, the overthrow of which vassalage it was reserved for the seventeenth century to inaugurate. In the eighteenth century, the sentiment of humanity was developed, consentaneously with mental independence, and thus a great step forward was taken in the philosophy of history and the history of philosophy. A sounder and more luminous psychology was originated which enabled thinkers guided thereby to render to themselves a reasonable account of what passes in self-consciousness, which is the visible scene of the soul. The Cartesian revolution came to illuminate the chaos of scholasticism, and Brucker led the mighty host of mental liberators who forever prevented philosophy from re-entering the mediæval age. From east to west the ameliorating progress arose and spread with constantly-increased power and profit. As early as 1725, Vico, at Naples, demonstrated that the organic development of great transitional epochs, so manifest in the connected history of our race, contains proof of the divine supervision, and a higher manifestation of order, justice, and continuous advancement among men, than any argument à priori can supply. Herder fortified this idea with a still more comprehensive grasp of intellect and illustration, which constituted him the founder of the philosophy of history. He took man as he is, the microcosm of the universe, and, by a higher philosophy, did much to escape the sensualism and shallowness of the eighteenth century. From the Romanic negativeness which prevailed till the opening of our age, Herder and his successors advanced into Teutonic positiveness, and began that order of reconstructive philosophy which now so happily prevails. Shem, with all his obsolete traditions, was superseded, and the universalized fabric of Japhetic thought arose to confer a greater good. France powerfully co-operated in the ameliorating endeavors of that mighty crusade of which Montesquieu was a patriarch and Condorcet a martyr. Leibnitz believed in the law of progress in all the concerns of life. The present, he asserted, was born of the past, and is pregnant of the future. The vision of general peace he regarded as a practical idea, and anticipated a universal language, from which eventually every trace of linguistic confusion would disappear, and the union of all hearts be consummated in the blending of harmonious speech. Descartes had entertained like views, and these earlier prophets of a lofty destiny were worthily succeeded by Pascal, who wrote as follows: "By a special prerogative of the human race, not only each man advances day by day in the sciences, but all men together make a continual progress, as the universe grows old; because the same thing happens in the succession of men which takes place in the different ages of an individual. So that the succession of men, in the cause of so many ages, may be regarded as one man, who lives always, and who learns continually. From this we see with what injustice we respect antiquity in philosophers; for, since old age is the period most distant from infancy, who does not see that the old age of this universal man must not be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those which are the most remote. They, whom we entitle Ancients, were indeed new in all things, and properly formed the infancy of mankind; and since to their knowledge we have joined the experience of the ages which have followed them, it is in ourselves that is to be found that antiquity which we revere in others."

England is constitutionally negative in philosophy, and was especially so during the desolate eighteenth century, while her best minds were driven westward over ocean to flame back from afar. But even then, so predominant was the idea of progress in the greatest promoter of philosophic "Learning," that "The Advancement" thereof was the spontaneous title given to his greatest work. Bacon was also author of the saying that "Antiquity was the youth of the world;" a maxim afterward cordially adopted and learnedly illustrated by Dr. Price, the friend and correspondent of Turgot. To adopt imagery like that used by the great founder of the inductive method, if we hear little else than a dissonant screeching of multitudinous noises now, which only blend in the distance into a roar like that of the raging sea, it behooves us to hold fast to the assurance that this is the necessary process whereby the instruments are to be tuned for the heavenly concert. Chaos is undergoing a perpetual curtailment of his empire, and eventually must be cast out of the intellectual, moral, and spiritual world, as entirely as out of the material.

The epoch of Anglo colonization in America was one of philosophical transition in Europe. Antiquated systems were decomposed in the old world, and another order, as auspicious as it was youthful, was constructed in the new. Such was the use which Providence made of that Cerberus of rationalism, Voltaire, whose school brought the doctrine of Spinoza, Hobbes, and Bayle to a stop at deism, on the ruins of the prevailing religious system. The materialism of Locke easily degenerated into the dogmas of Helvetius, according to whom there is no mind extant, for matter is every thing, and who proved to the satisfaction of his age that selfishness, vanity, and gross enjoyments are the only true guides and rational ends of enlightened men; in fact, the only realities of human life. Thus, the way was fully prepared for the congenial spirit of Diderot boldly to proclaim the wish—"that the last king might be burned on a funeral pile, composed of the body of the last priest."

Despairing of free thought and wholesome progress on the ancient fields of human development, the most aspiring minds and hearts of the philosophic world followed the mild splendors of the retiring sun, and laid their visions of a better destiny in the wilderness of America. Among those whose fond expectations were thither turned, even down to our own day, were Rousseau, Bernardin de St. Pierre, and Chateaubriand. But a greater and better philosopher than they, though equally imaginative, at an earlier period, came personally to our stormiest coast, and thereon planted the first elements of a lofty culture. George Berkeley left rich worldly emoluments on the western extremity of the old world, and voluntarily bore the quintessence of all its dialectical skill to enrich the eastern extremity of the new. From that day to this, the region of the primary fountain has ever remained the chief source of philosophical worth. Francis Wayland yet lives a near neighbor to Berkeley's retreat in Rhode Island, and is not remoter from "the minute philosopher" in time than in his ethical system; but it was reserved for our great countryman to give America and the world a fitting climax to all preceding disquisitions in "Moral Science." Modern writers have differed much concerning the foundation or obligation of virtue. Hobbes placed it in political enactment; Mandeville, in the love of praise; Dr. Clarke, in the fitness of things; Adam Smith, in sympathy for our race; Grotius and Puffendorf, in the duty of improvement; Hume and Paley, in personal utility; while Hutcheson, Cudworth, Butler, Reid, Stuart, and others, derive it from a moral sense or natural impulse to do right, implanted by the Creator. Repeated editions of the Moral Philosophy based on conscience, and other kindred works, first used in Brown University, and now adopted as hand-books in many educational establishments in this and other lands, attest the high estimation in which the last and best expression of progressive philosophy is held.

Nothing goes back—every thing advances. Philosophy gained in passing from Asia into Greece, from Athens to Rome, and thence through the middle ages to modern times. The advancement made during the past sixty years abundantly indicates that the grand goal which Berkeley descried from afar, by a Pisgah-view on the border of the land he himself was not permitted to penetrate, will yet be triumphantly attained. Born of yesterday on our soil, an immense future lies before the career of philosophic thought toward the unbounded West; where, next to religion, the most exalted sphere is reserved for the indefinite expansion of her ameliorating spirit. It is the destiny of this mighty moral agent to make the tour of the world, in following the physical movements of lands and peoples, correspondent with the governing epochs we have described. Having arrived at this ultimate centre of earth's fermentation and fruitfulness, philosophy, with all subordinate elements of civilization, will prosecute the last stage of her journey, and return upon the mountains whence she originally descended, permitted at last to contemplate thence a world redeemed.

But, in perfecting the grand restoration of society, let us first of all be convinced that time is the primary instrument to be employed, and that successive generations must pass before the nations are fully prepared. Every thing under the sway of Providence is developed through a progressive movement, which is continued and regular; a law whose application is universal, and never subject to a failure. No violence can for an instant hasten the growth of a blade of grass, much less can force accelerate the march of society. The impossible of to-day may become possible to-morrow; but the movement must be natural, and then will the greatest speed, as well as most enduring safety, be found in the deepest and broadest current. It is the manifest will of God that mankind should be concentrated in one uniform march of progression, found only and evermore in the development of that liberty which is essential to all human beings. The common mind may not be the axe which hews the throne down to a block, but it is the handle without which the axe is of little use. Before common rights come to be a common possession, the people may be yet more persecuted and tormented, but they will never be conquered. Every great cause triumphs only at the expense of grand sacrifices. The highest liberty exacts the noblest martyrs, who descend into the dungeon, or expire on the cross, but their agony is transformed into balm for universal wounds, and their death brings life to the nations at large.

In all lands, and all epochs, the privileged classes, jealous of the advantages they possess, constitute themselves into a permanent war against the mass of the people whom they are ambitious to disinherit and oppress. Almost every page of history furnishes an example. Greece was not free from the curse; and at Rome, it was exemplified in the conflict between the plebeian and patrician classes. In mediæval times, the partially enfranchised communities struggled against feudal arrogance; and in our own day it is reproduced in the antagonisms which characterize the struggles of the conservative and progressive parties. The agents of evil love darkness and resist light. They can with comparative ease deprive men of their rights, if they can but prevent their knowing them. They must be degraded intellectually, in order to be kept in social degradation; hence tyranny always brutalizes its victims as much as possible, that they may with impunity be treated as brutes. When force is allowed to begin the oppression, ignorance is the best auxiliary by which it is perpetuated. Among the many things which render despotism detestable is the absolute opposition it of necessity wages against human nature and its predestined perfection; in which resistance it is obliged to repel light, augment gloom, and fight incessantly against truth, against goodness, against God. The primordial law of humanity is perpetually to know more, love more, and concur with a constantly increased efficiency in the universal realization of the progressively divine plan.

As civilized society is the daughter of knowledge and freedom, nothing can be respected, which does not harmonize with this double source of her mission. It is not upon force that we subsist, but by a superiority produced through veneration, and that obedience which is the spontaneous submission of one will to another. It is the mutual action of mind identical in purpose. When the Spartans proposed in their hearts to die for the salvation of Greece, they inscribed this appeal on the rocky pass at Thermopylæ:—"Traveler, go tell the Lacedemonians that we fell here in obedience to their sacred laws." This was not the submission peculiar to a few heroes, but was demanded for the salvation of a whole people; it was the voice of a whole people, living as well as dead, and there was not a soul in the republic which would not have responded to the soul of the three hundred.