We must begin with the philosophy of Man. The Transcendentalist claims for all men as a natural endowment what "Evangelical" Christianity ascribes to the few as a special gift of the Spirit. This faith comes to expression continually. The numbers of the "Dial" are alight with it.
"Man is a rudiment and embryon of God: Eternity shall develop in him the Divine Image."
"The Soul works from centre to periphery, veiling her labors from the ken of the senses."
"The sensible world is spirit in magnitude outspread before the senses for their analysis, but whose synthesis is the soul herself, whose prothesis is God."
"The time may come, in the endless career of the soul, when the facts of incarnation, birth, death, descent into matter, and ascension from it, shall comprise no part of her history; when she herself shall survey this human life with emotions akin to those of the naturalist on examining the relics of extinct races of beings."
"Of the perception now fast becoming a conscious fact,—that there is one mind, and that also the powers and privileges which lie in any, lie in all; that I, as a man, may claim and appropriate whatever of true or fair or good or strong has anywhere been exhibited; that Moses and Confucius, Montaigne and Leibnitz are not so much individuals as they are parts of man and parts of me, and my intelligence proves them my own,—literature is far the best expression."
Thus Mr. Alcott and Mr. Emerson. Thomas T. Stone,—a modest, retiring, deep and interior man, a child of the spiritual philosophy, which he faithfully lived in and up to, and preached with singular fulness and richness of power—makes his statement thus, in an article entitled "Man in the Ages," contributed to the third number of the "Dial":
"Man is man, despite of all the lies which would convince him he is not, despite of all the thoughts which would[Pg 145] strive to unman him. There is a spirit in man, an inspiration from the Almighty. What is, is. The eternal is eternal; the temporary must pass it by, leaving it to stand evermore. There is now, there has been always, power among men to subdue the ages, to dethrone them, to make them mere outgoings and servitors of man. It is needed only that we assert our prerogative,—that man do with hearty faith affirm: 'I am; in me being is. Ages, ye come and go; appear and disappear; products, not life; vapors from the surface of the soul, not living fountain. Ye are of me, for me, not I of you or for you. Not with you my affinity, but with the Eternal. I am; I live; spirit I have not; spirit am I.'"
Samuel D. Robbins, another earnest prophet of the spiritual man, utters the creed again in the way peculiar to himself.
"There is an infinity in the human soul which few have yet believed, and after which few have aspired. There is a lofty power of moral principle in the depths of our nature which is nearly allied to Omnipotence; compared with which the whole force of outward nature is more feeble than an infant's grasp. There is a spiritual insight to which the pure soul reaches, more clear and prophetic, more wide and vast than all telescopic vision can typify. There is a faith in God, and a clear perception of His will and designs, and providence, and glory, which gives to its possessor a confidence and patience and sweet composure, under every varied and troubling aspect of events, such as no man can realize who has not felt its influences in his own heart. There is a communion with God, in which the soul feels the presence of the unseen One, in the profound depths of its being, with a vivid distinctness and a holy reverence such as no word can describe. There is a state of union with God, I do not say often reached, yet it has been attained[Pg 146] in this world, in which all the past and present and future seem reconciled, and eternity is won and enjoyed: and God and man, earth and heaven, with all their mysteries are apprehended in truth as they lie in the mind of the Infinite."
The poet chimes in with the prophet. We marked for quotation several passages from the "Dial," but a few detached stanzas must suffice. C. P. Cranch opens his lines to the ocean thus:
Tell me, brothers, what are we?
Spirits bathing in the sea of Deity.
Half afloat, and half on land,
Wishing much to leave the strand,
Standing, gazing with devotion,
Yet afraid to trust the ocean,
Such are we.
And thus he closes lines to the Aurora Borealis:
But a better type thou art
Of the strivings of the heart,
Reaching upwards from the earth
To the Soul that gave it birth.
When the noiseless beck of night
Summons out the inner light
That hath hid its purer ray
Through the lapses of the day,—
Then like thee, thou Northern Morn,
Instincts which we deemed unborn
[Pg 147] Gushing from their hidden source
Mount upon their heavenward course,
And the spirit seeks to be
Filled with God's eternity.