But Nature had been broached and Society was scandalized. Like the Chancellor in Faust, it mounted its tripod and solemnly proclaimed its verdict upon the inadmissible theory, so inadequately proved of the identity of Nature and Spirit. But 'was sagt mein Thales?'
'Natur und Geist! so spricht man nicht zu Christen:
Desshalb verbrennt man Atheisten,
Weil solche Reden höchst gefährlich sind.
Natur ist Sünde, Geist ist Teufel;
Sie hegen zwischen sich den Zweifel,
Ihr miss-gestaltet Zwitterkind.'
The Transcendental movement did not fail to attract severe opposition, not only to its agitators, but toward the whole body of Unitarians, from a portion of which it in a great measure sprang. If indeed, as Ellis, its champion, asserts, Transcendentalism was not a native emanation from New England, i.e., Unitarianism, yet it obviously paved the way for its entrance, and even erected triumphal arches at intervals over its projected route. The consequence of the renewed attack upon this already sorely aggrieved sect was its virtual separation into moderates and extremists: the one holding to its primitive theories, the other inclining graciously to the more comprehensive and fascinating, because more liberal and mystical, tenets of the new faith. The Rev. Andrew Norton, an eminent Unitarian divine of the old school, in a discourse before the Alumni of the Cambridge Theological School, took occasion to attack with great vigor what he termed the 'new form of infidelity.' This and his subsequent replies were most ably answered by George Ripley, a zealous and genial scholar, eminent in belles-lettres and philosophy, in his 'Letters on the latest form of Infidelity, including the Opinions of Spinoza, Schleiermacher, and De Wette. Boston, James Munroe & Co., 1840.'
This contest constituted the central polemic of the strife. Chilled by the cold breath of popular intolerance, these persecuted advocates of a metaphysical faith, which even themselves comprehended but dimly, might have warmed their trembling hands by the fire of that auto da fé whose flames three centuries have not extinguished. Even those most opposed by culture and habit to the innovators, could not but acknowledge that the Bestia Triofante, that Giordano Bruno undertook to expel, was still rampant and powerful in the midst of a civilized and intelligent community. The fact was that the Transcendentalists were as much astonished at this accusation of infidelity as even Fénélon himself could have been. They were men of irreproachable character, the majority religious by nature and scholarly by disposition, and they found in their new field scope for an increased piety and a more enlarged benevolence. Their infinitely pliable philosophy expanded amiably to suit the requirements of any and every sect. The Rev. W. H. Furness, of Philadelphia, though not thoroughly identified with the movement, yet, in several volumes published at that time, manifested the influence of Rationalism upon his own studies. But the machinery of his mind, though exquisite in its details, was too delicate to work up successfully the heavy material of the German importations. In a review of his 'Life of Jesus,' by A. P. Peabody, in the N. A. Review, after a merited tribute of praise and respect to the talented author, occurs the following: 'Æsthetic considerations weigh more with him than historical proofs, and vividness of conception than demonstration. So far is he from needing facts to verify his theories, that he is ready to reject the best authenticated facts, if they would not flow necessarily from his à priori reasoning.' This was severe, too severe in the instance cited; but the remark is worth preserving, as strikingly characteristic of much of the belles-lettres writings of the New School of thinkers, as they were once, and indeed might yet be termed. But impiety was never the result of Transcendentalism. Its advocates endeavored rather to prove the adaptability of a generous and catholic spirit of Philosophy to religion than to subvert it. They never advanced to a love of Strauss and Feuerbach, and men of the second generation, of whom G. H. Lewes may be taken as a type, have generally been regarded by them as the Girondists regarded the Jacobins. Both urge reform, the Vergniaud and the Robespierre, but the one respects the old landmarks, while the other, with an unequaled nonchalance, sweeps by, unconscious of them all, and plants his standard on a foundation as yet unshaken by foot of man.
The consequences of the Transcendental movement were truly remarkable. Those latitudes to which habit had accustomed us to look for our literati became one immense hot-house, in which exotics of the most powerful fragrance bloomed luxuriantly.[4] As if by miracle, they assumed hues and adopted habits to which, in their native soil, they had been strangers. Every small litterateur wore conspicuously his cunningly entwined wreath. Ladies appeared at 'æsthetic tea-parties,' crowned with the most delicate of the new importations. Young clergymen were not complete without a flower in their button-holes, and the tables of staid old professors groaned beneath the weight of huge pyramidal bouquets. The cursory examination of foreign literature had given rise to an eclecticism which reflected the distinguishing features of that of Cousin, yet went a step further in daring. Yet this was not an eclecticism that, gifted with the power of a king, the dignity of a priest, and the discernment of a prophet, drew from the treasure-troves of European libraries only their choicest gems. Diamonds, it is true, flashed among the spoils; sapphires and emeralds gleamed; but beside them lay bits of sandstone and scraps of anthracite, rainbow-tinted, perhaps, but of an unconquerable opaqueness. And the alchemy that should have transmuted these to gold, and educed from the one light and from the other majesty, was wanting. A trace of Behmen here, a reading of Cousin's lectures there, some Schiller and more Goethe, some pietism encouraged by a love of Channing, the American Fénélon, some German ballads and a flavor of Plato,—all these helped the initiated to a curious dialect and a curious mélange. And this was Transcendentalism. The great revelation that the grand Moonsee of the new movement had declared necessary in 1838 had been made; the ninth avatar had descended, and men looked about them for the representative of Krishna, and reverenced him in Ralph Waldo Emerson. Under his auspices, the Dial, the organ of the new sect, was published, and the next year, 1841, the first collection of his writings appeared under the simple caption Essays, followed by a second series in 1847.
Spite of the fragmentary Germano-pantheism of the new Philosophy, as set forth in these volumes, that a grand advance had been made upon the old modes of thought was proved by the dismay in the opposing ranks. The outcry against Unitarianism was faint compared with the howls of horror and defiance that greeted Transcendentalism. The very name was a synonym for arrogance. The pride of its opponents was touched. Alarming indeed, and transcendental beyond conception, were the outpourings of thought that anointed the Dial and these Essays. The very chrism of mysticism trickled along their running-titles, and dripped fragrantly from their pages. Not only new opinions, but new words and phrases, puzzled the uninitiated. Among these were subjective and objective, and the concise, comprehensive Germanisms were assailed as sure evidence of treason or insanity. He who used them was a marked man, and liable to find on the first oyster-shell his sentence of exile from the assemblage of the faithful. The name of Goethe was as terrible as the sacred 'Om' of the Brahmins; it was whispered with 'bated breath, and was generally believed to be diabolical per se. In short, everything bearing the stamp of Germany was a bit of sweet, forbidden lore. Travels in that fog-land by dull old fogies, and simple outlines of its Philosophy by divines high in rank, were obtained by stealth, and read in secret by college-boys, with as much zeal as the 'Kisses' of Johannes Secundus or the Epigrams of Martial. Even Klopstock's 'Messiah' became gilded with a sort of delightful impropriety.
Disapprobation and distrust had merged into abuse and persecution. Orestes A. Brownson, then drifting with the strong tide of the liberals, published in 1840 a sort of pantheistically ending novel, entitled Charles Elwood, or the Infidel Converted. The Rev. Dr. Bright, at present editor of the Baptist Examiner, was at that tune a bookseller of the firm of Bennett & Bright, and publisher of the Baptist Register. When Charles Elwood appeared, he ordered the usual number of copies; but, discovering the nature of the book, made a Servetus of the 'lot' by burning them up in the back-yard of his store. A funeral pyre worthy the admiration and awe it must have excited.
The Essays of Emerson were subsequently attacked furiously in the Princeton Review by Prof. Dod and Jas. W. Alexander. These gentlemen gave to the world, as criticisms of Emerson and other writers, several treatises on Pantheism, aiding the very cause they designed to destroy, by disseminating among the religious public a statement of the primitive Philosophy of the Vedas, and its reflection in Germany and America, clearer than any that had yet appeared: a task for which their scholarship and ability eminently fitted them. But in attacking German Philosophy, both learned to respect that which was practically useful in it. Prof. Dod left among his papers an unfinished translation of Spinoza, and the lamented Dr. Alexander, in his admirable lectures on literature to the students of Princeton College, recommended a perusal of what Kant and other German metaphysicians had written on Æsthetics. It is no reflection on the piety or sincerity of these sound divines and ripe scholars that they found something good and useful even in the armory of the enemy. The last step in piety, as in learning, is always to that noble liberality which recognizes Truth and Beauty wherever found.
And, while the religious reviews abounded in jeremiads and philippies, the newspaper wits stood outside and shouted in derision. The game was indeed too rare to be passed unnoticed. In a poem on Fanny Ellsler (1841) occurred the following:—
Our wits, as usual, late upon the road,
Pick up what Europe saw long since explode.
If this you doubt, ask Harvard, she can tell
How many fragments there from Deutschland fell;
How many mysteries boggle Cambridge men
That erst in England boggled Carlyle's pen,
And will, no doubt, be mysteries again;
And also what great Coleridge left unsung.
He, too, saw Germany when very young.'