Transcendentalism in New England: A HistoryFrothingham, Octavius Brooks
Philosophy
Transcendentalism in New England: A History
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks
Transcendentalism (New England)
If, on the other hand, the school to which Spencer, Fiske and Tyndall
belong is right, the science of mind will recover its old dignity,
though under new conditions. Nobody has spoken more plainly against the
intuitive philosophy, than Mill. No one probably is further from it than
Tyndall, though he responds in sentiment to the eloquent affirmations of
Martineau, and quotes Emerson enthusiastically, as "a profoundly
religious man who is really and entirely undaunted by the discoveries
of science, past, present or prospective; one by whom scientific
conceptions are continually transmuted into the finer forms and warmer
hues of an ideal world." Under the influences of the new psychology,
dogmatic idealism will probably be deprived of its sceptre and sway. The
claim to intuitive knowledge of definite truths of any order whatsoever
will be abandoned, as untenable on scientific or philosophical grounds;
but imagination, which, as Emerson says, "respects the cause,"--"the
vision of an inspired soul reading arguments and affirmations in all
nature of that which it is driven to say;" emotion, which contains all
the possibilities of feeling and hope; the moral sentiment, which
affirms principles with imperative authority; these remain, and claim
their right to create ideal worlds of which the natural world is image
and symbol. The Transcendentalism which concedes to all mankind
spiritual faculties by virtue whereof divine entities are seen in
definite shape--the personal God--the city of the heavenly
Jerusalem--will be superseded by the poetic idealism that is the cheer
and inspiration of poetic minds, animating them with fine visions, and
gladdening them with unfading, though vague, anticipations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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