Transcendentalism in New England: A HistoryFrothingham, Octavius Brooks
Philosophy
Transcendentalism in New England: A History
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks
Transcendentalism (New England)
From Schiller's correspondence with Goethe, Carlyle quotes the following
tribute to the Kantean philosophy: "From the opponents of the new
philosophy I expect not that tolerance which is shown to every other
system no better seen into than this; for Kant's philosophy itself, in
its leading points, practises no tolerance, and bears much too rigorous
a character to leave any room for accommodation. But in my eyes this
does it honor, proving how little it can endure to have truth tampered
with. Such a philosophy will not be shaken to pieces by a mere shake of
the head. In the open, clear, accessible field of inquiry it builds up
its system, seeks no shade, makes no reservation, but even as it treats
its neighbors, so it requires to be treated, and may be forgiven for
lightly esteeming everything but proofs. Nor am I terrified to think
that the law of change, from which no human and no divine work finds
grace, will operate on this philosophy as on every other, and one day
its form will be destroyed, but its foundations will not have this fate
to fear, for ever since mankind has existed, and any reason among
mankind, these same first principles have been admitted, and on the
whole, acted on."
Of Richter he writes: "Richter's philosophy, a matter of no ordinary
interest, both as it agrees with the common philosophy of Germany, and
disagrees with it, must not be touched on for the present. One only
observation we shall make: it is not mechanical or sceptical; it springs
not from the forum or the laboratory, but from the depths of the human
spirit, and yields as its fairest product a noble system of morality,
and the firmest conviction of religion. An intense and continual faith
in man's immortality and native grandeur accompanies him; from amid the
vortices of life he looks up to a heavenly loadstar; the solution of
what is visible and transient, he finds in what is invisible and
eternal. He has doubted, he denies, yet he believes."
Of Novalis, scarcely more than a name to Americans, the same oracle
speaks thus: "The aim of Novalis' whole philosophy is to preach and
establish the majesty of reason, in the strict philosophical sense; to
conquer for it all provinces of human thought, and everywhere resolve
its vassal understanding into fealty, the right and only useful relation
for it. How deeply these and the like principles (those of the Kantean
philosophy) had impressed themselves on Novalis, we see more and more
the further we study his writings. Naturally a deep, religious,
contemplative spirit, purified also by harsh affliction, and familiar in
the 'Sanctuary of Sorrow,' he comes before us as the most ideal of all
idealists. For him the material creation is but an appearance, a typical
shadow in which the Deity manifests himself to man. Not only has the
unseen world a reality, but the only reality; the rest being not
metaphorically, but literally and in scientific strictness, 'a show;'
in the words of the poet:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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