Transcendentalism in New England: A HistoryFrothingham, Octavius Brooks
Philosophy
Transcendentalism in New England: A History
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks
Transcendentalism (New England)
The justice of the comparison, in the first part of the above extract,
of Quakerism with Transcendentalism, may be disputed. Some may be of
opinion that inasmuch as Quakerism traces the source of the Inner Light
to the supernatural illumination of the Holy Spirit, while
Transcendentalism regards it as a natural endowment of the human mind,
the two are fundamentally opposed while superficially in agreement.
However this may be, the practical issues of the two coincide, and the
truth of the contrast presented between the philosophies, designated by
the name of Locke on the one side, and of Penn on the other, will not be
disputed. Mr. Bancroft's statement, though dazzling, is exact. It was
made in 1837. The third edition from which the above citation was made,
was published in 1838, the year of Mr. Emerson's address to the Divinity
students at Cambridge.
Mr. Emerson had shown his hand plainly several years before. In 1832 he
raised the whole issue in the "epoch making" sermon, in which he
advanced the view of the communion service that led to his resignation
of the Christian ministry. His elder brother, William, returning from
his studies in Germany, was turned from the profession of the church
which he had purposed entering, to the law, by similar scruples. In
1834, James Walker printed in the "Christian Examiner" an address, which
was the same year published as a tract, by the American Unitarian
Association, entitled "The Philosophy of Man's Spiritual Nature in
regard to the foundations of Faith," wherein he took frankly the
transcendental ground, contending:
"That the existence of those spiritual faculties and capacities
which are assumed as the foundation of religion in the soul of man,
is attested, and put beyond controversy by the revelations of
consciousness; that religion in the soul, consisting as it does, of
a manifestation and development of these spiritual faculties and
capacities, is as much a reality in itself, and enters as
essentially into our idea of a perfect man, as the corresponding
manifestation and development of the reasoning faculties, a sense
of justice, or the affections of sympathy and benevolence; and
that from the acknowledged existence and reality of spiritual
impressions or perceptions, we may and do assume the existence and
reality of the spiritual world; just as from the acknowledged
existence and reality of sensible impressions or perceptions, we
may and do assume the existence and realities of the sensible
world."
In this discourse, for originally it was a discourse, the worst species
of infidelity is charged to the "Sensational" philosophy, and at the
close, the speaker in impressive language, said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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