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1iLPH WALDO EMERSON

E.E. Hale


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LIBRARYUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIADAVIS


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ALPH WALDO EMERSONEDWARD EVERETT HALE


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Ralph Waldo Emerson


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Copyright, 1899,

BY BROWN & COMPANY.Copyright, 1903,

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION.


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ContentsPage

Ralph Waldo Emerson 9The Character of Socrates 57The Present State of Ethical Philosophy . . 97


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Ralph Waldo EmersonAn address delivered beforethe Brooklyn Institute onthe Ninetieth Anniver-sary of Emerson's birth


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Ralph Waldo Emerson

WHEN the celebrated Arthur Stanley,Dean of Westminster, had finished hisvisit here in the year 1878, he was asked aboutthe American pulpit. He said in reply that hehad of course availed himself of every opportu-nity to hear the American preachers. He hadheard preachers of eminence, he said, in almostevery communion. But it mattered not whatwas the name of the communion ; the preacher,he said, was always Waldo Emerson.

This word of Stanley's interprets with greatprecision the condition of the religious life ofAmerica to-day. Ralph Waldo Emerson, whowas born ninety years ago to-day, found himselfuneasy under the restrictions of ecclesiasticalorganization, and while he never abandoned thepulpit he early severed himself from any ecclesi-astical connection. One may say, in passing,that it is interesting to observe that Roger Will-iams, John Milton, indeed, many other men


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io Ralph Waldo Emerson

who have proved to be reformers, did the samething. And this Ralph Waldo Emerson, whowas first, second, and last a teacher of man-kind, proves to be, as the century closes, thereligious teacher who has done most for Englandand America, and is doing most for England andAmerica to-day.

There are many persons in Brooklyn whonever heard his name. The majority of thepeople of this city do not know that they everread five lines of his writing. Yet it is withouthesitation that I say that the life of every personin Brooklyn is to-day affected, and it is affectedfor good, by the life and the words of this Yankee prophet of the latter half of thenineteenth century.The life of Mr. Emerson has been writtenwonderfully well. Few men have been sohappy as he in his biographers. Not to speakof other studies, there is an excellent little bookby Mr. George W. Cooke, who hardly knewhim personally, I think. There is the carefuland elaborate biography by Mr. Elliott Cabot,


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12 Ralph Waldo Emerson

elapsed since his death. With ten years morewe shall celebrate the centennial of his birth,as a few years ago we celebrated the centennialof Channing. I noticed in that celebrationthat already, by the constant law of history,those myths were sweeping in upon the picturewhich seem to belong to biography half a cen-tury after the life has been lived. In the nexttwenty years such myths will begin to tell theirstories of the prophet whom we commemorateto-night. For that I have no tears. Whatevermen shall say of him will be colored or flavoredby a sense of the infinite service which thisgreat idealist has wrought for mankind.

I have, however, acceded to the request thatI should speak here to-day, not because I thinkthat I could do what can only be done a hun-dred years hence; far less because I thoughtthat I could rewrite Mr. Cabot's biography, orreview his work better than Dr. Holmes hasdone. But I have supposed that a few personalreminiscences of the man himself, and somereminders as well of the social conditions in


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 13which he lived, might have an interest for thisaudience. I have fancied that already thelies which were told about him while he livedare to a certain extent modifying the generalpublic opinion which will for centuries go intohistory.

I was born into the Boston which he loved,twenty years after him. I was not far awayfrom the scenes of his work during the wholeof his active life. And I may be able, there-fore, to say something of some of the outerdetails of that life which may make it easierto comprehend its spirit and its purpose. Ishall be glad, as one is always glad, if I can doanything to present him to those who hear me,not simply as a philosopher, not simply as apoet, not simply as a reformer, but better thanthese, larger and more than these in the case ofhis life, if I can show him to you as what hewas a strong, simple, unaffected, all-roundman.Whether I can do this or not, I am quite

sure that I can enter a protest against some of


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14. Ralph Waldo Emerson

the errors of his time, which I am sorry to seehave wrought a certain effect already in history.

He was born in Boston, under as favorableauspices as could wait on the birth of any child.He had what Dr. Holmes says is the first ofadvantages, a line of New England ancestors ofthe best stock, running back on both sides to thegeneration of Winthrop and Brewster. In thelines of that ancestry there were enough min-isters of religion to satisfy Dr. Holmes' requi-sition. For this means, in a New Englandgenealogy, that there were so many lives ofquiet, thoughtful, faithful duty, in which, with-out large incomes or many temptations of theflesh, men and women were bred to high think-ing, conscientious duty, and to sharing life withGod. William Emerson, his father, was theuseful, eloquent, and beloved minister of theFirst Church of Boston. This is the church towhich John Cotton, two hundred and fifty yearsago, gave dignity ; where, by John Cotton's elo-


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Ralph Waldo Emerson i5

quence, the little village which had been afailure before was made the first town in thecolony ; or, as the joke of the time said, Bostonceased to be Lost town, and that had been itsnickname before.The honored father of this Rev. William

Emerson was the older William Emerson, who,from the window of the Manse, saw Davisour Protesilaus fall dead on Concord bridge,and saw the quick response of the Acton com-pany as they crossed the bridge and began thewar against King George. The William Emer-son of the First Church died when our Emerson,Ralph Waldo Emerson, was eight years old.The grandfather, who saw the Concord fight,was the son of a minister, a learned Greekscholar, who was the son of a minister whobarely escaped with his life when Mendon wasdestroyed by the Indians. Ralph Waldo Emer-son was therefore the fifth clergyman in directsuccession of the name of Emerson. Of otherNew England ministers, there were Bulkeleyand Moody, whose names are well known


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1 6 Ralph Waldo Emerson

among the antiquarians of New England, DanielBliss, a flame of fire, and many more of thatsame curious literary aristocracy. Let me sayin passing that, for more than two hundredyears, there was in Massachusetts what thepolitical writers call a peerage for life : they werea body of men whose incomes were secured tothem by law, on condition that they should seekGod if happily they might find Him, and thatthey should seek for Him with all their hearts.Of such a line our hero was the fit descendant.

I was standing with Mr. Emerson once at acollege exhibition, where a young man hadeasily taken the most brilliant honors, a youngman in whom we were both profoundly inter-ested. It was the first time I ever addressed Mr.Emerson. I congratulated him, as I congratulatedmyself, on the success of our young friend ; andhe said, cc Yes, I did not know he was so fine afellow. And now, if something will fall outamiss if he should be unpopular with hisclass, or if his father should fail in business, orif some other misfortune can befall him all


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 17will be well. I was green enough and boyenough to be inwardly indignant at what seemedto me the cynicism of the philosopher. But Idid not then know that when he was eight yearsold his father had died, and that to the penury,shall I say, of those early days to his mother'sdetermination that the boy should be bred atHarvard College, to the careful struggles bywhich each penny was made to work the miraclesof the broken bread by the Sea of Galilee heowed, or thought he owed, much of the vigor,the rigor, and the manhood of his life. u Goodis a good doctor, as he said himself, but badis sometimes a better.Now it is not my place, this evening, to pro-nounce any eulogy upon this prophet. I amnot quite a fool. Nor am I to analyze his workor restate his philosophy. He states it betterthan I can. And I may take for granted thosewho hear me can repeat the favorite instruc-tions which he has given them, and can them-selves rise to joy and vigor and life, as theyrecall oracles of divine truth from his poems.


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No ; I give myself one duty and pleasure to-night, and I will try for nothing else. I wantto show how this great leader of the idealistslives in personal touch, glad and homely, withhis fellow-men. I want to show that he is notafraid to bring his idealism to test in the practicalduty of commonplace life. We who knew him,talked with him, and loved him know that hefound the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Hefound God reigning in his baby's nursery ; atthe post-office ; when he pruned his apple irees ;and when he took the train for Boston. Wewant you who have not seen him to believethat the man of ideas was thus a human man, aman with men. He was not a dreamer. Hewas an actor. He taught us how to live ; andhe did so because he lived himself.

Here is the distinction between this greatidealist and the chiff-chaff talkers who degradethat name. I could, perhaps, draw that distinc-tion most easily by ridiculing them. Ridiculeis always easy. I might sketch the Phariseewho says, u Lord, Lord, but does not the things


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 19which he says. I should in that way, perhaps,present in contrast more clearly the true relig-ious philosopher, who goes and comes as a manamong men, who is as sincere as he bids us be.But we may leave to Carlyle that abuse of shamsand the unreal man. The precious thing inEmerson's oracles is that he abuses nobody.He hardly ridicules any one, though his senseof humor is so keen. His business is toelevate truth and honor, and he will not stop tovilify falsehood and shame. Dr. Holmes hasdrawn this contrast very neatly, where he saysthat in their forty years' correspondence Emer-son shows how he loves what is real, whileCarlyle only shows how he hates what is notreal.

I will for our hour together follow the greatexample. I will not take your time nor mineto show what he was not. I will try to showhow, while he spoke such words as no man ofhis time had spoken, he was living such a dailylife as gave every word its emphasis, as fur-nished him every minute with his illustrations,


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2O Ralph Waldo Emerson

and as compelled those of us who saw him,listened to him, and knew him to listen to theword he spoke, and to try the counsel for ourlives.He had pulled through college by the hardest,

knowing what are those small economies whichso grieve a boy's soul. He rejoiced in themoment when he was no longer a charge uponhis mother, but could do his share in caring forher. If ever man were tempted to use match-less power merely for earning money he wasthat man. Should he turn stones into bread

when the bread was to feed his mother ?To that question, to that temptation, he said, No Get thee behind me, Satan I maytake as the text of his life that sublime passagefrom his Journal written as he returned fromEurope in 1833:The highest revelation is that God is in every man.

Milton describes himself in his letter to Diodati asenamoured of moral perfection. He did not love itmore than I. That which I cannot yet declare hasbeen my angel from childhood until now. It has


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 21

separated me from men. It has watered my pillow.It has driven sleep from my bed. It has tortured mefor my guilt. It has inspired me with hope. Itcannot be defeated by my defeats. It cannot bequestioned, though all the martyrs apostatize. It isalways the glory that shall be revealed ; it is theopen secret of the universe. And it is onlythe feebleness and dust of the observer that makes it thefuture ; the whole is now potentially at the bottom ofhis heart. It is not a sufficient reply to the red andangry worldling, coloring as he affirms his unbelief, tosay, Think on living hereafter. I have to do no morethan you with that question of another life. I believein this life. I believe it continues. As long as I amhere, I plainly read my duties as writ with pencil offire. They speak not of death, they are woven ofimmortal thread.

To proclaim this gospel wherever men willhear, this is his mission, when he lands in hisown country again.

Observe, now,- that here is this idealist ofthe idealists, who for forty years of life, afterhe makes this decision, never turns his back on


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daily life or its petty demands. He buys hismutton and potatoes like the most practical ofus. If he cannot afford to buy the hind-quarterhe buys the fore-quarter. If the strawberriesare too dear he does not buy them. And youmay search through diary and letters withoutfinding one word of complaint. He who hasproved to be the noblest of the noble, the mostfamous of those of fame, for years upon yearsof life has to practice a severe economy in hisaffairs ; and he takes this as a thing of course,without a whimper. He plants his apple treeslike the rest of us. He takes care of them likethe rest of us : badly, like most of us. Hecarries his letters to the post-office, and waitsfor the mail talking politics. He goes to thetown meeting and listens more than he talks.He manages his own lecture courses and makeshis liberal bargains with the poor countrylyceums. In one sense a thousand millionbillion leagues above the world, he is, in theother sense, of the world and in it, like youand me. He makes no pretence that he is


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 23consorting only with Abdiel and Uriel, withcherubim and seraphim. Like the great leaderof life, he eats and drinks, when there is need,with publicans and sinners.

This signal practical habit shows itself, in agood instance, in all the correspondence withCarlyle. Carlyle is a man to whom the lastfifty years of England and America owe much.It would be fair to say that every man ofthought, in either country, who has renderedany essential service to either country in thattime, has been formed largely by Carlyle. Be-tween Carlyle and Emerson there is a world-widedifference. But Carlyle himself says : You areand for a long time have been the one of thesons of Adam who I felt completely under-stood what I was saying. Nay. It may bethat Emerson gave Carlyle to mankind. Itseems as if his encouragement, his sympathy,were needed to save the sad, dyspeptic pessimistwhen he was in the Slough of Despond. It wasEmerson who seized him by the hair of thehead and dragged him through.


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Not to stop to argue about this, let me ask youto see how at the beginning Emerson appears, allthrough, as the god descending from heaven tostraighten out Carlyle's practical affairs. He re-mits the half-yearly payments for the Americaneditions. He sends the first funds of the pub-lication of Sartor. He never chides thegrowler. He always encourages. You mightthink him a sensible elder brother, humoringbecause he would encourage the wincing, fretful,unhappy child, who is yet to help the world.

Emerson told me once that when, in thewinter of 18489, he left Liverpool for America,Arthur Hugh Clough, the young poet, accom-panied him to the ship and walked the deck withhim until she sailed. Clough was sad about hisdeparture. He said, You leave all of usyoung Englishmen without a leader. Carlyle hasled us into the desert, and he has left us there.Emerson said to him : That is what all youngmen in England have said to me ; and heplaced his hand on Clough's head, and said, Iordain you bishop of all England, to go up and


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 25down among all the young men and lead theminto the promised land. Alas Clough was notone of the leaders of men ; rather a listener anda follower. And the young men of Englandand America were left to the greater lesson ofthe Master of Life : that every life must for it-self drink from the infinite fountain. The daysof chieftains, of proconsuls, of dukes and baronsand priests are gone by ; the day of the boss andthe magician was over when the Master of Lifespoke the Word. The kingdom of heaven isopen to each man who will thunder at the door.The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and thesturdy and persevering, and only they, are thosewho take it by force.Edward Emerson's memoir of his father isone charming idyl of home life in Concordwhich is full of anecdotes of this infinite com-mon-sense. It is an illustration, well-nigh per-fect, of the application of eternal truth to finitenecessities, the needs of the place and time. Iam tempted to add to those a little reminiscencewhich early in life opened my eyes to the needed


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vision and showed me how the most rare phil-osopher, because of the fineness of his philos-ophy, was the most human man.

So soon as quick railway trains brought toBoston, daily, visitors from the country townsaround, who went back at night, the great inven-tion required new machinery to provide for suchchanges. Quite early in this affair the Townand Country Club was proposed in Boston. Ithink the name was Mr. Emerson's, and perhapsthe idea. It was made of men who wanted ahandy place where to write a note, or leave aparcel, or meet a friend in the crowded hoursbetween the arrival and departure of their trains.Boston has never quite met the need to thishour. The rock on which the craft split wasthat solid rock always in sight in such begin-nings, the stupidity of the cranks. They wereeager that this practical club should consecrateitself to u hearing papers written by people whocould find no other audience. This madnessfor u hearing papers is one of the most amazingof the trifling inconveniences of our time. Two


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parties at once appeared in the club : the partyof these cranks, and the party of working menwho wanted a place to eat a chop, to leave anumbrella or borrow one, perhaps to look up adate in an encyclopaedia, perhaps to sleep fifteenminutes on a sofa. Of this party, hard pressedin the early discussions, first, second, and last,Mr. Emerson, the great idealist, was the chival-rous and gallant leader. Always he was urgingthe need of practical common-sense and man-agements. Always,

in our many defeats, werallied round his white plume. And when theclub died of an early death died, of course,of its undigested papers he had no tears ofregret ; for to the very last he had been the sonof Anak who had stood by its practical duties.There are philosophical ladies to whom a cupof beef tea, a warm mutton chop, a place for acarpet-bag seem matters too carnal to arrestthe attention of serious-minded men. Let metell to them a more pathetic story : In

thecrowd of the Philadelphia Centennial one ofthe queens of our American life had Mr. Emer-


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son as her guest at Philadelphia as he studiedthe great exhibition. She also had as guests,in the elastic hospitality of her charming home,another distinguished New Englander who hadbrought his two little boys to see the show. Ithappened that this gentleman was suddenlycalled out of the house for many hours of thenight, on one of his many errands of mercy.Alas one of his little boys awoke in hisabsence, frightened and sick, in a strange house,to find that his father was gone. His wails ofsorrow waked his little brother, and both thenjoined in chorus. But it was some time beforethese strains reached the distant room of thelady of the house. When, at length, she didrun to the relief of the lonely little strangersshe found that the great idealist was before her.There he was, petting and soothing and com-forting those lonely children, who were thuslearning, in the dim midnight, the noblest lessonof the most divine philosophy. They werelearning it in the practical teaching of the greatidealist of the world


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 29I received another personal lesson in the

critical year of the Irish famine. At that timewe were receiving from Ireland the first greatwave of the enforced emigration. The failureof the potato crop had sent the poor Irish peopleto America because they would starve at home.In the enthusiasm of a young minister's eager-ness, I and my friends in Worcester weretrying to meet the occasion, wholly new to usall, which was offered by the arrival of thesestarving hordes. Mr. Emerson was my guestat the time, and I said to him, Do youknow, they are so fond of potatoes thatwe cannot make them touch Indian meal Ah, said this philosopher of the philosophers,

this man who, you would say, was swingingupon rainbows, you should not have sent themIndian meal. You should have sent them hotcakes.

It must have been, I think, in the autumn of1862, the second year of the war, that I metby invitation eight or nine gentlemen in aprivate parlor in Beacon street, 1 for conference

1 The home of the late Martin Brimmer.


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on a public matter. The subject was thenecessity of the broadest, freest, and strongestwork for enforcing the principles involved inthe struggle, that they might not be forgottenin our eagerness for recruiting and the crash ofarms. It was a War for Ideas, and those ideasmust not be forgotten. For instance, it wasclear that black men must fight for their freedomand their country. But there was still no smallsect of Northern men who said they would notdie in the same ranks with niggers. Again, itwas necessary that every smallest printing-officein an American town from which was publisheda newspaper should be fully informed, everyweek, as to the moral conditions of the greatdiscussion. Once more, was it not time thatthe army, on which all depended, should haveits own journal, alive with the fundamentalprinciples of patriotism, to be a message of theEternal Truth as well as an instructor in tacticsand strategy ? In that evening meeting of eightor nine men of action, I had almost said ofcourse, was Ralph Waldo Emerson. His word,


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 31as always, was a practical word for the time.With such voices as those of Martin Brimmer,of John Murray Forbes, of James L. Little,leaders in affairs in New England, you heardthe voice of this prophet of the Idea, as mucha man of affairs as they. That night, in thatBeacon-street parlor, the plan of the u Army andNavy Journal was born. That little companyformed itself into the Loyal Publication Society,and the hundreds of broadsides issued by thatcompany were there provided for.

These memories of the Civil war may appealto some man who remembers the doubts andfears as to the election in Connecticut of thatautumn, when Jo Hawley and half the honestyoung men in Connecticut were a thousandmiles away at the front lugging muskets on theirshoulders, among cypress trees and magnolias.It was feared that the other half might be out-voted by copperheads, saloon-keepers, and othertraitors. If there be such a man in this audi-ence let me ask him to hunt up the electioneer-ing documents of that Connecticut campaign.


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Among them he will find two, at least, from theprophet pen of Ralph Waldo Emerson.The Yankee Plato, James Lowell calls him.If you mean a Plato who is not afraid to testthe Infinite Idea, as he turns the grindstoneof to-day, the name is the fit one.My object is achieved if I can make you readthe oracles of this prophet with the certainty thatyou can apply them before the day has gone by.

I turn unwillingly from such reminiscences toother considerations which I ought not to passby. A question has been discussed, perhapsmore than it deserves, as to the training whichmade this prophet what he was. Was thereanything in the schools in which he was bredwhich shall account for him or his work ? Andin that discussion some of the lies of which Ispoke in the beginning have been uttered.

For myself, I believe it is idle to state verydefinitely what were the particular steps of theladder by which any great man rose to the posi-


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 33tion which he holds above the rest of us ; andI do not know that there is any great use in ourdiscussing the elements which went to Emer-son's education. I have satisfied my own con-science by saying that he did not borrow fromany Hegel or Fichte or other German idealist ormetaphysician. I might satisfy myself by sayingthat his thought, as his utterance, is purely ofNew England growth. Indeed, if we are tospeak of evolution, his prophecy is clearly adirect outgrowth and result of William ElleryChanning's ministry and prophecy.As I read Channing and his life, and as I re-member personally his effect on the people ofhis time, I am amused by the half-way esti-mate which they formed of his work and power.Here was Channing preaching in Federal-streetpulpit the noblest and highest idealism. Hewas preaching the absolute intimacy of Godwith man. Now that we have his diaries andhis early letters it is manifest that Channing,from the time he was twenty up, was seekingGod if haply he might find him. He was mystic


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of the mystics Francis of Assisi not more so,Jacob Boehme or Henry Scougal not more soin his eagerness to listen to the present God.When he spoke he was speaking the oracles ofthe present God. And when in his closet heprayed he was begging God to help himthrough.

Such a man was prophesying from week toweek, with the infinite modesty which belongsto such a position, in the pulpit of Federalstreet. He was speaking to a body of in-tellectual, well-educated people ; to people ofgreat courage, decision, promptness, not tosay shrewdness, who covered the world withtheir commerce, and who meant to make Bostonthe moral and intellectual capital of the world.I think there never was such a set of determinedfuture-makers, men of money and men of ideas,as were those Phillipses and Quincys and Ap-pletons and Perkinses to whom he spoke. Nowthese people, and all Cambridge and half ofBoston, took the idea that Channing wroughthis wonders by a certain intellectual power.


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He had written his great essays on Milton andNapoleon, which had won admiration even inthe lofty circles of dignified England. At the verytime when the Edinburgh said nobody readan American book English readers were readingthose essays. And so all critical Boston, not tosay all religious Boston, took it into its headthat Channing wrought his miracles by theclearness of his intellect. People thought hehad a certain veiled trick of elocution in thatquiet manner which, in fact, did not know anyof the tricks of the rhetorician. I have heardmen say that they u knew how Channing didit, as if Channing had any method. Thetruth is that it was as impossible for men to tellhis method as it is for Mr. Langley to-day totell what is the method of the hawk or the gullsweeping over the ocean. The glory of Chan-ning was that he had no method ; that he soughtGod and found Him, and then told what Godhad to say to him.Waldo Emerson had strayed from the deco-rous preaching of Chauncy place to hear these


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God-inspired words of Channing in Federalstreet. Waldo Emerson was one of those men

there are never more than one in a hundredsuch in any age who, when they listen to aprophet, believe that the prophet is in earnest.Ninety-nine people out of a hundred act as ifthey believed that the prophet is posing, and issimply saying phrases with nominative cases andverbs and objectives, which he has found outhow to arrange by certain rules of grammar.But Waldo Emerson was one of the few whobelieve a true man when they hear him. Andanybody who will sit down and read a dozen ofthe central discourses of Channing perhapsthere are not more to read will see that, givena young enthusiast, brave as was Emerson andtrue as was Emerson, and given a preacher asnear to God as Ellery Channing was, it wasimpossible that when that young enthusiast cameto speak he should not speak somewhat asEmerson spoke. He turns aside from all thisinterpretation of texts, from all this study of thesubjunctive and the optative, from all this bal-


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 37ancing of one authority in history against an-other authority, he shall turn aside from allthis, and listen now to the voice of the livingGod, and proclaim that voice as it now comesto him.

While he was preaching every Sunday of hislife, before he had published either of his bookswhich we now call most important, the hue andcry was started all around us that he was intro-ducing a German philosophy or German infidel-ity. These words I might also say, of course,were most frequently spoken by those who neverread a word of German in their lives, and couldnot have read a German sentence to save theirlives. They were spoken by those who at othertimes would have thanked God that they knewnothing of German theology, of German relig-ion, or of German philosophy. Certainly Iam not speaking as one who dreads Germaninfidelity or German philosophy. We are allreceiving too much from Germany every day,and have been receiving too much from Ger-many every day for a century, for any man who


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is not a fool to borrow such language. But Iam eager to say, in showing what Emerson wasand what he did, that the charge from the begin-ning that he borrowed from German writerswas ludicrously false. It is to be observed thatin his first visit to Europe he passed by Ger-many. He did not set foot there. He did not goto one of the universities, or make the acquain-tance of any distinguished German writer. Hesays himself, in one of his early letters, that henever read any German except the fifty volumesof Goethe. He read Goethe, not because he likedGoethe's philosophy, for as he says again andagain he hated it ; he read Goethe as he read thebooks of all other men who were many-sidedmen and had so looked at the world.Dr. Holmes has been at the pains to reg-ister Emerson's quotations. As he says they arelike the miraculous draught of fishes. Hislist is of three thousand three hundred and ninety-three from eight hundred and sixty-eight differ-ent individuals. Of this vast number there aretwenty-seven favorites whom Emerson cites


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twenty times or more. Among the twenty-seven there is but one German writer, and thatis Goethe Goethe, with regard to whom hewas always breaking lances with Carlyle, and ofwhom he has said the bitterest things, perhaps,which have been said about any man of ourtime. Coleridge, who had initiated Englandinto German thought, only comes out at theend of the list of twenty-seven. In later lifeso large-minded a man, so many-sided a man asEmerson read German authors as he read theother leading authors of his time. But it isclear to any man who follows the line of histhought and his work that the prophet beganto prophesy, and to mark out the line of hisprophecy, without any reference to the otherprophets of his time. He was what his ownNew England had made him. And this was achild of God who chose to go to God for in-structions. He was at the headquarters, and hechose to commune with the Commander-in-Chief. He was ready to talk with the otheraides j he liked to talk with the other aides.


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But he listened every day to know what theGreat Commander had to say to him. And nointerpretation of that word by any of theseaides brothers and sisters of his could turnhim from the Father. This is the secret of thepower of Emerson.

There are possibly ten such men, probablynot so many, in the nineteen centuries whichwe mark as the centuries of the new life menwho have been great teachers of others, becausethey received their instructions at first-hand.There have been thousands upon thousands ofothers, men and women, who have pretended soto speak, and have pretended so to receive theoriginal instructions, but who have been temptedby this chirping of a sparrow on one side, orthis thundering of an army on the other, or thisdiapason of an organ, or this song of an enchant-ress. What is interesting is that the great worldmakes no mistakes in its judgments of theprophets. You may imitate a prophet in hisdress, in his dialect, in the tone of his voice, inthe shake of his finger; he may stand before you


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say this was all spontaneous, it was natural, onthe part of the customer and on the part of thetrader. But when, the next day, another man,who had heard the story, came into the shopand selected for himself his hat and said that hedid not believe in money, the dealer refused theimitator, where he had accepted so readily theinventor. And Emerson drew the moral fromthe story which I want to draw now. Aprophet who speaks the word that comes tohim from the living God speaks, I may say,with the living God's power. But he whoimitates the prophet has no spell.

Poor man, he was himself surrounded withcohorts, with legions, of these imitators. Everylazy dog who did not want to work, everyignorant scholar who did not want to study,every weak-minded brother who hated law,would drift, as by some terrible central attrac-tion, to Concord, and lay at Emerson's feet thetribute of his laziness, his ignorance, his law-lessness, or, in general, his folly. These werethe bitter seeds in the food and drink of the last


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 43half of his life, when his name and fame hadgone into all lands.

Dear man, he was as tolerant of such folly asa saint should be. He would pass all lines ofPhilistine discretion in his welcome of suchtramps at his hospitable door. There is a veryamusing letter of Carlyle, when a few of themjoined Bronson Alcott on his return from Eng-land to America. The whole story would beterribly tragic were it not desperately comic.Hoping, as I suppose, for a few weeks or monthsof rest from a chatter which must have becomedeadly tiresome when you had it three hundredand sixty-five days in the year, the Concordfriends of Bronson Alcott arranged that heshould travel in England

and on the continentfor a summer and autumn. Alas so soon ashe arrived in England he met with many friendsmore tiresome than himself, as the Scripturewould say. They immediately called a conven-tion. In that convention

they immediatelyvoted that America was the place for the redemp-tion of the world, and New England the corner


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of America where that redemption should begin.And so, before Concord had well turned roundin the quiet luxury of those months, Alcott re-turned it is quite like the New Testamentparable with these others, so much worsechatterers than himself, proposing to enter inand dwell there, so that the last state of Con-cord should be much worse than the first. Itis of these coadjutors in the work of restoringsociety that Carlyle wrote, most pathetically, toEmerson, of what he called Alcott's Englishtail.

Bottomless imbeciles ought not be seen in com-pany with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who has alreadysome listening to him on this side of the water. Thetail has an individual or two of that genus, and therest is mainly yet undecided. For example, I knewold myself, and can testify, if you will believeme that few greater blockheads broke the world'sbread in his day

if blockhead may mean exasper-ated imbecile and the ninth part of a thinker. Havea care of such, I always say to myself, and to you,which you forgive me,


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to everything. From his time to our time,millions of men and millions of women havetaken him at his word, have trusted the fulnessof a Father's love, and have trusted it not invain. But, as I said, there are hardly more thanten prophets who have so lived in the Father's life,who have so partaken of the divine nature, whohave so created as God creates, and so spokenwith the simplicity with which God speaks, thatthey have swayed the hearts and lives of the greathost of their times who heard them. The cynicmight say that there are not more than five orsix such persons in the nineteen centuries. Thelast of such prophets is he whose birth we cele-brate to-day. For the people who speak thisEnglish tongue which he so loved, and in whichhe breathed his word, he speaks the word sothat they must hear. A new-born child is abud of God. Carlyle's word, when it is true,is for him the word of God. The steamship'sshuttle, as it dashes back and forth across theocean, is the message of God. In God,again, when we read this prophet's word, we


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 47live and move and have our being. As weread these words, and as we receive them oncemore, looking backward is it, or forward is it ?we see how God is all in all. This is noalien life which sets the elm-leaf dancing againstthe blue. It does not differ from the life whichI draw in in the joy of this new-born day. Itis the same life with which my baby lives, asshe exults in the joy of being. Once more,when I listen to this prophet's word I knowwhat was meant when I was told that if I am achild of God I shall know him and his king-dom nay, that I may myself enter into themajesty of that empire, if I will become as alittle child.

I do not say, I do not need to say, that theprophet who thus exalts me for the moment,who lifts me above dust and smoke and things,into the ether of the spirit and of the presentheaven, I do not say that he understands allthe work of God as He handles matter, or thathe explains it. Why should he understand it ?Why should he explain it ? It is enough if he


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comprehend it, if he succeed when he bids hislife beat with the pulses of infinite life, if herise to so high a plane that he looks beyond thehorizon of earth, beyond the horizon of Arc-turus and Orion, if he know what is the moreabundant life which the Saviour promises to youand me. To avoid the temptation of explain-ing ; the temptation of earth and the flesh, ofwriting down on tablets the mechanical lawswhich regulate friction and pain and hatredand cruelty and the other accidents of timeand flesh, to avoid the temptation of throw-ing away life upon such conundrums, thisgives the true prophet his infinite empire.And in him whom we celebrate to-night, whomwe shall remember to-morrow and with everyday of the next year whether we would or no,there was the glad certainty that he could usethese things of time so that the very angels oflight should receive him yes, while he wasusing them into their everlasting habitations.In the town-meeting of Concord, in the Statestreet of Boston, as he spoke in Faneuil Hall,


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Ralph Waldo Emerson 49or as he bought his dinner of the butcher or ofthe fisherman, he could go and come as the liv-ing child of a living God, who, for God's presentpurpose, was going about his Father's business.This vision, as of Apollo dwelling with Ad-metus, as of Prometheus drawing

fire fromheaven to make clay live, as of Mango Capacwalking down from the celestial heights of theAndes that the Peruvians might rightly cultivatetheir potatoes and lead their llamas to the foun-tain,

is a vision which this prophet fulfilled ashe went and came, as he made a sacrament of acup of cold water as he gave it to you, as hiscommon words exalted themselves into theoracles of his time.

I remember no other such instance of visiblevictory waiting in one's own life-time uponmanly determination. It was my good fortuneto hear, in 183 7, the address which Dr. Holmescalls the Declaration of Independence of Ameri-can Literature the Phi Beta Kappa oration ofJuly at Cambridge. So I can remember thesurprise shall I say the indignation which


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50 Ralph Waldo Emersonthe simple, solid, disconnected phrases of thataddress awakened among those who heard. Iremember the covert criticism of the gay dinner-party which followed. I remember how after-wards men and women freely said he was crazy.Alas, I have on paper my own school-boydoubts whether he appreciated the occasion It happened to me, forty years after, in one ofthe most exquisite homes in America, some twomile's above the level of the sea, on that easyslope of the Rocky Mountains, among all thefresh comforts which make a palace as desirablea home as a log cabin, to find on the table ofmy hostess, who is herself one of the leaders ofto-day, a new edition of this oration of fortyyears before. I read it then, with absoluteamazement. If you will look at it to-nightwhen you go home you will share that amaze-ment. For I could not find one extravagance.I could not find one word which should shockthe most timid. It was impossible to under-stand where the craziness came in. So had heled the age in those forty years, or so had the


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52 Ralph Waldo Emersonwith the life of the Over-soul who inspiredhim.

From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend:Path, motive, guide, original, and end.He found out that these are true words.

They are poetry because they are true. Thisis no oriental exaggeration ; this is no finesse ofrhetoric. Here is the eternal truth whichmakes human life divine, as it makes God'spresent love so human. In that life, the lifeinfinite, abundant with all God's joy andstrength, this prophet, and all prophets, com-mand you and me to live. They commandus, they implore us, they beckon, they quickenus

;if we are wise, they compel us. We rise,so that we may see with its infinite perspective.We obey, so that we command with its infinite

power. We listen, so that we may speak withits simple truth. We live, so that we mayenter into infinite joy. We are all kings, weare all priests, we are all children of God; andwith joy we acknowledge that we must goabout our Father's business.


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We rightly celebrate him when, with hissimplicity, we also live in the infinite and uni-versal life.


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The Character of SocratesAn Early Essay of Emerson


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The Character of Socrates[A Bowdoin Prize Dissertation of 1810]

Guide my wayThrough fair Lyceum's walk, the green retreatsOf Academus, and the thymy valeWhere, oft enchanted with Socratic sounds,Ilissus pure devolved his tuneful streamIn gentler murmurs. From the blooming storeOf these auspicious fields, may I unblamedTransplant some living blossoms to adornMy native clime.

1 '

THE philosophy of the human mind has oflate years commanded an unusual degree ofattention from the curious and the learned. Theincreasing notice which it obtains is owingmuch to the genius of those men who have raisedthemselves with the science to general regard,but chiefly, as its patrons contend, to the uncon-trolled progress of human improvement. Thezeal of its advocates, however, in other respectscommendable, has sinned in one particular, theyhave laid a little too much self-complacent stress


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58 The Character of Socrateson the merit and success of their own unselfishexertions, and in their first contempt of the absurdand trifling speculations of former metaphysicians,appear to have confounded sophists and true phil-osophers, and to have been disdainful of somewho have enlightened the world and marked outa path for future advancement.

Indeed, the giant strength of modern improve-ment is more indebted to the early wisdom ofThales and Socrates and Plato than is generallyallowed, or perhaps than modern philosophershave been well aware.

This supposition is strongly confirmed by aconsideration of the character of Socrates, which,in every view, is uncommon and admirable. Toone who should read his life as recorded byXenophon and Plato without previous knowl-edge of the man, the extraordinary character andcircumstances of his biography would appearincredible. It would seem that antiquity hadendeavored to fable forth a being clothed withall the perfection which the purest and brightestimagination could conceive or combine, bestow-


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60 The Character of Socrates

memorable controversy of rage and spite, con-flicting with energetic and disciplined independ-ence, had shed over their land an effulgence ofglory which richly deserved all that applausewhich after ages have bestowed. It was a sterntrial of human effort, and the Greeks might bepardoned if, in their intercourse with less gloriousnations, they carried the record of their long tri-umph too far to conciliate national jealousies.The aggrandizement of Greece which followedthis memorable war was the zenith of its powersand splendor, and ushered in the decay and fallof the political fabric.The age of Pericles has caused Athens to beremembered in history. At no time during herexistence were the arts so flourishing, populartaste and feeling so exalted and refined, or herpolitical relations so extensive and respected.The Athenian people were happy at home, rev-erenced abroad, and at the head of the Grecianconfederacy. Their commerce was lucrative,and their wars few and honorable. In this mildperiod it was to be expected that literature and


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The Character of Socrates 61science would grow up vigorously under the fos-tering patronage of taste and power. TheOlympian games awakened the emulation ofgenius and produced the dramatic efforts of/Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristoph-anes, and philosophy came down from heavento Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Socrates.

Such was the external and obvious conditionof Athens, apparently prosperous, but a con-cealed evil began to display specific and disastrousconsequences. The sophists had acquired thebrightest popularity and influence, by the exhibi-tion of those superficial accomplishments whosenovelty captivated the minds of an ingeniouspeople, among whom true learning was yet inits infancy. Learning was not yet loved for itsown sake. It was prized as a saleable com-modity. The sophists bargained their literature,such as it was, for a price ; and this price, everexorbitant, was yet regulated by the ability of thescholar.

That this singular order of men should pos-sess so strong an influence over the Athenian


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62 The Character of Socratespublic argues no strange or unnatural state ofsociety, as has been sometimes represented j it isthe proper and natural result of improvement ina money-making community. By the prosperityof their trading interests all the common wantsof society were satisfied, and it was natural thatthe mind should next urge. its claim to cultivation,and the surplus of property be expended for thegratification of the intellect. This has beenfound true in the growth of all nations, thatafter successful trade, literature soon throve well,

provided the human mind was cramped by nodisadvantages of climate or u skyey influences.The Athenian sophists adapted their course ofpursuits of knowledge, with admirable skill, to thetaste of the people. They first approved them-selves masters of athletic exercises, for the wantof which no superiority of intellect, howeverconsummate, would compensate in the Grecianrepublics. They then applied themselves to thecultivation of forensic eloquence, which enabledthem to discourse volubly, if ignorantly, on anysubject and on any occasion, however unexpected.


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The Character of Socrates 63To become perfect in this grand art, it wasnecessary to acquire, by habit and diligence, animperturbable self-possession which could con-front, unabashed, the rudest accident ; and more-over, a flood of respondent and exclamatoryphrases, skilfully constructed to meet the emer-gencies of a difficult conversation. After thislaudable education had thus far accomplished itsaim, the young sophist became partially con-versant with the limited learning of the age in allits

subjects.The poets, the historians, the sages,the writers on the useful arts, each and all

occupied by turns his glancing observation. Andwhen the motley composition of his mind wasfull, it only remained to stamp upon his charactersome few

peculiarities,to make him what the

moderns have called a mannerist, and hisprofessional education was considered complete.When the sophists made themselves known,they assumed a sanctity of manners, which awedfamiliarity and very conveniently cloaked theirsinister designs. Pythagoras, after his persever-ing exertions for the attainment of knowledge,


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64 The Character of Socrates

after his varied and laborious travels, had estab-lished a romantic school at Crotona with institu-tions resembling free masonry, which had plantedin Greece prepossessions favorable to philosophy.The sophists availed themselves of their preju-dices, and amused the crowds who gathered atthe rumor of novelty, with riddles and defini-tions, with gorgeous theories of existence,splendid fables and presumptuous professions.They laid claim to all knowledge, and craftilycontinued to steal the respect of a credulouspopulace, and to enrich themselves by pretendingto instruct the children of the opulent. Whenthey had thus fatally secured their own emolu-ment, they rapidly threw off the assumed rigidityof their morals, and, under covert of a sort ofperfumed morality, indulged themselves and theirfollowers in abominable excesses, degrading themind and debauching virtue. Unhappily forGreece, the contaminating vices of Asiatic lux-ury, the sumptuous heritage of Persian War,had but too naturally seconded the growingdepravity.


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The Character of Socrates 65The

youthof

greatmen is seldom marked byany peculiarities which arrest observation. Their

minds have secret workings ; and, though theyfeel and enjoy the consciousness of genius, theyseldom betray prognostics of greatness. Manywho were cradled by misfortune and want havereproached the sun as he rose and went down,for amidst the baseness of circumstances theirlarge minds were unsatisfied, unfed ; many havebowed lowly to those whose names their ownwere destined to outlive ; many have gone downto their graves in obscurity, for fortune withheldthem from eminence, and to beg they wereashamed.Of the son of the sculptor and midwife we

only know that he became eminent as a sculptor,but displaying genius for higher pursuits, Crito,who afterward became his disciple, procured forhim admission to the schools and to such educa-tion as the times furnished. But the rudimentsof his character and his homely virtues wereformed in the workshop, secluded from tempta-tion ; and those inward operations of his strong


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66 The Character of Socratesmind were begun which were afterwards maturedin the ripeness of life.We shall proceed to examine the character ofthe philosopher, after premising that we do notintend to give the detail of his life, but shall occa-sionally adduce facts of biography as illustrativeof the opinions we have formed. With regardto the method pursued in the arrangement of ourremarks, we must observe that sketches of thecharacter of an individual can admit of littledefiniteness of plan, but we shall direct our atten-tion to a consideration of the leading features ofhis mind, and to a few of his moral excellenceswhich went to make up the great aggregate ofhis character.The chief advantage which he owed to nature,

the source of his philosophy and the foundationof his character, was a large share of plain goodsense, a shrewdness which would not sufferitself to be duped, and withal, concealed undera semblance of the frankest simplicity, whichbeguiled the objects of his pursuit into conversa-tion and confidence which met his wishes. This


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The Character of Socrates 67

was the faculty which enabled him to investigatehis own character, to learn the natural tendencyand bias of his own genius, and thus to perfectlycontrol his mental energies.

There is a story of Socrates, related by Cicero,which militates somewhat with the opinion wehave formed of his mind, that when a physi-ognomist, after having examined his features,had pronounced him a man of bad passions anddepraved character, Socrates reproved the indig-nation of his disciples by acknowledging thetruth of the assertion so far as nature was con-cerned, saying that it had been the object of hislife to eradicate these violent passions. Thismight have been merely a trick of art, and assuch is consistent with his character. We can-not view it in any other light ; for although it isvery probable that natural malignity might havedarkened his early life, yet no assertion of hisown would convince us, in contradiction withhis whole life and instruction, that he was eversubject to the fiercer passions. Such, too, wasthe order of his intellect. He was a man of


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68 The Character of Socratesstrong and vivid conceptions, but utterly desti-tute of fancy. Still, he possessed originality andsometimes sublimity of thought. His powerfulmind had surmounted the unavoidable errors ofeducation, and had retained those acquirementswhich are found applicable to the uses of com-mon life, whilst he had discarded whatever wasabsurd or unprofitable.He studied the nature and explored the des-tinies of men with a chastised enthusiasm. Not-withstanding the sober, dispassionate turn ofmind which we have mentioned, he is not un-moved at all times; when he enters into thediscussion upon the immortality of the soul andthe nature and attributes of Deity, he forgets hisquibbles upon terms, and his celebrated irony,and sensibly warms and expands with his theme.This was aided by the constant activity of hismind, which endowed him with energy of thoughtand language, and its discipline never sufferedhim to obtrude an unguarded emotion.

In perfect accordance with this view of hismind is his conduct under circumstances related


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jo The Character of SocratesAll this we know, and the manner which Soc-

rates selected to perform the task assigned himcreates neither disappointment nor surprise ; forperhaps in the biographical annals of his countrythere was no intellect whose leading feature morenearly resembled his own than ^Esop, whosefables he undertook to versify.

It may well be supposed that a mind thus castwas eminently calculated to instruct, and hisdidactic disposition always rendered him ratherthe teacher than the companion of his friends.Add to all this an unrivalled keenness of pene-tration into the character of others, and hencearose his ruling motive in all his intercourse withmen ; it was not to impart literary knowledge orinformation in science or art, but to lay open tohis own view the human mind, and all its unac-knowledged propensities, its weak and fortifiedpositions, and the springs of human action. Allthis was achieved by the power of his art, and itenabled him easily to grasp the mind, and mouldit at will, and to unite and direct the wanderingenergies of the human soul.


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The Character of Socrates 71His mind was cultivated, though his learningwas little. He was acquainted with the works

of the most eminent poets of his country, but ashe seems never to have made literature his study,the limited erudition he possessed was probablygleaned from the declamations of the sophists,whose pride never scrupled to borrow abundantlyfrom the superfluous light which departed geniusafforded. His own acquisitions had been madein the workshops of the Athenian artisans, in thesociety of Aspasia and Theombrota, and by in-telligent, experienced observation.Though living in Athens, he acquired little

taste for the elegance or pride of life ; surroundedas he was by the living marbles which all suc-ceeding ages have consented to admire, and thenjust breathing from the hand of the artist, heappeared utterly dead to their beauties, and usedthem only as casual illustrations of an argu-ment. In the gratification of his desire to learnand know mankind, he visited the poor and therich, the virtuous and the degraded, and set him-self to explore all the varieties of circumstances


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72 The Character of Socratesoccurring in a great city, that he might discoverwhat were the elements which furnish forth

We may judge from the acquaintances of thephilosopher what were the minds most congenialto his own. Of his great contemporaries,Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Euripidesalone was his pupil and friend. He never at-tended the theatre only as his tragedies were tobe performed. This warmth of feeling for thechaste and tender dramatist should defend hismind from the imputation of utter deafness totaste and beauty. The majestic and sublimegenius of Sophocles was not so intimately alliedto the

every-daymorals of Socrates ; Euripides

knew and taught more human nature in its com-mon aspects. The oracle of Delphos justifiedhis choice in that remarkable declaration :2o(/>o'v 2,o(j>OK\f}S, o-ocjxorepos EuptTTtS?}?, av-

Spcovre iravT&v, ^(o/cpdrrj? cro^coraro?.The fathers, with their usual grudge againstthe heathen oracles, formed singular opinionsrespecting this extraordinary decree. The


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The Character of Socrates 73great Origen is of the opinion that the Devil,when he delivered that sentence, by giving Soc-rates those partners purposely obscured his glory,whilst he was in some measure forced to applaudit.

We have attempted to draw the outline of oneof the most remarkable minds which humanhistory has recorded, and which was renderedextraordinary by its wonderful adaptation to thetimes in which he lived. We must now hastento our great task of developing the moral superi-ority of the philosopher.A manly philosophy has named fortitude,temperance, and prudence its prime virtues. Allbelonged, in a high degree of perfection, to theson of Sophroniscus, but fortitude more particu-larly. Perhaps it was not a natural virtue, butthe first-fruits of his philosophy. A mind whoseconstitution was built up like his the will ofthe philosopher moulding the roughest materialsinto form and order might create its ownvirtues, and set them in array to compose theaggregate of character. He was not like other


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74 The Character of Socratesmen, the sport of circumstances, but by the per-severing habits of forbearance and self-denialhe had acquired that control over his whole beingwhich enabled him to hold the same even,unchangeable temperament in all the extremes ofhis fortunes. This exemption from the influ-ences of circumstances in the moral world isalmost like exemption from the law of gravita-tion in the natural economy. The exemplifica-tions of this fortitude are familiar. When allthe judges of the senate, betraying an unworthypusillanimity, gave way to an iniquitous demandof the populace, Socrates alone disdained to sac-rifice justice to the fear of the people.On another occasion, in the forefront of abroken battle, Alcibiades owed his life to the firm-ness of his master. Patriotic steadfastness inresistance to the oppression of the Thirty Tyrantsis recorded to his honor. Although we are un-willing to multiply these familiar instances, wewould not be supposed to undervalue that milderfortitude which Diogenes Laertius has lauded,and which clouded his domestic joys. The vie-


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The Character of Socrates 75

tory over human habits and passions which shallbring them into such subjection as to be sub-servient to the real advantage of the possessoris that necessary virtue which philosophers de-nominate temperance. We are led to speak ofthis particularly because its existence in the char-acter of Socrates has been questioned.The impurity of public morals and the preva-lence of a debasing vice has left a festeringreproach on the name of Athens, which deepensas the manners of civilized nations have alteredand improved. Certain equivocal expressionsand paragraphs in the Dialogues of Plato haveformerly led many to fasten the stigma on Soc-rates. This abomination has likewise been laidto the charge of Virgil, and probably with as littlejustice. Socrates taught that every soul was aneternal, immutable form of beauty in the divinemind, and that the most beautiful mortals ap-proached nearest to that celestial mould ; that itwas the honor and delight of human intellect tocontemplate this beau ideal, and that this wasbetter done through the medium of earthly per-


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j6 The Character of Socratesfection. For this reason this sober enthusiastassociated with such companions as Alcibiades,Critias, and other beautiful Athenians.A late article in the Quarterly Review, thebetter to vindicate the character of

Aristophanesfrom the reproach attached to him as the authorof The Clouds, has taken some pains to attackthe unfortunate butt of the comedian's buffoon-ery. It is unpleasant at this day to find factsmisrepresented in order to conform to a system,and unwarranted insinuations wantonly thrownout to vilify the most pure philosopher of an-tiquity, for no other purpose than to add theinterest of novelty to a transient publication. Itis a strong, and one would think an unanswer-able, argument against the allegation, that hisunsparing calumniator, the bitter Aristophanes,should have utterly omitted this grand reproach,while he wearies his sarcasm on more insignifi-cant follies. Nor did he pass it by because itwas not accounted a crime, as if the fashionof the age justifies the enormity ; for in thisidentical play he introduces his Just Orator,


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78 The Character of Socratesof morals and virtue which had become a nationalcalamity. He saw his country embarrassed, andplunging without help in the abyss of moraldegradation. Dissipation and excess madeAthens their home and revelled with impunity. Give us a song of Anacreon or Alcaeus wasthe common cry. A frightful voluptuousnesshad entwined itself about the devoted city, andits ultimate baneful consequences had beguntheir work. In these circumstances, when alleyes appeared to be blinded to the jeopardy bythe fatal incantations of vagrant vine-clad Muses,this high-toned moralist saw the havoc that wasin operation. He desired to restore his country-men; he would not treacherously descend toflatter them.To accomplish this, he selected a differentcourse from the ordinary plans of young men.To an Athenian entering on life and aspiringafter eminence, the inducements to virtue wereweak and few, but to vice numberless and strong.Popularity was to be acquired among these de-generate republicans ; not as formerly among


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The Character of Socrates 79their great ancestors, by toilsome struggles forpre-eminence in purity, by discipline and austerevirtue, but by squandered wealth, profligacy, andflattery of the corrupt populace. What, then,had an obscure young man, poor and friendless,to expect, sternly binding himself to virtue, andattacking the prevalent vices and prejudices of agreat nation ? This was certainly no unworthyprototype of the circumstances of the foundersof the Christian religion. He devoted himselfentirely to the instruction of the young, aston-ishing them with a strange system of doctrineswhich inculcated the love of poverty, the for-giveness of injuries, with other virtues equallyunknown and unpractised.

His philosophy was a source of good senseand of sublime and practical morality. He directshis disciples to know and practise the purestprinciples of virtue ; to be upright, benevolent,and brave; to shun vice, TO Orjpiov^ .thedreadful monster which was roaring throughearth for his prey. The motives which he pre-sented for their encouragement were as pure as


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8o The Character of Socratesthe life they recommended. Such inducementswere held up as advancement in the gradationsof moral and intellectual perfection, the prouddelight of becoming more acceptable in the eyeof Divinity, and the promise to virtue of com-munications from other and higher spheres ofexistence. The notions of the nature of Godwhich Socrates entertained were infinitely morecorrect and adequate than those of any otherphilosopher before him whose opinions havecome down to us.

Additional praise is due to him, since he alonedared to express his sentiments on the subjectand his infidelity to the popular religion. Whatis God ? said the disciples to Plato. It ishard, answered the philosopher, to know, andimpossible to divulge. Here is that reluctancewhich timorous believers were obliged to display. What is God ? said they to Socrates, andhe replied, The great God himself, who hasformed the universe and sustains the stupendouswork whose every part is finished with the ut-most goodness and harmony ; he who preserves


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The Character of Socrates 81them perfect in immortal vigor and causes themto obey him with unfailing punctuality and arapidity not to be followed by the imaginationthis God makes himself sufficiently visible by theendless wonders of which he is the author, butcontinues always invisible in himself. This isexplicit and noble. He continues, u Let us not,then, refuse to believe even what we do notbehold, and let us supply the defect of ourcorporeal eyes by using those of the soul ; butespecially let us learn to render the just homageof respect and veneration to that Divinity whosewill it seems to be that we should have no otherperception of him but by his effects in our favor.Now this adoration, this homage, consists inpleasing him, and we can only please him bydoing his will.

These are the exalted sentiments and motiveswhich Socrates enforced upon men, not in insu-lated or extraordinary portions of his system butthrough the whole compass of his instructions.Convinced that the soul is endowed with energiesand powers, by which, if well directed, she strives


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The Character of Socrates 83have flourished and triumphed on till this day, afree and admirable commonwealth of philoso-phers, and looked with enviable unconcern onall the revolutions about her that have agitatedand swallowed up nations ; and Philip of Mace-don and Mummius of Rome might have slept inobscurity. But this is digression, and we canoffer no apology except the pleasure which sucha vision affords. We must now proceed to saysomething of his ambiguous genius.The Sai/jLcov of Socrates partakes so muchof the marvellous that there is no cause forwonder arising from the difference of opinionmanifested in its discussion. Those who loveto ascribe the most to inspiration in the prophetsof God's revealed religion claim this mysteriouspersonage as akin to the ministering spirits ofthe Hebrew faith. Those who, with Xenophon,know not of this similarity, or who do not findfoundation for this belief, look upon the Saificovonly as a personification of natural sagacity ;some have charitably supposed that the philoso-pher himself was deluded into a false conviction


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84 The Character of Socratestnat he enjoyed a peculiar communication withthe gods by the intervention of a supernaturalbeing, learned their will and accomplished theirends. These supposed claims which Socrateslaid to divine inspiration have induced many tocarry their veneration to a more marvellousextent than we can safely follow.We are willing to allow that they haveplausible arguments who have considered thephilosopher in the more imposing view, as anespecial light of the world commissioned fromheaven and as a distant forerunner of the Saviourhimself. Dr. Priestley, with a bolder hand, hasinstituted a comparison between Socrates andthe Saviour himself. We are not disposed toenter upon these discussions, as they do not leadto truth and serve only to bewilder. It is prob-able that the philosopher adopted the successfulartifice of Lycurgus, referring his instructions tohigher agents in order to enforce their obedi-ence. With regard to the innocence of theartifice, although perhaps no philosopher has asincerer reverence for truth, yet the doctrine


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The Character of Socrates 85was but too common at that time that theywere free to promulgate useful falsehoods ; andif he imagined that the necessity of the casemight acquit Lycurgus, certainly a falsehood ofa more heinous nature would at present havebeen justifiable.The death of this illustrious man has chieflyentitled him to the veneration of mankind. Themild magnanimity which could forgive and justifyits unjust oppressors; the benevolence whichforgot self and its pains and necessities in theardor of instructing others ; the grandeur of soulwhich disdained self-preservation purchased atthe expense of inflexible principle ; the couragewhich stooped not in extremity these are vir-tues which the human understanding alwaysmust approve, and which compel admiration.We have heard much of triumphant and honor-able deaths at the stake or by sudden violence,or from natural causes of men who have diedin martyrdom for liberty, religion, or love ; theseare glorious indeed and excellent. But withouttaking into consideration the allowance to be


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86 The Character of Socratesmade for exaggeration and the love of the marvel-lous, we should attribute much to the influenceof despair. An enthusiast is hurried suddenlyfrom family and friendship and all the atmosphereof social life his joys and hopes and habits

-

to the place of torture and execution, to pay thepenalty of adherence to a tenet. The quick andfearful change of circumstances bewilders andoverwhelms a mind easily affected by things ex-ternal. Morbid sensibility takes the place ofsanity of mind, and, but partially conscious ofhis conduct, he mechanically repeats the languagestrongly written on his memory ; and it followsthat the ignorant mistake his imbecility for fear-lessness, and his insensibility for blissful antici-pation of approaching glory. Such cases are byno means improbable, and a strict scrutiny ofmiraculous last words and dying speeches will^find them. But in the sacrifice of Socrates thereis no shadow of a doubt on which incredulitymight attach itself. The firmness and uncon-cern with which he regards the approach of deathare truly astonishing ; there does not appear to


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The Character of Socrates 87have been the slightest accession of excitement,not the alteration of a degree in his mental tem-perature. He met his agitated friends with theusual calm discourse and deliberate reasoning.He spoke upon the subject, it is true, when theyfrequently introduced it, but willingly acquiescedin the ordinations of superior intelligence, andemployed his reason to unveil the sublime pur-poses of Providence.A fortunate superstition of the Athenians fur-nished him with the opportunity of manifestingthe sincerity and greatness of his philosophy, asthe length of time between his condemnationand death enabled him to hold frequent inter-course with his disciples. Human sincerity hasseldom passed a severer ordeal than did the prin-ciples of Socrates. Notwithstanding the minuteaccuracy with which his every action has beendetailed, we know not that the fortitude of whichwe have spoken ever abandoned him to a mo-ment's melancholy. We behold him upbraid-ing the pusillanimity, or soothing the sorrows, ofthose friends whose office it should have been,


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88 The Character of Socratesin the ordinary course of circumstances, to alle-viate his own dying agonies. The dignity andgrandeur of soul, everywhere predominant, issustained to the conclusion of the great tragedy,till we are irresistibly led to bestow upon thepagan the praise of a perfect man.

It is melancholy to turn from this heroic event,this mighty giving-up of the ghost, to the darkhistory of the causes and agents of so foul a mur-der. We should avoid all recurrence to it, andsave mankind the shock and blush of recollection,did not we think that some palliation mightbe pleaded to soften this black disgrace on aname we so much love to venerate as that ofAthens.When the philosopher began life there was

a freshness of glory diffused over his countrywhich no after times equalled. There had beenmagnificent success in arms and arts, andachievements which overshadowed the greatnames of their own romance, Hercules andTheseus and Achilles. These stupendous suc-cesses, to which modern history does not pre-


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The Character of Socrates 89tend to offer a parallel, had become familiar tothem, and led them to that independence ofcharacter the ultimate effect of which was thatcaprice which distinguished the people of Athens.

It was natural, further beholding the full dis-play of their might, which had been thus glori-ously exhibited, that these republicans shouldacquire confidence in themselves, a fearlessnessof contending interests about them, and of theconsequences of their own actions, which wasimparted from the political community as awhole to each separate state, and from the stateto each individual. Such countrymen had theyouthful Socrates. But he lived to see themdegenerate, and crouch to the despotism of theThirty ; to submit to defeat abroad, and to fac-tion at home. All this, however, had littleeffect on that caprice whose cause we havementioned. When the anarchy of the ThirtyTyrants was over, the impatience with which thepeople remembered their own submission onlyincreased the action of their caprice ; nor is itextraordinary if an overflowing zeal to approve


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The Character of Socrates 91some appearance of plausibility in the apologyfor that inconsistency.

In the theatre, impiety excited strong feeling,and the people's gratitude to the poet who couldso faithfully amuse them would easily find apol-ogy for more glaring impropriety. But the phil-osopher was the teacher of youth, who shoulddo away with every improper impression, andmight not be allowed to infringe upon the faiththey had been accustomed to venerate. Besides,they came to the lectures of the sage with dis-passionate minds, and there was no purpose ofwarm feeling to be answered which might par-don the introduction of what they termed pro-fanity. We must confess that it is hard tocheck and change the free tide of an ancientreligion. When old prejudices which man en-tertains of his Maker are fixed ; when he isreasoning himself into a consent to the laws ofGod which govern him ; when he has incorpo-rated the names and attributes of those whoknow and make his destiny with all his views


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The Present State of EthicalPhilosophy

An Early Essay of Emerson


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The Present State of EthicalPhilosophy

[A Bowdoin Prize Dissertation of 1821]

WHEN the present system of things beganits being, and the eternal relations of mat-ter were established, the constitution of moralscience was yet to be founded. It began withthe social human condition, with man's firstsense of duty to his Maker and to his fellow-man. It has remained in permanent eternalprinciples, designed to regulate the present lifeand to conduct the human race to their unseenand final destinies. Its development was later :with rude and unworthy beginnings, in whichAdvancement was long scarcely perceptible andalways uncertain, and blessed with no charter ofexemption from the difficulties of error. For atime it was extricating itself from the conse-quences of mistake, and improving its condi-tion, sometimes, however, making a false stepand plunging deeper into gulfs of absurdity and


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98 The Present State of Ethical Philosophypollution ; but it has finally placed itself onrespectable ground in the circle of humanknowledge.

It were a bold and useless enquiry, and lead-ing back beyond the limits of human informa-tion, certainly claiming the apology of interestand importance, to ask what surpassing mindconceives the germ of moral science, or howit was communicated from heaven to earth. Itwas the beautiful and eternal offspring of otherworlds, and conferred on this by interpositionwhich no discoveries might anticipate.We shall briefly sketch the history of ethicalphilosophy, and notice some prominent distinc-tions which separate ancient from modern ethics,before we proceed to consider the present stateof the science.We find irregular and casual hints of moralscience thrown out by the most distinguishedancient Greek poets, descending, as is supposed,remotely from primeval revelation. We knowof none, however, among the first schools ofGrecian philosophy, who set himself apart for


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The Present State of Ethical Philosophy 99the sublime purpose of gathering up the rela-tions which bind man to the uni ; erse about him.Ethics were not thus early separated from theimmature, misunderstood sciences of logic andmetaphysics. The world was not old enoughto have accurately parcelled and distributed herscience into professions. The amassed stores ofexperience were not then overflowing her garners,as now, when ages of industry have elapsed todefine and multiply the offices of her stewards.

Believing, as the philosophical ancients appearto have done, that the world as they found it hasforever subsisted, and should continue to sub-sist, and that an inscrutable Fate overruled theirdestinies, who might make them, at pleasure,demigods or nonentities after death, they hadbut scanty encouragement for any grand andholy system which the ardor of virtue mightinduce them to form. Enthusiasm was chilledby the awful, unrevealing silence which pre-vailed over nature, and the sanctions which itsupplied were inadequate to the support of agreat religious faith.


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ioo The Present State of Ethical PhilosophySome, astonished at the lustre and enchant-ment with which this visible world was illu-

mined and renewed, imagined the possibility of amore intimate connection between man andnature, and hence arose the mysteries of Eleu-sis, and the doctrine of natural magic. Thereligion of Egypt, says Madame de Stael, thesystem of emanations of the Hindoo, the Per-sian adoration of the elements, are vestiges ofsome curious attraction which united man tothe universe. More fortunate is our condi-tion ; we recognize, with scientific delight,these attractions ; they are material, still theyare the agency of Deity, and we value them assubservient to the great relations we seek andpant after, in moral affinities and intellectualattractions, from his moral influence. But thehigh and adventurous ends which these inter-preters proposed to themselves were unan-swered and afterwards perverted in corrupt times.

Others among the ancients were fain to be-lieve the voice of long descended tradition, andawaited the return of the departed gods with


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The Present State of Ethical Philosophy 101the golden age of ample dispensations, andpiously congratulated themselves on the securityof human condition under the protection ofProvidence. Others threw themselves head-long on the comfortless creed of the administra-tion of chance, and scoffed at the hopes andterrors of all, as distempered dreams.To this frail and fleeting order of beings, per-secuted by the same natural obstructions to pos-sible aggrandizement, the progress of ages hasunfolded, and immediate revelation sanctioned,a system of morality so complete and divine,and its promises attended with presentiments sorich of glory hereafter, as to exalt and assimi-late the species to the boldest forms of idealexcellence.We date the reduction of ethics to anythinglike a separate system from the time of Socrates.

Socrates videtur, primus ab occultis rebus et a na-tura ipsa involutis, in quibus ante eum philosophi occu-pati fuerunt, philosophiam avocavisse et ad communemvitam adduxisse. *

* Cic. Acadcm. Quacstiones.


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IO2 The Present State of Ethical Philosophy-Others before him had been ambitious of dic-

tating laws for the government of kings andempires, or had locked up their results and con-clusions in costly manuscripts, so that their in-fluence upon the public was remote and insig-nificant. But this patriotic philosopher extendedhis wisdom to the body of the people in thefirst city of the world, and communicated to hisdisciples, not a hieroglyphical scripture to amusethe learned and awe the ignorant, but practicalrules of life, adapted immediately to their con-dition and character, and little infected by thedogmas of the age. To the inquisitive he un-folded his system, and the laws and dependen-cies of morals. The grandeur of his viewsregarding the Deity far outwent those of his con-temporaries, whose malice exposed him to op-probrium as a blasphemer. There is an impor-tant circumstance attached to Socrates, whichshould not be

forgottenin ethical

history,that

from him is derived the modern custom ofgrounding virtue on a single principle.

In treating of things which are just, by which


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:' :

inrrmT


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The Present State of Ethical Philosophy 107of them were sufficiently familiar with Greekand Roman philosophy to take up the subjecton proper grounds, but it was beyond the forceof minds perverted by bigotry to continue as ithad been begun.The history of this hierarchy must alwaysremain a phenomenon in the annals of theworld. The commissioned apostles of peaceand religion were seen arming the nations ofEurope to a more obstinate and pernicious con-test than had ever been known

;and pursuedwith fatal hostility, with seven successions of

bloodshed and horror, till its dye was doubledon the crimson cross. Not content with this,the ambitious popes were embroiled in perpetualdisputes with their crowned subjects, and fromevery new contest the consecrated robber reapedsome new acquisition to enrich the domain ofthe church.

In the theory of this ecclesiastical govern-ment, a different and graver character shouldnaturally have b

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