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[Illustration:

_Engd by H. B. Hall_

(signature O. B. Frothingham)

G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.]




  TRANSCENDENTALISM

  IN

  NEW ENGLAND


  _A HISTORY_


  BY

  OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM

  _Author of "Life of Theodore Parker," "Religion of Humanity," &c., &c._

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK
  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
  182 FIFTH AVENUE
  1876

  COPYRIGHT,
  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.
  1876.




CONTENTS.


                         PAGE

  CONTENTS       iii

  PREFACE      v

  I.

  BEGINNINGS IN GERMANY      1

  II.

  TRANSCENDENTALISM IN GERMANY--KANT, JACOBI, FICHTE, etc.      14

  III.

  THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE--SCHLEIERMACHER, GOETHE, RICHTER, etc.      47

  IV.

  TRANSCENDENTALISM IN FRANCE--COUSIN, CONSTANT, JOUFFROY, etc.      60

  V.

  TRANSCENDENTALISM IN ENGLAND--COLERIDGE, CARLYLE, WORDSWORTH      76

  VI.

  TRANSCENDENTALISM IN NEW ENGLAND      105

  VII.

  PRACTICAL TENDENCIES      142

  VIII.

  RELIGIOUS TENDENCIES      185

  IX.

  THE SEER--EMERSON      218

  X.

  THE MYSTIC--ALCOTT      249

  XI.

  THE CRITIC--MARGARET FULLER      284

  XII.

  THE PREACHER--THEODORE PARKER      302

  XIII.

  THE MAN OF LETTERS--GEORGE RIPLEY      322

  XIV.

  MINOR PROPHETS      335

  XV.

  LITERATURE      357




PREFACE.


While we are gathering up for exhibition before other nations, the
results of a century of American life, with a purpose to show the issues
thus far of our experiment in free institutions, it is fitting that some
report should be made of the influences that have shaped the national
mind, and determined in any important degree or respect its intellectual
and moral character. A well-considered account of these influences would
be of very great value to the student of history, the statesman and
philosopher, not merely as throwing light on our own social problem, but
as illustrating the general law of human progress. This book is offered
as a modest contribution to that knowledge.

Transcendentalism, as it is called, the transcendental movement, was an
important factor in American life. Though local in activity, limited in
scope, brief in duration, engaging but a comparatively small number of
individuals, and passing over the upper regions of the mind, it left a
broad and deep trace on ideas and institutions. It affected thinkers,
swayed politicians, guided moralists, inspired philanthropists, created
reformers. The moral enthusiasm of the last generation, which broke out
with such prodigious power in the holy war against slavery; which
uttered such earnest protests against capital punishment, and the wrongs
inflicted on women; which made such passionate pleading in behalf of the
weak, the injured, the disfranchised of every race and condition; which
exalted humanity above institutions, and proclaimed the inherent worth
of man,--owed, in larger measure than is suspected, its glow and force
to the Transcendentalists. This, as a fact of history, must be admitted,
as well by those who judge the movement unfavorably, as by its friends.
In the view of history, which is concerned with causes and effects in
their large human relations, individual opinions on them are of small
moment. It was once the fashion--and still in some quarters it is the
fashion--to laugh at Transcendentalism as an incomprehensible folly, and
to call Transcendentalists visionaries. To admit that they were, would
not alter the fact that they exerted an influence on their generation.
It is usual with critics of a cold, unsympathetic, cynical cast, to
speak of Transcendentalism as a form of sentimentality, and of
Transcendentalists as sentimentalists; to decry enthusiasm, and
deprecate the mischievous effects of feeling on the discussion of social
questions. But their disapproval, however just and wholesome, does not
abolish the trace which moral enthusiasm, under whatever name these
judges may please to put upon it, has left on the social life of the
people. Whether the impression was for evil or for good, it is there,
and equally significant for warning or for commendation.

As a form of mental philosophy Transcendentalism