35LEsson 4aEmerson, the Torch-Bearer.I shall not attempt to present, even briefly, an account ofthe life and work of Emerson. The facts regarding the manand his work have been told, and retold, by far abler pens.The libraries contain many books giving this information fromthe viewpoints of their respective writers. The encyclopediasgive full accounts, more or less impartial, regarding the careerof this brilliant star which blazed in the firmament of thought,and which, although it has been resolved into its originalelements, still serves to brighten the minds and lives of mento-day, and will serve a like purpose for many generations tocome. For our present purpose it is sufficient to consider thephilosophy of the man only in its relation to, and connectionwith, the spirit of the thought of to-day which so many thinkhas risen suddenly without an especial cause. As Plato says:The problem of philosophy is, for all that exists conditionally,to find a ground unconditioned and absolute. From his firstnotable work, entitled Nature, Emerson sought to establishhis idea regarding that ground unconditioned and absolute.In considering the philosophy of Emerson, one mustnot expect him to proceed, as have the majority of otherphilosophers, by scientific and logical reasoninghis methodThe Crucible of Modern Thought36is rather intuitional than rational, in the ordinary usage of thelatter term. Trent says of him:Being himself a man of many intuitions, and of wonderful vigorin phrasing them, he is to be, regarded as a prophet rather than asa philosopher. He sought, to construct no system, but stood for aconstant idealistic impulse. What he wrote was not based primarily onexperience, nor did he ever write as the so-called man of the world.He is criticized for relying chiefly or altogether upon his intuitiveconsciousness, instead of submitting his generalization to the test ofreason.Emerson was essentially an idealist. Personally, he preferredthe latter term to, that of Transcendentalist, as which he wasclassed by the men of his day, and which causes his philosophyto be termed Transcendentalism. He said that the majorityof people did not know what they meant by the latter term.He said, whilst in the midst of the work of the TranscendentalMovement:What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us is IdealismIdealism as it appears in 1842.The Idealism of the present day acquiredthe name of Transcendentalism by the use of that term by ImmanuelKant of Konigsberg, who replied to the skeptical philosophy of Locke,which insisted that there was nothing in the intellect which was notpreviously in the experience of the senses, by showing that there wasa very important class of ideas, or imperative forms, which did notcome by experience, but through which experience was acquired; thatthese were intuitions of the mind itself; and he denominated themTranscendental forms. The extraordinary profoundness and precisionof that mans thinking have given vogue to his nomenclature, in Europeand America to that extent, that whatever belongs to the class ofintuitive thought is popularly called at the present day, Transcendental.Emerson, the Torch-Bearer.37Emerson makes the following distinction and definition ofIdealism:As thinkers, mankind have ever divided into two sects, Materialistsand Idealists; the first class founded on experience, the second onconsciousness; they perceive that the senses are not final; they giveus representations of things, but what the things themselves are theycannot tell. The Materialist insists upon facts, on history, on the forceof circumstances, and the animal wants of man; the Idealist, on thepower of Thought and of Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on individualculture. The Idealist concedes all that the other affirms.and then askshim for his grounds of assurance that things are as his senses representthem. But, I, he says, affirm facts not affected by the illusions of sense,facts which are of the same nature as the faculty which reports them.He does not deny the sensuous factby no means; but he will not seethat alone.This definition recalls the celebrated classification of Prof.William James, who, in his work on Pragmatism, says:I will write these traits down in two columns. I think you willpractically recognize the two types of mental make-up that I mean ifI head the columns by the titles tender-minded and tough-minded,respectively:The Tender-Minded The Tough-MindedRationalistic (going by principles), Sensationalistic,Intellectualistic, Materialistic,Idealistic, Pessimistic,Optimistic, Irreligious,Religious, Fatalistic,Free-Willist, Pluralistic,Monistic, Skeptical.Dogmatical.The Crucible of Modern Thought38Each of you probably knows some well-marked example of eachtype, and you know what each example thinks of the example on theother side of the line. They have a low opinion of each other. Theirantagonism, whenever as individuals their temperaments have beenintense, has formed in all ages a part of the philosophic atmosphereof the time. It forms a part of the philosophic atmosphere of to-day.The tough think of the tender as sentimentalists and soft-heads. Thetender feel the tough to be unrefined, callous and brutal. Their mutualreaction is very much like that that takes place when Boston touristsmingle with a population like that of Cripple Creek. Each side believesthe other to be inferior to itself; but disdain in one case is mingled withamusement, in the other it has a dash of fear.There is no doubt regarding the place to which Emersonmust be assigned in the classification given by Professor James.He is the ideal tender-minded individual. He is an idealist ofthe idealists. As Cooke says:Emerson belongs in the succession of the Idealists. That companyhe loves wherever its members are found, whether among Buddhistsor Christian mystics, whether Transcendentalist or Sufi, whether Saadi,Boehme, Fichte, or Carlyle. These are the writers he studies, these themen he quotes, these the thinkers who come nearest his own thought.He is in the succession of minds who have followed in the wake ofPlato, who is regarded by him as the worlds greatest thinker. Moredirectly still, Emerson is in that succession of thinkers represented byPlotinus, Eckhardt and Schelling, who have interpreted Idealism in theform of Mysticism.Whipple says of Emerson as a philosopher:His intellect is intuitive, but not reflective. It contains no considerableportion of the element which is essential to the philosopher. His ideasproceed from the light of genius, and from wise observation of Nature;they come in flashes of inspiration and ecstasy; his pure gold is found inEmerson, the Torch-Bearer.39places near the surface, not brought out laboriously from the depths ofthe mine in the bowels of the earth. He has no taste for the apparentlyarid abstractions of philosophy. His mind is not organized for thecomprehension of its sharp distinctions. Its acute reasonings presentno charm to his fancy, and its lucid deductions are to him as destituteof fruit as an empty nest of boxes. In the sphere of pure speculationhe has shown neither originality nor depth. He has thrown no lighton the great topics of speculation, He has never fairly grappled withthe metaphysical problems which have called for the noblest efforts ofthe mind in every age, and which, not yet reduced to positive science,have not ceased to enlist the clearest and strongest intellects in thework of their solution. On all questions of this kind the writings ofEmerson are wholly unsatisfactory. He looks at them only in the light ofthe imagination. He frequently offers brave hints, pregnant suggestions,cheering encouragements, but no exposition of abstract truth has everfallen from his keen pen.As a philosopher, Emerson belongs to that class of geniuseswho may be termed intuitional, inspirational, awakening,stimulating. As Cooke well says of him: Emerson belongs to thatcompany of illuminated souls who have done for the modernworld what the sages, prophets and seers did for the ancientworld. He is a Hindu guru, or a Sufi pir, rather than a Westernteacher. He disdains the necessity of proof, and feels that hiswords should carry their own proof. His is the attitude of thesage of the Orient, rather than of the professor of philosophyof the Western world.That Emersons thought is based upon that of Plato andthe Neo-Platonists cannot be doubted, although there alwaysappears running through his mental creations the goldenthread of the teachings of Oriental thought. Plato would claimhim as a sonthe Hindu Vedantist and the Persian Sufi wouldclaim him as a brother. Mystics of every age, and of everyland, would welcome him as of their own kind. Believers inreincarnation would attribute to him successive births first inThe Crucible of Modern Thought40Hindu and in Persian bodies, and later in the fleshly garmentsof philosophers of ancient Greece. He is of the royal mysticdescent, in a straight and unbroken line. His Over-Soul mighthave been written either by a Hindu Vedantist, a Persian Sufi,or a god-drunken Grecian philosopher. Modern advocates ofwhat is called cosmic consciousness find an explanation forhis genius in their theories, and, indeed, in his Over-Soul hegives utterances that would indicate an experience of the kindindicated by this school.Emerson holds that God is the Universal Substance, fromwhich the universe is formed; the Universal Mind which holdsthe mind of all; the Universal Spirit which is immanent in allmen. He says:There seems to be a necessity in Spirit to manifest itself in materialforms; and day and night, river and storm, beast and bird, acid andalkali pre-exist in necessary ideas in the mind of God, and are whatthey are by virtue of preceding affections in the world of Spirit.The world proceeds from the same Spirit as the body of man. It is aremoter and inferior incarnation of God, a projection of God in theunconscious.Under all this running sea of circumstance, whosewaters ebb and flow with perfect balance, lies the original abyss ofreal Being. Essence, or God, is not a relation, or a part, but the whole.Being is the vast affirmative, excluding negation, self-balanced, andswallowing up all relations, parts, and times within itselfon everytopic is the resolution of all into the everlasting One.To Emerson, God is all in All, and All in all. He says:Truth, goodness and beauty are but different faces of the same All.God is, and all things are but shadows of him.The true doctrine ofomnipresence is, that God reappears with all His parts in every mossand cobweb. The value of the universal contrives to throw itself intoevery point.Emerson, the Torch-Bearer.41