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diff --git a/23640-h/23640-h.htm b/23640-h/23640-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b68aa2c --- /dev/null +++ b/23640-h/23640-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10241 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Little Journeys To The Homes Of The Great, Volume 8 (of 14), by Elbert Hubbard. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + hr.full {width: 100%;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + visibility: hidden; + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-size: 12px; + font-weight: normal; + } /* page numbers */ + + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 8pt;} + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + .right {float: right; clear: right; padding-right: 3em;} + .right2 {float: right; clear: left; padding-right: 0em;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great +Philosophers, Volume 8, by Elbert Hubbard + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 + +Author: Elbert Hubbard + +Release Date: November 27, 2007 [EBook #23640] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOMES OF THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Annie McGuire and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + + + +<h3>Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 8</h3> + +<h1>Little Journeys to the Homes<br /> + of Great Philosophers</h1> + +<h3>by</h3> + +<h2>Elbert Hubbard</h2> + +<h3>Memorial Edition</h3> + +<h3>New York</h3> + +<h3>1916.</h3> + + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p> +<a href="#SOCRATES"><b>SOCRATES</b></a><br /> +<a href="#SENECA"><b>SENECA</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ARISTOTLE"><b>ARISTOTLE</b></a><br /> +<a href="#MARCUS_AURELIUS"><b>MARCUS AURELIUS</b></a><br /> +<a href="#IMMANUEL_KANT"><b>IMMANUEL KANT</b></a><br /> +<a href="#SWEDENBORG"><b>SWEDENBORG</b></a><br /> +<a href="#SPINOZA"><b>SPINOZA</b></a><br /> +<a href="#AUGUSTE_COMTE"><b>AUGUSTE COMTE</b></a><br /> +<a href="#VOLTAIRE"><b>VOLTAIRE</b></a><br /> +<a href="#HERBERT_SPENCER"><b>HERBERT SPENCER</b></a><br /> +<a href="#SCHOPENHAUER"><b>SCHOPENHAUER</b></a><br /> +<a href="#HENRY_D_THOREAU"><b>HENRY D. THOREAU</b></a><br /> +</p> + + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="SOCRATES" id="SOCRATES"></a>SOCRATES<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_9" id="VIII_Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></h2> + + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I do not think it possible for a better man to be injured by a +worse.... To a good man nothing is evil, neither while living nor +when dead, nor are his concerns neglected by the gods.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 25em;"><i>—The Republic</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_10" id="VIII_Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="center"> + <a id="image0453-1"></a> + <img src="images/0453-1.jpg" width="285" height="400" + alt="" + title="" /> + + <p class="center">SOCRATES</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_11" id="VIII_Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was four hundred seventy years before Christ that Socrates was born. +He never wrote a book, never made a formal address, held no public +office, wrote no letters, yet his words have come down to us sharp, +vivid and crystalline. His face, form and features are to us +familiar—his goggle eyes, bald head, snub nose and bow-legs! The habit +of his life—his goings and comings, his arguments and wrangles, his +infinite leisure, his sublime patience, his perfect faith—all these +things are plain, lifting the man out of the commonplace and setting him +apart.</p> + +<p>The "Memorabilia" of Xenophon and the "Dialogues" of Plato give us +Boswellian pictures of the man.</p> + +<p>Knowing the man, we know what he would do; and knowing what he did, we +know the man.</p> + +<p>Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a stonecutter, and his wife +Phænarete. In boyhood he used to carry dinner to his father, and sitting +by, he heard the men, in their free and easy way, discuss the plans of +Pericles. These workmen didn't know the plans—they were only privates +in the ranks, but they exercised their prerogatives to criticize, and +while working to assist, did right royally disparage and condemn. Like +sailors who love<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_12" id="VIII_Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> their ship, and grumble at grub and grog, yet on shore +will allow no word of disparagement to be said, so did these Athenians +love their city, and still condemn its rulers—they exercised the +laborer's right to damn the man who gives him work.</p> + +<p>Little did the workmen guess—little did his father guess—that this +pug-nosed boy, making pictures in the sand with his big toe, would also +leave his footprints on the sands of time, and a name that would rival +that of Phidias and Pericles!</p> + +<p>Socrates was a product of the Greek renaissance. Great men come in +groups, like comets sent from afar. Athens was seething with thought and +feeling: Pericles was giving his annual oration—worth thousands of +weekly sermons—and planning his dream in marble; Phidias was cutting +away the needless portions of the white stone of Pentelicus and +liberating wondrous forms of beauty; Sophocles was revealing the +possibilities of the stage; Æschylus was pointing out the way as a +playwright; and the passion for physical beauty was everywhere an +adjunct of religion.</p> + +<p>Prenatal influences, it seems, played their part in shaping the destiny +of Socrates. His mother followed the profession of Sairy Gamp, and made +her home with a score of families, as she was needed. The trained nurse +is often untrained, and is a regular encyclopedia of esoteric family +facts. She wipes her mouth on her apron and is at home in every room of +the domicile from<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_13" id="VIII_Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> parlor to pantry. Then as now she knew the trials and +troubles of her clients, and all domestic underground happenings +requiring adjustment she looked after as she was "disposed."</p> + +<p>Evidently Phænarete was possessed of considerable personality, for we +hear of her being called to Mythæia on a professional errand shortly +before the birth of Socrates; and in a month after his birth, a similar +call came from another direction, and the bald little philosopher was +again taken along—from which we assume, following in the footsteps of +Conan Doyle, that Socrates was no bottle-baby. The world should be +grateful to Phænarete that she did not honor the Sairy Gamp precedents +and observe the Platonic maxim, "Sandal-makers usually go barefoot": she +gave her customers an object-lesson in well-doing as well as teaching +them by precept. None of her clients did so well as she—even though her +professional duties were so exacting that domesticity to her was merely +incidental.</p> + +<p>It was only another case of the amateur distancing the professional.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_14" id="VIII_Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>From babyhood we lose sight of Socrates until we find him working at his +father's trade as a sculptor. Certainly he had a goodly degree of skill, +for the "Graces" which he carved were fair and beautiful and admired by +many. This was enough: he just wanted to reveal what he could do; and +then to show that to have no ambition was his highest ambition, he threw +down his tools and took off his apron for good. He was then thirty-five +years old. Art is a jealous mistress, and demands that "thou shalt have +no other gods before me." Socrates did not concentrate on art. His mind +went roaming the world of philosophy, and for his imagination the +universe was hardly large enough.</p> + +<p>I said that he deliberately threw down his tools; but possibly this was +by request, for he had acquired a habit of engaging in much wordy +argument and letting the work slide. He went out upon the streets to +talk, and in the guise of a learner he got in close touch with all the +wise men of Athens by stopping them and asking questions. In physique he +was immensely strong—hard work had developed his muscles, plain fare +had made him oblivious of the fact that he had a stomach, and as for +nerves, he had none to speak of.</p> + +<p>Socrates did not marry until he was about forty. His wife was scarcely +twenty. Of his courtship we know nothing, but sure it is Socrates did +not go and sue for the lady's hand in the conventional way, nor seek to<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_15" id="VIII_Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +gain the consent of her parents by proving his worldly prospects. His +apparel was costly as his purse could buy, not gaudy nor expressed in +fancy. It consisted of the one suit that he wore, for we hear of his +repairing beyond the walls to bathe in the stream, and of his washing +his clothing, hanging it on the bushes and waiting for it to dry before +going back to the city. As for shoes, he had one pair, and since he +never once wore them, going barefoot Summer and Winter, it is presumed +that they lasted well. One can not imagine Socrates in an opera-hat—in +fact, he wore no hat, and he was bald. I record the fact so as to +confound those zealous ones who badger the bald as a business, who have +recipes concealed on their persons, and who assure us that baldness has +its rise in headgear.</p> + +<p>Socrates belonged to the leisure class. His motto was, "Know Thyself." +He considered himself of much more importance than any statue he could +make, and to get acquainted with himself as being much more desirable +than to know physical phenomena. His plan of knowing himself was to ask +everybody questions, and in their answers he would get a true reflection +of his own mind. His intellect would reply to theirs, and if his +questions dissolved their answers into nothingness, the supremacy of his +own being would be apparent; and if they proved his folly he was equally +grateful—if he was a fool, his desire was to know it. So sincere was +Socrates in this wish to know himself that never did he<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_16" id="VIII_Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> show the +slightest impatience nor resentment when the argument was turned upon +him.</p> + +<p>He looked upon his mind as a second party, and sat off and watched it +work. Should it become confused or angered, it would be proof of its +insufficiency and littleness. If Socrates ever came to know himself, he +knew this fact: as an economic unit he was an absolute failure; but as a +gadfly, stinging men into thinking for themselves, he was a success. A +specialist is a deformity contrived by Nature to get the work done. +Socrates was a thought-specialist, and the laziest man who ever lived in +a strenuous age. The desire of his life was to live without +desire—which is essentially the thought of Nirvana. He had the power +never to exercise his power except in knowing himself.</p> + +<p>He accepted every fact, circumstance and experience of life, and counted +it gain. Life to him was a precious privilege, and what were regarded as +unpleasant experiences were as much a part of life as the pleasant ones. +He who succeeds in evading unpleasant experiences cheats himself out of +so much life. You know yourself by watching yourself to see what you do +when you are thwarted, crossed, contradicted, or deprived of certain +things supposed to be desirable. If you always get the desirable things, +how do you know what you would do if you didn't have them? You exchange +so much life for the thing, that's all, and thus do we see Socrates +anticipating Emerson's Essay on Compensation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_17" id="VIII_Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>Everything is bought with a price—all things are of equal value—no one +can cheat you, for to be cheated is a not undesirable experience, and in +the act, if you are really filled with the thought, "Know Thyself," you +get the compensation by increase in mental growth.</p> + +<p>However, to deliberately go in search of experience, Socrates said, +would be a mistake, because then you would so multiply impressions that +none would be of any avail and your life would be burned out. To clutch +life by the throat and demand that it shall stand and deliver is to +place yourself so out of harmony with your environment that you will get +nothing.</p> + +<p>Above all things, we must be calm, self-centered, never anxious, and be +always ready to accept whatever the gods may send. The world will come +to us if we only wait. It will be seen that Socrates is at once the +oldest and most modern of thinkers. He was the first to express the New +Thought. A thought, to Socrates, was more of a reality than a block of +marble—a moral principle was just as persistent as a chemical agent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_18" id="VIII_Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The silken-robed and perfumed Sophist was sport and game for Socrates. +For him Socrates recognized no closed season. If Socrates ever came near +losing his temper, it was in dealing with this Edmund Russell of Athens. +Grant Allen used to say, "The spores of everything are everywhere, and a +certain condition breeds a certain microbe." A period of prosperity +always warms into life this social paragon, who lives in a darkened room +hung with maroon drapery where incense is burned and a turbaned Hindu +carries your card to the master, who faces the sun and exploits a +prie-dieu when the wind blows east. Athens had these men of refined +elegance, Rome evolved them, London has had her day, New York knows +them, and Chicago—I trust I will not be contradicted when I say that +Chicago understands her business! And so we find these folks who +cultivate a pellucid passivity, a phthisicky whisper, a supercilious +smirk, and who win our smothered admiration and give us gooseflesh by +imparting a taupe tinge of mystery to all their acts and words, thus +proving to the assembled guests that they are the Quality and Wisdom +will die with them.</p> + +<p>This lingo of meaningless words and high-born phrases always set +Socrates by the ears, and when he could corner a Sophist, he would very +shortly prick his pretty toy balloon, until at last the tribe fled him +as a pestilence. Socrates stood for sanity. The Sophist represented +moonshine gone to seed, and these things,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_19" id="VIII_Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> proportioned ill, drive men +transverse.</p> + +<p>Extremes equalize themselves: the pendulum swings as far this way as it +does that. The saponaceous Sophist who renounced the world and yet lived +wholly in a world of sense, making vacuity pass legal tender for +spirituality, and the priest who, mystified with a mumble of words, +evolved a Diogenes who lived in a tub, wore regally a robe of rags, and +once went into the temple, and cracking a louse on the altar-rail, said +solemnly, "Thus does Diogenes sacrifice to all the gods at once!" are +but two sides of the same shield.</p> + +<p>In Socrates was a little jollity and much wisdom pickled in the scorn of +Fortune; but the Sophists inwardly bowed down and worshiped the fickle +dame on idolatrous knees. Socrates won immortality because he did not +want it, and the Sophists secured oblivion because they deserved it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_20" id="VIII_Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We hear of Socrates going to Aspasia, and holding long conversations +with her "to sharpen his mind." Aspasia did not go out in society much: +she and Pericles lived very simply. It is worth while to remember that +the most intellectual woman of her age was democratic enough to be on +friendly terms with the barefoot philosopher who went about regally +wrapped in a table-spread. Socrates did not realize the flight of time +when making calls—he went early and stayed late. Possibly prenatal +influences caused him often to call before breakfast and remain until +after supper.</p> + +<p>Just imagine Pericles, Aspasia and Socrates sitting at table—with +Walter Savage Landor behind the arras making notes! Doubtless Socrates +and Mrs. Pericles did most of the talking, while the First Citizen of +Athens listened and smiled indulgently now and then as his mind wandered +to construction contracts and walking delegates. Pericles, the builder +of a city—Pericles, first among practical men since time began, and +Socrates, who jostles history for first place among those who have done +nothing but talk—imagine these two eating melons together, while +Aspasia, gentle and kind, talks of spirit being more than matter and +love being greater than the Parthenon!</p> + +<p>Socrates is usually spoken of as regarding women with slight favor, but +I have noticed that your genus woman-hater holds the balance true by +really being a woman-lover.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_21" id="VIII_Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> If a man is enough interested in women to +hate them, note this: he is only searching for the right woman, the +woman who compares favorably with the ideal woman in his own mind. He +measures every woman by this standard, just as Ruskin compared all +modern painters with Turner and discarded them with fitting adjectives +as they receded from what he regarded as the perfect type. If Ruskin had +not been much interested in painters, would he have written scathing +criticisms about them?</p> + +<p>In several instances we hear of Socrates reminding his followers that +they are "weak as women," and he was the first to say "woman is an +undeveloped man." But Socrates was a great admirer of human beauty, +whether physical or spiritual, and his abrupt way of stopping beautiful +women on the streets and bluntly telling them they were beautiful, +doubtless often confirmed their suspicions. And thus far he was +pleasing, but when he went on to ask questions so as to ascertain +whether their mental estate compared with their physical, why, that was +slightly different. It is good to hear him say, "There is no sex in +intellect," and also, "I have long held the opinion that the female sex +is nothing inferior to ours, save only in strength of body and possibly +in steadiness of judgment." And Xenophon quotes him thus: "It is more +delightful to hear the virtue of a good woman described than if the +painter Zeuxis were to show me the portrait of the fairest woman in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_22" id="VIII_Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +world."</p> + +<p>Perhaps Thackeray is right when he says, "The men who appreciate woman +most are those who have felt the sharpness of her claws." That is to +say, things show up best on the darkest background. If so, let us give +Xantippe due credit. She tested the temper of the sage by railing on him +and deluging him with Socratic propositions, not waiting for the +answers; she often broke in with a broom upon his introspective efforts +to know himself; if this were not enough, she dashed buckets of +scrubbing-water over him; presents that were sent him by admiring +friends she used as targets for her mop and wit; if he invited friends +with faith plus to dine, she upset the table, dishes and all, before +them—not much to their loss; she occasionally elbowed her way through a +crowd where her husband was entertaining the listeners upon the divine +harmonies, and would tear off his robe and lead him home by the ear. But +these things never ruffled Socrates—he might roll his eyes in comic +protest at the audiences as he was being led away captive, but no +resentment was shown. He had the strength of a Hercules, but he was a +far better non-resistant than Tolstoy, because he took his medicine with +a wink, while Fate is obliged to hold the nose of the author of "Anna +Karenina," who never sees the comedy of an inward struggle and an +outward compliance, any more than does the benedict, safely entrenched +under the bed, who shouts out, "I defy thee, I defy thee!" as did +Mephisto when Goethe thrust him into Tophet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_23" id="VIII_Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The popular belief is that Xantippe, the wife of Socrates, was a shrew, +and had she lived in New England in Cotton Mather's time would have been +a candidate for the ducking-stool. Socrates said he married her for +discipline. A man in East Aurora, however, has recently made it plain to +himself that Xantippe was possessed of a great and acute intellect. She +knew herself, and she knew her liege as he never did—he was too close +to his subject to get the perspective. She knew that under right +conditions his name would live as one of the world's great teachers, and +so she set herself to supply the conditions. She deliberately sacrificed +herself and put her character in a wrong light before the world in order +that she might benefit the world. Most women have a goodly grain of +ambition for themselves, and if their husbands have genius, their +business is not to prove it, but to show that they themselves are not +wholly commonplace.</p> + +<p>Not so Xantippe—she was quite willing to be misunderstood that her +husband might live.</p> + +<p>What the world calls a happy marriage is not wholly good—ease is bought +with a price. Suppose Xantippe and Socrates had settled down and lived +in a cottage with a vine growing over the portico, and two rows of +hollyhocks leading from the front gate to the door; a pathway of +coal-ashes lined off with broken crockery, and inside the house all +sweet, clean and tidy; Socrates earning six drachmas a day carving +marble, with double<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_24" id="VIII_Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> pay for overtime, and he handing the pay-envelope +over to her each Saturday night, keeping out just enough for tobacco, +and she putting a tidy sum in the Ægean Savings-Bank every month—why, +what then?</p> + +<p>Well, that would have been an end of Socrates. Xantippe was big enough +to know this and so she supplied the domestic cantharides and drove him +out upon the streets—he grew to care very little for her, not much for +the children, nothing for his home. She drove him out into the world of +thought, instead of allowing him to settle down and be content with her +society.</p> + +<p>I once knew a sculptor—another sculptor—an elemental bit of nature, +original and, better still, aboriginal. He used to sleep out under the +stars so as to wake up in the night and see the march of the Milky Way, +and watch the Pleiades disappear over the brink of the western horizon. +He wore a flannel shirt, thick-soled shoes, and overalls, no hat, and +his hair was thick and coarse as a horse's mane. This man had talent, +and he had sublime conceptions, great dreams, and splendid aspirations. +His soul was struggling to find expression. "Leave him alone," I said. +"He needs time to ripen. He is a Michelangelo in embryo!"</p> + +<p>Did he ripen? Not he. He married a Wellesley girl of good family. She, +too, had ideas about art—she painted china-buttons for shirtwaists, +embroidered chasubles and sang "The Rosary" in a raucous Quinsigamond +voice. The big barbarian became respectable, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_25" id="VIII_Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> last time I saw +him he wore a Tuxedo and was passing out platitudes and raspberry-shrub +at a lawn-party. The Wellesley girl had tamed her bear—they were very +happy, he assured me, and she was preparing a course of lectures for him +which he was to give at Mrs. Jack Gardner's. A Xantippe might have saved +him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_26" id="VIII_Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A captious friend once suggested to Socrates this: "If you prize the +female nature so highly, how does it happen that you do not instruct +Xantippe?"—a rather indelicate proposition to put to a married man. And +Socrates, quite unruffled, replied: "My friend, if one wants to learn +horsemanship, does he choose a tame horse or one with mettle and a hard +mouth? I wish to converse with all sorts of people, and I believe that +nothing can disturb me after I grow accustomed to the tongue of +Xantippe."</p> + +<p>Again we hear of his suggesting that his wife's scolding tongue may have +been only the buzzing of his own waspish thoughts, and if he did not +call forth these qualities in her they would not otherwise have +appeared. And so, beholding her impatience and unseemliness, he would +realize the folly of an ill temper and thus learn by antithesis to curb +his own. Old Doctor Johnson used to have a regular menagerie of +wrangling, jangling, quibbling, dissatisfied pensioners in his +household; and so far as we know he never learned the truth that all +pensioners are dissatisfied. "If I can stand things at home, I can stand +things anywhere," he once said to Boswell, as much as to say, "If I can +stand things at home, I can stand even you." Goldsmith referred to +Boswell as a cur; Garrick said he thought he was a bur. Socrates had a +similar satellite by the name of Cheropho, a dark, dirty, weazened, and +awfully serious little man of the tribe of Buttinsky, who sat +breathlessly trying to catch<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_27" id="VIII_Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> the pearls that fell from the ample mouth +of the philosopher. Aristophanes referred to Cheropho as "Socrates' +bat," a play-off on Minerva and her bird of night, the owl. There were +quite a number of these "bats," and they seemed to labor under the same +hallucination that catches the lady students of the Pundit Vivakenanda +H. Darmapala: they think that wisdom is to be imparted by word of mouth, +and that by listening hard and making notes one can become very wise. +Socrates said again and again, "Character is a matter of growth and all +I hope to do is to make you think for yourselves."</p> + +<p>That chilly exclusiveness which regards a man's house as his castle, his +home, the one sacred spot, and all outside as the cold and cruel world, +was not the ideal of Socrates. His family was his circle of friends, and +these were of all classes and conditions, from the First Citizen to +beggars on the street.</p> + +<p>He made no charge for his teaching, took up no collections, and never +inaugurated a Correspondence School. America has produced one man who +has been called a reincarnation of Socrates; that man was Bronson +Alcott, who peddled clocks and forgot the flight of time whenever any +one would listen to him expound the unities. Alcott once ran his +wheelbarrow into a neighbor's garden and was proceeding to load his +motor-car with cabbages, beets and potatoes. Glancing up, the +philosopher saw the owner of the garden looking at him steadfastly over +the wall. "Don't look at me that way,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_28" id="VIII_Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> called Alcott with a touch of +un-Socratic acerbity, "don't look at me that way—I need these things +more than you!" and went on with the annexation.</p> + +<p>The idea that all good things are for use and belong to all who need +them was a favorite maxim of Socrates. The furniture in his house never +exceeded the exemption clause. Once we find him saying that Xantippe +complained because he did not buy her a stewpan, but since there was +nothing to put in it, he thought her protests ill-founded.</p> + +<p>The climate of Athens is about like that of Southern California—one +does not need to bank food and fuel against the coming of Winter. Life +can be adjusted to its simplest forms. From his fortieth to his fiftieth +year, Socrates worked every other Thursday; then he retired from active +life, and Xantippe took in plain sewing.</p> + +<p>Socrates was surely not a good provider, but if he had provided more for +his family, he would have provided less for the world. The wealthy Crito +would have turned his pockets inside out for Socrates, but Socrates had +all he wished, and explained that as it was he had to dance at home in +order to keep down the adipose. Aristides, who was objectionable because +he so shaped his conduct that he was called "The Just" and got himself +ostracized, was one of his dear friends. Antisthenes, the original +Cynic, used to walk six miles and back every day to hear Socrates talk. +The Cynic was a rich man, but so captivated was he with the preaching<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_29" id="VIII_Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +of Socrates that he adopted the life of simplicity and dressed in rags +and boycotted both the barber and the bath. On one occasion Socrates +looked sharply at a rent in the cloak of his friend and said, "Ah, +Antisthenes, through that hole in your cloak I see your vanity!"</p> + +<p>Xenophon sat at the feet of Socrates for a score of years, and then +wrote his recollections of him as a vindication of his character. Euclid +of Megara was nearly eighty when he came to Socrates as a pupil, trying +to get rid of his ill-temper and habit of ironical reply. Cebes and +Simmias left their native country and became Greek citizens for his +sake. Charmides, the pampered son of wealthy parents, learned pedagogics +by being shown that, in households where there were many servants, the +children got cheated out of their rightful education because others did +all the work, and to deprive a child of the privilege of being useful +was to rob him of so much life. Æschines, the ambitious son of a +sausage-maker, was advised by Socrates to borrow money of himself on +long time without interest, by reducing his wants. So pleased was the +recipient with this advice, that he went to publishing Socratic +dialogues as a business and had the felicity to fail with tidy +liabilities.</p> + +<p>But the two men who loom largest in the life of Socrates are Alcibiades +and Plato—characters very much unlike.</p> + +<p>Alcibiades was twenty-one years old when we find him first. He was +considered the handsomest young man in Athens. He was aristocratic, +proud, insolent,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_30" id="VIII_Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> and needlessly rich. He had a passion for gambling, +horse-racing, dog-fighting, and indulged in the churchly habit of doing +that which he ought not and leaving undone that which he should have +done. He was worse than that degenerate scion of a proud ancestry, who +a-kneiping went with his lady friends in the Cincinnati fountain, after +the opera, on a wager. He whipped a man who admitted he did not have a +copy of the "Iliad" in his house; publicly destroyed the record of a +charge against one of his friends; and when his wife applied for a +divorce, he burst into the courtroom and vacated proceedings by carrying +the lady off by force. At banquets he would raise a disturbance, and +while he was being forcibly ejected from one door, his servants would +sneak in at another and steal the silverware, which he would give away +as charity. He also indulged in the Mark Antony trick of rushing into +houses at night and pulling good folks out of bed by the heels, and then +running away before they were barely awake.</p> + +<p>His introduction to Socrates came in an attempt to break up a Socratic +prayer-meeting. Socrates succeeded in getting the roysterer to listen +long enough to turn the laugh on him and show all concerned that the +life of a rowdy was the life of a fool. Alcibiades had expected Socrates +to lose his temper, but it was Alcibiades who gave way, and blurted out +that he could not hope to beat his antagonist talking, but he would like +to wrestle with him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_31" id="VIII_Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<p>Legend has it that Socrates gave the insolent young man a shock by +instantly accepting his challenge. In the bout that followed, the +philosopher, built like a gorilla, got a half-Nelson on his man, who was +a little the worse for wine, and threw him so hard, jumping on his +prostrate form with his knees, that the aristocratic hoodlum was laid up +for a moon. Ever after Alcibiades had a thorough respect for Socrates. +They became fast friends, and whenever the old man talked in the Agora, +Alcibiades was on hand to keep order.</p> + +<p>When war came with Sparta and her allies in the Peloponnesus they +enlisted, Socrates going as corporal and Alcibiades as captain. They +occupied the same tent during the entire campaign. Socrates proved a +fearless soldier, and walked the winter ice in bare feet, often pulling +his belt one hole tighter in lieu of breakfast, to show the complaining +soldiers that endurance was the thing that won battles. At the battle of +Delium, when there was a rout, Xenophon says Socrates walked off the +field leisurely, arm in arm with the general, explaining the nature of +harmony.</p> + +<p>Through the influence of Socrates, the lawless Alcibiades was tamed and +became almost a model citizen, although his head was hardly large enough +for a philosopher.</p> + +<p>"Say what you will, you'll find it all in Plato," said Emerson. If +Socrates had done nothing else but give bent to the mind of Plato, he +would deserve the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_32" id="VIII_Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> gratitude of the centuries. Plato is the mine to +which all thinkers turn for treasure. When they first met, Plato was +twenty and Socrates sixty, and for ten years, to the day of Socrates' +death, they were together almost constantly. Plato died aged eighty-one, +and for fifty years he had lived but to record the dialogues of +Socrates. It was curiosity that first attracted this fine youth to the +old man—Socrates was so uncouth that he was amusing. Plato was +interested in politics, and like most Athenian youths, was intent on +having a good time. However, he was no rowdy, like Alcibiades: he was +suave, gracious, and elegant in all of his acts. He had been taught by +the Sophists and the desire of his life was to seem, rather than to be. +By very gentle stages, Plato began to perceive that to make an +impression on society was not worth working for—the thing to do was to +be yourself, and yourself at your best. And we can give no better answer +to the problem of life than Plato gives in the words of Socrates: "It is +better to be than to seem. To live honestly and deal justly is the meat +of the whole matter."</p> + +<p>Plato was not a disciple—he was big enough not to ape the manners and +eccentricities of his Master—he saw beneath the rough husk and beyond +the grotesque outside the great controlling purpose in the life of +Socrates. He would be himself—and himself at his best—and he would +seek to satisfy the Voice within, rather than to try to please the +populace. Plato still wore his purple<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_33" id="VIII_Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> cloak, and the elegance and grace +of his manner were not thrown aside.</p> + +<p>Wouldn't it have been worth our while to travel miles to see these +friends: the one old, bald, short, fat, squint-eyed, barefoot; and the +other with all the poise of aristocratic youth—tall, courtly and +handsome, wearing his robe with easy, regal grace! And so they have +walked and talked adown the centuries, side by side, the most perfect +example that can be named of that fine affection which often exists +between teacher and scholar.</p> + +<p>Plato's "Republic," especially, gives us an insight into a very great +and lofty character. From his tower of speculation, Plato scanned the +future, and saw that the ideal of education was to have it continue +through life, for none but the life of growth and development ever +satisfies. And love itself turns to ashes of roses if not used to help +the soul in her upward flight. It was Plato who first said, "There is no +profit where no pleasure's ta'en." He further perceived that in the life +of education, the sexes must move hand in hand; and he also saw that, +while religions are many and seemingly diverse, goodness and kindness +are forever one.</p> + +<p>His faith in the immortality of the soul was firm, but whether we are to +live in another world or not, he said there is no higher wisdom than to +live here and now—live our highest and best—cultivate the receptive +mind and the hospitable heart, "partaking of all good things in +moderation."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_34" id="VIII_Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>It takes these two to make the whole. There is no virtue in poverty—no +merit in rags—the uncouth qualities in Socrates were not a +recommendation. Yet he was himself. But Plato made good, in his own +character, all that Socrates lacked. Some one has said that Fitzgerald's +Omar is two-thirds Fitzgerald and one-third Omar. In his books, Plato +modestly puts his wisest maxims into the mouth of his master, and just +how much Plato and how much Socrates there is in the "Dialogues," we +will never know until we get beyond the River Styx.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_35" id="VIII_Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Socrates was deeply attached to Athens, and he finally became the best +known figure in the city. He criticized in his own frank, fearless way +all the doings of the times—nothing escaped him. He was a +self-appointed investigating committee in all affairs of state, society +and religion. Hypocrisy, pretense, affectation and ignorance trembled at +his approach. He was feared, despised and loved. But those who loved him +were as one in a hundred. He became a public nuisance. The charge +against him was just plain heresy—he had spoken disrespectfully of the +gods and through his teaching he had defiled the youth of Athens. Ample +warning had been given to him, and opportunity to run away was provided, +but he stuck like a leech, asking the cost of banquets and making +suggestions about all public affairs.</p> + +<p>He was arrested, bailed by Plato and Crito, and tried before a jury of +five hundred citizens. Socrates insisted on managing his own case. A +rhetorician prepared an address of explanation, and the culprit was +given to understand that if he read this speech to his judges and said +nothing else, it would be considered as an apology and he would be +freed—the intent of the trial being more to teach the old man a lesson +in minding his own business than to injure him.</p> + +<p>But Socrates replied to his well-meaning friend, "Think you I have not +spent my whole life in preparing for this one thing?" And he handed back +the smoothly polished<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_36" id="VIII_Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> manuscript with a smile. Montaigne says, "Should +a suppliant voice have been heard out of the mouth of Socrates now; +should that lofty virtue strike sail in the very height of its glory, +and his rich and powerful nature be committed to flowing rhetoric as a +defense? Never!"</p> + +<p>Socrates cross-questioned his accusers in the true Socratic style and +showed that he had never spoken disrespectfully of the gods: he had only +spoken disrespectfully of their absurd conception of the gods. And here +is a thought which is well to consider even yet: The so-called "infidel" +is often a man of great gentleness of spirit, and his disbelief is not +in God, but in some little man's definition of God—a distinction the +little man, being without humor, can never see.</p> + +<p>When Socrates had confounded his accusers, this time not giving them the +satisfaction of the last word, he launched out on a general criticism of +the city, and told where its rulers were gravely at fault. Being +cautioned to bridle his tongue, he replied, "When your generals at +Potidæa and Amphipolis and Delium assigned my place in the battle I +remained there, did my work, and faced the peril, and think you that +when Deity has assigned me my duty at this pass in life I should, +through fear of death, evade it, and shirk my post?"</p> + +<p>This man appeared at other times, to some, as an idle loafer, but now he +arose to a sublime height. He repeated with emphasis all he had ever +said against their foolish superstitions, and arraigned the waste and +futility of<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_37" id="VIII_Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> the idle rich. The power of the man was revealed as never +before, and those who had intended to let him go with a fine, now +thought it best to dispose of him. The safety of the state was +endangered by such an agitator—the question of religion is really not +what has sent the martyrs to the stake—it is the politician, not the +priest, who fears the heretic.</p> + +<p>By a small majority, Socrates was found guilty and sentenced to death. +Let Plato tell of that last hour—he has done it once for all:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>When he had done speaking, Crito said, "And have you any commands +for us, Socrates—anything to say about your children, or any other +matter in which we can serve you?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing particular," he said; "only, as I have always told you, I +would have you to look to your own conduct; that is a service which +you may always be doing to me and mine as well as to yourselves."...</p> + +<p>"We will do our best," said Crito. "But in what way would you have +us bury you?"</p> + +<p>"In any way that you like; only you must get hold of me, and take +care that I do not walk away from you." Then he turned to us, and +added with a smile: "I can not make Crito believe that I am the +same Socrates who has been talking and conducting the argument; he +fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon see, a dead +body—and he asks, 'How shall he bury me?' And though I have spoken +many words in the endeavor to show that when I have drunk the +poison I shall leave you and go to the joys of the blessed—these +words of<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_38" id="VIII_Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> mine, with which I comforted you and myself, have had, as +I perceive, no effect upon Crito. And therefore I want you to be +surety for me now, as he was surety for me at the trial: but let +the promise be of another sort; for he was my surety to the judges +that I would remain, but you must be my surety to him that I shall +not remain, but go away and depart; and then he will suffer less at +my death, and not be grieved when he sees my body being burned. I +would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the +burial,'Thus we lay out Socrates,' or, 'Thus we follow him to the +grave or bury him'; for false words are not only evil in +themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good cheer +then, my dear Crito, and say that you are burying my body only, and +do with that as is usual, and as you think best."</p> + +<p>When he had spoken these words, he arose and went into the +bath-chamber with Crito, who bid us wait; and we waited, talking +and thinking of the subject of discourse, and also of the greatness +of our sorrow; he was like a father of whom we were being bereaved, +and we were about to pass the rest of our lives as orphans. When he +had taken his bath, his children were brought to him—and the women +of his family also came, and he talked to them and gave them a few +directions in the presence of Crito; and he then dismissed them and +returned to us.</p> + +<p>Now the hour of sunset was near. When he came out, he sat down with +us again after his bath, but not much was said. Soon the jailer, +who was the servant, entered and stood by him, saying: "To you, +Socrates, whom I know to be the noblest and gentlest and best of +all who<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_39" id="VIII_Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> ever came to this place, I will not impute the angry +feelings of other men, who rage and swear at me when, in obedience +to the authorities, I bid them drink the poison—indeed I am sure +that you will not be angry with me; for others, as you are aware, +and not I, are the guilty cause. And so fare you well, and try to +bear lightly what must needs be; you know my errand." Then bursting +into tears, he turned away, and went out.</p> + +<p>Socrates looked at him and said, "I return your good wishes, and +will do as you bid." Then turning to us, he said: "How charming the +man is! Since I have been in prison, he has always been coming to +see me, and at times, he would talk to me, and was as good as could +be to me, and now see how generously he sorrows for me. But we must +do as he says, Crito; let the cup be brought."</p> + +<p>"Not yet," said Crito; "the sun is still upon the hill-tops, and +many a one has taken the draft late, and after the announcement has +been made to him, he has eaten and drunk and indulged in sensual +delights; do not hasten then—there is still time."</p> + +<p>Socrates said: "Yes, Crito, and they of whom you speak are right in +doing thus, but I do not think that I should gain anything by +drinking the poison a little later; I should be sparing and saving +a life which is already gone: I could only laugh at myself for +this. Please then to do as I say, and not to refuse me."</p> + +<p>Crito, when he heard this, made a sign to the servant; and the +servant went in, and remained for some time, and then returned with +the jailer carrying the cup of poison. Socrates said, "You, my good +friend, who are experienced in these matters, shall give me +directions<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_40" id="VIII_Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> how I am to proceed." The man answered, "You have only +to walk about until your legs are heavy, and then to lie down, and +the poison will act." At the same time, he handed the cup to +Socrates, who, in the easiest and gentlest manner, without the +least fear or change of color or feature, looking at the man with +his eyes, Echecrates, as his manner was, took the cup and said: +"What do you say about making the libation out of this cup to any +god? May I, or not?" The man answered, "We only prepare, Socrates, +just so much as we deem enough." "I understand," he said. "Yet I +may and must pray to the gods to prosper my journey from this to +that other world—may this, then, which is my prayer, be granted to +me!" Then holding the cup to his lips, quite readily and +cheerfully, he drank off the poison. And hitherto most of us had +been able to control our sorrow; but now we saw him drinking, and +saw, too, that he had finished the draft, we could no longer +forbear, and in spite of myself, my own tears were flowing fast; so +that I covered my face and wept over myself, for certainly I was +not weeping over him, but at the thought of my own calamity in +having lost such a companion. Nor was I the first, for Crito, when +he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up and moved +away, and I followed; and at that moment, Apollodorus, who had been +weeping all the time, broke out into a loud cry, which made cowards +of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness. "What is this +strange outcry?" he said, "I sent away the women mainly in order +that they might not offend in this way, for I have heard that a man +should die in peace. Be quiet, then, and have patience." When we +heard that, we were ashamed, and refrained<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_41" id="VIII_Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> our tears; and he +walked about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he +lay on his back, according to directions, and the man who gave him +the poison, now and then looked at his feet and legs; and after a +while, he pressed his foot hard and asked him if he could feel; and +he said, "No"; and then his leg, and so upwards and upwards, and +showed us that he was cold and stiff. And he felt them himself, and +said, "When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end." He +was beginning to grow cold, when he uncovered his face, for he had +covered himself up, and said (they were his last words), "Crito, I +owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?"</p> + +<p>"The debt shall be paid," said Crito. "Is there anything else?" There +was no answer to this question; but in a minute or two, a movement was +heard, and the attendants uncovered him; his eyes were set, and Crito +closed his eyes and mouth.</p> + +<p>Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I may truly call +the wisest, the justest, and best of all the men whom I have ever +known.</p></div> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="SENECA" id="SENECA"></a>SENECA<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_42" id="VIII_Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></h2> + + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>If we wish to be just judges of all things, let us first persuade<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_43" id="VIII_Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +ourselves of this: that there is not one of us without fault; no +man is found who can acquit himself; and he who calls himself +innocent does so with reference to a witness, and not to his +conscience.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 25em;">—<i>Letters of Seneca</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_44" id="VIII_Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<div class="center"> + <a id="image0454-1"></a> + <img src="images/0454-1.jpg" width="259" height="400" + alt="" + title="" /> + + <p class="center">SENECA</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_45" id="VIII_Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + + +<p>True Americans and patriotic, who live in York State, often refer you to +the life of Red Jacket as proof that "Seneca" is an Iroquois Indian +word. The Indians, however, whom we call the Senecas never called +themselves thus until they took to strong water and became civilized. +Before that they were the Tsonnundawaonas. The Dutch traders, intent on +pelts and pelf, called them the Sinnekaas, meaning the valiant or the +beautiful. Then came that fateful day when the Reverend Peleg Spooner, +the discoverer of the Erie Canal, journeyed to Niagara Falls, and having +influence with the authorities at Washington, gave to towns along the +way these names: Troy, Rome, Ithaca, Syracuse, Ilion, Manlius, Homer, +Corfu, Palmyra, Utica, Delhi, Memphis and Marathon. He really exhausted +Grote's "History of Greece" and Gibbon's "Rome," revealing a most +depressing lack of humor. This classic flavor of the map of New York is +as surprising to English tourists as was the discovery to Hendrik Hudson +when, on sailing up the North River, he found on nearing Albany that the +river bore the same name as himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_46" id="VIII_Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the eighteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we read of Paul +being brought before Gallio, Proconsul of Achaia. And the accusers, +clutching the bald and bow-legged bachelor by the collar, bawl out to +the Judge, "This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to law!"</p> + +<p>And the little man is about to make reply, when Gallio says, with a +touch of impatience: "If indeed it were a matter of wrong or of wicked +villainy, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you: but if +they are questions about words and names and your own law, look to it +yourselves; I am not minded to be a judge of these matters!" And the +account concludes, "And he drove them from the judgment-seat."</p> + +<p>That is to say, he gave Saint Paul a "nolle pros." Had Gallio wished to +be severe, he might have put the quietus on Christianity for all time, +for Saint Paul had all there was of it stowed in his valiant head and +heart.</p> + +<p>Gallio was the elder brother of Seneca; his right name was Annæus +Seneca, but he changed it to Junius Gallio, in honor of a patron who had +especially befriended him in youth.</p> + +<p>Gallio seems to have been a man of good, sturdy commonsense—he could +distinguish between right living and a mumble of words, man-made rules, +laws such as heresy, blasphemy, Sabbath-breaking and marrying one's +deceased wife's sister. The Moqui Indians believe that if any one is +allowed to have a photograph taken<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_47" id="VIII_Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> of himself he will dry up in a month +and blow away. Moreover, lists of names are not wanting with memoranda +of times and places. In America there are yet people who hotly argue as +to what mode of baptism is correct; who talk earnestly about the "saved" +and the "lost"; and who will tell you of the "heathen" and those who are +"without the pale." They seem to think that the promise, "Seek and ye +shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you," applies only to the +Caucasian race.</p> + +<p>In the earlier translations of Seneca there were printed various letters +that were supposed to have passed between Saint Paul and Seneca. Later +editors have dropped them out for lack of authenticity. But the fact +that Saint Paul met Seneca's brother face to face, as well as the fact +that the brother was willing to discuss right living, but had no time to +waste on the Gemara and theological quibbles, is undisputed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_48" id="VIII_Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was the proud boast of Augustus that he found Rome a place of brick +and left it a city of marble. Commercial prosperity buys the leisure +upon which letters flourish. We flout the businessman, but without him +there would be no poets. Poets write for the people who have time to +read. And out of the surplus that is left after securing food, we buy +books. Augustus built his marble city, and he also made Vergil, Horace, +Ovid and Livy possible.</p> + +<p>Augustus reigned forty-four years, and it was in the twenty-seventh year +of his reign that there was born in Bethlehem of Judæa a Babe who was to +revolutionize the calendar. The Dean of Ely subtly puts forth the +suggestive thought that if it had not been for Augustus we might never +have heard of Jesus. It was Augustus who made Jerusalem a Roman +Province; and it was the economic and political policy of Augustus that +evolved the Scribes and Pharisees; and ill-gotten gains made the +hypocrites and publicans possible; then comes Pontius Pilate with his +receding chin.</p> + +<p>Jesus was seventeen years old when Augustus died—Augustus never heard +of him, and the Roman's unprophetic mind sent no searchlight into the +future, neither did his eyes behold the Star in the East.</p> + +<p>We are all making and shaping history, and how much, none of us knows, +any more than did Augustus.</p> + +<p>Julius Cæsar had no son to take his place, so he named his nephew, +Augustus, his heir. Augustus was succeeded<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_49" id="VIII_Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> by Tiberius, his adopted +child. Caligula, successor of Tiberius, was the son of the great Roman +General, Germanicus. Caligula revealed his good sense by drinking life +to its lees in a reign of four years, dying without heirs—Nature +refusing to transmit either infamy or genius. Claudius, an uncle of +Caligula, accepted the vacant place, as it seemed to him there was no +one else could fill it so well. Claudius had the felicity to be married +four times, and left several sons, but Fate had it that he should be +followed by Nero, his stepson, who called himself "Cæsar," yet in whose +veins there leaped not a single Cæsarean corpuscle.</p> + +<p>The guardian and tutor of Nero was Lucius Seneca, the greatest, best and +wisest man of his time, a fact I here state in order to show the vanity +of pedagogics. Harking back once more to Augustus, let it be known that +but for him Seneca would probably have never left his mark upon this +bank and shoal of time. Seneca was a Spaniard, born in Cordova, a Roman +Province, that was made so by Augustus, under whose kindly and placating +influence all citizens of Hispania became Roman citizens—just as, when +California was admitted to the Union, every man in the State was +declared a naturalized citizen of the United States, the act being +performed for political purposes, based on the precedents of Augustus, +and never done before nor since in America.</p> + +<p>Seneca was four years old when his father's family<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_50" id="VIII_Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> moved from Cordova +to Rome; this was three years before the birth of Christ. Years pass, +but the human heart is forever the same. The elder Seneca, Marcus +Seneca, had ambitions—he was a great man in Cordova: he could memorize +a list of two thousand words. These words had no relationship one to +another, and Marcus Seneca could not put words together so as to make +good sense, but his name was "Loisette": he had a scheme of mnemonics +that he imparted for a consideration. He was also a teacher of +elocution, and had compiled a yearbook of the sayings of Horace, which +secured him a knighthood. Augustus paid his colonists pretty +compliments, very much as England gives out brevets to Strathcona and +other worthy Canadians, who raise troops of horse to fight England's +battles in South Africa when duty calls.</p> + +<p>Marcus Seneca made haste to move to Rome when Augustus let down the +bars. Rome was the center of the art-world, the home of letters, and all +that made for beauty and excellence. There were three boys and a girl in +the Seneca family.</p> + +<p>The elder boy, Annæus, was to become Gallio, the Roman governor, and +have his name mentioned in the most widely circulated book the world has +ever known; the second boy was Lucius, the subject of this sketch; the +younger boy, Mela, was to become the father of Lucan, the poet.</p> + +<p>The sister of Seneca became the wife of the Roman Governor of Egypt. It +was at a time when the scheming<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_51" id="VIII_Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> rapacity of women was so much in +evidence that the Senate debated whether it should not forbid its +representatives abroad to be accompanied by their wives. France has seen +such times—England and America have glanced that way. Women, like men, +often do not know that the big prizes gravitate where they belong; +instead, they set traps for them, lie in wait and consider prevarication +and duplicity better than truth. When women use their beauty, their wit +and their pink persons in politics, trouble lies low around the corner. +But this sister of Seneca was never seen in public unless it was at her +husband's side; she asked no favors, and presents sent to her personally +by provincials were politely returned. The province praised her, and +perhaps what was better, didn't know her, and begged the Emperor to send +them more of such excellent and virtuous women—from which we infer that +virtue consists in minding one's own business.</p> + +<p>In making up a list of great mothers, do not leave out Helvia, mother of +three sons and a daughter who made their mark upon the times. It is no +small thing to be a great mother!</p> + +<p>Women of intellect were not much appreciated then, but Seneca dedicated +his "Consolations," his best book, to his mother. The very mintage of +his mind was for her, and again and again he tells of her insight, her +gentle wit, and her appreciation of all that was beautiful and best in +the world of thought. In a letter<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_52" id="VIII_Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> addressed to her when he was past +forty, he says, "You never stained your face with walnut-juice nor +rouge; you never wore gowns cut conspicuously low; your ornaments were a +loveliness of mind and person that time could not tarnish."</p> + +<p>But the father had the knighthood, and he called his family to witness +it at odd times and sundry.</p> + +<p>In Rome, Marcus Seneca made head as he never did in Cordova. There he +was only Marcus Micawber: but here his memory feats won him the +distinction that genius deserves. There is a grave question whether a +verbal memory does not go with a very mediocre intellect, but Marcus +said this argument was put out by a man with no memory worth mentioning.</p> + +<p>Rome was at her ripest flower—the petals were soon to loosen and +flutter to the ground, but nobody thought so—they never do. Everywhere +the Roman legions were victorious, and commerce sailed the seas in +prosperous ships. Power manifests itself in conspicuous waste, and the +habit grows until conspicuous waste imagines itself power. Conditions in +Rome had evolved our old friend, the Sophist, the man who lived but to +turn an epigram, to soulfully contemplate a lily, to sigh mysteriously, +and cultivate the far-away look. These men were elocutionists who +gesticulated in curves, and let the thought follow the attitude. They +were not content to be themselves, but chased the airy, fairy fabric of +a fancy and called it life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_53" id="VIII_Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The pretense and folly of Roman society made the Sophists possible—like +all sects they ministered to a certain cast of mind. Over against the +Sophists there were the Stoics, the purest, noblest and sanest of all +ancient cults, corresponding very closely to our Quakers, before Worth +and Wanamaker threw them a hawse and took them in tow. It is a tide of +feeling produces a sect, not a belief: primitive Christianity was a +revulsion from Phariseeism, and a William Penn and a wan Ann Lee form +the antithesis of an o'ervaulting, fantastic and soulless ritual.</p> + +<p>The father of Seneca hung upon the favor of the Sophists: he taught them +mnemonics, rhetoric and elocution, and the fact that he was a courtly +Spaniard was in his favor—we dote on a foreign accent and relish the +thing that comes from afar.</p> + +<p>Marcus Seneca was getting rich. He never perceived the absurdity of a +life of make-believe; but his son, Lucius Seneca, heir to his mother's +discerning mind, when nineteen years old forswore the Sophists, and +sided with the unpopular Stoics, much to the chagrin of the father.</p> + +<p>Seneca—let us call him so after this—wore the simple white robe of the +Stoics, without ornament or jewelry. He drank no wine, and ate no meat. +Vegetarianism comes in waves, and it is interesting to see that in an +essay on the subject, Seneca plagiarizes every argument put forth by +Colonel Ernest Crosby, even to mentioning a butcher as an "executioner," +his goods as<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_54" id="VIII_Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> "dead corpses," and the customers as "cannibals."</p> + +<p>This kind of talk did not help the family peace, and the father spoke of +disowning the son, if he did not cease affronting the Best Society.</p> + +<p>Soon after, the Emperor Tiberius issued an edict banishing all "strange +sects who fasted on feast-days, and otherwise displeased the gods." This +was a suggestion for the benefit of the Crosbyites. It is with a feeling +of downright disappointment that we find Seneca shortly appearing in an +embroidered robe, and making a speech wherein the moderate use of wine +is recommended, also the flesh of animals for those who think they need +it.</p> + +<p>This, doubtless, is the same speech we, too, would have made had we been +there; but we want our hero to be strong, and defy even an Emperor, if +he comes between the man and his right to eat what he wishes and wear +what he listeth, and we blame him for not doing the things we never do. +But Seneca was getting on in the world—he had become a lawyer, and his +Sophist training was proving its worth. Henry Ward Beecher, in reply to +a young man who asked him if he advised the study of elocution, said, +"Elocution is all right, but you will have to forget it all before you +become an orator." Seneca was shedding his elocution, and losing himself +in his work. A successful lawsuit had brought him before the public as a +strong advocate. He was able to think on his feet. His voice was low, +musical and effective, and the word, "dulcis," was<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_55" id="VIII_Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> applied to him as it +was to his brother, Gallio. Possibly there was something in ol' Marcus +Micawber's pedagogic schemes, after all!</p> + +<p>In moderating his Stoic philosophy, Seneca gives us the key to his +character: the man wanted to be gentle and kind; he wished to affront +neither his father nor society; so he compromised—he would please and +placate. Ease and luxury appealed to him, and yet his cool intellect +stood off, and reviewing the proceeding pronounced it base. He succumbed +to the strongest attraction, and attempted the feat of riding two horses +at once.</p> + +<p>From his twentieth year, Seneca dallied with the epigram, found solace +in a sentence, and got a sweet, subtle joy by taking a thought captive. +Lucullus tells us of the fine intoxication of oratory, but neither opium +nor oratory imparts a finer thrill than successfully to drive a flock of +clauses, and round up an idea, roping it in careless grace, with what my +lord Hamlet calls words, words, words.</p> + +<p>The early Christian Fathers spoke of him as "our Seneca." His writings +abound in the purest philosophy—often seemingly paraphrasing Saint +Paul—and every argument for directness of speech, simplicity, manliness +and moderation is put forth. His writings became the rage in Rome: at +feasts he read his essays on the Ideal Life, just as the disciples of +Tolstoy often travel by the gorge road, and give banquets in honor of +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_56" id="VIII_Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> man who no longer attends one; or princely paid preachers glorify +the Man who said to His apostles, "Take neither scrip nor purse."</p> + +<p>Seneca was a combination of Delsarte and Emerson. He was as popular as +Henry Irving, and as wise as Thomas Brackett Reed. His writings were in +demand; when he spoke in public, crowds hung upon his words, and the +families of the great and powerful sent him their sons, hoping he would +impart the secret of success. The world takes a man at the estimate he +puts upon himself. Seneca knew enough to hold himself high. Honors came +his way, and the wealth he acquired is tokened in those five hundred +tables, inlaid with ivory, to which at times he invited his friends to +feast. As a lawyer, he took his pick of cases, and rarely appeared, +except on appeal, before the Emperor. The poise of his manner, the +surety of his argument, the gentle grace of his diction, caused him to +be likened to Julius Cæsar.</p> + +<p>And this led straight to exile, and finally—death. To mediocrity, +genius is unforgivable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_57" id="VIII_Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>There are various statements to the effect that Claudius was a mental +defective, a sort of town fool, patronized by the nobles for their sport +and jest. We are also told that he was made Emperor by the Pretorian +Guards, in a spirit of rollicking bravado. Men too much abused must have +some merit, or why should the pack bay so loudly? Possibly it is true +that, in the youth of Claudius, his mother used to declare, when she +wanted a strong comparison, "He is as big a fool as my son, Claudius." +But then the mother of Wellington used exactly the same expression; and +Byron's mother had a way of referring to the son who was to rescue her +from oblivion, and send her name down the corridors of time, as "that +lame brat."</p> + +<p>Claudius was a brother of the great Germanicus, and was therefore an +uncle of Caligula. Caligula was the worst ruler that Rome ever had; and +he was a brother of Agrippina, mother of Nero. This precious pair had a +most noble and generous father, and their gentle mother was a fit mate +for the great Germanicus—these things are here inserted for the +edification of folks who take stock in that pleasant fallacy, the Law of +Heredity, and who gleefully chase the genealogical anise-seed trail.</p> + +<p>Caligula happily passed out without an heir, and Claudius, next of kin, +put himself in the way of the Pretorian Guard, and was declared Emperor.</p> + +<p>He was then fifty years old, a grass-widower—twice<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_58" id="VIII_Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> over—and on the +lookout for a wife. He was neither wise nor great, nor was he very bad; +he was kind—after dinner—and generous when rightly approached. Canon +Farrar likened Claudius to King James the First, who gave us our English +Bible. His comparison is worth quoting, not alone for the truth it +contains, but because it is an involuntary paraphrase of the faultless +literary style of the Roman rhetors. Says Canon Farrar: "Both were +learned, and both were eminently unwise. Both were authors, and both +were pedants. Both delegated their highest powers to worthless +favorites, and both enriched these favorites with such foolish +liberality that they remained poor themselves. Both of them, though of +naturally good dispositions, were misled by selfishness into acts of +cruelty; and both of them, though laborious in the discharge of duty, +succeeded only in rendering royalty ridiculous. King James kept Sir +Walter Raleigh, the brightest intellect of his time, in prison; and +Claudius sent Seneca, the greatest man in his kingdom, into exile."</p> + +<p>New-made kings sweep clean. The impulses of Claudius were right and +just, a truthful statement I here make in pleasant compliment to a +brother author. The man was absent-minded, had much faith in others, and +moved in the line of least resistance. Like most students and authors, +he was decidedly littery. He secured a divorce from one wife because she +cleaned up his room in his absence so that he could never find<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_59" id="VIII_Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +anything; and the other wife got a divorce from him because he refused +to go out evenings and scintillate in society—but this was before he +was made Emperor.</p> + +<p>God knows, people had their troubles then as now. To take this man who +loved his slippers and easy-chair, and who was happy with a roll of +papyrus, and plunge him into a seething pot of politics, not to mention +matrimony, was refined cruelty.</p> + +<p>The matchmakers were busy, and soon Claudius was married to Messalina, +the handsomest summer-girl in Rome.</p> + +<p>For a short time he bore up bravely, and was filled with the wish to +benefit and bless. One of his first acts was to recall Julia and +Agrippina from exile, they having been sent away in a fit of jealous +anger by their brother, the infamous Caligula.</p> + +<p>Julia was beautiful and intellectual, and she had a high regard for +Seneca.</p> + +<p>Agrippina was beautiful and infamous, and pretended that she loved +Claudius.</p> + +<p>Both men were undone. Seneca's friendship for Julia, as far as we know, +was of a kind that did honor to both, but they made a too conspicuous +pair of intellects. The fear and jealousy of Claudius was aroused by his +young and beautiful wife, who showed him that Seneca, the courtly, was +plotting for the throne, and in this ambition Julia was a party. A +charge of undue intimacy with Julia, the beloved niece and ward of the +Emperor, was brought against Seneca, and he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_60" id="VIII_Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> exiled to Corsica. +Imagine Edmund Burke sent to Saint Helena, or John Hay to the Dry +Tortugas, and you get the idea.</p> + +<p>The sensitive nature of Seneca did not bear up under exile as we would +have wished. Unlike Victor Hugo at Guernsey, he was alone, and +surrounded by savages. Yet even Victor Hugo lifted up his voice in +bitter complaint. Seneca failed to anticipate that, in spite of the +barrenness of Corsica, it would some day produce a man who would jostle +his Roman Cæsar for first place on history's page.</p> + +<p>At Corsica, Seneca produced some of his loftiest and best literature. +Exile and imprisonment are such favorable conditions for letters, having +done so much for authorship, that the wonder is the expedient has fallen +into practical disuse. Banishment gave Seneca an opportunity to put into +execution some of the ideas he had so long expressed concerning the +simple life, and certain it is that the experience was not without its +benefits, and at times the grim humor of it all came to him.</p> + +<p>Read the history of Greek ostracism, and one can almost imagine that it +was devised by the man's friends—a sort of heroic treatment prescribed +by a great spiritual physician. Personality repels as well as attracts: +the people grow tired of hearing Aristides called the Just—he is +exiled. For a few days there is a glad relief; then his friends begin to +chant his praises—he<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_61" id="VIII_Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> is missed. People tell of all the noble, generous +things he would do if he were only here.</p> + +<p>If he were only here!</p> + +<p>Petitions are circulated for his return.</p> + +<p>The law's delay ensues, and this but increases desire. Hate for the man +has turned to pity, and pity turns to love, as starch turns to gluten.</p> + +<p>The man comes back, and is greeted with boughs and bays, with love and +laurel. His homecoming is that of a conquering hero. If the Supreme +Court were to issue an injunction requiring all husbands to separate +themselves by at least a hundred miles from their wives, for several +months in every year, it would cut down divorces ninety-five per cent, +add greatly to domestic peace, render race-suicide impossible, and +generally liberate millions of love vibrations that would otherwise lie +dormant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_62" id="VIII_Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>As an example of female depravity, Valeria Messalina was sister in crime +to Jezebel, Bernice, Drusilla, Salome and Herodias.</p> + +<p>Damned by a dower of beauty, with men at her feet whenever she so +ordered, her ambition knew no limit. This type of dictatorial womanhood +starts out by making conquests of individual men, but the conquests of +pretty women are rarely genuine. Women hold no monopoly on duplicity, +and there is a deep vein of hypocrisy in men that prompts their playing +a part, and letting the woman use them. When the time is ripe, they toss +her away as they do any other plaything, as Omar suggests the potter +tosses the luckless pots to hell.</p> + +<p>When Julia and Agrippina were recalled, the act was done without +consulting Messalina; and we can imagine her rage when these two women, +as beautiful as herself, came back without her permission. Messalina had +never found favor in the eyes of Seneca—he treated her with patronizing +patience, as though she were a spoilt child.</p> + +<p>Now that Julia was back, Messalina hatched the plot that struck them +both. Messalina insisted that the wealth of Seneca should be +confiscated. Claudius at this rebelled.</p> + +<p>History is replete with instances of great men ruled by their barbers +and coachmen. Claudius left the affairs of state to Narcissus, his +private secretary; Polybius, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_63" id="VIII_Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> literary helper; and Pallas, his +accountant. These men were all of lowly birth, and had all risen in the +ranks from menial positions, and one of them at least had been sold as a +slave, and afterward purchased his freedom. Then there was Felix, the +ex-slave, another protege of Claudius, who trembled when Paul of Tarsus +told him a little wholesome truth. These men were all immensely rich, +and once, when Claudius complained of poverty, a bystander said, "You +should go into partnership with a couple of your freedmen, and then your +finances would be all right." The fact that Narcissus, Pallas and +Polybius constituted the real government is nothing against them, any +more than it is to the discredit of certain Irish refugees that they +manage the municipal machinery of New York City—it merely proves the +impotence of the men who have allowed the power to slip from their +grasp, and ride as passengers when they should be at the throttle.</p> + +<p>Messalina managed her husband by alternate cajolings and threats. He was +proud of her saucy beauty, and it was pleasing to an old man's vanity to +think that other people thought she loved him. She bore him two sons—by +name, Brittanicus and Germanicus. A local wit of the day said, "It was +kind of Messalina to present her husband with these boys, otherwise he +would never have had any claim on them."</p> + +<p>But the lines were tightening around Messalina, and she herself was +drawing the cords. She had put favorites<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_64" id="VIII_Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> in high places, banished +enemies, and ordered the execution of certain people she did not like. +Narcissus and Pallas gave her her own way, because they knew Claudius +must find her out for himself. They let her believe that she was the +real power behind the throne. Her ambitions grew—she herself would be +ruler—she gave it out that Claudius was insane. Finally she decided +that the time was right for a "coup de grace." Claudius was absent from +Rome, and Messalina wedded at high noon with young Silius, her lover. +She was led to believe that the army would back her up, and proclaim her +son, Brittanicus, Emperor, in which case, she herself and Silius would +be the actual rulers. The wedding festivities were at their height, when +the cry went up that Claudius had returned, and was approaching to +demand vengeance. Narcissus, the wily, took up the shout, and +panic-stricken, Messalina fled for safety in one way and Silius in +another.</p> + +<p>Narcissus followed the woman, adding to her drunken fright by telling +her that Claudius was close behind, and suggested that she kill herself +before the wronged man should appear. A dagger was handed her, and she +stabbed herself ineffectually in hysteric haste. The kind secretary +then, with one plunge of his sword, completed the work so well begun.</p> + +<p>A truthful account of Messalina's death was told to Claudius while he +was at dinner. He finished the meal without saying a word, gave a +present to the messenger,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_65" id="VIII_Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> and went about his business, asking no +questions, and never again mentioned the matter.</p> + +<p>The fact is worthy of note that the name of Messalina is never once +mentioned by Seneca. He pitied her vileness and villainy so much he +could not hate her. He saw, with prophetic vision, what her end would +be; and when her passing occurred, he was too great and lofty in spirit +to manifest satisfaction.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_66" id="VIII_Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Scarcely had the funeral of Messalina occurred, when there was a pretty +scramble among the eligible to see who should solace the stricken +widower. Among other matrimonial candidates was Agrippina, a beautiful +widow, twenty-nine in June, rich in her own right, and with only a small +encumbrance in the way of a ten-year-old boy, Nero by name.</p> + +<p>Agrippina was a niece of Claudius, and such marriages were considered +unnatural; but Agrippina had subtly shown that, the deceased Emperor +being her brother, she already had a sort of claim on the throne, and +her marriage with Claudius would strengthen the State. Then she +marshaled her charms past Claudius, in a phalanx and back, and so they +were married. There was much pomp and ceremony at the wedding, and the +high priest pronounced the magic words—I trust I use the right +expression.</p> + +<p>Very soon after her marriage, Agrippina recalled Seneca from exile. It +was the infamous Messalina who had disgraced him and sent him away, and +for Agrippina, the sister of Julia, to bring him back, was regarded as a +certificate of innocence, and a great diplomatic move for Agrippina.</p> + +<p>When Seneca returned, the whole city went out to meet him. It is not at +all likely that Seneca had a suspicion of the true character of +Agrippina, any more than Claudius—which sort of tends to show the +futility of philosophy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_67" id="VIII_Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<p>How could Seneca read her true character when it had not really been +formed? No one knows what he will do until he gets a good chance. It is +unkind condition that keeps most of us where we belong.</p> + +<p>And even while the honeymoon—or should we say the harvest-moon?—was at +full, Seneca was made the legal guardian and tutor of Nero, the son of +the Empress, and became a member of the royal household. This was done +in gratitude, and to make amends, if possible, for the wrong of +banishment inflicted upon the man by scandalously linking his name with +that of the sister of the woman who was now First Lady of the Land.</p> + +<p>Seneca was then forty-nine years of age. He had fifteen years of life +yet before him, and was to gain much valuable experience, and get an +insight into a side of existence he had not yet known.</p> + +<p>Agrippina was born in Cologne, which was called, in her honor, Colonia +Agrippina, and now has been shortened to its present form. Whenever you +buy cologne, remember where the word came from.</p> + +<p>Agrippina, from her very girlhood, had a thirst for adventure, and her +aim was high. When fourteen, she married Domitius, a Roman noble, thirty +years her senior. He was as worthless a rogue as ever wore out his +physical capacity for sin in middle life, and filled his dying days with +crimes that were only mental. He knew himself so well that when Nero was +born he<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_68" id="VIII_Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> declared that the issue of such a marriage could only breed a +being who would ruin the State—a monster with his father's vices and +his mother's insatiable ambition.</p> + +<p>Agrippina was woman enough to hate this man with an utter detestation; +but he was rich, and so she endured him for ten years, and then assisted +Nature in making him food for worms.</p> + +<p>The intensity of Agrippina's nature might have been used for happy ends +if the stream of her life had not been so early dammed and polluted. She +loved her child with a clutching, feverish affection, and declared that +he would some day rule Rome. This was not really such a far-away dream, +when we remember that her brother was then Emperor and childless. Her +thought was more for her child than for herself, and her expectation was +that he would succeed Caligula. The persistency with which she told this +ambition for her boy is both beautiful and pathetic. Every mother sees +her own life projected in her child, and within certain bounds this is +right and well.</p> + +<p>Glimpses of kindness and right intent are shown when Agrippina recalled +Seneca, and when she became the mother of the motherless children of +Claudius. She publicly adopted these children, and for a time gave them +every attention and advantage that was bestowed upon her own son. Gibbon +says for one woman to mother another woman's children is a diplomatic +card<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_69" id="VIII_Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> often played, but Gibbon sometimes quibbles.</p> + +<p>Gradually the fierce desire of Agrippina's heart began to manifest +itself. She plotted and arranged that Nero should marry Octavia, the +daughter of Claudius. Octavia was seven years older than Nero, but the +sooner the marriage could be brought about, the better—it would give +her a double hold on the throne. To this end suitors for the hand of +Octavia were disgraced by false charges, and sent off into exile, and +the same fate came to at least three young women who stood in the way.</p> + +<p>But the one real obstacle was Claudius himself—he was sixty, and might +be so absurd as to live to be eighty. Locusta, a famous professional +chemist, was employed, and the deed was done by Agrippina serving the +deadly dish herself. The servants carried Claudius off to bed, thinking +he was merely drunk, but he was to wake no more.</p> + +<p>Burrus, the blunt and honest old soldier, Captain of the Pretorian +Guard, sided with Agrippina; Brittanicus, the son of Claudius, was kept +out of the way, and Nero was proclaimed Emperor.</p> + +<p>Here Seneca seems to have shown his good influence, and sent home a +desire in the heart of Agrippina to serve her people with moderation and +justice. She had attained her ends: her son, a youth of fifteen, was +Emperor, and his guardian, the great and gentle Seneca, the man of her +own choosing, was the actual ruler. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_70" id="VIII_Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> was the sister of one Emperor, +wife of another, and now mother of a third—surely this was glory enough +to satisfy one woman's ambition!</p> + +<p>Then there came to Rome the famed Quinquennium Neronis, when, for five +years, peace and plenty smiled. It is a trite saying that men who can +not manage their own finances can look after those of a nation, but +Seneca was a businessman who proved his ability to manage his own +private affairs and also succeeded in managing the exchequer of a +kingdom. During his reign, gladiatorial contests were relieved of their +savage brutality, work was given to many, education became popular, and +people said, "The Age of Augustus has returned."</p> + +<p>But the greatest men are not the greatest teachers. Seneca's policy with +his pupil, Nero, was one of concession.</p> + +<p>A close study of the youth of Nero reveals the same traits that outcrop +in one-half the students at Harvard—traits ill-becoming to grown-up +men, but not at all alarming in youth. Nero was self-willed and +occasionally had tantrums—but a tantrum is only a little whirl-wind of +misdirected energy. A tantrum is life plus—it is better far than +stagnation, and usually works up into useful life, and sometimes into +great art. We have some verses written by Nero in his seventeenth year +that show a good Class B sophomoric touch. He danced, played in the +theatricals, raced horses, fought dogs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_71" id="VIII_Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> twanged the harp, and exploited +various other musical instruments. He wasn't nearly so bad as +Alcibiades, but his mother lavished on him her maudlin love, and allowed +the fallacy to grow in his mind concerning the divinity that doth hedge +a king. In fact, when he asked his mother about his real father, she hid +the truth that his father was a rogue—perhaps to shield herself, for it +is only a very great person who can tell the truth—and led him to +believe his paternal parent was a god, and his birth miraculous. Now, +let such an idea get into the head of the average freshman and what will +be the result? A woman can tell a full-grown man that he is the greatest +thing that ever happened, and it does no special harm, for the man knows +better than to go out on the street and proclaim it; but you tell a boy +of eighteen such pleasing fallacies, and then have fawning courtiers +back them up, and at the same time give the youth free access to the +strong box, and it surely would be a miracle if he is not doubly damned, +and quickly, too. Agrippina would not allow the blunt old Burrus to +discipline her boy, and Seneca's plan was one of concession—he loved +peace. He hated to thwart the boy, because he knew that it would arouse +the ire of the mother, whose love had run away with her commonsense. +Love is beautiful—soft, yielding, gentle love—but the common law of +England upholds wife-beating as being justifiable and desirable on +certain occasions.</p> + +<p>The real trouble was, the dam was out for Agrippina<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_72" id="VIII_Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> and Nero—there was +no restraint for either. There was no one to teach them that the liberty +of one man ends where the right of another begins. No more frightful +condition for any man or woman can ever occur than this: to take away +all responsibility.</p> + +<p>When Socrates put the chesty Alcibiades three points down, and jumped on +his stomach with his knees, the youth had a month in bed, and after he +got around again he possessed a most wholesome regard for his teacher. +If Burrus and Seneca had applied Brockway methods to Agrippina and her +saucy son, as they easily might, it would have made Rome howl with +delight, and saved the State as well as the individuals.</p> + +<p>Julius Cæsar, like Lincoln, let everybody do as they wished, up to a +certain point. But all realized that somewhere behind that dulcet voice +and the gentle manner was a heart of flint and nerves of steel. No woman +ever made Julius Cæsar dance to syncopated time, nor did a youth of +eighteen ever successfully order him to take part in amateur theatricals +on penalty. Julius Cæsar and Seneca were both scholars, both were +gentlemen and gentle men: their mental attitude was much the same, but +one had a will of adamant, and the other moved in the line of least +resistance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_73" id="VIII_Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Gradually, Nero evolved a petulance and impatience toward his mother and +his tutor, all of which was quite a natural consequence of his +education. Every endeavor to restrain him was met with imprecations and +curses. About then would have been a good time to apply heroic +treatment, instead of halting fear and worshipful acquiescence.</p> + +<p>The raw stock for making a Nero is in every school, and given the +conditions, a tyrant-culture would be easy to evolve. The endeavor to +make Nero wed Octavia caused a revulsion to occur in his heart toward +her and her brother Brittanicus. He feared that these two might combine +and wrest from him the throne.</p> + +<p>Locusta, the specialist, was again sent for and Brittanicus was gathered +to his fathers.</p> + +<p>Soon after, Nero fell into a deep infatuation for Poppæ Sabina, wife of +Otho, the most beautiful woman in Rome. Sabina refused to accept his +advances so long as he was tied to his mother's apron-strings—I use the +exact phrase of Tacitus, so I trust no exceptions will be taken to the +expression. Nero came to believe that the tagging, nagging, mushy love +of his mother was standing in the way of his advancement. He had come to +know that Agrippina had caused the death of Claudius, and when she +accused him of poisoning Brittanicus, he said, "I learned the trick from +my dear mother!" and honors were even.</p> + +<p>He knew the crafty quality of his mother's mind and<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_74" id="VIII_Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> grew to fear her. +And fear and hate are one. To secure Sabina he must sacrifice Agrippina.</p> + +<p>He would be free.</p> + +<p>To poison her would not do—she was an expert in preventives.</p> + +<p>So Nero, regardless of expense, bargained with Anicetus, admiral of the +fleet, to construct a ship so that, when certain bolts were withdrawn, +the craft would sink and tell no tale. This was a bit of daring deviltry +never before devised, and by turn, Nero chuckled in glee and had cold +sweats of fear as he congratulated himself on his astuteness.</p> + +<p>The boat was built and Agrippina was enticed on board. The night of the +excursion was calm, but the conspirators, fearing the chance might never +come again, let go the canopy, loaded with lead, which was over the +queen. It fell with a crash; and at the same time the bolts were +withdrawn and the waters rushed in. Several of the servants in +attendance were killed by the fall of the awning, but Agrippina and +Aceronia, a lady of quality, escaped from the debris only slightly hurt. +Aceronia, believing the ship was about to sink, called for help, saying, +"I am Agrippina." She erred slightly in her diplomacy, for she was at +once struck on the head with an oar and killed. This gave Agrippina a +clew to the situation and she was silent. By a strange perversity, the +royal scuttling patent would not work and the boat stubbornly refused to +sink.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_75" id="VIII_Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>Agrippina got safely ashore and sent word to her son that there had been +a terrible accident, but she was safe—the intent of her letter being to +let him know that she understood the matter perfectly, and while she +could not admire the job, it was so bungling, yet she would forgive him +if he would not try it again.</p> + +<p>In wild consternation, Nero sent for Burrus and Seneca. This was their +first knowledge of the affair. They refused to act in either way, but +Burrus intimated that Anicetus was the guilty party and should be held +responsible.</p> + +<p>"For not completing the task?" said Nero.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the blunt old soldier, and retired.</p> + +<p>Anicetus was notified that the blame of the whole conspiracy was on him. +A big crime, well carried out, is its own excuse for being; but failure, +like unto genius, is unforgivable.</p> + +<p>Anicetus was in disgrace, but only temporarily, for he towed the +obstinate, telltale galley into deep water and sank her at dead of +night. Then with a few faithful followers he surrounded the villa where +Agrippina was resting, scattered her guard and confronted her with drawn +sword.</p> + +<p>Years before, a soothsayer had told her that her son would be Emperor +and that he would kill her. Her answer was, "Let them slay me, if he but +reign."</p> + +<p>Now she saw that death was nigh. She did not try to escape, nor did she +plead for mercy, but cried,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_76" id="VIII_Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> "Plunge your sword through my womb, +for it bore Nero."</p> + +<p>And Anicetus, with one blow, struck her dead.</p> + +<p>Nero returned to Naples to mourn his loss. From there he sent forth a +lengthy message to the Senate, recounting the accidental shipwreck, and +telling how Agrippina had plotted against his life, recounting her +crimes in deprecatory, sophistical phrase. The document wound up by +telling how she had tried to secure the throne for a paramour, and the +truth coming to some o'erzealous friends of the State, they had arisen +and taken her life. In Rome there was a strong feeling that Nero should +not be allowed to return, but this message of explanation and promise, +written by Seneca, downed the opposition.</p> + +<p>The Senate accepted the report, and Nero, at twenty-two, found himself +master of the world.</p> + +<p>Yet what booted it when he was not master of himself!</p> + +<p>From this time on, the career of Seneca was one of contumely, suffering +and disgrace. This was to endure for six years, when kindly death was +then to set him free.</p> + +<p>The mutual, guilty knowledge of a great crime breeds loathing and +contempt. History contains many such instances where the subject had +knowledge of the sovereign's sins, and the sovereign found no rest until +the man who knew was beneath the sod.</p> + +<p>Seneca knew Nero as only his Maker knew him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_77" id="VIII_Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p>After the first spasm of exultation in being allowed to return to Rome, +a jealous dread of Seneca came over the guilty monarch.</p> + +<p>Seneca hoped against hope that, now that Nero's wild oats were sown and +the crop destroyed, all would be well. The past should be buried and +remembrance of it sunk deep in oblivion.</p> + +<p>But Nero feared Seneca might expose his worthlessness and the +philosopher himself take the reins. In this Nero did not know his man: +Seneca's love was literary—political power to him was transient and not +worth while.</p> + +<p>It became known that the apology to the Senate was the work of Seneca, +and Nero, who wanted the world to think that all his speeches and +addresses were his own, got it firmly fixed in his head he would not be +happy until Seneca was out of the way. Sabina said he was no longer a +boy, and should not be tagged and dictated to by his old teacher.</p> + +<p>Seneca, seeing what was coming, offered to give his entire property to +the State and retire. Nero would not have it so—he feared Seneca would +retire only to come back with an army. A cordon of spies was put around +Seneca's house—he was practically a prisoner. Attempts were made to +poison him, but he ate only fruit, and bread made by his wife, Paulina, +and drank no water except from running streams.</p> + +<p>Finally a charge of conspiracy was fastened upon him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_78" id="VIII_Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> and Nero ordered +him to die by his own hand. His wife was determined to go with him, and +one stroke severed the veins of both.</p> + +<p>The beautiful Sabina realized her hopes—she divorced her husband, and +married the Emperor of Rome. She died from a sudden kick given her by +the booted foot of her liege.</p> + +<p>Three years after the death of Seneca, Nero passed hence by the same +route, killing himself to escape the fury of the Pretorian Guard. And so +ended the Julian line, none of whom, except the first, was a Julian.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_79" id="VIII_Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>From the death of Augustus on to the time of Nero there was for Rome a +steady tide of disintegration. The Emperor was the head of the Church, +and he usually encouraged the idea that he was something different from +common men—that his mission was from On High and that he should be +worshiped. Gibbon, making a free translation from Seneca, says, +"Religion was regarded by the common people as true, by the philosophers +as false, and by the rulers as useful." And Saint Augustine, using the +same smoothly polished style, says, in reference to a Roman Senator, "He +worshiped what he blamed, he did what he refuted, he adored that with +which he found fault." The sentence is Seneca's, and when he wrote it he +doubtless had himself in mind, for in spite of his Stoic philosophy the +life of luxury lured him, and although he sang the praises of poverty he +charged a goodly sum for so doing, and the nobles who listened to him +doubtless found a vicarious atonement by applauding him as he played to +the gallery gods of their self-esteem, like rich ladies who go +a-slumming mix in with the poor on an equality, and then hasten home to +dress for dinner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_80" id="VIII_Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Seneca was one of the purest and loftiest intellects the world has ever +known. Canon Farrar calls him "A Seeker after God," and has printed +parallel passages from Saint Paul and Seneca which, for many, seem to +show that the men were in communication with each other. Every ethical +maxim of Christianity was expressed by this "noble pagan," and his +influence was always directed toward that which he thought was right. +His mistakes were all in the line of infirmities of the will. Voltaire +calls him, "The father of all those who wear shovel hats," and in +another place refers to him as an "amateur ascetic," but in this the +author of the Philosophical Dictionary pays Seneca the indirect +compliment of regarding him as a Christian. Renan says, "Seneca shines +out like a great white star through a rift of clouds on a night of +darkness." The wonder is not that Seneca at times lapsed from his high +estate and manifested his Sophist training, but that to the day of his +death he saw the truth with unblinking eyes and held the Ideal firmly in +his heart.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ARISTOTLE" id="ARISTOTLE"></a>ARISTOTLE<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_81" id="VIII_Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></h2> + + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Happiness itself is sufficient excuse. Beautiful things are right +and true; so beautiful actions are those pleasing to the gods. Wise +men have an inward sense of what is beautiful, and the highest +wisdom is to trust this intuition and be guided by it. The answer +to the last appeal of what is right lies within a man's own breast. +Trust thyself.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 25em;">—<i>Ethics of Aristotle</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_82" id="VIII_Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<div class="center"> + <a id="image0455-1"></a> + <img src="images/0455-1.jpg" width="253" height="400" + alt="" + title="" /> + + <p class="center">ARISTOTLE</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_83" id="VIII_Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + + +<p>The Sublime Porte recently issued a request to the American Bible +Society, asking that references to Macedonia be omitted from all Bibles +circulated in Turkey or Turkish provinces. The argument of His Sublimity +is that the Macedonian cry, "Come over and help us!" puts him and his +people in a bad light. He ends his most courteous petition by saying, +"The land that produced a Philip, an Alexander the Great and an +Aristotle, and that today has citizens who are the equal of these, needs +nothing from our dear brothers, the Americans, but to be let alone."</p> + +<p>As to the statement that Macedonia today has citizens who are the equals +of Philip, Alexander and Aristotle, the proposition, probably, is based +on the confession of the citizens themselves, and therefore may be +truth. Great men are only great comparatively. It is the stupidity of +the many that allows one man to bestride the narrow world like a +Colossus. In the time of Alexander and Aristotle there wasn't so much +competition as now, so perhaps what we take to be lack of humor on the +part of the Sublime Porte may have a basis in fact.</p> + +<p>Aristotle was born Three Hundred Eighty-four B.C.,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_84" id="VIII_Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> at the village of +Stagira in the mountains of Macedonia. King Amyntas used to live at +Stagira several months in the year and hunt the wild hogs that fed on +the acorns which grew in the gorges and valleys. Mountain climbing and +hunting was dangerous sport, and it was well to have a surgeon attached +to the royal party, so the father of Aristotle served in that capacity. +No doubt, though, but the whole outfit was decidedly barbaric, even +including the doctor's little son "Aristo," who refused to be left +behind. The child's mother had died years before, and boys without +mothers are apt to manage their fathers. And so Aristo was allowed to +trot along by his father's side, carrying a formidable bow, which he +himself had made, with a quiver of arrows at his back.</p> + +<p>Those were great times when the King came to Stagira!</p> + +<p>When the King went back to the capital everybody received presents, and +the good doctor, by some chance, was treated best of all, and little +Aristo came in for the finest bow that ever was, all tipped with silver +and eagle-feathers. But the bow did not bring good luck, for soon after, +the boy's father was caught in an avalanche of sliding stone and crushed +to death.</p> + +<p>Aristo was taken in charge by Proxenus, a near kinsman. The lad was so +active at climbing, so full of life and energy and good spirits, that +when the King came the next year to Stagira, he asked for Aristo. With +the King was his son Philip, a lad about the age of Aristo,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_85" id="VIII_Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> but not so +tall nor so active. The boys became fast friends, and once when a +stranger saw them together he complimented the King on his fine, +intelligent boys, and the King had to explain, "The other boy is +mine—but I wish they both were."</p> + +<p>Aristo knew where the wild boars fed in gulches, and where the stunted +oaks grew close and thick. Higher up in the mountains there were bears, +which occasionally came down and made the wild pigs scamper. You could +always tell when the bears were around, for then the little pigs would +run out into the open. The bears had a liking for little pigs, and the +bears had a liking for the honey in the bee-trees, too. Aristo could +find the bee-trees better than the bears—all you had to do was to watch +the flight of the bees as they left the clover.</p> + +<p>Then there were deer—you could see their tracks any time around the +mountain marshes where the springs gushed forth and the watercress grew +lush. Still higher up the mountains, beyond where bears ever traveled, +there were mountain-sheep, and still higher up were goats. The goats +were so wild that hardly any one but Aristo had ever seen them, but he +knew they were there.</p> + +<p>The King was delighted to have such a lad as companion for his son, and +insisted that he should go back to the capital with them and become a +member of the Court.</p> + +<p>Not he—there were other ambitions. He wanted to go<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_86" id="VIII_Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> to Athens and study +at the school of Plato—Plato, the pupil of the great Socrates.</p> + +<p>The King laughed—he had never heard of Plato. That a youth should +refuse to become part of the Macedonian Court, preferring the company of +an unknown school-master, was amusing—he laughed.</p> + +<p>The next year when the King came back to Stagira, Aristo was still +there. "And you haven't gone to Athens yet?" said the King.</p> + +<p>"No, but I am going," was the firm reply.</p> + +<p>"We will send him," said the King to Proxenus, Aristo's guardian.</p> + +<p>And so we find Aristo, aged seventeen, tall and straight and bronzed, +starting off for Athens, his worldly goods rolled up in a bearskin, tied +about with thongs. There is a legend to the effect that Philip went with +Aristo, and that for a time they were together at Plato's school. But, +anyway, Philip did not remain long. Aristo—or Aristotle, we had better +call him—remained with Plato just twenty years.</p> + +<p>At Plato's school Aristotle was called by the boys, "the Stagirite," a +name that was to last him through life—and longer. In Winter he wore +his bearskin, caught over one shoulder, for a robe, and his mountain +grace and native beauty of mind and body must have been a joy to Plato +from the first. Such a youth could not be overlooked.</p> + +<p>To him that hath shall be given. The pupil that wants to<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_87" id="VIII_Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> learn is the +teacher's favorite—which is just as it should not be. Plato proved his +humanity by giving his all to the young mountaineer. Plato was then a +little over sixty years of age—about the same age that Socrates was +when Plato became his pupil. But the years had touched Plato +lightly—unlike Socrates, he had endured no Thracian winters in bare +feet, neither had he lived on cold snacks picked up here and there, as +Providence provided. Plato was a bachelor. He still wore the purple +robe, proud, dignified, yet gentle, and his back was straight as that of +a youth. Lowell once said, "When I hear Plato's name mentioned, I always +think of George William Curtis—a combination of pride and intellect, a +man's strength fused with a woman's gentleness."</p> + +<p>Plato was an aristocrat. He accepted only such pupils as he invited, or +those that were sent by royalty. Like Franz Liszt, he charged no +tuition, which plan, by the way, is a good scheme for getting more money +than could otherwise be obtained, although no such selfish charge should +be brought against either Plato or Liszt. Yet every benefit must be paid +for, and whether you use the word fee or honorarium, matters little. I +hear there be lecturers who accept invitations to banquets and accept an +honorarium mysteriously placed on the mantel, when they would scorn a +fee.</p> + +<p>Plato's Garden School, where the pupils reclined under the trees on +marble benches, and read and talked, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_88" id="VIII_Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> listened to lectures by the +Master, was almost an ideal place. Not the ideal for us, because we +believe that the mental and the manual must go hand in hand. The world +of intellect should not be separated from the world of work. It was too +much to expect that in a time when slavery was everywhere, Plato would +see the fallacy of having one set of men to do the thinking, and another +do the work. We haven't got far from that yet; only free men can see the +whole truth, and a free man is one who lives in a country where there +are no slaves. To own slaves is to be one, and to live in a land of +slavery is to share in the bondage—a partaker in the infamy and the +profits.</p> + +<p>Plato and Aristotle became fast friends—comrades. With thinking men +years do not count—only those grow old who think by proxy. Plato had no +sons after the flesh, and the love of his heart went out to the +Stagirite: in him he saw his own life projected.</p> + +<p>When Aristotle had turned twenty he was acquainted with all the leading +thinkers of his time; he read constantly, wrote, studied and conversed. +The little property his father left had come to him; the King of Macedon +sent him presents; and he taught various pupils from wealthy +families—finances were easy. But success did not spoil him. The +brightest scholars do not make the greatest success in life, because +alma mater usually catches them for teachers. Sometimes this is well, +but more often it is not. Plato would not hear of Aristotle's<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_89" id="VIII_Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> leaving +him, and so he remained, the chief ornament and practical leader of the +school.</p> + +<p>He became rich, owned the largest private library at Athens, and was +universally regarded as the most learned man of his time.</p> + +<p>In many ways he had surpassed Plato. He delved into natural history, +collected plants, rocks, animals, and made studies of the practical +workings of economic schemes. He sought to divest the Platonic teaching +of its poetry, discarded rhetoric, and tried to get at the simple truth +of all subjects.</p> + +<p>Toward the last of Plato's career this repudiation by Aristotle of +poetry, rhetoric, elocution and the polite accomplishments caused a +schism to break out in the Garden School. Plato's head was in the clouds +at times; Aristotle's was, too, but his feet were always on the earth.</p> + +<p>When Plato died, Aristotle was his natural successor as leader of the +school, but there was opposition to him, both on account of his sturdy, +independent ways and because he was a foreigner.</p> + +<p>He left Athens to become a member of the Court of Hermias, a former +pupil, now King of Atarneus.</p> + +<p>He remained here long enough to marry the niece of his patron, and +doubtless saw himself settled for life—a kingly crown within his reach +should his student-sovereign pass away.</p> + +<p>And the royal friend did pass away, by the dagger's<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_90" id="VIII_Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> route. As +life-insurance risks I am told that Kings have to pay double premium. +Revolution broke out, and as Aristotle was debating in his mind what +course to pursue, a messenger with soldiers arrived from King Philip of +Macedon, offering safe convoy, enclosing transportation, and asking that +Aristotle come and take charge of the education of his son, Alexander, +aged thirteen.</p> + +<p>Aristotle did not wait to parley: he accepted the invitation. Horses +were saddled, camels packed and that night, before the moon arose, the +cavalcade silently moved out into the desert.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_91" id="VIII_Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The offer that had been made twenty-four years before, by Philip's +father, was now accepted. Aristotle was forty-two years old, in the +prime of his power. Time had tempered his passions, but not subdued his +zest in life. He had the curious, receptive, alert and eager mind of a +child. His intellect was at its ripest and best. He was a lover of +animals, and all outdoor life appealed to him as it does to a growing +boy. He was a daring horseman, and we hear of his riding off into the +desert and sleeping on the sands, his horse untethered watching over +him. Aristotle was the first man to make a scientific study of the +horse, and with the help of Alexander he set up a skeleton, fastening +the bones in place, to the mighty astonishment of the natives, who +mistook the feat for an attempt to make a living animal; and when the +beast was not at last saddled and bridled there were subdued chuckles of +satisfaction among the "hoi polloi" at the failure of the scheme, and +murmurs of "I told you so!"</p> + +<p>Eighteen hundred years were to pass before another man was to take up +the horse as a serious scientific study; and this was Leonardo da Vinci, +a man in many ways very much like Aristotle. The distinguishing feature +in these men—the thing that differentiates them from other men—was the +great outpouring sympathy with every living creature. Everything they +saw was related to themselves—it came very close to them—they wanted +to know more about it. This is essentially<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_92" id="VIII_Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> the child-mind, and the +calamity of life is to lose it.</p> + +<p>Leonardo became interested in Aristotle's essay on the horse, and +continued the subject further, dissecting the animal in minutest detail +and illustrating his discoveries with painstaking drawings. His work is +so complete and exhaustive that nobody nowadays has time to more than +read the title-page. Leonardo's bent was natural science, and his first +attempts at drawing were done to illustrate his books. Art was +beautiful, of course—it brought in an income, made friends and brought +him close to people who saw nothing unless you made a picture of it. He +made pictures for recreation and to amuse folks, and his threat to put +the peeping Prior into the "Last Supper," posed as Judas, revealed his +contempt for the person to whom a picture was just a picture. The marvel +to Leonardo was the mind that could imagine, the hand that could +execute, and the soul that could see.</p> + +<p>And the curious part is that Leonardo lives for us through his play and +not through his serious work. His science has been superseded, but his +art is immortal.</p> + +<p>This expectant mental attitude, this attitude of worship, belongs to all +great scientists. The man divines the thing first and then looks for it, +just as the Herschels knew where the star ought to be and then patiently +waited for it. The Bishop of London said that if Darwin had spent +one-half as much time in reading his Bible as in studying earthworms, he +would have really<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_93" id="VIII_Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> benefited the world, and saved his soul alive. To +Walt Whitman, a hair on the back of his hand was just as curious and +wonderful as the stars in the sky, or God's revelation to man through a +printed book.</p> + +<p>Aristotle loved animals as a boy loves them—his house was a regular +menagerie of pets, and into this world of life Alexander was very early +introduced. We hear of young Alexander breaking the wild horse, +Bucephalus, and beyond a doubt Aristotle was seated on the top rail of +the paddock when he threw the lariat.</p> + +<p>Aristotle and his pupil had the first circus of which we know, and they +also inaugurated the first Zoological Garden mentioned in history, +barring Noah, of course.</p> + +<p>So much was Alexander bound up in this menagerie, and in his old teacher +as well, that in after-life, in all of his travels, he was continually +sending back to Aristotle specimens of every sort of bird, beast and +fish to be found in the countries through which he traveled.</p> + +<p>When Philip was laid low by the assassin's thrust, it was Aristotle who +backed up Alexander, aged twenty—but a man—in his prompt suppression +of the revolution. The will that had been used to subdue man-eating +stallions and to train wild animals, now came in to repress riot, and +the systematic classification of things was a preparation for the +forming of an army out of a mob. Aristotle said, "An army is a huge +animal with a million claws—it must have only one brain, and that the +commander's."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_94" id="VIII_Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>Alexander gave credit again and again to Aristotle for those elements in +his character that went to make up success: steadiness of purpose, +self-reliance, systematic effort, mathematical calculation, attention to +details, and a broad and generous policy that sees the end.</p> + +<p>When Aristotle argued with Philip, years before, that horse-breaking +should be included in the educational curriculum of all young men, he +evidently divined football and was endeavoring to supplant it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_95" id="VIII_Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I think history has been a trifle severe on Alexander. He was elected +Captain-General of Greece, and ordered to repel the Persian invasion. +And he did the business once for all. War is not all +fighting—Providence is on the side of the strongest commissariat. +Alexander had to train, arm, clothe and feed a million men, and march +them long miles across a desert country. The real foe of a man is in his +own heart, and the foe of an army is in its own camp—disease takes more +prisoners than the enemy. Fever sniped more of our boys in blue than did +the hostile Filipinos.</p> + +<p>Alexander's losses were principally from men slain in battle; from this, +I take it that Alexander knew a deal of sanitary science, and had a +knowledge of practical mathematics, in order to systematize that mob of +restless, turbulent helots. We hear of Aristotle cautioning him that +safety lies in keeping his men busy—they must not have too much time to +think, otherwise mutiny is to be feared. Still, they must not be +over-worked, or they will be in no condition to fight when the eventful +time occurs. And we are amazed to see this: "Do not let your men drink +out of stagnant pools—Athenians, city-born, know no better. And when +you carry water on the desert marches, it should be first boiled to +prevent its getting sour."</p> + +<p>Concerning the Jews, Alexander writes to his teacher and says, "They are +apt to be in sullen rebellion<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_96" id="VIII_Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> against their governors, receiving orders +only from their high priests, and this leads to severe measures, which +are construed as persecution"; all of which might have been written +yesterday by the Czar in a message to The Hague Convention.</p> + +<p>Alexander captured the East, and was taken captive by the East. Like the +male bee that never lives to tell the tale of its wooing, he succeeded +and died. Yet he vitalized all Asia with the seeds of Greek philosophy, +turned back the hungry barbaric tide, and made a new map of the Eastern +world. He built far more cities than he destroyed. He set Andrew +Carnegie an example at Alexandria, such as the world had never up to +that time seen. At the entrance to the harbor of the same city he +erected a lighthouse, surpassing far the one at Minot's Ledge, or Race +Rock. This structure endured for two centuries, and when at last wind +and weather had their way, there was no Hopkinson Smith who could erect +another.</p> + +<p>At Thebes, Alexander paid a compliment to letters, by destroying every +building in the city except the house of the poet, Pindar. At Corinth, +when the great, the wise, the noble, came to pay homage, one great man +did not appear. In vain did Alexander look for his card among all those +handed in at the door—Diogenes, the Philosopher, oft quoted by +Aristotle, was not to be seen.</p> + +<p>Alexander went out to hunt him up, and found him sunning himself, +propped up against the wall in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_97" id="VIII_Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> Public Square, busy doing nothing.</p> + +<p>The philosopher did not arise to greet the conqueror; he did not even +offer a nod of recognition.</p> + +<p>"I am Alexander—is there not something I can do for you?" modestly +asked the descendant of Hercules.</p> + +<p>"Just stand out from between me and the sun," replied the philosopher, +and went on with his meditations.</p> + +<p>Alexander enjoyed the reply so much that he said to his companions, and +afterward wrote to Aristotle, "If I were not Alexander, I would be +Diogenes," and thus did strenuosity pay its tribute to +self-sufficiency.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_98" id="VIII_Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Aristotle might have assumed important affairs of State, but practical +politics were not to his liking. "What Aristotle is in the world of +thought I will be in the world of action," said Alexander.</p> + +<p>On all of his journeys Alexander found time to keep in touch with his +old teacher at home; and we find the ruler of Asia voicing that old +request, "Send me something to read," and again, "I live alone with my +thoughts, amidst a throng of men, but without companions."</p> + +<p>Plutarch gives a copy of a letter sent by Alexander wherein Aristotle is +chided for publishing his lecture on oratory. "Now all the world will +know what formerly belonged to you and me alone," plaintively cries the +young man who sighed for more worlds to conquer, and therein shows he +was the victim of a fallacy that will never die—the idea that truth can +be embodied in a book. When will we ever learn that inspired books +demand inspired readers!</p> + +<p>There are no secrets. A book may stimulate thought, but it can never +impart it.</p> + +<p>Aristotle wrote out the Laws of Oratory. "Alas!" groans Alexander, +"everybody will turn orator now." But he was wrong, because Oratory and +the Laws of Oratory are totally different things.</p> + +<p>A Boston man of excellent parts has just recently given out the Sixteen +Perfective Laws of Oratory, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_99" id="VIII_Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> Nineteen Steps in Evolution.</p> + +<p>The real truth is, there are Fifty-seven Varieties of Artistic Vagaries, +and all are valuable to the man who evolves them—they serve him as a +scaffolding whereby he builds thought. But woe betide Alexander and all +rareripe Bostonians who mistake the scaffolding for the edifice.</p> + +<p>There are no Laws of Art. A man evolves first, and builds his laws +afterward. The style is the man, and a great man, full of the spirit, +will express himself in his own way.</p> + +<p>Bach ignored all the Laws of Harmony made before his day and set down +new ones—and these marked his limitations, that was all. Beethoven +upset all these, and Wagner succeeded by breaking most of Beethoven's +rules. And now comes Grieg, and writes harmonious discords that Wagner +said were impossible, and still it is music, for by it we are +transported on the wings of song and uplifted to the stars.</p> + +<p>The individual soul striving for expression ignores all man-made laws. +Truth is that which serves us best in expressing our lives. A rotting +log is truth to a bed of violets, while sand is truth to a cactus. But +when the violet writes a book on "Expression as I Have Found It," making +laws for the evolution of beautiful blossoms, it leaves the Century +Plant out of its equation, or else swears, i' faith, that a cactus is +not a flower, and that a Night-Blooming Cereus is a disordered thought +from a madman's brain. And when the proud and lofty<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_100" id="VIII_Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> cactus writes a +book it never mentions violets, because it has never stooped to seek +them.</p> + +<p>Art is the blossoming of the Soul.</p> + +<p>We can not make the plant blossom—all we can do is to comply with the +conditions of growth. We can supply the sunshine, moisture and aliment, +and God does the rest. In teaching, he only is successful who supplies +the conditions of growth—that is all there is of the Science of +Pedagogics, which is not a science, and if it ever becomes one, it will +be the Science of Letting Alone, and not a scheme of interference. Just +so long as some of the greatest men are those who have broken through +pedagogic fancy and escaped, succeeding by breaking every rule of +pedagogy, as Wagner discarded every Law of Harmony, there will be no +such thing as a Science of Education.</p> + +<p>Recently I read Aristotle's Essays on Rhetoric and Oratory, and I was +pained to see how I had been plagiarized by this man who wrote three +hundred years before Christ. Aristotle used charts in teaching and +indicated the mean by a straight horizontal line, and the extreme by an +upright dash. He says: "From one extreme the mean looks extreme, and +from another extreme the mean looks small—it all depends upon your +point of view. Beware of jumping to conclusions, for beside the +appearance you must look within and see from what vantage-ground you +gain the conclusions. All truth is relative, and none can be final to a +man six<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_101" id="VIII_Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> feet high, who stands on the ground, who can walk but forty +miles at a stretch, who needs four meals a day and one-third of his time +for sleep. A loss of sleep, or loss of a meal, or a meal too much, will +disarrange his point of view, and change his opinions," And thus do we +see that a belief in "eternal punishment" is a mere matter of +indigestion.</p> + +<p>A certain bishop, we have seen, experienced a regret that Darwin +expended so much time on earthworms; and we might also express regret +that Aristotle did not spend more. As long as he confined himself to +earth, he was eminently sure and right: he was really the first man who +ever used his eyes. But when he quit the earth, and began to speculate +about the condition of souls before they are clothed with bodies, or +what becomes of them after they discard the body, or the nature of God, +he shows that he knew no more than we. That is to say, he knew no more +than the barbarians who preceded him.</p> + +<p>He attempted to grasp ideas which Herbert Spencer pigeonholes forever as +the Unknowable; and in some of his endeavors to make plain the +unknowable, Aristotle strains language to the breaking-point—the net +bursts and all of his fish go free. Here is an Aristotelian proposition, +expressed by Hegel to make lucid a thing nobody comprehends: "Essential +being as being that meditates with itself, with itself by the negativity +of itself, is relative to itself only as it is relative to another;<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_102" id="VIII_Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +that is, immediate only as something posited and meditated." It gives +one a slight shock to hear him speak of headache being caused by wind on +the brain, or powdered grasshopper-wings being a cure for gout, but when +he calls the heart a pump that forces the blood to the extremities, we +see that he anticipates Harvey, although more than two thousand years of +night lie between them.</p> + +<p>Some of Aristotle reads about like this Geometrical Domestic Equation:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p><i>Definitions:</i></p> + + <p>All boarding-houses are the same boarding-houses.</p> + + <p>Boarders in the same boarding-house, and on the same flat, are equal + to one another.</p> + + <p>A single room is that which hath no parts and no magnitude.</p> + + <p>The landlady of the boarding-house is a parallelogram—that is, + an oblong figure that can not be described, and is equal to + anything.</p> + + <p>A wrangle is the disinclination to each other of two boarders that + meet together, but are not on the same floor.</p> + + <p>All the other rooms being taken, a single room is a double room.</p> + + <p><i>Postulates and Propositions:</i></p> + + <p>A pie may be produced any number of times.</p> + + <p>The landlady may be reduced to her lowest terms by a series of + propositions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_103" id="VIII_Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + + <p>A bee-line is the shortest distance between the Phalanstery and By + Allen's.</p> + + <p>The clothes of a boarding-house bed stretched both ways will not + meet.</p> + + <p>Any two meals at a boarding-house are together less than one meal at + the Phalanstery.</p> + + <p>On the same bill and on the same side of it there should not be two + charges for the same thing.</p> + + <p>If there be two boarders on the same floor, and the amount of the + side of the one be equal to the amount of the side of the other, and + the wrangle between the one boarder and the landlady be equal to the + wrangle between the landlady and the other boarder, then shall the + weekly bills of the two boarders be equal. For, if not, let one bill + be the greater, then the other bill is less than it might have been, + which is absurd. Therefore the bills are equal.</p> + + <p><i>Quod erat demonstrandum.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_104" id="VIII_Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The business of the old philosophers was to philosophize. To +philosophize as a business is to miss the highest philosophy. To do a +certain amount of useful work every day, and not trouble about either +the past or the future, is the highest wisdom. The man who drags the +past behind him, and dives into the future, spreads the present out +thin. Therein lies the bane of most religions. A man goes out into the +woods to study the birds: he walks and walks and walks and sees no +birds. But just let him sit down on a log and wait, and lo! the branches +are full of song.</p> + +<p>Those who pursue Culture never catch up with her. Culture takes alarm at +pursuit and avoids the stealthy pounce. Culture is a woman, and a +certain amount of indifference wins her. Ardent wooing will not secure +either wisdom or a woman—except in the case where a woman marries a man +to get rid of him, and then he really does not get the woman—he only +secures her husk. And the husks of culture are pedantry and sciolism. +The highest philosophy of the future will consist in doing each day that +which is most useful. Talking about it will be quite incidental and +secondary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_105" id="VIII_Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>After Alexander had completed his little task of conquering the world, +it was his intention to sit down and improve his mind. He was going back +to Greece to complete the work Pericles had so well begun. To this end +Aristotle had left Macedonia and established his Peripatetic School at +Athens. Plato was exclusive, and taught in the Garden with its high +walls. Aristotle taught in the "peripatos," or porch of the Lyceum, and +his classes were for all who wished to attend. Socrates was really the +first peripatetic philosopher, but he was a roustabout. Nothing +sanctifies like death—and now Socrates had become respectable, and his +methods were to be made legal and legitimate.</p> + +<p>Socrates discovered the principle of human liberty; he taught the rights +of the individual, and as these threatened to interfere with the State, +the politicians got alarmed and put him to death. Plato, much more +cautious, wrote his "Republic," wherein everything is subordinated for +the good of the State, and the individual is but a cog in a most +perfectly lubricated machine. Aristotle saw that Socrates was nearer +right than Plato—sin is the expression of individuality and is not +wholly bad—the State is made up of individuals, and if you suppress the +thinking-power of the individual, you will get a weak and effeminate +body politic; there will be none to govern. The whole fabric will break +down of its own weight. A man must have the privilege of making a fool +of himself—within proper bounds, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_106" id="VIII_Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> course. To that end learning must +be for all, and liberty both to listen and to teach should be the +privilege of every man.</p> + +<p>This is a problem that Boston has before it today: Shall free speech be +allowed on the Common? William Morris tried it in Trafalgar Square, to +his sorrow; but in Hyde Park, if you think you have a message, London +will let you give it. But this is not considered good form, and the +"Best Society" listen to no speeches in the park. However, there are +signs that Aristotle's outdoor school may come back. Phillips Brooks +tried outdoor preaching, and if his health had not failed, he might have +popularized it. It only wants a man who is big enough to inaugurate it.</p> + +<p>Aristotle had various helpers, and arranged to give his lectures and +conferences daily in certain porches or promenades. These lectures +covered the whole range of human thought—logic, rhetoric, oratory, +physics, ethics, politics, esthetics, and physical culture. These +outdoor talks were called exoteric, and there gradually grew up esoteric +lessons, which were for the rich or luxurious and the dainty. And there +being money in the esoteric lessons, these gradually took the place of +the exoteric, and so we get the genesis of our modern private school or +college, where we send our children to be taught great things by great +men, for a consideration.</p> + +<p>Will the exoteric, peripatetic school come back?</p> + +<p>I think so.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_107" id="VIII_Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> + +<p>I believe that university education will soon be free to every boy and +girl in America, and this without going far from home. Esoteric +education is always more or less of a sham. Our public-school system is +purely exoteric, only we stop too soon. We also give our teachers too +much work and too little pay. Stop building warships, and use the money +to double the teachers' salaries, making the profession respectable, +raise the standard of efficiency, and the free university with the old +Greek Lyceum will be here.</p> + +<p>America must do this—the Old World can't. We have the money, and we +have the men and the women; all that is needed is the desire, and this +is fast awakening.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_108" id="VIII_Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When Alexander died, of acute success, aged thirty-two, Aristotle's +sustaining prop was gone. The Athenians never thought much of the +Macedonians—not much more than Saint Paul did, he having tried to +convert both and failed.</p> + +<p>Athens was jealous of the power of Alexander: that a provincial should +thus rule the Mother-Country was unforgivable. It was as if a Canadian +should make himself King of England!</p> + +<p>Everybody knew that Aristotle had been the tutor of Alexander, and that +they were close friends. And that a Macedonian should be the chief +school-teacher in Athens was an affront. The very greatness of the man +was his offense: Athens had none to match him, and the world has never +since matched him, either. How to get rid of the Macedonian philosopher +was the question.</p> + +<p>And so our old friend, heresy, comes in again. A poem was found, written +by Aristotle many years before, on the death of his friend, King +Hermias, wherein Apollo was disrespectfully mentioned. It was the old +charge against Socrates come back—the hemlock was brewing. But life was +sweet to Aristotle; he chose discretion to valor, and fled to his +country home at Chalcis in Eubœa.</p> + +<p>The humiliation of being driven from his work, and the sudden change +from active life to exile, undermined his strength, and he died in a +year, aged sixty-two.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_109" id="VIII_Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>In morals the world has added nothing new to the philosophy of +Aristotle: gentleness, consideration, moderation, mutual helpfulness, +and the principle that one man's privileges end where another man's +rights begin—these make up the sum. And on them, all authorities agree, +and have for twenty-five hundred years.</p> + +<p>The family relations of Aristotle were most exemplary. The unseemly +wrangles of Philip and his wife were never repeated in the home of +Aristotle. Yet we will have to offer this fact in the interests of +stirpiculture: the inconstant Philip and the termagant Olympias brought +into the world Alexander; whereas the sons of Aristotle lived their day +and died, without making a ripple on the surface of history.</p> + +<p>As in the scientific study of the horse, no progress was made from the +time of Aristotle to that of Leonardo, so Hegel says there was no +advancement in philosophy from the time of Aristotle to that of Spinoza.</p> + +<p>Eusebius called Aristotle "Nature's Private Secretary."</p> + +<p>Dante spoke of him as the "Master of those who know."</p> + +<p>Sir William Hamilton said, "In the range of his powers and perceptions, +only Leonardo can be compared with him."</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="MARCUS_AURELIUS" id="MARCUS_AURELIUS"></a>MARCUS AURELIUS<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_110" id="VIII_Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></h2> + + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_111" id="VIII_Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one +another then is contrary to Nature, and it is acting against one +another to be vexed and turn away.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 25em;">—<i>The Meditations</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_112" id="VIII_Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> + +<div class="center"> + <a id="image0456-1"></a> + <img src="images/0456-1.jpg" width="271" height="400" + alt="" + title="" /> + + <p class="center">MARCUS AURELIUS</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_113" id="VIII_Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + + +<p>Annius Verus was one of the great men of Rome. He had been a soldier, +governor of provinces, judge, senator and consul. Sixty years had passed +over his head and whitened his hair, but the lines of care that were on +his fine face ten years before had now given way to a cherubic double +chin, and his complexion was ruddy as a baby's. The entire atmosphere of +the man was one of gentleness, repose and kindly good-will. Annius Verus +was grateful to the gods, for the years had brought him much good +fortune, and better still, knowledge. "Being old I shall know ... the +last of life for which the first was made!"</p> + +<p>Religion isn't a thing outside of a man, taught by priests out of a +book. Religion is in the heart of man, and its chief quality is +resignation and a grateful spirit. Annius Verus was religious in the +best sense, and his life was peaceful and happy.</p> + +<p>And surely Annius Verus should have been content—he was a Roman Consul, +rich, powerful, honored by the wisest and best men in Rome, who +considered it a privilege to come and dine at his table. His villa was +on Mount Cœlius, a suburb of Rome. The house was surrounded by a big +stone wall enclosing a tract of about<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_114" id="VIII_Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> ten acres, where grew citron, +orange and fig trees, and giant cedars of Lebanon lifted their branches +to the clouds.</p> + +<p>At least it seemed to little Marcus, grandson of the Consul, as if they +reached the clouds. There was a long ladder running up one of these big +cedar trees to a platform or "crow's-nest" nearly a hundred feet from +the ground. No boy was allowed to climb up there until he was twelve +years old, and when Marcus was ten, time got stuck, he thought, and +refused to budge. But this was only little Marcus' idea, for he finally +got to be twelve years old, and then he climbed the long ladder to the +lookout in the tree and looked down on the Eternal City that lay below +in the valley and stretched away over the seven hills. Often the boy +would take a book and climb up there to read; and when the good +grandfather missed him, he knew where to look, and standing under the +tree the old man would call: "Come down, Marcus, come down and kiss your +old grandfather—it is lonesome down here! Come down and read to your +grandfather who loves his little Marcus!"</p> + +<p>Such an appeal as this was irresistible, and the boy, slight, slim and +agile, would clamber over the side of the crow's-nest and down the +ladder to the outstretched arms.</p> + +<p>The boy's father had died when he was only three months old, and the +grandfather had adopted the child<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_115" id="VIII_Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> as his heir, and brought Lucilla, the +widowed mother, and her baby to live in his house.</p> + +<p>Years before, the Consul's wife had passed away, and Faustina, his +daughter, became the lady of the house. Lucilla and Faustina didn't get +along very well together—no house is big enough for two families, some +man has said. Lucilla was gentle, gracious, spiritual, modest and +refined; Faustina was beautiful and not without intellect, but she was +proud, domineering and fond of admiration. But be it said to the credit +of the good old Consul, he was able to suffuse the whole place with +love, and even if Faustina had a tantrum now and then, it did not last +long.</p> + +<p>There were always visitors in the household—soldiers home on furloughs, +governors on vacations, lawyers who came to consult the wise and +judicial Verus.</p> + +<p>One visitor of note was a man by the name of Aurelius Antoninus. He was +about forty years old as Marcus first remembered him—tall and straight, +with a full, dark beard, and short, curly hair touched with gray. He was +a quiet, self-contained man, and at first little Marcus was a bit afraid +of him. Aurelius Antoninus had been a soldier, but he showed such a +studious mind, and was so intent on doing the right thing that he was +made an under-secretary, then private secretary to the Emperor, and +finally he had been sent away to govern a rebellious province, and put +down mutiny by wise diplomacy instead of by force of arms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_116" id="VIII_Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>Aurelius Antoninus was inclined towards the Stoics, although he didn't +talk much about it. He usually ate but two meals a day, worked with the +servants, and wrote this in his diary, "Men are made for each other: +even the inferior for the superior, and these for the sake of one +another."</p> + +<p>This philosophy of the Stoics rather appealed to the widow Lucilla, +also, and she read Zeno with Aurelius Antoninus. Verus did not object to +it—he had been a soldier and knew the advantages of doing without +things and of being able to make the things you needed, and of living +simply and being plain and direct in all your acts and speech. But +Faustina laughed at it all—to her it was preposterous that one should +wear plain clothing and no jewelry when he could buy the costliest and +best; and why one should eschew wine and meat and live on brown bread +and fruit and cold water, when he could just as well have spiced and +costly dishes—all this was clear beyond her. Various fetes and banquets +were given by Faustina, to which the young nobles were invited. She was +a beautiful woman and never for a moment forgot it, and by some mistake +or accident she got herself betrothed to three men at the same time. Two +of these fought a duel and one was killed. The third man looked on and +hoped both would be killed, for then he could have the woman. Faustina +got this third man to challenge the survivor, and then by one of those +strange somersaults of fate the unexpected<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_117" id="VIII_Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> occurred.</p> + +<p>Faustina and Aurelius Antoninus were married.</p> + +<p>It was a most queer mismating, for the man was plain, sincere and +honorable, and she was almost everything else. Yet she had wit and she +had beauty, and Aurelius had been living in the desert so long he +imagined that all women were gentle and good. The Consul was very glad +to unite his house with so fine and excellent a man as Aurelius; Lucilla +cried for two days and more and little Marcus cried because his mother +did, and neither cried because Faustina had gone away.</p> + +<p>But grief is transient.</p> + +<p>In a little over a year Antoninus and Faustina came back to Rome, and +brought with them a little girl baby, Faustina Second. Marcus was very +much interested in this baby, and made great plans about how they would +play together when she got older.</p> + +<p>Among other visitors at the house of the old Consul often came the +Emperor himself. Hadrian and Verus were Spaniards and had been soldiers +together, and now Hadrian often liked to get away from the cares of +State, and in the evening hide himself from the office-seekers and +flattering parasites, in the quiet villa on Mount Cœlius—he liked it +here even better than at his own wonderful gardens at Tivoli. And little +Marcus wasn't afraid of him, either. Marcus would sit on the Emperor's +knee and listen to tales about hunting wild boars and bears, or men as +wild. Then they would play<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_118" id="VIII_Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> tag or I-spy among the bushes and trees; and +once Marcus dared the Emperor to climb the long ladder to the lookout in +the big cedar. Hadrian accepted the challenge and climbed to the +crow's-nest and cut his initials in the trunk of the tree.</p> + +<p>Instead of calling the boy Marcus Verus, the Emperor gave him the name +"Verissimus," which means "the open-eyed truthful one," and this name +stuck to Marcus for life.</p> + +<p>Between Antoninus and Marcus there grew up a very close friendship. +Antoninus could scale the ladder up the tall cedar, three rungs at a +time, and come down hand over hand without putting his foot on a rest.</p> + +<p>He and Marcus built another crow's-nest thirty feet above the first. +They drew up the lumber by ropes, and Antoninus being sinewy and strong +climbed up first, and with thongs and nails they fixed the boards in +place, and made a rope ladder such as sailors make, that they could pull +up after them so no one could reach them. When the kind old Emperor came +to the villa they showed him what they had done. He said he would not +try to climb up now as he had a touch of rheumatism. But a light was +fixed in the upper lookout, drawn up by a cord, so they could signal to +the Emperor down at the palace.</p> + +<p>Then Antoninus taught Marcus to ride horseback and pick up a spear off +the ground, with his horse at a gallop. This was great sport for the +Consul and the Emperor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_119" id="VIII_Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> who looked on, but they did not try it then, +but said they would later on when they were feeling just right.</p> + +<p>And beside all this Aurelius Antoninus taught Marcus to read from +Epictetus, and told him how this hunchback slave, Epictetus, who was +owned by a man who had been a slave himself, was one of the sweetest, +gentlest souls who had ever lived. Together they read the Stoic-slave +philosopher and made notes from him. And so impressed was Marcus that, +boy though he was, he adopted the simple robe of the Stoics, slept on a +plank, and made his life and language plain, truthful and direct.</p> + +<p>This was all rather amusing to those near him—to all except Antoninus +and the boy's mother. The others said, "Leave him alone and he'll get +over it."</p> + +<p>Faustina was still fond of admiration—the simple, studious ways of her +husband were not to her liking. He was twenty years her senior, and she +demanded gaiety as her right. Her delight was to tread the borderline of +folly, and see how close she could come to the brink and not step off. +Julius Cæsar's wife was put away on suspicion, but Faustina was worse +than that! She would go down to the city to masquerades, leaving her +little girl at home, and be gone for three days.</p> + +<p>When she returned Aurelius Antoninus spoke no word of anger or reproof. +Her father said to her, "Beware! your husband's patience has a limit. If +he divorces you, I shall not blame him; and even if he should kill you,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_120" id="VIII_Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +Roman law will not punish him!"</p> + +<p>But long years after, Marcus, in looking back on those days, wrote: "His +patience knew no limit; he treated her as a perverse child, and he once +said to me: 'I pity and love her. I will not put her away—this were +selfish. How can her follies injure me? We are what we are, and no one +can harm us but ourselves. The mistakes of those near us afford us an +opportunity for self-control—we will not imitate their errors, but +rather strive to avoid them. In this way what might be a great +humiliation has its benefits.'"</p> + +<p>Let no one imagine, however, that the tolerance of Antoninus was the +soft acquiescence of weakness. After his death Marcus wrote: "Whatsoever +excellent thing he had planned to do, he carried out with a persistency +that nothing could divert. If he punished men, it was by allowing them +to be led by their own folly—his foresight, wisdom and calm +deliberation were beyond those of any man I ever knew."</p> + +<p>The studious, direct and manly ways of Marcus were not cast aside when +he put on the toga virilis, as Faustina had predicted. In spite of the +difference in their ages, Antoninus and Marcus mutually sustained each +other.</p> + +<p>Little Faustina was much more like her father than her mother, and very +early showed her preference for her father's society. Marcus was her +playmate and taught her to ride a pony astride, just as her father had<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_121" id="VIII_Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +taught him. The three would often ride over to the village of Lorium, +twelve miles from Rome, where Antoninus had a summer villa. At Lanuvium, +near at hand, the Emperor spent a part of his time, and he would +occasionally join the party and listen to Marcus recite from Cicero and +Cæsar.</p> + +<p>When Marcus was sixteen, Hadrian appointed him prefect of festivities in +Rome, to take the place of the regular officer, a man of years, who was +out of the city. So well did Marcus fill the place and make up his +report, that when they again met, the old Emperor kissed his cheek, +calling him, "My brave Verissimus," and said, "If I had a son, I would +want him just like you."</p> + +<p>Not long after this the Emperor was taken violently ill. He called his +counselors about his bedside and directed that Aurelius Antoninus should +be his successor, and that, further, Antoninus should adopt Marcus +Verus, so that Marcus should succeed Aurelius Antoninus.</p> + +<p>Hadrian loved Marcus for his own sake, and he loved him, too, for the +sake of the grandfather, his old soldier comrade, Annius Verus; and +beside that he was intent on preserving the Spanish strain.</p> + +<p>In a short time Hadrian passed away, and Aurelius Antoninus was crowned +Emperor of Rome, and Marcus Verus, aged seventeen, slim, slender and +studious, took the name, Marcus Aurelius.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_122" id="VIII_Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The new reign did not begin under very favorable auspices. There was a +prejudice against the Spanish blood, and Hadrian had alienated some of +the aristocrats by measures they considered too democratic.</p> + +<p>Aurelius Antoninus knew of these prejudices toward his predecessor and +he boldly met them by carrying the ashes of Hadrian to the Senate, +demanding that the dead Emperor should be enrolled among the gods. So +earnest and convincing was his eulogy of the great man gone, that a vote +was taken and the resolution passed without a dissenting voice. This +gives us a slight clew to the genesis of the gods, and also reveals to +us the character of Antoninus. He so impressed the Senate that this +honorable body thought best to waive all matters of difference, and in +pretty compliment they voted to bestow on the new Emperor the degree of +"Pius." Antoninus Pius was a man born to rule—in little things, +lenient, but firm at the right time. Faustina still had her little +social dissipations, but as she was not allowed to mix in affairs of +State, her pink person was not a political factor.</p> + +<p>Marcus Aurelius was only seventeen years old: his close studies had +robbed him of a bit of the robust health a youth should have. But +horseback-riding and daily outdoor games finally got him back into good +condition. He was the secretary and companion of the Emperor wherever he +went.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_123" id="VIII_Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>Great responsibilities confronted these two strong men. In point of +intellect and aspiration they were far beyond the people they +governed—so far, indeed, that they were almost isolated. There was a +multitude of slaves and consequently there was a feeling everywhere that +useful work was degrading. The tendency of the slave-owner is always +toward profligacy and conspicuous waste. To do away with slavery was out +of the question—that was a matter of time and education—the ruler can +never afford to get much in advance of his people. The court was +infected with parasites in the way of informers and busybodies who knew +no way to thrive except through intrigue. Superstitions were taught by +hypocritical priests in order to make the people pay tithes; and +attached to the state religion were soothsayers, fortune-tellers, +astrologers, gamblers and many pretenders who waxed fat by ministering +to ignorance and depravity. These were the cheerful parasites mentioned +as "money-changers" a hundred years before, that infested the entrance +to every temple.</p> + +<p>Many long consultations did the Emperor and his adopted son have +concerning the best policy to pursue. They could have issued an edict +and swept the wrongs out of existence, but they knew that folly sprouts +from a disordered brain, and so they did not treat a symptom: the +disease was ignorance, the symptom, superstition. For themselves they +kept an esoteric doctrine, and for the many they did what they could.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_124" id="VIII_Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> + +<p>Twenty-three years of probation lay before Marcus Aurelius—years of +study, work, and patient endeavor. He shared in all the honors of the +Emperor and bore his part of the burden as well. Never did he thirst for +more power—the responsibilities of the situation saddened him—there +was so much to be done and he could do so little. Well does Dean Farrar +call him "a seeker after God."</p> + +<p>The office of young Marcus Aurelius at first was that of Questor, which +literally means a messenger, but the word with the Romans meant more—an +emissary or an ambassador. When Marcus was eighteen he read to the +Senate all speeches and messages from the Emperor; and in a few years +more he wrote the messages as well as delivered them. And all the time +his education was being carried along by competent instructors.</p> + +<p>One of these teachers, Fronto, has come down to us, his portrait well +etched on history's tablets, because he saved all the letters written +him by Marcus Aurelius; and his grandchildren published them in order to +show the excellence of true scientific teaching. That old Fronto was a +dear old dear, these letters do fully attest. When Marcus went away on a +little journey, even to Lorium, he wrote a letter to Fronto telling +about the trip—the sheep by the wayside, the dogs that herded them, the +shower they saw coming across the Campagna, and incidentally a little +freshman philosophy mixed in, for Fronto had cautioned his pupil<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_125" id="VIII_Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> always +to write out a great thought when it came, for fear he would never have +another. Marcus was a sprightly letter-writer, and must have been a +quick observer, and Fronto's gentle claims that he made the man are +worthy of consideration. As a literary exercise the daily theme, +prompted by love, can never be improved upon. The way to learn to write +is to write. And Pronto, who resorted to many little tricks in order to +get his pupil to express himself, was a teacher whose name should be +written high. The correspondence-school has many advantages—Fronto +purposely sent his pupil away or absented himself, that the carefully +formulated or written thought might take the place of the free and easy +conversation. In one letter Marcus ends: "The day was perfect but for +one thing—you were not here. But then if you were here, I would not now +have the pleasure of writing to you, so thus is your philosophy proved: +that all good is equalized, and love grows through separation!" This +sounds a bit preachy, but is valuable, as it reveals the man to whom it +is written: the person to whom we write dictates the message.</p> + +<p>Fronto's habit of giving a problem to work out was quite as good a +teaching plan as anything we have to offer now. Thus: "An ambassador of +Rome visiting an outlying province attended a gladiatorial contest. And +one of the fighters being indisposed, the ambassador replied to a taunt +by putting on a coat of mail and going into the ring to kill the lion. +Question, was this<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_126" id="VIII_Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> action commendable? If so, why, and if not, why +not?"</p> + +<p>The proposition was one that would appeal at once to a young man, and +thus did Fronto lead his pupils to think and express.</p> + +<p>Another teacher that Marcus had was Rusticus, a blunt old farmer turned +pedagog, who has added a word to our language. His pupils were called +Rusticana, and later plain rustics. That Rusticus developed in Marcus a +deal of plain, sturdy commonsense there is no doubt. Rusticus had a way +of stripping a subject of its gloss and verbiage—going straight to the +vital point of every issue. For the wisdom of Marcus' legal opinions +Rusticus deserves more than passing credit.</p> + +<p>For the youth who was destined to be the next Emperor of Rome, there was +no dearth of society if he chose to accept it. Managing mammas were on +every corner, and kind kinsmen consented to arrange matters with this +heiress or that. For the frivolities of society Marcus had no use—his +hours were filled with useful work or application to his books. His +father and Fronto we find were both constantly urging him to get out +more in the sunshine and meet more people, and not bother too much about +the books.</p> + +<p>How best to curtail over-application, I am told, is a problem that +seldom faces a teacher.</p> + +<p>As for society as a matrimonial bazaar, Marcus Aurelius could not see +that it had its use. He was afraid of it—afraid of himself, perhaps. He +loved the little Faustina.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_127" id="VIII_Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> They had been comrades together, and played +"keep house" under the olive-trees at Lorium; and had ridden their +ponies over the hills. Once Marcus and Faustina, on a ride across the +country, bought a lamb out of the arms of a shepherd, and kept it until +it grew great curling horns, and made visitors scale the wall or climb +trees. Then three priests led it away to sacrifice, and Marcus and +Faustina fell into each other's arms and rained tears down each other's +backs, and refused to be comforted. What if their father was an Emperor, +and Marcus would be some day! It would not bring back Beppo, with his +innocent lamblike ways, and make him get down on his knees and wag his +tail when they fed him out of a pail! Beppo always got on his knees to +eat, and showed his love and humility before he grew his horns and +reached the age of indiscretion; then he became awfully wicked, and it +took three stout priests to lead him away and sacrifice him to the gods +for his own good!</p> + +<p>But gradually the grass grew on Beppo's make-believe grave in the +garden, and Fronto's problems filled the vacuum in their hearts. Fronto +gave his lessons to Marcus, and Marcus gave them to Faustina—thus do we +keep things by giving them away.</p> + +<p>But problems greater than pet sheep grown ribald and reckless were to +confront Marcus and Faustina. They had both been betrothed to others, +years before, and this they now resented. They talked of this much, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_128" id="VIII_Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +then suddenly ceased to talk of it, and each evaded mentioning it, and +pretended they never thought of it. Then they explosively began +again—began as suddenly to talk of it, and always when they met they +mentioned it. Folks called them brother and sister—they were not +brother and sister, only cousins.</p> + +<p>Finally the matter was brought to Antoninus, and he pretended that he +had never thought about it; but in fact he had thought of little else +for a long time. And Antoninus said that if they loved each other very +much, and he was sure they did, why, it was the will of the gods that +they should marry, and he never interfered with the will of the gods; so +he kissed them both and cried a few foolish tears, a thing an Emperor +should never do.</p> + +<p>So they were married at the country seat at Lorium, out under the +orange-trees as was often the custom, for orange-trees are green the +year 'round, and bear fruit and flowers at the same time, and the +flowers are very sweet, and the fruit is both beautiful and useful—and +these things symbol constancy and fruitfulness and good luck, and that +is why we yet have orange-blossoms at weddings and play the "Lohengrin +March," which is orange-trees expressed in sweet sounds.</p> + +<p>Marcus was only twenty, and Faustina could not have been over +sixteen—we do not know her exact age. There are stories to the effect +that the wife of Marcus Aurelius severely tried her husband's temper at +times,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_129" id="VIII_Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> but these tales seem to have arisen through a confusion of the +two Faustinas. The elder Faustina was the one who set the merry pace in +frivolity, and once said that any woman with a husband twenty years her +senior must be allowed a lover or two—goodness gracious!</p> + +<p>As far as we know, the younger Faustina was a most loyal and loving +wife, the mother of a full dozen children. Coins issued by Marcus +Aurelius stamped with the features of his wife, and the inscription +Concordia, Faustina and Venus Felix, attest the felicity, or "felixity," +of the marriage.</p> + +<p>Their oldest boy, Commodus, was very much like his grandmother, +Faustina, and a man who knows all about the Law of Heredity tells me +that children are much more apt to resemble their grandparents than +their father and mother.</p> + +<p>I believe I once said that no house is big enough for two families, but +this truth is like the Greek verb—it has many exceptions. In the same +house with Emperor Antoninus Pius dwelt Lucilla, mother of Marcus, and +Marcus and his wife. And they were all very happy—but life was rather +more peaceful after the death of Faustina, the elder, which occurred a +few years after her husband became Emperor.</p> + +<p>She could not endure prosperity.</p> + +<p>But her husband mourned her death and made a public speech in eulogy of +her, determined that only the best should be remembered of one who had +been the wife of<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_130" id="VIII_Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> an Emperor and the mother of his children. As far as +we know, Antoninus never spoke a word concerning his wife except in +praise, not even when she left his house to be gone for months.</p> + +<p>It was Ouida, she of the aqua-fortis ink, who said, "A woman married to +a man as good as Antoninus must have been very miserable, for while men +who are thoroughly bad are not lovable, yet a man who is not +occasionally bad is unendurable." And so Ouida's heart went out in +sympathy and condolence to the two Faustinas, who wedded the only two +men mentioned in Roman history who were infinitely wise and good.</p> + +<p>In one of his essays, Richard Steele writes this, "No woman ever loved a +man through life with a mighty love if the man did not occasionally +abuse her." I give the remark for what it is worth. However, Montesquieu +somewhere says that the chief objection to heaven is its monotony; so +possibly there may be something in the Ouida-Steele philosophy—but of +this I really can't say, knowing nothing about the subject, myself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_131" id="VIII_Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Happy is the man who has no history. The reign of Antoninus Pius was +peaceful and prosperous. No great wars nor revulsions occurred, and the +times made for education and excellence. Antoninus worked to conserve +the good, and that he succeeded, Gibbon says, there is no doubt. He left +the country in better condition than he found it, and he could have +truthfully repeated the words of Pericles, "I have made no person wear +crape."</p> + +<p>But there came a day when Antoninus was stricken by the hand of death. +The captain of the guard came to him and asked for the password for the +night. "Equanimity," replied the Emperor, and turning on his side, sank +into sleep, to awake no more. His last word symbols the guiding impulse +of his life. Well does Renan say: "Simple, loving, full of sweet gaiety, +Antoninus was a philosopher without saying so, almost without knowing +it. Marcus was a philosopher, but often consciously, and he became a +philosopher by study and reflection, aided and encouraged by the older +man. You can not consider the one man and leave the other out, and the +early contention that Antoninus was, in fact, the father of Marcus has +at least a poetic and spiritual basis in truth."</p> + +<p>There was much in Renan's suggestions. The greatest man is he who works +his philosophy up into life—this is better than to talk about it. We +only discuss that to which we have not attained, and the virtues we +talk<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_132" id="VIII_Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> most of are those beyond us. The ideal outstrips the actual. But +it is no discredit that a man pictures more than he realizes—such a one +is preparing the way for others. Marcus Antoninus has been a guiding +star—an inspiration—to untold millions.</p> + +<p>Marcus Aurelius was forty years old when he became Emperor of Rome. At +the age of forty a man is safe, if ever: character is formed, and what +he will do or become, can be safely presaged.</p> + +<p>More than once Rome has repudiated the man in the direct line of +accession to the throne, and before Marcus Aurelius took the reins of +government he asked the Senate to ratify the people's choice, and thus +make it the choice of the gods, and this was done.</p> + +<p>As Emperor, we find Marcus endeavored to carry out the policy of his +predecessor. He did not favor expansion, but hoped by peace and +propitiation to cement the empire and thus work for education, harmony +and prosperity.</p> + +<p>It is interesting to see how Marcus Aurelius in the year One Hundred +Sixty-four was cudgeling his brains concerning problems about which we +yet argue and grow red in the face. The Emperor was also Chief Justice, +and questions were being constantly brought to him to decide. From him +there was no appeal, and his decisions made the law upon which all +lesser judges based their rulings. And curiously enough we are dealing +most extensively in judge-made law even today.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_133" id="VIII_Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<p>One vexed question that confronted Marcus was the lessening number of +marriages, with a consequent increase in illegitimate births and a +gradual dwindling of the free population. He seems to have disliked this +word illegitimate, for he says, "All children are beautiful +blessings—sent by the gods." But people who were legally married +objected to this view, and said to recognize children born out of +wedlock as entitled to all the privileges of citizenship is virtually to +do away with legal marriage. As a compromise, Marcus decided to +recognize all people as married who said they were married. This is +exactly our common-law marriage as it exists in various States today.</p> + +<p>However, a man could put away his wife at will, and by recording the +fact with the nearest pretor, the act was legalized. It will thus be +seen that if a man could marry at will and put away his wife at will, +there was really no marriage beyond that of nature. To meet the issue, +and prevent fickle and unjust men from taking advantage of women, Marcus +decided that the pretor could refuse to record the desired divorce, if +he saw fit, and demand reasons. We then for the first time get a divorce +trial, and on appeal to Marcus, he decided that if the man were in the +wrong, he must still support the injured wife.</p> + +<p>Then, for the first time, we find women asking for a divorce. Now, +nearly three-fourths of all divorces are granted to women; but at first, +that a woman should<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_134" id="VIII_Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> want marital freedom caused a howl of merriment. +Marcus was the first Roman Emperor to allow women the right of petition, +and the privilege, too, of practising law, for Capitolanus cites various +instances of women coming to ask for justice, and women friends coming +with them to help plead their case, and the Emperor of Rome, leaning his +tired head on his arm, listening for hours with great patience. We also +hear of petitions for damages being presented for failure to keep a +promise to marry—the action being brought against the girl's father. +This would be thought a trifle strange, but an action against a woman +for breach of promise is quite in order yet.</p> + +<p>Recently the Honorable Henry Ballard of Vermont won heavy damages +against a coy and dallying heiress who had played pitch and toss with a +good man's heart. The case was carried to the United States Supreme +Court and judgment sustained.</p> + +<p>The question of marriage and divorce now in the United States is almost +precisely where it was in Rome in the time of Marcus Aurelius. No two +States have the same marriage-laws, and marriages which are illegal in +one State may be made legal in another. Yet with us, any court of +jurisdiction may declare any marriage illegal, or set any divorce aside. +What makes marriage and what constitutes divorce are matters of opinion +in the mind of the judge. We have gone a bit further than Marcus, +though, in that we allow couples to marry if they wish, yet divorce is +denied if both<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_135" id="VIII_Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> parties desire it. The fact that they want it is +construed as proof that they should not have it. We meet the issue, +however, by connivance of the lawyers, who are officers of the court, +and a legal fiction is inaugurated by allowing a little bird to tell the +judge what decision will be satisfactory to both sides. And in States or +countries where no divorce is allowed, marriage can be annulled if you +know how—see Ruskin versus Ruskin, Coleridge, J.</p> + +<p>Our zealous New Thought friends, who clamor to have marriage made +difficult and divorce easy, forget that the whole question has been +threshed over for three thousand years, and all schemes tried. The +Romans issued marriage-licenses, but before doing so a pretor passed on +the fitness of the candidates for each other. This was so embarrassing +to many coy couples that they just waived formal proceedings and set up +housekeeping. To declare these people lawbreakers, Marcus Aurelius said, +would put half of Rome in limbo, just as, if we should technically +enforce all laws, it would send most members of the Legislature to the +penitentiary. So the Emperor declared de-facto marriage de jure, and for +a short time succeeded in striking out the word illegitimate as applied +to a person, on the ground that, in justice, no act of a parent could be +charged up against and punished in the offspring.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_136" id="VIII_Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Men who make laws have forever to watch most closely and dance +attendance on Nature. Laws which fly in the face of Nature are gently +waived or conveniently forgotten. Should Chief Justice Fuller issue an +injunction restraining all men from coming within a quarter of a mile of +a woman, on penalty of death, we would all place ourselves in contempt +in an hour; and should the army try to enforce the order, we would +smother Justice Fuller in his wool-sack and hang his effigy on a +sour-apple tree. Law isn't worth the paper it is written on unless it +embodies the will and natural tendencies of the governed. Where poaching +is popular, no law can stop it. Marriage is easy, and divorce difficult, +because this is Nature's plan. The natural law of attraction brings men +and women together, and it is difficult to separate them. Natural things +are easy, and artificial ones difficult. Most couples who desire freedom +only think they do: what they really want is a vacation; but they would +not separate for good if they could. It is hard to part—people who have +lived together grow to need each other. They want some one to quarrel +with.</p> + +<p>Cæsar Augustus, in his close study of character, introduced a limited +divorce. That is, in case of a family quarrel, he ordered the couple to +live apart for six months as a penalty. Quintilian says that usually +before the expired time the man and woman were surreptitiously living +together again, at which the court quietly<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_137" id="VIII_Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> winked, and finally this +form of penalty had to be abandoned because it made the courts +ridiculous.</p> + +<p>Men and women do not get married because marriage is legal, nor do they +continue living together because divorce is difficult. They marry +because they desire to, and they do not separate because they do not +want to. The task that confronts the legislator is to find out what the +people want to do, and then legalize it.</p> + +<p>In Rome, the custom of the parties divorcing themselves was prevalent, +and the courts were called upon to ratify the act, just to give the +matter respectability. Below a certain stratum in society, the formality +of legal marriage and divorce was waived entirely, just as it is +largely, now, among our colored population in the South. During the +French Revolution, the same custom largely obtained in France. And about +the year One Hundred Fifty in Rome there was danger that the people +would overlook the majesty of the law entirely in their domestic +affairs. This condition is what prompted Marcus Aurelius to recognize as +legal the common-law marriage and say if a couple called themselves +husband and wife, they were. And for a time, if they said they were +divorced, they were. But as a mortgage owned by a man on his own +property cancels the debt, and legally there is no mortgage, so if the +people could get married at will and divorce themselves at their +convenience, there really was no legal marriage. Thus the matter was +argued. So Marcus adopted the plan of making marriage<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_138" id="VIII_Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> easy and divorce +difficult, and this has been the policy in all civilized countries ever +since.</p> + +<p>It is very evident, however, that Marcus Aurelius looked forward to a +time when men and women would be wise enough, and just enough, to +arrange their own affairs, without calling on the police to ratify +either their friendships or their misunderstandings. He says: "Love is +beautiful, and that a man and a woman loving each other should live +together is the will of God, but if there comes a time when they can not +live in peace, let them part. To have no relationship is not a disgrace; +to have wrong relations is, for disgrace means lack of grace, discord, +and love is harmony."</p> + +<p>Marcus Aurelius tried the plan of probationary marriages; and to offset +this he also introduced the Augustinian plan of probationary +divorces—that is, the interlocutory decree. This scheme has recently +been adopted in several States in America with the avowed intent of +preventing fraud in divorce procedure, but actually the logic of the +situation is the same now as in the time of Marcus Aurelius—it +postpones the final decree so as to prevent the couple from becoming the +victims of their own rashness, and to give them an opportunity to become +reconciled if possible.</p> + +<p>So anxious was Marcus Aurelius to decide justly with his people that he +found himself swamped with cases of every sort and description. He tried +to pass upon each case by its merits, regardless of law and precedent. +Then other judges construed his decisions as<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_139" id="VIII_Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> law, and the lesser courts +cited the upper ones, until Gibbon says, "There grew up such a mass of +judge-made laws that a skilful lawyer could prove anything, and legal +practise swung on the ability to cite similar cases and call attention +to desired decisions."</p> + +<p>In America we are now back exactly to the same condition. A lawyer in +New York State requires over fourteen thousand law-books if he would +cover all the ground; and his business is to make it easy for the judge +to dispense justice and not dispense with law. That is to say, before a +judge can decide a case, he must be able to back up his opinion by +precedent. Judges are not elected to deal out justice between man and +man; they are elected to decide on points of law. Law is often a great +disadvantage to a judge—it may hamper justice—and in America there +must surely soon come a day when we will make a bonfire of every +law-book in the land, and electing our judges for life, we will make the +judiciary free. We will then require our lawyers and judges to read, and +pass examinations on Browning's "Ring and the Book," and none other. And +if we would follow the Aurelian suggestion of remitting all direct taxes +to every citizen who had not been plaintiff in a lawsuit for ten years, +we would gradually get something approaching pure justice. The people +must be educated to decide quietly and calmly their own disputes, and +this can be done only by placing an obvious penalty on litigation. +Progress in the future will consist<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_140" id="VIII_Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> in having less law, and fulfilment +will be reached when we have no law at all—each man governing himself, +and being willing that his neighbor shall do the same. Trouble arises +largely from each man regarding himself as his brother's keeper, and +ceasing to be his friend. Marcus Aurelius, the wise judge, saw that most +litigation is foolish and absurd—both parties are at fault, and both +right. And to bring about the good time when men shall live in peace, he +began earnestly to govern himself. His ideal was a state where men would +need no governing. Hence his "Meditations," a book which Dean Farrar +says is not inferior to the New Testament in its lofty aim and purity of +conception.</p> + +<p>Every great book is an evolution: Marcus had been getting ready to write +this immortal volume for nearly half a century. And now in his +fifty-seventh year he found himself in the desert of Asia at the head of +the army, endeavoring to put down an insurrection of various barbaric +tribes. Later, the seat of war was shifted to the north. The enemy +struck and retreated, and danced around him as the Boers fought the +English in South Africa.</p> + +<p>But Marcus Aurelius had time to think, and so with no books near and all +memoranda far away, he began to write out his best thoughts. At first he +expressed just for his own satisfaction, but later, as the work +progressed, we see that its value grew upon him, and it was his +intention to put it in systematic form for<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_141" id="VIII_Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> posterity. And while working +at this task, the exposures of field and camp, and the business of war, +in which he had no heart, worked upon him so adversely that he sickened +and died, aged fifty-nine.</p> + +<p>His body was carried back to Rome and placed by the side of that of his +beloved adopted father, Antoninus Pius. And so he sleeps, but the +precious legacy of the "Meditations," written during those last two +years of travel, turmoil and strife, is ours.</p> + +<p>A few quotations seem in order:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Remember, on every occasion which leads thee to vexation, to apply +this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it +nobly is good fortune.</p> + +<p>Things do not touch the soul, for they are eternal, and remain +immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which +is within.... The Universe is transformation; life is opinion.</p> + +<p>To the jaundiced, honey tastes bitter; and to those bitten by mad +dogs, water causes fear; and to little children, the ball is a fine +thing. Why then am I angry? Dost thou think that a false opinion +has less power than the bile in the jaundiced, or the poison in him +who is bitten by a mad dog?</p> + +<p>How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is +troublesome and unsuitable, and immediately to be in all +tranquillity!</p> + +<p>All things come from the universal Ruling Power, either directly or +by way of consequence. And accordingly<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_142" id="VIII_Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> the lion's gaping jaws, and +that which is poisonous, and every hurtful thing, as a thorn, as +mud, are after-products of the grand and beautiful. Do not +therefore imagine that they are of another kind from that which +thou dost venerate, but form a just opinion of the source of all.</p> + +<p>Pass through the rest of life like one who has entrusted to the +gods, with his whole soul, all that he has, making himself neither +the tyrant nor the slave of any man.</p> + +<p>Never value anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel +thee to break thy promise, to lose thy self-respect, to hate any +man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything +which needs walls and curtains.</p> + +<p>I am thankful to the gods that I was subjected to a ruler and a +father who was able to take away all pride from me, and to bring me +to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a palace +without wanting either guards or embroidered dresses, or torches +and statues, and such-like show; but that it is in such a man's +power to bring himself very near to the fashion of a private +person, without being, for this reason, either meaner in thought or +more remiss in action, with respect to the things which must be +done for the public interest in a manner that befits a ruler.</p> + +<p>What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service? Art +thou not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy +nature, and dost thou seek to be paid for it? Just as if the eye +demanded a recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking. As a<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_143" id="VIII_Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +horse when he has run, a dog when he has traced the game, a bee +when it has made the honey, so a man, when he has done a good act, +does not call out for others to come and see, but goes on to +another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in +season.</p> + +<p>Accustom thyself to attend carefully to what is said by another, +and as much as it is possible, be in the speaker's mind.</p> + +<p>Some things are hurrying into existence, and others are hurrying +out of it; and of that which is coming into existence, part is +already extinguished. Motions and changes are continually renewing +the world, just as the uninterrupted course of time is always +renewing the infinite duration of ages.</p> + +<p>Understand that every man is worth just so much as the things are +worth about which he busies himself.</p> + +<p>Wickedness does no harm at all to the universe—it is only harmful +to him who has it in his power to be released from it.</p> + +<p>Nothing is more wretched than a man who traverses everything in a +round, and pries into the things beneath the earth, as the poet +says, and seeks by conjecture what is in the minds of his +neighbors, without perceiving that it is sufficient to attend to +the deity within him, and to reverence it sincerely.</p> + +<p>The prayers of Marcus Aurelius to the gods are for one thing +only—that their will be done. All else is vain, all else is +rebellion against the universe itself. Our form of<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_144" id="VIII_Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> worship should +be like this: Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to +thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which +is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me which thy +seasons bring, O Nature: from thee are all things, in thee are all +things, to thee all things return.</p> + +<p>In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be +present—I am rising to the work of a human being. Why, then, am I +dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist, and +for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for +this, to lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm? But this is +more pleasant. Dost thou exist, then, to take thy pleasure, and not +for action or exertion? Dost thou not see the little plants, the +little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees, working together to +put in order their several parts of the universe? And art thou +unwilling to do the work of a human being, and dost thou not make +haste to do that which is according to thy nature?</p> + +<p>Judge every word and deed which are according to Nature to be fit +for thee, and be not diverted by the blame which follows.... But if +a thing is good to be done or said, do not consider it unworthy of +thee.</p> + +<p>Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very +moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.... Death +certainly, and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, all +these things equally happen to good men and bad, being things which +make us neither better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good +nor evil.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_145" id="VIII_Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>To say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a +stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapor; and life +is a warfare, and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion. +What, then, is that which is able to enrich a man? One thing, and +only one—philosophy. But this consists in keeping the guardian +spirit within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to +pains and pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet +falsely, and with hypocrisy ... accepting all that happens and all +that is allotted ... and finally waiting for death with a cheerful +mind.</p> + +<p>If thou findest in human life anything better than justice, truth, +temperance, fortitude, and, in a word, than thine own soul's +satisfaction in the things which it enables thee to do according to +right reason, and in the condition that is assigned to thee without +thy own choice; if, I say, thou seest anything better than this, +turn to it with all thy soul, and enjoy that which thou hast found +to be the best. But ... if thou findest everything else smaller and +of less value than this, give place to nothing else.... Simply and +freely choose the better, and hold to it.</p> + +<p>Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, +and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very +much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, +for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into +thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from +trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when +he has within him such thoughts that<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_146" id="VIII_Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> by looking into them he is +immediately in perfect tranquillity—which is nothing else than the +good ordering of the mind.</p> + +<p>Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me? Not so, but happy am +I though this has happened to me, because I continue free from +pain; neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future.</p> + +<p>Be cheerful, and seek no external help, nor the tranquillity which +others give. A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.</p> + +<p>Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, +but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.</p> + +<p>It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never +intentionally given pain even to another.</p></div> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="IMMANUEL_KANT" id="IMMANUEL_KANT"></a>IMMANUEL KANT<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_147" id="VIII_Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></h2> + + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The canons of scientific evidence justify us neither in accepting +nor rejecting the ideas upon which morality and religion repose. +Both parties to the dispute beat the air; they worry their own +shadow; for they pass from Nature into the domain of speculation, +where their dogmatic grips find nothing to lay hold upon. The +shadows which they hew to pieces grow together in a moment like the +heroes in Valhalla, to rejoice again in bloodless battles. +Metaphysics can no longer claim to be the cornerstone of religion +and morality. But if she can not be the Atlas that bears the moral +world she can furnish a magic defense. Around the ideas of religion +she throws her bulwark of invisibility; and the sword of the +skeptic and the battering-ram of the materialist fall harmless on +vacuity.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 25em;">—<i>Immanuel Kant</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_148" id="VIII_Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> + +<div class="center"> + <a id="image0457-1"></a> + <img src="images/0457-1.jpg" width="269" height="400" + alt="" + title="" /> + + <p class="center">IMMANUEL KANT</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_149" id="VIII_Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + + + +<p>We find that most men fit easily into types. You describe to me one +Durham cow and you picture all Durham cows. So it is with men: they +belong to breeds, which we politely call denominations, sects or +parties. Tell me the man's sect, and I know his dress, his habit of +life, his thought. His dress is the uniform of his party, and his +thought is that which is ordered and prescribed. Dull indeed is the +intellect which can not correctly prophesy the opinions to which this +man will arrive on any subject.</p> + +<p>Durham cows are not exactly alike, I well know, but a trifle more length +of leg, a variation in color, or an off-angle of the horn, and that cow +is forever barred from exhibition as a Durham. She is fit only for beef, +and the first butcher that makes a bid takes her, hide and horns.</p> + +<p>Members of sects do not think exactly alike, but there are well-defined +limits of thought and action, beyond which they dare not stray lest the +butcher bag them. In joining a sect they have given bonds to uniformity, +and have signed their willingness to think and act like all other +members of the sect.</p> + +<p>Herbert Spencer deals with this "jiner" propensity in man, and describes +it as a manifestation of the herding<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_150" id="VIII_Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> instinct in animals. It is a +combination for mutual protection—a social contract, each one waiving a +part of his personality in order to secure a supposed benefit. A herd of +cattle can stand against a pack of wolves, but a cow alone is doomed.</p> + +<p>Few men indeed can stand against the pack. Wise are the many who seek +safety in numbers! Think of those who have stood out alone and expressed +their individuality, and you count on your fingers God's patriots dead +and turned to dust.</p> + +<p>The paradox of things is shown in that the entrenched many, having found +safety in aggregation, pay their debt of homage to the bold few who +lived their lives and paid the penalty by death.</p> + +<p>Across the disk of existence, each decade, there glide five hundred +million souls, and disappear forever in the dim and dusk of the eternity +that lies behind. Out of the bare handful that are remembered, we +cherish only the memories of those who stood alone and expressed their +honest, inmost thought. And this thought is, always and forever, the +thought of liberty. Exile, ostracism, death, have been their fate, and +on the smoke of martyr-fires their souls mounted to immortality.</p> + +<p>Future generations often confuse these men with Deity, the Maker of the +Worlds. And thus do we arrive at truth by indirection, for in very fact +these were the Sons of God, vitalized by Divinity, part and parcel of<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_151" id="VIII_Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> +the Power that guides the planets on their way and holds the worlds in +space. Upon their tombs we carve a single word: <i>Savior</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_152" id="VIII_Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Kant was sixty years old before he was known to any extent beyond his +native town; but so fast then did his fame travel that at his death it +was recognized that the greatest thinker of the world had passed away. +Kant founded no school; but Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Herde and +Schopenhauer were all his children—and all but Schopenhauer showed +their humanity by denouncing him, for men are prone to revile that which +has benefited them most. Kant marks an epoch and all thinkers who came +after him are his debtors. His philosophy has passed into the current +coin of knowledge.</p> + +<p>Kant's lifelong researches revolve around four propositions:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">1. Who am I?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">2. What am I?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">3. What can I do?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">4. What can I know?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The answer to Number Four is that I can not know anything. That is to +say, the wise man is the man who knows that he does not know. And this +disposes of Number One and Number Two, leaving only Number Three for our +consideration. It took, however, a good many years and a vast amount of +study and writing for Kant to thus simplify. For years he toiled with +algebraic formulas and syllogistic theorems before he concluded that the +best wisdom of life lies in simplification, not complexity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_153" id="VIII_Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What can I do?" resolves itself into, "What must I do?" And the answer +is: You must do four things in order to retain your place as a normal +being upon this earth: eat, work, associate with your kind, rest. Just +four things we must do, and outside of this everything is incidental, +accidental, irrelevant and inconsequential. Then how to eat, work, +associate and rest wisely and best constitutes life. Every man should be +free to work out these four equations for himself, his freedom ending +where another man's rights begin. To these four questions we should +bring our highest reason, our ripest experience and our best endeavor. +As for himself we know that Kant made a schedule of life which evolved a +sickly boy into a reasonably strong man who banished pain, sorrow and +regret from his existence and lived a long life of deep, quiet +satisfaction, sane to the end, watching every symptom of approaching +dissolution with keen interest, and at the last passing into quiet +sleep, his spirit gliding peacefully away, perhaps to answer those two +great questions which he said were unanswerable here: "Who am I?" "What +am I?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_154" id="VIII_Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Immanuel Kant was born in Seventeen Hundred Twenty-four at the City of +Konigsberg, in the northeastern corner of Prussia. There he received his +education; there he was a teacher for nearly half a century; and there, +in his eightieth year, he died. He was never out of East Prussia and +never journeyed sixty miles from his birthplace during his whole life. +Professor Josiah Royce of Harvard, himself in the sage business, and +perhaps the best example that America has produced of the pure type of +philosopher, says, "Kant is the only modern thinker who in point of +originality is worthy to be ranked with Plato and Aristotle." Like +Emerson, Kant regarded traveling as a fool's paradise; only Emerson had +to travel much before he found it out, while Kant gained the truth by +staying at home. Once a lady took him for a carriage ride, and on +learning from the footman that they were seven miles from home he was so +displeased that he refused to utter a single orphic on the way back; and +further, the story is that he never after entered a vehicle, and living +for thirty years was never again so far from the lodging he called home.</p> + +<p>In his lectures on physical geography Kant would often describe +mountains, rivers, waterfalls, volcanoes, with great animation and +accuracy, yet he had never seen any of these. Once a friend offered to +take him to Switzerland, so he could actually see the mountains; but he +warmly declined, declaring that the man who<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_155" id="VIII_Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> was not satisfied until he +could touch, taste and see was small, mean and quibbling as was Thomas, +the doubting disciple. Moreover, he had samples of the strata of the +Alps, and this was enough, which reminds us of the man who had a house +for sale and offered to send a prospective purchaser a sample brick.</p> + +<p>Mind was the great miracle to Kant—the ability to know all about a +thing by seeing it with your inward eye. "The Imagination hath a stage +within the brain upon which all scenes are played," and the play to Kant +was greater than the reality. Or, to use his own words: "Time and Space +have no existence apart from Mind. There is no such thing as Sound +unless there be an ear to receive the vibrations. Things and places, +matter and substance come under the same law, and exist only as mind +creates them."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_156" id="VIII_Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The parents of Kant were very lowly people. His father was a day +laborer—a leather-cutter who never achieved even to the honors and +emoluments of a saddler. There were seven children in the family, and +never a servant crossed the threshold. One daughter survived Immanuel, +and in her eighty-fourth year she expressed regrets that her brother had +proved so recreant to the teachings of his parents as practically to +alienate him from all his relatives. One brother became a Lutheran +minister and lived out an honored career; the others vanish and fade +away into the mist of forgetfulness.</p> + +<p>So far as we know, all the children were strong and well except this +one. At birth he weighed but five pounds, and his weakness was pitiable. +He was the kind of child the Spartans used to make way with quickly, for +the good of the State. He had a big, bulging head, thin legs, a weak +chest, and one shoulder was so much higher than the other that it +amounted almost to a deformity.</p> + +<p>As the years went by, the parents saw he was not big enough to work, but +hope was not dead—they would make a preacher of him! To this end he was +sent to the "Fredericianium," a graded school of no mean quality. The +master of this school was a worthy clergyman by the name of Schultz, who +was attracted to the Kant boy, it seems, on account of his insignificant +size. It was the affection of the shepherd for the friendless<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_157" id="VIII_Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> ewe lamb. +A little later the teacher began to love the boy for his big head and +the thoughts he worked out of it. Brawn is bought with a price—young +men who bank on it get it as legal tender. Those who have no brawn have +to rely on brain or go without honors. Immanuel Kant began to ask his +school-teacher questions that made the good man laugh.</p> + +<p>At sixteen Kant entered Albertina University. And there he was to remain +his entire life—student, tutor, teacher, professor.</p> + +<p>He must have been an efficient youth, for before he was eighteen he +realized that the best way to learn is to teach. The idea of becoming a +clergyman was at first strong upon him; and Pastor Schultz occasionally +sent the youth out to preach, or lead religious services in rural +districts. This embryo preacher had a habit of placing a box behind the +pulpit and standing on it while preaching. Then we find him reasoning +the matter out in this way: "I stand on a box to preach so as to impress +the people by my height or to conceal my insignificant size. This is +pretense and a desire to carry out the idea that the preacher is bigger +every way than common people. I talk with God in pretended prayer, and +this looks as if I were on easy and familiar terms with Deity. Is it +like those folks who claim to be on friendly terms with princes: If I do +not know anything about God, why should I pretend I do?"</p> + +<p>This desire to be absolutely honest with himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_158" id="VIII_Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> gradually grew until +he informed the Pastor that he had better secure young men for preachers +who could impress people without standing on a box. As for himself, he +would impress people by the size of his head, if he impressed them at +all. Let it here be noted that Kant then weighed exactly one hundred +pounds, and was less than five feet high. His head measured twenty-four +inches around, and fifteen and one-half inches over "firmness" from the +opening of the ears. To put it another way, he wore a seven-and-a-half +hat.</p> + +<p>It is a great thing for a man to pride himself on what he is and make +the best of it. The pride of craftsman betokens a valuable man. We +exaggerate our worth, and this is Nature's plan to get the thing done.</p> + +<p>Kant's pride of intellect, in degree, came from his insignificant form, +and thus do all things work together for good. But this bony little form +was often full of pain, and he had headaches, which led a wit to say, +"If a head like yours aches, it must be worse than to be a giraffe and +have a sore throat."</p> + +<p>Young Kant began to realize that to have a big head, and get the right +use from it, one must have vital power enough to feed it.</p> + +<p>The brain is the engine—the lungs and digestive apparatus the boiler. +Thought is combustion.</p> + +<p>Young Kant, the uncouth, became possessed of an idea that made him the +butt of many gibes and jeers. He thought that if he could breathe +enough, he would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_159" id="VIII_Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> able to think clearly, and headaches would be gone. +Life, he said, was a matter of breathing, and all men died from one +cause—a shortness of breath. In order to think clearly, you must +breathe.</p> + +<p>We believe things first and prove them later; our belief is usually +right, when derived from experience, but the reasons we give are often +wrong. For instance, Kant cured his physical ills by going out of doors, +and breathing deeply and slowly with closed mouth. Gradually his health +began to improve. But the young man, not knowing at that time much about +physiology, wrote a paper proving that the benefit came from the fresh +air that circulated through his brain. And of course in one sense he was +right. He related the incident of this thesis many years after in a +lecture, to show the result of right action and wrong reasoning.</p> + +<p>The doctors had advised Kant he must quit study, but when he took up his +breathing fad, he renounced the doctors, and later denounced them. If he +were going to die, he would die without the benefit of either the clergy +or the physicians.</p> + +<p>He denied that he was sick, and at night would roll himself in his +blankets and repeat half-aloud, "How comfortable I am, how comfortable I +am," until he fell asleep.</p> + +<p>Near his house ran a narrow street, just a half-mile long. He walked +this street up and back, with closed mouth, breathing deeply, waving a +rattan cane to ward<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_160" id="VIII_Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> away talkative neighbors, and to keep up the +circulation in his arms. Once and back—in a month he had increased this +to twice and back. In a year he had come to the conclusion that to walk +the length of that street eight times was the right and proper +thing—that is to say, four miles in all. In other words, he had found +out how much exercise he required—not too much or too little. At +exactly half-past three he came out of his lodging, wearing his cocked +hat and long, snuff-colored coat, and walked. The neighbors used to set +their clocks by him. He walked and breathed with closed mouth, and no +one dare accost him or walk with him. The hour was sacred and must not +be broken in upon: it was his holy time—his time of breathing.</p> + +<p>The little street is there now—one of the sights of Konigsberg, and the +cab-drivers point it out as the Philosopher's Walk. And Kant walked that +little street eight times every afternoon from the day he was twenty to +within a year of his death, when eighty years old.</p> + +<p>This walking and breathing habit physiologists now recognize as +eminently scientific, and there is no sensible physician but will +endorse Kant's wisdom in renouncing doctors and adopting a regimen of +his own. The thing you believe in will probably benefit you—faith is +hygienic.</p> + +<p>The persistency of the little man's character is shown in the breathing +habit—he believed in himself, relied on himself, and that which +experience commended,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_161" id="VIII_Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> he did.</p> + +<p>This firmness in following his own ideas saved his life. When we think +of one born in obscurity, living in poverty, handicapped by pain, +weakness and deformity; never traveling; and then by sheer persistency +and force of will rising to the first place among thinking men of his +time, one is almost willing to accept Kant's dictum, "Mind is supreme, +and the Universe is but the reflected thought of God."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_162" id="VIII_Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Kant was great enough to doubt appearances and distrust popular +conclusions. He knew that fallacies of reasoning follow fast upon +actions—reason follows by slow freight. It is quite necessary that we +should believe in a Supreme Power, but quite irrelevant that we should +prove it.</p> + +<p>Truth for the most part is unpopular, and the proof of this statement +lies in the fact that it is so seldom told. Preachers tell people what +they wish to hear, and indeed this must be so as long as the +congregation that hears the preaching pays for it. People will not pay +for anything they do not like. Hence, preaching leads naturally to +sophistication and hypocrisy, and the promise of endless bliss for +ourselves and a hell for our enemies comes about as a matter of course. +What men will listen to and pay for is the real science of theology. +That is to say, the science of theology is the science of manipulating +men. Success in theology consists in finding a fallacy that is palatable +and then banking on it. Again and again Kant points out that a +clergyman's advice is usually worthless, because pure truth is out of +his province—unaccustomed, undesirable, inexpedient.</p> + +<p>And Kant thought this was true also of doctors—doctors care more about +pleasing their patients than telling them truth. "In fact," he said, "no +doctor with a family to support can afford to tell his patients that his +symptoms are no token of a disease—rather uncomfortable feelings are +proof of health, for dead men don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_163" id="VIII_Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> have them." Most of the aches, +pains and so-called irregularities are remedial moves on the part of +Nature to keep the man well. Kant says that doctors treat symptoms, not +diseases, and often the treatment causes the disease; so no man can tell +what proportion of diseases is caused by medicine and what by other +forms of applied ignorance.</p> + +<p>As for lawyers, our little philosopher considered them, for the most +part, sharks and wreckers. A lawyer looks over an estate, not with the +idea of keeping it intact, but of dissolving it, and getting a part of +it for himself. Not that men prefer to do what is wrong, but +self-interest can always produce sufficient reasons to satisfy the +conscience. Lawyers, being attaches of courts of justice, regard +themselves as protectors of the people, when really they are the +plunderers of the people, and their business is quite as much to defeat +justice as to administer it. The evasion of law is as truly a lawyer's +work as compliance with law. Then our philosopher explains that if law +and justice were synonymous, this state of affairs would be most +deplorable; but as it is, no particular harm is worked, save in the +moral degradation of the lawyers. The connivance of lawyers tames the +rank injustices of law; hence, to a degree, we live in a land where +there is neither law nor justice—save such justice as can be +appropriated by the man who is diplomat enough to do without lawyers and +wise enough to have no property. Justice, however, to Kant is a very<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_164" id="VIII_Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +uncertain quantity, and he is rather inclined to regard the idea that +men are able to administer justice as on a par with the assumption of +the priest that he is dealing with God.</p> + +<p>Kant once said, "When a woman demands justice, she means revenge."</p> + +<p>A pupil here interposed, and asked the master if this was not equally +true of men, and the answer was, "I accept the amendment—it certainly +is true of all men I ever saw in courtrooms."</p> + +<p>"Does death end all?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Kant; "there is the litigation over the estate."</p> + +<p>Kant's constant reiteration that he had no use for doctors, lawyers and +preachers, we can well imagine did not add to his popularity. As for his +reasoning concerning lawyers, we can all, probably, recall a few +jug-shaped attorneys who fill the Kant requirements—takers of +contingent fees and stirrers-up of strife: men who watch for vessels on +the rocks and lure with false lights the mariner to his doom. But +matters since Kant's day have changed considerably for the better. There +is a demand now for a lawyer who is a businessman and who will keep +people out of trouble instead of getting them in. And we also have a few +physicians who are big enough to tell a man there is nothing the matter +with him, if they think so, and then charge him accordingly—in inverse +ratio to the amount of medicine administered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_165" id="VIII_Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>And while we no longer refer to the clergyman as our spiritual adviser, +except, perhaps, in way of pleasantry, he surely is useful as a social +promoter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_166" id="VIII_Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The parents of Kant were Lutherans—punctilious and pious. They were +descended from Scotch soldiers who had come over there two hundred years +before and settled down after the war, just as the Hessians settled down +and went to farming in Pennsylvania, their descendants occasionally +becoming Daughters of the Revolution, because their grandsires fought +with Washington.</p> + +<p>This Scotch strain gave a sturdy bias to the Kants—these Lutherans were +really rebels, and as every one knows, there are only two ways of +dealing with a religious Scotchman—agree with him or kill him.</p> + +<p>Most people said that Kant was supremely stubborn—he himself called it +"firmness in the right." Once, when a couple of calumniators were +thinking up all the bad things they could say about him, one of them +exclaimed, "He isn't five feet high!"</p> + +<p>"Liar!" came the shrill voice of the Philosopher, who had accidentally +overheard them, "Liar! I am exactly five feet!" And he drew himself up, +and struck his staff proudly and defiantly on the ground.</p> + +<p>Which reminds one of the story told of Professor Josiah Royce, who once +rang up six fares on the register when he wished to stop a Boston +street-car. When the conductor protested, the philosopher called him +"up-start," "curmudgeon" and "nincompoop," and showed the fallacy of his +claim that thirty cents had been lost, since nobody had found it. +Moreover, he offered to prove<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_167" id="VIII_Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> his proposition by algebraic equation, if +one of the gentlemen present had chalk and blackboard on his person.</p> + +<p>Once Kant was looking at the flowers in a beautiful garden. But instead +of looking through the iron pickets, he stooped over and was squinting +through the key-hole of the lock. A student coming along asked him why +he didn't look through the pickets and thus get a perfect view.</p> + +<p>"Go on, you fool," was the stern reply; "I am studying the law of +optics—the unobstructed vision reveals too much—the vivid view is only +gotten through a small aperture."</p> + +<p>All of which was believed to be a sudden inspiration in way of reply +that came to the great professor when caught doing an absent-minded +thing. That Kant was not above a little pious prevarication is shown by +a story he himself tells. He was never inside of a church once during +the last fifty years of his life. But when he became Chancellor of the +University, one of his duties was to lead a procession to the Cathedral, +where certain formal religious services were held. Kant tried to have +the exercises in a hall, but failing in this, he did his duty, and +marched like a pigmy drum-major at the head of the cavalcade.</p> + +<p>"Now he will have to go in," the scoffers said.</p> + +<p>But he didn't. Arriving at the church-door, he excused himself, pleading +an urgent necessity, walked around to the back of the church, +sacrificed, like Diogenes, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_168" id="VIII_Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> all the gods at once, and made off for +home, quietly chuckling to himself at the thought of how he had +circumvented the enemy.</p> + +<p>Every actor has just so many make-ups and no more. Usually the +characters he assumes are variations of a single one. Steele Mackaye +used to say, "There are only five distinct dramatic situations." The +artist, too, has his properties. And the recognition of this truth +caused Massillon to say, "The great preacher has but one sermon, yet out +of this he makes many—by giving portions of it backwards, or beginning +in the middle and working both ways, or presenting patchwork pieces, +tinted and colored by his mood." All public speakers have canned goods +they fall back upon when the fresh fruit of thought grows scarce.</p> + +<p>The literary man also has his puppets, pet phrases, and situations to +his liking. Victor Hugo always catches the attention by a blind girl, a +hunchback, a hunted convict or some mutilated and maimed unfortunate.</p> + +<p>In his lectures, Kant used to please the boys by such phrases as this, +"I dearly love the muse, although I must admit that I have never been +the recipient of any of her favors." This took so well that later he was +encouraged to say, "The Old Metaphysics is positively unattractive, but +the New Metaphysics is to me most lovely, although I can not boast that +I have ever been honored by any of her favors."</p> + +<p>A large audience caused Kant to lose his poise—he became +self-conscious—but<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_169" id="VIII_Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> in his own little lecture-room, with a dozen, or +fifty at the most (because this was the capacity of the room), he was +charming. He would fix his eye on a single boy, and often upon a single +button on this boy's coat, and forgetting the immediate theme in hand, +would ramble into an amusing and most instructive monolog of criticism +concerning politics, pedagogy or current events. In his writing he was +exact, heavy and complex, but in these heart-to-heart talks, Herder, who +attended Kant's lectures for five years, says, "The man had a deal of +nimble wit, and here Kant was at his best."</p> + +<p>So we have two different men—the man who wrote the "Critique" and the +man who gave the lectures and clarified his thought by explaining things +to others. It was in the lectures that he threw off this: "Men are +creatures that can not do without their kind, yet are sure to quarrel +when together." This took fairly well, and later he said, "Men can not +do without men, yet they hate each other when together." And in a year +after, comes this: "A man is miserable without a wife, and is seldom +happy after he gets one." No doubt this caused a shout of applause from +the students, college boys being always on the lookout for just such +things; and coming from a very confirmed old bachelor it was peculiarly +fetching.</p> + +<p>To say that Kant was devoid of wit, as many writers do, is not to know +the man. About a year after the "Critique of Pure Reason" appeared, he +wrote this:<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_170" id="VIII_Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> "I am obliged to the learned public for the silence with +which it has honored my book, as this silence means a suspension of +judgment and a wise determination not to voice a premature opinion." He +knew perfectly well that the "learned public" had not read his book, and +moreover, could not, intelligently, and the silence betokened simply a +stupid lack of interest. Moreover, he knew there was no such thing as a +learned public. Kant's remark reveals a keen wit, and it also reveals +something more—the pique of the unappreciated author who declares he +doesn't care what the public thinks of him, and thereby reveals the fact +that he does.</p> + +<p>Here are a couple of remarks that could only have been made in the reign +of Frederick the Great, and under the spell of a college lecture: "The +statement that man is the noblest work of God was never made by anybody +but man, and must therefore be taken 'cum grano salis.'" "We are told +that God said He made man in His own image, but the remark was probably +ironical."</p> + +<p>Schopenhauer says: "The chief jewel in the crown of Frederick the Great +is Immanuel Kant. Such a man as Kant could not have held a salaried +position under any other monarch on the globe at that time and have +expressed the things that Kant did. A little earlier or a little later, +and there would have been no such person as Immanuel Kant. Rulers are +seldom big men, but if they are big enough to recognize and encourage +big men, they deserve the gratitude of mankind!"</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="SWEDENBORG" id="SWEDENBORG"></a>SWEDENBORG<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_171" id="VIII_Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></h2> + + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>When a man's deeds are discovered after death, his angels, who are +inquisitors, look into his face, and extend their examination over +his whole body, beginning with the fingers of each hand. I was +surprised at this, and the reason was thus explained to me:</p> + +<p>Every volition and thought of man is inscribed on his brain; for +volition and thought have their beginnings in the brain, thence +they are conveyed to the bodily members, wherein they terminate. +Whatever, therefore, is in the mind is in the brain, and from the +brain in the body, according to the order of its parts. So a man +writes his life in his physique, and thus the angels discover his +autobiography in his structure.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 25em;">—<i>Swedenborg's "Spirit World"</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_172" id="VIII_Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<div class="center"> + <a id="image0458-1"></a> + <img src="images/0458-1.jpg" width="292" height="400" + alt="" + title="" /> + + <p class="center">SWEDENBORG</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_173" id="VIII_Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + + + +<p>A bucolic citizen of East Aurora, on being questioned by a visitor as to +his opinion of a certain literary man, exclaimed: "Smart? Is he smart? +Why, Missus, he writes things nobody can understand!"</p> + +<p>This sounds like a paraphrase (but it isn't) of the old lady's remark on +hearing Henry Ward Beecher preach. She went home and said, "I don't +think he is so very great—I understood everything he said!"</p> + +<p>Paganini wrote musical scores for the violin, which no violinist has +ever been able to play. Victor Herbert has recently analyzed some of +these compositions and shown that Paganini himself could never have +played them without using four hands and handling two bows at once. So +far, no one can play a duet on the piano; the hand can span only so many +keys, and the attempt of Robert Schumann to improve on Nature by +building an artificial extension to his fingers was vetoed by paralysis +of the members. Two bodies can not occupy the same space at the same +time; mathematics has its limit, for you can not look out of a window +four and a half times. The dictum of Ingersoll that all sticks and +strings have two ends has not yet been disproved; and Herbert Spencer +discovered, for his own satisfaction,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_174" id="VIII_Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> fixed limits beyond which the +mind can not travel. His expression, the Unknowable, reminds one of +those old maps wherein vast sections were labeled, Terra Incognita.</p> + +<p>If we read Emanuel Swedenborg, we find that these vast stretches in the +domain of thought which Herbert Spencer disposed of as the Unknowable +have been traversed and minutely described. Swedenborg's books are so +learned that even Herbert Spencer could not read them: his scores are so +intricate, his compositions so involved, that no man can play them.</p> + +<p>The mystic who sees more than he can explain is universally regarded as +an unsafe and unreliable person. The people who consult him go away and +do as they please, and faith in his prophecies weaken as his opinions +and hopes vary from theirs. We stand by the clairvoyant just as long as +he gives us palatable things, and no longer, and nobody knows this +better than your genus clairvoyant. When his advice is contrary to our +desires, we pronounce him a fraud and go our way. When enterprises of +great pith and moment are to be carried through, we give the power into +the hands of the worldling infidel, rather than the spiritual seer.</p> + +<p>The person on intimate terms with another world seldom knows much about +this, and when Robert Browning tells of Sludge, the Medium, he symbols +his opinion of all mediums. A medium, if sincere, is one who has +abandoned his intellect and turned the bark of<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_175" id="VIII_Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> reason rudderless, +adrift. This is entirely apart from the very common reinforcement of +usual psychic powers with fraud, which, beginning in self-deception, +puts out from port without papers and sails the sea with forged letters +of marque and reprisal.</p> + +<p>There are mediums in every city who tell us they are guided by +Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, Luther, Tennyson or Henry Ward Beecher. So +we are led to believe that the chief business of great men in the +spiritual realm is to guide commonplace men in this, and cause them to +take pen in hand.</p> + +<p>All publishers are perfectly familiar with these productions written by +people who think they are psychic when they are only sick. And I have +never yet seen a publisher's reader who had found anything in +inspirational writing but words, words, words. High-sounding paraphrases +and rolling sentences do not make literature; and so far as we know, +only the fallible, live and loving man or woman can breathe into the +nostrils of a literary production the breath of life. All the rest is +only lifeless clay.</p> + +<p>That mystery enshrouds the workings of the mind, and that some people +have remarkable mental experiences, none will deny. People who can not +write at all in a normal mood will, under a psychic spell, produce +high-sounding literary reverberations, or play the piano or paint a +picture. Yet the literature is worthless, the music indifferent, and the +picture bad; but, like Doctor<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_176" id="VIII_Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> Johnson's simile of the dog that walked +on its hind legs, while the walking is never done well, we are amazed +that it can be done at all.</p> + +<p>The astounding assumption comes in when we leap the gulf and attribute +these peculiar rappings and all this ability of seeing around a corner +to disembodied spirits. The people with credulity plus, however, always +close our mouths with this, "If it isn't spirits, what in the world is +it?" And we, crestfallen and abashed, are forced to say, "We do not +know."</p> + +<p>The absolute worthlessness of spiritual communication comes in when we +are told by the medium, caught in a contradiction, that spirits are +awful liars. On this point all mediums agree: many disembodied spirits +are much given to untruth, and the man who is a liar here will be a liar +there.</p> + +<p>Swedenborg was so annoyed with this disposition on the part of spirits +to prevaricate that he says, "I usually conduct my affairs regardless of +their advice." When a spirit came to him and said, "I am the shade of +Aristotle," Swedenborg challenged him, and the spirit acknowledged he +was only Jimmy Smith. This is delightfully naive and surely reveals the +man's sanity: he was deceived by neither living nor dead: he accepted or +rejected communications as they appealed to his reason: he kept his +literature and his hallucinations separate from his business, and never +did a thing which did not gibe with his reason. In this way he lived<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_177" id="VIII_Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> to +be eighty, earnest, yet composed, serene, steering safely clear from +Bedlam, by making his commonsense the court of last appeal.</p> + +<p>Emerson says that the critic who will render the greatest gift to modern +civilization is the one who will show us how to fuse the characters of +Shakespeare and Swedenborg. One stands for intellect, the other for +spirituality. We need both, but we tire of too much goodness, virtue +palls on us, and if we hear only psalms sung, we will long for the clink +of glasses and the brave choruses of unrestrained good-fellowship. A +slap on the back may give you a thrill of delight that the touch of holy +water on your forehead can not lend.</p> + +<p>Shakespeare hasn't much regard for concrete truth; Swedenborg is devoted +to nothing else. Shakespeare moves jauntily, airily, easily, with +careless indifference; Swedenborg lives earnestly, seriously, awfully. +Shakespeare thinks that truth is only a point of view, a local issue, a +matter of geography; Swedenborg considers it an exact science, with +boundaries fixed and cornerstones immovable, and the business of his +life was to map the domain.</p> + +<p>If you would know the man Shakespeare, you will find him usually in cap +and bells. Jaques, Costard, Trinculo, Mercutio, are confessions, for +into the mouths of these he puts his wisest maxims. Shakespeare dearly +loved a fool, because he was one. He plays with truth as a kitten +gambols with a ball of yarn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_178" id="VIII_Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p>So Emerson would have us reconcile the holy zeal for truth and the swish +of this bright blade of the intellect. He himself confesses that after +reading Swedenborg he turns to Shakespeare and reads "As You Like It" +with positive delight, because Shakespeare isn't trying to prove +anything. The monks of the olden time read Rabelais and Saint Augustine +with equal relish.</p> + +<p>Possibly we take these great men too seriously—literature is only +incidental, and what any man says about anything matters little, except +to himself. No book is of much importance; the vital thing is: What do +you yourself think?</p> + +<p>When we read Shakespeare in a parlor class there are many things we read +over rapidly—the teacher does not stop to discuss them. The remarks of +Ophelia or the shepherd talk of Corin are indecent only when you stop +and linger over them; it will not do to sculpture such things—let them +forever remain in gaseous form. When George Francis Train picked out +certain parts of the Bible and printed them, and was arrested for +publishing obscene literature, the charge was proper and right. There +are things that need not to be emphasized—they may all be a part of +life, but in books they should be slurred over as representing simply a +passing glimpse of nature.</p> + +<p>And so the earnest and minute arguments of Swedenborg need not give us +headache in efforts to comprehend them. They were written for himself, +as a scaffolding<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_179" id="VIII_Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> for his imagination. Don't take Jonathan Edwards too +seriously—he means well, but we know more. We know we do not know +anything, and he never got that far.</p> + +<p>The bracketing of the names of Shakespeare and Swedenborg is eminently +well. They are Titans both. In the presence of such giants, small men +seem to wither and blow away. Swedenborg was cast in heroic mold, and no +other man since history began ever compassed in himself so much physical +science, and with it all on his back, made such daring voyages into the +clouds.</p> + +<p>The men who soar highest and know most about another world usually know +little about this. No man of his time was so competent a scientist as +Swedenborg, and no man before or since has mapped so minutely the +Heavenly Kingdom.</p> + +<p>Shakespeare's feet were really never off the ground. His excursion in +"The Tempest" was only in a captured balloon. Ariel and Caliban he +secured out of an old book of fables.</p> + +<p>Shakespeare knew little about physics; economics and sociology never +troubled him; he had small Latin and less Greek; he never traveled, and +the history of the rocks was to him a blank.</p> + +<p>Swedenborg anticipated Darwin in a dozen ways; he knew the classic +languages and most of the modern; he traveled everywhere; he was a +practical economist, and the best civil engineer of his day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_180" id="VIII_Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> + +<p>Shakespeare knew the human heart—where the wild storms arise and where +the passions die—the Delectable Isles where Allah counts not the days, +and the swamps where love turns to hate and Hell knocks on the gates of +Heaven. Shakespeare knew humanity, but little else; Swedenborg knew +everything else, but here he balked, for woman's love never unlocked for +him the secrets of the human heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_181" id="VIII_Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Emanuel Swedenborg was born at Stockholm, Sweden, in Sixteen Hundred +Eighty-eight. His father was a bishop in the Lutheran Church, a +professor in the theological seminary, a writer on various things, and +withal a man of marked power and worth. He was a spiritualist, heard +voices and received messages from the spirit world. It will be +remembered that Martin Luther, in his monkish days, heard voices, and +was in communication with both angels and devils. Many of his followers, +knowing of his strange experiences, gave themselves up to fasts and +vigils, and they, too, saw things. Abstain from food for two days and +this sense of lightness and soaring is the usual result. So strong is +example, and so prone are we to follow in the footsteps of those we +love, that one "psychic" is sure to develop more. Little Emanuel +Swedenborg, aged seven, saw angels, too, and when his father had a +vision, he straightway matched it with a bigger one.</p> + +<p>Then we find the mother of the boy getting alarmed, and peremptorily +putting her foot down and ordering her husband to cease all celestial +excursions.</p> + +<p>Emanuel was set to work at his books and in the garden, and no more +rappings was he to hear, nor strange white lights to see, until he was +fifty-six years old.</p> + +<p>Sweden is the least illiterate country on the globe, and has been for +three hundred years. Her climate is eminently fitted to produce one fine +product—men. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_182" id="VIII_Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> winter's cold does not subdue nor suppress, but tends +to that earnest industry which improves the passing hours. The +Scandinavians make hay while the sun shines; but in countries where the +sun shines all the time men make no hay. In Florida, where flowers bloom +the whole year through, even the bees quit work and say, "What's the +use?"</p> + +<p>Emanuel Swedenborg climbed the mountains with his father, fished in the +fjords, collected the mosses on the rocks, and wrote out at length all +of their amateur discoveries. The boy grew strong in body, lithe of +limb, clear of eye—noble and manly.</p> + +<p>His affection for his parents was perfect. When fifteen he addressed to +them letters of apostrophe, all in studied words of deference and +curious compliment, like, say, the letters of Columbus to Ferdinand and +Isabella. His purity of purpose was sublime, and the jewel of his soul +was integrity.</p> + +<p>At college he easily stood at the head of his class. He reduced calculus +to its simplest forms, and made abstractions plain. Even his tutors +could not follow him. Once the King's actuary was called upon to verify +some of his calculations. This brought him to the notice of the King, +and thereafter he was always on easy and familiar terms with royalty. +There is no hallucination in mathematics—figures do not lie, although +mathematicians may, but this one never did.</p> + +<p>We look in vain for college pranks, and some of those<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_183" id="VIII_Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> absurd and +foolish things in which young men delight. We wish he could unbend, and +be indiscreet, or even impolite, just to show us his humanity. But no, +he is always grave, earnest, dignified, and rebukingly handsome. The +college "grind" with bulging forehead, round shoulders, myopic vision +and shambling gait is well known in every college, and serves as the +butt of innumerable practical jokes. But no one took liberties with +Emanuel Swedenborg either in boyhood or in after-life. His countenance +was stern, yet not forbidding; his form tall, manly and muscular, and +his persistent mountain-climbing and outdoor prospecting and botanizing +gave him a glow of health which the typical grubber after facts very +seldom has.</p> + +<p>Thus we find Emanuel Swedenborg walking with stately tread through +college, taking all the honors, looked upon by teachers and professors +with a sort of awe, and pointed out by his fellow students in subdued +wonder. His physical strength became a byword, yet we do not find he +ever exercised it in contests; but it served as a protection, and +commanded respect from all the underlings.</p> + +<p>At twenty we find him falling violently in love, the one sole +love-affair of his lone life. Instead of going to the girl he placed the +matter before her father, and secured from him a written warrant for the +damsel, returnable in three years' time. This document he carried with +him, pored over it, slept with it under his pillow. As<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_184" id="VIII_Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> for the girl, +timid, sensitive, aged fifteen, she fled on his approach, and shook with +fear if he looked at her. He made his love plain by logical formulas and +proved his passion by geometrical permutations—by charts and diagrams. +A seasoned widow might have broken up the icy fastness of his soul and +melted his forbidding nature in the crucible of feeling, but this poor +girl just wanted some one to hold her little hand and say peace to her +fluttering heart. How could she go plump herself in his lap, pull his +ears and tell him he was a fool? Finally, the girl's brother, seeing her +distress, stole the precious warrant from Swedenborg's coat, tore it up, +and Swedenborg knew his case was hopeless. He brought calculus to bear, +and proved by the law of averages that there were just as good fish in +the sea as ever were caught.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_185" id="VIII_Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At twenty-one Swedenborg graduated at the University of Upsala. He took +the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and was sent on a tour of the +European capitals to complete his education. He visited Hamburg, Paris, +Vienna and then went to London, where he remained a year. He bore +letters from the King of Sweden that admitted him readily into the best +society, and as far as we know he carried himself with dignity, filled +with a zeal to know and to become.</p> + +<p>One prime object in his travel was to learn the language of the country +that he was in, and so we hear of his writing home, "In Hamburg I speak +only German; at Paris I talk and think in French; in London no one +doubts but that I am an Englishman." This not only reveals the young +man's accomplishments, but shows that sublime confidence in himself +which never forsook him.</p> + +<p>The desire of his father was that he should enter the diplomatic service +of the government, and the interest the King took in his welfare shows +that the way was opening in that direction. But in the various cities +where he traveled he merely used his consular letters to reach the men +in each place who knew most of mathematics, anatomy, geology, astronomy +and physics. He hunted out the thinkers and the doers, and it seems he +had enough specific gravity of soul so he was never turned away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_186" id="VIII_Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>When big men meet for the first time, they try conclusions just as +surely as do the patriarchs of the herds. Instantly there is a mental +duel, before scarcely a word is spoken, and the psychic measurements +then and there taken are usually about correct.</p> + +<p>The very silence of a superior person is impressive. And knowing this, +we do not wonder that Swedenborg would sometimes call unannounced on men +in high station, and forgetting his letters, would ask for an interview. +The audacity of the request would break down the barriers, and his calm, +quiet self-possession would do the rest. The man wanted nothing but +knowledge. Returning home at twenty-seven, he wrote out two voluminous +reports of his travels, one for his father and one for the King. These +reports were so complete, so learned, so full of allusion, suggestion +and advice, that it is probable they were never read.</p> + +<p>He was made Assessor of the School of Mines, an office which we would +call that of Assayer, and his business was to give scientific advice as +to the value of ores and the best ways to mine and smelt them.</p> + +<p>About this time we hear of Swedenborg writing to his brother explaining +that he was working on the model of a boat that would navigate below the +surface of the sea, and do great damage to the enemy; a gun that would +discharge a thousand bullets a minute; a flying machine that would sail +the air like a gull; a mechanical chariot that would go twenty miles an +hour on a smooth road<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_187" id="VIII_Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> without horses; and a plan of mathematics which +would quickly and simply enable us to compute and express fractions. We +also hear of his inventing a treadmill chariot, which carried the horse +on board the vehicle, but the horse once ran away and attained such a +velocity in the streets of Stockholm that people declared the whole +thing was a diabolical invention, and in deference to popular clamor +Swedenborg discontinued his experiments along this line.</p> + +<p>One is amazed that this man in the early days of the Eighteenth Century +should have anticipated the submarine boat, and guessed what could be +done by the expansion of steam; prophesied a Gatling gun, and made a +motor-car that carried the horse, working on a treadmill and propelling +the vehicle faster than the horse could go on the ground; and if the +inventor had had the gasoline he surely would have made an automobile.</p> + +<p>His diversity of inventive genius was finally focalized on building +sluiceways and canals for the government, and he set Holyoke an example +by running the water back and forth in canals and utilizing the power +over and over again.</p> + +<p>Later he was called upon to break a blockade by transferring ships +overland a distance of fourteen miles. This he successfully did by the +use of a roller railway, and as a reward for the feat was duly knighted +by the King.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_188" id="VIII_Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + +<p>The one idea that he worked out in detail and gave to the world, and +which the world has not improved upon, is our present decimal system.</p> + +<p>As the years passed, Swedenborg became rich. He lived well, but not +lavishly. We hear of his having his private carriages and being attended +by servants on his travels.</p> + +<p>He lectured at various universities, and on account of his close +association with royalty, as well as on account of his own high +character and strong personality, he was a commanding figure wherever he +went. His life was full to the brim.</p> + +<p>And we naturally expect that a man of wealth, with all the honors +belonging to any one person, should take on a comforting accumulation of +adipose, and encyst himself in the conventionalities of church, state +and society.</p> + +<p>And this was what the man himself saw in store, for at forty-six he +wrote a book on science, setting forth his ideas and making accurate +prophecies as to what would yet be brought about. He regrets that a +multiplicity of duties and failing health forbid his carrying out his +plans, and further adds, "As this is probably the last book I shall ever +write, I desire here to make known to posterity these thoughts which so +far as I know have never been explained before."</p> + +<p>The real fact was that at this time Swedenborg's career had not really +begun, and if he had then died, his fame would not have extended beyond +the country of his birth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_189" id="VIII_Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Mr. Poultney Bigelow, happening to be in Brighton, England, a few years +ago, was entertained at the home of a worthy London broker. The family +was prosperous and intelligent, but clung closely to all conventional +and churchly lines. As happens often in English homes, the man does most +of the thinking and sets metes and bounds to all conversation as well as +reading. The mother refers to him as "He," and the children and servants +look up to him and make mental obeisance when he speaks.</p> + +<p>"I hear Herbert Spencer lives in Brighton—do you ever see him?" +ventured the guest of the hostess, in a vain reaching 'round for a topic +of mutual interest. "Spencer—Spencer? Who is Herbert Spencer?" asked +the good mother.</p> + +<p>But "He" caught the run of the talk and came to the rescue: "Oh, Mother, +Spencer is nobody you are interested in—just a writer of infidelic +books!"</p> + +<p>The next day Bigelow called on Spencer and saw upon his table a copy of +"Science and Health," which some one had sent him. He smiled when the +American referred to the book, and in answer to a question said: "It is +surely interesting, and I find many pleasing maxims scattered through +it. But we can hardly call it scientific, any more than we can call +Swedenborg's 'Conjugal Love' scientific." And the author of "First +Principles" showed he had read Mrs. Eddy's book, for he turned to the +chapter on "Marriage," calling<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_190" id="VIII_Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> attention to the statement that marriage +in its present status is a permitted condition—a matter of +expediency—and children will yet be begotten by telepathic +correspondence. "The unintelligibility of the book recommends it to many +and accounts for its vogue. Swedenborg's immortality is largely owing to +the same reason," and the man who once loved George Eliot smiled not +unkindly, and the conversation drifted to other themes.</p> + +<p>This comparison of Swedenborg with Mary Baker Eddy is not straining a +point. No one can read "Science and Health" intelligently unless his +mind is first prepared for it by some one whose mind has been prepared +for it by some one else. It requires a deal of explanation; and like the +Plan of Salvation, no one would ever know anything about it if it wasn't +elucidated by an educated person.</p> + +<p>Books strong in abstraction are a convenient rag-bag for your mental +odds and ends. Swedenborg's philosophy is "Science and Health" +multiplied by forty. He lays down propositions and proves them in a +thousand pages.</p> + +<p>Yet this must be confessed: The Swedenborgians and the Christian +Scientists as sects rank above most other denominations in point of +intellectual worth. In speaking of the artist Thompson, Nathaniel +Hawthorne once wrote: "This artist is a man of thought, and with no mean +idea of art, a Swedenborgian, or, as he prefers to call it, a member of +the New Church. I have generally<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_191" id="VIII_Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> found something marked in men who +adopt that faith. He seems to me to possess truth in himself, and to aim +at it is his artistic endeavor."</p> + +<p>Swedenborg's essay on "Conjugal Love" contains four hundred thousand +words and divides the theme into forty parts, each of these being +subdivided into forty more. The delights of paradise are pictured in the +perfect mating of the right man with the right woman. In order to +explain what perfect marriage is, Swedenborg works by the process of +elimination and reveals every possible condition of mismating. Every +error, mistake, crime, wrong and fallacy is shown in order to get at the +truth. Swedenborg tells us that he got his facts from four husbands and +four wives in the Spirit Land, and so his statements are authentic. +Emerson disposes of Swedenborg's ideal marriage as it exists in heaven, +as "merely an indefinite bridal-chamber," and intimates that it is the +dream of one who had never been disillusioned by experience.</p> + +<p>In Maudsley's fine book, "Body and Mind," the statement is made that +during Swedenborg's stay in London his life was decidedly promiscuous. +Fortunately the innocence and ignorance of Swedenborg's speculations are +proof in themselves that his entire life was absolutely above reproach. +Swedenborg's bridal-chamber is the dream of a school-girl, presented by +a scientific analyst, a man well past his grand climacteric, who +imagined that the perpetuation of sexual "bliss" was<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_192" id="VIII_Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> a desirable thing.</p> + +<p>Emerson hints that there is the taint of impurity in Swedenborg's +matrimonial excursions, for "life and nature are right, but closet +speculations are bound to be vicious when persisted in." Max Müller's +little book, "A Story of German Love," showing the intellectual and +spiritual uplift that comes from the natural and spontaneous friendship +of a good man and woman, is worth all the weighty speculations of all +the virtuous bachelors who ever lived and raked the stagnant ponds of +their imagination for an ideal.</p> + +<p>The love of a recluse is not God's kind—only running water is pure; the +living love of a live man and woman absolves itself, refines, benefits, +and blesses, though it be the love of Aucassin and Nicolete, Plutarch +and Laura, Paola and Francesca, Abelard and Heloise, and they go to hell +for it.</p> + +<p>From his thirty-fourth year to his forty-sixth Swedenborg wrote nothing +for publication. He lectured, traveled, and advised the government on +questions of engineering and finance, and in various practical ways made +himself useful. Then it was that he decided to break the silence and +give the world the benefit of his studies, which he does in his great +work, "Principia." Well does Emerson say that this work, purporting to +explain the birth of worlds, places the man side by side with Aristotle, +Leonardo, Bacon, Selden, Copernicus and Humboldt.</p> + +<p>It is a book for giants, written by one. Although the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_193" id="VIII_Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> man was a nominal +Christian, yet to him, plainly, the Bible was only a book of fables and +fairy-tales. The Mosaic account of Creation is simply waived, as we +waive Jack the Giant-Killer when dealing with the question of capital +punishment.</p> + +<p>That Darwin read Swedenborg with minute care, there is no doubt. In the +"Principia" is a chapter on mosses wherein it is explained how the first +vestige of lichen catches the dust particles of disintegrating rock, and +we get the first tokens of a coming forest. Darwin never made a point +better; and the nebular hypothesis and the origin of species are worked +out with conjectures, fanciful flights, queer conceits, poetic +comparisons, far-reaching analogies, and most astounding leaps of +imagination.</p> + +<p>The man was warming to his task—this was not to be his last book—the +heavens were opening before him, and if he went astray it was light from +heaven that dazzled him. No one could converse with him, because there +was none who could understand him; none could refute him, because none +could follow his winding logic, which led to heights where the air was +too rarefied for mortals to breathe. He speculated on magnetism, +chemistry, astronomy, anatomy, geology and spiritism. He believed a +thing first and then set the mighty machinery of his learning to bear to +prove it. This is the universal method of great minds—they divine +things first. But no other scientist the world has ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_194" id="VIII_Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> known divined +as much as this man. He reminds us of his own motor-car, with the horse +inside running away with the machine and none to stop the beast in its +mad flight. To his engine there is no governor, and he revolves like the +screw of a steamship when the waves lift the craft out of the water.</p> + +<p>There is no stimulant equal to expression. The more men write the more +they know. Swedenborg continued to write, and following the "Principia" +came "The Animal Kingdom," "The Economy of the Universe," and more vast +reaches into the realm of fact and fancy. His books were published at +his own expense, and the work was done under his own supervision at +Antwerp, Amsterdam, Venice, Vienna, London and Paris. In all these +cities he worked to get the benefit of their libraries and museums.</p> + +<p>Popularity was out of the question—only the learned attempted to follow +his investigations, and these preferred to recommend his books rather +than read them. And as for heresy, his disbelief in popular +superstitions was so veiled in scientific formulas that it went +unchallenged. Had he simplified truth for the masses his career would +have been that of Erasmus. His safety lay in his unintelligibility. He +was gracious, gentle, suave, with a calm self-confidence that routed +every would-be antagonist.</p> + +<p>It was in his fifty-sixth year that the supreme change came over him. He +was in London, in his room, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_195" id="VIII_Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> a great light came to him. He was +prostrated as was Saint Paul on the road to Damascus; he lost +consciousness, and was awakened by a reassuring voice. Christ came to +him and talked with him face to face; he was told that he would be shown +the inmost recesses of the Spirit World, and must write out the +revelation for the benefit of humanity.</p> + +<p>There was no disturbance in the man's general health, although he +continued to have visions, trances and curious dreams. He began to +write—steadily, day by day the writings went on—but from this time +experience was disregarded, and for him the material world slept; he +dealt only with spiritual things, using the physical merely for analogy, +and his geology and botany were those of the Old Testament.</p> + +<p>Returning to Stockholm he resigned his government office, broke his +engagements with the University, repudiated all scientific studies, and +devoted himself to his new mission—that is, writing out what the +spirits dictated, and what he saw on his celestial journeys.</p> + +<p>That there are passages of great beauty and insight in his work, is very +sure, and by discarding what one does not understand, and accepting what +seems reasonable and right, a practical theology that serves and +benefits can be built up. The value of Swedenborg lies largely in what +you can read into him.</p> + +<p>The Swedish Protestant Church in London chose him as their bishop +without advising with him. Gradually<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_196" id="VIII_Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> other scattering churches did the +same, and after his death a well-defined cult, calling themselves +Swedenborgians, arose and his works were ranked as holy writ and read in +the churches, side by side with the Bible.</p> + +<p>Swedenborg died in London, March Twenty-ninth, Seventeen Hundred +Seventy-two, aged eighty-four years. Up to the very day of his passing +away he enjoyed good health, and was possessed of a gentle, kind and +obliging disposition that endeared him to all he met. There is an idea +in the minds of simple people that insanity is always accompanied by +violence, ravings and uncouth and dangerous conduct. Dreams are a +temporary insanity—reason sleeps and the mind roams the universe, +uncurbed and wildly free. On awakening, for an instant we may not know +where we are, and all things are in disorder; but gradually time, +location, size and correspondences find their proper place and we are +awake.</p> + +<p>Should, however, the dreams of the night continue during the day, when +we are awake and moving about, we would say the man was insane. +Swedenborg could become oblivious to every external thing, and dream at +will. And to a degree his mind always dictated the dreams, at least the +subject was of his own volition. If it was necessary to travel or +transact business, the dreams were postponed and he lived right here on +earth, a man of good judgment, safe reason and proper<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_197" id="VIII_Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> conduct.</p> + +<p>Unsoundness of mind is not necessarily folly. Across the murky clouds of +madness shoots and gleams, at times, the deepest insight into the heart +of things. And the fact that Swedenborg was unbalanced does not warrant +us in rejecting all he said and taught as false and faulty. He was +always well able to take care of himself and to manage his affairs +successfully, even to printing the books that contain the record of his +ravings. Follow closely the lives of great inventors, discoverers, poets +and artists, and it will be found that the world is debtor to so-called +madmen for many of its richest gifts. Few, indeed, are they who can +burst the bonds of custom and condition, sail out across the unknown +seas, and bring us records of the Enchanted Isles. And who shall say +where originality ends and insanity begins? Swedenborg himself +attributed his remarkable faculties to the development of a sixth sense, +and intimates that in time all men will be so equipped. Death is as +natural as life, and possibly insanity is a plan of Nature for sending a +searchlight flash into the darkness of futurity. Insane or not, thinking +men everywhere agree that Swedenborg blessed and benefited the +race—preparing the way for the thinkers and the doers who should come +after him.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="SPINOZA" id="SPINOZA"></a>SPINOZA<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_198" id="VIII_Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Men are so made as to resent nothing more impatiently than to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_199" id="VIII_Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +treated as criminal on account of opinions which they deem true, +and charged as guilty for simply what wakes their affection to God +and men. Hence, laws about opinions are aimed not at the base but +at the noble, and tend not to restrain the evil-minded but rather +to irritate the good, and can not be enforced without great peril +to the Government.... What evil can be imagined greater for a +State, than that honorable men, because they have thoughts of their +own and can not act a lie, are sent as culprits into exile! What +more baneful than that men, for no guilt or wrongdoing, but for the +generous largeness of their mind, should be taken for enemies and +led off to death, and that the torture-bed, the terror of the bad, +should become, to the signal shame of authority, the finest stage +for the public spectacle of endurance and virtue!</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 25em;">—<i>Benedict Spinoza</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_200" id="VIII_Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> + + +<div class="center"> + <a id="image0459-1"></a> + <img src="images/0459-1.jpg" width="280" height="400" + alt="" + title="" /> + + <p class="center">SPINOZA</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_201" id="VIII_Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + + +<p>The word philosophy means the love of truth: "philo," love; "soph," +truth; or, if you prefer, the love of that which is reasonable and +right. Philosophy refers directly to the life of man—how shall we live +so as to get the most out of this little Earth-Journey!</p> + +<p>Life is our heritage—we all have so much vitality at our disposal—what +shall we do with it?</p> + +<p>Truth can be proved in just one way, and no other—that is, by living +it. You know what is good, only by trying. Truth, for us, is that which +brings good results—happiness or reasonable content, health, peace and +prosperity. These things are all relative—none are final, and they are +good only as they are mixed in right proportion with other things. +Oxygen, we say, is life, but it is also death, for it attacks every +living thing with pitiless persistency. Hydrogen is good, but it makes +the very hottest fire known, and may explode if you try to confine it.</p> + +<p>Prosperity is excellent, but too much is very dangerous to most folks; +and to seek happiness as a final aim is like loving love as a +business—the end is desolation, death. Good health is best secured and +retained by those who are not anxious about health. Absolute good can +never be known, for always and forever creeps in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_202" id="VIII_Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> suspicion that if +we had acted differently a better result might have followed.</p> + +<p>And that which is good for one is not necessarily good for another.</p> + +<p>But there are certain general rules of conduct which apply to all men, +and to sum these up and express them in words is the business of the +philosopher. As all men live truth, in degree, and all men express some +truth in language, so to that extent all men are philosophers; but by +common assent, we give the title only to the men who make other men +think for themselves.</p> + +<p>Whistler refers to Velasquez as "a painter's painter." John Wesley said, +"No man is worthy to be called a teacher, unless he be a teacher of +teachers." The great writer is the one who inspires writers. And in this +book I will not refer to a man as a philosopher unless he has inspired +philosophers.</p> + +<p>Preachers and priests in the employ of a denomination are attorneys for +the defense. God is not found in a theological seminary, for very seldom +is the seminary seminal—it galvanizes the dead rather than vitalizes +the germs of thought in the living. No man understands theology—it is +not intended to be understood; it is merely believed. Most colleges are +places where is taught the gentle art of sophistication; and memorizing +the theories of great men gone passes for knowledge.</p> + +<p>Words are fluid and change their meaning with the years and according to +the mind and mood of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_203" id="VIII_Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> hearer. A word means all you read into it, and +nothing more. The word "soph" once had a high and honorable distinction, +but now it is used to point a moral, and the synonym of sophomore is +soft.</p> + +<p>Originally the sophist was a lover of truth; then he became a lover of +words that concealed truth, and the chief end of his existence was to +balance a feather on his nose and keep three balls in the air for the +astonishment and admiration of the bystanders.</p> + +<p>Education is something else.</p> + +<p>Education is growth, development, life in abundance, creation.</p> + +<p>We grow only through exercise. The faculties we use become strong, and +those we fail to use are taken away from us.</p> + +<p>This exercise of our powers through which growth is attained affords the +finest gratification that mortals know. To think, reason, weigh, sift, +decide and act—this is life. It means health, sanity and length of +days. Those live longest who live most.</p> + +<p>The end of college education to the majority of students and parents is +to secure a degree, and a degree is valuable only to the man who needs +it. Visiting the office of the "Outlook," a weekly, religious newspaper, +I noticed that the titles, Rev., Prof, and Dr., and the degrees, M. D., +D. D., LL. D., Ph. D., were carefully used by the clerks in addressing +envelopes and wrappers. And I said to the manager, "Why this misuse of +time<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_204" id="VIII_Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> and effort? The ink thus wasted should be sold and the proceeds +given to the poor!" And the man replied, "To omit these titles and +degrees would cost us half our subscription-list." And so I assume that +man is a calculating animal, not a thinking one.</p> + +<p>And the point of this sermonette is that truth is not monopolized by +universities and colleges; nor must we expect much from those who parade +degrees and make professions. It is one thing to love truth and it is +another thing to lust after honors.</p> + +<p>The larger life—the life of love, health, self-sufficiency, usefulness +and expanding power—this life in abundance is often taught best out of +the mouths of babes and sucklings. It is not esoteric, nor hidden in +secret formulas, nor locked in languages old and strange.</p> + +<p>No one can compute how much the bulwarked learned ones have blocked the +path of wisdom. Socrates, the barefoot philosopher, did more good than +all the Sophists with their schools. Diogenes, who lived in a tub, +searched in vain for an honest man, owned nothing but a blanket and a +bowl, and threw the bowl away when he saw a boy drinking out of his +hand, even yet makes men think, and so blesses and benefits the race. +Jesus of Nazareth, with no place to lay his tired head, associating with +publicans and sinners, and choosing his closest companions from among +ignorant fishermen, still lives in the affections of millions of people, +a molding force for good untold. Friedrich Froebel, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_205" id="VIII_Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> first preached +the propensity to play as a pedagogic dynamo, as the tides of the sea +could be used to turn the countless wheels of trade, is yet only +partially accepted, but has influenced every teacher in Christendom and +stamped his personality upon the walls of schoolrooms unnumbered. Then +comes Richard Wagner, the political outcast, writing from exile the +music that serves as a mine for much of our modern composing, marching +down the centuries to the solemn chant of his "Pilgrims' Chorus"; +William Morris, Oxford graduate and uncouth workingman in blouse and +overalls, arrested in the streets of London for haranguing crowds on +Socialism, let go with a warning, on suspended sentence—canceled only +by death—making his mark upon the walls of every well-furnished house +in England or America; Jean Francois Millet, starved out in art-loving +Paris, his pictures refused at the Salon, living next door to abject +want in Barbizon, dubbed the "wild man of the woods," dead and turned to +dust, his pictures commanding such sums as Paris never before paid; Walt +Whitman, issuing his book at his own expense, publishers having refused +it, this book excluded from the mails, as Wanamaker immortalized himself +by serving a like sentence on Tolstoy; Walt Whitman, riding on top of a +Broadway 'bus all day, happy in the great solitude of bustling city +streets, sending his barbaric yawp down the ages, singing pæans to those +who fail, chants to Death—strong deliverer—and giving<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_206" id="VIII_Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> courage to a +fear-stricken world; Thoreau, declining to pay the fee of five dollars +for his Harvard diploma "because it wasn't worth the price," later +refusing to pay poll-tax and sent to jail, thus missing, possibly, the +chance of finding that specimen of Victoria regia on Concord +River—Thoreau, most virile of all the thinkers of his day, inspiring +Emerson, the one man America could illest spare; Spinoza, the +intellectual hermit, asking nothing, and giving everything—all these +worked their philosophy up into life and are the type of men who jostle +the world out of its ruts—creators all, one with Deity, sons of God, +saviors of the race.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_207" id="VIII_Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Washington Irving once spoke of Spain as the Paradise of Jews. But it +must be borne in mind that he wrote the words in Granada, which was +essentially a Moorish province. The Moors and the Jews are both Semitic +in origin—they trace back to a common ancestry. It was the Moslem Moors +that welcomed the Jews in both Venetia and Spain, not the Christians. +The wealth, energy and practical business sense of the Jews recommended +them to the grandees of Leon, Aragon and Castile. To the Jews they +committed their exchequer, the care of their health, the setting of +their jewels, and the fashioning of their finery. In this genial +atmosphere many of the Jews grew great in the study of science, +literature, history, philosophy and all that makes for mental +betterment. They increased in numbers, in opulence and in culture. Their +thrift and success set them apart as a mark for hate and envy.</p> + +<p>It was a period of ominous peace, of treacherous repose.</p> + +<p>A senseless and fanatical cry went up, that the Moors—the +infidels—must be driven from Spain. The iniquities and inhuman +barbarities visited upon the Mohammedan Moors would make a book in +itself, but let it go at this: Ferdinand and Isabella drove the +Mohammedans from Spain. In the struggle, the Jews were overlooked—and +anyway, Christians do not repudiate the Old Testament, and if the Jews +would accept Christ, why, they could remain!<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_208" id="VIII_Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + +<p>It looked easy to the gracious King and Queen of Spain—it was really +generous: two religions were unnecessary, and Christianity was beautiful +and right. If the Jews would become Catholics, all barriers would be +removed—the Jews would be recognized as citizens and every walk of life +would be open to them.</p> + +<p>This manifesto to the Jews is still quoted by Churchmen to show the +excellence, tolerance, patience and love of the Spanish rulers. Turn +your synagogues over to the Catholics—come and be one with us—we will +all worship the one God together—come, these open arms invite—no +distinctions—no badges—no preferences—no prejudices—come!</p> + +<p>In quoting the edict it is not generally stated that the Jews were given +thirty days to make the change.</p> + +<p>The Jews who loved their faith fled; the weak succumbed, or pretended +to. If a Jew wished to flee the country he could, but he must leave all +his property behind. This caused many to remain and profess +Christianity, only awaiting a time when their property could be turned +into gold or jewels and be borne upon the person. This fondness for +concrete wealth is a race instinct implanted in the Jewish mind by the +inbred thought that possibly tomorrow he must fly.</p> + +<p>After attending service at a Catholic Church, Jews would go home and in +secret read the Talmud and in whispers chant the Psalms of David.</p> + +<p>Laws were passed making such action a penal offense—spies<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_209" id="VIII_Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> were +everywhere. No secret can be kept long, and in the Province of Seville +over two thousand Jews were hanged or burned in a single year. When +Ferdinand and Isabella gave Torquemada, Deza and Lucio orders to make +good Catholics of all Jews, they had not the faintest idea what would be +the result. Every Jew that was hurried to the stake was first stripped +of his property.</p> + +<p>No Jew was safe, especially if he was rich—his sincerity or insincerity +had really little to do in the matter. The prisons were full, the fagots +crackled, the streets ran blood, and all in the name of the gentle +Christ.</p> + +<p>Then for a time the severity relaxed, for the horror had spent itself. +But early in the Seventeenth Century the same edicts were again put +forth.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, priesthood had tried its mailed hand on the slow and +sluggish Dutch, with the result that the Spaniards were driven from the +Netherlands. Holland was the home of freedom. Amsterdam became a Mecca +for the oppressed. The Jews flocked thither, and among others who, in +Sixteen Hundred Thirty-one, landed on the quay was a young Jew by the +name of Michael d'Espinoza. With him was a Moorish girl that he had +rescued from the clutch of a Spanish grandee, in whose house she had +been kept a prisoner.</p> + +<p>By a happy accident, this beautiful girl of seventeen had escaped from +her tormentors and was huddling, sobbing, in an alley as the young Jew +came hurrying by<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_210" id="VIII_Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> on his way to the ship that was to bear him to +freedom. It was near day-dawn—there was no time to lose—the young man +only knew that the girl, like himself, was in imminent peril. A small +boat waited near—soon they were safely secreted in the hold of the +ship. Before sundown the tide had carried the ship to sea, and Portugal +was but a dark line on the horizon.</p> + +<p>Other refugees were on board the boat; they came from their +hiding-places—and the second day out a refugee rabbi called a meeting +on deck. It was a solemn service of thanksgiving and the songs of Zion +were sung, the first time for some in many months, and only friends and +the great, sobbing, salt sea listened.</p> + +<p>The tears of the Moorish girl were now dried—the horror of the future +had gone with the black memories of the past. Other women, not quite so +poor, contributed to her wardrobe, and there and then, after she had +been accepted into the Jewish faith, she and Michael d'Espinoza, aged +twenty-two, were married.</p> + +<p>The ship arrived at Amsterdam in safety. In a year, on November +Twenty-fourth, Sixteen Hundred Thirty-two, in a little stone house that +still stands on the canal bank, was born Benedict Spinoza.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_211" id="VIII_Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Benedict Spinoza was brought up in the faith and culture of his people. +Beyond his religious training at the synagogue, there was a Jewish High +School at Amsterdam which he attended. This school might compare very +favorably with our modern schools, in that it included a certain degree +of manual training. Besides this he had received special instruction +from several learned rabbis. In matters of true education, the Jews have +ever been in advance of the Gentile world—they bring their children up +to be useful. The father of Benedict was a maker of lenses for +spectacles, and at this trade the boy was very early set to work. Again +and again in the writings of Spinoza, we find the argument that every +man should have a trade and earn his living with his hands, not by +writing, speaking or philosophizing. If you can earn a living at your +trade, you thus make your mind free.</p> + +<p>This early idea of usefulness led to a sympathy with another religious +body, of which there were quite a number of members in Holland: the +Mennonites. This sect was founded by Menno Simons, a Frieslander, +contemporary of Luther; only this man swung on further from Catholicism +than Luther and declared that a paid priesthood was what made all the +trouble. Religion to him was a matter of individual inspiration. When an +institution was formed, built on man's sense of relation with his Maker, +property purchased, and paid priests employed, instantly there was a +pollution of the well<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_212" id="VIII_Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> of life. It became a money-making scheme, and a +grand clutch for place and power followed: it really ceased to be +religion at all, so long as we define religion in its spiritual sense. +"A priest," said Menno, "is a man who thrives on the sacred relations +that exist between man and God, and is little better than a person who +would live on the love-emotions of men and women."</p> + +<p>This certainly was bold language, but to be exact, it was persecution +that forced the expression. The Catholics had placed an interdict on all +services held by Protestant pastors, and the deprivation proved to Menno +that paid preaching and costly churches and trappings were really not +necessary at all. Man could go to God without them, and pray in secret. +Spirituality is not dependent on either church or priest.</p> + +<p>The Mennonites in Holland escaped theological criticism by disclaiming +to be a church, and calling their institution a college, and themselves +"Collegiants."</p> + +<p>All the Mennonites asked was to be let alone. They were plain, +unpretentious people, who worked hard, lived frugally, refused to make +oaths, to accept civil office, or to go to war. They are a variant of +the impulse that makes Quakers and all those peculiar people known as +Primitive Christians, who mark the swinging of the pendulum from pride +and pretense to simplicity and a life of modest usefulness.</p> + +<p>The sincerity, truthfulness and virtue of the Mennonites so impressed +itself upon even the ruthless Corsican,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_213" id="VIII_Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> that he made them exempt from +conscription.</p> + +<p>Before Spinoza was twenty, he had come into acquaintanceship with these +plain people. His relationship with the rabbis and learned men of Israel +had given him a culture that the Mennonites did not possess; but these +plain people, by the earnestness of their lives, showed him that the +science of theology was not a science at all. Nobody understands +theology: it is not meant to be understood—it is for belief. Spinoza +compared the Mennonites, who confessed they knew nothing, but hoped +much, to the rabbis, who pretended they knew all. His praise of the +Mennonites, and his criticisms of the growing love for power in Judaism, +were carried to the Jewish authorities by some young men who had come to +him in the guise of learners. Moreover, the report was abroad that he +was to marry a Gentile—the daughter of Van den Ende, the infidel.</p> + +<p>On order, he appeared at the synagogue, and defended his position. His +ability in argument, his knowledge of Jewish law, his insight into the +lessons of history, were alarming to the assembled rabbis. The young man +was quiet, gentle, but firm. He expressed the belief that God might +possibly have revealed Himself to other peoples beside the Jews.</p> + +<p>"Then you are not a Jew!" was the answer.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am a Jew, and I love my faith."</p> + +<p>"But it is not all to you?"</p> + +<p>"I confess that occasionally I have found what seems<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_214" id="VIII_Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> to be truth +outside of the Law."</p> + +<p>The rabbis tore their raiment in mingled rage and surprise at the young +man's temerity.</p> + +<p>Spinoza did not withdraw from the Jewish Congregation—he was thrust +out. Moreover, a fanatical Jew, in the warmth of his religious zeal, +attempted to kill him. Spinoza escaped, his clothing cut through by a +dagger-thrust, close to the heart.</p> + +<p>The curse of Israel was upon him—his own brothers and sisters refused +him shelter, his father turned against him, and again was the icy +unkindness of kinsmen made manifest. The tribe of Spinoza lives in +history, saved from the fell clutch of oblivion by the man it denied +with an oath and pushed in bitterness from its heart. Spinoza fled to +his friends, the Mennonites, plain market-gardeners who lived a few +miles out of the city.</p> + +<p>Spinoza had not meant to leave the Jews—the racial instinct was strong +in him, and the pride of his people colored his character to the last. +But the attempts to bribe him and coerce him into a following of +fanatical law, when this law did not appeal to his commonsense, forced +him into a position that his enemies took for innate perversity. When an +eagle is hatched in a barnyard brood and mounts on soaring pinions +toward the sun, it is always cursed and vilified because it does not +remain at home and scratch in the compost. Its flight skyward is +construed as proof of its vile nature.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_215" id="VIII_Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + +<p>How can people who do not think, and can not think, and therefore have +no thoughts to express, sympathize with one whose highest joy comes from +the expression of his thought?</p> + +<p>Deprive a thinker of the privilege to think and you take from him his +life. The joy of existence lies in self-expression. What if we should +order the painter to quit his canvas, the sculptor to lay aside his +tools, the farmer to leave the soil? Do these things, and you do no more +than you do when you force a thinker to follow in the groove that dead +men have furrowed. The thirst for knowledge must be slaked or the soul +sickens and slow death follows.</p> + +<p>In Spinoza's time the literature of Greece and Rome was locked in the +Latin language, which the Jews were forbidden to acquire. Young Spinoza +longed to know what Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca and Vergil had +taught, but these authors were considered anathema by the rabbinical +councils. Spinoza desired to be honest, and so asked for a special +dispensation in his favor, as he was to be a teacher—could he study the +Latin language?</p> + +<p>And the answer was, "Read your Joshua, first chapter and eighth verse, +'This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt +meditate therein day and night.'"</p> + +<p>From this time on Spinoza was more or less under the ban, and rumors of +his heresy were rife. It is possible,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_216" id="VIII_Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> if it had not been for one +person, that the growing desire for knowledge, the reaching out for +better things, the dissatisfaction with his environment, might have +passed in safety and the restless young rabbi slipped back into the +conventional Jew. Youth always has its periods of unrest—sometimes +more, sometimes less.</p> + +<p>Spinoza had made the acquaintance of Van den Ende, a teacher of Greek +and Latin, an erratic, argumentative rationalist, who had his say on all +topics of the time, and fixed his place in history by being shot as a +revolutionary, just outside the walls of the Bastile.</p> + +<p>But at this time Van den Ende was fairly prosperous and Amsterdam was +the freest city in Christendom.</p> + +<p>Van den Ende had a daughter, Clara Maria, a little younger than Spinoza, +who surely was a most superior woman. She was the companion of her +father in his studies. It speaks well for the father and it speaks well +for the daughter that they were comrades and that his highest thought +was expressed to her. I can conceive of no finer joy coming to a man +than, as his hair whitens, to have a daughter who understands him at his +best, who enters into his life, sympathizes with his ideals, ministers +to his mental needs, who is his companion and friend. Only a great man +ever has such a daughter. Madame De Stael, who delighted in being called +"the daughter of Necker," was such a woman, and the splendor of her mind +was no less her father's glory than was the fact that he was the +greatest financier<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_217" id="VIII_Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> of his time.</p> + +<p>Clara Van den Ende was her father's helper and companion, and when he +was busied in other tasks she took charge of his classes.</p> + +<p>Auerbach has written a charming story with Clara Van den Ende and +Spinoza as a central theme. In the tale is pictured with skilful +psychology the awakening of the sleeping soul of Spinoza as he was +introduced from a cheerless home, devoid of art and freedom, into the +beauties of undraped Greece and the fine atmosphere of a forum where +nothing human was considered alien.</p> + +<p>From a love for Vergil, Cicero and Horace, to a love for each other, was +a very natural sequence. A growing indifference for the censure of +Judaism was quite a natural result. Auerbach would have us believe that +no man alone ever stood out against the revilings of kinsmen and the +stupidity of sectarians: we move in the line of least resistance and +only a very great passion makes it possible for a man calmly to face the +contumely of an angry world.</p> + +<p>Zangwill, in his vivid sketch, "The Maker of Lenses," makes this single +love-episode in the life of Spinoza the controlling impulse of his life, +probably reasoning on the premise that men who mark epochs are ever and +always, without exception, those with the love nature strongly implanted +in their hearts. So thoroughly does Zangwill believe in the one passion +of Spinoza's life, that a score of years after the chief incident of it +had transpired, he pictures the philosopher trembling<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_218" id="VIII_Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> at mention of the +woman's name, coughing to conceal his agitation and clutching the +doorpost for support. And this a man who smilingly faced a mob that +howled for his life, and was only moved to philosophize on the nature of +human intellect when a flying stone grazed his cheek!</p> + +<p>But the lady had ambitions—the lens-maker was penniless, and probably +always would be—his passion was passive—he lacked the show and dash +that made other women jealous. And so Oldenburg, a rival with love and +jewels, won the heart that could not be won by love alone. That the lady +soon knew she had erred did not help her case—Spinoza loved his ideal, +and he had thought it was the woman.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_219" id="VIII_Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Follow Zangwill's stories of the Ghetto and your heart is wrung by the +injustice, cruelty and inhumanity visited upon the Jews by the people +who worship a Jew as God and make daily supplications to a Jewess.</p> + +<p>But read between the lines and you will see that Israel Zangwill, child +of the Ghetto, knows that the Peculiar People are peculiar through +persecution, and not necessarily so through innate nature. Zangwill +knows that no religion is pure except in its stage of persecution, and +that Judaism, grown rich and powerful, would oppress and has oppressed. +Martyr and persecutor shift places easily.</p> + +<p>The Jew arrives in a city at night, and in the morning takes down the +shutters and is doing business. The Jew winds his way into the life of +every city and becomes at once an integral part of it—a part, yet +separate and distinct, for his social and religious life is not colored +by his environment.</p> + +<p>Children imitate unconsciously. The golden rule is not natural to +children: it has to be taught them. They do unto others as others have +done unto them, and have no question as to right or wrong. We are all +children, and have to think hard before we are conscious of any feeling +of the brotherhood of man. As soon as the Jews relaxed in Amsterdam—got +their breath, and felt secure—they did unto others as they had been +done by—they persecuted.</p> + +<p>A Jew must be a Jew, and as they had been watched<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_220" id="VIII_Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> with suspicion in +Spain and Portugal by the Christians, so now they watched each other for +heresies. They compelled strictest obedience to every form and ceremony. +To the Jew the Law forms the firmament above and the earth beneath. All +is law to him, and his part and work in this life is obedience to law.</p> + +<p>The Jewish religion is a concrete, unbroken mass of laws. The Jew is +bounded on the east by law; on the north by law; on the west by law; on +the south by law. There are set rules and laws that govern his getting +up, his going to bed, his eating, drinking, sleeping, and praying. There +is no phase of human relationship that is not covered by the Mishna and +Gemara. Being learned in the Law means being learned in the proper way +to kill chickens, to dress ducks, wear your vestments, go to prayers, +and what to say when you meet two Christians in an alley. If a Jew +quarrels with a neighbor and goes to his Rabbi for advice, the learned +man gets down his Talmud and finds the page. The relation of wife and +husband, child and parent, brother and sister, lover and sweetheart, are +covered by law, fixed, immovable. The learned men of Judah are men +learned in the Law, not learned in the science of life, and commonsense. +When these learned men meet they argue for six days and nights together +as to interpretations of the Law concerning whether it is right to make +a fire in your cook-stove on the Sabbath if a Christian is starving for +food on your doorstep, or what<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_221" id="VIII_Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> will become of you if you eat pork to +save your life.</p> + +<p>Rational Jews are those who do what they think is right, but Orthodox +Jews are those who do what the Law prescribes. When Jesus plucked the +ears of corn on the Sabbath day, he proved himself a Rational Jew—he +set his own opinion higher than Law and thereby made himself an outcast. +Jewish Law provides curdling curses for just such offenses.</p> + +<p>Plato's Republic was a scheme of life regulated absolutely by law; every +contingency was provided for. And Plato's plan was founded on the +hypothesis that it is the duty of wise men to do the thinking and +regulate the conduct of those who are supposed not to be wise enough to +think and to act for themselves. But Plato's idea lacked the "Thus saith +the Lord," with which Moses and Aaron enforced their edicts. So Plato's +Republic is still on paper, for no set of rules minutely regulating +conduct has ever been enforced except as the ruler made his subjects +believe he received his instructions direct from God.</p> + +<p>Yet all the Jewish Laws are founded with an eye to a sanitary and +hygienic good—they are built on the basis of expediency. And that rule +of the Gemara which provides that if you have gravy on the table, you +can not also have butter, without sin, seems more of a move in the +direction of economics than a matter of ethics. Laws are good for the +people who believe that a blind obedience to a good thing is better than +to work your way<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_222" id="VIII_Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> alone and find out for yourself what is best and +right. The Jewish Law is based, like all religious codes, on the +assumption that man by nature is vile, and really prefers wrong to +right.</p> + +<p>The thought that all men prefer the good, and think at the moment they +are doing what is best, no matter what they do, was first sharply and +clearly expressed by Spinoza. Truth, he said, could only be reached +through freedom—a man must even have the privilege of thinking wrong so +long as his actions do not jeopardize the life and immediate safety of +others.</p> + +<p>For a people whose every act is governed by fixed laws there can be no +progression. Mistakes are the rungs of the ladder by which we reach the +skies. The man who allows the dead to regulate his life, and accepts +their thinking as final, satisfied to repeat what he is taught, remains +forever in the lowlands. His wings are leaden.</p> + +<p>The Jews—most law-bound and priest-ridden of all peoples—are at home +everywhere because they have no home. They mix in the life of every +nation and remain forever separate and apart. They will run with you, +ride with you, trade with you, but they will not eat with you nor pray +with you. They build no Altars to the Unknown God, out of courtesy to +visitors and guests from distant climes. Mohammedans recognize the +divinity of Jesus, the Buddhists look upon him as one of many Christs, +the Universalist sees good in every faith, but the Jew regards all other +religions than<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_223" id="VIII_Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> his own as pestilence. If by chance, or in the line of +business, he finds himself in a heathen temple or Christian Church, his +Gemara orders that he shall present himself at his own temple for +purification.</p> + +<p>Read Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, and you behold on every page +curses, revilings, threats and bitter scorn for all outside the pale. +Orders by Jehovah to burn, kill and utterly destroy are frequent. And we +must remember that every people make their god in their own image. A +man's God is himself at his best; his devil is himself at his worst.</p> + +<p>The very expression, "The Chosen People," would be an insult to every +man outside the pale, were it not such a petulant and childish boast +that its serious assumption makes us smile.</p> + +<p>Well does Moses Mendelssohn, the Jew, say: "The Ghetto is an arrangement +first contrived by Jews for keeping infidels out of a sacred precinct. +When the infidels were strong enough they turned the tables and forbade +the Jews to leave their Ghetto except at certain hours. For the misery, +poverty and squalor of the Ghetto the Jew is not to blame—if he could, +he would have the Ghetto a place of opulence, beauty and all that makes +for the good. Every undesirable thing he would bestow on the outsider. +In the twilight days of Jewish power, the Jew, with bigotry, arrogance +and intolerance unsurpassed, regulated the infidels and fixed their +goings and comings as they now do his, and he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_224" id="VIII_Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> do it again if he +had the power. The Jew never changes—once a Jew always a Jew."</p> + +<p>This was written by a man who was not only a Jew, but a man. He was a +Jew in pride of race—in racial instinct, but he was great enough to +know that all men are God's children, and that to set up a fixed, +dogmatic standard regulating every act of life has its serious +penalties. He was a Jew so big that he knew that the cruelty and +inhumanity visited upon the Jews by Christians was first taught to these +Christians by Jews—it is all in the Old Testament. The villainy you +have taught me I will execute. It shall go hard, but I will better the +instruction.</p> + +<p>The Christians who had persecuted Jews were really orthodox Jews in +disguise, and were actuated more by the Jewish Law expressed in the Old +Testament, than by the life of Jesus, who placed man above the Sabbath +and taught that the good is that which serves.</p> + +<p>And so Benedict Spinoza, the Rabbi, gentle, spiritual, kind, heir to the +Jewish faith, learned in all the refinements of Jewish Law, knowing +minutely the history of the race, knowing that for which the curses of +Judaism were reserved, perceiving with unblinking eyes the absurdity and +folly of all dogmatic belief, gradually withdrew from practising and +following "Law," preferring his own commonsense. There were threats, +then attempts to bribe, and again threats and finally excommunication +and curses so terrible that if they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_225" id="VIII_Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> carried out, a man would walk +the earth an exile—unknown by brothers and sisters, shunned by the +mother that gave him birth, a moral leper to his father, despised, +rejected, turned away, spit upon by every being of his kind.</p> + +<p>And here is the document:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>By the sentence of the angels, by the decree of the saints, we +anathematize, cut off, curse, and execrate Baruch Spinoza, in the +presence of these sacred books with the six hundred and thirteen +precepts which are written therein, with the anathema wherewith +Joshua anathematized Jericho; with the cursing wherewith Elisha +cursed the children; and with all the cursings which are written in +the Book of the Law; cursed be he by day, and cursed by night; +cursed when he lieth down, and cursed when he riseth up; cursed +when he goeth out, and cursed when he cometh in; the Lord pardon +him never; the wrath and fury of the Lord burn upon this man, and +bring upon him all the curses which are written in the Book of the +Law. The Lord blot out his name under heaven. The Lord set him +apart for destruction from all the tribes of Israel, with all the +curses of the firmament which are written in the Book of the Law. +There shall no one speak to him, no man write to him, no man show +him any kindness, no man stay under the same roof with him, no man +come nigh him.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_226" id="VIII_Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When the Jewish congregation had placed its ban upon Spinoza, he dropped +the Jewish name Baruch, for the Latin Benedictus. In this action he +tokened his frame of mind: he was going to persist in his study of the +Latin language, and his new name stood for peace or blessing, just as +the other had, being essentially the same as our word benediction. The +man's purpose was firm. To perfect himself in Latin, he began a study of +Descartes' "Meditations," and this led to proving the Cartesian +philosophy by a geometrical formula. In his quiet home among the simple +Mennonites, five miles from Amsterdam, there gradually grew up around +him a body of students to whom he read his writings. The Cartesian +philosophy swings around the proposition that only through universal +doubt can we at last reach truth. Spinoza soon went beyond this and made +his plea for faith in a universal Good.</p> + +<p>Five years went by—years of work at his lenses, helping his friends in +their farm work, and several hours daily devoted to study and writing. +Spinoza's manuscripts were handed around by his pupils. He wrote for +them, and in making truth plain to them he made it clear to himself. The +Jews at Amsterdam kept track of his doings and made charges to the +Protestant authorities to the effect that Spinoza was guilty of treason, +and his presence a danger to the State. Spies were about, and their +presence becoming known to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_227" id="VIII_Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> Mennonites, caused uneasiness. To +relieve his friends of a possible unpleasant situation, the gentle +philosopher packed up his scanty effects and moved away. He went to the +village of Voorburg, two miles from The Hague.</p> + +<p>Here he lived for seven years, often for six months not going farther +than three miles from home. He studied, worked and wrote, and his +writings were sent out to his few friends who circulated them among +friends of theirs, and in time the manuscripts came back soiled and +dog-eared, proof that some one had read them. Persecution binds human +hearts, and at this time there was a brotherhood of thinkers throughout +the capitals and University towns of Europe. Spinoza's name became known +gradually to these—they grew to look for his monthly contribution, and +in many places when his manuscript arrived little bands of earnest +students would meet, and the manuscript would be read and discussed. The +interdict placed on free thought made it attractive. Spinoza became +recognized by the esoteric few as one of the world's great thinkers, +although the good people with whom he lived knew him only as a model +lodger, who kept regular hours and made little trouble. Occasionally +visitors would come from a distance and remain for hours discussing such +abstract themes as the freedom of the will or the nature of the +over-soul. And these visitors caused the rustic neighbors to grow +curious, and we find Spinoza moving into the city and renting a modest +back room. By a<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_228" id="VIII_Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> curious chance, his landlady, fifty years before, had +been a servant in the household of Grotius, and once had locked that +great man in a trunk and escorted him, right side up, across the border +into Switzerland to escape the heresy-hunters who were looking for human +kindling. This kind landlady, now grown old, and living largely in the +past, saw points of resemblance between her philosophic boarder and the +great Grotius, and soon waxed boastful to the neighbors. Spinoza noticed +that he was being pointed out on the streets. His record had followed +him. The Jews hated him because he was a renegade; the Christians hated +him because he was a Jew, and both Catholics and Protestants shunned him +when they ought not, and greeted him with howls when they should have +let him alone.</p> + +<p>He again moved his lodgings to the suburbs of the city, where he lived +with the family of Van der Spijck, a worthy Dutch painter who smoked his +pipe in calm indifference to the Higher Criticism. For their quiet and +studious lodger Van der Spijck and his wife had a profound regard. They +did not understand him, but they believed in him. Often he would go to +church with them and coming home would discuss the sermon with them at +length. The Lutheran pastor who came to call on the family invited +Spinoza to join his flock, and they calmly discussed the questions of +baptism and regeneration by faith together; but genius only expresses +itself to genius, and the pastor went away mystified. Van<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_229" id="VIII_Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> der Spijck +did not produce great art, yet his pictures are now in demand because he +was the kind and loyal friend of Spinoza, and his heart, not his art, +fixes his place in history.</p> + +<p>In his sketch, Zangwill has certain of his old friends, members of the +Van den Ende family, hunt out the philosopher in his obscure lodgings +and pay him a social visit. Then it was that he turned pale, and +stammeringly tried to conceal his agitation at mention of the name of +the only woman he had ever loved.</p> + +<p>The image of that one fine flaming up of divine passion followed him to +the day of his death. It was too sacred for him to discuss—he avoided +women, kept out of society, and forever in his sad heart there burned a +shrine to the ideal. And so he lived, separate and apart. A single +little room sufficed—the work-bench where he made his lenses near the +window, and near at hand the table covered with manuscript where he +wrote. Renan says that when he died, aged forty-three, his passing was +like a sigh, he had lived so quietly—so few knew him—there were no +earthly ties to break.</p> + +<p>The worthy Van der Spijcks, plain, honest people, had invited him to go +to church with them. He smilingly excused himself—he had thoughts he +must write out ere they escaped. When the good man and his wife returned +in an hour, their lodger was dead.</p> + +<p>A tablet on the house marks the spot, and but a short distance away in +the open square sits his form in<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_230" id="VIII_Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> deathless bronze, pensively writing +out an idea which we can only guess—or is it a last love-letter to the +woman to whom he gave his heart and who pushed from her the gift?<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_231" id="VIII_Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Spinoza had courage, yet great gentleness of disposition. His habit of +mind was conciliatory: if strong opinions were expressed in his presence +concerning some person or thing, he usually found some good to say of +the person or an excuse for the thing. He was one of the most unselfish +men in history—money was nothing to him, save as it might minister to +his very few immediate wants or the needs of others.</p> + +<p>He smilingly refused a pension offered him by a French courtier if he +would but dedicate a book to the King; and a legacy left him by an +admiring student, Simon de Vries, was declined for the reason that it +was too much and he did not wish the care of it. Later, he compromised +with the heirs by accepting an income of one hundred and twenty-five +dollars a year. "How unreasonable," he exclaimed, "they want me to +accept five hundred florins a year—I told them I would take three +hundred, but I will not be burdened by a stiver more." If he was +financially free from the necessity of earning his living at his trade, +he feared the quality of his thought might be diluted. You can not +think intently and intensely all of the time. Those who try it never are +able to dive deep nor soar high.... Good digestion demands a certain +amount of coarse food—refined and condensed aliment alone kills. Man +should work and busy himself with the commonplace, rest himself for his +flight, and when the moment of transfiguration<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_232" id="VIII_Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> comes, make the best of +it.</p> + +<p>All he asked was to be given the privilege to work and to think. As for +expressing his thoughts, he made no public addresses and during his life +only one of his books was printed. This was the "Tractatus +Theologico-Politicus," which mentioned "Hamburg" on the title page, but +with the author's name wisely omitted. Trite enough now are the +propositions laid down—that God is everywhere and that man is brother +to the tree, the rock, the flower. Emerson states the case in his +"Over-Soul" and "Spiritual Laws" in the true, calm Spinozistic style—as +if the gentle Jew had come back to earth and dictated his thought, +refined, polished and smooth as one of his own little lenses, to the man +of Concord. Benedictus Concordia, blessing and peace be with thee!</p> + +<p>But the lynx-eyed censors soon discovered this single, solitary book of +Spinoza's, and although they failed to locate the author, Spinoza had +the satisfaction of seeing the work placed on the Index and a general +interdict issued against it by Christendom and Judea as well. It was +really of some importance. It was so thoroughly in demand that it still +circulated with false title pages. In the Lenox Library, New York, is a +copy of the first edition, finely bound, and lettered thus: "A Treatise +on the Sailing of Ships against the Wind," which shows the straits +booksellers were put to in evading the censors, and also reveals a touch +of wit that doubtless was appreciated by the Elect.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_233" id="VIII_Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> + +<p>His modesty, patience, kindness and freedom from all petty whim and +prejudice set Spinoza apart as a marked man. Withal he was eminently +religious, and the reference to him by Novalis as "the God-intoxicated +man" seems especially applicable to one who saw God in everything.</p> + +<p>Renan said at the dedication of The Hague monument to Spinoza, "Since +the days of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius we have not seen a life so +profoundly filled with the sentiment of the divine."</p> + +<p>When walking along the streets of The Hague and coarse voices called +after him in guttural, "Kill the renegade!" he said calmly, "We must +remember that these men are expressing the essence of their being, just +as I express the essence of mine."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_234" id="VIII_Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Spinoza taught that the love of God is the supreme good; that virtue is +its own reward, and folly its own punishment; and that every one ought +to love his neighbor and obey the civil powers.</p> + +<p>He made no enemies except by his opinions. He was infinitely patient, +sweet in temper—had respect for all religions, and never offended by +parading his heresies in the faces of others.</p> + +<p>Nothing but the kicks of scorn and the contumely that came to Spinoza +could possibly have freed him to the extent he was free from Judaistic +bonds.</p> + +<p>He had disciples who called him "Master," and who taught him nothing but +patience in answering their difficulties.</p> + +<p>One is amazed at the hunger of the mind at the time of Spinoza. Men +seemed to think, and dare to grasp for "New Thought" to a marvelous +extent.</p> + +<p>Spinoza says that "evil" and "good" have no objective reality, but are +merely relative to our feelings, and that "evil" in particular is +nothing positive, but a privation only, or non-existence.</p> + +<p>Spinoza says that love consecrates every indifferent particular +connected with the object of affection. Good is that which we certainly +know to be useful to us. Evil is that which we certainly know stands in +the way of our command of good.</p> + +<p>Good is that which helps. Bad is that which hinders<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_235" id="VIII_Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> our +self-maintenance and active powers.</p> + +<p>A passage from Spinoza which well reveals his habit of thought and which +placed the censors on his track runs as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The ultimate design of the State is not to dominate men, to +restrain them by fear, to make them subject to the will of others, +but, on the contrary, to permit every one, as far as possible, to +live in security. That is to say, to preserve intact the natural +right which is his, to live without being harmed himself or doing +harm to others. No, I say, the design of the State is not to +transform men into animals or automata from reasonable beings; its +design is to arrange matters that citizens may develop their minds +and bodies in security, and to make free use of their reason. The +true design of the State, then, is liberty. Whoever would respect +the rights of the sovereign ought never to act in opposition to his +decrees; but each has a right to think as he pleases and to say +what he thinks, provided that he limits himself to speaking and to +teaching in the name of pure reason, and that he does not attempt, +in his private capacity, to introduce innovations into the State. +For example, a citizen demonstrates that a certain law is repugnant +to sound reason, and believing this, he thinks it ought to be +abrogated. If he submits his opinion to the judgment of the +sovereign, to which alone it belongs to establish and to abolish +laws, and if, in the meantime, he does nothing contrary to law, he +certainly deserves well of the State as being a good citizen.</p> + +<p>Let us admit that it is possible to stifle liberty of men and to +impose on them a yoke, to the point that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_236" id="VIII_Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> dare not even +murmur, however feebly, without the consent of the sovereign: +never, it is certain, can any one hinder them from thinking +according to their own free will. What follows hence? It is that +men will think one way and speak another; that, consequently, good +faith, so essential a virtue to a State, becomes corrupted; that +adulation, so detestable, and perfidy, shall be held in honor, +bringing in their train a decadence of all good and sound +habitudes. What can be more fatal to a State than to exile, as +malcontents, honest citizens, simply because they do not hold the +opinion of the multitude, and because they are ignorant of the art +of dissembling! What can be more fatal to a State than to treat as +enemies and to put to death men who have committed no other crime +than that of thinking independently! Behold, then, the scaffold, +the dread of the bad man, which now becomes the glorious theater +where tolerance and virtue blaze forth in all their splendor, and +covers publicly with opprobrium the sovereign majesty! Assuredly, +there is but one thing which that spectacle can teach us, and that +is to imitate these noble martyrs, or, if we fear death, to become +the abject flatterers of the powerful. Nothing hence can be so +perilous as to relegate and submit to divine right things which are +purely speculative, and to impose laws upon opinions which are, or +at least ought to be, subject to discussion among men. If the right +of the State were limited to repressing acts, and speech were +allowed impunity, controversies would not turn so often into +seditions.</p></div> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="AUGUSTE_COMTE" id="AUGUSTE_COMTE"></a>AUGUSTE COMTE<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_237" id="VIII_Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></h2> + + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In the name of the Past and of the Future, the servants of +Humanity—both its philosophical and its practical servants—come +forward to claim as their due the general direction of the world. +Their object is to constitute at length a real Providence in all +departments—moral, intellectual and material.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 25em;">—<i>Auguste Comte</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_238" id="VIII_Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> + +<div class="center"> + <a id="image0460-1"></a> + <img src="images/0460-1.jpg" width="273" height="400" + alt="" + title="" /> + + <p class="center">AUGUSTE COMTE</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_239" id="VIII_Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> + + + +<p>A little city girl asked of her country cousin, when honey was the topic +up for discussion, "Does your papa keep a bee?"</p> + +<p>Let the statement go unchallenged, that a single bee has neither the +disposition nor the ability to make honey.</p> + +<p>Bees accomplish nothing save as they work together, and neither do men.</p> + +<p>Great men come in groups.</p> + +<p>Six men, three living at the village of Concord, Massachusetts, and +three at Cambridge, fifteen miles away, supplied America really all her +literature, until Indiana suddenly loomed large on the horizon, and +assumed the center of the stage, like the spirit of the Brocken.</p> + +<p>Five men made up the Barbizon school of painting, which has influenced +the entire art education of the world. And that those who have been +influenced and helped most, deny their redeemer with an oath, is a +natural phenomenon psychologists look for and fully understand.</p> + +<p>Greece had a group of seven thinkers, in the time of Pericles, who made +the name and fame of the city deathless.</p> + +<p>Rome had a similar group in the time of Augustus; then<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_240" id="VIII_Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> the world went +to sleep, and although there were individuals, now and then, of great +talent, their lights went out in darkness, for it takes bulk to make a +conflagration.</p> + +<p>Florence had her group of thinkers and doers when Michelangelo and +Leonardo lived only a few miles apart, but never met. Yet each man +spurred the other on to do and dare, until an impetus was reached that +sent the names of both down the centuries.</p> + +<p>Boswell gives us a group of a dozen men who made each other +possible—often helped by hate and strengthened by scorn.</p> + +<p>The Mutual Admiration Society does not live in piping times of peace, +where glowing good-will strews violets; often the sessions of this +interesting aggregation are stormy and acrimonious, but one thing +holds—the man who arises at this board must have something to say. +Strong men, matched by destiny, set each other a pace. Criticism is full +and free. The most interesting and the most successful social experiment +in America owed its lease of life largely to its scheme of Public +Criticism, a plan society at large will adopt when it puts off +swaddling-clothes. Public Criticism is a diversion of gossip into a +scientific channel. It is a plan of healthful, hygienic, social +plumbing.</p> + +<p>England produced one group of thinkers that changed the complexion of +the theological belief of Christendom—Darwin, Spencer, Wallace, Huxley +and Mill. But this group built on the French philosophers, who were<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_241" id="VIII_Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> +taught antithetically by the decaying and crumbling aristocracy of +France. Rousseau and Voltaire loved each other and helped each other, as +the proud Leonardo helped the humble and no less proud peasant, +Michelangelo—by absent treatment.</p> + +<p>Victor Hugo says that when the skulls of Voltaire and Rousseau were +taken in a sack from the Pantheon and tumbled into a common grave, a +spark of recognition was emitted that the gravedigger did not see.</p> + +<p>Voltaire was patronized by Frederick the Great, who, though a married +man, lived a bachelor life and forbade women his court, and protected +Kant with the bulging forehead and independent ways. Kant lived among a +group of thinkers he never saw, but reached out and touched finger-tips +with them over the miles that his feet never traversed.</p> + +<p>To Kant are we indebted for Turgot, that practical and farseeing man of +affairs told of in matchless phrase in Thomas Watson's "Story of +France," the best book ever written in America, with possibly a few +exceptions. Condorcet kept step with him, and Auguste Comte calls +Condorcet his spiritual stepfather, and a wit of the time here said, +"Then Turgot is your uncle"; and Comte replied, "I am proud of the +honor, for if Turgot is my uncle, then indeed am I of royal blood."</p> + +<p>Auguste Comte is the one bright particular star amid that milky way of +riotous thinkers which followed close upon the destruction of the French +Monarchy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_242" id="VIII_Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<p>When Napoleon visited the grave of Rousseau, he mused in silence and +then said, "Perhaps it might have been as well if this man had never +lived."</p> + +<p>And Marshal Ney, standing near, said, "It reveals small gratitude for +Napoleon Bonaparte to say so." Napoleon smiled and answered, "Possibly +the world would be as well off if neither of us had ever lived."</p> + +<p>Auguste Comte thought that Napoleon was just as necessary in the social +evolution as Rousseau, and that both were needed—and he himself was +needed to make the matter plain in print.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_243" id="VIII_Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Auguste Comte was born at Montpelier, France, in Seventeen Hundred +Ninety-eight. His father was receiver of taxes, an office that carried +with it much leisure and a fair income. Men of leisure seldom have time +to think—if you want a thing done it is safest and best not to pick a +publican. Only busy men have time to do things. The men who have good +incomes and work little are envied only by those with a mental +impediment.</p> + +<p>The boy Auguste owed little to his parents for his peculiar evolution, +save as his father taught him by antithesis: the children of drunkards +make temperance fanatics, and shiftless fathers sometimes have sons who +are great financiers.</p> + +<p>When nine years of age, the passion to know and to become was upon +Auguste Comte. He was small in stature, insignificant in appearance, and +had a great appetite for facts. Comte is a fine refutation of the maxim +that infant prodigies fall victims to arrested development.</p> + +<p>At twelve years of age he was filled with the idea that the social order +was all wrong. To the utter astonishment of his parents and tutors, he +argued that the world could not be bettered until mankind was taught the +lesson that history, languages, theology and polite etiquette were not +learning at all; and as long as educated men centered on these things, +there was no hope for the race.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_244" id="VIII_Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + +<p>The birch was brought in to disannex the boy from his foolishness, but +this only seemed to make him cling the closer to what he was pleased to +call his convictions.</p> + +<p>He read books that wearied the brains of grown-ups, and took a hearty +interest in the abstruse, the obscure and the complex.</p> + +<p>At thirteen, that peculiar time when the young turn to faith, this +perverse rareripe was so filled with doubt that it ran over and he stood +in the slop. He offered to publicly debate the question of Freewill with +the local curé; and on several occasions stood up in meeting and +contradicted the preacher.</p> + +<p>His parents, thinking to divert his mind from abstractions to useful +effort, sent him to the Polytechnic School at Paris, that excellent +institution founded by Napoleon, which served America most nobly as a +model for the Boston School of Technology, only the French +"Polytechnique" was purely a government institution—a sample of the +Twentieth Century sent for the benefit of the Nineteenth.</p> + +<p>But institutions are never much beyond the people—they can not be, for +the people dilute everything until it is palatable. Laws that do not +embody public opinion can never be enforced. No man who expresses +himself is really much ahead of his time—if he is, the times snuff him +out, and quickly.</p> + +<p>In Eighteen Hundred Fourteen, the Polytechnic School was well saturated +with the priestly idea of education,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_245" id="VIII_Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> and the attempt was made to +produce an alumni of cultured men, rather than a race of useful ones.</p> + +<p>Revolt was rife in the ranks of the students. It is still debatable +whether revolution and riot in colleges are actuated by a passion for +truth or a love of excitement. Anyway, the "Techs" laid deep places to +the effect that when a certain professor appeared at chapel, a unique +reception would be in store for him.</p> + +<p>He appeared, and a fusillade of books, rulers and ink-wells shot at his +learned head from every quarter of the room. Other professors appeared +and sought to restore order. Riot followed—seats were torn up, windows +broken, and there was much loud talk and gesticulation peculiarly +Gallic.</p> + +<p>It was Ninety-three done in little.</p> + +<p>Instead of expelling the delinquents, the National Assembly took the +matter in hand and simply voted to close the school.</p> + +<p>Auguste Comte went home a hero, proud as a Heidelberg student, with a +sweeping scar on his chin and the end of his nose gone. "I have dealt +the Old Education its deathblow," he solemnly said, mistaking a +cane-rush for a revolution.</p> + +<p>Against the direct command of his parents, he went back to Paris. He had +now reached the mature age of eighteen. He resolved to write out truth +as it occurred to him, and incidentally he would gain a livelihood by +teaching mathematics.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_246" id="VIII_Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> + +<p>At Paris, the mental audacity of the youth won him recognition; he +picked up a precarious living, and was a frequenter at scientific +lectures and discussions, and in gatherings where great themes were up +for debate, he was always present.</p> + +<p>Benjamin Franklin was his ideal. In his notebook he wrote this: +"Franklin at twenty-five resolved he would become great and wise. I now +vow the same at twenty." He had five years the start!</p> + +<p>Franklin, calm, healthy, judicial, wise—the greatest man America has +produced—worked his philosophy up into life. He did not think much +beyond his ability to perform. To him, to think was to do. And he did +things that to many men were miracles.</p> + +<p>Comte once said, "I would have followed the venerable Benjamin Franklin +through the street, and kissed the hem of the homespun overcoat, made by +Deborah." These men were very unlike. One was big, gentle, calm and +kind; the other was small, dyspeptic, excitable and full of challenge. +Yet the little man had times of insight and abstraction, when he tracked +reasons further than the big, practical man could have followed them.</p> + +<p>Franklin's habit of life—the semi-ascetic quality of getting your +gratification by doing without things—especially pleased Comte. He +lived in a garret on two meals a day, and was happy in the thought that +he could endure and yet think and study. The old monastic impulse was +upon him, minus the religious features—or stay!<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_247" id="VIII_Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> why may not science +become a religion? And surely science can become dogmatic, and even +tyrannically build a hierarchy on a hypothesis no less than theology.</p> + +<p>A friend, pitying young Comte's hard lot, not knowing its sweet +recompense, got him a position as tutor in the household of a nobleman; +like unto the kind man who caught the sea-gulls roosting on an iceberg, +and in pity, transferred them to the warm delights of a compost-pile in +his barnyard.</p> + +<p>Comte held the place for three weeks and then resigned. He went back to +the garret and sweet liberty—having had his taste of luxury, but +miserable in it all—wondering how a gavotte or a minuet could make a +man forget that he was living in a city where thirty thousand human +beings were constantly only one meal beyond the sniff of starvation.</p> + +<p>At this time Comte came into close relationship with a man who was to +have a very great influence in his life—this was Count Henri of +Saint-Simon, usually spoken of as Saint-Simon.</p> + +<p>Saint-Simon was rich, gently proud, and fondly patronizing. He was a +sort of scientific Mæcenas—and be it known that Mæcenas was a poet and +philosopher of worth, and one Horace was his pupil.</p> + +<p>Saint-Simon was an excellent and learned man who wrote, lectured and +taught on philosophic themes. He had a garden-school, modeled in degree +after that of<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_248" id="VIII_Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> Plato. Saint-Simon became much interested in young Comte, +invited him to his classes, supplied him books, clothing, and tickets to +the opera. Part of the time Comte lived under Saint-Simon's roof, and +did translating and copying in partial payment for his meal-ticket. The +teacher and the pupil had a fine affection for each other. What Comte +needed, he took from Saint-Simon as if it were his own.</p> + +<p>In writing to friends at this time, Comte praises Saint-Simon as the +greatest man who ever lived—"a model of patience, generosity, learning +and love—my spiritual father!" There was fifty years' difference in +their ages, but they studied, read and rambled the realm of books +together, with mutual pleasure and profit.</p> + +<p>The central idea of the "Positive Philosophy" is that of the three +stages through which man passes in his evolution. This was gotten from +Saint-Simon, and together they worked out much of the thought that Comte +afterward carried further and incorporated in his book.</p> + +<p>But about this time, Saint-Simon, in one of his lectures, afterward +printed, made use of some of the thoughts that Comte had expressed, as +if they were his own—and possibly they were. There is no copyright on +an idea, no caveat can be filed on feeling, and at the last there is no +such thing as originality, except as a matter of form.</p> + +<p>Young Comte now proved his humanity by accusing<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_249" id="VIII_Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> his teacher of stealing +his radium. A quarrel followed, in which Comte was so violent that +Saint-Simon had to put the youth out of his house.</p> + +<p>The wrangles of Grub Street would fill volumes: both sides are always +right, or wrong—it matters little, and is simply a point of view. But +the rancor of it all, if seen from heaven, must serve finely to dispel +the monotony of the place—a panacea for paradisiacal ennui.</p> + +<p>From lavish praise, Comte swung over to words of bitterness and +accusation. Having sat at the man's table and partaken of his +hospitality for several years, he was now guilty of the unpardonable +offense of ridiculing and berating him.</p> + +<p>He speaks of the Saint as a "depraved quack," and says that the time he +spent with him was worse than wasted. If Saint-Simon was the rogue and +pretender that Comte avers, it is no certificate of Comte's insight that +it took him four years to find it out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_250" id="VIII_Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In Eighteen Hundred Twenty-five Comte married. The ceremony was +performed civilly, on a sudden impulse of what Schopenhauer would call +"the genius of the genus." The lady was young, agreeable; and having no +opinions of her own, was quite willing to accept his. Comte +congratulated himself that here was virgin soil, and he laid the +flattering unction to his soul that he could mold the lady's mind to +match his own. She would be his helpmeet. Comte had not read Ouida, who +once wrote that when God said, "I will make a helpmeet for him," He was +speaking ironically.</p> + +<p>Comte had associated but very little with women—he had theories about +them. Small men, with midget minds, know femininity much better than do +the great ones. Traveling salesmen, with checkered vests, gauge women as +Herbert Spencer never could.</p> + +<p>Comte's wife was pretty and she was astute—as most pretty women are. +John Fiske, in his lecture on "Communal Life," says that astute persons +add nothing of value to the community in which they live—their mission +being to be the admired glass of fashion for the non-cogitabund. The +value of astuteness is that it protects us from the astute.</p> + +<p>Samuel Johnson and his wife had their first quarrel on the way from the +church, and Auguste Comte and his wife tiffed going down the steps from +the notary's. Comte had no use for ecclesiastical forms, and the lady<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_251" id="VIII_Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +agreed with him until after the notary had earned his fee. Then she +suddenly had qualms, like those peculiar ladies told of by Robert Louis +Stevenson, who turn the Madonna's face to the wall.</p> + +<p>The couple went to Montpelier on their wedding-tour, to visit Comte's +parents. The new wife agreed with the old folks on but one point—the +marriage should be solemnized by a priest. Having won them on this +point, they stood a solid phalanx against the husband; but the lady took +exceptions to Montpelier on all other grounds—she hated it thoroughly +and said so.</p> + +<p>Instead of molding her to his liking, Comte was being kneaded into +animal crackers for her amusement.</p> + +<p>Then we find him writing to a friend, confessing that his hopes were +ashes; but in his misery he grows philosophical and says, "It is all +good, for now I am driven back to my work, and from now on my life is +dedicated to science."</p> + +<p>No doubt the lady was as much disappointed in the venture as was the +husband, but he, being literary, eased his grief by working it up into +art, while her side of the story lies buried deep in silence glum.</p> + +<p>In choosing the names of philosophers for this series, no thought was +given in the selection beyond the achievements of the men. But it now +comes to me with a slight surprise that seven out of the twelve were +unmarried, and probably it would have been as well—certainly for the +wives—if the other five had<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_252" id="VIII_Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> remained bachelors, too. Xantippe would +have been the gainer, even if Socrates did miss his discipline.</p> + +<p>To center on science and devote one's thought to philosophy produces a +being more or less deformed. There is great danger in specialization: +Nature sacrifices the man in order to get the thing done. Abstract +thought unfits one for domestic life; for, to a degree, it separates a +man from his kind.</p> + +<p>The proper advice to a woman about to marry a philosopher would be, +"Don't!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_253" id="VIII_Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The advantage of a little actual hardship in one's life is that it makes +existence real and not merely literary. Comte was inclined to thrive on +martyrdom. His restless, eager mind invented troubles, if there were no +real ones, but he was wise enough to know this, as he once said: "The +trials of life are all of one size—imaginary pains are as bad as real +ones, and men who have no actual troubles usually conjure forth a few. +Thus far, happily, I am not reduced to this strait."</p> + +<p>We thus see that the true essence of philosophy was there. Comte got a +gratification by dissecting, analyzing and classifying his emotions. All +was grist that came to his mill.</p> + +<p>When he was twenty-eight the Positive Philosophy had assumed such +proportions in his mind that he announced a course of twelve lectures on +the subject.</p> + +<p>He was jealous of his discoveries, and was intent on getting all the +credit that was due him. Money he cared little for; power and reputation +to him were the only gods worth appeasing. The thought of domestic joy +was forever behind, but philosophy came as a solace. A prospectus was +sent out and tickets were issued. The landlady where he boarded offered +her parlor and her boarder, second floor back, for the benefit of +science. Several zealous denizens of the Latin Quarter made a canvass, +and enough tickets were sold so that the philosopher felt that at last +the world was really at his feet.</p> + +<p>When the afternoon for the first lecture arrived, no<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_254" id="VIII_Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> carriages blocked +the street, and as only about half of those who had purchased tickets +appeared, the difficulties of the landlady and her nervous boarder were +much lessened.</p> + +<p>There was one man at this first lecture who was profoundly impressed, +and if we had his testimony, and none other, we might well restrain our +smiles. That man was Alexander von Humboldt. In various passages +Humboldt does Comte the honor of quoting from him, and in one instance +says, "He has summed up certain phases of truth better than they have +ever been expressed before."</p> + +<p>Little did the landlady guess that her crusty, crabbed boarder was +firing a shot that would be heard 'round the world, and surely the +gendarme on that particular beat never heard it—so small and +commonplace are the beginnings of great things!</p> + +<p>Comte was so saturated with this theme—so immersed in it—that it +consumed him like a fever. Three lectures were given, but at the third, +without warning, the man's nerves snapped—he stopped, sat down, and the +audience filed out perplexed, thinking they had merely seen an +exhibition of one of the eccentricities of genius. The philosopher's +mind was a blank, and kind friends sent him away to a hospital.</p> + +<p>It was two years before he regained his reason. The enforced rest did +him good. Nervous Prostration is heroic treatment on the part of Nature. +It is an intent to do for the man what he will never do for himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_255" id="VIII_Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Unkind critics, hotly intent on refuting the Positive Philosophy, seized +upon the fact of Comte's mental trouble and made much of it. "Look you!" +said they, "the man is insane!"</p> + +<p>This is convenient, but not judicial. Comte's philosophy stands or falls +on its own merits, and what the author did before, after, or during the +writing of his theses matters not. Madmen are not mad all the time, and +the fact that Sir Isaac Newton was for a time unbalanced does not lessen +our regard for the "Principia," nor consign to limbo the law of +gravitation. Ruskin's work is not the less thought of because the man +had his pathetic spells of indecision. Martin Luther had visions of +devils before he saw the truth, and Emerson's love for Longfellow need +not be disparaged because he looked down on his still, white face and +said, "A dear gentle soul, but I really can not remember his name."</p> + +<p>Men write on physiology, and then die, but this does not disprove the +truth they expressed, but failed, possibly, to fully live. The great man +always thinks further than he can travel—even the rest of us can do +that. We can think "Chicago" in a second, but to go there takes time, +strength and money.</p> + +<p>When Comte's mental trouble was at its height, and two men were required +to care for him, Lamennais persuaded his wife to have their marriage +solemnized by the Church, and this was done. This performance<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_256" id="VIII_Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> was such +a violation of sanctity and decency that in after-years Comte could not +believe it was true, until he consulted the church records. "They might +as well have had me confirmed," said Comte, grimly. And we can well +guess that the action did not increase his regard for either his wife or +the Church. The trick seems quite on a par with that of the astute +colored gentleman who anxiously asks for love-powders at the corner +drugstore; or the good wives who purchase harmless potions from red-dyed +rogues to place in the husband's coffee to cure him of the liquor habit.</p> + +<p>However, the incident gives a clew to the mental processes of Madame +Comte—she would accomplish by trickery what she had failed to do by +moral suasion, and this in the name of religion!</p> + +<p>Two years of enforced rest, and the glowing mind of the philosopher +awoke with a start. He rubbed his eyes after his Rip-Van-Winkle sleep, +and called for his manuscripts—he must prepare for the fourth lecture!</p> + +<p>The rest of the course was given, and in Eighteen Hundred Thirty the +first volume of Positive Philosophy was issued.</p> + +<p>The sixth and last volume appeared in Eighteen Hundred Forty-two—twelve +years of intense application and ceaseless work. This was the happiest +time of Comte's life; he had the whole scheme in his head from the +start, but he now saw it gradually taking form, and it was meeting with +appreciation from a few earnest<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_257" id="VIII_Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> thinkers, at least. His services were +in demand for occasional lectures on scientific subjects. In astronomy, +especially, he excelled, and on this theme he was able to please a +popular assembly.</p> + +<p>The Polytechnic School had now grown to large proportions, and the +institution that Comte had helped to slide into dissolution now called +him back to serve as examiner and professor.</p> + +<p>The constant misunderstandings with his wife had increased to such a +point that both felt a separation desirable. Married people do not +separate on slight excuse—they go because they must. That Comte thought +much more of the lady when they were several hundred miles apart than +when they were together, there is no doubt. He wrote to her at regular +intervals, one-half of his income was religiously sent to her, and he +practised the most painstaking economy in order that he might feel that +she was provided for.</p> + +<p>One letter, especially, to his wife reveals a side of Comte's nature +that shows he had the instinct of a true teacher. He says, "I hardly +dare disclose the sweet and softened feeling that comes over me when I +find a scholar whose heart is thoroughly in his work."</p> + +<p>The Positive Philosophy was taken up by John Stuart Mill, who wrote a +fine essay on it. It was Mill who introduced the work to Harriet +Martineau. Mr. and Mrs. Mill had intended to translate and condense the +philosophy of Comte for English readers, but when<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_258" id="VIII_Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> Miss Martineau +expressed her intention of attempting the task, they relinquished the +idea, but backed her up in her efforts.</p> + +<p>Miss Martineau condensed the six volumes into two, and what is most +strange, Comte thought so well of the work that he wrote a glowing +acknowledgment of it.</p> + +<p>The Martineaus were of good old Huguenot stock, and the French language +came easy to Harriet. For the plain people of France she had a profound +regard, and being sort of a revolutionary by prenatal instincts, Comte's +work from the start appealed to her. James Martineau had such a +bristling personality—being very much like his sister Harriet—that +when this sister wrote a review of a volume of his sermons, showing the +fatuity and foolishness of the reasoning, and calling attention to much +bad grammar, the good man cut her off with a shilling—"which he will +have to borrow," said Harriet.</p> + +<p>James hugged the idea to his death that his sister had insulted his +genius—"But I forgive her," he said, which remark proves that he +hadn't, for if he had, he would not have thought to mention the matter. +James Martineau was a great man, but if he had been just a little +greater he would have taken a profound pride in a sister who was so +sharp a shooter that she could puncture his balloon. James Martineau was +a theologian; Harriet was a Positivist. But Positivity had a lure for +him, and so there is a long review, penned<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_259" id="VIII_Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> largely with aqua fortis, on +Miss Martineau's translation, done by her brother for the "Edinburgh +Review," wherein Harriet is not once mentioned.</p> + +<p>When Robert Ingersoll's wife would occasionally, under great stress of +the servant-girl problem, break over a bit, as good women will, and say +things, Robert would remark, "Gently, my dear, gently—I fear me you +haven't yet gotten rid of all your Christian virtues."</p> + +<p>The Reverend Doctor James Martineau never quite got rid of his Christian +virtues, which perhaps proves that a little hate, like strychnin, is +useful as a stimulant when properly reduced, for Doctor Martineau died +only a few years ago, having nearly rounded out a century run.</p> + +<p>Harriet Martineau was in much doubt about how Comte would regard her +completed work, but was greatly relieved when he gave it his unqualified +approval. On his earnest invitation she visited him in Paris. +Fortunately, she did not have to resort to the Herbert Spencer expedient +of wearing ear-muffs for protection against loquacious friends. She +liked Comte first-rate, until he began to make love to her. Then his +stock dropped below par.</p> + +<p>Comte was always much impressed by intellectual women. His wife had +given him a sample of the other kind, and caused him to swing out and +idealize the woman of brains.</p> + +<p>So that, when Harriet Martineau admired the Positive<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_260" id="VIII_Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> Philosophy, it was +proof sufficient to Comte of her excellence in all things. She knew +better, and started soon for Dover.</p> + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Mill had called on Comte a few months before, and given him +a glimpse of the ideal—an intellectual man mated with an intellectual +woman. But Comte didn't see that it was plain commonsense that made them +great. Comte prided himself on his own commonsense, but the article was +not in his equipment, else he would not have put the blame of all his +troubles upon his wife. A man with commonsense, married to a woman who +hasn't any, does not necessarily forfeit his own.</p> + +<p>Mr. or Mrs. Mill would have been great anywhere—singly, separately, +together, or apart. Each was a radiant center. Weakness multiplied by +two does not give strength, and naught times naught equals naught.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_261" id="VIII_Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Having finished the Positive Philosophy, Comte's restless mind began to +look around for more worlds to conquer.</p> + +<p>In the expenditure of money he was careful, and in his accounts exact; +but the making of money and its accumulation were things that to him +could safely be delegated to second-class minds. A haughty pride of +intellect was his, not unmixed with that peculiar quality of the prima +donna which causes her to cut fantastic capers and make everybody kiss +her big toe.</p> + +<p>Comte had done one thing superbly well. England had recognized his merit +to a degree that France had not, and to his English friends he now made +an appeal for financial help, so he could have freedom to complete +another great work he had in his mind. To John Stuart Mill he wrote, +outlining in a general way his new book on a social science, to be +called "The Positive Polity." It was, in a degree, to be a sequel to the +Positive Philosophy.</p> + +<p>Mill communicated with Grote, the banker, known to us through his superb +history of Greece, and with the help of George Henry Lewes and a mite +from Herbert Spencer to show his good-will, a purse equal to about +twelve hundred dollars was sent to Comte.</p> + +<p>Matters went along for a year, when Comte wrote a brief letter to Mill +suggesting that it was about time for another remittance. Mill again +appealed to Grote, and Grote, the man of affairs, wrote to his Paris<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_262" id="VIII_Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +correspondent, who ascertained that Comte, now believing he was free +from the bread-and-butter bugaboo, was giving his services to the +Polytechnic, gratis, and also giving lectures to the people wherever +some one would simply pay for the hall.</p> + +<p>To advance money to a man that he might write a book showing how the +nation should manage its finances, when the author could not look after +his own, reminded Grote of the individual who wrote from the Debtors' +Prison to the Secretary of the Exchequer, giving valuable advice. All +publishers are familiar with the penniless person who writes a book on +"How to Achieve Success," expecting to achieve success by publishing it.</p> + +<p>Grote wrote to Mill, expressing the wholesome truth that the first duty +of every man was to make a living for himself—a fact which Mill states +in "On Liberty." Mill hadn't the temerity to pass Grote's maxim along to +Comte, and so sent a small contribution out of his own pocket. This was +very much like the Indian who, feeling that his dog's tail should be +amputated, cut it off a little at a time, so as not to hurt the animal. +We have all done this, and got the ingratitude we deserved.</p> + +<p>Comte wrote back a most sarcastic letter, accusing Mill and Grote with +having broken faith with him.</p> + +<p>He now treated them very much as he had Saint-Simon; and in his lectures +seldom failed to tell in pointed phrase what a lot of money-grubbing +barbarians<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_263" id="VIII_Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> inhabited the British Isles. To the credit of Mill be it +said that he still believed in the value of the Positive Philosophy, and +did all he could to further Comte's reputation and help the sale of his +books.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_264" id="VIII_Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In Eighteen Hundred Forty-five, when Comte was forty-seven years old, he +met Madame Clothilde de Vaux. Her husband was in prison, serving a +life-sentence for political offenses, and Comte was first attracted to +her through pity. Soon this evolved into a violent attachment, and Comte +began to quote her in his lectures.</p> + +<p>Comte was now most busy with his "Polity" in collaboration with Madame +De Vaux. Her part of the work seems to have been to listen to Comte +while he read her his amusing manuscript: and she, being a good woman +and wise, praised the work in every part. They were together almost +daily, and she seemed to supply him the sympathy he had all of his life +so much craved.</p> + +<p>In one short year Madame De Vaux died, and Comte for a time was +inconsolable. Then his sorrow found surcease in an attempt to do for her +in prose what Dante had done for Beatrice in poetry. But the vehicle of +Comte's thoughts creaked. The exact language of science when applied to +a woman becomes peculiarly non-piquant and lacking in perspicacity and +perspicuity. No woman can be summed up in an algebraic formula, and when +a mathematician does a problem to his lady's eyebrow, he forgets +entirely that femininity forever equals <i>x</i>. Those who can write Sonnets +from the Portuguese may place their loves on exhibition—no others +should. Sweets too sweet do cloy.</p> + +<p>For the rest of his life, Comte made every Wednesday<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_265" id="VIII_Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> afternoon sacred +for a visit to the grave of Madame De Vaux, and three times every day, +with the precision of a Mussulman, he retired to his room, locked the +door, and in silence apostrophized to her spirit. Comte now continued as +industrious as ever, but the quality of his writing lamentably declined. +His popular lectures to the people on scientific themes were always +good, and his work as a teacher was satisfactory, but when he endeavored +to continue original research, then his hazards of mind lacked steady +flight.</p> + +<p>The Positive Polity degenerated into a dogmatic scheme of government +where the wisest should rule. The determination of who was wisest was to +be left to the wise ones themselves, and Comte himself volunteered to be +the first Pope.</p> + +<p>The worship of Humanity would be the only religion, and women would +shine as the high priests. Comte thought it all out in detail, and +arranged a complete scheme of life, and actually wished to form a +political party and overthrow the government, founding a gynecocracy on +the ruins. His ebbing mind could not grasp the thought that tyranny +founded on goodness is a tyranny still, and that a despotic altruism is +a despotism nevertheless. Slavery blocks evolution.</p> + +<p>So thus rounded out the life of Auguste Comte—beginning in childhood, +he traversed the circle, and ended where he began.</p> + +<p>He died in his sixtieth year. M. Littre, his most famous<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_266" id="VIII_Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> pupil, +touchingly looked after his wants to the last, ministered to his +necessities, advancing money on royalties that were never due. M. Littre +occasionally apologized for the meagerness of the returns, and was +closely questioned and even doubted by Comte, who died unaware of the +unflinching loyalty of a friendship that endured distrust and contumely +without resentment. Such love and patience and loyalty as were shown by +M. Littre redeem the race.</p> + +<p>The best certificate to the worth of Auguste Comte lies in the fact +that, in spite of marked personal limitations and much petty +querulousness, he profoundly influenced such men as Littre, Humboldt, +Mill, Lewes, Grote, Spencer and Frederic Harrison.</p> + +<p>To have helped such men as these, and cheered them on their way, was no +small achievement. Comte's sole claim for immortality lies in the +Positive Philosophy. The word "positive," as used by Comte, is similar +in intent to pose, poise—fixed, final. So, besides a positive present +good, Comte believed he was stating a final truth; to-wit: that which is +good here is good everywhere, and if there is a future life, the best +preparation for it is to live now and here, up to your highest and best. +Comte protested against the idea of "a preparation for a life to +come"—now is the time, and the place is here.</p> + +<p>The essence of Positive Philosophy is that man passes through three +mental periods—the Theological or<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_267" id="VIII_Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> fictitious; the Metaphysical or +abstract; the Positive or scientific.</p> + +<p>Hence, there are three general philosophies or systems of conceptions +concerning life and destiny.</p> + +<p>The Theological, or first system, is the necessary starting-point of the +human intellect. The Positive, or third period, is the ultimate goal of +every progressive, thinking man; the second period is merely a state of +transition that bridges the gulf between the first and the third.</p> + +<p>Metaphysics holds the child by the hand until he can trust his feet—it +is a passageway between the fictitious and the actual. Once across the +chasm, it is no longer needed. Theology represents the child; +Metaphysics the youth; Science the man.</p> + +<p>The evolution of the race is mirrored in the evolution of the +individual. Look back on your own career—your first dawn of thought +began in an inquiry, "Who made all this—how did it all happen?"</p> + +<p>And Theology comes in with a glib explanation: the fairies, dryads, +gnomes and gods made everything, and they can do with it all as they +please. Later, we concentrate all of these personalities in one god, +with a devil in competition, and this for a time satisfies.</p> + +<p>Later, the thought of an arbitrary being dealing out rewards and +punishments grows dim, for we see the regular workings of Cause and +Effect. We begin to talk of Energy, the Divine Essence, and the Reign of +Law. We speak, as Matthew Arnold did, of "a Power, not<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_268" id="VIII_Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> ourselves, that +makes for righteousness." But Emerson believed in a power that was in +himself that made for righteousness.</p> + +<p>Metaphysics reaches its highest stage when it affirms "All is One," or +"All is Mind," just as Theology reaches its highest conception when it +becomes Monotheistic—having one God and curtailing the personality of +the devil to a mere abstraction.</p> + +<p>But this does not long satisfy, for we begin to ask, "What is this One?" +or "What is Mind?"</p> + +<p>Then Positivity comes in and says that the highest wisdom lies in +knowing that we do not know anything, and never can, concerning a First +Cause. All we find is phenomena and behind phenomena, phenomena. The +laws of Nature do not account for the origin of the laws of Nature. +Spencer's famous chapter on the Unknowable was derived largely from +Comte, who attempted to define the limits of human knowledge. And it is +worth noting that the one thing which gave most offense in both Comte's +and Spencer's works was their doctrine of the Unknowable. This, indeed, +forms but a small part of the work of these men, and if it were all +demolished there would still remain their doctrine of the known. The +bitterness of Theology toward Science arises from the fact that as we +find things out we dispense with the arbitrary god, and his business +agent, the priest, who insists that no transaction is legal unless he +ratifies it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_269" id="VIII_Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> + +<p>Men begin by explaining everything, and the explanations given are +always first for other people. Parents answer the child, not telling him +the actual truth, but giving him that which will satisfy—that which he +can mentally digest. To say, "The fairies brought it," may be all right +until the child begins to ask who the fairies are, and wants to be shown +one, and then we have to make the somewhat humiliating confession that +there are no fairies.</p> + +<p>But now we perceive that this mild fabrication in reference to Santa +Claus, and the fairies, is right and proper mental food for the child. +His mind can not grasp the truth that some things are unknowable; and he +is not sufficiently skilled in the things of the world to become +interested in them—he must have a resting-place for his thought, so the +fairy-tale comes in as an aid to the growing imagination. Only this: we +place no penalty on disbelief in fairies, nor do we make special offers +of reward to all who believe that fairies actually exist. Neither do we +tell the child that people who believe in fairies are good, and that +those who do not are wicked and perverse.</p> + +<p>Comte admits that the theological and metaphysical stages are necessary, +but the sooner man can be graduated out of them the better. He brought +vast research to bear in order to show the growth and death of +theological conceptions. Hate, fear, revenge and doubt are all +theological attributes, detrimental to man's best<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_270" id="VIII_Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> efforts. That moral +ideas were an afterthought, and really form no part of theology, Comte +emphasized at great length, and shows from much data where these ideas +were grafted on to the original tree.</p> + +<p>And the sum of the argument is, that all progress of mind, body and +material things has come to man through the study of Cause and Effect. +And just in degree as he has abandoned the study of Theology as futile +and absurd, and centered on helping himself here and now, has he +prospered.</p> + +<p>Positivism is really a religion. The object of its worship is Humanity. +It does not believe in a devil or any influence that works for harm, or +in opposition to man. Man's only enemy is himself, and this is on +account of his ignorance of this world, and his superstitious belief in +another. Our troubles, like diseases, all come from ignorance and +weakness, and through our ignorance are we weak and unable to adjust +ourselves to conditions. The more we know of this world the better we +think of it, and the better are we able to use it for our advancement.</p> + +<p>So far as we can judge, the Unknown Cause that rules the world by +unchanging laws is a movement forward toward happiness, growth, justice, +peace and right. Therefore, the Scientist, who perceives that all is +good when rightly received and rightly understood, is really the priest +or holy man—the mediator and explainer of the mysteries. As fast as we +understand things they cease to be supernatural, for the supernatural is +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_271" id="VIII_Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> natural not yet understood. The theological priest who believes in +a god and a devil is the real modern infidel. Such a belief is +fallacious, contrary to reason, and contrary to all the man of courage +sees and knows.</p> + +<p>The real man of faith is the one who discards all thought of "how it +first happened," and fixes his mind on the fact that he is here. The +more he studies the conditions that surround him, the greater his faith +in the truth that all is well.</p> + +<p>If men had turned their attention to Humanity, discarding Theology, +using as much talent, time, money and effort to wring from the skies the +secrets of the Unknowable, this world would now be a veritable paradise. +It is Theology that has barred the entrance to Eden, by diverting the +attention of men from this world to another. Heaven is Here.</p> + +<p>All religious denominations now dimly perceive the trend of the times, +and are gradually omitting theology from their teachings and taking on +ethics and sociology instead. A preacher is now simply Society's walking +delegate. We are evolving theology out and sociology in. Theology has +ever been the foe of progress and the enemy of knowledge. It has +professed to know all and has placed a penalty on advancement. The Age +of Enlightenment will not be here until every church has evolved into a +schoolhouse, and every priest is a pupil as well as a teacher.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="VOLTAIRE" id="VOLTAIRE"></a>VOLTAIRE<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_272" id="VIII_Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></h2> + + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We are intelligent beings; and intelligent beings can not have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_273" id="VIII_Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +formed by a blind, brute, insensible being. There is certainly some +difference between a clod and the ideas of Newton. Newton's +intelligence came from some greater Intelligence.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 25em;">—<i>The Philosophical Dictionary</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_274" id="VIII_Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p> + +<div class="center"> + <a id="image0461-1"></a> + <img src="images/0461-1.jpg" width="256" height="400" + alt="" + title="" /> + + <p class="center">VOLTAIRE</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_275" id="VIII_Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> + + + +<p>The man, Francois Marie Arouet, known to us as Voltaire (which name he +adopted in his twenty-first year), was born in Paris in Sixteen Hundred +Ninety-four. He was the second son in a family of three children. During +his babyhood he was very frail; in childhood sickly and weak; and +throughout his whole life he suffered much from indigestion and +insomnia.</p> + +<p>In all the realm of writers no man ever had a fuller and more active +career, touching life at so many points, than Voltaire.</p> + +<p>The first requisite in a long and useful career would seem to be, have +yourself born weak and cultivate dyspepsia, nervousness and insomnia. +Whether or not the good die young is still a mooted question, but +certainly the athletic often do. All those good men and true, who at +grocery, tavern and railroad-station eat hard-boiled eggs on a wager, +and lift barrels of flour with one hand, are carried to early graves, +and over the grass-grown mounds that cover their dust, consumptive, +dyspeptic and neurotic relatives, for twice or thrice a score of years, +strew sweet myrtle, thyme and mignonette.</p> + +<p>Voltaire died of an accident—too much Four-o'Clock—cut<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_276" id="VIII_Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> off in his +prime, when life for him was at its brightest and best, aged +eighty-three.</p> + +<p>The only evidence we have that the mind of Voltaire failed at the last +came from the Abbe Gaultier and the Curé of Saint Sulpice. These good +men arrived with a written retraction, which they desired Voltaire to +sign. Waiting in the anteroom of the sick-chamber they sent in word that +they wished to enter. "Assure them of my respect," said the stricken +man. But the holy men were not to be thus turned away, so they entered. +They approached the bedside, and the Curé of Saint Sulpice said: "M. de +Voltaire, your life is about to end. Do you acknowledge the divinity of +Jesus Christ?"</p> + +<p>And the dying man stretched out a bony hand, making a gesture that they +should depart, and murmured, "Let me die in peace."</p> + +<p>"You see," said the Curé to the Abbe, as they withdrew, "you see that he +is out of his head!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_277" id="VIII_Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The father of Voltaire, Francois Arouet, was a notary who looked after +various family estates and waxed prosperous on the crumbs that fell from +the rich man's table.</p> + +<p>He was solicitor to the Duc de Richelieu, the Sullys, and also the +Duchesse de Saint-Simon, mother of the philosopher, Saint-Simon, who +made the mistake of helping Auguste Comte, thus getting himself hotly +and positively denounced by the man who formulated the "Positive +Philosophy."</p> + +<p>Arouet belonged to the middle class and never knew that he sprang from a +noble line until his son announced the fact. It was then too late to +deny it.</p> + +<p>He was a devout Churchman, upright in all his affairs, respectable, took +snuff, walked with a waddle and cultivated a double chin. M. Arouet +pater did not marry until his mind was mature, so that he might avoid +the danger of a mismating. He was forty, past. The second son, Francois +fils, was ten years younger than his brother Armand, so the father was +over fifty when our hero was born. Francois fils used to speak of +himself as an afterthought—a sort of domestic postscript—"but," added +he musingly, "our afterthoughts are often best."</p> + +<p>One of the most distinguished clients of M. Arouet was Ninon de Lenclos, +who had the felicity to be made love to by three generations of +Frenchmen. Ninon has been likened for her vivacious ways, her flashing<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_278" id="VIII_Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> +intellect, and her perennial youth, to the divine Sara, who at sixty +plays the part of Juliet with a woman of thirty for the old nurse. Ninon +had turned her three-score and ten, and swung gracefully into the +home-stretch, when the second son was born to M. Arouet. She was of a +deeply religious turn of mind, for she had been loved by several +priests, and now the Abbe de Chateauneuf was paying his devotions to +her.</p> + +<p>Ninon was much interested in the new arrival, and going to the house of +M. Arouet, took to bed, and sent in haste for the Abbe de Chateauneuf, +saying she was in sore trouble. When the good man arrived, he thought it +a matter of extreme unction, and was ushered into the room of the +alleged invalid. Here he was duly presented with the infant that later +was to write the "Philosophical Dictionary." It was as queer a case of +kabojolism as history records.</p> + +<p>Doubtless the Abbe was a bit agitated at first, but finally getting his +breath, he managed to say, "As there is a vicarious atonement, there +must also be, on occasion, vicarious births, and this is one—God be +praised."</p> + +<p>The child was then baptized, the good Abbe standing as godfather.</p> + +<p>There must be something, after all, in prenatal influences, for as the +little Francois grew up he evolved the traits of Ninon de Lenclos and +the Abbe much more than those of his father and mother.</p> + +<p>When the boy was a little over six years old the mother<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_279" id="VIII_Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> died. Of her we +know absolutely nothing. In her son's writings he refers to her but +once, wherein he has her say that "Boileau was a clever book, but a +silly man."</p> + +<p>The education of the youngster seemed largely to have been left to the +Abbe, his godfather, who very early taught him to recite the "Mosiad," a +metrical effusion wherein the mistakes of Moses were related in churchly +Latin, done first for the divertisement of sundry pious monks in idle +hours.</p> + +<p>At ten years of age Francois was sent to the College of Louis-le-Grand, +a Jesuit school where the minds of youth were molded in things sacred +and secular.</p> + +<p>In only one thing did the boy really excel, and that was in the matter +of making rhymes. The Abbe Chateauneuf had taught him the trick before +he could speak plainly, and Ninon had been so pleased with the wee poet +that she left him two thousand francs in her will for the purchase of +books. As Ninon insisted on living to be ninety, Voltaire discounted the +legacy and got it cashed on dedicating a sonnet to the divine Ninon. In +this sonnet Voltaire suggests that a life of virtue conduces largely to +longevity, as witness the incomparable Ninon de Lenclos, to which +sentiment Ninon filed no exceptions.</p> + +<p>In one of the school debates young Francois presented his argument in +rhyme, and evidently ran in some choice passages from the "Mosiad," for +Father le Jay, according to Condorcet, left his official chair, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_280" id="VIII_Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +rushing down the aisle, grabbed the boy by the collar, and shaking him, +said, "Unhappy boy! you will one day be the standard-bearer of deism in +France!"—a prophecy, possibly, made after its fulfilment.</p> + +<p>Young Francois remained at the college until he was seventeen years old. +From letters sent by him while there, it is evident that the chief +characteristic of his mind was already a contempt for the clergy. Of two +of his colleagues who were preparing for the priesthood, he says, "They +had reflected on the dangers of a world of the charms of which they were +ignorant; and on the pleasures of a religious life of which they knew +not the disagreeableness." Already we see he was getting handy in +polishing a sentence with the emery of his wit. Continuing, he says: "In +a quarter of an hour they ran over all the Orders, and each seemed so +attractive that they could not decide. In which predicament they might +have been left like the ass, which died of starvation between two +bundles of hay, not knowing which to choose. However, they decided to +leave the matter to Providence, and let the dice decide. So one became a +Carmelite and the other a Jesuit."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_281" id="VIII_Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Arouet, at first intent on having his son become a priest, now fell back +on the law as second choice. The young man was therefore duly articled +with a firm of advocates and sent to hear lectures on jurisprudence. But +his godfather introduced him into the Society of the Temple, a group of +wits, of all ages, who could take snuff and throw off an epigram on any +subject. The bright young man, flashing, dashing and daring, made +friends at once through his skill in writing scurrilous verse upon any +one whose name might be mentioned. This habit had been begun in college, +where it was much applauded by the underlings, who delighted to see +their unpopular teachers done to a turn. The scribbling habit is a +variant of that peculiar propensity which finds form in drawing a +portrait on the blackboard before the teacher gets around in the +morning. If the teacher does not happen to love art for art's sake, +there may be trouble; but verses are safer, for they circulate secretly +and are copied and quoted anonymously.</p> + +<p>The thing we do best in life is that which we play at most in youth.</p> + +<p>Ridicule was this man's weapon. For the benefit of the Society of the +Temple he paid his respects to the sham piety and politics of +Versailles. He had been educated by priests, and his father was a +politician feeding at the public trough. The young man knew the faults +and foibles of both priest and politician, and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_282" id="VIII_Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> keen wit told truths +about the court that were so well expressed the wastebasket did not +capture them. One of these effusions was printed, anonymously, of +course, but a copy coming into the hands of M. Arouet, the old gentleman +recognized the literary style and became alarmed. He must get the young +man out of Paris—the Bastile yawned for poets like this!</p> + +<p>A brother of the Abbe de Chateauneuf was Ambassador at The Hague, and +the great man, being importuned, consented to take the youth as clerk.</p> + +<p>Life at The Hague afforded the embryo poet an opportunity to meet many +distinguished people.</p> + +<p>In Francois there was none of the bourgeois—he associated only with +nobility—and as he had an aristocracy of the intellect, which served +him quite as well as a peerage, he was everywhere received. In his +manner there was nothing apologetic—he took everything as his divine +right.</p> + +<p>In this brilliant little coterie at The Hague was one Madame Dunoyer, a +writer of court gossip and a social promoter of ability, separated from +her husband for her husband's good. Francois crossed swords with her in +an encounter of wit, was worsted, but got even by making love to her; +and later he made love to her daughter, a beautiful girl of about his +own age.</p> + +<p>The air became surcharged with gossip. There was danger of an explosion +any moment. Madame Dunoyer gave it out that the brilliant subaltern was +to marry<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_283" id="VIII_Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> the girl. The Madame was going to capture the youth, either +with her own charms or those of her daughter—or combined. Rumblings +were heard on the horizon. The Ambassador, fearing entanglement, bundled +young Arouet back to Paris, with a testimonial as to his character, +quite unnecessary. A denial without an accusation is equal to a plea of +guilty; and that the young man had made the mistake of making violent +love to the mother and daughter at the same time there is no doubt. The +mother had accused him and he said things back; he even had shown the +atrocious bad taste of references in rhyme to the mutual interchange of +confidences that the mother and daughter might enjoy. The Ambassador had +acted none too soon.</p> + +<p>The father was frantic with alarm—the boy had disgraced him, and even +his own position seemed to be threatened when some wit adroitly accused +the parent of writing the doggerel for his son.</p> + +<p>M. Arouet denied it with an oath—while the son refused to explain, or +to say anything beyond that he loved his father, thus carrying out the +idea that the stupid old notary was really a wit in disguise, masking +his intellect by a seeming dulness. No more biting irony was ever put +out by Voltaire than this, and the pathos of it lies in the fact that +the father was quite unable to appreciate the quip.</p> + +<p>It was a sample of filial humor much more subtle than that indulged in +by Charles Dickens, who pilloried his<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_284" id="VIII_Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> parents in print, one as Mr. +Micawber and the other as Mrs. Nickleby. Dickens told the truth and +painted it large, but Francois Arouet dealt in indiscreet fallacy when +he endeavored to give his father a reputation for raillery.</p> + +<p>A peculiarly offensive poem, appearing about this time, with the Regent +and his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri, for a central theme, a rescript +was issued which indirectly testified to the poetic skill of young +Arouet. He was exiled to a point three hundred miles from Paris and +forbidden to come nearer on penalty, like unto the injunction issued by +Prince Henry against the blameless Falstaff. Rumor said that the father +had something to do with the matter.</p> + +<p>But the exile was not for long. The young poet wrote a most adulatory +composition to the Regent, setting forth his innocence. The Regent was a +mild and amiable man and much desired peace with all his +subjects—especially those who dipped their quills in gall. He was +melted by the rhyme that made him out such a paragon of virtue, and made +haste to issue a pardon.</p> + +<p>The elder Arouet now proved that he was not wholly without humor, for he +wrote to a friend, "The exile of my dear son distressed me much less +than does this precipitate recall."</p> + +<p>In order to protect himself the father now refused a home to the son, +and Francois became a lodger at a boarding-house. He wrote plays and +acted in them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_285" id="VIII_Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> penned much bad poetry, went in good society and had a +very rouge time. Up to this period he knew little Latin and less Greek, +but now he had an opportunity to furbish up on both. He found himself an +inmate of the Bastile, on the charge of expressing his congratulations +to the people of France on the passing of Louis the Fourteenth. In +America libel only applies to live men, but the world had not then +gotten this far along.</p> + +<p>In the prison it was provided that Sieur Arouet fils should not be +allowed pens and paper on account of his misuse of these good things +when outside. He was given copies of Homer, however, in Greek and Latin, +and he set himself at work, with several of the other prisoners, to +perfect himself in these languages. We have glimpses of his dining with +the governor of the prison, and even organizing theatrical performances, +and he was finally allowed writing materials on promise that he would +not do anything worse than translate the Bible, so altogether he was +very well treated.</p> + +<p>In fact, he himself referred to this year spent in prison as "a pious +retreat, that I might meditate, and chasten my soul in quiet thought."</p> + +<p>He was only twenty-one, and yet he had set Paris by the ears, and his +name was known throughout France. "I am as well known as the Regent and +will be remembered longer," he wrote—a statement and a prophecy that +then seemed very egotistical, but which time has fully justified.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_286" id="VIII_Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was in prison that he decided to change his name to Voltaire, a +fanciful word of his own coining. His pretended reason for the change +was that he might begin life anew and escape the disgrace he had +undergone of being in prison. There is reason to believe, however, that +he was rather proud of being "detained," it was proof of his power—he +was dangerous outside. But his family had practically cast him off—he +owed nothing to them—and the change of name fostered a mysterious noble +birth, an idea that he allowed to gain currency without contradiction. +Moliere had changed his name from Poquolin—and was he not really +following in Moliere's footsteps, even to suffering disgrace and public +odium?<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_287" id="VIII_Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The play of "Œdipe" was presented by Voltaire at the Theater +Francaise, November Eighteenth, Seventeen Hundred Eighteen. This play +was written before the author's sojourn in prison, but there he had +sandpapered its passages, and hand-polished the epigrams.</p> + +<p>It was rehearsed at length with the help of the "guests" at the Bastile, +and once Voltaire wrote a note of appreciation to the Prefect of Police, +thanking him for his thoughtfulness in sending such excellent and +pure-minded people to help him in his work.</p> + +<p>These things had been managed so they discreetly leaked out, and the +cafes echoed with the name of Voltaire.</p> + +<p>Very soon after his release the play was presented to a crowded house. +It was a success from the start, for into its lines the audience was +allowed to read many veiled allusions to Paris public characters. It ran +for forty-five nights, and was the furore. On one occasion when interest +seemed to lag, Voltaire, on a sudden inspiration, dressed up as a +bumpkin page, and attended the Pontiff, carrying his train, playing +various and sundry sly pranks in pantomime, a la Francis Wilson.</p> + +<p>In one of the boxes sat a famous beauty, the Duchesse de Villars. "Who +is this strange person who is intent upon spoiling the play?" she asked. +On being told that he was the author of the drama, her censure turned to +approbation and she sent for the young man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_288" id="VIII_Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> His appearance in her box +was duly noted. The Regent and his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri, +could not resist the temptation to attend the play, and see how much +they were satirized. Voltaire did his little train-bearing act for their +benefit, with a few extra grimaces, which pleased them very much, and +seeing his opportunity, wrote a gracious letter of thanks to His +Highness for having deigned to visit his play, winding up with thanks +for the years in the Bastile where, "God wot, all of my evil +inclinations were duly chastened and corrected."</p> + +<p>It had the desired effect—each side feared the other. The Regent wanted +the ready writers on his side, and the playwright who was opposed by the +party in power could not hope for success. The Regent sent a present of +a thousand crowns to Voltaire and also fixed on him a pension of twelve +hundred livres a year. At once every passage in the play that could be +construed as bearing on royalty was revised into words of adulation, and +all went merry as a marriage-bell. Financially the play was a success, +and better yet was the pension and the good-will of the young King and +his Regent.</p> + +<p>Thus at twenty-two did Voltaire have the world at his feet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_289" id="VIII_Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When Voltaire was twenty-four, his father died. The will provided that +the property should be equally divided between his three children, but +it was stipulated that the second son should not come into possession of +his share until he was thirty-five, and not then unless he was able to +show the Master in Chancery that he was capable of wisely managing his +own affairs.</p> + +<p>This doubt of the father concerning the son's financial ability has +often been commented upon ironically, in view of the pronounced thrift +shown by Voltaire in later life.</p> + +<p>But who shall say whether the father by that provision in his will did +not drive home a stern lesson in economy? Commodore Vanderbilt had so +much distrust of his son William's capacity for business that he exiled +him to a Long Island farm, on an allowance. Years after, when William +had shown his ability to outstrip his father, he rebuked a critic who +volunteered a suggestion to the effect that the father had erred in the +boy problem. Said William, "My father was right in this, as in most +other things—I was a fool, and he knew it."</p> + +<p>Voltaire's vacation of a year in the Bastile had done him much good. +Then the will of his father, with its cautious provisions, tended to +sober the youth to a point where he was docile enough for society's +needs.</p> + +<p>A good deal of ballast in way of trouble was necessary<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_290" id="VIII_Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> to hold this man +down.</p> + +<p>Marriage might have tamed him. Bachelors are of two kinds—those who are +innocent of women, and those who know women too well. The second class, +I am told, outnumbers the first as ten to one.</p> + +<p>Voltaire had been a favorite of various women—usually married ladies, +and those older than himself. He had plagiarized Franklin, saying, fifty +years before the American put out his famous advice, "If you must fall +in love, why, fall in love with a woman much older than yourself, or at +least a homely one—for only such are grateful."</p> + +<p>In answer to a man who said divorce and marriage were instituted at the +same time, Voltaire said: "This is a mistake: there is at least three +days' difference. Men sometimes quarrel with their wives at the end of +three days, beat them in a week and divorce them at the end of a month."</p> + +<p>Voltaire was small and slight in stature, but his bubbling wit and +graceful presence more than made amends for any deficiency in way of +form and feature. Had he desired, he might have taken his pick among the +young women of nobility, but we see the caution of his nature in +limiting his love-affairs to plain women, securely married. "Gossip +isn't busy with the plain women—that is why I like you," he once said +to Madame de Bernieres. What the Madame's reply was, we do not know, but +probably she was not displeased. If a woman knows she is loved, it +matters little what<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_291" id="VIII_Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> you say to her. Compliments by the right oblique +are construed into lavish praise when expressed in the right tone of +voice by the right person.</p> + +<p>The Regent had allowed Voltaire another pension of two thousand francs, +at the same time intimating that he hoped the writer's income was +sufficient so he could now tell the truth. Voltaire took the hint, so +subtly veiled, to the effect that if he again affronted royalty by +unkind criticisms, his entire pension would be canceled.</p> + +<p>From this time on to the end of his life, he was full of lavish praise +for royalty. He was needlessly loyal, and dedicated poems and pamphlets +to nobility, right and left, in a way that would have caused a smile +were not nobility so hopelessly bound in three-quarters pachyderm. He +also wrote religious poems, protesting his love for the Church. And here +seems a good place to say that Voltaire was a member of the Catholic +Church to his death. Many of his worst attacks on the priesthood were +put in way of defense for outrageous actions which he enumerated in +detail. He kept people guessing as to what he meant and what he would do +next.</p> + +<p>Immediately after the death of President McKinley there was a fine +scramble among the editors of certain saffron sheets—to get in line and +shake their ulsters free from all taint of anarchy. Some writers, in +order to divert suspicion from themselves, hotly denounced other men as +anarchists.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_292" id="VIII_Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> + +<p>Throughout his life Voltaire had spasms of repentance, prompted by +caution, possibly, when he warmly denounced atheists, and swore, i' +faith, that one object of his life was to purify the Church and cleanse +it of its secret faults.</p> + +<p>In his twenty-sixth year, when he was trying hard to be good, he got +into a personal altercation with the Chevalier de Rohan, an +insignificant man bearing a proud name. The Chevalier's wit was no match +for the other's rapier-like tongue, but he had a way of his own in which +to get even. He had his servants waylay the luckless poet and chastise +him soundly with rattans.</p> + +<p>Voltaire was furious; he tried to get the courts to take it up, but the +prevailing idea was that he had gotten what he deserved, and the fact +that the whole affair occurred after dark and the Chevalier did not do +the beating in person, made conviction impossible.</p> + +<p>But Voltaire now quit the anapest and dactyl and devoted his best hours +to taking fencing lessons. His firm intent was to baptize the soil with +Rohan's blood. Voltaire was of enough importance so the secret police +knew of all his doings. Suddenly he found himself taking a post-graduate +course in the Bastile. I am not sure that the fiery little man was +entirely displeased with the procedure. It proved to the world that he +was a dangerous character, and it also gave him a respite from the +tyranny of the fencing-master, and allowed<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_293" id="VIII_Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> him to turn to his first, +last and only love—literature. In Voltaire's cosmos was a good deal of +the Bob Acres quality.</p> + +<p>There were plenty of reasons for locking him up—heresy and treason have +ever been first cousins—and pamphlets lampooning Churchmen high in +office were laid at his door. No doubt some of the anonymous literature +was not his—"I would have done the thing better or not at all," he once +said in reference to a scurrilous brochure. The real fact was, that that +particular pamphlet was done by a disciple, and if Voltaire's writings +were vile, then was his offense doubled in that he vitalized a ravenous +brood of scribblers. They played Caliban to his Setebos.</p> + +<p>Voltaire's most offensive contributions were always attributed by him to +this bishop or that, and to various dignitaries who had no existence +save in the figment of his own fertile pigment.</p> + +<p>He once carried on a controversy between the Bishop of Berlin and the +Archbishop of Paris, each man thundering against the other with a +monthly pamphlet wherein each one gored the other without mercy, and +revealed the senselessness of the other's religion. They flung the +literary stinkpot with great accuracy. "The other man's superstition is +always ridiculous to us—our own is sacred," said Voltaire, and so he +allowed his controversialists to fight it out for his own quiet joy, and +the edification of the onlookers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_294" id="VIII_Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then his plan of printing an alleged sermon, giving some unknown prelate +due credit on the title-page, starting in with a pious text and a page +of trite nothings and gradually drifting off into ridicule of the things +he had started in to defend—all this gives a comic tinge to his wail +that "some evil-minded person is attributing things to me I never +wrote," If an occasional sly Churchman got after him with his own +weapon, writing things in his style more hazardous than he dare express, +surely he should not have complained.</p> + +<p>But this was a fact—the enemy could not follow him long with a literary +fusillade—they hadn't the mental ammunition.</p> + +<p>Well has Voltaire been called "the father of all those who wear +shovel-hats."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_295" id="VIII_Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A few months in the Bastile, and Voltaire's indeterminate sentence was +commuted to exile. He was allowed to leave his country for his country's +good. Early in the year Seventeen Hundred Twenty-six he landed in +England, evidently knowing nobody there except one merchant, a man of no +special prominence.</p> + +<p>Voltaire belonged to the nobility by divine right—as much as did +Disraeli. Both had an inward contempt for titles, but they knew the +hearts of the owners so well that they simply played a game of chess, +and the "men" they moved were live knights, bishops, kings and queens, +with rollers under the castles. The pawns they pushed here and there +were the literary puppets of the time.</p> + +<p>The first thing Voltaire had to master in England was the language, and +this he did passably inside of three months. He took Grub Street by +storm; dawdled at Dodsley's; met Dean Swift, and these worthies +respected each other's wit so much that they simply took snuff, grimaced +and let it go at that; Pope came in for a visit, and the French poet +crossed Twickenham ferry and offered a handmade sonnet in admiration of +the "Essay on Man," which he had probably never read. Gay gave Voltaire +"The Beggar's Opera," in private, and together they called on Congreve, +who interrupted the Frenchman's flow of flattery long enough to say that +he wished to be looked on as a gentleman, not a<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_296" id="VIII_Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> poet. And Voltaire +replied that there were many gentlemen but few poets, and if Congreve +had had the misfortune to be simply a gentleman he would not have +troubled to call on him at all. Congreve, who really regarded himself as +the peer of Shakespeare, was won, and sent Voltaire on his way with +letters to Horace Walpole of Strawberry Hill. Thomson, who lived at +Hammersmith, and wrote his "Seasons" in a "public" next door to +Kelmscott, corrected and revised some of Voltaire's attempts at English +poetry. Young evolved some of his "Night Thoughts" while on a visit with +Voltaire at Bubb Dodington's.</p> + +<p>A call on the Duchess of Marlborough led to a dinner at Lord +Chesterfield's. Next he met Queen Caroline and assured her that she +spoke French like a Parisian. King George the Second quite liked +Voltaire, because Voltaire quite liked Lady Sandon, his mistress. Only a +Frenchman could have successfully paid court to the King, Queen and Lady +Sandon at the same time, as Voltaire did. His great epic poem, +"Henriade," that he had been sandpapering for ten years, was now +published, dedicated to the Queen. The King headed the subscription-list +with more copies than he needed, at five guineas each, on agreement. +Voltaire afterward said that he would not be expected to read the poem. +The Queen's good offices were utilized—she became for the time a royal +book-agent, and her signature and the author's adorned all deluxe +copies. A suggestion from<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_297" id="VIII_Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> the Queen was equal to an order, and the +edition was soon worked off.</p> + +<p>Voltaire now spent three years in England. He had written his "Life of +Charles the Twelfth," several plays, an "English Note-Book," and best of +all, had gotten together a thousand pounds good money as proceeds of +"Henriade," a stiff and stilted piece of pedantic bombast, written with +sweat and lamp-smoke.</p> + +<p>The "Letters on the English" were published a few years later in Paris +with good results, considering it was only a by-product. It is a deal +better-natured than Dickens' "American Note-Book," and had more humor +than Emerson's "English Traits." Among other things quite Voltairesque +in the "Letters" is this: "The Anglican Church has retained many of the +good old Catholic customs—not the least of which is the collection of +tithes with great regularity."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_298" id="VIII_Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The priestly habit of Voltaire's life manifested itself even to the +sharp collecting from the world all that the world owed him.</p> + +<p>The snug little sum he had secured in England would have shown his +ability, but there was something better in store, awaiting his return to +France. It seems the Controller of Finance had organized a lottery to +help pay the interest on the public debt. A considerable sum of money +had been realized, but there was still a large number of tickets unsold, +and the drawing was soon to take place. Voltaire knew the officials who +had the matter in charge and they knew him. He organized a syndicate +that would take all tickets there were left, on guarantee that among the +tickets purchased would be the one that called for the principal prize +of forty thousand pounds. Just how it was known in advance what ticket +would win must be left to those good people who understand these little +things in detail. In any event, Voltaire put in every sou he had—and +his little fortune was then a matter of about ten thousand dollars. +Several of his friends contributed a like sum.</p> + +<p>The drawing took place, and the prize of forty thousand pounds was +theirs. It is said that Voltaire took twenty-five thousand pounds as his +share—the whole scheme was his anyway—and his friends were quite +satisfied with having doubled their money in a fortnight.</p> + +<p>Immediately on securing this money, Voltaire presented himself at the +office of the President of Accounts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_299" id="VIII_Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> and asked for the legacy left him +by his father. As proof of his financial ability, and as a guarantee of +good faith, he opened a hand-satchel and piled on the President's table +a small mountain of gold and bank-notes. The first question of the +astonished official was, "Will M. de Voltaire have the supreme goodness +to explain where he stole all this money?"</p> + +<p>This was soon followed by an apology, as the visitor explained the +reason of his visit.</p> + +<p>The father's legacy amounted to nearly four thousand pounds, and this +was at once paid over to Voltaire with a flattering letter expressing +perfect faith in his ability to manage his own finances.</p> + +<p>There is a popular opinion that Voltaire made considerable money by his +pen, but the fact is, that at no period of his life did literature +contribute in but a very scanty way to his prosperity.</p> + +<p>After the lottery scheme, Voltaire embarked in grain speculations, +importing wheat from Barbary for French consumption. In this he made a +fair profit, but when war broke out between Italy and France, he entered +into an arrangement with Duverney, who had the army commissariat in his +hands, to provision the troops. It was not much of a war, but it lasted +long enough, as most wars do, for a few contractors to make much moneys. +The war spirit is usually fanned by financiers, Kuhn, Loeb and Company +giving the ultimatum.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_300" id="VIII_Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<p>Voltaire cleared about twenty thousand pounds out of his provision +contract.</p> + +<p>Thus we find this thrifty poet at forty with a fortune equal to a +half-million dollars. This money he loaned out in a way of his own—a +way as original as his literary style. His knowledge of the upper +circles again served him well. Among the proud scions of nobility there +were always a few who, through gambling proclivities, and other royal +qualities, were much in need of funds. Voltaire picked the men who had +only a life interest in their estates, and made them loans, secured by +the rentals. The loans were to be paid back in annuities as long as both +men lived.</p> + +<p>All insurance is a species of gambling—the company offers to make you a +bet that your house will burn within a year.</p> + +<p>In life-insurance, the company's expert looks you over, and if your +waist measurement is not too great for your height, a bargain is entered +into wherein you agree to pay so much now, and so much every year as +long as you live, in consideration that the company will pay your heirs +so much at your death.</p> + +<p>The chief value of life-insurance lies in the fact that it insures a man +against his own indiscretion, a thing supposedly under his own +control—but which never is. Voltaire's scheme banked on the man's +weakness, and laid his indiscretion open before the world. It was +life-insurance turned wrong side out, and could only<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_301" id="VIII_Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> have been devised +and carried out by a man of courage with an actuary's bias for +mathematics.</p> + +<p>Instead of agreeing to pay the man so much at death, Voltaire paid him +the whole sum in advance, and the man agreed to pay, say, ten per cent +interest until either the lender or the borrower died. No principal was +to be paid, and on the death of either party, the whole debt was +canceled.</p> + +<p>Voltaire picked only men younger than himself. It was a tempting offer +to the borrower, for Voltaire looked like a consumptive, and it is said +that on occasion he evolved a wheezy cough that helped close the deal. +The whole scheme, for Voltaire, was immensely successful. On some of the +risks he collected his yearly ten per cent for over forty years, or +until his death.</p> + +<p>On Voltaire's loan of sixteen hundred pounds to the Marquis du Chatelet, +however, it is known that he collected nothing either in way of +principal or interest. This was as strange a piece of financiering as +was ever consummated; and the inside history of the matter, with its +peculiar psychology, has never been written. The only two persons who +could have told that story in its completeness were Voltaire and the +Madame du Chatelet, and neither ever did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_302" id="VIII_Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Madame du Chatelet—the divine Emilie—was twenty-seven and Voltaire was +thirty-nine when they first met.</p> + +<p>He was living in obscure lodgings in Paris for prudential reasons, the +executioner having just burned, in the public street, all the copies of +his last book that could be found.</p> + +<p>The Madame called on him to express her sympathy—and congratulations. +She had written a book, but it had not been burned—not even read! She +was tall, thin, angular, far from handsome, but had beaming eyes and a +face that tokened intellect. And best of all, her voice was low, finely +modulated, and was not exercised more than was meet.</p> + +<p>She leaned her chin upon her hand and looked at him.</p> + +<p>She had met Voltaire when she was a child—at least she said so, and he, +being a gentleman, remembered perfectly. She read to him a little +manuscript she had just dashed off. It was deep, profound and full of +reasons—that is the way learned women write—they write like professors +of rhetoric. Really great men write lightly, suggestively, and with a +certain amount of indifference, dash, froth and foam. When women evolve +literary foam, it is the sweet, cloying, fixed foam of the charlotte +russe—not the bubbling, effervescent Voltaire article.</p> + +<p>Could M. de Voltaire suggest a way in which her manuscript might be +lightened up so the public<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_303" id="VIII_Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> executioner would deign to notice it?</p> + +<p>M. de Voltaire responded by reading to her a little thing of his own.</p> + +<p>The next day she called again.</p> + +<p>Some say that Madame called on Voltaire to secure a loan on her +husband's estate at Civey. No matter—she got the loan.</p> + +<p>Doubtless she did not know where she was going—none of us do. We are +all sailing under sealed orders.</p> + +<p>The Madame had been married eight years. She was versed in Latin and +knew Italian literature. She was educated; Voltaire was not. She offered +to teach him Italian if he would give her lessons in English.</p> + +<p>They read to each other things they had recently written. When men and +women read to each other and mingle their emotions, the danger-line is +being reached. Literary people of the opposite sex do not really love +each other. All they desire is to read their manuscript aloud to a +receptive listener.</p> + +<p>Thus are the literary germs vitalized—by giving our thoughts to another +we really make them our own. Only well-sexed people produce +literature—poetry is the pollen of the mind. Meter, rhythm, lilt and +style are stamen, pistil and stalk swaying in the warm breeze of +springtime.</p> + +<p>An order for arrest was out for Voltaire. Pamphlets which he had been +refused permission to publish in Paris were printed at Rouen and were +setting all Paris by the ears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_304" id="VIII_Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p> + +<p>With Madame du Chatelet he fled to Civey, where was the tumbledown +chateau of the Marquis—the Madame's complaisant husband. Voltaire +advanced the Marquis sixteen hundred pounds to put the place in order, +and then on his own account fitted up two sumptuous apartments, one for +himself and one for Madame. The Marquis went away with his regiment, and +occasionally came back and lounged about the chateau. But Voltaire was +the real master of the place.</p> + +<p>Voltaire was neither domestic nor rural in his tastes, but the Du +Chatelet seemed to fill his cup to the brim, and made him enjoy what +otherwise would have been exile. He wrote incessantly—poems, essays, +plays—and fired pamphlets at a world of fools.</p> + +<p>All that he wrote during the day he read to Madame at night. One of her +maids has given us a vivid little picture of how Voltaire, at exactly +eleven o'clock each night, would come out of hiding, and entering the +Madame's room, would partake of the dainty supper that was always +prepared for him. The divine Emilie had the French habit of receiving +her visitors in bed, and as her hours were much more regular than +Voltaire's, she usually enjoyed a nap before he entered. After his +supper he would read aloud to her all he had written since they last +met. If the piece was dramatic he would act it out with roll of r's, +striding walk, grimace and gesticulations gracefully done, for the man +was an actor of rare talent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_305" id="VIII_Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<p>Emerson says, "Let a man do a thing incomparably well, and the world +will make a path to his door, though he live in a forest." There was no +lack of society at Civey—the writers, poets and philosophers found +their way there. Voltaire fitted up a little private theater, where his +plays were given, and concerts and lectures held from time to time.</p> + +<p>The divine Emilie's forte was science and mathematics—and on these +themes she wrote much, competing for prizes and winning the recognition +of various learned societies. It will be seen that the man and the woman +were not in competition with each other, which, perhaps, accounts, in +degree, for their firm friendship.</p> + +<p>Yet they did quarrel, too, as true lovers will, I am told. But their +quarreling was all done in English, so the servants and His Inertia, the +Marquis, did not know the purpose of it. It is probable that the +accounts of their misunderstandings are considerably exaggerated, as the +rehearsal of a tragedy by this pair of histrions would be taken by the +servants for a sure-enough fight.</p> + +<p>And they were always acting—often beginning breakfast with a "stunt." +The Madame sang well, and her little impromptu arias pleased her thin +little lover immensely and he would improvise and answer in kind, and +then take the part of an audience and applaud, calling loudly, "Bravo! +Bravo!"</p> + +<p>Mornings they would ride horseback through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_306" id="VIII_Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> winding woods, or else +hunt for geological and botanical specimens. About all of Voltaire's +science he got from the lady and this was true of languages as well.</p> + +<p>To a nervous, irritable and intense thinker a certain amount of solitude +seems necessary. Voltaire occasionally grew weary of the delicious quiet +of Civey, and the indictment against him having been quashed, he would +go away to Paris or elsewhere. On these trips if he did not take Madame +along she would grow furious, then lacrimose and finally +submissive—with a weepy protest. If he failed to write her daily she +grew hysterical. Two winters they spent together in Paris and another at +Brussels.</p> + +<p>A lawsuit involving the estate of the Marquis du Chatelet, that had been +in the courts for eighty years, was pushed to a successful issue by +Voltaire and Madame. Four hundred fifty thousand dollars were secured, +but of this Voltaire, strangely enough, took nothing.</p> + +<p>That the bond between Emilie and Voltaire was very firm is shown by the +fact that, after they had been together ten years, he declined to leave +her to accept an invitation to visit Frederick the Great at Berlin. +Frederick was a married man, but his was a strictly bachelor court—for +prudential reasons. Frederick and Emilie had carried on a spirited +correspondence, but this was as close as he cared for her to come to +him. All of his communications with females were limited<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_307" id="VIII_Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> to letters, +and Voltaire once said that that was the reason he was called Frederick +the Great.</p> + +<p>Madame du Chatelet died when she was forty-two; Voltaire was fifty-five. +For fifteen years this strange and most romantic friendship had +continued, and to a degree it had worn itself out. Toward the last the +lady had been exacting and dictatorial, and thinking that Voltaire had +slighted her by not taking her more into his confidence, she had +accepted another lover, a man ten years her junior. If she had thought +to make Voltaire jealous, she had reckoned without her host—he was +relieved to find her fierce supervision relaxed.</p> + +<p>When she passed away he worked his woe up into a pretty panegyric, +closed up his affairs at Civey, and left there forever.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_308" id="VIII_Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>So far as the government was concerned, Voltaire seems to have passed +his days in accepting rewards and receiving punishments. Interdict, +exile, ostracism were followed by honors, pension and office.</p> + +<p>His one lasting love was the drama. About every two years a swirl of +excitement was caused at Paris by the announcement of a new play by +Voltaire. These plays seemed to appeal mostly to the nobility, the +clergy and those in public office. And the object in every instance was +to get even with somebody, and place some one in a ridiculous light. +Innocent historical dramas were passed by the censor, and afterward it +was found that in them some local bigwig was flayed without mercy. Then +the play had to be withdrawn, and all printed copies were burned in +public, and Voltaire would flee to Brussels or Geneva to escape summary +punishment.</p> + +<p>However, he never fooled all of the people all of the time. There was +always a goodly number of dignitaries who richly enjoyed the drubbing he +gave the other fellow, and these would gloat in inward glee over the +Voltaire ribaldry until it came their turn. Then the other side would +laugh. The fact is, Voltaire always represented a constituency, +otherwise his punishment might have been genuine, instead of forty +lashes with a feather, well laid on.</p> + +<p>About the time Madame du Chatelet passed away, Voltaire seemed to be +enjoying a period of kingly favor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_309" id="VIII_Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> He had been made a Knight of the +Bedchamber and also Historiographer of France. The chief duty of the +first office consisted in signing the monthly voucher for salary, and +the other was about the same as Poet Laureate—with salary in inverse +ratio to responsibility. It was considered, however, that the holder of +these offices was one of the King's family, and therefore was bound to +indulge in no unseemly antics.</p> + +<p>On June Twenty-sixth, Seventeen Hundred Fifty, Voltaire applied to the +King in person for permission to visit Frederick of Prussia.</p> + +<p>Tradition has it that the King replied promptly, "You may go—the sooner +the better—and you may remain as long as you choose."</p> + +<p>Voltaire pocketed the veiled acerbity without a word, and bowing himself +out, made hot haste to pack up and be on his way before an order +rescinding the permission was issued.</p> + +<p>Frederick was a freethinker, a scientist, a poet, and a wit well worthy +of the companionship of Voltaire. In fact, they were very much alike. +Both had the dual qualities of being intensely practical and yet +iconoclastic. Both were witty, affable, seemingly indifferent and +careless, but yet always with an eye on the main chance. Each was small, +thin and bony, but both had the intellect of the lean and hungry Cassius +that looked quite through the deeds of man.</p> + +<p>Frederick received Voltaire with royal honors. Princes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_310" id="VIII_Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> ministers of +state, grandees and generals high in office, knelt on one knee as he +passed. Frederick tried to make it appear that France had failed to +appreciate her greatest philosopher, and so he had come to Prussia—the +home of letters. His pension was fixed at twenty thousand francs a year, +he was given the Golden Key of Chamberlain, and the Grand Cross of the +Order of Merit. He was a member of the King's household, and was the +nearest and dearest friend of the royal person.</p> + +<p>Frederick thought he had bound the great man to him for life.</p> + +<p>Personality repels as well as attracts. Voltaire's viper-like pen was +never idle. He wrote little plays for the court, and these were +presented with much eclat, the author superintending their presentation, +and considerately taking minor parts himself, so as to divide the +honors. But amateur theatricals stand for heart-burnings and jealousy. +The German poets were scored, other writers ridiculed, and big +scientists came in for their share of pen-pricking.</p> + +<p>Voltaire corrected the King's manuscript and taught him the secret of +literary style. Then they fell into a controversy, done in Caslon +old-style, thundering against each other's theories in pamphlets across +seas of misundertandings. Neither side publicly avowed the authorship, +but nobody was deceived. The King and Voltaire met daily at meals, and +carefully avoided the topics they were fighting out in print.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_311" id="VIII_Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p> + +<p>Voltaire was rich and all of his wants were supplied, but he entered the +financial lists, and taking advantage of his inside knowledge, +speculated in scrip and got into a disgraceful lawsuit over the proceeds +with a man he should never have known. Frederick was annoyed—then +disturbed. He personally chided Voltaire for his folly in mixing with +the King's enemies.</p> + +<p>Voltaire had tired of the benevolent assimilation—he craved freedom. A +friend who loves you, if he spies upon your every action, will become +intolerable. Voltaire intimated to Frederick that he would like to go.</p> + +<p>But Frederick had a great admiration for the man—he considered Voltaire +the greatest living thinker, and to have such a one in the court would +help give the place an atmosphere of learning. He recognized that there +were two Voltaires—one covetous, quibbling, spiteful and greedy; and +the other the peerless poet and philosopher—the man who hated shams and +pretense, and had made a brave fight for liberty; the charming +companion, the gracious friend. Frederick was philosopher enough to +realize that he could not have the one without the other—if he had the +angel he must also tolerate the demon. This he would do—he must have +his Voltaire, and so he refused the passports asked for, and sought to +interest his literary lion in new projects. Finally, court life became +intolerable to Voltaire, as life is to anybody when he realizes that he +is being detained against his will. Voltaire packed his effects,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_312" id="VIII_Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> +secured a four-horse carriage, and with his secretary, departed by +night, without leaving orders where his mail should be forwarded.</p> + +<p>When Frederick found that his singing bird had flown, he was furious. +Fear had much to do with the matter, for Voltaire had taken various +manuscripts written by the King, wherein potentates in high places were +severely scored. The first thought of Frederick evidently was that +Voltaire had really been a spy in the employ of the French government. +He sent messengers after him in hot haste—the fugitive was overtaken, +and arrested. His luggage was searched, and after being detained at +Frankfort for three weeks he was allowed to depart for pastures new.</p> + +<p>The news of his flight, arrest and disgrace became the gossip of every +court of Christendom. Who was disgraced more by the arrest—Voltaire or +Frederick—the world has not yet decided. Carlyle deals with the subject +in detail in his "Life of Frederick," and exonerates the King. But Taine +says Carlyle wrote neither history nor poetry, and certainly we do not +consider the sage of Cheyne Row an impartial judge.</p> + +<p>Voltaire took time to cool, and then wrote a history of the affair which +is published in his "My Private Life," that is one of the most delicious +pieces of humor ever written. That he should have looked forward to life +at the Prussian Court as the ideal, and then after bravely enduring it +for three years, make his escape by night,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_313" id="VIII_Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> was only a huge joke. +Nothing else could have been expected, he says. Men of fifty should know +that environment does not make heaven, and people who expect other +people to make paradise for them are forever doomed to wander without +the walls.</p> + +<p>Voltaire acknowledges that he got better treatment than he deserved, and +makes no apology for working the whole affair up into good copy. The +final proof that Voltaire was a true philosopher is that he was able to +laugh at himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_314" id="VIII_Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When Voltaire left Prussia, it was voluntary exile. Paris was +forbidden—all of France was for him unsafe; England he had hopelessly +offended. By slow stages he made his way to Switzerland. But on the way +there his courage failed him and he wrote back to Frederick, suggesting +reconciliation. But Frederick promptly reminded him that he had +repeatedly broken promises by writing about Frederick's personal +friends, and "Voltaire and Frederick had better keep apart, that their +love for each other might not grow cold"—a subtle bit of sarcasm.</p> + +<p>At Geneva, where Calvin had instituted a little tyranny of his own, +Voltaire was made welcome. Nominally no Catholics were allowed in +Geneva, and when Voltaire wrote to the authorities, explaining that he +was a good Catholic, the matter was taken as a great joke. He bought a +beautiful little farm a few miles away, on the banks of the river Rhone, +overlooking the city of Geneva and the lake. It was an ideal spot, and +rightly he called it "Delices." Here he was going to end his days amid +flowers and birds and books and bees, an onlooker and possibly a +commentator on the times, but not a doer. His days of work were over. Of +the world of strife he had had enough—thus he wrote to Frederick.</p> + +<p>Visitors of a literary turn of mind at Geneva began to come his way. He +established an inn, and later built a theater out of the ruins of an old +church that he had bought and dismantled. "This is what I am going to<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_315" id="VIII_Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> +do with all the churches in France," he explained with a smile.</p> + +<p>His pen was never idle. He wrote plays that were presented at his own +little theater, and on such occasions he would send word to his Geneva +friends not to come, as they could not be accommodated. Of course they +came.</p> + +<p>He wrote a history of Peter the Great, and this brought him into +communication with Queen Catherine of Russia, with whom he carried on +quite an animated correspondence. This worthy widow invited him to Saint +Petersburg, and he slyly wrote to Frederick for advice as to whether he +should go or not. It is said that Frederick advised him to go, pay court +to the Queen, marry her, seize the throne, and get his head cut off for +his pains, thus achieving immortality and benefiting the world at one +stroke.</p> + +<p>Voltaire had no intention of going to Saint Petersburg; he had created a +little Court of Letters, of which he himself was the Czar, and for the +first time in his life he was experiencing a degree of genuine content. +His flowers, bees, manuscripts and theater filled every moment of the +day from six in the morning until ten at night. He had arrived in +Switzerland broken in health, with mind dazed, his frail body undone. +There at the little farm at Delices, overlooking the lake, health came +back and youth seemed to return to this man of three-score.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_316" id="VIII_Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p> + +<p>Some of the nobility in Paris, to whom he had loaned money, took +advantage of his exile to withhold payments, but Voltaire secured an +agent to look after his affairs, so his losses were not great.</p> + +<p>He bought the tumbledown chateau of Tournay, near at hand, which carried +with it the right to call himself Count Tournay. Frederick, with mock +respect, so addressed his letters.</p> + +<p>His next financial venture, begun when he was sixty-eight, might well +have tested the strength of a much younger man. A few miles from Geneva, +at Ferney, just over the border from Switzerland, Voltaire had bought a +large tract of waste land, intending to use it for pasturage. Here he +built a cottage and lived a part of the time when visitors were too +persistent at Delices. Ferney was on French soil, Delices in +Switzerland. Voltaire had criticized the Protestants of Geneva, and +given it as his opinion that a Calvinistic tyranny was in no wise +preferable to one built on Catholicism. Some then said, "This man is +really what he professes—a Catholic." There had also been a +demonstration to drive him out of Switzerland, since it was pretty well +known that Voltaire's crowds of visitors were neither Catholic nor +Protestant. "Delices is infidelic," was the cry, and this doubtless had +something to do with Voltaire's establishing himself at Ferney. If +Protestant Switzerland drove this Catholic over to France, why, Catholic +France would not molest him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_317" id="VIII_Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p> + +<p>Every country, no matter how tyrannical its government, prides itself on +being the home of the exile, just as every man thinks of himself as +being sincere and without prejudice.</p> + +<p>It is now believed that Voltaire had much to do with inciting the civil +riots in Geneva against the Catholics. He had circulated pamphlets +purporting to be written by a Catholic, upholding the Pope, and +ridiculing most unmercifully the pretenses of Protestantism, declaring +it a compromise with the devil, made up of the scum of the Catholic +Church. This pamphlet declared Calvin a monster, and arraigned him for +burning Servetus, and hinted that all Calvinists would soon be paid back +in their own coin. No one else could have penned this vitriolic pamphlet +but Voltaire—he knew both sides. But since Geneva regarded Voltaire as +an infidel, it never occurred to the authorities that he would take up +the cudgel of the Catholic Church that had burned his books. The real +fact was, the pamphlet wasn't a defense of Catholicism—it was only a +drubbing of Calvinism, and the wit was too subtle for the Presbyterians +to digest.</p> + +<p>Very soon another pamphlet appeared, answering the first. It arraigned +the Catholics in scathing phrase, suggested that they were getting ready +to burn the city—hinted at a repetition of Saint Bartholomew, and +declared the order had gone forth from Rome to scourge and kill. It was +as choice an A.P.A. document as was<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_318" id="VIII_Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> ever issued by a relentless joker. +The result was that the workers in the watch-factory and silk-mills who +were Catholics found themselves ostracized by the Protestant workmen. I +do not find that the authorities drove the Catholics out of Geneva, it +was simply a species of labor trouble—Protestants would not work with +Catholics.</p> + +<p>At this juncture Voltaire comes in, and invites all persecuted Catholic +watch-workers and silk-weavers to move to Ferney. Here Voltaire laid out +a town—erected houses, factories, churches and schools. In two years he +had built up a town of twelve hundred people, and had a watch-factory +and silk-mill in full and paying operation.</p> + +<p>The problem of every manufacturer is to sell his wares—Voltaire knew +how to release purse-strings of friends and enemies alike. He sent +watches to all of his enemies in Paris, bishops, priests and potentates, +explaining that he had quit literature forever, and was now engaged in +helping struggling, exiled Catholics to get an honest living—he was +doing penance as foreman of a watch-factory—would the Most Reverend not +help in this worthy work? Money flowed in on Ferney—Frederick ordered a +consignment of watches, Queen Catherine did the same, and the Bishop of +Paris sent his blessing and an order for enough silk to keep Voltaire's +factory going for six months.</p> + +<p>Voltaire really got the pick of the workmen of Geneva—the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_319" id="VIII_Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> goods made +were of the best, and while at first Catholics only were employed, yet +in five years Ferney was quite as much Protestant as Catholic. Voltaire +respected the religious beliefs of his workmen, and there was liberty +for all. He paid better wages and treated his workers better than they +had ever been treated in Geneva. Voltaire built houses for his people +and allowed them to pay him in monthly instalments. And not only did he +himself make much money out of his Ferney investment, but he established +the town upon such a safe financial basis that its prosperity endures +even unto this day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_320" id="VIII_Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was at Ferney, in his old age, that Voltaire first made open war upon +"revealed religion." All religions that professed a miraculous origin +were to him baneful in the extreme, the foes of light and progress, the +enemies of mankind. He did not perceive, as modern psychology does, that +the period of supernaturalism is the childhood of the mind. Myths and +fairy-tales are not of themselves base—the injury lies with the men who +seek to profit by these things, and build up a tyranny founded on +innocence and ignorance—seeking to perpetuate these things, issuing +threats against growth, and offers of reward to all who stand still.</p> + +<p>Voltaire called superstition "The Infamy," and he summoned the thinkers +of the world to crush it beneath a heel of scorn. Letters, pamphlets, +plays, essays, were sent out in various languages, by his own +printing-presses. The wit of the man—his scathing mockery—were weapons +no one could wield in reply. The priests and preachers did not answer +him—they could not—they only grew purple with wrath and hissed.</p> + +<p>Says Victor Hugo, "Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled." To which Bernard Shaw +has recently rejoined, "Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled; William Morris +worked."</p> + +<p>From the prosperity, peace and security of Ferney, Voltaire pointed a +bony finger at every hypocrite in Christendom, and laughed his mocking +smile. The man expressed himself, and happiness lies in that and<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_321" id="VIII_Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> +nothing else. Misery comes from lack of full, free self-expression, and +from nothing else. The man who fights for freedom fights for the right +of self-expression for himself and others—and immortality lies in +nothing else.</p> + +<p>There is no fight worth making—no struggle worth the while—save the +struggle for freedom.</p> + +<p>No name is honored among men—no name lives—save the name of the man +who worked for liberty and light—who has fought freedom's fight.</p> + +<p>Run the list in your mind of the names that are immortal, and you will +recall only those of men who have widened the horizon for other men, and +that select number who are remembered in infamy because they linked +their names with greatness by doubting, denying, betraying and +persecuting it—deathless through disgrace.</p> + +<p>Voltaire sided with the weak, the defenseless, the fallen. He demanded +that men should not be hounded for their belief, that they should not be +arrested without cause and without knowing why, and without letting +their friends know why. We realize his faults, we know his imperfections +and limitations, yet, through his influence, life throughout the world +became safer, liberty dearer, freedom a more sacred thing. His words +were a battery that eventually razed the walls of the Bastile, and best +of all, freed countless millions from theological superstition, that +Bastile of the brain.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="HERBERT_SPENCER" id="HERBERT_SPENCER"></a>HERBERT SPENCER<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_322" id="VIII_Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></h2> + + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>What knowledge is of most worth? The uniform reply is: Science.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_323" id="VIII_Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> +This is the verdict on all counts. For direct self-preservation, or +the maintenance of life and health, the all-important knowledge +is—science. For that indirect self-preservation which we call +gaining a livelihood, the knowledge of greatest value is—science. +For the discharge of parental functions, the proper guidance is to +be found only in science. For the interpretation of national life, +past and present, without which the citizen can not rightly +regulate his conduct, the indispensable key is—science. Alike for +the most perfect production and present enjoyment of art in all its +forms, the needful preparation is still—science. And for purposes +of discipline—intellectual, moral, religious—the most efficient +study is, once more—science.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 25em;">—<i>Essay on Education</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_324" id="VIII_Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + +<div class="center"> + <a id="image0462-1"></a> + <img src="images/0462-1.jpg" width="273" height="400" + alt="" + title="" /> + + <p class="center">HERBERT SPENCER</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_325" id="VIII_Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> + + + +<p>In Derby, England, April Twenty-seventh, Eighteen Hundred Twenty, +Herbert Spencer, the only child of his parents, was born. His mother +died in his childhood, so he really never had any vivid recollection of +her, but hearsay, fused with memory and ideality, vitalized all. And +thus to him, to the day of his death, his mother stood for gentleness, +patience, tenderness, intuitive insight, and a love that never grew +faint. Man makes his mother in his own image.</p> + +<p>Herbert Spencer's father was a school-teacher, and in very moderate +circumstances. Little Herbert could not remember when he did not go to +school, and yet as a real scholar, he never went to school at all. The +family lived over the schoolroom, and while the youngster yet wore +dresses his father would hold him in his arms, and carry him around the +room as he instructed his classes. William George Spencer was both +father and mother to Herbert, and used to sing to him lullabies as the +sun went down.</p> + +<p>After school there were always walks afield, and in the evening the +brother of the school-master would call, and then there was much +argument as to Why and What, Whence and Whither.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_326" id="VIII_Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> + +<p>People talk gossip, we are told, for lack of a worthy theme. These two +Spencers—one a school-master and the other a clergyman—found the time +too short for their discussions. In their walks and talks they were +always examining, comparing, classifying, selecting, speculating. +Flowers, plants, bugs, beetles, birds, trees, weeds, earth and rocks +were scrutinized and analyzed.</p> + +<p>Where did it come from? How did it get here?</p> + +<p>I am told that lions never send their cubs away to be educated by a +cubless lioness and an emasculated lion. The lion learns by first +playing at the thing and then doing it.</p> + +<p>A motherless boy, brought up by an indulgent father, one might prophesy, +would be sure to rule the father and be spoiled himself through omission +of the rod. But in the boy problem all signs fail. The father taught by +exciting curiosity and animating his pupils to work out problems and +make discoveries—keeping his discipline well out of sight. How well the +plan worked is revealed in the life of Herbert Spencer himself; and his +book, "Education," is based on the ideas evolved by his father, to whom +he gives much credit. No man ever had so divine a right to compile a +book on education as Herbert Spencer, for he proved in his own life +every principle he laid down.</p> + +<p>On all excursions Herbert was taken along—because he couldn't be left +at home, you know. He listened to the conversations and learned by +hearing the older<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_327" id="VIII_Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> pupils recite.</p> + +<p>All out-of-doors was fairyland to him—a curiosity-shop filled with +wonderful things—over your head, under your feet, all around was +life—action, pulsing life, everything in motion—going somewhere, +evolving into something else.</p> + +<p>This habit of observation, adoration and wonder—filled with pleasurable +emotions and recollections from the first—lasted the man through life, +and allowed him, even with a frail constitution, to round out a long +period of severe mental work, with never a tendency to die at the top.</p> + +<p>Herbert Spencer never wrote a thing more true than this: "The man to +whom in boyhood information came in dreary tasks, along with threats of +punishment, is unlikely to be a student in after-years; while those to +whom it came in natural forms, at the proper times, and who remember its +facts as not only interesting in themselves, but as a long series of +gratifying successes, are likely to continue through life that +self-instruction begun in youth."</p> + +<p>When thirteen years old Herbert went to live with his uncle, the +Reverend Thomas Spencer, at Bath. Here the same methods of education +were continued that had been begun at home—conversation, history in the +form of story-telling, walks and talks, and mathematical calculations +carried out as pleasing puzzles. In mathematics the boy made rapid +progress, but the faculty of observation was the dominant one. Every +phase of<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_328" id="VIII_Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> cloud and sky, of water and earth, rock and mountain, bird and +bush, plant and tree, was curious to him. He kept a journal of his +observations, which had the double advantage of deepening his +impressions by recounting them, and second, it taught him the use of +language.</p> + +<p>The best way to learn to write is to write. Herbert Spencer never +studied grammar until he had learned to write. He took his grammar at +sixty, which is a good age to begin this interesting study, as by that +time you have largely lost your capacity to sin. Men who swim +exceedingly well are not those who have taken courses in the theory of +swimming at natatoriums from professors of the amphibian art—they were +boys who just jumped in. Correspondence-schools for the taming of +broncos are as naught; and treatises on the gentle art of wooing are of +no avail—follow Nature's lead. Grammar is the appendenda vermiformis of +pedagogics: it is as useless as the letter q in the alphabet, or as the +proverbial two tails to a cat, which no cat ever had, and the finest cat +in the world, the Manx cat, has no tail at all.</p> + +<p>"The literary style of most university men is commonplace, when not +positively bad," wrote Herbert Spencer in his old age. "Educated +Englishmen all write alike," said Taine. That is to say, they have no +literary style, for style is character, individuality—the style is the +man. And grammar tends to obliterate all individuality. No study is so +irksome to everybody, except to<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_329" id="VIII_Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> the sciolists who teach it, as grammar. +It remains forever a bad taste in the mouth of the man of ideas, and has +weaned bright minds innumerable from all desire to express themselves +through the written word. Grammar is the etiquette of words, and the man +who does not know how to properly salute his grandmother on the street +until he has consulted a book, is always so troubled about his tenses +that his fancies break through language and escape.</p> + +<p>Orators who keep their thoughts upon the proper way to gesticulate in +curves impress nobody. If poor grammar were a sin against decency, or an +attempt to poison the minds of the people, it might be wise enough to +hire men to protect the well of English from defilement. But a +stationary language is a dead one—moving water only is pure—and the +well that is not fed by springs is a breeding-place for disease. Let men +express themselves in their own way, and if they express themselves +poorly, look you, their punishment shall be that no one will read them. +Oblivion, with her smother-blanket, waits for the writer who has nothing +to say and says it faultlessly. In the making of hare-soup, I am told +the first requisite is to catch your hare. The literary scullion who has +anything to offer a hungry world will doubtless find a way to fricassee +it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_330" id="VIII_Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When seventeen, Herbert Spencer was apprenticed to a surveyor on the +London and Birmingham Railway. The pay was meager—board and keep and +five pounds for the first year, with ten pounds the second year "if he +deserved it." However, school-teachers and clergymen are used to small +reward, and to make a living for one's self was no small matter to the +Spencers. The youth who has gotten his physical growth should earn his +own living, this as a necessary factor in his further mental evolution.</p> + +<p>Neither William George Spencer, Herbert's father, nor Thomas, his uncle, +seemed ever to anticipate that they were helping to develop the greatest +thinker of his time. They themselves were obscure men, and quite happy +therein, and if young Herbert could attain to a fair degree of physical +health, make his living as an honest surveyor or as a teacher of +mathematics, it would be all one could reasonably hope for. And thus +they lived out the measure of their days, and passed away unaware that +this boy they claimed in partnership was to be the maker of an epoch.</p> + +<p>Young Spencer began his surveying work by carrying a flag, and soon he +was advanced to "chainman." His skill in mathematics made his services +valuable, and his willingness to sit up nights and work out the +measurements of the day, so pleased his employer that the letter of the +contract was waived and he was paid ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_331" id="VIII_Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> pounds for his first year's +work, instead of five. He invented shorter methods for bridges and +culverts, and I believe was the first engineer to build a cantilever +railroad-bridge in England.</p> + +<p>When he was twenty-one he had so thoroughly mastered the work that his +employers offered to place him in charge of a construction-gang at a +salary of two hundred pounds a year, which was then considered high pay. +He, however, loved liberty more than money, and his tastes were in the +direction of invention and science, rather than in working out an +immediate practical success for himself.</p> + +<p>He returned home and invented a scheme for making type; and had another +plan for watchmaking, which he illustrated with painstaking designs. +Half of his time was spent in the fields, and he made a large botanical +collection—indexing it carefully, with many notes and comments.</p> + +<p>He also wrote articles for the "Civil Engineers' and Artisans' Journal." +For these he received no pay, but the acceptance of manuscript gives a +great glow to a writer's cosmos: young Spencer was encouraged in the +belief that he had something to offer the public. But his father and +kinsmen saw only failure in these days of dawdling; and the money being +gone, Herbert Spencer, aged twenty-two, went up to London to try to get +a renewal of the offer from his old employer.</p> + +<p>But things had changed—chances gone are gone<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_332" id="VIII_Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> forever, and he was told +that opportunity knocks but once at each man's door. Sadly he returned +home—not disappointed in himself, but depressed that he should +disappoint others. His inventions languished—nobody was interested in +them.</p> + +<p>To get a living was the problem, and writing seemed the only way. And so +he prepared a series of articles for "The Non-Conformist," and there was +enough non-conformity in them so he was paid a small sum for his work. +It proved this, though—he could get a living by his pen.</p> + +<p>In these "Non-Conformist" articles, Spencer put forth a daring statement +concerning the evolution of the soldier, that straightway made him a few +enemies, and gave his clerical uncle gooseflesh. His hypothesis was +this: When man first evolved out of the Stone Age, and began to live in +villages, the oldest and wisest individual was regarded as patriarch or +chief. This chief appointed certain men to punish wrongdoers and keep +order. But there were always a few who would not work and who, through +their violence and contumacious spirit, were finally driven from the +camp. Or more likely they fled to escape punishment—which is the same +thing—for they were outcasts. These men found refuge in the mountain +fastnesses and congregated for two reasons—one, so they could avoid +capture, and the other so they could swoop down and "secure their own." +Robbery and commerce came hand in hand, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_333" id="VIII_Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> piracy is almost as natural +as production.</p> + +<p>Finally, the robbers became such a problem to industry that terms were +made with them. Their tribute took the form of a tax, and to make sure +that this tax was paid, the robbers protected the people against other +robbers. And then, for the first time, the world saw a standing army. An +army has two purposes—to protect the people, and to collect the tax for +protecting the people.</p> + +<p>At the headquarters of this army grew up a court, and all the +magnificent splendor of a capitol centered around the captains. In fact, +the word "capitol" means the home of the captain.</p> + +<p>Herbert Spencer did not say that a soldier was a respectable brigand, +and that a lawyer is a man who protects us from lawyers, but he came so +close to it that his immediate friends begged him to moderate his +expressions for his own safety.</p> + +<p>Spencer also at the same time traced the evolution of the priest. He +showed how the "holy man" was one frenzied with religious ecstasy, who +went away and lived in a cave. Occasionally this man came back to beg, +to preach and to do good. In order to succeed in his begging, he +revealed his peculiar psychic powers, and then reinforced these with +claims of supernatural abilities. These claims were not exactly founded +upon truth, but once put forth were in time believed by those who +advanced them.</p> + +<p>This priest, who claimed to have influence with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_334" id="VIII_Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> power of the +Unseen, found early favor with the soldier—and the soldier and the +priest naturally joined hands. The soldier protected the priest and the +priest absolved the soldier. One dictated man's place in this world—the +other in the next.</p> + +<p>The calm way in which Herbert Spencer reasoned these things out, and his +high literary style, which made him unintelligible to all those whose +minds were not of scientific bent, and his emphatic statement that what +is, is right, and all the steps in man's development mean a mounting to +better things, saved him from the severe treatment that greeted, say, +Charles Bradlaugh, who translated the higher criticisms for the hoi +polloi.</p> + +<p>Spencer's first essays on "The Proper Sphere of Government," done in his +early twenties for "The Non-Conformist" and "The Economist," outlined +his occupation for life—he was to be a writer. He became assistant +editor of the "Westminster Review," and contributed to various literary +and scientific journals.</p> + +<p>These essays, enlarged, rewritten and revised, finally emerged in +Eighteen Hundred Fifty-one in the form of "Social Statics, or the +Conditions Essential to Human Happiness."</p> + +<p>This book, so bold in its radical suggestions, now almost universally +admitted, was printed at the author's expense—a fact that should put a +quietus for all time upon all those indelicate and sarcastic allusions +concerning "when the author prints." There was an<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_335" id="VIII_Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> edition of seven +hundred fifty copies of the book, and it took every shilling the young +man had saved, and a few borrowed pounds as well, to pay the bill.</p> + +<p>The book made no splash in the literary sea—nobody read it except a +dozen good people who did so as a matter of friendship.</p> + +<p>After six years there were still five hundred copies left, and the +author wrote this slightly ironical line: "I am glad the public is +taking plenty of time to fully digest my work before passing judgment +upon it. Of all things, hasty criticisms are to be regretted."</p> + +<p>Yet there was one person who read Herbert Spencer's first book with +close consideration and profound sympathy. This was a young woman, the +same age as Spencer, who had come up to London from the country to make +her fortune. Her name was Mary Ann Evans.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_336" id="VIII_Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In "Notes and Comments," Spencer's last book, published two years before +his death, are several quotations and allusions to George Eliot. No +other woman is mentioned in the volume.</p> + +<p>Herbert Spencer and Mary Ann Evans first met at the house of the editor +of the "Westminster Review" about the year Eighteen Hundred Fifty-one. +Their tastes, aptitudes and inclinations were much the same. They were +born the same year; both were brought up in the country; both were +naturalists by inclination, and scientists because they could not help +it. "Social Statics" made a profound impression on George Eliot, and she +protested to the last that it was the best book the author ever wrote. +He had read her "Essay on Spinoza," and remembered it so well that he +repeated a page of it the first time they met. They loved the same +things, and united, too, in their dislikes. Both were democrats, and the +cards, curds and custards of society were to them as naught. In a few +months after the first meeting, George Eliot wrote to a friend in +Warwickshire: "The bright side of my life, after the affection for my +old friends, is the new and delightful friendship which I have found in +Herbert Spencer. We see each other every day, and in everything we enjoy +a delightful comradeship. If it were not for him my life would be +singularly arid."</p> + +<p>The Synthetic Philosophy was taking form in Spencer's<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_337" id="VIII_Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> mind, and +together they threshed out the straw and garnered the grain. She was +getting to be a necessity to Spencer—and he saw no reason why the +beautiful friendship should not continue just this way for years and +years. Both were literary grubbers and lived in boarding-houses of the +Class B variety.</p> + +<p>And here George Henry Lewes appeared upon the scene. Legend says that +Spencer introduced Lewes to Miss Evans, and both Miss Evans and Mr. +Spencer were a bit in awe of him, for he was a literary success, and +they were willing to be. Lewes had written at this time sixteen +books—novels, essays, scientific treatises, poems, and a drama. He +spoke five languages, had studied medicine, theology, and had been a +lecturer and actor. He was small, had red hair, combed his whiskers by +the right oblique, and wore a yellow necktie. Thackeray says he was the +most learned and versatile man he ever knew, "and if I should see him in +Piccadilly, perched on a white elephant, I would not be in the least +surprised."</p> + +<p>None of the various ventures of Lewes had paid very well, but he had +great hopes, and money enough to ride in a cab. He gave advice, and +radiated good-cheer wherever he went.</p> + +<p>In Eighteen Hundred Fifty-four Lewes and Miss Evans disappeared from +London, having gone to Germany, leaving letters behind, stating that +thenceforward they wished to be considered as man and wife. Lewes was +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_338" id="VIII_Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> his fortieth year, and slightly bald; George Eliot was thirty-six, +and there were silver threads among the gold.</p> + +<p>They had taken the philosophy of "Social Statics" in dead earnest.</p> + +<p>Herbert Spencer lost appetite, ceased work, roamed through the park +aimlessly, and finally fell into a fit of sickness—"night air, and too +close confinement to mental tasks," the doctor said.</p> + +<p>Spencer was not a marrying man—he was wedded to science, yet he craved +the companionship of the female mind. Had he and Miss Evans married, he +would doubtless have continued his work just the same. He would have +absorbed her into his being—they would have lived in a garret, and +possibly we might have had a better Synthetic Philosophy, if that were +possible.</p> + +<p>But we would have had no "Adam Bede" nor "Mill on the Floss."</p> + +<p>We often see mention, by the ready writers, of "mental equals" and +"perfect mates," but in all business partnerships, one man is the court +of last appeal by popular acclaim. If power is absolutely equal, the +engine stops on the center. Twins may look exactly alike, but one is the +spokesman. In all literary collaboration, one does the work and the +other looks on.</p> + +<p>When George Henry Lewes took Mary Ann Evans as his wife, that was the +last of Lewes. He became her inspiration, secretary, protector, friend +and slave. And this was all beautiful and right.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_339" id="VIII_Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> + +<p>I believe it was Augustine Birrell who said, "George Henry Lewes was the +busy drone to a queen bee." It probably is well that Mr. Spencer and +Miss Evans did not marry—they were too much alike—they might have +gotten into competition with each other.</p> + +<p>George Eliot had a poise and dignity in her character that kept the +versatile Lewes just where he belonged; and at the same time she lived +her own life and preserved in ascending degree the strong and simple +beauties of her character. Truly was George Eliot "a citizen of the +sacred city of fine minds—the Jerusalem of Celestial Art." Lewes was +the tug that puffed and steamed and brought the majestic steamship into +port.</p> + +<p>For one book George Eliot received a sum equal to forty thousand +dollars, and her income after "Adam Bede" was published was never less +than ten thousand dollars a year.</p> + +<p>Spencer lived out his days in the boarding-house, and until after he was +seventy, had not reached a point where absolute economy was not in +order.</p> + +<p>Spencer faced the Universe alone, and tried to solve its mysteries. Not +only did he live alone, with no close confidants or friends, but when he +died he left not a single living relative nearer than the fourth +generation. With him died the name.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_340" id="VIII_Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The leading note in "Social Statics" is a plea for the liberty of the +individual. That government is best which governs least. The liberty of +each, limited only by the liberty of all, is the rule to which society +must conform in order to attain the highest development. Governments +have no business to scrutinize the life and belief of the individual. +Interference should only come where one man interferes with the +liberties of another.</p> + +<p>Liberty of action is the first requisite to progress, and the prime +essential in human happiness. It is better that men have wrong opinions +than no opinions—through our blunders we reach the light.</p> + +<p>Government is for man, and not man for government. Men wish to do what +is best for themselves, and eventually they will, if let alone, but they +can only grow through constant practise and frequent mistakes. Plato's +plan for an ideal republic provided rules and laws for the guidance of +the individual. In the Mosaic Laws it is the same: every circumstance +and complication of life is thought out, and the law tells the +individual what he shall do, and what he shall not do. That is to say, a +few men were to do the thinking for the many. And the argument that +plain people should not be allowed to think for themselves, since the +wise know better what is for their good, is exactly the argument used by +slaveholders: that they can take better care of the man than the man can +of himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_341" id="VIII_Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is a certain plausibility and truth in this proposition. It is all +a point of view.</p> + +<p>But to Herbert Spencer there was little difference between enslavement +of the mind and enslavement of the body. Both were essentially wrong in +this—they interfered with Nature's law of evolution, and anything +contrary to Nature must pay the penalty of pain and death. All forms of +enslavement react upon the slaveholder, and a society founded on force +can not evolve—and not to evolve is to die. The wellsprings of Nature +must not be dammed—and in fact can not be dammed but for a day. +Overflow, revolution and violence are sure to follow. This is the +general law; and so give the man liberty. One man's rights end only +where another man's begin.</p> + +<p>The idea of evolution, as opposed to a complete creation, was in the +mind of Spencer as early as Eighteen Hundred Forty-eight. In that year +he said, "Creation still goes forward, and to what supreme heights man +may yet attain no one can say."</p> + +<p>By a sort of general misapprehension, Darwin is usually given credit for +the discovery and elucidation of the Law of Evolution, but the "Origin +of Species" did not appear until Eighteen Hundred Fifty-nine, and both +Spencer and Alfred Russel Wallace had stated, years before, that the +theological dogma of a complete creation had not a scintilla of proof +from the world of nature and science, while there was much general +proof<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_342" id="VIII_Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> that the animal and vegetable kingdom had evolved from lower +forms, and was still ascending.</p> + +<p>The usual idea of the clergy of Christendom was that if the account of +creation given by Moses were admitted to be untrue, then the Bible in +all its parts would be declared untrue, and religion would go by the +board. Now that the theory of evolution is everywhere accepted, even in +the churches, we see how groundless were the fears. All that is +beautiful and best we still have in religion in a degree never before +known.</p> + +<p>In an essay on "Manners and Fashion," published in the "Westminster +Review" of Eighteen Hundred Fifty-four, Herbert Spencer says: "Forms, +ceremonies and even beliefs are cast aside only when they become +hindrances—only when some finer and better plan has been formed; and +they bequeath to us all the good that was in them. The abolition of +tyrannical laws has left the administration of justice not only +unimpaired, but purified. Dead and buried creeds have not carried down +with them the essential morality they contained, which still exists, +uncontaminated by the sloughs of superstition. And all that there is of +justice, kindness and beauty embodied in our cumbrous forms will live +perennially, when the forms themselves have been repudiated and +forgotten."</p> + +<p>In the year Eighteen Hundred Fifty-five, Spencer issued his "Principles +of Psychology," showing that the doctrine of evolution was then with him +a fixed fact. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_343" id="VIII_Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> struggle was on, and from now forward his life was +enlisted to viewing this theory from every side, anticipating every +possible objection to it, and restating the case in its relation to +every phase of life and nature.</p> + +<p>Spencer's income was small, but his wants were few, and a single room in +a boarding-house sufficed for both workshop and sleeping-room. To a +degree, he now largely ceased original investigations and made use of +the work of others. His intuitive mind, long trained in analytical +research, was able to sift the false from the true, the trite from the +peculiar, the exceptional from the normal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_344" id="VIII_Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The year Eighteen Hundred Sixty should be marked on history's page with +a silver star, for it was in that year that Herbert Spencer issued his +famous prospectus setting forth that he was engaged in formulating a +system of philosophy which he proposed to issue in periodical parts to +subscribers. He then followed with an outline of the ground he intended +to cover. Ten volumes would be issued, and he proposed to take twenty +years to complete the task.</p> + +<p>The entire Synthetic Philosophy was then in his mind and he knew what he +wanted to do. The courage and faith of the man were dauntless. Michael +Rossetti once said, "Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall and Wallace owe +nothing to the universities of England, except for the scorn and +opposition that have been offered them." But patriotic Americans and +true are glad to remember that it was Professor E. L. Youmans of Yale +who made it possible for Spencer to carry out his great plan. Five years +after the prospectus was issued, Spencer was again penniless and was +thinking seriously of abandoning the project. Youmans heard of this and +reissued the prospectus, and sent it out among the thinking men of the +world, asking them to subscribe. The announcement was then followed up +by letters, and Youmans forced the issue until the sum of seven thousand +dollars was raised. This he took over to Europe in person and presented +to Spencer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_345" id="VIII_Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> with a gold watch and a box of cigars. Youmans found +Spencer at his boarding-house, and together they wandered out in the +park, where Youmans presented the philosopher the box of cigars. The +great man took out one, cut it in three parts and proceeded to smoke +one, then Youmans handed him the gold watch and the draft for the money.</p> + +<p>Spencer took the gifts of the watch and cigars and was much moved, but +when it was followed by the draft for seven thousand dollars, he merely +gasped and said: "Wonderful! Magnificent! Magnificent! Wonderful!" and +smoked his third of a cigar in silence. And when he spoke, it was to +say: "I think I will have to revise what I wrote in 'First Principles' +on the matter of divine providence."</p> + +<p>Those who have read Spencer's will must remember that this watch, +presented to him by his American friends, is given a special paragraph.</p> + +<p>Spencer once said to Huxley, "From the day I first carried that watch, +every good thing I needed has been brought and laid at my feet."</p> + +<p>"If I have succeeded in my art, it is simply because I have been well +sustained," said Henry Irving in one of his modest, flattering, yet +charming little speeches.</p> + +<p>Sir Henry might have gone on and said that no man succeeds unless well +sustained, and happy is that man who has radioactivity of spirit enough +to attract to him loving and loyal helpers who scintillate his rays.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_346" id="VIII_Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> + +<p>The average individual does not know very much about Edward L. Youmans, +but no man ever did greater work in popularizing nature study in +America. And if for nothing else, let his name be deathless for two +things: he inspired John Burroughs with the thirst to see and know—and +then to write—and he introduced Herbert Spencer to the world. It is +easy to say that Burroughs was peeping his shell when Youmans discovered +him, and that Spencer would have found a way in any event. We simply do +not know what would have happened if something else occurred, or hadn't.</p> + +<p>Youmans was born in a New York State country village, and very early +discovered for himself that the world was full of curious and wonderful +things, just as most children do. He became a district school-teacher, +and so far as we know, was the very first man to publicly advocate +nature study as a distinctive means of child-growth. He taught his +children to observe; then he gave lectures on elementary botany; he +studied and he wrote, and he worked at the microscope.</p> + +<p>And he became blind.</p> + +<p>Did the closest observer on the continent cease work and grow +discouraged when sight failed? Not he.</p> + +<p>He no more quit work than did Beethoven cease composing music when he no +longer was able to hear it.</p> + +<p>We hear with the imagination, and we see with the soul. Youmans' sister, +Eliza Anne, became his guide and amanuensis; he saw the things through +her<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_347" id="VIII_Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> eyes and inspected the wonders with his finger-tips.</p> + +<p>He became professor of Physics and Natural History at Yale, and when the +New England Lecture Lyceum was at its height, he rivaled Phillips, +Emerson and Beecher as a popular attraction. He made science a pleasure +to plain people, and started Starr King off on that tangent of putting +knowledge in fairylike and acceptable form. Youmans' lecture on "The +Chemistry of a Sunbeam" is one of the unforgettable things of a +generation past, so full of animation and rare, radiant spirit of +good-cheer was the man. He founded the "Popular Science Monthly," wrote +a dozen books on science, and several of these are now used in most of +the colleges and advanced schools of America and England.</p> + +<p>The man had a head for business—he became rich.</p> + +<p>It was about the year Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six that Youmans was in +England on a business errand, introducing his books in the English +schools, that he first met Herbert Spencer, having been attracted to him +through a chance copy of "Social Statics" that his sister had read to +him. Youmans saw that Spencer was going right to the heart of things in +a way he himself could not. The men became friends, and of all Youmans' +wonderful discoveries, he considered Herbert Spencer the greatest.</p> + +<p>"Sir Humphry Davy discovered, and possibly evolved, Michael Faraday; but +I didn't evolve Herbert Spencer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_348" id="VIII_Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> any more than Balboa evolved the +Pacific Ocean," said Youmans at a dinner given to Herbert Spencer when +he visited New York in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-one. The name of Youmans +is not in the Hall of Fame as one of the world's great men, but as +naturalist, teacher, writer, lecturer and practical man of affairs, he +reflects credit on his Maker. The light went out of his eyes, but it +never went out of his soul.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_349" id="VIII_Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In making payment to a publishing-house for sixty volumes of an American +historical work, Speaker Cannon recently made this endorsement on the +back of the check:</p> + +<p>"This check is in full payment, both legal and moral, for sixty volumes +of books. The books are not worth a damn—and are dear at that. We are +never too old to learn, but the way your gentlemanly agent came it over +your Uncle Joseph, is worth the full amount."</p> + +<p>When Speaker Cannon says the books are not worth a damn, he does not +necessarily state a fact about the books: he merely states a fact about +himself—that is, he gives his opinion. The value of the books is still +undetermined.</p> + +<p>The Speaker's discontent with the books seems to have arisen from the +one fact that he had to pay for them.</p> + +<p>This condition is a classic one, and the world long ago has conceded to +the man who pays, the privilege of protest. When Herbert Spencer issued +that world-famous prospectus, announcing his intention to publish ten +volumes setting forth his Synthetic Philosophy, it was one of the most +daring things ever done in the realm of thought. Spencer was forty, and +he was penniless and obscure. He had issued two books at his own +expense, and it had taken twelve years to dispose of seven hundred fifty +copies of one, and most of the edition of the other was still on hand. +Edward L. Youmans had such faith in Spencer that he sent out the +prospectus, and followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_350" id="VIII_Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> it up with letters and personal solicitations, +until seven thousand dollars was subscribed, and Herbert Spencer, +relieved from the uncertainties of finance, was free to think and write.</p> + +<p>Among other subscribers secured by Youmans, was the Reverend Doctor +Jowett of Balliol. Spencer's books were issued in periodical parts. +After paying for three years, Jowett sent a check to the publishers for +the full amount of the subscription, saying, in an accompanying note: +"To save myself the bother of periodical payments for Mr. Spencer's +books, I herewith hand you check covering the full amount of my +subscription. I feel that I have already had full returns, for, while +the books are absolutely valueless, save as showing the industry of an +uneducated and indiscreet person, yet the experience that has come to me +in this transaction is not without its benefits."</p> + +<p>This is the Oxford way of expressing the Illinois formula, "Your books +are not worth a damn—and are dear at that."</p> + +<p>But the curious part of this transaction is that, after the death of +Doctor Jowett, his library was sold at auction, and his set of the +Synthetic Philosophy brought an advance of eight times its original +cost.</p> + +<p>Truly my Lord Hamlet doth say:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rashly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And prais'd be rashness for it—let us know,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When our deep plots do fail.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_351" id="VIII_Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p> + +<p>No one man's opinion concerning any book, or any man, is final. Speaker +Cannon is admired by one set of men and detested by others—all of equal +intelligence, although on this point the Speaker might possibly file an +exception.</p> + +<p>Books are condemned offhand, or regarded as Bibles—it all depends upon +your point of view. Speaker Cannon may be right in his estimate of the +newly annexed sixty volumes of history that now grace his +library-shelves in Danville, proudly shown to constituents, or he may be +wrong; but anyway, Cannon's judgment about books is probably worth no +more than was the Reverend Doctor Jowett's. Gladstone spoke of Jowett as +that "saintly character"; and Disraeli called him "the bear of +Balliol—erratic, obtuse and perverse." But Jowett, Gladstone and +Disraeli all united in this: they had supreme contempt for the work of +Herbert Spencer; while the Honorable Joseph Cannon is neutral, but +inclined to be generous, having recently in a speech quoted from the +"Faerie Queene," which he declared was the best thing Herbert Spencer +had written, even if it was not fully up to date.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_352" id="VIII_Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>All during his life, Spencer was subject to attacks of indigestion and +insomnia. That these bad spells were "a disease of the imagination" made +them no less real. His isolation and lack of social ties gave him time +to feel his pulse and lie in wait for sleepless nights.</p> + +<p>With the old ladies of his boarding-house, he was on friendly terms, and +his commonplace talk with them never gave them a guess concerning the +worldwide character of his work. Very seldom did he refer to what he was +doing and thinking—and then only among his most intimate friends. +Huxley was his nearest confidant; and a recent writer, who knew him +closely in a business way for many years, says that only with Huxley did +he throw off his reserve and enter the social lists with abandon.</p> + +<p>No one could meet Spencer, even in the most casual way, without being +impressed with the fact that he was in the presence of a most superior +person. The man was tall and gaunt, self-contained—a little aloof—he +asked for nothing, and realized his own worth. He commanded respect +because he respected himself—there was neither abnegation, apology nor +abasement in his manner. Once I saw him walking in the Strand, and I +noticed that the pedestrians instinctively made way, although probably +not one out of a thousand had any idea who he was. No one ever affronted +him, nor spoke disrespectfully to his face; if unkind things were<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_353" id="VIII_Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> said +of the man and his work, it was in print and at a distance.</p> + +<p>His standard of life was high—his sense of justice firm; with pretense +and hypocrisy he had little patience, while for the criminal he had a +profound pity.</p> + +<p>Music was to him a relaxation and a rest. He knew the science of +composition, and was familiar in detail with the best work of the great +composers.</p> + +<p>In order to preserve the quiet of his thoughts in the boarding-house, he +devised a pair of ear-muffs which fitted on his head with a spring.</p> + +<p>If the conversation took a turn in which he had no interest, he would +excuse himself to his nearest neighbor and put on his ear-muffs. The +plan worked so well that he carried them with him wherever he went, and +occasionally at lectures or concerts, when he would grow more interested +in his thoughts than in the performance, he would adjust his patent.</p> + +<p>So well pleased was he with his experiment that he had a dozen pairs of +the ear-muffs made one Christmas and gave them to friends, but it is +hardly probable they had the hardihood to carry them to a Four-o'Clock. +Seldom, indeed, is there a man who prizes his thoughts more than a +polite appearance.</p> + +<p>In an address before the London Medical Society, in Eighteen Hundred +Seventy-one, Spencer said, "The man who does not believe in devils +during his life, will probably never be visited by devils on his +deathbed."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_354" id="VIII_Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> Herbert Spencer died December Eighth, Nineteen Hundred +Three, in his eighty-fourth year. Up to within two days of his death, +his mind was clear, active and alert, and he worked at his books with +pleasure and animation—revising, correcting and amending. He never lost +the calm serenity of life. He sank gradually into sleep and passed +painlessly away. And thus was gracefully rounded out the greatest life +of its age—The Age of Herbert Spencer.</p> + +<p>He left no request as to where he should be buried, but the thinking +people who recognized his genius considered Westminster Abbey the +fitting place—an honor to England's Valhalla. The Church of England +denied him a place there before it was asked, and the hallowed precincts +which shelter the remains of Queen Anne's cook and John Broughton the +pugilist are not for Herbert Spencer. His dust does not rest in +consecrated ground.</p> + +<p>Herbert Spencer had no titles nor degrees—he belonged to no sect, +party, nor society. Practically, he had no recognition in England until +after he was sixty years of age. America first saw his star in the east, +and long before the first edition of "Social Statics" had been sold, we +waived the matter of copyright and were issuing the book here. On +receiving a volume of the pirated edition, the author paraphrased +Byron's famous mot, and grimly said, "Now, Barabbas was an American."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_355" id="VIII_Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p> + +<p>However, Spencer was really pleased to think that America should steal +his book; we wanted it—the English didn't. It took him twelve years to +dispose of the seven hundred fifty volumes, and most of these were given +away as inscribed copies. They lasted about as long as Walt Whitman's +first edition of "Leaves of Grass," although Whitman had the assistance +of the Attorney-General of Massachusetts in advertising his remarkable +volume.</p> + +<p>Henry Thoreau's first book fared better, for when the house burned where +the remnant of four hundred copies lingered long, he wrote to a friend, +"Thank God, the edition is exhausted."</p> + +<p>England recognized the worth of Thoreau and Whitman long before America +did; and so, perhaps, it was meet that we should do as much for Spencer, +Ruskin and Carlyle.</p> + +<p>One of the most valuable of the many great thoughts evolved by Spencer +was on the "Art of Mentation," or brain-building. You can not afford to +fix your mind on devils or hell, or on any other form of fear, hate and +revenge. Of course, hell is for others, and the devils we believe in are +not for ourselves. But the thoughts of these things are registered in +the brain, and the hell we create for others, we ourselves eventually +fall into; and the devils we conjure forth, return and become our +inseparable companions. That is to say, all thought and all work—all +effort—are for the doer primarily,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_356" id="VIII_Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> and as a man thinketh in his heart, +so is he. This sounds like the language of metaphysics, which Kant said +was the science of disordered moonshine. But Herbert Spencer's work was +all a matter of analytical demonstration. And while the word +"materialist" was everywhere applied to him, and he did not resent it, +yet he was one of the most spiritual of men. A meta-physician is one who +proves ten times as much as he believes; a scientist is one who believes +ten times as much as he can prove. Science speaks with lowered voice. +Before Spencer's time, German scientists had discovered that the cell +was the anatomical unit of life, but it was for Spencer to show that it +was also the psychologic or spiritual unit. New thoughts mean new +brain-cells, and every new experience or emotion is building and +strengthening a certain area of brain-tissue. We grow only through +exercise, and all expression is exercise. The faculties we use grow +strong, and those not used, atrophy and wither away. This is no less +true, said Spencer, in the material brain than in the material muscle. A +new thought causes a new structural enregistration. If it is the +repetition of thought, the cells holding that thought are exercised and +trained, and finally they act automatically, and repeated thought +becomes habit, and exercised habit becomes character—and character is +the man. It thus is plain that no man can afford to entertain the +thought of fear, hate and revenge—and their concomitants,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_357" id="VIII_Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> devils and +hell—because he is enregistering these things physically in his being. +These physical cells, as science has shown, are transmitted to +offspring; and thus through continued mind-activity and consequent +brain-cell building, a race with fixed characteristics is evolved. +Pleasant memories and good thoughts must be exercised, and these in time +will replace evil memories, so that the cells containing negative +characteristics will atrophy and die. And when Herbert Spencer says that +the process of doing away with evil is not through punishment, threat or +injunction, but simply through a change of activities—thus allowing the +bad to die through disuse—he states a truth that is even now coloring +our whole fabric of pedagogics and penology. I couple these two words +advisedly, for fifty years ago, pedagogics was a form of penology—the +boarding-school with its mentors, scheme of fines, repressions and +disgrace! And now we have lifted penology into the realm of pedagogics. +I doubt me much whether the present penitentiary is a more unhappy place +than a boys' English boarding-school was in the time of Squeers.</p> + +<p>All of our progress has come from replacing bad activities with the +good. Bad people we now believe are good folks who have misdirected +their energies; and we all believe a deal more in the goodness of the +bad than the badness of the good, with the result that "total depravity" +and "endless punishment" have been shamed<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_358" id="VIII_Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> out of every pulpit where +sane men preach. No devils danced on the footboard of Herbert Spencer's +bed, because there were no devil-cells in his brain.</p> + +<p>Another great discovery of Herbert Spencer's was that the emotions +control the secretions. And the quality of the secretions determines the +chemical changes which constitute all cellular growth. Thus, cheerful, +happy emotions are similar to sunshine—they stand for health and +harmony, and as such, are constructive. Good-will is sanitary; kindness +is hygienic; friendship works for health. These happy emotions secrete a +quality in the blood called anabolism, which is essentially vitalizing +and life-producing.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, fear, hate, and all forms of unkindness evolve a +toxin, katabolism, which tends to clog circulation, disturb digestion, +congest the secretions and stupefy the senses; and it tends to the +dissolution and destruction of life. All that saddens, embitters and +disappoints produces this chemical change that makes for death. "A +poison," said Spencer, "is only a concentrated form of hate."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_359" id="VIII_Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Spencer's discoveries in electricity have been most valuable, and it was +by building on his suggestions and seeing with his prophetic eye that +the Crookes Tube, the Roentgen Ray, and the discovery of radium have +become possible.</p> + +<p>The distinguishing feature of radium is its radioactivity, brought about +through its affinity for electricity. It absorbs electricity from the +atmosphere and gives it off spontaneously in the form of light and heat +without appreciable loss of form or substance. Every good thing in life +is dual, and through this natural and spontaneous marriage of radium and +electricity, we get very close to the secret of life. As the sun is the +giver of life and death, so by the use of the salts of radium have +scientists vitalized certain forms of cell-life into growth and +activity, and by the same token, and the use of the radium-ray, do they +destroy the germs of disease.</p> + +<p>By his prophetic vision, Spencer saw years ago that we would yet be able +to eliminate and refine the substances of earth until we found the +element that would combine spontaneously with electricity, and radiate +life and heat. Among the very last letters dictated by Spencer, only a +few days before his death, was one to Madame Curie congratulating her on +her discovery of radium, and urging her not to relax in her further +efforts to seek out the secret of life. "My only regret is," wrote the +great man, "that I will not be here to<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_360" id="VIII_Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> rejoice with you in the fulness +of your success." Thus to the last did he preserve the eager, curious +and receptive heart of youth, and prove to the scientific world his +theory that brain-cells, properly exercised, are the last organs of the +body to lose their functions.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="SCHOPENHAUER" id="SCHOPENHAUER"></a>SCHOPENHAUER<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_361" id="VIII_Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span></h2> + + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Wherever one goes one immediately comes upon this incorrigible mob +of humanity. It exists everywhere in legions; crowding, soiling +everything, like flies in summer. Hence the numberless bad books, +those rank weeds of literature which extract nourishment from the +corn and choke it. They monopolize the time, money and attention +which really belong to good books and their noble aims; they are +written merely with a view to making money or procuring places. +They are not only useless, but they do positive harm. Nine-tenths +of the whole of our present literature aims solely at taking a few +shillings out of the public's pocket, and to accomplish this, +author, publisher and reviewer have joined forces.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 25em;">—<i>Schopenhauer</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_362" id="VIII_Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span></p> + +<div class="center"> + <a id="image0463-1"></a> + <img src="images/0463-1.jpg" width="293" height="400" + alt="" + title="" /> + + <p class="center">SCHOPENHAUER</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_363" id="VIII_Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p> + + + +<p>The philosophy we evolve is determined by what we are; just as a nation +passes laws legalizing the things it wishes to do. "Where the artist is, +there you will find art," said Whistler. We will not get the Ideal +Commonwealth until we get Ideal People; and we will not get an ideal +philosophy until we get an ideal philosopher. Place the mentally and +morally slipshod in ideal surroundings and they will quickly evolve a +slum, just as did John Shakespeare, when at Stratford he was fined two +pounds ten for maintaining a sequinarium. All we can say for John is +that he was the author of a fine boy, who resembled his mother much more +than he did his father. This seems to prove Schopenhauer's remark +concerning a divine sonship: "Paternity is a cheap office, anyway, +accomplished without cost, care or risk, and of it no one should boast. +A divine motherhood is the only thing that is really sacred."</p> + +<p>It isn't his philosophy that makes a man—man makes his philosophy, and +he makes it in his own image. Living in a world of strife, where the +most savage beast that roams the earth is man, the Philosophy of +Pessimism has its place.</p> + +<p>Schopenhauer proved himself a true philosopher when<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_364" id="VIII_Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> he said: "All we +see in the world is a projection from our own minds. I may see one +thing, you another; and according to the test of a third party we are +both wrong, for he sees something else. So we are all wrong, yet all are +right."</p> + +<p>He was quite willing to admit that he had a well-defined moral squint +and a touch of mental strabismus; but he revealed his humanity by +blaming his limitations on his parents, and charging up his faults and +foibles to other people.</p> + +<p>It is possible that Carlyle's famous remark about the people who daily +cross London Bridge was inspired by Schopenhauer, who, when asked what +kind of people the Berliners were, replied, "Mostly fools!"</p> + +<p>"I believe," ventured the interrogator—"I believe, Herr Schopenhauer, +that you yourself live at Berlin?"</p> + +<p>"I do," was the response, "and I feel very much at home there."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_365" id="VIII_Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Heinrich Schopenhauer, the father of Arthur Schopenhauer, was a banker +and shipping merchant of the city of Danzig, Germany. He was a +successful man, and, like all successful men, he was an egotist. Before +the world will believe in you, you must believe in yourself. And another +necessary element in success is that you must exaggerate your own +importance, and the importance of your work. Self-esteem will not alone +make you successful, but without a goodly jigger of self-esteem, success +will forever dally and dance just beyond your reach. The humble men who +have succeeded in impressing themselves upon the world have all taken +much pride in their humility.</p> + +<p>Heinrich Schopenhauer was a proud man—as proud as the Merchant of +Venice—and in his veins there ran a strain of the blue blood of the +Castilian Jew. Too much success is most unfortunate. Heinrich +Schopenhauer was proud, unbending, harsh, arbitrary, wore a full beard +and a withering smile, and looked upon musicians, painters, sculptors +and writers as court clowns, to be trusted only as far as you could +fling Taurus by the tail. All good bookkeepers have, even yet, this +pitying contempt for those whose chief assets are ideas—the legal +tender of the spirit. The Alameda smile is the smile of scorn worn by +the bookkeepers who prepare the balance-sheets for the great merchants +of San Francisco. Alameda is young, but the Alameda smile<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_366" id="VIII_Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> is classic.</p> + +<p>When Heinrich Schopenhauer was forty he married a beautiful girl of +twenty. She had ideas about art and poetry, and was passing through her +Byronic stage, before Byron did, and taking it rather hard, when her +parents gave her in troth to Heinrich Schopenhauer, the rich merchant. +It was regarded as a great catch.</p> + +<p>I wish that I could say that Heinrich and Johanna were happy ever after, +but in view of the well-known facts put forth by their firstborn child, +I can not do it.</p> + +<p>Before marriage the woman has her way: let her make the most of her +power—she'll not keep it long! Shortly after their marriage Heinrich +saw symptoms of the art instinct creeping in, and players on sweet +zither-strings, who occasionally called, compelled him to take measures. +He bought a country seat, four miles from the city, on an inaccessible +road, and sent his bride thither. Here he visited her only on Saturdays +and Sundays, and her callers were the good folk he chose to bring with +him.</p> + +<p>Marital peace is only possible where women are properly +suppressed—lumity dee!</p> + +<p>It was under these conditions that Arthur Schopenhauer was born, on +February Twenty-second—in deference to our George Washington—Seventeen +Hundred Eighty-eight.</p> + +<p>The chief quality that Schopenhauer inherited from his father was the +Alameda smile—and this smile of contempt was for all those who did not +think as he did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_367" id="VIII_Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> The mother never professed to have any love for her +husband, or the child either, and the child never professed to have any +love for his mother. He once wrote this: "I was an unwelcome child, born +of a mother in rebellion—she never wanted me, and I reciprocate the +sentiment."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_368" id="VIII_Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In that troublous year of Seventeen Hundred Ninety-three, the Free City +of Danzig fell under the sway of Prussia.</p> + +<p>Heinrich Schopenhauer, who loved freedom, jealous of his privileges, +fearful of his rights, immediately packed up his effects, sold out his +property—at great loss—and moved to the Free City of Hamburg.</p> + +<p>That his fears for the future were quite groundless, as most fears are, +is a fact relevant but not consequent.</p> + +<p>Johanna was vivacious and eminently social. She spoke French, German, +English and Italian. She played the harp, sang, wrote poetry and acted +in dramas of her own composition. Around her there always clustered a +goodly group of men with long hair, dreamy eyes and pointed beards, who +soared high, dived deep, but seldom paid cash. This is the paradise to +which most women wish to attain: to be followed by a concourse of +artistic archangels—what nobler ambition! And let the great biological +and historical fact here be written down—that there are no female +angels.</p> + +<p>Heinrich did not settle down in Hamburg and go into business, as he +expected. He and his wife and boy traveled much—through England, +France, Germany and Switzerland.</p> + +<p>This man and his wife were trying to get away from themselves. Long +years after, their son wrote, "When people die and wake up in hell they +will probably be surprised to find that they are just such beings as +they<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_369" id="VIII_Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> were when they were on earth."</p> + +<p>For a year the lad was left at school with a clergyman at Wimbledon, in +England. The strict religious discipline to which he was there subjected +seemed to have had much to do with forming in him a fierce hatred of +English orthodoxy; but he learned the language and became familiar with +the great names in English literature. The King Arthur stories pleased +him, and he always took a peculiar satisfaction in the fact that the +name Arthur was the same in English, German and French. He was a +prenatal cosmopolitan.</p> + +<p>Boarding-schools are a great scheme for getting the children out of the +way—it throws the responsibility upon some one else. When nine years of +age, Arthur was placed in a French boarding-school, remaining for two +years. There he learned to speak French so fluently that when he +returned to Hamburg and tried to talk to his mother in German, his +broken speech threw that excellent woman into fits of laughter.</p> + +<p>When the mature man of affairs takes a young girl to wife, he expects to +mold her to his nature, but he reckons without his host. Heinrich +Schopenhauer's opposition to his wife's wishes was not strong enough to +crush her—it simply developed in her a deal of wilful, dogged strength.</p> + +<p>One winter day in Eighteen Hundred Four the body of Heinrich +Schopenhauer was found in the canal at Hamburg.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_370" id="VIII_Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p> + +<p>Arthur was then sixteen years of age—old for his years, traveled, +clever—strong in body and robust in health.</p> + +<p>In wandering with his parents, he had met Goethe, Wieland, Madame De +Stael, Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton, and many other distinguished +people, for his mother was a famous lion-hunter, and wherever they went, +the great ones were tracked to their lairs. But however much Madame +Schopenhauer indulged in hero-worship, she had no expectations or +ambitions for her son. She apprenticed him as a clerk and did her utmost +to immerse him in commerce. What she desired was freedom for herself, +and the popular plan to gain freedom is to enslave others. Madame +Schopenhauer moved to Weimar and opened there a sort of literary salon. +She wrote verses, novels, essays, and her home became the center of a +certain artistic group. The fortune her husband had left was equal to +about forty thousand dollars, one-third of which was to go to Arthur +when he was twenty-one. The mother had the handling of it all until that +time, and as the funds were well invested, her income was equal to about +two thousand dollars a year.</p> + +<p>A handsome widow, under forty, with no encumbrances to speak of, and a +fair income, is very fortunately situated. Indeed, a great writer has +recently written an essay showing that widows, discreetly bereaved, are +the happiest creatures on earth.</p> + +<p>Young Schopenhauer, at his desk in Hamburg, grieved<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_371" id="VIII_Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> over the death of +his father. That which is lost becomes valuable—bereavement softens the +heart. The only tenderness that is revealed in the writings of +Schopenhauer refers to his father. He affirms the sterling honesty of +the man, and lauds the merchant who boldly states that he is in business +to make money, and compares him with the philosophers who clutch for +power and fame and yet pretend they are working for humanity. When +Schopenhauer was past sixty, he dedicated his complete works to the +memory of his father. As nothing purifies like fire, so does nothing +sanctify like death—the love we lose is the only love we keep.</p> + +<p>Mathematics, bills and balance-sheets were odious to young Schopenhauer. +He reverenced the memory of his father, but his mother had endowed him +with a strong impulse for expression. He wrote little essays on the +backs of envelopes, philosophized over his bills, sneaked out of the +countingroom the back way to attend the afternoon lectures by the great +Doctor Gall, and finally, boldly followed his mother to Weimar, that he +might bask in the shadow of the mighty Goethe. It was shortly after this +that he sat in a niche of Goethe's library, musing, sad and solitary, +while a gay throng chattered by. Some young women, seeing him there, +laughed, and one asked, "Is it alive?" And Goethe, overhearing the +pleasantry, rebuked it by saying, "Do not smile at that youth—he will +yet eclipse us all."</p> + +<p>At Weimar there was no greeting for Schopenhauer<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_372" id="VIII_Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> from his mother—she +welcomed all but her son. Unfortunately for her, she put herself on +record by writing him letters. Scathing letters are all right, but they +should be directed and stamped, then burned just before they are trusted +to the mails. To record unkindness is tragedy, for the unkind word lives +long after the event that caused it is forgotten. Here is one letter +written by Madame Schopenhauer that this methodical son saved for +posterity:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p> +<i>My Dear Son:</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>I have always told you it is difficult to live with you. The more I +get to know you, the more I feel this difficulty increase. I will +not hide it from you: as long as you are what you are, I would +rather bring any sacrifice than consent to be near you. I do not +undervalue your good points, and that which repels me does not lie +in your heart; it is in your outer, not your inner being; in your +ideas, your judgment, your habits; in a word, there is nothing +concerning the outer world in which we agree. Your ill-humor, your +complaints of things inevitable, your sullen looks, the +extraordinary opinions you utter, like oracles, none may presume to +contradict; all this depresses me and troubles me, without helping +you. Your eternal quibbles, your laments over the stupid world and +human misery, give me bad nights and unpleasant dreams....</p> + +<p> +<span class="right">Your Dear Mother, etc.,</span><br /> +<span class="right2"><i>Johanna Schopenhauer</i></span><br /> +</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_373" id="VIII_Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>The young man took lodgings at Weimar, at a goodly distance from his +mother. Goethe held out a friendly hand, as he did to Mendelssohn, and +all bright young men. They talked much, and Goethe read to Arthur his +essay on the theory of colors (for Wolfgang Goethe was human and dearly +loved the sound of his own voice). The reasoning so impressed the youth +that he devised a chromatic theory of his own—almost as peculiar. +Theories are for the theorizer, so all theories are useful.</p> + +<p>At the earnest importunity of his mother, who starved him to it, Arthur +went back to his clerkship, but soon returned and made terms, agreeing +not to call on his mother, in consideration of a pound a week. He took +lessons in Greek and Latin of a retired professor, attended lectures, +fell in love with an actress—vowed he would marry her, but, luckily for +her, he didn't.</p> + +<p>When he was twenty-one, his mother turned over to him his patrimony, +amounting to about fourteen thousand dollars; and suggested that he +leave Weimar and make his fortune elsewhere—the world was wide.</p> + +<p>His money was invested so it brought him an income of seven hundred +dollars a year. And here seems a good place to say that Schopenhauer's +income was never over a thousand dollars a year until after he was +fifty-six years of age. Although he could not make money, yet he had +inherited from his father an ability to care for it. Throughout his life +he kept exact books<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_374" id="VIII_Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> of account, never ran in debt, and never allowed +his expenditures to outrun his income, thus complying with Charles +Dickens' recipe for happiness.</p> + +<p>In still another way he revealed that he could apply philosophy to daily +life: he exercised regularly in the open air, took long walks, was +absurdly exact about his cold baths, and like Kant, served the neighbors +as a chronometer, so they set their clocks at three when they saw him +going forth for a walk. And in the interests of truth, we will have to +make the embarrassing admission that the great Apostle of Pessimism was +neither a dyspeptic nor an invalid—if he was ever aware that he had a +stomach we do not hear of it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_375" id="VIII_Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The life of Schopenhauer is the life of a recluse—a visionary—a hermit +who lost himself amid the maze of city streets, and moved solitary in +the throng. Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Gottingen, Frankfort, engaged him, +and from one to the other he turned, looking for the rest he never +found, and which he knew he would never find, so in the vain search +there was no disappointment. He was always happiest when most miserable, +for then were his theories proved.</p> + +<p>A single room in a lodging-house sufficed, and this room always had the +appearance of being occupied by a transient. He had few books, +accumulated no belongings in way of domestic ballast, persistently +giving away things that were presented to him, satisfied if he had a +chair, a bed, and a table upon which to write; getting his own +breakfast, dining at the table d'hote of the nearest inn, with supper at +a "Gast-Haus"—so passed his days. He had no intimate friends, and his +chief dissipation was playing the flute. His black poodle, named "Homo" +in a subtle mood of irony, accompanied him everywhere, and on this dog +he lavished what he was pleased to call his love. He anticipated Rip Van +Winkle concerning dogs and women, and when Homo died, he bought another +dog that looked exactly like the first, and was just as good.</p> + +<p>In a few instances Schopenhauer read his essays in public as lectures, +but his ideas were keyed to concert pitch and were too pronounced for +average audiences.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_376" id="VIII_Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> He was offered a professorship at Gottingen and also +at Heidelberg, if he would "tone things down," but he scornfully +declined the proposition, and said, "The Universities must grow to my +level before I can talk to them." By his caustic criticisms of +contemporaries he became both feared and shunned, and no doubt he found +a certain satisfaction in the fact that the so-called learned men of his +time would neither listen to his lectures, read his books, nor abide his +presence. He had made himself felt in any event. "Blessed are ye when +men shall revile you," is the sweet consolation of all persecuted +persons—and persecution is only the natural resentment towards those +who have too much ego in their cosmos.</p> + +<p>His opinions concerning love and marriage need not be taken too +seriously. Ideas are the results of temperaments and moods. When a man +amplifies on the woman question he describes the women he knows best, +and more especially the particular She who is in his head. Literature is +only autobiography, more or less discreetly veiled. Schopenhauer hated +his mother to the day of her death, and although during the last +twenty-four years of her life he never once saw her, her image could at +any time be quickly and vividly thrown upon the screen. The women a +strong man has known are never forgotten—here is where time does not +tarnish, nor the days grow dim.</p> + +<p>Between his twenty-eighth and fortieth years, Schopenhauer<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_377" id="VIII_Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> had wandered +through Italy—spent months at Venice, and dawdled away the days at Rome +and Florence. He had dipped deep into life—and the wrong kind of life. +And his experiences had confirmed his suspicions—it was all bitter—he +was not disappointed.</p> + +<p>Until Schopenhauer was past thirty he was known as the son of Johanna +Schopenhauer. And when he once told her that posterity would never +remember her except as the mother of her son, she reciprocated by +congratulating him that his books could always be had cheap in the first +editions.</p> + +<p>He retorted, "Mamma Dear, my books will be read when butchers are using +yours for wrapping up meat." In some ways this precious pair were very +much alike.</p> + +<p>It is very probable that Schopenhauer's mother was not so base as he +thought; and when he declared, "Woman's morality is only a kind of +prudence," he might have said the same of his own. He stood aloof from +life and said things about it. He had no wife, no child, no business, no +home—he dared not venture boldly into the tide of existence—he stood +forever on the bank, and watched the current carrying its flotsam and +jetsam to the hungry sea.</p> + +<p>In his love for the memory of his father, and in his tender care for his +dog, we get a glimpse of depths that were never sounded. One side of his +nature was never developed. And the words of the undeveloped man are +worth what they are worth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_378" id="VIII_Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span></p> + +<p>Schopenhauer once said to Wieland, "Life is a ticklish business—I +propose to spend my time looking at it." This he did, viewing existence +from every angle, and writing out his thoughts in terse, epigrammatic +language.</p> + +<p>Among all the German writers on philosophy, the only one who had a +distinct literary style is Schopenhauer. Form was quite as much to him +as matter—and in this he showed rare wisdom; although I am told that +the writers who have no literary style are the only ones who despise it. +Dishes to be palatable must be rightly served: appetite—literary, +gastronomic or sexual—is largely a matter of imagination.</p> + +<p>Schopenhauer need not be regarded as final. The chief virtue of the man +lies in the fact that he makes us think, and thus are we his debtors.</p> + +<p>In this summary of Schopenhauer's philosophy I have had the valuable +assistance of my friend and fellow-worker in the Roycroft Shop, George +Pannebakker, a kinsman and enthusiastic admirer of the great Prophet of +Pessimism.</p> + +<p>In talking to Mr. Pannebakker, I am inclined to exclaim, "Thou almost +persuadest me to be a pessimist!" It is unfortunate that our English +tongue contains no word that stands somewhere between pessimism and +optimism—that symbols a judicial cast of mind which sees the Truth +without blinking and accepts it without complaint. The word Pessimist +was first flung<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_379" id="VIII_Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> in contempt at those who dared to express unpalatable +truth. It is now accepted by a large number of intellectuals, and if to +be a pessimist is to have insight, wit, calm courage, patience, +persistency, and a disposition that accepts all Fate sends and makes the +best of it, then pity 'tis we haven't more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_380" id="VIII_Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The root of existence, the inmost kernel of all being, the original +vitalizing power, the fundamental reality of the universe, is, according +to Schopenhauer, "WILL." What is Will? Will, in the usual sense, is the +faculty of our mind by which we decide to do or not to do. Will is the +power to choose. In Schopenhauer's philosophy, Will is something less as +we know will, and something more than force. Will, connected with +consciousness, as peculiar to man, is, in a less developed form, the +real essence of all matter, of all things, organic or inorganic. Will is +the blind, irresistible striving for existence; the unconscious +organizing power, the omnipotent creative force of Nature, pervading the +whole limitless universe; the endeavor to be, to evolve, to expand.</p> + +<p>The whole world of phenomena is the objectivation or apparition of Will.</p> + +<p>Will, the same force which slumbers in the stone as inert gravity, forms +the crystals with such wonderful regularity.</p> + +<p>Will impels a piece of iron to move with ardent desire toward the +magnet. Will causes the magnet to point with unfailing constancy to the +north. Will causes the embryo to cling as a parasite and feed on the +body of the mother. Will causes the mother's breast to fill that her +babe may be fed. Will fills the mother-heart with love that the young +may be cared for.</p> + +<p>The same force urges the tender germ of the plant to<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_381" id="VIII_Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> break through the +hard crust of the earth and, stretching toward the light, to enfold +itself in the proud crown of the palm-tree. Will sharpens the beak of +the eagle and the tooth of the tiger and, finally, reaches its highest +grade of objectivation in the human brain. Want, the struggle for +existence, the necessity of procuring and selecting sufficient food for +the preservation of the individual and the species, has at last +developed a suitable tool, the brain, and its function, the intellect. +With the intellect appear consciousness and a realm of rational life +full of yearning and desires, pleasures and pain, hatred and love. +Brothers slay their brothers, conquerors trample down the races of the +earth, and tyrants are forging chains for the nations.</p> + +<p>There is violence and fear, vexation and trouble. Unrest is the mark of +existence, and onward we are swept in the hurrying whirlpool of change. +This manifold restless motion is produced and kept up by the agency of +two single impulses—hunger and the sexual instinct. These are the chief +agents of the Lord of the Universe—the Will—and set in motion so +strange and varied a scene.</p> + +<p>The Will-to-Live is at the bottom of all love-affairs. Every kind of +love springs entirely from the instinct of sex.</p> + +<p>Love is under bonds to secure the existence of the human race in future +times. The real aim of the whole of love's romance, although the persons +concerned<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_382" id="VIII_Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> are unconscious of the fact, is that a particular being may +come into the world.</p> + +<p>It is the Will-to-Live, presenting itself in the whole species, which so +forcibly and exclusively attracts two individuals of different sex +towards each other.</p> + +<p>This yearning and this pain do not arise from the needs of an ephemeral +individual, but are, on the contrary, the sigh of the Spirit of the +Species.</p> + +<p>Since life is essentially suffering, the propagation of the species is +an evil—the feeling of shame proves it.</p> + +<p>In his "Metaphysics of Love," Schopenhauer says: "We see a pair of +lovers exchanging longing glances—yet why so secretly, timidly and +stealthily? Because these lovers are traitors secretly striving to +perpetuate all the misery and turmoil that otherwise would come to a +timely end."</p> + +<p>Will, as the source of life, is the origin of all evil.</p> + +<p>Having awakened to life from the night of unconsciousness, the +individual finds itself in an endless and boundless world, striving, +suffering, erring; and, as though passing through an ominous dream, it +hurries back to the old unconsciousness. Until then, however, its +desires are boundless, and every satisfied wish begets a new one. +So-called pleasures are only a mode of temporary relief. Pain soon +returns in the form of satiety. Life is a more or less violent +oscillation between pain and ennui. The latter, like a bird of prey, +hovers over us, ready to swoop down wherever it sees a life<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_383" id="VIII_Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> secure from +need.</p> + +<p>The enjoyment of art, as the disinterested cognition devoid of Will, can +afford an interval of rest from the drudgery of Will service. But +esthetic beatitude can be obtained only by a few; it is not for the hoi +polloi. And then, art can give only a transient consolation.</p> + +<p>Everything in life indicates that earthly happiness is destined to be +frustrated or to be recognized as an illusion. Life proves a continuous +deception, in great as well as in small matters. If it makes a promise, +it does not keep it, unless to show that the coveted object was little +desirable.</p> + +<p>Life is a business that does not pay expenses.</p> + +<p>Misery and pain form the essential feature of existence.</p> + +<p>Life is hell, and happy is that man who is able to procure for himself +an asbestos overcoat and a fire-proof room.</p> + +<p>Looking at the turmoil of life, we find all occupied with its want and +misery, exerting all their strength in order to satisfy its endless +needs and avert manifold suffering, without daring to expect anything +else in return than merely the preservation of this tormented individual +existence, full of want and misery, toil and moil, strife and struggle, +sorrow and trouble, anguish and fear—from the cradle to the grave.</p> + +<p>Existence, when summed up, has an enormous surplus of pain over +pleasure.</p> + +<p>You complain that this philosophy is comfortless! But<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_384" id="VIII_Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> Schopenhauer sees +life through Schopenhauer's eyes, and tells the truth about it as he +sees it. He does not care for your likes and dislikes. If you want to +hear soft platitudes, he advises you to go to a non-conformist +church—read the newspapers, go somewhere else, but not to the +philosopher who cares only for Truth.</p> + +<p>Although Schopenhauer's picture of the world is gloomy and somber, there +is nothing weak or cowardly in his writings, and the extent to which he +is read, proves he is not depressing. Since a happy life is impossible, +he says the highest that a man can attain to is the fate of a hero.</p> + +<p>A man must take misfortune quietly, because he knows that very many +dreadful things may happen in the course of life. He must look upon the +trouble of the moment as only a very small part of that which will +probably come.</p> + +<p>We must not expect very much from life, but learn to accommodate +ourselves to a world where all is relative and no perfect state exists.</p> + +<p>Let us look misfortune in the face and meet it with courage and +calmness!</p> + +<p>Fate is cruel and men are miserable. Life is synonymous with suffering; +positive happiness a fata morgana, an illusion.</p> + +<p>Only negative happiness, the cessation of suffering, is possible, and +can be obtained by the annihilation of the Will-to-Live.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_385" id="VIII_Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p> + +<p>But it is not suicide that can deliver us from the pains of existence.</p> + +<p>Suicide, according to Schopenhauer, frustrates the attainment of the +highest moral aim by the fact that, for a real release from this world +of misery, it substitutes one that is merely apparent. For death merely +destroys the phenomenon, that is, the body, and never my inmost being, +or the universal Will.</p> + +<p>Suicide can deliver me merely from my phenomenal existence, and not from +my real self, which can not die.</p> + +<p>How, then, can man be released from this life of misery and pain? Where +is the road that leads to Salvation?</p> + +<p>Slow and weary is the way of redemption.</p> + +<p>The deliverance from life and its sufferings is the freedom of the +intellect from its creator and despot, the Will.</p> + +<p>The intellect, freed from the bondage of the Will, sees through the veil +of selfhood into the unity of all being, and finds that he who has done +wrong to another has done wrong to his own self. For selfhood—the +asserting of the Ego—is the root of all evil.</p> + +<p>Covetousness and sensuality are the causes of misery.</p> + +<p>Sympathy is the basis of all true morality, and only through +renunciation, through self-sacrifice, and universal benevolence, can +salvation be obtained.</p> + +<p>He who has recognized that existence is evil, that life is vanity, and +self an illusion, has obtained true knowledge,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_386" id="VIII_Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> which is the reflection +of reality. He is in possession of the highest wisdom, which is not +merely theoretical, but also practical perfection; it is the ultimate +true cognition of all things in mass and in detail, which has so +penetrated man's being that it appears as the guide of all his actions. +It illumines his head, warms his heart, leads his hand. We take the +sting out of life by accepting it as it is. "Drink ye all of it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_387" id="VIII_Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Arthur Schopenhauer very early in life contracted a bad habit of telling +the truth. He stated the thing absolutely as he saw it. He spared no +one's feelings, and conciliation was not in his bright lexicon of words. +If any belief or any institution was in his way, the pilot in charge of +the craft had better put his prow hard a' port—Schopenhauer swerved for +nobody.</p> + +<p>Should every one deal in plain speaking on all occasions, the philosophy +of Ali Baba—that this earth is hell, and we are now suffering for sins +committed in a former incarnation—would be fully proved. Our friends +are the pleasant hypocrites who sustain our illusions. Society is made +possible only through a vast web of delicate evasions, polite +subterfuges, and agreeable falsehoods. The word person comes from +"persona," which means a mask. The reference is to one who plays a +part—assumes a role. The naked truth is not pleasant to look upon, and +that is the reason it is so seldom put upon parade.</p> + +<p>The man Schopenhauer would be intolerable, but the writer Schopenhauer +is gaining ground in inverse ratio to the square of the distance we are +from him. "Where shall we bury you?" a friend asked him a few days +before his death.</p> + +<p>"Oh, anywhere—posterity will find me!" was the answer. And so on the +modest stone that marks his resting-place at Frankfort, are engraved the +two words,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_388" id="VIII_Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, and nothing more. The world will not +soon forget the pessimist who had such undying optimism—such +unquenchable faith—that he knew the world would make a path to his +tomb.</p> + +<p>Schopenhauer was the only prominent writer that ever lived who +persistently affirmed that life is an evil—existence a curse. Yet every +man who has ever lived has at times thought so; but to proclaim the +thought—or even entertain it long—would stagger sanity, befog the +intellect and make mind lose its way.</p> + +<p>And yet we prize Schopenhauer the more for having said the thing that we +secretly thought; in some subtle way we get a satisfaction out of his +statement, and at the same time, we perceive the man was wrong.</p> + +<p>The man who can vivisect an emotion, and lay bare a heart-beat in print, +knows a subtle joy. The misery that can explain itself is not all +misery. Complete misery is dumb; and pain that is all pain is quickly +transformed into insensibility. Schopenhauer's life was quite as happy +as that of many men who persistently depress us by requesting us to +"cheer up." Schopenhauer says, "Don't try to cheer up—the worst is yet +to come." And we can not refrain a smile. A mother once called to her +little boy to come into the house. And the boy answered, "I won't do +it!" And the mother replied, "Stay out then!" And very soon the child +came in.</p> + +<p>Truth is only a point of view, and when a man tells us what he sees, we +swiftly take into consideration who<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_389" id="VIII_Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> and what the man is. Everybody does +this, unconsciously. It depends upon who says it! The garrulous man who +habitually overstates—painting things large—does not deceive anybody, +and is quite as good a companion as the painstaking, exact man who is +always setting us straight on our statistics. One man we take gross and +the other net. The liar gross is all right, but the liar net is very +bad.</p> + +<p>Schopenhauer was a talkative, whimsical and sensitive personality, with +a fine assortment of harmless superstitions of his own manufacture. He +was vain, frivolous, self-absorbed, but he had an eye for the subtleties +of existence that quite escape the average individual. He lived in a +world of mind—alert, active, receptive mind—with a rapid-fire gun in +way of a caustic, biting, scathing vocabulary at his command.</p> + +<p>The test of every literary work is time. The trite, the commonplace, and +the irrelevant die and turn to dust. The vital lives. Schopenhauer began +writing in his youth. Neglect, indifference and contempt were his +portion until he was over fifty years of age. His passion for truth was +so repelling that the Mutual Admiration Society refused to record his +name even on its waiting-list. He was of that elect few who early in +life succeed in ridding themselves of the friendship of the many. His +enemies discovered him first, and gave him to the world, and after they +had launched his fame with their charges of plagiarism, pretense, +bombast, insincerity<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_390" id="VIII_Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> and fraud, he has never been out of the limelight, +and in favor he has steadily grown.</p> + +<p>No man was ever more thoroughly denounced than Schopenhauer, but even +his most rabid foe never accused him of buying his way into popular +favor, or bribing the judges who sit on the bookcase.</p> + +<p>We admire the man because he is such a sublime egotist—he is so +fearfully honest. We love him because he is so often wrong in his +conclusions: he gives us the joy of putting him straight.</p> + +<p>Schopenhauer's writing is never the product of a tired pen and ink +unstirred by the spirit. With him we lose our self-consciousness.</p> + +<p>And the man who can make other men forget themselves has conferred upon +the world a priceless boon. Introspection is insanity—to open the +windows and look out is health.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="HENRY_D_THOREAU" id="HENRY_D_THOREAU"></a>HENRY D. THOREAU<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_391" id="VIII_Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span></h2> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Seeing how all the world's ways came to nought,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And how Death's one decree merged all degrees,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">He chose to pass his time with birds and trees,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Reduced his life to sane necessities:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Plain meat and drink and sleep and noble thought.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And the plump kine which waded to the knees</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Through the lush grass, knowing the luxuries</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of succulent mouthfuls, had our gold-disease</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As much as he, who only Nature sought.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who gives up much the gods give more in turn:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The music of the spheres for dross of gold;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For o'er-officious cares, flame-songs that burn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Their pathway through the years and never old.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And he who shunned vain cares and vainer strife</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Found an eternity in one short life.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_392" id="VIII_Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> +</p> + +<div class="center"> + <a id="image0464-1"></a> + <img src="images/0464-1.jpg" width="228" height="400" + alt="" + title="" /> + + <p class="center">HENRY THOREAU</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_393" id="VIII_Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p> + + + +<p>As a rule, the man who can do all things equally well is a very mediocre +individual. Those who stand out before a groping world as beacon-lights +were men of great faults and unequal performances. It is quite needless +to add that they do not live on account of their faults or +imperfections, but in spite of them.</p> + +<p>Henry David Thoreau's place in the common heart of humanity grows firmer +and more secure as the seasons pass; his life proves for us again the +paradoxical fact that the only men who really succeed are those who +fail.</p> + +<p>Thoreau's obscurity, his poverty, his lack of public recognition in +life, either as a writer or lecturer, his rejection as a lover, his +failure in business, and his early death, form a combination of +calamities that make him as immortal as a martyr. Especially does an +early death sanctify all and make the record complete, but the death of +a naturalist while right at the height of his ability to see and +enjoy—death from tuberculosis of a man who lived most of the time in +the open air—these things array us on the side of the man 'gainst +unkind Fate, and cement our sympathy and love.</p> + +<p>Nature's care forever is for the species, and the individual is +sacrificed without ruth that the race may<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_394" id="VIII_Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> live and progress. This dumb +indifference of Nature to the individual—this apparent contempt for the +man—seems to prove that the individual is only a phenomenon. Man is +merely a manifestation, a symptom, a symbol, and his quick passing +proves that he isn't the Thing. Nature does not care for him—she +produces a million beings in order to get one who has thoughts—all are +swept into the dustpan of oblivion but the one who thinks; he alone +lives, embalmed in the memories of generations unborn.</p> + +<p>One of the most insistent errors ever put out was that statement of +Rousseau, paraphrased in part by T. Jefferson, that all men are born +free and equal. No man was ever born free, and none are equal, and would +not remain so an hour, even if Jove, through caprice, should make them +so.</p> + +<p>The Thoreau race is dead. In Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at Concord there is +a monument marking a row of mounds where a half-dozen Thoreaus rest. The +inscriptions are all of one size, but the name of one alone lives, and +he lives because he had thoughts and expressed them. If any of the tribe +of Thoreau gets into Elysium, it will be by tagging close to the only +man among them who glorified his Maker by using his reason.</p> + +<p>Nothing should be claimed as truth that can not be demonstrated, but as +a hypothesis (borrowed from Henry Thoreau) I give you this: Man is only +the tool or vehicle—Mind alone is immortal—Thought is the Thing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_395" id="VIII_Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Heredity does not account for the evolution of Henry Thoreau. His father +was of French descent—a plain, stolid, little man who settled in +Concord with his parents when a child; later he tried business in +Boston, but the march of commerce resolved itself into a double-quick, +and John Thoreau dropped out of line, and turned to the country village +of Concord, where he hoped that between making lead-pencils and +gardening he might secure a living.</p> + +<p>He moved better than he knew.</p> + +<p>John Thoreau's wife was Cynthia Dunbar, a tall and handsome woman, with +a ready tongue and nimble wit. Her attentions were largely occupied in +looking after the affairs of the neighbors, and as the years went by her +voice took on the good old metallic twang of the person who discusses +people, not principles.</p> + +<p>Henry Thoreau was the third child in the family of seven. He was born in +an old house on the Virginia Road, Concord, about a mile and a half from +the village. This house was the home of Mrs. Thoreau's mother, but the +Thoreaus had taken refuge there, temporarily, to escape a financial +blizzard which seems to have hit no one else but themselves.</p> + +<p>John Thoreau was assisted in the pencil-making by the whole family. The +Thoreaus used to sell their pencils down at Cambridge, fifteen miles +away, and Harvard professors, for the most part, used the Concord +article in jotting down their sublime thoughts. At<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_396" id="VIII_Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> ten years of age, +Thoreau had a furtive eye on Harvard, directed thither, they say, by his +mother. All the best people in Concord, who had sons, sent them to +Harvard—why shouldn't the Thoreaus? The spirit of emulation and family +pride were at work.</p> + +<p>Henry was educated principally because he wasn't very strong, nor was he +on good terms with work, and these are classic reasons for imparting +classical education to youth, aspiring or otherwise.</p> + +<p>The Concord Academy prepared Henry for college, and when he was sixteen, +he trudged off to Cambridge and was duly entered in the Harvard Class of +Eighteen Hundred Thirty-seven. At Harvard, his cosmos seemed to be of +such a slaty gray that no one said, "Go to—we will observe this youth +and write anecdotes about him, for he is going to be a great man." The +very few in his class who remembered him wrote their reminiscences long +years afterward, with memories refreshed by magazine accounts written by +pious pilgrims from Michigan.</p> + +<p>In college pranks and popular amusements he took no part, neither was he +a "grind," for he impressed himself on no teacher or professor so that +they opened their mouths and made prophecies.</p> + +<p>Once safely through college, and standing on the threshold (I trust I +use the right expression), Henry Thoreau refused to accept his diploma +and pay five dollars for it—he said it wasn't worth the money.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_397" id="VIII_Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p> + +<p>In his "Walden," Thoreau expresses his opinion of college training this +way: "If I wished a boy to know something about the arts and sciences I +would not pursue the common course, which is merely to send him into the +neighborhood of some professor, where everything is professed and +practised but the art of life. To my astonishment, I was informed when I +left college that I had studied navigation! Why, if I had taken one turn +down the harbor I would have known more about it."</p> + +<p>It is well to remember, however, that Thoreau had no ambitions to become +a navigator. His mission was simply to paddle his own canoe on Walden +Pond and Concord River. The men who really launched him on his voyage of +discovery were Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson—both Harvard +men. Had he not been a college man, it is quite probable he would never +have caught the speaker's eye. His efforts in working his way through +college, assisted by his poverty-stricken parents, proved his quality. +And as for his life in a shanty on the shores of Walden Pond, the +occurrence is too commonplace to mention, were it not for the fact that +the solitary occupant of the shanty was a Harvard graduate who used no +tobacco.</p> + +<p>Harvard prepares a youth for life—but here is a man who, having +prepared for life, deliberately turns his back on life and lives in the +woods.</p> + +<p>A genuine woodsman is no curiosity, but a civilized<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_398" id="VIII_Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> woodsman is. The +tendency of colleges is to turn men from Nature to books; from bonfires +to stoves, steam-heat and cash-registers; but Thoreau, by reversing all +rules, suddenly found himself, and others, explaining his position in +print.</p> + +<p>Harvard supplied him the alternating current; he influenced the people +in his environment, and he was influenced by his environment.</p> + +<p>But without Harvard there would have been no Thoreau. Having earned his +diploma, he had the privilege of declining it; and having gone to +college, it was his right to affirm the emptiness of the classics. Only +the man with a goodly bank-balance can wear rags with impunity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_399" id="VIII_Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>John Thoreau made his lead-pencils and peddled them out, and we hear of +his saying, "Pencils, I fear, are going out of fashion—people are +buying nothing but these miserable new-fangled steel pens." When called +upon to surrender, Paul Jones replied, "We haven't yet begun to fight." +The truth was, the people had not really begun to use pencils. Pencils +weren't going out of fashion, but John Thoreau was. The poor man moved +here and there, evicted by rapacious landlords and taken in by his +relatives, who didn't care whether he was a stranger or not. If he owed +them ten dollars, they took fifty dollars' worth of pencils and called +it square.</p> + +<p>Then they undersold John one-half, and he said times were scarce.</p> + +<p>This, it need not be explained, was in Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>A hundred years ago, these men who whittled useful things out of wood +during the long winter days were everywhere in New England. The sons of +these men invented machines to make the same things, and thus were +started the New England manufactories. It was brains against hands, +cleverness against skill, initiative against plodding industry. And the +man who can tell of the sorrow and suffering of all those industrious +sparrows that were caught and wound around flying shuttles, or stamped +beneath the swift presses of invention, hadn't yet been born. God +doesn't seem to care for sparrows—three-fourths of all that are hatched +die<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_400" id="VIII_Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> in the nest or fall fluttering to the ground and perish, Grant +Allen says.</p> + +<p>Comparatively few persons can adjust themselves happily to new +conditions: the rest are pushed and broken and bent—and die.</p> + +<p>When Dixon and Faber invented machines that could be fed automatically, +and turn out more pencils in a day than John Thoreau could in a year, +John was out of the game.</p> + +<p>John had brought up his children to work, and Henry became an expert +pencil-maker. Henry, we say, should have found employment with Faber and +Company, as foreman, or else evaded their patents and made a +pencil-machine of his own. Instead, however, he settled down and made +pencils just like his father used to make, and in the same way. He +peddled out a few to his friends, but his business instinct was shown in +that he himself tells how one year he made a thousand dollars' worth of +pencils, but was obliged to sacrifice them all to cancel a debt of one +hundred dollars.</p> + +<p>And yet there are people who declare that genius is not transmissible.</p> + +<p>John Thoreau failed at pencil-making, but Henry Thoreau failed because +he played the flute morning, noon and night, and went singing the +immunity of Pan. He fished, and tramped the woods and fields, looking, +listening, dreaming and thinking.</p> + +<p>At Keswick, where the water comes down at Lodore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_401" id="VIII_Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> there is a +pencil-factory that has been there since the days of William the +Conqueror. The wife of Coleridge used to work there and get money that +supported her philosopher-husband and their children. Southey lived +near, and became Poet Laureate of England through the right exercise of +Keswick pencils; Wordsworth lived only a few miles away, and once he +brought over Charles and Mary Lamb, and bought pencils for both, with +their names stamped on them. The good old man who now keeps the +pencil-factory explained these things to me, and also explained the +direct relationship of good lead-pencils to literature, but I do not +remember what it was.</p> + +<p>If Henry Thoreau had held on a few years, until the pilgrims began to +arrive at Concord, he could have gotten rich selling souvenir pencils. +But he just dozed and dreamed and tramped and philosophized; and when he +wrote he used an eagle's quill, with ink he himself distilled from +elderberries, and at first, birch-bark sufficed for paper. "Wild men and +wild things are the only ones that have life in abundance," he used to +say.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_402" id="VIII_Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Brook Farm was a serious, sober experiment inaugurated by the Reverend +George Ripley with intent to live the ideal life—the life of useful +effort, direct honesty, simplicity and high thinking.</p> + +<p>But Thoreau could not be induced to join the community—he thought too +much of his liberty to entrust it to a committee. He was interested in +the experiment, but not enough to visit the experimenters. Emerson +looked in on them, remained one night, and went back home to continue +his essay on Idealism.</p> + +<p>Hawthorne remained long enough to get material for his "Blithedale +Romance." Margaret Fuller secured good copy and the cordial and lifelong +dislike of Hawthorne, all through misprized love, alas! George William +Curtis and Charles Dana graduated out of Brook Farm, and went down to +New York to make goodly successes in the great game of life.</p> + +<p>At Brook Farm they succeeded in the high thinking all right, but the +entrepreneur is quite as necessary as the poet—and a little more so. +Brook Farm had no business head, and things unfit fall into natural +dissolution. But the enterprise did not fail, any more than a rotting +log fails when it nourishes a bank of violets. The net results of Brook +Farm's high thinking have passed into the world's treasury, smelted +largely by Emerson and Thoreau, who were not there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_403" id="VIII_Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Immanuel Kant has been called the father of modern Transcendentalists: +but Socrates and his pupil Plato, so far as we know, were the first of +the race.</p> + +<p>Neither buzzing bluebottles nor the fall of dynasties disturbed them. +"The soul is everything," said Plato. "The soul knows all things," says +Emerson.</p> + +<p>In every century a few men have lived who knew the value of plain living +and high thinking, and very often the men who reversed the maxim have +passed them the hemlock.</p> + +<p>All those sects known as Primitive Christians represent variations of +the idea—Quakers, Mennonites, Communists, Shakers and Dunkards!</p> + +<p>A Transcendentalist is a Dukhobortsi with a college education. A Quaker +with an artistic bias becomes a Preraphaelite, and lo! we have News from +Nowhere, a Dream of John Ball, Merton Abbey, Kelmscott, and half a world +is touched and tinted by the simplicity, sterling honesty and +genuineness of one man.</p> + +<p>George Ripley, Bronson Alcott, and Ralph Waldo Emerson evolved New +England Transcendentalism, and very early Henry Thoreau added a few bars +of harmonious discords to the symphony. Horace Greeley once contended in +a "Tribune" editorial that Sam Staples, the bum bailiff who locked +Thoreau behind the bars, was an important factor in the New England +renaissance, and as such should be immortalized by a statue made<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_404" id="VIII_Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> of +punk, set up on Boston Common for the delectation of bean-eaters. I fear +me Horace was a joker.</p> + +<p>California quail are quite different from the quail of New York State, +and naturalists tell us that this is caused by a difference in +environment—quail being a product of soil and climate.</p> + +<p>And man is a product of soil and climate—for only in a certain soil can +you produce a certain type of man. As a whole, this world is better +adapted for the production of fish than genius—most of the really good +climate falls on the sea. Christian Scientists are Transcendentalists +whose distinguishing point is that they secrete millinery—California +quail with rainbow tints and topknots, Balboaic instincts well defined.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_405" id="VIII_Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Let this fact stand: it was Emerson who made Concord. He saw it +first—he was on the ground, and the place was his by right of +discovery, the title strengthened by the fact that four of his ancestors +had been Concord clergymen, and the most excellent and venerable Doctor +Ripley, a near kinsman.</p> + +<p>Concord and Emerson, as early as Eighteen Hundred Forty, when Emerson +was thirty-seven years old, were synonymous. He had defied the +traditions of Harvard, been excommunicated by his Alma Mater, published +his pantheistic Essay on Nature, and his thin little books and sermons +had been placed on the Boston Theological Index Expurgatorius.</p> + +<p>Through it all he had remained gentle, smiling, sympathetic, +unresentful.</p> + +<p>The world can never spare the man who does his work and holds his peace. +Emerson was being lifted up, and souls were being drawn unto him.</p> + +<p>In Eighteen Hundred Forty, Bronson Alcott, the American Socrates, with +his interesting family, moved to Concord, drawn thither by the magnet of +Emerson's personality. Louisa wore short dresses, and used to pick wild +blackberries and sell them to the Emersons and get goodly reward in +silver, and kindly smiles, and pats on her brown head by the hand that +wrote "Compensation."</p> + +<p>Alcott was a great, honest, sincere soul, and a true<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_406" id="VIII_Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> anarch, for he +took his own wherever he saw it. He used to run his wheelbarrow into +Emerson's garden and load it up with potatoes, cabbages or turnips, and +once in response to a hint that the vegetables were private property, +the old man somewhat petulantly exclaimed, "I need them!—I need them!"</p> + +<p>And that was all: anything that any man needed was his by divine right. +And the consistency of Alcott's philosophy was shown in that he never +took anything or any more than he needed, and if he had something that +you needed, you were certainly welcome to it. If Alcott helped himself +to the thrifty Emerson's vegetables, both Emerson and Thoreau helped +themselves to Alcott's ideas.</p> + +<p>Once a wagonload of wood broke down in front of Alcott's house, and the +farmer unhitched his horses and went on to the village to procure a new +wheel. Before he got back, Alcott had carried every stick of the +combustibles into his own wood-shed. "Providence remembers us!" he said. +His faith was sublime.</p> + +<p>When all the world reaches the Alcott stage, there will be no need of +soldiers, policemen, night-watchmen, or bolts, bars and locks.</p> + +<p>In Eighteen Hundred Forty, Nathaniel Hawthorne came to Concord from +Salem, where he had resigned his clerkship in the custom-house, that he +might devote all his time to literature. He moved into the Old Manse, +which had just been vacated by Doctor Ripley, who had gone<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_407" id="VIII_Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> +a-Brook-Farming—the Old Manse where Emerson himself once lived. +Elizabeth Peabody, the talented sister of Hawthorne's wife, lived at a +convenient distance, and to her Hawthorne read most of his manuscript, +for I need not explain that literature is not literature until it is +read aloud and reflected back by a sympathetic, discerning mind. +Literature is a collaboration between the reader and the listener.</p> + +<p>Margaret Fuller, with her tragic life-story still unwound, lived hard +by, and Hawthorne had already worked her up into copy as "Zenobia." +Margaret's sister Ellen had married Ellery Channing, the closest, +warmest friend that Henry Thoreau ever knew. The gossips arranged a +doublewedding, with Henry and Margaret as the other principals; but when +interviewed on the theme, Henry had merely shaken his head and said, "In +the first place, Margaret Fuller is not fool enough to marry me; and +second, I am not fool enough to marry her."</p> + +<p>An Irishman who saw Thoreau in the field making a minute in his notebook +took it for granted that he was casting up his wages, and inquired what +they came to. It was a peculiar farmhand who cared more for ideas than +for wages.</p> + +<p>George William Curtis was also a farmhand out on the Lowell Road, but +came into town Saturday evenings—taking a swim in the river on the +way—to attend the philosophical conferences at Emerson's house, and +then went off and made gentle fun of them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_408" id="VIII_Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span></p> + +<p>Little Doctor Holmes occasionally drove out from Boston to Concord in a +one-horse chaise; James Russell Lowell had walked over from Cambridge; +and Longfellow had invited all hands to a birthday fete on his lawn at +Cambridge, but Thoreau had declined for himself, saying he had to look +after his pond-lilies and the field-mice on Bedford flats.</p> + +<p>Thoreau, at this time, was a member of Emerson's household, and in a +letter Emerson says, "He has his board for what labor he chooses to do; +he is a great benefactor and physician to me, for he is an indefatigable +and skilful laborer, besides being a scholar and a poet, and as full of +promise as a young apple-tree."</p> + +<p>And again, in a letter to Carlyle: "One reader and friend of yours +dwells in my household, Henry Thoreau, a poet whom you may one day be +proud of—a noble, manly youth, full of melodies and invention. We work +together day by day in my garden, and I grow well and strong."</p> + +<p>To work and talk is the true way to acquire an education. All of our +best things are done incidentally—not in cold blood. Hawthorne says in +his Journal that most of Emerson's and Thoreau's farming was done +leaning on the hoe-handles, while Alcott sat on the fence and explained +the Whyness of the Wherefore.</p> + +<p>But we must remember that in Hawthorne's ink-bottle there was a goodly +dash of tincture of iron. In his Journal of September First, Eighteen +Hundred Forty-two,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_409" id="VIII_Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> he writes: "Mr. Thoreau dined with us yesterday. He +is a singular character—a young man with much of wild, original nature +still remaining in him; and so far as he is sophisticated, it is in a +way and method of his own. He is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, +queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and somewhat rustic ways, though his +courteous manner corresponds very well with such an exterior. But his +ugliness is of an honest character and really becomes him better than +beauty." Little did Hawthorne's guests imagine they were being basted, +roasted, or fricasseed for the edification of posterity.</p> + +<p>Prosperity at this time had just begun to smile on Hawthorne, and among +other extravagances in which he indulged was a boat, bought from +Thoreau—made by the hands of this expert Yankee whittler. Hawthorne +quotes a little transcendental advice given to him by the maker of the +boat: "In paddling a canoe, all you have to do is to will that your boat +shall go in any particular direction, and she will immediately take the +course, as if imbued with the spirit of the steersman." Hawthorne then +adds this sober postscript: "It may be so with you, but it is certainly +not so with me."</p> + +<p>Admiration for Thoreau gradually grew very strong with Hawthorne, and he +quotes Emerson, who called Thoreau "the young god Pan." And this lends +much semblance to the statement that Thoreau served Hawthorne as a model +for Donatello, the mysterious wood-sprite in the "Marble Faun."<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_410" id="VIII_Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span></p> + +<p>As to the transformation of Thoreau himself, one of his classmates +records this:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Meeting Mr. Emerson one day, I inquired if he saw much of my +classmate, Henry D. Thoreau, who was then living in Concord. "Of +Thoreau?" replied Mr. Emerson, his face lighting up with a smile of +enthusiasm. "Oh, yes, we could not do without him. When Carlyle +comes to America, I expect to introduce Thoreau to him as the man +of Concord," and I was greatly surprised at these words. They set +an estimate on Thoreau which seemed to be extravagant.... Not long +after I happened to meet Thoreau in Mr. Emerson's study at +Concord—the first time we had come together after leaving college. +I was quite startled by the transformation that had taken place in +him. His short figure and general cast of countenance were, of +course, unchanged; but in his manners, in the tones of his voice, +in his modes of expression, even in the hesitations and pauses of +his speech, he had become the counterpart of Mr. Emerson. Thoreau's +college voice bore no resemblance to Mr. Emerson's, and was so +familiar to my ear that I could have readily identified him by it +in the dark. I was so much struck by the change that I took the +opportunity, as they sat near together talking, of listening with +closed eyes, and I was unable to determine with certainty which was +speaking. I do not know to what subtle influences to ascribe it, +but after conversing with Mr. Emerson for even a brief time, I +always found myself able and inclined to adopt his voice and manner +of speaking.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_411" id="VIII_Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Thoreau had tried schoolteaching, but he had to give up his position +because he would not exercise the birch and ferule. "If the scholars +once find out the teacher is not goin' to sting 'em up when they need +it, that is an end to the skule," said one of the directors, and he spat +violently at a fly, ten feet away. The others agreeing with him, Thoreau +was asked to resign.</p> + +<p>William Emerson, a brother of Ralph Waldo's, a prosperous New York +merchant, had lured Ralph Waldo's hired man away from him and taken him +down to Staten Island, New York. Here Thoreau acted as private tutor, +and imparted the mysteries of woodcraft to boys who cared more for +marbles.</p> + +<p>Staten Island was about two hundred miles too far from Concord to suit +Thoreau.</p> + +<p>His loneliness in New York City made Concord and the pine-trees of +Walden woods seem paradise enow. There is no heart desolation equal to +that which can come to one in a throng.</p> + +<p>Margaret Fuller was now in New York City, working for Greeley on the +editorial staff of the "Tribune." Greeley was so much pleased with +Thoreau that he offered to set him to work as reporter, for Greeley had +guessed the truth that the best city reporters are country boys. They +observe and hear—all is curious and wonderful to them: by and by they +will become blase—sophisticated—that is, blind and deaf.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_412" id="VIII_Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span></p> + +<p>Greeley was a great talker, and he had a way of getting others to talk +also. He got Thoreau to talking about communal life and life in the +woods, and then Horace worked Henry's words up into copy—for that is +the way all good newspaper-writers evolve their original ideas.</p> + +<p>Thoreau was amazed to pick up a number of the daily "Tribune" and find +his conversation of the day before, with Greeley, skilfully transformed +into a leader.</p> + +<p>Fourierism had been the theme—the Phalanstery versus Individual +Housekeeping. Greeley had prophesied that the phalanstery, with one +kitchen for forty families, instead of forty kitchens for forty +families, would soon come about. Greeley's prophetic vision did not +quite anticipate the modern apartment-house, which perhaps is a +transitional expedient, moving toward the phalanstery, but he quoted +Thoreau by saying, "A woman enslaved by her housekeeping is just as much +a chattel as if owned by a man."</p> + +<p>This was in Eighteen Hundred Forty-five, and Thoreau was now +twenty-eight years of age. He was homesick for the dim pine-woods with +their ceaseless lullaby, the winding and placid river, and the great, +massive, sullen, self-sufficient boulders of Concord.</p> + +<p>He was resolved to follow the example of Brook Farm, and start a +community of his own in opposition. His community would be on the shores +of Walden Pond, and the only member of the genus homo who would<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_413" id="VIII_Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> be +eligible to membership would be himself; the other members would be the +birds and squirrels and bees, and the trees would make up the rest. +Brook Farm was a retreat for transcendentalists—a place to meditate, +dream and work—a place where one could exist close to Nature, and live +a simple, hardy and healthful life.</p> + +<p>Thoreau's retreat would be the same, with the disadvantage of personal +contact eliminated.</p> + +<p>It was in March, Eighteen Hundred Forty-five, that Thoreau began +building his shanty. The spot was in a dense woods, on a hillside that +gently sloped down to the clear, cold, deep water of Walden Pond. The +land belonged to Emerson, who obligingly gave Thoreau the use of it, +rent free, with no conditions. Alcott helped in the carpenter work, and +discussed betimes of the Wherefore, and when it came to the raising, a +couple of neighboring farmers were hailed and pressed into service. The +cabin was twelve by fifteen, and cost—furnished—the sum of +twenty-eight dollars, good money, not counting labor, which Thoreau did +not calculate as worth anything, since he had had the fun of the +thing—something for which men often pay high.</p> + +<p>The furniture consisted of a table, a chair, and a bed, all made by the +owner. For bedclothes and dishes the Emerson household was put under +contribution. On the door was a latch, but no lock.</p> + +<p>And Thoreau looked upon his work and pronounced it good.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_414" id="VIII_Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span></p> + +<p>Stripped of the fact that a man of culture and education built the +shanty and lived in it, the incident is scarcely worth noting. Boys +passing through the shanty stage, all build shanties, and forage through +their mothers' pantries for provender, which they carry off to their +robbers' roost. Thoreau was an example of shanty-arrested development.</p> + +<p>But as the import of every sentence depends upon who wrote it, and the +worth of advice hinges upon who gave it, so does the value of every act +depend upon who did it. Thus when a man, who was in degree an +inspiration of Emerson, takes to the woods, it is worth our while to +follow him afield and see what he does.</p> + +<p>Thoreau set to work to clean up two acres of blackberry brambles for a +garden-patch. He did not work except when he felt like it. His plan was +to go to bed at dusk, with window and door open, and get up at five +o'clock in the morning. After a plunge in the lake he would dress and +prepare his simple breakfast. Then he would work in his garden, or if +the mood struck him, he would sit in the door of his shanty and +meditate, or else write. In the arrangement of his home he followed no +system or rule, merely allowing the passing inclination to lead.</p> + +<p>His provisions were gotten of friends in the village, and were paid for +in labor. It was part of Thoreau's philosophy that to accept something +for nothing was theft, and that the giving or acceptance of presents<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_415" id="VIII_Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> +was immoral. For all he received he conscientiously gave an equivalent +in labor; and as for ideas, he always considered himself a learner; if +he had thoughts they belonged to anybody who could annex them. And that +Emerson and Horace Greeley were alike in their capacity to absorb, +digest and regurgitate, is everywhere acknowledged. To paraphrase +Emerson's famous remark concerning Plato: Say what you will, you will +find everything mentioned by Emerson hinted at somewhere in Thoreau. The +younger man had as much mind as the elder, but he lacked the capacity +for patient effort that works steadily, persistently, and weighs, sifts, +decides, classifies and arranges. The voice was the voice of Jacob, but +the hand was the hand of Esau. That is to say, Thoreau lacked business +instinct. During the Winter at Walden Pond, all the work Thoreau had to +do was to gather firewood. There was plenty of time to think and write, +and here the better part of "Walden" and "A Week on the Concord and +Merrimac Rivers" were written. He had no neighbors, no pets, no +domesticated animals—only the squirrels on the roof, a woodchuck under +the floor, the scolding blue jays in the pines overhead, the wild ducks +on the pond, and the hooting owls that sat on the ridgepole at night.</p> + +<p>Thoreau loved solitude more because he prized society—the society of +simple men who could talk and tell things. Thoreau was no hermit—at +least twice a week<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_416" id="VIII_Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> he would go to the village and meander along the +street, gossiping with all or any. Often he would accept invitations to +supper, but on principle refused all invitations to remain overnight, no +matter what the weather. Indeed, as Hawthorne hints, there is a trace of +the theatrical in the man who leaves a warm fireside at nine or ten +o'clock at night and trudges off through the darkness, storm and sleet, +feeling his way through the blackness of the woods to a cold and +cheerless shanty which he with unconscious humor calls home. Hawthorne +hints that Thoreau was a delightful poseur—he posed so naturally that +he deceived even himself. On one particular visit to the village, +however, he did not go back home for the night. It seems that he had +been called upon by the local taxgatherer for his poll-tax, a matter of +a dollar and a quarter. Thoreau argued the question at length, and among +other things, said, "I will not give money to buy a musket, and hire a +man to use this musket to shoot another." And also, "The best government +is not that which governs least, but that which governs not at all."</p> + +<p>"But what shall I do?" said the patient publican.</p> + +<p>"Resign," said the philosopher.</p> + +<p>Thoreau seemed to forget that officeholders seldom die and never resign. +In the argument the publican was worsted, but he was not without +resource. He went back to town and told the other officials what had +happened. Their dignity was at stake. Alcott had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_417" id="VIII_Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> guilty of a like +defiance some time before, and now it was the belief that he was putting +the younger man up to insurrection.</p> + +<p>The next time Thoreau came over to the village for his mail he was +arrested and lodged in the local bastile.</p> + +<p>Emerson, hearing of the trouble, hastened to the jail, and reaching the +presence of the prisoner asked sternly, "Henry, why are you here?"</p> + +<p>And the answer was, "Waldo, why are you not here?" Emerson had no use +for such finespun theories of duty, and the matter was too near home for +a joke, so he turned away and let the culprit spend the night in limbo. +The next morning Thoreau was released, the tax having been paid by some +unknown person—Emerson, undoubtedly. This was a tame enough ending to +what was rather an interesting affair—the hope of the best citizens +being that Thoreau would get a goodly sentence for vagrancy. The +townfolk looked upon Thoreau and Alcott with suspicious eyes. They both +came in for much well-deserved censure, and Emerson did not go +unsmirched, since he was guilty of harboring and encouraging these +ne'er-do-wells.</p> + +<p>Thoreau's cabin-life continued for two Summers and Winters. He had +proved that two hours' manual work each day was sufficient to keep a +man—twenty cents a day would suffice.</p> + +<p>The last year in the woods he had many callers: Agassiz had been to see +him, Emerson had often called,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_418" id="VIII_Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> Ellery Channing was a frequent visitor, +and picnickers were constant. Lowell had made a few cutting remarks to +the effect that "as compared with shanty-life, the tub of Diogenes was +preferable, as it had a much sounder bottom," and Hawthorne had written +of "the beauties of conspicuous solitude."</p> + +<p>Thoreau felt that he was attracting too much attention, and that perhaps +Hawthorne was right: a recluse who holds receptions is becoming the +thing he pretends to despise. Besides that, there was plenty of +precedent for quitting—Brook Farm had gone by the board, and was but a +memory.</p> + +<p>Thoreau's shanty was turned over to a utilitarian Scotchman with red +hair. Later the immortal shanty was a useful granary. Thoreau went back +to the village to live in a garret and work at odd jobs of boat-building +and gardening.</p> + +<p>Now only a pile of boulders marks the place where the cabin stood. For +some years, each visitor to the spot threw a stone upon the heap, but +recently the proposition has been reversed, and each visitor takes a +stone away, which reveals not a reversal in the sentiment toward the +memory of Thoreau, but a change in the quality of the Concord pilgrim.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_419" id="VIII_Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Thoreau's early death was the direct result of his reckless lack of +common prudence. That which made him live, in a literary way, curtailed +his years. The man was improperly and imperfectly nourished, physically. +Men who live alone do not cook any more than they have to: men and +women, both, cook for emulation. That is to say, we work for each other, +and we succeed only as we help each other.</p> + +<p>Thoreau was such a pronounced individualist that he cared for no one but +himself, and he cared for himself not at all. It is wife, children and +home that teach a man prudence, and make him bank against the storm. "At +Walden no one bothered me but the State," said Thoreau. If Thoreau had +had a family and treated his household as he treated himself, that +scorned thing, the State, would have stepped in and sent him to the +workhouse, and his children to the Home for the Friendless.</p> + +<p>If he had treated dumb animals as he treated himself, the Society for +the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would have interfered. The absence +of social ties and of all responsibilities fixed in his peculiar +temperament an indifference to hunger, heat, cold, wet, damp, and all +bodily discomfort that classes the man with the flagellants. He tells of +whole days when he ate nothing but berries and drank only cold water; +and at other times of how he walked all day in a soaking<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_420" id="VIII_Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> rain and went +to bed at night, supperless, under a pine-tree. Emerson records the fact +that on long tramps Thoreau would carry only a chunk of plum-cake for +food, because it was rich and contained condensed nutriment.</p> + +<p>The question is sometimes asked, "How can one eat his cake and keep it +too?" but this does not refer to plum-cake.</p> + +<p>A few years of plum-cake, cold mince-pie and continual wet feet will put +the petard under even the stoutest constitution.</p> + +<p>During his shanty-life Thoreau was imperfectly nourished, and for the +victim of malassimilation, tuberculosis hunts and needs no spyglass.</p> + +<p>It is absurd for a man to make a god of his digestive apparatus, but it +is just as bad to forget that the belly is as much the gift of God as +the brain.</p> + +<p>In childhood, Thoreau was frail and weak. Outdoor life gradually +developed on his slight frame a splendid strength and a power to do and +endure. He could outrun, outrow, outwalk any of his townsmen. In him +developed the confidence of the athlete—the confidence of the athlete +who dies young. Thoreau was an athlete, and he died as the athlete +dieth. Irregular diet and continued exposure did their work—the vital +powers became reduced, the man "caught cold," bronchitis followed, and +the tuberculæ laughed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_421" id="VIII_Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>During Thoreau's life he published but two volumes, and these met with +scanty sale. Since his death ten volumes have been issued from his +manuscripts and letters, and his fame has steadily increased.</p> + +<p>Boston had no recognition for Thoreau as long as he was alive. Among the +most popular writers of the time, feted and feasted, invited and +exalted, were George S. Hillard, N. P. Willis, Caroline Kirkland, George +W. Green, Parke Godwin and Charles F. Briggs. These writers, who had the +run of the magazines, would have smiled in derision if told that the +name and fame of uncouth Thoreau would outlive them all. They wrote for +the people who bought their books, but Thoreau dedicated his work to +time. He wrote what he thought, but they wrote what they thought other +people thought.</p> + +<p>In the publication of "The Dial," Thoreau took a hearty interest, and +was a frequent contributor. The official organ of the +transcendentalists, however, paid no honorariums—it was both sincere +and serious, and died in due time of too much dignity. The "Atlantic +Monthly" accepted one article by Thoreau, and paid for it, but as James +Russell Lowell, the editor, used his blue pencil a trifle, without first +consulting the author, he never got an opportunity to do so again.</p> + +<p>Horace Greeley had interested himself in Thoreau's writings and gotten +several articles accepted by<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_422" id="VIII_Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> Graham's and also Putnam's Magazine. "The +Week" had been published on the author's guaranty that enough copies +would be sold the first year to cover the cost. After four years, of the +edition of one thousand copies only three hundred were disposed of, and +these were mostly given away. To pay the publisher for the expense +incurred, Thoreau buckled down and worked hard at surveying for a year.</p> + +<p>The only man he ever knew, of whom he stood a little in awe, was Walt +Whitman. In a letter to Blake he says:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Nineteenth November, Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six.—Alcott has been +here, and last Sunday I went with him to Greeley's farm, thirty-six +miles north of New York. The next day Alcott and I heard Beecher +preach; and what was more, we visited Whitman the next morning, and +we were much interested and provoked. He is apparently the greatest +democrat the world has seen, kings and aristocracy go by the board +at once, as they have long deserved to. A remarkably strong though +coarse nature, of a sweet disposition, and much prized by his +friends. Though peculiar and rough in his exterior, he is +essentially a gentleman. I am still somewhat in a quandary about +him—feel that he is essentially strange to me, at any rate; but I +am surprised by the sight of him. He is very broad, but, as I have +said, not fine.</p> + +<p>Seventh December, Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six.—That Walt Whitman, +of whom I wrote you, is the most interesting fact to me at present. +I have just read his second edition (which he gave me), and it has +done me more good than any reading for a long time. Perhaps I<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_423" id="VIII_Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> +remember best the poem of "Walt Whitman an American" and the +"Sundown" poem. There are two or three pieces in the book which are +disagreeable, to say the least, simply sensual.... As for its +sensuality—and it may turn out to be less sensual than it +appears—I do not so much wish that those parts were not written, +as that men and women were so pure that they could read them +without harm.</p> + +<p>On the whole, it sounds to me very brave and American, after +whatever deductions. I do not believe that all the sermons, so +called, that have been preached in this land, put together, are +equal to it for preaching. We ought greatly to rejoice in him. He +occasionally suggests something a little more than human. You can't +confound him with the other inhabitants of Brooklyn. How they must +shudder when they read him!</p> + +<p>To be sure, I sometimes feel a little imposed on. By his heartiness +and broad generalities he puts me into a liberal frame of mind, +prepared to see wonders—as it were, sets me upon a hill or in the +midst of a plain—stirs me well up, and then—throws in a thousand +of brick. Though rude and sometimes ineffectual, it is a great +primitive poem, an alarum or trumpet-note ringing through the +American camp. Wonderfully like the Orientals, too, considering +that, when I asked him if he had read them, he answered, "No; tell +me about them."</p> + +<p>Since I have seen him, I find that I am not disturbed by any brag +or egoism in his book. He may turn out the least of a braggart of +all, having a better right to be confident. Walt is a great fellow.</p></div> + +<p>A lady once asked John Burroughs this question: "What would become of +this world if everybody in it<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_424" id="VIII_Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> patterned after Henry Thoreau?" And Ol' +John replied, "It would be much improved."</p> + +<p>But your Uncle John is a humorist—he knows that Henry Ward Beecher was +right when he said, "God never made but one Thoreau—that was enough, +but we are grateful for the one."</p> + +<p>Thoreau was a poet-naturalist, and the lesson he taught us is that this +is the most beautiful world to know anything about, and there are enough +curious and wonderful things right under our feet, and over our heads, +and all around us, to amuse, divert, interest and instruct us for a +lifetime. We need only a little.</p> + +<p>Use your eyes!</p> + +<p>"How do you manage to find so many Indian relics?" a friend asked +Thoreau. "Just like this," he replied, and stooping over, he picked up +an arrowhead under the friend's foot. At dinner once at a neighbor's he +was asked what dish he preferred, and his answer was, "The nearest." To +him, everything was good—he uttered no complaints and made no demands.</p> + +<p>When asked by a clergyman why he did not go to church, he said, "It is +the rafters—I can't stand them—when I look up, I want to gaze straight +into the blue sky." Then he turned the tables and asked the interrogator +a question: "Did you ever happen, accidentally, to say anything while +you were preaching?" Yet preachers of brains were always attracted to +him: Harrison Blake, to whom he wrote more letters than<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_425" id="VIII_Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> to any one +else, was a Congregational preacher. And when Horace Greeley took +Thoreau to Plymouth Church, Beecher invited him to sit on the platform +and quoted him as one who saw God in autumn's every burning bush.</p> + +<p>The wit of the man—his direct speech, and all of his beautiful +indifference for the good opinion of those whom others follow after and +lie in wait for—was sublime. Meanness, hypocrisy, secrecy and +subterfuge had no place in Thoreau's nature.</p> + +<p>He wanted nothing—nothing but liberty—he did not even ask for your +applause or approval. When walking on country roads, laborers would hail +him and ask for tobacco—seeing in him only one of their own kind. +Farmers would stop and gossip with him about the weather. Children ran +to him on the village streets and would cling to his hands and clutch +his coat, and ask where the berries grew, or the first spring flowers +were to be found. With children he was particularly patient and kind. +With them he would converse as freely as did George Francis Train with +the children in Madison Square. The children recognized in him something +very much akin to themselves—he would play upon his flute for them and +whittle out toy boats, regardless of the flight of time.</p> + +<p>Imbeciles and mental defectives from the almshouse used occasionally to +wander over to his cabin in the woods, and he would treat them with +gentle consideration, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_426" id="VIII_Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> accompany them back home.</p> + +<p>His lack of worldly prudence, Blake thought, tokened a courage which +under certain conditions would have made him as formidable as John +Brown. Blake tells this: Once on a lonely road, two miles from Concord, +two loafers stopped a girl who was picking berries, and began to bother +her. Thoreau just then happened along, and seeing the young woman's +distress, he collared the rogues and marched them into the village, +turning them over to that redoubtable transcendentalist, Sam Staples, +who locked them up. Thoreau's hook nose and features could be +transformed in rare instances into a look of command that no man dare +question—it was the look of the fatalist—the benign fanatic—the look +of Marat—the look of a man who has nothing but his life to lose, and +places small store on that. "A little more ambition, and a trifle less +sympathy, and the world would have had a Cæsar to deal with," says +Blake.</p> + +<p>Cowardice is only caution carried to an extreme. Thoreau exercised no +prudence in making money, securing fame, preserving his health, holding +his friends or making new ones. This Spartan-like quality, that counts +not the cost, is essentially heroic.</p> + +<p>But Thoreau was not given to strife; for the most part, he was +non-resistant. The chief thing he prized was equanimity, and this you +can not secure through struggle and strife. His game was all captured +with the spyglass, or carried home in his botanists' drum. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_427" id="VIII_Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> worldly +wealth and what we call progress, he had small appreciation—this marks +his limitations. But his reasons are surely good literature:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>They make a great ado nowadays about hard times; but I think that +the community generally, ministers and all, take a wrong view of +the matter. This general failure, both private and public, is +rather occasion for rejoicing, as reminding us whom we have at the +helm—that justice is always done. If our merchants did not most of +them fail, and the banks too, my faith in the old laws of the world +would be staggered. The statement that ninety-six in a hundred +doing such business surely break down, is perhaps the sweetest fact +that statistics have revealed—exhilarating as the fragrance of the +flowers in the Spring. Does it not say somewhere, "The Lord +reigneth, let the earth rejoice"? If thousands are thrown out of +employment, it suggests that they were not well employed. Why don't +they take the hint? It is not enough to be industrious; so are the +ants. What are you industrious about?</p> + +<p>The merchants and company have long laughed at transcendentalism, +higher law, etc., crying, "None of your moonshine," as if they were +anchored to something not only definite, but sure and permanent. If +there were any institution which was presumed to rest on a solid +and secure basis, and more than any other, represented this boasted +commonsense, prudence, and practical talent, it was the bank; and +now these very banks are found to be mere reeds shaken by the wind.</p> + +<p>Scarcely one in the land has kept its promise. Not merely the Brook +Farm and Fourierite communities,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_428" id="VIII_Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> but now the community generally +has failed. But there is the moonshine still, serene, beneficent +and unchanged.</p></div> + +<p>Thoreau was no pessimist. He complained neither of men nor of +destiny—he felt that he was getting out of life all that was his due. +His remarks might be sharp and his words sarcastic, but in them there +was no bitterness. He made life for none more difficult—he added to no +one's burdens. Sympathy with Nature, pride, buoyancy, self-sufficiency, +were his prevailing traits. The habit of his mind was hopeful.</p> + +<p>His wit and good-nature were his to the last, and when asked if he had +made his peace with God, he replied, "I have never quarreled with Him."</p> + +<p>He died, aged forty-four, in the modest home of his mother. The village +school was dismissed that the scholars might attend the funeral, and +three hundred children walked in the procession to Sleepy Hollow. +Emerson made an address at the grave; Alcott read selections from +Thoreau's own writings; and Louisa Alcott read this poem, composed for +the occasion:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We sighing said, "Our Pan is dead;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">His pipe hangs mute beside the river,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Around it wistful sunbeams quiver,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But Music's airy voice is fled.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Spring mourns as for untimely frost:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The bluebird chants a requiem;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The willow-blossom waits for him;—</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_429" id="VIII_Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Genius of the wood is lost."</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then from the flute, untouched by hands,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">There came a low, harmonious breath:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"For such as he there is no death;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His life the eternal life commands;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Above man's aims his nature rose.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The wisdom of a just content</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Made one small spot a continent,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And turned to poetry life's prose.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"To him no vain regrets belong,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Whose soul, that finer instrument,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Gave to the world no poor lament,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But wood-notes ever sweet and strong.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O lonely friend! he still will be</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A potent presence, though unseen—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Steadfast, sagacious, and serene;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Seek not for him—he is with thee."</span><br /> +</p> + + +<hr class="full" /> + + +<p>SO HERE ENDETH "LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF GREAT PHILOSOPHERS,<span class='pagenum'><a name="VIII_Page_430" id="VIII_Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> +BEING VOLUME EIGHT OF THE SERIES, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD; EDITED +AND ARRANGED BY FRED BANN; BORDERS AND INITIALS BY ROYCROFT ARTISTS, AND +PRODUCED BY THE ROYCROFTERS, AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN EAST AURORA, +ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK, MCMXXII.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Journeys to the Homes of the +Great Philosophers, Volume 8, by Elbert Hubbard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOMES OF THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS *** + +***** This file should be named 23640-h.htm or 23640-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/6/4/23640/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Annie McGuire and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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