This

beings share in; and it is identical in them all. idea became most fruitful in Emerson's mind, the source of his doctrine of the Over-Soul. In Coleridge he found much else to stimulate him. Wordsworth gave him the conception of nature as alive with the Universal Spirit, and as being the Universal Reason embodied and outwardly expressed as law and order. These ideas were confirmed by the German thinkers. Herder regarded all religion as an intuition, and looked upon genius in the great man as the world's chief progressive force, as the source of all rightful activity. Goethe, even more than Wordsworth, taught a profound and enthusiastic love of nature, and brought men to look on it as an intimate and confidential friend. By all the great Germans individuality was constantly preached, for they regarded each soul as a new expression of Universal Reason. As the real source of truth is intuition, we must look inwardly, rely on reason as it speaks in us; and not outwardly, to history and social customs.

Such are some of the ideas and influences which affected Emerson and his friends at this time. The conventional and historical came to be less important; and the natural, the common, acquired a new interest. Nature wore a new face, and science was found to have a new and richer attraction. In Nature may be seen the influence of Plato, the Neo-Platonists, the German mystics and English idealists. Under their lead he elaborates his doctrine of the one mind common to all men, which reveals through us its living word. This idea expands into his conception of self-reliance, intuition, compensation, and the influence of the great man. He was more than ever repelled from the materialistic philosophy, and from all those religious ideas which seemed in any way to be attached to it. His own account of the rise of Transcendentalism in New England will give the best idea of it which can be presented.

There are always two parties, the party of the past and that of the future, or that of the establishment and that of movement. It is not easy to date the eras of activity which, from time to time,

are manifest, with any thing like precision; but the period beginning about the year 1820, and ending twenty years later, is to be regarded as such an one. It may be characterized as a war between institutions and nature, and which caused a split in every church, as of Calvinists and Quakers, into old and new schools; and there were new divisions upon questions of politics, temperance, and slavery. The general mind had become aware of itself. Men grew conscious and intellectual. The swart earth-spirit which had made the strength of past ages was all gone, and another hour had struck. In literature there appeared a decided tendency to criticism, and young men seemed to have been born with knives in their brains. The popular religion of our fathers received many shocks during this time; but much is to be attributed to the slow but extraordinary influence of Swedenborg, -a man of prodigious mind, tainted, as I think, with a certain suspicion of insanity, but exerting a powerful effect upon an influential class.

Among the more immediate causes of this intellectual and reformatory activity was the impression made by Edward Everett, who returned from Europe about the year 1820, after a five years' residence, and who presented with natural grace and splendid rhetoric some of the phases of contemporary German thought. Frothingham and Norton also contributed in making familiar the latest results of German thinking, and gave a new impetus to the study of theology. But more potent than any of these influences, as a permanent source of the religious revolution of the period, was modern science, especially the science of astronomy. It came to be apprehended, that, as the earth is not the center of the universe, so it is not the special scene or stage on which the drama of divine justice is played before the assembled angels of heaven; the planet being but a speck in the created universe too minute to be seen at the distance of many of the fixed stars which are plainly visible to us. These new perceptions required of men an extension and uplifting of their views as to the dealings of the Creator, and they received a confirmation in the then new science of geology. The writings of Dr. Channing, especially his papers on Milton and Napoleon, had an immense influence on current literature, setting the example and laying the foundation for a broader and deeper school of criticism than had appeared before among us.

Among other influences was the work of the great innovators, Lavater, Gall, Spurzheim, who dragged down every secret and mysterious thing of our nature to the level of a street-show. Goethe also had a great influence, revolutionizing philosophy and science. And the peculiarity of all this period was its return to law, to what was normal, natural, and human. And this could be seen in the character of the works and authors which then became popular, such as Combe's Constitution of Man, Mrs. Somerville's scientific works, and many other writings on science and philosophy; and in Dickens, so human and genial, in the world

of fiction.

The tendencies of thought thus created took a decided form, and came to full expression in the year 1836. Beside Emerson's Nature, there appeared a little book on The Gospels, by W. H. Furness, Alcott's first volume of Conversations on the Gospels, Brownson's New Views of Christianity, Society, and the Church, and Sampson Reed's Growth of the Mind. These books were all based on the new spiritual philosophy, and were full of criticism of the old religious thought and life. So strong had the new tendency become, that its friends began to gather together and to seek for some ampler methods of expression, which would bring them into closer sympathy with each other. Channing was the real leader of this movement, as he had been twenty years earlier of the Unitarian advance. He took counsel with George Ripley, then one of the most prominent of the Unitarian clergymen in Boston, towards the organization of a society for mutual inquiry.

He invited a party of ladies and gentlemen, says Emerson, and I had the honor to be present. No important consequences of the attempt followed. Margaret Fuller, Ripley, Brownson, and Hedge, and many others, gradually came together, but only in the way of students. But I think there prevailed at that time a belief that this was some concert of doctrinaires to establish certain opinions, or to inaugurate some movement in literature, philosophy, or religion, but of which these conspirators were quite innocent. It was no concert, but only two or three men and women, who read alone with some vivacity. Perhaps all of these were surprised at the rumor that they were a school or sect, but more especially at the name of "Transcendentalism." Nobody knows who first applied the name. These persons became, in the common chance of society, acquainted with each other; and the result was a strong friendship, exclusive in proportion to its heat. Meetings were held for conversation, with very little form, from house to house. Yet the intelligent character and varied ability of the company gave it some notoriety, and perhaps awakened some curiosity as to its aims and results. But nothing more serious came of it for a long time.

This gathering was at first known as "The Symposium," and afterwards as "The Transcendental Club." It was not so much a club as a gathering of a handful of friends who entertained the same ideas, and had com

mon hopes of a new era of truth and religion. Those ideas were such as to make them talkers, and could be better expressed in conversation among friends than in any other manner. One of the company, Bronson Alcott, in one of his "Conversations," has given a very good account of these meetings; and, as it is almost wholly made up from the pages of his journal, is accurate as to dates and persons:

"The first meeting of the Transcendental Club was in Boston, at the house of Mr. George Ripley, on the 19th of September, 1836. The persons present were George Ripley, R. W. Emerson, F. H. Hedge, Convers Francis, J. F. Clarke, and the present writer. It was a preliminary meeting, to see how far it would be possible for earnest minds to meet, and with the least possible formality communicate their views. They dispensed with any election of a chairman; if there was to be any precedency, it naturally belonged to the oldest. At that time the oldest of that company was Mr. Francis. They gave invitations to Dr. Channing, to Jonathan Phillips, to Rev. James Walker, Rev. N. L. Frothingham, Rev. J. S. Dwight, Rev. W. H. Channing, and Rev. C. A. Bartol, to join them, if they chose to do so. The three last named appeared afterwards, and met the club frequently. They adjourned to meet at Mr. Alcott's house in Beach Street, on the afternoon of Oct. 3, 1836, at three o'clock.

"On that occasion the subject of discussion was this: American Genius, the causes which hinder its growth giving us no first-rate productions. There were present at that second meeting, Emerson, Hedge, Francis, Ripley, O. A. Brownson, Clarke, Bartol, and the host. Subsequent meetings took place in Boston the following winter and spring, and at Concord and Watertown, then the home of Mr. Francis, during the summer of 1837. So far as there was any show of order in these meetings, it was something like this: The senior member, Mr. Francis, the company being seated, would invite the members, as they sat, to make remarks, which they did. I believe there was seldom an inclination on the part of any to be silent. Always, or nearly always, every person present contributed something to the conversation. At that time theology was the theme of general discussion. Dr. Beecher had come to Boston a few years before, to put down Unitarianism, as he fondly fancied, by preaching his Puritan views, the views of Calvin. These, however, had passed away, in good measure; and the views of Professor Norton of the Divinity School were then in the ascendant. Dr. Channing had published his essays in The Examiner; he was also preaching when he was able. There were

added to the club, or symposium, in 1837, Rev. Caleb Stetson, Thcodore Parker, Margaret Fuller, and Miss Elizabeth Peabody.

Rev. Thomas T. Stone afterwards joined it. Mr. Brownson commenced his Quarterly Review in 1837.

"At the meetings of the club, Mr. Emerson was almost always present. On not more than two or three occasions during the three or four years that the club met-four or five times a year, probably - was he absent. Indeed, the members looked forward with great delight to the opportunity of meeting him. They were presently scattered abroad. Mr. Hedge had gone as far as Bangor, and others had gone to some distance; but it was arranged that during the season of recreation, when these persons came to the city, the meetings should be held quite often. They were held at Watertown, at Newton, Concord, Milton, Chelsea (where Mr. Brownson_was then living), frequently in Boston, and perhaps elsewhere. I remember the doctrine of Personality early came up for discussion. It was the fashion to speak against personality, - the orthodox view of it; and the favorite phrase was 'impersonality.' In attempting to liberate the true view from the superstitions which had gathered about it in coming down through Calvinism, through Puritanism, some made the mistake of conceiving individuality to be the central thought; and at these meetings that subject was discussed. Impersonality, Law, Right, Justice, Truth, these were the central ideas; but where the Power was in which they inhered, how they were related to one another, what was to give them vitality, - these questions were almost neglected, and left out of sight. I think that was the deficiency of the Transcendental school; is its deficiency still; is the reason why it has not incorporated itself into a church, and been found equal to compete with orthodoxy. The old Puritanism, whatsoever may have been its blunders, — whatsoever superstitions may have been mingled with its doctrines, — did believe in a Person, and did not allow itself to discriminate personality away into laws and ideas.

"To show how the topics about which I have been speaking interested the club, in May, 1838, the same company again met Rev. N. L. Frothingham being present, for the first time, and the only time that I ever saw him—at Medford; and we discussed this question, 'Is Mysticism an Element of Christianity?' That question touched the seat and root of things. Jones Very's Poems and Essays were published in September, 1839: very significant they were, too; as if, in answer to the inquiry whether Mysticism was an element of Christianity, here was an illustration of it in a living person, himself present at the club. They are very remarkable poems and essays. There had been nothing printed until Nature, unless it may have been Mr. Sampson Reed's little book called The Growth of the Mind, which had intimated genius of the like subtle, chaste, and simple quality.”

In 1838, at a meeting held at Bartol's house, in Chestnut Street, Pantheism was the topic; and there were present Emerson, Alcott, Follan, Francis, Parker,