Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 | Page 8

character to all that men at present think and say and feel and do. It is
this identical spirit of courageous inquiry, honest reality, and intense
activity, wrought up into a kind of universal inspiration, moving with
the same disposition, the same taste, the same thought, persons whole

regions apart and unknown to each other. We are frequently surprised
by coincidences which prove this novel, yet common afflatus. Two
astronomers, with the ocean between them, calculate at the same
moment, in the same direction, and simultaneously light upon the same
new orb. Two inventors, falling in with the same necessity, think of the
same contrivance, and meet for the first time in a newspaper war, or a
duel of pamphlets, for the credit of its authorship. A dozen widely
scattered philosophers as quickly hit upon the self-same idea as if they
were in council together. A more rational development of some old
doctrine in divinity springs up in a hundred places at once, as if a
theological epidemic were abroad, or a synod of all the churches were
in session. It has also another peculiarity. The thought which may occur
at first to but one mind seems to have an affinity to all minds; and if it
be a free and generous thought, it is instantly caught, intuitively
comprehended, and received with acclamations all over the world. Such
a spirit as this is rapidly bringing all sections and classes of mankind
into sympathy with one another, and producing a supreme caste in
human nature, which, as it increases in numbers, will mould the
character and control the destinies of the race.
So far we speak of the upper air of the day. But there is no denying the
prevalence of a lower and baser spirit. We are uncomfortably aware
that there is another extreme to the freaks of the imagination. There are
superstitions of the reason and of realism,--the grotesque fancies,
mysticisms, and vagaries which prevail, and the diseased gusto for
something ultra and outlandish which affects many raw and
undisciplined minds. Yet even these are, in their way, indications of the
pervading disposition,--the unhealthy exhalations to be expected from
hitherto stagnant regions, stirred up by the active and regenerating
thought of the time. There is promise even in them, and they serve to
distinguish the more that purer and higher spirit of honesty and reality,
which clarifies the intellect, and invigorates the faculties that apprehend
and grasp the noble and the true.
We glory in this triumph of the reason over the imagination, and in this
predominance of the real over the ideal. We prefer that common sense
should lead the van, and that mere fancy, like the tinselled conjurer
behind his hollow table and hollow apparatus, should be taken for what
it is, and that its tricks and surprises should cease to bamboozle,

however much they may amuse mankind. Nothing, in the course of
Providence, conveys so much encouragement as this recent and
growing development of reality in thought and pursuit. In its presence
the future of the world looks substantial and sure. We dream of an
immense change in the tone of the human spirit, and in the character of
the civilization which shall in time embower the earth.
But, as it has always been, the greater the good, the nearer the evil;
Satan is next-door neighbor to the saint; Eden had a lurking-hole for the
serpent. Just here the voyaging is most dangerous; just here we drop the
plummet and strike upon a shoal; we lift up our eyes, and discover a
lee-shore.
The mind that is not profound enough to perceive and believe even
what it cannot comprehend,--that is the shoal. Unless the reason will
permit the sounding-lead to fall illimitably down into a submarine
world of mystery, too deep for the diver, and yet a true and living
world,--unless there is admitted to be a fathomless gulf, called _faith_,
underlying the surface-sea of demonstration, the race will surely
ground in time, and go to pieces. There is the peril of this all-prevailing
love of the real. It may become such an infatuation that nothing will
appear actual which is not visible or demonstrable, which the hand
cannot handle or the intellect weigh and measure. Even to this extreme
may the reason run. Its vulnerable point is pride. It is easily encouraged
by success, easily incited to conceit, readily inclined to overestimate its
power. It has a Chinese weakness for throwing up a wall on its
involuntary boundary-line, and for despising and defying all that is
beyond its jurisdiction. The reason may be the greatest or the meanest
faculty in the soul. It may be the most wise or the most foolish of active
things. It may be so profound as to acknowledge a whole infinitude of