Knickerbocker | Page 2

two, but by the sum and substance of the whole. You strip off the husk to arrive at the kernel, and judge of the goodness of the crop by the latter, not the former.
'Just so,' said he; 'that's my meaning precisely. I always strive to follow that rule in every thing. 'Appearances,' you know, 'are deceitful.''
That is to say, you go beyond or transcend appearances and circumstances, and divine the true meaning, the substance, the spirit of that on which you are about to decide. That is practical transcendentalism, and you are a transcendentalist.
'I wish you would suggest another name for it,' said my friend, as he went out of the door; 'I detest the sound of that word.'
I wish we could, said I, but he was out of hearing; I wish we could, for it is an abominably long word to write.
'I wish we could,' mutters the printer, 'for it is an awfully long word to print.'
'I wish we could,' is the sober second thought of all; for people will always condemn transcendentalism until it is called by another name. Such is the force of prejudice.
'I have been thinking over our conversation of yesterday,' said my friend next morning, on entering my room.
'Oh, you have been writing it down, have you? Let me see it.' After looking over the sketch, he remarked:
'You seem to have me fast enough, but after all I believe you conquered merely by playing upon a word, and in proving me to be a transcendentalist you only proved me to be a reasonable being; one capable of perceiving, remembering, combining, comparing and deducing; one who, amid the apparent contradictions with which we are surrounded, strives to reconcile appearances and discover principles; and from the outward and visible learn the inward and spiritual; in fine, arrive at truth. Now every reasonable man claims to be all that I have avowed myself to be. If this is to be a transcendentalist, then I am one. When I read that I must hate my father and mother before I can be a disciple of JESUS, I do not understand that passage literally; I call to mind other precepts of CHRIST; I remember the peculiarities of eastern style; I compare these facts together, and deduce therefrom a very different principle from that apparently embodied in the passage quoted. When I see the Isle of Shoals doubled, and the duplicates reversed in the air above the old familiar rocks, I do not, as I stand on Rye-beach, observing the interesting phenomenon, believe there are two sets of islands there; but recalling facts which I have learned, and philosophical truths which I have acquired and verified, I attribute the appearance to its true cause, refraction of light. When in passing from room to room in the dark, with my arms outspread, I run my nose against the edge of a door, I do not therefrom conclude that my nose is longer than my arms! When I see a man stumble in the street, I do not at once set him down as a drunkard, not considering that to be sufficient evidence, although some of our Washingtonian friends do; but I compare that fact with the state of the streets, and what I know of his previous life, and judge accordingly.'
Well, said I, you are an excellent transcendentalist; one after my own heart, in morals, philosophy and religion. To be a transcendentalist is after all to be only a sensible, unprejudiced man, open to conviction at all times, and spiritually-minded. I can well understand that, when you condemn transcendentalism, you object not to the principle, but to the practice, in the superlative degree, of that principle. Transcendentalism is but an abstract mode of considering morals, philosophy, religion; an application of the principles of abstract science to these subjects. All metaphysicians are transcendentalists, and every one is transcendental so far as he is metaphysical. There are as many different modifications of the one as of the other, and probably no two transcendentalists ever thought alike; their creed is not yet written. You certainly do not condemn spiritualism, but ultra spiritualism you seem to abhor.
'Precisely so. I did not yesterday give you the meaning which I attached to transcendentalism; in truth, practically you meant one thing by that term, and I another, though I now see that in principle they are the same. The spiritualism which I like, looks through nature and revelation up to GOD; that which I abhor, condescends hardly to make use of nature at all, but demands direct converse with GOD, and declares that it enjoys it too; a sort of continual and immediate revelation. Itself is its own authority. The ultra-spiritualist contains within himself the fulness of the Godhead. He allows of nothing external, unless it be brother spirits