Knickerbocker | Page 2

mere form in which the
author expresses his thoughts; you go beyond and behind that, and
judge him by the thoughts themselves; not by one or by 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