9

view to finality in the negative, but as the first stage toward an ulterior profit—as the preliminary purification indispensable to future positive result. If, then, the philosophers of the New Academy considered Socrates either as a skeptic or as a partisan of systematic negation, they misinterpreted his character and mistook the first stage of his process-that which Plato, Bacon, and Herschel call the purification of the intellect—for the ultimate goal. The Elenchus, as Socrates used it, was animated by the truest spirit of positive science, and formed an indispensable precursor to its attainment. . . The method of Socrates yet survives, as far as such method can survive, in some of the dialogues of Plato. It is a process of eternal value and of universal application. The purification of the intellect, which Bacon signalized as indispensable for rational or scientific progress, the Socratic Elenchus affords the only known instrument for at least partially accomplishing. However little that instrument may have been applied since the death of its inventor, the necessity and use of it neither have disappeared, nor ever can disappear. There are few 10 men whose minds are not more or less in that state of sham knowledge against which Socrates made war; there is no man whose notions have not been first got together by spontaneous, unexamined, unconscious, uncertified association, resting upon forgotten particulars, blending together disparates or inconsistencies, and leaving in his mind old and familiar phrases and oracular propositions, of which he has never rendered to himself account; there is no man who, if he be destined for vigorous and profitable scientific effort, has not found it a necessary branch of self-education to break up, disentangle, analyze, and reconstruct these ancient mental compounds, and who has not been driven to do it by his own lame and solitary

efforts, since the giant of the colloquial Elenchus no longer stands in the market-place to lend him help and 11 stimulus. . . . To hear of any man, especially of so illustrious a man, being condemned to death on such accusations as that of heresy and alleged corruption of youth, inspires at the present day a sentiment of indignant reprobation, the force of which I have no desire to enfeeble. The fact stands eternally recorded as one among the thousand misdeeds of intolerance, religious and politi12 cal. But since amid this catalogue each item has its own peculiar character, grave or light, we are bound to consider at what point of the scale the condemnation of Socrates is to be placed, and what inferences it justifies in regard to the character of the Athenians. Now, if we examine the circumstances of the case, we shall find them all extenuating, and so powerful, indeed, as to reduce such inferences to their minimum, consistent with the general class to which the incident belongs.

1

THE STATE OF AMERICA IN 1784.-CONDITION OF LITERATURE.

M'MASTER'S ". HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES."

Tyler's "History of American Literature" may also be read with great advantage by the student of American history. It is admirably shown in this section from M'Master how thoroughly the growth of literature enters into the very heart of a nation's history. Literature is the most faithful expression of national life.

THERE is, in fact, no portion of our literary annals which presents a spectacle of so much dreariness as the one hundred and sixty years which followed the landing

of the Pilgrims (A. D. 1620). In all that time scarcely any work of the imagination was produced which posterity has not willingly let die. It would be a hard task to the most assiduous compiler to glean from the literature of that period material enough to make what would now be thought a readable book. A few poems of the 2 "Tenth Muse," an odd chapter from the "Magnalia Christi," a page or two from the essay on "The Freedom of the Will," some lyrics of Hopkinson, a satire by Trumbull, a pamphlet by Paine, would almost complete the book, and, when completed, it would not be a very large volume, nor one of a very high order of merit. It would not be worth fifty lines of "Evangeline," nor the half of "Thanatopsis." The men whose writings now form our 3 national literature, the men we are accustomed to revere as intellectual patriarchs, all of whose works have become classics, belong, without exception, to the generation which followed the Revolution. Irving was not a year old when peace was declared, Cooper was born in the same year that Washington went into office, Halleck one year later, Prescott in the year Washington came out of office. The Constitution was five years old when Bryant was born. The first year of the present century witnessed the birth of Bancroft, and, before another decade had come and gone, Emerson was born, and Willis, and Longfellow, and Whittier, and Holmes, and Hawthorne, and Poe. Before the year 1825 was reached, "Thanatopsis " 4 was published, Motley was born, "The Spy," "The Pioneer," and "The Pilot" were written, and Drake, after a short and splendid career, was carried with honor to the grave. Scarcely a twelvemonth went by unmarked by the birth of a man long since renowned in the domain of letters.

It may at first sight seem strange that, after so many 5

years of intellectual weakness, of feeble tottering, and of blind gropings, there should suddenly have appeared so great a crowd of poets and novelists, historians and essayists, following hard upon the war for independence. But the fact is merely another illustration of a great truth with which the history of every people is replete with examples-the truth that periods of national commotion, disorder, and contention are invariably followed by periods 6 of intellectual activity. Whatever can turn the minds of men from the channels in which they have been long running, and stir them to their inmost depths, has never yet failed to produce most salutary and lasting results. The age of Pericles, of Augustus, of Leo and Elizabeth, of Louis Quatorze, and the splendors of the reign of Ferdinand, are but so many instances in point. The same is true of our own land. For the first time since white men began to inhabit America the colonists were united in a common league against a common foe. For seven years 7 the strife continued. When it ended, yet another seven years followed, during which the fury of war gave way to the rage of faction. There was never a moment of rest. No sooner was one storm over than another appeared on the horizon. Yet here again years of national commotion were followed by years of great mental activity, the like of which our country had never witnessed before. Yet again were the evils of war succeeded by the fruits of genius. Our ancestors were therefore, in 1781, shut out from the only native authors whose writ8 ings are by this generation thought worthy to read. They possessed no poets better than Philip Freeneau and Timothy Dwight. No novelist, no dramatist, no really great historian, had yet arisen. Among the living statesmen none had as yet produced anything more enduring than a political pamphlet or a squib. Hamilton and Madison

and Jay had not begun that noble series of essays which finds no parallel in the English language save in the "Letters of Junius." A knowledge of German, of Italian, 9 and of Spanish was not considered a necessary part of the education of a gentleman. Men of parts and refinement listened in astonishment to the uncouth gutturals in which the officers of the Hessian troops commanded their men to " carry arms" and to "right wheel." All, therefore, who did not understand French, and they made up the majority of readers, were of necessity compelled to peruse the works of English authors, or to read nothing, or what was worse than nothing. They filled their library-shelves, as a consequence, with volumes which are at this day much more admired than studied. The incomparable 10 letters of Philip Francis to Woodfall were imitated by numberless pamphleteers, who, over the signature of Cassius or Brutus, reviled the Cincinnati, or set forth most urgent reasons why no Tory refugee should ever again be allowed to find a footing on American soil. Damsels envious of distinction as correspondents made themselves familiar with the polished diction and pure English of the "Spectators" and the "Tatlers." Nor were they ignorant of many books which no woman would now, without a blush, own to having read. The adventures of Peregrine Pickle and Roderick Random were as well known to the women of that generation as were those of Leatherstocking to the women of the succeeding. It would, however, be a great mistake to suppose 11 that they read no novels of a less objectionable character than "Tom Jones" and "Tristram Shandy." The lighter literature of England had long been growing purer and purer. The reproach which from the time of Fielding and Smollett had lain on the novel was rapidly passing away. Even among grave and reflecting people the feel