To Miss Grace Norton.

Aug. 12, 1874.

I went last Tuesday week to Mr. Shattuck’s, at Mattapoisett, for a visit of a few days, — a visit long ago projected. It was a very agreeable one, extending to nearly a week. The Rev. Dr. Rufus Ellis and his daughter were the other guests at first; after them came Professor and Mrs. Dunbar, of Cambridge, and their daughter. It was a pleasant as well as edifying variety in life to be so long with these sensible as well as conservative and religious people. Mr. Ellis, you know (or perhaps you don’t), was my first instructor in theology, and he is said to have been the main adviser in sending me to Cambridge. What a scoffer I should have become, probably, at Amherst or Williams College! It has been many years since I have had with him any real talks. I did not tell you,

I think, that I met him first this season, shortly before, at Magnolia; but we did not get deeply there into religious conferences. ... I have always found myself quite in easy relations with sensible, orthodox Chauncey uses this word here, not in its specific local sense, [e.g. ante, p. 64], as intimating the doctrine of the Trinitarian Congregationalists, — once the established church; but with the more general meaning expressed just before, where he speaks of his friends as conservative in their opinions. They were all Unitarians. ⁷⁸ people, though a little surprised sometimes at the freedom I feel and take. They entertain sharp but honest doubts without annoyance, and do not impatiently brush at them with vagaries like the so-called “liberal” sentimentalists. I did not quite convince Dr. Ellis, I think, that his sense of indestructible vitality, even at the lowest ebb of strength, spirits, and purpose, was not good evidence that he was going to last for ever, though I charged his personality with being only a set of inveterate habits; but I was interested to find that he, with other conservative thinkers with whom I have talked, regarded this evidence as good only for the individuals who feel it. This tenet may spring from an unconscious proselyting spirit, — an indirect compulsion of one by leaving one out in the cold. Our freest, longest talks were on a drive to New Bedford, and in walks through that old town.

... I did not quite desert science on this visit, but mastered Dr. Gray’s little book on “How Plants Behave,” and found illustrations of it in numerous flowers of the place, among them fine specimens of orchis in the woods. I had just read in Mr. -----’s discourse, as to how teleology was a much misunderstood science, and did not treat of the use one thing is to another, but of the service each is to the universe (to “the glory of God” perhaps he meant, according to your quotation from the Catechism). But I am curious to see an instance of the successful treatment of scientific things that

way. I quite agree that a true teleology does not include such facts as that the beauty and perfume and sweetness of flowers are serviceable to us, or even to insects; but is deeper than this in its scrutiny of ends, and finds in the colors, odors, sweets, and, above all, in the particular structures of flowers, means to the end of perpetuating their lives or the life of their species. Dr. Gray, in his late notice of Mr. Darwin, praises him for restoring teleology to its true place. A better statement of the question of Final Causes than I thought of then, or in my “statement” to you, now occurs to me. The Final Cause of any thing is that very thing, when it is or can be considered as conserved or reproduced by that essential part of its action or effects which perpetuates the life of which it is a part. Is it not singular that this definition has just reminded me of what I read long ago about Aristotle’s definition of Final Causes? I never quite understood that, and find, on turning to the Encyclopaedia, that it is in these words: “The final cause of the thing is that very thing in its completeness ; as a statue when made.” The material, efficient, and formal causes of the statue are, according to the illustrations of Aristotle’s four causes, — severally, the marble, the sculptor, and the particular shape or individuality, or the what-it-is-in-itself-ness of the statue.

These subtilties of classification are not worth much; yet, as there is a resemblance between Aristotle’s “final cause” and what I have just drawn from natural history, I am tempted to see how close the agreement can be made without making too ingenious an interpretation of the words in search of clearer meaning. “That very thing in its completeness” does not seem to me sufficiently distinguished from its formal cause or particular determination, which is sometimes called its type. Should we not say, rather, that the properties of any thing by which it is the agent, though indirectly, of its own production or of the reproduction of its sort, belong to

and define it as an end or final cause? The “completeness” meant is, perhaps, in the round of its self-restoring or selfpreserving agency as a species. Conceived in the mind of the sculptor, the statue is the “purpose” for which he works. Or, as being the embodiment of that which determined the sculptor’s purpose and labor, it is a final cause. The round of agency through which a thing realizes its sort, or realizes the conditions of its existence, may be called, if Mr. ----- wishes, a universe, — its universe as a final cause, — but not, if he pleases, the Universe. Don’t hold me responsible for the useless subtlety of trying to save to science this highly respectable name, Final Cause!

But let us pass now from statues and flowers to men and women. You say that while you do not believe the noblest end of life to be “serviceableness,” in the ordinary meaning of the word, — “whatever it may be as an aim”(proximate end?); yet you still less believe that in the last analysis we should find the ends of life in the preservation, continuance, and increase of life itself. I agree entirely with you about “serviceableness” as an end; that is, serviceableness as such: for this would be a foolish confusion of the essence of means with ends; though, as one of “a Christian’s” delights, and blissful habits or virtues, it doubtless makes part of the noble “perfectness” of individual human existence. This “perfectness,” which you contrast with the preservation, &c., of life, I meant to include in what, as I recollect, I added as the quantity in worth, dignity, or rank in the increase of life; its quantity in intensity and number being other parts of it as a final cause. What do we really mean, understanding^ (not emotionally), by the words “perfectness,” “dignity,” “absolute worth”? The mystic, who finds God in the inward perfectness he dreams of in himself, thinks it the end of the universe; whereas, I think its dignity is limited to that spiritual mechanism of the human flower which is most purely

and concentratedly serviceable to that whole life of mankind which reproduces and embodies it. Dignity, as I think I defined it in another connection, is a weight with the will, or a power as a motive, which depends on the mutual support that what we therefore call our virtues get from one another, and from all the motives of life in their most complete harmony and consistency. Mysticism is so stupid and spiritually self-engrossed that the better self, which it ought to contemplate as a particular representative of the endless solidarity of human life, is thought of by it as the individual mystic’s immortal part. Mysticism is so blindly self-engrossed that it cannot understand Utilitarianism, but supposes this doctrine to mean a service of the higher or the virtuous inclinations of our nature to the lower, or merely to the gross well-being of human life. Utilitarianism does not mean this, though this is a part of its meaning. The lower, so far as they are the conditions of the higher; the appetites, so far as they are also essential to the preservation, continuance, and increase of life; the passions, so far as their singleness or instinctiveness is serviceable to the whole, — are, in a stricter sense, ends, or final causes even, than is that perfectness of virtue which is its own reward. So far as the happiness of virtue depends on its being a fixed habit, as it does in the egotistic regard of the Pharisee, — so far it has no more worth, dignity, or perfectness than any instinct or any other habit in itself. But, so far as any habit, on the other hand, is not opposed by equally strong and persistent motives, but is in wide and strong alliance with others, which, with it, are therefore named “reasonable” or “virtuous,” it is an integrant part of a system of dispositions which, as superintending, so far as it goes, the whole of the conditions of human life, and leading to the conservation of the whole, itself included, is what we call conscience, and is pre-eminently a final cause in human nature.

Now, utilitarians have consciences as well as the sentimentalists. Their philosophy concerns itself with the conscience of conscience, with its truest harmony, or with its reasonableness, with the accordance of every thing in it with the least doubtful of its behests. “Nature,” says Cicero, “has inclined us to the love of mankind; and this is the foundation of laws” (fundamentum juris). This is both the rational and the disciplinary foundation, the ground and the efficacy of laws; since fear becomes a moral power only by its sanction; and even those laws which we may be said to observe instinctively, or as ends from the start and in themselves, are instinctively associated with the love of mankind, with the wish for the greatest good of the greatest number. On this wish hang all the law and the prophets.

The reliance of utilitarians on their philosophy, which (in consideration of their acknowledgment of the essential value of instincts and habits, though not of the ultimate authority of these) gives you so much surprise, — this reliance is not different from what the disciples of any other creed have on a philosophy that professes to be the guide of life. It is not a reliance on the ability of the individual reason to review, in the light of fundamental principles, the whole range of possible moral actions. It is not even a reliance on the whole reflective experience of mankind, as transmitted in customs and traditions. The reliance of experiential philosophers in general is not on the ability of each investigator to verify, by experiment and observation, what he nevertheless has good reason to accept as true laws of nature, and as really verifiable; nor is it on the completeness of what has been already ascertained experimentally. It is a reliance on its method, whenever or wherever any method is needed. But the reasonableness of many enjoined customs and rules of life is of a negative sort,—the non-existence of anything truly obligatory that is really seen to be opposed to them. This proves

their harmlessness at least, so far as we can see; and, wherever they seem to have a foundation in instinct (like the horror of suicide or murder), there is a positive presumption that they are somewhat more than merely harmless injunctions. Yet, in this, they have to the utilitarian nothing more than a presumption of obligation; for inherited instincts are not always right, or useful to present conditions of a progressive form of life. They may have made the whole transit from what ought, to what ought not, to be obeyed, though still remaining instincts in our nature, like fear and rage; or even though in the individual will they may have the pervasiveness and the permanent sway of a rational principle. The large part which the authority of teachers and force-sanctioned laws have in our moral life affords, indeed, a presumption against the trustworthiness of instincts in general; and, when a seemingly instinctive inclination receives sanction in customs and early discipline, it is often difficult to distinguish how much training has added to nature: for the consciences of savages differ from ours in both respects; and more discipline is needed for some of our youths than for others.

What utilitarianism distrusts, therefore, is the authority of mere strength or earnestness of moral feelings or injunctions, when set up as a reason for conduct. But this does not mean an habitual distrust in the utilitarian of his own conscientious feelings, nor a doubt of them leading to the abrogation of their actual authority or weight with his will. Earnestness is a proof of conscientiousness, not of the rightness of a conscience, or is the measure of efficacy, rather than of rectitude, and is often much greater in respect to mere superstitions and rules of etiquette than to the most certain of moral principles. For earnestness is oftener the result of that love for mankind which takes the form of reverence for teachers, or of following the supposed divine in human examples, than of that love for mankind which should (but, unfortunately, not always does) guide the reason of the leader and teacher.

This distrust becomes a positive rejection, on the part of this philosophy, of any authority in the earnestness of a feeling, when this is brought into the judgment, or rational trial, of a rule of conduct in any real dispute concerning it. In any real dispute about the wisdom or rectitude of a moral rule (not about the motives of a moral agent), utilitarianism takes the reins of judgment into its own hands, then actually asserting what is always its prerogative, the supremacy of its tests over all authorities, — tests supreme, so far as they are seen to go, even over the universal instincts of men; since only so far as these can be seen, or else presumed to be allied with the love and service of mankind, can they be justified; and utilitarianism sits in permanent judgment over all law-making, over all devices of expediency, whether these be deductions from laws, or exceptions to the existing and acknowledged rules of duty. Its reliance on the forces of habit and instinct is not for rational guidance, but for practical efficacy; yet these are so important to its aims, that they are not safely to be disregarded, or unnecessarily opposed, or weakened by substituting for them habitually the calculations of expediency. The mystic who mistakes for the final causes of the universe that better part in himself which, as the representative of all human interests, is a final cause of the universe of human life, dreams in his conceit that he is God, and that stars and flowers, as well as statues, exist for him and for his equals in immortality. He lays down his life, if at all, for the furthering of his own inward bliss (as he dreams), or for heaven; instead of for the furtherance of nature’s care in life for the whole, in which, sooner or later, he must disappear. . . .

“Sanity and insanity are more closely interlaced” than you have believed. Between them, as conditions of mind, there is not a wide gulf, nor even any sharp line of demarcation. We do not generally need to be enjoined to admire the beautiful or to loathe the ugly, though discrimination may grow by

instruction even in respect to what deserves these names; nor do we generally mistake pleasures for pains through too close a proximity of one to the other, spite of the close relation between them, imagined by the Socrates of Plato. But we have to be always on our guard against irrationality, which does not require a permanently diseased brain for its habitat. . . . Taking figures of speech literally is perhaps one of the commonest forms of insanity. . . .

To desire as an end, or for its own sake, what in the order of nature is a means, like going to sleep, is not irrational; but to mistake this means for its end in nature, or to suppose this end to be the happiness which we have in the means, is fatuity. To think we have perfected in sound sleep the pleasure we have in falling asleep, and then to suppose that unconsciousness in general, or that of death in particular, is perfect bliss, is doubly irrational. . . .

. . . The human heart is a gallery of the future, illuminated by the light of its instincts and experience reflected from pictures and images of the future and the universal. As the repository and agency of all rationally conceived ends, it is the only rational final cause to itself, however serviceable it may be incidentally to other forms of life or living beings. The uses of other forms of life to the human are not final causes, though the uses of any forms of life to the universe would properly be final, if it were true that the universe is served by them in any other way than to make it up, or to be among the threads that are woven in its endless combinations, — its formal rather than its final causes.

Touching “classification,” ... I don’t think the word “classification” is used very distinctively or serviceably when it is not restricted to the results of more or less cool attention to the grounds of the divisions we make in things, or to the sphere of the active sense of the word. The ego and non ego are classes of phenomena, it is true, considered as divisions

made by consciousness, and not as primordially involved in it; but to consider them as such is so disrespectful to both that most intuitional metaphysicians prefer to call them divisions in substance, though this comes perhaps to the same thing; since, as Fichte says, “Attributes [or phenomena], synthetically united, give substance [are synthems, In another place, Wright had said: “Syntheses; — synthems is a better word, which I borrow from the Greek to express the passive sense of syntheses, — as poem stands to poesis.” ⁷⁹ I should say], and substance analyzed gives attributes [marks or characters].” Again, to call that division of things or persons which we make because we like or approve some, and dislike or disapprove others, more or less,—to call that a classification, or even a real division, and not rather a feeling merely in us about them, is to force these stiff, logical terms out of their sober proprieties. I don’t dispute that in any sense “classification is judgment.” It is the converse that I dispute, and especially that an intuitive judgment is an analytical classification, or classification by characters. And all I assert is that descriptive classification or characterization indicates weak feeling, — mainly, an intellectual interest, — or that you don’t much love the subject; and I ventured from the point of view of intuitive or æsthetic judgment to say that such a throwing of a fellow-being to the logical dogs is severe, being a trifle worse than damning with faint praise.

It was not from any actual fear, however, that you had been describing me in your English letters (as you do to myself) as a man who never asks a question, or as a man just as queer, only just the opposite of Mr. -----; it was not from any such fear that I put myself in his place (the place of the characterized), but because in fact I sometimes do ask questions, though not very often in the social, interrogative form. Grammatically they are statements, rhetorically they are ironical, — that dangerous figure! Socrates is thought to have

made large use of irony in his discourses, but more especially in his questions, — mocking the show of logical acuteness, and letting himself get defeated in the battle of questions and opinions to show (when he cared to show it) how well his common-sense and his convictions, when they were clear, survived such exposures and assaults; and how logic, though the life, is not the armor of convictions. If Mr. -----’s questions were only ironical, now, they might have the force of statements; as ironical statements have the force of challenges and questions: so perverting is the use of irony! I think: that, on the whole, half-true categorical paradoxes are the deepest probing questions, especially if no irony is suspected. They rouse the real convictions of your interlocutor, if he has any, or discover the fact, if he has not, much better than the open sincerity or even the irony of questions. Do not ask, for example, whether the moon is made of green cheese or of earth, nor waste time in canvassing the probabilities of the two hypotheses only to prove everybody’s ignorance; but maintain the probability of the least plausible. That will bring out the best reasons for the other; which is better, I think, on the whole, than to discover the uncertainty of both. The weak side of Socrates was his contempt for the merely most probable. Modern scientific doctrines are many of them of this sort, which is something,—provided “the most probable” does not mean merely the most believed, as it does, independently of systematic induction.

One is exposed, to be sure, by this form of ironical inquisition to more injurious suspicions of trifling with truth than even Socrates was; and there is perhaps a safer way. Mother Goose was, indeed, a profounder philosopher; and philosophers have generally, in effect, followed her method rather than that of Socrates. For, as one of the ancients has remarked, “there is nothing so absurd as not to have been asserted by some one of the philosophers.” Categorical

nonsense — what you cannot believe — both entertains and edifies; and is honest, withal, and not unsocial like irony. Tickling arouses a reflective attention, and institutes a scientific exploration and a mapping of mental terra incognita. One discovers — not what Socrates taught, “how ignorant we are”—but how knowing, in such trifles of experience as might escape a common philosopher’s reflective notice. One gets well grounded at this school in common-sense, which is the faculty that never seriously doubts any thing, yet differs in different minds as to what is thus exempted from question. The philosophy of Mother Goose comprises all that is certainly common. There is no hope for the child who seriously questions the assertions of this great teacher. The plainest irony will never arouse in later years its slumbering powers of reflection. If it begins with doubting her statements, it will end by accepting the more plausible ones of dishonest people. Have you ever noticed that Mother Goose never asks questions, except, perhaps, indirectly, — or leading ones, like this? I have no doubt that you have, and do therefore despise all that are questions in form.

The mystics, from Pythagoras down, have taught a doctrine which is the sacred head or obverse of this sterling one. They held that “nothing concerning the gods, or divine doctrines, is to be doubted.” “Nothing is to be doubted as to its unconditional possibility, or as possible with God,” is the response of science. The unintelligible cannot be doubted — nor believed. And it is only about probabilities, the conditionally possible, — what is likely, not merely possible, that questions are legitimate or answers useful, for any but social and religious purposes. Beyond the court of science, and the jurisdiction of the probable, creeds are social badges of differences, which, to be rational, should be peacefully and lovingly maintained. Within this court, even axioms are only “the most probable.” They have no peculiar sanctity, and

must lay aside their priestly robes, or bear to have them defiled. Axioms in science have no “benefit of clergy,” but are tried like all the rest by the laws of induction. . . .

The now established doctrine of natural history, or biological science, — that genetic or inherited characters, and their variations, are not always fitted, even in the average, to circumstances of life (and are exactly fitted only by accident), and that the amendment of this defect is not, in general, to be found in the individual life, — opposes itself to the mystical doctrine that such ill-fittings are prophetic. The remedy for the ills that follow to the individual life is to be found only in the more vigorous development, and the prevalence in it of such powers as are adapted to its circumstances; or else by such command as is practicable of circumstances that are found by an intelligent examination of our natures to be fitted to them. Our natures are, it is true, prophetic, so far as by making themselves known to us in recognized past examples, and by thus defining for us their true circumstances or conditions of development, they lead us as reasonable beings to seek for these. No wonder that in Goethe — whose genius found no parallel in history, and was abetted by a powerful scientific inquisitiveness — it should at first have thought itself prophetic, and sought its destiny by suicide. But he also had the sense to wait, and the will to make the circumstances to which in old age it became so easily adjusted. No doubt, the adjustment between our natures and circumstances is mutual. If we live long enough, the “mystic sense” in us, unless too fondly cherished, may die first. “If every one lived to be old, no one would believe in immortality,” was said, near the end of her life, by a free-thinking but hardworking and devoted woman.

In the last letter, Chauncey gives some account of a meeting with his old friend, the Rev. Rufus Ellis. Dr. Ellis, in the

letter from which I have already made one extract, has referred to this same interview, in a passage which I will insert here. In doing so, I retain some expressions of opinion which may at least emphasize the catholic and kindly estimate formed by Dr. Ellis of one with whose conclusions, in some particulars, he so widely differed.

“I removed,” he says, “to Boston whilst Chauncey was in Cambridge; and, as one never sees the nearest persons so much as those who are occasionally near, I saw but little of him during his University life. . . . More than once we met during the summer vacation days, — once especially for more days than one, and I found what he had become. It was a strange experience, and yet I suppose not an uncommon one in these days, — sad in so many respects, if this must be regarded as an abiding or final state; but the promise of a very sweet dawn seemed to be wrapped up in the darkness. I remember a day’s drive with the philosopher who, as a boy, had been my parishioner, and how from the beginning to the end of it we talked about the highest religious themes, — God, duty, immortality. Once it came to my mind, What does our driver — a simple colored brother and Methodist deacon — think of all this? but I saw that, happily, it was Sanskrit to him. To one who looked only at the appearance, and rested on the surface, the minister was talking with a man who from having been his Sunday-school pupil in childhood had ‘developed’ into a full-grown infidel. And certainly as to the affirmations of Christian faith he was singularly lacking; but a few moments’ conversation with him would have convinced any candid man that here was one whose religion it was to have no religion, and that whatever he was, he was by the grace of God. I could not but be sorry, profoundly so, that he had not been so mastered by the Divine Master as to have been filled with religious faiths

and hopes, and thus furnished with the very facts which were to him so essential; but the light in him was so pure and steady that he seemed to me all unconsciously to have been enlightened of the One True Light, and his perfect candor and sweetness were more than what we call natural. He did not talk for victory, but as one who sought for truth, and rejoiced in it. There was no pause in his moral faith; and had I been the prophet I ought to have been, and witnessed as clearly as might be for the kingdom of God as Christ is revealing it in our world, I could not have asked for a more promising hearer of the good tidings. As it was, it seemed to me that we came nearer together; and, whilst I have sometimes come away from converse with men of immaculate orthodoxy, and most scrupulous in all ceremonies and ordinances, with a feeling that between them and me there was a great gulf, and that their religion and mine were essentially different, I was conscious of nothing of the kind when I returned with Chauncey from our day’s voyage out upon the fathomless and shoreless ocean of religious speculation. We had the same city in view, and its Builder and Maker is God. I cannot doubt that the heavens which seemed closed above him on earth are open now, and that being of the truth he hears the Teacher’s voice. I could see as we talked that the dogmatism of those who are known as advanced thinkers was as offensive to him as the dogmatism of the religionist; and, that whilst he hoped to find out what was right by learning what was useful, he recognized a motive power above and within all consequences, and had, however unnamed and unmapped, his realm of holy mystery, and was guided, however unwittingly, by the divine counsel. ‘A dangerous man,’ does some one say, ‘and able to deceive the very elect;’ but such was not the effect of his life and conversation, noticeably not upon the young, with whom he was so great a favorite. He destroyed no man’s, no child’s faith; but was fitted to show to all who would discern the signs of the times, what it is that some who seem to be irreligious are waiting for, ‘as they who wait for the morning.’” While Chauncey was on this visit at Mattapoisett, the daughter of his host secured the taking of what is called his “mental photograph;” and she has most kindly sent it to me. I am sure that Chauncey’s friends will thank her for the leave I have to print here this amusing paper, which is at the same time so characteristic. The patient, it will be remembered, while undergoing this process, is seated at a number of written questions, and writes his answers. “I remember Mr. Wright,” says Miss Shattuck, “perfectly as he wrote the answers, and seemed to take pleasure in thinking them out. Your favorite color? Ans. The complementary. Your favorite flower? Ans. The red, red rose. Your favorite tree? Ans. The Great Elm. Your favorite object in nature? Ans. Vistas of mountains. Your favorite hour in the day? Ans. 11 to 12 p. m. Your favorite season of the year? Ans. Days in June. Your favorite perfume? Ans. Incense of Havana. Your favorite style of beauty? Ans. The animated. Your favorite poets? Ans. Shakespeare and Tennyson. Your favorite prose authors? Ans. Stuart Mill and Charles Darwin. Your favorite character in romance? Ans. Plato’s Socrates. In history? Ans. The real Socrates. Book to take up for an hour? Ans. The one one feels inclined to read. What book (not religious) would you part with last? Ans. The one no one would care to borrow. August 9, 1874. What epoch would you choose to have lived in? Ans. The most modern. Where would you like to live? Ans. In the most familiar place. What is your favorite amusement? Ans. Metaphysics. What is your favorite occupation? Ans. Mathematical problems. What trait of character do you most admire in man? Ans. The disposition to be just. What trait of character do you most admire in woman? Ans. Thoughtful sympathy. What trait of character do you most detest in each? Ans. Brutality and vanity. If not yourself, who would you rather be? Ans. Nobody. What is your idea of happiness? Ans. Undisturbed, easy occupation. What is your idea of misery? Ans. Distracted ennui. What is your dream? Ans. Of flying. What is your favorite game? Ans. Solitaire. What do you believe to be your distinguishing characteristics? Ans. Ignorance and modesty. If married, what do you believe to be the distinguishing characteristics of your better-half? Ans. To wish to be married to another man, and therefore unhappy. What are the saddest words in the world? Ans. Those beginning with D, — as death, debt, diseases, dishonor, and all the d—d dises. What is your aim in life? Ans. To secure the most trustworthy means of happiness. What is your motto? Ans. The greatest good of the greatest number. ⁸⁰