History of American Socialisms Part 44

"But in the discovery and statement of the doctrine of a.n.a.logy, these authorities have not proceeded according to precisely the same methods. Fourier has arrived at it by strictly scientific synthesis, and Swedenborg by the study of the Scriptures aided by Divine illumination. What is the aspect in which Fourier views it we have shown; we shall next attempt to elucidate the peculiar development of Swedenborg."

From this Mr. G.o.dwin goes on to show at length the parallelism between the teachings of these "incomparable masters." It will be seen that he intimates that thinkers and writers before him had taken the same view. One of these, doubtless, was Hugh Doherty, an English Fourierist, whose writings frequently occur in the _Phalanx_ and _Harbinger_. A very long article from him, maintaining the ident.i.ty of Fourierism and Swedenborgianism, appeared in the _Phalanx_ of September 7, 1844. The article itself is dated London, January 30, 1844. Among other things Mr. Doherty says:

"I am a believer in the truths of the New Church, and have read nearly all the writings of Swedenborg, and I have no hesitation in saying that without Fourier's explanation of the laws of order in Scriptural interpretation, I should probably have doubted the truth of Swedenborg's illumination, from want of a ground to understand the nature of spiritual sight in contradistinction from natural sight; or if I had been able to conceive the opening of the spiritual sight, and credit Swedenborg's doctrines and affirmations, I should probably have understood them only in the same degree as most of the members of the New Church whom I have met in England, and that would seem to me, in my present state, a partial calamity of cecity. I say this in all humility and sincerity of conscience, with a view to future reference to Swedenborg himself in the spiritual world, and as a means of inducing the members of the New Church generally not to be content with a superficial or limited knowledge of their own doctrines."

In another pa.s.sage Mr. Doherty claims to have been "a student of Fourier fourteen years, and of Swedenborg two years."

In consequence partly of the new appreciation of Swedenborg that was rising among the Fourierists, a movement commenced in England in 1845 for republishing the scientific works of "the ill.u.s.trious Swede." An a.s.sociation for that purpose was formed, and several of Swedenborg's bulkiest works were printed under the auspices of Wilkinson, Clissold and others. This Wilkinson was also a considerable contributor to the _Phalanx_ and _Harbinger_, as the reader will see by recurring to a list in our chapter on the Personnel of Fourierism.

Following this movement, came the famous lecture of Ralph Waldo Emerson on "_Swedenborg, the Mystic_," claiming for him a lofty position as a scientific discoverer. That lecture was first published in this country in a volume ent.i.tled, "_Representative Men_," in 1849; but according to Mr. White (the biographer of Swedenborg), it was delivered in England several times in 1847; and we judge from an expression which we italicize in the following extract from it, that it was written and perhaps delivered in this country in 1845 or 1846, i.e. very soon after the republication movement in England:

"The scientific works [of Swedenborg] have _just now_ been translated into English, in an excellent edition. Swedenborg printed these scientific books in the ten years from 1734 to 1744, and they remained from that time neglected; and now, after their century is complete, he has at last found a pupil in Mr.

Wilkinson, in London, a philosophic critic, with a coequal vigor of understanding and imagination comparable only to Lord Bacon's, who has produced his master's buried books to the day, and transferred them, with every advantage, from their forgotten Latin into English, to go round the world in our commercial and conquering tongue. This startling reappearance of Swedenborg, after a hundred years, in his pupil, is not the least remarkable fact in his history. Aided, it is said, by the munificence of Mr. Clissold, and also by his literary skill, this piece of poetic justice is done. The admirable preliminary discourses with which Mr. Wilkinson has enriched these volumes, throw all the cotemporary philosophy of England into shade."

Emerson, it is true, was not a Brook Farmer; but he was the spiritual fertilizer of all the Transcendentalists, including the Brook Farmers.

It is true also that in his lecture he severely criticised Swedenborg; but this was his vocation: to judge and disparage all religious teachers, especially seers and thaumaturgists. On the whole he gave Swedenborg a lift, just as he helped the reputation of all "ethnic Scriptures." His criticism of Swedenborg amounts to about this: "He was a very great thinker and discoverer; but his visions and theological teachings are humbugs; still they are as good as any other, and rather better."

William H. Channing, another fertilizer of Brook Farm, was busy at the same time with Emerson, in the work of calling attention to Swedenborg. His conversions to Fourierism and Swedenborgianism seem to have proceeded together. The last three numbers of the _Present_ are loaded with articles extolling Swedenborg, and the editor only complains of them that they "by no means do justice to the great Swedish philosopher and seer." The very last article in the volume is an item headed, "Fourier and Swedenborg," in which Mr. Charming says:

"I have great pleasure in announcing another work upon Fourier and his system, from the pen of C.J. Hempel. This book is a very curious and interesting one, from the attempt of the author to show the ident.i.ty or at least the extraordinary resemblance between the views of Fourier and Swedenborg. How far Mr. Hempel has been successful I cannot pretend to judge. But this may be safely said, no one can examine with any care the writings of these two wonderful students of Providence, man and the universe, without having most sublime visions of divine order opened upon him. Their doctrine of Correspondence and Universal Unity accords with all the profoundest thought of the age."

Such were the influences under which Brook Farm a.s.sumed its final task of propagandism. Let us now see how far the coupling of Fourier and Swedenborg was kept up in the _Harbinger_.

The motto of the paper, displayed under its t.i.tle from first to last, was selected from the writings of the Swedish seer. In the editors'

inaugural address they say:

"In the words of the ill.u.s.trious Swedenborg, which we have selected for the motto of the _Harbinger_, 'All things, at the present day, stand provided and prepared, and await the light.

The ship is in the harbor; the sails are swelling; the east wind blows; let us weigh anchor, and put forth to sea.'"

In a glancing run through the five semi-annual volumes of the _Harbinger_ we find between thirty and forty articles on Swedenborg and Swedenborgian subjects, chiefly editorial reviews of books, pamphlets, etc., with a considerable amount of correspondence from Wilkinson, Doherty and other Swedenborgian Fourierists in England. The burden of all these articles is the same, viz., the unity of Swedenborgianism and Fourierism. On the one hand the Fourierists insist that Swedenborg revealed the religion that Fourier antic.i.p.ated; and on the other the Swedenborgians insist that Fourier discovered the divine arrangement of society that Swedenborg foreshadowed. The reviews referred to were written chiefly by John S. Dwight and Charles A. Dana.[B] We will give a few specimens of their utterances:

[From Editorials by John S. Dwight.]

*** "In religion we have Swedenborg; in social economy Fourier; in music Beethoven.

*** "Swedenborg we reverence for the greatness and profundity of his thought. We study him continually for the light he sheds on so many problems of human destiny, and more especially for the remarkable correspondence, as of inner with outer, which his revelations present with the discoveries of Fourier concerning social organization, or the outward forms of life. The one is the great poet and high-priest, the other the great economist, as it were, of the harmonic order, which all things are preparing.

*** "Call not our praises of Swedenborg 'hollow;' if he offered us ten times as much which we could not a.s.sent to, it would not detract in the least from our reverence for the man, or our great indebtedness to his profoundly spiritual insight.

*** "Deeper foundations for science have not been touched by any sounding-line as yet, than these same philosophical principles of Swedenborg. Fourier has not gone deeper; but he has shed more light on these deep foundations, taken their measurement with a more bold precision, and reared a no insignificant portion of the everlasting superstructure. But in their ground they are both one. Taken together they are the highest expression of the tendency of human thought to universal unity."

[From Editorials by Charles A. Dana.]

*** "We recommend the writings of Swedenborg to our readers of all denominations, as we should recommend those of any other providential teacher. We believe that his mission is of the highest importance to the human family, and shall take every fit occasion to call the attention of the public to it.

*** "No man of unsophisticated mind can read Swedenborg without feeling his life elevated into a higher plane, and his intellect excited into new and more reverent action on some of the sublimest questions which the human mind can approach. Whatever may be thought of the doctrines of Swedenborg or of his visions, the spirit which breathes from his works is pure and heavenly.

*** "We do not hesitate to say that the publication and study of Swedenborg's scientific writings must produce a new era in human knowledge, and thus in society.

*** "Though Swedenborg and Fourier differ in the character of their minds, and the immediate end of their studies, the method they adopted was fundamentally the same; their success is thus due, not to the vastness of their genius alone, but in a measure also to the instruments they employed. The logic of Fourier is imperfectly stated in his doctrine of the Series, of Universal a.n.a.logy, and of Attractions proportional to Destinies; that of Swedenborg in the incomplete and often very obscure and difficult expositions which appear here and there in his works, of the doctrine of Forms; of Order and Degrees; of Series and Society; of Influx; of Correspondence and Representation; and of Modification. This logic appears to have existed complete in the minds of neither of these great men; but even so much of it as they have communicated, puts into the hands of the student the most invaluable a.s.sistance, and attracts him to a path of thought in which the successful explorers will receive immortal honors from a grateful race.

*** "The chief characteristic of this epoch is, its tendency, everywhere apparent, to unity in universality; and the men in whom this tendency is most fully expressed are Swedenborg, Fourier and Goethe. In these three eminent persons is summed up the great movement toward unity in universality, in religion, science and art, which comprise the whole domain of human activity. In speaking of Swedenborg as the teacher of this century in religion, some of the most obvious considerations are his northern origin, his peculiar education, etc.

*** "We say without hesitation, that, excepting the writings of Fourier, no scientific publications of the last fifty years are to be compared with [the Wilkinson edition of Swedenborg] in importance. To the student of philosophy, to the savan, and to the votary of social science, they are alike invaluable, almost indispensable. Whether we are inquiring for truth in the abstract, or looking beyond the aimlessness and contradictions of modern experimentalism in search of the guiding light of universal principles, or giving our constant thought to the laws of Divine Social Order, and the re-integration of the Collective Man, we can not spare the aid of this loving and beloved sage.

His was a grand genius, n.o.bly disciplined. In him, a devotion to truth almost awful, was tempered by an equal love of humanity and a supreme reverence for G.o.d. To his mind, the order of the universe and the play of its powers were never the objects of idle curiosity or of cold speculation. He entered into the retreats of nature and the occult abode of the soul, as the minister of humanity, and not as a curious explorer eager to add to his own store of wonders or to exercise his faculties in those difficult regions. No man had ever such sincerity, such absolute freedom from intellectual selfishness as he."

The reader, we trust, will take our word for it, that there is a very large amount of this sort of teaching in the volumes of the _Harbinger_. Even Mr. Ripley himself wielded a vigorous cudgel on behalf of Swedenborg against certain orthodox critics, and held the usual language of his socialistic brethren about the "sublime visions of the ill.u.s.trious Swedish seer," his "bold poetic revelations," his "profound, living, electric principles," the "piercing truth of his productions," etc. Vide _Harbinger_, Vol. 3, p. 317.

On these and such evidences we came to the conclusion that the Brook Farmers, while they disclaimed for Fourierism all sectarian connections, did actually couple it with Swedenborgianism in their propagative labors; and as Fourierism soon failed and pa.s.sed away, it turned out that their lasting work was the promulgation of Swedenborgianism; which certainly has had a great run in this country ever since. It would not perhaps be fair to call Fourierism, as taught by the _Harbinger_ writers, the stalking-horse of Swedenborgianism; but it is not too much to say that their Fourierism, if it had lived, would have had Swedenborgianism for its state-religion. This view agrees with the fact that the only sectarian a.s.sociation, avowed and tolerated in the Fourier epoch, was the Swedenborgian Phalanx at Leraysville.

The entire historical sequence which seems to be established by the facts now before us, may be stated thus: Unitarianism produced Transcendentalism; Transcendentalism produced Brook Farm; Brook Farm married and propagated Fourierism; Fourierism had Swedenborgianism for its religion; and Swedenborgianism led the way to Modern Spiritualism.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] Henry James also wrote many articles for the _Harbinger_ in the interest of Swedenborg. His subsequent career as a promulgator of the Swedenborgian philosophy, in which he has even scaled the heights of the _North American Review_, is well known; but perhaps it is not so well known that he commenced that career in the _Harbinger_. He has continued faithful to both Swedenborg and Fourier, to the present time.

CHAPTER XLII.

THE END OF BROOK FARM.

It only remains to tell what we know of the causes that brought the Brook Farm Phalanx to its end.

Within a year from the time when it a.s.sumed the task of propagating Fourierism, i.e. on the 3d of March, 1846, a disastrous fire prostrated the energies and hopes of the a.s.sociation. We copy from the _Harbinger_ (March 14) the entire article reporting it:

"FIRE AT BROOK FARM.--Our readers have no doubt been informed before this, of the severe calamity with which the Brook Farm a.s.sociation has been visited, by the destruction of the large unitary edifice which it has been for some time erecting on its domain. Just as our last paper was going through the press, on Tuesday evening the 3d inst., the alarm of fire was given at about a quarter before nine, and it was found to proceed from the 'Phalanstery;' in a few minutes the flames were bursting through the doors and windows of the second story; the fire spread with almost incredible rapidity throughout the building; and in about an hour and a-half the whole edifice was burned to the ground. The members of the a.s.sociation were on the spot in a few moments, and made some attempts to save a quant.i.ty of lumber that was in the bas.e.m.e.nt story; but so rapid was the progress of the fire, that this was found to be impossible, and they succeeded only in rescuing a couple of tool-chests that had been in use by the carpenters.

"The neighboring dwelling-house called the 'Eyry,' was in imminent danger while the fire was at its height, and nothing but the stillness of the night, and the vigilance and activity of those who were stationed on its roof, preserved it from destruction. The vigorous efforts of our nearest neighbors, Mr.

T.J. Orange, and Messrs. Thomas and George Palmer, were of great service in protecting this building, as a part of our force were engaged in another direction, watching the work-shop, barn, and princ.i.p.al dwelling-house.

"In a short time our neighbors from the village of West Roxbury, a mile and a-half distant, arrived in great numbers with their engine, which together with the engines from Jamaica Plain, Newton, and Brookline, rendered valuable a.s.sistance in subduing the flaming ruins, although it was impossible to check the progress of the fire, until the building was completely destroyed. We are under the deepest obligations to the fire companies which came, some of them five or six miles, through deep snow on cross roads, and did every thing in the power of skill or energy, to preserve our other buildings from ruin. Many of the engines from Boston came four or five miles from the city, but finding the fire going down, returned without reaching the spot. The engines from Dedham, we understand, made an unsuccessful attempt to come to our aid, but were obliged to turn back on account of the condition of the roads. No efforts, however, would have probably been successful in arresting the progress of the flames. The building was divided into nearly a hundred rooms in the upper stories, most of which had been lathed for several months, without plaster, and being almost as dry as tinder, the fire flashed through them with terrific rapidity.

"There had been no work performed on this building during the winter months, and arrangements had just been made to complete four out of the fourteen distinct suites of apartments into which it was divided, by the first of May. It was hoped that the remainder would be finished during the summer, and that by the first of October, the edifice would be prepared for the reception of a hundred and fifty persons, with ample accommodations for families, and s.p.a.cious and convenient public halls and saloons. A portion of the second story had been set apart for a church or chapel, which was to be finished, in a style of simplicity and elegance, by private subscription, and in which it was expected that religious services would be performed by our friend William H. Channing, whose presence with us, until obliged to retire on account of ill health, has been a source of unmingled satisfaction and benefit.

"On the Sat.u.r.day previous to the fire, a stove was put in the bas.e.m.e.nt story for the accommodation of the carpenters, who were to work on the inside; a fire was kindled in it on Tuesday morning which burned till four o'clock in the afternoon; at half past eight in the evening, the building was visited by the night-watch, who found every thing apparently safe; and at a quarter before nine, a faint light was discovered in the second story, which was supposed at first to have proceeded from the lamp, but, on entering to ascertain the fact, the smoke at once showed that the interior was on fire. The alarm was immediately given, but almost before the people had time to a.s.semble, the whole edifice was wrapped in flames. From a defect in the construction of the chimney, a spark from the stove-pipe had probably communicated with the surrounding wood-work; and from the combustible nature of the materials, the flames spread with a celerity that made every effort to arrest their violence without effect.

"This edifice was commenced in the summer of 1844, and has been in progress from that time until November last, when the work was suspended for the winter, and resumed, as before stated, on the day in which it was consumed. It was built of wood, one hundred and seventy-five feet long, three stories high, with attics divided into pleasant and convenient rooms for single persons. The second and third stories were divided into fourteen houses independent of each other, with a parlor and three sleeping-rooms in each, connected by piazzas which ran the whole length of the building on both stories. The bas.e.m.e.nt contained a large and commodious kitchen, a dining-hall capable of seating from three to four hundred persons, two public saloons, and a s.p.a.cious hall or lecture-room. Although by no means a model for the Phalanstery or unitary edifice of a Phalanx, it was well adapted for our purposes at present, situated on a delightful eminence, which commanded a most extensive and picturesque view, and affording accommodations and conveniences in the combined order, which in many respects would gratify even a fastidious taste. The actual expenditure upon the building, including the labor performed by the a.s.sociation, amounted to about $7,000; and $3,000 more, it was estimated, would be sufficient for its completion. As it was not yet in use by the a.s.sociation, and until the day of its destruction, not exposed to fire, no insurance had been effected. It was built by investments in our loan-stock, and the loss falls upon the holders of partnership-stock and the members of the a.s.sociation.

"It is some alleviation of the great calamity which we have sustained, that it came upon us at this time rather than at a later period. The house was not endeared to us by any grateful recollections; the tender and hallowed a.s.sociations of home had not yet begun to cl.u.s.ter around it; and although we looked upon it with joy and hope, as destined to occupy an important sphere in the social movement to which it was consecrated, its destruction does not rend asunder those sacred ties which bind us to the dwellings that have thus far been the scene of our toils and of our satisfactions. We could not part with either of the houses in which we have lived at Brook Farm, without a sadness like that which we should feel at the departure of a bosom friend. The destruction of our edifice makes no essential change in our pursuits. It leaves no family dest.i.tute of a home; it disturbs no domestic arrangements; it puts us to no immediate inconvenience. The morning after the disaster, if a stranger had not seen the smoking pile of ruins, he would not have suspected that any thing extraordinary had taken place. Our schools were attended as usual; our industry in full operation; and not a look or expression of despondency could have been perceived. The calamity is felt to be great; we do not attempt to conceal from ourselves its consequences: but it has been met with a calmness and high trust, which gives us a new proof of the power of a.s.sociated life to quicken the best elements of character, and to prepare men for every emergency.

"We shall be pardoned for entering into these almost personal details, for we know that the numerous friends of a.s.sociation in every part of our land, will feel our misfortune as if it were a private grief of their own. We have received nothing but expressions of the most generous sympathy from every quarter, even from those who might be supposed to take the least interest in our purposes; and we are sure that our friends in the cause of social unity will share with us the affliction that has visited a branch of their own fraternity.

"We have no wish to keep out of sight the magnitude of our loss.

In our present infant state, it is a severe trial of our strength. We can not now calculate its ultimate effect. It may prove more than we are able to bear; or like other previous calamities, it may serve to bind us more closely to each other, and to the holy cause to which we are devoted. We await the result with calm hope, sustained by our faith in the universal Providence, whose social laws we have endeavored to ascertain and embody in our daily lives.