An article in the North American Review for April, 1885, on "Free Thought in America," is chiefly significant as showing how gradual and tentative the progress of thought in religion was. The comments on individuals are often wide of the mark, but the general drift is quite correct. The course was shadowy, but the main point was unmistakable. At this day, the wholesale abuse of religion is harmless, and can exert no wide influence. The friends of liberal thought are against it; and those who seek the old grim conclusion do so in another way, striving to substitute a new faith in nature for the old faith in divine inspiration, and to prove the latter to have been a growth rather than an imposition. The study of comparative religions has put a new face on the question, and the concern is now to discover the source of faith in the supernatural and not to make it appear a creation of priestcraft. No sooner had serious investigations into antiquity become known, than the method pursued by Voltaire and Dupuis was abandoned, and each generation since has confirmed the facts of historic development.

That my own immediate predecessors were Emerson and Parker is most true. With the writings of the former I was familiar; the latter was my intimate friend. Perhaps my theological views are due to him more than to any other man, though the circumstances of his generation were peculiar, and determined, in a much greater degree than in my own case was possible, the cast of his thought. The Unitarian controversy, in which he played so prominent a part, and by stress whereof he was driven into some of his positions, is over. The anti-slavery struggle, into which he threw himself and as a result of which his religious antagonisms were sharpened, was ended many years ago.

Poe said in the preface to "Eureka," that perfect beauty was a guaranty of perfect truth; so I felt—felt rather than reasoned—that a great character was sufficient proof of the truth of doctrine, and I accepted the teaching on the strength of the nobleness which was before my eyes. Later researches confirmed my opinions, but while I was under Parker's influence, his theological views were accepted without much consideration; his unique style of personality laying my heart as it were under a spell.

Emerson was a man of colder temperament, thinner of blood, more spare in frame; of finer intellectual fibre, of more commanding intellectual supremacy; not a combatant on any field; a sweet, gracious, shadowy personality; calm, lucid, imperturbable; pursuing knowledge along the spiritual path of pure thought, although he was also a student of books; a regenerator of mind rather than a reformer of customs; a prophet, distinguished for penetration rather than for will. His ideas were substantially the same as Parker's, but he did not arrive at them in the same way, or hold them in the same spirit, or apply them with the same directness. He carried them out further, not being hindered, as his contemporary was, by the immediate necessities of the hour. In short, he was another sort of man entirely. Both were transcendentalists, but Parker shaped his philosophy to the working exigencies of his generation, while Emerson let his stream freely in the air. The writer of the article in question accuses Emerson of want of pathos, and declares that this was the lack of the transcendentalists, as a school. But he could hardly charge this on Parker, who was an ardent transcendentalist, but whose very language was vascular, who affected multitudes of men and women, and who held audiences by the heartstrings. Did Hopkins or Bellamy or Edwards melt people? Were the preachers of Calvinism priests of sorrow? This is a matter of temperament and not of creed. Extreme rationalists leave their congregations in tears, and extreme churchmen dismiss theirs unmoved, the humors of the men deciding the issues of their ministrations. The closer to the ground, the more abundant the sympathy. The question is whether one is more mundane or more ethereal by native gift and endowment.

That transcendentalism was mainly speculative may be doubted, but if it was so this may be accounted an incidental circumstance to be explained by the prevailing theological temper of the age, and the duty imposed on it of transferring the body of doctrine to an ideal realm; a task which demands an intellectual effort of no common magnitude. And when with this task was joined the endeavor to sift out the purely spiritual ideas from the mass of dogmatical and ecclesiastical error, it is no wonder that it should have been speculative in its tendency. Certainly, Brook Farm was concrete enough, and the transcendentalists were, as a rule, interested in social reconstruction, though not in a way to touch popular emotion. One cannot, even at this distance, think of the quickening radiance shed by the transcendentalists over the whole region of religious belief and duty, without gratitude. The hymns, the sermons, the music, the Sunday-schools, the prayers, the charities, the social ministrations, breathed forth a fresh spirit. If there were fewer tears of woe, there was more weeping for joy. There was too much gladness for crying. Life was made sunny. Human nature was interpreted cheerfully. There was an unlimited future for misery, ignorance, turpitude. Sin was remanded to the position of crudity, and was banished from the heavenly courts. Violence was protested against in laws, customs, manners, speech. Harsh doctrines were criticised. Austere views were discarded. Intellectual barriers were removed. Spiritual channels were deepened and widened. Light was let into dark places. The brightest aspects of divinity were presented. Immortality was rendered native to the soul. The life below was regarded as the portal to the life above.

In my own case, whatever of enthusiasm I may have had, whatever transports of feeling, whatever glow of hope for mankind, whatever ardor of anticipation for the future, whatever exhilaration of mind towards God, whatever elation in the presence of disbelief in the popular theology, may be fairly ascribed to this form of the ideal philosophy. It was like a revelation of glory. Every good thought was encouraged. Every noble impulse was heightened. It was balm and elixir to me. If transcendentalism did not appear as a sun illuminating the entire mental universe it was the fault of my exposition alone. Absolute faith in that form of philosophy grew weak and passed away many years since, and the assurance it gave was shaken; but the sunset flush continued a long time after the orb of day had disappeared and lighted up the earth. Gradually the splendor faded, to be succeeded by a softer and more tranquil gleam, less stimulating but not less beautiful or glorious. The world looks larger under the light of stars. I always loved Blanco White's magnificent sonnet to Night, but never appreciated its full significance until the scientific view had succeeded to the transcendental, and I began to walk by knowledge, steadily and surely, but not buoyantly any more. It would be a mistake to suppose that anything like pain, sadness, or sterility accompanies the departure of an old faith, when a new one takes its place and soon opens fresh prospects of good. The universe but grows larger: other methods are adopted, other hopes are entertained, other consolations are presented, and soon the mind adjusts itself to the altered conditions. The downcast mood of George Eliot, of the author of "Physicus," and of many another less distinguished unbeliever, may be due in part to temperament, in part to the first feeling of chill that ensues upon a transitional period, which brings in a different climate; but the allegation of lasting coldness, gloom, discontent, is wholly groundless. The old fable says that quails drop from the clouds, that even rocks quench the traveller's thirst. There is, in short, no wilderness.

That the creed was "filmy," the foothold "unsteady," is altogether likely, for the ancient supports were removed, the pillars that replaced them were shaking, and tradition alone remained to hold by. But religion was still the Poetry of Life, and kept its place among the interests singly represented by art, music, literature, philosophy, those fine intimations of a higher state, those splendid foreshadowings of the future, those noble efforts to solve problems that must be forever insoluble. My creed did not pretend to be final or even definite. It was simply a study, a preliminary sketch, an essay towards truth. A claim to completeness, to logical consistency, would have been fatal. Still less, if possible, did it pretend to meet popular wants. It resolutely turned in the opposite direction, and took up positions which, it was understood, the general public could not occupy without abandoning all its works and retiring to other ground. No effort was made to commend it to common opinion; on the contrary, everything like concession was shunned, and the slightest signal of agreement with current beliefs was regarded as a warning against a compromise of principle. Nothing was assumed except the validity of the human faculties, including, of course, the higher reason, the insight of genius, and such feelings as were parts of the rational constitution, together with perfect liberty in their exercise. Every theological system was repudiated; even the doctrines of a conscious Deity and the individual immortality of the soul were left open to discussion, the atheist and the materialist being listened to with as much deference as any. These doctrines were accepted, yet not on the ground of authority or tradition, but simply considered as faiths, hopes, sentiments of the spiritual being; the existence of living mind, coupled with the demand for unity, seeming to guarantee the first, the fact of individual persistency appearing to demonstrate the second. But all definition was carefully avoided, conviction being confined to the main idea, and being purely spiritual in its character, not in the least dogmatical, or exclusive of knowledge. Of doctrine in the usual sense there was none. There was merely thought. The very teaching was more of the nature of suggestion than of final conclusion. For this reason no account of the "credo" can be given, all fixed expressions of views being discountenanced as premature, and therefore irrational. This should be distinctly understood by those interested in coming at the truth on this subject. The object was to disintegrate, to pulverize, to enable mind to float freely in the air of intellect, to the end that it might crystallize about natural centres. All dogmatism, that of the infidel as well as that of the believer, of the man of science as well as of the theologian, of the sensualist as well as of the spiritualist, was obnoxious. There was no sympathy with those who regarded the case as closed, either as the anti-Christian assailant or as the apologist did; either with the school of Paine or with the school of Calvin. Hereafter there may be articles of belief, at present there can be none. This, it may be said, was a temporary, incidental position, quite indeterminate and unsatisfactory. No doubt it was. That was all it pretended to be. The sooner it disappeared and was succeeded by a more stable one, so it was reasonable, the better, for that would indicate an advance in rational judgment.

This task—the complete emancipation of the human mind from every form of thraldom—will occupy liberal teachers for a long time to come. All that can be said in defence of instituted religion, and all that can be urged on the other side, had been put forward again and again, but in a sectarian—that is, in a partisan—spirit. Now an even temper is demanded. Unfortunately, impartiality is apt to degenerate into indifference. Breadth of view is, as a rule, inconsistent with rapidity of motion. The fact that the Free Religious Association had a small constituency as compared with many an orthodox society is no evidence whatever that the orthodox society is nearer the truth. The former was broad enough to admit all religions, the latter shut out all save the Christians, thus making them a special community saved by their belief. The problem is to preserve and, if possible, deepen intellectual enthusiasm while opposing fanatical adherence to dogmas; to associate breadth with force, to unite freedom with earnestness, and to render the love of truth more intense in proportion as the horizon recedes and ideas multiply. Such ought to be the result of free thinking, and such it is when thinking goes hand in hand with freedom.

Critical studies must keep an even pace with philosophy, and both must conspire to push back the lines of credence as far as faith in the spiritual sentiment will permit. The latest investigations have substantiated liberal conclusions and carried them into regions which were inaccessible to the authorities of an early day. A certain amount of denial was necessary of course, but this was made in view of a larger affirmation which had to be brought forward, and was, moreover, confined to matters incidental, not directed at the substance of faith. The assumption of a spiritual nature in man guaranteed the inherent genuineness of all aspiration.

No doubt the assumption of a creative religious nature in man lent aid to the endeavor to glorify the pagan faiths, and predisposed the mind to accept criticisms on Christianity; but scientific investigation of the world's bibles went on quite independently of this assumption. It was promoted by Catholics and Protestants, by Lutherans and Unitarians, by Germans, French, English, Americans. Certainly the alleged antiquity of a system is not in its favor; for ignorance, credulity, superstition, are much older than this; older than the ancient books, than the ancient thinkers. The oldest things are errors, delusions, falsities. The allegiance of great minds simply proves the limitations of intellect. Sir Thomas More believed in transubstantiation, and Samuel Johnson believed in ghosts. The wide reverence for the Scriptures is an impressive fact, until it is seen that no writings have been so guarded, nor have such pains been taken in regard to any other literature to create for it a habit of docile veneration. Fidelity is praiseworthy, but it is no pledge of wisdom. On the contrary it draws attention to the merits or demerits of the creed to which it is consecrated. Is witchcraft respectable? Yet it had its martyrs. Is demoniacal possession credible? Yet saints attested it. The fury of the fighter cannot vouch for the worthiness of the cause. If it could, the narrowest credence would be the truest as the world goes, and they who adhere to the "Christian" tradition would be consigned to the darkest cells of it. The newest thing is knowledge. This never paralyzes, and never is fanatical. Its heat is stimulating yet gracious. Its zeal does not scorch or consume. It awakens every faculty, keeps inquiry on the stretch, excites the noblest ambition, and at the same time rebukes the partisan temper in all its manifestations. Its reign is beneficent; its coming is full of hope. It is ever looking forward with sanguine anticipation, and if it is at times impatient, petulant, or imperious, it is because it is fretted by stubborn obstacles that prevent the full realization of its purpose to discover the truth. For a long time to come there will be controversy, but its violence will disappear, its acrimony will gradually cease, the passion for victory will yield to the love of knowledge, and all genuine seekers will unite in the search after light.

In the last generation the progress of intelligent examination into nature's secrets has been exceedingly rapid. During my active ministry I was hardly aware of it, for though an assailant of the popular religion, a champion of the freest thought, I was a defender of the current religious ideas; since leaving the profession, the significance of the mental revolution that is taking place, has been more fully revealed to me. The advance has approached very near to the heart of the citadel. The questions under discussion are fundamental ones, the existence of a self-conscious deity, the fact of personal continuance beyond the grave, the line of distinction between "material" and "spiritual" things. The dispute hangs on invisible threads of logic. The conservatives occupy positions which radicals of thirty years back could not assume.

The next step in the development of free thought must be toward the realization of all the ideal supports of mankind, the spiritualizing of the secular, the lifting into heavenly places of this world's activity, the transfiguration of our common life. If by religion is understood the striving after perfection in intellectual things by the untrammelled pursuit of knowledge, in social concerns by the exercise of fraternal kindness, in the spiritual world by aspiration towards a complete surrender to natural law, every free thinker will encourage that and will do what he can to promote it. That there is no final truth discoverable must be admitted, but such a confession need not trouble those who look manfully forward to a future of new discoveries, and gird themselves to remove all obstacles to the knowledge of the world they live in.

Robert Browning in his "Paracelsus," published in 1835, anticipates the doctrine of evolution.

In 1836, Emerson in his "Nature," reiterated this grand prophecy:

In 1867, science had gone so far that it could announce the Unity of Creation; the absolute Order and Law; one continuous Force; Progress as the end of life. The eternal beauty existed for those who had eyes to see. On this foundation the human heart, with its qualities of mercy, pity, peace, and love, its sentiments of justice and equity, its hunger for advance, its idea of goodness, built up a very noble and benignant conception of deity and the sure hope of moral perfection.