of which he wished to deprive us. … What motive could he have had to refuse us such a code? Six views may be taken on the subject of this omission.
"First—either he has not known how to give us a social code guaranteeing truth, justice and industrial attraction; in this case why create in us the want of it, without having the means of satisfying that want which he satisfies in creatures inferior to us, to which he assigns a mode of existence adapted to their attractions and instincts:
"Second—or he has not wished to give us this code; which thus supposes the Creator to be the persecutor of mankind, creating in us wants which it is impossible to satisfy, inasmuch as none of our codes can extirpate our permanent scourges:
"Third—or he has known how and has not wished; in which case the Creator becomes a malignant being, knowing how to do good, but preferring the reign of evil:
"Fourth—or he has wished and has not known how; in this case he is incapable of governing us, knowing and wishing the good which he cannot realize, and which we still less can attain:
"Fifth—or he has neither wished nor known how; and we must attribute to him both want of genius and evil intention:
"Sixth—or he has known how and has wished; in this case the code exists, and he must have provided a mode for its revelation—for of what use would it be if it were to remain hidden from men for whom it is destined?"
Page 468: "If the human race were at the commencement of their social career—in the first ages of civilization—they would perhaps be excusable for founding some hope of social good upon human science, upon the legislation of man; but long experience has proved the impotency of human legislation, and shown clearly that the world has nothing to hope from human laws and civilized constitutions."
Page 260: "Either the passions are bad or the social mechanism is false, for evil prevails, and to a melancholy extent. If the former be true, then there is no hope of a better state of things, for every means of repression and constraint that human ingenuity could invent has been applied to regulate their action; but all in vain—they have remained unchanged, and in the eyes of the moralist as perverse as ever. If, however, the latter be true—that is, if the social mechanism be false—then there is a chance for a better future; for our incoherent and absurd societies are changing more or less with every century. They are at the mercy or whim of a tyrant, or of a revolution of the mass; they may therefore be reformed or done away with entirely."
These grand words and this powerful logic, if even too strong for some of the readers of this book, were not so for the brave hearts of the leaders of Brook Farm, and for Mr. Ripley in particular. The tentative feeling, the search for science to back up the social impulses, seemed at last to have found something solid in a society conceived by the Creator; the man created by him, fitted to it by him; the society fitted to the man; the one the counterpart of the other. Albert Brisbane, Parke Godwin and Horace Greeley, with the Tribune, were arousing the thinkers in New York; Gerritt Smith was agitating the land question and giving away to actual settlers vast tracts of land owned by him. The works of the communist Owen and others were read. Antislavery, anti-war and non-resistance societies were vigorously prosecuting their claims. It was an era of great social activity. Thousands were aroused. "Communities," "Associations" and "Phalanxes" were springing up in various quarters. It seemed that the tide of change from social chaos to order was fast rising. A great wave of reform was sweeping over the land. Should the Community moor itself where it was, or be borne on with the flood?
This was the question of moment; and while the young danced or played, acted in charade or masquerade, and the youths wove garlands of green around their straw hats, and amused themselves by wearing long tresses and tunics, the sedater heads were solving this important question. And they must decide it, but first of all Mr. Ripley's wishes must be consulted: the key to the situation was in his hands. What would he do? Would he, and should they, take among them men and women endowed only with practical, everyday talents, able to be honest and make shoes and sew garments; to strike with a sledge and a blacksmith's arm; to be adepts, maybe, in all the cares for the outward wants of the body, but who had never read Goethe or Schiller, and, possibly, neither Shakespeare, Scott nor Robert Burns; and might not care to read or study Latin, French, German or philosophy! It was for Mr. Ripley to decide.
Did he then think of the little church in Purchase Street, and of what he had solemnly said to the listening congregation? Had he not told them that in every soul was a divine fire that aspired to the right no matter how deeply it had been covered from sight or buried by the troubling cares and surroundings that environed it: that there was a divine equality of spirit at the base of all human lives?
Did he not hear reverberating in his soul the sublime passage, "If I be lifted up, I will lift all others up to me"? Had he not been lifted up? Had he not been supremely blest with health, strength, education, talent, friends, companionship with the great and his cup filled full of the sweet and sublime accords of the Christian faith? Had he not been lifted up, not in crucifixion, but by myriads of silent blessings, and was it not Christ-like to aid in lifting all others up also?
Alas for those who speak of Mr. Ripley's action at this time as "Ripley's fall"! These were the moments when he achieved his glory, when the greatness of his character arose, almost without exception, above all others of the Transcendental School, who hovered around, and wished to claim him as a bright example of a man separated from the common herd of humanity, as a leader of a select group of men and women, cultivated intellectually and socially. Then, as before, when he saw what he deemed right, or, rather, when the intuitions of his soul told him his duty, he did not hesitate.
Soon he was practically deserted by Emerson and his coterie, by some of the associates and pupils of the school, and boarders, who were scared out of their propriety by the fear of losing social caste, and they showed their disfavor by leaving him alone; but, intrenched as he was, and surrounded by a multitude of friends, new and old, and many secretly admiring his intrepid spirit, they could only vent their disfavor in sly sneers and hints that Mr. Ripley, and, of course, his followers with him, had fallen from their high estate. Yes, they who sat near by on the fences and crowed reform the loudest—they who had never soiled their ink-stained fingers with the grass-green sod of old Brook Farm in practical example of work—found most fault with him, because he chose to remain and risk his social standing still more than he had already done, in his magnificent work and experiment.
In order to show more clearly some of the philosophy under which the leaders of Brook Farm based the changes in their theories and organization, let us pause a few moments to give a slight sketch of the growth of human society from its primitive formation to the present time, trusting that the time spent on it may not be unworthily used, and the patience of those to whom these ideas are old is asked for the benefit of others to whom they are new.
It is evident that, at some time, there was a beginning of social life. To those who have full faith in the Mosaic record it was in the Garden of Eden; but that may be considered as before society, as such, was fairly begun. It was the very dawn of the childhood of our race. To those who recognize the fact that the primitive man was a weak, unskilled, uncultivated savage, the conclusion must come that the first social life of the race was very crude; that men lived in trees or in caves and rude huts, and that they formed societies or hordes for protection from the huge and formidable wild animals that roamed the uncultivated earth.
Upon the slain beasts, wild fruits and grains they existed. They hunted and fished, and although the passions of friendship, love and ambition implanted in their souls by their Creator shone out at times, at other times they quarrelled like the brutes they slaughtered. This state of crude society is named savagism.
But as the beasts became less formidable foes, and were much diminished in numbers by being slain and possibly from other
