which was common at that time now appears to
me to have been the natural expression of an exhilaration of mind which
carried the speaker or writer beyond the bounds of commonplace speech.
The intellect of the time had outgrown the limits of Puritan belief. The
narrow literalism, the material and positive view of matters highly
spiritual, abstract, and indeterminate, which had been handed down from
previous generations, had become irreligious to the foremost minds of
that day. They had no choice but to enter the arena as champions of the
new interpretation of life which the cause of truth imperatively
demanded.

I speak now of the transcendental movement as I had opportunity to
observe it in Boston. Let us not ignore the fact that it was a world
movement. The name seems to have been borrowed from the German
phraseology, in which the philosophy of Kant was termed "the
transcendental philosophy." More than this, the breath which kindled
among us this new flame of hope and aspiration came from the same
source. For this was the period of Germany's true glory. Her
intellectual radiance outshone and outlived the military meteor which
for a brief moment obscured all else to human vision. The great vitality
of the German nation, the indefatigable research of its learned men, its
wholesome balance of sense and spirit, all made themselves widely felt,
and infused fresh blood into veins impoverished by ascetic views of
life. Its philosophers were apostles of freedom, its poets sang the joy
of living, not the bitterness of sin and death.

These good things were brought to us piecemeal, by translations, by
disciples. Dr. Hedge published an English rendering of some of the
masterpieces of German prose. Longfellow gave us lovely versions of many
poets. John S. Dwight produced his ever precious volume of translations
of the minor poems of Goethe and Schiller. Margaret Fuller translated
Eckermann's "Conversations with Goethe." Carlyle wrote his wonderful
essays, inspired by the new thought, and adding to it daring novelty of
his own. The whole is matter of history now, quite beyond the domain of
personal reminiscence.

I have spoken of the transcendentalists and the abolitionists as if they
had been quite distinct bodies of believers. Reflecting more deeply, I
feel that both were features of the new movement. In the
transcendentalists the enthusiasm of emancipated thought was paramount,
while the abolitionists followed the vision of