BY HENRY RANDALL WAITE, PH. D.
The disposition to give due attention to the spirit of American institutions is one which needs cultivation. Government, looked upon only as machinery, may easily become a means for the accomplishment of ends very different from those intended by its designers. In this connection some recent utterances by Dr. Lyman Abbott are worthy of serious thought:
It is sometimes said that the majority rules in America, and it would be unfortunate if it were true. The French Revolution shows that no despotism of the individual is so cruel as the despotism of the majority. When the decisions of the majority or minority are supported by the whole people that is Americanism. Our democracy is not founded on the idea that our people make mistakes, but that the decision of all the people is better than that of one class, and that all the men are better judges than priests and kings and their instruments. Fraternal government is what we are trying to establish, and whoever strikes against the spirit of fraternalism strikes against the foundation of our government. We can get along with anything bad in our laws and correct it in our progress, but we can never live and prosper with the East arrayed against the West, the North against the South, rich against the poor, and labor against capital.
It is sometimes said that the majority rules in America, and it would be unfortunate if it were true. The French Revolution shows that no despotism of the individual is so cruel as the despotism of the majority. When the decisions of the majority or minority are supported by the whole people that is Americanism. Our democracy is not founded on the idea that our people make mistakes, but that the decision of all the people is better than that of one class, and that all the men are better judges than priests and kings and their instruments. Fraternal government is what we are trying to establish, and whoever strikes against the spirit of fraternalism strikes against the foundation of our government. We can get along with anything bad in our laws and correct it in our progress, but we can never live and prosper with the East arrayed against the West, the North against the South, rich against the poor, and labor against capital.
Whatever other meaning may attach to the word Americanism, Dr. Abbott points to its best definition. But what he has in mind cannot be expected in the absence of a spirit which is made manifest in real fraternalism conjoined with faithful devotion to intelligent convictions of duty. This spirit will take patriotism out of the realm of mere sentiment into that of noble passion. It will give to citizenship so high a meaning that failures in civic duty will take on—as they clearly ought to do—the character of sins against one’s own manhood and against the brotherhood of which the citizen is a member. If this spirit be underneath our laws and manifest in their administration, we need have little anxiety as to their statutory form. Political as well as scriptural wisdom expresses itself in the statement that the “letter” of the law kills, the “spirit” alone gives life.
How the spirit of genuine citizenship is to be made ascendant is a question of increasing concern. It may nevertheless be doubted whether organized forces for its suppression do not, in the matter of painstaking and persistent energy and adroit management, excel the organized elements specially devoted to its cultivation. Citizenship activities, politically considered, for the most part are merged in the machinery of parties; and this machinery, instead of representing in its tenets the will of great bodies of independent and well-intentioned suffragists, is too often so manipulated by a few skilful and unprincipled political machinists as to represent their will instead. It is obvious that in so far as these clever machinists are able to run our politics to suit themselves, the very machinery through which the right spirit in citizenship must come to power, if at all, is turned into a means for its own suppression. It thus comes to pass that we have the pitiable spectacle of great party organizations through which masses of honest and patriotic citizens farcically—nay, tragically—coöperate for the accomplishment of results, which, while secured through their votes and in their name, are in reality results of the clandestine and sinister work of a few men.
Plainly, if the right spirit in citizenship is to be ascendant, it must find some means of doing away with the boss system in politics. This system is made possible only by the ease with which primary elections are controlled by coteries of designing men. Here is a battlefield where the best and worst elements in our politics need to be brought into immediate and conclusive conflict. A system which foists upon the people as its candidates for office those whom they have had no real voice in choosing, and who are not worthy, represents an actual subversion of popular government, and calls for such a manifestation of the spirit of true Americanism as shall overthrow it once for all. This question is an overshadowing one. Pollution at the fountain means pollution everywhere. Men elected to office through shameful methods may sometimes be better than the methods by which they have profited, but they are not to betrusted. Their responsibility is to the “bosses,” not to the citizens whose machine-directed votes elected them. The only sentiment to which they bow is that expressed by the leader whose favor bestowed, and whose hostility will deprive them of, official position and emoluments. The immediate outlook is not, however, without hope. Independent movements in several States are in progress looking to the complete uprooting of the boss system. In parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and California, and in some of the Southern States “the Crawford County method,” which takes the choice of candidates out of the hands of the few and places it in the hands of the majority of voters, is already being tried. In Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota similar methods have been the subject of legislative action, and satisfactory results are anticipated. This is a reform which should not be left to the advocacy of a few individuals, or to the members of a few organizations like the American Institute of Civics and local civic reform bodies. Members of these bodies have done much and will do more to promote it, but its final success depends upon the manifestation everywhere of an aroused public spirit whose demands cannot be denied.
Much progress has recently been made in educational provisions for the instruction necessary to qualify American youth for the intelligent and efficient discharge of civic obligations. The Patria Club of New York City, a strong body organized under the auspices of the American Institute of Civics and devoted to the objects which it represents, has offered prizes to the pupils in the schools in the vicinity of New York for the purpose of stimulating their interest in matters of government and citizenship, and has undertaken a similar work in connection with the charity industrial schools of that city. Of great importance is the action of the New York Board of Education looking to specific instruction in civics in all the city schools, and its later action in giving to this subject an important place in the curriculum of the high schools which are to be established the coming year. Another organization which contributes to the same results, the American Guards, is representedby battalions in several New York schools. This movement, which has already extended into many schools in different States, is under the fostering care of Col. H. H. Adams, an officer of the Institute of Civics. The guards are composed of boys who voluntarily devote a certain amount of time, out of school hours, to exercises promotive of a virile and intelligent patriotism. These exercises include military drill, and the youthful guards, in their becoming uniforms, develop a marked degree of manliness and self-respect. Two of the battalions are under the leadership of public-school principals, E. H. Boyer and D. E. Gaddes, councillors of the Institute of Civics. The guards participated in the ceremonies at the dedication of the Grant monument, and no organization in line attracted more favorable attention.
It cannot be denied that the hitherto controlling power of voters in rural districts has frequently been used to the prejudice of city interests. Representatives from country regions have lent their aid in effecting vicious as well as wholesome changes in legislation affecting municipalities, and this aid has sometimes been secured by corrupt methods. It is nevertheless true that the average country voter and the average legislator who represents him sincerely desire to promote only such legislation as will be of highest advantage to urban communities. If their votes fail to secure this result it is more often because of insufficient knowledge of urban conditions and needs, than of indifference or corrupt influences.
It is, therefore, a matter of the very highest importance that citizens remote from our great cities be made sufficiently familiar with municipal needs to enable them to reach wiser conclusions as to the desirability or undesirability of special measures affecting their political, social, and industrial interests. Opinions based, as now, chiefly upon the statements of a partisan press, too often represent the interests of a party regardless of those of the municipalities directly concerned.
With the steady growth of our great cities in population and political power, the question of wholesome State legislation in matters affecting their civic and moral wellbeing, is one of noless importance to rural communities than to the cities themselves. Controlling power is already drifting cityward in many States, and rural voters who have not contributed to the creation of right civic conditions in our great municipalities may soon find this power used to their own serious injury. In this connection the New YorkChristian Advocate, referring to the possibilities of good and evil in the Greater New York, justly says:
The only balancing force in preventing the evil from triumphing over the good, will be the influence of the remainder of the Empire State. The morale of cities differs from that of rural regions in that the evil-minded can consort and conceal their deeds, can obtain great political power; and large cities are prone to legalize vice and admit of organized political corruption. Whereas elsewhere the laws are generally in harmony with morality, and the difficulty of concealment impedes the growth and the increase of the arrogance of vice.The force of Greater New York in legislation and the administration of law, is something appalling to contemplate. Permanent antagonism between the Metropolis and the rest of the State will in itself be a demoralizing element. Yet unless the State watches this immense aggregation of heterogeneous peoples and cities, Greater New York may become a pervading source of corruption. If there be one tendency confirmed by history, it is that smaller cities imitate the greater, that towns imitate the smaller cities, and villages, the towns. Thus for good or ill the most populous centres become the controlling force.
The only balancing force in preventing the evil from triumphing over the good, will be the influence of the remainder of the Empire State. The morale of cities differs from that of rural regions in that the evil-minded can consort and conceal their deeds, can obtain great political power; and large cities are prone to legalize vice and admit of organized political corruption. Whereas elsewhere the laws are generally in harmony with morality, and the difficulty of concealment impedes the growth and the increase of the arrogance of vice.
The force of Greater New York in legislation and the administration of law, is something appalling to contemplate. Permanent antagonism between the Metropolis and the rest of the State will in itself be a demoralizing element. Yet unless the State watches this immense aggregation of heterogeneous peoples and cities, Greater New York may become a pervading source of corruption. If there be one tendency confirmed by history, it is that smaller cities imitate the greater, that towns imitate the smaller cities, and villages, the towns. Thus for good or ill the most populous centres become the controlling force.
The growth of organizations which are directed by women, wholly or chiefly devoted to reforms in civic conditions, has been paralleled by hardly any popular movement of recent years. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, although hardly more than a juvenile among other great organizations, is second to few of them in its potentiality for good. Women’s clubs are found everywhere, and, wherever found, for the most part represent a serious purpose to find and apply right remedies to existing civic and social evils. The Federation of Women’s Clubs brings all of these local movements into harmonious efforts for the upbuilding of unselfish patriotism in the community and the highest virtue in the home. The National Health Protective Association, whose second annual meeting was recently held in Philadelphia, has already made a record for itself, through its branches in many cities, which evidences not only a reason for its existence, but the capacity and successwhich women have brought to the solution of some of the most important problems of city life, such as protection from contagious diseases, the supply of pure water and pure milk, the prevention of food adulterations, improvements in tenement conditions, provisions affecting the health of working people, attention to the sick children of the very poor, and a score of equally important matters. The chairman of this organization is Mrs. Etta Osgood of Portland, Maine, and its leading members include Dr. Lozier of New York, Mrs. A. J. Perry of Brooklyn, Mrs. Theo. F. Seward of Orange, N. J., Mrs. Henry Birkenbine of Wayne, Pa., Mrs. L. E. Harvey of Dayton, O., Miss Florence Parsons of Yonkers, N. Y., Mrs. J. E Weiks of Buffalo, and Mrs. John H. Scribner of Philadelphia.
In the same city was also held, shortly after the meeting of the Health Protective Association, the Triennial Convention of Working Women’s Societies. This gathering of earnest women was notable for the keenness which its members brought to the discussion of questions affecting the interests of working women, and the equal sincerity of their desire to reach only just conclusions. Here is an opportunity for the bright women who are at the head of the Federation of Women’s Clubs to establish reciprocal relations which will be fruitful in great good.
The third year of the National Reform League has been completed with results full of encouragement to the members of the various social organizations of which it is composed. Its annual meeting at Louisville, Ky., was attended by one hundred and fifty delegates. Much of the success of the widely extended work represented by this national organization is due to the persistent and unselfish activities of its able secretary, Mr. Clinton Rogers Woodruff, of the Philadelphia bar, who closed his address before the convention with these encouraging words:
In every direction the outlook is bright and promising, not of the immediate fulfilment of all the hopes and desires of those who are most deeply interested perhaps, but of substantial progress and steady growth. The sentiment for better government is gaining day by day. It is not a movement for a particular form of local government or of specific panaceas for municipal evils, but rather one to bring the citizens, those who are primarily responsible, to a fuller appreciation and a more general discharge of the duties of citizenship—in short, a movement for citizenship reform. Theindifference and apathy of the average voter have been a matter of general comment. To overcome this, and to replace it with that interest and that action without which no permanent reform can be accomplished, the realization that good government depends for its very existence upon good men, is the fundamental basis of municipal reform. Charter revision, civil-service rules and regulations, fair elections, and an honest count and return are all important; but they depend for their success upon sound public opinion, and that depends upon good citizenship. Good laws are important; good citizenship is essential.
In every direction the outlook is bright and promising, not of the immediate fulfilment of all the hopes and desires of those who are most deeply interested perhaps, but of substantial progress and steady growth. The sentiment for better government is gaining day by day. It is not a movement for a particular form of local government or of specific panaceas for municipal evils, but rather one to bring the citizens, those who are primarily responsible, to a fuller appreciation and a more general discharge of the duties of citizenship—in short, a movement for citizenship reform. Theindifference and apathy of the average voter have been a matter of general comment. To overcome this, and to replace it with that interest and that action without which no permanent reform can be accomplished, the realization that good government depends for its very existence upon good men, is the fundamental basis of municipal reform. Charter revision, civil-service rules and regulations, fair elections, and an honest count and return are all important; but they depend for their success upon sound public opinion, and that depends upon good citizenship. Good laws are important; good citizenship is essential.
The Good Citizenship League of Minneapolis adds to the means of its increasingly useful work by the publication of a carefully edited little periodical under the title ofFacts, in which information that might not otherwise reach them in proper form is placed before all citizens. E. F. Waite is President, and Alfred Sherlock, Secretary, with offices at 254 Hennepin Avenue.
Mr. Charles Richardson, vice-president of the National Municipal League, in seeking the causes for the non-participation of large taxpayers in efforts to secure good government in cities, finds the following among other reasons:
1st. Because they fear that their opposition to influential politicians may be punished by an increase in their assessments for taxation, or by a loss of custom or employment, or by some other action injurious to their personal or business interests.2nd. Because as investors, employees, or otherwise, they have or hope to have some pecuniary interests in corporations, contracts, or offices, which would be much less profitable under a government too pure to be corrupted, and too intelligent to be outwitted.3rd. Because they believe that it pays better in dollars and cents to submit to existing abuses than to expend the time and money required for a long and difficult series of political contests.4th. Because they consider that national legislation affects their personal interests far more than any probable action of their local government, and that their national party must therefore be supported in its efforts to strengthen itself by securing complete control of local affairs.5th. Because they believe the local machine of the opposition party is still worse than their own, and that to promote its success by wasting their votes on a third ticket would only be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.6th. Because they have no faith in the possibility of subjecting politics to the principles of common honesty, or public affairs to the methods of intelligent business.This list is not complete, but it is sufficiently formidable to show that the progress of reform principles among the taxpayers must continue tobe slow and difficult, unless city government can be made to appear much more important and interesting than it has hitherto seemed to be.
1st. Because they fear that their opposition to influential politicians may be punished by an increase in their assessments for taxation, or by a loss of custom or employment, or by some other action injurious to their personal or business interests.
2nd. Because as investors, employees, or otherwise, they have or hope to have some pecuniary interests in corporations, contracts, or offices, which would be much less profitable under a government too pure to be corrupted, and too intelligent to be outwitted.
3rd. Because they believe that it pays better in dollars and cents to submit to existing abuses than to expend the time and money required for a long and difficult series of political contests.
4th. Because they consider that national legislation affects their personal interests far more than any probable action of their local government, and that their national party must therefore be supported in its efforts to strengthen itself by securing complete control of local affairs.
5th. Because they believe the local machine of the opposition party is still worse than their own, and that to promote its success by wasting their votes on a third ticket would only be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
6th. Because they have no faith in the possibility of subjecting politics to the principles of common honesty, or public affairs to the methods of intelligent business.
This list is not complete, but it is sufficiently formidable to show that the progress of reform principles among the taxpayers must continue tobe slow and difficult, unless city government can be made to appear much more important and interesting than it has hitherto seemed to be.
A writer inChristian Work, urging the importance of action such as the American Institute of Civics is devoted to, says:
With the new way of looking at Government, and with new tasks imposed upon it, must come preparation for the grave responsibilities of the present and future. Old ideas linger after they have subserved their purposes. We are living in an industrial age. Especially is it true in a country like the United States that the ordinary pursuits of peace outweigh a hundredfold the interests of war. Nevertheless, we have our well-equipped academy at West Point to prepare young men for the army, and our excellent academy at Annapolis to prepare young men for the navy; but we have no civil academy to give men careful preparation for the civil service, which is of inestimably more importance to us than either the army or navy so far as ordinary, everyday life is concerned. Even in his day, Washington saw the importance of a national university which should fulfil many of the purposes of such an academy. As a part of the remedy for trusts and combinations, and an important part, the writer would mention institutions designed to give the most careful training in preparation for every branch of the civil service. This should go hand in hand with the enlargement of this service. The progress which has already been made in the reformation of our civil service is gratifying, but something far more than has yet been advocated by any civil-service-reform association is needed. As part of the general programme of the solution of the problem of monopoly, the development of the State universities of the country along the line of civics may be mentioned. Each State university should, in addition to other things, be a civil academy.
With the new way of looking at Government, and with new tasks imposed upon it, must come preparation for the grave responsibilities of the present and future. Old ideas linger after they have subserved their purposes. We are living in an industrial age. Especially is it true in a country like the United States that the ordinary pursuits of peace outweigh a hundredfold the interests of war. Nevertheless, we have our well-equipped academy at West Point to prepare young men for the army, and our excellent academy at Annapolis to prepare young men for the navy; but we have no civil academy to give men careful preparation for the civil service, which is of inestimably more importance to us than either the army or navy so far as ordinary, everyday life is concerned. Even in his day, Washington saw the importance of a national university which should fulfil many of the purposes of such an academy. As a part of the remedy for trusts and combinations, and an important part, the writer would mention institutions designed to give the most careful training in preparation for every branch of the civil service. This should go hand in hand with the enlargement of this service. The progress which has already been made in the reformation of our civil service is gratifying, but something far more than has yet been advocated by any civil-service-reform association is needed. As part of the general programme of the solution of the problem of monopoly, the development of the State universities of the country along the line of civics may be mentioned. Each State university should, in addition to other things, be a civil academy.
These are the words applied to an act of the Republican Governor of New York by one of the ablest and stanchest Republican journals of that State, theMail and Expressof New York City. It goes on to say:
Gov. Black’s approval of the bill to place the civil service of this State at the mercy of machine politics is a perversion of Republican principle and a betrayal of reform. There is not one legitimate public interest that this measure will benefit; not a single purpose of honest administration that it will strengthen, nor an object of sound party policy that it will help to accomplish.The Governor’s bill is a step backward from the advanced position of the party on the civil-service issue. It is a trick to nullify the merit principle in appointments to public office, and it opens the way for a full restoration of the spoils system. There is not a boss nor a machine politician in the State who does not indorse it. There is not an intelligent supporter of honest civil service who will not denounce it.The rank and file of the Republican party repudiate the Governor’s billand disclaim all responsibility for it. Party sentiment has spoken against it in unmistakable terms. The Governor’s reflections upon those who opposed the bill are neither well grounded nor in good taste. They mean nothing save that he is sensitive to the criticism which his ill-advised measure has provoked—criticism which, it may truthfully be said, is abundantly warranted by the character of the bill itself as well as by his own amazing advocacy of the spoils system in the public service.
Gov. Black’s approval of the bill to place the civil service of this State at the mercy of machine politics is a perversion of Republican principle and a betrayal of reform. There is not one legitimate public interest that this measure will benefit; not a single purpose of honest administration that it will strengthen, nor an object of sound party policy that it will help to accomplish.
The Governor’s bill is a step backward from the advanced position of the party on the civil-service issue. It is a trick to nullify the merit principle in appointments to public office, and it opens the way for a full restoration of the spoils system. There is not a boss nor a machine politician in the State who does not indorse it. There is not an intelligent supporter of honest civil service who will not denounce it.
The rank and file of the Republican party repudiate the Governor’s billand disclaim all responsibility for it. Party sentiment has spoken against it in unmistakable terms. The Governor’s reflections upon those who opposed the bill are neither well grounded nor in good taste. They mean nothing save that he is sensitive to the criticism which his ill-advised measure has provoked—criticism which, it may truthfully be said, is abundantly warranted by the character of the bill itself as well as by his own amazing advocacy of the spoils system in the public service.
Massachusetts has undertaken an interesting experiment in the way of promoting home industries. With the aim of producing in that State the finer grade of goods now produced only in foreign markets, the legislature two years ago appropriated $25,000 for the establishment of a textile school in any town which might make a like appropriation for the same object. This offer has now been accepted by the citizens of Lowell, and the first school of the character proposed is being established. It is hoped that this experiment may lead to results which will in some degree compensate for the industrial losses sustained by New England through the competition of the multiplying cotton mills in the South.
Some time ago, in response to a need brought to its attention by one of the local officers in Texas, the American Institute of Civics offered to superintend the distribution among the prisons of the United States of literature suitable for the use of prisoners. Citizens were asked to coöperate, and much good literature has thus been placed in the hands of those who have found it not only a source of entertainment, but, through its refining and elevating influences, a means of great benefit. This beneficent work can be indefinitely extended with a little cost if citizens who appreciate its importance will give to it their aid by contributions of literature, such as wholesome works of fiction, popular works of history, treatises on the useful arts and industries, popular periodicals, etc., etc.; or by assisting in the payment of the cost of collection and distribution. One of the Institute’s councillors in the State of Washington, President Penrose of Whitman College, has recently made an appeal for such literature for the use of convicts in the Washington penitentiary. Inquiries as to methods of coöperation, or gifts for the prison literature expense fund, may be sent to the American Institute of Civics, 203 Broadway, New York.
BY EMILY DICKEY BEERY.
“The Tempest” is a little enchanted world where play all the forces that are manifested in the larger creation from the lowest animalism to the highest manhood, harmonious with his invisible environment. This world in miniature—true to the laws of the macrocosm—begins in chaos, storm, and stress, but finds completion in supernal air and divine peace. We shall find by consecutive study of the dramas that the poet, in his creative work, has ever risen from lower manifestations to higher as his own soul soared on higher and higher wing. Prospero was his last, greatest, and divinest thought of man in his unfolding godward.
Nature in her evolution takes no vast strides, and her supreme poet follows her divine current of growth from the animal man to the grand manifestation of his ideal. He understood that in man’s unfolding not a round could be missed of the “Jacob’s Ladder” resting upon the earth, but reaching into the heavens.
In this ideal world of “The Tempest,” Caliban stands upon the earth groping to attain the first step, while Prospero stands upon the summit with his face heavenward. This typical man comes upon the stage on a high plane of development. Long previously he had left the rank and file of humanity to tread the ever lonely path to higher achievement, therefore we must look below him to find, among the creations of the poet, the incarnation which was the chrysalis for this last ideal. Here our intuitive perception immediately descries Hamlet, that wonderful human mystery who was the first of Shakspere’s sons to enter the precincts of the inner life and catch a glimpse of the godlike potentialities of the human soul.
In Hamlet was the struggle of birth; in Prospero, the glory of achievement, the fulfilment to some extent of the poet’s ideal man, and the first to realize that the power of thought is the supreme force in the universe. Hamlet caught the first glimpse of this truth when he said, “There’s nothing good or bad butthinking makes it so.” He is the hero of spiritual birth and growth in man from the dawning of the soul-life, through its fierce struggles to dominate the lower self and rise into realms of clearer light and truth. The “godlike reason which was not left in him to rust unused,” in its aspiration became illuminated by intuition and revealed to his awe-inspired gaze new worlds not dreamed of by the Horatios of his time.
Hamlet was lost in wonder at himself. The lower forces of his nature along the old inherited lines of thought, coming in contact with the higher thought-currents, newly created, caused the blended stream to “turn awry and lose the name of action,” termed by the unseeing world lack of courage and will-power. Even he could not understand but that in some inexplicable way hemustbe a coward, because he could not perceive thewhyof his delaying vengeance. Yet he knew he was brave to the core of his being. When his military friends, “distilled almost to jelly with the act of fear,” would have restrained him from following the spirit of his father, he cries out:
Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life at a pin’s fee; and for my soul, what can it do to that, being a thing immortal as itself? … My fate cries out, and makes each petty artery in this body as hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life at a pin’s fee; and for my soul, what can it do to that, being a thing immortal as itself? … My fate cries out, and makes each petty artery in this body as hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
He was strong of will and resolute of purpose, but had reached the plane of development where his higher nature would not permit him to commit murder. Yet the strong current of popular opinion, as well as all hereditary and sub-conscious influences in himself, were ever impelling him to do the deed. In his soul-growth, Hamlet had passed the plane of revenge as a passion, but had not reached the divine heights of forgiveness. To avenge the murder of his father was to him a sacred command and duty coming in conflict with another equally sacred duty voiced by his higher self, and the mighty meeting of these two soul-forces always resulted in inaction. This moral battleground is the pivotal point of the drama, indirectly putting in motion all the forces which terminate in the final catastrophe.
In his thoughtful moods his disposition was ever shaken with “thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls,” saying, “Why is this? wherefore? what should we do?” It was the unlaid ghost of his higher self that propounded these queries to theapparition. The birth-throes of thought were giving him entrance into a new world where he began to see “What a piece of work is man! howinfinitein faculty! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God!”
The thoughts that Hamlet voices had passed through Shakspere’s brain, and the wonderful powers manifested by Prospero had been apprehended by his own prophetic vision. Hamlet might have moved along on the lower plane successfully, but the law of spiritual growth, the divine force upheaving and uplifting his soul against the barriers of his sub-conscious mentality and his environment, finally ended in the sad tragedy. Yet in the defeat was a victory, for it was merely the turn of the spiral downward for a higher rise in evolution.
Prospero is first revealed to us at about the age of Hamlet when the curtain falls and hides him from our tear-dimmed eyes. Shakspere loved Hamlet. He was dearest to his heart of all his children, and he felt that he must not die, but must come into the full fruition of the immortals. The soul so nobly struggling from its swaddling clothesmustbecome a freed spirit of godlike power. Therefore he presents to us an ideal world where Hamlet sits upon the throne as Prospero, “transported and rapt in secret studies,” “neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated to closeness and the bettering of his mind with that which o’erprized all popular rate.” Prospero was born a higher type, therefore the divine in him had freer action. His soul opened to the over-soul like a flower to the sunlight.
The divine force in man is his will—his true will—and this force in its perfect exercise has no human limitation. It is only theseemingwill that is limited. This power,manifested in thought, is represented by Ariel.
The statement of Prospero that his studies bettered his mind to such high degree is proof that they were those not of the magician, but of the philosopher and true psychologist, for the study of magic darkens the soul and degrades the intellect. Prospero’s power was not magical, and Shakspere used the word magician only to bring the drama within touch of his audience, knowing full well that the wise would understand, for “wisdom is justified of her children.”
In the manifestation of soul-power we first perceive the truegreatness of Prospero and the heights to which Shakspere’s own soul had risen, for “the stream cannot rise higher than its source.” The greatness of Julius Cæsar is “weighed in the balance and found wanting,” for every truly great nature must be the rounded out and harmonious development of the intellectual, moral, and spiritual. This is the measure of Prospero, and in his unfolding, unseen realms and previously unknown powers had opened, according to eternal law, to his demanding soul.
“The Tempest” is philosophical, psychological, and occult—philosophical because thought is the motor power. Le Conte says: “That deepest of all questions—the nature and origin of natural forces—is a question for philosophy and not for science.” Thought is a natural force; yes, a dynamic force of the most intense power. It may be a search-light of the universe, a thunderbolt of destruction, or a messenger of light and love with healing in its wings. The mantle of Prospero is simply an emblem of power, and the word is so understood among the Orientals. In Scripture, when Elijah ascended in his fiery chariot, his mantle fell upon Elisha, who immediately caused the waters to retreat from its stroke and continued clothed with his master’s power. So Prospero, robing himself in his mantle or laying it aside, means his exercise or non-exercise of what are termed supernatural powers.
Victor Hugo says that Shakspere “did not question the invisible world, he rehabilitated it. He did not deny man’s supernatural power, he consecrated it.” There is no reason why man in his higher estate should not have free intercourse with a world invisible to him in his lower conditions. Can the grub have the same companionship as the butterfly?
Victor Hugo also says that the “‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ depicts the action of the invisible world on man, but ‘The Tempest’ symbolizes the action of man on the invisible world. In the poet’s youth, man obeys the spirits. In the poet’s ripe age, thespirits obey man.” This shows a fine apprehension of the interior revealings of the supreme poetic genius. Every great and true poet is also a prophet and seer. Then why should not Shakspere—the supremest in all the “tide of time”—not have the widest and most far-reaching vision of the wonderfulattainments and powers of the perfected man. He undoubtedly saw and felt the grandeur of the ages to come, and knew, with divine prescience, that only the hem of the garment of knowledge had been as yet touched. There is but one power in the universe, and as Emerson says, “Every man is an inlet to the whole.” Then where is his limitation?
Did not nature obey the Nazarene, and the winds and mountainous waves lie gently down at His bidding? And did He not say that His disciples should do greater works than He had done? Then why should not Prospero, as a typical man, have control over all the forces of nature?
It is interesting to note that Shakspere has given to him almost the identical powers of the Man of Nazareth! This is not strange, as it is an absolute truth that when man rises to the royalty of spirit every element will be his obedient servant. Thought will be the agent of his ministries; which the poet has so marvellously portrayed in its personification as Ariel. Ariel says: “Thy thoughts I cleave to;” and Prospero, in calling him, “Come with a thought.” It is now claimed by the most advanced and best psychologists, that a forceful, living thought does become a real embodiment which may be perceived by the finer senses. Ariel was what the mind of his master made him, sometimes a sprite, sometimes a sea-nymph, again a harpy, anything and everything the master directed.
Sycorax symbolized ignorance, and thought had been long imprisoned in the holds of nature by this creature of darkness, but ever painfully struggling to reach the light. Ignorance imprisoned thought, but could not free it. Prospero, as wisdom, gave it freedom and directed its action until he could send it forth in still more glorious freedom. Freedom of thought is a dominant strain in the drama, and is even sung by the “reeling ripe” Stephano. Caliban represents the child of ignorance, closely allied to nature and partaking of its poetry and grandeur. He is man in his first estate, just emerging from the animal. Yet, in this crude, forbidding aspect how superior in dignity compared with Stephano and Trinculo in their vile abasement through the vices of civilization.
Shakspere’s knowledge of the power of thought over the body is shown in his saying that Sycorax, “through age and envy, hadgrown into a hoop;” and of Caliban that, “As with age his body uglier grows, so his mind cankers.” It is not strange that Shakspere perceived the new psychology, for Milton sang—
Oft Converse with heavenly habitantsBegins to cast a beam on the outward shape,The unpolluted temple of the mind,And turns it by degrees to the soul’s essence,Till all be made immortal.
Oft Converse with heavenly habitantsBegins to cast a beam on the outward shape,The unpolluted temple of the mind,And turns it by degrees to the soul’s essence,Till all be made immortal.
Oft Converse with heavenly habitants
Begins to cast a beam on the outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,
And turns it by degrees to the soul’s essence,
Till all be made immortal.
The poet Spenser most beautifully expresses this truth in saying:
So every spirit, as it is more pure,And hath in it the more of heavenly light,So it the fairer body doth procureTo habit in….For of the soul the body form doth take,For soul is form, and doth the body make.
So every spirit, as it is more pure,And hath in it the more of heavenly light,So it the fairer body doth procureTo habit in….For of the soul the body form doth take,For soul is form, and doth the body make.
So every spirit, as it is more pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer body doth procure
To habit in….
For of the soul the body form doth take,
For soul is form, and doth the body make.
This is the teaching also of St. Paul, that the body must be transformed by the renewing of the mind.
Here we perceive the source of the heavenly beauty and grace of Miranda. “The pure in heart shall see God.” Her thought and vision wrought out for her a bodily expression that made her seem celestial to the beholder, and held him in doubt whether she were goddess or mortal.
In esoteric thought the perfected being must be an equal blending of the masculine and feminine, which Balzac has so gloriously interpreted in his “Seraphita.” This quality we see in Prospero, the gentle, refined element of motherhood, blended with sublime dignity and strength. His child was to him “a cherubim infusing him with fortitude from heaven,” and he gave to her the richest dower of inheritance—knowledge, with purity of heart and purpose. With the gentle patience of love he instructed her in the laws of nature and her being, with divine purity of thought. For all nature is pure as God himself. Thus Miranda became the peerless young Eve of blended wisdom and innocence.
After a display of his power, he states, in his address to Ferdinand, the most abstruse problems of the ideal philosophy.
These … were all spirits, andAre melted into air, into thin air;And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,260The solemn temples, the great globe itself,Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolveAnd, like this insubstantial pageant faded,Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuffAs dreams are made on, and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep.
These … were all spirits, andAre melted into air, into thin air;And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,260The solemn temples, the great globe itself,Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolveAnd, like this insubstantial pageant faded,Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuffAs dreams are made on, and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep.
These … were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,260
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
This sublime inspiration was almost the last outburst of the mighty genius of Shakspere, and is a fitting crown of glory.
Prospero was fully conscious of his superiority, and with simple but grandest dignity he claims that practically it was his own power that worked all the wonders. Most sublimely he expresses this when he calls before him his invisible helpers:
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,And ye that on the sands with printless footDo chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly himWhen he comes back; … by whose aid,Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm’dThe noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,And ‘twixt the green sea and the azured vaultSet roaring war; to the dread rattling thunderHave I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oakWith his own bolt; the strong-based promontoryHave I made shake, and by the spurs plucked upThe pine and cedar; graves at my commandHave waked their sleepers, oped, and let them forthBy my so potent art.
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,And ye that on the sands with printless footDo chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly himWhen he comes back; … by whose aid,Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm’dThe noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,And ‘twixt the green sea and the azured vaultSet roaring war; to the dread rattling thunderHave I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oakWith his own bolt; the strong-based promontoryHave I made shake, and by the spurs plucked upThe pine and cedar; graves at my commandHave waked their sleepers, oped, and let them forthBy my so potent art.
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; … by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm’d
The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,
And ‘twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up
The pine and cedar; graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let them forth
By my so potent art.
Passing from his power over nature to the manifestation of his higher self with men, we see the spiritual plane he had reached. In coming again in contact with the world of humanity his first action is the recognition of the good and the forgiving the evil:
—O good Gonzalo,My true preserver, and a loyal sirTo him thou follow’st, I will pay thy gracesHome both in word and deed.
—O good Gonzalo,My true preserver, and a loyal sirTo him thou follow’st, I will pay thy gracesHome both in word and deed.
—O good Gonzalo,
My true preserver, and a loyal sir
To him thou follow’st, I will pay thy graces
Home both in word and deed.
His divine forgiveness of those who had so cruelly wronged him shows the height of his spiritual attainment:
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,Yet with my nobler reason ‘gainst my furyDo I take part; the rarer action isIn virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,The sole drift of my purpose doth extendNot a frown further.
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,Yet with my nobler reason ‘gainst my furyDo I take part; the rarer action isIn virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,The sole drift of my purpose doth extendNot a frown further.
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet with my nobler reason ‘gainst my fury
Do I take part; the rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further.
In the very remarkable events of his life he recognizes a higher power in all his guidance. “Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue should become kings of Naples?”
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,Roughhew them how we will.
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,Roughhew them how we will.
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Roughhew them how we will.
In no drama has the poet risen to such supreme types of character. Prospero was the highest expression of Shakspere’s latest thought, but only the shadowing forth of a supremer ideal. We can portray what is beneath us far more vividly and truly than what is above us. Shakspere hadlivedHamlet, and that is why he so vitally touches every human soul. In Prospero it was the vision by the great poetic soul of a promised land he had only viewed from a mountain top. He had seen the wonderfully luscious grasps of Eschol, but had not yet tasted them. This is why we feel the vast yet subtle difference between “Hamlet” and “The Tempest.”
If the immortal poet had lived the years allotted to man, with ever increasing openness of vision, his own soul would have attained that lofty height where, from the “pattern on the mount,” he would have portrayed the splendor of divine manhood in godlike majesty, the soul irradiating the body like the shining face of Moses in its halo of awe-inspiring divinity. The people required a veil; they would require one still.
Although Shakspere left us before he had lived in the radiance of the truly spiritual realm, we may well crown his Prospero with his words of another:
He sits ‘mongst men like a descended God:He hath a kind of honor sets him off,More than a mortal seeming.
He sits ‘mongst men like a descended God:He hath a kind of honor sets him off,More than a mortal seeming.
He sits ‘mongst men like a descended God:
He hath a kind of honor sets him off,
More than a mortal seeming.
BY STINSON JARVIS.
In the April number of this magazine its Editor gave us a paper called “The Man in History.” Readers will not have failed to note the grand width and depth it gave to ordinary views. The facts concerning the human being, from the earliest records to those of the present day, were marshalled in so masterly a way, and the mental grip on the whole mass was so far-reaching and unique, that people must have perceived that they were gaining the benefits of a lifetime study.
This article is therefore in no sense a reply to Dr. Ridpath’s masterpiece. On the contrary, I wish to refer to all the historical events as he has introduced them, and can only regret that want of space forbids a reprint which would enable the original to be read with these comments. My endeavor is simply to bring forward for contemporaneous consideration certain suggestions which seem to me to be of a highly interesting character, and which were forced in upon my own thought by the results of experiments upon the human being. After the long series of articles published inThe Arenaabout three years ago, many of my readers will not require further explanation of these experiments; but for others I will briefly refer, later on in this paper, to the phenomena which greatly affect one’s views regarding man’s powers and possibilities, together with the nature and extent of his agency in the world’s events.
Dr. Ridpath has brought forward as interesting a question as was ever laid before a public, namely, how far, if at all, Man is the maker of history. And by the word “history” the learned author does not mean those records of events which any chance chronicler may choose to present, but the events themselves, their causes, action, and results. Here he presents both sides of the question, with the arguments which may be alternately used in support of each. He cites two master thinkers, Carlyle and Buckle, whose differences of opinion relative to man’s agency in history were distinctly defined: Carlyle seeking thehero in each great event, and recognizing only one force, that of God, behind the principal actor of the temporary drama, and never satisfied until theindividualorigins of history could be discovered. On the other hand, Buckle, to whom man, including the part he played, appeared “as the mere result of historical forces,” and in the view of scientific rationalism contemplating “only the lines of an infinite and unalterable causation encompassing the world and bringing to pass whatever is done by the agency of menen masse.”
I confess I was not by any means clear at first as to what Buckle meant by this “infinite and unalterable causation.” If he meant the shapings of heredity coming down through many generations to produce a man able to lead in a certain event, then I followed him. I also sufficiently understood him if he referred to national desires and necessities assisting to produce competent manipulators of important events. But I did not gather until later that this language might possibly be intended to include what in common parlance is called “the will of God.”
In the alternation of contention which Dr. Ridpath lays before us with so much skill, we are all more or less familiar with the Carlyle side of the argument, so let us consider a part of what is said on the Buckle side. In sentences collected from different portions, the “believer in the predominance of universal causation” is represented as speaking in this way: