From the age of two, MME lived in Malden, Massachusetts with
her widowed grandmother Mary Moody Emerson. After
her grandmother died, MME continued in Malden with her aunt Ruth Emerson, Ruth’s first husband, Nathan
Sargent, and MME’s aunt Rebecca Emerson
Brintnall, considered
“‘insane’ by the early 1780s.” In 1791, MME moved to
Newburyport, Massachusetts to live with her sister Hannah
Emerson Farnham; after two years she moved to Concord to live with
her mother, Phebe Bliss Emerson Ripley; and in
1802, she returned to Malden to live again with Ruth Emerson and Ruth’s second
husband, Samuel Waite, until 1808, the year Ruth
Emerson died; Rebecca married Waite after Ruth’s death (Simmons, Selected Letters, xxx-xxxi, vii-x, 4). MME occasionally bestowed or dedicated her Almanacks to her nieces and
nephews.
MME may refer to Psalm 116:12: “What shall I render unto the LORD for all
his benefits toward me?”
MME alludes to Psalm 137:5: “If I forget thee, O
Jerusalem: let my right hand forget her cunning.”
MME alludes to Psalm 102:26: “They shall perish, but
thou shalt endure, yea all of them shall wax old like a garment: as a vesture
shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed.”
According to Phyllis Cole, when
MME lived in Malden for a second time (1802–1808), she
“had purchased a pew in
[Aaron] Green’s meetinghouse
and, along with Ruth, attended church
there.”
Green was a “Harvard-trained” minister whom MME
likely refers to as “poor” in another Almanack entry from 1804:
“I could not be reverent tonight with poor Mr. G[reen]
’s preaching.” Other possibilities for the “poor
Preacher” in this reference include Nehemiah
Coye and Joel Wicker of the Methodist
Needham Circuit in 1804 (Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 102; Bruce, Directory, 15, 155; “Methodist Beginnings,” 45).
MME refers to Robert
Fellowes’s A Picture of Christian
Philosophy, in which he states: “The restless longing after
immortality, which seems a cheering sensation, peculiar to the breast of man,
is by no means a proof that such a state awaits
us. For we are so organised, and placed in such circumstances, that we could
not well pass through life, without this sentiment being excited in us. Hence
the untutored savage usually feels it, in as much, if not more vigour than the
civilized philosopher”
(Fellowes, Picture, 252–55). MME characterizes as
“errors”
Fellowes’s deism and his
belief in the Christian’s ability to live in the “gay
world” without being stained by it.
MME quotes Robert
Fellowes, A Picture of Christian
Philosophy: “We know but little of the general laws which regulate
the course of the natural world; and we know still less of those moral laws
which regard the conduct of intelligent beings, and the relations which may
exist between them and the maker of all things . . . A moral government is not
incompatible with general laws; for if we allow that those laws were originally
fixed by a moral governor, we must allow that they were, from the beginning, adapted to moral purposes. Those parts, therefore, in a moral system,
which appear to us deviations from what we call the general laws of nature and
ways of Providence, may be, in fact, only part of them, though the sight is too
dim to see their connexion. These thoughts easily reconcile the notion of
prescience, and an over-ruling Providence; for they are, in fact, the same
thing”
(Fellowes, Picture, 263–64).
MME quotes Robert
Fellowes, A Picture of Christian
Philosophy: “In viewing the operations of the Deity we are on all
sides surrounded with infinity; an infinity of forms, of combinations, of
magnitudes, of space, of time . . . The final object of knowledge is, in my
opinion, to give us more perfect notions of the supreme Being, and to make us
more reciprocally useful to each other. The degree, in which we can be useful
to our fellow-creatures, depends in great measure in the degree according to
which we can estimate rightly the powers of nature, and ascertain how the
supreme Being adapts the train of causation to the end to be produced. The
farther advances which we make to the source of all intelligence, to the
Divinity himself, the more reason we shall have to admire his perfections, and
to reverence his power. Admiration must generate, as far as human frailty will
admit, the desire of imitation, and serious impressions of religious veneration
must give life to a sentiment of universal love and charity”
(Fellowes, Picture, 259–60).
MME alludes to 1 Corinthians 13:6–7, 13:
“Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. . . . And now
abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is
charity.”
MME alludes to Romans 8:28: “And we know
that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are
the called according to his purpose.”
MME may allude to Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus
saith the lord, Let not the wise man glory in
his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man
glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he
understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in
the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.” She may also
allude to Colossians 1:9–11: “For this cause we also, since the day we heard
it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with
the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; That ye
might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good
work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; Strengthened with all might,
according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with
joyfulness.”
MME likely refers to Reverend Aaron Green. Rejecting Calvinism and favoring rationalism,
Green was known for a theology based on
“liberal doctrines”
(Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 102).
William Shakespeare’s tragedy of Othello centers on an allegedly adulterous wife and was first
published in 1622 (Holland, “Shakespeare”).
The extensive letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero,
first published in 1483 in Letters of Marcus Tullius
Cicero, often discussed political questions in a persuasive manner
comparable to his formal orations. In them, Cicero
mentioned Pliny the Younger, or Gaius Plinius Caecilius
Secundus. John Aikin’s Letters from a Father to His Son on Various Topics Relative to
Literature and the Conduct of Life (1793) contains a section on the
character of Cicero and Pliny.
Because MME masks the name of the author of her
reading, she may be reviewing previous correspondence from friends or family, such
as her sister Rebecca Emerson Haskins,
brother-in-law Robert Haskins, sister-in-law
Ruth Haskins, acquaintance Hannah Adams, or sister Hannah Emerson
Farnham. In Newburyport, around 1805 and 1806, MME met the “budding author”
Hannah Farnham Sawyer, of whom she said, “I
love & dislike—approve & shun” the Sawyer sisters (Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 117).
MME’s reference to “the aged” refers
to the elderly relatives with whom she lives at this time in Malden,
Massachusetts: her uncle Samuel Waite and his wife,
Rebecca Emerson Parker Brintnall Waite, whose emotional
health was often unstable. In suggesting that she has “lost the
girl,”
MME likely comments on the departure of a female domestic
worker, a topic that recurs in the Almanacks and in MME’s
correspondence. Hiring and retaining household help in the early nineteenth
century was a common problem in an era when “nearly everybody who could
afford a servant employed one,” according to Daniel E.
Sutherland. The tasks of maintaining a home included washing
laundry, carrying water for cooking, ensuring a wood supply for heat, and other
labor-intensive occupations at a time before electricity and technological
inventions eased the work. Sutherland indicates that ninety
percent of all domestic servants in the nineteenth century were young women who
were nearly always referred to as “girls” regardless of their age,
and whose financial arrangements with their employers typically included room and
board, with “no fixed wage scale” until late in the nineteenth
century (Sutherland, Americans, 10, 45, 126, 113, 103). Like others in the extended Emerson family, MME
often sought to replace a domestic servant when one like this “girl”
left for a better-paying position. As one example, an 1815 letter to sister-in-law
Ruth Haskins Emerson concerns MME’s
effort to hire a household worker to replace niece Phebe
Haskins, who had been working for Ruth Emerson
but recently returned to her home in Concord. MME relates
that she has a “prospect of a Girl who now lives at a tavern here with such
recommendations that I have partly engaged her to come the 1t of May if you
should want her. . . . I told her if she did all the cooking to your
sattisfaction without any care she wd [would] have 8s/ if she added chamber
work or washing she would be paid. But perhaps I sd [should] said no more than
7/6 for cooking if another girl is nessecary. I intend to go the third time and
inquire more particularly her capasity. She is tired of a Tavern, where I
believe she has been the only Woman”
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 94). As Nancy Craig Simmons has explained and as this
example implies in a slightly variant form, MME commonly uses
nomenclature of pounds and shillings to denominate early American currency.
MME typically represents pounds and shillings with
“#” and “s/g,” respectively, as denoted in another
letter from January 1815, in which she approximates the weekly sum needed to
support Brintnall Waite: “her food I told them would
not amount to 3 s/g. . . . I sd [should] rejoice to have you take her at 3 #
and to have her among relations is most desirable”
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 90). According to historical currency calculators, in 1815, twenty shillings
were equal to one pound, which amount equates to 91.33 pounds in today’s currency,
or 37.23 dollars (“CPI Inflation Calculator”).
Comparing Christians praying to children asserting their desires to their parents
or subjects professing their wants to their princes, William
Sherlock considers “God as changeable as Man”:
“Nor is it any Reproach to the divine Nature and Providence to say, that
God is moved by our Prayers and Intreaties to do for us that which otherwise he
would not have done; for it neither unbecomes God nor Men to be moved by
Reason”
(Sherlock, Discourse, 262–64). MME paraphrases the assertions of
Joseph Butler, whose writings about the
challenges to Christianity in the face of the traditions of faith
were so influential they were taught at Harvard College. In The
Analogy of Religion, Butler contends:
“Now in the present state, all which we enjoy, and a great part of what
we suffer, is put in our own power. For
pleasure and pain are the consequences of our actions, and we are endued by the
Author of our nature with capacities of foreseeing these consequences”
(Butler, Analogy, 87).
MME likely alludes to either Romans 8:16:
“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the
children of God” or 1 John 5:8: “And there are three that bear
witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three
agree in one.”
MME alludes to Acts 3:21: “Whom the heaven
must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath
spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.”
MME refers to Joseph
Butler’s Analogy of Religion (1793) and to
the Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero, which she perhaps
read in a recently published London edition.
As described in other Annotations in this Almanack, MME could be referring to several local ministers, whose churches
she may have attended: Aaron Green, William Farnham, Lincoln
Ripley, Samuel Stillman, J. S. Buckminster, Thomas
Baldwin, David Osgood, Joseph McKean, Nehemiah
Coye, Joel Wicker, and Henry Pottle.
MME likely alludes to the first portion of Isaiah 5:4:
“What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?”
MME alludes to Proverbs 26:11: “As a dog
returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.”
This line is indented for a new paragraph.
These lines are written vertically on the right side of the page with a line
dividing them from the rest of the page.
MME quotes from Joseph
Butler who in his Analogy of Religion
writes that “all reasonable men know certainly, that there cannot, in
reality, be any such thing as chance: and conclude, that the things which have
this appearance are the result of general laws, and may be reduced into them.
It has then but an exceeding little way, and in but a very few respects, that
we can trace up the natural course of things before us to general laws”
(Butler, Analogy, 236).
Between 1804 and 1805 Emerson and Mary
Wilder Van Schalkwyck published seven letters—as “Constance”
and “Cornelia,” respectively—in the Monthly
Anthology, a periodical edited by Emerson’s brother William. See Van Schalkwyck’s first essay, published four months
before Emerson composed this Almanack entry, for a similar discussion of the
benefits of informed social discourse in the afterlife. Like Emerson, Van
Schalkwyck supports her commentary by selectively quoting John 14:2: “In my
Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I
go to prepare a place for you”
(Cornelia, “July 1804,” 394–395).
MME alludes to Hebrews 3:1: “Wherefore, holy
brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High
Priest of our profession Christ Jesus,” and to Hebrews 4:15, “For
we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without
sin.”
MME alludes to Isaiah 65:24: “And it shall
come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet
speaking, I will hear.”
MME may allude to Matthew 11:28: “Come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
MME alludes to Hebrews 2:17: “Wherefore in
all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a
merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make
reconciliation for the sins of the people.”
In 1804 and/or 1805, MME travelled between Malden,
Concord, Boston, and Newburyport, during which visits with family she likely saw
her brother William Emerson, then the minister at
Boston’s First Church. It is also possible that MME visited (and thus walked) with her half brothers, Samuel Ripley or Daniel
Ripley, both of whom attended Harvard College at this time (Simmons, Selected Letters, 4).
MME alludes to Matthew 6:24: “No man can
serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else
he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and
mammon.”
MME may allude to John 12: 42-43: “Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.”
The Great Awakening (1720s–1740s), or Revivalism, was characterized by “the
widespread influence of a pietist stress on religion of the heart,”
spawning many literary and theological comparisons of the heart as a seat of
biblical ideas such as affection, faith, will, soul, virtue, devotion, life,
prayer, or tenderness. Theologian Jonathan Edwards
relates the heart specifically to holiness in Some
Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New-England:
“All will allow that true Holiness has its Seat chiefly in the Heart; not
the Head” (Blumhofer, “Revivalism”; Edwards, Thoughts, 10).
MME met close friend and fellow literary coterie
member Mary Van Schalkwyck through half sister
Sarah Ripley. By 1804, MME and Van Schalkwyck
were publishing letters under the pseudonyms Constance (MME) and Cornelia (Van
Schalkwyck) in Monthly Anthology. “Mrs. T” may be
MME’s friend Rebecca Kettell Thoreau, also of
Concord. Her husband, John Thoreau, died in 1801,
and she likely stayed in their Concord home to
care for her eight stepchildren. Rebecca and
John Thoreau are the paternal grandparents of
author Henry David Thoreau (Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 94; Dwight, Memorials, 60, 97, 100; Simmons, Selected Letters, 33).
The afflictions of which MME complains are tinea
infection (also called edema)—a burning red rash that can cause itching and
swelling such as tapeworm or ringworm—and dropsy, which usually causes swelling in
the legs, ankles, and feet due to fluid buildup in the body’s tissues. (“Tinea Infections”).
MME may allude to Matthew 10:29: “Are not
two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground
without your Father.”
MME may allude to Dugald
Stewart’s “Dissertation First: Progress of
Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Philosophy” (1800), in which he
details the philosophy explored by John Locke,
René Descartes, and George
Berkeley that exposes the difference between mind and matter.
Referring to Malebranche’s doctrine of occasional
causes, Stewart observes, “The chief objection to the doctrine of occasional causes is, that it presumes to decide
upon a question of which human reason is altogether incompetent to judge;—our
ignorance of the mode in which matter acts upon mind, or mind upon matter,
furnishing not the shadow of a proof that the one may not act directly and
immediately on the other, in some way incomprehensible by our faculties”
(Stewart, Works, 4:237–38).
MME alludes to Joseph
Butler’s Analogy of Religion, in which he
states, “And from these two observations together; that practical habits are
formed and strengthened by repeated acts, and that passive impressions grow
weaker by being repeated upon us; it must follow, that active habits may be
gradually forming and strengthening, by a course of acting upon such and such
motives and excitements, whilst these motives and excitements themselves are,
by proportional degrees, growing less sensible, i.e. are continually less and less sensibly felt, even as the active
habits strengthen.”
Butler continues, “it must always be remembered, that
real endeavors to enforce good impressions upon ourselves, are a species of
virtuous action . . . when the exercise of the virtuous principle is more
continued, oftener repeated, and more intense; as it must be in circumstances
of danger, temptation, and difficulty, of any kind and in any degree; this
tendency is increased proportionately, and a more confirmed habit is the
consequence”
(Butler, Analogy, 136, 137, 150).
MME may allude to one of many biblical verses that mention “hunger & thirst”
for spiritual succor, including, for example, Matthew 5:6:
“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled”;
John 6:35: “And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger;
and he that believeth on me shall never thirst”; Revelation 7:16: “They shall hunger no more, neither
thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat”; and Isaiah 49:10:
“They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them
shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.”
Research in the vital records of Malden, Massachusetts
suggests that MME may have attended several
funerals at this time.
MME alludes to Song of Solomon 2:16: “My
beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.”
MME may refer generally to current assessments of
the religious and philosophical beliefs of classical Greek and Roman writers, as
expressed in several works published around the time of this Almanack’s
composition. As expressed by “The Theologist”: “In the most polished ages of
heathen antiquity there were only a few individuals to whom the divine unity
and perfections were known. . . Among the ancient legislators, so extensive was the
conviction of necessity of a divine sanction of their laws, that they always
pretended to derive them from the gods. . . . The heathen nations all boasted of
their revelations; but none of them ever pretended to possess a regular and
connected dispensation of the divine will. Their whole systems of religion
being fabrications, and involved in mystery, any deceptions might be practised
on the people, who were kept in the most profound ignorance; and it is
difficult to conceive by what artiface such impious absurdities, as were
practised under the name of religious rights, should ever have been imposed on
mankind”
(Theologist, “Advantages,” 628, 629–30). MME may also have in mind the first
article in this series, published two months earlier, in which “The Theologist”
had argued that the beliefs “in inferiour gods” and skepticism about
“the immortality of the soul”
“received by the wisest of heathen philosophers, were inconsistent and
contradictory”
(Theologist, “Necessity,” 538). A similar view is expressed by Jonathan
Edwards in “Freedom of the Will”: “Such
subjection to necessity . . . would truly argue an inferiority of servitude, that
would be unworthy the Supreme Being; and is much more agreeable to the notion
which many of the heathen had of fate, as above the gods, than that moral
necessity of fitness and wisdom which has been spoken of”
(Edwards, Freedom, 326). Cicero, whose letters MME is reading at this time, seems to confirm this
classical understanding of the gods and fate: “But if our present fate is
unalterably fixed—Ah! my dearest Terentia, if we
are utterly and for ever abandoned by those gods whom you have so religiously
adored, and by those men who I have so faithfully served; let me see you as
soon as possible, that I may have the satisfaction of breathing out my last
departing sigh in your arms”
(Cicero, Letters, 1:26).
Thanksgiving fell on November 29 in 1804 and on November 28 in 1805.
MME may allude to Hebrews 3:1: “Wherefore,
holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High
Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus,” and/or to Hebrews 4:14:
“Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the
heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.”
The text at beginning of this line is irrecoverable; MME possibly wrote “1806” here to date this Almanack page.
The total eclipse of the sun on June 16, 1806 was widely predicted and studied by contemporary natural scientists. It was known as Tecumseh’s eclipse after Shawnee Indian
Tenskwatawa, Tecumseh’s brother, accurately predicted its occurrence based on what he claimed were a series of visions. Eclipses for both April 12 and October 7 are recorded for 1782, the date twenty-four years earlier to which MME compares the present event. (Espenak, “Solar Eclipses”;
Edmunds, “Tecumseh”)
MME refers to the poems “Spring” and “Summer,” which appear in James Thomson’s The Seasons (1730). She may have read about the Athenian orator and statesman Demosthenes and several influential courtesans, including Aspasia, Præcia, Flora, and Lamia, in Plutarch’s Lives
At least one final line of text and possibly more is irrecoverable due to manuscript damage; the editors speculate that some portion of this Rollin quotation continued on these lines, based on MME’s references on the next page to Rollin’s "paragraph" and to "eternity," the last word of the full Rollin quotation.
MME quotes from Charles Rollin’s Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians,
Macedonians, and Grecians
: “Whilst all things are in motion, and fluctuate upon earth; whilst states and empires pass away with incredible rapidity, and the human race, vainly employed in the external view of these things, are also drawn in by the same torrent, almost without perceiving it; there passes in secret an order and disposition of things unknown and invisible, which, however, determine our fate to all eternity. The duration of ages has no other end than the formation of the bodies of the elect, which augments and tends daily towards perfection. When it shall receive its final accomplishment by the death of the last of the elect, ‘Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority, and power.’ God grant that we may have all our share in that blessed kingdom, whose law is truth, whose king is love, and whose duration is eternity” (Rollin, Ancient History, 8:197).
This dated entry repeats the date of “17” from the preceding entry on the previous page.
MME paraphrases from and loosely repurposes several pages of George Turnbull’s Principles of Moral Philosophy: “And here we may observe, 1. That the imagination is a faculty of wonderful use in our frame” (1:54); “For how else is it that the remote one receives strength, but by the lively affecting manner in which imagination represents it, so as to render it as it were present, or, at least, tho’ absent, so efficacious, that no intervening self-denial, or suffering is sufficient to retard the mind from pursuing it, with the utmost intenseness?” (1:56); “What distinguishes our senses (i) from those of brutes, is, (as these philosophers have observed) that sense of beauty, order and harmony, with which they are united in our frame, by means of which they are not merely sensitive, but rather rational faculties” (1:66); “On the other hand, the man of judgment or discretion (for so discretion properly signifies) may be defined to be one who has a particular aptitude to discry differences of all kinds between objects, even the most hidden and remote from vulgar eyes. Now however these different aptitudes may be acquired, or in whatever respects they may be original, congenial or unacquired; it is manifest that they make a very real difference in character or genius. They have very different effects, and produce very different works; and they presuppose the law of association. The improvement of the one, certainly very much depends upon accustomance to assemble and join; and the improvement of the other upon accustomance to disunite, break and separate. But there is in respect of moral character a parallel variety; some here also are propense to associating, and others to disjoining. Nay as the great variety of genius’s may be in general divided into the aptitude to associate, and the aptitude to dissociate” (1:94-95); and, “That those powers which, at our entrance upon life, are and must necessarily be but in embrio, rude and shapeless as it were, or quite unformed, may be made very vigorous and perfect here by proper exercise and culture; so as to become fit to be employed about any objects of knowledge of whatever kind, or however different from those which make the present materials of our study and speculation. Insomuch that this state may as properly be said to be a school for forming and perfectionating our rational powers, in order to their being prepared and fitted for exercise about higher objects in a succeeding state; as the first part of our education here is called a school for life, or to prepare us for the affairs of the world and manhood, which are objects far above our reach, till our understanding by proper gradual exercise and employment is considerably ripened, or enlarged and strengthened which is the proper business of liberal education” (1:261). MME’s wording on this page also suggests that she may be reading John Blair Linn’s The Powers of Genius: A Poem, in Three Parts, a text which, as Nancy Craig Simmons speculates, MME asked Ruth Haskins Emerson to lend her at this time. As the following examples indicate, selections from both Linn’s notes and introduction especially correspond to MME’s wording: “Invention is the first part of poetry and painting: and absolutely necessary to them both; yet no rule ever was or ever can be given how to compass it. A happy genius is the gift of Nature; it depends on the influence of the stars say the astrologers; on the organs of the body say the naturalists; it is the peculiar gift of Heaven say the divines. How to improve it many books can teach us; how to obtain it, none; that nothing can be done without it all agree: In nihil invita dices faciesve Minerva. Without invention a painter is but a copier, and a poet but a plagiary of others” (13-14); and
Say what is genius? words can ne’er define
That power which springs from origin divine;
We know it by its bold, impetuous force; . . .
Invention marks the genius of the soul,
And on the lightning rides from pole to pole
(13) (Turnbull, Principles, 1:54, 56, 66, 94-95, 261;
Simmons, Selected Letters, 37 n3;
Linn, Powers, 13-14).
MME commonplaces from George Turnbull’s The Principles of Moral Philosophy: “New or uncommon objects greatly attract our minds, and give us very high pleasure. Now by this means we are prompted to look out for new ideas, and to give all diligence to make fresh discoveries in science” (Turnbull, Principles, 47).
MME refers to George Turnbull’s Principles of Moral Philosophy: “And as it is certain, that different textures of eyes must see differently; or every object must necessarily partake of the colour with which the eye itself is tainted: so variety in temperature, texture and mould, (so to speak) among minds, must necessarily produce great variety of conceptions, sentiments and judgments, and consequently of inclinations, appetites and dispositions. . . . And hence it is, that every man’s turn of thinking is as distinguishable as his face or gate from that of every other; there are as few minds as faces that have not very peculiar and distinguishing features. . . . All therefore that belongs to the present questions is, how far differences among minds depend upon different textures, and temperaments of bodies, and physical causes, and how and why it is so?” (Turnbull, Principles, 1:75-76)
MME paraphrases from George Turnbull’s Principles of Moral Philosophy: “The mind of man is so made, that the idea of attainment to great happiness hereafter, by the suitable culture of his mind here, is no sooner presented to it, than it gladly takes hold of it, and indulges itself with truly laudable complacency in the great and cheering hope; nay, it triumphs and exults in it, and thereby feels itself rise to the noblest ambition, and swell with the most elating expectation” (Turnbull, Principles, 420).
In determining the pagination and chronology of this Almanack fascicle, the editors have determined that MME likely wrote this Almanack page in July 1806, since on the next page she appears to continue this Sunday series of Almanack entries and also describes going to Newburyport to care for her ailing sister and niece on the first of August. In July 1806, however, the 19th was a Saturday, rather than a “sab.” or Sunday; MME may therefore be mistaken by a day.
Multiple options are possible for this word.
Samuel Emerson and William Farnham both lived in Newburyport, Massachusetts. They likely brought the news that MME’s sister Hannah Emerson Farnham and perhaps MME’s infant niece, Hannah Bliss Farnham, had fallen ill. Hannah Bliss Farnham died in October 1806; Hannah Emerson Farnham died of tuberculosis in March the following year. MME cared for her sister, if not both of them, during the fall of 1806 in the Farnham home in Newburyport (Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, x;
Simmons, Selected Letters, 35, 36, 38.)
MME quotes from John Milton’s “Il Penseroso”:
— The spirit of Plato to unfold
What worlds, or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshy nook
And of those demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under-ground
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet, or with element
(Milton, “Il Penseroso,” 120-1).
Remaining lines written vertically on bottom left side of leaf.
MME may refer to the story in Luke 2:21-35, describing Mary and
Joseph taking their infant, Jesus, to Jerusalem to be circumcised in
the temple and hearing Simeon’s prophecy about his fate. Verses 34 and
35, especially, prophesy Mary’s future pain as it relates to her son’s
future: “And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother,
Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in
Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a sword
shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many
hearts may be revealed.” Or MME may allude to John Milton’s Samson
Agonistes, which she is reading at this time, and which describes
Samson pulling down the pillars of the “heathen” temple of the
Philistines.
(Milton, Samson)
MME quotes from John Milton’s Samson Agonistes:
Amidst their heighth of noon
Changest thy countenance, and thy hand with no regard
Of highest favors past
From thee on them, or them to thee of service
(Milton, Samson, 96-97).
Later on this page, MME gives the date as 11 November. The editors therefore believe it likely that the many preceding dates on this page were written in October 1806. If their judgment is accurate, MME is mistaken by a day in calling October 27 a “sab.” since this date fell on a Monday rather than a Sunday in 1806.
MME alludes to The Song of Solomon 5:2, which begins, “I sleep, but my heart waketh.”
MME may have been in Boston to visit her brother William Emerson, who lived there at this time. In 1806, MME and her sister Sarah Ripley took turns caring for Hannah Emerson Farnham and Hannah’s infant daughter Hannah Bliss Farnham, who were both ill with tuberculosis, in their Newburyport home. Hannah Bliss died on October 11, 1806
(Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 116, 117;
Simmons, Selected Letters, 36 n2).
MME refers to a group of young men and women, including the sisters Hannah Sawyer (later Hannah Sawyer Lee) and Mary Anna Sawyer (later Mary Anna Sawyer Schuyler), with whom she had become acquainted in Newburyport and Concord, Massachusetts by 1805. In June 1806, MME described these women as “leaders of Newburyport’s ‘beau monde’.” MME and Lee, who became an author, discussed William Cowper and Edward Young in 1806; Lee later joined this literary coterie, loosely led by Mary Wilder Van Schalkwyck of Concord. At age 17, while living with Hannah and William Farnham in Newburyport, MME first met Ann Bromfield. The two were associates in the same network of intellectual women throughout their lives and together suffered the death of their mutual friend Mary Wilder Van Schalkwyck. In 1843, MME referred to Bromfield as her “antiently formed acquaintance.” As a young lawyer and Harvard graduate, Daniel Appleton White boarded with the Farnhams in Newburyport. While there in 1806 caring for her ailing sister Hannah Farnham, MME described White as her “sole companion . . . in the social table he occupied my attention & shortened my labors.” She introduced White to her close friend Mary Wilder Van Schalkwyck in Concord; the two became engaged in January 1807
(Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 17, 91, 117, 135, 262;
Simmons, Selected Letters, 36).
MME alludes to Hebrews 4:15: “For we have not an high Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
MME likely refers to Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Correspondence of Sir William Jones
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 37).
MME likely refers to Sir William Jones, whose Memoirs of the Life she is reading at this time (Simmons, Selected Letters, 37).
MME quotes from Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Correspondence, of Sir William Jones
: “O thou Bestower of all Good! if it please thee to continue my easy tasks in this life, grant me strength to perform them as a faithful servant; but if thy wisdom hath willed to end them by this thy visitation, admit me, not weighing my unworthiness, but through thy mercy declared in Christ, into thy heavenly mansions, that I may continually advance in happiness, by advancing in true knowledge and awful love of thee. Thy will be done!” (Jones, Memoirs, 256).
Hannah Emerson Farnham died of tuberculosis in March 1807. Farnham, who lived in Newburyport, had previously travelled for her health, including to Boston, where her and MME’s brother William lived
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 36;
Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 116-17).
MME alludes to Matthew 14:27-32: “But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.”
May be written in pencil.
MME may refer to Edmund
Burke’s A
Vindication of Natural Society (1756), a
pamphlet in which Burke frequently mentions the
“state of nature” in his examination of
social structures and religious belief. By
“tow ser.” MME likely refers to
Robert Robinson’s
translations of the sermons of Jacques Saurin, which she
mentions later in this paragraph and which she
continues to praise over the next several months,
both in the Almanacks and in her correspondence. The
“last lay” is likely Sir Walter Scott’s “The Lay of the Last Minstrel:
A Poem (Canto First)” (1805), a poem with
which MME was very familiar and which her Concord
friend and fellow literary coterie member, Mary Wilder Van Schalkwyck,
“states that she was reading on November 20,
the evening of which she spent with MME in
Concord”
(Burke, Vindication, 6, 8, 12, 20, 23, 43, 44, 48, 49;
Dwight, Memorials, 248, 261).
Based on evidence that includes MME’s reflection on the
next line that she “worship[s]” on this day as
she “had not for 16 sabbaths” and her repeated
date of “25” on the next page of this Almanack,
the editors judge that this Almanack page was written in
November 1806, four months after MME went to Newburyport to care for her
ailing sister. If this date is correct, however, then MME
mistakenly dates this “sabbath” November 25; in
1806, this date fell on a Tuesday.
MME possibly alludes to Isaiah 40:31: “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
MME alludes to Psalms 111:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever”; and to Psalms 63:5: “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyfull lips.”
MME may allude to 1 Corinthians 15:56: “The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.”
MME likely alludes to Luke 23:39-43, in which Jesus promises paradise to a thief hanging next to him on a cross: “And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
MME alludes to Luke 7:37-38: “And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.”
MME may allude to Ephesians 3:19: “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”
MME alludes to Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man:
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never Is, but always To be blest
(Pope, “Essay on Man,” 3:24).
MME alludes to Jeremiah 31:3: “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”
MME loosely quotes from Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful: “Before the Christian religion has, as it were, humanized the idea of the Divinity, and brought it somewhat nearer to us, there was very little said of the love of God. The followers of Plato have something of it, and only something; the other writers of pagan antiquity, whether poets or philosophers, nothing at all. And they who consider with what infinite attention, by what a disregard to every perishable object, through what long habits of piety and contemplation it is, any man is able to attain an entire love and devotion to the Deity, will easily perceive, that it is not the first, the most natural, and the most striking effect which proceeds from that idea” (Burke, Enquiry, 104).
Jesus adjudicates “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” by offering severe “instructions” to his disciples in Matthew 18, particularly in verse 8: “Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire”; and in verse 9: “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.”
This leaf has been excised and is now a vertical fragment,
approximately 14 cm in height, with little discernible text
remaining.
This leaf has been excised and is now a vertical
fragment, approximately 14 cm in height, with little
discernible text remaining.
MME may allude to John 1:15-17: “John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”
MME alludes to Colossians 4:12:
“Epaphras, who is one of you,
a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring
fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect
and complete in all the will of God.”
MME alludes to Mark 12:30: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.”
MME alludes to 2 Peter 1:11: “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly, into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
MME alludes to Psalms 40:8: “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.”
This leaf has been excised and is now a vertical
fragment, approximately 12 cm in height, with little
discernible text remaining.
This leaf has been excised and is now a vertical
fragment, approximately 12 cm in height, with little
discernible text remaining.
MME misquotes from Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful: “An heathen poet has a sentiment of a similar nature; Horace looks upon it as the last effort of philosophical fortitude, to behold without terror and amazement, this immense and glorious fabric of the universe” (Burke, Enquiry, 297).
Irrecoverable text due to manuscript damage adds to the difficulty of understanding the complete context for this unusual phrase. In the early nineteenth century, as today, gourd was a colloquial term for head; our research has not determined whether the colloquialism “off my gourd” then, as today, meant emotionally unbalanced, nor is it evident, given the missing text, what MME may have meant by such a phrase in the context of this Almanack passage. She may, however, refer to one of two biblical “gourds.” In the book of Jonah, chapter 4, Jonah has reluctantly gone to Nineveh to deliver God’s warning that its city’s residents should repent of their sinful ways or risk destruction. All of the people and the king took the message seriously. They repented, fasted, and prayed for mercy, and God therefore decided not to punish them, which angered Jonah, who had waited outside the city gates to watch Nineveh’s destruction: “So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle” (Jonah 4:5-11). Perhaps, in referring to “my gourd—bitter let me feel it,” MME compares her own displeasure at her visiting “Company” with Jonah’s lack of empathy for the Ninevites. Although less likely, MME could refer to a “bitter” or poisonous “gourd” in 2 Kings 4:38-40: “And Elisha came again to Gilgal; and there was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him: and he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and see the pottage for the sons of the prophets. And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not. So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof.”
MME may be alluding to Psalms 139:8: “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.” “Abodes of hell” was a common literary phrase in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as evidenced by these examples from Thomas Cook’s translation of Hesiod’s The Theogony: “Th’ abodes of Hell from the same fountain rise”; from William Falconer’s The Shipwreck: “Such torments in the drear abodes of hell”; and from Tobias Smollett’s translation of Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra’s The History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote: “Nor am I, in the least, mortified to hear that I wander like a fantastic shadow through the dark abodes of hell”
(Cooke, Theogony, 142;
Falconer, Shipwreck, 120;
Smollett, Don Quixote, 2:445).
This leaf has been excised and is now a vertical fragment,
approximately 9 cm. in height, with little discernible text
remaining.
This leaf has been excised and is now a vertical fragment,
approximately 9 cm in height, with little discernible text
remaining.
MME quotes from Milton’s Samson Agonistes: “God of our fathers, what is man!” (Milton, Samson, 96), in which sentence Milton combines a phrase that appears in several bible verses, including Deuteronomy 26:7: “And when we cried unto the LORD God of our fathers, the LORD heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression”; and another phrase from Psalm 8:4: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”
MME refers to Virgil’s Aeneid, in which a part of the underworld, Elysium, is reserved for contented souls. The poet Musæus describes this idyllic aspect of Hades: “First then, the divine Spirit within sustains the Heavens, the Earth, and watery Plains, the Moon’s enlightened Orb, and shining Stars; and the eternal Mind, diffused through all the Parts of Nature, actuates the whole stupendous Fame, and mingles with the vast Body of the Universe. Thence proceed the Race of Men and Beasts, the vital Principles of the flying Kind, and the Monsters which the Ocean breeds under its smooth crystal Plain. These Principles have the active Force of Fire, and are of a heavenly Original, which they exert so far as they are not clogged by noxious Bodies, blunted by Earth-born Limbs and sickly dying Members. From the Union and Incumbrance they are subjected to various Passions, they fear and desire, grieve and rejoice: and, shut up in Darkness and a gloomy Prison, lose Sight of their native Skies. Nay, even when with the last Beams of Light their Life is gone, yet not every Ill, nor all corporeal Stains, are quite removed from the unhappy Beings: And it is absolutely unavoidable that many vicious Habits, which have long grown up with the Soul, should be strangely confirmed and riveted therein. Therefore are they afflicted with Pains, and pay the Penalties of their former Ills. Some, hung on high, are spread out to whiten in the empty Winds: In others the Guilt not done away is washed out in a vast watery Abyss, or burnt away in Fire: We have each of us his Demon, from whom we suffer, till Length of Time, after the fixed Period is elapsed, hath done away the inherent Stains, and hath left celestial Reason pure from all irregular Passions, and the Soul, that Spark of heavenly Fire, in its original Purity and Brightness, simple and unmixed. Then are we conveyed into Elysium, and we, who are the happy few, possess the Field of Bliss. All these Souls whom you see, after they have rolled away a thousand Years, are summoned fothirrth by the God in a great Body to the River Lethe; to the Intent that, losing Memory of the past, they may revisit the Upper Regions, and again become willing to return into Bodies”
(Virgil, Æneid, 2:162-64)
MME alludes to Psalms 42:1: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.”
MME slightly misquotes from Alexander Pope’s “Satire IV”:
To wholesome Solitude, the nurse of sense:
Where contemplation prunes her ruffled wings,
and the free soul looks down to pity Kings!
(Pope, “Satire IV,” 4:295).
Our research has located no direct source of this quotation, which may be MME’s own rhetorical query. MME seems to be paraphrasing a common theological argument relative to divine grace in bestowing salvation, the question of free will versus determinism, and moral agency as well as the burden of human accountability to observe strict moral codes. Similar wording is found in various theological works with which MME may have been familiar, including “Man’s Natural Blindness in the Things of Religion” by Jonathan Edwards, “nations under Popish darkness . . . think they can do works of supererogation: that is, more good works than they are obliged to do, whereby they bring God into debt to them” (qtd. in Hopkins, “Sermon III,” 183-184); Edwards’s Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended: “But the merit of our respect or obedience to God is not infinite. The merit of respect to any being does not increase, but is rather diminished, in proportion to the obligations we are under in strict justice to pay him that respect. There is no great merit in paying a debt we owe, and by the highest possible obligations in strict justice are obliged to pay, but there is great demerit in refusing to pay it. That on such accounts as these there is an infinite demerit in all sin against God, which must therefore immensely outweigh all the merit which can be supposed to be in our virtue, I think, is capable of full demonstration; and that the futility of the objections which some have made against the argument, might most plainly be demonstrated”
(Edwards, Original Sin, 155-156); and writings by William Romaine: “All his mercies are covenant mercies; given from mere grace, and given to miserable sinners—not to make them self-admirers, but to humble them—not to lead them to think that they can bring God in debt to them for his own gifts, or for the right use of them, which is a fresh gift—but he gives all the praise of the glory of his grace”
(Romaine, Works, 1 274-75).
MME alludes to several biblical verses as follows: Psalms 97:2:
“Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment
are the habitation of his throne”; Exodus 20:19: “And they said unto
Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak
with us, lest we die”; 1 Kings 8:6-8: “And the Priests brought in the
Ark of the Covenant of the LORD unto his place, into the oracle of the
house, to the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubims.
For the cherubims spread forth their two wings over the place of the
ark, and the cherubims covered the ark, and the staves thereof above.
And they drew out the staves, that the ends of the staves were seen
out in the holy place before the oracle, and they were not seen
without: and there they are unto this day”; Isaiah 6:1-2: “In the year
that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high
and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the
seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and
with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly”; and
Revelations 4:8-10: “And the four beasts had each of them six wings
about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day
and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, LORD God Almighty, which was, and
is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory, and honour and
thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever,
The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the
throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their
crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive
glory and honour, and power: for thou hast created all things, and for
thy pleasure they are and were created.”
MME may allude to 1 Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
As in the preceding paragraph, MME likely refers to Robert Robinson, whose wide publications included his translations of the sermons of Jacques Saurin.
MME alludes to Hebrews 3:1: “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus,” and/or to Hebrews 4:14: “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.” She also refers to Ephesians 3:19: “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”
Cross-written vertically in the middle of the page in darker ink.
St. Stephen’s, or Boxing, Day is traditionally celebrated on December 26 in Great Britain and much of Europe, but the significance of this date in this passage seems personal. On this day after Christmas, MME begins a new Almanack, “the record of virtue. . .the history of a soul.”
“Hand of royalty” may allude to 1 Peter 2:9, in which Christians are deemed royal: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” But more likely, perhaps, is that MME suggests that these Almanacks, the written record of a self-educated American woman, are as significant as any royal decree.
MME alludes to Genesis 18:27: “And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes.”
MME alludes to Hebrews 12:1: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”
“Little end of the horn” is a colloquialism
meaning “when a ridiculously small effect has been
produced after great effort and much boasting” (Bartlett, Dictionary, 403).
MME may allude to many biblical verses that reference the “ways” of God. See, for example, Job 40:19: “He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him”; and Isaiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” She may also have in mind Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man, which includes the lines “Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; / But vindicate the ways of God to Man”; or to John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which includes a similar phrase in book one: “I may assert eternal Providence, / And justify the ways of God to men”
(Pope, “Essay on Man,” 14;
Milton, Paradise Lost, 2).
MME may be commonplacing on these Almanack pages, but research has
not located any definite sources for this lengthy discussion of
various concepts relating to Christian theology.
Interlined with a caret in darker ink; possibly in non-authorial hand.
MME refers often in this Almanack to a property settlement of the
Malden estate of her paternal grandmother, also named Mary Moody Emerson, which included a
home and three acres, in which MME lived with her aunt and uncle
Ruth and Nathan Sargent. In 1796, at age
twenty-one, MME inherited a parcel of this property (accounts differ
on the size of this portion) and then leased it to the Sargents for
the duration of Ruth’s life, so that the couple continued to reside
there with her. In December 1801, MME sold one-sixth of the property
for one hundred and fifty dollars to Samuel Wait, who married Ruth Sargent
the following month, Nathan Sargent having died in 1798. In 1807, Wait
and MME sold the estate for three thousand dollars to Samuel Tufts, three-fifths of which
sum ($1,800) were MME’s proceeds from the sale. An added component of
this transaction is that Ruth’s sister, Rebecca Emerson Brintnall, whom
MME likely refers to as “Mrs. B.” in this Almanack and who also lived
in the Malden home, had for the consideration of one dollar in
December 1801 purchased from MME and Silas Moody the rights to “the sixth
part of all the real estate . . . (viz) the southwest chamber with a
privilidge [sic] in the cellar, garret, yard, and pump, with full
liberty of passing to and from said premises, also the east part or
half of the garden front of the house as the fence now stands”
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 4-5;
Corey, History, 648-49;
Registry of Deeds, 169 446-47). MME’s reference to a
twenty dollar gift to “Mrs. B.” may indicate a small payment to this
aunt as consideration for her small share of the property settlement.
Concord historian George
Tolman characterizes MME as “having lost her temper” over
the terms of the sale, “as if she had been defrauded,” an exaggeration
of the mixed sentiments she expresses on the subject in this Almanack.
In Tolman’s view, MME “got more of the purchase money than she was
entitled to,” and he blames MME’s “utter ignorance of business
methods” and “curiously distorted notions of the matter of finance and
business” as the reasons for (in his view) her injured feelings
(Tolman, Mary Moody Emerson, 5-6). Middlesex County property records
reveal simply the details of the transactions themselves, i.e., the
parties and sums involved and the dates of these transactions.
Additional research has not shed light on MME’s emotions about the
sale at this time, nor do they confirm Tolman’s conclusions.
MME clearly writes “tho” (or “tho’”) and “roughly” as two separate words, but since the word(s) can, in the context of this Almanack passage, be sensibly read as “though roughly” or “thoroughly,” the editors provide both options.
MME may allude to Hebrews 8:1: “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.”
MME likely refers to Alexander Pope’s Moral Essays, which contains four ethical poems. Sir Balaam appears in “Epistle III,” in a poem that describes “the fate of the Profuse and the Covetous” (31). The last line of the poem is “And sad Sir Balaam curses God and dies” (46). Pope’s satire focuses on the biblical prophet Balaam who as recounted in Numbers 22-24, once obedient to God, becomes tempted by money to curse God (Pope, “Epistle III”).
In 1728, Alexander Pope published anonymously his Dunciad, a mock heroic satire denouncing political and literary dullness. As reflected in earlier Almanacks, MME continues in this fascicle to enjoy reading Robert Robinson’s sermons.
Philosophical skepticism traditionally withholds judgments such as
religious belief. Throughout her Almanacks, MME argues with the
theories of noted skeptic David
Hume. However, MME may here regard as “sceptics”
Rationalists such as René
Descartes, who posit both their own and God’s existence
through rational arguments, thereby avoiding the need for faith.
Hebrews 12:9 refers to “the Father of spirits.” In declaring God’s and
her own existence, MME may paraphrase Descartes’s assertion of
religious belief based on the reasoning that “because I that have this Idea do my self
Exist; I do so clearly conclude
that God also Exists, and that on him my
Being depends each Minute”
(Descartes, Meditations, 56).
MME further claims to be “indifferent” to
the argument between the Rationalists and later schools of philosophy
regarding whether or not the material world is as it seems to the
human observer. Descartes holds that the physical world does exist
apart from human ability to know or understand it: “We must conclude
that there are Corporeal Beings”; and, “For if we suppose any thing in
the Idea, which was not in its cause, it must of necessity have this
from nothing; but (tho it be a most Imperfect manner of existing, by
which the thing is objectively in the Intellect by an Idea, yet) it is
not altogether nothing, and therefore cannot proceed from nothing”
(Descartes, Meditations, 96, 38). In contrast,
philosophers such as George
Berkeley maintain that humans can achieve no certainty
about the physical world: “All things that exist, exist only in the
mind, that is, they are purely notional. . . . The only thing whose
existence we deny, is that which philosophers call matter or corporeal
substance”
(Berkeley, Principles, 114).
MME may allude to Psalms 71:3: “Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress.”
As evidenced in her correspondence and the Almanacks,
martyrdom was an important concept to MME throughout her life
and one that reflects her Puritan heritage. Several decades
after this Almanack was written, she alludes to “the splendid
martyrs to great virtues” in a letter to Lidian Emerson and to the
“martyrs of virtue” in another letter to her friend Ann Gage. Letters penned
more than twenty years earlier to Ralph Waldo Emerson and
Elizabeth Hoar
reflect similar phrasing as MME continues to align “virtue”
with “martyrs”
(Emerson to Gage, “c. 1847,” c. 1847;
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 484, 183, 373)). Moreover, many religious and literary books and
Christian hymns with which MME was likely familiar include the
phrase “martyrs to virtue.” Like other devout New Englanders,
MME had been educated in the history of Christian martyrs, who
in addition to symbolizing “a vision of the true church,” also
represented “the associated virtues of cheerfulness, patience,
and fortitude” (Weimer, Martyrs’ Mirror, 3). At the time she
was writing this Almanack, MME may have especially been
thinking of martyrs, since a new edition of John Foxe’s Acts
and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days, popularly
known as The Book of Martyrs (1563), had been published in
London in 1807. The common theological “ransom” as “sacrifice”
appears in numerous biblical verses, such as Matthew 20:28:
“Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
In the context of her continued frustration with relatives over her
property inheritance in this Almanack, MME may allude to Acts 10:1-4:
“There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a
centurion of the band called the Italian band, A devout man, and one
that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the
people, and prayed to God alway. He saw in a vision evidently about
the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying
unto him, Cornelius. And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and
said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine
alms are come up for a memorial before God.”
MME may refer to Jean Jacques
Rousseau’s Julie; or the New
Eloise, published in English in 1761, or to Alexander Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard, published in 1717.
MME seems to allude to a proposal of marriage, which she has refused after seeking the advice of her friend Martha Dexter. According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, MME “was addressed & offered marriage by a man of talents, education, & good social position, a lawyer, whom she respected. And the proposition gave her pause, & much to think; but, after consideration she refused it, I know not on what grounds” (Emerson, “Mary Moody Emerson,” 69). Above this note, someone, possibly Edward Emerson, has interlined and struckthrough “(Mr Austin of Charlestown).” Although some have speculated that MME had at some time received a
marriage proposal from Charlestown, Massachusetts lawyer and author
William Austin, he had
married Charlotte
Williams on 17 June 1806 and therefore could not be the
suitor implied in this Almanack reference (Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 101).
In assessing the Calvinist doctrine of
election, MME seems to take the position that salvation is not
simply arbitrary, but that God has established laws by which all
creatures—angels as well as humans—are governed. By “glowing Seraph,”
MME may allude to Isaiah 6:6-7: “Then flew one of the seraphims unto
me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs
off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath
touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is
purged.” MME may also have been aware that the Hebrew verb form of the
word “seraphim” meant “to burn.”
Although the editors speculate that this person may be Bernard Green or Aaron Green, it is also possible that MME refers to another Esquire Green, who is as yet unidentified.
Written in center of line, likely in non-authorial hand.
MME went to Newburyport, Massachusetts at this time to nurse her sister, Hannah Emerson Farnham, who died from tuberculosis at age 36 on March 27, 1807. As Phyllis Cole has described, MME and her half sister Sarah Ripley were Hannah’s two main caretakers. MME’s letter of March 4, 1807 to Ruth Haskins Emerson echoes this same language as she pleads, “Your sympathy and prayers I have for this scene of sickness and misfortune to this family”
(Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 119; (Simmons, Selected Letters, 38)). Daniel Appleton White’s correspondence confirms his recent visit with MME in Malden, who then accompanied him from Malden to Newburyport; en route, due to inclement weather, the two lodged overnight in Beverly (Dwight, Memorials, 274-75).
MME is quoting Edward
Young in The
Complaint: “Worth, conscious worth! should
absolutely reign; / And other joys ask leave for their
approach” (Young, Complaint, 188)
MME alludes to Matthew 14:25-31: “And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”
This mark is not clearly a close parenthesis, nor is there an open parenthesis on a preceding line on this page; but it does not seem to be functioning as any other sensible mark of punctuation or text.
MME may allude to Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the LORD with all thine
heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”
MME may allude to 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, where Paul, speaking of God, explains: “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”
MME may also allude to 2 Corinthians 11:17-18 and 22-30:
“That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting. Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also. . . .Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not? If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.”
MME alludes to John 5:44: “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?”
In the context of this self-critique, MME may allude to 3 John 1:8:
“We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellowhelpers to
the truth,” or to Romans 15:1: “We then that are strong ought to bear
the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.”
As her discussion of the doctrine of election following this underlined passage may imply, MME likely refers to Romans 8:30, which in the King James version uses the word “justified” instead of the very common New Testament word “sanctified”: “Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”
Although no records indicate an official holiday or a fast day at this time, MME may refer to April 19 as a day long commemorated in New England as the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, which are regarded as the first military engagements of the American Revolution. Late in the nineteenth century, April 19 was officially designated “Patriot’s Day” and has since that time been an official holiday in Massachusetts
((Purcell, Sealed, 40-41); (“General Laws”)).
MME alludes to Luke 12:35-36: “Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.” She may also allude to the parable of the wise and foolish virgins in Matthew 25:1-12: “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.”
“1807” is
written in darker ink than rest of page, and “ennui” is
written in pencil. Both are possibly in non-authorial hand.
Based on MME’s comments about having “inserted some pages” from the
previous days into this Almanack after her return to Malden from Newburyport, as well as darker ink
beginning on this line of the manuscript page, the editors surmise
that this page includes entries for 11 February, followed by 24 and 25
April, and early May 1807. MME had returned from Newburyport on 11
April and apparently resumed writing on this Almanack page, where she
had left off on 14 February prior to her departure.
MME asserts divine omnipresence with a phrase commonly used in
Christian hymns and sermons and derived from many biblical verses,
including Psalms 139-7:10: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can
I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings
of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your
hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”
MME has come to Boston
to be present at the death of her seven-year-old nephew John Clarke Emerson, son of her
brother William and his
wife, Ruth Haskins
Emerson, who died of tuberculosis on 26 April 1807.
MME originally wrote “tarri” at the end of this line and neglected to complete the word on the next line. The manuscript reflects an interlined “tarried” here, with a caret for position, written in darker ink than the rest of the page, indicating her later correction of this partial word.
From [“Propositio]n . . . proceeds,” these lines are written upside down from the rest of the page.
MME quotes from Robert Robinson’s essay “The Scripture A Good Book, written by Divine Inspiration,” published as part of Seventeen Discourses on Several Texts of Scripture. Citing John 14:23, Robinson argues, “If a man love me, he will keep my words. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.” Glossing this verse, he adds, “The other is the affecting manner in which he connects together love and obedience: If ye love me, keep my commandments. At the sound of this word ‘if’, the Christian starts; all the tenderness and gratitude of his soul move to meet his duty; he conceives a horror for disobedience, because it make his love suspected; he turns all his attention to render his christian duties just, complete, beautiful, and strongly expressive of the inward esteem from which they flow; and he endeavours to give his morality a refinement and delicacy suited to the nature of that grand and noble virtue, from which it proceeds”
(Robinson, “Scripture,” 76).
MME refers to 1 Corinthians 3:16: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”
This line is indented for a new paragraph.
MME may allude to 1 Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
MME may refer to the biblical account of Jesus of Nazareth casting an unclean spirit into a herd of swine as related in Matthew 8:28-34: “And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time? And there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding. So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters. And they that kept them fled, and went their ways into the city, and told every thing, and what was befallen to the possessed of the devils. And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts.” A similar story also appears in Mark 5:1-17: “And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea. And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine. And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts.”
MME had come to Newburyport on February 18, 1807 to care for her dying sister. Hannah Emerson Farnham died of tuberculosis at Newburyport on 27 March 1807, with MME and a circle of close friends by her side.
MME numbers the first three pages of this brief Almanack. Since this page begins with “5” (encircled and positioned on a line by itself in the top right corner) and begins in the middle of a sentence, the editors presume that four preceding pages are no longer extant.
This numeral is encircled and positioned on a line by itself in the top left corner of the page.
This numeral is encircled and positioned on a line by itself in the top right corner of the page.
This Almanack reflects MME’s reading and commonplacing of several works concerned with the theological controversy and doctrinal debates that emanated from the founding of Andover Theological Seminary in Andover, Massachusetts in August 1808. This institution was organized by two groups of religious orthodoxy in New England, the “old Calvinists” and the “Hopkinsians,” adherents of Jonathan Edwards’s student, Samuel Hopkins, whose views differed from traditional Calvinist doctrine on several issues. According to religious historian Henry K. Rowe, Hopkinsians regarded themselves as the “Consistent Calvinists”
(Rowe, History, 8); they “maintained the doctrine of divine sovereignty, but they modified the plight of man. They rejected the Old Calvinist doctrine of the imputation of Adam’s sin . . . and maintained that every man’s sin is his own personal responsibility. They made less of human depravity and more of actual sinning. They did not believe that God had closed absolutely the door of hope, because there is in man a certain natural ability to obey God’s law. And Christ had died for all men, not as a penal satisfaction to an outraged deity, but as an expression of his universal benevolence. And man should rely on the atoning Christ and not on any outward means of grace” (Rowe, History, 17). As Rowe and others have explained, in founding the Andover seminary these two antagonistic groups ultimately overcame their differences in order to provide an orthodox institution to educate and train conservative clergy, which they were motivated to do in light of the, to them, radically divergent position taken by Harvard College with the appointment of liberal theologian Henry Ware as Hollis Professor of Theology (Rowe, History, 9). The founding of Andover and the publication of The Constitution and Associate Statutes of the Theological Seminary in Andover (1808) precipitated a debate published in several issues of the Monthly Anthology (associated with liberal Boston theologians, including William Emerson, MME’s brother and former editor of the Monthly Anthology, with whom she was living in Boston during this controversy) and The Panoplist (identified with more conservative Calvinists and Hopkinsians) over 1808-1809. This and subsequent pages of this Almanack reflect MME’s reading of these articles, as, for example, with the Monthly Anthology’s assertion that according to its creed, all Andover Seminary professors must swear to be “consistent Calvinists” or lose their positions, a requirement that the Anthologist reviewer regards as mendacious and bigoted (“Article 38,” 604, 606-13). On this Almanack page, she likely has in mind several passages from the Constitution and Associate Statutes, including the statements that “God’s decrees perfectly consist with human liberty; God’s universal agency with the agency of man; and man’s dependence with his accountability”; and that “every professor must be . . . an orthodox and consistent Calvinist.” She may also refer to the “Creed” (32) to which Andover professors were required to affirm: They must believe in the trinity, that God creates man in his own image, and that “the enjoyment of GOD [is] his supreme happiness; that this enjoyment is derived solely from conformity of heart the moral character and will of God; that Adam, the federal head and representative of the human race, was placed in a state of probation, and that in consequence of his disobedience, all his descendants were constituted sinners . . . . [so that] every man is justly exposed to eternal damnation; so that, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of GOD; that GOD, of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity elected some to everlasting life, and that he entered into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of this state of sin and misery by a REDEEMER; that the only REDEEMER of the elect is the eternal SON of GOD.” Additionally, the creed required professors to subscribe to the view “that our salvation is wholly of grace; that no means whatever can change the heart of a sinner, and make it hold; that regeneration and sanctification are effects of the creating and renewing agency of the HOLY SPIRIT . . .; that by convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds, working faith in us, and renewing our wills, the HOLY SPIRIT makes us partakers of redemption” (Andover Constitution, 35, 51, 32-34). MME may refer to herself as the “calvinistic Inquirier” as she examines the above and other tenets of this creed, but in a broader sense, writers on both sides of the debate regard the free inquiry into divine “truth” as central tenets of their doctrine and view their opponents as “bigots.” Even as she follows the debate between liberal Boston Unitarians and conservative Calvinists and Hopkinsians, MME appears to depart from both in asserting “the sublime and godlike belief that human misery will find an universal remedy,” or universal salvation. By “all are made alive,” MME alludes to 1 Corinthians 15:22: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”
MME continues to examine the distinctions between the Hopkinsians and traditional Calvinists, both of which groups accept the cardinal doctrine as stated in The Constitution and Associate Statutes of the Theological Seminary in Andover “that our salvation is wholly of grace”
(Andover Constitution, 33), i.e., that God’s grace in providing his sacrificial son Jesus has atoned for human sinfulness. In rejecting the doctrine of imputation, Hopkinsians believed that each sinner is responsible for his/her own depraved nature, a position with which MME seems in this passage to align herself in asserting that the “curse” of Adam’s original sin is “removed from the human race as a condemnatory sentence” to hell. Hopkinsians regard all individuals as “moral agents” responsible for their own “rules of conduct.” They accept the Calvinistic tenet that sinners “will suffer the vengance,” but believe such damnation results from their own sinful nature and behavior rather than as inheritors of Adam’s. In asserting that “the curse . . . is removed from the human race as a condemnatory sentence,” MME advocates more strongly for a belief in universal salvation than do either the traditional Calvinists or the Hopkinsians. By the Calvinist’s “absolute decrees,” MME may refer to the creed, drawn up by the Hopkinsian Associate Founders, to which professors of the newly organized Andover Theological Seminary must subscribe. Although this creed recognizes “that in consequence of his [Adam’s] disobedience all his descendants were constituted sinners,” they are also “by [their own] nature . . . personally depraved”
(Andover Constitution, 33).
MME quotes from Psalms 97:1-3: “The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne. A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.” By “terrific light,” she may refer to the conversion of St. Paul, who as related in Acts 9:3-8, was temporarily blinded by a heavenly light en route to Damascus.
MME alludes to Deuteronomy 29:29: “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.” By “the belief of a final restoration,” she may refer to the Calvinistic doctrine set forth in the creed in The Constitution and Associate Statutes of the Theological Seminary of Andover, “that the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; that their bodies, being still united to CHRIST, will at the resurrection be raised up to glory” (Andover Constitution, 34).
Both the Monthly Anthology and the Panoplist writers accused the other of bigotry and mendaciousness. The Anthologist’s liberal theological position regarded the restrictive creed required of Andover Seminary professors to be Hopkinsian (rather than strictly Calvinist, as the Panoplist claimed) and also “bigoted,” because it excluded other theological approaches or thinking, and mendacious because the Panoplist characterized the creed as Calvinist: “We think it requires no common intrepidity for any man to stand forward and assert the complete and absolute identity of Calvinism and Hopkinsianism. If it were only said that Calvinists, if they were consistent, would be Hopkinsians, and if they were true to their principles, they ought to go to all their consequences with the Hopkinsians, there would be some plausibility in the proposition. But to risk their whole cause on their ability to show, that the Hopkinsians maintain only the principles acknowledged and defended in the writings and standards of Calvinism, we think can proceed only from absolute desperation.” The Anthologist similarly criticized the strict adherence to the creeds required of its professors by the recently founded Andover Theological Seminary: “We think that any man, who is not a bigot to his own opinions, may rejoice in the foundation of an institution, even though by those who differ from himself, where these and all other opinions are to be fairly and freely examined; and yet with perfect consistency condemn a seminary, from which all freedom of inquiry, at least in the instructors, must be for ever excluded” (“Defence: Of the Review,” 198, 195). Continuing to insist that its “Creed is strictly Calvinistic” (“Review February,” 416) and that the liberal Anthologists were the hypocrites, the Panoplist responded: “The very men, who affect this indifference [to doctrines of revelation], and maintain its necessity in religion, are among the greatest bigots to their own modes of thinking, and commonly the most illiberal in their opposition to those, who differ from them” (“Review March,” 477). MME may refer to herself or the author of this review as “uninitiated” into the “truth” of the Hopkinsian position; in either case she seems to advocate for truth over bigotry.
MME may be commonplacing from Jane West’s
Letters to a Young Lady: “‘Heresies,’ as the venerable Bishop Horne observes, ‘however defeated, however triumphantly answered, are only conquered for a time. They seem to make their periodical revolutions in the church, like comets in the heavens, now disappearing, and now appearing again in their erratic course.’ Can this be wondered at? It is the spirit of the mystery of iniquity, which always speaks; and when the old embroidered suit of popery is worn thread-bare, it will dispute in the quaint garb of puritanism. Theological controversy, considered in its best light, I mean as keeping alive a zeal for religion, is even then a most humiliating proof of human imperfection, and shews that we are still at an immense distance from possessing that peace which Christ bequeathed to us”
(West, Letters, 2:92).
MME had expressed her restlessness in Boston to Mary Wilder Van Schalkwyck White in the spring of 1809, writing that “I intend going to Waterford & indeed expected to have been there almost by this time, but my brother persuades me from one time to another to put it off and thinks Boston the best place on most accounts. And (I dont exactly know how to account for it) I am so indecided, so indifferent as to the place of my abode, that I form no plans and seem to be the most at loose ends of all the world”
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 42-43). Her sisters, Phebe Bliss Emerson Ripley, with her husband Lincoln Ripley, and Rebecca Emerson Haskins, with her husband Robert Haskins, lived in Waterford, and MME resided there primarily with the Haskins. According to Phyllis Cole, MME preferred the more rural independence of Waterford, where “Baptists and Methodists abounded,” and which therefore provided a greater degree of intellectual freedom than she had heretofore known when lodging with her brother William, a Unitarian minister in liberal Boston. She remained here through the entirety of 1810 (Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 130-131).
As indicated by this note at the beginning of its first page, this Almanack is evidently a fragment of a once longer fascicle.
This numeral appears in the far left corner of the margin and appears to function as a page number.
MME alludes to Peter 1:20: “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.”
MME likely alludes to Isaiah 49:5: “And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength.”
MME may allude to Revelation 4:11: “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”
MME may refer to the general “human misery” of the institution of slavery, or she may have in mind a specific slave who was executed for attempting to run away or to assist another slave in doing so. Two local newspapers at this time carried a similar story, which MME may have read: On 7 September 1810, the Salem Gazette reported that “A Black Man in the republican State of Georgia has been condemned to Death, and is to be executed on the 18th of this month—for what?—for endeavoring to effect the escape of a Slave!” On 19 September 1810, THOMAS’s Massachusetts Spy, or Worcester Gazette published a similar report but more specifically described that this man “has been condemned to be hanged in Georgia”
(“Bloody Code”; (“Summary”)).
Page one of this Almanack is dated 6 October 1810; the reverse side of the first leaf contains a brief entry dated “10” of presumably the same month and year. Then page three begins with “7,” followed by a Sabbath evening “7” entry on page 4. MME often resumed writing on Almanack pages at a later time and may have done so with the entry of “10 October” on page two, giving rise to an apparent inconsistency in the date order of this fascicle’s pages.
Written in the center of the line, likely in non-authorial hand. Since editors’ research suggests that pages 1-9 in this folder are dated December 1810, this date is possibly incorrect for this Almanack page; this assigned dating may reflect this folder’s reconstructed pagination, by the Emerson family or others, after MME’s death.
MME alludes to several discussions in Edward Gibbon’s
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “If the Christian apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul, could return to the Vatican, they might possibly inquire the name of the Deity who is worshipped with such mysterious rites in that magnificent temple. . . . But the Turkish dome of St. Sophia, with an increase of splendour and size, represents the humble tabernacle erected at Medina by the hands of Mahomet”; and “From the Atlantic to the Ganges, the Koran is acknowledged as the fundamental code, not only of theology but of civil and criminal jurisprudence; and the laws which regulate the actions and the property of mankind, are guarded by the infallible and immutable sanction of the will of God”
(Gibbon, History, 6 308, 257, 258).
MME may allude to Hebrews 9:15: “And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”
MME refers to Jesus as described in John 1:29 and other verses of the New Testament: “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.’”
MME refers to Johann Lorenz Mosheim’s
Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern (1755), which was published and translated in multiple British and American editions in the nineteenth century and in which Mosheim describes the persecutions by Roman authorities suffered by early Christians.
MME alludes to John 7:45-46: “Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, ‘Why have ye not brought him?’ The officers answered, ‘Never man spake like this man.’”
MME alludes to a Judeo-Christian legend, mentioned in Johann Lorenz Mosheim’s
Institutes of Ecclesiastical History Ancient and Modern, which she is reading at this time (Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History, 1 56-57). The legend holds that Abgar V, being ill, wrote to Jesus and asked to be healed; Jesus responded that after ascending to heaven, he would send one of his disciples to cure the king and then preach to his people. In a standard account of this legend, Eusebius quotes from these legendary letters and describes the subsequent mission of Thaddaeus, who comes to heal King Abgar and then converts many of the city’s inhabitants (Murray and Murray, “Abgar,” 2-3).
MME may allude to Matthew 7:7: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” She also commonplaces from Jonathan Edwards’s
Freedom of the Will: “The supposed established connection between these antecedents and consequents, let the connection be never so sure and necessary, certainly don’t prove that it is in vain, for a man in such circumstances to attempt to open his eyes, in order to seeing: his aiming at that event, and the use of the means, being the effect of his will, don’t break the connection, or hinder the success”
(Edwards, Freedom, 288). By “Edwa[rds’] system,” MME likely refers to Edwards’s advocacy of theological determinism, which views free will as incompatible with human dependence on divine will.
Due to manuscript damage, the first portion of this word is missing, and the editors therefore report “suc” as supplied from the commonplace source for this sentence. We offer “low certainty” for these supplied letters, however, because the long descending strokes of letters that are visible on the page would not seem to form “suc.” Yet the second half of this compound word, MME’s letters “cess,” is clearly visible on the manuscript page. We cannot account for the discrepancy between the partial letters visible on the page and the word “success.”
MME quotes from John Locke’s
Essay Concerning Human Understanding: “Pure spirit, viz. God, is only active; pure matter is only passive; those beings that are both active and passive, we may judge to partake of both”
(Locke, Human Understanding, 1 322).
MME may allude to any of several biblical verses that refer to a “just” and “righteous” God, including Psalms 7:9: “Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins”; Deuteronomy 32:4: “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he”; and Romans 3:26: “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”
MME likely refers to St. Paul’s self-description in 1 Timothy 1:15: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” She may also have in mind Luke 15:10: “Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.”
MME refers to Genesis 9:6: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man”; to Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them”; and to Isaiah 63:9: “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.”
MME appears to be considering assertions made by William Wollaston in his Religion of Nature Delineated concerning the nature of immortality, the doctrine of providence, and divine intervention in human affairs: “There must be other ways above my understanding, by which such a Being as God is may take care of private cases without interrupting the order of the universe . . . intelligent, active, free beings must be under a government of another form. . . . I conclude then, that it is as certain, that there is a particular providence, as that God is a Being of perfect reason.” Wollaston additionally posits that “Divine Providence and the immortality of the soul must stand and fall together,” in support of which conclusion he quotes Plutarch,
“‘If you take away the one, the other will follow’”
and Heraclitus: “It is the same thing to think there is no God, or if there be one, that he does not govern the world; or if he does govern it, he is not a good and just governor”
(Wollaston, Religion, 199, 200, 208).
MME alludes to 2 Peter 3:13: “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
Written to the left of the center of line, possibly in non-authorial hand.
MME may allude to Jesus’s model of obedience to divine will as reflected in Matthew 26:39: “And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, ‘O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt’”
; or in Matthew 26:42: “He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, ‘O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.’”
MME quotes from Psalms 51:11: “Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.”
MME alludes to a phrase repeated often in Revelation: 1:8:
“‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,’ saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty”; 1:11: “Saying, ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last’: and, ‘What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea’”
; 21:6: “And he said unto me, ‘It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely’”
; and 22:13: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”
MME alludes to John 15:4: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.”
MME quotes from Jonathan Edwards’s
Freedom of the Will: “If the laws of motion and gravitation, laid down by Sir Isaac Newton, hold universally, there is not one atom, nor the least assignable part of an atom, but what has influence, every moment, throughout the whole material universe, to cause every part to be otherwise than it would be, if it were not for that particular corporeal existence. And however the effect is insensible for the present, yet it may, in length of time, become great and important”
(Edwards, Freedom, 322).
MME likely has in mind a word no longer in current use: “The action of receiving or taking something presented; acceptance, reception; spec. favourable reception, approval”
(“acceptions”).
As described in the Introduction to this Almanack, this entire page and a portion of
page two are written in non-authorial hand.
Written diagonally in left corner margin in green pencil, possibly non-authorial
hand.
The word “Galileo” begins a new paragraph, based on the short preceding line
ending.
Horizontal line drawn across page above these words, demarcating the non-authorial text
from MME’s hand on the remaining lines of this page.
This word as well as “confess” and “afternoon” on the following two lines are divided
but not hyphenated at the end of their damaged lines in the manuscript. Since Elizabeth
Hoar correctly hyphenates other compound words, we assume that she did so with these
three words as well.
Interlined above this word is an indecipherable mark, most resembling a cursive capital
“E” with a slight and faint additional loop on the top of the mark and a long descending
flourish at the bottom.
The initial lower-case “e” of this word has been reformed to capitalize the letter.
As described in this Almanack’s Introduction, this excerpt is written in Elizabeth Hoar’s hand. She quotes from a letter to her from
Charles Chauncy Emerson, dated 1834-04-13–1843-04-1513-15 April 1834. “Thy coat of many colours”
refers to the story in Genesis 37:3-24, in which Jacob’s favorite son,
Joseph, is left to die in the desert by his older brothers, who are jealous of their
father’s affection for him as well as envious of his colorful coat, a gift from their
father: “Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the
son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren saw
that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not
speak peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and
they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which
I have dreamed: For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf
arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made
obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us?
or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his
dreams, and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren,
and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and
the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his
brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou
hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down
ourselves to thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed
the saying.And his brethren went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem.And Israel
said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flockin Shechem? come, and I will send
thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I. And he said to him, Go, I pray thee,
see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word
again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. And a certain
man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him,
saying, What seekest thou? And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee,
where they feed their flocks. And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard
them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in
Dothan. And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they
conspired against him to slay him. And they said to one another, Behold, this dreamer
cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we
will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his
dreams. And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us
not kill him. And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit
that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of
their hands, to deliver him to his father again. And it came to pass, when Joseph was
come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many
colours that was on him; And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was
empty, there was no water in it.”
As with the preceding Annotation on this page, this excerpt is in the hand of Elizabeth Hoar, who quotes a portion of a letter to her from
Charles Chauncy Emerson, dated 1833-11-2020 November 1833.
MME quotes from a review of Orestes Brownson’s
Charles Elwood: or the Infidel Converted (18401840), which appeared in the Boston Quarterly Review
in 1842-04April 1842: “The highest virtue consists in the
fact, that the soul is in such a state that its natural aspirations, its spontaneous
emotions, are in harmony with the will of God; so that it obeys God without
deliberation, without reflection, from its own natural promptings. It is then
sanctified”
(“Art. I.--Charles Elwood”).
MME laments the loss of her beloved nephew Charles Chauncy
Emerson, who died at age 27 in 18361836 from
tuberculosis. As with his older brother, Waldo, MME’s
relationship with Charles included lively epistolary
exchanges on all manner of theological, philosophical, literary, and historical
subjects. Her bond with Charles, though, was more
intimate and emotionally intense than with his four brothers.
Written in green pencil in top left corner, likely in non-authorial hand.
The remainder of the page is blank, with the exception of “Ezra Ripley,”
which is written upside down from the rest of the text and at the bottom of
the page; and the lines “MM Emerson 1844,” which are written vertically in
the middle of the page in a non-authorial hand, which the editors believe is
likely that of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The editors also believe that the date
of “1844” is almost certainly erroneous, given that this Almanack is
otherwise dated 1855 and 1858.
The words “Tues. July 27” are indented.
This quotation is partially encircled and demarcated from the remaining lines
on this page.
The date line is positioned flush right.
MME quotes from John David Morell’s
Philosophy of Religion, in which Morell quotes Friedrich
Schleiermacher: “Christianity is a monotheistic belief,
belonging to the practical form of piety, which distinguishes itself
essentially from all others by the fact, that everything in it is
referred to the redemption completed by Jesus of Nazareth.”
(Morell, Philosophy of Religion, 115)
MME quotes from Frederika Bremer’s
Hertha: “From to-day dates not, nor yet from
yesterday; but / From eternity, the moment known to no man”
(Bremer, Hertha, 308), which derive from the protagonist’s
well-known defense of divine eternal laws in
Sophocles’s
Antigone: “For their life is not of today or
yesterday, but for all time, and no man knows when they were first put
forth”
(Sophocles, Antigone). Whether the
lines in Hertha are Bremer’s translation from the
original Greek or whether they are the work of Bremer’s translator, Mary
Howitt, is not known. Clearly, this was an important passage to MME, since
she also quotes it in a letter written to Waldo Emerson on her 84th birthday, 25 August 1858, in which missive she
attributes the lines to Sophocles. For a discussion of this letter and
suggestive context for MME’s regard for both Bremer and Hertha, see the Introduction to this Almanack folder.
MME alludes to John 1:5: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God.”
Written in green pencil, likely in non-authorial hand and positioned in top left
corner.
RWE’s transcription of this entry in his MME Notebook 2 confirms that it continues,
uninterrupted, on page 3 in MME’s Almanack, folder 32.
The dateline “Vale Dec. 6 ’46” is positioned flush right.
George Tolman transcribes this word in square brackets, presumably to indicate his
uncertainty about this damaged text.
George Tolman transcribes this word in square brackets, presumably to indicate his
uncertainty about this damaged text.
George Tolman transcribes this word in square brackets, presumably to indicate his
uncertainty about this damaged text.
RWE transcribed these words in his MME Notebook 2, but George Tolman leaves these lines
blank, which almost certainly evidences that RWE was reading a less damaged Almanack
than the one Tolman transcribed in 1906. As explained in the Introduction for this
Almanack, RWE’s transcription of this page continues on to Almanack, folder 32. This
sentence continues as follows: “the good P—s were journeying, for sickness of the old
irrisippalas invaded—but irritated not the soul. “The good P—s” are likely her niece
Hannah Parsons and her husband, Augustus.
MME added an elaborate final flourish to the “y” in “ab[str]actedly” on the preceding line, which may serve as a close
parenthesis here.
In this passage, MME is distilling widely and actively
repurposing or mistakenly interpreting commentary from Johann
Gottlieb Fichte’s
Destination of Man: “I need fear no contradiction when I
say, that our consciousness of external existence is absolutely nothing but the
product of our own faculty of presentation, and that we know nothing more of external
objects than that we have a certain determinate consciousness of them subject to
certain laws. . . . that in that which we call intuitive knowledge or contemplation of the
external world, we contemplate only ourselves . . . that if the external world generally
arises for us only through our own consciousness, what is individual and particular in
this external world can arise in no other manner; and if the connection between what
is external to us and ourselves is merely a connection in our own thought, then is the
connection of manifold objects of the external world, this and no other”;
“It is not therefore the operation of what we regard as things external, which
do indeed exist for us only inasmuch as we know of them, and just as little the play
of imagination and thought, whose products as such are no more than empty pictures,
but the necessary faith in our own freedom and energy, and in the reality of our
actions, and of certain laws of human action, which lie at the root of all our
consciousness of external reality, a consciousness which is itself only belief,
founded on another unavoidable belief. We are compelled to admit that we act, and that
we ought to act, in a certain manner; we are compelled to assume a certain sphere for
this action—this sphere is the actual world as we find it. From the necessity of
action proceeds the consciousness of the external world, and not the reverse way, from
the consciousness of the external world the necessity of action. From the latter is
the former deduced. We do not act because we know, but we know because we are destined
to act; practical reason is the root of all reason. The laws of action for rational
creatures are of immediate certainty; and their world is only certain so far as these
are so. We cannot deny them without annihilating the world, and ourselves with it. We
raise ourselves from nothing, and maintain ourselves above it solely by our moral
agency. I am required to act, but can I act without having in view something beyond
the action itself, without directing my intentions to something which could only be
attained by my action? Can I will, without willing some particular thing? To every
action is united in thought, immediately and by the laws of thought itself, some
future existence—a state of being related to my action as effect to cause. This object
of my action is not, however, to determine my mode of action—I am not to place the
object before me, and then determine how I am to act that I may attain it—my action is
not to be dependent on the object, but I am to act in a certain manner, merely because
it is my duty so to act; this is the first point. That some consequence will follow
this action I know, and this consequence necessarily becomes an object to me, since I
am bound to perform the action which must bring it to pass. I will that something
shall happen, because I am to act so that it may happen. As I do not hunger because
food is present, but a thing becomes food for me because I hunger, so I do not act
thus, or thus, because a certain end is to be attained, but the end is to be attained
since I must act in the manner to attain it. I do not observe a certain point, and
allow its position to determine the direction of my line, and the angle that it shall
make; but I draw simply a right angle, and by that determine the points through which
my line must pass. The end does not determine the commandment, but the commandment the
end”; and “Am I a free agent, or am I merely the manifestation of a
foreign power? Neither appear sufficiently well founded. For the first there is
nothing more to be said than that it is conceivable. In the latter I extend a
proposition perfectly valid on its own ground, further than it can properly reach. If
intelligences are indeed merely manifestations of a certain power of Nature, I do
quite right to extend this proposition to them. The question is only whether they
really are such, and it shall be solved by reasoning from other premises, not however
from a one-sided answer assumed at the very commencement of the inquiry, in which I
deduce no more from the proposition than I have previously placed in it. There does
not seem to be sufficient proof of either of these two positions. The case cannot be
decided by immediate consciousness; I can never become conscious either of the
external forces which in the system of universal necessity determine my actions, nor
of my own individual power, by which, under the supposition of free agency, I
determine myself. Whichever of the two systems I shall adopt, it appears I must do so
without sufficient proof. The system of freedom satisfies—the opposite one
kills,―annihilates the feelings of my heart. To stand by, cold and passive, amidst the
vicissitudes of events, a mere mirror to reflect the fugitive forms of objects
floating by, such an existence as this is insupportable to me; I despise and renounce
it. I will love!—I will lose myself in sympathy for another! I am to myself, even, an
object of the highest sympathy, which can be satisfied only by my actions. I will
rejoice and I will mourn. I will rejoice when I have done what I call right, I will
lament when I have done wrong, and even this sorrow shall be dear to me, for it will
be a pledge of future amendment”
(Fichte, Destination, 62, 81–82, 24–25). She also discusses this work and
praises Fichte in a March 1847 letter to RWE: “Waldo dear pardon my persumption in penciling the
‘Destination’ now & then a sentence of Fitche’s. . . . Many thanks for the two smale
books of his Much excitment at some great tho’ts tho’ mystically expressed the meaning
applies to the simpel. And his faith (from idealism?) is good. if I comprehend it with
my incapasity of head to apply. Happy soul to have escaped & gone where he will
find something to rely on & derive from beside poor ‘one sided human
nature’”
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 495). By “[ab]solute invalid,” Emerson likely refers to a severe and disfiguring recurrence of
erysipelas, a painful and chronic skin disease from which she suffers throughout her
life. Above on this page, she describes that “cold rides have aided health”; on page
three, she describes being ill with erysipelas.” See this Almanack’s introduction for
more information about her physical and emotional health over these winter months.
Written in green pencil, likely in non-authorial hand.
This dateline is positioned right flush on the line.
This dateline is positioned right flush on the line.
These lines are written vertically in the left center of the page, likely in
non-authorial, possibly RWE’s, hand.
This line beginning with “This 7t[h] lecture” is indented in the manuscript.
This Almanack features several corrections written in lighter ink than the original
hand, suggesting that they may have been made at a later time. In this first such
instance, MME revises the original “derected” to “directed” by writing an “i” above the
first “e,” which she cancels, in this word.
The two final letters of this word are cancelled in blue ink, the only instance of this
ink color in this Almanack. Whether MME or another hand later cancelled these letters is
not clear, nor is the resulting change in interpretation.
MME’s reference to “This 7th lect” may refer to two
different lectures in Friedrich von Schlegel’s
Philosophy of Life, and Philosophy of Language. First, “Lecture VII. Of the Divine Wisdom as Manifested in the Realm of Truth, and
of the Conflict of the Age with Error,” which opens with the declaration and
ensuing discussion of the unknowable apprehension of divine truth: “God is a
spirit of truth; and in the realm of truth, therefore, the divine order, and the law
of wisdom which reigns therein, shines forth with an especial clearness—with a higher
degree of evidence or greater perspicuity than even in the region of nature, which for
us is for the most part half-dark, or at the very best but a chiaro-oscuro—a mixture of light and darkness. . . . Even in education there
reigns a similar law of gradual development according to the natural progression of
the different ages of life. With the boy of good and natural abilities, who shows an
aptness and willingness to learn when knowledge is presented to his mind, and
implanted in a true and living form, the teacher’s first care is to improve this
disposition, and to strengthen and foster it, and by furnishing it with the due
measure and the right quality of intellectual culture, gradually to develope its
powers. At this age the moral part of education will wisely confine itself to laying a
foundation of good habits, to the careful exclusion of all evil communication and the
deadly contagion of wicked example. In the soft and yielding character of the child
there can scarcely be as yet any question about principles or sentiments. But the case
is very different with youth. If at this time of life the moral character be not
carefully formed simultaneously with its scientific cultivation, then is the good
season irreparably lost, and rarely, if ever, can the deficiency be afterwards
supplied. For when this stage of intellectual and moral culture is once passed, when
the mind has begun at last to move with greater freedom and to mature itself, the
young man is at once admitted to the full light of science, or enters into the busy
course of active life, to be there brought to the touchstone of experience.” On
the nature of Providence and revelation, Schlegel
asserts: “The theme of this Lecture is the course observed by eternal wisdom, or
the divine order in the realm of truth. My object is to call your attention to the
care with which Providence observes a gradual progression in its mental development of
the human race, lovingly suiting and adapting itself to the weakness and finiteness of
humanity, and to the imperfection of earthly creatures, according to that principle of
divine condescension, so often mentioned already, which, throughout the divine
operations in the world, and His influence on man, is distinctly visible. Thus, then,
in the knowledge immediately imparted to man by a higher providence we may discern a
preliminary period—a previous illumination, in order to re-open the eye of man, which
heathenism had blinded to the truth, that it might be able to see and discern God.
This first step of revelation was little more than a preparation for the future; but
the second was, or has been, an illumination of the soul—a vital renewal of it—a total
conversion of it from the state of darkness to the Everlasting Light and the Sun of
Righteousness. But in this living development of the highest life, which is even the
divine light of the Spirit, the third and last step (which indeed commences in and is
involved in the second, even as it also had its germ in the first) is the full
enlightenment of the spirit or mind. And accordingly this full revelation is in
Scripture itself, as being the close and completion of the whole, expressly described,
and named the last time. . . . It were not difficult to show how through the first two
millenniums and a half, or five-and-twenty centuries, a higher providence and divine
guidance was ever quietly carrying on these luminous threads of original truth, and
from time to time renewing them. But this history of the human mind in the primeval
world, however highly attractive, would take us out of our proper limits. Upon the
eclipse of man’s soul, when spiritual darkness universally prevailed, the senses
originally open to a higher light were closed against it. His better perceptions were
overwhelmed or buried beneath a chaos of true and false or half-true images and
symbols. Then it was that the natural law of spiritual development commenced in its
full force. It followed the progression already described. In the first term the
numbed and deadened sense had to be awakened and quickened again, and in its second
the soul renewed, purified, and converted, before either could become susceptible of
the full and perfect illumination of the Spirit. To trace this natural law in the
human consciousness and in the divine education of mankind, and to ascertain the
progressive steps in the divine revelations, expressly given and designed to effect
that gradual development, is the object of the present Lecture.” Finally, his
parsing of the nature of truth seems resonant with MME’s
understanding of “truths coeval with & developing the intuiteons of the
heart”: “An intellectual conflict about truth, and indeed about divine
truth, is the struggle of our age. This fact is already seen and admitted by a few,
but ere long it will be still more generally acknowledged. God is a spirit of truth;
and even on this account is His adversary, the spirit of contradiction, termed “a liar
from the beginning;” and, of all the powerful instruments and wicked devices of that
evil one, the lie is the first and chiefest. . . . My heart’s wish, therefore, is that
all the truly pious and well-wishers of truth, on whichever side of the two sides of
the now divided faith they may stand, would unite together without sacrificing those
more intimate differences which cannot at present be got rid of or reconciled, and,
making a righteous peace of mutual forbearance, join together in a firm alliance
against the common enemy of all truth and all faith.” Perhaps giving rise to
MME’s admiration for the “true and ever honored
genius like Dante
Columbus,” in other lectures in this volume,
Schlegel praises Dante
as a “poet . . . deeply versed in theology” and admires Christopher Columbus for his “bold conception” and for the
“faith” that inspired Columbus to embark
on the voyage that led to the Americas and “thereby opened a new era in the
history of science and man.” From “Lecture VII” in the
“Philosophy of Language,” several passages resonate with
MME’s commentary. In respect to MME’s enthusiasm about the powerful rhetoric of the “7th
lecture,” the “intuiteons of the heart,”
Schlegel points to the importance of “man’s inmost
feelings and experiences” to infuse language with truth: “In this, as in
every other case of profound internal emotion, it is extremely difficult to find the
right word for it, the exact appropriate term which happily seizes and vividly
expresses its essential character. Accordingly, in philosophy—so long, at least, as it
proceeds from this fundamental principle of life and a living feeling—I think it best
not to shackle our thoughts and notions by the fetters of a rigidly fixed and
unchangeable terminology. . . . We must seek . . . the greatest possible variety of
expression, availing ourselves of all the riches of language in the copious diversity
of scientific, and even of poetical and figurative diction, and not refusing to borrow
the terms of society or any sphere of life. For our first endeavour must be to keep
our exposition vivid throughout. . . For as the living philosophy is a higher and
clearer consciousness, or a self-conscious knowledge—a sort of second consciousness
within the ordinary one—it requires for its indication and exposition, as it were, a
language within language; only the latter can never be a system of lifeless formulas,
but must even be in the highest degree vivid and flexible. . . . This is a point which
appears to me to be most intimately connected and mixed up with the very essence and
spirit of scientific truth. . . . The test of the scientific correctness of a true
method of thought, which must ever be living and vivid, is an internal one. It is
independent of all such little and external matters, and it can even exist unimpaired
alongside of many apparent irregularities. Here the case is nearly the same as with
actual conversation. In both alike, when we would express ourselves on any grave point
of feeling, and clothe it in such language as is likely to gain the concurrence of
others, or by making it clear, to enforce it upon the general conviction, we feel it
perfectly allowable to follow whatever course may seem most convenient. . . . I shall
therefore, I think, be justified if I follow the same course in these Lectures, which
it is may wish should leave on your minds the impression of an internal dialogue. . .
. The most vivid diction, even the best and most felicitous, falls always far short of
feeling. ‘Feeling is everything’—the full centre of the inner life, the point from
which philosophy sets out, and to which it invariably returns. We might call it, if
such an every-day expression would not sound and strike us as strange, the
quintessence of the consciousness.” In addition are the lecture’s discussion of
“faith, hope, and love or charity . . . [which] constitute the grand harmony of
that higher intelligent feeling which leads to science and also to religion . . . That
in which all these three grades of feeling are most perfectly united, blended and
fused together, is enthusiasm. All genuine enthusiasm is based on some exalted and
elevating faith: it is a form and species of the higher love, and involves in itself a
grand and divine hope. And this is true of genuine patriotism, and of artistic
enthusiasm, no less than of the religious, which is most akin to scientific.”
Finally, Schlegel parses the uncertainty of the
scientific method: “Now the next problem which properly comes before us in this
place of our exposition of the human mind, and of the degree of certainty which is
attainable by it, is accurately to determine and to indicate the true intrinsic
essence of science. What, then, is it to know? How is it brought about and
accomplished? In the next place, it will be necessary to explain the origin of error,
which is ever opposing science, often imperceptibly deluding or undermining and
destroying our convictions. This will then enable us to solve the questions and
difficulties suggested by doubt in general, after we have once ascertained the place
which is to be assigned to it in the human mind. And thus we shall at last be able to
determine completely, precisely, and satisfactorily, the relation in which faith and
enthusiasm, love and revelation, stand to science.”
MME is likely also to have shared Schlegel’s view as to the purpose of education: “All teaching,
therefore, or communication of philosophy, has properly no other end and aim than to
furnish a vivid impulse to self-reflection”
(Schlegel, Philosophy of Life and Language, 141-42, 143-44, 146, 158-59, 161-62, 34, 513, 483, 484, 485, 486, 487, 489, 492, 494, 500). For MME,
Schlegel’s lectures seem to supersede John Morell’s conclusion in “On
Certitude,” chapter 10 in The Philosophy of Religion,
in which he lays out his epistemological theory that “there are two forms of
knowing proper to man . . . these are denoted by what we have termed the logical and
the intuitional faculties. . . . Certitude, therefore, as arising from the legitimate
action of the faculties, may be of three kinds; it may be purely logical, or purely
intuitional, or a mixed result of both”
(Morell, Philosophy of Religion, 299). A few years before the date of this Almanack,
MME discusses reading Morell’s
On the Philosophical Tendencies of the Age to her friend
Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley: “Much as I like
Morrell want no ‘scientific’ grounds of the certitude of my knowledge—better like his
views of the ‘intuitions’”
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 512). Here she may have in mind Morell’s assertion that “the principle of certitude, is by no means
objective, but is strictly subjective; it is a test residing in human nature itself,
and not in the outward validity of any supernatural communications. In a word, in
whatever way you seek to verify your traditions, in whatever way you attempt to
separate the true from the false, it always turns out that the final principle of
evidence is of a rational nature; that the verity of the tradition, therefore,
necessarily reposes in some sense of other upon the authority of the human
reason”
(Morell, Philosophical Tendencies, 134).
MME quotes from John Morell’s
Philosophy of Religion: “The great spheres to which our
intuitions are directed, are those of the beautiful,
the good, and the true,—and corresponding to these are three classes of emotions, the
aesthetical, the moral, and those hitherto unnamed heavings of the spirit, when it
contemplates the awful majesty and immensity of Being—pure eternal Being”
(Morell, Philosophy of Religion, 100).
MME boarded in Charlemont, Massachusetts during the summer of
18541854; presumably she did so at the home of Luther and Rosaline Keys. In a letter to
Ann Sargent Gage in October of that year, MME describes her living situation in
Charlemont among other recent boarding locales during what was
a time of fluctuating lodging arrangements in her elderly years (Simmons, Selected Letters, 566). MME mistakenly
dates this entry as a “Sabbath,” since 1854-09-1212 September
1854 was a Tuesday.
The editors think it likely that MME refers to reading
two different works in this passage, Horace Bushnell’s
God in Christ and William Ellery
Channing’s Memoirs, the latter of which she also
describes reading in Almanack, folder 30, p. 17 (not yet published), in terms similar to
this passage. Folder 30 is composed of several dates, including entries dated 18541854; its manuscript leaf that includes p. 17 is quite similar in
hand writing and paper color to this folder 29 page, suggesting that they could
originally have been part of the same Almanack. Further evidence for this possibility is
provided by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who when transcribing
the folder 30 entry in his MME Notebook 3, supplies
“Charlemont 1854” (p. 51), the same date and location of this folder 29 entry. The
folder 30 entry reads partially as follows: “In reading dear Channing’s memoirs now & then . . . with ill health . . . renders
humanity, { w’h | which }
is h[is,] worthy to mingle with it by adoration &
praise and perfect love an[d] obedience.” A few weeks after the date of this
folder 29 passage, Emerson relates to a friend that she has been reading Channing’s
Memoirs, about which she “found full cause for my
confessial when I compared his deep humility & fervent charity. . . I have been
wholly taken with a smale portion of “his works” since
I found them here almost a fortnight since.” In this letter, she also describes
reading Bushnell and “his ‘God in Christ,’”
which “rather disturbs my old intuition of the
Absolute necessary Being whose idea is an element of
the soul?”
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 566-67). Emerson seems in this Almanack passage to
refer to Bushnell’s parsing of theology and science:
“If there is ever to be anything produced here that can reasonably be called a
science, it will more resemble an experience than the dry judgments and barren
generalizations hitherto called theology. To have science of a matter is to know it,
and there are many of the humblest babes of faith, in corners of obscurity here and
there, who really know more, and have a truer science of God, than some who are most
distinguished among the Christian doctors. Besides, if we are ever to have any
sufficient or tolerably comprehensive theology, it can never be matured, save through
the medium of an esthetic elevation in the sensibilities of our souls, which only the
closest possible union of the life to God can produce. For the scriptures offer us the
great truths of religion, not in propositions, and articles of systematic divinity. .
. . So that, after all, our ripe comprehensive theology, when we find it, will be so
convoluted with spirit, and so mixed with faith, that it will be as much a life, a
holy breadth and catholicity of spirit, as a theory. It will be as far from possible
representation, in any of the niggard forms of abstract science, or the debated
articles of school divinity, as can be conceived”
(Bushnell, God in Christ, 308-9).
MME boards for several weeks in August and September
18551855 with farmers Charles and Roxana Parker in
Montague, Massachusetts
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 542, 571). In correspondence written over these and
later months, she describes this town as “an uncommon pleasant thickly settled
Villige” [sic]. Relating her various boarding
locales here and in nearby environs at this time, MME
also mentions her preference for “obscure places,” as well as her
difficulty in obtaining affordable lodging that provides basic comforts and her desire
to revisit cherished objects stored in Waterford, Maine,
such as her books, bookshelf, blankets, and a memorial medallion of Charles Chauncy Emerson
(Emerson to Gage, “17 August 1855”);
(Emerson to Gage, “26 November 1855”).
For a portion of her lengthy stay in Ashfield, Massachusetts in
18531853 and 18541854, MME boards with the family of Samuel and
Pamela Howes
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 542, 555).
MME may refer to Paul’s
exhortation to the Christians in Ephesus in Ephesians 3:
“For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus
Christ for you Gentiles, If ye have heard of the dispensation of the
grace of God which is given me to you-ward: How that by revelation he made known unto
me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may
understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) Which in other ages was not made
known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets
by the Spirit; That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and
partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: Whereof I was made a minister,
according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of
his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given,
that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; And to make
all men see what is
the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in
God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: To the intent that
now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, According to
the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:
In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. Wherefore I
desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. For this
cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according
to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner
man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded
in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length,
and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that
ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do
exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that
worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by
Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.
Amen.”
Written in green pencil in left corner of top margin, likely in non-authorial hand.
Written above the second “e” in this word are two parallel marks that seem to be functioning as a diaresis. While MME does not commonly use this mark in her Almanacks, the editors have determined that it does not result from bleedthrough, nor does it seem to be a stray mark or splay from her pen.
This date is indented on a line by itself at the top of this page.
MME refers to her recent conversation with a Rev. Peters, an unidentified clergyman whom she had met while traveling. In letters to her nephews William Emerson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, she provides additional details about their discussion: “I was much interested in talk with the bearer of this letter in the course of a whole day. He seems not bigoted nor unwise. In speaking of the results of unitarianism (which of the old school I was vindicating) he bro’t proof that the tendency of the new was to doubt of the immortality of the soul. It was a proof w’h tho’ it did not weaken my faith, shocked me—but a dark & frightfull moment passed”
(Emerson to William Emerson, “5 November 1826”); and “I would tell you of a conversation I had with a cal. clergy man from N Y in the stage. I would not have missed it. I have made some scrawls of it in my day book w’h I inclose”
(Emerson to RW Emerson, “12 and 19 November c. 1826”).
Research has not yet located the source of this apparent gathering of “fanatics” on 5 November 1826.
MME likely refers to her “beloved” friend Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley
(Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 86). Aptly describing her unique intellectual and emotional bonds with the younger woman, in a letter to Bradford approximately dated 1815, MME characterized herself as “Yours head & heart”
(Emerson to SA Bradford, “c. 1815”). Although Bradford’s tenuous Christian faith had reached, from MME’s perspective, a crisis point by the 1826 date of this Almanack, from the earliest days of their friendship in 1812, the influence of deism on Bradford’s incipient steps in what would become a lifelong engagement with scientific and botanical research prompted her to express amazement that MME could seek friendship from one who was, in her own words, “without the pale of Christianity” (qtd. in Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 155). By the early 1820s, however, Bradford’s exploration of German philosophy and her cynicism about Unitarian history and its unsavory politics led to her active intellectual questioning of what she considered unrealistic Unitarian notions about a benevolent divinity and the inevitability of human progress and perfectibility. Biographer Joan Goodwin suggests that Bradford’s increasing skepticism about both Christianity and Unitarian theology was compounded by the depressing constrictions common to many married women in the nineteenth-century—frequent childbearing, onerous household responsibilities, and a curtailed life of the mind. Bradford also held a “naturalistic view of death, refusing either to sentimentalize it with heavenly visions or to make scientifically unsupported assumptions about an afterlife,” adds Goodwin; by 1826, Bradford had lost her mother, father, “favorite brother Daniel,” and other close family members (Goodwin, Remarkable, 115). Despite her antipathy toward Bradford’s religious cynicism, however, MME always valued their friendship and admired Bradford’s spirited intellect.
The first two pages of this Almanack are also published as Almanack, folder 26. RWE’s
transcription of a portion of page 2 in his MME Notebook 2 continues without
interruption on to page 3 of folder 32, and thus provides evidence that these pages were
originally part of this Almanack. Because the holograph manuscript of folder 26 is now
housed as a separate folder at the Houghton Library, however, the editors have decided
to publish these two pages in their entirety, as pages 1 and 2 in folder 26 and as pages
1 and 2 in this Almanack, folder 32.
The dateline “Vale Dec. 6 ’46” is positioned flush right.
George Tolman transcribes this word in square brackets, presumably to indicate his
uncertainty about this damaged text.
MME added an elaborate final flourish to the “y” in “ab[str]actedly” on the preceding line, which may serve as a close
parenthesis here.
George Tolman transcribes this character in square brackets, presumably to indicate his
uncertainty about this damaged text.
Written in green pencil, likely in non-authorial hand and positioned in top left
corner.
George Tolman transcribes this word in square brackets, presumably to indicate his
uncertainty about this damaged text.
RWE transcribed these words in his MME Notebook 2, but George Tolman leaves these lines
blank, which almost certainly evidences that RWE was reading a less damaged Almanack
than the one Tolman transcribed in 1906. RWE continues his transcription on to the top
of page 3, indicating that these pages 1 and 2 were originally placed with this Almanack
rather than as a separate Almanack as they are now housed (as Almanack, folder 26) at
the Houghton library.
In his transcription, RWE dates this passage as 14 February 1847; if he is correct,
then MME is likely mistaken with either this date of “14” or the one that follows it,
“11,” on the next page, both of which are presumably still February dates, since the
date of 1 March does not appear until page 8 of this Almanack.
As described in the textual note pertaining to the speculative date of February 14 on
the preceding page, MME may be mistaken with this date.
In his transcription, RWE dates this entry 27 February 1847, possibly based on a letter
from MME he received on this date, which like this Almanack entry mentions the passing
of winter.
Below this line, MME drew a horizontal line across most of the page, spanning
approximately one inch from the left edge of the page through the right gutter, at which
right page edge she also penned a series of loops that cross and extend above the
horizontal line. The purpose of these marks is not clear, although they may function to
demarcate the foregoing text from the quotation that begins on the next line.
Two instances of MME’s interlining appear on this line: “(in nature & origin)” and
“created in creatures.” That these phrases are written in a slightly lighter ink color
and in a formatively different authorial hand from the other writing on this page
suggests that MME added them at a later time.
George Tolman transcribes this text in square brackets and with a question mark,
presumably to indicate his uncertainty about this reading.
This dateline is positioned flush right on the line.
The second iteration of this word is interlined above, seemingly to clarify the first
word, which is poorly formed.
Tolman’s transcription of the initial letter for this word is accepted, but since the
manuscript clearly shows a t-cross indicative of a lower-case “t,” the editors have
revised Tolman’s transcription of “The” to “the.”
In the MS, following damage at the beginning of this line, the editors can see a letter
that most appears to be an “h” or a cancelled “h.” Since the source text that MME is
quoting here, however, does not include any word between MME’s “which is perfect,” we
are not reporting any possibilities for this letter.
Interlined below “cause,” MME wrote a “2”; interlined below “effect,” she wrote a “1,”
thus transposing these words to “effect and cause,” which corresponds to Ralph Waldo
Emerson’s transcription of this Almanack passage in his “MME Notebook 2.”
In this passage, MME is widely and actively repurposing or mistakenly interpreting commentary from from
Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s
Destination of Man: “I need fear no contradiction when I
say, that our consciousness of external existence is absolutely nothing but the
product of our own faculty of presentation, and that we know nothing more of external
objects that that we have a certain determinate consciousness of them subject to
certain laws. . . . that in that which we call intuitive knowledge or contemplation of
the external world, we contemplate only ourselves . . . that if the external world
generally arises for us only through our own consciousness, what is individual and
particular in this external world can arise in no other manner; and if the connection
between what is external to us and ourselves is merely a connection in our own
thought, then is the connection of manifold objects of the external world, this and no
other”; “It is not therefore the operation of what we regard as things
external, which do indeed exist for us only inasmuch as we know of them, and just as
little the play of imagination and thought, whose products as such are no more than
empty pictures, but the necessary faith in our own freedom and energy, and in the
reality of our actions, and of certain laws of human action, which lie at the root of
all our consciousness of external reality, a consciousness which is itself only
belief, founded on another unavoidable belief. We are compelled to admit that we act,
and that we ought to act, in a certain manner; we are compelled to assume a certain
sphere for this action—this sphere is the actual world as we find it. From the
necessity of action proceeds the consciousness of the external world, and not the
reverse way, from the consciousness of the external world the necessity of action.
From the latter is the former deduced. We do not act because we know, but we know
because we are destined to act; practical reason is the root of all reason. The laws
of action for rational creatures are of immediate certainty; and their world is only
certain so far as these are so. We cannot deny them without annihilating the world,
and ourselves with it. We raise ourselves from nothing, and maintain ourselves above
it solely by our moral agency. I am required to act, but can I act without having in
view something beyond the action itself, without directing my intentions to something
which could only be attained by my action? Can I will, without willing some particular
thing? To every action is united in thought, immediately and by the laws of thought
itself, some future existence—a state of being related to my action as effect to
cause. This object of my action is not, however, to determine my mode of action—I am
not to place the object before me, and then determine how I am to act that I may
attain it—my action is not to be dependent on the object, but I am to act in a certain
manner, merely because it is my duty so to act; this is the first point. That some
consequence will follow this action I know, and this consequence necessarily becomes
an object to me, since I am bound to perform the action which must bring it to pass. I
will that something shall happen, because I am to act so that it may happen. As I do
not hunger because food is present, but a thing becomes food for me because I hunger,
so I do not act thus, or thus, because a certain end is to be attained, but the end is
to be attained since I must act in the manner to attain it. I do not observe a certain
point, and allow its position to determine the direction of my line, and the angle
that it shall make; but I draw simply a right angle, and by that determine the points
through which my line must pass. The end does not determine the commandment, but the
commandment the end”; and “Am I a free agent, or am I merely the
manifestation of a foreign power? Neither appear sufficiently well founded. For the
first there is nothing more to be said than that it is conceivable. In the latter I
extend a proposition perfectly valid on its own ground, further than it can properly
reach. If intelligences are indeed merely manifestations of a certain power of Nature,
I do quite right to extend this proposition to them. The question is only whether they
really are such, and it shall be solved by reasoning from other premises, not however
from a one-sided answer assumed at the very commencement of the inquiry, in which I
deduce no more from the proposition than I have previously placed in it. There does
not seem to be sufficient proof of either of these two positions. The case cannot be
decided by immediate consciousness; I can never become conscious either of the
external forces which in the system of universal necessity determine my actions, nor
of my own individual power, by which, under the supposition of free agency, I
determine myself. Whichever of the two systems I shall adopt, it appears I must do so
without sufficient proof. The system of freedom satisfies—the opposite one
kills,—annihilates the feelings of my heart. To stand by, cold and passive, amidst the
vicissitudes of events, a mere mirror to reflect the fugitive forms of objects
floating by, such an existence as this is insupportable to me; I despise and renounce
it. I will love!—I will lose myself in sympathy for another! I am to myself, even, an
object of the highest sympathy, which can be satisfied only by my actions. I will
rejoice and I will mourn. I will rejoice when I have done what I call right, I will
lament when I have done wrong, and even this sorrow shall be dear to me, for it will
be a pledge of future amendment”
(Fichte, Destination, 62, 81-82, 24-25). She also discusses this work and
praises Fichte in a 1847-03March
1847 letter to RWE: “Waldo dear pardon my persumption in penciling the Destination now & then a sentence of Fitche’s. . . . Many thanks for the two smale books of his Much
excitment at some great tho’ts tho’ mystically expressed the meaning applies to the
simpel. And his faith (from idealism?) is good. if I comprehend it with my incapasity
of head to apply. Happy soul to have escaped & gone where he will find something
to rely on & derive from beside poor ‘one sided human nature’”
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 495). As discussed in greater detail in this Almanack’s Introduction, MME is at this time ill due to a significant and disfiguring recurrence of erysipelas, a chronic condition from which she suffered throughout her adult life. Her reference in this passage to “the [ab]solute invalid” should therefore almost certainly be understood in this context. By “[ab]solute invalid,” Emerson likely refers to a severe and disfiguring recurrence of erysipelas, a painful and chronic skin disease from which she suffers throughout her life. Above on this page, she describes that “cold rides have aided health”; on page three, she describes being ill with erysipelas.” See this Almanack’s introduction for more information about her physical and emotional health over these winter months.
MME refers to the Select Works of
Plotinus, the Great Restorer of the Philosophy of Plato, translated by
Thomas Taylor (18171817): “. . . he, I
say, will not behold this light, who attempts to ascend to the vision of the supreme
while he is drawn downwards by those things which are an impediment to the
vision”; “For the one is not absent from any thing, and yet is separated
from all things; so that it is present with those things that are able, and are
prepared to receive it, so that they become congruous, and as it were pass into
contact with it, though similitude and a certain inherent power allied to that which
imparted by the one”; “For God is not in a certain place, so as to desert
other things; but wherever any thing is able to come into contact with him, there is
present”; “Cause, however, is not the same with the thing caused. But the
cause of all things is not any one of them. Hence neither must it be dominated that
good which it imparts to others; but it is after another manner the good, in a way
transcending other goods”; “Or may we not say that the soul, if she
wishes to abide on high, will consider political concerns as unworthy to be the
subject of conference with deity? For this indeed will be the language of him who has
seen much of divinity. For as it is said, God is not external to anyone, but it is
present with all things, though they are ignorant that he is so. For they fly from
him, or rather from themselves”
(Plotinus, Select Works, 480, 481, 490, 492).
MME references the title of Plotinus’s essay “On the Good, or the One,” which
is included in Thomas Taylor’s translation of several works by
Plotinus, which she references extensively in this
Almanack. Other essays from this edition to which MME
may allude discuss whether the intellect “contains the nature of forms . . . that
all the things which are said to exist are composites . . . whether they are fashioned
by art, or constituted by nature. For artificial substances consist of brass, or wood,
or stone, and do not yet obtain perfection from these, till they are elaborated by the
several arts, one of which produces a statue, another a bed, and another a house, and
each effects this by the insertion of the form which it contains. Moreover, with
respect to the things which are constituted by nature, such of them as are composed of
many particulars, and which are said to be co-mingled, may be analyzed into the form
which is inherent in all substances that are mingled together. Thus man may be
analyzed into soul and body; and body into the four elements. . . . that soul imparts
morphe to the four elements of the world; but that intellect becomes the supplier of
productive principles to soul just as productive principles being inserted from the
arts in the souls of artists enable them to energize [according to art]. With respect to intellect, also, one which
is as the form of the soul is analogous to morphe, but another which imparts this
form, is analogous to the maker of the statue, in whom all things are inherent which
he imparts. The things, however, which body receives, are now nothing more than images
and imitations”
(Plotinus, Select Works, 288-90). Interestingly, in Almanack, folder 15
(tentatively dated over a decade prior to this Almanack, folder 32), MME similarly deliberates on the artist’s creative process as
she quotes from Thomas Brown’s
Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind: “The
sculptor at every stroke of his chisel, alters the form of the block of marble on
which he works, not by communicating to it any new qualities, but merely by separating
from it a number of the corpuscles, which were formerly included by us, in our
conception of the continuous whole; and when he has given the last delicate touches
that finish the Jupiter, or the Venus, or Apollo, the divine form which we admire, as
if it had assumed a new existence beneath the artist’s hand, is still in itself
unaltered,— the same quiescent mass, that slumbered for ages in the quarry of which it
was a part . . . If the philosophy, not of mind only, but of the universe, is to be
found, as Hobbes boldly said, within ourselves,—in the same manner as the perfect
statue is to be found in the rude block of the quarry, when all the superfluous mass,
that adheres to it, has been removed,—in no respect can it more justly be said to be
in our minds than in this, that is only by knowing the true extent, and consequently
the limits of our intellectual powers, that we can form any rational system of
philosophic investigation”
(Brown, Lectures, 98-99, 166).
MME refers to Plotinus’s
“A Discussion of Doubts Relating to the Soul”: “But it must
be said, indeed, that some things end in the soul; and these are such as enter through
the body; but that others pertain to the soul alone, if it is necessary that the soul
should be something, and that there is a certain nature and work of it. If, however,
this be the case, and it desires, and remembers its desire, it will also remember the
attainment, or non-attainment of the object of its desire, since its nature does not
rank among things of a flowing condition. For if this is not admitted, we must neither
grant that it has a co-sensation, not a power of following the conceptions of
intellect, nor a certain conspiration, and as it were consciousness of itself. For
unless the soul naturally possessed these things, it would not obtain them through its
union with the body; but it would indeed have certain energies, the works of which
would require the assistance of corporeal organs; and of some things it would bring
with itself the powers; but of others it would also bring the energies.”
MME seems to relate this notion to Christians’ view of
the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and to those who “hesitate”
to believe in this possibility. According to Plotinus, the
soul is placed after death in another corporeal body: “In the course of time,
however, after death, the recollection of other things also from former lives will
arise, so that some of these will be dismissed and despised. For the soul becoming in
a greater degree purified from the body, will recollect those things, the remembrance
of which she had lost in the present life. But when she becomes situated in another
body, she will then indeed departing [from an
intellectual] speak of the concerns of an external life”
(Plotinus, Select Works, 384-7).
MME quotes from Plotinus’s
“On the Good, Or the One”: “Hence, it is necessary to
hasten our departure from hence, and to be indignant that we are bound in one part of
our nature, in order that with the whole of our true selves, we may fold ourselves
about divinity, and have no part void of contact with him. When this takes place
therefore, the soul will both see divinity and herself, as far as it is lawful for her
to see him”
(Plotinus, Select Works, 500).
MME is quoting from and paraphrasing Plotinus’s
“On the Good, Or the One”: “Perhaps, however, this was not
a spectacle, but there was another mode of vision, viz. ecstacy, and an expansion and
accession of himself, a desire of contact, rest, and a striving after conjunction, in
order to behold what the adytum contains. But nothing will be present with him who
beholds in any other way. The wise prophets, therefore, obscurely signified by these
imitations how this [highest] God is
seen. But the wise priest understanding the enigma, and having entered into the
adytum, obtains a true vision of what is there. If, however, he has not entered, he
will conceive this adytum to be a certain invisible thing and will have a knowledge of
the fountain and principle, as the principle of things. But when situated there, he
will see the principle, and will be conjoined with it, by a union of like with like,
neglecting nothing divine which the soul is able to possess. Prior to the vision also
it requires that which remains from the vision. But that which remains to him who
passes beyond all things, is that which is prior to all things. For the nature of the
soul will never accede to that which is entirely non-being. But proceeding indeed
downwards it will fall into evil; and thus into non-being, yet not into that which is
non-entity. Running, however, in a contrary direction, it will arrive not at another
thing, but at itself. And thus not being in another thing, it is not on that account
in nothing, but is in itself. To be in itself alone, however, and not in being, is to
be in God. For God also is something which is not essence, but beyond essence. Hence
the soul when in this condition associates with him. He, therefore, who perceives
himself to associate with God, will have himself the similitude of him. And if he
passes from himself as an image to the archetype, he will then have the end of his
progression. But when he falls from the vision of God, if he again excites the virtue
which is in himself, and perceives himself to be perfectly adorned; he will again be
elevated through virtue, proceeding to intellect and wisdom and afterwards to the
principle of all things”
(Plotinus, Select Works, 504-6).
MME quotes from Plotinus’s
“On the Virtues”: “If any one, however, calls this
disposition of the soul, according to which it perceives intellectually, and is thus
impassive, a resemblance of God, he will not err”
(Plotinus, Select Works, 7-8).
MME may allude to and selectively quote from an article
published in The Monthly Chronicle in 18391839, which in praising the writings of Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe and George Gordon, Lord Byron, explains how Byron’s dramas Manfred (18171817) and Cain (18211821)
contain imagery of the abyss: “Free they are: iron souls in iron frames, they
climb the Alps of the physical world as well as the Alps of thought; still their
visage is stamped with gloomy and ineffaceable sadness—still their thoughts, whether
with Cain and Manfred they plunge into the abyss of the infinite, ‘intoxicated with
eternity,’ or whether with the Corsair and the Giaour they scour the vast desert or
the boundless ocean, still are they followed by a certain secret and ever-wakeful
terror. We would say they drag rivetted to their feet the chains they have broken.
Their souls feel ill at ease not only in the petty societies with whom is their
struggle, but also in the world of spirit”
(“Byron and Göthe,” 245). The phrase “plunge into the abyss”
also appears in several other works, including those with which MME was very familiar, such as Germaine de Staël’s
Germany (18131813): “He saw her and
descended the cliff towards her so swiftly and recklessly that she covered her eyes in
terror, lest she should see him plunge into the abyss”
(De Staël, Germany, 211). Other examples include John
Tregortha’s
News from the Invisible World (18131813):
“How did they stand shuddering and aghast upon the tremendous precipice;
excessively afraid to plunge into the abyss of eternity, yet utterly unable to
maintain their standing on the verge of hell”
(Tregortha, Invisible World, 209); and Edgar Allan Poe’s
“MS Found in a Bottle” (18331833): “We
are surely doomed to hover continually upon the brink of Eternity, without taking a
final plunge into the abyss”
(Poe, “MS Found in a Bottle,” 123).
MME quotes from Plotinus’s
“On the Three Hypostases, that Rank as the Principles of Things”:
“For by a thing of this kind which is in us, we also touch, associate with, and
are suspended from deity.” A footnote in this sentence offers that “This
is called by Proclus, the
one, flower and summit of the soul, and is that in which our truest being consists”
(Plotinus, Select Works, 282).
MME distills from several pages in Plotinus’s
“On Eternity and Time”, which surveys the ranging opinions of
ancient philosophers on these subjects, including the assessment of the understanding of
time as either an eternal order of events; or an arbitrary system of measuring the
motion and distance between these events. Plotinus does
not think that time and eternity are the same. Following most Platonists, he deems
eternity to be “perpetual nature,” and in many ways more real than time
that is generated by the ordering mind attempting to describe human perspective:
“With respect to eternity and time, we say that each of these is different from
the other, and that one of them indeed is conversant with a perpetual nature, but the
other about, that which is generated. We also think that we have a certain clear
perception of these in our souls spontaneously, and, as it were, from the more
collected projections of intellectual conception; always and every where calling these
by the same appellations. When, however, we endeavour to accede to the inspection of
these, and to approach as it were nearer to them, again we are involved in doubt,
admitting some of the decisions of the ancients about these, and rejecting others, and
perhaps receiving differently the same decisions. Resting also in these, and thinking
it sufficient if when interrogated we are able to relate the opinion of the ancients
concerning time and eternity, we are liberated from any farther investigation about
them . . . In the first place, however, it is requisite to investigate what those
conceive eternity to be, who admit that it is different from time. For that which is
established as the paradigm being known, that also which is the image of it, and which
they say is time, will perhaps become manifest. But if some one, prior to the survey
of eternity, should imagine what time is, it will happen to him, proceeding from hence
thither by reminiscence, that he will behold the nature to which time is assimilated,
if the latter has a similitude to the former.” We must remember that Plotinus defines “time” in opposition to “eternity”: “Now,
however, it is necessary first to assume those assertions which especially deserve
attention, and to consider if what we say is concordant with some one of them. But
perhaps the assertions concerning time, ought in the first place to receive a
threefold division. For time may be said to be either motion, or that which is moved,
or something pertaining to motion. For to say that it is either permanency, or that
which is stable, or something pertaining to permanency, will be perfectly remote from
the conception of time, since it is in no respect the same, [and therefore, can never accord with that which is stable.]
Of those, however, who say that time is motion, some indeed assert that it is every
motion; but others, that it is the motion of the universe. But those who say it is
that which is moved, assert it to be the sphere of the universe. And of those who say
it is some thing pertaining to motion, or the interval of motion; some assert that it
is the measure of motion, but others that it is an attendant on it, and either in
every motion, or on that which is arranged . . . But if some one should say that the
motion of the universe is not interrupted, yet this motion, if it is admitted that the
circulation [of the world] is in a
certain time, will itself be carried round to the same point from whence it began; and
not to that point in which the half of it only is accomplished. And this motion,
indeed, will be the half, but the other will be double, each being the motion of the
universe, both that which proceeds from the same to the same, and that which arrives
only at the half. The assertion, also, that the motion of the outermost sphere is most
vehement and rapid, bears witness to what we say; so that the motion of. [sic] it is one thing, and time another. For that motion
is the most rapid of all, which in the least time passes through the greatest
interval. But other motions are slower, which are performed in a longer time, and pass
through a part only of the same space”; and “It is necessary, however, to
doubt what this number is, whether it is monadic, and how it measures? For though some
one should discover how it measures, yet he would not find time measuring, but a
certain quantity of time. This, however, is not the same with time [simply considered] For it is one thing to
speak of time, and another, of so much time. For prior to the so much, it is necessary
to say what that is which is so much. Is time, therefore, the number which measures
motion externally? Such as the decad in horses, and not that which is assumed together
with horses. What this number, therefore, is, has not been shown, which prior to
measuring, is what it is, in the same manner as the decad. Shall we say it is that
number which measures by running according to the prior and posterior of motion? But
it is not yet manifest what this number is which measures according to prior and
posterior. That, however, which measures according to prior and posterior, whether by
a point, or by any thing else, entirely measures according to time. This number,
therefore, which measures motion by prior and posterior, will be successive to, and in
contact with time, in order that it may measure it. For prior and posterior, must
either be assumed locally, as the beginning [and end] of a stadium, or temporally. For in short, with respect to prior
and posterior, the former indeed is time ending in the now; but the latter is time
beginning from the now. Time, therefore, is different from the number which measures
motion according to prior and posterior, not only motion of any kind, but also that
which is orderly”
(Plotinus, Select Works, 177-8, 194-6, 202-4). See Leviticus 18:21 and 2 Kings
23:10 for reference to the pagan idol Moloch (also known by the name Baal), who also
figures in John Milton’s
Paradise Lost
(Milton, Paradise Lost, 13, 14, 28, 150).
In these references to Plato’s cycles and Platonic cycles, MME seems to refer to
Plato’s notion of the soul’s immortality as it both cycles through various mortal lives
and as it transcends them to other states of being, a process known as transmigration
(Annas, “Plato”;
Frede, “Plato’s Ethics”). She may also have in mind Plato’s understanding of seasonal cycles, “the
law of contraries” and its corresponding “ceaseless flow and
change.” These cycles as well as Plato’s “moral cycle of the world [that]
corresponds to the motions of the planets” are discussed in an article on
“Plato’s Views of Immorality” published at the time of this
Almanack that MME also may have been reading (TSK, “Article V: Plato’s Views,” 85, 105).
MME refers to two works of Plotinus and also to William Wordsworth’s
Excursion. From Plotinus’s
“On Eternity and Time,” she loosely quotes from and alludes to
the following passages: “For if eternity is life consisting in permanency, and in
an invariable sameness of subsistence, and which is now infinite, but it is necessary
that time should be the image of eternity, just as this universe is the image of the
intelligible world; if this be the case, instead of the life which is there, it is
necessary there should be another life of the discursive power of the mundane soul,
homonymous as it were to the life of eternity; and instead of intellectual motion,
that there should be the motion of a certain part of the soul”; and “For
since it was not possible for time itself to be bounded by soul, nor for each part of
it to be measured by us, since it is invisible and incomprehensible, and especially
since this is impossible to those who do not know how to numerate,—hence the Demiurgus
made day and night, through which mankind were enabled to apprehend two things by
their difference; from which, as Plato says, they
arrived at the conception of number.” From “On the Good, Or the
One,”
MME quotes as follows: “Whoever fancies that
beings are governed by fortune and chance, and are held together by corporeal causes,
is very remote from God, and the conception of the one”
(Plotinus, Select Works, 209-10, 213, 481-2). An ongoing synthesis of god,
nature, eternity, and soul in this Almanack entry, MME’s
reference to “wilderness where God hath built” is found in this verse from
Wordsworth’s
The Excursion:
How beautiful this dome of sky;
And the vast hills, in fluctuation fixed
At thy command, how awful! . . .
My lips, that may forget thee in the crowd,
Cannot forget thee here; where thou has built,
For thy own glory, in the wilderness!
Me didst thou constitute a Priest of thine,
In such a Temple as we now behold
Reared for thy presence
(Wordsworth, “Wanderer,” 143).
MME may have in mind an article she references on page
11 in this Almanack, which is published in the North American
Review. In discussing the moral philosophy of Dugald
Stewart, the article also relies on Ralph
Cudworth’s views as to the characteristics of virtue: “The nature of
the motive that operated in this instance upon the minds of Stewart and Cudworth, is apparent. . . .
They were apprehensive, that if we consider moral distinctions as ‘results of the will
of God,’ we shall be obliged to withdraw from our ideas of the divine nature, the
moral attributes which we generally consider as belonging to it. ‘Such authors
certainly do not recollect,’ says Stewart,
‘that what they add to the divine power and majesty, they take away from his
moral attributes; for if moral distinctions be not immutable and eternal, it is
absurd to speak of the goodness or of the justice of God.’
‘If we suppose,’ says Cudworth, ‘that
the arbitrary will and pleasure of God—that is, an omnipotent Being, devoid of all
essential and immutable justice—by its commands and prohibitions is the first and
only rule and measure of right and wrong, it would follow unavoidably, that nothing
could be imagined so grossly wicked or so foully unjust or dishonest, but if it were
supposed to be commanded by this omnipotent Deity, must needs upon that hypothesis
become holy, just, and righteous.’
‘Whoever thinks,’ says Shaftesbury, ‘that there
is a God, and pretends firmly to believe that he is just and good, must suppose that
there is independently such a thing as Justice and Injustice, Truth and Falsehood,
Right and Wrong, according to which eternal and immutable standards, he pronounces
that God is just, righteous, and true. If the mere will, decree, or law of God be
said absolutely to constitute right and wrong, then are these latter words of no
signification at all.’ In all this there is much confusion of ideas, which
obviously results from the implied supposition, that the moral attributes of God, if
real, must be of the same nature with ours”
(Everett, “Review,” 255).
MME alludes to both Plotinus’s
“On Eternity and Time” and to Samuel
Clarke’s
Sermons on Several Subjects (17381738).
From Plotinus, she references and selectively quotes from
the following note: “Time, however, according to Proclus, is a medium between that which is alone the cause of motion, as soul, and that which is alone immoveable, as intellect. Hence time is truly, so
far as it is considered in itself, immoveable, but so far as it is in its
participants, it is moveable, and subsists together with them, unfolding itself into
them. He adds, hence it is a certain proceeding
intellect, established indeed in eternity, but proceeding and abundantly
flowing into the things which are guarded by it”
(Plotinus, Select Works, 209). From Clarke, she
draws on but repurposes this passage: “All other substances are IN Space, and are penetrated by it; but the self-existent Substance is not
IN Space, nor penetrated
by it, but is itself (if I may so speak) the Substratum of Space, the Ground of the existence of Space and Duration itself. Which [Space and Duration] being evidently necessary, and yet Themselves not Substances, but Properties or Modes; show evidently that the
Substance, without which these Modes could not
subsist, is itself much more (if that were possible)
Necessary. And as Space and Duration are needful, (i.e., sine qua
non,) to the Existence of every thing else; so
consequently is the Substance, to which These Modes belong in that
peculiar manner which I before mentioned”
(Clarke, “Answer,” 745-6).
MME refers to two biblical terms for idolatry and
greed, both of which are referred to in several biblical verses, such as Matthew 6:24:
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the
other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and
mammon”; Luke 16:9: “And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of
the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into
everlasting habitations”; Jeremiah 23:13: “And I have seen folly in the
prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to
err”; and 2 Kings 21:3: “For he built up again the high places which
Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove,
as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served
them.”
MME refers to a discourse given by Sir
Humphrey Davy, president of the Royal Society of London for Improving
Natural Knowledge, at a ceremony in 18271827, in which British
mathematician James Ivory was awarded with the Society’s Royal
Medal: “Whether we consider the nature of mathematical science or its results, it
appears equally amongst the noblest of human pursuit and ambition. Arising a work of
intellectual creation from a few self-evident propositions on the nature of magnitudes
and numbers, it is gradually formed into an instrument of pure reason of the most
refined kind, applying to and illustrating all the phenomena of nature and art, and
embracing the whole system of the visible universe; and the same calculus measures and
points out the application of labour, whether by animals or machines, determines the
force of vapour, and confines the power of the most explosive agents in the
steam-engine,—regulates the forms and structures best fitted to move through the
waves—ascertains the strength of the chain-bridge necessary to pass across arms of the
ocean—fixes the principles of permanent foundations in the most rapid torrents, and
leaving the earth filled with monuments of its power, ascends to the stars, measures
and weighs the sun and the planets, and determines the laws of their motions, and can
bring under its dominion those cometary masses that are, as it were, strangers to us,
wanderers in the immensity of space; and applies data gained from contemplation of the
sidereal heavens to measure and establish time, and movement, and magnitudes
below”
(“Discourses,” 365). Although in fact Coleridge significantly influenced Davy’s thinking,
MME seems to find Davy’s theory
lacking in that it doesn’t allow adequately for Coleridge’s distinction between reason and understanding, a
“scientific method” that as Laura Dassow Walls
explains “comprehended nature by replacing the creative mind of God with the
creative mind of man”
(Walls, Science, 59). As Eric Wilson proposes, in
Davy’s application of Coleridgean thought, “the common law
of nature, coursing from the ‘deep centre to the unknown circumference’
is to be revealed . . . by the science of electricity”
(Wilson, Sublime, 79, 89).
MME quotes selectively from an article that she also
references on page 9 in this Almanack, which is published in the North
American Review: “We do not say, as Mr.
Stewart intimates, that we are bound to obey the will of God because
there is a moral ‘fitness’ in so doing—that is, because in so doing we should act in
conformity to that higher rule of right which he supposes to exist independently of
the power and will of God himself, and which, as we have shown already, is a vain and
baseless fiction. Necessity and not fitness is the sense conveyed by the term obligation. We
are obliged to obey the will of God because we cannot
avoid it—because his will is the principle of our existence and the law of our nature.
We must exist and act in the way that he has prescribed for us in all our relations,
physical and moral, and we cannot exist and act, or even conceive the possibility of
existing and acting in a different one. Within the sphere of activity, that belongs to
our nature, there is no doubt, a certain latitude allowed to individuals by the
freedom of the will, but even in the exercise of this freedom they are, as we remarked
above, subject to the same divine law, and have no choice but that of submitting to
its operation in one way or another”
(Everett, “Review,” 265). She also seems to be comparing Stewart’s ideas to Samuel Clarke’s
theory on moral philosophy, from whose Obligations of Natural Religion
and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelation she misquotes and
paraphrases: “To this Law, the infinite Perfections of his Divine Nature make it
necessary for him (as has been before proved) to have constant Regard: And (as a
learned Prelate of our own has excellently shewn, not barely his infinite Power, but
the Rules of this eternal Law, are the true Foundation and the Measure of his Dominion
over his Creatures. Now for the same Reason that God
who hath no Superior to determine him, yet constantly
directs all his own Actions by the eternal Rule of Justice and Goodness, ’tis evident
all Intelligent Creatures in their several Spheres and
Proportions, ought to obey the same Rule according to
the Law of their Nature, even though it could be supposed separate from that
additional Obligation, of its being the positive Will and Command of God. And
doubtless there have been many Men in all Ages in many Parts of the heathen World, who
not having Philosophy enough to collect from mere Nature any tolerably just and
explicit Apprehensions concerning the Attributes of
God, much less having been able to deduce from thence any clear and certain
Knowledge of his Will, have yet had a very great Sense
of Right and Truth,
and been fully persuaded in their own Minds, of many unalterable Obligations of Morality. But this Speculation, though necessary to be
taken Notice of in the distinct Order and Method of Discourse, is in itself too dry,
and not of great Use to Us, who are abundantly assured
that all moral Obligations are moreover the plain and declared Will of God; As shall
be shewn particularly in its proper Place”
(Clarke, Discourse, 68-71).
We have not yet located the source of MME’s quotations,
nor have we yet identified her reference to “thy venerable head.” Although
MME refers to Samuel
Clarke as “venerable” on pages 10 and 11 of this Almanack, he
does not appear to be her subject in this passage. Other suggestive possibilities are as
follows. MME may have in mind the recently published
writings of abolitionist and Unitarian minister Charles
Follen, whom she mentions on page seven of this Almanack: “The idea
of God is a true one; because it can be clearly conceived in the mind, without
contradicting any other truth. God is the one only substance of all that is, or, he is
the only self-existent being; while all other things and qualities in the world are
only attributes, or modifications of his being”
(Follen, Works, 3:75). Her comments also seem resonant with the sense
of Transcendentalist George Ripley’s consideration of Andrews Norton’s
Discourse on the Latest Form of Infidelity (18391839), including Norton’s notion of the nature
of presumptuous reason: “‘According to Spinoza,’ you assert, ‘there is but one substance
existing. This is possessed of infinite attributes. All the phenomena of what we
call the created universe, that is, all finite beings, with their properties, acts,
and affections; with their moral qualities, good or bad; with their joys and
sufferings, are but modifications of the attributes of this sole substance, or, in
other words, of this substance itself. This substance has existed from eternity. It
could be produced by no other; for one substance cannot produce another; — creation
is impossible’”; and “By an attribute of God, Spinoza understands, any thing which expresses the eternal
essence of God, and by the affection or mode of an attribute, that which depends upon
the attribute, for its existence and conception. Thought and extension, therefore, or
mind and matter, are both manifestations of the eternal essence of God; the reflection
of the invisible, infinite nature”; and “Since men regarded and treated
the Bible and the Christian history in a natural light, and destroyed the miraculous
brightness which had hitherto surrounded them; since they saw many prejudices
disappear, found many points of the doctrine of the Church untenable, discovered human
and temporal elements in what had claimed to be divine, and in this process of
examination were not elevated by a firm faith, nor guided by a comprehensive idea, it
followed that scarcely any thing was protected from doubt, and the whole fabric of
Christianity tottered. The finishing stroke was put to this movement by the philosophy
of Kant, which subjected the whole system of human knowledge to a
rigid criticism, established human reason on itself alone, made it the supreme judge
in matters of faith, and thus favored presumption, but, at the same time, by its
speculative direction prepared the way for truth. Under its influence, a kind of
philosophic theology was formed, which regarded the Christian religion as a human and
natural phenomenon, although the best means for the education of humanity, submitted
its truth to the decision of reason, and undertook to purify it from all the local and
temporary opinions, with which it had been combined. As the Kantian philosophy
directed the attention especially to morality, this theological Rationalism regarded
the moral element in Christianity as every thing,— the rest merely as an external
support. Much as this theology was employed with the interpretation of Scripture and
the history of the Church, it never obtained a living conception of history, nor did
it deserve the noble name of Rationalism. The view, that Christ was to be regarded
only as a teacher, not as a Redeemer, that it was to be wished that his person might
have remained unknown to us, designates the spirit of this theology, and its monstrous
confusion. This Rationalism was a necessary phenomenon; it manifested the extreme of
the one-sided direction to speculative knowledge, which hitherto had often changed its
forms, but was still essentially the old Scholasticism”
(Ripley, Infidelity, 2:13, 2:22, 3:138-9). Finally, a brief article on
“Spinoza” published in the Boston
Investigator at the time of this Almanack is also suggestive, especially in
its criticism of MME’s nephew, Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Our readers may be pleased with the following
abstract of the opinions of Spinoza, whom Mr. Emerson ranks among those philosophers, who, like Jesus,
speak ‘from within,’ and who, if we do not
misunderstand, are according to Mr. Emerson the inspired writers, as distinguished from writers of
practical morality, like Paley and Locke. We admire Mr. Emerson’s
liberality, but how can he reconcile such liberality with a belief in the divine
authenticity of the Bible? According to Spinoza, all
religions are only political engines, calculated for the public good, to render the
people obedient to magistrates, and to make them practice virtue and morality. He
maintains that God is not, as we imagine him, an infinite, intelligent, happy, and
perfect Being; nor any thing but that natural virtue or faculty which is diffused
throughout all creatures. . . . The system of Spinoza
may be reducible to the following doctrines:—that there is but one substance in
nature, and that there is no other God but nature, or the universe. . . . This only
substance existing in nature is endued with an infinite number of attributes, among
which are extension and cogitation. All the bodies in the universe are modifications
of this same substance considered as cogitative. God is the cause of all things that
exist, but is not a different being from them. There is but one being and one nature,
and this nature produces within itself by an inherent act, all those which we call
creatures. This Being is at the same time both agent and patient, efficient cause and
subject, and he produces nothing but modifications of himself”
(“Boston Investigator 1842,” 1842).
MME likely refers to Dr. Charles
Follen, whose lectures in Boston on moral philosophy figure in her correspondence with nephew Charles Chauncy Emerson in 1831. In reference to his authorship of a book she wishes to borrow in March 1833, MME refers to Follen as her “new friend” in a letter to a friend, although it is not clear whether she has met him personally by this time. In 1835, the two did meet at a gathering for English author Harriet Martineau hosted by MME’s close friend Sarah Alden Bradford
Ripley (Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 235). Follen’s tragic early death spurred many tributes lauding his consistent fight for human liberty. One of these by abolitionist Samuel Joseph May refers repeatedly to Follen’s “sacrifices,” both in Germany and in the U.S., “for liberty” and “in the cause of liberty” (May, Discourse, 11, 26). By “inestimable sacrifices,” MME may have May’s article in mind as well as her own regard for his abolitionism and untimely death. In referencing “the rapture of giving mites,” MME may allude to Mark 12:42: “And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing,” and/or to Luke 21:2: “And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.”
MME quotes from Edward
Young’s
Complaint. Or, Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality:
…Time, and he
Who murder’d all Time’s offspring, Death, expire
(Young, Complaint, 250). In referring to Ralph
Cudworth, MME may have in mind an article
she also references on page 9 in this Almanack, which is published in the North American Review. In discussing the moral philosophy of
Dugald Stewart, the article also relies on Cudworth’s views as to the characteristics of virtue: “The
nature of the motive that operated in this instance upon the minds of Stewart and Cudworth, is
apparent. . . . They were apprehensive, that if we consider moral distinctions as
‘results of the will of God,’ we shall be obliged to withdraw from our ideas of the
divine nature, the moral attributes which we generally consider as belonging to it.
‘Such authors certainly do not recollect,’ says Stewart, ‘that what they add to the divine power and majesty, they take
away from his moral attributes; for if moral distinctions be not immutable and
eternal, it is absurd to speak of the goodness or of the justice of God.’ ‘If we
suppose,’ says Cudworth, ‘that the arbitrary will and
pleasure of God—that is, an omnipotent Being, devoid of all essential and immutable
justice—by its commands and prohibitions is the first and only rule and measure of
right and wrong, it would follow unavoidably, that nothing could be imagined so
grossly wicked or so foully unjust or dishonest, but if it were supposed to be
commanded by this omnipotent Deity, must needs upon that hypothesis become holy, just,
and righteous’”
(Everett, “Review,” 255).
In this Almanack, MME is reading several philosophers who debate the origins of human morality; in this passage she appears to be distilling and choosing among the conflicting ideas presented by eighteenth-century philosophers Henry Grove; Dugald Stewart; and (via Stewart) Francis Hutcheson and Anthony Ashley Cooper, third earl of Shaftesbury. In System of Moral Philosophy (1749), chapter one of which is “Of the Importance and Certainty of Morality,” Grove contends (in a sense that MME also honors in this passage) that God bestows upon humanity a “moral sense”; similar to the perception of beauty and “antecedently to any reasonings of ours, on the superior convenience, or healthfulness of the beautiful; we are alike formed with regard to moral characters.” She appears to reject, however, Grove’s notion that human morality derives from a sense perception, a response that may reflect her reading of Stewart’s critique of “moral sense” perception, particularly in regard to Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, both of whom, in his estimation, erred ironically in the manner of John Locke: “notwithstanding his [Hutcheson’s] hostility to Locke’s conclusions concerning innate practical principles, he adopted his opinions, and the peculiarities of his phraseology, with respect to the origin of our ideas in general. I already observed, that, according to both these writers, ‘it is the province of sense to introduce ideas into the mind; and of reason, to compare them together, and to trace their relations;’—a very arbitrary and unfounded assumption, undoubtedly, as I trust has been sufficiently proved in a former part of this argument; but from which it followed as a necessary consequence, that, if the words right and wrong express simple ideas, the origin of these ideas must be referred, not to reason, but to some appropriate power of perception. To this power Hutcheson, after the example of Shaftesbury, gave the name of the moral sense; a phrase which has now grown into such familiar use, that it is occasionally employed by many who never think of connecting it with any particular philosophical theory.” Stewart closes his critique by quoting Plato:
“‘It seems to me, that for acquiring these notions, there is not appointed any distinct or appropriate organ; but that the mind derives them from the same powers by which it is enabled to contemplate and to investigate truth’”
(Grove, System, 2:448);
(Stewart, Philosophical Essays, 43-44, 49).
MME may abbreviate an internal note regarding her physical health at this time.
MME refers to the fear of Boston residents that the city would be invaded as the War of 1812 continued. During the fall of 1814, British troops in Maine and Connecticut had ravaged homes and businesses, causing many residents to flee. In the following weeks, Boston officials held meetings to discuss preparations for defending the city, with local troops parading through city streets to demonstrate their readiness. Despite such preparations, the city of Boston was never attacked. MME’s correspondence at this time also reflects these concerns as well as her characterization of “the garrison like appearance of this Town, the incessant echo of martial musick”
(“Defence”);
(“Invasion of Connecticut”);
(“Penobscot”);
(Ellis, Ruinous, 225);
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 79).
MME quotes from Dugald Stewart’s
“Essay First: On Locke’s Account of the Sources of Human Knowledge.” Contending that philosophers err in attempting to explain phenomena inaccessible to empirical observation, Stewart argues that human experience can only account for aspects of the universe, the human mind, and their operations: “I can see no good reason for supposing that Locke did not believe that our ideas of primary qualities are really resemblances or copies of these qualities, when we know for certain that, till our own times, this has been the universal doctrine of the schools, from Aristotle downwards . . . . Even Leibnitz himself, while he rejected the supposition of these ideas coming into the mind from without, expresses no doubt of their resemblance to the archetypes which they enable us to think of . . . . [T]hat is to say, he retained that part of the scholastic doctrine which is the most palpably absurd and unintelligible; the supposition, that we can think of nothing, unless either the original or the copy be actually in the mind, and the immediate subject of consciousness. The truth is, that all these philosophers have been misled by a vain anxiety to explain the incomprehensible causes of the phenomena of which we are conscious, in the simple acts of thinking, perceiving, and knowing; and they seem all to have imagined that they had advanced a certain length in solving these problems, when they conjectured, that in every act of thought there exists some image or idea in the mind, distinct from the mind itself; by the intermediation of which its intercourse is carried on with things remote or absent. The chief difference among their systems has turned on this, that whereas many have supposed the mind to have been originally provided with a certain portion of its destined furniture, independently of any intercourse with the material world; the prevailing opinion, since Locke’s time has been, that all our simple ideas, excepting those which the power of reflection collects from the phenomena of thought, are images or representations of certain external archetypes with which our different organs of sense are conversant; and that, out of these materials, thus treasured up in the repository of the understanding, all the possible objects of human knowledge are manufactured. ‘What inconsistency!’ (might Voltaire well exclaim)”
(Stewart, Philosophical Essays, 23-24). Although MME approves of the focus on faith and values Stewart’s “sublime incomprehensibility,” she rejects Stewart and Locke’s insistence that knowledge arises only from human experience
The Boston Female Asylum, one of the earliest examples in that city of the “first wave” of early American women’s benevolent reform efforts, was established in 1800 to care for orphaned and destitute girls; notably, women served as its its board of managers, director, and governess. The anniversary sermon, characteristically delivered the Friday before the last Tuesday of September, functioned as a fundraising event, raising $212.45 in 1814; the Reverend Joshua Huntington of Boston’s Old South Church delivered that year’s anniversary sermon. MME’s remarks suggest that she was unable to contribute as significantly as she might have done in previous years, but her fond hope for the Asylum’s future came to pass. Beginning as an institution that offered basic educational, domestic, and religious instruction for girls while placing them in domestic service positions until the age of 18, over time it reinforced its benevolent mission. After name changes and mergers in 1910 and 1923, in 1960 its institutional descendant, the Boston Children’s Aid Society, and the Boston Children’s Friend Society merged to form Boston Children’s Services, an organization that now figures as a component of The Home for Little Wanderers, an agency supporting diverse and robust services for young people in the city up to the age of 22 as well as their families
(Reminiscences of Boston Female Asylum, 9010, 18-24, 71;
Boylan, Origins, 17-24, 19;
Hart, Preventive, 163;
Home).
MME alludes to a common parable, delivered by Jesus, in Matthew 7:3-5: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye”; and in Luke 6:41-42: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.”
After the death of her husband William in 1811, Boston’s First Church granted Ruth Haskins Emerson the use of its parish house for several years and $500 annually for a period of seven years to support herself and her six children
(Cabot, Memoir, 1:28-29). Nonetheless, the
family was in straitened financial circumstances. Ruth
Emerson auctioned her husband’s books
(Rusk, Life, 30), and Waldo and
Bulkeley Emerson were
required to share an overcoat in cold weather
(Cabot, Memoir, 1:29).
Moreover, the war-time blockade in Boston and the influx
of quartered troops further inflated the price of food
and other staples. After leaving the parish house, the
Emersons “lived for a while in Bennet
Street”
(Rusk, Life, 40), “perhaps staying for a time with the Haskinses on Rainsford Lane; in November 1814, when war approached, they moved to Concord, where RHE remained until March 1815”
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 93 n1).
MME likely refers to one of several Baptist Society churches that existed in Boston at this time and that had appointed September 29, 1814 “as a day of FASTING, HUMILIATION, and PRAYER . . . to seek the Divine interposition in favor of our country at this alarming crisis,” a reference to ongoing hostilities during the War of 1812
(Columbian Centinel).
Infantry, artillery, and rifle regiments from neighboring cities gathered in Boston at this time; MME and Ruth Haskins Emerson were advised that the city would shortly be invaded. Because of imminent danger and inflation in expenses associated with a town quartering soldiers, they moved to Concord, at the invitation of Ezra Ripley, in November 1814, where Ruth remained until March 1815 and MME a little longer. Before their departure, however, MME wrote both Ann Brewer and Phebe Emerson Ripley in hopes that she and the young Emerson brothers might reside in Waterford, rather than removing to Concord, as Ruth preferred. In Malden, MME’s Aunt Rebecca Emerson Parker Brintnall Waite may have needed assistance due to her ongoing mental instability, the condition of her husband Samuel Waite (who died in January 1814), or a hip condition, which MME describes at the time of her uncle’s funeral (Rusk, Life, 39)
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 80-81, 82 n2, 90 n2, 91, 93 n1).
MME may intend this letter to be a symbol or an abbreviation, but since it does not resemble her common symbol of a large circle with an inside mark resembling a period (⨀), the editors have transcribed the letter as it appears.
Sarah Alden Bradford and Samuel Ripley married in October 1818 (Simmons, Selected Letters, 117 n1).
Prayer concerts dated back at least to the eighteenth century in Europe and Great Britain, where they generally accompanied religious revivals and other missionary efforts. In the early republic, American churches held such services in times of great deliberation over a national or spiritual crisis. Given the ongoing state of war with England during the fall of 1814, MME could refer to a number of prayer concerts held in Boston at this time. See, for example, “A Word in Season to the Christian Public,” in the Boston Daily Advertiser for 29 November 1814, which announces a “special concert in prayer”
to seek divine guidance for the nation’s leaders
(“Word in Season”;
Hamilton, Old South, 261, 411).
A portion of the top of this page has been excised, and little discernible text
remains on these lines; no Tolman transcription is
extant for the excised lines of this page.
If the editors are correct in speculatively dating this Almanack page as 18121812, then this reference to “sabbath” falls on a Saturday
rather than a Sunday. Either MME is mistaken about the date, or her use of
“sabbath evening” may refer to the day prior to as well as Sunday itself.
A portion of top of page has been excised; little discernible text remains; no
Tolman transcription is extant for the excised
lines of this page.
MME may intend this letter to be a symbol or an abbreviation, but since it does
not resemble her common symbol of a large circle with an inside mark resembling a
period (ʘ) and typically abbreviating the word “world,” the editors offer the
possibility that this letter may instead abbreviate an unknown word.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the left side of the page, with little
discernible text; a portion of the bottom of page has been torn and is no longer
extant.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the right side of the page, with little
discernible text; a portion of the bottom of page has been torn and is no longer
extant.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the left side of the page, with little
discernible text.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the right side of the page, with little
discernible text.
Written in green pencil in left corner of top margin, likely in non-authorial
hand.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the left side of the page, with little
discernible text.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the right side of the page, with little
discernible text.
MME may have written “18” or “28” to date this entry, but with no additional
context on this line to validate whether this numeral is indeed a date, and with
no certainty as to this page’s original placement in this Almanack, we cannot
offer more than the speculation that this numeral may be a date, and if so that it
is possibly some time in 1812-11November 1812.
These lines are written on the left side of the page.
The remaining lines on this page have been excised.
The remaining lines on this page have been excised.
An indeterminate number of lines have been excised from the top of this manuscript
page.
An indeterminate number of lines have been excised from the top of this manuscript
page.
This word is written in large letters horizontally across the middle of the page
in what appears to be MME’s hand. However, this page reflects no burned edges or
other damage seemingly due to burning.
This leaf is a complete vertical fragment on the right side of the page, with
little discernible text.
This leaf is both a vertical fragment on the right side of the page and a vertical
fragment on the left side of the next page; the editors have not transcribed the
latter, due to minimal discernible text.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the right side of the page, with little
discernible text.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the left side of the page, with little
discernible text.
With no additional context on this line to validate whether this numeral is indeed
a date, and with no certainty as to this page’s original placement in this
Almanack, we cannot offer more than the speculation that this numeral is a date,
and if so that it is possibly some time in 1813-11November
1813.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the right side of the page, with little
discernible text; a portion of the top of page has been torn and is no longer
extant.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the left side of the page, with little
discernible text; a portion of the top of page has been torn and is no longer
extant.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the left side of the page, with little
discernible text; a portion of the top of page has been torn and is no longer
extant.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the right side of the page, with little
discernible text; a portion of the top of page has been torn and is no longer
extant.
This line is positioned flush right.
This line is positioned flush right.
This line is positioned flush right.
In response to the U.S. declaration of war against England
on 1812-06-18June 18, 1812, governors throughout the country
appointed specific days for observance and reflection. In
Massachusetts, Governor Caleb
Strong proclaimed 1812-07-23July 23, 1812
“a day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer”;
many sermons were delivered on this occasion, including that of William Ellery Channing at the Federal Street
Church in Boston (“Declaration,” 2-3); (“Miscellany,” 1); (Channing, Sermon).
In her calendar for MME’s whereabouts in 1812, Nancy Craig
Simmons suggests that MME spent July through some portion of
September in Concord, Massachusetts
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 46).
MME refers to Luke 23:46: “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he
said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave
up the ghost.”
MME references a tradition dating back to Hippocrates and
Galen, the medico-philosophical theory of the humors (the
four bodily fluids of blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy), and their influence
on human temperament and physiology. In his popular Natural
Theology (1802), William Paley argued
that human reason may glean the existence of intelligent divinity via empirical
evidence of the earth’s design. Expanding upon the notion that bodily humors
govern happiness and melancholy, he proposed that happiness is both divinely
granted and grounded in the senses of taste, hearing, and sight; the stomach is
the “seat of taste,” and Paley attributed
“dullness of the senses” as one of the chief
“complaint[s] of old
age,” a proposition MME may dispute here (Paley, Works, 1:330, 331). In his Principles of Moral and Political
Philosophy, Paley notes, “If any positive
signification, distinct from what we mean by pleasure, can be affixed to the
term ‘happiness,’ I should take it to denote a certain state of the nervous
system in that part of the human frame in which we feel joy and grief, passions
and affections. Whether this part be in the heart, which the turn of most
languages would lead us to believe, or the diaphragm, as
Buffon, or the upper orifice of the stomach, as
Van Halmont thought. . . it is possible, not only that
each painful sensation may violently shake and disturb the fibres at the time,
but that a series of such may at length so derange the texture of the system as
to produce a perpetual irritation, which will show itself by fretfulness . . .
It is possible also, on the other hand, that a succession of pleasurable
sensations may have such an effect upon this subtile organization as to cause
the fibres to relax, and . . . to preserve that harmonious conformation which
gives to the mind its sense of . . . satisfaction”
(Paley, Works, 3:24-25).
MME may allude to the wording of popular Christian hymns, including two by
John Wesley: “Christ Our
Righteousness” includes the lines
This all my hope, and all my plea,
For me the Saviour died
; and stanza nine of “Invitation of Sinners to
Christ” reads
Murderers, and all the hellish crew,
Blacken’d with lust and pride,
Beileve [sic] the Saviour died for
you,
For you the Saviour died
(Wesley, Hymns, 40, 63).
Although we have located news articles mentioning Rev.
William Ellery Channing, who may be “Mr C,” and Judge Parker, we have not located any information to help us
identify the specific sermon to which MME refers.
MME quotes from Joseph Milner’s
A History of the Church of Christ (1794), in which
Milner distinguishes between Christian and
non-Christian virtue, specifically that of Roman governor Pliny the Younger: “The truth is, virtue in Pliny’s writings, and virtue in St.
Paul’s, means not the same thing. For humility, the basis of a
Christian’s virtue, the pagan has not even a name in his language. The glory of
God is the end of virtue in the one, his own glory is the end of virtue in the
other”
(Milner, History, 163). Here, Milner echoes 2 Peter 1:3 regarding
Christian virtue: “According as his divine power hath
given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the
knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.”
MME may refer to a new friend, eighteen year-old Sarah Alden
Bradford, a parishioner in her late brother’s church. In
correspondence in the early years of their acquaintance, MME reveals her great
fondness and admiration for the young woman, whom she refers to as “my latest freind & sweetest freind” and “thou soother of my dark life.” Soon she would
praise Bradford’s devotion, discipline, and
erudition, comparing her to the learned Elizabeth
Smith
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 65, 69, 82-3).
As evidenced in her correspondence and throughout the Almanacks, martyrdom was an
important concept to MME throughout her life and one that reflects her Puritan
heritage. Here she may refer to two works by Joseph
Milner, History of the Church of Christ
(1794), which she is reading earlier in this Almanack, and his recent (1807)
edition of John Foxe’s
Book of Martyrs (1563). Both books describe and denounce
the superstitious “idolatrous” nature of the early Christian church and its
hierarchy, particularly the beliefs in transubstantiation, purgatory, relics and
images of saints, and the divinity of Mary, the mother of
Jesus. Milner also
describes that “the corruptions of superstition, with
respect to the immoderate honours paid to saints and martyrs . . . were
afterward improved by Satan into idolatry itself,” and he equates the
“loosing of Satan” with the “desolation of the church” (Milner, History, vi, 47, 195, 384, 423; Foxe, Martyrs, 12, 159, 248, 309-10, 313, 346, 350, 439, 739). MME’s concern with religious superstition at this time is also evident
in counsel offered to young friends and relatives a few years after this Almanack
was written: “Avoid superstition when speaking of
religion and conversion,” she advises Ann
Sargent; similarly, she reminds her nephew, Edward Bliss Emerson, to be vigilant “against veiwing the holy and sublime duty of prayer with superstition”
(Emerson to Gage, “29 January 1816”; Simmons, Selected Letters, 97).
MME may refer to attending the funerals of acquaintances Nathaniel T. Tilden and Judith Cooper
Huntington, both of whom had recently died. Tilden’s funeral was held in Boston
on 1812-11-1010 November 1812, while Huntington’s took place the next day, on 1812-11-1111
November 1812, also in Boston.
MME may allude to Romans 1:9: “For God is my witness,
whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I
make mention of you always in my prayers.”
MME quotes a phrase from Seneca’s letter to
Lucilius, which appeared frequently in literary works and sermons: “We are
not to be solicitous of long Life, but that we may live while we live”
(Savage, Collection, 61).
Many biblical verses refer to those who are naked, hungry, and thirsty. MME may
allude to 1 Corinthians 4:11: “Even unto this present hour we both hunger,
and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling
place”; or to Matthew 25:34-45: “Then shall the King say unto them
on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me
meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and
ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we
saw thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and give thee drink? When saw we
thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we
thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say
unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also
unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no
meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me
not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me
not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw see thee an
hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did
not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto
you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to
me.”
MME may allude to Luke 10:21: “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and
said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid
these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even
so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.”
In this lengthy discussion, MME apparently commonplaces from what she admits to be
potentially a memory—rather than a recent reading—of Joseph
Butler’s
Sermons. MME’s equation of “feelings” with “frames” does
not accord with Butler’s or other philosophers’ use
of the latter term, and Butler’s commentary about
the dangers of “feelings” such as human passions and emotions, self-interest,
self-deceit, and even compassion (when it results from an erroneous pleasure that
others’ sorrows are not your own) may have confused MME’s thinking. In his Analogy of Religion, with which MME was familiar, Butler asserts that “veracity, justice and charity,
regard to God’s authority, and to our own chief interest, are not only all
three coincident; but each of them is, in itself, a just and natural motive or
principle of action”; he also argues that although correctly governed
self-interest and even anger can lead to virtuous or principled action,
“both self-love and particular affections . . . considered only as
passive feelings, distort and rend the mind; and therefore stand in need of
discipline”
(Butler, Analogy, 152, 153). This commentary perhaps added to MME’s sense of the ways in which
self-interest and self-deception, when not governed by reason and self-reflection,
could interrupt the correct workings of Butler’s
theory of “principle[s] of
action” that guide or produce virtue for the self and others (“Butler’s Moral”). Adding to the difficulty of understanding this passage is that Butler’s ambiguity on these subjects has led to
considerable debate among philosophers and historians; thus, it is understandable
that MME too may have been perplexed about the various interpretations of his
meaning in these works.
MME likely alludes to Job 9:21: “Though I were perfect, yet would I not know
my soul: I would despise my life.”
Samuel Tully and John Dalton had been
convicted of murder and piracy of the schooner George
Washington and were scheduled for execution in Boston in 1812-12December 1812.
Tully was duly hung on 1812-12-1010 December
1812, but Dalton received a reprieve at the last
minute, while standing on the gallows. His execution was rescheduled multiple
times before he was awarded a full pardon on 1813-06-1313 June
1813. Tully was the first person to be executed in
Suffolk County in the fifteen years prior (Report on the Trial, 33-34; “Remarkable Incident,” 167).
MME refers to the Napoleonic wars, which had been ongoing in
Europe and Russia for several
years. In 18121812, Napoleon had invaded
Russia; that fall, many news accounts reported on the
important and deadly Battle of Borodino, near Moscow, which
had occurred in early September and which resulted in thousands of casualties on
both sides and ultimately proved disastrous to Napoleon’s
army. Various news and historical sources of the time characterized
Napoleon as “the enemy of human nature” and
“the enemy of the world” (“London, Oct. 3,” 3; Cobbett, Cobbetts, 658).
As Nancy Simmons has noted, throughout her
writings, MME denominated money in British terms of pounds and shillings, not
dollars and cents; and she typically abbreviates “pound” with the symbol “#” (Simmons, Selected Letters, xlvi-xlvii, 237, 287). This in addition to fluctuating denominations in early American currency
make it difficult to speculate with any certainty on the value of MME’s reference
here to one hundred pounds. One hundred dollars (versus American or British
“pounds”) in 18131812 would have been roughly equivalent to
$1,840 in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available (Measuring Worth).
MME may refer to George Campbell and David Hume’s
Lectures on Ecclesiastical History (1807), as well as to
two new works on Martin Luther that were published
in 18131813: Ernest L.
Hazelius’s
Life of Dr. Martin Luther together
with Extracts of His Writings on Various Subjects; and a new edition of
the Augsburg Confession, to which was appended Life of Dr. Martin Luther
. The Confession lays out several of the
Protestant reformers’ concessions to the Roman church, including those on the
doctrine of salvation, and it notes Luther’s
“courage,” a human attribute that MME also honors in her consideration of the
“corporeal” causes and “human methods” underlying Luther’s development as a reformer. Hume and Campbell contended that Luther regarded “the intrepidity, with which he had been enabled to brave so many dangers,
and the success with which his enterprise had
been crowned . . . as miraculous” (Campbell and Hume, Lectures, 456; original emphasis). Luther’s stance on
miracles rejects the belief that Catholic saints could intercede and aid in an
individual’s salvation; for Luther, “miracles
and natural wonders were a form of divine revelation distinctly inferior to the
Word” (Augsburg Confession, 72; Soergel, Miracles, 28).
MME may allude to Sirach 43:30 (The Book of Ecclesiasticus) in the Apocrypha:
“When ye glorify the Lord, exalt him as much as ye can; for even yet will
he far exceed: and when ye exalt him, put forth all your strength, and be not
weary; for ye can never go far enough.”
Established in 18111811 for the purpose of supporting
Christian missions and translating the bible, the Foreign Mission Society of
Boston held its annual meeting in the great
hall of the Massachusetts Bank on 1813-01-01January 1, 1813
at 3 pm. Reverend Abiel Holmes subsequently
delivered the Society’s annual sermon at the Old South
Church later that evening. Occurrences in December of note and of
potential commentary for the society included the recent, devastating $50,000 loss
of its East Indian Mission Printing Office due to a fire as well as to the
Society’s $1,000 pledge of funds for translations and distribution of the bible in
Asia (“Foreign Mission”; Holmes, Discourse).
Research has not yet determined MME’s reference to a fire at this time, which
editors speculatively date as 1813-01-022 January 1813.
MME may allude to Colossians 4:12: “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant
of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye
may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God”; or to James
1:2-4: “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers
temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But
let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting
nothing.” Given her admiration for the writings of Samuel
Clarke, she may also have in mind his Demonstration
of the Being and Attributes of God (1704).
MME alludes to Job 36:3: “I will fetch my knowledge from afar, and will
ascribe righteousness to my Maker.”
MME alludes to Psalms 119:81: “My soul fainteth for thy salvation: but I
hope in thy word.”
MME may allude to “The Tale of the Little Beggar” in One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, in which several members
of a community mistakenly think they have killed a beggar, also described as a
“humble servant” of Allah, whom they move to various locales in an
attempt to hide their perceived crime. By the early nineteenth century, these
popular stories had been translated into English and published in several British
and American editions.
MME likely refers to Jeremy Taylor’s
Rule and Exercises of Holy Living, first published in
16501650.
MME alludes to Psalm 13:1: “How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever?
how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?”
At the beginning of 18131813, MME was in Boston, staying with and helping Ruth Haskins
Emerson with her six children, aged twelve and younger. By the end
of February she has returned to South Waterford, Maine and
taken Bulkeley Emerson (age six) and Charles Chauncy Emerson (age five) with her. Bulkeley remains only a short time, but Charles’s visit extends through early October. In
Maine, Lincoln Ripley and
Samuel Moody Haskins had been born in 18121812 and 18131813, respectively (Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 141; Simmons, Selected Letters, 50, 77, x). The editors speculatively date this Almanack page as 1813-02-2323 February 1813, in which case the “crying babes” are
likely these Haskins children.
Two years prior, in 1811-05May 1811, MME’s brother, William, and her intimate friend, Mary Wilder Van Schalkwyck White, had both died. MME had spent much
of the past several months living with William’s
widow, her sister-in-law Ruth Haskins Emerson, not
only helping care for her six children (all under age 12 years) but also keeping
house for the paying boarders whom Ruth had taken
in to alleviate her financial situation. At the time of this Almanack passage, MME
has returned to South Waterford, Maine, taking two of her
nephews there for an extended stay. Although it is likely Ruth to whom she refers as “gloomily situated,” her sister
Phebe Emerson Ripley in Waterford was ill at this time (Simmons, Selected Letters, 60, 64-64, 71; Dwight, Memorials, 380-81; Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 134).
MME alludes to a few stanzas, and quotes one line from another stanza, of
Edward Young’s lengthy poem, “Resignation”:
By Resignation; all in that
A double friend may find,
A wing to heav’n, and, while on earth,
The pillow of mankind.
and
That peace, which resignation yields,
Who feel alone can guess:
’Tis disbeliev’d by murm’ring minds,
They must conclude it less.
The loss or gain of that alone
Have we to hope or fear;
That fate controls, and can invert
The seasons of the year.
O! the dark days, the year around,
Of an impatient mind;
Thro’ clouds, and storms, a summer breaks,
To shine on the resign’d
(Young, “Resignation,” 161-62).
MME may quote Gavin Turnbull, whose poem “The Clubs. A Satire” opens as follows:
Now jowing bells, with solemn croon,
Proclaim another day is done,
And fowk wha due decorum keep,
Forget their cares in silent sleep;
While jovial sauls that fear nae ill,
Keep up noise and riot still
(Turnbull, Poems, 30).
MME quotes from “Night IV: The Christian Triumph” from
Edward Young’s
Complaint:
As when a wretch, from thick, polluted air,
Darkness, and stench, and suffocating damps,
And dungeon-horrors, by kind fate, discharg’d,
Climbs some fair eminence, where ether pure
Surrounds him, and Elysian prospects rise,
His heart exults, his spirits cast their load;
As if new-born, he triumphs in the change;
So joys the soul, when from inglorious aims,
And sordid sweets, from feculence and froth
Of ties terrestrial, set at large, she mounts
To reason’s region, her own element,
Breathes hopes immortal, and affects the skies
(Young, Complaint, 71).
Written in top right corner in green pencil, likely in non-authorial hand.
MME may quote from Felicia Browne Hemans’s poem “The Song of a Seraph,” whose second stanza begins “Now the angel-songs I hear, / Dying softly on the ear; / Spirit, rise! to thee is given, / The light ethereal wing of heaven”
(Hemans, Poems, 58).
MME may allude to various religious works that discuss a christian’s worthiness both to sit at God’s table and to eat the crumbs that fall from it, as reflected in this excerpt from an article published in a New England religious periodical in 1801:
“‘Do you think yourself worthy to come to the table of the Lord?’ The answer was, ‘No, I know I am not; but the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters table, and this, sir, is what I wish to be permitted to do. I think it my duty to confess Christ before men; and as unworthy as I am, I have a desire to commune with him at his table’”
(Waterman, “Letter II,” 62). Her allusion to eating the crumbs that fall from the table is from Matthew 15:26-27: “But he answered and said, ‘It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.’ And she said, ‘Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’”
Interlined in pencil above
“{ exclarrisement | éclaircissement },”
likely in non-authorial hand.
Interlined in pencil above
“{ xeampel | example },”
likely in non-authorial hand.
MME alludes to 2 Samuel 12: 1-4: “And the LORD sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, ‘There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds: But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.’”
Interlined in pencil above “christaity” likely in non-authorial hand.
MME had returned in early 1813 to her home in Waterford, taking her nephew Charles Chauncy Emerson there for an extended visit; on 3 October [1813], she writes to her brother Samuel Ripley that she has “parted with my idol Charles”
(Simmons, Selected Letters, 50, 77).
MME quotes a common phrase found in several literary works at the time, suggesting that it is in common use. For example, in his Miscellanies, Oliver Goldsmith asserts that “though good versification alone will not constitute Poetry, bad versification alone will certainly degrade and render disgustful the sublimest sentiments and finest flowers of imagination”
(Goldsmith, Miscellanies, 405); writing about Plato’s
“labyrinth of argument,”
Henry Kett describes that the philosopher “scatters around us the flowers of imagination”
(Kett, Elements, 355).
This and the last page of this Almanack are inscribed in “patchwork” fashion, with triangular-shaped blank spaces in the middle of the text, forming covers for this booklet.
As with the first page of this Almanack, this one is inscribed in “patchwork” fashion, with triangular-shaped blank spaces in the middle of the page.
Written in green pencil in left corner of top margin, likely in non-authorial hand.
MME is quoting Philip
Doddridge, Lecture CXCII, in The Works of Rev. P.
Doddridge: “The obligation of the precepts
contained in New Testament continues so long as the
reasons on which they were founded continue, and ceases
when the observation of any particular precept is
inconsistent with another of a more general nature, or of
greater importance for promoting the essential branches of
virtue”
(Doddridge, Works, 5:286).
MME quotes from Lecture CXCII of Philip Doddridge: “2.
Dem. 1. Many precepts are
delivered in such manner, that they must necessarily admit
of some exception, in order to reconcile them with each
other, and with the natural law of God, founded on the
mutable and immutable relation of things . . . 2. The law of
Moses
, which is delivered in
as general and universal a stile as the precepts of
Christ, was in some instances violated, without any crime,
by those who were still in general under the obligations
of that law”
(Doddridge, Works, 5:286).
No Tolman transcript is extant for this text.
MME is quoting and paraphrasing Friedrich von
Schlegel, Lectures
on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern:
“The classical period of Roman literature, then,
reckoning from the consulate of Cicero till the death
of Trajan,
included no more than one hundred and eighty years.
Within the same period also the science of
jurisprudence, the only original intellectual possession
of great value to which the Romans can lay undisputed
claim, received its first development, and began to
assume the appearance of a science”
(Schlegel, Lectures, 1:159).
MME is misquoting Francis Bacon: “But it is manifest, that Plato, in his opinion of ideas as one that had a wit of elevation situate as upon a cliff, did decry ‘That forms were the true object of knowledge;’ but lost the real fruit of his opinion, by considering of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined and determined by matter; and so turning his opinion upon theology, wherewith all his natural philosophy is infected”
(Bacon, Advancement, 72).
MME likely refers to Numa Pompilius’s
reputed consort and advisor, the Italian water nymph
Egeria. For
the insurance of easy deliveries, pregnant women made
sacrifices to Egeria (“Numa Pompilius”).
MME is commonplacing Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, Comprising his
Practical Philosophy, Translated from the Greek as
translated by John
Gillies: “The Divinity . . . ever is what he is,
existing in energy before time began, since time is only
an affection of motion, of which God is the author. That
kind of life which the best and happiest of men lead
occasionally, in unobstructed exercise of their highest
powers, belongs eternally to God in a degree that should
excite admiration in proportion as it surpasses
comprehension”
(Gillies, Aristotle’s Ethics, 1:155).
MME is commonplacing Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, Comprising his Practical Philosophy, Translated from the Greek, as translated by John Gillies: “He began by proving that the happiness of man consists in the exercise of the moral and intellectual virtues; or, in his own technical language, ‘that happiness is energy directed in the line of virtue.’. . .This system is totally different from that which regards morality as founded solely or ultimately on feeling, whether a moral sense, sympathy, or any other modification of merely sensitive nature; an absurd doctrine, liable to gross and dangerous perversion; and which has often been employed to justify, and even to produce the wildest practical errors”; and “Familiar with the correct geometry of his times, he discerned the concatenation of truths, which, being linked indissolubly together, unite the most distant, and seemingly unconnected extremes”
(Gillies, Aristotle’s Ethics, 1:290, 131).
MME is commonplacing Aristotle’s
Ethics and Politics, Comprising his Practical Philosophy, Translated from the Greek, as translated by John Gillies: “It is the doctrine of Aristotle, a doctrine long and obstinately disputed, but now very generally received, that all our direct knowledge originates from sense”
(Gillies, Aristotle’s Ethics, 1:46). No Tolman transcript is extant for this text.
MME is quoting Charles Rollin: “Now, it is unanimously agreed by all astronomers, that several thousands of years must pass, before any such situation of the stars, as they would imagine, can twice happen; and it is very certain, that the state in which the heavens will be to-morrow has never yet been since the creation of the world”
(Rollin, Ancient History, 2:186-187). No Tolman transcript is extant for this text.
MME is commonplacing from Thomas Reid, An Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the Principles of Common Sense: “The progeny that followed, is still more frightful; so that is surprising, that one could be found who had the courage to act the midwife, to rear it up, and to usher it into the world. No causes nor effects; no substances, material or spiritual; no evidence even in mathematical demonstration; no liberty nor active power; nothing existing in nature, This but impressions and ideas following each other, without time, place, or subject . . . The dissimilitude of our sensations and feelings to external things, is the innocent mother of most of them . . . Now, this can with no propriety be called an association of ideas, unless ideas and belief be one and the same thing. A child has found the prick of a pin conjoined with pain; hence, he believes, and knows, that these things are naturally connected; he knows that the one will always follow the other. If any man will call this only an association of ideas, I dispute not about words, but I think he speaks very improperly. For if we express it in plain English, it is prescience, that things which he hath found conjoined in time past, will be conjoined in time to come. And this prescience is not the effect of reasoning, but of an original principle of human nature, which I have called the inductive principle . . . the best models of inductive reasoning that have yet appeared, which I take to be the third book of the Principia and the Optics of NEWTON, were drawn from BACON’s rules. The purpose of all those rules, is to teach us to distinguish seeming or apparent connections of things in the course of nature, from such as are real.” MME also references Reid’s explanation of Joseph Addison’s theory “that light and colours, as apprehended by the imagination, are only ideas in the mind, and not qualities that have any existence in matter”
(Reid, Inquiry, 191, 192, 434, 437, 179).
MME’s positive
conception of “enthusiasm” may be inspired by or responding to
Germaine de Staël,
whose Influence of Literature upon Society she
is reading at this time. In this work, as well as in three
chapters dedicated to “enthusiasm” in Germany,
de Staël links “a reflected enthusiasm, and a pure exaltation
of mind” (De Staël, Influence, 1:275), and she asserts that
“enthusiasm is connected with the harmony of the universe: it
is the love of the beautiful, elevation of soul, enjoyment of
devotion”; similar to MME, she also relates this emotion to
“men [who] take up arms indeed for the defence of the land
which they inhabit . . . inspired by the enthusiasm of their
country”; and she asserts that “if the soul be really moved
within us, if in the universe it seeks a God, even if it be
still sensible to glory and to love, the clouds of heaven will
hold converse with it, the torrents will listen to its voice,
and the breeze that passes through the grove, seems to deign
to whisper to us something of those we love (De Staël, Germany, 2:328, 339, 341-42). In contrast
to De Staël and MME, some post-Enlightenment figures, such as
Thomas Reid, whom
MME is also reading at this time, assert that “imagination . .
. or the most frantic enthusiasm” can be a product of
“delirium” (Reid, Inquiry, 46-47).
These lines form a vertical list in the right gutter of
the page; this list seems to function as a “mood chart,”
describing MME’s temperament between 22 March and 11 April
1821. No Tolman transcription is extant for this text.
MME is quoting and paraphrasing an 1821 review of
Dugald Stewart’s Outlines of Moral Philosophy, for
the use of students in the University of
Edinburgh (1818), from the Christian Spectator:
“And in the first place, ‘too much
stress’ he says ‘has been laid on the
argument derived from the nature of mind.’ The
proper use of the doctrine of the soul’s Immateriality,
he says, is ‘not to demonstrate that the soul is
physically and necessarily immortal; but to refute the
objections which have been urged against the possibility
of its existing in a separate state from the
body.’ In short, he does not think our knowledge
of the nature of mind is sufficient to afford us any positive argument on the
subject; for we know nothing of the nature of mind
except that, since its qualities are essentially
different from the qualities of matter, the nature of
the one is probably different from the nature of the
other; and consequently the dissolution of the body does
not necessarily imply the extinction of the soul, but
the ‘presumption is in favour of the contrary
supposition.’ So confident is he however, that
the nature of mind and body are essentially different,
that he considers even the Ideal theory of Berkeley as ‘more
philosophical than the doctrine of materialism,’
in as much as the former ‘only contradicts the
suggestion of our perceptions, while the latter
contradicts the suggestions of our
consciousness.’ The latter part of this article
is too good to be passed over without presenting to our
readers almost the whole of it. ‘There are various
circumstances which render it highly probable, that the
union between soul and body, which takes place in our
present state, so far from being essential to the
exercise of our powers and faculties, was intended to
limit the sphere of our information; and to prevent us
from acquiring in this early stage of our being, too
clear a view of the constitution and government of the
universe. Indeed when we reflect on the difference
between the operations of mind and the qualities of
matter, it appears much more wonderful, that the two
substances should be so intimately united, as we find
them actually to be, than to suppose that the former may
exist in a conscious and intelligent state when
separated from the latter’”
(“New Publications,” 246).
This page is inscribed in “patchwork” fashion, with triangular-shaped blanks in the middle of the text.
MME is paraphrasing Germaine De Staël: “The ancients were better skilled in morals than in philosophy: an accurate study of the sciences is necessary to rectify metaphysics: but nature has placed in the heart of man a guide to conduct him to virtue: nevertheless, nothing could be more unsettled and unconnected than the moral code of the ancients . . . Rank and morals were confounded by many of the Greek philosophers: the love of study, and the performance of the first duties, were classed together. In their enthusiasm for the faculties of the mind, they allowed them a place of esteem beyond every thing else: they excited men to the acquirement of admiration; but they never looked with an eye of penetration into the heart”
(De Staël, Influence, 1:121).
MME is quoting from Charles Robert Maturin’s gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer: “Is the fire caught from heaven to be employed in lighting a faggot to keep the cold from the numbed and wasted fingers of poverty”
(Maturin, Melmoth, 4:115).
We have not been able to ascertain MME’s source for Plato’s Republic in this particular Almanack, but because she extracts several excerpts from Gillies’s translation of Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics on its front and back covers, she may allude to his extensive discussion of the Republic and women’s role within it. Gillies objects to Plato’s premise that guardian women and children be shared by guardian men, believing that men are the injured party in this relation (Gillies, Aristotle’s Ethics, 2:85-86, 98-94, 98).
MME is quoting from John Gillies’s translation of Aristotle: “With Aristotle, all will is free-will; since nothing can be more free than that which is voluntary”
(Gillies, Aristotle’s Ethics, 1:289).
MME is commonplacing from Friedrich von Schlegel’s
Lectures on the History of Literature, as
indicated by other passages in this Almanack: “After the
time of Charlemagne, the multiplying of manuscripts was a
work pursued with the most zealous and systematical
application”; and “The Greek language was certainly not
unknown in Germany, at least between the time of
Charlemagne, who learned Greek himself in his old age”
(Schlegel, Lectures, 1:282,285).
MME commonplaces from Friedrich von Schlegel’s
Lectures on the History of Literature:
“Besides, in the countries whose present languages are of
Roman origin, the Latin, in those days, was scarcely
considered as a foreign or even as a dead language, but rather
as the old and genuine language of the land, preserved in its
regularity and purity by the men of learning and education, in
opposition to the corrupt and vague dialects of the common
people—the vulgar tongues, as they were called. In those
countries the Latin language ceased not to be a living one
till the 9th or 10th century. . . . But it is evident that the
delusion under which men lay in considering the Latin language
as still alive, many centuries after it was really extinct,
was very much prolonged by the perpetual use of that language
in all the observances of religion, and in all the societies
of the cloisters. It sustained daily altercations, but was
never altogether laid aside” (Schlegel, Lectures, 1:278-9).
MME is paraphrasing Germaine De Staël:
“Socrates and
Plato preferred speaking
to writing; because they felt, without exactly
rendering to themselves an account of their talents,
that their ideas belonged more to imitation than to
analysis. They loved to have recourse to that impulse
and elevation of thought which is produced by the
animated language of conversation; and they searched
with as much diligence for something to inflame the
imagination, as the metaphysicians and moralists of our
days would employ, to secure their works from the
smallest appearance of poetic.” For deriving
their inspiration from poetry, De Staël praises
Alexander Pope,
John Milton,
Thomas Gray,
Oliver Goldsmith,
John Dryden,
Edward Young,
William Shakespeare,
Henry Fielding, and
Samuel Richardson
(De Staël, Influence, 1: 143, 318-327).
MME is quoting Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments: “As in the common degree of the intellectual qualities, there are no abilities; so in the common degree of the moral, there is no virtue”
(Smith, Theory, 1:25).
MME is quoting Dugald Stewart’s Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind: “The chief difference between the opinions of Plato and Aristotle on the subject of ideas, related to the mode of their existence. That the matter of which all things are made, existed from eternity, was a principle that both admitted; but Plato farther taught, that, of every species of things, there is an idea of form which also existed from eternity, and that this idea is the exemplar or model according to which the individuals of the species were made; whereas Aristotle held, that, although matter may exist without form, yet that forms could not exist without matter”
(Stewart, Elements, 1:93). MME also quotes from William Wordsworth’s poem “The Wanderer” in The Excursion: Being a Portion of the Recluse, a Poem: “But we have known that there is often found / In mournful thoughts, and always might be found, / A power to virtue friendly”
(Wordsworth, “Wanderer,” 34).
Written in green pencil in left corner of top margin, likely in non-authorial hand.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the left side of the page, with little discernible text.
This leaf is a vertical fragment on the right side of the page, with little discernible text.
MME’s comments about Elizabeth Montagu and Germaine de Staël in letters and Almanack fragments in 1821 and 1822 may indicate that she refers to one or both women in this discerning passage. In an Almanack-letter hybrid conjecturally dated September 1822 to Elizabeth Hoar and that may have originally been included in this Almanack folder, MME adds a postscript in which she excitedly queries Ralph Waldo Emerson about Montagu’s 1769 defense of Shakespeare, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare Compared with the Greek and French Dramatic Poets, a well-received volume published in several subsequent editions and multiple translations. This commentary about Montagu perhaps sheds light on MME’s truncated remark about Shakespeare and Charles Chauncy Emerson on the reverse of this Almanack leaf. MME’s reference here to “antient & modern love” may also suggest Montagu’s defense of Shakespeare against charges by Voltaire and others that the renowned British dramatist’s virtues fell short in comparison to classical Greek and “modern” (17th- and 18th-century) French authors. As regards de Staël, whom MME also admired, MME cites her often in an 1821 Almanack as well as in another Almanack-letter hybrid of this date. The latter and this current Almanack passage reflect MME’s sense of the conflict between a woman’s own ambition versus nineteenth-century cultural and religious expectations for female humility. Imagining de Staël’s relinquishment of “her own publick existence” that her son “might be decked with unfading honors,” MME envisions that for the learned female, “the humbler deciple of meekness will shine in light when the meteors are gone,” a sentiment that suggestively compares with this Almanack’s metaphor of the intellectual woman “as a kind of moral comet” who understands that her young male protégés will surpass her (Emerson to RW Emerson, “c. 1821”). Finally, then, in invoking the compensatory notion that secular “knowlege passeth,” MME likely borrows the wording if not the sense of Ephesians 3:19: “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”
MME is quoting from and paraphrasing an 1821 review of Dugald Stewart’s
Outlines of Moral Philosophy (1818): “And in the first place, ‘too much stress’ he says ‘has been laid on the argument derived from the nature of mind.’ The proper use of the doctrine of the soul’s Immateriality, he says, is ‘not to demonstrate that the soul is physically and necessarily immortal; but to refute the objections which have been urged against the possibility of its existing in a separate state from the body.’ In short, he does not think our knowledge of the nature of mind is sufficient to afford us any positive argument on the subject; for we know nothing of the nature of mind”; “Another evidence of a future state which Mr. Stewart mentions, is ‘the foundation which is laid in the principles of our constitution for a progressive and an unlimited improvement’”
; “Another evidence of a future state is ‘the natural apprehensions of the mind when under the influence of remorse’”
; “We would now call the attention of our readers to the chapter on the moral attributes of the Deity. So far as they are discoverable by the light of nature, they are according to Mr. Stewart, Benevolence and Justice. For the Benevolence of the Deity, he thinks we have a strong presumptive, a priori, argument, inasmuch as the exquisite pleasure which we know by our own experience accompanies the exercise of benevolence, ‘the peculiar satisfaction with which we reflect on such of our actions as have contributed to the happiness of mankind, and the peculiar sentiment of approbation with which we regard the virtue of beneficience’ [sic], it would seem, render it difficult to conceive what other motive could have induced a Being completely and independently happy, to have called his creatures into existence than that of benevolence”
(“New Publications,” 246, 247, 248, 250).
MME refers to several passages from the biblical book of Acts in which early Christians spoke, as Jesus of Nazareth had prophesied in Mark 16:17, “with new tongues.” See, for example, Acts 2:1-4: “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance”; Acts 10:43-46: “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God”; and Acts 19:1-6: “And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples, He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.”
MME’s somewhat cryptic comments on these two days seem possibly indicative of previous criticism she’s leveled at her friend Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee, who with her sister Mary Sawyer Schuyler were members of a literary coterie in Newburyport, Massachusetts, with which MME often spent time when visiting there. In letters to various correspondents over the years, MME referred to Lee as “her elegant Newburyport friend” but also remarks that she does not take seriously all of Lee’s comments; on occasion, MME also finds that Lee “appeared guilty of ‘egotism of a refined & proud kind’”
(Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 117, 260, 269).
Although these words (“Ah mean you that!”) are spoken by “the Ancestor,” MME did not preface them with this character reference.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from this manuscript page but present at the beginning of lines on
the next page indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently
excised to form two pages, or leaves. At the end of this line, the exclamation point following “spirit” appears as the initial
character on the corresponding line of page three.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from this manuscript page but present at the beginning of lines on the
next page indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised
to form two pages, or leaves. At the end of this line, the final “r” in “fear” appears as the initial character on the corresponding
line of page three.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from this manuscript page but present at the beginning of lines on the next
page indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form two
pages, or leaves. At the end of this line, the final “m” in “whom” appears as the initial character on the corresponding line of page
three.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from this manuscript page but present at the beginning of lines on the next page
indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form two pages,
or leaves. At the end of this line, the final portion of the “l” in “natural” appears as the initial character on the corresponding line of
page three.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from this manuscript page but present at the beginning of lines on the next page
indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form two pages,
or leaves. At the end of this line, the final portion of the “n” in “xian” appears as the initial character on the corresponding line of
page three.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from the preceding manuscript page appear at the beginning of lines on this page;
these letters indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form
two pages, or leaves. At the beginning of this line, the exclamation point following “spirit” on the corresponding line of page two appears
as the initial character.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from the preceding manuscript page appear at the beginning of lines on this page;
these letters indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form
two pages, or leaves. At the beginning of this line, the final “r” in “fear” on the corresponding line of page two appears as the initial
character.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from the preceding manuscript page appear at the beginning of lines on this page;
these letters indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form
two pages, or leaves. At the beginning of this line, the final flourish of the ultimate t-cross in “that” on the corresponding line of page
two appears as the initial character.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from the preceding manuscript page appear at the beginning of lines on this page;
these letters indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form
two pages, or leaves. At the beginning of this line, the final “m” in “whom” on the corresponding line of page two appears as the initial
character.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from the preceding manuscript page appear at the beginning of lines on this page;
these letters indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form
two pages, or leaves. At the beginning of this line, the flourish of the t-cross in “connected” on the corresponding line of page two appears
as the initial character.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from the preceding manuscript page appear at the beginning of lines on this page;
these letters indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form
two pages, or leaves. At the beginning of this line, the final portion of the “l” in “natural” on the corresponding line of page two appears
as the initial character.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from the preceding manuscript page appear at the beginning of lines on this page;
these letters indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form
two pages, or leaves. At the beginning of this line, the final portion of the “t” in “spriit” on the corresponding line of page two appears as
the initial character.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from the preceding manuscript page appear at the beginning of lines on this page; these
letters indicate that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form two pages,
or leaves. At the beginning of this line, the final portion of the “n” in “xian” on the corresponding line of page two appears as the initial
character.
Written in top left corner in green pencil, likely in non-authorial hand.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from this manuscript page but present at the beginning of lines on the next page indicate
that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form two pages, or leaves. At the
end of this line, the final flourish of the ultimate t-cross in “that” appears as the initial character on the corresponding line of page three.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from this manuscript page but present at the beginning of lines on the next page indicate
that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form two pages, or leaves. At the
end of this line, the flourish of the t-cross in “connected” continues and appears as the initial character on the corresponding line of page three.
Several line-ending letters/characters that are omitted from this manuscript page but present at the beginning of lines on the next page indicate
that these now separated pages were originally on the same side of the manuscript sheet, subsequently excised to form two pages, or leaves. At the
end of this line, the final portion of the “t” in “spriit” appears as the initial character on the corresponding line of page three.
Although these words (“I have had . . . personal”) are spoken by Plato, MME did not preface them with this character reference.
MME may allude to two biblical verses, Job 11:17: “And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the
morning”; and Proverbs 31:7: Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.”
MME occasionally bestowed commemorative notes and letters from historic figures to her nephews. Ralph Waldo Emerson received one such letter from
“Plato,” conjecturally dated August 1824 and likely in response to an imaginative letter Waldo had written to Plato earlier that year. His brother
Charles apparently received from MME a similar epistle, now lost, ostensibly from the Marquis de Lafayette. Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on May 25,
1803, a date that MME commemorates in this Almanack. Although the editors are not certain of the year of this Almanack, it seems likely to be in the
early-mid 1820s, and thus written on RWE’s birthday in young adulthood.
Referring to an “eclipse” in which “lurks a spirit” that threatens RWE’s “path,” Plato seems to suggest to Ancestor that RWE’s vocational and
religious future are endangered. In its “triumph over the race—beyond the old king you calvinists used to fear,” this threatening “spirit” may
be philosophical speculation as well as a more benevolent Christianity. MME herself is the “one whom the order of things has connected
with” RWE and who, by virtue of her “natural taste for what is fine in spriitualism & what is infinite in christian practice,”
has been admitted to the “coterie” of both Plato and Ancestor. To appreciate fully the context of this dialogue between Plato and Ancestor, and
MME’s role in it, see this Almanack’s Introduction.
In the tradition of astrology, twelve “houses” correspond to the earth’s rotation as it also corresponds to the twelve zodiac signs (Brock, “Astrology”).
MME may refer to one of many literary references that refer to “house of life” in an astrological context, especially given the preceding lines’
references to “prophecy” and “consult[ing] not stars material.” For example, in Ben Johnson’s
The Alchemist (1616), the character Subtle speaks of “The Thumb, in Chiromanty, we give
Venus; / The Fore-finger, to Jove; the midst, to Saturn;
/ The Ring, to Sol; the least, to Mercury; / Who was the Lord, Sir, of his
Horoscope, / His House of Life being Libra; which fore-shew’d /
He should be a Merchant, and should Trade with Ballance” (Johnson, Alchemist, 21); and in Friedrich Schiller’s Death of Wallenstein
(1800), the character Seni addresses Wallenstein: “Come and see! trust thine own eyes! / A fearful sign stands in the house of life / An enemy; a fiend
lurks close behind / The radiance of thy planet—O be warn’d! / Deliver not thyself up to these heathens / To wage a war against our holy church”
(Schiller, Wallenstein, 139-40). The speaker’s (Plato’s) preference for “keep[ing] to old terms” may
indicate MME’s understanding that the heyday of astrology has passed. In two works by Sir Walter Scott, a great favorite of MME’s, astrologers are met
with both receptiveness and dismissiveness by various characters. In Kenilworth (1821), for example, “though exempt from the
general controul of superstition,” Leicester nonetheless peers at “the brilliant host of stars which glimmered in the brilliance of a summer firmament”
and hopes “that the heavenly bodies should befriend me, for my earthly path is darkened and confused,” after which he exerts an astrologer to cast a
new horoscope for him, with which the astrologer complies: “Thus in reviewing the horoscope which your lordship subjected to my skill, you will observe
that Saturn, being in the sixth House in opposition to Mars, retrograde in the House of Life, cannot but denote long and dangerous sickness, the issue
whereof is in the will of Heaven, though death may probably be inferred―Yet, if I knew the name of the party, I would erect another scheme”; the astrologer
later updates his previous horoscope and notes that “Venus, ascendant in the House of Life, and conjoined with Sol, showers down that flood of silver light,
blent with gold” . In another example, chapter four of Scott’s Guy Mannering (1815) opens with an
epigram quoting the above “Come and see!” passage from Schiller’s Wallenstein and then explains that the popularity of astrology
during the seventeenth century had begun to wane by the beginning of the eighteenth, albeit some practitioners, including an elderly clergyman with whom
the novel’s title character spent his youth, were “loth to relinquish the calculations which had become the principal objects of their studies”
(Scott, Mannering, 1:31).
By “one whom,” Mary Moody Emerson refers to herself as the subject of this inquiry and the repeated one in the next sentence.
With only a few slight deviations, MME quotes from Jacques Necker’s Of the Importance of Religious Opinions: “It is necessary, in order to attach intelligent beings to the love of virtue, and respect for morality, that not only happy natural dispositions, but still more, a judicious education, good laws, and above all, a continual intercourse with the Supreme Being (from which alone can arise firm resolutions, and every ardent thought) should concur: but men, ambitious of submitting a great number of relations to their weak comprehension, would wish to confine them to a few causes. . . . Actuated by a similar motive, many wish to attribute every thing to education; while others pretend, that our natural dispositions are the only source of our actions and intentions, of our vices and virtues. Perhaps, in fact, there is, in the universe, but one expedient and spring, one prolific idea, the root of every other: yet, as it is at the origin of this idea, and not in its innumerable developements, that its unity can be perceived, the first grand disposer of nature only ought to be in possession of the secret: and we, who see, of the immense mechanism of the world, but a few wheels, become almost ridiculous, when we make choice sometimes of one, and sometimes of another, to refer to it exclusively, the cause of motion, and the simplest properties of the different parts of the natural or moral world.” She also partially cites the title of the third chapter of Necker’s work, which she has excerpted from above: “An objection drawn from our natural dispositions to goodness” (Necker, Importance, 70, 67).
With slight deviations in her first sentence, MME quotes from Jacques Necker’s Of the Importance of Religious Opinions: “Religion is very far from deserving this reproach. That, which raises it indeed above every kind of legislation, is, that it influences equally public good and private happiness. . . . Thus, indirectly, and almost unknown to ourselves, all is in perspective in our moral existence: and it is by this reasoning that, always deluded, we are seldom perfectly deceived. . . . thus, whether we remain solitary, or live in others, the future preserves its influence over us. . . . in short, if all be future in the fate of man; with what interest, with what love, with what respect, ought we not to consider this beautiful system of hope, of which religious opinions are the majestic foundation?” (Necker, Importance, 79, 80, 81).
MME quotes, with only slight deviation in her final three sentences, from Jacques Necker’s Of the Importance of Religious Opinions: “Religious opinions are perfectly adapted to our nature, to our weaknesses and perfections. They come to our succour in our real difficulties, and in those which the abuse of our foresight creates. But in what is grand and elevated in our nature, it sympathizes most: for, if men be animated by noble thoughts—if they respect their intelligence, their chief ornament—if they be interested about the dignity of their nature, they will fly with transport to bow before religion, which ennobles their faculties, preserves their strength of mind, and which, through its sentiments, unites them to him, whose power astonishes their understanding. . . . But how beautiful is the world, when it is represented to us as the result of a single and grand thought—and when we find, every where, the stamp of an eternal intelligence! and how pleasing to live with the sentiments of astonishment and adoration deeply impressed on our hearts! But what a subject of glory are the endowments of the mind, when we can consider them as a participation of a sublime nature, of which God alone is the perfect model. And how delightful, then, to yield to the ambition of elevating ourselves still more, by exercising our thoughts and improving all our faculties. In short, how many charms has the observation of nature, when, at every new discovery, we believe we advance a step towards an acquaintance with that exalted wisdom, which as prescribed laws to the universe, and maintains it in harmony! . . . with the idea of a God, all is lively, all is reasonable and true. In short, this happy and prolific idea appears as necessary to the moral nature of man, as heat is to plants and to all the vegetable world” (Necker, Importance, 84-85, 86-87).
With the exception of her last sentence, MME quotes closely from Jacques Necker’s Of the Importance of Religious Opinions: “I have experienced, that the idea of the existence of a Supreme Being threw a charm over every circumstance of life. I have found, that this sentiment alone was able to inspire men with true dignity: for every thing, which is merely personal, is of little value―all that places some an inch high above others. It is necessary, in order to have any reason to glory, that, at the same time we exalt ourselves, we elevate human nature. We must refer it to that sublime intelligence, which seems to have dignified it with some of its attributes. We then hardly perceive those trivial distinctions, which are attached to transitory things, on which vanity exercises her sway. It is then that we leave to this queen of the world her rattle and toys, and that we search elsewhere another portion. It is then, also, that virtue, exalted sentiments, and grand views, appear the only glory of which man ought to be jealous”; and “A man of an exalted character, endowed with sensibility of heart, experiences also the necessity of forming to himself an image of an unknown Being, to which he can unite all the ideas of perfection which fill his imagination. It is to him that he refers those different sentiments, which are useless amidst the corruptions which surround him. It is in God alone, that he can find an inexhaustible subject of astonishment and adoration: and with him alone can he renew and purify his sentiments, when he is wearied with the fight of the vices in the world, and the habitual return of the same passions. In short, at every instant, the happy idea of a God softens and embellishes our path through life: by it we associate ourselves with delight to all the beauties of nature: by it every thing animated enters into communication with us” (Necker, Importance, 95, 90-91).
MME quotes fairly closely from chapter six, “The Influence of Virtue on Happiness”, in Jacques Necker’s Of the Importance of Religious Opinions: “In short, virtue has this great advantage, that it finds its happiness in a kind of respect for the rights and claims of the different members of the community, and that all its sentiments seem to unite themselves to the general harmony. The passions, on the contrary, are almost always hostile. . . . Virtue then enlarges the mind, gives dignity to the character, and invests it with every thing becoming. Of all the qualities of men, the most rare, the most apt to create respect, is, that elevation of thought, sentiment, and manners; that majestic consistency of character which truth alone can preserve, but which the least exaggeration, the most trivial affectation, would disconcert or banish. This resembles not pride, and still less vanity; as one of its ornaments is, that it never seeks for the homage of others. The man endowed with real dignity, is placed above even his judges. He accounts not with them: he lives under the government of his conscience: and proud of such a noble ruler, he does not wish for any other dependence. But as this grandeur is entirely within himself, it ceases to exist, when he dictates to others what he expects from them. It can only be restrained in its just limits by virtues, which do not pretend to dazzle. . . . In short, talents, those faculties of the mind which belong more immediately to nature, can never be applied to great things without the aid of morality: there is no other way of uniting the interest of men, and of attaining their love and respect” (Necker, Importance, 95, 99, 102, 103).
With a few minor deviations, MME quotes from chapter eight, “An Objection Drawn from the Wars and from the Commotions which Religion Has Given Rise to”, in Jacques Necker’s Of the Importance of Religious Opinions: “Should we be able to throw an odium on the sciences, by recalling all the fatal discoveries which are owing to our researches? Would it be proper to stifle every kind of self-love and activity, by reciting the different crimes which covetousness, pride, and ambition have given rise to? And ought we, then, to desire to annihilate religion, because fanaticism has made an instrument of it to distress the human species?” (Necker, Importance, 117, 118).
MME loosely quotes from Jacques Necker’s Of the Importance of Religious Opinions: “But we should consider, that we do not fix a just value on the benefits which we have received; for when we take a retrospective view of life, we see it stripped of its two principal ornaments, curiosity and hope” (Necker, Importance, 133).
MME loosely quotes from Jacques Necker’s Of the Importance of Religious Opinions: “An unknown power opens our eyes to the light, and permits us to view the wonders of the universe. It awakens in us those enchanting sensations which first point out the charms of life. It enriches us with that intellectual gift which re-assembles round us past ages, and the time to come. It confers, in an early hour, an empire, by endowing us with those two sublime faculties, will and liberty. . . . it spreads here and there some difficulties in the road of life—it seems to wish to soften them, by showing us always the future through the enchanting medium of the imagination. . . . In order to exalt this sentiment, we must refer it continually to the idea of a Supreme Being; for there is, we doubt not, a correspondence of instinct and reflexion between our virtue and the perfections of him who is the origin of all things: and provided we do not resist our natural emotions, we shall perceive, from those very perfections, all that is sufficient to excite our worship and adoration; above all, whatever is necessary to serve as an example for our conduct, and to afford principles of morality” (Necker, Importance, 136, 137).
MME paraphrases, reframes in places, and quotes selectively and widely from Jacques Necker’s Of the Importance of Religious Opinions, while occasionally shifting his points of emphasis: “If, against appearances, you should happen to persuade me, that there now exists an absolute contradiction between the liberty of man, and the prescience of the Deity, it is on the nature and extent of this prescience that I shall raise my doubts; for, forced to choose, I should rather mistrust the judgement of my own mind, than that of an internal persuasion”; “It results, however, from these considerations, that, on account of our extreme ignorance, we cannot accurately define prescience: but we are reduced to examine whether this prescience, considered in a general manner, be incompatible with the liberty of man. . . . But if you grant, that the world had an origin, if you suppose a God, Creator, and Preserver, what arguments would you use, to induce us to believe that this God has no relation to us—that he does not take any notice of us—and that he is thus separated from the offspring of his intelligence and love? You add, vice is every where triumphant: an honest man often languishes in despondency and obscurity; and you cannot reconcile this injustice with the idea of a Divine Providence! One may at first deny the assertion which forms the basis of this reproach, or dispute at least the consequences that are drawn from it. These ideas of triumph and abasement, of splendor and obscurity, are sometimes very foreign to the internal sentiments, which only constitute happiness and misery: and for my part, I am persuaded, that if we take for a rule of comparison, not some particular situation, or some scattered events, but the whole of life, and the generality of men; we shall then find, that the most constant satisfactions attend those minds which are filled with a mild piety, firm and rational, such as the pure idea of the Deity ought to inspire . . . the corporeal body, which distinguishes us to the eyes of others, is only the transitory habitation of that soul which is not to die―of that soul susceptible of continual improvement, and which, by degrees that we can have no idea of, will probably approach insensibly to that magnificent period, when it will be thought worthy of knowing more intimately the Author of nature. . . . The conception of the existence of our souls, is as incomprehensible to us, as that of eternity; what a profound thought, which even our imagination cannot embrace! . . . The nature of the soul will always be as unknown as the essence of the Supreme Being: and it is one of the proofs of its grandeur, to be wrapped up in the same mysteries which hide from us the universal spirit. . . . In short, and this reflexion is the most awful of all, when I see the mind of man grasp at the knowledge of a God—when I see him, at least, draw near to such a grand idea—such a sublime degree of elevation prepares me, in some manner, for the high destiny of the soul. I search for a proportion between this immense thought and all the interests of the world; and I discover none. I search for a proportion between these boundless meditations and the narrow picture of life; and I perceive none. There is then, I doubt not, some magnificent secret beyond all that we can discern; some astonishing wonder behind this curtain, still unfurled; on all sides we discover the commencement of it. . . . How grand is the contemplation of the Eternal, they who have sensibility can tell! But this idea should be very early implanted in the human heart; it is necessary that it should be connected with our first feelings . . . almost all men, astonished and overwhelmed by the ideas of grandeur and infinity, which the appearance of the universe, and the exercise of their own thoughts, present to them, aspire to find repose in the sentiment of adoration which unites them in a more intimate manner to God, than the developement of their reason ever will. . . . But the charm of our relation with the wonders which surround us, arises from experiencing every instant the impression of an infinite grandeur—and feeling the necessity of flying to that mild refuge of ignorance and weakness, the sublime idea of a God. We are continually carried towards this idea by the vain efforts which we make, in order to penetrate the secrets of our own nature: and when I fix my attention on those astonishing mysteries, which seem to terminate, in some manner, the power of our thoughts, I represent them with emotion, as the only barrier which separates us from the infinite Spirit, the source of all knowledge. . . . The transcendent knowledge of some people, is a degree of superiority which disappears when contrasted with the incomprehensible grandeur of nature. . . . we think man presumptuous . . . he should adore, with reverential respect, that powerful Sovereign, who bestows so many blessings on him, and who has made him to sympathize with all the powers of heaven and earth. . . . Man, in immensity, is only an imperceptible point: and yet, by his senses and intelligence, he seems in communication with the whole universe. But how pleasant and peaceable is this communication!” (Necker, Importance, 139, 147-48, 151, 153, 159, 161, 164, 169, 170-171, 172).
MME selectively quotes from and slightly filters Jacques Necker’s Of the Importance of Religious Opinions: “It is then united with the idea of a God, that the spiritual faculties of man attract my homage and captivate my imagination. In reflecting on these sublime faculties, studying their admirable essence, I am confirmed in the opinion, that there exists a sovereign intelligence, soul of nature, and that nature itself is subject to its laws. Yes, we find in the mind of man the first evidence, a faint shadow of the perfection which we must attribute to the Creator of the universe. What a wonder, indeed, is our thinking faculty, capable of so many things; yet ignorant of its own nature! I am equally astonished, by the extent and limits of thinking. An immense space is open to its researches, and at the same time it cannot comprehend the secrets which appear most proximate with it; as the grand motive of action, the principle of intellectual force, ever remains concealed. . . . and it seems to me, sometimes, that I hear this command given to the human soul by the God of the universe: ‘Go admire a portion of my universe, search for happiness, and learn to love me. But do not try to raise the veil, with which I have covered the secret of thy existence. I have composed thy nature of some of the attributes which constitute my own essence. Thou wouldst be too near me, if I should permit thee to penetrate the mysteries of it. Wait for the moment destined by my wisdom; till then, thou canst only reach me by reverence and gratitude.’ Not only the wonderful faculty of thinking connects us with the universal intelligence; but all those inconceivable properties, known by the name of liberty, judgment, will, memory, and foresight; it is, in short, the august and sublime assemblage of all our intellectual faculties. . . . Habit alone turns our attention from the union of wonders which compose the soul: and it is thus, unfortunately, that admiration, lively light of the mind and feelings, does not afford us any more instruction” (Necker, Importance, 190-91, 192).
Quoting selectively and paraphrasing, MME commonplaces widely on this page from Bernardin de St. Pierre’s popular novel, Paul and Virginia, first available in English in 17891789 and which she had enjoyed reading as an adolescent: “Thus it was that these females, constrained by calamity to fall back into nature, had unfolded in themselves, and in their children, those feelings which are the gift of nature, to prevent our sinking under the pressure of calamity. . . . Thus did he attain to perfection in agriculture, and in the art of disposing in order the most irregular spot of ground, merely by the sentiment of love. Doubtless, it is to the delights of this ardent, and restless passion, that men must ascribe the origin of the generality of arts and sciences; and, it is from its privations, that philosophy derives its birth, which teaches us to console ourselves for every loss. . . . ‘Does not experience teach you, that the enjoyment of repose is purchased by fatigue; that of eating, by hunger; that of drinking, by thirst? In like manner, that of loving, and of being beloved, is only to be obtained by a multitude of privations and sacrifices. . . . Add, besides, to the disgust, which always follows satiety, that pride, which springs from their opulence, and which the least privation wounds, even when the greatest enjoyments have ceased to flatter it. The perfume of a thousand roses only pleases for a single moment; but the pain inflicted by one of their thorns, lasts a long time after the wound is received. . . . Every effect is heightened by its contrast; nature has balanced all things equally. Every thing considered then, which state do you conceive to be preferable, that of having nothing to hope for, and all to fear, or, that of having nothing to fear, and every thing to hope for? The first of these states is that of the rich; the second, that of the poor. These extremes, however, are equally difficult to be supported by man, whose happiness consists in mediocrity and virtue’” (St. Pierre, Paul, 54, 103, 134-35).
In quoting and paraphrasing selectively, MME commonplaces from the footnotes in the third edition of Robert Fellowes’s Picture of Christian Philosophy: “I can readily concede to the author of Zoonomia that ideas are fibrous motions of the organs of sense. But it nevertheless appears to me that there is in the human body a sentient principle, which may have a very intimate connexion with the organs of sense, and yet be as different from them, as light is from the surface from which it is reflected, or as the muscular contractions and the vital circulation are from the vital principle. . . . the power which thinks, must be different from the organic parts, which furnish subjects for reflection. . . . In the same way ideas may be sensorial motions, but the master power which regulates and combines those motions, which gives them order and concord, and at whose breath, as it were, the fibres assume a vivid animation, must be of a very different nature from the motions or the fibres themselves. . . . What constitutes individuality? By individuality I mean individual consciousness . . . If ideas constitute consciousness, what can render us conscious of being the same, while the mind is under the influence of so many opposite and unconnected ideas? That power, whatever it be, which gives unity and individuality to the operations of so many fibres, appears to me to constitute what is commonly called the soul. On the supposition of the soul’s being an immaterial particle, or even a very subtle ether, the extinction of the body cannot affect it’s powers or existence. . . . I suppose ideas to be certain forms identified with the organs of sense, and capable of excitement and reproduction by the stimuli of pleasure and pain, volition and association. If ideas be certain forms, identified with the organs of sense, they may give personality to the separate fibres, but how can they give unity to the complicated web of sensitive powers which are spread over the body? Every idea being a certain configuration and motion of a sensorial fibre, it seems necessary that there should be a governing principle to give homogeneity and unity to the multiplicity of these configurations and motions, without which we should be unconscious of being the same under different impressions. Though this principle may not be an immaterial particle, yet it may be a simple fluid of extreme and inconceivable subtlety. It may be diffused over the whole system, but accumulated in the brain and the organs of sense, sympathetically imbibing all the pains and pleasures that vibrate on the sensorial fibres, and transferring to them an energetic power, to harmonize and individuate the infinity of their variations in figure and sensation. . . . By a law of divine attraction, infinitely stronger than any which chemistry exhibits, it might pass in a few moments of time into other regions in the immensity of space. The consciousness of it’s past incorporation with the organic fibres of the human being would be carried with it, with all the association and ideas which the senses communicated to it in it’s mortal state. If the soul, or matter of consciousness, be neither an immaterial particle, nor a simple ethereal fluid, which, on it’s extrication from this body, immediately associates with other intelligent forms in other states; if it be solely constituted of the sensorial fibres, it must certainly perish and be extinguished with those fibres. And though these very fibres may, in some future time, revive from their dust in other organic forms, we can have no hope that their former associations and motions will revive with them; and unless they do, there can, with respect to the individual, be no continuation of existence. St. Paul, by drawing his similitude of the resurrection from the grain dying in the earth, and giving life to a more beautiful organization, seems to hint that this body invelopes the principle of a higher and more perfect existence, which death is to unfold. This principle I understand to be that which I express by the matter of consciousness . . . When extricated from the body it may display more vigorous and active energies” (Fellowes, Christian, 229-30, 231, 232, 233, 234).
A horizontal line is drawn across the page on the preceding line.
An indented horizontal line is drawn across the page on the preceding line.
An indented horizontal line is drawn across approximately one third of the page here; the text on this line is positioned flush right.
This numeral is positioned in the top right corner, likely indicative of MME’s pagination system. As we explain in the Introduction to this Almanack, MME paginates three (or possibly only two) of its eight pages; based on the flow of the sources she is quoting, our pagination system differs from hers by one page; as with many of the Almanacks, Folder 43 may have originally included one or more pages in addition to the eight represented here.
This numeral is positioned in the top left corner, likely indicative of MME’s pagination system. As we explain in the Introduction to this Almanack, MME paginates three (or possibly only two) of its eight pages; based on the flow of the sources she is quoting, our pagination system differs from hers by one page; as with many of the Almanacks, Folder 43 may have originally included one or more pages in addition to the eight represented here.
This line is indented and is preceded by approximately two blank lines; the remaining lines on the page are written in much lighter ink, suggesting a later scene of writing.
After this word, MME has drawn what appears a heart-shaped doodle with a long stroke through its center, connecting to and possibly an artistic flourish from the “y” in “body” on the above line.
Two marks in the top left corner of this page may be the numeral one followed by a horizontal flourish to its right. The next page, however, does not contain any numeral similarly functioning as a page number.
This line is positioned flush right.
This line is positioned flush right.
A mark that is not clearly formed follows; it could be functioning either as a period or a colon.
These words are run together with what appears to be an ink blot, such that the final “t” in “that” is connected with no break to the “i” in “it’s.”
Because MME is quoting her commonplace source with much greater fidelity than is her norm, this poorly formed letter may serve as an abbreviation for the source’s “and.”
We are construing this mark as a poorly formed colon. It is formed by two large vertical strokes and does not resemble the comma that appears in MME’s source text here, nor does it resemble a semi-colon or exclamation point.
Preceding this word is a vertical mark whose function is not clear.
MME has partially encircled the “f” with a series of dots; at the bottom of this
half-circle, she vertically writes “x x.” Two additional drawings add to this
unusual graphic: an unusually long flourish on the loop of the “f,” to the left of
which is an indistinguishable letter or flourish. The purpose of these marks is not
clear.
Written horizontally in bottom right margin.
The words “Their lofty rules maid” are on a separate line and are positioned flush right.
The words “of the soul” are on a separate line and centered. They are preceded above by two centered horizontal blank lines drawn across the page.
The word “Virtue” is on a separate line and centered. It is preceded above by a centered horizontal blank line drawn across the page.
The word “death” is on a separate line and centered. It is preceded above by a short centered horizontal blank line drawn across the page.
The words “Aristotilean phi.” are centered and on a separate line. They are preceded above by a short centered horizontal blank line drawn across the page.
The words “of God” are on a separate line and centered.
The word “Soul” is on a separate line and centered. It is preceded above by a short centered horizontal blank line drawn across the page.
The words “Of virtue vs good & evil” are on a separate line and centered. These words are preceded above by a short centered horizontal blank line drawn across the page.
The words “Marcus Antoniouss” are on a separate line and centered. These words are preceded above and followed below by a short centered horizontal blank line drawn across the page.
The words “He that fears pain fear what must be, & is impious & he who fol-” appear to begin a new paragraph, based on the short preceding line
ending.
The words “The king is wholly dependant for pecunariy aid— —& can only
execute” appear to begin a new paragraph, based on the short preceding line
ending.
The words “The means used to distroy strenghtened the constitition in
power &c” appear to begin a new paragraph, based on the short preceding line
ending.
The words “Of the soul” are on a separate line and centered. These words are preceded above and followed below by a short centered horizontal blank line drawn across the page.
The words “of vitue” are on a separate line and centered.
The words “Of the ills of life” are on a separate line and centered. These words are preceded above and followed below by a short centered horizontal blank line drawn across the page.
The word “Logic” is on a separate line and centered. It is preceded above by a short centered horizontal blank line drawn across the page.
The words “A negative proposition seperates the subject from
the predicate” appear to begin a new paragraph, based on the short preceding line
ending.
This word (“Mathe.”) is centered on preceding line and functions as the heading of the next
lines.
The words “The doc. of fluxions is founded on the maxim that all magnitudes or quanties” appear to begin a new paragraph, based on the short preceding line
ending.
This word (“Logomachy”) is on a separate line and is positioned flush right.
The word “Law” is on a separate line and is centered. It is preceded above by a short centered horizontal blank line drawn across the page.
The words “4 memorable epochs in Greec 1 age of” are on a separate line and are flush right. These words are preceded above by a centered horizontal blank line drawn across the page.
The words “Europe least in extent superior in laws religion ats arms & commerce” are on a separate line and are preceded above by a centered horizontal blank line drawn across the page.
Following “superior” in the manuscript, MME has cancelled a comma.
MME ranges widely across and conflates several pages in commonplacing from Joseph
Priestley, Doctrines of Heathen Philosophy Compared with Those
of Revelation. In doing so she quotes, misquotes, repurposes, and otherwise alters this source material, as follows: “The being of a god, or of gods, for Plato uses both
the phrases promiscuously, he generally takes for granted. Occasionally, however, he
introduces arguments for his opinion . . . from the consideration of the structure of
the earth, the sun, the stars, and the whole universe. . . . He also argues ‘from the
variety of seasons, dividing time into years and months, and also from the consent of
all nations, Greeks and Barbarians’ . . . considering all that we see here as the
object of the senses, he supposes these ideas to be
invisible to the senses, but comprehended by the intellect; and though they exist in
the divine mind, the intellect of man has free access to them. He therefore calls them
things intelligible, and says that what we see here
are only the shadows of them, and changeable, whereas those intelligible ideas are the
only things that are unchangeable, and permanent. . . . All the meaning that I can
make of this doctrine of ideas, perceived by the intellect, and not by the sense,
things not fluctuating and variable, as the objects that we converse with are, is that
they mean what we call abstract ideas, as those of
horses, men, trees, &c. divested of the circumstances of colour, size, place,
&c., which always attend individual objects; and in this there is no great
mystery, but still every actual idea has some peculiarity or other, as well as real
object. On this mysterious doctrine of ideas, which were personified by the later
Platonists, and made a kind of second god, the immediate
author of the creation, was founded the doctrine of the christian trinity . . . The term by which he generally characterizes the
Supreme Being is in the singular number, viz. the Good . . . This principle, however, he did not carry so far as the Stoics, who
maintained that God was incapable of anger, so that he
would not punish even the wicked. . . . ‘That there are gods . . . and that they are
good, and respect justice more than men, is the best introduction to a body of laws . . .
The humble follow him quiet and composed, but he that is elevated by his riches,
his beauty, or any other advantage, as if he stood in no need of a guide, is deserted
by him; and though such a person may appear enviable to man, in the end he destroys
himself, his family, and the state. . . . God is altogether simple, and true in his
words and actions. He neither changes himself, nor can he deceive others . . . God . . .
takes care . . . of the smallest things as well as of the greatest. . . . He cannot
be called a wise physician who only attends to the body in general, and not to the
particular parts.’ . . . There is hardly any advantage that men are possessed of that
Plato does not ascribe to the gods, and to their good will to men. ‘It appears to me,’
he says . . . that God sent gifts to men by Prometheus, together with fire. It is not
by art, he says . . . but by nature, and the favour of the gods, that we cultivate the
earth.’ . . . He evidently considered all the celestial bodies as animated, and
intitled to the rank of gods. ‘The divine race of stars, he says . . . must be
considered as celestial animals, with most beautiful bodies, and happy blessed souls;
and that they have souls is evident from the regularity of their motions.’ . . .
Having distinguished the crime of impiety into three
kinds, viz. the maintaining that there are no gods, that they take no care of human
affairs, or that they are easily appeased by sacrifices . . . he prescribes the
following punishment for the different degrees of guilt in this respect. ‘If a man
neglect the gods by omitting sacrifices and despising oaths, he must be punished, lest
he make others like himself. . . . They who think the gods neglect human affairs, and
they who think them easily appeased, are not to be confounded. They who think so not
from any bad principle, but a kind of madness, should be imprisoned not less than five
years, without any citizen being allowed to go near them, except those who admonish
them of their errors.’ . . . ‘Every soul . . . is immortal. . . . The soul existed . . .
before bodies were produced, and it is the chief agent in the changes and the
ornament of the body.’ So greatly superior, in the idea of all the heathen
philosophers, was the soul to the body, the latter being intirely subservient to the
former, that we cannot wonder that they consider the soul as the whole self of a man, and the body as a thing foreign to him. . . .
‘In truth, the soul of each of us is immortal, and goes to the other gods, to give
an account of its actions.’ . . . The body is not the man, but the soul . . . which
makes use of, and commands, the body.’ . . . On the subject of virtue and vice . . . His belief in the being and
providence of God, and in a future state of retribution, must have laid a foundation
for piety, and the practice of virtue in general, if what he advances on those
subjects were his real sentiments; and the frequency with which he urges them, and the
stress that he lays upon them, makes it difficult to believe that they were not. . . .
There are three remarkable exceptions to the moral maxims of Plato, in which he would
not have had the concurrence of Socrates, viz. his recommending a community of women
in his commonwealth, his approbation of perjury in matters of love, and in the
licentiousness which he would allow soldiers on a military expedition. . . . In what
Plato says on the subject of death, and the consequence of it, we see the stress he
laid on the practice of Virtue in general, though without distinguishing particular
virtues or vices; and if he may be understood literally, his sentiments are decidedly
in favour of a future state of retribution . . . As Plato’s account of a future state
has such a mixture of fancy and fable, and so little support from argument, his declaration of his belief of it will admit
of much doubt as well as what he says of the immortality of the soul in general. . . .
. The Philosophy of Aristotle . . . ‘What the pilot is in a ship,’ he says . . . ‘What
the charioteer is in his chariot . . . God is in the world.’ . . . I would observe on
this, that philosophy . . . considers every thing in the universe as, in a proper
sense, equal in the eye of God, who made the smallest
things as well as the greatest, as equally subservient to his purpose. . . . Even some
christian philosophers seem still to be intangled in this idea, when they speak of the
operation of general laws, as if they could relieve the
deity from any part of his immediate agency. For what are laws, or general rules, in
the hands of those who have no power to execute them? . . . But what is that law, or
any other law of nature, without a power of agency? . . . And what we call general
laws cannot be any thing else than his general mode of acting, or exerting his power
and influence. Incomprehensible as this must ever appear to us, it is not the only
circumstance relating to the Supreme Being that is so. In fact, all his attributes,
and especially his eternal and necessary existence must ever be so to finite minds,
that is, to all Beings except to himself. . . . Of the human Soul . . . Though
Aristotle did not, with many other philosophers, consider the soul as the whole of a man’s self he acknowledged it to be the principal part
of a man. . . . He did not think so meanly of the body as not to be of opinion that it
had some properties in common with the soul. . . . Of Happiness, and of Virtue and
Vice. . . . He considers every circumstance that is reputable, and that makes a man to appear to advantage in the eyes of others,
as a virtue . . . and every thing that is disreputable, as a vice . . . As to the great
object of heathen philosophy in general, which was to enable men to bear the evils of
life, and the fear or the pains of death, he never, that I recollect, so much as
mentions the subject; but treats of generation and dissolution merely as natural
phenomena, to be explained upon physical principles, but he never regards them in a
moral light. On the consequence of death, and a state of retribution after it, he is
likewise wholly silent . . . Of the Stoical Philosophy of Marcus Antoninus and
Epictetus. . . . It was a fixed maxim with the Stoics, as it was with Socrates, from
whom none of the founders of sects that came after him pretended to differ, that there
is a principle of intelligence, wisdom and also, of benevolence, directing all the
affairs of the world and of men . . . In their writings we find nothing of the
lewdness, the cruelty, and caprice of the gods of Homer and Virgil . . . ‘We should
live,’ he says . . . ‘with the gods; and this any person will do who preserves his
mind in a disposition to acquiesce in what is appointed him’ . . . That this universal
mind has a perfect knowledge of all things, even of what passes in the minds of men,
was the belief of the Stoics, as well as of Socrates. ‘God,’ says Marcus Antoninus . . .
‘sees all minds divested of their coverings and flesh. By his own mind alone he sees
them as derived from him.’ . . . He, however, takes it for granted that all good and
evil is the dispensation of the gods, and therefore he holds it as a fixed maxim to be
thankful for the former, and patiently to bear the latter. . . . He seems sometimes,
however, to consider such an order of things established from all eternity as would
render all prayer, sacrifices, &c. useless. ‘Whatever happens to you . . . was
destined for you from all eternity. This’ he says, ‘was done . . . by a certain fate.
. . . If there be a God,’ he says . . . ‘every thing is right.’ According to him, this
made the existence of any thing properly evil absolutely
impossible. ‘Nothing . . . can be hurtful that is good for the whole; and every thing
in the universe must be good for it.’ . . . That this
system is in a progressive state of continual improvement was not the doctrine of the
Stoics. It was rather their opinion that, after a certain period, every thing would
return to the state in which it had been before . . . Treating of death, Marcus
Antoninus says . . . ‘If every thing be ordered by providence, I venerate the supreme
ruler and, depending upon him, am unmoved.’ From his opinion of the duty of submission
to the divine will, he excellently observes . . . ‘the gods either have power, or no
power. If they have no power, why do you pray? If they have power, why do you not
rather pray that you may be without anxiety about an event, than that the event may
not take place?’ . . . Like Socrates, the emperor connected the practice of morality
with religion . . . ‘He that fears pain . . . fears what must be in the world, and
this is impious; and he who follows pleasure will not refrain from injustice, which is
certainly impious.’ . . . Of the Human Soul. . . . In like manner, having no idea of a
proper creation, i.e. out of
nothing, they considered the highest principle in man, viz. that of
intelligence, as the same in all, derived from the same source; and this they
conceived to be the supreme intelligence, which disposed and directs the affairs of
the whole universe, and like the principle of animal life, they held that, being
detached from this source at the birth of every man, it was absorbed into it again
after his death, as a drop of water (to use a comparison that is frequent with them)
is absorbed and lost in the ocean. Consequently, its separate existence, and separate
consciousness, then vanished. . . . And as the supreme intelligence is incapable of
suffering from evil of any kind, they transferred this extraordinary power to the
soul; maintaining that nothing foreign to itself could affect it without its own
consent, so that it is in every man’s power to be completely happy, whatever his
outward circumstances may be. This sentiment, which has an air of great sublimity,
tended to inspire the Stoics with a sense of native dignity, rendering them superior
to every thing mean and base; but it excluded humility, and many amiable and useful
virtues, peculiarly adapted to the state of society with beings equally imperfect with
themselves. . . . The dignified sentiments maintained by the Stoics concerning the
human soul lead us to expect great elevation of mind with respect to virtue; and in
this we shall not be disappointed, as far as virtue in their ideas of it extended; and
it comprehended every thing that relates to the due government of the passions, all
the relative duties, and those that affect the intercourse between man and man. They
also made happiness to depend entirely on the practice of virtue, independent on any
foreign consideration, such as the fear of punishment, the hope of reward, or the
opinion of others, expressed in praise or censure. . . . the Stoics considered every
thing that is foreign to the calm dictates of reason, all emotions and passions, as
belonging to mere animal nature; seeing that men have them in common with brutes. . . .
they professed to have no indignation against the vices of men, but considered them
like evils, and inconveniences of any other kind, at which it does not become any man
to be disturbed, being agreeable to the order of the nature. Accordingly, Marcus
Antoninus having observed that we have no reason to complain of the gods with respect
to any thing that befalls us, adds . . . ‘Neither are men to be complained of. For
neither do they offend willingly. It is the part of man . . . to love those who offend
them . . . When I consider that the person who injures me . . . is a partaker of the
same intellect, and portion of the divinity, that I cannot be injured by him, that he
has no power to draw me into any thing dishonest, I cannot be angry with him, or hate
him. . . . When you take any thing ill . . . you forget that every thing takes place
according to the nature of the universe. If we consider these things only as evils
which depend upon our own wills, we shall see no reason for blameing, or bearing ill
will to, any man.’ . . . For the wisdom of providence in the permission or appointment
of evil is never mentioned by Marcus Antoninus. That such things as evils of every
kind must be, is the amount of all that he says on the
subject . . . Of the various Evils of Life. . . . One rule of Epictetus, however, is
truly valuable, if it could be applied. But the Stoics always imagined that much more
was in their power than really was so. ‘Do not . . . seek to find things as you wish
them to be, but wish for that which actually is, and you will pass your life in
tranquility.’ The great difficulty in this case . . . is in the application of such a
rule; and other principles, out of the sphere of their philosophy, but comprehended in
those of christianity, are necessary to assist in this. This great excellence of
character, which raises some men so much above the level of their species, and which
rendered them superior to all the evils of life . . . the Stoics ascribed wholly to
philosophy . . . ‘It is a mark,’ says Epictetus . . . ‘of the common people to look
for loss or gain from what is external to them, but the philosopher expects nothing
but from himself. The proof that he is a philosopher, is, that he censures no person,
commands no person, complains of no man, never boasts of himself . . . If he meets
with obstacles from his acquaintance he blames only himself. If any person praise him
he laughs at him, and if he be censured he does not excuse himself’”
(Priestley, Doctrines, 123, 124, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 136-37, 138, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 153, 158, 161, 168, 169, 171-72, 176-77, 179, 180, 183, 186, 188, 189-90, 191, 192, 193, 194-95, 196, 197, 198-99, 205, 207-8, 209-10, 211, 212, 213, 220, 221).
MME quotes, misquotes, repurposes, and otherwise alters the source material from her reading in Henry Kett, General Knowledge,
Introductory to Useful Books in the Principal Branches of Literature and
Science: “But the glorious sun of liberty again displayed itself at the
reformation, was again obscured by the conflict of king and people, and finally shone
forth with meridian glory at the revolution . . . The struggles of contending factions
gave birth to the exertions of Milton, Sidney,
Locke, and Somers. These writers were
the founders of new political schools; and we may rank among their disciples a
Montesquieu, a Rousseau, a Voltaire,
a Franklin, and a Washington. If ever the
American is disposed to boast of the freedom of his country, let him recollect, that
the lessons of that freedom were taught him by the parent state. When the French
maintain, that the plans of any of their varying forms of democracy, since the
revolution of 1789, have originated solely in the abstract principles and deduction of
reason, do they not forget that Britain first suggested to their legislators their
best and most approved maxims of government . . . It is evident that the British
constitution has reached its present state of improvement, not so much in consequence
of the deep and refined speculations of philosophers and politicians, as by the
concussion of discordant interests, and the hostility of contending parties. The
struggles for power before the revolution were very numerous, and in some of them the
rights of kings were as flagrantly insulted as those of
the people. The measures frequently employed for the
destruction of the constitution, particularly in the reign of James II. were the means
that ultimately strengthened its powers . . . As the king is wholly dependent upon the other branches of the constitution for
pecuniary aid, he is debarred from the execution of frivolous or ambitious projects,
even were his ministers inclined to suggest them; and can only execute those plans,
which are determined by the voice of the majority of his parliament to be conducive to
the good of the nation. The constitution of England includes the essence of the three
different forms of government which prevail in the world, without their attendant
disadvantages; for we have democracy without confusion, aristocracy without rigour,
and monarchy without despotism. These principles are so compounded and mixed, as to
form a political system, which is capable of producing more freedom, and true
independence, than the renowned commonwealths of Athens and Rome could boast, or
perhaps than was ever enjoyed by any other state in its highest prosperity and
perfection. . . . Logic . . . renders the greatest service to science, learning,
virtue, and religion. Logic is the art of forming correct
ideas, and of deducing right inferences from them; or it may be said to
constitute the knowledge of the human mind, inasmuch as it traces the progress of all
our information, from our first and most simple conceptions of things, to those
numerous conclusions, which result from comparing them together. It teaches us in what
order our thoughts succeed each other, and it instructs us in the relation which
subsists between our ideas, and the terms in which we express them. It distinguishes
their different kinds, and points out their properties; discovers the sources of our
intellectual mistakes, and shows how we may correct and prevent them. It displays
those principles and rules, which we follow, although imperceptibly, whenever we think
in a manner comformable to truth. . . . It is therefore by due cultivation, and proper
diligence, that we increase the vigour of our minds, and carry reason to perfection. . . .
An affirmative proposition connects the predicate with the subject, as ‘a stone is
heavy;’ a negative proposition separates them, as ‘God is not the author of evil.’ . .
. But if we say, ‘this world had a beginning,’ the assertion is, indeed, equally true,
but shines not forth with the same degree of evidence. We find great difficulty in
conceiving how the world could be created out of nothing, and are not brought to a
full assent to the assertion, until by reasoning we arrive at a clear view of the
absurdity involved in the contrary supposition. Hence this proposition is of the kind
we call demonstrable, inasmuch as its truth is not immediately perceived, but yet may
be made evident, by means of others more known and obvious, whence it follows as an
unavoidable consequence. III. Reasoning. It frequently happens, in comparing our ideas
together, that their agreement or disagreement cannot be discerned at first sight,
especially if they are of such a nature, as not to admit of an exact application to
each other. . . . The great art consists in finding out such intermediate ideas, as,
when compared with others in the question, will furnish evident truths . . . If
Aristotle was not the first, who reduced logic to a system, he was certainly the most
eminent of logicians. He claims the invention of the whole theory of syllogisms. . . .
But after mankind had involved themselves in the labyrinths of Aristotelian
disputation for near two thousand years, and perplexed their understandings to little
purpose, the great lord Bacon proposed the method of induction, as a more effectual
means of arriving at truth. By Induction is meant a general inference drawn from several particular
propositions. This method has contributed very materially to the improvement of
the arts, and the increase of knowledge, more particularly in the researches of
natural philosophy. . . . the ingenious author of “The Chart and Scale of Truth” makes
this excellent remark. . . . if the general propositions, or secondary principles, be
imperfectly or infirmly established . . . or by arbitrary assumption, like those of
Aristotle, all the syllogising in the world is a vain and useless logomachy . . . The
Mathematics. . . . By an early attachment to these elegant and sublime studies we
acquire a habit of reasoning, and an elevation of thought, which fixes the mind; and
prepares it for every other pursuit. From a few simple axioms, and evident principles,
we proceed gradually to the most general propositions, and remote analogies . . . the
doctrine of fluctions is founded upon this principle, that all magnitudes or
quantities are supposed to be generated by motion. Thus, a line is supposed to be
generated by the motion of a point, a surface by the motion of a line, and a solid by
the motion of a surface. . . . Mixed mathematics . . .
Mechanics is that science which treats of the motion and equilibrium of bodies.
. . . The general subject is, the doctrine of motion, the most considerable of all
others, for establishing the first principles of philosophy by geometrical
demonstration. . . . He [
Newton
] applied astronomy to
rectify the computations of chronology . . . By GENIUS is generally meant a
disposition of nature which qualifies any one for a peculiar employment in life: but
in its highest sense, considered with reference to the fine arts, it may be described
to be that faculty of the mind which unites the greatest
quickness of sensibility, and fervour of imagination,
to an extraordinary ease in associating the most remote ideas in the most striking
manner . . . If therefore the student in our laws . . . has enlarged his
conceptions of nature and art by a view of the several branches of genuine
experimental philosophy; if he has impressed on his mind the sound maxims of the law
of nature, the best and most authentic foundation of human laws; if, lastly, he has
contemplated those maxims, reduced to a practical system in the laws of imperial Rome;
if he has done this, or any part of it, a student thus
qualified may enter upon the study of the law with incredible advantage and
reputation.”
(Kett, Elements, 2:32,33, 34, 36, 43-44, 52-53, 55-56, 59-60, 67, 73, 83, 86, 158, 279).
In the remaining lines of this Almanack, MME
commonplaces from volume one of this source as follows: “We may distinguish the
remarkable periods of Grecian history by four memorable
epochs. The first is the age of Solon, or the
establishment of the laws, B.C. 594; the second is the age of Aristides, or of martial glory, B.C. 480; the third of Pericles, or of luxury and the arts, B.C. 430; and the
fourth that of Mahomet II
, or complete degradation, A.C.
1453. . . . The Romans . . . In the vast compass of their dominions, from the Euphrates to the Atlantic
Ocean, and from the Danube to the deserts of Libya, was felt the influence of their
laws”
(Kett, Elements, 1:279, 293).
“EUROPE although the smallest
of these divisions, in extent of country, is by far the most eminent with respect to
religion, laws, learning, arts, arms, and commerce. ASIA is remarkable for the number
of inhabitants, fertility of soil, and variety of climate. . . . There the most
ancient Empires were founded, the Will of God was revealed to Man, and Mahomet spread
his Imposture. . . . The vast Peninsula of AFRICA united to the Continent of Asia by
the isthmus of Suez, rich in gold . . . the British Settlements of Sierra Leone, and
Bulama, established for raising the productions of the West Indies, without the aid of
miserable slaves, and a commerce in human flesh. Egypt, whence of old beamed the light
of Science and Civilization, is renowned for its stupendous pyramids, the most ancient
monuments of human labour extant, the periodical inundations of the Nile, and the
degraded condition of the natives foretold in the holy Scriptures . . . At the extreme
point of the Continent—the Cape of Good Hope, the tribes of the Caffres with an
invincible ferocity . . . AMERICA . . . Its north east division . . . includes the
coasts peopled by the Colonists from Great Britain. The southwest part includes the
fertile provinces of Mexico and Louisiana, the former belongs to Spain, the latter is
ceded by that power to the French, who originally planted a colony there, and have
lately sold it to the United States of America’”
(Kett, Elements, 1:181-2).
MME partially encircles this page number in the top right corner. Since this page begins in the
middle of a sentence (the single preceding manuscript leaf is unnumbered), the editors presume that
several preceding pages of this Almanack are no longer extant.
MME partially encircles this page number in the top left corner.
The words “His sentiments on the divine perfections, original” are on a separate line. This line is indented and is preceded above by a centered blank horizontal line drawn across the page.
The words “The eternity of God is nessecarily & plainly included in the” are on a separate line, which is indented.
MME quotes from a review of Germaine de Staël’s
Germany:
“This theory which we have thus abridged is most ingenious, and exhibits in the liveliest form
the distinction between different systems of literature and manners. It is partly true; for the
principle of race is doubtless one of the most important in the history of mankind; and the first
impressions on the susceptible character of rude tribes may be traced in the qualities of their
most civilized descendants.— But, considered as an exclusive and universal theory, it is not secure
against the attacks of sceptical ingenuity. The facts do not seem entirely to correspond with it.
It was among the Latin nations of the south, that chivalry and romance first flourished. Provence
was the earliest seat of romantic poetry. A chivalrous literature predominated in Italy during the
most brilliant period of Italian genius. The poetry of the Spanish peninsula seems to have been more
romantic and less subjected to classical bondage than that of any other part of Europe. On the
contrary, chivalry, which was the refinement of the middle age, penetrated more slowly into the
countries of the north. In those less polished regions, it was more rugged and obscure, and did not
descend, as in the south, with that splendour and renown which acted upon the imagination of succeeding
times. In general, the character of the literature of each European nation seems extremely to depend
upon the period at which it had reached its highest point of cultivation. Spanish and Italian poetry
flourished while Europe was still chivalrous. French literature attained its highest splendour after the
Grecian and Roman writers had become the object of universal reverence. The Germans cultivated their poetry
a hundred years later, when the study of antiquity had revived the knowledge of the Gothic sentiments and
principles. Nature produced a chivalrous poetry in the sixteenth century; learning in the eighteenth.
Perhaps the history of English poetry reflects the revolution of European taste more distinctly than
that of any other nation. We have successively cultivated a Gothic poetry from nature, a classical poetry
from imitation, and a second Gothic from the study of our own ancient poets”
(“De L’Allemagne,” 206-7).
MME commonplaces at length from several pages in Joshua Toulmin, Memoirs of the
Life, Character, Sentiments and Writings of Faustus Socinus, quoting, misquoting, distilling, and repurposing this material as follows:
“Socinus when he is treating of the divine
and sovereign power with which CHRIST is invested, observes: ‘That the passages which ascribe this power to
him are too numerous and too explicit to admit of any figurative sense, from which it might be inferred that
he did not really possess such great power. For instance (says he) when CHRIST declares,
John v. 22, 23. The father judgeth no man, but hath
committed all judgment to the Son; that all should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father: the
words so plainly and emphatically attribute a divine and sovereign power to CHRIST, as to leave no room for
any figurative sense . . . And this demonstrates, that the ground upon which CHRIST is to be honoured by all
men, is the greatest and most distinguished of those prerogatives which the Father himself possesseth, and
which can by any means be communicated to another. . . . Hence it necessarily follows, that
the all judgment which CHRIST declares was given to him by the Father, must
signify that government of all men . . . who does not now exert it in his own Person and by himself immediately,
but the person and by the agency of CHRIST’. . . . I find Socinus further explaining his ideas on the subject
of CHRIST’S power, and of its extent, in a Letter to a Friend who seems to have mistaken what he had advanced
on the point. . . . ‘I mean to include all things that have, or can have, any even remote connection with his
Church and the individual members of it; so that I comprehend in my words those things which, out of the Church,
have yet a respect to it. For there is no one thing (although you seem to think otherwise) which may not have
some relation to the Church. Nay, the things that may have such an influence are infinite, as you yourself must
of course confess, if you consider the extent of this earth, or rather of the universe, and the events that daily
take place in it. For have I any where either tacitly or expressly denied, that our daily bread, necessary for
the support of life, is to be asked from CHRIST, provided he who solicits it, or he for whom it is requested, or
the prayer itself, has any connection with or relation to the things we speak of.’ . . . His sentiments on the
Divine Perfections, The Original State of Man, The Fall, Predestination, and Justification . . . ‘You ought to
consider that the Eternity of God is necessarily and plainly included in the notion of his self-existence and
sole divine dominion over us. For this implies and is almost expressly to assert, that he has no beginning. For
to possess divine dominion from himself alone, is nothing else but to possess it from his own nature, and to derive
it from no other being. But it necessarily follows, that he who possesseth any thing from his own nature, and not by
derivation from another, hath himself no beginning: otherwise he does not possess it naturally, but by communication . . .
Unlimited and infinite Power, Wisdom and Goodness also belong to the divine Essence. Under goodness I include what
also others do, justice, or rather rectitude, and equity; and by wisdom I mean a knowledge of and acquaintance with
things. Before I enlarge on these Attributes I must shew how it necessarily results from the idea of God’s being
possessed of a divine empire over us solely, and from himself, that these attributes are in him supreme and unlimited,
And it follows thus; the Being who possesseth such an empire, must necessarily be the most perfect Existence, since
he is by nature supreme over all, and consequently all his attributes must be perfect and supreme . . . Therefore, as
power, wisdom and goodness are excellencies, it is not only necessary that all these should dwell in him, but even be
supreme and perfect. . . . I cannot but think as the divine Essence is numerically one, there are not many divine
Persons, but one only. For we have no authority of reason or Scripture to suppose that should take place in the
divine Essence, which can by no means happen in any other. . . . Numerical essence therefore, and such all confess
is the divine Essence, is that which is most properly called essence, some single individual nature, which subsists
by itself. . . . every person is numerically an essence, but not every essence numerically a person. For there must
needs be added, to what is otherwise sufficient to constitute a numerical essence, Intelligence, that it may be a
person.—When therefore it is most certain, that a numerical essence endued with intelligence differs nothing from a
person, it of course follows, that if there be many persons in GOD, there are also many numerical essences in him;
which every one will conceive and confess is most absurd and impious. . . . I do not see the necessity, as is generally
thought, that because the power of GOD is immense, his essence also is immense. For the immensity either of his power,
or of any of the attributes of GOD, is not of the same kind as that which is ascribed to his essence, and of which we
are now speaking. For the latter relates to quantity, if it be proper to speak thus when discoursing of the Divine Being,
but the former relates to quality. . . . But perhaps it will be urged, that nothing infinite can arise from what is finite,
since, as it is generally said, there is no proportion between finite and infinite. To this I answer, that the divine Power
itself, of which, by way of example, we are now expressly treating, is so infinite, or as we have before termed it,
uncircumscribed by any limits, that it reaches to all things possible to be done, without exception. For there are some
things that are by no means possible to be effected: such are all things, as we have before hinted, which imply a
contradiction; for instance, what is commonly alleged in the theological schools, That what is
done cannot be undone. To these things all grant the power of God doth not extend, from which it is clear the power
of GOD is not so infinite, that there should be no proportion between that and the essence of GOD’ . . . He endeavoured to
support it by arguments drawn from the power with which man was endued of increasing and multiplying, whereas the immortal
do not beget children—from the use of food, which an immortal frame does not require—from his body being of the animal kind,
which is mean and corruptible, and evidently different from a spiritual and immortal body—from being indulged the use of the
tree of life, which would be useless for an immortal nature—from the existence of all the causes that lead to death, before
man sinned—and from his being earthly, because formed of the earth, and as earthly mortal . . . With respect to the power
of Man to discover, by the light of nature, the Being of GOD, and the Truths of what is called natural Religion, SOCINUS
thought that these principles were above his natural powers; and that the first notices of a Divine Being, were derived from
Revelation, or immediate communications from GOD. . . . ‘ARISTOTLE in particular, who appears to have surpassed all in the
penetration of his genius, not only saw the frame of the world as well as the rest of mankind, and with many others
contemplated it; but even diligently searched into and examined the universe and all its parts, and yet could not arrive
at this point, even to the supposition that GOD took care of the lowest particular parts of it, or to perceive his Providence
over the individuals of mankind’”
(Toulman, Memoirs, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 215, 216, 217, 218).