development and perfection by voluntary standards and self-reliance." He has no illusions about the present order of things in America. " 'Society, in these States, is canker'd, crude, superstitious, and rotten.' But he is not without hope, for he sees a remedy, and he trusts the future. America is immense in material resources, in the numbers of its people, and in the sturdy character of the vast average, immense also in its possibilities for expansion. However, Whitman is not content with merely this. And here is the remedy. He pleads for a great moral and religious civilization as the only justification of a great material one. It is not enough that a country possess free political institutions, and material and industrial resources of prodigious extent and incalculable wealth. So much we have already in the United States. "But woe to the age or land in which these things, movements, stopping at themselves, do not tend to ideas." The real purpose of the best social order is the making of personalism. "The last, best dependence is to be upon humanity itself, and its own inherent, normal, full-grown qualities." To this end everything must be constrained to minister. Democracy must have its own forms of art and literature, for the soul of man needs what is addressed to the soul. "The literature, songs, esthetics, &c., of a country are of importance principally because they furnish the materials and suggestions of personality for the women and men of that country, and enforce them in a thousand effective ways." But greater than all Culture are "the fresh, eternal qualities of Being." So far as a civilization fails to develop these qualities, it fails completely. Material wealth and intellectual acumen are of no avail unless they tend toward the soul. Democracy, if it is inspired by the highest ideal and so is able to triumph over its necessary limitations, makes this development possible. For it seeks not only to individualize but also to universalize. "What Christ appear'd for in the moralspiritual field for human-kind, namely, that in respect to the absolute soul, there is in the possession of such by each single individual, something so transcendent, so incapable of gradations, (like life,) that, to that extent, it places all beings on a common level, utterly regardless of the distinctions of intellect, virtue, station, or any height or lowliness whatever," -so democracy as a social order, when thoroughly spiritualized as Whitman pleads for it, recognizing the equality of men and of souls, is worthy of our most earnest efforts toward its realization. Whitman's interest in this matter is more than merely theoretical. The aim which he has so genuinely and profoundly at heart is to be reached by every possible means. If a social order can be so framed as to contribute to this end, then that way our duty lies. A great city is that which has the greatest men and women, If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world. In his social and political propaganda, as in the lesson of his life, his purpose is the building of great personalities. From Whitman's conception of the full import of individuality follows his morality. And it is indeed a morality for heroes. Admitting no standards other than those of his own nature harmonized with universal laws, the individual accepts the fullest consequences of what he chooses to be. There can be no delegated responsibility and no vicarious atonement. The individual is his own Saviour or his own Satan. Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word of the past and present, and the true word of immortality; No one can acquire for another Not one can grow for another not one, not one. The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him, The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him, The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him, The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him, Nothing fails of its perfect return. We cannot escape ourselves. Reward and punishment are not meted out by an overruling external power; they inhere in the act itself, and it rests with the individual freely to choose. "We are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only." This law of natural compensation operates inexorably, but it should not determine the motives of conduct. Constructively, Whitman's morality is the morality of health and affirmation. There is in it no element of fear. He believes in the fullest self-expression, not with reference to punishment or reward, but for its own sake. The standard of action is not conformity to an external code, but inner rightness. The individual is to act in freedom. Freedom may be won in its |