always been difficult. The old theory which made the earth the center of all things was deeply rooted in popular conceptions, and it required a painful upheaval to make the Copernican theory fit into theological and poetical ideals. The evolutionary theory was even more troublesome to assimilate. It has required half a century to make even a beginning toward that end, while any full appreciation of the inspiring import of the new outlook is still far in the future. Walt Whitman will appeal strongly to the coming generations in the new century, for they will have entered fully into the pregnant truths of nineteenth-century science. He does not represent, with Tennyson, the transition struggle with the doubts suggested by the revolutions in cosmic knowledge. He does not with Browning force himself from his unshaken citadel of faith to search conscientiously for the dark skepticism which attacks other less fortified believers. He has taken possession of the whole kingdom of modern truth, and is oblivious to any other land except as the home of observed life to be appreciated tenderly for the evolving beauty within it. It is truly puzzling to tell how he gained his grasp of evolutionary conceptions. Darwin did not publish the “Origin of Species" until 1859. Spencer's first elaboration of any phase of his doctrine was published in the same year in which "Leaves of Grass" appeared. In 1852 Spencer had issued a general statement, but it seems hardly credible that Whitman I could have come in contact with so obscure a book. Nevertheless, had he been fully cognizant of every scientific fact and theory discovered or projected up to the moment of publication, his work would be quite as marvelous, so completely has the evolutionary universe become absorbed into his unconscious thought. He is always part of an eternal process; always the product of the ages; always the result of eternal beginnings; always the channel for a limitless future. I am an acme of things accomplished and an encloser of things to be. My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stars, On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps, All below duly traveled, and still I mount and mount. In 1874 Tyndall startled even the friends of general evolution by announcing that all things have come to be from the potent life of matter itself. All that exists of form or thought or emotion was originally involved in the pregnant heart of the original star mist, he affirmed. Since then, theologians, as well as philosophers, have come to see that this unquestioned truth is full of beauty and divine significance. Twenty years earlier than Tyndall's Belfast address, when any respect for matter was foreign to even scholarly thought, Whitman sprang with joyous unconsciousness into the unfamiliar current. Afar down I see the huge first nothing I know I was even there; I waited unseen and always and slept through the lethargic mist, And took my time and took no hurt from the fetid carbon. Long I was hugged close-long and long, Immense have been the preparations for me, Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me. Before I was born out of my mother, generations guided me, My embryo has never been torpid-nothing could over lay it. For it the nebula cohered to an orb; The long, slow strata piled to rest it on; Vast vegetables gave it sustenance'; Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care; All forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me; Now I stand on this spot with my Soul. There is in Whitman the fullest acceptance of science and satisfaction in "its word of reality." But he does not wait apologetically until science can tell him the full measure of truth. The scientists do an important service in an important realm, but they do not exhaust truth nor compass the whole of reality. Gentlemen, I receive you, and attach and clasp hands with you, The facts are useful and real—they are not my dwelling I enter by them to an area of the dwelling. His own dwelling is in life itself, not the properties and qualities—the external details with which science must deal. The words of poems are the tuft and final applause of science. After the Copernican theory was established, it was hard to adjust man's dignity to his place on a little speck in the boundless ocean of space. The doctrine of evolution has in the same way cowed the spirit of many and made them feel veritable "worms of the dust" with no suggestion from theology. There is no such transitional and forced humility in this poet. He is always conscious of the immensity of things, but the more huge the universe the more uncompassed he sees the nature of man. I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems, And all I see, multiplied as high as I can cipher, edge but the rim of the farther systems. My sun has his sun and round him obediently wheels, And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside them. This vastness does not overawe the poet. I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured, and never can be measured. Sure as the earth swims thro' the heavens, does every one of its objects pass into spiritual results. Whoever you are! The divine ship sails the divine sea for you! Whoever you are! You are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky. I will confront these shows of the day and night! I will know if I am to be less than they! I will see if I am not as majestic as they! I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they! |