メ tation of Democracy in the aggregate, or anything like it, at this day", says Whitman. The question arises in our mind whether he does not entertain the hope that his "Leaves of Grass" will some day become the great American epic, or at least, the type of the future American epic, (Longfellow's Hiawatha, in a meagre sense, has been taken as the American epic). He is recognized by many as the most American of American poets, or the most democratic of democracy's poets. A. Whitman as Critic in "Democratic Vistas". We would call particular attention to what has been said on pages 2 and 6 about Whitman laying the foundation for democracy's poetry in general and for "Leaves of Grass" in particular. It is quite natural therefore, that we should recognize "Democratic Vistas" as an indirect and general criticism, on "Leaves of Grass". With these purposes in mind we have made the following study. It is hoped that the words in italics speak for themselves, for philosophical terms generally carry with themselves far more meaning than one is able to give to them. Such words are to be "the words of true poets", or, as Whitman says, "Divine instinct, breadth of vision, law of reason, ... such are some of the words of poems". ... a) The Virtue of Democracy. "the true nationality of the states, the genuine union, when we come to a mortal crisis, is, and is to be after all, neither the written law, nor . . . material objects - but the fervid and tremendous IDEA, ... solving all lesser and definite distinctions in vast, indefinite, spiritual, emotional power." (p. 10.) ... By IDEA here is meant Plato's real, innate, general Idea. Socrates says that Virtue is knowledge; Plato says that Virtue is idea. Whitman is inclined to take Plato's position. "Democracy", he says, has been "the moral speculations of ages"... "it has been and is carried on by all the moral forces, and by trade... it resides, crude and latent, well down in the hearts of the fair average of the American-born people" ... (p. 36.) Whitman presents his virtue of Democracy in its two opposite aspects: aggregation and separation, individualism, personalism; or aggregate democracy and individual democracy (cf. pp. 16, 26, 38, 52, 77). These he seeks to reconcile by a doctrine that assumes a close relation between the individuality of a nation and the aggregate and that seeks not only to individualize, but also to universalize. 1. Virtue of Aggregate Democracy. "To work in, if we may so term it, and justify God, his divine aggregate, the People,... this, I say is what democracy is for." (p. 27.) "That which really balances and conserves the social and political world is not so much legislation, police, treaties, and dread of punishment, as the latent eternal intuitional sense, in humanity, of fairness, manliness, decorum, etc." (p. 77); cf: "the People... their measureless wealth of latent power and capacity." (p. 20.) ... "But moral conscientiousness, not Godlike only, entirely human, awes and enchants forever... Then noiseless, with flowing steps, the lord, the sun, the last ideal comes. By the names right, justice, truth, we suggest, but do not describe it." (p. 69.) "I say we can only attain harmony and stability by consulting ensemble and the ethic purports and faithfully building upon them." (p. 61.) "For America, type of progress, and of essential faith in man, above all his errors and wickedness-few suspect how deep, how deep it really strikes." (p. 62.) "with yet unshaken faith in the elements of the American masses. (p. 16.) ... "the triumphant result of faith in human kind." (p. 33/34.) "Yet is there an immortal courage and prophesy in every sane soul that cannot, must not, under any circumstances, capitulate." (p. 31.) 220 *this simple consciousness and faith", "the central divine idea of All, suffusing universe, of eternal trains of purpose, in the development, by however slow degrees, of the physical, moral and spiritual kosmos", "is not entirely new-but it is for Democracy to elaborate it, and look to build upon and expand from it with uncompromising reliance." (p. 72 note.) "The rare, cosmical artist-mind, lit with the Infinite, alone confronts his" (man's) "manifold and oceanic qualities—but taste, intelligence and culture, (so-called) have been against the masses and remain so." (p. 20.) Democracy "is the old, yet ever-modern dream of earth, out of her eldest and her youngest, her fond philosophers and poets. Not that half only, individualism, which isolates. There is another half, which is adhesiveness or love, that fuses, ties and aggregates, making the races comrades, and fraternizing all. Both are to be vitalized by religion." (p. 26.) "The master sees greatness and health in being part of the mass; nothing will do so well as common ground. Would you have in yourself the divine, vast, general law? Then merge yourself in it." (p. 26.) "The combination fraternizes, ties the races is, in many particulars, under laws applicable indifferently to all, irrespective of climate or date, and, from whatever source, appeals to emotions, pride, love, spirituality, common to human-kind." (p. 63.) "the tendencies of our day, in the States, ... are toward those vast and sweeping movements, influences, moral and physical, of humanity, now and always current over the planet.". Hereupon Whitman says: ... "Then it is also good to reduce the whole matter to the consideration of a single self, a man, a woman, on permanent grounds. Even for the treatment of the universal in politics, metaphysics or anything, sooner or later we come down to one single, solitary soul." "The moral political speculations of ages" have been not only "the democratic republican principle" but also "the theory of development and perfection by voluntary standards and self-reliance”. This brings us to the other, seemingly contradictory, aspect of Democracy, namely, individual Democracy. The two are, however, not contradictory. Both are necessary for the exercise and proportionate development of the spiritual man. The former provides for the exer cise of his tendency to outward growth, and hence expansion; the latter for the exercise of his tendency to upward growth, and hence development in height. In both aspects man is a social creature. The former, quite naturally, assumes the closer interaction among men: "democracy's rule that men, the nation, as a common aggregate of living identities, affording in each a separate and complete subject for freedom." 2. The Virtue of Individual Democracy. "We believe the ulterior object of political and all other government ... to be among the rest... to encourage the possibilities of all beneficent and manly outcroppage, and of that aspiration for independence, and the pride and self-respect latent in all characters." (p. 24.) "The purpose of democracy is ... to illustrate, at all hazards, this doctrine or theory that man, properly trained in sanest, highest freedom may and must become a law, and series of laws unto himself," ... (p. 18.) "What is independence? Freedom from all laws or bonds except those of one's own being, controll'd by the universal ones. To lands, to man, to woman, what is there at last to each, but the inherent soul, nativity, idiocracy, free, highest-poised, soaring its own flight, following out it-self?" (p. 62/63.) "Indirectly but surely, goodness, virtue, law, (of the very best) follow freedom." (cf. p. 1, p. 28.) "The quality of BEING, in the object's self, according to its own central idea and purpose, and of growing therefrom and thereto not criticism by other standards and adjustments thereto is the lesson of Nature." (p. 41.) "I say the question of Nature, largely consider'd, involves the questions of the esthetic, the emotional, and the religious and involves happiness. A fitly born and bred race, growing up in right conditions of out-door as much as in-door harmony, activity and development, would probably from and in those conditions, find it enough merely to live ... with Being suffused night and day by wholesome extasy, surpassing all the pleasures that wealth",... (p. 70.) "Never in the Old World was thoroughly upholster'd exterior appearance and show, mental and other, built entirely on the idea of caste, and on the sufficiency of mere outside acquisition never were glibness, verbal intellect, more the test than R they are on the surface of our republican States this day... The word of the modern, say these voices, is the word Culture.” (p. 42/43.) we may not intermit to beg our absolution from all that genuinely is, or goes along with, even Culture. Pardon us, venerable sage! if we have seem'd to speak lightly of your office. The whole civilisation of the earth, we know, is yours, with all the glory and the light thereof... For you, too, mighty minister! know that there is something greater than you, namely, the fresh, eternal qualities of Being." (p. 52.) "The best culture will always be that of the manly and courageous instincts, and loving perceptions, and of selfrespect aiming to form, over this continent, an idiocracy of universalism, which, true child of America . . .” (p. 44.) "... we see steadily pressing ahead this image of completeness in separatism, of individual personal dignity, of a single person, either male or female, characterized in the main, not from extrinsic acquirements or position, but in the pride of himself or herself alone; and as an eventual conclusion and summing up. the simple idea that the last, best dependence is to be upon humanity itself, and its own inherent, normal full-grown qualities, without any superstitious support whatever." (p. 17/18.) ... ... "after the rest is said, ... it remains to bring forward and modify everything else with the idea of that Something a man is, ... standing apart from all else, divine in his own right, and a woman in hers, sole and untouchable by any canons of authority, or any rule derived from precedent, state-safety," ... (p. 17.) ... "There is, in sanest hours, a consciousness, a thought, that rises, independent, lifted out from all else, calm, like the stars, shining eternal. This is the thought of identity - yours for you, whoever you are, as mine for me In such devout hours, in the midst of the significant wonders of heaven and earth, (significant only because of the Me in the center) creeds, conventions, fall away and become of no account before this simple idea." (p. 41.) "Alone, and identity, and the mood and the soul emerges, and all statements, churches, sermons, melt away like vapors. Alone, and silent thought and awe and aspiration and then the interior consciousness, like a hitherto unseen inscription, in magic ink, beams out its wondrous lines to the sense. Bibles may convey and priests expound, but it is exclusively for the noiseless operation of one's isolated Self, to enter the pure ether of veneration, reach the divine levels, and commune with the unutterable." (p. 47.) "For America, if eligible at all to downfall and ruin, is eligible within herself, not without." (p. 48.) |