Two Unpublished Essays

Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original hardcover edition for enjoyable reading. (Worth every penny spent!)

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An excerpt from the first essay:

The Character of Socrates

[A Bowdoin Prize Dissertation of 1810]

"Guide my way
Through fair Lyceum's walk, the green retreats
Of Academus, and the thymy vale
Where, oft enchanted with Socratic sounds,
Ilissus pure devolved his tuneful stream
In gentler murmurs. From the blooming store
Of these auspicious fields, may I unblamed
Transplant some living blossoms to adorn
My native clime."

THE philosophy of the human mind has of late years commanded an unusual degree of attention from the curious and the learned. The increasing notice which it obtains is owing much to the genius of those men who have raised themselves with the science to general regard, but chiefly, as its patrons contend, to the uncontrolled progress of human improvement. The zeal of its advocates, however, in other respects commendable, has sinned in one particular,—they have laid a little too much self-complacent stress on the merit and success of their own unselfish exertions, and in their first contempt of the absurd and trifling speculations of former metaphysicians, appear to have confounded sophists and true philosophers, and to have been disdainful of some who have enlightened the world and marked out a path for future advancement.

Indeed, the giant strength of modern improvement is more indebted to the early wisdom of Thales and Socrates and Plato than is generally allowed, or perhaps than modern philosophers have been well aware.

This supposition is strongly confirmed by a consideration of the character of Socrates, which, in every view, is uncommon and admirable. To one who should read his life as recorded by Xenophon and Plato without previous knowledge of the man, the extraordinary character and circumstances of his biography would appear incredible. It would seem that antiquity had endeavored to fable forth a being clothed with all the perfection which the purest and brightest imagination could conceive or combine, bestowing upon the piece only so much of mortality as to make it tangible and imitable. Even in this imaginary view of the character, we have been inclined to wonder that men, without a revelation, by the light of reason only, should set forth a model of moral perfection which the wise of any age would do well to imitate. And, further, it might offer a subject of ingenious speculation, to mark the points of difference, should modern fancy, with all its superiority of philosophic and theological knowledge, endeavor to create a similar paragon. But this is foreign to our purpose.

It will be well, in reviewing the character of Socrates, to mark the age in which he lived, as the moral and political circumstances of the times would probably exert an important and immediate influence on his opinions and character. The dark ages of Greece, from the settlement of the colonies to the Trojan War, had long closed. The young republics had been growing in strength, population, and territory, digesting their constitutions and building up their name and importance. The Persian War, that hard but memorable controversy of rage and spite, conflicting with energetic and disciplined independence, had shed over their land an effulgence of glory which richly deserved all that applause which after ages have bestowed. It was a stern trial of human effort, and the Greeks might be pardoned if, in their intercourse with less glorious nations, they carried the record of their long triumph too far to conciliate national jealousies. The aggrandizement of Greece which followed this memorable war was the zenith of its powers and splendor, and ushered in the decay and fall of the political fabric.

The age of Pericles has caused Athens to be remembered in history. At no time during her existence were the arts so flourishing, popular taste and feeling so exalted and refined, or her political relations so extensive and respected. The Athenian people were happy at home, reverenced abroad, — and at the head of the Grecian confederacy. Their commerce was lucrative, and their wars few and honorable. In this mild period it was to be expected that literature and science would grow up vigorously under the fostering patronage of taste and power. The Olympian games awakened the emulation of genius and produced the dramatic efforts of Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, and philosophy came down from heaven to Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Socrates.

Such was the external and obvious condition of Athens, — apparently prosperous, but a concealed evil began to display specific and disastrous consequences. The sophists had acquired the brightest popularity and influence, by the exhibition of those superficial accomplishments whose novelty captivated the minds of an ingenious people, among whom true learning was yet in its infancy....

Two Unpublished Essays