For the past few days, I have been living among the thoughts of Ibrahim Karim and Bronson Alcott, almost to the exclusion of the world immediately around me. On Sunday, I went to UVA’s beautiful Shannon Library (formerly Alderman) and borrowed Alcott’s Journals and his Letters. A few excerpts. I could cite many more, but there’s only so much writing and typing one wants to do.
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October, 1838: “History is useful to me no farther than I am conscious of the same facts in my own existence. It is in the light of these that I apprehend the facts of history…. Erudition is not insight. It is not what I take upon my memory that sheds light until my soul, but what I see by self-intuition, that makes me wise.”
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April 13, 1839: “Vox populi is not Vox Dei, save where interest or passion are silent. It is the still small voice of the private soul that is authentic. Multitudes always lie. The single man’s oracle is alone authentic.”
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April 22, 1839: “[Theodore] Parker asked me today, on my saying that men must have behaved well in order to have such fine sunshine, what I would do with the Mosaic account, which gives the priority of creation to the elements. I said that was the historical, not genetic, account of the matter. It was the story told in the order of the senses. The man and nature are. The senses begin in the concrete, and analyze from the surface to the center. But this is not the order of generation. The Soul is prior to the elements of nature. It was the Soul which said ”’Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Light is generated from the Soul, and is the base of matter.”
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October 18, 1839: “Individual is the basis of general improvement. The democrats talk of improving the masses, but take small interest in individual reform. They seem to fancy that two or more men together become invested with powers not their own when apart—have somewhat superadded; and so speak of the might and majesty of masses, not of individuals. A rabble is respectable, God-inspired! A man is base, influenced by Beelzebub! Men possess the Godhead in their collective capacity, but apart are demons, whom the State must watch lest they rend it asunder, and the Church disown.
“I read men quite otherwise. I look for the Prince of the Devils in the midst of the mob; for God, in the seclusion of a single soul. Beelzebub rules the masses, God individuals. The Kingdom of Truth is within, not out there in Church or State. Vox populi, vox diaboli.”
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January 14, 1848: [A little premature, but we’ll get there.] “The age of insight and intuition is fast evicting that of observation and inference. From using contentedly the old eyes of a circuitous and painful logic, men are finding the superior power of a direct and instant intuition in all investigations of nature and spirit.
“New eyes for discerning the old things! New instruments for the old implements!
“It is easier to repair the eyes than to mend the spectacles.”
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June 24, 1849: “To say that all things were once created out of nothing is saying nothing has been created, or is.
“The assertion denies, as it undermines, the grounds of all existence, namely Spirit and God, as premise, and is puerile, atheistic, and impious. Spirit creates out of itself.”