space" for a few
years after its foundation, did not exist in an absolute vacuum, but
was scholarly, if somewhat heavy. Webster, to be sure, was a
Massachusetts man--as were Everett and Choate--but his triumphs were
won in the wider field of national politics. There was, however, a
movement at this time, in the intellectual life of Boston and eastern
Massachusetts, which, though not immediately contributory to the finer
kinds of literature, prepared the way, by its clarifying and
stimulating influences, for the eminent writers of the next generation.
This was the Unitarian revolt against Puritan orthodoxy, in which
William Ellery Channing was the principal leader. In a community so
intensely theological as New England, it was natural that any new
movement in thought should find its point of departure in the churches.
Accordingly, the progressive and democratic spirit of the age, which in
other parts of the country took other shapes, assumed in Massachusetts
the form of "liberal Christianity." Arminianism, Socinianism, and
other phases of anti-Trinitarian doctrine, had been latent in some of
the Congregational churches of Massachusetts for a number of years.
But about 1812 the heresy broke out openly, and within a few years from
that date most of the oldest and wealthiest church societies of Boston
and its vicinity had gone over to Unitarianism, and Harvard College had
been captured too. In the controversy that ensued, and which was
carried on in numerous books, pamphlets, sermons, and periodicals,
there were eminent disputants on both sides. So far as this
controversy was concerned with the theological doctrine of the Trinity
it has no place in a history of literature. But the issue went far
beyond that. Channing asserted the dignity of human nature against the
Calvinistic doctrine of innate depravity, and affirmed the rights of
human reason and man's capacity to judge of God. "We must start in
religion from our own souls," he said. And in his _Moral Argument
against Calvinism_, 1820, he wrote: "Nothing is gained to piety by
degrading human nature, for in the competency of this nature to know
and judge of God all piety has its foundation." In opposition to
Edwards's doctrine of necessity he emphasized the freedom of the will.
He maintained that the Calvinistic dogmas of original sin,
fore-ordination, election by grace, and eternal punishment were
inconsistent with the divine perfection, and made God a monster