The Project Gutenberg EBook of Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly
Magazine, March 1844, by Various

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Title: Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844
Volume 23, Number 3

Author: Various

Editor: Lewis Gaylord Clark

Release Date: January 25, 2007 [EBook #20444]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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T H E K N I C K E R B O C K E R.

VOL. XXIII. MARCH, 1844. NO. 3.

WHAT IS TRANSCENDENTALISM?

BY A THINKING MAN.

This question has often been asked but seldom answered satisfactorily.
Newspaper editors and correspondents have frequently attempted a practical
elucidation of the mystery, by quoting from their own brains the rarest
piece of absurdity which they could imagine, and entitling it
'Transcendentalism.' One good hit of this kind may be well enough, by way
of satire upon the fogginess of certain writers who deem themselves, and
are deemed by the multitude, transcendental _par excellence_. COLERIDGE
however thought that to parody stupidity by way of ridiculing it, only
proves the parodist more stupid than the original blockhead. Still, one
such attempt may be tolerated; but when imitators of the parodist arise
and fill almost every newspaper in the country with similar witticisms,
such efforts become 'flat and unprofitable;' for nothing is easier than to
put words together in a form which conveys no meaning to the reader. It is
a cheap kind of wit, asinine rather than attic, and can be exercised as
well by those who know nothing of the subject as by those best acquainted
with it. Indeed, it is greatly to be doubted whether one in a hundred of
these witty persons know any thing of the matter; for if they possess
sense enough to make them worthy of being ranked among reasonable men, it
could be proved to them in five minutes that they are themselves
transcendentalists, as all thinking men find themselves compelled to be,
whether they know themselves by that name or not.

'Poh!' said a friend, looking over my sh