roved of the
identity of Nature and Spirit. But '_was sagt_ mein Thales?'

'Natur und Geist! so spricht man nicht zu Christen:
Desshalb verbrennt man Atheisten,
Weil solche Reden hoechst gefaehrlich sind.
Natur ist Suende, Geist ist Teufel;
Sie hegen zwischen sich den Zweifel,
Ihr miss-gestaltet Zwitterkind.'

The Transcendental movement did not fail to attract severe opposition,
not only to its agitators, but toward the whole body of Unitarians, from
a portion of which it in a great measure sprang. If indeed, as Ellis,
its champion, asserts, Transcendentalism was not a native emanation from
New England, _i.e._, Unitarianism, yet it obviously paved the way for
its entrance, and even erected triumphal arches at intervals over its
projected route. The consequence of the renewed attack upon this already
sorely aggrieved sect was its virtual separation into moderates and
extremists: the one holding to its primitive theories, the other
inclining graciously to the more comprehensive and fascinating, because
more liberal and mystical, tenets of the new faith. The Rev. Andrew
Norton, an eminent Unitarian divine of the old school, in a discourse
before the Alumni of the Cambridge Theological School, took occasion to
attack with great vigor what he termed the 'new form of infidelity.'
This and his subsequent replies were most ably answered by George
Ripley, a zealous and genial scholar, eminent in belles-lettres and
philosophy, in his 'Letters on the latest form of Infidelity, including
the Opinions of Spinoza, Schleiermacher, and De Wette. Boston, James
Munroe & Co., 1840.'

This contest constituted the central polemic of the strife. Chilled by
the cold breath of popular intolerance, these persecuted advocates of a
metaphysical faith, which even themselves comprehended but dimly, might
have warmed their trembling hands by the fire of that _auto da fe_ whose
flames three centuries have not extinguished. Even those most opposed by
culture and habit to the innovators, could not but acknowledge that the
_Bestia Triofante_, that Giordano Bruno undertook to expel, was still
rampant and powerful in the midst of a civilized and intelligent
community. The fact was that the Transcendentalists were as much
astonished at this accusation of infidelity as even Fenelon himself
could have been. They were men of irreproachable character, the majority
religious by nature and scholarly by disposition, and they found in
their new f