atural realization in the
Church. It was a protest against that selfishness of the individual
which is highly accentuated in a large class of New-Englanders, and
prodigiously developed in the economical conditions of modern
society. Against these Isaac had revolted in New York; at Brook Farm
he hoped to find their remedy. And in fact the gentle reformers, as
we may call these West Roxbury adventurers into the unexplored
regions of the common life, were worthy of their task though not
equal to it. There is no doubt that in small numbers and with a
partial surrender of individual prerogatives, well-meaning men and
women may taste many of the good things and be able to bear some of
the hardships of the common life. But to compass in permanent form
its aspirations in this direction, as in many others, nature is
incompetent. The terrible if wonderful success of Sparta is what can
be attained, and tells at what cost. The economy of the bee-hive,
which kills or drives away its superfluous members, and the polity of
Sparta, which put the cripples and the aged to death, are essential
to permanent success in the venture of communism in the natural
order. "Sweetness and light" are enjoyed by the few only at the
sacrifice of the unwholesome and burdensome members of the hive.

Brook Farm, however, was not conceived in any spirit of cruelty or of
contempt of the weaker members of humanity; the very contrary was the
case. Sin and feebleness were capable, thought its founders, of
elimination by the force of natural virtue. The men and women who
gathered there in its first years were noble of their kind; and their
kind, now much less frequently met with, was the finest product of
natural manhood. Of the channels of information which reach us from
Brook Farm, and we believe we have had access to them all, none
contains the slightest evidence of sensuality, the least trace of the
selfishness of the world, or even any sign of the extravagances of
spiritual pride. There is, on the other hand, a full acknowledgment
of the ordinary failings of unpretentious good people. Nor do we mean
to say that they were purely in the natural order--who can be said to
be that? They were the descendants of the baptized Puritans whose
religious fervor had been for generations at white heat. They had,
indeed, cut the root, but the sap of Christian principle still
lingered in the trunk and branches and brought forth fruit which was
supernatural, though destin