"WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE" from George Willis Cooke's Historical and Biographical Introduction to the Rowfant Club reprint of The Dial (Cleveland, 1902)
[LibLab NOTE: There is considerable disagreement among sources about the particulars of Greene's literary output. Titles and dates in this account may be unreliable. In particular, poetry volumes attributed to Greene, such as "Imogen," may be the work of his son, also William Batchelder Greene.]
In the third number of the second volume of "The Dial"
was printed an article on "First
Principles" by William Batchelder Greene, then minister
of the Unitarian church at Brookfield, Mass. This was his only
contribution to "The Dial," but his life was of such
interest, and so fully illustrates some of the tendencies of the
time, that it may be told with some detail. James Freeman Clarke
described him as "the author of various profound metaphysical,
theological, and politico-economical works" [text],
and Col. T. W. Higginson mentions him as being "strikingly
handsome and mercilessly opinionated." [text]
Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney says he was a "master of logic, and
almost rivaled Socrates in winding an adversary up into a complete
snarl."
Greene was born in Haverhill, Mass., April 4, 1819. His father
was Nathaniel Greene, who edited newspapers in Concord and Portsmouth,
N. H., and Haverhill, Mass., and in 1821 established the "Boston
Statesman," the leading Democratic newspaper of the State
for many years. He was post-master of Boston from 1829 to 1840
and from 1845 to 1849. In the latter year he went to Paris, where
he was engaged in literary work to 1861, after which time be lived
in Boston until his death, November 29, 1877. He wrote much for
the periodicals of the day, mostly under the name of "Boscawen."
He translated G. Sporzosi's "History of Italy," 1836;
"Tales from the German," 1837; "Tales from the
German, Italian, and French," 1843; and published "Improvisations"
in 1852. Young Greene entered the West Point Military Academy,
July 1, 1835, and continued his studies there until November 15,
1837, when he resigned without graduation, on account of ill-health.
He was in the Florida war, being commissioned second lieutenant
in the Seventh U. S. Infantry, July 18, 1839, and resigned November
20, 1841.
''He told me himself," writes Elizabeth P. Peabody in her
''Reminiscences of Dr. Channing,"
that he had been commissioned at nineteen years of age and sent
to the Florida war; and he had just been permitted to resign,
because the surgeon of the army had pronounced him ill, with even
small chance to get home to die. I learned later that he had graduated
at West Point with high honors, was a profound mathematician,
a keen student of the science of war and reader of military biography,
especially of that of Napoleon Buonaparte. Otherwise he had little
literary culture, his reading having been largely Lord Byron's
and Shelley's poetry. 'Queen Mab,' he said, had been his gospel;
and his theology also was Shelley's,—namely, that God is merely
a complex of the laws of Nature. But his life in Florida had brought
him to deeper truth. He was lieutenant to the celebrated Captain
Bonneville, whose Indian imperturbability of temperament, iron
will, and despotic habits made an immense impression on his imagination,
and commanded his admiration. Captain Bonneville soon left him
in command of a regiment of desperadoes (who were, however, condignly
ignorant), and had counseled him to keep himself entirely aloof
from their familiarity, in order to preserve the prestige of his
authority. In the long intervals between short periods of intense
military activity, he was alone in his tent with only his books
and thoughts, and was knowing to gigantic crimes being perpetrated
by the State government of Florida, which wholly misled and hoodwinked
the distant central government. In one of his meditations on Captain
Bonneville's and his own power over his men, he said to himself:
'These brutal men are governed, not by, the complex of my thoughts,
nor by the complex of the laws of Nature, of which they know nothing,
but by me,—a self-determining force, a free spirit, a person.'
And at once it flashed like lightning upon him, 'And God is behind
the complex of the laws of Nature,—a self-acting, free, supreme,
infinite Person, to whom all finite persons are responsible.'
He started from his seat, seized 'Queen Mab,' and flung it from
the door of his tent into the far distance; and then rushed to
his valise and took out the Bible that his mother had put into
it when he left home, and for the first time opened it. He could
not believe that it was by blind chance his eye fell on the words
from Isaiah quoted by Christ in the synagogue of Nazareth on the
day he commenced his ministry: 'The spirit of the Lord is upon
me.' As he read these words he thought he heard a roar of artillery,
and sprang to the door of his tent--to find that the roar was
within his own soul! He then told of his reading the New Testament,
and his study of the action of Jesus, and of the apostles after
the Spirit had brought to their minds and interpreted to them
the words of Jesus. Soon the desire arose in his own mind to leave
the sphere of unhallowed activity in which he found himself, and
to become a minister of Christ. So he prayed that God would take
him out of his present bonds, for he could not himself break the
oath of the soldier. 'And God has answered my prayer,' said he,
'and delivered me by means of this malarial fever, which incapacitates
me as a soldier. I have not died, as the surgeon predicted I should;
and already I have begun my theological studies in a private and
desultory way, by studying out the history of the dogmas of the
Christian Church, beginning with the Trinity.'"
It may be that this account is somewhat highly colored, but it
gives the essential facts. After leaving Florida, Greene was for
a short time at Brook Farm, and then he entered the Baptist Theological
School at Newton. His studies led him to question some of the
beliefs of the denomination with which he was connected, and especially
that of the Trinity. He entered the Harvard Divinity School, from
which he graduated in 1845, was ordained at Brookfield November
5 of the same year, and continued there until April 1, 1851. He
then withdrew from the profession with which he had been connected,
and devoted the rest of his life to reforms and to literary occupations.
Be married a daughter of Robert G. Shaw, a merchant prince of
Boston, and a sister of Quincy Shaw.
Greene was a vigorous thinker and writer, much given to controversy,
keenly logical, and with a love for metaphysical reasoning. During
the period of his ministry he published a number of pamphlets,
all of them controversial in their nature. The first of these
was on the "Doctrine of Life," and appeared in 1843.
It was an expansion of his article in "The Dial," and
presented the same ideas in a somewhat different form, as a result
of changes of opinion. It was rather conservative, with a leaning
towards transcendentalism. In 1847 and the following year he published
pamphlets on the Trinity and Incarnation, and also a refutation
of Jonathan Edwards' theories in regard to freedom of the will.
In these works he presented himself as distinctly a Unitarian,
but with a marked love for independence and for criticism. In
1849 he sent out a pamphlet on "Transcendentalism,"
dedicated to Emerson. His definitions would not have been acceptable
to the leaders of that school, and they indicate that he was far
from being. committed to the acceptance of its main positions.
"Transcendentalism," he wrote, "is that form of
philosophy which sinks God and Nature in man." Again: "A
transcendentalist never reasons; he describes what he sees from
his own point of view. So the word 'transcendentalist' relates
not to a system of doctrines, but to a point of view; from which,
nevertheless, a system of doctrines may be visible. This explains
to us why so many, notwithstanding their desire, have been unable
to read the writings of the new school. They have tried to find
a system of doctrines when they ought to have looked for a point
of view." "Transcendentalism affirms," he continues,
"that the soul creates all things--man, the universe, all
forms, all changes, and that this wonderful power is possessed
by each individual soul." Then Greene begins to make his
logic bear upon the metaphysical habits of the transcendentalists,
and he shows to what they are brought by their own premises, to
conclusions not acceptable to any of them. He goes on to say:
"The man, therefore, who has attained to right knowledge
is aware that there is no such thing as an individual soul. There
is but one soul, which is the Over Soul, and this one soul is
the animating principle of all bodies. When I am thoughtless,
and immersed in things which are seen, I mistake the person who
is writing this notice for myself; but when I am wise this illusion
vanishes like the mists of the morning, and then I know that what
I thought to be myself was only one of my manifestations, only
a mode of my existence. It is I who bask in the day, grow in the
tree, and murmur in the passing brook. Think not, my brother,
that thou art diverse and alien from myself; it is only while
we dwell in the outward appearance that we are two; when we consider
the depths of our being, we are found to be the same, for the
same self, the same vital principle animates us both (we speak
as a transcendentalist). I create the universe, and thou, also,
my brother, created the same; for we create not two universes,
but one, for we two have but one soul: there is but one creative
energy, which is above, and under, and through all." Then
he discusses the several types of transcendentalism, as seen in
India and in such men as Boehme. In conclusion, he states his
own position "as Spiritual life in Christ by making him,
his truth, his doctrine, our nourishment, even as we sustain our
natural lives by partaking of natural food." In a fourth
edition of the pamphlet, published in 1871, Greene more clearly
defines his own position, when he says: A little thought will
convince the reader that the theory that the soul builds the body
is as plausible and as probable as the other doctrine, that the
body builds the soul. In short, subjective-idealism is just as
true as materialism; and, we may add, just as false. As is evident,
if we start with man alone, our reasoning will leave us, at the
end, in transcendentalism (subjective-idealism); and if we take
our departure in nature alone, we end, of necessity, in materialism;
both partial, exclusive, and inadequate systems. The fact is,
the body builds the soul, and the soul builds the body; but (we
will permit ourselves to add) it is God who builds both."
His metaphysical studies found expression in a volume published
by Greene in Boston during the ear 1849, which he called "Remarks
on the Science of History," followed by an "A Priori
Autobiography." This work show ed a decided mystical tendency,
and was an attempt to interpret history in the light of individual
spiritual experiences. In the form of the personal experiences
and ideas of a man living at each of the great epochs of human
history he summed up the psychological and spiritual growth of
the race in civilization. His metaphysics did not desert Greene
when he became a student of economics, as may be seen in three
or four works he published on banking and finances. His first
book of this kind was published in Brookfield, in 1850, on "Mutual
Banking," and was a discussion of the nature of money, banking,
and usury. He seems to have been largely influenced in his theories
by the French socialists or mutualists, and he was especially
influenced by Proudhon. Its practical purpose was to secure from
the Massachusetts legislature a law permitting the inhabitants
of towns or a group of towns to do their own banking, and to issue
money in the form of promissory notes, secured by the farms of
the shareholders. He was able to induce the inhabitants of Brookfield,
Ware, Warren, and adjoining towns to petition the General Court,
in 1850 and 1851, for a law permitting the establishing of such
a mutual banking system as he proposed. He printed a series of
letters in the "Worcester Palladium " advocating his
scheme, and these were published in a pamphlet under the title
of "Equality." In this pamphlet he said that banks created
inequality between citizens, and that Massachusetts had become
essentially socialistic in its control of the property of its
citizens, or, more properly, plutocratic. The substance of these
pamphlets, with additions, appeared in a volume published in Boston
in 1857, with the title: "The Radical Deficiency of the Existing
Circulating Medium and the Advantages of a Mutual Currency."
Greene's political activities led to his being made a member of
the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1803, but he was
not able to secure recognition for any of his special theories.
After 1853, Greene lived in Paris for several years, and returned
at the opening of the Civil War. He was appointed the Colonel
of the Fourteenth Massachusetts Volunteers, July 5, 1861. This
regiment became the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery on the
first day of January, 1862. He had control of the Long Bridge
that led from Washington into Virginia, and of Fort Runion and
Fort Albany, that protected this bridge and the aqueduct that
supplied the city with water. In the "Diary and Correspondence"
of James Freeman Clarke is an interesting account of his visit
to this command, in November, 1861 [text
here]. Subsequently Greene had command of an artillery brigade.
In the autumn of 1862 he came into conflict with General J. S.
Wadsworth, Military Governor of the District of Columbia, and
John A. Andrew, Governor of Massachusetts, who interfered with
his command, as he claimed. In his letter of resignation he also
said that Major Andrew Washburn of his regiment had been court-martialled
by inferior officers as the result of such interference on the
part of Wadsworth and Andrew. His resignation took effect October
11, 1869. After this he acted as a volunteer aid to General Butler
in the campaign before Petersburg, and also at Bermuda Hundred.
Greene then took up his residence in Boston and its neighborhood
for n number of years. In 1864 he published a large pamphlet on
" Consciousness as Revealing the Existence of God, Man, and
Nature." This was followed, in 1866, by a translation of
"Job," with notes, intended to give a fresh interpretation
of this Oriental poem. In 1868 appeared a pamphlet on " The
Sovereignty of the People," a defence of the rights of the
people as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights of the several State
constitutions. "The legal peoples," he said, "and
not Congress, are the true sovereign. It is the freedom of speech
and of the press, the enjoyment of liberty and property, and the
pursuit of happiness, which is to be ranked as of the natural
right, and which is guaranteed as such by the State constitutions.
If the legal peoples govern the governments, public opinion governs
the legal peoples; and public opinion is formed by women and non-voters
as well as by men and voters." In the same year he appeared
as an advocate of paper money, but as guaranteed by land-values.
In 1870 Greene published "Explanations of the Theory of the
Calculus," and he wrote other pamphlets on mathematical subjects,
his ability in this direction being very considerable. His skill
in logic appears in a pamphlet on "The Facts of Consciousness
and the Philosophy of Mr. Herbert Spencer." This is a sharp
criticism of Spencer's position, and of his failure to base his
philosophy on the facts of consciousness, as Greene claims. His
own point of view is thus stated: "It is the life of the
soul, and that life only, which is immediately perceived in consciousness.
What is the life of the soul? Observation in consciousness teaches
us that it is a life of intelligence; that it consists mainly
in immediate knowing; for if we feel or will, we know that we
feel, and know that we will. More careful and somewhat painful
observation teaches us that there is not only a life of the soul,
but also something that is alive,—a knower. This knower perceives
itself as subject, never as object, and as an intelligence; and
this immediate perception or intuition of active and spontaneous
intelligence is the only adequate knowledge the soul has of intelligence.
If the soul attribute intelligence to other beings, it does so
by induction only, and in the light of its intuitive notion of
intelligence. The soul also perceives itself as one in the strictest
sense of the word 'unity'. It has also intuitions of ideality
and diversity. We might continue this enumeration through a detailed
list of a thousand and one other intuitions, all of them unscientific
in the sense that they are above science, and conditions without
which science would be impossible. Such is the genesis of first
truths."
Among other subjects on which Greene wrote were: "The Blazing
Star," with an appendix treating of the "Jewish Kabbala;"
a reply to Dr. E. H. Clarke on " Sex in Education;"
and a letter to the Minister of King's Chapel on the condition
of the working-people of Boston. He published "Imogen and
Other Poems," 1871; and "Cloud-Rifts at Twilight,"
1878. "Imogen" is a well written tale in verse, with
considerable lyric power. Greene was not a poet, but he had a
considerable facility in the production of verses. In 1875 he
brought together, under the title of ''Socialistic, Communistic,
Mutualistic, and Financial Fragments," about a dozen of his
essays that had previously appeared in pamphlet form. These related
wholly to one phase or another of his social theories, including
his system of mutual banking, free-love and marriage, and the
status of the working classes. The volume concludes with an address
of the Boston section (French-speaking) of "The Working-People's
International Association," written by Greene, revised by
the officers of that organization, and read to the New England
Labor Reform League, at its session for 1873. He was the vice-president
and chairman of the executive committee of the Labor Reform League,
and he seems to have been active in the International. While he
thus associated himself with the socialists, he appears to have
been inclined to accept the theories of the anarchists as then
represented in this country by E. H. Heywood, editor of "The
Word," published at Princeton, Mass., and vigorously devoted
to anarchism. To that journal he was a contributor, though he
did not accept all the theories it represented. To the furtherance
of the interests of working-men he gave much attention and enthusiasm,
largely identifying himself with their propaganda His theories
in this direction appear in his International address, wherein
he says: `' The working-man ought to have the whole of his fair
earnings; but he cannot have this whole if other parties are paid
the triple or the quadruple of what they respectively earn. .
. . What is required at the present time is not so much equality
before the laws as equal laws: that is to say, laws that
do not themselves bring forth and perpetuate inequality."
Greene was well known to most of the transcendentalists, though
his extreme views were not acceptable to many of them. In November,
1841, Margaret Fuller wrote to Emerson: "How did you like
the military-spiritual-heroic-vivacious phoenix of the day?"
This was a very good description of Greene, for he was zealous,
eccentric, arbitrary, and mystical, and very entertaining in conversation.
He was one of the four persons who addressed the Town and Country
Club during the brief period of its existence; and he frequently
attended other gatherings of the transcendentalists. At one of
Alcott's conversations the subject was the "Angelic and Demonic
Man," a favorite topic with him. He described the angelic
man as blond, of nervous temperament, with blue eyes, contemplative,
intuitive; in fact, gave a very good description of himself. Then
he described the demonic man as being strong, with dark eyes and
hair, with great energy and will power, his eyes full of fire.
This portrait was a very good one of Greene, who sat directly
in front of the speaker. The company present saw the application
being made, and waited eagerly for the outcome of the encounter
sure to result. Alcott went on: "The demonic man is logical,
loves disputation and argument, he smokes," etc. Then Greene
asked: "But has not the demonic man his value?" "Oh,
yes," was the reply, "the demonic man is good in his
place, very good,—he is good to build railroads; but I do not
like to see him in pulpits, begging Mr. Greene's pardon."
Then Greene began to ask questions, which Alcott answered calmly
and smilingly. But these questions were subtly logical and calculated
to wind the speaker up until he confessed to absurdities and was
evidently defeated. The combat went on, and with a growing interest
on the part of the audience. Just as Greene had brought his victim
to a reductio ad a-bsurdum Alcott soared away into one of the
most eloquent of his flights of impressive speech, leaving Greene
and his logical apparatus quite out of sight. When Louisa Alcott
was asked what good angel saved her father from the merciless
defeat Greene had prepared for him, she replied: " Oh, he
knew well enough what he was about."
Greene spent the last years of his life in England, and he died
at Weston-super-Mare, May 30, 1878. He showed forth, as perhaps
no one else did, the individualistic tendencies of transcendentalism.
He was opinionated, dogmatic, and combative. These characteristics
were well described by one of his friends: "Those who knew
Mr. Greene intimately could not but wonder at the fatality which
prevented him from making that mark on the public mind which he
made on all the individual minds that came within the sphere of
his influence. In personal intercourse he was delightful, stimulating
the thinking powers of his companions, while often astounding
them by his paradoxes. He became intellectually a come-outer of
the most resolute kind. He affronted all accredited notions and
conventional standards in a way that amazed even radicals. In
his laughing, imperious fashion he told Theodore Parker, at a
time when Parker was the horror of all New England orthodoxy in
religion and cautiousness in politics, that be regretted to find
him such a rotten conservative; and Garrison and Phillips he spoke
of as brave and earnest sentimentalists, but men who had small
logical faculty to perceive the necessary results of their own
propositions regarding the rights of man, and of no account as
thinkers.
"In truth, Mr. Greene was the most inexorable of logicians,
and had the audacity and intrepidity to accept all the consequences
of any theory he adopted. He was one of the most original of American
metaphysicians. He had studied the works of Plato, Aristotle,
Descartes, Leibnitz, Spinoza, Locke, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel,
and had delved down to the central idea of each of these masters
in philosophy.
"His wit, humor, geniality, the essential sweetness underlying
his argumentative habit, his grand indifference to everything
which interfered with or assumed to check his independence, the
cordiality of soul which ran through all his blunt contradictions
of some of my most cherished ideals, and his friendly interest
in everything I was employed upon for the moment, are things I
shall never forget. I never met him without a renewed wonder at
the increased amount of his generalized knowledge, and at the
reach and depth of his philosophical thinking. By the character
of his mind he could never be a conformist. His individuality
became more and more aggressive and untamable as he grew older.
He was intended for a great man, but some subtle element in his
nature prevented him from realizing the distinction to which his
powers evidently pointed."
