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ORTHODOXY AND ENLIGHTENMENT
McGill-Queen’s Studies in the History of Ideas
1Problems of Cartesianism
Edited by Thomas M. Lennon, John M. Nicholas, and John W. Davis
2The Development of the Idea of History in Antiquity
Gerald A. Press
3Claude Buffier and Thomas Reid Two Common-Sense Philosophers
Louise Marcil-Lacoste
4Schiller, Hegel, and Marx State, Society, and the Aesthetic Ideal of Ancient Greece
Philip J. Kain
5John Case and Aristotelianism in Renaissance England
Charles B. Schmitt
6Beyond Liberty and Property
The Process of SelfRecognition in EighteenthCentury Political Thought
J.A.W. Gunn
7John Toland: His Methods, Manners, and Mind
Stephen H. Daniel
8Coleridge and the Inspired Word
Anthony John Harding
9The Jena System, 1804–5: Logic and Metaphysics
G.W.F. Hegel
Translation edited by John W. Burbidge and George di Giovanni
Introduction and notes by H.S. Harris
10Consent, Coercion, and Limit
The Medieval Origins of Parliamentary Democracy
Arthur P. Monahan
11Scottish Common Sense in Germany, 1768–1800
A Contribution to the History of Critical Philosophy
Manfred Kuehn
12Paine and Cobbett
The Transatlantic Connection
David A. Wilson
13Descartes and the Enlightenment
Peter A. Schouls
14Greek Scepticism
Anti-Realist Trends in Ancient Thought
Leo Groarke
15The Irony of Theology and the Nature of Religious Thought
Donald Wiebe
16Form and Transformation
A Study in the Philosophy of Plotinus
Frederic M. Schroeder
17From Personal Duties towards Personal Rights
Late Medieval and Early Modern Political Thought, 1300–1600
Arthur P. Monahan
18The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi Translated and edited by George di Giovanni
19Kierkegaard as Humanist Discovering My Self
Arnold B. Come
20Durkheim, Morals, and Modernity
W. Watts Miller
21The Career of Toleration
John Locke, Jonas Proast, and After
Richard Vernon
22Dialectic of Love
Platonism in Schiller’s
Aesthetics
David Pugh
23History and Memory in Ancient Greece
Gordon Shrimpton
24Kierkegaard as Theologian Recovering My Self
Arnold B. Come
25An Enlightenment Tory in Victorian Scotland
The Career of Sir Archibald
Alison
Michael Michie
26The Road to Egdon Heath
The Aesthetics of the Great in Nature
Richard Bevis
27Jena Romanticism and Its Appropriation of Jakob
Böhme
Theosophy – Hagiography –Literature
Paolo Mayer
28Enlightenment and Community
Lessing, Abbt, Herder, and the Quest for a German Public
Benjamin W. Redekop
29Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity
John R. Hinde
30The Distant Relation Time and Identity in Spanish
American Fiction
Eoin S. Thomson
31Mr Simson’s Knotty Case
Divinity, Politics, and Due Process in Early Eighteenth-Century
Scotland
Anne Skoczylas
32Orthodoxy and Enlightenment
George Campbell in the Eighteenth Century
Jeffrey M. Suderman
Introduction
In him, the polite scholar was eminently joined with the deep and liberal divine.
William Laurence Brown
Who belonged to the Enlightenment, and to whom did the Enlightenment belong? We know the infidels and the sceptics, the Voltaires, Humes, Diderots, d’Holbachs, and Gibbons. We know their programs and pogroms, their wars against religion and the ancien régime, their determination to écraser l’infâme. But did these famous few speak for the eighteenth century? Did they compel their contemporaries to choose between enlightenment and orthodoxy? What of the many who catalogued nature, joined convivial societies, preached toleration, and uncovered the anatomy of human nature without ever abandoning church and traditional social loyalties? There were many such in England, America, Germany – and France as well. In Scotland, for a time, they dominated the established church, the universities, and polite society. But the enlightened and moderate Christians of the eighteenth century have generally been forgotten in proportion to their numbers.
George Campbell’s modern reputation could hardly be more different from the one he enjoyed in his own lifetime. Brown’s funeral sermon, from which the above epigraph is taken, gives only a limited sense of the esteem in which Campbell was held at the time of his death. To his contemporaries he was Principal Campbell of Marischal College in Aberdeen, an influential divinity teacher, a persuasive pulpit orator, an erudite scholar, a church leader, and a Christian apologist who had silenced the infidel David Hume on the question of miracles. A Dissertation on Miracles (1762) was probably his best-known work in the eighteenth-century republic of letters, and was reprinted more than twenty times and translated into several continental languages. Contemporaries, however, recognized the “Preliminary Dissertations” to his critical translation of The Four Gospels (1789) as his scholarly masterpiece.
Introduction
As the lead article in the Scots Magazine said at the time of his death, “His reputation as a writer, is as extensive as the present intercourse of letters; not confined to his own country, but spread through every civilized nation.”1 John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, the chronicler of eighteenthcentury Scotland, remarked that, “Dr Campbell was long reputed the most eloquent, if not the most learned, professor of divinity in his time.”2 Even into the next generation, Campbell was remembered as “the greatest man of whom [the Church of Scotland] can boast, and the man who, of all her ministers, has done most by his writings for the cause of the Christian religion.”3
Today Campbell is known only to a few specialists. Modern rhetoricians agree that his Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776) pointed the way to the “new country,” in which the study of human nature would become the foundation of the oratorical arts. A leading historian of British rhetoric has called this work the most important rhetorical text to emerge from the eighteenth century,4 and a considerable number of dissertations and articles in specialized journals have eked out the details of Campbell’s contribution to modern rhetorical theory. Beyond the rhetorical focus of modern Campbell studies, a few scholars remember him as the ablest of the many respondents to David Hume’s attack on miracles, or as a peripheral adherent of the Moderate party in the Church of Scotland. Otherwise, he is merely one among a myriad of Scots to come tumbling into the light during the recent renaissance of eighteenth-century Scottish studies.
How do we account for this disparity between Campbell’s contemporary and modern reputations? How does a man who was once celebrated for his defence of Christianity become sidelined to a field of scholarship that seldom attempts to do more than gauge his progress from classical to modern conceptions of rhetoric, or trace the influence of his rules of persuasive discourse on the subsequent generation of novelists? In his own lifetime, The Philosophy of Rhetoric was among the lesser-known of Campbell’s works, and it was not even reprinted in English until the nineteenth century. Interpretive problems must necessar-
1 Scots Magazine 58 (July 1796): 439.
2 Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century , ed. Alexander Allardyce, 2 vols (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1888), 1:485.
3James Bruce, Lives of Eminent Men of Aberdeen (Aberdeen: L. Smith, 1841), 323.
4Wilbur Samuel Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 602. The term “new country,” often cited by scholars, is Campbell’s own (PR, lxxv).
ily arise when modern scholars assume that this was his only work of importance. We cannot hope even to understand the place of Campbell’s rhetoric within the context of his work as a whole, or within prevailing eighteenth-century concerns, without a broader appreciation of his life and thought. One of the best Campbell scholars has expressed surprise “that Campbell’s Philosophy of Rhetoric failed to treat God’s revelations and designs and failed also to describe the whole territory of what can be known through natural and supernatural means.”5 If The Philosophy of Rhetoric failed to do so much, it is only because this secular work was never meant to stand in isolation from its more obviously pious siblings. Campbell’s entire body of work, as this study will attempt to show, was governed by a unified purpose that sought to join the realm of natural knowledge with that of Christian revelation. The structure of his thought and the direction of his apology epitomized a widely-accepted model of Christian argument, one that sought not to divide natural inquiry from religious belief, as Bacon had done, but to show how the realms of sense and of faith ultimately supported one another. The assumptions upon which this model was based, however, diverge significantly from those that have become typical of Western thought since the eighteenth century. The disparity between Campbell’s presuppositions and those of a later age largely explains the disparity between his contemporary and modern reputations. This disparity may also cast light on the historical decline of some characteristically enlightened ways of thinking. The two problems are ultimately bound together.
Campbell’s enlightened system of Christian apology is represented in the structure of the present study, particularly in parts II and III. Like many religious apologists of his time, he employed both natural evidences and revealed truths to defend the reasonableness and necessity of the Christian religion. The order of procedure, though implicit, was easily recognized by readers familiar with John Locke and Joseph Butler. First came a theory of knowledge, an empirical model of the workings of the human mind that described both the powers and the limitations of man’s natural faculties. This epistemology, reconstructed in chapter 4, paid special attention to the natural evidences of God and of revelation, but also emphasized man’s need of a common sense faculty to ground his moral nature. Despite this theoretical foundation, for the most part set out in The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Campbell was a practical philosopher who scorned system-building. “Valuable knowledge,” he wrote, “… always
5Lloyd F. Bitzer, “Editor’s Introduction,” in pr , li.
leads to some practical skill, and is perfected in it.”6 Consequently, his writings tended to focus on specific problems in the realm of natural knowledge: the value of testimonial evidences concerning unusual events such as miracles, the historical nature of the Christian church, and the proper criticism of ancient texts. These are the subjects of chapter 5. Upon this solid base of natural knowledge could be constructed an enduring religious edifice. The results of historical investigation and literary criticism helped distinguish the essential parts of revelation from the human innovations, revealing a moderate, pious, practical, and improving Christianity. Campbell’s theology is the subject of chapter 7, the religious implications of miracles, church history and scriptural criticism the focus of chapter 8, and Campbell’s moderatism the subject of chapter 9. But before we can consider the structure of Campbell’s natural and religious apologia, we must review his biography in the context of eighteenth-century Scottish events. Part I offers a narrative reconstruction of his life and works that is based, wherever possible, on hitherto neglected archival and primary sources.
Why does a neglected, middleweight figure such as Campbell merit this attention? The reason must be historical. Despite the broadening of Enlightenment studies in the last three decades, modern scholarship is still in danger of equating the Enlightenment with the thought of a few spectacular and controversial figures such as Voltaire and Hume. Although eighteenth-century Scottish readers were certainly familiar with Hume’s writings, particularly his essays and historical works, they did not usually identify with the sceptical undertones of his philosophy. Yet today, Hume’s sceptical, forward-looking philosophy receives a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention. Less-studied figures such as Campbell not only wrote popular and convincing books that were read throughout Europe and America, but also preached every week to the congregations of Scotland’s cities, ensuring the wide dissemination of their enlightened, moderate views. This study attempts to reconstruct the George Campbell that eighteenth-century audiences knew, and to find what was representative in his thought. It is more concerned to seek the broad trends and internal consistencies of his apologetic system than to align his thought with modern conceptions of philosophy, rhetoric or religion. Campbell’s thought belongs to the eighteenth-century, not to the modern world. In order to show the distinctness of his thought from
6 PR, lxix.
modern assumptions, the final sections of chapters 5, 6, and 9 describe some of the ways in which Campbell’s thought has failed to keep up with the modern world and why, as a consequence, his reputation has been so transformed.
Not so long ago, scholars were accustomed to describing a Scottish Enlightenment that seemed no larger than the city of Edinburgh. Recent scholarship has gone far to redress this geographical bias, but has not gone nearly far enough in giving the Scottish Enlightenment its proper religious colouring. A careful study of George Campbell and his fellow Aberdonians adds much to our understanding of how the Scottish Enlightenment manifested itself beyond the pale of Edinburgh. But more importantly, it helps restore religious thought to its rightful place at the very centre of eighteenth-century Scottish concern.
a note on terms
It is difficult to find terms adequate to describe Campbell’s kind of Christianity. Campbell himself sometimes used the term “rational Christian” to distance himself from those who he thought adhered to an unreasoning and bigoted faith.7 For the purpose of historical analysis, however, this study will use the terms “moderate Christianity” and “Christian moderatism” to describe his Christianity – these terms properly suggest the values of moderation, reasonableness, tolerance, doctrinal caution, scholarly precision, and moral earnestness that Campbell shared with many of his age. These terms should be kept distinct from the capitalized terms “Moderate party” and “Moderatism” (a nineteenth-century invention), which describe a faction within the Scottish church during the second half of the eighteenth century. Although Campbell did indeed have ties with this ecclesiastical party, we should not assume that this small group of ministers, centred in Edinburgh, held a monopoly on eighteenth-century Christian “moderatism.” The term “Popular party” will be used to describe the Scottish ecclesiastical faction that generally opposed the Moderate party within the church courts, while the term “High-flyer” will be applied to those who placed greater emphasis on creeds (that is, the high points of doctrine) than did Campbell and his cohorts. The term “Evangelical” will
7 aul ms 653, part iii , un-numbered page.
Introduction
be reserved for those who, beginning in the 1730s, paid renewed attention to the conversion experience, the activity of the Holy Spirit, and the primacy of missionary activity.8
Campbell’s thought helps to illustrate the unique character of the “Aberdeen Enlightenment,” which here refers to the thought and activities of a small group of professors and professional men (hereafter referred to as “Aberdonians”) comprising the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, of which Campbell was a leading spirit. The members of this group made up nearly the whole of the first generation of Scottish Common Sense philosophers. Alexander Gerard (whose relationship to Common Sense is uncertain) was professor of divinity at King’s College in Old Aberdeen at the same time that Campbell held the corresponding chair at Marischal College in the New Town. Although Gerard was Campbell’s chief personal rival, he was at the same time most like Campbell in overall thought, and therefore provides a useful point of comparison. Thomas Reid, traditionally considered the father of Common Sense philosophy, is also useful in judging the degree of Campbell’s philosophical adherence to the Aberdeen standard. James Beattie, famed eighteenth-century poet, apologist and professor of moral philosophy at Marischal, was Campbell’s closest friend in Aberdeen, and although he claimed to agree with Campbell in all important matters, his thought constitutes the most significant obstacle to a modern reconstruction of the Aberdonian mindset. Despite this difficulty, “Common Sense” (capitalized) will be used to describe the collective, formal philosophy of the Aberdonians, and to distinguish it from the more common meanings of “common sense,” as well as from the faculty in human nature that the Common Sense philosophers believed was responsible for common sense judgments.
8See D.W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989).
The Making of a Christian Philosopher (to 1771)
background and education
On 22 January 1765, the Aberdeen Philosophical Society debated a question posed by George Campbell, “Whether the manner of living of parents affects the genius or intellectual abilities of the children.”1 Perhaps Campbell had reason to wonder. His father, Colin Campbell, from the little we know of him, was quite unlike his son in temperament and outlook. This is not surprising when one considers Scotland’s turbulent transition into the eighteenth century.
Colin Campbell was born in 1678, at the height of the government oppression of the Covenanters, adherents of the Presbyterian form of church government. He was the son of George Campbell, Esq., of Westhall in Aberdeenshire, who, according to Campbell’s first biographer, “had originally come from Moray, and was a descendant of Campbell of Moy, and a Cadet of the family of Argyle.”2 We know nothing of the family’s religious sympathies before Scotland’s rejection of Episcopal government in 1690, nor in the decade or so following. Colin Campbell received his m.a. from Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1699, and, like many of his
1 The Minutes of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society 1758–1773, ed. H. Lewis Ulman (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1990), 194.
2George Skene Keith, “Some Account of the Life and Writings of Dr. George Campbell” (1800), leh , 1:vi. Westhall is located in the parish of Oyne, approximately 20 miles northwest of the city of Aberdeen. Westhall was owned by a John Campbell of Moye between 1654 and 1674; see The Jacobite Cess Roll for the County of Aberdeen in 1715, ed. Alistair and Henrietta Tayler (Aberdeen: Third Spalding Club, 1932), 83. John Campbell was probably Colin Campbell’s grandfather. I have not been able to trace Campbell’s lineage back to the west of Scotland.
George Campbell in the Eighteenth Century generation, went to Leiden for theological training.3 Leiden, the leading university in the Protestant Netherlands and one of the most forwardlooking institutions in Europe, was known for its religious toleration and liberalism, and was to become a model for Scottish university reform in the eighteenth century. Colin Campbell would certainly have been exposed to a great many new ideas, borne by religious refugees from France and dissenters from England, though we do not know the degree to which he embraced them. We can, however, learn a little more about his religious mind after his return to Aberdeen, for he began a spiritual journal at the time of his establishment in the First Charge (St. Nicholas’ West Church).
“On thursday [the] 29 of April 1703,” the document begins, “poor, insignificant I was ordained by [the] laying on of hands of the presbtry, to preach the gospel in this city (Aberdeen).” The journal reveals a man desperately aware of his own sinful nature and continually cognizant of a direct and intervening providence. Colin Campbell’s God was both terrible and merciful, abandoning his servant in the midst of his sermons, but always reminding him of the superior wisdom of divine guidance in every detail of his life. The journal also reveals the considerable opposition which Colin Campbell encountered from his own parishioners, though it is unclear whether his enemies objected to him personally or to the re-established Presbyterian church that he represented in a largely Episcopalian part of the country.4 Colin Campbell came to be known for his peculiar preaching style (though what this was, our sources do not say), but also for his orthodoxy. He was loyal to the new Hanoverian government, supporting it during the abortive Jacobite rising in 1715 when Aberdeen and most of its ministers and professors favoured the Pretender.5
Scottish Calvinists such as Colin Campbell despised popish rituals and holidays, and so it is unlikely that he attached much significance to the
3Peter John Anderson, ed., Fasti Academiae Mariscallanae Aberdonensis, 3 vols (Aberdeen: New Spalding Club, 1889–98), 2: 272; Hew Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, 7 vols, new ed. (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1915–28), 6:38.
4The single sheet of manuscript, attributed to Colin Campbell, minister of St. Nicholas’ Church in Aberdeen, is entitled “Some Memorandu’ms”, and is found in the National Library of Scotland, MS 1704, fol. 5.
5Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, 6:38. After the ‘15, Colin Campbell was one of Ilay’s chief friends and supporters in Aberdeen politics; see Roger L. Emerson, Professors, Patronage and Politics: The Aberdeen Universities in the Eighteenth Century (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1992), 45.
Making of a Christian Philosopher (to 1771)
fact that his youngest son, George, was born on 25 December, in the year 1719. Nor did the elder Campbell have long to train his youngest son in the militant spirituality of his generation, for he died suddenly on 27 August 1728, leaving his family in somewhat difficult circumstances. Colin Campbell was survived by his wife Margaret Walker (daughter of Alexander Walker, Esq., a merchant and provost of Aberdeen) and, according to the estate inventory, five children besides George.6 Colin Campbell departed this world while it was in the midst of momentous changes. The political union of Scotland with England, though accomplished two decades before, was only now beginning to bear economic fruits. The city of Aberdeen was slowly recovering from a population low of about 6,000 at the beginning of the century.7 Its small size was offset by its importance as the capital of the Northeast, a region with unique cultural and intellectual traditions and a character that set it apart from the rest of the Scottish lowlands. The Northeast had long been the preserve of a liberal Episcopalianism which opposed the covenanting tradition of the Southwest. The distinctness of the Northeast, however, came to be tempered in the years after the 1715 rebellion by the influx into Marischal College of a group of young professors and regents with modern ideas of education. This group included the mathematician Colin Maclaurin, the moral philosopher George Turnbull, and others eager to teach the likes of Shaftesbury and Newton. They reflected the trends in education that were simultaneously transforming the universities in the south of Scotland. This rising generation, of whom Francis Hutcheson at Glasgow was the most famous and influential, was concerned more with polite and virtuous learning than with polemical dispute, more with the general providential economy than with
6 sro CC1/6/9, dated 26 September 1728. The children listed are Jean (probably christened 29 January 1706), Colin (christened 28 January 1711; died September 1763, sro CC1/6/40), Margaret (christened 30 Sept, 1716), Anna (christened 19 January 1718), George (christened 27 December 1719), and Marjorie (probably christened 7 May 1721); International Genealogical Index. Colin Campbell the younger’s will of 1765 lists sisters Ann, Marjory, and Margaret (Milne), but no other siblings (sro CC1/6/40). Keith (“Account of George Campbell,” vi) mentions that Colin Campbell the elder had a small estate near Aberdeen, though there is no other evidence of this.
7William Robbie, Aberdeen: Its Traditions and History (Aberdeen: D. Wyllie, 1893), 259. This figure undoubtedly excludes the Old Town of Aberdeen, which lay outside the city proper. The combined population reached about 15,000 by mid-century and 25,000 by the end of the century; see John Sinclair, The Statistical Account of Scotland 1791–1799, ed. Donald Withrington and Ian R. Grant, 20 vols (East Ardsley, Wakefield: EP Publishing, 1982–83), 14:285–6.
George Campbell in the Eighteenth Century
the acts of particular providence. They were well-acquainted with the Newtonian and Lockean philosophies that Calvinistic scholasticism had once scorned. George Campbell’s education reflected the liberalizing trends in Scottish pedagogy that had become entrenched by the 1730s. Campbell attended the Aberdeen Grammar School from 1729 to 1734, but it is probable that he had already become proficient in reading and writing English at one of the other burgh schools. He studied under Alexander Malcolm (author of a philosophical work on mathematics) and presumably also under the rector John Milne and the under-master James Dun (who was later to become both a friend of Campbell and the father-in-law of James Beattie). The Grammar School maintained a high reputation for the teaching of Latin, which included a review of classical logic and rhetoric as well as the standard eighteenthcentury canon of ancient authors. The school also ensured that the boys were well-versed in The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647), which contained the basic creed of Scottish Calvinism together with its scriptural proof-texts. Campbell would have learned by memory that “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever,” and that God “hath fore-ordained whatsoever comes to pass.” He would also have discovered that the proper interpretation of the fifth commandment, “Honour thy father and mother,” was to do the duties of one’s particular rank and station. Likewise, the eighth commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” required “the lawful procuring and furthering the wealth and outward estate of ourselves and others.”8
In his fifteenth year (1734), Campbell turned his steps towards Marischal College, the University at the heart of the New Town. Marischal College, like its sister college in the Old Town, still operated according to the regenting system, whereby one teacher guided a class of boys for several years through all of the required subjects, with the exception of mathematics and of a first year devoted to the classical languages. The regents were expected to teach a standard curriculum which included (in order) logic, metaphysics, pneumatology (the philosophy of mind or spirit), ethics, and natural philosophy. The presentation of these subjects may well have been transformed by the fact that during the 1730s English replaced Latin as the language of instruction. Campbell learned mathematics from Professor John Stewart, who was
8 The Westminster Shorter Catechism, in The Creeds of Christendom, ed. Philip Schaff and David S. Schaff, 3 vols, 6th ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1931), 3:676, 677, 690, and 692.
The Making of a Christian Philosopher (to 1771) 15
later one of his associates in the Aberdeen Philosophical Society. Stewart taught Newtonianism and the practical applications of mathematics, but he also stressed the moral and mental utility of the discipline.9 Thomas Blackwell the younger, professor of Greek and later principal, lectured on the history and culture of ancient Greece in his first-year Greek course. His published works, like his lectures, presented polite, contextual examinations of classical literary works and languages, as well as naturalistic explanations of ancient mythologies, undoubtedly laying an early foundation for Campbell’s scholarly career. Unfortunately, Campbell’s regent, William Duff (later a historian of minor note), was an unpleasant man little interested in teaching his charges. He spent most of his time away from the college, for which negligence he was eventually deposed (January 1738). Campbell was one of the senior boys who gave testimony against Duff. Alexander Innes, an able but unremarkable man, was appointed regent in Duff’s place, having already substituted during his many absences. Campbell may also have come to know Thomas Reid, who was until 1736 the college’s librarian. Campbell graduated m.a. in 1738.10
As with most young men of his social background, Campbell knew that his best hope for advancement was through one of the three major professions. His elder brother Colin being already destined for the ministry, Campbell moved to Edinburgh to become apprenticed to George Turnbull, a writer to the signet. Writers to the signet were not as socially prestigious as advocates, but they earned good livings by providing commercial services in the area of Scots law, and they were to become even wealthier over the course of the eighteenth century through the business of consolidating and managing Scotland’s landed estates.11 We know almost nothing of Campbell’s three years as an apprentice, but we do know that he abandoned a secure albeit dull profession (and an expensive education) in about 1741 when his interests gravitated towards theology. It was perhaps during this time that Campbell became friends with Hugh Blair, then a tutor in Edinburgh, whose preaching Campbell
9Paul B. Wood, The Aberdeen Enlightenment: The Arts Curriculum in the Eighteenth Century (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1993), 22.
10Anderson, Fasti Academiae Mariscallanae Aberdonensis, 2:29. For Campbell’s testimony before the rectorial court, see aul ms M 387/9/2/2/6.
11John Stuart Shaw, The Management of Scottish Society 1707–1764: Power, Nobles, Lawyers, Edinburgh Agents and English Influences (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1983), 32–5; Anand C. Chitnis, The Scottish Enlightenment: A Social History (London: Croom Helm, 1976), 77.
George Campbell in the Eighteenth Century supposedly admired.12 Campbell may also have associated with other future Moderates, and almost certainly visited or joined various convivial societies. In any case, he began attending the divinity lectures of John Gowdie at Edinburgh University, and was sufficiently fascinated to move back to Aberdeen (probably late in 1741) to enroll as a full-time divinity student.
Aberdeen divinity students, whether enrolled at King’s or Marischal, customarily attended the lectures of both divinity professors. The King’s professor was John Lumsden, a respected and learned teacher who specialized in controversial divinity and church history. Lumsden’s reading list is of particular interest. Despite his supposedly conservative reputation in matters of doctrine, he recommended such English divines as Stillingfleet, Chillingworth, Tillotson, Whiston, Clarke, Sherlock, and Butler, as well as Hugo Grotius and a list of controversialists who wrote against atheists, Socinians, papists, and Jews.13 The Marischal professor James Chalmers died in 1744 and was succeeded in 1745 by Robert Pollock, who was known for his teaching of practical theology, which included preaching and pastoral care. John Ramsay of Ochtertyre remarked that Pollock’s expertise lay in Hebrew literature, which he advised should be read in the original rather than in translation,14 a suggestion that Campbell certainly took to heart.
Campbell’s theological education was not confined to the classroom. Student societies had become an important part of a young Scot’s education, providing opportunities for public speaking as well as conversation and debate. Campbell must have retained a strong impression of the burgeoning club scene in Edinburgh, where well-known societies such as the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh were merely the most visible examples of an improving tradition that stretched back to the seventeenth century. It was only natural that in January 1742, not long after the beginning of the college session in Aberdeen, Campbell formed
12James Bruce, Lives of Eminent Men of Aberdeen (Aberdeen: L. Smith, 1841), 322. Blair’s life is covered in Robert Morell Schmitz, Hugh Blair (Morningside Heights, N.Y.: King’s Crown Press, 1948). Blair, who was only licensed to preach in October 1741, was certainly not yet a minister of the Canongate church, as has been claimed elsewhere. Campbell may have heard Blair preach in one of the student societies. H. Lewis Ulman states that Campbell was introduced to Blair by John Farquhar, which suggests a later date (Minutes of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, 35).
13G.D. Henderson, Aberdeen Divines: Being a History of the Chair of Divinity in King’s College, Aberdeen (aul Special Collections typescript, n.d.), 292A.
14 Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Alexander Allardyce, 2 vols (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1888), 1:469.
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Andò una sera a teatro sperando vagamente ch’ella vi andasse, ed ecco, dalla seconda fila dov’era seduto, la vide a un tratto! La vide arrivare per uno dei corridoi laterali, con Arturo e un giovanotto interamente calvo e munito d’un paio d’occhiali, la cui vista lo fece sprofondare in angosce di diffidenza e di gelosia. La vide sedere nelle poltrone di prima fila, e in tutta la serata non distinse altro che questo: delle delicate spalle bianche e una massa di capelli d’oro pallido, fatti più pallidi dalla lontananza. Ma anche altra gente era distratta, ed egli osservò, guardandosi intorno, due ragazze sedute non lontano da lui, che gli sorridevano con aria sfrontata. Egli era stato sempre uomo di facili avventure, per natura, giacchè non era solito mandar via la gente. Un tempo avrebbe ricambiato il sorrisetto, e, con l’atteggiamento, incoraggiato il loro sorriso; ma ora le condizioni erano diverse. Egli rispose al sorriso; poi si volse e non guardò più da quella parte. Pure, parecchie volte, senza farlo di proposito, il suo sguardo incontrò il loro sorriso. Non ci si trasforma in un giorno, ed egli non poteva modificare la gentilezza naturale del suo carattere. Così che finì col sorridere alle ragazze, per puro bisogno di cordialità espansiva. Che gli portavano infatti di nuovo? Egli sapeva bene ch’esse tendevano verso di lui le loro mani carezzevoli, ma... ma ora, laggiù, presso l’orchestra, era la donna unica, così incredibilmente diversa da quelle due ragazze della sua classe, ch’egli non poteva fare a meno di considerarle con senso di pena e di pietà. Egli desiderava con tutto il cuore che gli fosse concesso di possedere, fosse pure per un attimo, un po’ della bontà di Ruth e del suo splendore morale. Ma per nulla al mondo avrebbe voluto ferirle per i loro maneggi, che, d’altra parte, non lo lusingavano; egli risentiva perfino una vaga vergogna della propria inferiorità, che giustificava il loro contegno. Se egli fosse stato uno della classe di Ruth, quelle ragazze non si sarebbero permesse alcuna familiarità; i loro sguardi gli sembravano muniti di artigli minacciosi che s’aggrappavano a lui per mantenerlo al loro livello.
S’alzò prima che calasse il sipario, per tentare di vedere Ruth. C’era sempre della gente sotto il peristilio del teatro, così che, calcandosi il cappello sugli occhi, lei non lo avrebbe riconosciuto. Egli uscì per
primo tra la folla; ma s’era appena avviato all’uscita, quand’ecco apparire le due ragazze. Esse lo avevano seguito, era evidente; e là per là egli maledisse il fascino che esercitava sulle donne. Esse avanzavano lentamente, nel più folto della folla, così che, sfiorandole, una d’esse s’accorse di lui. Era una flessuosa ragazza bruna, dagli occhi cupi, pieni di sfida. Tutt’e due gli sorrisero, ed egli rispose loro.
— Oh! chi si vede! — diss’egli automaticamente, come aveva fatto in tanti casi simili! D’altra parte, non gli era possibile agire altrimenti, data la sua grande indulgenza e il bisogno di cordialità inerenti alla sua natura. La ragazza dagli occhi neri rinforzò il suo sorriso e fece l’atto di fermarsi, come anche l’amica che l’accompagnava e che rideva, torcendosi. Egli riflettè rapidamente. Bisognava evitare che «Lei», uscendo, lo vedesse in compagnia di quelle ragazze. Con molta disinvoltura, egli manovrò in modo da spingere la bruna verso l’uscita. Là, era libero di sè, e a suo agio; anzichè manifestare impaccio o timidezza, egli scherzò allegramente, usando con un certo brio il gergo e il complimento gentile, preliminari obbligatori in quel genere di avventure rapide. Al cantone, egli volle lasciar la folla che seguiva la strada, per prendere una via trasversale, ma la ragazza dagli occhi neri lo prese pel braccio, ed esclamò trascinando la compagna:
— Fermatevi! Bill! dove correte con tanta fretta?... Non ci vorrete piantare così?...
Egli si fermò, rise, fece un voltafaccia. Al disopra delle loro spalle vedeva la folla che si moveva, passare sotto i riverberi di luce. Il punto in cui si trovava non era illuminato, così che poteva vederla passare senz’essere visto. Lei doveva passare di là, giacchè quella era la via di casa sua.
— Come si chiama? — domandò alla compagna indicando la ragazza bruna...
— Domandaglielo! — rispose lei.
— Dunque, come vi chiamate? — domandò egli, voltandosi alla ragazza.
— Voi non mi avete ancora detto il vostro nome, — ribattè quella.
— Non me l’avete chiesto, — fece lui sorridendo. — D’altra parte l’avete indovinato: mi chiamo proprio Bill.
— Là! Là! — E lei lo guardò negli occhi, mentre i suoi s’intenerivano.
— È proprio vero?...
Lei seguitava a fissarlo; l’eterna femminilità luceva negli occhi eloquenti. Ed egli la scrutava, negligentemente, sapendo già che se egli si fosse mostrato aggressivo, lei si sarebbe messa in guardia, con riserbo e pudore a un tratto, ma pronta a invertire le parti s’egli avesse indietreggiato. Da uomo qual era, egli però ne sentiva l’attrattiva e nell’intimo apprezzava quella lusinghiera insistenza. Ah! come conosceva tutto ciò! sin troppo bene, dall’A alla Z... Lei era bella come una dea; sì, come una dea può essere in quell’ambiente, quando si lavora faticosamente, si è mal pagati e si disdegna di vendersi per vivere meglio, e si è ardentemente assetati d’un sorso di felicità per allietare la propria triste vita, e non si ha davanti a sè altra alternativa che una penosa eternità di lavoro o il cupo gorgo d’una miseria anche più terribile, ma che uccide presto ed è meglio pagata.
— Bill, — rispose egli scotendo il capo. — Ve l’assicuro: Bill o Pietro.
— Seriamente?
— Non si chiama affatto Bill, — interruppe l’altra.
— Che ne sapete voi? — disse lui. — Voi non mi conoscete.
— Non c’è bisogno di conoscervi per sapere che dite una bugia.
— Seriamente, Bill, qual è il vostro nome? — disse la bruna.
— Bill mi sta benissimo, — rispose Martin.
Essa gli prese il braccio ridendo.
— Io so che voi mentite, ma, pure, siete gentile lo stesso.
Egli prese la mano che s’offriva, ne sentì subito i segni e le deformazioni famigliari.
— Da quanto tempo avete abbandonato la fabbrica di conserve? — domandò.
— Come lo sapete?... Be’, è uno stregone! — esclamarono le ragazze, a coro.
Mentr’egli scambiava con loro tutte le stupidaggini solite, sentiva passare e ripassare nella mente gl’innumerevoli scaffali della biblioteca dove si accumulavano le meraviglie dei secoli passati. E l’incoerenza dei suoi pensieri lo fece sorridere.
Intanto i segni intimi e la celia ch’egli simulava non gl’impedivano di tener d’occhio l’uscita del teatro. E ad un tratto scorse Ruth, nella luce, tra il fratello e il giovanotto dagli occhiali; e il cuore parve che gli si fermasse. Come aveva sperato quel momento! Ebbe appena il tempo di scorgere il velo leggero che velava la persona di lei nell’abbigliamento, quando lei rialzò la gonna: poi essa sparve ed egli si ritrovò di faccia alle due operaie con i loro vani tentativi di eleganza e di nettezza, accanto ai loro vestiti a buon mercato e ai loro gioielli da bazar. Sentì che gli tiravano il braccio, sentì vagamente che gli parlavano:
— Svegliatevi, Bill, che vi succede?
— Che?... dicevate?...
— Oh! niente! — rispose la bruna, con un cenno vivace del capo. Dicevo soltanto fra me...
— Che cosa?...
— Be’, dicevo fra me e me che sarebbe una buona idea se conduceste con noi un amico... per lei, (e indicò la compagna) e allora andremmo in qualche luogo a prendere un «ice-cream soda» o qualche altra cosa.
Una nausea morale lo scosse. Accanto agli occhi arditi di quella ragazza, egli vedeva i chiari occhi luminosi di Ruth, il suo sguardo
angelico che veniva a lui dalla più profonda purezza. Egli si sentì a un tratto superiore a quell’avventura. La vita aveva per lui un altro significato: non si limitava a degli «ice-cream sodas» in quattro. Egli ricordò che aveva sempre coltivato, come in un giardino segreto, pensieri rari e preziosi. Quando aveva tentato di farne partecipe qualcuno, non aveva trovato nè donna nè uomo capaci di comprenderlo. E poichè quei pensieri superavano la comprensione di quella gente, egli ne concludeva, ora, che doveva essere superiore ad essa. Egli strinse i pugni. Giacchè la vita significava per lui molto di più, toccava a lui domandare molto di più alla vita; ma non ci voleva quella compagnia; gli arditi occhi neri non gli potevamo offrire nulla di nuovo. Egli sapeva ciò che riserbavano: ice-creamo altro del genere. Ma gli occhi angelici, laggiù, gli offrivano molto di meglio e più che non potesse immaginare; libri e pittura, riposo e bellezza, tutte le eleganze fisiche e morali d’una vita raffinata. Egli conosceva a mente ciò che dissimulavano così malamente quegli occhi neri; vedeva, come in un interno d’orologio, tutte le rotelle della povera meccanica cerebrale; il basso piacere n’era lo scopo, il cupo piacere che portava alla morte definitiva d’ogni speranza. Ma negli occhi angelici, si offrivano il mistero, l’incanto, l’al di là; in essi era il riflesso d’un’anima e anche un po’ dell’anima sua.
— Il programma va bene, ma c’è un ma: sono impegnato.
Gli occhi neri della bruna lo fulminarono.
— Dovete assistere un amico malato, certamente? fece lei beffardamente.
— No, ho un «appuntamento» con — ed egli esitò — con una ragazza.
— Mi prendete in giro? — disse lei con gravità.
Egli la guardò negli occhi e rispose:
— Niente affatto, ve lo assicuro. Ma non potremmo vederci un altro giorno? Non m’avete detto ancora il nome vostro nè dove abitate.
— Lizzie, — rispose lei, raddolcita, e appoggiandosi a lui gli premeva il braccio. — Lizzie Connolly. E abito a Fifth and Market.
Egli chiacchierò qualche altro minuto e augurò loro la buona notte. Ma anzichè tornare direttamente a casa, andò sino all’albero, all’ombra del quale aveva sognato tante volte, alzò la testa verso la finestra e mormorò:
— L’appuntamento era con voi, Ruth. Son venuto.
CAPITOLO
VII.
Dalla serata in casa di Ruth Morse, era trascorsa una settimana impiegata soltanto nella lettura; ed egli non aveva ancora osato ritornare da lei. Di tanto in tanto si faceva coraggio, ma davanti ai dubbi che l’assalivano finiva coll’indietreggiare. A quale ora bisognava andare? Nessuno poteva dirglielo, ed egli temeva di compiere un’irreparabile sciocchezza. Liberatosi dall’ambiente e dalle abitudini passate, e non avendo stretto nuove relazioni, non aveva altra occupazione che quella di leggere, e ne abusava in modo che un altro, dagli occhi meno resistenti, si sarebbe guastato la vista. Inoltre il suo cervello, vergine in tutto ciò che si riferisse al pensiero astratto, era maturo per una semina benefica, giacchè non era affaticato da studi, e s’accaniva nel lavoro intellettuale, con sorprendente tenacia.
Alla fine della settimana, gli parve, — tanto lontani egli vedeva la sua vita passata e l’antico modo di vivere, — d’aver vissuto cent’anni. Ma la mancanza di studi preparatorî lo impacciava molto. Egli tentava di leggere cose che richiedevano anni di applicazione, e poichè s’immergeva un giorno nella lettura d’un libro di filosofia antica, il giorno dopo in un altro di filosofia ultra moderna, nella testa gli turbinavano le idee più contradditorie. Con gli economisti, era lo stesso. Nella stessa fila, nella biblioteca, trovò Carlo Marx, Riccardo, Adamo Smith e Mill, e le idee astratte dell’uno non portavano punto alla conclusione che le idee dell’altro fossero superate. Egli era disorientato, ma assetato dal desiderio di istruirsi. In un giorno solo, l’economia sociale, l’industria, la politica, lo appassionarono. Nel Parco di City-Hall, aveva osservato un gruppo d’uomini in mezzo ai quali declamavano una mezza dozzina di persone, col volto
infiammato, la voce eccitata, discutendo con calore. Egli si unì al pubblico ed ascoltò il linguaggio, per lui nuovo, dei filosofi popolari. Il primo era un vagabondo, il secondo un operaio, il terzo uno studente di legge e gli altri operai ciarloni. Per la prima volta egli udì parlare di socialismo, di anarchia, di tassa ridotta, e seppe che esistevano filosofi sociali contraddittorî. Udì centinaia di parole tecniche ignote, giacchè facevano parte di materie di studio ch’egli non aveva ancora iniziate. Gli fu impossibile perciò seguire bene i loro argomenti, e potè soltanto indovinare le idee espresse da frasi così nuove. C’era anche un garzone di caffè, teosofo, un fornaio agnostico, un vecchio che li confuse tutti con una teoria strana, affermando che «ciò che è, ha ragione d’essere», e un altro vecchio che perorò interminabilmente sul cosmo, sull’atomo-maschio, e sull’atomo-femmina.
Dopo parecchie ore, Martin Eden se ne andò completamente abbrutito, e corse alla biblioteca per studiare la definizione di una dozzina di parole inusitate. E ne uscì portando sotto braccio quattro volumi della signora Blavatsky: La dottrina occulta, Povertà e Progresso, La Quintessenza del Socialismo. Disgraziatamente egli incominciò con La Dottrina Occulta, ogni rigo della quale era irto di parole polisillabe ch’egli non comprendeva. Seduto sul letto, con un dizionario aperto accanto al libro, egli cercava tante parole di cui aveva già dimenticato il significato, quando gli si ripresentavano, così che doveva cercarle nuovamente. Finalmente stanco, egli si decise a scrivere quelle parole su un taccuino, e in breve ne riempì pagine intere. Ma non capiva più di prima. Lesse sino alle tre del mattino; il cervello pareva che gli dovesse scoppiare, senza essere riuscito ad afferrare una sola idea essenziale del testo. E allora si fermò: la camera parve beccheggiare, rullare, immergersi come nave in mare; così che, furibondo, egli lanciò la Dottrina Occulta per la camera, bestemmiando sino a vuotare il sacco, spense il gas... e s’addormentò.
Con gli altri tre volumi non ebbe maggior fortuna. Eppure non aveva un cervello debole o pigro; avrebbe potuto comprendere quelle idee, senza quella mancanza di abitudine alla riflessione, e senza
l’ignoranza dei mezzi tecnici per riuscirvi. Egli intuì questo, e si fermò un po’ nel proposito di non leggere altro che il dizionario, sino al giorno in cui avesse potuto capire tutte le parole. La poesia, pure, era una grande consolatrice per lui; egli ne leggeva molta, preferendo i poeti semplici, che capiva meglio. Come la musica, la poesia lo commuoveva profondamente; cosicchè, sebbene inconsciamente, egli preparava la mente alla fatica più ardua che avrebbe dovuto affrontare. Le pagine bianche della sua mente si riempivano di cose ch’egli amava, dimodochè egli potè in breve, con sua grande gioia, recitare poemi interi che gli piacevano. Poi scoprì i MitiClassicidi Gayely, e l’EpocaMitologicadi Bullfinch, che empirono di una grande luce la sua totale ignoranza dell’argomento; e, più che mai, egli si mise a divorar poesia.
In biblioteca, l’uomo dal pulpito aveva visto così spesso Martin, ch’era diventato molto cortese, accogliendolo ogni giorno, all’ingresso, con un sorriso e un cenno del capo. Incoraggiato da questo atteggiamento, Martin, un bel giorno, s’arrischiò, e mentre l’uomo appuntava le sue carte, egli lanciò con un certo sforzo:
— Dica un po’, io vorrei domandarle una cosa...
L’uomo sorrise e attese.
— Quando lei incontra una signora che la prega di andarle a far visita, quando può andarci?
Martin sentiva che la camicia madida di sudore gli s’attaccava alle costole, tanto era imbarazzato.
— Be’, quando vuole! — rispose l’uomo.
— Sì, ma il caso è diverso, — spiegò Martin — Lei... io... Senta, la cosa è così. Può darsi che lei non sia in casa, giacchè frequenta l’università.
— Ritorni, allora!
— Senta, non è proprio così, — confessò Martin, balbettando, deciso a confidarsi interamente. — Ecco, io non sono altro che un povero diavolo e non conosco gli usi della buona società. La signorina è
tutto quanto non sono io, e io non sono niente di tutto quanto è lei... Spero che non creda che io voglia prenderla in giro, no? — interrogò egli bruscamente.
— No, no, nient’affatto, gliel’assicuro. — protestò l’altro. — La sua richiesta non è compresa precisamente tra i miei compiti, ma io sarò molto lieto se potrò giovarle.
Martin lo guardò con ammirazione.
— Se io potessi essere così, la cosa andrebbe da sè! — fece.
— Come ha detto, scusi?
— Dico: se sapessi parlare come lei, facilmente, cortesemente, e via dicendo.
— Ah! sì, — fece l’altro, con simpatia.
— A quale ora bisogna andarci? Il pomeriggio, non tanto presto, dopo colazione?... O la sera? o una domenica?...
— Senta! — fece il bibliotecario. — Perchè non la chiama per telefono?
— È una buona idea! — disse Martin, prendendo i libri. E, fatti due passi, si voltò:
— Quando lei rivolge la parola a una signorina, supponiamo, alla signorina Lizzie Smith, deve dire: signorina Lizzie, o signorina Smith?
— Dica signorina Smith! — dichiarò il bibliotecario, con autorità. —
Dica sempre signorina Smith, sinchè non la conosce meglio.
E così Martin risolse la quistione.
— Venga quando vuole, ci sarò tutto il pomeriggio, — fu la risposta di Ruth al telefono, quand’egli ebbe domandato, balbettando, il giorno in cui poteva riportarle i libri prestatigli.
Lo ricevette lei in persona sulla soglia del salotto, osservando con occhi femminili, immediatamente, la piega dei calzoni e un mutamento indefinibile ma certo, in tutta la persona di lui. La colpì anche il viso; una forza violenta, sana, emanava da lui e sembrava
