4. The "Individualistic" Ideal of the Eighteenth Century.
—In the eighteenth-century philosophy we find ourselves in a very
different circle of ideas. "Nature" still means something antithetical
to existing social organization; Plato exercised a great influence upon
Rousseau. But the voice of nature now speaks for the diversity of
individual talent and for the need of free development of individuality
in all its variety. Education in accord with nature furnishes the goal
and the method of instruction and discipline. Moreover, the native or
original endowment was conceived, in extreme cases, as nonsocial or even
as antisocial. Social arrangements were thought of as mere external
expedients by which these nonsocial individuals might secure a greater
amount of private happiness for themselves.
Nevertheless, these statements convey only an inadequate idea of the
true significance of the movement. In reality its chief interest was in
progress and in social progress. The seeming antisocial philosophy was
a somewhat transparent mask for an impetus toward a wider and freer
society—toward cosmopolitanism. The positive ideal was humanity.
In membership in humanity, as distinct from a state, man's capacities
would be liberated; while in existing political organizations his powers
were hampered and distorted to meet the requirements and selfish
interests of the rulers of the state. The doctrine of extreme
individualism was but the counterpart, the obverse, of ideals of the
indefinite perfectibility of man and of a social organization having a
scope as wide as humanity. The emancipated individual was to become the
organ and agent of a comprehensive and progressive society.
The heralds of this gospel were acutely conscious of the evils of the
social estate in which they found themselves. They attributed these
evils to the limitations imposed upon the free powers of man. Such
limitation was both distorting and corrupting. Their impassioned
devotion to emancipation of life from external restrictions which
operated to the exclusive advantage of the class to whom a past feudal
system consigned power, found intellectual formulation in a worship of
nature. To give "nature" full swing was to replace an artificial,
corrupt, and inequitable social order by a new and better kingdom of
humanity. Unrestrained faith in Nature as both a model and a working
power was strengthened by the advances of natural science. Inquiry
freed from prejudice and artificial restraints of church and state had
revealed that the world is a scene of law. The Newtonian solar system,
which expressed the reign of natural law, was a scene of wonderful
harmony, where every force balanced with every other.
Natural law would accomplish the same result in human relations, if men
would only get rid of the artificial man-imposed coercive
restrictions.
Education in accord with nature was thought to be the first step in
insuring this more social society. It was plainly seen that economic
and political limitations were ultimately dependent upon limitations of
thought and feeling. The first step in freeing men from external chains
was to emancipate them from the internal chains of false beliefs and
ideals. What was called social life, existing institutions, were too
false and corrupt to be intrusted with this work.
How could it be expected to undertake it when the undertaking meant its
own destruction? "Nature" must then be the power to which the enterprise
was to be left. Even the extreme sensationalistic theory of knowledge
which was current derived itself from this conception. To insist that
mind is originally passive and empty was one way of glorifying the
possibilities of education. If the mind was a wax tablet to be written
upon by objects, there were no limits to the possibility of education by
means of the natural environment. And since the natural world of
objects is a scene of harmonious "truth," this education would
infallibly produce minds filled with the truth.
