throughout the nation, gave rise in the beginning to community groups as well as sects.

It has been affirmed by an able and sympathetic student of things American that "The Puritan is the heart of American civilization." This statement would of course be challenged by other authorities. Viewing our polyglot American civilization of to-day, in which the original Puritan element has been submerged by later streams of immigration, the superficial observer is often inclined to minimize the influence of the Puritan. But an intensive study of the background of American ideals, an analysis for example of the great philosophical concepts underlying our idea of the state, an examination of the principles of business enterprise and of the ideals that gave rise to modern capitalism, and finally a knowledge of those forces that have shaped our literary and artistic ideals will show that no other spiritual element in our national life has exercised an influence at all comparable with that of Puritanism and its affiliated groups.

This is due primarily to the fact that the two groups which were among the most numerous and by far the most energetic and self-assertive at the time when the national ideals were seeking formulation were the Puritans and the Scotch-Irish who have been called "the Puritans of the South". The Puritan moved westward from New England, through New York and Ohio, and finally mingled like a saving leaven among the heterogeneous elements that populated the middle and far West. The Scotch-Irish moved south from Pennsylvania until they were joined by another stream from the Carolinas and played a dominant rôle in determining the political and moral ideals of the South and Southwest. The Puritans and ScotchIrish, thanks to their Calvinistic training, had more in common than any other two elements of our national life. They came largely from the educated and economically independent middle class of the British Isles and were in reality highly selected groups.

Calvinism was of course the religious faith of Puritans and 1 A. M. Low, The American People, p. 97.

Scotch-Irish. This great creed had many intimate affiliations with the faith of other groups that cannot be classed strictly as Puritans. The Dutch of New York were Calvinists. The Huguenots of the South, who exercised an influence in the life of the nation far out of proportion to their numbers, were the spiritual offspring of John Calvin of Geneva. The libertyloving Baptists of Rhode Island as well as the Episcopalians of Virginia had theological affiliations with Calvinism. Moreover, the spirit of religious revolt, shared by all groups, found common ground in the militant, uncompromising creed of Calvin. It provided the champion of liberty with the polemical material he needed. Here were effective weapons for the bitter warfare against ignorance and superstition in high places. Here was abundant justification for resisting the social injustice, the political absolutism and the intellectual tyranny that had become ingrained in European society. The finality of Calvinism, its logical coherence, its combination of intense political and religious loyalties with a high sense of duty, its emphasis of prudence and thrift in practical affairs, all united to lend it an appeal not shared by any other creed of Protestantism.

It is well worth asking why a creed so lofty, so logically complete, so charged with potentialities for developing the heroic spirit, has been held responsible by critics for the "centrifugal expediency" of our political life, the "catch-penny opportunism" of business, and the literary camouflage that masquerades as art in the form of the "best-seller". By what right do we lay at the door of the theology of John Calvin the blame for the "glassy, inflexible priggishness" that so nauseates the critic of American life? The question is one that cannot be answered intelligently without some insight into the spirit of Calvinism.

§ 2. THE PHILOSOPHY OF CALVINISM: POLITICAL

RIGHTS AND DUTIES

Calvinism as a system of thought has two poles, the absolute sovereignty of God and the utter depravity of man.

As an historical movement Calvinism has come to be identified with a group of ideas and prepossessions in theology, church polity, and morals that grew out of the acceptance of the complete supremacy of the will of God in the life of the individual and of society. Calvinism, likewise, has been called "the creed of an agonized conscience". The Geneva to which Calvin made his appeal needed the moral tonic of his theology for internal social reforms as well as to make front against the political ambitions of Savoy. For similar reasons Calvinism gained a tremendous hold upon the middle classes of the England of the seventeenth century. It satisfied the demands of moral sensibilities outraged by the excesses of the upper classes. For it is obvious that the moral or spiritual leader who is uncertain as to the fundamental issues of life, who can point to no inherent and comprehensive purpose underlying surface changes, or who can offer no definite measures of values to men adrift from their ancient moorings and suffering from the pangs of conscience, has small chance of success.

Starting with the central idea of the sovereignty of God, everything in the universe from a solar system to a dewdrop becomes intelligible and real only as it shares in this rational unfolding of the divine will. The logic of Calvinism and the practical spirit of the people among whom it flourished demanded a political, social, and economic mise en scene not only in sympathy with but integrally related to this divine plan. Political justice, business honesty, and integrity in social relations were matters of a rationally and intelligently ordered life. Insight was for Calvin, as for Socrates, the key to the virtuous life but with one very important difference. The insight demanded by the Calvinistic scheme took in the entire sweep and purpose of the universe. To perform the right act even in the most insignificant details of life was to place oneself in harmony with the eternal order of things. To do wrong was to defy the universe and the God who created it. Sin for the Calvinist was thus cosmic, not social in its implications;

its heinousness was measured in terms of the responsibility of daring to disrupt the universe.

The drama of life, therefore, for the Calvinist took place in a closed system, an infinite spiritual and moral order that included the birth and death of worlds as well as the petty fate of the darling ambitions of the humblest human hearts. In this indefectible moral order the social, political, religious, or economic responsibilities of the individual were evaluated not in terms of emotional experiences, for like all rationalists the Calvinist distrusted the emotions, but in terms of the Infinite Reason who saw all things in clear perspective, the beginning and the end. For this reason the ultimate sanction of law and the source of political sovereignty were for the Calvinist religious in nature. In an interesting memoir presented in 1580 to the council of Geneva by the ministers of the city occurs this statement: "We hold it for a point entirely certain (tout resolu), that no magistrate, no matter how lofty or sovereign he be, may attribute to himself full power either to punish crimes or to pardon them in part or in whole as it seems good to him". The reason assigned for this is that “the full power is reserved for God only, who has pity and condemnation when and upon whomsoever he pleases. For his good pleasure is the perpetual and infallible rule of all justice".

In the background of the political philosophy of Calvinism, therefore, hovered a conception closely akin to the Stoic notion of jus naturale. The principles of this eternal and indefectible order of righteousness, the expression of the will of God, were given most fully in revelation. They are traceable also in man's own conscience and in nature. The administrator of the law had no right to leave unpunished what this law condemned, even where it demanded death, because this law is "divine and universal" and hence inviolable. In the case of particular laws the judge may grant grace according as time and place or circumstance may seem to warrant because these laws are human. Obviously such a régime placed great power in the hands of the clergy who were the ex officio expounders of the scope and meaning of these "divine and universal" laws. In

Puritan New England as in Geneva the clergy became a powerful caste, the keepers of the social conscience.

Such, in general, was the attitude in the Puritan theocracies of Geneva and of New England toward the problem of political rights and obligations. It is easy to see the affiliations between the Calvinistic notions of a natural law that is "divine and universal" and the doctrine of natural rights formulated by Locke, championed by Rousseau, and embodied in our own Constitution and Declaration. It is easy also to foresee that the very finality and inflexibility of these political conceptions must ultimately lead to a dualism between them and the political problems created by the expanding life of the nation.

"It was the Puritan conception of the Deity," remarks Van Wyck Brooks, "as not alone all-determining but precisely responsible for the practical affairs of the race, as constituting in fact the state itself, which precluded in advance any central bond, and responsibility, any common feeling in American affairs and which justified the unlimited centrifugal expediency which has always marked American life. And the same instinct that made against centrality in government made against centrality in thought, against common standards of any kind "1 For it is obvious that, once having accepted this closed and indefectible system of values in state, morals, religion, and business, individuals and groups would not feel any necessity for creating other common standards. Hence "centrifugal expedience" became the order of the day, as exhibited in unregulated individualism in politics and religion and unrestricted competition in business.

It was inevitable that the sheer logic of events should in time drive a wedge between this closed system of indefeasible transcendental values and the common work-a-day level at which the real business of life is done. The facts of immediate experience will in the end always discredit any system of absolutism if we give them time enough. In the course of the evolution of American society, the rampant individualism born of "centrifugal expediency" has always prevented any effec1 America's Coming-of-Age, p. 8.