216 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SEALER 



called public opinion. I believe every thought conceived in the spirit of 

 truth demands utterance as if it were the word of all nature ; so my life if 

 ever I should come into the sphere of action would of necessity be a struggle, 

 vehement on one side, earnest at first but soon faltering and weary on my own. 



The lack of "sterling courage" was never his, nor when once 

 convinced that his course was right did his spirit ever falter or 

 grow weary. Fearlessness characterized his acts from the very 

 beginning of manhood. It showed itself in his political inde- 

 pendence; and later, though he was still a young man, in teach- 

 ing the principles of Evolution at a time when the dominant 

 scientific influence in Cambridge was antagonistic to it. For 

 months preceding the Civil War, Mr. Shaler was subjected to a 

 veritable cross-fire of political and rhetorical expression con- 

 cerning the coming conflict. These letters, mostly written by 

 Southern sympathizers, indeed nearly all whom he loved 

 best were committed to that cause, were dictated by unselfish 

 and generous motives and therefore are creditable to those who 

 wrote them; but especially to him, since they bear witness to 

 the social pressure which he resisted in taking his stand on the 

 side of the Union. In one of his own letters, brushing aside 

 the fine-spun speculations of his correspondent, he gives, in a 

 few words, for one of his age a singularly discerning picture of 

 the social situation. He writes : 



There is a civilization possible, having negro slavery for its foundation, 

 and a cultivation not wanting in many elements of moral and intellectual 

 beauty ; but it is a civilization and society of the Middle Ages with the lighter 

 circumstances of the nineteenth century a feudal castle with modern 

 furniture. Such is the society south of Mason and Dixon's Line. The North, 

 on the contrary, is the creature of the day, never behind the march of 

 nations but a pioneer. 



After 1861 1 find no trace of a journal ; henceforth Mr. Shaler's 

 observations of natural phenomena were converted into mate- 

 rial for lectures or writings, while his experiences with men and 

 things were transmuted into a personal philosophy, which 

 eventually found literary expression in such books as "The 



