USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 2 > Part 32
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In studying history one must always "believe with Discre- tion." He enforces this counsel by citing certain books which are dangerously full of errors-Eachard's English history, for example, which he classes with romances like "The Grand Cyrus, or, Cleopatra." . Clarendon's great narrative of the English Civil War is also for Mather little better than fiction. Evidently he bases his opinion on a quite natural prejudice against a historian loyal to the Stuarts. Similar in spirit is his rule of thumb for testing histories. If in any such book, he propounds, "you happen to find any Vindicating or Favour- able Passages of old A. Bishop Laud, Let these .. . do the Office which the Rattle does for the Serpent" in America.
He is comparatively uninterested in the fine arts; but he recommends some knowledge of poetry and some practice in writing it. But for the scholar it should always be, he feels, a sauce rather than a food. "Beware of a Boundless and Sickly Appetite, for the Reading of the Poems, which now the
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Rickety Nation swarms withal," he cries; and he is equally critical of "most of the Modern Plays." He does not condemn all plays, however, nor even all modern plays. He had pro- gressed beyond any wholesale dislike for the drama. He de- nounces current romances, novels, and fictions, which seem to him venemous, and explodes with: "How much I do wish that such Pestilences, and indeed all those worse than Egyptian Toads [the Spawns of a Butler, & a Brown, and a Ward, and a Company whose Name is Legion!] might never crawl into your Chamber !" A more active sense of humor might have saved him from such detestation of the author of the delightful Hudibras, but it is easy to sympathize with his dislike for the coarseness of Tom Brown and Ned Ward, though the poet of the time whom he chooses to praise, Blackmore, has now even fewer readers than they.
He shows his literary taste in other passages. Thomas Fuller's Pisgah Sight of Palestine he praises above other books on its subject, because it can be read "with a Pleasure equal to the Profit." He recommends Walton's Lives and Fuller's Worthies of England. He shows a critical standard in point- ing out that Samuel Clark, a tireless compiler of biographies of famous men, was but a "Dull and Lifeless" transcriber.
Much of the Manuductio is archaic in flavor, but now and then its comments seem broader and more modern than what one finds in the pages of Mather's Puritan contemporaries in this country. Old prejudices survive, but they are balanced by a new tolerance; he prefers books written by Calvinists, but he praises many by Anglicans and Jesuits. He finds a special word of commendation for Thomas a Kempis's Imitation of Christ, the publication of which had been forbidden years be- fore in Massachusetts. Throughout the book he pleads against controversy and for moderation. Physical exercise, especially horse-back riding, he prescribes for scholars. Beer and wines and water should be their beverages; preferably they should not smoke. His ideal is not that of a recluse. "Be Sociable," he advises, "but let it be chiefly with such as are your Superiors, your Familiarity with whom, will be Reputable and Serviceable to you."
Mather, the scholar, is only partly revealed in the Manu- ductio, but it shows the foundation upon which he believed
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SCIENCE AND MEDICINE
a minister's learning must be built, and it displays his rever- ence and love for books and the pursuit of knowledge. Out of this reverence and love came his own achievement as a scholar -an achievement praised even by his enemies and once recog- nized far beyond the limits of provincial Boston.
THE SCIENTIFIC STUDENT
Mather's fame was occasioned in part by his books and in part by his ministerial career, but it could hardly have reached the pitch it did had he been celebrated only as an author and divine. The long list of his correspondents contains the names of several scientists, in whose eyes he was no credulous bigot but a minor ally in the great task of perfecting man's knowl- edge of the physical universe.
It is true that what was science to Mather often seems to us like credulity run riot. So, no doubt, will much of our science seem ridiculous to our descendants, for the advance of learning tends always to discredit what was once unchallenged truth. The only fair test by which to judge Mather's position as a student of science is a comparison of him with the recog- nized natural philosophers of his day. In England the Royal Society, and elsewhere similar organizations, met to discuss current observations and discoveries, and many of their pro- ceedings were printed. These, read with Mather's scientific communications, written during the same years, show him to have been no more credulous than most of the better known men of science of his time, many of whose names we still respect as those of pioneers who blazed important trails. By our standards he erred, and so did the Royal Society in regard- ing him as an accurate and wise investigator, but our criteria have no validity in determining the position in his own world of a would-be scientist who flourished two centuries ago.
MEDICINE
Mather's scientific writings are too voluminous to be treated fairly in brief compass. Fortunately, however, one chapter in his life comprising the tale of his courageous advocacy of variolous inoculation for smallpox, shows both his interest in
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science and the relatively advanced position among his country- men given him by the intelligence of this interest.
In 1721 an epidemic of smallpox broke out in Boston. Five years earlier Mather had read of the practice of inoculation, and since then he had given thought to it, collecting such testi- mony as he could and convincing himself that should smallpox come to Boston it would be his duty to try to encourage the use of what he believed was a valuable safeguard against its ravages. In 1721, therefore, he resolved to do all that he could to further inoculation. The medical men were more conserva- tive, and his pleas were little heeded. There was one shining exception in Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, who proceeded to inoculate his own son and two of his slaves.
Almost at once inoculation became not merely a subject of scientific debate but a source of intense popular excitement. Most of this was in opposition to Boylston and Mather. Other doctors told dire tales of the results of inoculation, and the Selectmen helped to circulate their views. Chief among the foes of the new practice was Dr. William Douglass, who, beginning by admitting that Mather, although mistaken, acted from charitable motives, speedily became so irritated by the replies of the advocates of inoculation that he angrily de- nounced the preacher as credulous and worse. With Boylston were arrayed not only Cotton Mather but his father, and several other divines. Many of their cloth, none the less, took the opposite view and encouraged the cry that inoculation violated directly God's laws for man. To their protests were added those of the physicians. Out of it all came a wordy war of pamphlets and newspaper squibs, the ferocity of which re- flects the depth of popular interest in the issue.
Political prejudices complicated matters, and Mather was denounced not only by those who wished to prevent inocula- tion but also by those who saw in the debate a chance to make suspect his political and religious opinions by worsting him in a medical controversy. And, just as, long before 1721, insinua- tions as to Mather's connection with the witchcraft prosecution had been useful political ammunition, so now Douglass, who did not come to New England until many years after the last of the Salem witches died and knew nothing directly of the events of 1692, made large use of comparisons between
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THE MAN OF HIS TIME
Mather's supposed credulity in respect to diabolical possession and his "credulity" about inoculation. Mather was actually more credulous in 1721 than in 1692. In the latter year, to believe in witches and their punishment was orthodox, and be- spoke no more credulity than was common to most professional men in England and the colonies. In 1721 inoculation was so new as to be by no means generally sanctioned, and Mather's urging of it shows that like many greater men he was not afraid to appear "credulous" in order to follow enlightened doctrine. A bomb hurled through the window of his house did not intimidate him, and vilification left him undaunted. He had the satisfaction of knowing that Boylston was putting his ideas into practice, and that the results proved him right. Before Mather's death the value of inoculation was patent, and his opponents were refuted. Nothing could have tickled his vanity more; nothing could have illustrated better the justice of his belief that an intelligent minister might work for his people with material as well as spiritual weapons, and show his care as well for their bodies as their souls.
The episode of 1721 represents real experimental pioneering by New Englanders, and it was made possible by the clear sight and courage of a group of Massachusetts men, led by certain ministers and by Boylston, who had to contend with most of the local physicians, the Boston authorities, and the populace in general. And, whenever the clergy are given credit in the affair, a double tribute should go to Cotton Mather. His knowledge stimulated Boylston to try inoculation, and his writings in 1721 were forceful enough to give sorely needed support to those who were trying bravely to effect a medical reform in the face of professional ignorance and popular superstition.
THE MAN OF HIS TIME
To some critics Cotton Mather has seemed simply the expo- nent of superstitious views on witchcraft. To others he is no more than the embodiment of zeal for an outworn religious order. One may confine attention to selected documents and think of him solely as a politician; by choosing other sources one can even find materials for suspicions of his personal morality or his probity-at least, his wisdom-in money
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matters. No one can fairly be judged thus. All the evidence, not part of it, should be the basis of any evaluation of his character and work; but, unfortunately, the problem of secur- ing complete information as to him is grievously complicated. He died two hundred years ago, and essential documents have perished. The number of his books discourages anyone from trying to read them all; and even his printed diary (elsewhere discussed as a contribution to Massachusetts literature) must be read as a one-sided view.
Yet, if certain cardinal facts are recognized, even an in- complete body of material such as is presented here may suffice for an estimate of him less distorted than those in which he ap- pears either as saint or fiend; as true Christian or bigoted fa- natic; as sly political schemer or inspired champion of a cause so noble as to sanctify its every defender. It is necessary to remember that he was but human, that he had faults as well as virtues, and, what is less obvious, that his nature was not static. To sum him up on the basis of what is revealed in the Magnalia is to judge him as he was in 1697, without regard for his later development. The witchcraft excitement was over when he was thirty, and his relation to it gives no light on the later years of his life. He was a conservative, but he followed new paths now and then; his expression of tolerant views grew franker with advancing years. His interest in science also increased, as did the breadth of his scholarship. His interest as a historical figure lies chiefly in his combination of old ideas and new, and, therefore, in his representative quality as a type of the transition period in which he lived.
When he is called a representative figure there must always be qualifications. There was no one quite like him. In him were exaggerated the religious ardors and the introspection common to earlier Puritans and the conservatives of his own generation; there were exaggerations of current tendencies in more than one side of his life and thought.
Exaggeration is the essence of caricature and it is easier to display aspects of him by caricature than by sober depiction. He had grave faults-a hot temper, and ambition so revealed as to make it hard to separate his personal desires from what seemed to him to be zeal for the public good. His mis- sionary zeal too often ruled out a "live and let live"
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THE MAN OF HIS TIME
policy toward his neighbors. His love of learning be- trayed him into what seems at times to be pedantry. But it may be said for him that there is in the typical manifestations of "saintliness" something which, as William James pointed out, tends to make the gorge of the plain man rise, and possi- bly some sides of Cotton Mather repel us only because of this common instinct. Pedantry eludes definition, and things to which we give the name were not always disparaged when Mather was alive. Missionary zeal is always liable to mis- judgment. Strong convictions make for controversial bitter- ness still, but we endure warrings about matters which are for the moment important more easily than disputations on topics which are shorn of the significance which once drew men to them. Some at least of Mather's unlovely characteristics seem unlovely to-day simply because our background is not his. Had we lived in his day his ideals would have seemed to us truer than they ever can again.
When all is said in his behalf there still seems to be some- thing unhealthy in certain sides of his nature. Nervous insta- bility is written large in his career. Some of his throes in his spiritual transports suggest rather the man convinced that by right of birth he was destined to sainthood or, at least, priest- hood, and therefore too eager in encouraging in himself the symptoms of which he had read in scanning the lives of past saints, than the sincere zealot freed of mindfulness of self by the force of religious emotion. The problem of understanding Mather involves not only the necessity of knowing his words and deeds but also the need of appreciating fully the tangles of his psychological constitution.
Until we have completer studies upon which to base a verdict it is perhaps more just to reserve decision as to the complete reading of his nature than to force him into some Procrustean category of modern psychological theory. Similarly it may be admitted that it is not easy to translate him into Twentieth Century terms, and that some misinterpretation of him is an evil thus far without remedy. If one believes that there have been and will be again things undreamed of in our phi- losophy, one need not sigh too deeply while confessing an in- ability fully to comprehend Mather's weakness and strength.
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MATHER'S PLACE IN MASSACHUSETTS HISTORY
There are, however, some things safely to be said of Mather's place in the panorama of Massachusetts history. His life and writings show the narrowness of New England Puri- tanism when its pristine force had run out and it was express- ing itself in hollow forms and in reverence for the past simply because it was the past. They show, too, the increasing toler- ance of a newer day, the new zest for science, the new tendency to express religion less in terms of creed and polity than in practical ideals for morality and conduct. They reveal an in- tellectual drawing closer of the colonies to European ideas and progress. They display the effect of some new theories, especially scientific, upon Calvinistic dogma. They hint of a new feeling for external nature demanding expression of colonial writers. They expose in at least one man a literary standard, false perhaps or incomplete, but none the less criti- cal. And, in the inoculation episode, there is an example of how the traditional reverence of the Massachusetts clergy for learning and their belief in their own intellectual leadership of the people came in a day of new doctrines to bear good fruit. In and of his time Cotton Mather, for all his defeated political aspirations and in spite of his failure to preserve for the clergy their old power, kept a great name to the end. Neither his enemies nor his errors prevented his being offered honors by Yale and by the Royal Society. The opposition of the people and most of the Boston physicians was powerless to prove him wrong in 1721. In the eyes of his contemporaries many elements in him which we cannot appreciate to-day- his skill as a preacher and a conversationalist, for example- weighed down the scales in his favor. In him as in his times there were mingled conservatism and liberality, close-minded- ness and intellectual curiosity. New England was not dormant in the early Eighteenth Century. There were both orthodoxy and heresy, antiquated dogmas and new faiths, and out of the conflict rises the figure of Cotton Mather. He may now be a mysterious shade, but in his earthly pilgrimage he illustrated many of the mistakes, struggles, and steps toward progress, which brought drama to the little world in which he lived and dreamed.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
(A complete list of the writings of Cotton Mather would take more space than can be allowed here. Only those of his works which are quoted or referred to in the text are included in this bibliography. Of the numerous articles dealing with aspects of his life and work, only those which bear most directly on the topics discussed in this chapter are given below.)
CALEF, ROBERT .- More Wonders of the Invisible World (London, Nath. Hiller, 1700)-See also DRAKE, SAMUEL G., below. Calef's book is the basis of most later attacks upon Mather's relation to the witch- craft excitement.
COLMAN, BENJAMIN .- The Holy Walk and Glorious Translation of Blessed Enoch. A Sermon preached Two Days after the Death of Cotton Mather (Boston, J. Phillips, and T. Hancock, 1728). .
DEXTER, HENRY M .- "The Mather Family and its Influence" (Justin Win- sor, Memorial History of Boston, 4 vols., Boston, Osgood, 1885-1886). -See Vol. II, chap. IX.
DRAKE, SAMUEL GARDNER .- The Witchcraft Delusion in New England (3 vols., Woodward, Roxbury, 1866)-Contains an introduction and notes by Drake, and reprints of Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World and Robert Calef's More Wonders of the Invisible World.
FRANCKE, KUNO .- "The Beginning of Cotton Mather's Correspondence with August Hermann Francke" (Philological Quarterly, 1926, Vol. V, pp. 193-195).
FRANCKE, KUNO .- "Cotton Mather and August Hermann Francke" (Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, Vol. V, pp. 57-67, Boston, Ginn, 1896).
FRANCKE, KUNO .- "Further Documents Concerning Cotton Mather and August Hermann Francke" (Americana Germanica, 1897, Vol. I, No. 4, 31-66)-This article and the two preceding deal with Mather's relations with one of the European scholars with whom he kept in touch.
GEE, JOSHUA .- Israel's Mourning for Aaron's Death. A Sermon Preached on the Lord's Day After the Death of Cotton Mather (Boston, S. Gerrish, 1726).
GREENOUGH, CHESTER N .- "A Letter Relating to the Publication of Cotton Mather's Magnalia" (Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, Vol. XXVI, pp. 296-312, 1927)-Valuable material on the conditions under which the Magnalia was printed, on the title chosen for it, and on Mather's interest in a congratulatory address to Queen Anne.
HARVARD COLLEGE .- Records 1636-1750 (2 vols., Colonial Society of Mass., Publications, Vols. XV-XVI, Boston, 1925)-Introduction and notes by Albert Matthews.
HOLMES, THOMAS J .- "Cotton Mather and His Writings on Witchcraft" (Bibliographical Society of America, Papers, 1924, Vol. XVIII, pp. 31-59, Chicago, 1924).
HOLMES, THOMAS J .- The Mather Literature (Privately printed, Cleveland, 1927)-A brief treatment of the writings of the Mather family in relation to their time, of the collections of Matheriana in libraries, and especially of Mr. William G. Mather's collection. Chapter VIII deals with Cotton Mather.
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COTTON MATHER
HOLMES, THOMAS J .- "The Surreptitious Printing of One of Cotton Mather's Manuscripts" (Bibliographical Essays: A Tribute to Wilber- force Eames, Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press, 1924)-Edited by G. P. Winship. See pp. 149-160.
KITTREDGE, GEORGE L .- "Cotton Mather's Election into the Royal Society" (Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, Vol. XIV, pp. 81-114, Boston, 1913).
KITTRIDGE, GEORGE L .- "Cotton Mather's Scientific Communications to the Royal Society" (American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, New Series, Vol. XXVI, pp. 18-57, Worcester, 1916).
KITTREDGE, GEORGE L .- "Further Notes on Cotton Mather and the Royal Society" (Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, Vol. XIV, pp. 281-292, Boston, 1913).
KITTREDGE, GEORGE L .- "Notes on Witchcraft" (Am. Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, New Series, Vol. XVIII, pp. 148-212, Worcester, 1907)- Excellent discussion of the belief in witchcraft as it existed in Mather's time and manifested itself in New England.
KITTREDGE, GEORGE L .- "Some Lost Works of Cotton Mather" (Mass. His- torical Society, Proceedings, Vol. XLV, pp. 418-479, Boston, 1912)- A study of some of Mather's writings on inoculation, with much valuable material on the controversy about it.
LINCOLN, CHARLES HENRY, editor .- Narratives of the Indian Wars, 1675- 1699 (N. Y., Scribner's, 1913)-Contains Mather's Decennium Luctuo- sum.
MARVIN, ABIJAH P .- The Life and Times of Cotton Mather (Boston, Congregational Sunday-school and Publishing Society, 1892)-A long biography.
MATHER, COTTON .- Bonifacius (Boston, Samuel Gerrish, 1710)-Under the title of Essays to do Good this has been reprinted often.
MATHER, COTTON .- The Christian Philosopher (London, Eman. Matthews, 1721).
MATHER, COTTON .- The Declaration of the Gentlemen, Merchants, and In- habitants of Boston (Boston, 1689)-Published anonymously, but as- cribed by Governor Hutchinson to Cotton Mather. Reprinted in Andros Tracts (Boston, Prince Society, 1868-1874, Vol. I, pp. 1-19).
MATHER, COTTON .- Diary (2 vols., Mass. Historical Society, Collections, Seventh Series, Vols. VII-VIII, Boston, 1911-1912)-Edited by W. C. Ford.
MATHER, COTTON .- "Letter" (Flying-Post from Paris and Amsterdam, London, J. Salisbury, 1695-1731)-An edition abridged by D. Jennings appeared in Philadelphia in 1827 and 1829. See No. 422, May 14-16, 1719.
MATHER, COTTON .- Magnalia Christi Americana (London, Thomas Park- hurst, 1702)-First American edition, 2 vols., Hartford, Roberts & Burr. 1820; also later editions.
MATHER, COTTON .- Manuductio ad Ministerium (Boston, Thomas Hancock, 1726).
MATHER, COTTON .- Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions (Boston, Joseph Brunning, 1689).
MATHER, COTTON .- A Memorial of the Present Deplorable State of New- England (Boston, 1707. Reprinted in Mass. Historical Society, Col- lections, Series 5, Vol. VI, pp. 33-64)-An attack on Dudley, probably written by Mather, or at least inspired by him.
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
MATHER, COTTON .- "Political Fables" (Andros Tracts, 3 vols., Boston, Prince Society, 1868-1874)-See Vol. II, pp. 325-332. Also reprinted in Mass. Historical Society, Collections, Third Series, Vol. I, pp. 126- 133. See also MATHER, COTTON, Selections. Anonymously published, but safely ascribed to Mather.
MATHER, COTTON .- Ratio Discipline Fratrum Nov-Anglorum (Boston, S. Gerrish, 1726)-A most useful account of the Congregational polity which Mather advocated.
MATHER, COTTON .- Reasonable Religion (Boston, Benjamin Eliot, 1700). MATHER, COTTON .- Selections from Cotton Mather (N. Y., Harcourt, Brace, 1926)-Edited by Kenneth B. Murdock; and contains an introduction on Mather as a scholar and man of letters, and on his Magnalia, Politi- cal Fables, Christian Philosopher, and his scientific communications. - Includes also a reprint of the "General Introduction" and Book II of the Magnalia, of the "Introduction" and Parts 23-26 and a portion of Part 32 of the Christian Philosopher, of the Political Fables, and of one of his scientific letters.
MATHER, COTTON .- The Wonders of the Invisible World (Boston, Sam. Phillips, 1693; reprinted in 2 vols., Hartford, S. Andrus & Son, 1853) -See also, above, DRAKE.
MATHER, INCREASE .- Several Reasons Proving that Inoculating or Trans- planting the Small Pox, is a Lawful Practice (Boston, J. Edwards, 1721)-Privately reprinted, Cleveland, 1921; with an introduction by G. L. Kittredge; contains Cotton Mather's Sentiments on the Small Pox inoculated.
MATHER, SAMUEL .- The Departure and Character of Elijah Considered and Improved (Boston, S. Gerrish, 1728)-A funeral sermon on Cotton Mather by his son.
MATHER, SAMUEL .- The Life of the Very Reverend and Learned Cotton Mather (Boston, Samuel Gerrish, 1729).
MURDOCK, KENNETH B .- "Cotton Mather and the Rectorship of Yale Col- lege" (Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, Vol. XXVI, pp. 388-401, Boston, 1927)-Contains the evidence that Mather was offered the rectorship of Yale.
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