Free Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville Page A

sole theme of poetry amongst these nations. Experience may confirm this assertion, if we consider the productions of the greatest poets who have appeared since the world has been turned to democracy. The authors of our age who have so admirably delineated the features of Faust, Childe Harold, Rene, and Jocelyn, did not seek to record the actions of an individual, but to enlarge and to throw light on some of the obscurer recesses of the human heart. Such are the poems of democracy. The principle of equality does not then destroy all the subjects of poetry: it renders them less numerous, but more vast.
    —from
Democracy In America by Alexis de Tocqueville .
Often overlooked, the analysis of the literary arts in Alexis de Tocqueville’s reportage from the still developing United States had a profound influence on the nation’s arts and letters. The Frenchman’s observations on the ideal situation for poetry in a democracy coincided with the notions of both the romantics and transcendentalists, and his criticism of the American milieu was certainly taken to heart. Melville’s turn to more darkly philosophical fare coincided with the publication of de Tocqueville book in the U.S
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Illustration:
Lower Manhattan from
Matthew Dripps’ 1852 Map Of New York Extending Northward To Fiftieth Street.
Surveyed and drawn by John Harrison. This map displays a layout of New York’s financial district contemporaneous with Melville’s story, including the location and structure of Trinity Church. The two previous Trinity Church buildings had been destroyed, the previous one having been torn down after it displayed structural damage from heavy snowfall in 1838–39
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The Roots of Bartleby’s Declaration
Perfect Indifference
    If any one should say, there is no need that the indifference should be perfect; but although a former inclination and preference still remains, yet, if it be not very strong and violent, possibly the strength of the will may oppose and overcome it.
    This is grossly absurd; for the strength of the will, let it be ever so great, does not at all enable it to act one way, and not the contrary way, both at the same time. It gives it no such sovereignty and command, as to cause itself to prefer and not to prefer at the same time, or to choose contrary to its own present choice.
    Therefore, if there be the least degree of antecedent preponderance of the will, it must be perfectly abolished before the will can be at liberty to determine itself the contrary way. And if the will determines itself the same way, it is not a free determination, because the will is not wholly at liberty in so doing; its determination is not altogether from itself, but it was partly determined before, in its prior inclination; and all the freedom the will exercises in the case, is an increase of inclination, which it gives itself, over and above what it had by the foregoing bias; so much is from itself, and so much is from perfect indifference. For though the will had a previous tendency that way, yet as to that additional degree of inclination, it had no tendency. Therefore the previous tendency is of no consideration, with respect to the act wherein the will is free. So that it comes to the same thing which was said at first, that as to the act of the will, wherein the will is free, there must be perfect indifference, or equilibrium.
    —Jonathan Edwards
(1703–1758), from
Freedom Of The Will, Which Is Supposed To Be Essential To Moral Agency, Virtue And Vice, Reward And Punishment, Praise And Blame.
Edwards was a preacher, missionary and theological philosopher who became a leading figure in the First Great Awakening movement. Considered one of America’s greatest intellectuals, Edwards’ writings have been influential to both revivalist theologians and secular philosophers alike
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A Doctrine of Mere Will
    Man is a being of such a make, that when certain things, two kinds of fruit, for instance, are proposed to him, they become the