John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[34] either Europe or America, and yet he was only half-way through his college course. In short, he was seeking for truth and light, but under disadvantages which were almost insuperable. If he had any predilection at that time it was for theology, with a strong tendency to Unitarianism. He had implied a preference for Episcopacy, but finally took up Swedenborgianism, with the intimation that he might end in Goethean indifference to dogmatism of every kind. Curiously enough, as will be shown hereafter, this foreshadowed the real line of his spiritual evolution, as completely as if he had said it at the close rather than at the beginning of his career.

Although I have read all the accounts I could find of the Brook Farm experiment, I have failed to discover any word from Dana indicating complete confidence in its success. He speaks frequently and earnestly in favor of co-operation, and in praise of the able and unselfish management of Dr. Ripley. He lent his name and such credit as he had to the association, and stood by it till it was overwhelmed by disaster. He wrote much for the Harbinger, which was its organ, but his writings of this period indicate his aspirations rather than his settled convictions. They show that he had a practical turn of mind, and at the same time was looking to the great ends of life, rather than to the means by which they were to be reached. In view of all the circumstances of the case, which I have set forth whenever possible in his own words, I am forced to the conclusion that he connected himself with Brook Farm because it offered the best solution of his own difficulties then within reach, rather than from mature conviction that the experiment there to be tried was founded in true philosophy, political economy, and the requirements of modern society. Anxious as he was for spiritual and intellectual growth, and persistent as he had been in seeking for the truth, his opinions were by no means