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Introduction�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xv
vi
Table of Contents
Chapter 7: Case Study: Tuning CNN Learning Rate with BoTorch������������������������� 185
Seeking Global Optimum of Hartmann�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 186
Generating Initial Conditions����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 187
Updating GP Posterior��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 188
vii
Table of Contents
Index��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 225
viii
About the Author
Peng Liu is an assistant professor of quantitative finance
(practice) at Singapore Management University and an
adjunct researcher at the National University of Singapore.
He holds a Ph.D. in Statistics from the National University
of Singapore and has ten years of working experience as a
data scientist across the banking, technology, and hospitality
industries.
ix
About the Technical Reviewer
Jason Whitehorn is an experienced entrepreneur and
software developer and has helped many companies
automate and enhance their business solutions through data
synchronization, SaaS architecture, and machine learning.
Jason obtained his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
from Arkansas State University, but he traces his passion
for development back many years before then, having first
taught himself to program BASIC on his family’s computer
while in middle school. When he’s not mentoring and
helping his team at work, writing, or pursuing one of his
many side-projects, Jason enjoys spending time with his wife and four children and
living in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, region. More information about Jason can be found on his
website: https://jason.whitehorn.us.
xi
Acknowledgments
This book summarizes my learning journey in Bayesian optimization during my
(part-time) Ph.D. study. It started as a personal interest in exploring this area and
gradually grew into a book combining theory and practice. For that, I thank my
supervisors, Teo Chung Piaw and Chen Ying, for their continued support in my
academic career.
xiii
Introduction
Bayesian optimization provides a unified framework that solves the problem of
sequential decision-making under uncertainty. It includes two key components: a
surrogate model approximating the unknown black-box function with uncertainty
estimates and an acquisition function that guides the sequential search. This book
reviews both components, covering both theoretical introduction and practical
implementation in Python, building on top of popular libraries such as GPyTorch and
BoTorch. Besides, the book also provides case studies on using Bayesian optimization
to seek a simulated function's global optimum or locate the best hyperparameters (e.g.,
learning rate) when training deep neural networks. The book assumes readers with a
minimal understanding of model development and machine learning and targets the
following audiences:
All source code used in this book can be downloaded from github.com/apress/
Bayesian-optimization.
xv
CHAPTER 1
Bayesian Optimization
Overview
As the name suggests, Bayesian optimization is an area that studies optimization
problems using the Bayesian approach. Optimization aims at locating the optimal
objective value (i.e., a global maximum or minimum) of all possible values or the
corresponding location of the optimum in the environment (the search domain). The
search process starts at a specific initial location and follows a particular policy to
iteratively guide the following sampling locations, collect new observations, and refresh
the guiding policy.
As shown in Figure 1-1, the overall optimization process consists of repeated
interactions between the policy and the environment. The policy is a mapping function
that takes in a new input observation (plus historical ones) and outputs the following
sampling location in a principled way. Here, we are constantly learning and improving
the policy, since a good policy guides our search toward the global optimum more
efficiently and effectively. In contrast, a good policy would save the limited sampling
budget on promising candidate locations. On the other hand, the environment contains
the unknown objective function to be learned by the policy within a specific boundary.
When probing the functional value as requested by the policy, the actual observation
revealed by the environment to the policy is often corrupted by noise, making learning
even more challenging. Thus, Bayesian optimization, a specific approach for global
optimization, would like to learn a policy that can help us efficiently and effectively
navigate to the global optimum of an unknown, noise-corrupted environment as quickly
as possible.
1
© Peng Liu 2023
P. Liu, Bayesian Optimization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9063-7_1
Chapter 1 Bayesian Optimization Overview
Figure 1-1. The overall Bayesian optimization process. The policy digests the
historical observations and proposes the new sampling location. The environment
governs how the (possibly noise-corrupted) observation at the newly proposed
location is revealed to the policy. Our goal is to learn an efficient and effective
policy that could navigate toward the global optimum as quickly as possible
Global Optimization
Optimization aims to locate the optimal set of parameters of interest across the whole
domain through carefully allocating limited resources. For example, when searching
for the car key at home before leaving for work in two minutes, we would naturally start
with the most promising place where we would usually put the key. If it is not there,
think for a little while about the possible locations and go to the next most promising
place. This process iterates until the key is found. In this example, the policy is digesting
the available information on previous searches and proposing the following promising
location. The environment is the house itself, revealing if the key is placed at the
proposed location upon each sampling.
This is considered an easy example since we are familiar with the environment
in terms of its structural design. However, imagine locating an item in a totally new
2
Chapter 1 Bayesian Optimization Overview
environment. The policy would need to account for the uncertainty due to unfamiliarity
with the environment while sequentially determining the next sampling location. When
the sampling budget is limited, as is often the case in real-life searches in terms of
time and resources, the policy needs to argue carefully on the utility of each candidate
sampling location.
Let us formalize the sequential global optimization using mathematical terms. We
are dealing with an unknown scalar-valued objective function f based on a specific
domain Α. In other words, the unknown subject of interest f is a function that maps a
certain sample in Α to a real number in ℝ, that is, f : Α → ℝ. We typically place no specific
assumption about the nature of the domain Α other than that it should be a bounded,
compact, and convex set.
Unless otherwise specified, we focus on the maximization setting instead of
minimization since maximizing the objective function is equivalent to minimizing the
negated objective, and vice versa. The optimization procedure thus aims at locating
the global maximum f ∗ or its corresponding location x∗ in a principled and systematic
manner. Mathematically, we wish to locate f ∗ where
f * = max f ( x ) = f ( x * )
xeA
x * = argmax xeA f ( x )
Figure 1-2 provides an example one-dimensional objective function with its global
maximum f ∗ and its location x∗ highlighted. The goal of global optimization is thus to
systematically reason about a series of sampling decisions within the total search space
Α, so as to locate the global maximum as fast as possible, that is, sampling as few times
as possible.
3
Chapter 1 Bayesian Optimization Overview
Figure 1-2. An example objective function with the global maximum and its
location marked with star. The goal of global optimization is to systematically
reason about a series of sampling decisions so as to locate the global maximum as
fast as possible
Note that this is a nonconvex function, as is often the case in real-life functions we
are optimizing. A nonconvex function means we could not resort to first-order gradient-
based methods to reliably search for the global optimum since it will likely converge to
a local optimum. This is also one of the advantages of Bayesian optimization compared
with other gradient-based optimization procedures.
4
Chapter 1 Bayesian Optimization Overview
• Each functional evaluation is costly, thus ruling out the option for
an exhaustive probing. We need to have a sample-efficient method to
minimize the number of evaluations of the environment while trying
to locate its global optimum. In other words, the optimizer needs to
fully utilize the existing observations and systematically reason about
the next sampling decision so that the limited resource is well spent
on promising locations.
5
Chapter 1 Bayesian Optimization Overview
Figure 1-3. Three possible functional forms. On the left is a convex function whose
optimization is easy. In the middle is a nonconvex function with multiple local
minima, and on the right is also a nonconvex function with a wide flat region full
of saddle points. Optimization for the latter two cases takes a lot more work than
for the first case
6
Chapter 1 Bayesian Optimization Overview
Figure 1-4. Slow convergence due to a small learning rate on the left and
divergence due to a large learning rate on the right
7
Chapter 1 Bayesian Optimization Overview
Next, we will delve into the various components of a typical Bayesian optimization
setup, including the observation model, the optimization policy, and the Bayesian
inference.
8
Chapter 1 Bayesian Optimization Overview
Figure 1-5. Illustrating the actual observations (in dots) and the underlying
objective function (in dashed line). When sampling at a specific location, the
observation would be disrupted by an additive noise. The observation model thus
determines how the observation would be revealed to the policy, which needs to
account for the uncertainty due to noise perturbation
To make our discussion more precise, let us use f (x) to denote the (unknown)
objective function value at location x. We sometimes write f (x) as f for simplicity. We
use y to denote the actual observation at location x, which will slightly differ from f due
to noise perturbation. We can thus express the observation model, which governs how
the policy sees the observation from the environment, as a probability distribution of y
based on a specific location x and true function value f:
p ( y |x , f )
Let us assume an additive noise term ε inflicted on f; the actual observation y can
thus be expressed as
y = f +e
Here, the noise term ε arises from measurement error or inaccurate statistical
approximation, although it may disappear in certain computer simulations. A common
9
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than an acquaintance with persons and facts. One must comprehend
its real origin, and have mastered and become familiar with his
subject. This is a task which Mr. Frothingham has not accomplished.
Every heresy segregates its adherents from the straight line of the
true progress of the human race, all deviations from which are, in
the nature of things, either transitory or fatal. They live, for the
greater part, outside of the cumulated wisdom and the broad stream
of the continuous life of humanity. When the heresy has almost
exhausted its derived life—for no heresy has a source of life in itself
—and the symptoms of its approaching death begin to appear, the
intelligent and sincere who are born in it at this stage of its career
are the first to seek to regain the unbroken unity of truth. This is
reached by two distinct and equally legitimate ways. The first class
gains the knowledge of the whole body of the originally revealed
truth, from which its heresy cut it off, by tracing the truths retained
by the sect to their logical connection with other no less important
truths equally contained in the same divine revelation. The second
class falls back upon the essential truths of natural reason; and as all
supernatural truth finds its support in natural truth, it follows that
the denial of any of the former involves a denial of the latter. Heresy
always involves a mutilation of man’s natural reason. Once the
integral natural basis recovered, the repudiation of heresy as
contrary to reason follows logically. But the experience of the human
race, that of the transcendentalists included, shows plainly that
nature does not suffice nature; and this class, at this moment, starts
out to find a religion consonant with the dictates of reason,
satisfactory to all their spiritual necessities, and adequate to their
whole nature. They ask, and rightly, for a religion which shall find its
fast foundations in the human breast. This appeal can only be
answered, and is only met, by the revelation given to the world in
the beginning by the Author of man, completed in the Incarnation,
and existing in its entirety and in unbroken historical continuity in
the Catholic Church alone.
This dialectical law has governed the course of all heresies, from
which they could not by any possibility escape; the same law has
governed the history of Protestantism on its native soil, in Germany,
as well as in old England, in New England, and wherever it has
obtained a foothold.
Our business at present is with those of the second class, under
which head come our New England transcendentalists; and what is
not a little amusing is the simplicity with which they proclaim to the
world, in this nineteenth century of the Christian era, the truths of
natural reason, as though these were new and original discoveries!
They appear to fancy that the petty sect to which they formerly
adhered, and their dreary experience of its rule, have been the sad
lot of the whole human race! It is as if a body of men had been led
astray into a cavern where the direct rays of the sun never
penetrated, and, after the lapse of some generations, their
descendants approach its mouth, breathe the fresh air, behold the
orb of light, the mountains, the rivers, and the whole earth covered
with trees, flowers, and verdure. For the first time this glorious
world, in all its wonderful beauty, bursts upon their view, and, in the
candor of their souls, they flatter themselves that they alone are
privileged with this vision, and knowledge, and enjoyment! Their
language—but, be it understood, in their sober moods—affects those
whose mental sight has not been obscured by heresy; somewhat like
the speech of children when first the light of reason dawns in their
souls. For the transcendental movement in New England was
nothing else, in its first instance, than the earnest and righteous
protest of our native reason in convalescence against a false
Christianity for its denial or neglect of rational truths.
Mr. Frothingham tells us that “he was once a pure transcendentalist,”
and that perhaps “his ardor may have cooled.” We protest, and as a
disinterested party assure him that he writes with all the glow of
youth, and in his volume he has furnished a pretty cabinet-picture, in
couleur du rose, of transcendentalism in New England, without
betraying even so much as the least sign of a suspicion of its true
place in the history either of philosophy or religion. In seeking for
the “distinct origin” and the place in history of the transcendental
movement in New England, he goes back to Immanuel Kant, born at
Königsberg, in Prussia, April 22, 1724, and finds it, as he supposes,
in Kant’s famous Critique of Pure Reason, published in 1771. After
mentioning some of the disciples of Kant, we are taken to the
philosophers of France—Cousin, Constant, Jouffroy; then we are
next transported across the Channel to old England, and entertained
with Coleridge, Carlyle, and Wordsworth; finally we are landed in
New England and are told:
“With some truth it may be said that there never was such a
thing as transcendentalism out of New England. In Germany
and France there was a transcendental philosophy, held by
cultivated men, taught in schools, and professed by many
thoughtful and earnest people; but it never affected society in
its organized institutions or practical interests. In old England
this philosophy influenced poetry and art, but left the daily
existence of men and women untouched. But in New England
the ideas entertained by foreign thinkers took root in the
native soil and blossomed out in every form of social life. The
philosophy assumed its full proportions, produced fruit
according to its kind, created a new social order for itself, or
rather showed what sort of social order it would create under
favoring conditions. Its new heavens and new earth were
made visible, if but for a moment, and in a wintry season” (p.
103).
The contact with the productions of the foreign philosophers as well
as religious and literary writers whom Mr. Frothingham mentions
undoubtedly stimulated and strengthened the transcendental
movement in New England; but it did not originate it. The movement
was the spontaneous growth of the New England mind, in
accordance with the law which we have stated, aided by the peculiar
influence of our political institutions, as will be shown further on. Its
real authors were Channing, Alcott, and Emerson, who were neither
affected at their start nor afterward—or if at all, but slightly—by
foreign or extraneous influences.
Moreover, the Kantian philosophy afforded no logical foothold for the
defence of the movement in New England. Were our New Englander,
who still clings to his early faith in transcendental ideas, to present
himself to the philosophical offspring of Kant, he would no more
pass muster than his old orthodox Protestant antagonist of the
exclusive traditional school. The logical descendants of Kant are, in
the region of philosophy, to use an Americanism, played out, and
those who still keep up an existence will be found in the ranks of
positivism, materialism, and blank atheism.
The idea of God, the immortality of the soul, the liberty of the will,
the creation of the world—these and all such ideas the descendants
of Kant have politely conducted to the frontiers of philosophy, and
dismissed each and every one, but not before courteously thanking
them for their provisional services. Our New Englander would appear
to their eyes as a babe still in swaddling-clothes, or as a child
learning to read by amusing itself with the pictures of old Mother
Goose stories. Whatever hankering Mr. Frothingham and some few
others may have after their first love of transcendental ideas—and
those in New England with whom they are most in sympathy, one
and all are moving in the same direction—they are only in the initial
stage of the process of evolution of the Kantian germ-cell, the
product of Protestant protoplasm, and will end eventually in the
same logical issues as their less sentimental German, French, and
English confrères.
To give us a right history of transcendentalism, Mr. Frothingham
must enlarge the horizon of his mental vision, and include within its
scope a stretch of time which elapsed before his ancestors were led
off by heresy into the cavern of obscurity. He will find a historical no
less than a “dialectical basis” for its ideas or primary truths, and
other truths of natural reason of which he has not yet made the
discovery, in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, in Augustine, in
Vincent of Lerens, in Anselm, and above all in Thomas of Aquinas,
whose pages contain all the truths, but purified from the admixture
of error, of the pagan philosophers, as also of those who had
preceded him in Christian philosophy—men whose natural gifts, as
well as devotion to truth, were comparable, to say the least, with
Immanuel Kant and his French, or English, or American disciples.
Those profound thinkers maintained and demonstrated the truth of
the great ideas which Kant, according to his own showing, neither
dared affirm nor deny, and which the transcendentalists held for the
most part by openly contemning logic and by submissively accepting
the humiliating charge of being “sentimentalists.” What those great
men taught from the beginning has been always taught, even to our
day, by all sound Catholic teachers in philosophy. So jealous has the
supreme authority of the church been in this matter of upholding the
value of the natural powers of human reason against those who
would exalt tradition at its expense it has required, if they would
teach philosophy in the name of the church, as a test of their
orthodoxy, a subscription to the following proposition: “Reason can
with certitude demonstrate the existence of God, the spirituality of
the soul, and the liberty of man.” Had the author of the volume
which we are briefly reviewing read the Summa of St. Thomas, or
only the chapters which treat of these subjects, and understood
them—which is not, we hope, asking too much from an advanced
thinker of our enlightened age, inasmuch as St. Thomas wrote this
work in the “dark ages” for mere tyros—he would have gained a
stand-point from which he might have done what he tells us in his
preface was “the one purpose of his book—to define the
fundamental ideas of philosophy, to trace them to their historical and
speculative sources, and to show whither they tended” (p. viii.) Such
a work would have been more creditable to his learning, more
worthy of his intellectual effort, more satisfactory to intelligent
readers, and one of permanent value. We commend to Octavius
Brooks Frothingham the perusal and study of St. Thomas’ Summa—
above all, his work Contra Gentiles, which is a defence of Christianity
on the basis of human reason against the attacks of those who do
not admit of its divine revelation; or if these be not within his reach,
to take up any one of the modern works on philosophy taught in
Catholic colleges or seminaries to our young men.
After all, perhaps, the task might prove an ungracious one; for it
would not be flattering to the genius of originality, on which our
transcendentalists pride themselves, to discover that these
utterances concerning the value of human reason, the dignity of the
soul, and the worth of man—barring occasional extravagant
expressions attributable to the heat of youth—were but echoes of
the voice of the Catholic Church of all ages, of the traditional
teachings of her philosophers, especially of the Jesuitical school; all
of which, be it said between ourselves, has been confirmed by the
sacred decrees of the recent Vatican Council! Still, passing this act of
humiliation on their part, it would have afforded them what our
author says their system “lacked,” and for which he has had recourse
—in our opinion in vain—to the great German systems: namely, a
“dialectical basis.” He would have found in Catholic philosophy solid
grounds to sustain every truth which the transcendentalists so
enthusiastically proclaimed in speech, in poetry, and prose, and
which truths, in their practical aspect, not a few made noble and
heroic sacrifices to realize.
To have secured such a basis would not have been a small gain,
when one considers that these primary truths of reason are the
sources from which religion, morals, political government, and
human society draw their vitality, strength, and stability. Not a small
service to humanity is it to make clear these imperishable
foundations, to render them intelligible to all, and transmit them to
posterity with increased life and strength. It is well that this noble
task of philosophy did not depend on the efforts of the
transcendentalists; for Mr. Frothingham sadly informs us in his
preface that “as a form of mental philosophy transcendentalism may
have had its day; at any rate it is no longer in the ascendant, and at
present is manifestly on the decline, being suppressed by the
philosophy of experience, which, under different names, is taking
possession of the speculative world” (p. vii.) Who knows what might
have been the precious fruits of all the high aspiration and powerful
earnestness which were underlying this movement, if, instead of
seeking for a “dialectical basis of the great German systems,” its
leaders had cast aside their prejudices, and found that Catholic
philosophy which had interpreted the divine oracles of the soul from
age to age, consonant with man’s original and everlasting
convictions, and sustaining his loftiest and noblest hopes?
But with the best will in the world to look favorably on the practical
results of the transcendental movement, and our sincere
appreciation of its leaders—both of which, the issues and the men,
are described from chapter vii. to xv., which latter concludes the
volume—in spite of these dispositions of ours, our sympathy for so
much praiseworthy effort, and our respect for so many highly-gifted
men, in reading these chapters a feeling of sadness creeps over us,
and we cannot help exclaiming with the poet Sterling:
“O wasted strength! O light and calm
And better hopes so vainly given!
Like rain upon the herbless sea,
Poured down by too benignant heaven—
We see not stars unfixed by winds,
Or lost in aimless thunder-peals,
But man’s large soul, the star supreme,
In guideless whirl how oft it reels!”
But this is not to be wondered at; for although these men had
arrived at the perception of certain great truths, they held them by
no strong intellectual grasp, and finally they escaped them, and their
intellectual fabric, like the house built upon sand, when the storm
came and the winds blew, great was the fall thereof. This was the
history of Brook Farm and Fruitlands, communities in which the two
wings of transcendentalism attempted to reduce their ideas into
practice. Here let us remark it would have increased the interest of
the volume if its author had given to his readers the programme of
Brook Farm, “The Idea of Jesus of Society,” together with its
constitutions. It is short, interesting, and burning with earnestness.
There is scarcely any account of the singular enterprise of the group
of idealists at Fruitlands, and the name of Henry Thoreau, one of the
notables among transcendentalists, is barely mentioned, while to his
life at Walden Pond there is not even an allusion. True, these
experiments were, like Brook Farm, unsuccessful, but they were not
without interest and significance, and worthy of a place in what
claims to be a history of the movement that gave rise to them; at
least space enough might have been afforded them for a suitable
epitaph.
We will now redeem our promise of showing how the influence of
our political institutions aided in producing what goes by the name
of transcendentalism. But before doing this, we must settle what
transcendentalism is; for our author appears to make a distinction
between idealism and transcendentalism in New England. Here is
what he says:
“There was idealism in New England prior to the introduction
of transcendentalism. Idealism is of no clime or age. It has its
proportion of disciples in every period and in the apparently
most uncongenial countries; a full proportion might have
been looked for in New England. But when Emerson
appeared, the name of idealism was legion. He alone was
competent to form a school, and as soon as he rose, the
scholars trooped about him. By sheer force of genius
Emerson anticipated the results of the transcendental
philosophy, defined its axioms, and ran out their inferences to
the end. Without help from abroad, or with such help only as
none but he could use, he might have domesticated in
Massachusetts an idealism as heroic as Fichte’s, as beautiful
as Schelling’s, but it would have lacked the dialectical basis of
the great German systems” (p. 115).
If we seize the meaning of this passage, it is admitted that previous
to the knowledge of the German systems Mr. Emerson had already
defined the axioms, run out their inferences to the end, and
anticipated the results of the German transcendental philosophy. But
this is all that any system of philosophy pretends to accomplish; and
therefore, by his own showing, the distinction between idealism and
transcendentalism is a distinction without a difference.
Mr. Frothingham, however, tells us on the same page that
“transcendentalism, properly so-called, was imported in foreign
packages”; and Mr. Frothingham ought to know, for he was once, he
tells us, “a pure transcendentalist”; and on pages 128 and 136 he
criticises Mr. Emerson, who identifies idealism and
transcendentalism. With the genius and greatness of the prince of
the transcendentalists before his eyes, our author, as is proper,
employs the following condescending language: “It is audacious to
criticise Mr. Emerson on a point like this; but candor compels the
remark that the above description does less than justice to the
definiteness of the transcendental movement. It was something
more than a reaction against formalism and tradition, though it took
that form. It was more than a reaction against Puritan orthodoxy,
though in part it was that. It was in a very small degree due to study
of the ancient pantheists, of Plato and the Alexandrians, of Plutarch,
Seneca, and Epictetus, though one or two of the leaders had drunk
deeply from these sources. Transcendentalism was a distinct
philosophical system” (p. 136).
So far so good. Here is the place, if the author knows what he is
talking about, to give us in clear terms the definition of
transcendentalism. But what does he? Does he satisfy our
anticipations? Mr. Emerson, be it understood, does not know what
transcendentalism is! Well, hear our author, who thinks he does. He
continues: “Practically it was an assertion of the inalienable worth of
man; theoretically it was an assertion of the immanence of divinity in
instinct, the transference of supernatural attributes to the natural
constitution of mankind.… Through all was the belief in the living
God in the soul, faith in immediate inspiration, in boundless
possibility, and in unimaginable good” (p. 137). Ordinarily when
writers attempt to give a definition, or convey information of a
“distinct philosophical system,” they give one to understand its first
principles or axioms, its precise method, and its important
conclusions, and particularly wherein it differs in these respects from
other systems of philosophy. This is what Mr. Frothingham in the
passage last quoted has led us to expect; but instead of this he
gives to the reader mere “assertions” and “beliefs.” And these
assertions and beliefs every one knows who has heard Dr. Channing,
or Mr. Emerson, or Mr. Alcott, or who has a slight acquaintance with
their writings, to have been the sources of inspiration in their
speech, which appear on almost every page they have written! Proof
is needless; for there is no one who will venture a contradiction on
this point. The men who were most influenced by the study of the
philosophers abroad were neither the originators nor leaders of the
so-called transcendental movement in New England—Brownson,
Parker, and William Channing. Mr. Frothingham, we submit, has not
made out his case, and has given too much credit where it was not
due, while robbing others of their just merit, whatever that may be.
If “transcendentalism was a distinct philosophical system,” nowhere
in his book has this been shown.
Transcendentalism, accepting the author’s statement as to its true
character, was never a philosophical system in New England; and
had its early disciples been content to cultivate the seeds sown by its
true leaders, instead of making the futile attempt to transfer to our
clime exotics from Germany which would not take root and grow in
our soil, we should have had, in place of a dreary waste, stately
trees whose wholesome and delicious fruits would now refresh us.
And now for our reasons why it was native to the soil from which it
sprang. If we analyze the political system of our country, we will find
at its base the maxim, “Man is capable of self-government.” The
American system exhibits a greater trust in the natural capacities
and the inherent worth of man than any other form of political
government now upon this earth. Hence all the great political trusts
are made elective; hence also our recourse to short periods of
election and the great extension among us of the elective franchise.
The genius and whole drift of the current of our political life runs in
this direction. Now, what does this maxim mean, that “Man is
capable of self-government”? It means that man is endowed by his
Creator with reason to know what is right, true, and good. It means
that man possesses free-will and can follow the right, true, and
good. These powers constitute man a responsible being. It supposes
that man as he is now born is in possession of all his natural rights,
and the primal tendencies of his native faculties are in accordance
with the great end of his existence, and his nature is essentially
good. But such views of human nature are in direct opposition to the
fundamental doctrines of Puritanism and orthodox Protestantism.
These taught and teach that man is born totally depraved, that his
nature is essentially corrupt, and all his actions, springing from his
nature, nothing but evil. Now, the political influence of our American
institutions stimulated the assertion of man’s natural rights, his noble
gift of liberty, and his inalienable worth, while the religion peculiar to
New England preached precisely the contrary. In the long run, the
ballot-box beat the pulpit; for the former exerted its influence six
days in the week, while the latter had for its share only the Sabbath.
In other words, the inevitable tendency of our American political
system is to efface from the minds of our people all the distinctive
dogmas of the orthodox Protestant views of Christianity by placing
them on a platform in accordance with man’s natural capacities, his
native dignity, and with right and honorable views of God. Herein lies
the true genesis of Unitarianism and its cogenitor, the transcendental
movement in New England.
Dr. Channing was right in discarding the attempt to introduce the
worse than idle speculation of the German and French philosophical
systems in New England. “He considered,” so says his biographer,
“pretensions to absolute science quite premature; saw more
boastfulness than wisdom in ancient and modern schemes of
philosophy; and was not a little amused at the complacent
confidence with which quite evidently fallible theorists assumed to
stand at the centre, and to scan and depict the panorama of
existence.” “The transcendentalists,” he tells James Martineau in
1841, “in identifying themselves a good deal with Cousin’s crude
system, have lost the life of an original movement.” In this last
sentence Dr. Channing not only anticipated history but also uttered a
prophecy. But how about a philosophy whose mission it is to
maintain all the great truths for which he so eloquently and manfully
fought? How about a conception of Christianity which places itself in
evident relations with human nature and the history of the universe?
—a religion which finds its sanctuary in man’s soul, and aims at the
elevation of his finite reason to its archetype and its transformation
into the Infinite Reason?
Unitarianism in New England owes its existence to the supposition
that Calvinism is a true and genuine interpretation of Christianity.
“Total depravity,” “election,” “reprobation,” “atonement,” etc.,
followed, it was fancied, each other logically, and there was no
denying one without the denial of all. And as it was supposed that
these doctrines found their support in the divinity of Christ, and in
order to bring to ruin the superstructure they aimed at upsetting its
base by the denial of the divinity of Christ. They had grown to detest
so heartily the “five points” of Calvinism that they preferred rather to
be pagans than suckled in such a creed. Is it probable, is it
reasonable to suppose that our New Englanders, who have a strong
vein of earnest religious feeling in their nature, would have gone
across the ocean to find a support for the great truths which they
were so enthusiastic in affirming among the will-o’-the-wisps of the
realms of thought, when at their very doors was “the church which
has revealed more completely man to himself, taken possession of
his inclinations, of his lasting and universal convictions, laid bare to
the light those ancient foundations, has cleansed them from every
stain, from every alien mixture, and honored them by recognizing
their impress of the Divinity?”
But Mr. Frothingham tells us: “The religion of New England was
Protestant and of the most intellectual type. Romanism had no hold
on the thinking people of Boston. None besides the Irish laboring
and menial classes were Catholics, and their religion was regarded
as the lowest form of ceremonial superstition” (p. 107); and almost
in the same breath he informs his readers that “the Unitarians of
New England were good scholars, accomplished men of letters,
humane in sentiment and sincere and moral in intention” (p. 110). Is
Octavius Brooks Frothingham acquainted with all “the ceremonial
superstitions” upon this earth, and does he honestly believe that the
Catholic religion is “the lowest form” of them all? Or—what is the
same thing—does he think that the “good scholars and accomplished
men of letters” of New England thought so? Perhaps such was his
received impression, but that it was common to this class of men we
stoutly deny. No one stood higher among them than Dr. Channing,
and his estimate of the Catholic religion was certainly not the same
as Mr. Frothingham’s. It would be difficult to find in a non-Catholic
writer a higher appreciation of her services to humanity, and more
eloquent descriptions of certain aspects of the Catholic Church, than
may be found in his writings. Mr. Frothingham ought to know this,
and only the limits of our article hinder us from citing several of
these. Is he aware that President John Adams headed the
subscription-list to build the first Catholic church in Boston. Our
author, by his prejudices, his lack of insight, and limited information,
does injustice to the New England people, depreciates the
intelligence and honesty of the leaders in Unitarianism, and fails to
grasp the deep significance of the transcendental movement.
He does injustice to the people of Boston especially, who, when they
heard of the death of the saintly Bishop Cheverus, tolled the bells of
the churches of their city to show in what veneration they held his
memory; and if he was not of the age to have listened, he must
have read the eloquent and appreciative eulogium preached by Dr.
Channing on this great and good man. And Bishop Cheverus was the
guide and teacher of the religion of the Irish people of Boston!
Mr. Frothingham will not attempt to make a distinction between the
“Catholic religion” and “the religion of the Irish menial and laboring
classes”—a subterfuge of which no man of intelligence and integrity
would be guilty. The Irish people—be it said to their glory—have
from the beginning of their conversion to Christianity kept the pure
light of Catholic faith unsullied by any admixture of heresy, and have
remained firm in their obedience to the divine authority of the holy
church, in spite of the tyranny, of the bitterest persecution of its
enemies, and all their efforts of bribery or any worldly inducements
which they might hold out. When our searchers after true religion
shall have exhausted by their long and weary studies Zoroaster,
Pythagoras, Svenalis, Plato, Epictetus, Brahma, Buddha, Confucius,
Mahomet, and any other notable inventor of philosophy or religion;
when they have gathered up all the truths scattered among the
different heresies in religion since the Christian era, the end of all
their labors will only make this truth the plainer: that the Catholic
Church resumes the authority of all religions from the beginning of
the world, affirms the traditions and convictions of the whole human
race, and unites, co-ordinates, and binds together all the scattered
truths contained in every religious system in an absolute, universal,
divine synthesis.
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