Cadwallader Colden (9 page)

The central disparity in the philosophical concepts of Johnson and Colden were summarized in a letter from Johnson to Colden.

Whereas, therefore, you express your Definitions in these Terms,
And I take to be the Essential Differences between Matter & Spirit, that matter has it's[sic] Action regulated & determined by Efficient Causes, but Spirits by final Causes: I should have chose to express them thus, That matter has properly Speaking no Action, but in all it's [sic] Motions is merely passively acted & determined by Spirits which alone can be efficient Causes, whereas Spirits or Intelligent Beings are such as act from a principle of Consciousness & Design & and of Self Exertion & Self determination, under the influence or with a view at what we call final cause, i. e. some End which they aim at Accomplishing.
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The draft of Colden's “First Principles of Morality, or of the Actions of Intelligent Beings” (n.d.), which represented a progression from physics to metaphysics, was the basis of what was at least a partial reconciliation of his own philosophical position with that of Johnson. Review of the draft allowed Johnson to ascribe their differences to a matter of semantics. Johnson had difficulty in accepting that
Action
could be attributed to
Matter
per se. Colden's statement that “The Actions [of the Body] are altered by efficient Causes
always
external to themselves” provided for an element of agreement with Johnson's position. As an Anglican minister, Johnson would have been satisfied because this allowed that the actions throughout nature that affect the senses and excite ideas are the actions of a Supreme Being or Spirit.
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The first recognition of Colden as an early American philosopher is ascribed to I. Woodbridge Riley, who credited Colden to be the earliest of the American materialists.
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“Materialism” is a
category in philosophy that maintains that matter constitutes the only reality and that everything, including thought and feeling, can be explained in terms of matter. Colden was considered by one author to be “the only important American materialist of the eighteenth century prior to the Revolution,”
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and his philosophy provided “lines of investigation which were taken up by later materialists.”
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The most conspicuous early American materialist was Dr. Benjamin Rush.

Colden's “First Principles of Morality,” which currently exists only as an unpublished draft, considers the human body as a machine with actions determined by man. He both derived from and, at the same time, was at variance with several predecessors, including Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, Leibniz, and Newton. According to Colden, all ideas that humans have of external entities come from action on the human senses. Colden considered an idea to be “the picture or representation of anything which we have received from our senses.”
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According to Colden, our knowledge of a substance is determined by that substance's action and the effects of that action. Thinking is a distinct kind of action. Matter is a sublimated force; mind is a spiritualized matter, which is not in opposition to other matter. Both possess the common denominator of a diffused, uniform elastic ether.

Matter is not regarded as passive. Rather, each type of matter possesses a force distinctive to itself. As such, Colden's “matter” is active and extended. But, the action of matter is determined by efficient causes external to itself.
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When the action of matter is not determined by external causes and is indifferent to direction, then the intelligent being, using the ether's elasticity, directs action to suit its purpose.
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Unlike the belief of Samuel Johnson that all actions in nature that affect the senses are the actions of a Supreme Being or Spirit, Colden, who on several occasions declared that he was neither an atheist nor an agnostic, refused to recognize deistic control of
actions and the senses. Colden was, at the same time, a deist, a materialist, and a Newtonian. Colden allowed the coexistence of an intelligent agent and unintelligent active matter. He claimed that the idea one has of a so-called Intelligent Being is related to its actions or operations just as are the ideas derived from the activity of material principles. Colden had to determine how material and intellectual “effects” were differentiated and how the innate activity of matter would not interfere with the activity of Intelligence.
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In contrast to Johnson's arguments as a philosophical Idealist (perceptions could only be attributed to a spiritual or mental cause), Colden opined that only a material agent could produce such perceptions.
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For Colden, all beings were either agents or acting principles. “Nothing without action can produce anything.” In Colden's materialism, there were two different kinds of beings. One included material agents that were determined by efficient causes and have neither perception nor consciousness. The other consisted of intelligent agents or beings that were conscious of their own actions and perceived actions of others that affect them. In Colden's terms, this represented differences between matter and spirit.
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Matter, acting as an agent with the capability of self-motion, possessed no innate order or system. It could not exist without a system in which it was included, which was referred to as the Intelligent Being. Even within this system, matter maintained its capability of self-activity. Colden argued against all activity being dependent on an “Almighty Spirit.” He agreed with Johnson in his contempt for the Great Awakening religious movement, which had spread through the colonies. The movement that called for increased extreme emotionalism on the part of the congregation was inimical for Colden. He believed that religion ought to be based on reason “since there are no means to distinguish between true and false religion when we are not allowed to use our understanding in forming our judgment.”
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Colden's
Principles of Morality
brings into focus the power of
the individual to determine his/her own actions without the interference of external forces. In the process, the individual considers other “Intelligent Beings” in the same manner that the individual regulates his or her other activities. Colden explained his use of the terminology “Intelligent Beings” by distinguishing between its general reference to “spirits” as contrasted with its use as “soul
^”
or “mind” when referring to human activity. Colden also emphasized the distinction between intelligence and matter. The Intelligent Being, which possesses neither shape nor dimensions, is dependent on the activity of matter, which has dimensions and is divisible, for perception.

The mind, according to Colden, is a center of activity that functions with a purpose, be it the avoidance of pain or the creation of pleasure. Pleasure includes intellectual pleasure and the acquisition of knowledge. For Colden, morality is the “Art & Science of living so as to be happy.”
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A balance should be achieved between pleasures, and, in general, intellectual pleasures are more useful and satisfying when compared with sensual pleasures. As a participant in the Enlightenment, in the stratification by Colden, pleasures are subservient to reason.

During the first half of the decade (between 1739 and 1748), an increased amount of leisure time allowed for the most productive period of Colden's intellectual pursuits. However, he continued to serve the colony as a member of its Council in the administration of Lieutenant Governor Clarke, albeit with a reduced investment of his time. Colden and his political allies Lewis Morris and James Alexander represented the minority opinion under Clarke and, consequently, Colden infrequently attended meetings of the Council. Colden's name is mentioned only once in William Smith, Jr.'s
History of the Province of New-York
, in the chapter covering Clarke's administration, and that relates to the controversy concerning Captain Campbell's proposal to settle land with Scotch emigrants (see pp. 60–62).
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Colden's published correspondence
for the period between 1738 and 1743 contains only one letter with any political implication, a brief but cordial note from Lieutenant Governor Clarke, apologizing for an inadvertent mistake by the clerk that might have been construed as injurious to Colden.
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The relative tranquility of the early part of the decade was offset by an all-consuming focus, during the second half of the decade, in which Colden fought to protect his reputation and maintain his political status. Relatively halcyon times precipitously transformed into a tempestuous period. On September 22, 1743, Governor George Clinton arrived in New York accompanied by his family. The early years of Clinton's administration were dominated by his attempt to augment the defense against those Indians who were allied with the French along the western and northern borders of the populated regions. In 1746, a newly elected Assembly increased the control of Chief Justice James Delancey, who was also a member of the Council, and opposed the governor's policies. The Assembly expressed enthusiasm for opposing the dangerous enemy but refused to advance money to underwrite the defense efforts.

In planning for a meeting with the Indians who were allied with the British colonials, the governor received little support from the Council. “He could prevail upon none of the Council to attend him, except Doctor Colden, Mr. Livingston, and Mr. Rutherford. From Mr. Delancey, by whom his measures had freely been directed, he was to expect no aid. They had quarreled in their cups, and set each other at defiance. The Governor then gave his confidence to Mr. Colden.”
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After Colden and the governor arrived in Albany at the end on July, in anticipation of an increasing need for military preparation, Colden was able to secure for his son Cadwallader, Jr., the well-compensated position of commissary of musters.
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At the opening of the August 1746 conference with the Indians in Albany, Governor Clinton was indisposed, and “left it to Mr. Colden to deliver a speech
of his own drafting; and in his excuse for the absence of Mr. Clinton, he describes himself to the Indians as the next person in the administration, for Lieutenant Governor Clarke being gone to England, he was then the eldest member of the Council.”
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In August, Colden formally opened the conference with the Indians who were allied with the New York colonials. According to the document that was printed to record the event, Colden stated: “His Excellency our Governor having been taken ill, and as yet not so well recovered as that he can safely come broad, has ordered me (being the next person to him in the Administration) to speak to you In his name, which I shall do in the same words which he designed to have spoke had he not been prevented by sickness.”
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The essence of the speech was an encouragement for the Indians to renew their covenant with the British, joining forces with the colonials by “taking up the Hatchet against our & your common Enemy's the French, & their Indians, who have in a very unmanly manner, by Sculking party's, muderer'd in Cold Blood, many of your Brethren, in this & the Province of Massachusetts Bay.”
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On November 24, 1746, Governor Clinton issued a message to the Assembly in defense of his conduct at the Albany conference and his plan for operations against Canada. In the printed document, he included a preemptive defense of Colden's conduct related to the conference. He pointed out that the members of the Council deemed Colden to be an appropriate representative and that most other members declined attendance. He also stated that, if they perceived any inappropriateness in Colden's conduct, it should be excused. He stressed that Colden should not be maligned publicly because he was acting in accordance with the governor's orders. Clinton assertively concluded, “but there is something more than all this when I & he are considered in our present Stations as I am Governor of this Province & he is the person on whom the Administration devolves which may make the Tendency of these resolves deserve your most serious consideration.”
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The crisis, which included a vitriolic personal attack by the Council on Colden, erupted on December 4th. When Colden entered the Council room he was confronted by Delancey with a printed copy of the account of the Albany treaty, which Colden admitted he had arranged for the printing. Colden was criticized for having indicated that members of the Council declined the governor's invitation to attend. Although this was true, it was construed to be an invidious attack on certain members of the Council. Four days later an account of the debate appeared in the New York periodical,
Post-boy.
Colden was presented as a vain individual who was focused on advancing himself, as evidenced by his referring to himself as the “next person to his Excellency in the administration.”
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On December 16, Philip Livingston, James Delancey, Phillip Cortlandt, Dan Horsmanden, Joseph Murray, John Moore, and Stephen Bayard, submitted a
Representation to Clinton of seven members of the Council in reference to Colden's pamphlet of the Treaty with the Six Nations.
In an extensive and detailed document, the authors raised the issues of misrepresentation of facts regarding their lack of attendance at the Albany meeting and, also, Colden's desire to augment his own reputation and position at the expense of others. The seven councilmen summarized their criticism of Colden: “Mr Colden has Told the World in Print of his being the Next person to your Excellency in the Administration We shall Not Make Any Reflection on this Circumstance But Leave your Excellency to Consider, Whether it may Not be his Interest to Embroil your Exellencys Affairs And Distract your Administration, the Consequence of Which may be his getting the Reins of Government into his own hands, And here perhaps Your Excellency may find that, Which Was Intended As a Reflection Upon others One of those ‘Artful and Designing Men' who
have
private Views.”
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