Emerson, Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and Thoreau, but Hawthorne, Lowell,
Whittier, and Holmes.

In its strictest sense transcendentalism was a restatement of the
idealistic philosophy, and an application of its beliefs to religion,
nature, and life. But in a looser sense, and as including the more
outward manifestations which drew popular attention most strongly, it
was the name given to that spirit of dissent and protest, of universal
inquiry and experiment, which marked the third and fourth decades of
this century in America, and especially in New England. The movement
was contemporary with political revolutions in Europe and with the
preaching of many novel gospels in religion, in sociology, in science,
education, medicine, and hygiene. New sects were formed, like the
Swedenborgians, Universalists, Spiritualists, Millerites, Second
Adventists, Shakers, Mormons, and Come-outers, some of whom believed in
trances, miracles, and direct revelations from the divine Spirit;
others in the quick coming of Christ, as deduced from the opening of
the seals and the number of the beast in the Apocalypse; and still
others in the reorganization of society and of the family on a
different basis. New systems of education were tried, suggested by the
writings of the Swiss reformer, Pestalozzi, and others. The
pseudo-sciences of mesmerism and of phrenology, as taught by Gall and
Spurzheim, had numerous followers. In medicine, homeopathy,
hydropathy, and what Dr. Holmes calls "kindred delusions," made many
disciples. Numbers of persons, influenced by the doctrines of Graham
and other vegetarians, abjured the use of animal food, as injurious not
only to health but to a finer spirituality. Not a few refused to vote
or pay taxes. The writings of Fourier and Saint-Simon were translated,
and societies were established where co-operation and a community of
goods should take the place of selfish competition.