I’ve finished transcribing Eliphalet Kimball’s 1867 Thoughts on Natural Principles, which is about a defense of anarchism, in articles that originally appeared in The Boston Investigator. The rest is frequently inspired medical and culinary crankery, which should be read carefully for the analogies presented between it and the political thought. Analogy was, after all, all the rage in the 19th century, even, apparently, if you were a radical New England doctor. I’m now working on transcribing a couple of additional essays and some responses, so I can reissue the book in expanded form this spring.
Uncategorized
Josiah Warren: People’s Sunday Meeting, 3/14/1849
“People’s Sunday Meeting,” Boston Investigator, 18, 46 (March 21, 1849), 3. People’s Sunday Meeting:—Next Sunday afternoon, the question of Equitable Commerce, or Mr. Warren’s new plan of Social Reform, will be discussed.
Anarchism
Eliphalet Kimball on Anarchy, part 2
Here’s the second half of Eliphalet Kimball’s essay “Civilization–Anarchy,” from the August 26, 1863 Boston Investigator. There is a great deal here that may seem naive, and out of step with the anarchist movement generally. This shouldn’t surprise us. In 1863, it would be hard to say that there was an anarchist movement, particularly in America, where most of the strong proponents of libertarian thought still avoided the term anarchy. Ten years later, things would be different, but Kimball, writing in the period of the Civil War, is really pretty well out on his own in celebrating anarchy. Primitivists and […]
Contr'un
Another side of Eliphalet Kimball
It looks to me like Eliphalet Kimball remained as obscure a figure to most of his peers as he is to us today—right up until the end of his life. And then, curiously, he developed a sort of notoriety, but one entirely unconnected to his writings on anarchy. Kimball seems to have spend most of his adult life in New Hampshire. It appears that he was born in 1799 or 1800 in Orford, NH, and the published works I’ve found all originate from west-central New Hampshire, or over the border in Vermont—except for one which seems to mark a short […]
Comments are closed.
Analogy was, after all, all the rage in the 19th century
Well, sure. After all, we have to establish the Analogical Relationship between NUMBER, as the General Domain of the Abstract Mathematics, and THE UNIVERSE AT LARGE, in respect to those Primary Metaphysical Discriminations which are — within this less definite Domain — equally fundamental, but — apparently — less exact than the corresponding Elemental Distributions of Number itself.