COLERIDGE - PANTISOCRACY


this is confirmed by the description in the Biographia
Literaria of the impression made by Southey upon Coleridge
at their first meeting. Coleridge states that the influence
of his new friend upon him was strong and sudden. This
effect was not upon his moral and religious principles, but
upon his "sense of the duty and dignity of making . . .
actions accord with these principles, both in word and
deed." Some contribution to the principles of pantisocracy,
however, Southey must also have made, for we have it
upon Coleridge's own authority' that from Southey he first
heard of Political Justice and that solely from the enthu-
siasm so suggested, before he had seen the book itself, he
had composed his sonnet to the author of that work.
Coleridge had run upon one of those straits in his life
where the will was hopelessly inadequate to effect a com-
promise between vague aspirations and circumstances.
The first positive force that would relieve the agony of
decision would carry him off upon a new tangent, only to
drop him, again despairing, when it had spent itself. So
Southey, with that aspiring lift of his head, determination
in his eye and eagle face, roused his friend's spirit with
high talk of new freedom and a new Utopia, and Coleridge
swept these suggestions upon rolling periods into a most
comprehensive and philosophic system. An ideal society,
in which the evils under which men now suffered were to
be eliminated, would be based, he agreed, upon the general
democratic principles advocated by Southey, whom he
denominated (July 6, 1794) a "sturdy Republican"2 who
"dost make the Adamantine gate of Democracy turn on its
golden hinges to most sweet music." In view of these
principles the new society was called by him "pantisoc-
racy." But this was not all. Property was to be acquired
and held in common by the members of the new republic.
This system was to be called "aspheterism," and would
1 Biog. Epis., II, 70, March 29, 1811.  2 Coleridge, Letters, I, 72.


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