Hickok — Hicks

Despite the Platonic and Kantian elements in
his philosophy, Hickok was an original and pow-
erful thinker. His works were widely acclaimed
at the time of publication. J. H. Seelye [q.v.]
wrote of them, "They represent the highest at-
tainments in speculative thought which the
American mind has yet reached; and if we are
not mistaken respecting the increasing force of
their influence, they promise to found a school of
philosophy with a prominent and permanent
place in the history of the world's speculation"
(Bibliotheca Sacra, April 1859, p. 253). Hickok
was severely attacked, however, by Edwin Hall,
his successor in the Auburn Theological Sem-
inary (Princeton Review, October 1861; Ameri-
can Theological Review, October 1862) as be-
ing after all an idealist and pantheist malgre lui.
There was considerable truth in the charge, and
with the growth of idealistic philosophy in Amer-
ica Hickok's works came to seem a mere half-
way house toward the later position. They fell
into undeserved neglect, and by the time of the
twentieth-century revival of realism they were
utterly forgotten.

[For Hickok's philosophy, in addition to references
above, see New Englander, Nov. 1882; Am. Theol.
Rev.t Jan., Apr., July 1862; Princeton Rev., July 1862.
For his life, see The Cong. Yr. Bk. (1889); J. M. Bailey
and S. B. Hill, Hist, of Danbury, Conn. (1896) ; P. K.
Kilbourne, Sketches and Chronicles of the Town of
Litchfield (1859) ; Cornelius Van Santvoord and Tayler
Lewis, Memoirs of Eliphdet Nott (1876) ; A Record
of the Commemoration .. . of the One Hundredth An-
nvuersary of the Founding of Union Coll. (1897) ; A. V.
V. Raymond, Union Univ., vol. I (1907) ; Springfield
Daily Republican, May 7,1888; The Presbyterian, May
'«. 1888.] E.S.B—s.

HICKOK, WILD BILL [See HICKOK, JAMES
BUTLER, 1837-1876],

HICKS, ELIAS (Mar. 19,1748-Feb. 27,1830),
Quaker preacher, leader of the separation in the
Society of Friends, was born in Hempstead
Township, Long Island, N. Y., fifth in descent
from John Hicks, who came to America about
1638. He was the son of John and Martha
(Smith) Hicks, who shortly before Elias's birth
had become members of the Society of Friends.
He received a meager education, and spent much
time as a boy in fishing and hunting; but he pos-
sessed a natively keen, strong mind and acquired
the habit of diligent reading. At the age of thir-
teen, his mother having died two years before,
he went to live with a married brother, and.at
seventeen he apprenticed himself to a carpenter.
In 1771 he married Jemima Seaman, daughter
of Jonathan Seaman of Jericho, Long Island, by
whom he had four sons and seven daughters.
After his marriage he lived on the Seaman farm,
which he managed until his death.

Hicks
He began to make short "religious visits" t<
nearby places, but as time went on these visit
became more extensive. Walt Whitman, wh<
frequently heard him and admired him, describe!
the eloquent manner of public address which h<
developed. By the time he had reached middl*
life he was recognized as one of the two or thre<
most effective Quaker preachers of his period
Immense audiences, both of Quakers and non-
Quakers, flocked to hear him, especially in th(
new settlements of the Middle West His pop-
ularity was perhaps greater in Philadelphia
than in any other Quaker center. He was a tall
straight, impressive figure with clean-shaver
face, expansive forehead, and prominent eye-
brows, and was always dressed in utmost drat
simplicity. He was unusually sensitive to th«
movings of conscience and rigidly honest. Pos-
sessing a tender, humane spirit, quickly touchec
by either human or animal suffering, he was all
his life a powerful advocate of kindness to ani-
mals and a pleader for enlarged rights and op-
portunities for unprivileged classes of people,
He was an opponent of slavery and a devoted
friend of the slave.
From 1815 onwards, when he was already
sixty-seven years old, he became recognized as
the exponent and champion of liberal views,
which his conservative opponents preferred to
call radical and dangerous. The ideas which
formed the content of his sermons and discourses
are somewhat difficult to formulate. They do not
come under well-known and easily recognized
patterns or rubrics. He had a strong bent toward
an extreme Quietism. Outward authorities, ex-
ternal performances, and historical revelations
held in his mind a relatively unimportant status.
He gave the inward aspect and sphere of re-
ligion an unusual emphasis. The inward Light
became for him the all-important central feature
of life and religion. He was often called a "uni-
tarian," but his interpretation of Christ does
not correspond to the usual Unitarian types of
thought. He sharply discriminated between the
Jesus of history and the eternal spiritual Christ.
Jesus, according to his conception, was essen-
tially "human," a perfect man, the completion
and fulfilment of human life, a "prophet" of the
highest order. In him, Hicks taught, dwelt in su-
preme measure the eternal Christ who was, for
him, the spiritual revelation of God and who
likewise dwells in all men in all ages as the in-
ward Light and spiritual Guide. This inward
Christ, he held, is the true, only, and all-suffi-
cient Saviour. Hicks strenuously opposed the
so-called evangelical doctrines of salvation which
seemed to him man-made "innovations," He