In his early years, he accepted the ideas of Transcendentalism, an eclectic idealist philosophy that included among its advocates Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Bronson Alcott.

他早年接受了超越论的思想，一种折衷的理想主义哲学，接受这种思想的还包括该理论的提倡者拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生、玛格丽特·福勒以及布朗森·奥尔科特。