The Biographical Dictionary of America/Andrews, Stephen Pearl

ANDREWS, Stephen Pearl, philosopher, was born at Templeton, Mass., March 22, 1812, son of Elisha Andrews, clergyman. He was educated at Amherst, studied law with his brother at New Orleans and engaged in practice there, when he became first counsel of Mrs. Myra Clark Gaines in her famous suits. He was an ardent advocate of abolition, and in 1839 removed to Texas with the avowed purpose of laboring to overthrow slavery in the state. He conceived the idea of raising sufficient money to purchase all the slaves in Texas and thus free them, and in 1845 visited England in the hope of procuring financial assistance. He was gifted with oratorical powers of a superior order; and so ably did he present the cause in which his whole heart was enlisted that British capitalists and statesmen looked upon the project with favor and would have supported it financially had not the fear of war with the United States deterred them. Upon his return to America Mr. Andrews joined the abolitionists at Boston. While in England he became interested in phonography, and was active in introducing the system of phonographic reporting in America. Removing to New York in 1847 he published, in co-operation with A. F. Boyle, a series of phonographic text-books, and edited two journals, the Anglo-Saxon and the Propagandist, which were printed in phonetic type, and devoted to phonography and spelling reform. He was the originator of a system of philosophy which he called "Integralism," and of a universal language which he called "Alwato." While still a young man he claimed to have discovered a unity of law in the universe, and on this his system of philosophy and language was based. The elements of his philosophy were published in a work entitled, "Basic Outlines of Universology." According to his system a radical adjustment of all forms of belief, all ideas, all thought was possible. He was a pioneer in the field of social science, and was regarded as a leader of radical thought on social questions. He instituted a series of conferences known as the "Colloquium," for the interchange of religious, philosophical and political ideas between men of widely divergent views, and he was for many years a member and vice president of the "Liberal club" of New York, and a member of the American academy of arts and sciences, and of the American ethnological society. He was a thorough Greek and Latin scholar, was master of Hebrew, Sanskrit and Chinese, and had more or less intimate knowledge of thirty two additional languages. He published: "Discoveries in Chinese; or, the Symbolism of the Primitive Characters of the Chinese System of Writing as a Contribution to Philology and Ethnology and a Practical Aid in the Acquisition of the Chinese Language" (1854); and a new French instructor, introducing a novel method of teaching the French language; "Comparison of the Common Law with the Roman, French or Spanish Civil Law on Entails and other Limited Property in Real Estate" (1839); "Cost, the Limit of Price" (1851); "The Constitution of Government in the Sovereignty of the Individual" (1851); "Love, Marriage and Divorce, and the Sovereignty of the Individual, a Discussion by Henry James, Horace Greeley and Stephen Pearl Andrews, edited by S. P. Andrews" (1853); "Constitution, or Organic Basis of the New Catholic Church" (1860); "The Great American Crisis"; "An Universal Language"; "The Primary System of Universology and Alwato" (1871); "Primary Grammar of Alwato" (Boston, 1877); "The Labor Dollar" (1881); "Elements of Universology" (1881); "Ideological Etymology" (1881); and "The Church and Religion of the Future" (1885). He died in New York city, May 21, 1886.