John "Walking" Stewart (19 February 1747 – 20 February 1822) was an English

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and traveller. Stewart developed a unique system of materialistic

pantheism Pantheism can refer to a number of philosophical and religious beliefs, such as the belief that the universe is God, or panentheism, the belief in a non-corporeal divine intelligence or God out of which the universe arisesAnn Thomson; Bodies ...

.Fairer, David. (2009). ''Organising Poetry: The Coleridge Circle, 1790-1798''. Oxford University Press. p. 53.

Travels

Known as "Walking" Stewart to his contemporaries for having travelled on foot from

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

(where he had worked as a clerk for the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

) back to Europe between 1765 and the mid-1790s, Stewart is thought to have walked alone across Persia,

Abyssinia Abyssinia (; also known as Abyssinie, Abissinia, Habessinien, or Al-Habash) was an ancient region in the Horn of Africa situated in the northern highlands of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea.Sven Rubenson, The survival of Ethiopian independence, ...

, Arabia, and Africa before wandering into every European country as far east as Russia. Over the next three decades Stewart wrote prolifically, publishing nearly thirty philosophical works, including ''The Opus Maximum'' (London, 1803) and the long verse-poem ''The Revelation of Nature'' (New York, 1795). In 1796,

George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...

's portrait-painter, James Sharples, executed a pastel likeness of Stewart for a series of portraits which included such sitters as

William Godwin William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism and the first modern proponent of anarchism. Godwin is most famous fo ...

Joseph Priestley Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, Unitarian, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher, English Separatist, separatist theologian, Linguist, grammarian, multi-subject educator and Classical libera ...

, and

Humphry Davy Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet (17 December 177829 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several Chemical element, e ...

, suggesting the intellectual esteem in which Stewart was once held. After his travels in East India, Stewart became a

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...

. He was also a teetotaler.

Philosophy

During his journeys, he developed a unique system of

materialist Materialism is a form of philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materia ...

philosophy which combines elements of Spinozistic

with

yogic Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...

notions of a single indissoluble consciousness. Stewart began to promote his ideas publicly in 1790 with the publication in two volumes of his works ''Travels over the most interesting parts of the Globe'' and ''The Apocalypse of Nature'' (London, 1790). Historian David Fairer has written that "Stewart expounds what might be described as a panbiomorphic universe (it deserves an entirely new term just for itself), in which human identity is no different in category from a wave, flame, or wind, having an entirely modal existence.". According to

Henry Stephens Salt Henry Shakespear Stephens Salt (; 20 September 1851 – 19 April 1939) was a British writer and social reformer. He campaigned for social reform in the fields of prisons, schools, economic institutions, and the treatment of animals. He was a n ...

, writing for the '' Temple Bar'' in 1893, Stewart repeatedly insisted upon "The immortality of matter and the sympathy that exists between all forms of nature". Stewart declared that if he were about to die, these should be his last words: "The only measure to save mankind and all sensitive life is to educate the judgment of man and not the memory, that he may be able through reflection to calculate the golden mean of good and evil".Salt, H.S., ''Walking Stewart (a sketch of an eccentric pedestrian)'', Temple Bar, Vol. 93, December, 1891
henrysalt.co.uk.

Retirement

After retiring from travelling, Stewart eventually settled in London where he held philosophical soirées and earned a reputation as one of the city's celebrated eccentrics.Timbs, John. (1875)
''English Eccentrics and Eccentricities''
London: Chatto and Windus. pp. 300-304 He was often seen in public wearing a threadbare Armenian military uniform. John Timbs described Stewart as one of London's famous eccentrics.

Death

On 20 February 1822, the morning after his seventy-fifth birthday, 'Walking' Stewart's body was found in a rented room in Northumberland Place, near present-day

Trafalgar Square Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster in Central London. It was established in the early-19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. Its name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar, the Royal Navy, ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. An empty bottle of

laudanum Laudanum is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine). Laudanum is prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy (''Papaver somniferum'') in alcohol (ethanol). Reddish-br ...

lay beside him.

Literary influence

After Walking Stewart's travels came to an end around the turn of the nineteenth century, he became close friends with the English essayist and fellow-Londoner

Thomas De Quincey Thomas Penson De Quincey (; Thomas Penson Quincey; 15 August 17858 December 1859) was an English writer, essayist, and literary critic, best known for his ''Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'' (1821).Eaton, Horace Ainsworth, ''Thomas De Q ...

, with the radical pamphleteer

Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In ...

, and with the

Platonist Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary Platonists do not necessarily accept all doctrines of Plato. Platonism has had a profound effect on Western thought. At the most fundam ...

Thomas Taylor (1758-1835). In 1792, while residing in Paris in the weeks following the

September Massacres The September Massacres were a series of killings and summary executions of prisoners in Paris that occurred in 1792 from 2 September to 6 September during the French Revolution. Between 1,176 and 1,614 people were killed by ''sans-culottes'' ...

, he made the acquaintance of the young Romantic poet

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...

, who later concurred with De Quincey in describing Stewart as the most eloquent man on the subject of

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

that either had ever met. Recent scholarship by Kelly Grovier has suggested that Stewart's persona and philosophical writings had a major influence on Wordsworth's poetry.

References

External links

John Stewart's "Sensate Matter" in the Early RepublicThe Most Unlikely Man to Influence A Generation of Writers: Walking Stewart
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stewart, Walking 1747 births 1822 deaths 18th-century English writers 18th-century English philosophers 19th-century English writers 19th-century English philosophers Drug-related deaths in London Materialists Pantheists